September 28, 2012
-
Public Speaking
I’m sure it’s not an empirically produced statistic, but I would believe that many people would rather die than do public speaking.
I’m in a litigation class right now (yes, on a Saturday) and we’re doing exactly that. There’s over 40 of us here in the moot court, and we’re running mock trials of various matters. Our professor is sitting in the judge’s seat. She’s a New South Wales barrister. While we’re presenting our cases, she interrupts with questions for clarification, trying to throw people off.
Despite the fact that the process has a lot to do with responding to the judge’s interruptions, I’m surprised at how despite that this is postgrad law, so many people cling to their pre-written speeches. You’d think they’d just jumped off the titanic and that their pre-written speeches were the only floating chips of wood in the ocean.
I guess what I’m getting at is that when it comes to public speaking, I find it unfortunate that so many people rely on reading their writing. Mind you, the majority of my clients are brilliant and quick on their toes, but there’s still a surprising number who can’t get up to a podicum and stop stammering. Not only that, but even when given the freedom to read, word for word, what they’ve written, they don’t make any efforts to read with feeling. Mumbling into your iPad with your eyes buried is not a way to evince confidence in the points you’re presenting, or your confidence in your ability to sell it.
Many people will suggest that that’s the problem– confidence. But that’s not it. You don’t need confidence to be a good public speaker– you just need a method.
- Memorise your speech, not word for word, but in terms of concepts.
- Talk out loud and recite your speech when you’re alone… and do it more than once. Start by reading. OUT LOUD.
- Then move on to what I call “reading without reading,” which is to say, skimming, or speed reading, while you speak out loud.Every time you do it, it’ll come out slightly different, and that’s the point. You’re trying to work out, in advance, what are your preferred ways of explaining something, and what to do if you accidentally lead yourself down a rabit hole.
- Now, you might want to use a highlighter and just mark the words or phrases in your speech that are your anchor points– things that you can use as lifelines to get you back on track when you ad lib. Now, try presenting your speech with just glances at these highlights for cues.
- Now, do this 100 times.
Sure, confidence is nice to have. But for those of us who don’t have it, we can fake it with method.
What do we recognise about people who are confident? They don’t have their noses in their notes. They aren’t speaking in a monotone. They’re speaking loud, using inflections. Inflections are very important, because otherwise your points will not be absorbed by ANYONE.
You can train to not look at your paper. You can train to speak with variable tones, inflected, and clearly enough to heard. So who needs to worry about confidence?
Saying that you don’t have confidence to do public speaking is besides the point– confidence isn’t something that is easily come upon. However, as I mention, it’s not necessary– saying you have no confidence is just a way of scapegoat, avoiding the larger issue that you’re too lazy to practice at faking confidence.
