Archive for the ‘Public Speaking’ Category

Emotional Public Speaking

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011
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Is your public speaking and your business presentations emotional? Or do you think emotion is unprofessional?

Just as a neat business letter has margins so does effective emotional speaking. Usually you will find threads of control. However these threads by no means turn out to be cables which choke out reasonable feeling. Many speakers, nevertheless, with regards to these analogies use only margins and cables. They talk as though their hearts were on holiday.
An additional cause of this tragedy may be because some adults believe that expressing any emotion is childish and immature, or that honest feeling will make them appear weak and ridiculous. So having been indoctrinated with this mindset for years, although they are tempted to express emotion from a speaker’s platform, they manfully suppress it.
But surely the millions of individuals who watch dramatic programs on Television every day, for example, indicates that emotion is popular and not to be feared. Feeling is natural, easy, and satisfying. What would remain if all feeling were removed from life? Life consists largely of the emotional experiences people have although some of those experiences may be as simple as the taste of ice cream.
When a speaker is willing to express freely the natural emotional content of his material his body will respond, also naturally, to the emotion. A twinkle in his eye, a smile, frown, nod of the head, lifting of an eyebrow, a shrug of the shoulders, shaking of a fist, opening of the hands, even a kick of the foot, or any one of many other overt actions might become a component of the speaking. Also small muscles that cannot be seen moving are contributing to the total speaking effect. In fact whenever a speaker willingly “lets his feelings show” he could make an extremely effective “speech without visibly moving a muscle!
But more likely most people who are honestly showing their feelings do use considerable overt bodily action. Obviously these movements ought to never be definitively planned, and as individuals walk in different manners, so will their physical expression of ideas differ.
For instance, each of five speakers may express “Get out of here!” in a different way. One may point a stern forefinger toward an imaginary door as he spoke. Another may make an open sweep with his hand, and the third may jerk a thumb over his shoulder toward a back door. The fourth speaker’s eyelids narrow as he slightly moves his head toward the door. The final speaker might stamp a foot and reach out as if he would choke anybody who refused to get out. There isn’t any 1 particular right way to express an emotion physically. Every speaker should feel deeply, then “do just what comes naturally.” But he should willingly do without restraining the doing.

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Logical Emotion Is Required

Saturday, April 16th, 2011
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Which is better logic or emotion for effective public speaking?

A few would-be speakers are basically emotionally collapsed while they keep hold of a stand or table whilst they mouth uninteresting platitudes that might even make their fond mothers sleepy.
Lots of people, frequently very intellectual ones, fear feeling, conceivably simply because they believe emotion might distort thinking or even exaggerate truth. This also might occur when logical thinking is side-lined whilst uncontrolled emotion takes over the field. How convincing is a real crackbrain screaming his propaganda in bughouse square, or, a quiet-spoken John Casper generating comments which merely reveal his opinionated ego?
Effective emotional speaking isn’t the excessive babbling of a distorted mind or subtle sarcasm from a warped personality. It’s not the worthless antics of a fanatic, but nor is it the stiff-backed pass-me-a-cold-weiner kind of mumbling the intelligentsia so often serves from a speaker’s platform.
Maybe if a devotee of this “dead on their heels” tribe could see himself as he truly is on the stage, or much better still, if he could sit in his own tormented audience and need to endure his
own tortured talk, he may determine to have mercy on his audience and do some thing about his dull speaking personality.
An additional typical attitude is that feeling has departed with the wind, that it belongs with the past, much less learned generations. Cold logic, the scientific technique, is all we require in this atomic age. “The thought will be the factor,” said an emotionally lazy college student lately. “Why, I envision Patrick Henry said ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ about as I’m saying it now.” (In a who-gives-a-hoot manner).
But based on history, “Henry arose with an unearthly fire burning in his eyes. He began somewhat calmly -but the smothered excitement began to play much more and much more upon his face, and thrill within the tones of his voice. The tendons of his neck stood out white and rigid like whipcords.”
And John Roane, a spectator, reported that when Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death,” he suited the action to the words by a blow upon the left breast with his right hand, which appeared to drive a dagger to his heart.
This speech was charged with intense feeling, but the whole subject material additionally indicates logical thinking along with a powerful appeal to reason. It discloses the mind and heart of a noble, honest, sincere statesman instead of a low cost politician having emotional fits to attract attention to himself.

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A Big Leaguer In Public Speaking

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
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Here is an example of using an interesting story about Harry Houdini for effective public speaking.

An illustration which specifically interests a speaker can be an effective one for him to use in a speech. Following, is a story about Harry Houdini which a speaker listened to and enjoyed: The great magician, Harry Houdini, pressed his nose against a window on a passenger coach, and looked anxiously for the truck that would bring his luggage from a local theater to the railway station. The conductor had shouted, “All aboard!” And it was time for the train to start out chugging away. “Please hold the train a few moments for my baggage,” said Houdini. “Nothing doing,” replied the conductor. “This train leaves on time.” “But you can’t start without my luggage!” cried the magician. . Oh, no?,The conductor thought in another way. He declared he couldn’t hold the train for anyone. “You can not leave without my luggage,” declared Houdini, a lot more determined than ever. He then rushed to the entrance and departed the coach! Passengers wondered what he would do – appeal to the station agent? Shortly word came back that a man had run down in front of the engine, flung his entire body all over the tracks, and grasped a rail so tightly nobody could pry him loose. They continued to wait for Houdini’s baggage! The speaker employed this story to illustrate how determined a person may be. An effective speaker chooses his material with consideration, just as a big league baseball player thoroughly selects a bat. Babe Ruth would certainly never have become the home run king if he had batted with a broom handle. In the same way, a speaker will never become a “big leaguer” on the platform if he uses weak, unexciting material. Being truly interesting calls for more time and effort than being unexciting. But definitely the results warrant the effort and time. An able speaker is consistently watchful for unusually interesting material and that he doesn’t wait to use it freely. Instead of using poor stories which incite just a sleepy “so what?” from listeners, he chooses material that induces an involuntary “WHAT! SO?” and expresses it in a way which causes listeners to say, “More – please reveal more!”

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Public Speaking And Sport

Sunday, April 10th, 2011
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The spectators at a game of basketball game can be transfixed by it or sometimes they couldn’t care about the outcome.

Similar situations may define speaker-audience relationships. Upon one occasion the speaker is deeply enthusiastic about making points and discussing them with his listeners. Listeners respond to his ideas. They listen attentively as they do not wish to miss a thing he says. They have fun at his humor, feel sad when he relates a heartbreaking story, or tingle with anticipation as the speaker’s material and attitude directs.
The feeling goes “round and round.” From speaker to audience, returning to the speaker, also, the spirit of empathy becomes stronger because individuals in the audience catch it from one another. George M. Cohan designated this tendency for emotion to spread, “the contagion of emotion.” When an audience has shared interests, in keeping with the speaker’s, and when an auditorium is well-filled with people sitting shoulder to shoulder, empathy is far more likely to happen than when a speaker is failing to effect springs of interest or when there are wide-open spaces between dispersed listeners.
When mutual empathy is being experienced by a speaker and an audience a definite physical effect is clear in both. Listeners may even lean forward with wide eyes and parted lips when the speaker pictures a thrilling event. They’re alert physically and mentally, in a state of readiness to receive every idea.
The speaker is likewise alert, fully alive and so on fire with ideas and feelings. Physically he is just like an professional shortstop all set and eager to pounce upon any ball that comes in his direction. Observe a ball player whose spirit is completely in the game. He is not standing listlessly or dejected like a commuter who has just missed his train. Neither is he stargazing or daydreaming about last night’s date. Alertly he is on his toes desperate to contribute his entire self for triumph.
Such an athlete is not stiff or tense like a totem pole or collapsed like an exhausted tap dancer. He is relaxed but his condition is a relaxation of readiness rather than the relaxation of total unconcern. He has got muscle “tone”, the sort of relaxed alertness a speaker needs. There is tremendous gap between being relaxed and collapsed!

My next post we’ll see what happens when the speaker appears not to care.

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Where Can You Get Stories For Public Speaking?

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
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What stories do you tell when you are public speaking? And where do you get them from?

Certainly newspapers are just one source of material for speeches. Countless magazines and books are stuffed with human interest stories. Literature, history,as well as biography are fertile fields. A speaker should read plenty of biographies, searching for human interest to assist his speech subject. The principle of selection is significantly the same regardless of the source. Have a preference for material that puts a man rather than a bird in the tree, the kind that is unusual, but quite credible. Seek out real human interest, unusual action, drama, or suspense.
Speakers ought to avoid old chestnuts which have been “cracked” too often.
Not too long ago during a public speaking class, for examplea speaker used Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the new world to illustrate courage and determination. Listeners seemed to be uninterested, probably since they had heard this particular story so frequently it had grown to be trite. The tale of Fridtjof Nansen’s battle for three years on the ice in search of the North Pole, or Mary Lyon’s determination to build a school for women would have been just as remarkable plus more fascinating because, although these stories are old, they are not nearly so well-known as Columbus’ ordeals. The average listener has not heard them from the first grade to the current moment. So many people have talked about Columbus! He needs a rest.
Effective speech material is a lot like gold -when you find it. A chat, a sign on the highway, a joke overheard, anything at all read or heard, or illustrations other speakers use can be great ideas which can be used in other speeches.

I hope this short post has got you thinking about they types of stories to relate when public speaking. If you want to kept up to date with tips and techniques for confident public speaking please enter your details and receive them direct to your inbox.