Mad (Wo)men

It is difficult to go mad and equally difficult to bring back the mad. By mad, I mean that state of being carried away or consumed by ballistic enthusiasm, inflammable passion or intense desire concerning a course.
For most of us, our lives and life experiences follow a normally distributed pattern. We maintain the status quo and avoid shocks that rupture the veins and arteries of our existence!  The convenience of the driven is preferred to the agitations and hassles of the chauffeur. However, within the population, there usually exists a small band of outliers, the 'abnormally distributed', who cause change. Their presence is as thunder and lightning! They are not like the masses.
These outliers, skewed to the left or right- (wo) men made of mad- turn the world upside down!
We behold these mad (wo)men and recline into self absorption or explode into bewildered exhilaration!
These (wo)men, made of mad, are disruptors. They stab the eSTABlishment and bring it to death. They leave an equilibrium position and create a new one; sometimes creating multiple equilibra. They go where they are not sent and cause us to follow.
These mad (wo)men are in our worship places, business spaces, schools and political spheres. Their convictions are like the balm that soothes or pepper in the eyes. They build monuments of glorious adulation or cause moments of human perfidy.
The ideas of these mad (wo)men are like nails, their conviction like the hammer. They smash through the glass that project our worldview and drive these nails through our consciousness.
I sat down and thought about these mad people and then it struck me: they were madE, before they became mad. They had a sense of self before going beyond self. They looked inwards before looking outwards.
Not everyone will go mad- it's reserved only for the few. Yet everyone who is made can be unmade and remade, not into a weapon or mass destruction, but first, self fulfilment and then if it is possible, mass erection.
I hope for a world of mad men like the man of 1517 in Wittenberg who looked upwards, inward then outwards!

Picture: @dana.vrazelova

© 2017, Emeka Akpa. All rights reserved 

THE PUBLIC SPEAKING SERIES. Delivery (3)

I speak to hundreds of people as though I'm speaking to one person.
I look them in the eyes, I point at them, I move in their midst.
Okay, let's start from the beginning...
I want to assume you've prepared the content of your presentation, it is an undisputed confidence booster!
Now let's go and speak...

1. When you go up (or stay down) to make your presentation and you come face-to-face with your audience, see them as your very close friends and see the process you're about starting with them as that period of chit-chat you usually have with your friend.

2. Don't show your audience superiority in knowledge by talking to them - talk with them. Engage your audience, the much you can - let them read something, say something after you or carry out a very small task. This brings you closer to them, and them, to you!

3. One of the things you should avoid as a public presenter is to appear fragile, you will never gain the confidence of your audience; if you won't look fickle before your friends, don't look so before your audience (because now they are your adopted friends)! To create the friend-to-friend bond, you can break the ice with a question, a quote, an exercise, or a joke at the start of your presentation. Above all, know your stuff!

4. Don't make the mistake of standing at a spot and reading from a prepared text to your audience. You will bore and loose them! If you need the text, refer to it from time to time but ensure you speak like you understand what is in it.
The other extreme is to make your movement mechanical and choreographical. You don't have to move all the time, let your movement be informed by the points you're trying to emphasize. In some instances, you may be rooted to a spot because of the speaking aid in use; in any case, speak like you mean it.

5. Avoid throwing your hands around like you're a choir conductor! Hand gestures (like body movements) should not be exaggerated, it should be informed by the points being emphasised.
Tune the tone of your voice to fit with your points. Raise it where necessary, whisper where necessary; apart from that, talk normally, like you do with a friend.

6. Try to be yourself when making your presentation. There were times I tried being like the people I admired on stage and it backfired! I remained uncomfortable until I learnt to be myself on stage.

It's been lovely doing this with you!

© 2017, Emeka Akpa. All rights reserved

THE PUBLIC SPEAKING SERIES. Delivery (2)

Before you get on to the platform, be sure to do the following:
1. Try to summarise your talk into a sentence. This discipline may be difficult but it will force you to stay focused on the important points.

2. Determine beforehand, how you want to start your talk- with a quote, a story, a question, a joke or a statistic. This will help you catch the attention of your audience. However, be sure that these are related to your presentation to sustain attention.

3. Ensure your talk is not unnecessarily long. Let it contain an introduction, a body and a conclusion. I use this method to full effect when thinking through a presentation.

4. Choose the presentation aid most comfortable to you and most appropriate for the audience. These presentation aids include:

Notes: when using the note, do not read line by line from it without lifting your head. For the note to serve an optimal purpose, highlight the points you want to make in it and lift those points off from time to time. If you had spent some time thinking through your presentation, the note will be less heavily used. Please, your notes should not be pieces of papers flying around! Have a notepad, it's better.

Slides: This is supposed to serve the same purpose as the note. Your slides should only contain a summary of what you want to say, not all you want to say. It should be simple, with graphics that are only relevant to the presentation. Furthermore, don't depend on it so much that you become helpless if the lights go out or there is a system malfunction, have backup notes.

None of the above: Some people prefer to make presentations without notes or slides. However, I can assure you that these people spend time with their materials, using memory cues as remembering aids (discussing these memory cues is beyond the scope of this writeup). Please note that this method does not necessarily have to be superior to using notes or slides. I have seen presentations made with notes and slide that have left a lot of positive impressions on me.

Don't forget, proper presentation prevents poor performance

Next week, I will talk about presentation on the stage itself!
You may also like this series on my second blog. 
© 2017,  Emeka Akpa. All rights reserved

THE PUBLIC SPEAKING SERIES. Delivery (1)

The reason why courier services are now preferred over government run postal services is DELIVERY. The reason why
BRT services (where they are available) are preferred over conventional road transport means in Lagos is DELIVERY.
Speaking in public is serious business because whether you have been paid to make an appearance or not, every member of the audience surrenders the time they should have devoted to other things at your feet; you must in turn, surrender good delivery to them.
Delivery is everything in public speaking. In many cases it is not what is being said but who is saying it and how it's being said, that matters.
In the first of three discussions on DELIVERY, I will delve into pre-presentation housekeeping. That is, what you should do before mounting the podium to make a presentation.
Most times, speakers are informed of their speaking assignments weeks or months before the time (on few occasions, they are informed days or hours to their delivery), hence it is your responsibility to do the following:

1. Be sure that the message you are about saying is what you would have loved to listen to someone else say to you.

2. Enquire about the type of hall that will be used for the presentation and the public speaking facilities it has.

3. Now this one is very important: find out everything you can about the make up of your audience, otherwise, you may end up speaking to nobody! Things like how many they are, their level of education, sitting arrangements, and other unique features are important to know.

4. Take time to rehearse, rehearse and rehearse; even if you have to do it in your head and not physically (I do this most of the time)

5. Be sure to select an attire you will be comfortable in, if possible, put on a dress you're used to wearing.

6. Do not eat anything that will make you feel uncomfortable and require that you visit the restroom shortly before you present or while you are presenting (this one can be very embarrassing!)

These nuggets sound simple but they can be the difference between an awesome or loathsome presentation!

Next week, I will talk about how to prepare the message itself.

© 2017, Emeka Akpa. All rights reserved

THE PUBLIC SPEAKING SERIES. More on the goal!

A friend of mine once unboxed a birthday gift sent by another friend who had promised to surprise him on his birthday. Upon tearing the heavy package open, my friend found a huge book buried at the bottom of the box! He sighed loudly in disappointment because the gift had not met his expectations; my friend is not the type who appreciates books so the gift was worthless!
As a speaker, your audience have expectations of you. As stated before, these expectations may be in the following forms:

The expectation to be informed
You see, the strength and character of a football team in a game can be measured largely by their formation. From the defence to the attack, the structure of a team's tactical formation is a major decider of the game's outcome.
The same goes for the audience you're speaking to. They are about positioning themselves at a particular place in the game of life and will need the pieces of observations that will come from you to form the basis of their inFORMATION. Their winning or losing may depend on it.

The expectation to be reformed
Words are powerful! Some members of the audience may be listening to hear you tell them what will make them change certain aspects of the way they do things.
A business owner whose business had been doing poorly for lack of proper customer relationship management, but who attended a seminar where it was identified as a problem and given tips on how to correct it will certainly go back to the business and reform it by doing something about the organisation's customer relations.

The expectation to be transformed 
Transformation is the recalibration of the system that runs a process.
A person who is experiencing negative outcomes in life due to wrong beliefs and worldview may be sitting in the audience, waiting to collect from you, the sledge hammer with which to dismantle the existing structure of his life and erect a new one. The sledge hammer are the words you say.
It is your responsibility as a speaker to find out what the need(s) of your audience is/are and tailor your message along such lines. If the buyer of my friend's birthday gift had tried to find out what his needs were, he would have bought him something more useful.
How do you deliver your message to an audience? That's coming up next!

© 2017, Emeka Akpa. All rights reserved

THE PUBLIC SPEAKING SERIES. More on the ball

How would you feel when you are in a situation you are not sure how to come out of, and someone comes along who tells you how s/he was in the same situation, but did certain things to get out or told you how s/he was able to use her/his knowledge or know-how to help someone else find solution to the challenge? Certainly you will listen to such person.
When speaking before people, your desire is to have them listen to you, you want them to follow you. Unfortunately they won't listen to you if you don't have a message for them. I have said before that a message can (amongst others) stem from a personal experience or an area of knowledge. Let's expand on them a bit here.
On personal experience, please take note of the following:
1. Your personal experience must be relevant to the listeners. Don't tell your listeners things about you that are irrelevant to the presentation.

2. Personal experiences help build your credibility as you deliver your speech. Your audience see in you what is possible in themselves.

3. If you are a beginner in speaking, you may find it difficult to know or remember what to say before an audience, but if you build what you're saying around a story, your story (where applicable), you will easily flow with the audience.

On your know-how (skills) and what you know, consider these:
1. Some presentations are technical in nature and requires that the person presenting understands what they are saying. You'll loose your audience if you appear to them like a quack.

2. An audience will listen to you if you tell them about a need you met in the past, are meeting now or will meet in the future, using your know-how. In that case, they are rest assured of committing themselves in your hands knowing 'you got them' and will pay attention.

3. It is equally important to be aware of certain things happening around and make references to them when making your presentations. That way, you are assuring your audience that you exist in the moment. News items, current happenings in your field will do the trick.

Remember, your audience pay you attention to deliver a message; get it right!
In the next episode, I will discuss the audience expectations further.

© 2017, Emeka Akpa. All rights reserved

THE PUBLIC SPEAKING SERIES. Get a Message!

Imagine a football game without a ball.
How would the beauty and elegance of the great footballers be seen? How much entertainment will 22 men, just running round the field give you without a ball?
In the end, the aim of each of the 22 men, each time they have the ball, (including the goalkeepers) is to score a goal with it!
For anyone who speaks before people, the ball is the message and the goal is to convey that message to the hearers.
There is no reason to stand before people if you do not have a message to give to them.
A message can stem from any of the following sources:

1. A personal experience
This is the most powerful source of a message. When you engage an audience in a subject matter of interest to them, based on a personal experience, it adds a lot of credibility to your presentation and a very high likelihood that it will be accepted by the hearers. 

2. Other people's experiences
This can replace personal experiences where it (personal experiences) is lacking. 

3. An area of knowledge
Over time, you have learnt some skills and worked on particular projects thus, have acquired a lot of expertise in a certain area. That can serve as message to some people.
Any message that you hope to communicate to others must meet one, two, or all of the following needs of the hearer:

a) the need for information
Information can simply increase the head knowledge of the hearer. Such messages can either be entertaining or informative

B) the need for reformation
This need is met when the listener finds some aspects of the information useful enough to implement in their lives to fill a particular gap or correct some faults they may have 

C) the need for transformation
This need is met when the listeners do not just stop at correcting few faults, but are able to cause major overhaul of their lives based on the information they got.
So, there you have it! The need to have a message for an audience cannot be overemphasised.
In the next episode of THE PUBLIC SPEAKING SERIES, I will try to breakdown the three sources of a message that I have highlighted above.
Keep a date with me this coming Monday!

© 2017, Emeka Akpa. All rights reserved