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How much practice is too much practice for your next speech or presentation?

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

So is it possible to practice too much? That's one of the questions from the readers at InDesign today in the program. All the questions come from the readers and the community at InDesign. That's a fabulous website. They're one of our partners and if you need help with your PowerPoint slides design, they have a whole host of resources for you. They're an excellent editor. Gites has sent the questions over from his readers, and I'll link to that in the show. Notes I n D E z I n e.com inDesign.com first question how much practice is good enough for delivering a presentation or speech? Alternatively, to put the same question to different words, is there something called practicing too much? Slightly different questions and let me take them one at a time, Good enough depends on your standards. I mean, if all you want to do is make somebody think you're competent and you don't really care if they remember anything or understand what you're saying, you can get up and have a nice dress or suit or business attire on and read with an authoritative tone of voice. Now why anyone would want to do that is beyond me. But if your standard is just good enough seems like a pretty low standard. You could do that, I think. And what I hope is that people aim a little higher. How can you do if maybe not a world class standing ovation level speech? How can you do an excellent speech? How can you do a speech that actually accomplishes your goals? I go into every presentation for myself and others with the assumption that your goal is to actually have people understand your messages and remember them so that they can take the actions. Now if that's the goal, you should practice until you have some evidence or proof that you're actually doing that. Now the way to do that is practice on video. Watch it, figure out Are you doing anything distracting? Is it interesting? Do you like your style and substance? And is there anything you'd radically change? Is there anything horrible you need to refine and keep refining it? But practice for its own sake, in my view, doesn't really help. It might make you a little less nervous, but if you've eliminated your nervousness but it's a really boring data dump speech, not going to matter to your audience, you're still going to fail. So in my view, the amount of practice needed is the amount it takes until you've seen a video coming across the way you want, and ideally, you've tested it on others too, to make sure they understand your message and remember it. That leads to the second part of the question. Is there something called practicing too much? I don't believe there is such a thing as practicing too much. However, and it's a big however, there is such a thing as practicing the wrong way. If you and I go out to the golf course and I practice 14 hours on the driving range, but I am holding the wrong end of the golf club, am I practice my 14 hours on the driving range too much? I mean, in general, that's more time than you want to spend on a driving range. But the problem isn't that I'm spending 14 hours on the driving range. The problem is I'm holding the wrong end of the club. So really, no matter what I do, it's going to be horrible. The results are going to be horrible because when you're hitting a golf ball with the handle instead of the club hat, it's going to be a disaster. Similarly, if you have practiced and practiced and practiced a speech, but it's a boring data dump speech, and it's just a bunch of facts and numbers and bullet points, which so many speeches are, it really doesn't matter how often you practice it or how long you practice it, it's going to be awful. Now, the other big problem people have with practicing too much is if they try to memorize. It absolutely is true that some people memorize their speeches. Many of the TED Talk speeches are memorized. But I gotta tell you, that's hard to do. When you see someone who's delivered a memorized speech at a TED conference, quite often they've given the very same speech or similar speech hundreds of times, if not thousands of times over a period of years. So, yeah, it's memorized, but they've said it so many times, it's like someone asking you your full name. Yeah, you've got that memorized, but it's not a lot of strenuous work to get it out. So the problem with memorization is if you haven't spent a lot of time and really lived in it, it's too easy to I forgot, what's the next word? And then your face scrunches up, you pause awkwardly and the whole speech has become derailed. And it's awkward for the audience, it's awkward for you. That's when the ah, ah, ah, what's the um, next word? Uh, the uhs and ums pop in so memorization in general, I would recommend just for professional actors or someone who's giving a really, really big speech that they know they're going to be speaking about this topic probably for years, and so they have to really get into it and live it. If you're going to be giving a keynote speech and you're a professional speaker and you're giving the same keynote speech on overcoming some crisis or disaster in your life, saying it almost word for word the same way does work for some people, others don't do it that way. But that is the other big problem. If you're spending your energy practice time to try to memorize, that's usually a bad idea. If you're spending your practice time getting comfortable with it, recording it, looking at it to make sure it's interesting and memorable, that's fine. You almost can't do too much of it. But the beauty of it is if you're watching it on video, you'll know when it's great. And if you get feedback from others, you'll know when it's working so you won't have to overdo it at all.

Do you have a speaking related question for number one USA Today best selling 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 J. Walker.

Next question from the InDesign readers. TJ can you recommend any books, websites and other resources that will help me become a better presenter? I have a conflict of interest here. And as much as I would love to sell you all my books and I have a bunch of books and direct more of you to my website and I certainly have competitors I respect where I could tell you good things about their books and their websites. And certainly there's a lot of online courses I'd like to think my own included are great resources. But the number one resource that you have to help you become a better presenter is already in your pocket. I'm talking about your cell phone, your smartphone. If you have a phone that records video that is far and away your number one resource that will help you. Now, people don't like when I say this, I get one of two responses. Oh tj, you've said that before. You talk about that and well, how come no one does it then? Or people say, well yeah, but I'll get to that later. I just have to write the perfect speech or I don't really like looking at myself. I hate looking at myself. I'm not going to do that. But I'll spend another 12 hours reading more books on public speaking. Here's the problem, folks. I have found that many people will do anything to avoid the one thing that will actually make them a better speaker. Practicing out loud on video and watching it. And so they use as a delaying tactic, wanting to read more books, go to more websites, sign up for another webinar, think about joining Toastmasters. Think about signing up for Dale Carnegie. People are amazingly invented. And hey, I'm no better for other things in my life. I'll come up with all sorts of excuses as to why I shouldn't input data from business cards of people I've met or why I shouldn't clean my garage. So we all have delay techniques. We all have certain things where we know we're not really being productive, but we're doing other things to delay the fact that there's something we should be doing, we're not doing. So, Gidish, I'm here to tell you and the viewers at InDesign and the readers at InDesign, enough with the website. Believe me, they should go to your website. They should go to my website, my blog. But the number one resource you have is your cell phone, the video record button. And if you don't have a cell phone that records video, find a laptop, a tablet. I mean, I can't speak for every country in the world, and I realize the InDesign readers are from more than 100 countries around the world, but certainly you can get a plug in webcam these days at grocery stores for $7. And if you don't have a smartphone, chances are somebody you know does have a smartphone. And here's the trick. At some point, you have to make the transition from intellectual learning to making this a cerebral process and actually doing. At some point, if you're a kid, if you want to learn how to swim, it's fine to watch a gazillion YouTube videos. It's fine to read books on swimming if you can read yet. But at some point, you got to get in the pool. Now, I don't say you have to jump in the deep end and drown, but at some point you got to get in the pool, kick, blow bubbles, and you've got to start doing the fundamentals. Same thing with learning to ride a bicycle. You can watch videos on how to ride a bicycle. You can read books on how to ride a bicycle. You can go to YouTube channels. You can go to how to resources on the web on how to learn how to ride a bicycle. But at some point, you got to just get on the bike, wobble, maybe fall over, maybe even skin your knee. If you don't have training wheels, your parents aren't there holding it for you, get back on again, wobble a little less, then fall over, get on again, and at some point you're able to ride that book, that bike, maintain your balance and keep on going. That's how you learn how to ride a bike. Unfortunately, that's really the only way to learn how to how to speak more effectively. You're going to learn how to speak by actually speaking. And I misspoke. The number one resource you have isn't just your phone. It's you. It's you actually taking time and initiative to literally speak, not to sit back passively with your feet up on the table, intellectually learning, stimulation and reading about the great speeches of history. Look, it's fine to curl up with a William Safire book on great speeches from history. I've done it. You can learn. But if you really want to maximize your time and you want to see the greatest amount of growth when it comes to public speaking, enough with the resources. Start doing use the resource of your phone or any video camera around. That's far and away my number one recommendation for you.

To hire TJ Walker as a keynote speaker or workshop leader for your next conference call. 212-764-4955.

Next question from the InDesign readers. DJ being acutely conscious of yourself is something that represents most speakers. Is it good? Alternatively, if it is not, how does one stop being aware of ourselves? Certainly if you're out on a stage and you seem self conscious and you and you're thinking, oh, what do I do with my hands? Uh oh. Did I say uh oh? Am I getting the next slide right? That's a problem. Now, great speakers are conscious of themselves in that they know how they're coming across. I want to suggest a fundamental mind shift. If you want to be a great speaker, you need to be conscious and focusing all of your conscious efforts. Your audience, if you are truly focused on helping them, bringing to light some ideas that are going to be helpful to them, useful to them, memorable to them. You're not even thinking about yourself, but in the process, you become more relaxed. In the process, you lose any nervousness, you lose any negative self awareness or over self awareness. If you're thinking about yourself, you're just thinking in terms of wow, it's great to be able to be here and help these people. If you are a mother or father of a small child and you see your child about to walk out into a busy street and there's a lot of people around and there's 20ft between you and your child and your child is three feet away and you see them headed towards busy traffic, at that point you're not really self conscious. You're not thinking, oh, do I have the best running shoes on? Or oh, if I raise my voice, will people think I have a high pitched voice? No. At that moment you're screaming, don't run in the street. You're yelling at your kid, you're running as hard as you can. Your adrenaline is flowing because you're focused on one thing, the person out there, not yourself. Not do I look perfect, not as everyone admiring my suit. You forget all that. You're focused on your audience and that's what I believe great speakers do as well. They're focused on their audience and they've done their homework. So they know that they have good ideas, they know that it's memorable and that's why they're helping you and that's why they don't have any negative over self consciousness. Thanks so much for the questions. Always great to hear from the readers at InDesign. By the way, the forum is open for everyone folks. If you have questions for me, please email them. You can email infusediatrainingworldwide.com the best place is just to post questions on my blog. If you go to mediatrainingworldwide.com, just pick this episode or any other episode, make a comment below it and post your question below it and I will answer it in future episodes. As always, may all of your presentations in life be a huge success.

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