Tip Thursday - Public Speaking

Using quotes in your speech is a way of reinforcing your ideas using a 'second voice'. This is infinitely more powerful than you simply repeating your key point. Quotes often serve to provide a concise and memorable phrasing of an idea that increases the take-away impact of your speech. If you are going to use a quote though make sure you get the quote right! The source should be a well-known credible expert but try to avoid over-used quotes that everyone knows. Quotes tend to work best in the body of your speech as a way of offering reinforcement to a point you are making. Although you may open your speech with a poignant or powerful quote, I would advise against ending your speech with one. Make the last words your audience hears from you be your own!

Tip Thursday - Presentations

In business meetings we are often called upon unexpectedly, requiring us to 'think on our feet' and organize our thoughts quickly.  We want to sound articulate, knowledgeable and confident. The best way to handle Impromptu Presentations is to gather our thoughts using a Model of 3.  Here's a couple to give you a framework of what I mean...

1. Past, Present, Future  (In the past we...  While right now we...  In the future we... )
2. Cause, Impact, Solution  (What's causing X is...  The impact of X is...  The answer is... )
3. Pros, Cons, Position  (What are the pros of the situation, what are the cons, what is your position?)
4. Problem, Action, Results  (What was the problem, what were the actions taken, what were the results achieved?)

Each of these models offers you a unique way to organize your statements, helping you to sound on top of everything you're sharing!

Tip Thursday - Presentations

In business meetings we are often called upon unexpectedly, requiring us to 'think on our feet' and organize our thoughts quickly.  We want to sound articulate, knowledgeable and confident. The best was to handle Impromptu Presentations is to gather our thoughts using a Model of 3. Here's a couple to give you a framework of what I mean...

1.  Past, Present, Future  (In the past we... While right now we... In the future we...)
2.  Cause, Impact, Solution  (What's causing X is... The Impact of X is... The answer is...)
3.  Pros, Cons, Position  (What are the pros of the situation, what are the cons, what is your position?)
4.  Problem, Action, Results (What was the problem, what were the actions taken, what were the results achieved?)

Each of these models offers you a unique was to organize your statements, helping you to sound on top of everything you're sharing!

Tip Thursday - Communication

Clean the 'filler' words out of your speech to sound more knowledgeable and professional. Those Ums, Uhs, Likes and You Knows will make you sound nervous and uncomfortable.  An additional one to watch for is the use of the word 'So' at the beginning of sentences.  Using a filler word once or twice in a meeting are not an issue, however the greater the frequency the greater the issue.  Repetitive use can damage your credibility.  The first step in eliminating them from your speech is using audiotape to learn to hear the fillers.  You can't change 'em if you can't hear 'em. Making eye contact with your audience is also helpful.  Most people's fillers occur when they are not looking at their audience.  Greater eye contact should translate out to fewer fillers.  Additionally, spend time on pre-planning your transitions from one topic to another.  This is usually a hotspot for the appearance of fillers.  A little pre-planning can go a long way to helping you reduce the fillers that might creep in as you struggle to shift your focus.

Building a Memory Palace

In working with business presenters, one of the big hurdles many need to overcome is their dependency upon notes. Whether fully typewritten sheets or even cue cards, a speaker's reliance on referencing their notes creates a distance between themselves and their audience that often proves difficult to breach. In an effort to rid themselves of the dreaded paper crutch, many will work to memorize their speech word for word, line by line, which leaves them typically sounding robotic and fully at a loss if they lose their mental place.

Instead, there is value in learning new methods for remembering 'what comes next' in your speech and the Memory Palace is one such method.  In fact it is one of the most widely used mnemonics (memory aids) out there.  The Memory Palace is, quite simply, a way of structuring your thoughts in your mind that you need to remember.

Let's take a look at the how-to's of constructing a Palace of your own...

Create a Blueprint

Although your Palace is technically a place in your mind, you may find it easiest to begin building yours based on a room or building you are already familiar and comfortable with.  You may start with a basic palace that is only one room, to start, making it as detailed as possible.  The more detailed the room (building) the more 'stuff' you can stuff into it!

Plan your Route

Typically we need to remember things in a certain order, such as when we are giving a speech.  If so, then we need to ensure that we follow a predefined route through our palace so that we pass our memory triggers in order.  If your palace is just one room then your route may be as simple as entering, turning left and walking around the room in a circle.  

Identify your Storage Spots

Every item within your castle serves as a storage receptacle of information.  As you walk through your palace you will anchor different ideas and concepts, different parts of your speech, various facts with different objects along your route.  This is why you want to spend time upfront making your palace as detailed as you can.  Each item in your palace effectively becomes a storage bin of information.  

Memorize your Palace

In order for your Palace to be truly effective, you need to ensure that you can recall it perfectly. To help your mind become clear about the contents it is helpful to draw out your palace blueprint, highlighting the storage locations you have chosen.  You can then test your recall by visualizing your palace and checking your mental recall against the map to determine if you have remembered everything and in the order you want.  Again, the more detailed you make each storage item (colour, size, feel, smell...) the easier you will find you will be able to recall it.  

Now Start Storing

Once you feel comfortable with your Palace and the storage spots you have placed in it you are ready to begin storing information into it.  Here you want to place a manageable amount of information into each item without overloading it.  If you have some items that need to be kept separate from others then ensure that you put them into separate places.  If you are delivering a speech and reach a point where you have three key points to make you may want to highlight that by placing each point into a different, but similar item, such as one of three paintings on the wall, one of three candlesticks, etc. 

Know that you don't have to continually keep adding to your palace, your rooms and objects can be 're-used' once you no longer need to recall the previously stored information.  

Get Creative

A speaker friend of mine has a number of key speeches that he delivers numerous times.  He has found it useful to create a Picture Gallery within his palace.  In essence, each painting in his gallery represents a different speech he delivers.  He paints a visual painting for each speech which contains all of the preset triggers he needs to remember each speech.  To help him with this he uses other mnemonic devices to help him, including the use of symbols and images, that evoke larger concepts. Many of these images will prove unique to you and are often based on your past experiences.  He has become so proficient at anchoring his speeches that he can stroll up to any painting and, by simply mentally looking at the painting, he can deliver a full hour without any refresher!

Explore your Palace

When you have created your palace you need to visit it periodically, even when it is not formally in use.  The more you explore your palace the more comfortable you will become with its structure and contents, thus making it easier to recall them.  My speaker friend above takes regular walks through his Picture Gallery which serves to refresh his memory of his various speeches and talks.  He ensures he is familiar with the landscape of each of the paintings he has created and is therefore ready to deliver any of them at a moment's notice.

Take a Virtual Tour

Okay, I know this is somewhat crazy sounding, asking you to take a Virtual tour of a Virtual reality, but I'm likening this to when you are house-hunting and viewing a walking video of the prospective home online.  Research shows us that we remember things better when we mentally take note of the need to remember something, prior to its occurring.  It serves to have our minds turn on mental videotape and enhances our recall.  Use this when touring through your palace, consciously walking through with your virtual camcorder in hand.  

Speeches and presentations are obvious uses for your Memory Palace but so too are the details of your latest project, facts and figures you need to recall, information that is important for you to access quickly.  If you find it impossible to second-guess what information the boss may ask for at the next meeting you may want to begin building your palace and storing all relevant information into it - ensuring that you always have access to whatever they may ask for just one virtual step away.

Practicing the Pitch

I have two clients right now that are in the midst of preparing their 'pitches' to potential investors.  In both cases I strongly urged them to not only practice their pitches but to videotape themselves while doing so. This is an unbelievably powerful tool that will help you to improve your delivery dramatically.  It is one thing for me to tell you what you are doing and need to change, it is another for you to see and hear it for yourself.

It is important that you see and hear your pitch from your audience's perspective.  Their receipt of your information is what will determine the action they take next, that is what you are trying to influence. You need to become familiar with the experience that you are providing them.  How did your delivery of your content make them feel, what did it make them think and what action did it make them want to take?  The better you are able to design and craft your audience's experience of  'you', the more successful you will be in influencing the result you achieve.

With the capability of videotaping from your phone, videotaping your practice sessions is more accessible than ever, and yet it is an overlooked and underutilized development tool.  It seems we don't hesitate to take thousands of videos of just about everything in life, but we hesitate to turn the camera back on ourselves. However, if you want to fast-track your improvement you need to do just that!

• Got a big presentation coming up?  Tape and review it!
• Looking to ask the boss for a raise?  Tape and review it!
• Want to convince your team that they need to shift direction?  Tape and review your arguments!
• Starting up your own new venture?  Tape and review your networking 'speeches' to ensure that you sound interesting, comfortable and confident! 

The following suggestions are offered to provide you with some direction as to what to look and listen for when reviewing your videotape.  Though not exhaustive, they will give you an idea of some of the biggest things that I look for when helping my clients to strengthen their presence and perfect their pitches.

•  Do you sound mechanical or natural?  Most people, when faced with the pressure of preparing for an important speech or presentation, practice with the intent to learn their content.  A huge fear most of us have of public speaking is the desire not to forget everything we wanted to say!  Certainly practicing helps us to become more familiar and comfortable with our content, but do not make the mistake of believing the intent is to memorize it.  Become familiar with where you want your talk to go (the key points you want to cover) but recognise that there are many verbal paths that can take you there. Keeping the choice of words loose will give you the flexibility needed to keep your tone more conversational and will prevent you from freezing when one key word escapes you.  You'll simply choose another to fill the gap.  
• Check for tics!  Do you have any repetitive nervous habits (verbal or physical) that are distracting your audience from your true message?  These could include the notorious Ums and Uhs, but could also be other repetitive catch phrases (the overuse of the word So at the beginning of sentences seems to be huge right now), small body jerks, head tosses, lip smacks, nose sniffs, finger flicks... you get the idea.  We all have them, but you aren't likely to know what yours are, or hope to control them, until you see and hear them for yourself.  
• Monitor your pace.  When people get nervous they tend to speed up.  Everything.  They start speaking faster and, because our bodies tend to keep pace with our voices, they move faster too. This will appear nervous and anxious to your audience.  You want to speak and move with a smooth comfortable deliberateness.  Everything is targeted toward your audience.  You need to deliver your message at a speed that enhances your audience's receipt and understanding of the messages.  Too fast and you are too much work to listen to and your audience will shut down.  Too slow and you are also too much work, they'll tune you out.  
• Give 'em time to get it.  You need to build pauses into your talk, small moments where you give the audience time to 'get' what you are saying, to catch up to what has gone before and to be fully present for what is to come.  Comedians (the good ones anyway!) know, understand and use the pause. They can't simply deliver a punchline, they must follow it with a pause that allows the audience to fully process and experience the content, to 'get it', before moving on.  Rushing the audience means that they don't have a chance to think through what you've shared and react to it.  The content falls flat. Pauses build in small moments that allow your audience to begin to feel something.  If you are looking to move your audience, don't rush your pauses.  
• Where are you looking?  You need to connect with and draw your audience into your pitch, which means you have to look at them. As much as we have our own agenda for why we are speaking, we need to suspend it while we are speaking.  The moment that we make it all about our audience, the easier it is to remain connected.  However, when we shift our thinking to focus instead on ourselves we tend to go into our heads to do so.  This results in a physical withdrawal from our audience, which tends to negatively impact our eye contact first, with other body and voice cues following.
• Show 'em your hands.  We tend to trust people more when we can see their hands.  Keep your hands visible and centered, holding them loosely right about belly button level, gesturing outward from there. Dropping the hands down at your sides will drop your energy, taking your audience's interest with them.  Your hands are great tools to help you to draw your audience into what you are saying and can help emphasize, clarify and strengthen your message.  Smooth, controlled movements, rather than short, sharp or jerky, is what you are aiming for.  If you are selling, not telling, then make more of your gestures from the palms up perspective.  Palms up is collaborative while palms down is directive. There is a place for both but if you are seeking something from your audience, you are in sales-mode, then your palms should be facing upward or toward each other, more than they are facing downward.
• Smile.  When we get nervous we tend to stop smiling.  However, our smile is a powerful universal gesture than can be used to help us to connect with others and to convey our confidence.  Though you may be delivering a very serious message, you will likely find that there are still a couple of opportunities within which you can share a smile with your audience, if only when you are first greeting them and when thanking them for their time. 

Use the above points to help you to review your video.  Highlight which areas need a tweak or adjustment and then try it again.  The accessibility to video has made it easier than ever to gain important feedback on your delivery and yet few use it.  Those that do (which now hopefully includes you) will therefore have a strong and distinct advantage.  Practice and perfect your pitch and see for yourself the impact that it has on your success rate.  

The Secret to a Great Spontaneous Speech

I work with many mid and senior level individuals on the Art of Delivering a great speech.  We work on
script blocking, vocal messaging, body language.  All in an effort to make their speech appear natural and seamless.  With all of the various techniques you can use and apply, the biggest secret to sounding spontaneous and conversational is... Practice!

Many of my clients err on the other side of this equation though, erroneously believing that over-rehearsing will make them sound mechanical and wooden.  Certainly, if that is what they are rehearsing then that will be the end result they achieve.  However, in order to have the confidence to let your content 'go' and to focus on the true delivery of the underlying messages you need to know your content backward and forward. Not a memorization of content, but an internalization of your content.

Great actors know this. They don't rehearse their role once or twice, they rehearse for weeks in an effort to sound and appear unscripted.  It's the rehearsal that frees your mind from its fears of forgetfulness, allowing you to be fully present in the moment, delivering your speech in a way that resonates with the audience.

"It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech."                                         - Mark Twain

I typically refer to the content of a speech, the actual words you use, as your primary message.  However, the delivery of it - your voice and body language - are the vehicles by which your secondary messages are delivered. It's your secondary messages that direct what you want your audience to think, feel or do as a result of what you are sharing.  It is your secondary messages that set your speech apart from all that precede or follow.  People will forget much of what you share with them, but they will long remember how you made them feel.

Think of the soundtrack to a movie.  Often, the soundtrack is operating at a more unconscious level.  We are paying more conscious attention to the action on the screen, the words the actors say.  However, the dramatic build-up of the moment the babysitter opens that basement door and begins creeping down the stairs would not have us squirming in our seats without that soundtrack.

So too with the need for you to integrate your non-verbal communication with your verbal.  You want them to operate in sync, to strengthen and clarify the messages you are delivering to your audience, thereby assuring the messages they receive.  This requires practice.  And more practice.  However, getting good at anything in life requires the same.  No one is perfect at anything right out of the gate.  Just because you have been speaking for most of your life does not mean you are automatically capable or skilled in public speaking.  Don't mistake the two.  Public speaking is an entirely different medium and the skills need to be rehearsed for us to gain any measure of competency.

"There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave."         - Dale Carnegie

Actively rehearsing, strategically and consciously working to ensure that your verbal and non-verbal cues align and work to support your key messages, is the difference between being a disaster or a master on-stage. Practice may not be the 'secret' you were hoping for, and it may sound counter-intuitive - but it is the secret of all the great speakers we admire.  Practice your Spontaneity.


(for those that would like to learn more about the above and about applying Body Language principles in other aspects of their communication, check out our Beyond Words program at www.titantraining.ca)

Presentation Basics - Breathing

Breathing is life.  If you're not breathing, you're dead.  Simple fact that we're all aware of.  However, breathing is also voice.  Without breath there is no voice.  It stands to reason then that the quality of your voice and the amount of voice you have is also driven by the type and quality of breath.  Typically, when working with clients on their personal presence or formal presentation skills, we will need to work on their breathing.   For most of us, as long as we were breathing, people were happy with however we chose to make it happen.

If we want stronger, deeper, louder or more compelling voices though, we may need to relearn the way in which we breath.  Most of us breathe from the upper third of our lungs (called Tidal Breathing).  If we want to increase the depth of our voices, or we want to project them more, we need to learn to breathe from the middle third of our lungs, called diaphragmatic breathing.  To do so requires us to breathe from a different place, not to take in a different amount of air.  Professional singers, actors on stage, deep sea divers, musicians that play a wind or horn instrument all learn to breathe from the diaphragm in order to support their craft.  You can too.

To practice, start by standing up.  It is important that you stand fully upright, with the spine elongated.  If you slump you compress your diaphragm and cannot breathe from it.  Place a hand on your upper chest and one on your upper stomach area, just below the bridge of your ribs.  Take a nice, slow, deep breath in.  Watch which hand moves.  (Breathe out!)  Instead of seeing the upper hand rise and fall as you breathe (indicating that you are filling the upper third of your lungs with air), try to make the bottom hand (the one on your diaphragm) move in an out.  This will require that you target your breath more, but it will begin to train your brain and body to begin breathing from this area more often.  The more consistently you practice breathing from your diaphragm the more you begin to create the habit of breathing from it.

Breathing from the diaphragm also has a number of additional benefits.  Let's face it, most of us don't give many formal presentations and, even if we do, we tend to get very anxious and stressed about doing one.  We carry this tension in our bodies, which then influences the way we move and sound - making us appear uncomfortable.  Our presentation suffers.  I offer you two suggestions below to help you deal with some of this tension...

1. It is not unusual for people, when they get nervous, to feel short of breath or sick to their stomachs.  This is because the nerves that control your digestion and your respiration attach to the C3 and C4 vertebrae, which are in the middle of the back of your neck.  When we get nervous and tense, we tend to tighten and bunch up these muscles (how many of your feel stress through the muscles of your neck and upper shoulders?).  As we tense these muscles up, we impact the nerves controlling our breathing and digestion.  The solution then is to relax those muscles, release the tension.  Certainly getting someone to massage them for you would work.  When at work or at other times you don't have access to someone willing to give you a neck massage, try the following exercise.  Stand comfortably and bend over, letting the head hand freely.  Really make an effort to fully relax the neck muscles.  You can test this out by taking your fingers and gently pushing on your head (while it's hanging).  If you feel resistance your haven't fully released it.  Allowing the neck to hang freely, and using the weight of the head (much heavier than you realize!) to pull and extend the vertebrae of the neck, helps relieve the tension and release the pressure on those nerves.


2. Practice your breathing!  Take a couple of quiet moments periodically throughout the day to breathe deeply and fully.  Sit fully upright and put a hand lightly on your diaphragm to serve as a target for the muscles you want to engage.  In addition to practicing breathing from the diaphragm, concentrate on the breath you take.  Breathe through the nose only since breathing through the mouth tends to signal to your brain that you are in distress.  Not the effect we're after!  Deepen your breathing by elongating your exhalations, not your inhalations.  Your lungs will adjust naturally and automatically to replace the air you have lost through your exhalations. Therefore, you don't have to focus on your inhalations, they will take care of themselves.  Additionally, when you're nervous, trying to inhale more could result in hyperventilation.  Focusing on the exhalation is what will prove calming.  Try to extend and lengthen the number of outward counts of breath each time.  Although you could certainly start and end your day with 15-30 minutes of controlled breathing, most of my clients don't tend to find, have or make the time for this.  Instead, using this technique periodically throughout the day, for 3-5 breaths, will serve to help you maintain a greater sense of calmness, well-being  and will help keep your stress in check.

Secrets to Great Presentations... The Steve Jobs Way

I just bought an iPad, so forgive me if I am in a 'Mac' frame of mind. My purchases aside though, I am a big fan of Steve Jobs and, in particular, his presentation style. His presentations are everything that a truly great presentation should be.  They are impactful, memorable and motivating. What then can we learn from the likes of Steve Jobs to help our presentations stand out?

 

• Stop thinking of your presentations as simply an opportunity to share information, considering them instead as an opportunity to transform.  A chance to create and drive change. Start by thinking about what the true desired take-away message is for your audience and build the presentation out and around it.
•  Having established clearly what your key message is, create your story. All presentations should have a clear, compelling message. Know what yours is and let it take center stage.
• If your topic lends itself to it... Introduce a villain. Every great story has a great villain, an antagonist (problem) that unites your audience against a common element. A villain will always serve as your 'why' for your product or service.
• Be passionate about what you are sharing, not just with your words but with your delivery style as well. If you are not passionate about your story/topic... Why would your audience be?
• Make sure your message is sticky, that it is memorable. Use short and concise phrasing and even take a few lessons from the marketing department to help your message stand out. A few ideas? Use repetition, the Power of 3 (easy for the mind to picture and remember groups of 3 ideas), use Twitter-like headlines, use alliteration, use pictures and word images, create a memorable catch-phrase that captures the essence of your message.
• Eliminate your dependence on bullet points. Text is generally the least effective way to deliver information -if you want it remembered and acted upon. Instead, use visual elements to connect with and engage your audience... To inspire.
• Consider giving your audience a 'bonus' of some kind at the end of your presentation. Steve Jobs always concluded with his famous..."and one more thing...". What could you do or offer that ends your presentation cleanly, clearly and memorably?

 

If you're still not too sure how these points would play out over the course of an actual presentation then hop on over to You Tube, type in a search for Steve Jobs and watch how a master does it! It is never a bad thing to learn by example and I can't think of a better example for you to follow!