3 Steps to Better Public Speaking

The ability to communicate effectively is one of the most important skills a person can have. It often determines whether a leader is viewed as being effective or ineffective, a plan is considered successful or a failure, and whether or not a deal gets done.

For a leader, success, or failure, is often determined by one presentation, speech, debate or announcement. With a good performance, an unknown becomes somebody. However, with a poor performance, a promising future may sink into oblivion.

I have had the opportunity to work with leaders throughout the corporate and political worlds. It never ceases to amaze me difference that these three simple steps can make for most people, regardless of talent level, natural communication ability, or leadership position, when it comes to public speaking.

Step 1 – Slow Down!

We have all seen it. A business leader approaches the podium. This individual has a reputation for being knowledgeable, charismatic and informed. Sure enough, the leader makes his or her presentation, is engaging throughout, uses positive body language, yet when he or she glances at the crowd, everyone looks confused, and a little bewildered. The audience probably would have responded to the message being delivered, had they had time to process it.

Slow Down!

Slow Down!

Slow Down!

Public speaking is not a race. People want to hear what you have to say, but you have to give them the ability to. When you are addressing a crowd, whether 5 or 500, every second of silence feels like an eternity – to you. It does not feel like an eternity to your audience, it feels like – a second of silence!

Take brief pause, a breath, a sip of water, whatever you need to do to slow yourself down. Your audience will appreciate it.

Step 2 – Smile!

Smiling is contagious. Period. Smiling will improve your confidence, will improve the disposition of your audience, and will improve your speaking – dramatically. Smiling is the equivalent of body language 101. Nothing will get the audience on your side faster than an authentic, genuine smile.
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Elephants Never Forget - An Amazing Story about Elephants

In 1986, Dan Harrison (see picture left) was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Dan approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant’s foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Dan worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.

The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments.

Dan stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled.

Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away.

Dan never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Dan was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Dan and his son Dan Jr. were standing.

The large bull elephant stared at Dan, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man. Remembering the encounter in 1986, Dan couldn’t help wondering if this was the same elephant.

Dan summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Dan’s legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

It probably wasn’t the same elephant.

Don’t Take This Personally

by Tim Brownson

I’m sorry to say this but you are a complete imbecile. I know you probably don’t like hearing it but the truth will out and that’s just the way it is so you may as well accept it

I’d also like to tell you that you are too fat or too thin, your hair is a mess, you’re no fun to be around and nobody likes you!

If any of this fits your internal picture of yourself and you are apt to listen to the opinions of others, you may well be thinking ‘”How does he know all this stuff, is he a mind reader?” On the other hand if it doesn’t fit your own perception or you don’t care what I think, you’re probably wondering “What a jerk, he needs locking up for his own good”

Well of course I’m joking, I would never insult anybody astute enough to be reading a book of mine, there simply aren’t enough of you around.

There are about 6 billion people on this planet and about 5,999,999,000 of them don’t know you and probably don’t want to know you. Of the people that do know you, probably less than 10% know you very well and of that 10% nobody comes even close to knowing you as well as you do. Yet even bearing in mind all those figures literally millions of people every day allow their mood to be dictated by other peoples opinions, gestures, actions and the meanings accurate and more often inaccurate that they attach to them. Now that’s what I call a run on sentence!
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Be Your Real True Self

by Yehuda Berg

Most of us aren’t 100% real. We are too afraid to show our true colors, to unfurl the flag of our true thoughts and emotions. We think people would run away screaming if they saw what we really looked like. Or we think they would fire us, drop us, hate us, judge us, tell others, or worse if we spoke from the heart.

Life is too short to waste it being fake.

Today, find the true grit needed to be who you are. Say what’s on your mind. Let your true face speak. The more you accept who you are – and share it with others – the less energy you will need to spend on hiding.

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