Ruth Milligan joins Monday Morning Radio hosted by Dean and Maxwell Rotbart to share transformative insights on becoming a more effective communicator. Ruth emphasizes that powerful speaking is learned, not innate. She introduces six “threshold concepts” foundational to mastering communication: speaking is habitual, embodied, genre-based, social, messy, and dependent on feedback. These principles help individuals move beyond fear, filler words, and monotone delivery.
Ruth stresses the importance of preparation, practice, audience awareness, and feedback—highlighting that recording and self-review might be uncomfortable, but are essential. The Motivated Speaker focuses on the communicator’s mindset, habits, and presentation skills instead of content creation. Even so, Ruth advises tailoring messages to audience needs, embracing iterative practice, and avoiding winging it. Even short talks deserve thoughtful prep, and while speechwriters can help, embodiment and delivery are what truly make messages resonate.
Ultimately, Ruth discusses her belief that everyone has room for improvement and that motivation often comes when there’s a real audience, time, and purpose at stake. Her message is clear: with intention and effort, anyone can grow into a confident, compelling speaker.
Highlights from the Episode:
🎙️ Introduction & Background (00:07)
Host Maxwell Rotbart introduces Ruth Milligan, a communication strategist, TEDxColumbus curator, and author of The Motivated Speaker.
💡 Speaking as a whole-body experience (03:49)
Ruth suggests that everyone has one communication habit holding them back, a “shaded habit” and discusses how awareness of this habit is the first step to improvement.
🧠 The Performance Aspect of Speaking (06:19)
Ruth estimates that 90% of people don’t communicate to their full ability. Even experienced speakers can continually improve. Ruth describes her own prep process: practice, recording herself, and reviewing her performance—even when it’s uncomfortable.
💥 What is a Threshold Concept? (8:02)
Ruth explains that threshold concepts are transformative, often uncomfortable ideas that speakers must confront to grow.
📚 The Six Threshold Concepts (17:36)
Speaking is habitual – Great speakers practice deliberately.
Speaking is embodied – Delivery involves voice, body, and energy.
Speaking has many genres – Pitches, panels, and podcasts require different skills.
Speaking is social – Audience interpretation matters.
Speaking is messy – It requires iteration and reflection.
Speaking requires feedback – Self and external critique are crucial.
🛠️Some prep is better than none (28:58)
Not every talk needs hours of prep, but “winging it” wastes opportunity. Even brief remarks benefit from forethought.
🎤 The Power of Sticky Phrases in Great Speeches (35:02)
They have a discussion on the inherent risks of public speaking, including vulnerability and exposure to scrutiny and exploring subtle behaviors and patterns—termed “shaded habits”—that can undermine communication, offering strategies to recognize and adjust them.
🧰 Conclusion and Further Resources (39:39)
Ruth discusses how long a talk should be, how Toastmasters is a great starting point for some and how to grab your audiences in the first few seconds. Most importantly, Ruth reminds us that improvement is possible for everyone.
