Alyson Connolly - Public Speaking Skills For Dummies

Public Speaking Skills For Dummies

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2018948345

ISBN 978-1-119-33557-3 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-33563-4 (ePub); 978-1-119-33564-1 (ePDF)

Welcome to Public Speaking Skills For Dummies!

If youre thumbing through this book, youve probably seen a speech or two in your life that had a message that really affected you. Maybe it made you think on the way home in a way that made your brain feel good, as if it were exercising. The speaker gave you the feeling that you were involved.

The next day you woke up depressed. How could someone be so darn convincing with nothing on the lectern but a glass of water?

Most people think of public speaking as just that: a well-dressed person under a spotlight with one of those headset microphones that are reserved for someone who is speaking to hundreds or thousands. These people are the elite of the public speaking world theyre the pros. But when you think of baseball, do you think only about the major leagues? Or do you have memories of playing as a youngster?

Thats more like how this book treats public speaking. In my view, public speaking happens anytime anyone is speaking publicly. For some, that fancy mic is the goal. For others, maybe the goal is getting the confidence to speak to a stranger at a party. Maybe the goal is to carry a long story to a group of friends all the way to what you know is a beautiful payoff at the end. Maybe you want to nail that interview. Or maybe you want to tell your boss what you really think about how things are being run without falling over or sweating from your palms. Im here to tell you, even if you do want to get under that spotlight, the problems youll face are the same whether youre speaking to 2 people or 2,000.

This book is intended to help you find your voice. As a vocal pedagogue (a fancy name for speech coach), Ive seen just about every problem a speaker can have. Ive worked with mumblers. Ive helped fidgeters. Ive dealt with those who have no problem delivering speeches that are written for them, but can hardly speak when its their own words. And of course, I see many people who are just scared to death of public speaking.

I can help you with those things and more. The first thing this book will do is help you figure out what your problems are in order to solve them. Being an effective public speaker takes time, patience, and practice. You may never get the opportunity to speak to a rapt crowd through a microphone headset. But if youre diligent enough, you will be able to if you ever get the call.

This book is laid out the same way that I teach my voice and speech classes. My workshops are 36 hours long. For individual one-on-one coaching, each session lasts an hour. The progression of learning is different for everyone. Thats why this book offers solutions for every problem that I commonly work with.

Do you lack confidence? Do negative thoughts manifest themselves and hinder your performance? What can you do to stop them?

For some, the problem is physical. Breath is a vitally important part of the process. Well dive into common breathing habits and issues and find out how to address them. Something else well look at is how that stubborn old evolutionary fight, flight, or freeze response factors into performance anxiety. How can we get over such a natural function of our bodies?

Were going to get into particulars, too. Reading a speech is more than just speaking: First you have put on your writer hat. Before my clients walk in the door, I ask them to have a speech ready to practice with. For many people, even if theyre pretty good at writing, their writing doesnt sound like them. It should. Well delve into crafting your speech before you have to give it.

Once that speech is written, how do you lift it from the page? You can use devices like punctuation and all kind of markups to show how you want to say it, but not everything can be indicated on paper. Well work on tone and pitch, when to get quiet, what raising your voice does, and how to do it effectively.

Then well try to put it all together. Well talk about the resonance of your voice and how that affects your message. Well go into what articulators are and how to use them so even people in the back of the room can understand you. Breathing is once again important in making sure all your words are heard.

Well go through which style of public speaking might pertain to you and your needs. How can you have more impact with a slide show presentation or do you really even need to bother with that? What to do for a job interview? How do the rules change when youre having a conversation and theres no script? What do you do when things dont go as planned?