How to Make Your Next Speech as Much FUN as a Comic Book

"Sue, let me see if I understand it. You manage 25 corporate branches. Each week you can give a lecture in each branch. But you are afraid of death by the mere thought of speaking to a group. How on earth do you? "

"I take a Valium, Allan," she admitted, just as relaxed as if any of her friends might say, "I drink two cups of coffee every morning."

I struck the side of his head, shook the infidels and confirmed what I had heard. "You mean you take a Valium every time before you stand up to speak?

How on earth does your system take it? "

"It's the only way I can keep my job. My whole life style depends on me to communicate effectively with my staff. I took not a day before they came to your class," she looked away as if she had been a fool. "I had heard such great things about how you are able to transform" basket cases "like me into people whose favorite activity is public speaking. I figured I would venture it."

Sue was our first speaker of the day. Routinely, we ask each class member to come up before the group, and a maximum of 60 seconds, present themselves. The task should be easy. The topic is one about which no one knows more than the speaker: himself.

Wrong. Virtually none, as they themselves acknowledge succeed in spades. Halfway through, Sue had gone stone silent. Began to bite her finger, then dug her upper teeth into her lower lip, turned ashen white, sailed up the aisle, out the door, and tears streamed down her face, this 35-year-old chief threw himself on the sofa against the far wall.

This is where I caught up with her.

I've learned state-of-the-art, stand-up presentation skills to more than 3,000 adults across North America. So I've seen my share of terrible student efficacy of extreme terror on them. But I had never seen such a complete breakdown and actual flight.

I imagine you've heard about in the London Times report on the survey of 3,000 Americans to learn what we fear most. I can not imagine why: do the British plans to invade us again?

Surprising: 41 percent of those polled Americans fear that the "speech to a group" compared with 19 afraid to die, and 18 percent fly an aircraft. A shame. Well not only I love to help others to learn and practice the art and science of effective presentation, speaking to the audience is my favorite activity ... out of bed.

Moreover, to get a group of prospects all to himself in a private room, is the entrepreneur's most effective, most rewarding sales tool. I stroked Sue's courage and vision, given the tension wracking her body. I assured her that time will prove that she had made the right choice.

"If you want to be very aware of and follow to the letter, we ask you in the next exercise, so stick it in your quiver for permanent application, I promise you that the debilitating anxiety and paralysis will disappear forever. "

I sympathized with Sue. There had been times in my past life when I suffered every time I got up to speak. God knows how my audience reacted to what turned out to be a very artificial speaker.

In 1991 I gave a workshop for students, administrators, teachers and professors at New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY. A female professor confessed: "I get 'agida' simply by being invited to speak to a group."

I remember that it was in 1983 in Indianapolis, Indiana, over a drink with my client company's manager, describes him a particularly disturbing example say fears by one of his employees: he came, went silent, seized and almost shredded outer surface of both trousers, remaining stone yet.

"Oh, it must have been so-and-so. He had even been institutionalized." I prayed that he would never grant such a risk thing for me ... or any ... again. "I'm not a psychiatrist," I insisted, "but I can imagine such an experience can send him back ... for good."

I suppose there are so many manifestations of Speaker Stress (tm), which is afraid speakers.Other than the terrible feelings that you get physical evidence abounds. And it is anything but comforting to the victim. Or reassuring the audience that the speaker knows his subject.

Nevertheless, these names are just the tip of an iceberg, as far as the potential negative impact on a speaker's audience. And that it rarely speaks ever find in his panic.

Next time you speak, it would behoove you to have a friend or two look, listen and take notes on your behavior up front. Suggests that they ask themselves

(1) Are you clasp your hands in front ... or ... behind your back? (2) If one or both hands in the pocket (s)? (3) If you wear glasses, you will regularly push them up on the bridge of your nose, whether they need it? (4) Did you brush your hair back, again, unnecessarily? (5) Do you tinker with your fingers? Pick or brush lint from your suit? (6) Do you rock back and forth on his feet?Or lean out on one side? So the other? (7) Will you quickly back and forth in front of audience?And excuse the saying, "I'm more" comfortable "that way." Face it: you're nervous. "And heck, with its effect on my audience." (8) Where are your eyes? Up on the ceiling? On the floor? On your nails? (9) Are you whispering? Speaks too low to be heard, even in the front row?Mumbling? (10) Is your voice boring? Is it not black? Changing the tempo, volume, weight? Does your voice sound memorized? Rote?

It is strange how, when confronted, speakers reveal how they are to forget their apparent compensation manners ... and their ignorance of the harm they are doing their credibility throughout the audience. Especially if they're the boss. Please do not trust your employees to evaluate your presentations. For obvious reasons.

4 practical solutions you can use immediately.

(1) Never. Never read your speech, use notes, memorize, or use a Teleprompter. Instead, when preparing your speech, identify specifically what you want to achieve by giving the speech.Choose 3, 4, 7 or 8 ideas or concepts that constitute a coherent, persuasive pitch and paint a picture of each individual that when you again see that image as it makes sense idea you had.Blow each up to fit a 36 "wide by 24" deep sheets ready newsprint. Use pencil to sketch your ideas, then finish with colorful, water-based magic markers.

These will show your audience your ideas, you have told them what each item is and what it represents. And how every band on your main topic.

(2) talk to one person at a time. What this means is: pick a person's eyeball - left or right. Give the eyeball (the person), a thought. So, in total silence, move to another person's eyeball. Give to eyeball a thought. Proceeding to another person Eyeball a tank until the tank is illustrated by the fact that paper is complete. In silence, flip chart. And begins to talk, you thought that each of several audience members eyes. Repeat the process until you have exhausted all presentation sheets.

(3) Anxiety, stress, tension, anxiety has a psychological origin, yet, incredibly, the product is entirely natural - it's what you do to get rid of it. Be sure to speak with one eyeball at a time.Never say a word unless you are locked into the eyeball. Never.

Be more physically and vocally-expressive than you think appropriate. You are just about right.Your audience will love you.

(4) Put yourself center stage. Plant your feet square to the audience as wide as your shoulders.Put your easel where your artwork is mounted on the left, slightly angled toward the center of the audience.

These four techniques, if you are using them routinely (video yourself!) Will not only eradicate the crippling fear and nervousness, but should remove any fear whatsoever. Soon you will actively seek opportunities to train new skills that you have discovered. They will put you light years ahead of the pack also-ran presenters, afraid, nervous, mired in bad behavior.