Public speaking is an Art. It is also an art that can be taught.
For many years I have been performing in front of the public. My mother put me through dance school and got me to perform in concerts. I went to Drama schools and was always in the school plays. I even took singing lessons. One might say I was an all-round performer. Later in my life I became a broadcaster and thought nothing of speaking on the radio. But I was terrified of getting up in front of people and speaking.
One would think if I was used to dancing and acting to an audience, it would be easy for me to speak to one. I didn’t think so. In fact, I avoided it. Though I did one day get pushed into it at an Annual General Meeting of an organisation to which I belonged. There had been some misadventure with money by the organisation and everyone around me was annoyed. They made me get up to complain. I must confess, not very successfully.
That experience, didn’t help my fears of speaking in public, but it did lead me to join an organisation that taught me the best way to go about it. Being the creative type I thought I needed to be clever and impress people. Wrong. My first speech was clever; I used song titles to tell everyone about my life. I don’t think anyone in the room, but me, realised that’s what I had done. Bit of a waste really. If I had just got up and been myself, the results would have been the same, and I wouldn’t have been so stressed out.
Over the months I was involved with the speech training group, my confidence grew. I learned how to express myself, and how to use the audience. I think that was the revelation. Being able to speak and look at the audience while telling them something gave me a comfortable feeling and more confidence. As I looked into the faces of those people watching and listening to me, I realised I was imparting something they didn’t know about and wanted to discover more. I guess, good teachers have the same experience when giving an interesting lesson in school. If the children find it interesting one can improvise and elaborate more on the subject. This makes it more fun.
Whereas I once had notes, and still do in some case, most times when I get up to speak to a group now, I know exactly where I am going and how I want to say it. It is the audience that makes it successful. Once you have its attention, you can use them to keep up the momentum.
Now that sounds as if I am boasting, and probably many people who speak to an audience, don’t get that experience. But next time you watch a good speaker you will see they don’t just get up and speak. You will note I did say a good speaker. These people are the ones that are paid big money to entertain an audience. People, like well know sports personalities. They tell tales of what happened to them during their career, and are most entertaining.
As you all know I ran a cleaning business, and at one stage went around to organisations and spoke about cleaning. Now I didn’t show people how to clean, but I did tell a story of a girl, who ended up as a cleaner. I had so many people come up to me after the speeches and tell me about their lives, it was amazing.
Strange as it might seem, if you tell a story, you will have more people wanting to listen, than just pointing out facts and figures, as many people do with presentations. Think of it as is a little like the days before books. Now that is a long time ago when most people couldn’t read, so stories became the way to impart knowledge. Stories were told from the pulpit, that’s how people learned their religion. Stories were told by travelling troubadours, who often got food and lodging for a song or story. Stories were told to children, or to entertain when people came to visit. And the more elaborate the story, the more the listeners wanted to hear. Public speaking can be like this.
Of course, not every speech can be a story, especially if one is making a presentation to a prospective customer or explaining something to your work superior. But if you can liken your presentation so if comes over like a story then getting the message across is a lot easier. The trick? Make sure there is a beginning where you introduce the subject and get them interested, then tell the tale. But the ending is the most important. Make sure the speech ends with a reference to the beginning and how the tale solved the problem you started with.
See? It is not so difficult to be a public speaker. It does help to get a few lessons. That will give you confidence, but knowing how to express what you want to say, will always make it easier, and keep the audience entertained. Why not give it a try.
Julie Finch-Scally ©
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