This episode focuses on another service of the business: public speaking. Drawing from the experiences of personal accomplishment, speaking does not have to be a “scary” endeavor, and even the most accomplished of speakers seek other counsel in helping to overcome writer’s block, idea creation, and many more. This explores the advantages of having confident speaking in our lives through some tips and recommendations that have been often encountered throughout our host's experiences.

This is part three of a series of episodes exploring the wide variety of services that Your Speaking Voice LLC provides to interested clients.

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Intro/Outro By: Michael Dugan, Podcast Host: Voice4Chefs

Welcome to the podcast where relationships, confidence, and

determination, all converge into an amazing, heartfelt experience.

This is Speaking From The Heart.

Welcome back to episode number 21 of Speaking From the Heart.

Today we're going to talk about another feature of my business, Your Speaking

Voice LLC, which I started earlier this year that I provide to my clients, and

today's topic is the one that has the most fear beyond it all, glossophobia itself,

in which I work with so many people, and I even work on it myself: public speaking.

Public speaking goes back hundreds of years, even to the times in which feudal

empires even went to the town square to even talk about the taxes that were being

raised onto the class of individuals, and we often go back to even the United

States history, even the very beginnings of our country in which that importance

of speaking confidently and being able to share a message with an audience

was something of great significance.

I know that for many of us though, we might not be in the feudal square or

learning more about our king or maybe even protesting our king, but I would

think that public speaking for all of us, no matter what background that we're

at, whether it's a blue collar, white collar, whatever type of job it is, it

has implications for all of us with all different things that we do in our lives.

No matter if it was giving orders to a team or even providing information to

a group of individuals that were of an informative, persuasive, or entertaining

value, being able to publicly speak, let alone record yourself to be distributed

to a massively wide audience that can access you, is truly important.

I have learned in my over 11 years of doing public speaking, mostly

because of Toastmasters International, the organization that provides

communication and leadership development to those all across the

world, it has allowed us to understand a lot more about what's important

about speaking to a wide audience.

There's a lot of things that we can work on when it comes to not only how

we speak, but how we speak confidently and being a coach myself for many years

in this realm, before I ever started my own individual practice, I have learned

from time and time again that we all have different reasons and motivations

and being able to learn how to speak.

Let's go through some of the things that I have learned though that might be

helpful in the general sense, meaning no matter what you're doing, whether that

is just a small talk in front of a group of people, or even doing a bigger group,

a large audience of over a thousand, 2,000, maybe even 10,000 or more,

you will have to practice in order to understand how to become more effective.

One of the very first things that I will ever share with anyone,

especially going through my practice, is understanding who is your audience.

That is such a big, important component of being able to form the right message,

because if I'm not understanding who my audience is, and I'm not willing

to understand what kinds of things that they are looking for from me as a

speaker, I will not be effective at all when it comes to the delivery and the

execution of that speech, and that goes hand in hand, not only with the things

that we're doing in our conversations in our daily lives, knowing what we

are saying at a smaller scale, but we also need to know what we are trying

to share with that particular audience so that they are walking away feeling

that they have spent their time doing or learning more about what you have to say.

Some of those things that a audience should be considering, especially

for yourself as you're preparing, is whether that speaker is qualified.

It doesn't mean that it has to have every single credential or check mark,

but what makes you the authority to be able to speak in front of that audience?

Understanding how that audience might respond to you, especially if you are

going to speak in front of them, can help you prepare for some of the remarks

that might be given before you're ever introduced, which in itself, is an

art that oftentimes gets confused with providing a large background about who

you are, which might not be relevant for the topic at hand, but getting back

to the audience, it is so important to understand that we need to provide more

than just what is on the surface when it comes to that program, when it comes to

knowing who you are, that headshot with two or three sentences about who you are

and what makes you qualified to speak.

By understanding, as a speaker, who you're talking to, you can have even

more of a tactical presence with your presentation by having acronyms and

other sort of information on hand that might be specific that everyone should

have a universal understanding on, but if you have a more generalized audience

in which has a mixture of people that might not know what those things are

that you're trying to discuss, it will help you to form and craft that perfect

speech so that you know that it's okay to talk about those things that might

need to be explained a little bit more closely or more clearly for that matter.

Those are reasons why an audience is so important to understand and be able to

dialect with, especially beforehand, and getting to know somebody that is running

the event is my number two of making sure that you're a prepared speaker.

It isn't just about knowing who your audience is, but also understanding

what the venue is, maybe the technology that is being used, the props, the

video that might be recording you, the audio that is picking up your voice.

Having a full understanding of all those things requires understanding who you

are working with to make sure that the event that you're speaking at is most

successful, and we oftentimes look over those details because we think that we

have everything put together when it comes to content, and we don't necessarily need

to worry about what anybody else has to say when it comes to the delivery, the

execution, because that's what's more important, but every single piece of the

process, all the way from starting out to developing and to executing on that

speech requires an understanding of who you're working with, especially when

it's a contracted event, to be able to learn a lot more about who you can be

and how you can become a public speaker.

By having that relationship with someone too, you will have some of those resources

already available to you that, in a pinch, might be needed available at the

very last minute to help you get through whatever technical difficulty that might

occur, which leads me into my third point.

Never assume that you have everything ready the day of because

something will always happen.

As a matter of fact, just recently in an event that I have attended, which we just

talked about in one of my episodes with my guest, Ivana Miranda, I had showed up

to the venue for the conference that I was presenting at, and I totally forgot

to bring the dongle that I needed to connect my laptop to the television that

was needed to present my presentation, but being the prepared speaker that I

was and knowing that there was going to be no other resource or recourse for

that matter, I had a backup plan already in place to present the material that

I was going to present electronically.

In other words, although I was going in person and physically showing my

materials, It doesn't mean that I need to be sacrificed if I had to be able

to not use those materials, and I could pivot into another direction on its

own course, and I still satisfied my obligation to my client, being able

to speak in front of my audience.

Being able to have a backup plan, when those sort of technical difficulties

or those moments of forgetfulness often occur, that can help you become more

confident and even more prepared in the speaking engagement that you are

providing with a potential individual.

This leads me into my next point, which is about introductions.

When you're talking about with public speaking, the ability to showcase who

you truly are, oftentimes people think that it's all about showing what your

whole life story is about, and as I even mentioned earlier, maybe in some

audiences it's important to share what your life story has been about, but

it oftentimes is not the case that you want to do that consistently, depending

on what time limits that you might have on an audience to give a message.

If you are giving a 40 minute talk about a certain topic, you

certainly do not want to spend a lot of time introducing yourself.

Have the person that's introducing you, do all that work.

They have that extra time, but to even help them out, it doesn't mean giving

yourself a four decade, five decade, even six decade life story about all

the accomplishments that you have done.

If you are there at that audience talking about a certain subject matter

that you are specifically assigned to do, focus on what makes you a credible

speaker as part of your introduction.

It is perfectly okay to state your name, where you are coming from, what you do

for a living amongst some of the more basic information so that you establish

that basic level of trust with your audience, but once you start to get into

more of the wildly big details about who you are, it's about focusing on what's

truly important with those aspects, narrowing it down, and then being able

to provide that level of information or comfort to be able to associate with

the audience, because let's face it.

If you provide all that information, especially since it might be already

listed in the program book, do I need you to read it to me, and that

should always be the question that you ask yourself when you prepare

any sort of presentation material, which leads me into my next point.

Don't make the audience have to read everything that you're trying

to say, and this is really more appropriate for the visual aids that

you might be using in a presentation.

The old adage of a picture is worth a thousand words is exactly what it

means to talk about this subject too, because for us, visual aids in the public

speaking business can say so much about your subject, whether you're talking

about electric vehicles, whether you are discussing a specific problem that

is happening at work by using charts and graphs, maybe even in a eulogy or a

funeral in which you're providing context about the person that you're celebrating

the life of; having a fun photo, to go along with, it can certainly lighten the

mood of the audience because of knowing your audience and also understanding

how that person is when it comes to knowing the bigger picture overall.

Visual aids can be so impactful, and most people nowadays go to the original

Microsoft PowerPoint, which we know that nowadays there are so many more

opportunities to use software such as Prezi, and even Canva for that matter, to

develop your slide deck for a presentation amongst many of the other available

tools, but the most important thing to keep in mind when you're developing your

information and providing that context to the audience is when you start to list

so many different words on the screen.

That everyone's going to be more attracted to reading it and then when you flip to

the next slide, because everyone reads at a different level and different speed,

they will not be able to keep up with you.

This is why it's so important to understand that pictures or images

provide a wide variety of context and doesn't allow the audience to focus

solely on the words that are on the screen, because the reason for hiring a

speaker in the first place is to learn a lot more about what that speaker

can provide to help you become a lot more knowledgeable, especially as an

audience member, I'm sure that many of us throughout time that our speakers need

to be more prepared than ever before, especially if we want to have a subject

that we want to learn a lot more about.

Being part of our presentation or conference formats.

Even with all those tips said, I'm sure many of you are still thinking,

"Josh, I just will never do this.

I will never get in front of an audience to be more confident.

What would you actually do for me that would help me to feel a lot better?"

Well, as part of my value proposition with this sort of feature that we do, there's a

lot of different tools that are available that you would have to pay additional

money for if you work to work with someone else or maybe another group of people, and

I know that with the rise of artificial intelligence, there's a lot of different

software available that can help analyze some of the more basic crutches or even

repetitions or even the speed in which you're giving a presentation to show the

level of effectiveness, but through the business, Your Speaking Voice LLC, provide

a lot more than just the simple, "Let's work review to get to that end goal",

which is really the premise of a lot of the things that I have talked about even

in some of my previous episodes and what I'll talk about in the future episodes

with some of my other business offerings, but when we talk about speaking, we're

looking at the dimensions of not just the ways in which you form content or

even recognize the audience, or even using an introduction to empower you.

There are things such as eye contact, vocal variety, being able to use your

diaphragm to project, so voice projection for that matter, being clear about

the points that you're trying to share alongside the fact that grammar and using

filler words are often monitored to ensure that you're using and maximizing the

time that is giving to you, and those are all aspects that we do through several

video reviews through the business in which we record you and provide that

level of feedback into ways in which you can improve, but we also work on the

dimensions of the content that you are delivering so that we can see how you can

take your original self, and see how your progress has been made through a month's

worth, or a six week period or a two month period of just doing this work with us.

Public speaking is a lot more than just delivering a message.

It can be so much more if you're just willing to learn a little bit about how

you can focus your messaging and how you can focus that information that you

have deep inside of you to channel it to a convincing disclosure of comfort

for the audience to allow them to walk away with the information that you are

trying to convey in the first place, because with that sort of information

at our hands and at our fingertips, whether we are trying to entertain, to

alleviate the pressure that's in the room, or even to become more confident in

the way that we deliver ourselves, both personally and professionally, we can

become more opportunistic in the ways in which we become speaking professionals.

Speaking and being on message is something that I truly value and very passionate

about because of the ways in which it has transformed me to not only do a podcast

such as this, but has allowed me to be able to speak in front of a large audience

many times over and not feel ashamed of sharing my personal, authentic self.

If you want to be a confident speaker, it doesn't matter what you

want to do or what you want to say.

It's about being able to stand in front of a room and know that you can be the best

version of yourself by just practicing, because through practice it does make

perfection, but sometimes having a second set of eyes and even another voice to

help you and guide you along the way can be the best form of coaching, especially

in this realm, to help you see not the things that you want to be, but the

things that you can become as a result of being consistently evaluated on in a

positive, effective way that allows you to see just what you are able to share.

Messaging is everything, and being a messenger, especially through public

speaking, can help you not only with your final message to your audience,

but also can help you see a different side of you on that big stage, or

maybe even that small camera that's looking at you right now saying

that you have something to share and I can't wait to hear it from you.

Thanks for listening to episode number 21 of Speaking From the

Heart, and I look forward to hearing from your heart very soon.

Thanks for listening.

For more information about our podcast and future shows, search for Speaking From

The Heart to subscribe and be notified wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Visit us at www.yourspeakingvoice.biz for more information about potential

services that can help you create the best version of yourself.