Skillful and hilarious communication!

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Take one, not very tall, man; some lights; a huge platform and 20,000 people… all laughing for one and a half hours!

It really was a fun experience to be in an arena with so many people all laughing together. Laughter is infectious, so good for us and certainly does good like a medicine.

Such was our very enjoyable evening when the hilarious Michael McIntyre was entertaining an enormous crowd with no props, no special effects and no visual aids whatsoever.

It was a great feat of memorisation, engagement with the audience and unfailing energy to entertain so many people with simply a voice and a body!  Michael McIntyre’s ability to make the mundane and familiar so amusing; to laugh at culture and language and to be so observant of the people to whose towns and cities he visits, is a gift.  He is undoubtedly a very humorous and accomplished communicator.

Some key skills that Michael exhibited were having great energy and enthusiasm to fill his stage; content that connected with his audience and clearly hours and hours of practice that enabled him to be flawless in his delivery. He was totally professional and flexible when a couple of ladies interrupted one of his stories, and handled the situation with grace and absolutely no sign of panic that he was off script!

A few keys for all public speakers there!

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Speaking Coaches: worth their weight in gold!

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“I really enjoyed the sessions and took a lot from them. Apparently I did a great job at the conference … Thank you so much!”  Music Industry Exec

“It was such a great experience and my presentation went really well. It was a huge conference … All of your training and support stood me in good stead, and I adjusted my sessions to fit my audience… I followed all your recommendations to prepare myself for the presentation – and then thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Thank you for your steady guidance in the lead up. I couldn’t have done it without you.”  Educator

“I’m so relieved it (the presentation) is over but it went well! I’ve had heaps of compliments …. Thank you so much.”  HR professional

 

WOW – Let the comments speak for themselves!

Just because most of us are able to open our mouths and say something, doesn’t mean that what we are saying and how we are saying it, is effectively communicating and connecting with whomever our audience happens to be.

As with everything in life that we want to do well at, practise and skill are necessary. Being a great speaker, whether in a small group setting, a large audience or on media takes time, effort and focus.  A talk or presentation begins as a little seed that has to be nurtured, thoughtfully developed and worked on if we are going to hit the mark with our listeners.

In our fast-paced world we so want to be able to microwave everything and produce it in 2 secs flat.  In reality, there are very few people who are really able to spontaneously speak brilliantly; the few that can have, undoubtedly, had seasons of practise and growing in their expertise – although they may not tell you that!

When I hear, occasionally, people say that any sort of public speaking courses, presentation skills training or vocal coaching are unnecessary, I just smile.  I bring to mind and celebrate the many individuals whom I have had the privilege of working with, in so many different professions and walks of life, who have successfully achieved and enjoyed the fruit of having worked on and improved their communication skills.

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Releasing Your Voice

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The phrase ‘Releasing your voice’ resonates with so many of us because it is about freedom of expression to be all that we have been created to be.

From the moment a new little person is born into the world we listen for the first sign of life – a cry. The newborn baby comes out of the safety of her mother’s womb, takes in air, opens her mouth and emits a sound that lets us know that she has arrived in this world.   The child continues to express herself through crying and noises until learning to form sounds and words and sentences, so developing the ability to express herself in a more mature and effective way.

I remember, as a child, wanting, no, needing to release my voice with full force and vigour as I had done as a baby with no restraints of what was polite or socially acceptable… so … I would stand under the railway bridge close to our home, and, as the train went over, I would let out a long, well-supported (by then I knew how to effectively use my diaphragm) shooooooooout! This vocal release eased tension, frustration and somehow helped me again to connect with my innermost being. Singing can be a wonderfully health-promoting pastime also.

Dr Peter Calafiura, an American psychiatrist, agrees that yelling can have a positive mental influence. “[Yelling] might trigger some endorphins, a natural high,” he says. “They might feel calm and it might even be a little addictive. It’s really similar to a runner’s high. They’re getting the same effect in a different way.”

Sometimes, we need to shout, shout and let it all out …! My only word of advice would be to do it somewhere where you are not going to distress or alarm someone else.  I am certainly not advocating for giving way to venting and yelling at another human being …there is plenty of evidence that yelling in anger is seriously detrimental to one’s health.

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Overcoming the fear of public speaking (2)

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“Hi Sarah, I  just wanted to let you know that my presentation went really well. I didn’t get that anxious feeling, which was great!”   Marketing Executive

 

 I love receiving feedback from my clients and hearing how well they have done, and are doing, in achieving their personal communication goals. One of these goals can be to actually begin to enjoy standing up (or sitting down) and sharing our thoughts, knowledge and ideas with others, in person or online.

What is it about speaking publicly that can make even the most robust of us tremble at the knees; and why does this very necessary part of our working lives continue to be cited as one of the greatest fears people have to face, second only to the fear of death?

Is it the knowledge of all eyes being solely on us? Is it the acute awareness of the responsibility to ‘deliver’? Is it a mistrust in ourselves not to do something that would make us look foolish?

There are certainly proven strategies and techniques for handling nerves that do not include drinking loads of alcohol prior to speaking, or taking beta blockers!

 

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.”  Eleanor Roosevelt

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Being a ‘Confident Communicator’

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How would you like to be described in your work context?

Some positive adjectives would be ‘Professional’, ‘Knowledgeable’, ‘Trustworthy’, ‘Reliable’, ‘Diligent’ etc.  In my experience, the majority of working people also want to be considered ‘Confident’ because we recognise the benefit of coming across to others as being self-assured and fearless.  However, it is always interesting and very necessary to clarify the exact meaning of words that we use so regularly and flippantly:

‘Confident’

marked by assurance, as of success

having strong belief or full assurance

very bold

trust or faith in a person or thing

the state or quality of being certain.

Trust, assurance, aplomb, self–confidence … these words all denote a feeling of emotional security resulting from faith in one’s ability to achieve a certain goal.

 

So, if we desire to be confident in the areas of public speaking and interpersonal communication, we must also remember that a ‘Communicator’ is someone who is skilled at conveying information or ideas to others.

‘Communication’ is the art and technique of using words effectively to exchange thoughts and to express oneself in such a way as to be readily and clearly understood.

Let’s put time, focus and intentionality behind achieving the above and we will be able to confidently say “I am a Confident Communicator!”

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Voice Is Influence

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The Voice!  We have now seen twelve series in the UK of this well-loved singing competition, and have been promised a thirteenth! We love to see the buttons pressed, the chairs swing round and the thrilled look on a contestant’s face as they are recognised as potentially having a voice with star quality.

However, Voice is a lot more than just sounding melodious or hitting high notes, as admirable and as practiced as all that is.  Voice, we know, is about influence and it is also about passion.  In some contexts, we can positively affect and influence others by our actions alone but, many times, it is our words  and how we use them – persuasively, kindly, analytically, reasonably, encouragingly or harshly – that brings influence to bear.  We think of the evocative speeches of Martin Luther King Jnr, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Emmeline Pankhurst, Eleanor Roosevelt, Gandhi, Hitler, Lenin etc … men and women with powerful Voices and great ability to influence others, some for much good and some for great evil.

We live in a world where it is becoming increasingly important to consider how we are using our voices to bring a positive influence in our worlds of families, friends, and colleagues.

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Using your voice

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As we consider the miraculous gift that being able to speak is, we realise that, as with any other gifting, we can ignore it; take it for granted or abuse it.

Most of us probably fall into the second category with regards to using our voices until such time as we strain them through misuse and unwittingly find ourselves in the third category.  However, what about those of us who ignore the gift, and maybe due to negative experiences or self-inflicted limitations, find ourselves for the most part Silent.

Our mental health is improved as we yield to the deeply human need to speak and to be listened to. Remember Wilson, the volleyball that Tom Hanks’ character Chuck, dressed up in the film “Cast Away”. Wilson proved critical to Chuck’s mental health as his deep need to speak to someone – or anything(!) was evidenced.  Some people speak to their dog or cat or plants in the event of having no-one else to speak to.

For those of us who have become “silent”,  it is time to pick up the talking spoon again and start connecting with others verbally.

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Voice training for successful communication

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Imagine a typical scenario;  if it is not yet typical for you it very likely will be one day! … “So-and-so is sick today and so you will have to go and speak to our clients and fill them in on where we are up to with the project.”  Not the best start to many people’s day, but the job has to be done.

Unless you have had some experience and practise at impromptu speaking, debating or improvisation, then your body likely begins to respond to the request with a number of physical manifestations such as sweaty palms, heart seemingly beating out of your chest, or brain freeze.

Happily, there are a number of well-proven techniques that can help us very practically to handle the above, or similar, situations effectively.  However, once we have quickly thought about what we want to say and jotted down some barely legible notes on our phone or bit of paper, we then actually have to vocalise those thoughts and ideas. It is at this point that we have to consider three key things …

Clarity … will people be able to clearly hear and understand what I am needing to communicate?

Fluency … can I fluently and articulately express the information?

Variety … can I speak in a manner that is not going to send my audience to sleep in a matter of a few moments or ‘switch off’ ?

 

What a gift it is for children and young people to have had practice and experience at speaking more formally with and in front of others; and how necessary to invest in this important life skill if we have not had those benefits at an earlier age.

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Accent Softening – Clarity brings Confidence

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I love the English language! However, as a native English speaker I have the utmost respect for those endeavouring to get to grips with the language’s abundance of inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies. There is a wonderful, if rather long, poem called “The Chaos” (Anon) which charts the majority of the rebellious sounds and would challenge the most confident of English speakers!

My wonderful father-in-law spoke nine languages fluently but I couldn’t begin to get my mouth around the unfamiliar guttural sounds, diphthongs and triphthongs that he rattled off effortlessly in Dutch, Indonesian, French, Japanese, Norwegian, Italian, Spanish and German.

It is only with a great deal of practice and focus that ESL students can master the unfamiliar sounds that are ‘th’, ‘v’, ‘s’, ‘sh’, ‘ch’ etc. However, there is no doubt that the investment of time, money and focus does reap great rewards as “Clarity undoubtedly leads to increased Confidence”. It makes the world of difference to my students to know that they can easily be understood and that there is no lid to their potential for promotion, job satisfaction and social interaction.

In extreme situations, our ability to be understood could be a matter of life and death; in more common situations it can save awkwardness, misunderstandings and even the loss of a job. As English continues to be one of the most widely spoken languages and the official language of the majority of nations we need to persevere with ‘The Chaos’ – Get rid of the lid!

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The Gift of Speech

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There are a number of differences that characterise human beings from the rest of the animal kingdom… one of those differences is our ability to speak – to articulate ideas, thoughts and feelings through the medium of words.  Our ability to vocalise and speak words is nothing short of miraculous when we consider all that is involved – the process of speech production is a highly precise and practised motor skill.

To simplify the whole process, in an everyday conversation, we firstly have to hear clearly; then we process what we have heard; we then consider our response and vocalise it. Mental processing of information is a science all of its own.

Being able to speak is something that most of us absolutely take for granted until we are faced with the onslaught of a stroke, motor neurone disease or an accident that takes away, even in part, our ability to exercise what is a vitally important function in life.

Give thanks everyday for your ability to open your mouth and speak – and work to make it the best possible experience for everyone listening!

 

 

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