Practice makes perfect.....sometimes.

Confidence Part 4:

Practice: this is so often overlooked.

Put simply, you cannot expect to be perfect first time out.

Think back to when you first got your driver’s license. The first time you went out on your own, you were stiff and cautious, and mega alert, not wanting to make a mistake which could be extremely costly or even dangerous. But now you hop in your car with hardly a second thought – what has made the difference? Experience – or practice!

This goes right back to the first post really – it is not a natural thing for most people to stand up in front of a crowd and hold their attention for an hour. Even the best of public speakers is far better now than their first time. And it all really does come down to experience or practice – simply put – the more you do it, more comfortable you get doing it.

o   Practice really does make perfect – if you practice right. I have added an addendum to this common saying, because it is not practice alone that makes perfect, but good practice.

§  Practicing wrong things makes you better at doing it wrong.

The actor Leslie Neilson made a video called “Bad golf made easier”, but it is not about playing golf better – it is about playing BAD golf better. And this is the thing about “practice” if you practice bad technique you will get better at the BAD technique, but you will not improve. The key to good practice is to learn good techniques and practice them.

§  Practicing will make you better, just like any other pursuit. The more you do it, the better you get at it.

Once you have found a source for good technique, then practice it as much as you are able. If you don’t feel too silly, stand in front of the mirror and present to yourself (I never was able to get comfortable with this, but it is often suggested). If you can convince your wife, husband, or kids, to sit through it, present to them. They will most likely not be able to comment on the content, but the delivery is something anyone can see.

§  Never turn down an opportunity to do a presentation– at least if your goal is to do them well. Of course, there are times when it is not your field, or you have promised a holiday to your family – turn those down – family is more important than any single presentation. But if it is relevant, and if the timing fits, and if it is worthwhile for your work and your goals, then take every opportunity you can. Practicing in the nets is great, but nothing can replace time out in the field. (That’s a cricket Metaphor for those non-cricketing people).

§  Record your presentations if possible.

This is really useful, but only if you then watch them back. If you have someone you trust, you could ask them to review it for you, but having a recording is a great way to see if you have any bad habits – like always saying “Now then…” at the start of every sentence. It can be really embarrassing and even off-putting if you know you are being recorded, but it is an invaluable tool for your improvement. A recording doesn’t care about your feelings…….

§  Even if you will never be a full-on pro, you can be better at it than you are now.

When someone thinks they have reached the pinnacle of their field, and they can do no better, it is time for them to retire. A wise man will constantly strive to do better than he is today.

Everything needs a solid skeleton (Except jellyfish - but they are not generally considered good speakers...)

Confidence Part 3:

Once we have prepared ourselves it is time to prepare our presentation.

We have already talked about preparation, and about the importance of thoroughly soaking our mind in the information about our particular subject, but once we have that info, we have to find the best way to present it.

One of the big things that damages confidence is not knowing where you are going with your presentation. Think of it this way – when you are driving along and you don’t know exactly where the street is that you want to turn down, you tend to slow down and drive with caution, knowing that you may not see the turn until the last moment; but if you know exactly where you are going, you drive up with confidence, knowing precisely where you are going.

Public speaking is exactly the same – if you have a general idea of where the presentation is going, you go cautiously, but if you know exactly where you want to take this bus, then you speak confidently, knowing exactly when to turn from one point to the next, and you know with certainty that you will find the final destination – a successful conclusion.

This is like having a good structure to your presentation – it is like a clear map from the start to the finish, and once you are familiar with your “Map” (Structure), your journey can be made with confidence.

o   Structure is important – you have to be taking the audience somewhere.

There is nothing worse for an audience than to not be able to follow where the speaker is going. Chasing Rabbits is what it is sometimes called – this is where the speaker gets distracted from his main purpose and goes off telling stories that have little or sometimes no relevance to the subject. Something he says in his speech made him think of something else, and he goes off chasing it like a hunting dog after a rabbit. Can be funny, but it rarely leads anywhere useful.

Strong structure can help you to not chase rabbits, or if you do, it helps you find your way back easily.

The structure of the average presentation follows the same basic structure that you were taught in school for a good essay: introduction, body, and conclusion.

§  A great introduction catches the audience, and gets them on your side from the start.

You should have a strong opening sentence, something that grabs the attention. It shouldn’t “sensational” in the tabloid sense, but the use of a BIG opening statement can be effective, as long as you don’t promise too much with it.

§  The stuff in the middle is where you feed them the actual info.

·         Separate the subject into points

·         Join the points so that you end point “a” with a lead in to point “b”.

·         Each point should be mentioned or at least indicated, in the introduction. How specifically you mention the points depends on your own style, and the particular style you choose for the structure of your presentation.

·         Each point should be mentioned or at least alluded to in the conclusion.

·         I have never figured out why, but three points seems to be optimal. This doesn’t mean that you can’t get away with two points, or stretch into more points, but three points just seems to work.

o   If you don’t have at least three points, you are probably trying to fit too much info into one or two points. See if you can make a division somewhere.

o   If you have more than three points, you just might be trying to cover too much info altogether. I have heard up to twelve points used effectively, but each point is brief.

o   Many presentations are between 30 mins and an hour. To divide that out: 5 mins for intro, 5 mins for conclusion, leaves you only 20 mins for three points – that’s only around 7 mins for each point. That may sound like an eternity, but it is not long to impart good information.

§  A great conclusion leaves the audience satisfied. The conclusion is where you tie everything together and make sure that the listeners see the connections between your points. This can even be the place where you see the “lights go on” in the audience – that is a great feeling. To actually see people “get it” as you pull everything together at the end.

§  “Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them.” It is a pithy little saying, but it is accurate. Keep that I mind and it will keep you on track as you prepare.

a good public speaker is a good Boy Scout!

Be Prepared!

Confidence part 2:

There are certain mechanisms that we can work on that will help our confidence.

People are afraid of many things when they present – most of them are wrapped around the idea that they will forget what they are supposed to say.

This is where we can take some practical steps and put in place some procedures to minimize the chance of this happening.

·         Preparation is KING – if you are prepared, it is so much easier to be confident.

P⁶ was something I was told many, many moons ago. P to the power of six stands for Prior Preparation Prevents Pretty Poor Performance.

Preparation of yourself and your subject is essential if you are to have confidence.

Since one of the biggest fears in public speaking is about forgetting your subject or points, the first place to start is with your preparation.

o   Know your subject.

§  If you have been asked to speak on a subject, then you obviously have some knowledge of it to begin with.

All of us know the general subject we are going to speak on, otherwise we would not have been asked to do so. But we are not talking about your general knowledge of the subject, but the specifics of the presentation.

Every Presentation has a specific subject, and this is what you have to prepare. Make sure you know everything you can about the specific subject of your presentation. Even if you think you know it well, you need to go over the information until it is thoroughly soaked into your mind. This gives you a vast storehouse of information from which to draw for your presentation.

I must say also, that just because you have all this information in your head, doesn’t mean you have to give it all to the audience. In fact, having that information in your head and leaving some of it there, actually gives you more confidence, knowing that you have more info on tap if it becomes necessary. There is such a thing as overloading your audience, so keep the info you give out to the effective minimum required to get the point across. Better to cover a few points well, than to touch on everything just a little.

And if you keep some in reserve, it means that you have more info for the next time you are asked to present on the subject.

This is a balancing act that you only really become comfortable with after practice.

Before we move on from this sub point, we have to look at another point regarding confidence:

§  Remember, even if the audience are experts, they do not know what you are going to say. If anyone thinks they have nothing to learn, they are not worth worrying about anyway.

Sometimes people will say something like: “Most of the people in the audience know more than I do about the subject.”

This may very well be true, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind:

·         They don’t know exactly what you are going to say.

This is another time to remind you that they want your presentation to be enjoyable – even if they know it all, they still want to enjoy the time. But they don’t know exactly what you are going to say and how you are going to say it, so they are hoping to be a bit surprised along the way, either by the style of the presentation, or by some of the content.

And of course, it is YOUR presentation, not theirs, so they may know a lot about the subject, but they know almost nothing about YOUR presentation.

·         If they know more than you, they probably have stood in your shoes, and they want you to do well.

This is worth remembering – very few people are naturals at this remember, and as a result if they know more than you, it is likely that they have done a presentation or two along the way. They don’t want you to suffer the way that they did – they want you to do well.

·         They still want to learn – they are searching for a tidbit of info that they hadn’t noticed or considered.

Any wise man understands that he still has things to learn, and sometimes a great truth can be presented by a novice. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own ideas and processes that the simple things can slip our notice. Any smart guy knows this from experience, even if they have never thought it out loud. As a result, they go to these things HOPING desperately for a different angle or a different view of something, and that can come from anyone. There are times when the question of a child can turn a researcher’s mind onto a different track that leads to the answer he was looking for.

So, don’t worry if there are smarter minds than yours in the audience: anyone worth worrying about in the audience is looking for the bit you present that they hadn’t noticed.

They want you to be good!

Confidence:

There are several aspects to building your confidence, but we have to remember that ultimately some people simply cannot lay the facts over the feelings of fear, and they will always struggle with this.

Secondly, a certain level of fear and anxiety is actually a good thing. A total absence of anxiety can lead to a lack of care, and that leads to a fly by the seat of the pants false confidence that excludes appropriate preparation.

But let’s look at these facts regarding confidence, lack of confidence and reasons for confidence.

One of the fears that people have is about the audience being critical of their efforts, so the first thing to understand is:

•         The listeners WANT you to be good.

They really do. It is rare that someone is assessing you with a critical eye and ear, and even in those rare cases it is normally to help you improve. The audience is not actively looking for you to fail. There are simple reasons for this:

o   Nobody wants to sit through a boring presentation.

Think about when you are forced to go to some sort of event where you are going to be sitting and listening to a speaker. Do you go thinking that you hope the speaker is boring and terrible?

Even if you don’t want to be there, you grumble to yourself that you hope at least the guy is not boring.

Have you ever sat in the car with your workmates on the way to a conference and said to each other “I really hope this guy is a bumbling, boring, stuttering speaker. I can’t think of anything I look forward to more than a boring presentation.”

That is a conversation that I venture to say has never been spoken, except facetiously.

Even those people who have been forced to attend “against their will” want the presentation to be enjoyable – at least that way they have had an enjoyable day, rather than a miserable day being forced to listen boring presentations.

o   Very few people actively want you to fail, and even they don’t want to waste their time.

You see, regardless of the situation, people just do not want to waste their time – even if it is company time, as some people like to joke about. You might have an enemy in the audience, but you do not have an audience of enemies. And even that mythical person that wants you to fail doesn’t actually want to be subjected to an hour of boredom just so that they can be victorious over you. They would rather not have to endure it, but instead simply rejoice in reports of your failure – so most likely that person – if they even exist – will not be in the audience. They want you to fail but they don’t want to endure your failure, and they don’t want to be there just in case you are good, and then they have to endure your victory.

So, they want you to be good.

Even the ones who you think don’t wish you the best.

•  It is not just about information – they actually want to be entertained.

The second point about this is that they want you to be enjoyable.

If it was just about information, people would simply publish facts. Presentations would be Powerpoint slides with tables, and dot points of information, with no need for any talk or discussion.

No, even in the most “informational” of presentations, the point is for it to be entertaining.

People remember facts when they are presented in unusual or exciting ways. If you list off facts, then only the most dedicated remember.

As a result of this, people don’t head to a conference saying “I hope there is a lot of good information”, they use phrases like “Worthwhile” and “not waste my time”.

The funny thing is, if you have two presentations side by side, and one is boring but full of useful information, and the other is interesting but low of detail, most people will come out of the second raving about how good it is, whilst most people will come out of the first saying very little.

Don’t get this wrong folks – I am not saying substance is irrelevant. If you have nothing worthwhile to say, then people will soon stop listening.

But people simply don’t want to be bored, no matter how much information is presented.

If your only goal is the dissemination of information, then publish a document.

People want good, useful information, but they want you to make interesting to them.

Either extreme is a waste of time – we must find that happy place in the middle, where we have enough good, solid, useful information, but presented in a way that makes it accessible and memorable.

Entertaining provision of information is what we are aiming at.

Information alone is ignored.

Entertainment alone is of no lasting value.

Present information in an entertaining way, and people happily accept that information and it goes with them, taking with it the prospects that you can build upon later.

So, with the understanding that we can have confidence because the audience wants us to be good, we can then go to the mechanics that will help your confidence.

Confidence

Confidence:

One of the biggest issues that people have with public speaking is confidence.

I believe it was the comedian Seinfeld that had as part of one of his routines the statistic that in a list of things people feared the most, public speaking ranked higher than dying – which meant that at a funeral, most people would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy!

The fear is real!

Some people will never overcome the fear sufficiently to be an effective speaker, but almost everyone can become at least competent, and only a few will ever be absolute superstars.

Think about that for a moment – in every field of life, you get a few who can’t, a majority who can, and a few who achieve excellence.

How many people become first class sportsmen?

Take football (of whatever brand you like).

Very few people cannot do it at all.

The overwhelming majority of men have at least the ability to play football at a social level, with many playing at a club level. Within that group, there is a range of abilities which cover from can do, but not well, to almost “pro-level”.

The Superstars are unlikely to be reading this, so this means that you, the reader, most likely fall into this middle group.

You then, must decide where in this group you need to be.

If public speaking is part of your job, then you need to get as high in this group as you can, but if it is incidental to your job, then maybe you can settle for just OK….. that is if you are the “settling” kind.

Once you sort out where you need to be in this group, you can start to figure out how important confidence is to you.

This is the basic building block of public speaking – your confidence when speaking in front of that group is evident regardless of the techniques that you practice and employ.

So, let’s begin with confidence.

Before we actually get under way.

Introduction and purpose:

Public speaking is not a natural skill, although some people are better at it than others, just like some people are better at football than others.

There are many different aspects to public speaking.

To improve one of these aspects will help a little, to improve two of them will help more, but to improve each of these aspects will produce an exponential improvement in your ability to present information to an audience.

I will attack these issues one by one, and over the installments I hope you see a sensible progression of information, which by the end of the posts I hope will have you speaking with confidence and flair.

To this end, I will begin with a discussion on confidence, which is one of the biggest issues that most people have with public speaking.

If you have no confidence in your abilities, then no amount of other information will help. Of course, fixing the other issues adds to your confidence, so this is a bit circular in fact, but to see where confidence comes from also shows the importance of the other matters.

We will also talk about notes – it has amazed me over time how many people think that using notes is cheating. It is a relatively recent thing to speak without notes, but in modern times it often appears as though a speaker has no notes, when in fact they are using high technology solutions to make it look that way. There are a few of course, but it is not as common as people think.

Then we will go into matters of style and technique. 

If there is any one thing that I would have people remember from all of this, it would be that everyone is different, and there is no single style that a person should learn. In fact, you need to find your own style and improve that – if you try to be someone else, you will never be comfortable.

And then we will talk about practice and assessment. Practice is the only thing that will improve your public speaking, and genuine feedback from a trusted source is invaluable in your success as a speaker.

Even within each of these wide subjects there is a lot of detail and fine points to discuss, so there will be many installments.

I am not charging anything for this information, so I can guarantee that you will get your money’s worth. 

I am also not "protecting" this information - you could simply copy it from the pages I post up if you wanted to.

I would however appreciate it if, rather than harvesting the information for your own use or to pass around, that you bookmark the page and revisit, and point your friends to it rather than copying and sending it – that way I might make a few extra dollars from the advertising to buy a coffee every now and then. At the time of posting this, my account has $2.77 in it, so please don't think that this is my way to riches.....

I would love to make a full on career out this kind of coaching and helping people, but I doubt that will ever happen. I am however happy to help people out in any way that I can.

Once I post all of the initial points, I will be happy to answer any questions, and may post extra bits if enough info keeps getting requested.

Thanks,

Dave.