Art Of Great Speaking

To speak with confidence fully involves more than just your voice. Your body language can convey confidence to the audience before you start to speak and while you speak. A confident posture and demeanour will also make you feel more confident.

Gestures play a major part in putting your ideas across to the audience.  The way you gesture can determine whether the audience has confidence in what you are saying.

Gestures should be made positively, with decision and confidence. Naturally, weak, uncertain, timid bodily action causes an audience to feel that a speaker is unsure of his ability, probably not well prepared to speak, and generally ineffective as a speaker.

When gesturing a person’s whole body should work as a unified medium of communication. A speaker should “lean into” his gestures rather than throw out his hands like leaves falling from a tree, or as though he were a mechanical man loosely connected at the wrists. Also he should encourage big arched movements rather than short, angular, jerky ones. Let a speaker reach up and out in all directions, freely using the cubic feet of air around him.
Naturally effective gestures will correspond with the meaning of speech material. Sometimes a conflict occurs, as when the preacher declared, “When the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there!” As he spoke he pointed emphatically straight down! But he didn’t mean that at all.

A valuable principle of effective bodily action is doing what comes naturally in relation to ideas that are being expressed. Muscles, as well as the mind and voice, should freely express those ideas.

There is no one certain way to make any gesture. But UP and OUT (within reason of course) are helpful terms to remem¬ber and apply in connection with gestures. Movements which are up and out can be readily seen by an audience. Such movements are also usually more positive and dynamic than small uncertain movements made close to a speaker’s body. Then, too, when hands and arms move on a high plane they are nearer the speaker’s face, which enables an audience to get a unified emotional effect from the hands, arms and face.
When possible ideas should always be illustrated with bodily action. For instance, when a speaker tells about the big fish that got away he can picture the idea with facial and bodily action — if he can reach that far!

A speaker in coversation or in public speaking who refuses or neglects to use natural gestures is like a boxer with one hand in his pocket, or like someone speak­ing through a TV set that has no picture tube. Such a speaker would lack a visual appeal which would surely detract from his persuasiveness.

In summary for gestures to help in being able to speak with confidence they are best when they are natural, “up and out”, and match what is being said. In addition gesturing can help relieve any tension that may have built up, thereby relaxing the speaker and helping to speak with confidence.

Anxiety and nerves in speaking are the result of not knowing what will happen and not being in control of the situation. Logical confidence comes from taking the actions required to master the situation. The ability to speak with confidence comes from:

Know Your Subject
Confident public speaking requires a thorough knowledge of your subject matter. Your perfectly pitched voice may be pleasing to the ear; you may be a master of delivery and have a fine command of the English language. Despite all these attributes your performance still might be a flop if you are not thoroughly conversant with your subject.
Persistence Makes Perfection
Self-confidence comes as a natural consequence of care¬ful preparation. Any normal person can become a successful public speaker if he allows himself to be natural and if he observes certain cardinal canons. Of course he becomes better by working at it, but many talents are lost to the world for want of courage. The woods would have little music if no birds sang except those that sang best.
No instruction equals the simple procedure of employing every opportunity to speak publicly. More than any other human activity, this is learned by doing and improved by practice.

The way to develop self-confidence in public speaking is simply by speaking in public.

The first public speaking lesson just as the first swimming lesson requires gathering up enough confidence to try. A library of literature on swimming techniques about the breaststroke, Australian crawl, or diving as the experts do it, is without meaning until the beginner shakes off his shakes. Until the swimmer (or speaker) discovers that what he fears is not the water (or the audience) but him¬self, he is lacking in confidence and further effort is a waste of time.

Fight Your Public Speaking Anxiety
Even after the initial lesson, almost everyone who rises to speak suffers some degree of stage fright. Many distinguished speakers admit recurring nervousness. Veteran Illinois Senator Paul Douglas admits that it may be due to the unusualness of the situation—but a moment’s reflection upon his message readily allays any fleeting apprehensions.

Recurring stage fright is just a mental uneasiness that can usually be relieved by taking several deep breaths to restore your composure and cure any palpitations.
Senator Robert Kerr observes, “I just don’t let that recur¬ring feeling rob me of my reward.” He feels that when a speaker is fully informed on his subject, he knows more about it at the moment than anyone present, and that thought in itself destroys any mental hazards.

Oklahoma Senator Mike Monroney’s remedy is, “Ra¬tionalize the situation. Recall that this is the moment you’ve been waiting for!”

Remember that a speaker who has a full understanding of his subject radiates confidence. He is as confident that his seeds of thought will sprout, as is the gardener who buys grass seed and a lawn mower at the same time.

The important fact for an embryo orator to bear in mind is that his ability to appear publicly and present his speech was established in that initial crucible when he learned to fight his own fright.

The ability to speak with confidence comes from taking a decision to speak. Once this decision is made it is important to get started and persist. Be thoroughly prepared and know your subject and you have a foundation for being confident. Your first appearance in public need only be brief. By being persistent and learning more about public speaking you will develop into a person who can speak with confidence to any size audience.

For more information on how to speak with confidence to groups of any size please visit http://www.selfconfidentspeaking.com to claim your free preview of The Art Of Great Conversation.

The way you think about public speaking can cause unnecessary anxiety and make it more difficult to speak with confidence in front of a group. They think about all the things that could go wrong.

Here are 3 ways to change your perspective and make it easier on yourself.

A cause of fear is the feeling that a speech may be criticized either secretly or openly by a listener. The speaker’s attitude should be, “I’m giving them my best. I hope that’s good enough. At this point I couldn’t do better. And if someone is unhappy with my speech, so what? Without worrying a second about any speech I’ve already delivered I’m going to put all my energy into the next speech.”

Tenseness may come when a speaker starts thinking about results, or when he mentally compares himself unfavorably with other speakers. But this condition can be avoided when the speak¬er mentally plays down the importance of his speech. Who is going to remember it a hundred years later anyway? Nobody remem¬bers the score long. Ask a dozen people to tell you the exact score of a last year’s basketball game. How many could do it?

Then too, a speaker may become afraid when he thinks he could twist his tongue or mispronounce a word — when all those brilliant people are out there listening, maybe hoping he’ll fum¬ble. If a speaker could learn to grin at an audience and go right on speaking when he makes a mistake, people would forget the mistake and remember the grin. A mistake always looks much bigger in the mind of the person who made it than in anyone else’s thinking because he is so near it. Other people are so busy thinking about themselves (and their own mistakes) they won’t remember someone else’s error long.

It is good to want to do your best but not to expect perfection from yourself. This is being too hard on yourself. It is also important to be remember that most audience’s are on your side and what you to succeed.

If you change your thinking about your speaking you can be more relaxed and this will help you speak with confidence. Don’t be too hard on yourself, most confident public speakers were in the same place when starting out.

Being well prepared helps you to speak with confidence. A key to being prepared is to know your subject well.

Confident public speaking requires a thorough knowledge of your subject matter. Your perfectly pitched voice may be pleasing to the ear; you may be a master of delivery and have a fine command of the English language. Despite all these attributes your performance still might be a flop if you are not thoroughly conversant with your subject.

This lack of thorough subject knowledge is the rock that wrecks more public speakers’ ambitions than any other. Veterans of the hard roll and fruit cup circuit frequently pop up with a talk at the sight of a breadcrumb, but often their urge to be heard is hardly worthwhile because they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Audiences are quick to sense it when your knowledge of your subject is superficial and your speech goes over like a lead balloon. Contrariwise, a person may not be considered a first-rate speaker and yet be much in popular demand because he is a recognized leader in his field and knows his subject thoroughly.

Your personal experiences primarily are your foremost source of speech material; those things that happened to you and around you in the course of your lifetime furnish a storehouse of material. You have talked about these in­cidents and now you extend those conversations to a larger audience.

Speaking about subjects you know andhave an interest in makes it easier to speak with confidence and win over your listeners.  You will be more comfortable with your subject matter and your enthusiasm for your topic will radiate to the audience.

To be able to speak with confidence it is important to be confident in your ability to speak in public. Developing self-confidence in public speaking is developed in the same way that confidence is developed in any human activity.

Self-confidence comes as a natural consequence of careful preparation. Any normal person can become a successful public speaker if he allows himself to be natural and if he observes certain cardinal canons. Of course he becomes better by working at it, but many talents are lost to the world for want of courage. The woods would have little music if no birds sang except those that sang best.
No instruction equals the simple procedure of employing every opportunity to speak publicly. More than any other human activity, this is learned by doing and improved by practice.

The way to develop self-confidence in public speaking is simply by speaking in public.

The first public speaking lesson just as the first swimming lesson requires gathering up enough confidence to try. A library of literature on swimming techniques about the breaststroke, Australian crawl, or diving as the experts do it, is without meaning until the beginner shakes off his shakes. Until the swimmer (or speaker) discovers that what he fears is not the water (or the audience) but him¬self, he is lacking in confidence and further effort is a waste of time.

It is that initial action of getting “in the water” that opens up the bud of confidence and with the proper care and time will bloom in to being able to speak with confidence in public speaking to groups of any size.