My father in law just gave my wife and I one of those rubber wrist bands–Like the Lance Armstrong “Live Strong” ones of a few years ago.
This one is purple and has a whole different purpose!
The idea is to use it as a queuing device to quit complaining, sniveling, and whining about life–Every time you complain, you must snap or change the band to the other arm.
My wristband is already stretched out and worn….Boo Hoo/Waa Waa!
The results are AWESOME….and we are having a ball “catching” both ourselves and each other complaining.
I see this working on the same Toastmaster Principle of beginning to catch your own and others non-fluencies such as “um”s, “and’s”, ”uh’s”, and “ya knows”.
Funny how something this simple can break a poisonous habit of gossip, negativity, and permeating pessimism.
Go for it….this a brilliant and easy way to make a fundamental life change for the New Year!
For many, public speaking is high on their list of biggest fears. In the scheme of things, that’s silly, so utilize these CEO grade tactics and pretty soon you’ll be an orator only afraid of death, taxes, and clowns.
Which is more frightening to you: death or public speaking? Many people have difficulty choosing between the two. Perhaps because they fear that public speaking could possibly lead to their death while death only very rarely ever leads to public speaking.
But public speaking isn’t something to be afraid of, in fact, it is an amazing opportunity. You get the chance to impress whole groups of people that you rarely work with all at once. Being an effective public speaker is one of the best ways to show your coworkers and bosses that you know what you are doing and can get it done. Still, this is little comfort to some in getting over their stage fright. If you count yourself among these terrified souls, relax, take a deep breath, and keep reading. You will find that public speaking is a far more manageable thing than you have feared all these years.
Mental Approach
Allow me to let you in on a dirty little secret, everyone gets stage fright. Even the most talented and incredible performers on the planet get nervous. To get over it they follow many of the rules that I’ll list below and most importantly they realize one very important truth: the audience wants to listen to them.
In social settings the audience is looking to be entertained, in professional settings they want to learn. The premise is the same in both and while one is usually more formal than the other the mental approach is also very much the same. When you get up there in front of a boardroom or classroom or any room full of people try think of it as though they are all your “fans.” It’s easier to talk to people when you know that they like you. Once you realize that those people you are terrified to talk in front of want you to succeed it takes a lot of the pressure off.
Another important point that many people overlook is to make sure that you remember that nerves go both ways when you are speaking. Often when you look people directly in the eyes you can make them uncomfortable (and if you are already nervous you may forget what you’re talking about). A good trick if the setting is not too intimate is to look at everyone’s forehead, this creates the illusion of eye contact without the discomfort.
Make sure not to over-analyze whatever you are going to be presenting. People have a terrible habit of psyching themselves out when it comes to public speaking because they build it up to be so much more difficult in their minds than it actually is. A sure fire way to forget your lines on stage is to concentrate too hard on what you are saying. Try to follow what you say as naturally as possible and always try to be thinking about what your next point is going to be.
Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse!
Those three words are the true and only way to give a good presentation of any kind. Make sure you know your material as thoroughly as possible; you never know when your boss is going to challenge you with a tough question. There are many good ways to rehearse speeches and presentations. Cue cards are a very common choice, but people often get caught using them as a crutch. If you decide to use cue cards try to practice with them enough that you don’t actually need them when it comes for the real thing and if you absolutely must have them only write brief notes on them to remind you of your main topics and points.
DO NOT write down your speech word for word on anything that you will be using in your presentation, it can make things very boring for the audience and, worst of all, makes it seem like you didn’t rehearse. Another method of rehearsing (and my personal favorite) is using a voice recorder. Digital recorders are great for this; they are cheap and can be found at any electronics store. It can make the process a little more time consuming because you need to listen to your playback but I find it helps memorize your points faster and there is the enormous advantage of being able to hear yourself; letting you know what sounds good and what doesn’t. As you begin to get your points down you will find the recorder will help you make your delivery more creative and interesting, something that will bring your presentation to the next level.
Speak to Your Audience
You can break down public speaking into three different levels: poor, direct, and engaging. The first, poor, is when you stutter a lot, forget what you are going to say, all the things you generally should be able to be avoid if you rehearse enough. Direct speaking is better but it is just the facts and even if you deliver it with energy it can often bore or even worse make your audience uncomfortable.
Your ultimate goal is to be able to cross over into the realm of an engaging public speaker and the first step to making that move is relating to the audience you are speaking to. When a stand up comic performs in front of a bunch of college kids his material is going to be different than when he does Late Night at the Apollo. The same principle applies for you. If you are presenting to your peers whom you work with frequently, feel free to be a little more casual. That doesn’t mean you should tighten up when you are in a board room full of your superiors, in fact, try to learn a little bit about them. If they are big sports fans or family oriented try and work it in some how. If you can find any little bit of something they can personally relate to in your presentation it will go a long way not only for those listening but being impressing them as well.
Once you start to engage your audience they will begin to loosen up and become as comfortable with you as you are with them. Another nice trick is to try and put a well placed joke near the beginning of your presentation somewhere. Regardless of the setting a little humor does a few very good things: it lightens the mood and the pressure, shows that people are listening, gets them to listen closer, and further demonstrates your impeccable people skills to the big wigs in the room.
Be Passionate
Now, you might really have to work at this one. It isn’t always easy to find what is exciting about sales figures and term profits but if you can master this step, the realm of public speaking will be yours for the taking. Ever notice how much you have to say about something when you are really angry, or when someone starts talking about your favorite band? Well, that is how you want to be able to talk when you are giving a speech: freely. Try to find something unique about at least one or two of your topics that you can pause and give special attention to during your presentation. You can’t fake true passion and everyone in the room will notice when they see it.
Try not to get so excited you forget your talking points or lose your composure but you will find that your passion is contagious and if people believe your attitude they will start to get excited about what you are sharing with them. That is how you get from “Hey, that presentation yesterday wasn’t bad” to “Hey, that presentation Mark gave on Voodoo Economics was totally incredible!”
Once you are able to find something in your presentation to be passionate about the whole of your subject gains new life. Everything is easier to remember because you are building around something, you worry less, and you might even start to enjoy the whole process.
Do you want to inspire people? Do you have a burning desire to share your life experiences and tell your stories so that other people can benefit? If so, there are a number of things to consider when writing an inspiring speech.
This last summer I was inspired by what I witnessed at the Beijing Olympics. As the drama unfolded around Michael Phelps’ quest for eight gold medals, I found myself relating to his family watching from the stands. I couldn’t relate to Michael and his mind-blowing accomplishments, but I could relate to the emotions that his family was experiencing: the pride and elation and love.
The reason I could relate to his family was because day after day the network kept telling us the story of his childhood. It was like being invited into his home and sitting on the couch watching home movies and going through family albums. By the time he won his eighth gold medal, I was rooting for him as if I was family. He became my surrogate child and when his mom cried, so did I. His accomplishment was inspiring because I felt I was a part of it.
Make Your Story Their Story
In an inspiring speech, you want to bring people into your experience. They should feel as if they are part of what you are talking about. You want to connect your story to their story. If you don’t make this connection, your speech can be interpreted as indulgent and preachy.
Some of the clients who come to me for coaching on their motivational speeches have amazing stories. Similar to my experience with Michael Phelps, their accomplishments are often so far from my reality that I can’t relate to the accomplishment. However, though I may not be able to relate to climbing Mt. Everest or being a 3-time world champion sportsman, if their story is told well, I can relate to their human experience, and to the drama of their inner struggle, challenge, disappointment or victory.
Reveal Your Inner Struggle
Your story comes alive for me when you reveal your inner struggle. It doesn’t matter what your story is about; climbing a mountain, adopting a child or making a big sale, I can relate to your inner struggle more than to your specific accomplishments. You must be willing to share your private thoughts and feelings in order for me to connect. That means you have to move beyond telling me what happened, to letting me feel your emotions and share in your thought process.
Get Emotional
Your inspiring speech may contain twenty or thirty thousand words but it will fall flat if it doesn’t contain genuine emotion. Words are interesting. Emotions are powerful. It’s not enough for you to tell me stories and share insights. It is the emotional context, shown and experienced rather than narrated, that makes you inspiring. You need to get emotional while you are speaking.
Michael Phelps was emotional and we saw it. His family members were emotional and we saw it. And because I felt that emotion, I connected to the story that was being told. I got hooked. I call that an “empathetic experience.”
Build a Bridge
Your personal experience gives you credibility as a speaker. I don’t care how many books you’ve read or what you’ve learned from your research, I want to know what you know from experience. Once you’ve shared your experience by telling me your stories and giving me examples to support your points, you then need to build a bridge from your experience to my experience.
Hey You! Yeah You!
The way you build a bridge and make your speech more inspiring, is by talking directly to me. Use the word “you” and I know you are talking to me. You make it personal to me by asking me questions like, “what about you?, how about you?, when will you…?” rather than asking “what about us?, how about us?, when will we…?” If you use words like “we” and “us”, they are general and I can pretend you are not talking to me. If you make a point and then say, “This is what I accomplished and you can do this too,” I get inspired. The word YOU is incredibly powerful. Use it.
Talk to One Person at a Time
Every member of your audience is hearing you one-on-one. They are listening to what you say and personalizing it based on their life at that moment in time. It is very immediate for them. Consider the difference between speaking to the “whole audience” versus speaking to that lady in the third row with the glasses, and then talking to the gentleman wearing the striped shirt, etc. What would it be like if you were talking to your friend? How would you speak to a friend?
Tone It Down
Have you ever seen a motivational speaker that said all the right things but failed to connect? They use a big voice and a big smile, but lack authenticity. They are the cliché motivational speaker that gives motivational speakers a bad name. In working with hundreds of speakers, I’ve found that it has a lot to do with vocal and emotional tone. Get real. Tone it down.
Just Talk to Me
A woman in a recent Story Theater Retreat came to me with one goal: to get real. Her story was fine, her heart and mind were in the right place, but she was stuck in “speaker” mode. She was having one heck of a time toning it down and just being her authentic self. Somehow she had gotten the message that she had to pump it up to be motivational and inspiring. Every time she got up to speak she’d go into “speaker” mode, and every time I reminded her to ‘just talk to me.”
It took multiple reminders before she finally relaxed into herself and stopped pushing. In the end, she was more inspiring when she toned it down and spoke naturally than she was when she came in the door. She accomplished her goal. She got real.
Intimacy is the Key to an Inspiring Speech
As you sit down to write your speech, stand up! Walk away from the computer. Take a walk with a pad of paper or a voice recorder. Go to a coffee shop with a friend and talk about what you believe. Listen for your natural cadence. Learn to write in your own voice. Think about what you’d say to a friend who is in pain. How would you counsel someone you care about? How would it sound? Be aware of the intimacy in your voice based on the emotion you are feeling. Write your speech with the intention of talking to one person at a time.
The Architecture
I just spent two days working with an aspiring speaker on his keynote. We made hundreds of strategic choices. And over and over again he kept commenting on how complex the design phase was, what I call the architecture of the speech. Without the proper architecture – the right ingredients organized in the right sequence – your speech won’t hold together. Rather than being easy for the audience to follow, it will jerk forward like a car in desperate need of a tune up.
Don’t simply write your speech; design it. How will the pieces hold together? Where will they intersect?
You can write an inspiring speech. You can be an inspiring speaker. Your life and your stories can inspire people. Don’t wait. Start writing your inspiring speech today.
Your elevator speech is arguably the most important piece of public speaking you’ll ever do.
It’s key, because it’s a short description you could give about your company in the time it takes to ride an elevator. It must be…
Brief
Easily understood
Memorable
The key here is to craft a clear and memorable speech.
The other key is to have it ready, memorable, memorized, clear, and concise.
It takes some decision-making to decide what to leave in and what to take out of your elevator pitch. The biggest mistake is to take too literally the question ” what do you do?”…. then try to answer that question in too much detail.
Your elevator pitch must be short, brief and should touch very briefly on the products and services you sell and what market you serve, as well as your competitive advantage. This USP, or unique selling point, should describe briefly what one unique thing your company does better than anyone else.
So go home and sit down and craft your elevator pitch. That way you’ll be completely prepared the next time someone asks you…” what do you do?”
When a person asks you, “What do you do?” do you know what to say back? Do you have an Elevator Speech prepared for just such an occasion?
An Elevator Speech is a short, concise speech that you can use to answer just such a question. It is called an Elevator Speech because it is a description of your company that takes the same about of time as riding an elevator. It is arguably the most important speech you should have prepared as there will be many times in your day that you will only have a short amount of time to explain to someone what you do or what your company does.
There are three things to remember when crafting your Elevator Speech: make it brief, make it easily understood and make it memorable.
It takes time and good decision making when crafting your Elevator Speech. One of the biggest pit falls is taking the question, “What do you do?” too literally. This eventually makes you add too much detail, which ultimately makes the speech too long and no longer able to be used on an elevator ride!
Being brief is the best thing you can do. Plus, being brief also makes it easier for you to memorize, making the speech come out smoothly and unrehearsed. Think about leaving a flavor in the person’s mouth that will make them come back for more. Touch on the products and services that you sell, what market you serve and your competitive advantage, but don’t give too much away. If you hit a nerve, they’ll come back. End with your Unique Selling Point, or USP, which should describe the one unique thing your company does better than anyone else. And, of course, always have a business card to hand to them just as the elevator doors are opening!
Don’t let another day go by without having your Elevator Speech ready. Write it, review it and practice it on friends or family. That way, you’ll be ready the next time the person next to you asks, “So, what do you do?”
The following is an outline of my award-winning Toastmasters International Speech Contest presentation.
It is an outline showing the process of what I work from as I develop a contest speech.
These are only highlight points and I color in the rest with the pertinent stories.
I Hope this might help someone developing a speech and or competing in a speaking contest…
Gabriel’s Story…THE UP SIDE OF DOWN SYNDROME
RING….and it all started with the ultrasound at Mad River Community Hospital. The ultrasound revealed the possibility of Down syndrome. Gabe had a 1 in 3 chance of having Down.
RING…That $1M question was ringing in our minds until Gabe’s birth…We knew little of Down or disabilities…
This is a true story of our beloved 7th son Gabriel. (TELL3)
Ring…My wife Joni SUPERWOMAN …
·30 days in bed rest…Gave a birth…stress of her child’s state…Up all night..3am flight…up all the next day..
RING…Joni called…get a clue and get to Sacramento NOW! Mother and child were now recovering well.
The $1M question REMAINED did Gabe have Down?
Meeting with the doctor, she assured us that Gabe did have Down syndrome…Our marriage would be in Jeopardy and our family was in trouble… She was not very delicate… What nuggets to drop on a couple…WHAT HAD JUST HAPPENED? DID I HEAR THAT RIGHT? THIS WAS MORE THAN I COULD BEAR!!
The proceeding questions, prayer, and walks around the UCDavis campus crying out to God will always be etched in my memory. How could he allow this to happen to us?
We simply did not have a road map for Gabe and wanted to be careful, successful, and help Gabe…WALKS,TEARS, PRAYER, THINKING, AND THEN…..RING…..I HAD IT!!
I decided to dedicate Gabriel (and our raising him) to the Lord, and trust that, although he might never be a football hero or a brain surgeon, his life would be both personally fulfilling and enriching to those around him. We were ready to move on and raise our son no matter!
We have learned to be honest with our feelings and with reality. Some of the lessons learned include:
1. There is no one-time fix. This is a long-term issue, challenge, battle, and journey requiring a long term mentality and approach.
2. A positive mental attitude and my positive confessions are not enough to get me through.
There is no “Bible bullet “or quick fix that is adequate to address my parental challenges.
3.Whereas Gabriel may have special needs of his intellect, there is none of the spirit. He is Really Special
4. Therapists are now part of our Extended Family forever
The lessons learned have to do with mydeciding to have the right perspective, attitude, actions, and behaviors.
The decision to love unconditionally…
Gabe has taught us many lessons.RING…
1.To slow down. To love and live in the moment….be here now…TO ENJOY LIFE AND GABE.
2.To appreciate and celebrate accomplishments: Potty.
3.To be patient and to look outside the box and value all God has created.
I’m learning to choose to love freely regardless of the payback. I’m learning to value all people. I know that everyone has special needs.Some of us just hide them better!
My commitment as a father begins with loving my son and also to help my family to love Gabriel, to be patient with him, and to see past his challenges to his many positive attributes….and to love, accept, understand, and help Gabriel. He just needs a little extra help in life!!
Gabriel has the potential to teach us to look for the things in life that are truly important. May I be as good a student as he is a teacher.I’ll end with a story…
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