Caytie Langford Of Bold Women Society On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Practice, practice, practice, and practice some more. A mentor of mine, who has shared the stage with some of the biggest speakers on the planet, told me that the speakers who look like they are speaking off the cuff are the most prepared and practiced. The same mentor also told me that I should be spending on average one hour of practice for every minute of a speech. As soon as I started practicing, public speaking became easier.
At some point in our lives, many of us will have to give a talk to a large group of people. What does it take to be a highly effective public speaker? How can you improve your public speaking skills? How can you overcome a fear of speaking in public? What does it take to give a very interesting and engaging public talk? In this interview series called “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker” we are talking to successful and effective public speakers to share insights and stories from their experience. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Caytie Langford.
Caytie Langford is the Founder of Bold Women Society™, a personal and professional development company focused on helping women bust through the status quo. Bold Women Society’s vision is a world where every woman unapologetically pursues her dreams because she has the confidence to be bold, the courage to be authentic, and the power that comes from being supported. As a former nonprofit executive, she built a life and career she enjoyed, but she always knew there was much more. In 2015, Caytie walked away from it all to create a business that would inspire, motivate, and impact the lives of women. In her role, Caytie serves as a public speaker and executive coach. The more she started coaching, the more she realized there were many women who need and want to connect with other rebellious, rule-breaking women who have their own plans for their life. She is obsessed with teaching women how to build and maintain their confidence because they have big, BOLD things to do in their life. She believes that when women get really clear on what they want and engage their confidence muscles, they can achieve any goal they set. Since 2016, Caytie has become a TEDx speaker, coached over 100 executive women, and trained over 1,000 women helping them achieve their personal and professional goals.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
Thank you for having me! I think I grew up like most children of the 80’s. There was a lot of fun, love, peppered in with episodes of Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, and Three’s Company. My mom had me at a very young age, so my maternal grandparents were heavily involved in my life. My grandmother was one of my best friends until she passed away in 2021. My childhood was pretty idyllic. I grew up in the suburbs of Dallas. In elementary school I walked to school in the morning from the house my mom and I shared, then walked to my grandparents after school. My mom married the man who became my dad when I was 7. As an only child until I was 15, and an only grandchild until I was 8, I was well-loved, some may even say spoiled. I was heavily involved in dance, cheerleading, basketball, and softball. My parents and grandparents were at everything I did. With the exception of 2nd and 3rd grade, when I walked to and from school, I went to private school my entire life. The school I was at from 4th through 8th grade was very diverse. Friends introduced me to the world of Korean culture, authentic Mexican food, and my best friend, Rachel, taught me what it was like to be British. In high school I went to Ursuline Academy, an all-girls school in Dallas. (On a side note, our most high profile, visible alumna is Melinda Gates.) There they reiterated the same messages my mother has always instilled in me; I can be anything I want if I work for it. My parents believed that when I started something I had to finish it. It’s the number one reason why I never played the clarinet. My mom told me I couldn’t quit halfway through, and I got super nervous because I knew deep down, I didn’t want to do it. My parents worked hard. They taught me I had to do the same. We ate dinner as a family. My grandparents took me to Ohio every summer to visit my great grandmother at her farm. I went to sleepovers. Had lots of friends. Normal childhood things. The one thing I always knew growing up was that I was loved.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
I graduated from college on Saturday and went to work on Monday. I quickly climbed the ladder from entry-level fundraiser to chief development officer in just 12 years. I had gotten to the point where I had everything I wanted, and I had it a year ahead of schedule. My career was everything. It was how I defined myself and how I let others define me. And yet, every day, I would cry in my corner office. I was miserable and sad and mad, and I kept thinking, “Is this what it’s supposed to feel like?”. When I turned 35 in March 2015, I kept having the thoughts that it may feel awful, but this is the plan. Stick to the plan.
On May 3, 2015, I resigned. On June 1, 2015, I woke up with no c-suite title, no six-figure salary, no corner office, no identity, and worst of all; I had done this to myself. I had to learn who I was, what was important to me, and most importantly, what impact I wanted to make in the world. It was terrifying figuring this out.
I took six months off to figure out what I wanted to do and how I wanted to impact the world. Figuring it out looked like praying, meditating, journaling, speaking with others who I admired, reading books, getting really, really quiet to listen to my gut and intuition, and answering tough questions about who I am and who I want to be.
I also started looking backward, and that’s when the dots started connecting. I was in my twenties before I realized other people hated public speaking. I’ve been a natural cheerleader for others my entire life. I have always seen things in people they don’t see in themselves. I love sharing that with them and giving them advice on getting what they want. And on top of that, I have always loved standing on a stage speaking. Give me a microphone, and I am in heaven.
Putting all of this together, speaking on stages, and helping women get clarity to become more confident so they go after what they want is my dream job. Half the time, it doesn’t feel like a job. It is what I was born to use my gifts to do.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
My career has been interesting because of the fantastic people I have met along the way. In my late 20’s, I had a role with United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, working with female donors giving gifts of $10,000 and up. The influential women I had access to included Fortune 500 executives, C suite leaders from privately held companies, entrepreneurs, and wealthy philanthropists. I will never forget when I had lunch at The Tower Club in downtown Dallas with a C-suite executive at an international bank. People were coming up to her left and right, saying hello. But she was focused on me. She told me how impressed she was with me, asked how she could help me in my career, and let me know there were big things ahead. Situations like this happened weekly for over four years. Can you imagine being in your late 20’s and early 30’s with the women who were the literal ceiling breakers telling you that your future’s so bright! It was amazing. During those 100+ conversations, the seeds were planted that what was coming for my future would be beyond my wildest dreams. When I decided to walk away from my nonprofit career, all of these seeds, which had started to sprout, served as a reminder that greatness was ahead of me.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I laugh all the time about being in the IT department. I am not tech-savvy at all. At all. I know how to use technology, but I still get confused about what a MB is. When I decided I would go out on my own, I knew I had to get a laptop. All I knew was that Macs were cool, and everyone at Starbucks seemed to have one. I also heard they didn’t get viruses like a PC. So, I went to Best Buy in search of a new computer. I’m a big fan of staying in my zone of genius and letting others do the same. I’m not sure what Brian sold me, but it still works! And now, when I’m at my local coffee shop, Halcyon, I guess I look cool with my Mac. HA!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I have been incredibly fortunate to have so many mentors, sponsors, and advocates in my life and career.
The person I am most grateful for is my husband, Shane. I did not come from an entrepreneurial family: my parents, my grandparents, my aunts, and uncles, all employed by someone else. My friends’ parents were all employed. My goal was to get out of college, find a good job, and save my way to retirement. On the other hand, Shane watched his father and grandfather start and run their own businesses. So, when he quit his corporate job at the age of 25 to start a company with his dad, I thought he was nuts! For 20 years, I have watched him build his company. I was not “born” to be an entrepreneur, but 13 years into his business, I started seeing what was possible for myself. I started seeing that I could create and build a company. I could be successful as an entrepreneur.
When I was deciding whether or not to walk away from my nonprofit career, it was Shane who was by my side. One night we were sitting at one of our favorite Tex-Mex restaurants, and I couldn’t quit crying. I was so miserable, but the thought of walking away from everything I built was absolutely terrifying. Somehow, he made me feel better. He believed in me. He believed in us. He knew that I could move on and that not only would I be okay, but I would find the thing that was the right thing. When I decided to launch my own business, he was right there giving me advice, cheering me on, and supporting me.
About a year into my entrepreneur journey, I apologized to him. Having been an executive, I knew what it took to lead and manage nonprofits. There were many times that I would tell him what he should and shouldn’t do. I would say to him how to make things better or more efficient. But it was when I started my own business from the ground up I realized that leading an existing operation is very different from creating something out of nothing.
He is my biggest champion, my greatest supporter, and the person who reminds me that I can build the business of my dreams. “Team Langford” is our motto. Every day, I am grateful that he’s my teammate and partner in this thing we call life!
You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging and intimidating. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?
Failure will be part of your journey. Accept it. Embrace it. Shift your mindset to believe that everything is always happening for you, even the failures. Failing is just a way to learn what works and what doesn’t. Some of the most significant pivots I have made in my career have come from my failures. In 2019, I invested $30,000 into a launch strategy and marketing plan for a new service I was offering. I made $0, nada, nothing, not even a penny, from it. I could have quickly taken the $30,000 and flushed it down the toilet. I was heartbroken and mad and sad and defeated. For a few weeks, no, really it was a few months, I let myself wallow. It wasn’t just about the money, although that hurt, it was that this new service was “the” idea, the thing that was going to change my business. Looking back, if it had worked, I wouldn’t have pivoted from going at this alone to creating and launching the Bold Women Society. I would have remained a one-man-band. I would have continued to play small. Because that failed, I pivoted and have created something bigger than that particular service could have ever been.
It’s all mindset, and you’ve got to put in the mindset work as much as the actual work in and on the business. Being an entrepreneur is full of ups and downs. You have to manage your thoughts, your emotions, and your actions. It might take longer than you expected. It will 1000% go differently than you planned. So, enjoy the process.
What drives you to get up everyday and give your talks? What is the main empowering message that you aim to share with the world?
I believe that we, as women, have big, BOLD things to do in this world. But I know from my first-hand experience as an executive coach that far too many women out there hold themselves back because they don’t feel confident enough to go after exactly what they want. That is heartbreaking. The truth is we need women to do the big, BOLD things in this world. We need it for our families, communities, countries, and world.
I want to teach everyone, especially women, that confidence is a muscle. We have to build and maintain it over and over and over. It’s just like working out. You don’t build confidence by sitting on the sidelines of life! You have to get in and DO the work! Yet, time and time again, I hear and see people saying, when I have the confidence, I will do X, Y, or Z? But that’s not how it works.
The most amazing thing, though, is that you have built your confidence muscles your entire life. You just need to learn how to re-engage them. I teach women (and men) how to put together their Confidence Résumés. This is the evidence, the social proof, that they had accomplished things in their lives, that they had done hard things, things when they were nervous, anxious, even excited. I’ve taught 16 and 17-year-olds how to do this. When you put together your Confidence Résumé, you connect to the truth that you have been building your confidence muscles all along. And the next time you have something in front of you that’s hard or that you are nervous, worried, anxious, or even excited about, you have proof that you can do this too. When people connect to this, the possibilities for the future are endless.
Think about this, what would you possibly do if you were so confident in your abilities that you just went for it? What challenges would you take on? Where would you use your voice? What action would you take? Where have you been sitting on the sidelines of your own life that you need to jump in the game and get going? Can you imagine what kind of IMPACT you would make?
You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?
My Co-Founder, Amanda Cahill, and I are excited about the future of the Bold Women Society. For us to grow, we have to get in front of as many women as possible. We are in the midst of writing our book, which will give women another way to interact and learn from us. And by the time this article is published, our podcast, Let’s Get BOLD, should be out. Let’s Get BOLD started as a weekly Instagram live show where we spotlight everyday women doing the extraordinary. The women attracted to Bold Women Society want to hear about other women just like them. We preach inspiration over comparisonitis, collaboration over competition. We want to continue that work and expand the platform to inspire, motivate, and impact the lives of more women.
And, of course, my goal is to do much more public speaking. Whether inside companies with their women employee resource groups, at industry-specific women’s events, virtual or in person, we want to be there. Personally, I am thrilled that so many events, conferences, and meetings are going back to being live in person. That’s where I want to be, with ambitious, intelligent, talented women engaged in deep conversations about things that matter. One of the biggest goals on my life list is to speak to an audience of 10,000 people. It will happen. Until then, I will continue to speak to women in groups of 10 to 9,999.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“You just keep going, one foot in front of the other.” My grandmother, Mary Lou Mitchell
Before she passed away, my grandmother was one of my greatest confidantes. After I walked away from my nonprofit career, I had a lot of times when I doubted, when I was scared, when I questioned my decisions. One time I called my Gran, as we all call her in our family, crying. I wasn’t sure what I should do. I had heard the stories over and over of how she and my grandfather used to share one car. She would drive him to work, then go to her office only to return to pick him up. They had two small children and not much family around them to help. I asked her, “how did you do it?”. She responded with the quote above. We talked about all the ways I could keep going, the ways I could simply put one foot in front of the other. The truth is, my natural response when I am scared is to freeze or flee. I either altogether avoid the situation, or I retreat away from it. But as an entrepreneur, no as a woman with big, BOLD things to do in my lifetime, I have to keep going. So, I remember my Gran’s sage words and just put one foot in front of the other. Bold Women Society wouldn’t exist if I didn’t heed her advice.
Ok, thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker?” Please share a story or example for each.
- The speech is never about you. It’s always about the audience. What do they need? What answers are they looking for? What information do you have that they want? If you don’t know, ask them! At Bold Women Society we put on masterclasses. We have themes based on what we hear our audience needs, but we always poll them ahead of time to ask specifics that they want to learn. It’s the same for every company I speak at. I ask the planning team what is happening, what is relevant for this specific audience. Once you know this information, then you can prepare.
- Practice, practice, practice, and practice some more. A mentor of mine, who has shared the stage with some of the biggest speakers on the planet, told me that the speakers who look like they are speaking off the cuff are the most prepared and practiced. The same mentor also told me that I should be spending on average one hour of practice for every minute of a speech. As soon as I started practicing, public speaking became easier.
- Speaking is just as much about your voice and body as it is about the words you use. Get comfortable being evaluated on video. A video will give you feedback in a way that a voice recording or standing in front of the mirror never will. How are you standing? What are you doing with your hands? Do you rock back and forth? Are your knees locked? Are you moving too much in a way that’s distracting? What about your tone? The speed of your voice? Is your body matching your words and your voice? These are all things that have to be considered. I’ve seen way too many bad speakers who don’t project, have no clue how fast they are talking, walking back and forth on stage, wringing their hands. Zero idea what they said because of all of the distractions. My speaking coach showed me the playback of a practice speech I was giving. I held my hands in a way that they looked like wet noodles. I speak about confidence, and yet here I was indicating with my hands that I was meek. We quickly corrected that to a hand position that is powerful. The words, body language, and voice have to match.
- Find a way to connect with your audience as quickly as possible. I find the best way to do this is to share a story about myself. It’s not the bio version, it’s the nitty gritty that you don’t get in my bio. I allow myself to be vulnerable. The women I am trying to share my message with connect with that. Think about what you have in common with the audience. What do they need to know about you? What can give you credibility? What can you share with them that will help them know that you understand them? Use that.
- Don’t skip the good part! When people share stories of transformation they talk about who they used to be and who they are now. The messy middle is the good part. That’s where the learning takes place. No one wants to hear how things used to be bad, and now they are great. They want to know how it happens. Give it to them!
As you know, many people are terrified of speaking in public. Can you give some of your advice about how to overcome this fear?
The greatest advice I have about this goes back to the first thing I mentioned in the five things you need to do, practice, practice, practice, and practice some more! As one of my mentor’s, Craig Seigel says, “preparation breeds confidence.”
When I was preparing for my TEDx talk, I spent hours and hours practicing. Of course I had given hundreds of speeches before, but this one was different. That stage is the definition of to whom much is given, much is required. This was the opportunity for me to be a part of one of the greatest platforms of our time. For my 17 minute and 27 second talk, I spent over 40 hours just preparing to give the talk, these 40 hours didn’t include the time crafting the talk. I used the method where you hook lines together. You start with your first two lines until those are memorized, then you hook the next two together. You do this over and over and over until you have your entire speech memorized. On top of this I recorded myself on video. Then I watched it back. I looked at the placement of my hands and how often I moved my feet. Then I rewatched it to listen to my pitch, my tone, my speed. I also voice recorded the talk. I would listen to it in the car, while I was grocery shopping, and going for a walk.
The moment I stepped onto that stage, my heart was pumping. I don’t get nervous on a stage, per se, but I do get super excited. Adrenaline is going, and I am on a high. I knew that if I got the first two lines out, then all of the practice I had done would take over. And I was right. Deep breath. First line, next line, on a roll.
You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I want to inspire every woman to go after exactly what she wants in life. Stop concerning yourself with what you “should” do. Concern yourself with what you are meant to do, and what you want to do. I truly believe if we as women could find a way to do this, we would fundamentally change the world for the better. The piece of this I know I can do right now, is helping every single woman I can become the most confident version of herself. All the rest will fall into place. I know this because I’ve already seen it in the women I have worked with.
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
Sara Blakely, Founder of Spanx! I’ve been following her career since my early 20’s. Everything Spanx makes is amazing, and I personally wear one of their bras every day. She’s helped women learn that we don’t have to be perfect, but we can always feel great about ourselves. But what I’m most inspired by is that she didn’t take outside investors until the Blackstone deal recently, and she just kept going. In a world where women receive less than 3% of VC funding, it can be an insane challenge to be a female entrepreneur. And yet, she has proven that you don’t always need outside investors. Sometimes it’s about grit, belief in yourself, putting yourself out there over and over and over, and embracing failure for what it is, the opportunity to learn. I had the chance to meet Sara at the Spanx store opening at North Park Center’s grand opening. I only talked to her for about three minutes, but I have been pinching myself ever since. She’s the embodiment for me of what I can accomplish.
I would love to have the chance to talk to her!
Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caytielangford/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caytielangford/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/boldconfidentauthentic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/boldwomensociety/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bold-women-society/
This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
Caytie Langford Of Bold Women Society On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
