OPEN
YOUR MOUTH!
After a speaking
engagement somewhere, someone walked up to me and wanted to know how he could
speak like me. He said he enjoyed the energy and passion I exuded and would
like to see himself that way.
Well, I told him first
of all that I wasn’t born that way. I learnt to speak in public. The next thing
I told him was that he shouldn’t try speaking like me, he should always try
being himself and then I went on to share the following with him:
·
I told him that the first step in
speaking before an audience comes from having a message for them. You have no
business being in their presence without a reason why;
·
I went on to tell him that the messenger
is as important as the message he carries. You need to work on yourself as a
message carrier- your vocabulary, physical appearance, knowledge base,
confidence level and so on;
·
In addition I pointed out to him that as
long as he could stand confidently before me (as an individual) to chat, he
could do the same before an audience. One of the top secrets of public speakers
is that they see their audience as made up of one person and they go ahead to converse
with them in that light.
Everything else about
public speaking revolves around the above three.
I have met and heard so
many people conclude that they can and will never open their mouth before an
audience to say anything. The problem with those who hold this line of reasoning
is that they see those who do it as haven fallen from the skies, a special
breed of humans. It is not so. I am an example of one of those who jettisoned
that line of thinking.
My friend whose
experience I was relating earlier and a number of others that I have shared the
above three pillars of my public speaking engagements have gone on to open
their mouths in public. They have refused fear holding them back, they have
rejected the opinion that only a selected few can open their mouth in public,
they are enjoying it and are craving for more.
Finally friend, if you
think you are just too bad to open your mouth in public, know that great speakers
were as bad as or worse than you are.
So get up and seize
that opportunity to open your mouth!
RECOMMENDED READING:
· Richard Dowis
The Lost Art of
the Great Speech.
How to write one- How to deliver it.
·
Dale
Carnegie
The
Art of Public Speaking
Be inspired!
Remain motivated!
Photo credit:
http://www.extrememakeovers-connecticut.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment