Picture this: You are standing in a school classroom, in front of a group of ten or eleven people. You’re about to finish a speech you had been giving for the past three months. You take a deep breath, you’re done. You go out into the lobby area of a school and wait to hear if you will win gold at State Forensics. Your results come back; you have won gold. All your hard work has paid off.
I ask you, the reader, to picture it, because I want you to know what I thought when I knew that I could effectively give a speech, when I knew that I no longer needed to worry about standing in front of people and wanting to rush through what I was talking about. With this blog post, I want to share the rules that I used to improve at an area of life so many people dread. Please note, I am not an expert, but I believe in sharing my knowledge of something that I am passionate about and sharing about an ability worth working for.
Rule One: Speak of something you are passionate about. It is otherwise known as “speaking from the heart.” To effectively give a speech, you must put your whole self into your speech. To do so, you must care about what you are speaking about – it will show in your speech. Speeches are all about giving a message to connect to your audience. By caring about what you are saying, you will engage your audience, seen as better prepared and appear more confident – both of which are important when publicly speaking. By speaking on a subject you are passionate about – you will be able to speak on your topic more effectively and professionally.
Rule Two: When writing and speaking, use your own words and vocal mannerisms. This approach allows you to come across more genuine and therefore more engaging. Being able to connect with the audience is key to public speaking. When a speaker uses their own verbiage and idiosyncrasies, they will be more calm, confident, and capable of relaying their message. Being who you are is so important. The entire point of public speaking is getting your message across and doing so in a way that makes a connection to the audience. This being a blog post, I think that it should not be too long; therefore, these rules for public speaking will be split up into two blog posts.
Stay tuned for the follow up, because public speaking is an ability worth working for.