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Posts Tagged ‘executive coach’
Representative Crowley’s “Speechless” Speech
Friday, May 6th, 2011Politics aside, I think this is a brilliant speech. Very concise, short, and creative. And silent! Yes, silent. The lesson learned here is to think outside the box with your presentations or speeches, and take chances.
Too often, we start our presentations by directing the audience’s gaze at our Powerpoint presentation, and reading a litany of numbers, forgetting that we are the presentation, and that a great presenter should interpret the numbers in an entertaining way, and if appropriate, have a call to action.
What do you think? Inspired or Inane?
Click here for my May “Language of Leadership” seminar co-hosted with Colleen Culley from Move into Greatness!
The King’s Speech and the Wholistic Approach to Speech
Thursday, January 20th, 2011
If you haven’t had a chance to see the King’s Speech, do yourself a favor, and check it out. It’s a wonderful and well-crafted film about one man’s fear of his own greatness. It’s also a great tutorial on the role that emotions play in our speaking problems.
I coach executives, administrators, teachers, professors, artists, everybody, and the one problem I see over and over again is a tight jaw. Jaw tension is epidemic. Where does jaw tension come from? Some of it is physical, but a good portion of it is emotional. As Kritsin Linklater pointed out in her seminal book “Freeing the Natural Voice”, clear thinking equals clear articulation, and a free emotional life equals a rich, powerful sound.
So what is jaw tension? It’s over-socialization. It’s a habitual pattern developed over years. Throat and jaw tension often have a direct correlation to “swallowing” our thoughts, and our feelings. When we are young, and we are told not to think something, or not to feel something, perhaps because of social consequences, we tighten the jaw, and push away our thoughts and feelings. Over years this habitual pattern of repression, and it’s correlating muscular tension, builds into hardened, malignant tension.
How can jaw tension be cured? Through breathing exercises, muscular release, and learning, slowly over time, to express yourself freely. Yes folks, it is all related. Emotional release connects to muscular release. I see it time and again with my clients; as they feel freer to speak their mind, their speaking related problems begin to ebb.
So don’t hold back! If you do not speak your truth, the world will not have it. Speak clearly. Speak freely.
Steve Martin and Knowing Your Audience
Tuesday, December 7th, 2010
So Steve Martin bombed at a speaking event at the 92nd Street last week, and many Speak Clear folk are asking for my reaction. Here’s my two cents… I think he, and his interviewer, should have analyzed the occasion, and asked many more questions before the event.
Many speakers think that public speaking is about planning a speech on paper, and than simply executing it, but it goes beyond that. A good speaker needs to think about the audience, and be in touch with the organizer of the event well before he or she puts pen to paper (or fingers to ipad). I think what Mr. Martin missed was the occasion. He would have avoided the embarrassment of being panned in the New York Times had he simply asked the organizers a few questions; Who is coming? What is the demographic of the audience? Gender? Do they want me to talk about my early work, or my current work, or both?
By asking the organizer questions, a speaker can come to understand and know what the audience needs from the speech. A speech is for the audience, and not the speaker. I think Mr. Martin may have lost sight of this.
What do you think? Was Steve Martin prepared? Was this his fault, or a result of the audience’s lack of civility?
John Stewart’s Speech at The Rally for Sanity and/or Fear
Sunday, October 31st, 2010Gotta tell you I didn’t love this one. I really wanted to. John Stewart is a brilliant satirist, and he is wonderful on television, but he makes a mistake here that John Colbert manages to avoid when he speaks, namely he uses too many platitudes (“We can have animus and not be enemies”), and too many stale metaphors (comparing the American population to cars on the freeway).
The big public speaking sin, however, is that this speech simply lacks bite. Stewart has been hammering Fox News for years about their fear-mongering, and it was not lost on anyone that this march was a chance for Steward to really drive home his point. So what is his thesis?: “The press did not create our problems, but it’s existence makes solving them all that much harder”. Not exactly a call to action! Way to ride the fence. C’mon John why are you holding back?
The speech suffers from a desire to be too decorous and civil. Stewart doesn’t have the gumption to mention the networks, or the anchors, who are perpetuating fear, nor indict the culture that buys into the fear-mongering. Ultimately the speech turns into a gooey, sentimental, slack affair culminating in Stewart thanking the audience for being “present”. Snore.
In December of 1964, Mario Savio, a student at Berkley, gave a speech demanding that the university lift the ban of on-campus political activities, and honor the student’s right to free speech. Now here’s a speech with some bite:
What do you think? Was Steward brilliant or a bore?
Jeffrey Davis is the owner of Speak Clear Communications. He is a public speaking coach and accent reduction coach in New York City.
Accent Reduction Tips for Indian and Spanish ESL Students
Wednesday, October 27th, 2010Click here to register for my 8 week accent reduction course!
Jeffrey Davis is the owner of Speak Clear Communications. He is a public speaking coach and accent reduction coach in New York City.
What To Do When You Get Tense While Speaking
Thursday, October 14th, 2010Clients often say to me “I understand how to relax my nerves before a speech, but what do I do when I feel nervous while I’m speaking?” This is a tricky problem, but solvable. Check out Chimamanda Adichie’s TED speech above. Ms. Adichie has a wonderfully crafted speech, there is clear intention to it, and she states that intention early: “I am here to talk about the danger of a single story.” The speech is filled with wonderful stories that all work effectively to prove Ms. Adichie’s central premise.
But she’s tense at the top. Her breathing is a little labored, and her voice quivers a bit. Does it matter? Not terribly. Why? Because she handles it well. She stops when she needs to, takes a break when she needs to, slows herself down, and breathes. Great speakers own their speeches not by powering through tension, but by yielding to relaxation. Speaking is a letting go, a releasing, of thoughts, of feelings, of ideas. Tension is simply the opposite of that; it happens when a speaker is trying to make a moment into something other than what it really is. Made a mistake? Don’t worry. Laugh, sip some water, breath. Start again. Feel your hands shaking? STOP. Breath. Start again. Lost your place? Ditto.
Statistically speaking, our number one fear, NUMBER ONE, is speaking in public. What does that mean? It means that if you were at a funeral, most of the people attending would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. It’s natural to feel nervous while speaking in public, the question is, what do you do about it?
So what do you do?
Jeffrey Davis is the owner of Speak Clear Communications. He is a public speaking coach and accent reduction coach in New York City.
How to Beat Procrastination when Preparing for a Speech
Thursday, September 30th, 2010One of the first questions I ask when I hear that an executive is nervous about an upcoming speech is how much time was spent preparing for the presentation. Sometimes I will hear “Well I looked it over last night”, or “I made a few bullet-points”. Usually I think to myself, “No wonder you are anxious!”. A good speech requires work, sometimes hours need to be spent culling together material, weeding out weak points and extraneous data, finding the main point of the speech, and developing interesting questions to ask the audience. At the very least, familiarity with the material is essential.
Sometimes we feel tense about a speech simply because we are in the habit of preparing at the last minute. It’s important to break this cycle. How can it be done? Make a plan:
1) Tell someone you know (a friend, a coach, a spouse) that you are struggling to find time for your presentations, and ask them for help. Support is important.
2) Set a certain number of hours allotted for your preparation, and report your progress to your coach or friend.
3) Weed out unnecessary information. Is your speech loaded with data? Putting everybody in the room to sleep, including yourself? Weed out everything that is unessential to your main point, which leads me to my next point…
4) HAVE ONE MAIN POINT TO YOUR SPEECH Ultimately a great speaker does not ramble , but revolves his/her speech around one main theme. The public schools need reform. My company invests more selectively than the rest. You can trust my leadership. You know what it is, pick it, and stick to it.
If you feel like it will help, post your progress to this blog post. Let me know what you’ve done to improve your presentations this week, and what you plan to do next week!
Good luck!
Jeffrey Davis is the owner of Speak Clear Communications. He is a public speaking coach and accent reduction coach in New York City.
Colbert’s Congressional Tesimony
Sunday, September 26th, 2010
Since I seem to be big into blogging about Steven Colbert lately, I thought we would take a look at his congressional testimony from last week. The big question batting around the internet in regard to this speech is whether the tone is appropriate or not. Mr. Colbert was invited to speak in front of the House of Representatives in regard to illegal farm workers and the issue of immigration. Apparently someone had the brilliant idea of sending Mr. Colbert into a field to pick fruit for a few hours, and then testify before the House of Representatives on his experience. Of course, Mr. Colbert was completely outlandish, stayed in character, and, on occasion, mocked the very work he was presumed to defend.
From a public speaking standpoint, you could say that Colbert was tone-deaf, didn’t analyze the occasion thoroughly enough, and was inappropriate, but I think there is a larger question here begging to be asked, namely… what are these Representatives thinking!? 
And what is up with all the moralizing by politicians and the media regarding this speech? What did they think would happen? Mr. Colbert is a COMEDIAN. Why is he being invited to weigh in and give a speech before a sovereign governmental body on a topic of monumental national importance? It’s absurd. Personally, I think Mr. Colbert’s speech was perfectly appropriate. Satirists satirize. That is what they do. If the House of Representatives wanted an expert, they should have invited one. They invited a satirist, and the invitee turned the whole absurdity-pie around, and launched it into the face of those deserving, the House of Representatives.
What do you think? Bad taste or brilliant speech?
Jeffrey Davis is the owner of Speak Clear Communications. He is a public speaking coach and accent reduction coach in New York City.
Making a Point with a Light Touch
Friday, September 17th, 2010Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.
Many speeches have a serious tone…but is it possible to drive a point home with a light touch? I think so. Seth Goldin gives a funny, and informative speech here on the concept of “broken”. The speech is hilarious, he uses visuals brilliantly, but what I think is most interesting is the sly way Mr. Goldin makes the listener contemplate what is “broken” and what is not.
Mr. Golden starts with a great attention getter, he has recently received a series of rebate cards, four of them to be exact, worth $30 a piece. Of course, he can’t use any of them effectively. He makes the choice to bring the cards on stage, and uses them as a type of prop, flipping through them as he tells his story, and then, bang, he throws them at the audience and states: “broken”.
The word “broken” is used repetitively; he riffs off of it, showing slides of ridiculous ad campaigns, and useless signage in order to make his point. With each slide Mr. Golden gets a laugh, and then uses this laugh as cover for some more serious questions: Why are useless ad campaigns designed? What are the reasons for ineptitude? What is “broken” and what is not?
If I had to quible a bit with this speech, I would say that Mr. Golden apologises a bit too much. There is never a reason to state “I am winging it” in a speech. Luckily he has charisma to burn, and pulls this off…but I would not try it at home.
So what do you think? Can you make a great speech, and keep it light?
Jeffrey Davis is the owner of Speak Clear Communications. He is a public speaking coach and accent reduction coach in Manhattan.