Art Of Great Speaking

The 5 Immutable Laws of Public Speaking

1. Be Clear On The Message – Often times, a speaker will focus on what to say to impress the audience instead of the message that he/she wishes to share. When the message is of value and of benefit to the audience, you will make an impact. There are so many techniques that you can learn on presenting. Just do a simple search on the Internet and you will be able to download tons of materials on techniques but the real power is in the message. What is it that you want to share? How will your message and content add value to the audience?

   There is always a message behind a presentation. When the message has meaning, is relevant to the audience, adds value, touches the heart, is sincere and comes from a place of contribution, you will influence your audience and your presentation will not only be memorable but highly effective.

    

2. Trust Your Knowledge and Expertise – If you are asked to speak on a topic, obviously you must be an expert on the topic. If you are not, then you better become an expert fast or decline to speak. You must also be completely assured on the fact that you know your subject inside out and given any other opportunity, (when not in front of a group or large audience) you speak very eloquently, knowledgably and convincingly on the topic. So the key is to transfer this to the stage.

   You know your subject inside out, trust that you know your content and do not let intimidation of who’s in the audience or what people may think to distract you from your expertise.

    

3. Do Not Compete With A PowerPoint Presentation – I’ve seen enough of presentations that were devastated by the ghastly modern tool we call “PowerPoint” that I now encourage ALL the participants who go through my training to let it go completely, if possible.

   Among the many downsides of using PowerPoint, 95% of the time there will be a technical error which interrupts the flow of your presentation and makes for a very awkward opening. If you must use a PowerPoint, if it is required within corporate guidelines and you must use it to show graphs, etc, then use it wisely.

   Make PowerPoint YOUR TOOL and not the other way around. Turn it off when you are speaking and only turn it on to show the graphs or images. As a speaker, you will be lost when competing with a screen that shows text that you read while positioned to the side, and often in the dark!

    

4. Drink Water and Breathe! – Incredibly simple and people often underestimate the importance of hydration and breathing for a presentation. It’s amazing how people will eat a big lunch or have alcohol before a presentation. Sometimes when I am presenting, I may go the entire day without food and just drink water for energy. Food, especially starchy food, can weigh your body down and affect your energy levels.

   I am not suggesting you fast but rather, eat light meals the day before a presentation and avoid caffeine. Breathing and drinking water sends energy to the brain and will keep you fresh and alert for your presentation.

    

    

5. Preparation, Preparation, Preparation – Practicing, rehearsing, preparing until you master your presentation will do wonders for your confidence. A lot of my clients often leave it to the final hour and then I get a panic call a few days before because they have not prepared and need some last minute coaching. It’s not a pleasant feeling – that panicky feeling in the pit of the stomach just before a presentation.

   To avoid this, all you need to do is to prepare. Set a schedule when you will prepare the content, fine-tune it, rehearse, and rehearse again, and rehearse again in front of a mirror and then rehearse again in front of a trial audience. You get the picture? It takes a lot of practice to master the skill. Make the time and you will never be left with the panicky feeling again.

   For more resources on public speaking, simply go http://www.publicspeakinghk.com.
   

   Cecilia Yeung specializes in sales development, communication & presentation skills, leadership training and customized facilitation processes. She is based in Hong Kong and has worked extensively in 12 countries across Asia Pacific.

These are two of the most critical techniques to learn when speaking in public. Relaxation and Confidence can make all the difference in a good speech to a great speech.

Follow these tips to improve your public speaking skills:

Relax…

You can use all the tips and techniques outlined in any speech guide and still make a lousy speech if you don’t relax. All speech books TELL you to relax. But will you really relax? The true test of whether you can advance in your public speaking abilities is the level of relaxation you can induce before, during and after a public speaking event. Ask yourself, “How can I relax? Will I relax?”

You will, you have to if you want to succeed. So what do you relax about, and how? First, you have to dispel any notion you have about the importance of your speech. In truth, during the course of your life, speakers will deliver more than one billion speeches.

It is very unlikely your speech will have such a great impact that it will change the world forever. And, if your speech did have that kind of impact, chances are you already know how to relax.

Now, various books will offer you suggestions about how to relax. They may say, “Pretend the audience is naked.” I don’t know about you, but that is likely to make me MORE nervous. You may find you are now too distracted to relax. What if your mother were in the audience? So how DO you relax?

Forget about your speech. Do your homework, practice and then tuck it away. People who relax do what they have to do to prepare a speech, and then forget about it until the time comes to speak. You should do the same.

Do something fun. Go for a bike ride. Sing a goofy song. Jump on a trampoline. Think of what you plan to do AFTER your speech. In fact, you should plan something extravagant and rewarding, something you will look forward to following your grand delivery.

And remember, in the grand scheme of things, your speech will not likely shatter the earth. Some people find simply speaking out, saying, “Boy am I nervous,” helps them relax. If you do that, write it down, say it out loud, then say, “I am glad I got that over with. I feel great now.”

Good chance you WILL feel better. Don’t focus on what will go wrong, focus on what you know will go right, and what you plan to have for dinner later that night. In the end your speech making ability will improve tenfold.

Feel Confident…

Do you smell that? It smells funky. What is it? You can’t quite place it, but you know that smell. It is familiar, you’ve smelt it before. What is it? Oh yes, it is fear… You can smell fear a mile away. If you walk up to the center stage and lack confidence, before you utter a single word your entire audience will feel your fear.

This will resonate throughout the auditorium like a clap of thunder. What happens next is like a chain reaction. Your audience begins to squirm. They feel uncomfortable. They worry about what you plan to say. They fidget even more. This may cause you to fidget. All of this will detract from the moment at hand, and likely impact your speech in a negative way.

What do you do about it? Pretend you are confident. Strut your stuff, put a little hop in your walk, and a little kick in your stance. Make sure when you approach your audience, you stand up tall and SMILE. The very act of smiling will undoubtedly cause a chain reaction in your audience.

As you smile, others will soon follow. This will fill the room with positive energy, energy you can absorb, energy that will allow you to feel more powerful and more confident.

You also have to remember that YOU are the one delivering the speech. So, no matter what you talk about, you are in charge. You are the expert. You have the power. People are looking to you for information or advice, or possibly just a good joke. Live in the moment.

As long as you have the power, you should feel confident. Remember that. And when in doubt, fake it. It always works.

Bradney Davis is a entrepreneur and frequent public speaker. Sharpen Your Public Speaking Skills Even Further http://www.speakingpowersecrets.com/

Overcoming public speaking anxiety is not an easy task. Your knees shake, your hands sweat, and your heart pumps even faster than you can count; but if you have the determination to succeed on stage, overcoming public speaking anxiety is a breeze.

There are a lot of reasons why your fear is triggered when you speak in public. These are some of the reasons why overcoming public speaking anxiety can be challenging at first:

? You feel that you may commit errors in grammar or provide invalid information along the way. ? You feel the people around you are judging you wrongly. ? You feel insecure about the topic of discussion. ? You feel the audience doesn’t like you as their speaker. ? You feel the audience doesn’t understand your point.

Treat your audience as a friend by giving them the benefit of the doubt about how they feel and think about you. Instead of feeling like they don’t like you, assume that they do and you’ve taken the important first step to overcoming public speaking anxiety.

Keep your audience awake by being provocative. Ask some questions and maintain eye contact for a couple of seconds to as many people as you can inside the room. Change your voice tone when there’s a need to emphasize things.

The center stage is not the most comfortable place in the world, and public speaking has been known to top the list of fears for most people. Your body reacts to the pressure you’re going through while in front of your audience.

Don’t worry because the feeling is absolutely normal. When all that adrenalin reacts to how you feel, overcoming public speaking anxiety can become easy. You may model other successful public speakers but remember to put your own unique style in your speech delivery.

Michael Lee has prepared a FREE anxiety-busting and panic-fighting course that reveals secrets on effectively treating panic disorders and anxiety at http://www.20daypersuasion.com/panic-secret.htm

My latest obsession is public speaking. I don’t know what hit me, but I’m finding myself making excuses to speak in front of people. As with photographing people, I started, because I was afraid of it, and I had over come that fear by just doing it (repeatedly), until I fell in love with the act and couldn’t stop. Public speaking is similar. I’ve extracted out some useful tips from “Podium Tactics From 28 Public-Speaking Pros“. These are general tips from the speakers. I will cover specific techniques in a later blog post.

• “..putting aside a lack of confidence and delivering a message more important than your feelings and sensitivity. It’s about recognizing that your presentation is meant to help someone.”, George Foreman
• “The single most important thing you can do is put yourself in other people’s heads and hearts. I think about what they truly need, not what I want to talk about. Whatever size the group, whether five or 5,000 people, you have to at least try to imagine what each of those individuals are there for.”, Tony Robbins, motivational speaker and life coach
• “If you believe in something, you can talk about it. … When I talk to people, I have one thing on my mind: How can I help that person?…”, Jack LaLanne, 92-year-old fitness guru
• “John F. Kennedy said ‘You should not open your mouth unless you hope to change the world.’ While that’s a bit grandiose for me, you shouldn’t give a public speech unless you want to make something happen.”, Tom Peters, communications consultant
• “minimize data. We have a ‘three’ rule: Don’t tell them more than three things. I speak at nursery schools; … I force myself to do that because it really forces me to get down and think [about] the basic message and how can I communicate it as simply as possible.”, Allen Hershkowitz, Ph.D
• “Slow down, especially at the beginning of a speech.You’ll get the audience’s attention by pausing.”, Bob Kerrey
• “Don’t be afraid to work ‘off book’ (without a written speech). …On a little scrap of paper, I wrote down key words that I knew would spark stories or themes that could get the ball rolling. … If you have enthusiasm and excitement, if you show your humanity up there, that’s when the audience starts to warm up.”, Richard LaGravenese
• “Engage the lowest common denominator, someone with a negative attitude or who can’t concentrate. If I can engage that person, everyone else with fall like a domino.”, Erin Gruwell
• “I’m trying to speak to each person individually. Eye contact is critical. I move from west to east, making contact with people for a second or two. If there’s someone who seems disengaged, I’ll keep coming back in hopes of reaching them.”, Rev. Kieran Harrington
• “The night before a speech, I go over my notes right before I go to sleep. …elps your brain absorb the material.”, Sally Koslow
• “For years, I presented like other people presented, and it was like wearing clothes that didn’t fit. It was much more helpful to do things my own way.”, Tom Yorton, president of The Second City.
• “If you are the type that gets frightened or intimidated by speaking to large groups, it doesn’t hurt to speak to a couple people in the audience before you start your speech.”, Kate White, editor in chief of Cosmopolitan
• “Use a [Microsoft] PowerPoint presentation as a support rather than as a document. All too often, the presenter tries to cram the whole story into the slides, and winds up with just a massive data-dump of graphics that neither tell nor assist the story…. one, two or three words with an image. It captures the essence of the story while the newsreader gives the details.”, Jerry Weissman, founder of Power Presentations
• “Have a unifying theme tethered to a powerful, inspirational story that will be sufficiently moving to be remembered long after the lights are dimmed and the microphone turned off.”, Ken Starr, former White House independent counsel
• “Compliment the audience. Every invitation to speak is a compliment and an honor to you”, Dr. Robert H. Schuller
• “Make a point using a funny and familiar everyday observation. …At this point, I’ve got the audience nodding and laughing-and the pressure is off. Now I can begin to teach them all the clever, low-key approaches they can take to establish that initial credibility with consumers.”, John Palumbo
• “No matter how serious the presentation is, you can’t take yourself too seriously. Self-deprecation is always part of my speech. It helps the audience know we’re all in the same boat”, Marty Markowitz
• “Say the same things over in different ways, especially when you are trying to sell something. …It will make an imprint that people will remember.”, Judge Maria Lopez
• “I just try to get people to relax right off the top. You want your audience to settle in, …It doesn’t have to be funny necessarily, but something to snap people out of whatever doldrums they might be into.”, Steve Levy

Tina is passionate about Personal Development and Spiritual Growth. She runs multiple businesses and has learned how to do so without any Stress. Visit her website at Think Simple. Be Decisive for her secrets to Productivity, Motivation, Creativity and Happiness.

tudies show that public speaking phobia, and most phobias, develop in middle or late childhood stage. It usually starts from an unpleasant experience like being humiliated in front of the class; this unpleasant experience gets stored in the child’s memory and is brought up when faced with similar situations. Children who have been exposed to people with public speaking phobia, like their parents or friends, learn the phobia by hearing them. Research also shows that genetics also play an important role in developing phobias. Phobias are mostly likely to occur in identical twins, than in fraternal twins.

Luckily, there are many ways to treat Phobia. * PERSONAL MOTIVATION. There are many self-help books that can help you overcome your public speaking phobia. Your desire to overcome your fear is the most important factor of treatment. * PROFESSIONAL TREATMENT. If self-treatment does not work for you, you can seek help from a professional. *Other kinds of treatment include, Counseling, Hypnosis and Medication. This method is used if the sufferer has other mental conditions that are affected by the phobia. Using medication alone cannot cure the phobia.

Cause of Public Speaking Anxiety

Even the most experienced speaker gets anxious when speaking in public. However, this fear can be controlled so that you can put your fear to your advantage. People are afraid of rejection by their audience. Thus, many are terrified of speaking in public for fear of being criticized by the crowd for how they look or how they deliver their speech. On the contrary, audiences are very understanding about the speaker’s problem with stage fright. You become more nervous when your fear of the audience increases.

Some strategies that can help you overcome your fear of the audience. Choose a topic that you like and you are familiar with. The more comfortable you are about your chosen topic, the more confident you are in facing your audience. Concentrate on your topic. Focus on your topic and not on yourself. When you start to think of your subject matter and not yourself, your fear of speaking will likely decrease, Trust in your capability of delivering your speech. Showing that you are in charge decreases your fear and increases your confidence in facing the situation, Bridge the gap between your audience and yourself. Analyze carefully to establish rapport.

There are two ways to win over your fear of failure, Picture yourself succeeding. If you think that you will stutter in front of many people, chances are you will stutter. But if you visualize yourself delivering your speech well, then, you will, Face your fear. You cannot overcome your fear unless you show it and admit that you are afraid of it. Take time to write your speech. Review it and rewrite if necessary. If you are confident with your speech, the less terrified you will be about speaking in public. Practice and ask for suggestions on how you can improve your speech. Ask a friend of relative to act as your audience. Once you have delivered your topic, ask for their feedback.

zhafran public speaking and motivation please visit www.motivationnews.com