Conductor: Energy Leads, Emotion Follows, Words Fill the Gap
Shift your energy state on cue and let emotion and words follow automatically
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 90%
A deliberate-practice game and underlying model: speaking is a subconscious, flow-oriented process, so instead of choosing words, you choose an energy level. Practicing by matching random intensity cues (1-10, plus 'breathe' pauses) trains you to enter any state on demand — and the emotion, then the words, stories, and examples follow as a natural consequence. It also acts as a mirror revealing whether you're comfortable at high energy, low energy, or stuck in the middle.
Origin
An Ultraspeaking game created by Tristan de Montebello and Michael Gendler, grounded in the insight that 'energy leads, emotions follow, and words fill in the gap.' Replicable free by generating random numbers and matching each.
Core principles
- 01Speaking best happens when you're NOT thinking about speaking — it's subconscious flow
- 02Energy leads; emotion follows; words fill in the gap automatically
- 03Each energy level opens a different 'file folder' of thoughts, memories, and stories
- 04Practice at low stakes so failure doesn't matter — then you actually play instead of protecting yourself
- 05The game is a mirror of where your comfort and edge lie
How to run it
- 1
Set a baseline and take a title
Start speaking on a random topic at level 5 — your natural conversational rate. Give yourself ~60-70 seconds.
- 2
Match each intensity cue as it appears
When a number 1-10 appears, immediately shift into that state: a 7 means raise your voice and energy, a 3 means calm it down, a 1 means go all the way down. Don't change the words deliberately — change the energy and let the content follow.
Pro tip To get more conviction, don't hunt for words — raise your energy or drop into the target state and the ideas arrive to fit it.
Watch out Going low means being willing to 'take up space' and sit in silence while everyone looks at you — often harder than going high.
- 3
Honor the 'breathe' pauses
When a 'breathe' cue appears, go fully silent and use the moment only to relax and calm yourself; see where you land when it moves on.
- 4
Read the mirror and work your edge
Notice which direction is easy and which is hard (highs vs lows vs middle). That reveals your edge — 'where your Edge is is often where the gold lies' — and where to spend reps.
Pro tip Don't try to look good or avoid embarrassment — 'just let yourself play the game, the game will do good.'
Watch out Trying to control the outcome (as Lenny did at first) stops you from actually playing and blunts the benefit.
In the wild
Lenny assumed as an introvert he'd be more natural at the low end, but de Montebello observed he was super energized at the high end and struggled to access the low.
→ A surprising, useful self-diagnosis of where his speaking edge actually lay.
Lenny's takeaway: when you force your body down to a 1, new thoughts and memories surface that you don't access at higher energy — you make it up as you go from a genuinely different state.
→ He called it 'really powerful' — realizing energy changes the content available to you, not just its volume.
Common mistakes
Trying to say the same content at every level
Treating the numbers as mere volume knobs misses the point — each state unlocks different insights; let the body settle and new thoughts emerge.
Playing to not look foolish
Focusing on 'I don't want to make a fool of myself' prevents you from actually playing the game, which is where the learning happens.
Is it for you?
Best for
Speakers who feel monotonous or boxed-in and want to expand their expressive range and access states on demand
Not ideal for
High-stakes live moments themselves — this is a low-stakes practice/warm-up tool, not something to perform cold in front of a big audience
From the transcript
“the day I understood that speaking was a subconscious flow oriented process and not a conscious process completely changed the way I approached it”
“each one of these numbers represents an intensity or a state that I have to tap into”
“energy leads emotions follow and words fill in the Gap”
“when you tap into a certain energy that creates emotion and if you tap into that emotion the words come as a natural consequence”
“where your Edge is as you were saying with your cro is often where the gold lies”
From the episode
Why most public speaking advice is wrong—and how to finally overcome your speaking anxiety
Tristan de Montebello (CEO & co-founder of Ultraspeaking)