TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

I'm not shouting. It's just when women speak, some people think we're shouting. That's according to Hillary Clinton. Okay, this comment coming from Hillary Clinton, I'm going to dissect it and I'm probably going to offend all of you men and women. But I'm going to give you what I promise here every day, nuanced honest truth. That is based on my experience of doing public speaking training for more than 30 years. Now, Hillary Clinton said this last month at a leadership forum. It escaped my eye, but it was picked up by the Eloquent Woman website blog. I'm going to link to that. Let's dissect this and let me put a couple of things out on the table so you know my biases. For starters, I don't agree with Hillary Clinton on this necessarily when it comes to all women. Number two. So some of you might not like that. Number two, I actually like and respect Hillary Clinton and her politics. So I'm not criticizing her because I don't like her politics. And many, many people, I've found, in my experience, simply cannot give unbiased opinions about someone's speaking skills if they differ with their politics. So here's the thing about Hillary Clinton, this idea that some people, and men especially, just say, that woman's yelling at me. I do think that happens sometimes, that some people are sexist and reflexively dismiss somebody based on their gender. However, when it comes to Hillary Clinton and how she gave speeches from the early 90s until about five, six years ago, she actually was guilty of shouting. She shouted, my fellow Americans, I want to tell you today about it was shouting. Now, it is not sexist to point this out because Al Gore had the same problem. When Al Gore was running for president, he would shout. In fact, in my experience, this is a problem that affects men and women when they are speaking to large audiences. And here's why. When you're speaking in front of a large audience and you see some people 100ft, 200ft to 500ft away, it's human nature to think, well, they can't hear me unless I project. Well, that's true if you don't have one of these on a microphone. So it's completely logical and rational to raise your voice. Project, shout. If you're in a room, there's 100 people and you don't have a microphone on, it makes sense to project. The problem is, let's say you're at a political convention and there are 15,000 people in the room. If you Then try to project. There's a microphone right there so the people watching you on TV, on video screens, on YouTube, hear you sounding like this. And it has a certain type of monotone to your voice and it sounds really annoying and it sounds like shouting because it is shouting. Now, in Hillary Clinton's defense, she's improved on this dramatically. The only surprising thing is, why did it take her this long? Because she has the world's best public speaking expert by her side, Bill Clinton. You don't see him shout when he gives a speech, and if he does, it's very targeted for two seconds and then he contrasts it with a whisper. So I'm going to respectfully, respectfully differ with Hillary Clinton's assessment here that it's just a knee jerk, uniform thing. And I guess I'm implicitly disagreeing with the good folks over at Eloquent Woman, that blog. And I am linking to that in the show notes. So be sure to stop by that site from time to time addressing some of the issues implicit in this. I do think definitely there are some people in the world who are turned off by women speakers, women politicians, because they're sexist. And it constantly amazes me, certain male friends of mine, colleagues, who have absolute contempt for a certain female politician and say she's radical and extreme, and yet they profess an admiration for a male politician who has exactly the same policy positions, the same voting records. And I'll let you fill in the blanks as to who you think that is as far as the women and men with the same policy records. But to me, that is a sign that some people just don't want to hear any words coming out of a woman's voice. So I'd love to hear your opinion on this. I'm not asking you to love Hillary Clinton as a politician or as a speaker. I want us to just focus on this issue of speaking loudly and the idea that some women are accused of shouting just for speaking. I'm going to, again, respectfully disagree with Hillary Clinton, although agreeing with, I guess, half of the assumption that some people, especially men, are dismissive of anything a woman has to say. Post your comments right here in the discussion forum, whether you're watching this on Facebook, YouTube or on my blog at mediatrainingworldwide.com I'd love to hear from you. By the way, this show is brought to you by Media Training Worldwide. If you would like a free online public speaking course, go to our site@mediatrainingworldwide.com and sign up for the free Course, today, as you know, every day on this program, we do have a body language segment right at the top of the show, typically the second story of the day. Here's today's body language segment and it does relate to our lead story. The best way to come across in large groups, when you have a microphone, occasionally lean forward and whisper like you're telling a secret. Not the whole time. If you whisper the whole time, people will think you're scared and nervous and uncomfortable. But again, as I related to you earlier, the problem most people have when they're in front of a large group, they speak too loudly and it comes across as shouting. You can do that a little. If you then lean forward, whisper a little, the microphone will still catch it up. By leaning forward, lowering your voice, you'll create a more intimate experience for your audience. They'll feel like you're real, they will feel like you're believable. It'll be a heck of a lot more interesting. And again, forget the politics for the moment. Who would you rather be compared to as a speaker? Bill Clinton or Al Gore and Hillary Clinton? I would submit that most fair minded people would say there's no choice there. You would want to be seen more like a Bill Clinton style speaker. It is in part because he lowers his voice occasionally and provides a much, much greater contrast in his speaking. Volume, speed, pitch, tempo. You can do it too. Just lean forward and whisper like you're talking to one friend. That is the public speaking tip of the day. Now in our behind the news segment, every day we look at something behind the news. It may be in the news today, but what we're talking about is relating to eternal issues and truths. So if you're not watching this same day we post this, I think and hope you'll still get real value. Volkswagen has taken a huge hit in the last few months with revelation that it cheated in environmental standards, in testing with diesel and other products. They continue to get trashed and vilified every day in the media. Today's coverage in the New York Times. I'm linking to the story again. Even if you're watching this 10 years from now, the link should be there and I think you'll be intrigued by it. This is a horrible, horrible communications crisis day for Volkswagen again. And the big news is there actually is no news. It's just people can't stop talking about how horrible Volkswagen is, its culture, how it deals with a crisis. So in today's New York Times story, three things jumped out at me. Number one, there is that infamous picture of the founder of Volkswagen showing the Volkswagen Beetle to Adolf Hitler. Yet another reminder that Volkswagen's origins are with the Nazis. A lot of people still don't know that. But when you have front page photographic evidence on the New York Times reminding people that this was a car that was designed for Hitler, folks, it doesn't get much worse than that as far as publicity. Now, further on in the story, they talk about sort of this wild megalomaniac former chair, excuse me, I forgot if it's a chair or CEO, but head of the company who has 12 children. Some of them are fathered by the former spouse to a cousin. Look, folks, I only have one child. I'm not saying I'm the role model. Some people have none. I'm not saying two is the magic number, or three. But there's something about in this day and age, a modern CEO having 12 children, some of them with spouses of other family members, that just seems a little unhinged. So that's the second big strike. The third big strike is they have a major, major former executive, a Volkswagen, being quoted in the story saying the culture is like North Korea. Well, when you are a major corporation with at one point the largest car manufacturer in the world, people are saying your culture is that of North Korea. It certainly makes you imagine how things just couldn't be worse. And if someone wants to raise their hand and say, hey, we're polluting, we're breaking the law, that they are basically eliminated. Stark, I can't even imagine worse publicity than that. Volkswagen has already lost more than $30 billion of market cap during this crisis. People often assume, well, companies are huge and BP bounced back. And yeah, it's temporary, maybe, maybe not. Car owners or people who want to purchase cars have more choices than ever before. Nobody has to buy a Volkswagen, folks, and they need to get their act in gear and start showing some respect for customers, the public, government, regulators, et cetera, or that market cap. I mean, in theory it could go to zero. I'm not predicting that. But something has to change with the culture of Volkswagen or the downward spiral could in fact continue. Now in our segment, lawmakers in the news, Rand Paul, the US Senator from Kentucky, getting some notice, mixed notice at that. There was a big debate whether he would be included in this week's CNN presidential debate. On the Republican side, his voting approval ratings or his support levels in national polls are hovering right in that 3% range. And that was the cutoff for CNN to consider you a major candidate. Now, there were a number of news stories that he would call a press conference to talk about this. There's been a lot of speculation that he might actually withdraw from the race. It's now been announced that he is going to be in the debate and that he is going to continue. So the whole theory that he was going to drop out of the race has been debunked at this point. But it does raise a bigger question. What is it Rand Paul's doing wrong where he's not getting any traction? There have been a number of GOP presidential debates so far and Rand Paul is someone that just isn't being talked about. Now. When he first won election to the Senate, there was a lot of enthusiasm among more libertarian leaning conservatives. His father, Rand Paul has a father. As you well know, Ron Paul, who's run for president numerous times, had a very, very strong following. Strong 10% or so of Republican voters love him, donated for him. And the thought was that Rand Paul could be much more mainstream, reach out to a much bigger audience and actually take over for the Republican nomination for president. What has happened to his message? Well, and by the way, this is not a political channel, folks. No one's here to really listen to my political opinions. So if you hear something that you don't completely agree with, please realize I'm trying to do the best I can to analyze communication skills, not try to convince you of my political beliefs. Here's the problem as I see it for Rand Paul. He's tried to expand upon the libertarian base of his father, yet in doing so, he has lost the enthusiasm of the hardcore libertarians. And yet he hasn't really made his message more appealing to mainstream Republicans in the primary. So he's neither fish nor foul. He is the I don't usually like to quote the Bible, but the old quote about water hot or cold is fine. But if it's lukewarm, I spit it out. That's obviously a paraphrase. That appears to be what is happening to Rand Paul. So yeah, he got into this Republican debate this week by the hair on his chinny chin chin. But at some point that's only half the battle. If you don't genuinely have a message that is interesting to voters, that cuts through, that's different, that's more compelling. It doesn't really matter if you're in the debate or not. So the big challenge for Rand Paul is he going to somehow tweak his message, come up with something. The bigger problem with Rand Paul, and this was a bit of an issue with his father too is there is this quality you see when he speaks again, those of you who are Rand Paul supporters are going to just attack me, saying I'm attacking him because of policies. There's nothing to do with it. Basic communication 101. When Rand Paul speaks and when he answers questions, you constantly detect this peevish quality, this annoyance. He's always acting like the reporter is stupid, and he quite often acts like any voter is stupid if they don't agree with him 100% of the time. And this has been a problem with him and his father. It's this sense that they exude, that they are the only people in the entire world who've ever read the Constitution or understand the Constitution. Now, I understand completely that there are philosophical differences. I'm not asking Rand Paul to change his philosophical principles. I don't think he has to to do better in communication and perhaps earning more votes. But what I do think has to change is you cannot be a politician and just act like you are the only person who's intelligent and everyone is stupid. That, unfortunately, I think, is a basic communication problem and it's not related to the politics that Rand Paul has. And until he solves that, I don't really see his campaign going anywhere. Okay, switching topics, going to questions of the day. Here's a question, and this comes from Presentation magazine. What is public speaking closer to? Is it closer to dramatic art or is it closer to being a tour guide? Now, this is a question near and dear to and by the way, I've linked to that in the show notes that you'll find@mediatrainingworldwide.com in my mind, for most speakers, most of the time, your role model for a speech should be that of a tour guide. Think of a great tour guide where you're either walking through Rome or whatever city you're in, and you can be with that tour guide for five hours and you're interested the whole time because it's not full of abstractions where you can't visualize it. They're pointing to something. You can see it. They're telling stories behind that statue or that square or that building. So in my mind, tour guides, good tour guides are great public speakers. That should be the role model for most speakers in a business setting, government, civic setting. Now, if you are a motivational speaker and you're the big draw for a big national convention, there's 25,000 people in the room and you're on the stage and it's black everywhere and the spotlight is on you, well, sure, doing something that is of Broadway quality drama, you're being paid the big bucks. Yeah, why not? But for most people, that's simply not applicable and I don't recommend even trying to do that. So think of what great tour guides do. They speak in concrete terms. They give specific examples. They tell the story behind a particular image, whether it's a building, a statue or a river. That in fact is a good role model for most people. Okay, the question of the day from me to you is who is your favorite female politician speaker? Could be Merkel, could be Hillary Clinton, could be Elizabeth Warren, and forgive me, for all of our viewers in the other 190some countries. I don't know all the politicians in your country, but feel free to submit a nomination and if you want to include a link to a video, then we'd love to see it. Post your comments right here. Whether you're watching this on YouTube, Facebook, or at the blog at the mediatrainingworldwide.com I would love to see it now in social media news. This is a story that really jumped out at me as far as how significant the changes are in communication in the world. There was a time most of my life, the best way to communicate, take a huge pile of money, run a ton of 30 second commercials, perhaps a full page ad in the New York Times. Now, many people have commented on how that is declining in influence. The decline has been going on for quite some time with the rise of the Internet. But to me, nothing has more dramatically hit this home than what's happened in the current GOP presidential debate. Jeb Bush raised $100 million pretty quickly entering the race. He spent, according to some estimates, $32 million. I've seen as high as 50 million on advertising. And all that happens is he goes down, down, down in the polls. He's not even in the top four in most polls. And this, according to Vox.com, and I've linked to the story, the Bush team has spent twice as much money as the combined money spent on advertising by Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Ben Carson. So Jeb Bush isn't even in the top five or he's not in the top four there. He spent twice as much and he has essentially nothing to show for it. Every single time he advertises, his poll numbers have gone down. Now, if I were in the TV ad business and political campaigns, and I used to be a long time ago, I would be profoundly depressed by that news because it would certainly appear that TV advertising is a complete utter waste of time in presidential campaign. And you know who's used least? Donald Trump. And he's number one in public speaking contest news around the world. I want to give a shout out to the pupils at Holyroad Academy. This is a school in Great Britain. They just recently participated in a public speaking contest. It's part of the Rotary Club youth speakers competition. There was a strong competition. There were judges of Robin Williams, not the comedian, Peggy Hanneman and Jonathan Ferri. And here are the awards they made for students age 11 to 13. Rachel Davis, Katie Speed and Lucy Hollister talked about emojis. Agatha Evans, Sophie Winch and Beth Pittman won the senior competition. Now the senior competition is ages 14 through 17 with their speech entitled, you Poppy with pride. This is over in Great Britain. So congratulations to all you students. Again, you've heard me say this before. I'm not anti sports. It's great if you are wonderful at basketball or football, but these public speaking skills are going to help these students for the rest of their life, the next 60, 70, 80 years. Folks, thanks for joining me today. As always, this program is brought to you by Media Training Worldwide. If you would like a free online public speaking course or media training course, please go to mediatrainingworldwide.com and sign up for your free course today. I'm TJ Walker. May all of your speaking opportunities in life be a huge success.