#awinewith Jacqui Maloney
MEET Jacqui Maloney, Founder of Jacqui Maloney
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:05):
So good. Jackie, welcome to Spark tv.
Jacqui Maloney (00:08):
Hello. Thank you for having me, Danielle. I'm so excited for this chat.
Danielle Lewis (00:12):
I'm so excited. I've just been stalking you online, so I'm very excited to share you and your business of the world. Let's start out by telling everyone who you are and what you do.
Jacqui Maloney (00:25):
Yes. So my name is Jackie Maloney and I am a public speaking and communication specialist. I work with women predominantly, but not excluding men and just about how to bring their story to life, whether that be on stage, on camera, on a podcast like we are right now. But I've sort of found my secret sauce about helping people build their confidence. Definitely not giving them confidence, that's your job, but building that confidence to understand that they have a story worth sharing, and how just your story alone has the ability to impact people. And it doesn't need to be hundreds of thousands of people, but you could really just make a difference in someone else's life and it could just be life changing if you share your story first.
Danielle Lewis (01:14):
I love that so much. Now, people say that the fear associated with public speaking is on par with dying. So do you find that when people find you, they're in that place or where are people at where they usually find you?
Jacqui Maloney (01:34):
It's definitely a mixed bag. I'll be honest. I definitely have clients who are at the very beginning stages of their journey on their way to wanting to do more public speaking. I definitely have clients who are just wanting to be better communicators at work. They have no interest in being on stage or doing anything like that, but they understand where we didn't get taught communication skills at school. We were expected to do presentations for English and you name it, but no one actually gave us the skills to be able to do that. I mean, teachers, they've got so much on their workload already to add in another skillset that they were expected to teach us. It was just out of the question. But you think of job opportunities and all of the types of environments and experiences we are expected and required to have as adults, we just never set up with the right skill sets to be able to do that. So I do look after quite a few different, I guess, levels of needs. And I also then do work with people who are already on the speaking circuit,
(02:37):
And
(02:38):
We're going to jump into a little bit more about my background, but I have been an actor for 15 years, and I actually learned my craft from being on stage and being in front of a camera. So I almost did it the reverse. It's like I was just thrust in front of something and I just had to figure it out as I went. So I do tend to work with some clients who are already speaking and they're just like, do you know what? I'm not engaging enough with my audience, or I'm missing that secret sauce. It's really taking me from say, a $5,000 speaking gig to say a 15 or a 20. It's now up to me to be able to perform and entertain. And so I love working with them as well. So yeah, there is a huge spectrum of who I work with, but fundamentally, everyone has a fear and I get nervous. I got nervous jumping on this podcast because I care and I want to make sure that I'm doing a good job by you and by people who are listening. So yeah, fear never goes away. It, I guess the tools and the skills that you can learn just to acknowledge that they exist and operate despite them coming through quite loud sometimes.
Danielle Lewis (03:43):
Yeah, it's so interesting, and I love how when you explained what you did, you talked about how just knowing your story and connecting to your story and understanding that you do have something to say and perhaps that is impacting one person's life, the bridge between that and knowing that you are enough and knowing that people will relate to what you have to say. I mean, that in and of itself is such a great bridge to get over that fear, I think.
Jacqui Maloney (04:19):
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there. It's having confidence in what you're saying. And a lot of people come to me, they're just like, I don't know what my story is, or I dunno how to answer questions if I get put on the spot with a q and a, and I just dunno what to say. I dunno what to say. And I guess there's two parts to that is knowing your story and actually putting pen to paper or typing it out or whatever that looks like. I can't get to the essence of your story until I know what it is, and you need to know what that is as well. And we all know that I don't need to know your life story from the moment you were born to the moment I have you in front of me. We've got to find that secret sauce that everyone really just wants to know and what you maybe did at uni or did as a teenager, it doesn't matter. So we can get rid of all of that stuff and really just refine, refine, refine until we find that thing that our audience is really craving. But then the second part of having that confidence to say something is just you've got to put yourself in situations and try.
(05:18):
And I have built my confidence, like I said, almost backwards. I had to figure out confidence on the spot. I wasn't journaling at home just going when I'm ready or when I'm confident enough, I'm going to get on stage. I had to, and I built muscles through repetition. So the more I kept doing it, the better I got. I was like, cool, that worked, or No, that definitely didn't work. I won't do that again. But I learned from that way. And so these are all different ways we can go about building this confidence, but it really does start with your story and knowing who the hell you are and what you have to offer the world.
Danielle Lewis (05:54):
I love it. And I love that you mention and putting yourself out there because I just feel like that is life that is in our business. That is every skill, everything that we have to show up and do. We are not experts on day one. It is a matter of showing up imperfectly and learning and doing it again. But I'm so curious because you mentioned you were an actor. How did this get started? Please tell me your story.
Jacqui Maloney (06:24):
Great. So yes, my dad will say that I've been acting since birth because I came out screaming and if you went through photo albums, you would see me with a plastic guitar or a microphone, or I was always that kid that was putting on shows. And I was very lucky that through primary school and high school, I did all of that work. I was in every school musical, you can imagine. I did speech and drama lessons outside of school hours as extracurricular, just that was my world. And that's where I found my confidence as a human being. And I think part of it was because underneath the service, I was quite relentlessly bullied for being the fat kid.
Danielle Lewis (07:06):
Oh, wow.
Jacqui Maloney (07:07):
Yeah. And that's just sort of part of, that sucks. It sucks. Great. So does what I found counted. Some of that was entertaining and making people laugh.
(07:19):
And so I relied on that a little bit to kind of get me through these darker times. And I found myself in these characters that I got to play and bringing them to life on stage. And so I think that's been a huge driver for me in acting. It was just taking the words of someone who might not necessarily have a voice and bring them to an audience who may have never seen that story being portrayed outside of the four walls of their house or their family unit. And then through my love of acting, I've been able to do some really incredible things and work with some amazing people. I mean, I went to New York to study when I was 24, and just being in that city just made me learn so much about myself as a human, not just my acting, but as a human as well.
(08:03):
And I've just watched some of the best and just gone, I want to be like that. And I knew I was just not putting in enough work. When you think that you're putting in enough work in anything that you do and you see a professional do it, you're just like, oh my God, I've got so much more work to do. But it was a driver for me. And then I think for me business, I was the child of covid businesses. Oh, wow. I was almost at a stage where I was working full time as an actor. So either through acting work or doing voiceover gigs and just covid shut a lot of us down, including the entertainment industry. So I had to think about doing something different. And there was also a part of me that was living this actor lifestyle and sort of living off paycheck to paycheck. And I just went, you know what? I can't live like this forever.
(08:54):
And it wasn't a business coach said to me, look, Jack, everyone's been thrust onto Zoom. No one knows what the hell they're doing. People still need to run meetings and presentations and speakers. Were losing lots of in-person gigs, but maybe picking them up on camera, no one knows what they're doing, so you could teach that. And I was like, no, no, no. I don't want to give this up, this identity of being an actor that I've worked so hard for. But lo and behold, I saw the reasonings for it. And yeah, it's just been this beautiful work in progress ever since.
Danielle Lewis (09:23):
Oh, I love it. How did you find that transition? So moving from actor voiceover gigs, it's almost like a freelance model, I kind of assume where you're taking on gigs, essentially. How did you transition from that to essentially being, I guess, in control of your destiny and being a business owner?
Jacqui Maloney (09:50):
I'll be honest, I didn't do it. Well, don't worry. None of us do. Yeah, lemme just preface. It wasn't, well, it's not seamless. I'm still figuring out the kinks and the bits and pieces that I don't do well. But yes, acting is a freelance gig. However, I had an agent and so she would find work for me and I'd go through the audition process, and if I got it, great, and if I didn't, I didn't. But finances were always taken care of. There was a huge part of me being in the business of being an actor that was taken care of for me.
(10:25):
And as you know with building a business, I had no idea how to run a business. I knew how to do what I did really, really, really well. I had no idea how to market myself. I had no idea which rooms I needed to put myself in. God. Behold, doing finances and doing all that side of the thing, I'm a creative being through and through. Don't put spreadsheets in front of me, don't do backend systems and automations. It's just so foreign to me. And I've really had to learn either the hard way or I've had to put in more work so I can pay for someone else to do that for me, because it's just not my zone of genius. And luckily, I recognized that early, but it's definitely been a learning process with starting a business.
Danielle Lewis (11:12):
And I guess circling back to becoming a better public speaker or becoming a better communicator or whatever that looks like, it is that process of almost starting from the beginning, starting as an amateur and accepting that, okay, I am not an expert. I dunno everything. There's growth to be had. And going on that journey of becoming better. I mean, where do you start with people? So if somebody does come to you and they say, oh my gosh, I know that if I could just show up and communicate, people would love me, they would resonate with you, they would buy more of my things. Where do you get started with people?
Jacqui Maloney (11:56):
Where I would get started is sort of touching on what we've shared earlier, and it's knowing who you are and what your story is. First.
(12:05):
When people say, I can talk about everything, I can't brand you as a speaker when I hear those words, and if I can't brand you as a speaker, as your speaking coach, it's going to be really, really hard for you to pitch yourself for speaking opportunities. And people go, oh yeah, of course Jackie can speak on this, this, and this. But then if someone goes, oh, but I've heard her speak on this. And then someone says, oh, I've heard her speak on finances, and then suddenly my brand gets very, very muddied and no one knows me for some core ideas. And so in business, we talk about niching and with speaking, it is somewhat similar, right? I need to know that if I'm looking for a speaker in the medical field and I need to speak about breast cancer, I'm not going to go and find a person who speaks about everything.
(12:48):
I'm going to go find the expert who solely deals with breast cancer because I know they know that topic inside out, not little bits of everything. And so knowing how you want to service the world and what stories you have of your own that deeply connect with these themes and these topics is only going to make you a more prolific speaker. So we really do need to do the work at the beginning and figure out what those things are. And then it's mapping out what your story is, and people go, oh, I don't want to sound so scripted, or I can just talk off the cuff. And that just, it's alarm bells for me because that's when we kind of get into this zone of someone who's just talking in circles and they're just, the next thought that pops in their mind is what they speak.
(13:33):
And you're sitting in the audience just going, I don't know where we're at, where are we? What is this about? Yeah, they go over time and yeah, it's icky. We know we can see it now. Audiences these days are so switched on to what's going on on stage, and we need to be very, very mindful of that. But I think the other thing that I want to work on with people is that when you become a speaker, you should not get into speaking for you. You should get into speaking to serve your audience, because when times get hard and you get rejected, we can make it all about us. Where with me, I'm not getting gigs, not whatever. If we flip that into a more positive, how many, what possibilities are out there, I am still going to show up every single day because I haven't audience to serve.
(14:25):
It just makes it so much easier. And then it also just helps with these nerves because every time I go, oh, I'm nervous, or I'm sweating, or My heart's palpitating, or all of those sorts of things that start physically happening to you before you get on stage. If we can flip that on its head and just go, that's all I, I'm nervous, I'm this, I'm that. What about I need to go on stage because my audience is waiting for me? My audience needs to hear this today because I know, because I've done my research and I've done all my work that they're struggling with this. And even if I can reach five out of a hundred people, I've done my job, but none of that's going to happen if I keep internalizing it and making it all about me. So yeah, I am just making sure that people are getting into it for the right reasons and not for the ego. I'm a Ted speaker, I've just spoken here. And then, yeah, they're just really talking at people rather than to them and with them. So yeah, there's a lot of groundwork that needs to happen before I even get you on stage.
Danielle Lewis (15:25):
No, I love it. And I love the reframe because I know, so it's funny. So I love public speaking when it's over, when it's over. So going into it, I want to fake my own death, like horrific, but I actually genuinely love it. I love the process. I just do get very nervous, but I'm just very good at hiding it. So that bodes well for me. But I'm glad you brought it up because I think that that's a bit of a barrier for people. They do think that, no, I've spoken on stage before. I've hosted an event before and I was just racked with nerves and I can't do it. It's not for me. But I love that reframe of when you show up for other people, that is the thing, that's the bridge that helps you get over those nerves when you do stop making it about yourself.
Jacqui Maloney (16:26):
And we were talking about fears before and when we assumed that an audience is there to judge and to critique and to do all of that kind of stuff, and I remember working with a client and she said, oh, she kept saying, my audience this, or people don't think about me like that, or people think that I speak too quickly. And I had to interrupt, and I said, has anyone said that to you? She's like, what do you mean? I said, has anyone said that you do this? Whatever you're talking about on stage? She's like, no, no, no, no. I just know that I'm doing it. And so in her head, she had placed all of these judgment calls, these assumed judgment calls on her audience when it was in fact her doing it
(17:15):
Because
(17:16):
She was just building up these barriers or bridges or whatever it is you want to call it, to, I guess make excuses for it's okay to feel nervous and it's okay to feel all of these things, and our audience is actually there and mean if an audience is spending a couple of hundred dollars to come and hear you speak, they're not sitting in that audience just going, oh, well, I can't wait for it to fail. How excited. I can't wait for that to happen. Totally, yes, they're doing that. They're there to hear from you because they are in a state that they no longer want to be in, and they're looking to you to get them out of it. Now, when you think about that as this beautiful responsibility, it's not a weight. It's a beautiful responsibility for you to go, actually, I've been where you are, and I know it sucks.
(18:05):
Here is what I did to get out of it, and then this is the life that I get to live now. And if you want that, you'll follow these steps. Come with me. That is our responsibility as speakers. And so when we can, like you said, reframe, I think it just opens everyone up for more possibilities to go, hang on, maybe I can do this. And I love what you've said about hiding your fears. I hide my fears all the goddamn time. It's just what we do as professionals. That's just what we do. I'm definitely not going to get on stage and say, Hey, everyone, I'm nervous.
Danielle Lewis (18:36):
I'm freaking out
Jacqui Maloney (18:37):
Here. Yeah, I'm freaking out. I don't want you to be doing that, but I want you to hide the sweaty armpits and just keep going because you've got a responsibility ahead of you.
Danielle Lewis (18:49):
I think it's so awesome, and it's interesting because you mentioned it before, but this is doing the work, right? We don't just wake up one day, decide we want to be an amazing speaker or communicator and magic. Wow, we are amazing. You do have to put in that work. And it's hilarious because I probably never would've thought about this, but before we hit record, you mentioned the Golden Globes, and now I can't get it out of my mind, but so after I watched an interview with Nikki Glaser, however you say her last name on the Howard Stern Show, that's the show. Oh my god, she killed it. But I saw an interview with her on the Howard Stern Show, and she was saying that a lot of people actually get offered to host and turn it down because you don't get paid for it, and it is a lot of work.
(19:46):
She was like, are you kidding me? Who cares that it's a lot of work, the opportunities that it opens up the platform that it has afforded me. I just think about how fearless she was in going, it's going to be hard, but it's going to be worth it and amazing. And I think that it's the same process when you think about starting anything new, but particularly I think speaking, because a lot of people have that fear and huge block in front of them. The work isn't bad. The work is how we get amazing at anything.
Jacqui Maloney (20:21):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we need to stop thinking that the work needs to be done once someone says yes to you being on stage.
Danielle Lewis (20:33):
I love that. Yes,
Jacqui Maloney (20:35):
It needs to be every single day. And this is what I say to my clients, I don't expect you to be doing hours of work on your speaking craft, but I do expect at least 10 minutes. And what I often equate that to is I guarantee you're spending at least an hour on Instagram. I want you to take 10 minutes of that Instagram time and actually put it into your vocal work, your reading. Maybe it's refining this story part of your keynote that's just not sitting right. But if I keep playing with it, and if I maybe rehearse it in front of a camera and then send it to me so I can look at it like 10 minutes a day, we talk a lot about the one percenters, and that's common vernacular at the moment in terms of messaging. What are those? One percenters, my 1% for people wanting to just completely take their speaking to another level, whether or not you have ambitions to be on stage or not, if you want to get more confident, just putting your hand up in a boardroom and actually saying something, 10 minutes a day is all I'm asking,
(21:35):
And it's so, so easy. But I think we get stuck in the trap, or some people get stuck in the trap of, I really, really want to be a speaker. I'm just going to throw some stuff out there. I'm going to apply for a whole heap of things. And then someone says yes, and then they're just like, oh, crap, I've got to be on stage next month in Sydney. It's a 45 minute keynote. And then they come looking for help. And I'm just like, we are pushing it. We are really putting you under a lot of pressure,
(22:06):
And
(22:06):
I don't want, I want women to be able to go, do you know what? I've got this. Maybe I need some tweaking and some refining, but I deserve to be on that stage. I'm going to work on my craft for 10 minutes every single day. I'm going to have all of this worked out and I'm going to walk on stage and sure, I'm going to feel a little bit nervous, but I deserve to be on this stage and I've prepared accordingly for it. That's really where the work comes. I mean, you think about athletes to go to the Olympics. They're not training for six months beforehand. They've got to do tournament after program after they're training their hot lives training camp. But as soon as they finish the Olympics, just recently, they're already training for Los Angeles. They haven't stopped. They might take a break and go on holidays, God forbid they deserve it, but they don't stop training just because the goal is now four months, four weeks, four years, sorry, ahead. They're doing it every single day.
Danielle Lewis (23:01):
Oh, absolutely. As you are talking, I think about goal setting, right? You set a goal and you set a date. I want to achieve this on this date the day before. You don't go, oh, crap, now I need to hit that goal. You literally break it down into all of the steps and make it a year long exercise. What do I have to do every day? So that on that day, in six months, 12 months, five years, 10 years, I actually show up as that person. I hit those goals. So I love that. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. And is that, what are these little things that we can do every day to keep improving if we want to be well, a great speaker or anything in life?
Jacqui Maloney (23:44):
Yeah, absolutely. And going back to Nikki Kla, because she's my absolute queen.
Danielle Lewis (23:47):
Yes, is what you have to touch on.
Jacqui Maloney (23:50):
Oh my God. And look, when she did the roast of Tom Brady last year, Nikki's been a comedian for decades.
(23:58):
She's not new to the scene, but she had this night that blew her up internationally. Now, if she was to go and rest on her laurels and then just go back to being Mickey and not doing her podcasts and not being guests on other people's podcasts and taking advantage of that opportunity, she may very well have been forgotten. Because you know what the news cycle is like? We are kind of buzzing around for a couple of weeks and then it's forgotten about, but she's maintained this momentum because she's showing up every single day. So when it came time for Golden Globes, she didn't get the gig and then turn around and just go, oh, crap, I've got to now get ready for Golden Globes. She's already in a perpetual cycle of what do I do every single day? What jokes have I got to write?
(24:46):
Am I across celebrities and what's going on for them in the background so that when I do have to write a joke, it takes me 10 minutes, not three days, I've got to go and do the research. Her finger is on the pulse always, and that's why we get the brilliance of her on that night because of all of the work that she has done leading up to this point. And I think that that's what people forget because this kind of work, it's sometimes quite hard to put your finger on improvement as an athlete. If you improve your time, that's an improvement. You know that everything that you've been doing, you've worked and you've made a PB three seconds different to the last time doing this type of work. It's kind of hard to quantify it and get a result. Am I getting better? I don't know. Sometimes someone laughed in this podcast interview, but then they didn't laugh in the next one. So it's a little bit harder to navigate, but it's just the confidence of showing up and doing it every single day, what that is actually building. It's not quantifiable, but it's going to make such a difference.
Danielle Lewis (25:47):
I love it. Jackie, you are absolutely spectacular. Thank you so much. Now, I always love to wrap up these podcasts with one last piece of advice. So reflecting on your time in business, what would be a piece of advice that you would give to another woman to help her on her business journey?
Jacqui Maloney (26:10):
You deserve this.
Danielle Lewis (26:17):
Love that so much.
Jacqui Maloney (26:19):
Yeah. I've sat so many, I've sat in my own, woe is me. Oh, I don't deserve this because I'm not pretty enough, or I don't deserve that role because I'm not skinny enough. I've lived in that world before and I know how much it hurts, and it sucks that industry can, it gives you a thick skin, but I'm so grateful for it because it's allowed for me to have a different skin in business. But I think as women, and I'm generalizing here, but off of the back of the chat for the Golden Globes, we started talking about award ceremonies and the number of dms that I got after sharing some of the Demi Moore acceptance speech and this vernacular of, oh, I didn't prepare anything. I didn't think that I was going to win. And so it's this lack of, we feel lack in deserve in deserving.
(27:14):
And so these women do all this work in business, and they smash all of these goals, and then they go, great. I, I'm going to submit myself for this award, or I'm going to be nominated, but I'm not going to prepare an acceptance speech because that's my limit. To get nominated was my ceiling. That was my ceiling I was willing to achieve. Whereas I just want women to go, I deserve the win. I deserve the acknowledgement. I deserve the opportunity to stand on stage in front of my peers or people who've maybe never even met me before, to say thank you for everyone who supported me, and maybe there's a little lesson that I can impart on everyone before I walk off the DAUs. You deserve. You deserve the win is basically what That would be my advice.
Danielle Lewis (28:03):
Wow. I could not think of a better way to end this podcast and such a beautiful sentiment to enter 2025 with, so thank you so much for your time, for sharing your story and your wisdom. I know everyone listening would have gotten so much out of that, so I'm so grateful for you.
Jacqui Maloney (28:22):
Thank you. Thank you for having me, Daniel. I mean, I could chat about Golden Globes for days.
Danielle Lewis (28:26):
Yeah, I know. I'm like, that's a whole nother podcast. We need a whole other podcast.
Jacqui Maloney (28:31):
That's a whole nother, I mean, I've got baf, I've got the, I mean, don't too worry. There's definitely more. I'm in award season. I'm so happy.
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