Art Of Great Speaking

Being able to speak well in conversation and public speaking are  top reasons for advancement in a career.  Being skillful in speaking gives your career a big boost to getting to the top of your field.

Consider many of the people at the top of their field and their speaking skills have helped them enormously – such as Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet and Oprah Winfrey. Here is a post that shows how Warren Buffet used public speaking to further his career: Warren Buffet And Public Speaking

Public speakers are looked upon as leaders. The people who lead a field  are men who speak with confidence and fluency. More people have talked themselves into leadership than any other skills combined. Recently, the speaking talents of a young Senator from Illinois elevated him to the top job in the world today.

But many people fear speaking up and so this hinder their advancement in their careers or even stalls it. Being able to speak well and persuasively is not the only skill needed for promotion but without it you can be overlooked for the raise or job you deserve or being ignored by your boss.

Many people have been able to go from being poor speakers to being effective communicators to groups of any size. They have managed to overcome their fears of public speaking or speaking up in other situations. Others have managed to overcome stammers, e.g. Dan Kennedy, King George VI, Demosthenes, to be effective in public speaking.

To find out more about being effective in public speaking and conversation to help you advance your career and more, check out The Art Of Great Conversation

Successful public speaking today is like private conversation with more people present. The objective is to successfully convey your ideas to your listeners. The ideas and message being conveyed are of the important thing,  it is no longer a fine art to be struggled with and mastered by only a few talented individuals.

Picture the situation where 2 people are in conversation and one person is talking and the other is listening. Other people are attracted to the conversation and the person talking is now speaking to a group, in effect the person is now effectively speaking in public.The speaker will raise their voice so they can be heard but will continue in a conversational tone which is the most effective way to present.

With public speaking really being private conversation with more people involved it is now “easier” for the ordinary person to become an effective speaker. The only real difference between the two is that there is less interaction with the listeners in public speaking than in private conversation.

In the book The Art Of Great Conversation there is a great quote that indicates how related public speaking and private conversation. The quote is “The same instincts that make men turn and listen to the articulate individual in private conversation, make them turn and listen to public speakers.”  An implication of this is that by improving skills in public speaking it improves performance in day to day conversation and other speaking interactions.

Also the skills and knowledge attained through public speaking can be practiced in private conversation and vice versa. For example if you are to present on guinea pig care, you could discuss guinea pig care in day to day conversation. In this way when you are delivering your speech you are merely extending your conversation on the topic. Secondly, you could try out some of the anecdotes or stories you have so you get used to telling them and you also can gauge reaction to them. Thirdly, if you have been working on the sound of your voice you can use day to day conversation to listen to your voice to note improvement and any areas that may need some more work.

Public speaking and private conversation are closely related and by developing your skills in one area it is possible to quickly apply them to the other and experience improvement.

Please leave your thoughts in the comment box below, I would welcome you thoughts. Thank you.

Public speaking can be considered as conversation with more than an audience of one. The only other difference is that there is less interaction with the listeners.

On the basis that public speaking is common conversation then the speech is the thing – not the speaker.  In the same way the play is the thing not the players (Thanks William Shakespeare)

Over the next few days I will write a series of blogs on speech writing. First up:-

Selecting A Topic.

How do you select a subject for you speech?

The determining factors will be;-

What are you familar with? What do you know from experience?

Can you speak confidently on the subject?

Is the subject relevant? Timely?

Can you make the subject interesting to your audience? Not just for yourself. The speech should fit the group that is being presented to.

Keep your audience in mind.

Once you have spent an appropriate amount of time selecting your topic get on with the preparation of the speech. Do not procrastinate over it.

The topic you select will determine how you present it.

For more public speaking tip and conversation tips please visit http://www.SelfConfidentSpeaking.com and claim a free preview of The Art of Great Conversation

Private conversation and public speaking are very similar. The only difference is that in a speech there is no exchange of remarks. Apart from that a speech is conversation with more than one person listening. For example when a man or woman is speaking to one person and another joins them. More people join the group and as it grows the conversationalist is now making a speech. He will have raised his voice so that all can hear him and the most effective style for the speaker is to retain the informal manner.

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