From time to time it\u2019s important to take a step back and put the world of public speaking into perspective. I do take it very seriously, and I am completely passionate about it, but it\u2019s also important to recognize that public speaking is one human activity out of many, we don\u2019t burn people at the stake any longer for disagreeing with us, and ultimately life is about love and work, as Freud noted, so at the very most public speaking should only occupy your thinking 50% of the time. And so here are my 10\u00a0rules for thinking rationally about public speaking, whether it\u2019s something you dread or love, whether it\u2019s a career for you, or a religion, and whether or not you ever will consider trying to master the art and science of it.<\/p>\n
1. A presentation is a brief phenomenon. <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s measured in minutes, typically, and the trend is toward shorter and shorter speeches. Unlike, say, chess games that can go on for days, or agriculture, which is measured in seasons, speeches are planned and timed to the minute. There are many implications that follow from this simple observation, but here are three. Minutes are important, and you should always give a few of them back to the audience \u2013 end early, not late, in other words. If your speech goes badly, and inevitably some will, then realize that you will live through it. If minutes are important to this art form, then seconds are too. Good public speaking is all about timing. Use your seconds wisely. Don\u2019t just fill them up with words \u2013 use pauses, gestures, and silence as well.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 2. Your most important job as a speaker is to find your voice. <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Clients often ask me if their messages are new enough. But there\u2019s very little that\u2019s truly new in the advice we humans give to one another. Aristotle figured out most things a couple thousand years ago. Rather than obsessing about novelty, realize that what is new is your voice. If you draw on your own experience, insight, and stories, then not only will your message be a new version of what may be an old truth, but no one will be able to say it just the way you can. Human voices, when realized, are unique. That\u2019s your real job \u2013 finding your unique voice. Don\u2019t quote someone else \u2013 say it the way only you can.<\/p>\n 3. Slow down and pare down<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The mistake that most rookie speakers make is to try to tell their audiences too much, to cram everything in, to tell them everything they know. One thing I\u2019ve learned over two decades of coaching is that different clients need different approaches. Brilliant advice offered to one person falls on deaf ears of someone else. They\u2019re at different places, or differing levels of skill, or have different issues. One size most certainly doesn\u2019t fit all, and that goes for the presentations and their audiences too. So rather than try to dump what you know on everyone, spend some time figuring out what you\u2019re going to leave out, what you\u2019re going to not say, and how you\u2019re going to use silence to best effect.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 4. You\u2019ll learn more from audiences that don\u2019t love you than audiences that do.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Early on, most speakers just want to be loved. They want an endless, ongoing standing ovation from their audiences from the very start. And so presenters placate their audiences, tell them what they think the audience wants to hear, and avoid challenging their audiences really to think hard. The result is the endless stream of mediocre presentations happening day and night around the globe. It\u2019s only when you get the courage to make your audience hate you that you\u2019ll find out what you really need to say to them.<\/p>\n 5. You can\u2019t give speeches in your head.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Speakers run through their speeches in their head and believe that this is rehearsal. It\u2019s not. You need to use your body to give a speech, and to rehearse one, because we embody our emotions first in order to find out what they are. In your head, you can say it quickly, smoothly \u2013 and blandly. In your body, you find the clumsy moments and the issues with connections from one part to another. Never rely entirely on the mental. Public speaking is performance art.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 6. Let it go<\/strong>.<\/p>\n A speech is the product of the speaker, the message, and the audience. When it\u2019s done, it\u2019s gone. Let it go. Don\u2019t let the accumulating weight of all your successes and failures become what defines you. If you do, you\u2019ll stop being capable of being truly present and creating that performance art. You\u2019ll just start phoning it in. Never, ever phone it in. You, your message, and your audience deserve better.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 7. Not all audiences should hear you<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I can always tell a rookie author because when I ask him, \u201cwho\u2019s your audience?\u201d he says, as if it were obvious, \u201cWell, everyone!\u201d That\u2019s a writer who hasn\u2019t thought clearly enough about what he is writing about and who should read it. In the same way, not every audience will resonate with your message. It\u2019s everyone\u2019s job \u2013 you, the meeting planner, the speaker bureau, the organizers, whoever\u2019s involved \u2013 to try to get this right beforehand. It\u2019s always obvious after the fact.<\/p>\n 8. You\u2019ve got to take care of yourself, but not too carefully.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Some of my clients, when they become successful, become divas. It\u2019s hilarious to watch, and I secretly love it precisely because it is a sign of success. You get the only-brown-M&Ms-in-the-bowl-in-the-hotel-room-which-is-set-to-69-degrees phenomenon. It happens, truly. But you\u2019ll have more fun if you remember that you are actually just another glorious human being, with all the rights and limitations pertaining thereunto, and don\u2019t end up taking yourself too seriously.<\/p>\n 9. You are not your speech.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Along the same lines, never confuse yourself with your message. You are more (and sometimes less) than your message. The message can change. The speech should change. Speeches are not sculptured objects; they are monuments to a moment in time only. You should never give exactly the same speech for more than a few years running. \u00a0Knowledge changes, audiences change, you should too.<\/p>\n 10. In fact, you should never give the same speech twice. <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Speeches need to be tailored to specific audiences. The main points may be similar, or even the same, but you always need to customize your presentation to a particular audience because if you don\u2019t it means you\u2019re not thinking about that audience as much as you need to.<\/p>\n Public speaking is important, even life-changing and world-changing sometimes, but that doesn\u2019t mean we have to take it with desperate seriousness. All human endeavor is ultimately temporary, and we are but dust in the wind. So enjoy yourself, make it as perfect as you can, and then trust to luck. Good hunting!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From time to time it\u2019s important to take a step back and put the world of public speaking into perspective. I do take it very seriously, and I am completely passionate about it, but it\u2019s also important to recognize that public speaking is one human activity out of many, we don\u2019t burn people at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[453,427],"tags":[182,1553,1552],"class_list":["post-7047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-453","category-427","tag-presentation","tag-public","tag-speaking","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7047"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7048,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7047\/revisions\/7048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}