Ric Elias gives a nearly great speech here, he has a strong attention-getter, a lot of wonderful stories, and a strong call to action, but, unfortunately, that work is undercut by lackluster non-verbal communication; a downward vocal inflection style (especially toward the end of the speech), and uninspired movement.
Ric starts with a rousing attention-getter, he tells the audience about the sensory experience of being on the plane that crashed in the Hudson River. There are many great details here, the sound of “no sound” as the plane’s engines are cut, the look of terror in the eyes of a stewardess, the thoughts that flashed through his mind as he braces for impact. There is also an excellent call to action at the end of the speech, a detail that many speakers leave out. All speeches should strive to create some change in the audience and here Ric challenges the audience to imagine as if they had only moments to live, and to think about what they might change. This is wonderfully creative.
But, alas, Ric appears a little bit out-of-gas. He shuffles somewhat listlessly, and gestures without much intention. He allows his pitch to descend at the end of some sentences.
If you are feeling a little lethargic before a speech, try something simple…like push-ups! Sound crazy? It’s not. Even a few push ups will get the blood flowing, and perhaps enliven your body. If you have a downward inflection style, work with a coach or colleague on your presentation and make sure to lift the last syllable in each sentence.
Keep in mind 80% of our impression of a speaker is nonverbal! If you feel your presentation style could use some work, give me a buzz, and let’s set up a free 20 minute consultation.
Let’s look at the Republican presidential contenders from a public speaking perspective; how did they do as speakers during the debates?
As the video above shows, there was a wide variety of talent on display. Politics aside, I think Gingrich is far and away the best speaker of the bunch. Gary Johnson had perhaps the best punch line of the debates (“My next door neighbor’s two dogs have created more shovel ready jobs than the current administration.”), but Gingrich can pull together stories, quotes, statistics, comparisons and contrasts effortlessly, and convey his point with conviction with almost every question he answers. Herman Cain, on the other hand, was often vague during the debates, offering up platitudes instead of meaningful details.
In the video above, watch the way Gingrich uses the Carter administration as a metaphor for the current administration, and slips in a witty, sly quote from Ronald Reagan to make his point about the need for reform.
Say what you will about him politically (full disclosure, his politics aren’t mine), but Newt Gingrich is perhaps one of the world’s best debaters.
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.
Ah yes the brain freeze. What do we do when our most primal public speaking nightmare comes true? Can it be avoided? Yes, and no. I think Rick Perry’s stumble here was rather epic, however, most people tend to forget things all the time, as this quote from the New York Times illustrates:
“Brain researchers note that countless memory lapses like these happen to the rest of us every day, whether it’s walking into a room and forgetting why you are there or being unable to recall a name that’s on the tip of your tongue.”
Public speaking involves risk, and there is the chance that you might forget something, or succumb to stress. That being said, there are two sure fire ways to reduce the risk of a Rick Perry-like monumental blunder, and that is to prepare yourself thoroughly (my God man you’re running for president, did you think to rehearse a bit more?), and to always, always have notes in front of you with key talking points (put them on your Ipad if you want to be all tech-sexy). And, yes, eliminating three governmental agencies would certainly be considered “key”.
Of course, if you speak regularly for a living, there is the chance that something like this might happen, as it did for Christina Aguilera when she forgot the lyrics to the National Anthem as she performed at the Superbowl, or when Obama made an embarrassingly politically incorrect slip of the tongue at the Congressional Black Caucus. How do you recover? First, breathe, and try to do nothing for a moment. Just sip your water. Attempt to accept, and let the anxiety pass. I don’t buy the notion that anxiety can be “channeled”. Panic sucks. It must be accepted, however, because it’s happening, even if it is not terribly useful. So just breathe, accept the anxiety as it is happening, and allow it to pass. Then, consider using humor. ”Oops” is not a terribly witty answer but “I’m not sure what agency I would cut, but I’m pretty sure the oxygen to my brain has been pretty well severed” is slightly better. Then… “Let me check my notes for the answer, and circle back around to you in a moment.”
I know it’s not an ideal answer. But it beats “Oops”.
Should you use note cards while presenting? In a nutshell, yes. I know, your boss doesn’t like it, but let’s be honest, in lieu of notes, you usually just read off your PowerPoint slides, right? Not so good. Remember PowerPoint is not your speech, you’re the speech, your ideas, your thoughts; PowerPoint is just there to enhance the experience. Why not put your notes on your ipad? Or your iPhone? Or tuck them discreetly into a secondary window on your computer screen? Your boss is less likely to worry about your notes if they have a high-tech gloss, and you will have the added assurance of having some bullet points in front of you in case you get lost.
And yes, it should only be a few bullet points in front of you, not a series of paragraphs. If you write out your speech, and then present it verbatim, it’s likely to feel canned. Once you have thought hard about what you would like to say, backed it up with statistics, added comparisons, quotes, contrasts, humor, and analogies, there is only the need to write down the bare-bones structure of the speech, rehearse it out loud 3-5 times, and then review the ideas behind the speech silently. Then keep it loose, allow yourself to experiment with different wording, and relax because if you get into trouble, you can always glance at your notes!
I have mixed thoughts about Graham Hill’s TED speech.
He has a nice attention-getter; he utilizes a prop to make a point about how often we move from place to place, and the amount of things that we drag along. He has a simple premise; simplify, and some very nice examples. He uses PowerPoint very well, utilizing simple, entertaining images to drive his premise, and he does not clutter his slides with data.
But I’m still a little underwhelmed. And that’s because we’ve heard this speech before. It’s important to really sweat out what your premise is when you begin a speech. Once you’ve decided what you would like to do with the speech, whether it is to entertain, persuade, or educate, it’s crucial that you look for something novel or new to say with your speech. Unfortunately, we’ve heard many times before that we all ought to simplify our space, simplify our lives. There is nothing terribly novel about Mr. Hill’s speech, so it lacks power.
What might have helped? A new approach. Ok simplifying living spaces is your passion… how about discussing the concept of simplicity itself a bit more? Or delving a bit into why we clutter? Or connecting a personal story of your own to why you truly like to simplify? Personalizing a speech always creates more interest.
Yes, sometimes it’s good to go with your first instinct with a speech…but often, we need to sit with our premise for a long time, in order to reap its rewards.
What makes a good planned speech? Structure, yes, but a speech needs feeling as well. Too often presentations lack fire, emotion, feeling. Ok so maybe you’re talking about your firm’s software, and not about famine, or war, or politics, but there are still opportunities to connect your values to your speech, and to let your passion show.
I like Rex Ryan’s speech here. The tone is rude, and tough as nails, but given his environment, that makes perfect sense. He doesn’t have a lot of structure to what he is doing, but he does the most important things well; he makes eye contact, and he speaks from his heart.
Experiment with going off-script. This doesn’t mean you wing your presentations, or swear like a sailor like Rex Ryan does. Bad idea. It just means you learn to keep it loose and follow your train of thoughts and feelings first, and your notes second.
“Silence hath more eloquence than words” – George Farquhar
Silence serves many purposes in a speech, but the simplest, and most important purpose it serves, is to allow you to breathe. Many people hold their breath while speaking, and this creates tension, and a monotone speaking style. It is best to breathe from the diaphragm, in a relaxed, organic manner (for a great breathing exercise, click here).
Of course, Martin Luther King used pauses to great effect. As an exercise, take a look at this excerpt from his “I Have a Dream” speech. Read over the excerpt silently, and then read it over out-loud, taking a two second pause for ending punctuation, and a one second pause for all other forms of punctuation:
‘This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.” And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
Notice any differences? Hopefully this exercise allows you to take deeper breaths between sentences, allows you to clarify your thoughts more readily, and let’s you more easily control your rate of speech.
Let’s compare it with the master himself….
Click here for the “Brilliant in the Boardroom” Seminar!
…by not controlling it. That’s right. Why try controlling it? Guess what? Trying to control it is getting you in trouble in the first place.
First, a couple of public speaking phobia stats:
Three out of every four individuals suffer from speech anxiety.
Women and men are equally affected.
More men than women seek treatment to cure fear of public speaking.
But what you want to know, perhaps desperately, is what do you do about this fear? If fear is fire, acceptance is water. You cannot fight fire with fire. You have to come at it with a different element. The same is true of fear. No matter how much you want to put out your speaking anxiety, it is not terribly rational to do so. Why would you feel perfectly relaxed while speaking in front of hundreds of people? Or in front of five? It’s the resistance that creates the panic.
Your expectations are the key. If you expect that you will feel anxiety, and you give yourself a little mantra when you do, perhaps “it’s perfectly normal for my hands to shake”, or, “it’s natural that my heart is racing”, then you will not be so shocked when these things happen. And they will happen. Because, well…why wouldn’t they?
Not to get too deep about it, but the mind has an endless capacity for self deception. This fact extends to the field of public speaking as well. Keep your expectations in line, and you keep your fear in line.
In the meantime, I highly recommend watching Jon Kabat Zinn’s video meditation here , and ordering his relaxation cd’s here. They will certainly reduce your anxiety.
Click here for the “Brilliant in the Boardroom” Seminar!
Caroline Casey gives a stirring speech here…let’s look at it from the perspective of leadership, and non-verbal communication. When we are presenting, we often feel that we need to move in a certain way, a way that conveys “leadership”. I find that trying to move in a way that conveys “leadership” or “confidence” just creates tension. I like the way Caroline Casey moves. She gestures freely, and speaks passionately, and doesn’t seem to be trying to imitate other speakers. She moves in a way that feels comfortable, a way that is her own . This is the key to conveying leadership with your body language, not imitating “successful speakers”, but finding a natural, organic way to move that expresses you.
Vocally, I think Caroline speaks eloquently and expressively; however, I would quibble with the pace at which she speaks. She’s motoring through the speech, and I think she would benefit if she slowed down a bit, took some deep breaths, and clarified her points a bit more.
What do you think creates a confident speaker? Do you move in a way that is comfortable to you? Do you speak with a voice that is your own, and not an imitation of other speakers?
