Ep 30 I Don't Have a Problem with Public Speaking

I don't have a problem with public speaking. Why would I take a public speaking class?

Speaking the show about effective speaking in public to the media, at work and in Life. Speaking with T.J. walker.

This is a question I get every so often. Just the other day, a longtime client of mine, Katherine, asked me that question. Not about herself, but about a federal government agency saying, why would they want presentation training? Why would their top executives have trouble giving presentations? And pardon me for sounding self serving, but to me that just sounds crazy. If your fourth grader said, mom, Dad, I know how to do adding and subtracting multiplication, I don't ever want to take another math class, I don't think you'd find that very convincing. You'd say, look, you can learn more, you can learn deeper, you can learn more advanced things. You can continue to improve your math skills. No one at a large bank, Citibank or Goldman Sachs says, you know, we made money this year. Why would we want to make more money? In any field of human endeavor, there's always the possibility of getting better. So that's one big issue. But the bigger issue is people often confuse comfort with competence. Hear me out now. You can be the most comfortable speaker in the world. Your blood pressure might not elevate. You don't get flopped sweat. You can tell yourself you're just as relaxed talking to these 500 people as you are your best friend about your last fishing trip. But guess what? Just because you're comfortable doesn't mean you're communicating, doesn't mean you're interesting, doesn't mean the audience takes away anything, doesn't mean you're memorable. I define public speaking competence as you can present yourself in a way where there's nothing distracting and you appear competent and people understand your message and people remember your core messages. So there's a good chance at least some of them will take the actions you want. To me, that's the whole goal of public speaking. That's what actually makes you competent. And in fact, you shouldn't be confident unless you have strong certainty and evidence that you're competent in those four areas I just listed. And I find in every single, whether it's the federal government, whether it's private sector, the non profit world, the political world. The world is filled with people who have given hundreds of thousands of speeches in their career and in fact are comfortable giving presentations. And they sometimes are asked, well, why was I asked to come to this public speaking class? Well, it's because you're not competent yet, or maybe you're okay, but you're not great. I just don't know why people wouldn't aspire to be better and better at any skill that could have a profound impact on their life. That's one issue. Why not just get better and better? The other issue, frankly, is you might be awful. Just because you're comfortable doesn't mean you're not awful. For example, I can tell you I'm great as a fashion stylist. I'm perfectly comfortable getting dressed in the morning. I got dressed here. I'm very comfortable dressing. But guess what? I'm colorblind. So if I give you a speech on color coordination for your suits and dresses, I might be comfortable, but I'm not going to be any good at it because I don't see color the way you do. So let's not confuse comfort with competence. Now, let's take it piece by piece. That first issue is looking comfortable and confident. You can feel comfortable and confident and still look scared and nervous. How would you know?

Body language.

So, folks, a little background. About 80% of the clients who come to me have signed up on their own. They want to be there. They've sought me out. They specifically figured out they want media training or presentation training. They're highly enthusiastic, but 15 to 20% are sort of part of a group of people who've been asked to show up. And a lot of times they don't really know why they're there. They're thinking, well, you know, why am I here? I'm a seasoned, savvy, experienced speaker. They may be, you know, my age, over 50, have a successful career, be making plenty of money. So they're a little bit skeptical. Why am I here? For a day of presentation training when my email and voicemail is piling up and they think of themselves as quite confident and comfortable. And then the first thing I do is I videotape them speaking and have them watch it. Now, I always try to start off the day on a positive note, ask them to tell me what they like, what they're doing well, strengths they can build on. But invariably they will look at their video and say, oh, my gosh, T.J. i didn't realize how horrible I looked. Look at me fidgeting with my ring finger. Look at me going back and forth from left foot to right foot like a little boy. Look at my eyes darting around. I had no idea I looked this uncomfortable. Look at me holding my hands in front of myself in a fig leaf position like a little child who has to go to the Bathroom. And folks, this is their observations, not mine. They're noticing it themselves. And again, these are people who told me, told themselves that they're experienced, they're quite comfortable as a speaker. Again, I get back to doesn't really matter if you're comfortable, are you competent? That is the issue. You can't really know if you're competent if you can't see what it is you're putting out to the world. So when it comes to looking professional, comfortable, confident, relaxed, I don't care who you are, you're not going to know until you have video recorded. And I know some of you are saying, well, tj, you're a broken record. You've said that before. Well, guess what? Martha Stewart's given a lot of different videos on how to cook an omelette. Well, it's still useful for people at some level. And I do think that while people have heard me say this, very few people actually do it. And the video recording and watching yourself covers a lot of territories. You can analyze your message, but you can also analyze how you look, how you move, how you sound. And it can help you analyze exactly what the problems are so you can in fact solve it. So that's the first big issue is, is can you really figure out, is there a reason for you being comfortable and confident? Does your feeling match what you're sending out of the world? It may be that you're comfortable and confident and you look comfortable and confident. Great, that's wonderful. Then you at least know that part of the equation is over and you can focus on what's really important, making your ideas memorable and understandable. And this is, this is where I do criticize a number of my colleagues in the industry. I mean, there's so many websites and books out there and solutions about how to be more confident, how to be more comfortable as a speaker, and they're all inward focused. It's about me, me, me, me, me. Oh, aren't I comfortable how I feel? Well, sorry to sound like a tough love drill sergeant, but I'll tell you exactly what I tell my clients. Nobody cares if you're comfortable. What the audience cares about is themselves. So the easiest way to be comfortable as a speaker is to know that you're actually interesting and helpful and useful and memorable to your audience. So it's a matter of changing the focus, changing the orientation off of yourself. Poor little me, Woe is me. And on to your audience. And there are some very, very specific ways of doing that and I want to share that with you.

In a moment, inside dope, the craft of media and presentation training.

So the first thing I do after I've really made sure someone looks comfortable, confident and relaxed is we got to figure out, do they have a message and does it work? Now, there are two aspects of this. If it's a typical business situation, there's the PowerPoint slides. If they're using that, and there's what they say. And people can quite often be professional. Look professional, smooth, good eye contact, all their clothing looks great. They look like a billion dollars. They can deliver all their information smoothly. But did it work? That's the big question. And these days you don't have to guess. If you have a presentation to a very important prospect and you're meeting with their six top executives on Thursday, find one or two people who have a similar mindset. Give them your presentation Wednesday at lunch when you're done, ask them to tell you every slide they remember. Any slide they remember. You now have evidence that it works. Keep it, use it, and be confident it works. If it didn't work, if your audience didn't remember it, it by definition didn't work. Take that slide and throw it in the trash can. It is utterly useless. Ask your colleague on Wednesday who's listening to you, what messages they remember from their speech, from your speech, anything they remember that was important to you. That's great. You now have evidence that it works. Use that on Friday, and when you're saying it Friday, actually have the confidence of knowing it works because you've already tested it. If there's something important to you that your colleague didn't throw back in your face, you now have evidence that in fact, the way you presented it didn't work. Take that part of your speech, your presentation, your outline, throw it in the trash can and start over and keep doing it until you're happy with the retention. Now, this is the advanced level. This is. Again, it's not that complicated, folks. This is what I teach people when they come to me for advanced presentation training. And you may say, well, tj, that's. That sounds self evident. Why would anyone even pay for that? Well, guess what? Nobody does it. Or very few people do it. The problem most speakers have in every business, every government agency, every nonprofit is, we are so focused on us. Me, me, me, me, me. How do I feel? Am I comfortable? Is this my content? Do I have all my slides right? Do I have all my bullet points lined up? We're so selfish. We're so fixated on our little feelings and our little world we don't focus on what really matters, the audience, and making sure that we have evidence that it works. So that's really the challenge here with making the jump between being a comfortable speaker and a truly competent one. Comfort is only one part of the deal. I could be totally comfortable here, presenting to you in my bathing suit. I might be completely comfortable. But I can tell you this, I would not be competent at communicating. Because if you tuned in and those of you who are watching in video now, for those of you just listening on audio, that would be fine. It wouldn't matter to you. But if you are watching the video version of this show and you saw me in what appears to be naked because you can't see me from below mid chest and I'm wearing a bathing suit, you would be so distracted, like, is this guy crazy? Look at his body. It's just, I wouldn't be competent because I would be so distracting. So I had to get back to this central thesis. You don't get many brownie points just for being comfortable as a speaker. You get brownie points for actually communicating. Which does lead us to.

A question for you.

I want to know, how do you rate yourself? Are you comfortable as a speaker? Or are you comfortable and confident that you are in fact a competent speaker? Huge, huge difference. If you're merely comfortable as a speaker, why aren't you doing something? You don't have to hire me, folks. And the fact that you're even here listening or watching shows, I think you have at least some desire to improve. But if you're merely comfortable as a speaker, what are you doing to actively try to improve your presentation skills? That's what I'd like to know. So send me your comments. J. Walker on Twitter. You can also email them infoediatrainingworldwide.com you can also post this on our Facebook page, our YouTube page, or any other place where you're seeing this or hearing it. And I'll find I would like to hear from you as an answer to this question. This is a show where we try to be, not try to be. We are interactive. I answer your questions. Most of the content for this show comes because you have taken the time to email me or write me or call me with a question. By the way, I haven't offered that on a regular basis, but I guess I will. Some people just in this day and age, typically not those of you under 30, but some people still like to call. If you would like to call me and leave a voicemail message with a question, you'd like to see addressed on this show, Go ahead and feel free to do it. You can call me if you're out of the United States. +1212,764,4955 again. +1212,764-4955 thanks for joining me. As always, may all of your presentations in life be a huge success.

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