Question: “No matter what I do, I still can’t shake the butterflies before I have to give speech. I regularly refuse requests to present at meetings, which I’m sure is hurting my career. What should I do to control my nerves?” – Ashley, Calgary AB
Answer: Over the years, I have met people who had so much anxiety over public speaking that they chose not to speak at conferences, didn’t apply for certain jobs, or dropped out of classes or academic programs because it required that they give presentations. Certainly, public speaking is not always easy. However, it can also be exceptionally rewarding if you open yourself up to the opportunities that it presents to you.
I’d like to refer to you an article I wrote on this exact topic; “Seven Steps to Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking.” This article will give you tips, ideas and concrete ways to be prepared the next time a speaking opportunity is presented to you.
Don’t let a fear of public speaking hold you back from your full professional and personal potential. Take a public speaking course, join a Toastmasters group, and learn what you need to do to get more comfortable in front of an audience. You won’t regret it.
Speaking at a London girl’s school, Michelle Obama makes a passionate, personal case for each student to take education seriously. As far as persuasive speeches go, this one is clear, concise and passionate.
In this 12-minute speech, she engages the audience and develops a mutual connection with them right from the start with stories of her family, her modest upbringing, hardships experienced and overcome by her parents and herself, and how she met her husband. It is these stories that add the most colour to her talk, and that I believe provide the greatest bond with the audience.
This is a very inspirational speech that does not waver from its goal. Every story and example gets the point across of how “regular” people all have the power to do remarkable things if they get educated, help each other, pursue their passions, and use their talents to help their communities grow. If I was in her audience, I would feel like she’s speaking directly to me.
What would a presentation skills coach say?
The speech content is inspirational and well-structured. Very tight, direct, and persuasive. Calls-to-action at the conclusion, coupled with a smile, a strong voice and eye contact send off the audience with drive and motivation. The only thing I would add to the content would be a little more detail on her first date with her husband. My guess is that she didn’t want stories that were not relevant to the overall theme of her speech to overshadow the points she wanted to make. But it certainly would have been interesting!
So it all comes down to her delivery.
Where could she improve?
— Microphone placement – Throughout most of the speech, she holds the microphone directly under her mouth, covering her chin and therefore obstructing part of her face. Holding the microphone two inches lower would have virtually no effect on the volume or clarity of her voice, and would allow her audience to see her whole face.
— Filler words and sounds – “Uh” and “tsk.” In this speech, I counted 28 “uh’s” and 12 “tsk’s.” For a 12-minute speech, that’s almost 2.4 “uh’s” and one “tsk” per minute, which is quite a lot for someone who has to speak so regularly. These filler words can get quite distracting if they occur too often in a speech. Fortunately, once someone is aware of this problem, it’s easier to start fixing it.
The Undecided Issue: What about reading her notes?
I have to admit, I’m a bit torn on this one. On the one hand, although she read from her notes at times, she made sure to look up and maintain eye contact with her audience at least 75% of the time. However, a persuasive speech can be even more powerful if the speaker maintains eye contact with the audience 100% of the time. Notice the difference when she reads her notes, and then at the 11-minute mark, where she looks up and speaks from the heart in her concluding statements. Her passion really comes through whenever she looks up and speaks directly to the audience; and this passion is slightly diluted when she looks down to read her notes.
This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t ever use notes. However, you can reach much deeper into the hearts and minds of an audience if you speak directly to them, and not read from notes. What do you think?
Sorry for dropping off the face of the earth for the last 2 months. Life has taken some twists and turns…both my life, and the brand new life of my newly-arrived ‘bundle of joy.’ My first son was born in early December, and what a trip it’s been! It’s amazing how such a little person can create such upheaval (in a good way, of course) inso many people’s lives – mainly me and my husband, but I’ll throw the grandparents in there for good measure.
While my little one may be mentioned in certain blog posts, this will remain a blog about presentation, public speaking and communications skills. I am often left wondering how best to get a point across with a 7-week old, and I can certainly say that he’s helping me sharpen my communication skills…as long as you disregard the high-pitched (and possibly annoying) baby talk that I sometimes have to resort to.
Much as I am a very proud and happy parent, this is about the extent of the “announcement” that I’m making about my boy. I have opted not to post photos — neither here, on Facebook, or on my newsletter. Perhaps that’ll change sometime in the future, but for now, my boy is under wraps and being enjoyed by our close friends and family. This actually prompted one of my colleagues to question if my boy was healthy and if all was fine, since in this world of hyper-sharing, he wondered why I didn’t share the announcement in my newsletter. Is it just me that isn’t 100% comfortable showing the extended world what my boy looks like? p.s. Yes, he’s healthy, he’s beautiful, and all is fine.
It’s not that I don’t want to share my happiness — or my photos — with my blog readers, my newsletter subscribers and my Facebook friends (both the real friends and the “where do I know this person from again”? friends). As you can see, I *am* sharing it – just without the photos. It just begs the question — where do we draw the line on sharing the deepest parts our private lives? Where is the point at which we decide NOT to share? Am I making too much of these privacy issues — and being too paranoid — by not posting his photo?
In the meantime, as he sleeps next to me right now in his fluffy blanket, I’m happy to have him all to myself.
Last week I was fortunate to spend the day at TEDxMcGill, being inspired by a series of short presentations along the theme of “Relentless Curiosity”, by individuals in the McGill community.
‘TEDx’ is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to the mandate of ‘Ideas Worth Spreading.’ The annual TED Conference invites the world’s leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes (plus or minus).
For anyone who’s seen my newsletter - and gone through the ’speech video analyses’ category of this blog, you’ll know that I’m always scouring the TED website in search of the latest, greatest speakers who can really bring a topic to life. There are no shortage of amazing speakers to learn from, both in terms of their unique and masterful content, as well as the different and intriguing ways in how they delivery it.
TEDxMcGill was a great experience to watch, as kind of a ‘TED-lite;’ a place where I was able to see ‘up-and-comers’ who may one day end up on the real TED stage, thanks to the ability to recount their experiences, theories and ideas so eloquently. Read the rest of this entry »
My colleague Jane Atkinson, speaker coach and President of Speaker Launcher, recently launched a Best Speaker Video contest on her blog. For many speakers, a speaker video is the #1 form of marketing – if done right. So Jane, along with a panel of judges, looked at several submissions, and then came up with a winner, and 5 runners-up – and gave a brief explanation of why they came in at the top.
I was so impressed with these contestants, and wanted to share their videos with you. Some are very professionally done, with lots of bells and whistles – and some are no more complex than pressing “record” on a videocamera. But each speaker and video has its own unique style which makes it stand out.
These videos will give you an example of not just what works, but what works really well. Read the rest of this entry »
