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You, me and the fear



You, me, we have all survived the elections, and will survive the next ones, unless of course we live in a country where we might die for our vote or spoken choice.  If that latter is your experience then this article may still be VERY very relevant.

There is much to think about and say about the whole issue, but the thing that struck me, and has me thinking, is the use of fear as persuasion, as a communication tool, as a way of getting attention – whether you be a public speaker, in conversation, trying to win an election or simply getting your news items into your readers’/watchers’ attention.

It can be as simple and unthreatening as in a fellow public speaking coach’s update recently, listing Robert Cialdini’s 6 methods of persuasion.  

One is Urgency.

“only 3 left”

“tickets selling fast”

“get in now before this offer closes”

And nowadays it is referred to as FOMO – Fear of Missing Out … with a certain degree of wry humour.  

But still, in there is that word, “Fear”.

Simple, non threatening, and often effective.

Except that on the other end of the spectrum …

it can also be as huge and as threatening as a madman with his finger on the red button.

And somewhere in that spectrum sit you and me.

On the receiving end of so much fear and adrenalin.

And on the projecting end, as speakers, in conversation, just trying to get attention, to persuade someone to see our vision, our expectations, our needs and hopes, for ourselves or for others.

And yes it works, this particular persuasion technique, whether it be tiny or immense.  

What we need to recognise is how it is balanced

with its opposite,

and I do know that the opposite of fear is love – a genuine desire to serve, to give, to lead

with integrity.

And my wish for you, and me, today, this week, this year as it draws to a close, is that we continue to do that, to be aware of it, to avoid complacency when it comes to what really matters

and that applies whether we be on the receiving end or the projecting end.

Ask always where is the balance?  Greater fear?

or greater service?

It will continue to be our strength, our currency, our success.

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Steal the Show: From Speeches to Job Interviews to Deal-Closing Pitches, How to Guarantee a Standing Ovation for All the Performances

steal_showA powerful way to master every performance in your career and life, from presentations and sales pitches to interviews and tough conversations, drawing on the methods the author applied as a working actor and has honed over a decade of coaching salespeople, marketers, managers, and business owners
Every day there are moments when you must persuade, inform, and motivate others effectively. Each of those moments requires you, in some way, to play a role, to heighten the impact of your words, and to manage your emotions and nerves. Every interaction is a performance, whether you’re speaking up in a meeting, pitching a client, or walking into a job interview.
In Steal the Show, New York Times best-selling author Michael Port draws on his experience as an actor and as a highly successful corporate speaker and trainer to teach readers how to make the most of every presentation and interaction. He demonstrates how the methods of successful actors can help you connect with, inspire, and persuade any audience. His key strategies for commanding an audience’s attention include developing a clear focus for every performance, making sure you engage with your listeners, and finding the best role for yourself in order to convey your message with maximum impact.
Michael Port is one of the most in-demand corporate speakers working today. His presentations are always powerful, engaging, and inspirational. And yes, audiences always give him a standing ovation.
An inspiring program full of essential advice for spotlight lovers and wallflowers alike that will teach readers how to bring any crowd to its feet.
You can buy the book from The Book Depository, or Amazon

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[Quick public speaking tip] Who cares?

Who cares?
Do you?
Does your audience?
who_cares
What about your speaking success? Do you care about that?
If you care about being successful, you are going to have to consider your audience. Success is all about them.
Consider your audience if you want to be successful.
Show them you care.
They have to feel that you have their best interests in mind, not just your own agenda.
While you are speaking to them, it has to be apparent that you care about them and what they want and need.
Otherwise you lose their trust, and the chance to entertain, inspire, persuade, compel.
…………………
Do you care that what you say aligns with your values and your truth …
about speaking with integrity?
Because if you aren’t in alignment with what you are communicating, saying, you will suffer, feel strange, removed, uncomfortable. You will have to fight it.
I spent years speaking successfully in competition, and yet feeling just that way, as though what I was doing was outside my reality somehow. It’s only since I stopped competing and started helping/inspiring/teaching with my speaking that I have realised the disconnect – I was speaking to win (success). Certainly the content was from within my own values and what I wanted to communicate, but there was always the dual interest, my audience and my success – and so the interest was divided between audience and success instead of focused on that audience.
It is sooooo much easier to show you care – genuinely.
And if you don’t, then I can only say find a way that you do, and use that as a frame for all that you present.
Use your speaking skills to create the connection with your audience and engage them. Use stories and humour. Interact with them. Call back to incidents or people they know. You have to have engagement, anyway, in order to begin the process of persuasion. And it will make it easier for you to feel in flow and connected …
and caring!

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Public speaking education

How can we learn to become public speakers?
How do we learn public speaking?

Formal education will make a living; self-education will make you a fortune.

Formal education will make a living; self-education will make you a fortune.


Formal education.
I have post graduate qualifications. Most of the time that I was studying I had no idea what good it would do me,
and at times I had no idea what I would do with it.
And those two things can be very different!!
That was my formal education.
In my employment I was very grateful for those qualifications because they were recognised wherever I went and I was given employment and wages commensurate with their level.
They made me a living and a good one at that!
Self-education.
A lifelong pursuit, self-education! The older I get, the more intense it becomes. Perhaps I am now cramming!!
We learn by doing.
We learn to avoid pain.
We learn to pursue dreams and goals.
We learn to survive, sometimes.
We learn by research.
We learn by modelling.
We learn through our connection with other people.
And while that comes through formal education, it continues and is far more intense through self-education.
I suspect that in Jim Rohn’s time, there was also very little formal education in things like resilience, risk-taking, entrepreneurship, goal-setting.
I suspect also that in his time, formal education was undertaken under compulsion and the subjects studied, like mine, seemingly having very little correlation with the individual’s needs or innate abilities.
We learned a trade or a profession through formal education.
We learned to take that trade or profession out into the world through self education.
And the same can be said of public speaking.
We learn by doing.
We learn to avoid pain.
We learn to pursue dreams and goals.
We learn to survive, sometimes.
We learn by research.
We learn by modelling.
We learn through our connection with other people.
And while that comes through formal education, it continues and is far more intense through self-education.

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Herding as persuasion. What kind of shepherd are you? Or perhaps you are the sheep.

We fit in. We fit in with society, with our families, with our peers.
From a very young age, and from way back in the mists of history, we have been shepherded by our families, our tribe, our peers into conforming.

There was a time, and perhaps there are still times, when our very survival depended/depends on it.
So the urge to conform is strong in us,
especially in situations where we may not know what is appropriate, expected and safe.
I felt it when I attended a presentation early in my days in business.
He had already used various techniques that had me on edge, uncomfortable, aware of the not-so-subtle attempts at persuasion.
He had audience members becoming more and more excited.
“Raise your hand if …” and up went the hands.
Say “Yes” if you agree. And they were shouting “yes”.
“Who wants my freebie?” And before he had finished describing the thousands of dollars’ worth, two gentlemen were running to the stage for his USB.
“Everyone who belongs to my tribe run to the back of the room to sign up.”
And they did.
He had started with a room full of people. Many had left, but the numbers were still quite large.
I had no desire to buy.
I was very aware of what he was doing.
It was unsubtle and ugly,
and yet still I felt an outsider, uncomfortable, boring!
The power of belonging to the herd is incredibly strong.
And more recently, I attended a multi-level-marketing presentation.
I was late, partly because I was reluctant to attend, having agreed to make up numbers for a friend, and found myself sitting in a front row on a chair while about ten people sat on lounge chairs and padded chairs in an arc behind me.
And here again …
“Raise your hand if you want to live your dream.”
And the hands went up.
“Who’s excited by this offer?” And they very nearly shouted “Hallelujah!”
Then the presenter started inviting people to give testimonials and it became fairly obvious that there were only three of us who were not already members of the scheme.
Lovely to have so many people forming a community and supporting my friend who had hosted the event.
And while I felt uncomfortable sitting at the front, the herd force wasn’t as powerful as my first experience because I had gone in without any hopes.
At the earlier event I had been drawn by a particular suggestion in the marketing.
The herd instinct is a strong force for persuasion, especially in the unsure or vulnerable.
shepherd_sheep
Have you been in an audience and felt the force of it?
Perhaps you have been a shepherd, using the force – hopefully with more subtlety and integrity than those I experienced!

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Just for fun – or is it? How to sound smart in your TEDx Talk

There are such huge dangers in following a formula and sounding the same as everyone else!!
In a hilarious talk capping off a day of new ideas at TEDxNewYork, professional funny person Will Stephen shows foolproof presentation skills to make you sound brilliant — even if you are literally saying nothing. (Full disclosure: This talk is brought to you by two TED staffers, who have watched a LOT of TED Talks.)
Try watching it a second time with the sound off!!

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Um, How to Eliminate your Filler Words

This is a guest post from Kwesi Millington.
Kwesi is a public speaking, storytelling & confidence coach, teaching you to speak, share, serve and live with greater confidence. Check out his website at www.CommunicateToCreate.com . He shares some very practical tips on speaking and story.
um_eliminate
When you speak, are your phrases littered with “um’s” and “ah’s”? Do filler words fill your speeches?
When I first started speaking, I HATED silence. I used to do anything to fill those silences. And when I didn’t know what to say next, I filled them with the non-word no-no’s that most people often use in conversation. The “Um’s”, “Ah’s”, “Likes” and “You knows”. It’s not that the audience did not understand my speeches when I used these words, but I appeared nervous, unprepared, and less professional.
I devoted myself to working on my delivery, and once I started to eliminate these filler words, I started to be told that my messages were more powerful, and that I was a pretty good speaker!
The thing is, the messages did not change to cause improvements; I literally TOOK AWAY words to make my speeches better, instead of adding them.
Let’s look at 5 strategies you can use starting now to become a, um, better speaker. These are easy to apply steps that will improve your communication and make you appear more confident. It’s as easy as one word: PAUSE.
P – Practice
Rehearse Your Speech. I have heard people say they can “wing it” or that they sound staged when they prepare beforehand. If that is you, fine, but from experience, complete practice leads to calm performances. People add fillers to make up for spaces in a speech that they are not prepared for. When you practice your speech, you get to know your material inside and out. This way, if you forget a part, you can pause and let it come back to you (because you have practised), or simply move on because lets face it, YOU are the only one who knows what you forgot anyways. How do you practice? See my article on the 5Ps of Perfect Practice for more.
A – Answer
When you ask your audience a rhetorical question to your audience (ie: Have you ever had a time when…?), take a moment to quickly answer the question in YOUR mind before continuing to speak. This does 2 things: firstly, it allows the audience to absorb your question, showing that you respect them and actually want them to think about it. Secondly, it forces you to pause, in a spot that you may have otherwise used fillers. The pause makes you look more polished and professional, and then you can continue speaking at your next sentence/thought.
U – Use Everyday as Practice
I once read of a question asked of high school students. They were asked to describe a situation in 2 ways: firstly, how they would tell a police officer the situation, and secondly how they would tell their friends. In the first instance, the verbiage was very proper, and in the second it was casual with fillers and broken English. Though I do not always believe in the following statement, I do believe it applies here: The Way You do ANYTHING, is the Way You do EVERYTHING. So from now on, get in the habit of NEVER using filler words, even when talking to your family and friends. Just like an athlete spends more time practising than in the game, most of your conversations are with people you know, and a very small percentage of your life’s speaking is on a stage, no matter how much you speak. So watch for filler words like um, ah, and like whenever you speak to ANYONE. Reduce then eliminate them in your daily life, and you will see that transfer to the stage.
S – Stop
When you speak, think of how you write. You add commas, semi-colons and periods in your writing. When you speak, deliberately pause where you would at these punctuation points. Many speakers are so focused on their next thought, they forget to let the last one sink in. Most people are visual learners, which means they form pictures in relation to what you say. Give them time to make those pictures, and to re-live your stories with you, by pausing at your punctuation points.
E – Enjoy Yourself
Finally, enjoy the process of speaking. You’ve practised, you know your material, and you have a message to share. Once you forget about being perfect and remembering everything that you want to say, you can enjoy your time on stage, SLOW down, and savour the moment. Don’t worry about the time or think about getting to your next point. Enjoy the NOW, and just deliver your speech one thought at a time!
At the end of the day, as Speaker Craig Valentine says, don’t look for perfection, look for connection!

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The KISS of life for your speeches

This is a guest post from Kwesi Millington.
Kwesi is a public speaking, storytelling & confidence coach, teaching you to speak, share, serve and live with greater confidence. Check out his website at www.CommunicateToCreate.com and do watch his periscopes. He shares some very practical tips on speaking and story.
kiss
KISS it!
Try to learn one new word per week. Grow your vocabulary. Explore the richness of the English language…
Just leave the complex words out of your speeches.
Author John Maxwell says it this way…
“As leaders and communicators, our job is to bring clarity to a subject, not complexity. The measure of a great teacher isn’t what he or she knows, it’s what the students know.”
Speaking is not about YOU. That is the most important piece of information you can ever learn about this art.
It is about your listener. Think about their comprehension level. Many speakers try to impress the audience with what they know.
It’s NOT what you know, it is what you DID NOT know and have learned that will impress them. It is in your vulnerability that you will find your victory.
In writing, blogger James Altucher talks about the Flesch-Kincaid score (He wrote about it for Quora). This respected scoring system is applied to writing to determine what grade level you are writing for. For example, a Flesch-Kincaid (FK) score of 10 means that you are writing at a Grade 10 level.
Altucher provided studies of some recent top ranked articles, then he went back and got scores for the classic Hemingway book “The Old Man and the Sea” as well as “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, and “Crime and Punishment” by Dostoevsky.
The F-K scores for ALL of these were between 4 and 8. Yes, that means that all of the above, including a Nobel Prize winning author’s work, were written at a Grade 4th to 8th level!!
When you speak, SPEAK the same way.
KISS it my friends (Keep It Simple when Speaking).
Martin Luther King said “I have a Dream”.
JFK said “It’s not what your country can do for you, it’s what you can do for your country.”
Grade schoolers can understand those quotes, and Adults have been moved by them.
Remember this…
Big words touch the Brain, Small words touch the Heart.

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The Holy Grail for speakers

So what if we were asked to define the Holy Grail for speakers?
What would you say?
This has me intrigued now.
So the Holy Grail is a feeling?
What is that feeling?
For me, then,
the feeling is natural
not forced,
confident without being egotistical,
though sometimes a performance.
It is uplifting,
a quiet satisfaction sometimes,
sometimes exhilarating.
It is absolute connection,
shared laughs, emotional highs, and sad lows,
sudden understanding
and joy in discovery,
all shared.
That is me, the speaker, but what about the listener,
the audience member,
what does that person see as the Holy Grail of speaking,
of being in an audience?
What does that feel like?
And I, like you, have sat in an audience, just as we have stood or sat or walked as the speaker.
What is that feeling, as an audience?
We wanted to feel that connection
that experience,
those emotions,
the energy,
those shared learnings,
that absolute connection.
Sometimes we wanted to be the only person in that audience, alone in the experience,
at other times we felt kinship with all the others sitting or standing or online beside us.
We wanted to trust,
for the feeling of communication to be natural,
unforced.
We wanted to feel somehow changed by the experience,
more prepared to face our challenges,
validated in our choices already made,
motivated to go ahead,
uplifted, entertained, bemused,
if only for the duration of the presentation.
Is this the holy grail of speaking,
and does it exist,
has it ever existed???????

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Public Speaking – a mountain without a peak

florian
I don’t like it.
I like Florien Mueck.
If you can get to his YouTube channel, do, he’s worth watching.
But I wish he hadn’t said that, or hadn’t been quoted as saying that.
Starting with a negative.
No, there is no perfection.
I live in a household of sporting people, and the shelves are lined with trophies. In any sporting competition, there are distinct winners and losers. A swimming race, say, takes a measured amount of time and the fastest wins. Simple and cut-and-dried (usually!)
A speech on the other hand … well! I have won many speaking competitions since about the age of 12. I have lost just as many. People come to me afterwards and tell me they thought I won. Sometimes I agreed, sometimes not. Despite the number of very well articulated criteria, there will always be that element of subjectivity involved. I know. I also judge!
So if there is no cut-and-dried “best” speaker, how can there ever be a “perfect” speaker, or a perfect speech?
Perfect according to whom? Perfect according to what criteria?
What if, on the other hand, we went to the second part of this quote and look at a speaking high.
What does that look like? What does that feel like?
To me, it feels like being in flow
– speaking fluently and with enthusiasm
– connecting with members of the audience so that they respond with emotion, or they participate
– it can feel powerful
– it can feel gratifying
– it can feel something close to perfection
And if we looked at the audience members after the speech, they would be doing what we, as speakers, aimed to have them do – repeating, remembering, rehiring, buying, changing, being motivated, or any number of other things we had designed.
It’s what keeps me speaking, meeting the challenge to be the best I can be, to climb higher and higher towards
no, not a mountain top,
not a peak
not perfection even, whatever that may be,
but certainly to more highs and greater heights.
And of course the corollary is that we all need to avoid becoming complacent, thinking that there is no better in us, no better experience we an provide, no need to strive or create anything new or better.
So, yes, Florian, I agree with you, and the quote stirred me to do that!!
And it’s what I want for all of us here – you, Florian, me and all of our fellow speakers and readers.