After bombing terribly outside the comfort of Toastmasters, he learned to talk to his audience before going onstage: learn their language and emotions and connect with them. That way, applying all he had learned so far, he could change his speech on the fly, so it would be sure to connect with a new audience. Above all, Gendler pushed him relentlessly. “Make me care,” Gendler told him after listening to one of de Montebello’s speeches. “I understand why this is important to you, but the audience doesn’t care about you. You have to make me care.”
