Art Of Great Speaking

How do you make public speaking interesting? It’s how you use words and the pictures you paint with them.

Following on from my previous post here are some more examples of how to paint pictures:-

Using names, dates, and places also make a talk authentic. It impresses audiences with the fact that the speaker is really telling the truth.
Using colorful similes is another way to make speaking vivid and interesting. The word, simile, may be a first cousin to similar It really means word pictures which show how things, people, or ideas are alike or how they differ. These pictures may be exaggerated. This helps make speaking clear, often amusing, and usually interesting.
A speaker might say, “That would be hard to do.” Or he
could say, “That would be as difficult as trying to dam Niagara Falls with cobwebs.” The first statement is foggy. The second is as clear as an August sunbeam.
To say, “His manner was cold,” tells something. But to say “His manner was as cold as a mother-in-law’s kiss,” tells more. A speaker could say, “He walked slowly, and with a swagger,” or he could say, “He walked like a cowboy on vacation.”
One could say, “She was excited.” Or, “She was as excited as an old maid after a bedbug on a hot June night.”
A teacher of speech who encourages his students to create or collect apt similes contributed the following as a few of the hundreds assembled by the students:
Flat as a soup sandwich.
Empty as a gigolo’s promise.
As unplanned as a hiccup.
As popular as prohibition in Milwaukee.
His mouth felt as if a Russian army had walked through it.
Her hat always looked as if it had made a forced landing upon
her head.
She charged into the room with her four children like a bomber
escorted by fighters.
She made as much sense as a tailor in a nudist camp.
Busy as a politician trying to save both his faces.
The ball slipped between his legs, like a pig dipped in lard.
His dull past was like a bucket of ashes.
White and beautiful as the snow looks before you  think of
shoveling it.
Slick” as a buttered bullfrog.
His   head   looked  like   a  white  watermelon   gleaming  in   the
sunlight.
About as fast as a feather sinking in syrup.
Innocent as a girl on her first day at kindergarten.
She looked like warmed-over death.
He shook like a shirt in a hurricane.

I’ve got some more similes to follow in my next post to help you in creating your picture talk for you next public speaking engagement or presentation.

Effective public speaking is about keeping your audience’s attention.

Do you paint pictures with your words or do you leave your listeners in a verbal fog?

An effective speaker puts interesting, picture-making details into his stories. He uses specific, concrete words that create vivid images rather than a blur of mental fog.
Some speakers err by talking about what happened rather than picturing it happening.
A speaker could say, “He was emotionally disturbed when he heard that his mother had passed away.” Or this event could be pictured: “The smile faded from young Bill Day’s face as lie held the telephone receiver to his ear and heard the broken voice of his father calling long distance. His fingers tightened vice-like on the receiver, and blood rushed to his head as he listened breathlessly to the saddest news he had ever heard — a head-on collision on the highway. Now the receiver felt like lead in his limp hand. It seemed all the strength had been suddenly drained from his body. With his free hand he grasped the telephone to keep from sinking to the floor. Tears coursed down the youthful lines of his face because his mother had been driving one of the automobiles in that fatal crash.”
Consider this statement, “An animal crossed the road for a serious purpose.” What kind of mental picture do these words paint? Does the listener see a dog, cat, elephant, horse, or any one of a hundred other animals? How did the animal cross the road, quickly, slowly, cautiously? Was the road a wide highway, a dirt road, a narrow trail? And what really was the serious purpose?
Such speaking blurs the mental film. It is like trying to see a drive-in movie at Hoboken through, a London fog. But when the speaker says what he really means, “A wildcat leaped across the mountain path to pounce upon a lazy jackrabbit,” he paints a verbal masterpiece.

I’ll post more about this in coming weeks about using words for effective pulbic 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

As in conversation, there are different styles of public speaking. It is getting the balance right that is most important between them.
A conversation may be stiff and formal. Or it may be relaxed and informal. This latter condition is more effective in a public speaking situation.
A speaker who holds himself aloof, or “buttons himself up” from an audience does not communicate freely with his listeners. They feel he is holding back, not sharing his complete self. An atmosphere of restraint and reserve builds at least a partial barrier between audience and speaker. Persuasion is delayed, often it is impossible, when a speaker puts up such a barrier.
The very nature of effective persuasion necessitates a close, friendly feeling between listener and speaker. How can a listener get close to a speaker who isolates himself with extreme formality or indifference?
A style of speaking may reveal a precise manner which causes listeners to feel the speaker really despises the “common herd,” and that speaking to them is a trial for him. Any tendency to talk down to an audience or evidence that a speaker feels he is superior to other people detracts from his persuasiveness. An extremely particular person who must be sure that every hair on his head is just so-so before he speaks may cause listeners to wish
they could mess up his hair.
On the other hand, an extremely careless or sloppy person will probably not create a persuasive influence. Informality need never go to seed. But a speaker who leans in that direction probably will be more interesting, popular, and persuasive, than one whose manner dares listeners to come near him.

As with much to do with public speaking the above is only general guidance because it depends on the audience. You also need to consider what will work best in the situation and with your audience to help determine the most effective public speaking style.

The ability to transfer your emotions and feelings to your audience is key to being more persuasive in your public speaking.

When a speaker is intensely interested in his subject and has a burning desire to share his ideas and feelings with an audience, an emotional condition which psychologists call empathy usually occurs.
Empathy means a direct, complete communication of one’s thoughts and feelings into another person or persons. A contagious emotional effect from the speaker is necessary before this type of communication can occur. Of course a speaker must have a large supply of sincere feeling himself before he can hope to transmit it to other people. Giving someone the measles without having the disease yourself would be difficult. Similarly how could a speaker expect to share something with an audience which he doesn’t have himself? That would be just as reasonable as one child with empty hands saying to another, “Here, share my candy.”
Notice how empathy works at a local high school basketball game. Jasper, an old rival, is playing the home team, Hunting-burg. The teams are evenly matched. The score see-saws. All the players are intensely interested in winning. Even when a player
shoots a foul he may try to guide the ball into the goal after it has left his hands! ,
Fans in the stands watch the ball. They are almost riding with it. They lean forward and watch breathlessly as the ball, a victim of gravity, hangs momentarily on the hoop.
It falls in! Ardent home fans yell, applaud, throw up their hands gleefully, or even jump up and down for joy.
If the ball rolls out, the fans will still react, but in a different manner. Groans, moans, frowns, and various gestures of disgust become evident. But five seconds later they’re “heart over head” for the home team again. Empathy exists because the players and the fans are thoroughly living every moment o£ the game. The fans catch the spirit of the players, and the players in turn may be inspired by the fans. As in any type of effective emotional communication it is a two-way process.
Now picture another situation. A professional basketball team is playing the home boys. It soon becomes evident to the local fans that their team cannot even come close to winning.
The score is 43 to 18. The home team, in spirit, has given up because they are convinced they cannot win. The professional team, being so far ahead is simply coasting. Their ability is not even challenged. No one really has a deep interest in the game. So empathy, which was a vivid reality when the two high school teams played, is now completely missing.

My next post will provide some more explanation how you can use empathy to persuade your audience in public speaking.