Public Speaking Skills for Dummies

Introduction 1 How This Book Is Organized 2 Foolish Assumptions 3 Icons 4 Beyond the Book 4 Where to Go from Here 4 Part 1: Laying the Groundwork 7 Chapter 1: Getting Started with Public Speaking 9 Dealing with Issues That Stand in Your Way 10 Fighting the fight, flight, or freeze response 10 Affirming your worth with affirmations 11 Creating reality with visualization 11 Getting rid of tension 12 Improving Your Body Language 12 Gesturing 13 Moving 14 Making eye contact 14 Adjusting Your Pace 15 Perfecting the pause 15 Supporting Your Breath 16 Boosting Confidence through Preparation and Training 17 Breathing (your own) life into speeches 18 Planning out your speech 18 Getting ready for the big day 19 Eating right to feel good 20 Honing Your Delivery 20 Articulating 20 Resonating 21 Using the right tone 21 Adding visuals 21 Getting laughs 22 Telling stories 23 Dealing with the Audience 23 Excelling in Interviews 24 Mastering the Fine Art of Conversation 25 Dropping the Ball and Still Managing to Score 26 Wearing Clothes That Spell Success 26 Chapter 2: Getting Your Brain in the Game 29 Recognizing the Pitfalls of Negative Thoughts 30 Saying no to negatives: Avoiding your triggers 31 Perfecting perfectionism 32 Nixing those niggling negatives 33 Keeping the Brain’s Fight, Flight, or Freeze Response in Check 34 Saying yes to adrenaline 34 Stopping cortisol in its tracks 35 Thinking like a caveperson 36 Leveraging the power of neuroplasticity 37 Adopting a Yes Let’s Attitude 38 Knowing When to Say No 39 Part 2: Diagnosing and Treating Common Afflictions 41 Chapter 3: Overcoming Performance Anxiety 43 Staying Loose: Tension Can Ruin a Speech 44 Proper posture: Alignment isn’t just for cars 44 Identifying the tension 47 Releasing the tension 48 Chin Up and Don’t Slouch 49 Breathing as a sloucher 49 Why feeling bad ends up sounding bad 50 Using Your Body to Battle the Fight, Flight, or Freeze Response 53 Chapter 4: Curing Common Vocal Problems 57 Vanquishing Vocal Fry 58 Recognizing vocal fry and its causes 58 Seeing why vocal fry is perceived negatively 59 Undoing Upspeak 60 Knowing why we upspeak 61 Decomissioning Devoicing 62 Recognizing devoicing 62 If you’re a natural devoicer 63 Battling Breathiness 64 How breathing works 65 What breathiness does to credibility 66 Negating Nasal Voice 66 Preventing the Push: Speaking Evenly 67 Disconnecting your thoughts and feelings 68 Wingin’ it 68 Stopping Stuttering 69 Breathing to alleviate stuttering 70 Rolling with word flubs 70 Denying the Drop 71 Chapter 5: Conquering Impostor Syndrome: You Are Who You Think You Are 73 Feeling Like a Phony 74 Diagnosing yourself 74 Critiquing the criticism 75 Understanding Why It Happens 76 Feeling a failure onstage and off 77 Lucking into success 78 Being Yourself 79 Part 3: Preparing Your Speech and Training Yourself 83 Chapter 6: Crafting a Captivating Speech 85 Planning and Preparing 86 What’s Your Point? 86 Hooking Your Audience 87 Supporting Your Point: The PIE Method 90 Point 91 Illustration 92 Explanation 93 So what? 93 Conclusion: Ending with a bang 94 Writing in Your Own Voice 95 Keeping it simple 96 Writing and reading out loud 97 Show, Don’t Tell 98 Painting a picture in the audience’s mind 98 Crafting Your Narrative: Story Time 99 You’re the boss: Acting like a protagonist 100 Telling the story of your business 101 Getting real: Enhancing your story 102 Chapter 7: Using Visual Aids 107 A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words 109 Knowing when a picture works and when it doesn’t 110 Cropping pictures to fit ideas 111 Considering color 111 Mastering Essential Slide Show Skills 113 The Do’s and Don’ts of Audio 116 Don’t let music play for a long time 117 Don’t play music too loud or soft 117 Don’t play music during your whole presentation 117 Do have a sound check in the space prior to your speech 118 Do check your equipment 118 Using Video If You Must 119 Using Other Visual Aids 120 Properly using props 120 Going old school with flip charts 121 Chapter 8: Being Funny (or Trying To) 123 Getting Personal: Revealing Who You Really Are 124 Writing Stories and Jokes 125 Questions to help you prep 126 Figuring out your own sense of humor 127 Breaking It Down: Elements of Humor 128 The rule of three 129 The importance of practice 129 The power of the pause 130 The charm of self-deprecating humor and laughing at yourself 131 The value of acting it out 132 The art of modesty 132 The dreaded cringe and how to avoid it 134 Loosening up the audience 135 Enjoy yourself and don’t take it too seriously 135 Chapter 9: Practicing Your Speech 139 Practicing Out Loud 140 Hear yourself 141 Stand up 141 Prepare those props 142 Power up those slides 142 Find an empty room 143 Time yourself 143 Get someone to watch you 144 Recording and Critiquing Yourself 145 Take video of yourself presenting 145 Record your voice 146 Work on your face and nonverbals 147 Mark My Words: Adjusting Your Script for Emphasis 148 Slowing Down: Speed Kills 150 Cutting your speech when your time is cut 150 Resisting the urge to rush 151 Making the most of tactical pauses 152 Avoiding filler words: Ums and ahs 153 Speaking, not reading 154 Breathing just enough 156 Chapter 10: Becoming a Vocal Athlete 159 Understanding the Importance of Nutrition 160 Cutting down on refined sugar 160 Cutting back on carbs 161 Refraining from alcohol before speaking 162 Hydrating with water 162 Chilling out with the coffee 163 Dialing down the dairy 163 Properly using protein 164 Making Sure You’re Fed 164 Getting Some Exercise 166 Making your heart go thump 166 Increasing your lung capacity 168 Part 4: Fine-Tuning Your Delivery 171 Chapter 11: Prepping Your Mind for Public Speaking 173 Learning to Visualize Positively 174 Visualizing opportunity 174 Building Self-Confidence 176 Becoming happier through gratitude 176 Engaging in positive self-talk 178 Cutting Yourself Some Slack 180 Shifting Your Focus to the Audience 182 Beginning with the end in mind 183 What is the audience expecting to learn? 183 What are your audience’s demographics? 184 What level of knowledge on the topic does the audience have? 185 How big is the audience? 185 Why is the topic important to the audience? 186 Going one-on-one: Addressing one person in the audience 186 Knowing when not to apologize 187 Handling hecklers 189 Chapter 12: Mastering the ABCs of Articulation 191 Meet the Articulators 192 The jaw 192 The tongue 194 The soft and hard palates 195 The lips 196 Understanding Mumbling and Why People Do It 197 Honing Your Articulation 199 Twisting your tongue 199 Voicing vowels and consonants 199 Singing 204 Improving Clarity for an Accent 204 Slowing down 205 Staying positive 205 Chapter 13: Good Vibrations: Resonance 207 Getting to Know Your Resonators 207 Why We Study Resonance 208 Putting Your Whole Body into It 209 Knowing your resonant voice 209 The throat 211 Opening up the nasal cavities 214 Exploring oral resonance 215 Releasing your jaw 216 Opening up your chest resonance 217 Part 5: Enhancing Your Speech 221 Chapter 14: Breath, Tone, and Pitch 223 Breathe, Breathe, Breathe 224 Supporting your breath 224 Adding volume for a bigger space 227 Changing poor breathing habits 228 Does breathing make you look fat? 230 Just breathe 230 Improving Your Tone 231 Expressing meaning and emotion through tone 232 Using a conversational tone 233 Harnessing the Power of Pitch 235 Chapter 15: Getting Body Language into the Act 237 Becoming a Poser (in a Good Way) 238 Adjusting your stance 238 Facial expressions 239 Making eye contact 241 Tuning In to Audience Perception 242 Looking and feeling genuine 243 Owning the room .244 Moving with a Purpose 245 When should you move? 246 Sitting during a presentation 248 Hand Jive: Gesturing with Your Hands 249 Dressing for the Occasion 252 Wearing appropriate clothing for your event 252 Suiting yourself: Clothing for men 254 Style and comfort: Clothing for women 255 Patterning the patterns 255 Wearing makeup 255 Sporting tattoos 256 If the shoe fits 256 Avoiding wardrobe malfunctions 257 Tying back your hair 257 Taking it easy with the jewelry 258 Doing your nails 258 Chapter 16: Ready, Set, Go! 259 ’Twas the Night Before 260 Getting Familiar with the Space 262 Scoping out the joint 263 Warming up in the space 264 Eating for Success 265 Sleeping to Refresh 266 It’s Show Time! 266 Minding your mind 267 Visualizing using imagery 267 Breathing 268 Making the most of the microphone 269 Connecting to your audience even before you’ve met them 270 Part 6: It’s Show Time: Plying Your Trade 273 Chapter 17: Acing the Interview 275 Becoming an Expert on You 276 Becoming an Expert on the Industry and Organization 278 Checking Out the Interviewers 280 Using Body Language in the Interview 280 Avoiding the don’ts of interviews 281 Practicing the do’s of interviews 282 Public Speaking: The Interview Edition 282 Getting the questions in advance 283 Revealing what you intend to do 283 Faking it till you’re making it 284 Using your words positively 285 Looking like you already work there 286 Convincing yourself you already have the job 286 Competing factors 287 Mastering the Q&A session 288 Remembering that you are the expert 288 Admitting you don’t know the answer 288 Being vulnerable 289 Chatting like a Champ: Phone Interviews 290 Phone interview don’ts 290 Phone interview do’s 290 Warming up for your interview 291 Greeting the greeter 292 Winding things up 293 Chapter 18: Engaging in Witty Repartee 295 Minding Your Manners 297 Shaking hands 299 Staying Engaged in the Conversation 300 Remembering names 301 Adopting open body language 303 Letting go of your fears 304 Composing Your Elevator Pitch 304 Chapter 19: If at First You Don’t Succeed 307 Everyone Wants You to Succeed 307 The show must go on 309 Practicing what could go wrong 310 Making lemonade out of lemons 311 Rolling with the Punches 311 Double booking 312 Shooting yourself in the foot 312 Never having to say you’re sorry (when you’re up there speaking) 313 Chilling out: No one knows you messed up 313 Owning obstacles 314 Getting Better at Improvising 315 Improving your improv muscles 315 Practicing improvising about your subject 316 Adjusting your timing 317 Part 7: The Part of Tens 319 Chapter 20: Ten (or So) Tips for Stage Fright 321 Accept Your Fear 321 Practice, Practice, Practice 322 Breathe Slowly and Deeply 323 Use Progressive Relaxation 325 Be Up and Out, Not Down and In 326 Move Your Hands 326 Get Positive — Yes Let’s 327 Roll with Mistakes 328 Repeat an Affirmation in Your Head 328 Focus on an Engaged Audience Member 328 Slow Down 329 Chapter 21: Ten Ways to Improve Your Delivery 331 Analyze Your Script 331 Personalize Your Speech 333 Emphasize Key Words 333 Change Up Your Pitch, Tone, and Word Duration 334 Breathe! 335 Slow Down Your Pace 335 Land Your Thoughts 336 Use the Power of the Pause 337 Record Your Presentation 337 Video yourself 337 Record your voice 338 Ask a Friend or Colleague to Watch and Listen 338 Chapter 22: Ten Tips for Preparing to Speak 341 Warm Up Your Body and Your Voice 341 Get physical 342 Get aligned 342 Breathe 343 Adopt a Power Pose for at Least Two Minutes 343 Practice Your Speech While Doing an Unrelated Task 344 Eat Healthy, Drink Water 344 Visualize a Successful Presentation 345 Recite Your Speech Dressed in Your Presentation Clothes 346 Arrange Your Notes and Visuals 347 Bring Water 347 Arrive Early 347 Introduce Yourself 348 Index 349