As a coach, I work with clients on crafting a strong message for their speech. Once that is done, everything else should align with that message.
Body movements should support your message. Your voice should convey the emotions of what you are saying, and on and on. While you want your speech to deliver value and motivation to your audience, there is also another benefit to amping up your speaking game.
The 2nd Dimension
As with everything, speaking is a two way street. The more you give to your audience, the more you get in return in the form of confidence, openness, and centeredness. They build on each other, and make love to one another. When you first start giving speeches, you may be nervous and unsure, but rest assured, public speaking is personal growth.
Confidence
When you do something enough times, you develop confidence. Speaking is no different. I remember when I first started giving speeches in Toastmasters. Even though I had speaking experience before that, I was still not 100% confident that I could deliver that 1 2 punch. Yes, let me tell you, that lack of confidence showed. I spent my first 2 speeches meandering round and round. While my voice is naturally strong, my lack of sure footedness took away from the power of it.
The first speech was supposed to be a story about myself, but I was not yet confident in talking a lot about myself. While the second speech was better on the delivery, the structure of the speech was a different story.
The more I gave speeches, the more confident I became. The confidence gained while moving through speech after speech started leaking over into other areas of my life. I, by that time was a decently confident person, but all the accumulated speech confidence pumped my spirit muscle up more. Soon I found that I became less passive in general, and more willing to confront things. It did not matter that I had previous yap yap experience, each form of communication, while related, is its own form. Get speaking, and get confident.
Openness
As you start to give more and more speeches, you become more and more open. Even though some may think, after being around me in certain contexts, that I am an extravert. Well, their wrong! I am, and always have been an introvert, and I hate talking about my life in public.
Of course, I knew that sharing my personal story, my struggles and my lessons is the number 1 way to pass on the message of self mastery and personal development to my fellow men. Knowing this Did not make it easier, but my passion would not let me turn back.
One of the issues that I wanted to bring some attention to is male depression, and the lack of open discussion. This meant that I would have to speak about my own 17 year journey through that maze. For one of my speeches, I let Toastmasters be the test ground for it.
As I spoke about the ups and downs, my mind was on the clock. As I described some details of self isolation and other things, I could not wait to be done. Finally, I was done.
After the meeting, a man approached me and thanked me for bringing that topic up. He had never really heard another man speak about it that openly. My lesson: The very things that you are afraid to talk about are the same things somebody else is waiting to hear. Open up, give yourself to your speech!
The very things that you are #afraid to talk about are the same things somebody else is waiting to hear. Click To TweetCenteredness
When confidence and openness make love, you have centeredness. After enough speeches, after enough high points and challenge points, you begin to settle into yourself as a speaker. After a few nerve filled speeches, after a few freak outs before just letting it fly, I developed a more balanced view of myself and my abilities. This does not mean that I do not get nervous from time to time. I still feel the pressure before I talk about parts of my story, but that’s natural for most people.
When you are confident, open, and centered, you have all kinds of free energy that can be given to your audience, only for the give and get cycle to start all over. Remember, after your first will be your second, then your ninety-eighth. Rock the mic! Become the person that you would look up to!
Time to step up to the mic!
If you want to go from a quiet whisperer to a confident communicator, become the authentic master of words by signing up for The Authentic Master Program for Speakers. This program will unleash your power and message. You will be taken step by step on writing and delivering a speech, and you will come away with more confidence, a solid message, and you will know the audience that will benefit the most from your story.