I’m a big believer in the present moment. Why not, right? The present moment is all you got.
This week I had a client who seemed very tense when he walked in for a coaching session with me. This is not uncommon; public speaking is one of our greatest fears, it’s perfectly natural to feel keyed up before you speak. But this guy’s energy felt off; he was cutting me off before I could finish my thoughts, staring out vacantly from time to time, and rushing through his presentation. The problem wasn’t his tension, but, rather, his lack of awareness around his tension.
I put the problem to my client; why are you rushing? You feel really “not here”…how do you correct that? He stopped speeding through his presentation, and breathed for a moment. He looked at me directly, with self-awareness, with presence, for the first time in our session together and said, “I guess I am a little tense today”. Yes. And from then on he was fine. Not because he felt perfectly relaxed, nobody feels perfectly relaxed, but because he became conscious of his tension, and that awareness itself was enough to do the trick.
Don’t bother with trying to feel relaxed while presenting. Presenting is nerve wracking. But do try to be conscious, aware of yourself in the moments before, during and while you present. Try doing this with a non-judgmental attitude, simply noticing what comes up, even if it’s tension. If you need a point of focus, follow your breath. You might be happy with the results.
A media interview can be simple if you have a one sentence premise to your five to ten minute interview. Check out the clip above. The biologist being interviewed in this clip is not a conventional speaker, but he gives a great five minute interview here because his message is honed. What is his premise? What does he want to get across? The oceans are in trouble. Simple, we got it. What does he used to get our attention? A series of jarring statistics, one of the best being “there are 46,000 pieces of plastic per square mile of ocean”. This string of statistics leads to a smart, savvy call for action. He helps himself by keeping strong eye contact with the interviewer, and using gestures that are organic to the way he moves.
How much should you reveal in a speech? Should you put yourself on the line? Tell something private about yourself? In this speech, Tony Porter uses a number of deeply personal stories to drive home his point about the socialization of men. His thesis is stated early, and is crystal clear; men are taught to hide their emotions, and disrespect women, and this needs to change.
Many speakers would resort to dry statistics in order to prove their point, but Mr. Porter makes a much shrewder choice by using deeply personal stories. He begins with a story about his children, and his overbearing need to discipline his son because he is crying. He moves on to a story about his father crying in a limousine after a funeral, and then a story about his first sexual experience. Each story builds in intensity and personal revelation, and weaves effortlessly into his thesis. The effect is very powerful.
Statistics help build a case in a speech, but they are not the lifeblood a good speech. Good stories are at the heart of a good speech, and the more personal, the better. Ultimately, the audience wants to connect on a human level to a speaker, and deeply felt stories help build this intimacy.
So what do you think? Are you willing to tell a secret in a speech?
Gotta 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?
Clients 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?
One 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!
Laurie Santos, head of the Comparative Cognition Lab at Yale University, gives a great speech here on the roots of human irrationality. The study itself is inspired and creative (she compares human economic behavior to monkey behavior), so a lot of the work for the speech has been done before she steps on stage. That being said, I think Ms. Santos excels at conveying passion and enthusiasm for her subject. I can hear you now: “But Jeff, that can’t be taught”. Au Contraire, yes it can. It’s quite simple if you follow an important guideline: Only speak about topics you enjoy speaking about, and add interest to a speech (quotes, stories, comparisons, contrasts) when your subject is boring you. Ambivalence about your topic is to be avoided at all costs. In this speech, Ms. Santos uses a great quote from Hamlet to humorous effect, and adds interest to an already engrossing topic.
There are two other things Ms. Santos does well; she does not over rely on her Power Point presentation, and she ends her speech on a positive note. Going negative is the cardinal sin of public speaking technique, and she avoids it well, coming to a nice, definitive conclusion.
If I were to quibble a bit with her technique, I would suggest that she could slow down, and breathe more. There are moments when she appears to be a little out of breath. Slowing down, and deliberately breathing more will help her calm her nerves, and will allow the audience to catch up with her ideas.
Overall, however, I consider this a job well done.
In today’s Huffington Post, there is a great article about the verbal cues that give away an executive who is lying. According to a study done by Stanford University, executives who use general phrases like “the team” or “our corporation” tend to lie more often than executives who use more personal pronouns like “we” and “I”. In addition, exaggeration tends to be a key linguistic component of lying. According to the study, the former CFO of Lehman Brothers used the word “great” 14 times and “strong” 24 times while describing the firm’s performance during a conference call. The firm collapsed months later.
What type of language do you use when presenting? Do you keep it personal and use “I” statements? How have you seen language erode or increase credibility?
Let’s take a look at TED’s WikiLeaks Q and A from a public speaking standpoint. What steps are necessary in order to successfully navigate a Q and A session? Listening to the question is essential, as is defining terms, giving your opinion when asked, backing up your opinion with facts, and acknowledging what you don’t know. Given that 80% of our impression of a speaker has to do with their non-verbal communication, open gestures, alignment, and a resonant voice matter a great deal too.
With these points in mind, how successful was this Q and A? My first thought was “My God what is up with the cell phones?!” Julian Assange’s phone goes off at 1:53, in the middle of the Q and A, and he has to turn it off in front of the audience. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is not a good start to a Q and A. Uttering “God Damn” afterward did not help his case. The interviewer did a nice job of staying in the moment, and makes a quip which helps alleviate the situation. So no biggie, things happen in a speech.
But wait a minute, hold on, is that the interviewer holding a cell phone and using it like a conductor would a baton throughout the interview?? Why, yes it is! It seems that both interviewer and interviewee are so obsessed with their electronic gadgets that they can’t part with them for any reason, even when they are on television.
Non-verbal analysis aside, the content of the Q and A fares better. Mr. Assange defends Wiki Leaks in a cogent manner, and has details and facts to back himself up. The interviewer does a fair job of asking the tough questions of this controversial guest, when he’s not waving his cell phone around in the air.
I think Mr. Assange’s most impressive moment comes at the end of the Q and A when he is asked about what motivates his work. He says: “Capable, generous men do not create victims, they nurture victims”. Obviously Mr. Assagne had anticipated he might be asked this question, and he prepared an answer, one that is thoughtful and illuminating.
I’m a big believer in the present moment. Why not, right? The present moment is all you got.