Learn to Love Public Speaking - Yeah, Really

Most people don’t like public speaking. In fact, most people would rather get into a fistfight with Roy Kent from “Ted Lasso” than give a speech or a presentation. But good public speakers are good because they love what they're doing. And you can improve your public speaking by learning to love it as they do.

Get Fired up

Good speakers are fired up about their topic. They're passionate and inspired, and this translates to inspiration for the audience. When you're talking about a topic you're interested in, you'll find yourself more confident and even enjoying giving your speech.

But what if you're not so excited about your topic? You can still take any topic and liven it up. Identify a problem and frame your topic as the solution to the problem. Tell a story or several stories throughout your presentation. Another way to make it interesting is to involve the audience directly. Make your presentation participatory.

Break Down the Barrier

Giving a presentation usually isn't fun when you feel all alone up on stage or in front of the Zoom camera. It can feel as though there's a huge wall between you and the audience. So when you create good rapport with the audience, you can relax and enjoy yourself. It becomes like a conversation wtih a group of your friends or co-workers.

One way to break down the barrier is to mingle with audience members prior to taking the stage. Greet them as they arrive and chat with them. You can also open your presentation with an appropriate joke or a story to establish commonality. Another idea is to encourage some audience participation at the beginning of the presentation.

Don't Take Yourself Too Seriously

Approach presenting with a smile on your face. Don't take yourself too seriously. If you're having fun, the audience will have fun too. People often get serious or self-conscious because we fear rejection, but remember that the audience is here to see you speak and hear what you have to say. They want you to do well, because that will result in a better experience for them.

Of course, it's not only love and enthusiasm that makes a presentation good. Public speaking looks natural when a good speaker does it, but a great deal of skill development, preparation, and practice goes into giving a good presentation. You see the speaker smiling, talking, and bringing the audience along with them through their presentation. What you don't see is all the hard work and preparation beforehand.

The great news here is that all of these actions are simple and you can take them, too. Follow these steps and you will feel more comfortable and confident. With practice, you may come to love public speaking as much as the speakers you admire now. For more practical steps you can take, enroll in oratorio.teachable.com and get started today.

Look Sharp On Your Video Chat

By Susan Tomai 

With Skype video, Google Hangouts and a dozen other video chat formats so commonplace these days, why can't we make an effort to look better in these on-camera situations? Take a look at this clip from CNN this week:

http://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/06/06/mark-cuban-donald-trump-taxes-sot.cnn

The old up-the-nose, camera-pointed-at-the-ceiling shot strikes again.  On one side we have Chris Cuomo in the studio, looking great as he always does; on the other side Mark Cuban, presumably working from home and using his computer, and not looking so great.

Cuban commits several video chat sins: his computer is positioned below his eye level (thereby giving us the front-row view of his olfactory infrastructure and the ceiling), there's harsh light coming in from the window, and he seems to have misplaced his hairbrush.  Maybe Mark Cuban doesn't care - he's richer than several small nations - but here's how you can avoid this amateurish fate:

• Elevate your laptop. Put it on a stack of books, papers, whatever - I use an antique humidor that's the perfect height for me - just be sure you're looking slightly up, rather than down.
• Look at your background. We don't want to see pictures of your cat. Also, don't sit in front of an open window - backlight will put your face in shadow. Better options for backgrounds are an office wall with artwork, a plain wall with some color, a bookshelf, or better still: your logo on the wall.
• No one looks good in direct overhead lighting.  Bring a lamp to the rescue and illuminate your face straight-on. Experiment with a colleague before you go live.
• Keep your hands away from your face.
• Comb your hair.

In the last two days I’ve had 5 Skype conversations and each of them was visually terrible on the other end. Don’t underserve your audience or undermine your messages by looking less than your best on camera.

Tell Me A Story

By Susan Tomai 

While standing 10 feet from Bill Clinton as he stumped for Hillary in Alexandria last week, I was once again impressed by his easy mastery of the art of storytelling.

“Yesterday,” he said, “I was shopping for a new pair of jeans. I asked the young saleswoman about college. She said sometimes she goes to college, and sometimes she can’t, because she can’t always afford it. She told me how high her student loan is, and how hard it is to pay down.”

"I believe that an investment in college is like an investment in your home,” continued the former president. “You can change your mortgage rate - why not have the ability to refinance your college loan? After all, it’s a 50 year investment, and a home loan is usually 30.”

I’d be shocked if that wasn’t the first time that week he told that same  “jeans” story to underscore a campaign message.

As a former TV producer, I learned the importance of storytelling early on. We all remember stories better than we remember facts and statistics – science has proven that the brain simply works that way. Of course your story needs to send a message, tell folks what to do, how to feel, how to vote, etc. – but the most important aspect of good storytelling is including descriptive details that capture the reader or listener. That’s what Clinton did at that appearance last week – he brought us into that jeans store with that young woman.

So the next time you deliver a presentation or sit for a media interview, deliver an anecdote (a true story, nothing made-up) to underscore your key messages. Describe the time, the place, the feeling. Your audience will be engaged, and will more effectively remember what you want them to.

Hillary Made a Hash of It

By Susan Tomai 

Scott Pelley of CBS News interviewed Hillary Clinton Thursday and she made an absolute mess out of a question she should have seen coming straight down Broadway.

Pelley related that Jimmy Carter said back in ’76 that he would never lie to the American people – and Pelley asked Clinton if she could say the same.

Pelley: “Jimmy Carter said: ‘I will never lie to you.’”

Clinton: “Well, but you know you’re asking me to say ‘Have I ever?’ I don’t believe I ever have. I don’t believe I ever have. I don’t believe I ever will. I’m going to do the best I can to level with the American people.”

“I don’t believe I ever have?” “I don’t believe I ever will?” My goodness, what a terrible answer. Why couldn’t she just say, “I have always leveled with the American people and I always will. Period.” Perhaps she twisted herself into knots with that response out of concern that someone will dig up a smoking-gun answer from interview in the past that proves that she lied. But even if she has lied in the past and doesn’t want to lie again about having lied before, she still could have done a lot better than that mealy-mouthed comeback. Heck, even if she knew she had lied before, she didn’t have to go there – she could have just said, “I will always level with the American people.” Instead, she handed her opponents a gift that we’ll be seeing in attack ads very soon.

From a media training perspective, the lesson here is that preparation is essential. No, you can’t anticipate every conceivable question under the sun – but she and her team most definitely should have known that one might be coming, and they should have been ready for it. There are no “difficult questions” in a media interview. There is only lack of preparation.