Last month, I found myself sitting inside Melbourne Town Hall listening to Anna Lapwood play the pipe organ.

If you’ve never heard a cathedral organ played live, it’s hard to describe.

The sound doesn’t just travel through the air.

It travels through the floor.
Through the wooden seats.
Through your ribs.

At times, the whole hall seemed to vibrate.

But the thing that struck me most wasn’t the sound.

It was her energy.

Lapwood didn’t walk onto the stage in the solemn way you might expect from someone about to sit behind a vast Victorian instrument.

She almost bounced.

Like someone who had been waiting all day to do this.

Here’s a taste of that energy.

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When someone plays the music they love, you can feel it.

💡 ONE IDEA WELL

At one point during the evening, Lapwood told a story.

When she was younger, she said, she hated practising.

The hours.
The repetition.
The pressure of performance.

Music had started to feel like homework.

Something she had to do.

Then she made a small change.

She stopped playing the music she thought she should practise and started playing the music she actually loved.

Everything changed.

Now she said she can’t wait to perform.

Then she offered a line that has been rattling around my head ever since:
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It’s simple advice.

But the more you sit with it, the more it applies far beyond music.

Because the same thing happens with talks.

When we give talks we feel we should give, preparation feels like obligation.

When we give talks about ideas we’re genuinely curious about, preparation starts to feel like exploration.

And something surprising happens.

The nerves begin to fade.

🧰 LESS MESS, MORE MESSAGE

Many people assume confidence on stage comes from experience.

More talks.
More practice.
More years doing it.

Sometimes that’s true.

But there’s another factor at work.

Interest.

When you give a talk you feel you should give, preparation can feel heavy.

You open the slides.
You rehearse the lines.
You try to convince yourself it will work.

But when the topic genuinely fascinates you, something shifts.

Preparation stops feeling like obligation and starts feeling like curiosity.

You find yourself reading a little more.
Tweaking an example.
Trying out a different explanation.

Almost without noticing, you practise more.

And when the day arrives, you’re not standing on stage trying to remember a script.

You’re sharing something you’ve been thinking about for weeks.

The audience can feel the difference.

The speaker looks calmer.

Not because they’re fearless.

Because they care.

🪛 TRY THIS

The next time someone asks you to give a talk, pause before opening PowerPoint.

Instead of asking:

“What talk should I give?”

Try asking a different question:

“What idea am I genuinely interested in right now?”

Maybe it’s a clinical myth that keeps cropping up.
A strange case you can’t stop thinking about.
A skill you’ve only recently learned and are still figuring out.

Start there.

You might discover something unexpected.

When the topic genuinely interests you, preparation becomes easier.
You read more.
You rehearse more.
You refine the story.

And the nerves that usually come with speaking begin to shrink.

Because you’re no longer performing.

You’re sharing something you care about.

❓ ASK YOURSELF THIS

What’s the music you love right now?

Not the talk you feel you should give.
Not the topic that looks respectable on a conference programme.

The idea you can’t quite stop thinking about.

The one you’d happily explain to a colleague over coffee.
The one you find yourself reading about late at night.

That’s probably the talk worth giving.

Because when you find the music you love, something changes.

Practice stops feeling like work.

And when the moment comes to stand up and speak, it no longer feels like a performance.

It feels like sharing something that matters to you.​
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Speak soon,

Andy

P.S. If this made you think about your own talks, consider sharing it with a colleague who presents or teaches.