When telling stories about yourself to make an important point to your audience, it is imperative that you give enough details so that the audience makes the right conclusions about you. It’s fine to tell self-deprecating stories. It’s even Ok to talk about your mistakes and your blunders. But you don’t want to tell a story in such a way that you make the audience hate you or write you off as a flake or an unstable person.
The world is full of bad advice written in books by so-called “experts.â€
“Pregnant women should NEVER exercise!â€
“Lose weight by eating only one meal a day.â€
“The best way to catch a husband is to play hard to get and to lie, lie, lie†(advice from a now-divorced, but very rich “relationship†expert)
Most of us realize the world is full of charlatans and we take lots of advice with a grain of salt. But for some reason, many of my media and presentation training clients lose all sense of skepticism when it comes to advice they have read about how to conduct media interviews or give speeches.
One thing I have found to be true with my clients over the years is that the less frequently they give speeches, the more time it takes them to prepare for any one speech. If you rarely give a presentation of any sort, than every speaking opportunity becomes a huge chore. You’ve go to think about the speech, worry about it, produce anxiety about starting to prepare for it, and fret about procrastinating about the speech. Then there are the sleepless nights the week of the speech.
Bill Gates is not known for being a riveting speaker. He is the poster boy for nerdy geeks everywhere. Still, he can create quite an impact when he speaks—when he has something important to say. Sure, if you are worth more money than the entire Gross Continental Product of South America, people listen carefully to anything you say. But just because you are rich it doesn’t mean your audience will remember anything that comes out of your mouth.
For high level CEOs, celebrity speakers, and professional speakers, the standards an audience holds them to are different. The standards become much higher. So even if the speaker does a pretty good job and doesn’t make any mistakes, there is always the danger that an audience member will say, “the speaker seemed too rehearsed, too canned, and too slick.â€
Are you looking for a sure-fire way to test your speech for its effectiveness?
Conduct a movie test. Here’s how.
3. Write down every image that comes to mind as if you were a movie director blocking out scene after scene from a movie.
The number one problem all speakers have (after data-dumping) is that their speeches are too abstract and general. The problem with abstraction is not that audiences won’t understand you. The difficulty is that people don’t remember abstract ideas from speakers. The answer is to make your abstract messages concrete by giving examples, case studies, anecdotes and stories. When you provide these, your audience can provide the images to the movie in their own brain as you give your speech.
I have often preached to clients about the power of positive speaking. I don’t mean that people should sugar-coat ideas or simply pander to audiences. But any subject, even war, needs to have positive solutions discussed. Otherwise you are just carping.
Now there is new research from the University of Pennsylvania to back this claim. A study led by Professor Andrew Rosenthal (as reporter in the May 1, 2007 New York Times) tracked the level of optimism among major US Presidential candidates who have run since 1900. The researchers analyzed numerous comments from major candidates and then rated their level of optimism in terms of how they characterized problems.
Ever notice that people who walk around saying “I’m no good at math†use that as an excuse not to balance their checkbook or pay their bills on time? Or people who say “I’m not clean and organized†have messy desks?
Are these people really lacking some rare talent that other people possess? Usually, the answer is “no,†they are just making excuses. These excuses create a permanent mindset that becomes habit and the next thing you know, all of their life experiences confirm their low opinion of their particular skill in that area.
Speaking skills are like stomach muscles and old wooden houses—they atrophy, they decay—even when you take good care of them sometimes. For example, clients of mine who were great while speaking on TV three years ago because they moved their heads, moved their bodies, moved their hands and smiled a lot find that they slip back into old, bad habits. This means they sit still, stiff, frozen, head cocked to one side, and with no smile on their face. Sure, these experts still have great content and answer questions well, but they no longer look like pros on TV, and that’s a big problem.
I often encounter people who tell me that they don’t fear public speaking. In fact, here is what they say about themselves; “I’m a pretty good speaker. I don’t get nervous or anything, I just don’t enjoy doing it, so I avoid it.â€
Don’t kid yourself. If you can relate to this sentiment, then you fear public speaking. This apprehension may not be paralyzing, however, it is unbearable enough to keep you from speaking.
How you ask, could I be so presumptuous as to make this claim, given that I am not a trained therapist?