Here’s my gift to you: a free extract of my book for you to read. It’s in 2 parts. Enjoy!
The whole book tells the story of how doing an 11-minute TED talk changed my perspective of myself and other people, almost got me slammed up in jail, and could have cost me my job.
Public Speaking Lesson 6: Give yourself a chance
We all have good days and bad days. Shit happens. We’re all human. Everything that happens to us affects our mood. The weather, the traffic, our families, our pets, our health. When we show up to speak, there could be any number of things outside of our control that impact our emotional state. This will affect how you speak and what your audience will feel from you.
Give yourself a chance. Take control of the things you can control before you speak. Get there early. Take the train rather than drive. Don’t arrange meetings immediately before (or after) you speak. If you’re like me and you know your brain doesn’t start working before 10am, don’t agree to speak before then if possible. Change your dental appointment. Don’t get blind drunk the night before. If at all possible, check out the room you’ll be presenting in.
Here’s a checklist:
If you have slides, do they work on their system?
If you have videos, do they play?
How is the sound quality when you speak?
If you need a microphone, can you test it? (headsets are usually better than a handheld microphone.)
Is there a podium? (if so, make sure you’re not stuck behind it – never create barriers between you and your audience.)
Is there water on hand in case you get a frog in your throat?
Is the projector shining in your eyeline? (if it is, make marks on the floor with tape so you know where the no-walk zone is.)
Many of these things might seem obvious, but how many times do we fail to consider the impact an external factor might have on how we show up in front of an audience?
I once insisted that one of my trainees rehearse his entire presentation without any slides. Reluctantly he did. Two weeks later, when he’d delivered his presentation, he thanked me. He told me that he’d turned up at the venue and just before he was due to make his presentation, he gave the technician his memory stick with his slides and none of the fonts worked on their system. Coolly, and in front of the audience who had witnessed this, he went ahead and presented without slides. Now they were doubly impressed.
Public speaking lesson 7: Build a connection
You’ve figured out what your audience needs and how you can satisfy them. You’re already half way there. Now you need to work out how to get them involved right from the start. Open with a punch. My fellow trainers always make the point that if you don’t grab your audience from the start, you can forget the rest because people have already turned their minds to other, more interesting things and all your hard work is wasted. If you are following another speaker, remember that the audience has a choice at that point: a fellow trainer of mine calls this “the loo or you moment”: when the audience are considering taking a break in between speakers, it’s the loo or you. Or at the very least the home button on their phone can open up limitless, infinitely more interesting possibilities.
Never start with “good morning” or “thank you” or “welcome”. You can hold that until after your punchy opening, even if it’s only one line away. There are some examples of ted talks with great openings. Ric Elias (http://www.ted.com/talks/ric_elias) jumps straight into the action part of the story using visuals, sounds and even smells. Bruce Aylward (https://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_aylward_how_we_ll_stop_polio) asks the audience to do something (close their eyes) and think, flatters them, and uses a prop. Being controversial is another way of grabbing attention at the start. Hans Roslin (http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies) does it masterfully with his audience in Doha.
Make sure you keep the connection all the way through. Your audience must be either thinking, feeling, or doing something throughout your speech or presentation. Here are some ways to build a connection so you have them eating out of your hand and to give yourself confidence early on: Use humour to make them laugh. Never make fun of people in the audience; rather, make fun of yourself. If you’re British, like me, this comes naturally. Only use edgy humour if you’re sure you can pull it off. But don’t use humour if you know you’re not naturally good at it. Better to be yourself. Ask the audience a question. Make sure it’s relevant to what you’re talking about. If it’s a rhetorical question, don’t leave too much time before you make that clear or you’ll get either an awkward silence or an answer you don’t want. Involve people in the audience. If you know people in the audience, call them out: “i was saying to john earlier today…” or “I heard from Mabel that…” or “Bob was telling me the last time we met…”. It will make those people feel involved and glow, and the people sitting around them will glow too. If you don’t know people in the audience, get there early and have a chat with one or two people before you speak.
Remember two or three of their names, where they’re sitting and call them out. Get people to agree with you by raising their hand. This will keep them active and involved. Remember always to mirror what you want your audience to do. If you want them to raise their hand, raise your hand: “how many of you have been…?” Invite your audience to think about or imagine something. Imagine is a very powerful word to use but be careful not to overuse it or the audience will feel manipulated. If you ask them to imagine or think about something, leave enough time for them to do so before moving on to your next point.
Public Speaking Lesson 8: Don’t try to be too clever
My TED talk was all about this. Use language that real people can understand. Steer clear of buzzwords. Instead of making you sound clever, they will have the opposite effect. Audiences are not stupid. They will appreciate it if you speak in terms they can relate to rather than abstract jargon.
Here are some actual phrases I heard presenters use in a recent department
meeting:
“accelerating by embracing a new paradigm”.
“strategic inflection point”.
“maintaining the status quo”.
“becoming an agile organization”.
“optimally balancing our key capabilities”.
Then came the crowning glory:
“ideation”.
All that in the space of an hour. I could read the audience’s reactions simply by looking at their faces. It’s not big and it’s certainly not clever, so why do so many people in business insist on talking bullshit?
I’ve often heard (particularly from scientists) that using simpler words might seem like they are “dumbing things down”. Trust me, it’s not the case. People will appreciate it if you use ordinary words to replace technical terms or over-used jargon. As one fellow trainer puts it, nobody ever left a presentation saying, “that guy just made it far too simple.
Public Speaking Lesson 9: Tell stories
This could be the subject of its own book. Stories stir our basic human emotions. They are how we relate to things, how we make sense of things, how we remember things. Lists and facts can only go so far but wrap them in a story and your speech can create change and certainly leave a lasting impression.
By stories I mean examples that bring the facts to life. That make things relevant to your audience. Your stories can be personal anecdotes or they can be descriptions of how things got to where they are. That’s the thing with stories, you can create them how you like.
Always use stories, however small, when you speak. Here are some tips:
Pick stories that are relevant to what you’re speaking about. Make sure there is a point, or moral, of the story, and that you make it obvious. I’ve heard some speakers tell stories just for the sake of doing so, which leaves the audience asking what the point was.
Your stories should be true unless you’re using a metaphor or deliberately want to mislead your audience, in which case let them know that’s what you’ve done so they don’t feel cheated.
Don’t tell them you’re going to tell them a story, just tell it. A story can be a powerful opening to a speech or presentation.
Include the things that went wrong. Those are the most interesting parts, and they make your story more credible. Life’s not all positive.
Include enough detail to make your story real but not too much detail that will bore people.
Use descriptions and visual language that will help your audience build a picture in their minds.
Keep a bank of stories you can craft, adapt, and pull out to use regularly. Each story can fit several messages or points that you can use on different occasions for different audiences.
Public Speaking Lesson 10: Get some feedback
Only by critically looking at how you did, giving feedback to yourself, and getting feedback from your audience can you ever get better. You might not want to give out feedback forms after your wedding speech but at the very least you should find one or two people you trust to tell you the following:
What did you like?
What was missing?
What can I do to make it even better next time?
Write all of this down. Too often we focus only on the negative points, but write down the positive points as well. We need to know what we’re doing well in order to keep doing it. Then the next time you’re preparing to speak in public, go back to the feedback you wrote down last time and bloody well do something about it.
