Kyle Boze Of Kettering Fairmont High School On 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Knowledge — this might be the thing I tell people that really separates great speakers from poor speakers — it’s the knowledge of the content. Most people would be able to share stories about their favorite sports team, rant about a TV show, or detail something they’re passionate about, no matter who the crowd. You should have the same understanding of the content you’re about to deliver. Remember, competence breeds confidence.

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 Kyle Boze.

Kyle Boze currently teaches Business at Kettering Fairmont High School in Kettering, OH. Originally a Marketing Executive, Kyle made the transition into education in 2016. Passionate about leadership, culture, and coaching, he started the “Fairmont Leadership Academy,” a program (and class) designed to empower, encourage, and develop young adults into leaders within the community. He still consults for teams, organizations, and businesses on a variety of business disciplines. Kyle is a graduate of both Wright State University and Bowling Green State University and lives in Southwest Ohio with his wife and kids.

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?

Sure — I am a midwestern guy. Born into a very middle class family in Southwest Ohio, and I still reside in Southwest Ohio with my wife (Laura), son (Lincoln) and daughter (Harper). I am a former marketing exec turned teacher.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

I probably have one of the least traditional paths, career wise. I got my degree in business, and was fortunate enough to become a Director of Marketing for a mid-sized company at 25. I had about everything you could want — great bosses, office, salary, etc. and I was miserable. After a whopping 2 weeks on the job, I quit to become a teacher at Kettering Fairmont High School, where I still work to this day. Admittedly, it took me too long to make the move, but I was driven by a sense of purpose & passion to invest into others. Which I feel fortunate to do every single day.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

(I think the above answer might fit this one too!)

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?

Sure — as I am sure many of my students would say, I am a man of many stories. One I don’t believe I have ever told was early in my college career, I had a position where my main job was to recruit new employees for an hourly position within the company I worked for. Most of the time, the interviews were group interviews in which we had already identified people for the job. I distinctly remember one where our boss called me early in the interview and was telling me something, though I couldn’t tell you what. At the end of the call, by accident (and habit), I said “Love you.” Thankfully, I don’t think she heard me, and hung up immediately after.

It definitely caught everyone off guard — who all kind of gave me a confused look.

I rebounded with “Dang — she didn’t say it back”

You would have thought I was a world class comedian by the way the group reacted. That was one of my favorite lessons in public speaking — to add in (appropriate) humor to put people at ease. It’s as effective of a method in public speaking as it is within interviews.

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’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my wife right here. She’s been incredibly supportive at every turn of this journey. I distinctly remember getting the offer & opportunity to jump into the education world, after turning down three other educational opportunities before. Telling your wife you want to quit a six figure position to go teach for practically nothing, and that you’re going to have to move in with your parents because you can’t afford your place to live anymore? That’d be a hard sell for a lot of people, and she was in with no hesitation.

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?

I'm fortunate enough to teach a leadership class where we talk about this exact topic…the fear of failure. It genuinely paralyzes so many people. I really preach two things that I strongly believe in. The first being that “failure” doesn’t exist. Kids always do a double take when I say that (and show them resources supporting that), but all of our journey’s continue on. More often than not, failure is simply growth. For us to grow as people, professionals, friends, parents, etc. we’re going to have to fail, and embrace the fact that we failed, not run away. The second piece of advice I always tell people is to just “go for it.” More often than not, when we think back on things we were afraid to do…it’s never as scary as we anticipated it being. And if you’re never willing to just GO FOR IT, you’ll never know your own potential. You’ll just be guessing.

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?

As a teacher, I don’t have much of a choice! I really believe in the art and power of story telling and how it can help people understand ideas or concepts quicker. But I am fortunate to teach personal finance and leadership — two classes that directly impact people’s lives every day. So I feel a certain obligation to be “on” and perfect the ability to public speak to connect with audience. To the shock of no one, high school and college aged kids have SHORT attention spans, so if you’re not a great public speaker, story teller, or not engaging, you’ll lose them pretty quickly.

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?

That’s a great question. I'm fascinated with leadership and fortunate enough to teach a class on it. One of the things I enjoy most about my position, and are “ongoing projects” really revolve around the opportunity to consult and advise other teams, organizations, and groups to help them better define/grow their cultures, relationships, and teams.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.” — JFK

I really believe almost every great thing to have happened in my life is because of calculated risk I took, that could have easily “failed” or gone wrong. But without the courage to take those risks, in the face of uncertainty, to better yourself or serve others, the joy of “achievement” would be so much less rewarding.

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.

As you know, many people are terrified of speaking in public. Can you give some of your advice about how to overcome this fear?

1. Great body language — great body language means a lot of different things, but we’re primarily talking about presenting yourself to your audience in a way that welcomes your audience, or advances your story. Positioning your chest towards the crowd helps keep them engaged, while allowing your voice to carry. Eye contact, facial expressions, arm movements, all help articulate and portray the message that you’re trying to tell. I have to remind speakers all the time that only 8% of what people retain/perceive from a speaker is the actual words. 92% are your tone and body language.
2. Inflection of voice — specifically tone (as mentioned earlier) and using your voice to inflect/adjust to important moments or gain attention to key elements of your speech. Plus, people can sense when you’re passionate about something by your voice/energy levels.
3. Pacing — Too often, people go too fast when public speaking. It makes it hard to understand/gain the knowledge that the speaker wants you to take down. So often times, for those who are especially nervous, speaking TOO slow actually evens out their pace. I also think it’s important to understand how to time yourself with well timed pauses is a key element to keep attention of a crowd.
4. Knowledge — this might be the thing I tell people that really separates great speakers from poor speakers — it’s the knowledge of the content. Most people would be able to share stories about their favorite sports team, rant about a TV show, or detail something they’re passionate about, no matter who the crowd. You should have the same understanding of the content you’re about to deliver. Remember, competence breeds confidence.
5. Awareness — This is an underrated skill for those who are okay/good public speakers, but not great. Awareness of your audience and THEIR nonverbal cues can often times unlock opportunities for yourself to better your own skill. Especially utilizing your audience within the speech helps. Anytime you can reference someone in the crowd, have them ask a question, roleplay with you, play along with something, they’re automatically involved and when people are involved, they are more likely to be active. Awareness of yourself involves the above items, along with your movement, to understand how it’s positively/negatively impacting your audience.

Actually, one of my favorite examples of how all of this is relevant is from one of my favorite books, “The Culture Code” by Daniel Coyle. The book discusses an experiment in which researchers tracked idea pitches made to executives. But the researchers only tracked data around the presenter and audience in terms of eye contact, proximity to crowd, attention, body language, vocal pitch, communication between presenter/audience and audience/audience. What they found was the idea pitches with higher amounts of the above almost directly correlated to the ranking of said business pitch by executives. Meaning the presentation with the highest amount of interaction/positive body language, vocal pitch, communication was ranked the highest by the executives.

However, when simply presented with a physical copy of said business plan (no presentation this time), the results were vastly different. Meaning that the content of the presentation was not as important as the verbal and non-verbal cues.

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?

This is something I have actually thought about a tremendous amount lately. As I mentioned earlier, I am insanely passionate about leadership and culture, how the two are interconnected, and how to maximize teams. I could genuinely talk for hours about the value of it, but my wife tells me that not everyone wants to hear 4 hours of it!

I would love for more individuals, across all industries and levels, to have more access to resources that help them grow as a leader. I really think, especially in the times we live in now, we need great leaders across the board. Most people who get put into positions of leadership never go through formal training during that transition, or have the ability after to continually hone their craft. I’d love to inspire more people to become better leaders — for themselves and others.

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!

I’ll give you two for which I find hilarious, insightful, and believe their journey would/has inspired me. I’d truly love to pick their brains more on what they feel allowed them to succeed at their levels. I’d even pay.

Bill Hader

Keegan-Michael Key

Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?

Absolutely! Im on Instagram and Twitter primarily. I love connecting with people passionate about the things I am passionate about, or for who I can help!

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!