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With more of us than ever having access to talks and presentations than ever before with digital streamings and social media platforms, the pressure can be high to articulate our message successfully and engage our audience in a way that has an impact.
As a global public speaking coach, I discovered my passion for engaging presentations when, 10 years ago, I stood on stage in front of 5,000 people at a Japanese business leaders conference and bored my audience that day to sleep.
Failing to connect with my audience that day could have stopped me in his tracks. Instead, I got curious about the secrets to powerful public speaking, an art I perfected and now teach in a program called Right Voice For You.
Back then, I thought it was alright to present without showing my true emotions or feelings. I wanted to express myself in a way that people would be fascinated with my story, but I had not yet learned how to speak from my heart. Today, I know this to be the most powerful tool for public speaking.
I coach people on how to cultivate their unique and authentic voice first so they can speak publicly from their heart with confidence and ease. My top tips are below:
1. Lower the barrier
People create barriers to public speaking to protect themselves from having to feel vulnerable. When you lower the barriers by removing your need to be perfect and letting go of your fear around being judged, you are freer to be yourself speaking in front of an audience.
2. Stop interpreting your audience as the enemy
The audience is not your enemy. Stop fighting against the audience’s invisible judgment and find a way to enjoy spending time with them instead. The majority are there to learn from you and receive whatever message you have.
3. When judgment arises, allow it to be there
If you do feel judged by anyone, understand that you’re not there to be liked but to share your message. Allow that person (or persons) to be in judgment, knowing that nobody (including you) is perfect and you don’t have to be liked or right all the time. In fact, two points of view can exist about one topic.
4. Get joyful about being judged
Take it one step further and figure out how to actually enjoy and use the judgment of others for your own benefit. If you believe in your message, you can stand in the truth of who you are and start to enjoy, almost welcome, the experience of being judged. There is energy in judgment you can transmute to communicate your message more powerfully.
5. Use language, words, and examples that the audience will understand
Your message is only as powerful as a person’s ability to receive it. Use stories, metaphors or popular media references that are culturally relevant to your audience so your message is able to land. If you’re presenting in Japan, refer to sumos, green tea ceremonies, and harakiri. If you’re presenting to mums in America, tell different stories.
6. Invite people into your message
Instead of telling people what to do, or how to do it, it can be more engaging to extend your audience an invitation to consider another way of being in the world. By asking the question ‘what if you could live like this…’ It’s always about extending a possibility to them they can try on, or not.
7. Remember to smile
Always have a positive attitude and demeanor in front of your audience.
Great public speaking is about great self-expression. Before presenting from the heart, the audience was very cold and unresponsive. Now, I generate a lot more energy in a room, people are really listening and when I speak from the heart, it is me and I am truly living. To move an audience, the first step is learning how to be in allowance of who you really are and that is a beautiful thing to witness.
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