Here is a video from the movie Facing The Giants. Not about public speaking today but illustrates the illusions of self imposed limitations that most of us put on ourselves.

Do you have any limitations you’ve put on yourself? Most of us have a self image of our capabilities that is well inside what we can actually be. Public speaking is one of those areas where many people have these limitations but if only we pushed ourselves a little bit we could actually be an effective public speaker.

The thing with good public speaking or giving a good presentation at work it can help our careers or business more than years of hard work. It is a highly regarded skill that is much in demand in most organizations today.  Step by step, bit by bit you can make it.

Check out the Art of Great Conversation for more information on speaking confidently to audiences of any size.

And remember Don’t Quit. Don’t Quit,

Once you have written a speech or presentation then it is important to practise your delivery. There are basically two ways to practise a speech, inputting and outputting. Inputting is reading your speech to yourself whereas outputting is actually delivering your speech out loud. You should practise using both methods but there are ways to maximize your results.

To input your speech all you need to do is sit down in a quiet room, free from disturbances, and read your notes to yourself. This aides in memorizing your speech so you can make eye contact with your audience as opposed to just reading from your notes. You may also spot small mistakes at this stage that you can correct before moving to the outputting process. There are no real keys or tricks to this method, only constant repetition.

There any many different tricks you can use to improve your outputting your speech. To perform at your best on the day of your speech you should aim to replicate the conditions you will be giving your speech in during practice.

Variables you need to consider when outputting your speech include whether you’ll be stood up or sat down, if you’ll have a microphone to speak into, if you have technology such as a laptop and projector at your disposal and what type of clothes you’ll be wearing. The more accurately you can simulate the conditions in which you are giving your speech the better prepared you will be.

With practice you can perfect your delivery and timing and really get to grips with what it is you are saying. However even after much practise you will probably want to write down some key notes on a piece of paper or a number of small cards. Well written notes/bullet points will help keep you on track and provide a reminder of the details you want to get across.

As one last little tip I would recommend practising your speech in front of a mirror. This will help you get used to making eye contact with an audience and quell any nerves you have about speaking in public. Just remember practice makes perfect! Jake Rhodes is the author of many self-help articles and currently runs top hypnosis site http://www.hypnobusters.com along with professional hypnotherapist, Jon Rhodes.

Whenever a survey is published on biggest fears you can always guarantee that public speaking will be towards the top of the list. It’s easy to why this is the case – you’re stood up in front of a group of your peers purveying your thoughts and ideas. The nerves and anxiety felt by many just thinking about being in this situation is enough to put them off public speaking for life. However with correct preparation public speaking can actually be very easy and create an adrenaline rush unequalled by anything else.

Whether you just have one speech to deliver as a best man or matron of honour, or you’re a businessperson who wants to make confident presentations to enhance your position in the company then ask yourself the following questions to fully prepare for your speaking duties.

Who Will The Audience Be?

Before you give a presentation or a speech you should carefully consider exactly who the audience will comprise of. This includes how many people you will be speaking to and the relationship between yourself and the audience. The more you learn about your prospective audience the easier it will be to prepare your speech.

What Do Your Audience Want To Hear?

If you’ve been asked to give a presentation to upper management types then they’ll want to hear a lot of stats, facts and ideas for the future. On the other hand a best man’s speech will be a lot more humour based with a couple of stories and is generally best kept to a short length of time so that the festivities can continue.

How Long Do You Need To Speak For?

Always ask how long you need to speak for. “Just get up and say a few words” isn’t specific enough, push for an exact length of time. The vast majority of public speaking doesn’t last much more than five or ten minutes.

What Should The Tone Be?

Depending on who the audience are and the purpose of the speech you should be able to grasp what the tone should be. If you’re making a short speech at a close friend’s birthday party then you can afford to be a little more risqué than you could giving a eulogy at a funeral. Similarly when you’re giving a business presentation there are circumstances where you can be more informal than usual depending on who the audience are.

Where Will You Be Speaking?

Always consider where it is you’ll be speaking as it makes a big difference. If you have access to a laptop and a projector then you have the option to use visual aids which makes public speaking easier as you no longer have to worry about the audience visually focusing on you. If you’re making a wedding/party speech then there’s a good chance you’ll have a lot of background noise to contend with. Will you have a microphone or will you just have the power of your voice?

The more information you have the better. With clear guidelines you are much more likely to make a speech that stays on point and serves the purpose it was intended Jake Rhodes is the author of many self-help articles and currently runs top hypnosis site http://www.hypnobusters.com along with professional hypnotherapist, Jon Rhodes.

Confidence does play a big part in effective public speaking and that is why I have posted on this many times in the past. Being thoroughly prepared and well practiced contribute greatly to developing self confidence to being able to present confidently.

 Further to these 2 areas, are 3 factors that support confidence in yourself and in your ability to deliver your speech effectively;-

1.       Appearance. When you are dressed for the occasion you feel better about yourself. And this is the same in public speaking.  Usually if you are smartly dressed and neatly groomed you will be appropriately dressed. You, not only feel better and your audience will appreciate you more. This contributes to your sense of well-being and confidence.

2.       Well rested. Tiredness can make cowards of us all. It takes away our resolve and reduces our energy levels. We can come across ill prepared and not caring when too tired. So getting enough sleep and being relaxed increases our courage and helps us to be calm. We appear more in control and confident to our audience.

3.       Fitness. When we are fit and healthy we generally feel better about ourselves and look better also. It also helps us to handle stressful situations.  The better we feel about ourselves and the easier we can handle stress the more we can speak with ease and confidence to groups of people.

These factors do not replace preparation and practice in developing self confidence but will help in improving how we feel about ourselves and make it easier to speak up with confidence in public speaking or presenting.

A resource that I have found useful in improving my health and fitness is called Truth About Abs. It covers many aspects of health and fitness.  Click here to find out more information on Truth About Abs.

I am looking for some resources to recommend on relaxation and appearance but have not yet found any I like enough.     In the meantime check out Truth About Abs and let me know what you think. 

An effective speaker thoroughly prepares for each time they speak, so they can speak with confidence because they know their audience, their subject and the speech is benefits their listeners.

After they have researched the audience and their subject they  consider the type of speech they are going to make. Are they going to:

(a)    impart information;
(b)    persuade;
(c)    inspire;
(d)    make an after-dinner speech which might well incorporate all three, or perhaps just be something in a lighter vein ?

The above, in the main, covers the majority of speeches.

Impart information
This comes very close to a lecture. However, many speakers do have to impart information so that listeners can form their own judgments. For example, a shop steward talking to the men in his union about the new rates is imparting information. A sales mana¬ger at a conference imparts information. A technician, talking about the technical aspects of his work, imparts information . . .
In a speech of this kind, some important points must be remembered.

(a) Don’t try to cram years of experience into twenty minutes. Preferably, take one aspect of your subject and deal with that thoroughly.
(b) You must be ruthless, and cut and cut. We often elaborate merely to show how able we are. Keep to your time-table, and leave the audience wanting more information. Better that than that the speech should fail because the audience has heard everything and under¬stood nothing.
(c)    Don’t talk over the heads of the audience to prove your ability. Only deal with intricate technicalities if the audience understands
them.
I once heard a speaker talking in public on aero¬dynamics and not half a dozen people in the audience knew what he was talking about. He could have sim¬plified matters considerably and cut out many words which only experts understand, or he could have re¬fused to speak to an audience not made up of aero¬dynamic engineers.
(d)    An effective speaker makes every point clear. If you feel that you have not done so, you can repeat a part of your speech, but word it differently.
(e)    However involved their subject may be, an effective speaker is not as dry as dust. They make their speech interesting. Anecdotes can be told to liven up the most difficult of subjects.
(ƒ) An effect speaker will summarize their main points both during the speech and at the end of the speech.

An effective speaker is able to speak with confidence when imparting information because they are delivering the speech for the benefit of the audience, not to impress them with their knowledge. They are providing worthwhile content.

In my next posts I will cover further the next 3 types of speeches.

To be able to speak with confidence in public speaking is much easier when you know your subject and can give the audience what they want. This knowledge comes from;

1.From your own experiences

2. Researching other sources such as newspapers, the internet etc.

3. Asking questtions

Audiences like to hear stories about themselves. They also like to hear their own names mentioned.

In the new building for a golf club example introduced in part 1 you could;-

Ask the members about their experiences in raising money to support the club’s activities. Ask the grounds­man to tell you some stories about how the ground was developed. Try to find stories of determination which have resulted in the building being built in spite of difficulties.

After this work has been completed you will have dozens of facts around which you can build your speech.

Now prune. Discard all those facts which you find you can do without — duplicate stories — historical facts which are of little interest to the audience; these must be abandoned to enhance the value of the one histori­cal fact that is worth talking about. Remember now, you are planning your speech step by step, and if you keep to the steps you can’t go wrong.

So far, therefore, you have learned that a speech is an accumulation of facts, either thought out for your­self or found out from others. Having obtained this information, you have the framework of your speech.

You now have a good foundation to build your speech on. One of the keys to enable a speaker to speak with confidence is having this knowledge of the audience. The confidence to prepare and deliver an effective speech is based upon understanding the topic and the wants of your audience.

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.

Another source of material is the written word. The effective public speaker broadens his understanding by extensive reading. He keeps his storehouse from becoming lopsided by digesting editorials, news columns, sports pages, and even the comic strips. By reading, he can mull over the material and what he reads has more time to register than the things he hears. A further source of material covers the broad field of luncheon meetings, dinners, banquets, the theatre, concerts, lectures, and regular radio and TV pro¬grams covering current events.

The outcome of any or all of these is your own analytical and imaginative thinking in reviewing the experiences you have had and the things you have read, heard and seen.

In my previous post on effective speech building I gave the example of the golf club= to follow on that example your research phrase for the golf club could cover:

Can you dig up some little-known historical fact about the club? It isn’t always a good thing to give past history, but on this occasion all the listeners will want to hear how the club achieved success. When was the old clubhouse first built? How was it built? Did the members of the club put it up with their own hands?
Visit the offices of the local newspaper. Ask to be allowed to look through the back files. You may well be able to impart some information to the audience which may not be known even by the oldest inhabitant.

My next post will cover the asking questions step.

You have been asked to speak. You like the subject and can help the audience. To build your speech effectively the first three steps for you to take are:

1.    Think about it for several days.
2.    Research.
3.    Ask questions.

Think about it for several days (but not too many days)

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 in¬cidents and now you can extend those conversations to a larger audience.

By simply thinking around a subject for several days, ideas will come to you which you will never find in a book. Let us take a simple example:

Although you have only lived in your district for a few years, you have won respect during that time, and have been invited to give the first speech at the open¬ing of the golf club’s new building.

First you have to think about it. What was the first tournament you saw? Did anything happen then which might be of interest to anyone? Can you call to mind some unexpected event which took place while the building was being built? Who has played the largest part in the success of the venture? Can you tell about his drive and energy?

Don’t think about what other people have told you at this stage. Just use your own knowledge of the club, the players, and how the clubhouse was built. Keep your notebook handy, and jot down all the interesting points as you think of them.

It is important to effective public speaking that you can speak confidently about your subject. Your personal experiences help immensely in this area because you know these and will have spoken about them previously in private conversation. You are merely expanding the conversation to a larger audience.

Steps 2 and 3 will be covered in my next posts on building a speech step by step

Speaking with confidence is very important to being truly effective in your personal and business life. Acquiring skills in public speaking can also help in gaining confidence in day to day conversation.
However, there is a stumbling block for many of us. It is the fear of public speaking. But in overcoming that fear it helps with our everyday communications, such as speaking to groups, presenting at work, social gatherings, family discussions, interviews etc.
The skills attained from public speaking such as preparing your speech and presenting in a clear and effective way are the same skills required to being effective in other speaking situations.
Speaking with confidence comes from making the decision to make the first step. The first step need only be brief, you may only give your name and position or something similar and the first bud of confidence will appear. With careful nurture that first bud will bloom into a truly confident speaker.
I have made a number of recent posts on how to speak with confidence:
How to use your voice to speak with confidence
How to use your body language to convey confidence
The importance of preparation and preparation in confident public speaking

Eric Dana Hansen in a comment to my post on how preparation and practice build confidence made a great suggestion on how meeting the audience before you speak can help with overcoming the nerves.
Nerves, jitters or fear felt about speaking in public probably never goes completely away. This is a good thing! As many experienced speakers mention the feeling before they start to speak. However, the feeling is usually not as strong and they use it s a motivation to deliver their best.
Speaking with confidence comes from doing, practicing, preparing and learning the techniques of confident and effective speaking. Most people have the ability within them to become confident public speakers and in conversation. It starts with the decision to get started.

For further information on speaking with confidence please visit http://www.SelfConfidentSpeaking.com to recieve a free preview of The Art Of Great Conversation

Your voice is vital to the success of the delivery of your speech. When “nerves” come into play there is a tendency to talk too fast, too quietly and your voice to be high pitched.
Before you start take a few deep breaths to steady the nerves, smile and look up and out at your audience. Adopt a posture as described in my previous post on speaking with confidence. The posture conveys confidence and it helps you to feel more confident and this will be reflected in your voice.
Start out slowly, but not too slowly that it drags. Talk in a conversational manner as you would a friend in conversation. Enunciate clearly but don’t be too precise.
To help in the first few moments when you feel the pressure, have your first few lines memorized, so you don’t have to think too much while you get going.
There are other voice bad habits that can detract from effective public speaking, such as a monotonous drone, nasal twang, a strident voice etc. To discover if you have any of these record yourself while speaking and work on improving any that you find.
Almost all of us have the makings of a good voice if we take the time to improve the quality of it.
Many voice faults (including those caused by nerves) can be remedied by reading aloud. Put feeling into the reading aloud practice, reflecting the emotion conveyed by the words, experiment with words that convey hatred and compare it with words that convey love and compassion.
By using deep breathing to relax, taking a positive confident stance, committing the first few lines of your speech to memory and starting out slow your voice will be steady and convey confidence to the audience. You will be on your way to speaking with confidence.
Practicing reading aloud a variety of materials with feeling will help remedy most faults and help you become a more effective speaker in public speaking and private conversation.

Experiencing the jitters about public speaking (or any important occasion) is perfectly normal. We all want to do our best.  Effective speakers have learnt to use the nerves to spur them on to be their best and speak with confidence.
In my first post in the series on How to Speak With Confidence I went through the actions to take before your speak to build self-confidence through the choice of topic, careful preparation and thorough practice.
In this section I am going to run through the actions that you can take on stage to act confident and convey that confidence to the audience.
When it is your time to speak, walk with purpose to the spot where you are to talk from.  Stand up straight and tall, with your feet slightly apart. Distribute you weight evenly on both feet. Your hands should hang at your sides in a natural fashion when you are not using them.  Look out at your audience, smile, pause for a few seconds before you begin. While you pause briefly take a few deep breaths to relax and calm any nerves.
Maintain eye contact with your audience. Each section of the audience should get about the same amount of attention. I know this is difficult, because of what you might see. Force yourself to look at them and you will discover that there was no reason not to.
Your movement and gestures should be made with purpose and be natural. Use both movement and gestures to support and emphasize the point you are making.  Up and out is the best way to think about gestures. They need to be seen by all the audience. Avoid any distracting gestures such as fidgeting or scratching. Let your gestures and movement be a natural expression of you and what you are talking about.
Your appearance should be neat and tidy and appropriate for the occasion. As a general rule do not wear any eccentric apparel. It is your ideas you have come to convey and you do not want your dress to distract from this.
Your facial expression should be relaxed and a natural expression of your personality. If you are sufficiently relaxed your face will naturally reflect your meaning and emotions without any conscious trying.
Confidence is best conveyed by being purposeful and natural while avoiding bad habits such as fidgeting, slouching etc. By using your body in a confident way it will help you to speak with confidence, i.e. to be confident, act confident.
To learn more about how to speak with confidence visit http://www.SelfConfidentSpeaking.com  to receive a free preview of The Art of Great Conversation

The fear of public speaking (nerves, jitters etc) is experienced by many of us. To speak with confidence does not come naturally to us especially when starting out (either in public speaking or present). Importantly it is not a fear we are born with. It has been learnt by us . It is therefore possible for all of us to overcome it. (It is more difficult for some than others, but it is possible).

For the majority, there are certain actions that can be taken prior to speaking that help to build confidence.

If you have the choice, speak on a topic you are interested in and have a good level of knowledge in. It is easier to speak about a topic the better you know it. You will have spoken about it in day to day conversation and you are merely extending that conversation.

Prepare the speech in detail. Write it out word for word, this will enable you to work through the speech and make sure your ideas are fully formed. Do some more research to fill in any gaps in your knowledge. Knowledge is power and more you know on your subject the more confident you will feel.

Confidence also comes from practice. Practice your speech as you can in the manner that you will be delivering it – memorized word for word, reading it aloud, or from notes etc. Practice in front of your friends so they can give you pointers. And if possible practice the speech in the room that you will deliver it. When you come to deliver it for real you will be in familiar surroundings.

The choice of topic, careful preparation and thorough practice will greatly assist you in being able to speak with confidence. In my next post I will discuss tips on platform performance that will convey to the audience that you are a confident public speaker and help settle the “nerves.”

Public speaking, more than any other human activity is learned by doing and improved by practice.  Taking every opportunity to speak in public will far outweigh any instruction in developing the skills and confidence. The way to develop self-confidence in public speaking is simply by speaking in public plus careful preparation.

Any person can become successful in public speaking by being natural, practicing and following certain rules. By working at it a speaker will become better. A little courage is needed to get started and ensure the talents are not lost to the world. The forest would lack music if only the birds that sang were those that were the best.

For a novice swimmer, the first swimming lesson requires summoning enough confidence to “give it a go.” There is many thousands of word written, about swimming or diving techniques. These mean nothing to the novice until the swimmer discovers that it is not the water they fear but themselves and he takes the plunge. The novice speaker is in the same situation, they will lack confidence until they realise that it is not the audience they fear but themselves.   

For more information on public speaking and conversation vist http://www.SelfConfidentSpeaking,com to claim a free preview of The  Art of Great Conversation

 Proficient public speaking requires comprehensive knowledge of the subject of your speaech. You may have perfectly pitched voice that is pleasing to the ear; be a master of delivery and have a great command of the English language, but despite all these attributes your performance still might be a flop if you are not thoroughly au fait with your subject.This lack of thorough subject knowledge is the rock that wrecks more public speakers’ ambitions than any other. Veterans of the after dinnercircuit 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.