Ep 16 Lame Excuses for Avoiding Public Speaking

This is the year I'm finally going to start doing more public speeches, start that podcast, start that weekly video on YouTube. This is the year. If only I could just get thinner, younger, older, grow more hair, get the perfect camera.

Speaking. The show about effective speaking in public to the media, at work and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker.

Okay, folks, this is the excuses episode. This entire episode, we're going to look at common excuses people use to avoid public speaking. Speaking in the media, speaking on camera for their own videos, their own podcast. People are amazingly inventive when it comes to coming up with ridiculous excuses as to why they can't speak out. And because of that, we are often left with a small group, 1% of people who get all the limelight, whether it's politics, media, your corporation, your industry. It's not necessarily the brightest people, although I do like to think that some of us who speak out a lot can be bright. It's not necessarily the hardest working people, the most thoughtful people, but those who speak out get the most attention. What are you waiting for? Well, I know what a lot of you are waiting for because you ask me questions about this all the time. Common question I get is teacher. I have a face for radio. People are insecure about how they look. Well, let me tell you right now, you are better looking than Judge Judy. And she makes $50 million a year on TV with her face on TV every day. You are thinner than Oprah. I don't mean to be disparaging about Oprah and everybody loves Oprah, but you're thinner than Oprah. So don't tell me you just need to lose a few pounds. Sometimes people say, well tj, my voice isn't that great. I don't have a great. Well, let me tell you, your voice is better than Greta Van Susteren's of Fox News. Your voice is better than Rachel Ray of the Food Channel. Your voice is better than Barbara Walters and she was on TV every day for 150 years. Some of you are telling me, well, TJ, I'm too young. Who would want to listen to me? Justin Bieber, who was really young when a lot of people wanted to listen to him on YouTube. Some of you say, well, TJ, you know, I'm just too old. It's a young man's game. Young person's game. Really? Have you been to itunes lately? I'll tell you who some of the stars of the podcast universe are. Pat Robertson, that young, hip, 88 year old, soon to be 90 year old guy, John McLaughlin, that young, hip, soon to be 90 year old political commentator. And then there's the young, sprightly young Bill O'Reilly who's going to be 70 in a few years. These are all stars, traditional media and in the podcast universe. So I've heard all the excuses folks, and I'm frankly just not buying it. Here's one of the excuses that comes up most often. It revolves around this issue.

Body language.

The body many of you are holding back on giving speeches, going on tv, other news broadcast, or creating your own video because you're just not comfortable with your body. Well, folks, does this look perfect to you? Those of you who are listening on audio? I'm showing people my head and if you haven't seen me, let's just say it's not the perfect thick, luxurious, full head of hair. I'm not perfect. You know what? I'm good looking enough to do a podcast in my area of expertise and a video program online for my area of expertise, public speaking. And you are good looking enough to do a show for what you are an expert on. You don't have to be perfect looking. You look at the most successful talk show hosts, commentators, they're generally not the best looking people in the world. Is Dr. Ruth Westheimer really the best looking person who could be talking about sex? I mean, she slowed down in recent years, but for a while she was absolutely, absolutely everywhere. And look, Richard Simmons, the fitness guru for a while he was absolutely everywhere. Is he really the best looking guy in the whole world? No, but he brings a certain passion to what it is that he does. So it is important not that your body be the perfect size and shape and height and perfect hair and everything. What's important is that you just come across natural and, and relaxed and authentic and who you are. Now, for those of you listening on audio, I'm wearing a suit and a tie. Now, is this because I'm just a stuffed shirt and boring? I like to think not. But most of my clients are in the corporate world. So I dress in a way that is comfortable for them, that makes me relatable to them. If everyone I worked with were in the arts or were a famous artist, I wouldn't be wearing a suit and tie. I'd be wearing something a little more relaxed, a little more colorful and creative looking. So it's far more important to come across natural, relaxed, comfortable and authentic and to show passion than to look a certain way. You do not have to have a certain look, you do not have to have a certain sound to Be great in audio or video or to give speeches or presentations and ignore those who say you do. There is an awful lot of bad advice. And you don't have to have perfect vision because you know what? You can put glasses on if you need to. There's nothing wrong with wearing glasses as I've just put on here, so please keep that in mind. Now let's talk about another frequent excuse people use as to why they can't start their podcast or their video or can't do their speech online or their webinar.

Technology insights.

The technology excuse. I'd love to do a podcast dj, but my assistant is still doing the final six month research on the best cameras. Oh please stop it. It doesn't matter what camera it is, it is complete. Just use any camera. It's like asking what's the best word processor for writing a memo to your client? It's whatever one is available to you. If you're at an airport, it could be your iPhone or iPad. If you're at the office, it could be your desktop. If you're at home, it could be your laptop. It doesn't matter. What matters is the actual substance that you're writing in that memo to the clients. When it comes to giving presentations, speeches online, on YouTube, on iTunes, in person, just do it. Just speak. Use whatever tool is there. Use a camera. An iPhone camera is often all you need and is perfectly fine. Don't waste any more time using the technology excuse because it is an excuse. I have been to major corporations that are clients of mine where they have spent half a million dollars building a TV studio so they can broadcast at any time and say, okay, interesting. How many video podcasts have you made? How many YouTube videos? How many live video webinars for your employees around the world have you used in this studio? The answer? Quite often, zero. Absolutely zero. Because they just haven't made that emotional commitment. They made the financial commitment for the infrastructure. But they tell themselves there's always another camera, always another mixer, always another something they need. It's just an excuse to not speak. And that's something I want to eliminate from you. Something else is just you've got to get practice, you've got to get comfortable. Here's a tool to help you do it.

For a free, no obligation online public speaking or media training course, go to mediatrainingworldwide.com and start learning today.

In addition to all the excuses we come up with, unfortunately, there's a huge industry out there of people peddling bad advice, telling you things that you are supposed to change before you are prepared to do your own videos, your own webinars, webcast, audio podcast, all the others. There's an awful lot of bad advice out there. Let's touch on a few of them.

Bad advice.

Big piece of bad advice. You need to change your accent. Nobody is going to take you seriously if you have that Brooklyn accent or Long island accent or Southern accent or Norwegian accent. Baloney. There are so many people who are wildly successful in every sort of accent. Bill Clinton has a Southern accent. Doesn't seem to have hurt his career too much. Rosie o' Donnell has a strong New York accent. Didn't seem to hurt her career. Deepak Chopra, strong Indian accent, makes a lot more money than I do. Speaks to a much larger audience than I do. Arianna Huffington, strong Greek accent. Here's what you need to know about accents. As long as people can understand your message, that's what's important. The amount of time and effort and energy it takes to change an accent and to adapt to whatever the standard norm, high prestige accent is of your country. In my view, is it worth it most of the time now, if you aspire to be a network news anchor in general, yes. The more you can sound like you're in the United States from the Midwest, the better. Although Dan Rather had a Southern accent and was from Texas in general, if that's your career goal and I don't know how much longer we're going to have network news anchors, if that's really your goal and you see yourself in the communication field communicating all day long every day for decades, why not spend another hour a day for the next two years working on your accent? But if you're like most people, if you're an executive in another industry, if you are a professional, an author, an expert, a CEO, you don't have time to spend an hour a day working on your accent, I'd much rather you spend an hour a week or even a month making sure you have interesting, genuinely interesting ideas to communicate when you speak. Whether you're giving a speech, giving a presentation, talking on your own webcast, creating your own podcast, that's far, far more important. So don't fall for the bad advice. You don't need to change your accent related to this. There's so many voice experts out there talking about speak from the diaphragm and telling women you must speak in a lower register to be taken seriously. This is again, in my view, a bunch of garbage. You want to be a network TV reporter. Maybe you've Got to take some guidance to pass certain gatekeepers who are looking for all these things. But in every other aspect of life, the corporate arena, the political arena, I wouldn't worry about changing your voice and certainly don't try to speak in lower tones. It's going to make you sound monotone and phony. You don't want that. You want to sound natural. There's a lot of different types of voices in the world. It's really, really difficult to change your voice. You're too nasal. You're not as nasal as Adam Carolla and he's doing really well with his massive podcast empire right now. You have a really annoying accent. Well, look at Fran Drescher. She's made a whole career out of it. You're kind of low energy and monetary. Ben Stein has done really well with his voice. So don't fall for the so called experts who tell you you have to change your voice, you have to speak lower, you have to change your accent. No, these are all phony baloney excuses that will let you put off another six months getting out there giving speeches, presentations, creating videos and audios. Stop it. Just cut it out. Just knock it out right now. I mean it. We got to get rid of these excuses and we got to really get down to business.

Do you have a speaking related question for number one, USA Today bestselling author TJ Walker? For more than 30 years, Walker has been a public speaking coach and media trainer to presidents of Countries, Prime Ministers, CEOs, Nobel Peace Prize winners, professional athletes and Ms. Universes. Send your questions to infoediatrainingworldwide.com or on Twitter jwalker.

I really do mean that. If you have questions, please send them to me. I will answer them. That's what this whole show is about. And I don't just pop in every three months when I have a few minutes. I'm here for you every day. If you have a question, I'll answer it. Anything to do with public speaking or presentation training. Now, the biggest excuse people have, the most insidious, is the excuse of, well, I, I'm not a natural born speaker. I'm not gifted in this arena. I'm not naturally good at this. That is the worst excuse of all because it is complete idiocy. There's no such thing as a natural born speaker. That's like saying somebody's a natural born writer. They don't need to go to first grade, second grade, third grade, or ever get formal writing instruction. Obviously, idiocy. There's no such thing as a natural born writer. Now, some people end up being a lot better than others. But all writers had to get taught. No one just sat in a cave by himself or herself and just started naturally writing things. That's just not how writing works. Speaking is the same way. It is a skill that anyone can learn. It's not some natural inborn thing like becoming the world's greatest violinist or having the genetic talents of being able to dunk a basketball because you're 8ft tall. Some things you do need to have some boring talents and some assets. Speaking isn't one of them. In fact, some of the greatest speakers of all time started off life as a stutterer. Jesse Jackson speech impediments like Winston Churchill. Joe Biden stuttered as an adult a mere few years before he got elected to the Senate, but he overcame that. So people have had tremendous speech impediments and still gone on to be great speakers. What's your excuse? I'm hoping you see by now that there really are no good excuses for seeking out every speaking opportunity. You can speaking out on video and audio on a regular basis, and that's really what I hope you do. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. May all of your speaking opportunities in life be a huge success, but also realize if you don't take the opportunity, it can't be a success. So that's the first step. You got to get rid of these excuses and take every opportunity you can.

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