A short live-stream monologue by TJ Walker warning against spreading misinformation in public speaking and presentations. Walker debunks the widely-circulated ‘7% words, 38% voice, 55% body language’ claim as a misinterpretation of a 1972 UCLA study, reflects on his own past use of the claim, and urges presenters to prioritize factual accuracy and credibility.
Chapters
Have you ever been caught putting out fake news, fake information in a speech presentation, or any other form of communication? Well, it is never a good thing. Your credibility is at risk. Facebook is in the news everywhere for their role in disseminating fake news about the campaigns, about the elections, all these alternative websites that put out so much news and information about candidates that was just, as it turns out, made up out of thin air. Facebook getting a lot of criticism and pressure to try to improve this. They've come up with a new approach. Time will tell if it works, but here's the challenge for you and anyone who's trying to communicate. You've got to make sure that you are not irresponsibly putting out bad ideas that are going to misinform people. Early in my career, I had to confess I was guilty of this. Now, it wasn't malicious. I wasn't trying to deceive anyone. But there are thousands of websites out there that put out fake news about public speaking. The number one item of fake news is that supposedly, out of all your communication, only 7% is about your words, 55% your body language, and 38% your voice and how you use your voice. Folks, this is absolute, complete nonsense. It's based on a study from 1972 by a professor at UCLA. He's written about it extensively, and it says everyone who writes about it misunderstands what he's talking about. What he was talking about is if you say one word, different tones. Yeah, the tones and the body language can have a bigger impact. It doesn't mean if you give an entire speech, that if you have a great voice and great body language, you can speak in a foreign language and someone still understand. 93%. That's the logical conclusion. So I was embarrassed. I took it out of a website and a book. I'd had it in an earlier version. I apologize to people, but here's what I. As recently as today, I have googled public speaking on YouTube. And some of the biggest names in the business, public speaking experts, body language experts, are still pushing this myth that communication, spoken communication, is only 7% your words. It's just not true. I've talked to some of them about it before, and believe it or not, you know what some of them told me? Tj, you know, I know it's not technically true, but it kind of seems cool. It's interesting. People find it fascinating and it sort of starts the conversation to talk about things like body language and what to do with your voice. Yeah, but how do you live with yourself. How can you just willingly put out bad information? I think it's horribly irresponsible. Now, I'll tell you the reason a lot of people like me do it, public speaking experts, presentation experts do it is because then when someone says, hey, what do you know about our industry before we hire you, we can say, well, it doesn't matter because the words are only 7%. It's just not true, ladies and gentlemen. So can you get away with giving out fake news? Can you get away with putting out things that are demonstrably untrue? Yeah. Can you succeed? Yes. Can you perhaps even get elected to the highest office in your country? Yes. But is that the sort of reputation you want? Do you want to appeal to people who like lies, want to be lied to? Or do you want to appeal to people who pride themselves in living in a fact based world, who pride themselves in wanting to get it right? You've got to make the decision and you've got to decide what audience you play to here on this Facebook channel, this YouTube channel, and at media training worldwide. We've made the decision. We're going to try to just play it honest, give you the honest facts, even if it doesn't always make us look good. We're going to give you the Honest Truth. I'm T.J. walker. Thanks for joining me. If you want more tips on how to be a better presenter, please, please like my Facebook page, TJ Walker Interactive on Facebook, or go to my home website, mediatrainingworldwide.com.
