6 Tips to Improve Your Public Speaking Skills | Brian Tracy

Hello, I'm Brian Tracy and today I want to talk to you about why you need to improve your public speaking skills. If you're looking to dramatically improve your leadership abilities, learn how to persuade others and be an important player in every conversation, polishing your public speaking skills is an excellent place to start. Public speaking skills are only required for those who spend their lives delivering speeches on a stage, like me. Even if a career in public speaking isn't your goal, there are still plenty of reasons why public speaking and presentation skills are important. Today, we're going to cover why you need to improve your public speaking skills and how a public speaking class can help you to achieve your goals. First, improving your public speaking skills can help advance your career. Being an effective communicator makes you a better leader, negotiator, interviewer, interviewee, and more. The skills you learn over the course of a public speaking class can be applied to an incredibly wide number of scenarios. Whether you are attending a job interview, delivering a presentation at work, presenting a TED Talk, or anything in between, being a better communicator and public speaker is something that will be incredibly valuable to you throughout your life. By the way, we joke in the professional speaking industry that when you can speak well on your feet, people think that you are more intelligent than you actually are. They also think you're more competent, you're more skilled, you're more capable. They will open doors for you, open opportunities for you. It's the most amazing darn thing. It's called the halo effect. If you speak well and fluently in any speaking situation, it's like a halo that people think you must be good at everything else you do as well. Communicating effectively doesn't only help you in your professional life, though, it can also help you in your personal life as well. From making a good impression at a social gathering to giving a great speech at a wedding reception, the value of being an excellent communicator cannot be understated by the way this Three of my children have grown up and gotten married, two of them at home in a nearby hotel. And I of course, as the father of the bride and a public speaker, I gave the talk and I planned it and planned it and planned it. So the talk was the high point of the entire wedding. And today, years later, they still talk about that and what a difference it made in their wedding and their marriage for the rest of their lives. My third child, a son, got married by himself. A very independent person. But giving a great speech at a wedding is something people remember all their lives. The reason public speaking and presentation skills are so crucial is because public speaking is a skill that applies to almost every aspect of life. When you plan well and give a good talk, your self confidence expands, sort of like light or warmth to everything else that you do. You feel better and more competent and you have more energy and so on to everything when you give a good talk. In addition to becoming a better communicator, improving your public speaking skills can actually help you to overcome the fear and anxiety that comes from speaking in front of others. Of course, this isn't always all that easy to do, which is why one of the first challenges we tackle in my public speaking class is how to move past a fear of public speaking in a way that is healthy, simple and effective. The truth of the matter is that the more you practice public speaking, the more natural it will become for you. If you are hesitant to take a public speaking class due to fear and anxiety, fear not. You certainly won't be the only one in the class dealing with this challenge. And it's a challenge we will work to get past together. I have spoken to more than 2 million salespeople in live public audiences all over the world. And one of the recommendations I give them is to learn how to give a good public talk. And the reason I found is that if you are good at speaking in front of a group, your confidence in selling goes through the roof. Most people's income in selling is determined by their level of confidence. If they're afraid to make calls, if they're afraid to try to get appointments, if they're afraid to close the sale, as I have been throughout my career, then they hold back and they hold back. But if you take a public speaking class, your confidence in calling on customers and presenting and closing the sale just goes through the roof. It's the most amazing thing. If you're in sales, learning how to speak publicly is the fastest way to double and triple your income. Trust me, I've been doing this for 40 and 50 years and it really works. And it works for everybody and it works all the time. Enhancing your public speaking skills, by the way, can also help you to develop leadership skills. In many ways, being a good public speaker is a precursor to being a good leader. Being an effective leader, after all, is all about commanding the attention and respect of others. When you lead and given that most leadership is verbal, commanding attention and respect requires you to be an effective speaker. I studied military leadership throughout the ages and many years ago, when there was no electric speaking equipment, a leader would ride out on a horse, and the army would be ready to attack, and the leader would go from place to place where there was enough people that they could hear, and he would give the same speech to motivate them to attack. He would talk about how we are going to be victorious and that we will win this battle and that you are the best soldiers in the world and that these people that we're attacking are weak and have no value at all. And he would go by from section to section through the whole army and give the same speech so that when they started the battle, these people were motivated and ready to attack and achieve great victories. Quite an amazing thing. So, in addition, when you have polished speaking skills, it becomes easier for you to project confidence. In the example that I just used, remember, in a battle, they want to know that their leader is confident of victory. When you have confidence, when you're working with your people, they are happy because they feel that you believe we're going to be successful. Being genuinely relaxed when speaking to others is largely something that you develop over time, rather than something that you learn in a few minutes. What can be learned, though, is how to project confidence. In a good public speaking class, you will have the opportunity to develop real confidence through tested techniques and practice. And finally, when you have strong public speaking skills, you are able to exude authority in your niche. People who are talented public speakers or automatically seen as people who are in a position of authority, and being seen as someone who is an authority figure can often go a long way to helping you meet a wide range of professional goals. If you would like to position yourself as an authority in your field, becoming an effective public speaker is the best place to start. Regardless of your career or your personal goals, being a better communicator will give you a whole new set of advantages and abilities that you can use to further your objectives. And taking a quality public speaking class is by far one of the best ways to quickly improve your communication skills. Let me tell you a quick story. I had a woman come through our course who worked for the IRS in Washington, and she paid the entire cost of the course, plus traveling from Washington to San Diego. And she went through the course, and we taught her what to do and what to say before and when she opened the course and closing the speech. And when she got back, her boss asked her what she had done. She said she had just been to a public speaking course. He said, well, great. He said, I need someone to give this speech to 300 IRS executives next week. Will you do it for me? And she was really, really nervous, she said, but she knew how to prepare and deliver a speech. And so she said, yes, I will do it. And so she prepared and prepared and prepared and this was her first public speech. She got up and she followed the process which you will learn. And at the end she got a standing ovation from 300 government employees. She said she had never had anything like that in our whole life. So if you have enjoyed this little talk, what one action are you going to take immediately to apply what we just talked about? What one thing are you going to do differently? What are you going to do more of or less of in the future based on this video? If you enjoyed this video and feel that it was valuable in teaching you about what you need to improve your public speaking skills skills, subscribe to my channel and like this video and share this video with your friends. Don't forget to click the button on the screen for a free gift. Thanks again for watching.