Art of public speaking
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The document discusses the art of public speaking. It begins by explaining that public speaking is a fundamental human skill that has evolved into an art form, being used as a tool for diplomacy, legislation, and activism. Many organizations have utilized public speaking techniques. While public speaking can induce feelings of nerves, self-confidence developed through preparation and understanding one's audience is key. Effective public speaking requires maintaining eye contact, varying speech pace and volume, and provoking audience reactions.
Art of public speaking
- 1. Art of Public Speaking One of the language skills we develop aside from listening, reading, and writing is speaking. Speaking is a skill that naturally flows out pf listening, that is, the ability to distinguish sounds in an alphabet or a syllabary. Thus, speaking is a natural, fundamental human skill for expression and exposition. Yet no matter how natural we say speaking is, there is one type of speaking that everybody seems to get away with: public speaking. Classified as group communication, public speaking, as the name suggests, is speaking in front of a group of people for persuasive, informative, or expository purposes. It means stressing a point, asserting an idea so as to make audiences think, react, or do something. From the oldest civilizations recorded down to the very present, public speaking has evolved into an art form, of giving life to words on paper that are meant to fulfill a communicative purpose, and perform those words where they can be heard by others. Public speaking, through the years of its development, became a tool for diplomacy, legislation, and activism. Probably one time or another, every organization on earth has used the tools that the art of public speaking provides. So much so that effective public speaking techniques have gone out of its usual setup, in the courtrooms, congress hall, and other public places, into the curricula of schools today. It must also be understood that any public speaking technique comprise only a part of public speaking. After you have taken your place behind the podium, you feel sweaty in your palm, dry in your throat, nervous on the inside, and you simply want to hurry up after "hiding" behind the speaker's stand. These are all natural feelings before one gets to speak in public. Even speakers who have been talking in public for a long time still encounter those nasty butterflies in the stomach before a speech. However, these speakers have learned ways to counter those "butterflies", one of which is self-confidence. There is nothing like a sense of confidence once you have stepped behind the podium. Self-confidence in public speaking begins in your mind. Different sets of thinking permeate and affect our ability to engage audiences with our art of public speaking. Most of the time, we think of ourselves as inadequate speakers. This type of thinking may stem from two things: either you lack knowledge on your topic or you don't have the vocabulary and stock of words needed to express it. This is easily solved when you have prepared enough about your topic and mastered enough words in the language. There are also times, when we think that our audience does not like us. Give your audience the benefit of a doubt. Think about them being
- 2. on your side. Think about them wanting to listen to you, that the art of public speaking does not end with you, buy circulates in your interaction with your audience. When in front of your audience, maintain eye contact with them, provoke, challenge them, raise the volume of your voice, if you will, change your speaking pace, if you must. Then, watch them react as the art public speaking unfolds from your words Media Relations Training Media is all pervasive and that is why you we must understand the importance of media relations training and media public relations. Organizations, products and personalities are created by the media whether it is print or electronic media. Media relations, therefore, need to be learnt and cultivated for maximum effect. Since this is a specialized sphere of activity and needs specific skills a media relations consultant can play a key role in developing your product, organization or business. Media public relations, therefore, play an important role in the development in familiarization of the influence of media management in molding and building brands and images. Media relations training is required for all types of interactions and all potential leaders must be trained to handle the media. Executive media training is probably more urgent in most organizations as it is the managers and senior executives who will most likely be contacted by the media. Communications to the printed media is restricted to the written text and visual imagery. The audio visual media deals with a live television or a video interface. All these require special and different skills and proficiency levels. The basic public speaking skills have to be honed to the optimum so that the advantages of the media accrue to you and your organization. With the advent of different forms of media interaction there is an ever increasing demand of media related jobs as a media relations consultant and the requirement of conducting industry specific media relations seminars. While using the media for image building or brand projection it is important to collate comprehensive facts. This is because the entire interface with the media is a live performance and incase of audio visual media it can be recorded and replayed. So the images and messages must conform to facts and be delivered in a crisp and impressive manner. The secret lies in understanding the characteristics of the different media. So while designing the media interaction the following aspects need special attention:- * Knowledge of the target audience. * Formulation of a clear and concise message. * Using the most appropriate media specific technique. * Having a positive and media friendly attitude.
- 3. Media relations training is an important facet of leadership and its responsibilities in brand and image projections. This is a specialized and professional work and must be handled by people who are trained to do it. However, all leaders who yearn to be projected and build their stature have to use the media and must understand the finer nuances of media training and management. Leaders of organizations have to exploit the expansive exposure of the different types of media to their advantage. Periodic interactions in the form of press releases, introductory messages for new products and advertisement and promotional campaigns all use the media. Media relations training assumes overriding importance in any organization. It may take the form of the written word, pictures or audio visual imagery but at the end of the day your message carried by the media has a telling effect in spreading a good word about you, your products and your brand HOW TO CREATE A MAGNETIC LIST OF TOPICS FOR PUBLIC SPEAKING ________________________________________ You can talk with confidence on the subjects you are familiar with because you are thorough with them. But while selecting Topics for Public Speaking you must find out a little bit of the background of your audience. Then you will be able to pick up Ideas for Public Speaking and narrow down the list to a few good Speech Topics. Public speaking is sometimes a good platform for molding opinion and it is fun speaking on Persuasive Speech Topics. Choosing good Public speaking topics is an art by itself. If you are someone with varied interests yours is the world of public speaking. You can pick up any topic and mesmerize your audience as you put your points across. But usually you may have to select Topics for Public Speaking to suit either the occasion or the specific interests of the audience. This too is no big deal if you keep in mind few tips. All you have to do is to ascertain the time allotted to you for the speech and then collate material commensurate with the available time. This calls for information gathering skills. The trick is to first list the non controversial points that you wish put across. This done, you may segregate the Ideas for Public Speaking which are likely to attract some opposition. These are the aspects that warrant some threadbare analysis and these Persuasive Speech Topics are really challenging. After all they cover aspects and values that have many opinions and the audience is unlikely to lap up your arguments unless they are really convinced. But isn't public speaking all about forming opinions? Whoever said that there are two sides to a coin couldn't be more right? A good public speaker can use communication skills to sway the
- 4. public any way by a string of persuasive arguments as under:- * List material to prove that the facts you wish to state are true. * Defend your point of view to the hilt. Remember you can never be wrong. There are bound to people in the audience who share your passionate views. * Be relaxed and talk in a natural conversational style varying your tone and gestures to convince the audience. * Invite the audience to an interactive question and answer session at the end of your address. This will help you to separate the dissenting views in the audience and demolish them in full view of the entire assembly. Remember not to enter into a debate but merely contradict the oppositional ideas one by one. * Having said it all do not take anything to heart. Public speaking is all about trying to mould public opinion and not to settle scores. While one can speak on any subject but the most interesting Topics for Public Speaking are the ones which have an air of controversy about them. These public speaking topics are always on current issues are always of interest to any audience and generally conform to most occasions. Public Speaking Techniques ________________________________________ Effective public speaking is one of the unstated obvious demands of the time, and it is even acknowledged that good communication and public speaking skills can make up for the lack of any other competence. Even so, it is not strange to know that glossophobia, or stage fright, or for that matter, public speaking is the most common fear among the Americans and almost 75% of the entire world's population end up subscribing to this phobia, and this has been ranked above all known fears. However, you may overcome this fear and have it under your control to a great manageable extent by having a little knowledge about public speaking techniques, some training and the will to make a difference. There are times when public speaking becomes mandatory for every one in life. Sometimes these occasions are informal, but the most difficulty arises when the occasions are formal and mean business. For example, you can consider teachers, lawyers, broadcast journalists, politicians, etc who live of oratory. But public speaking is equally necessary these days for the purpose of making presentations, finalizing deals, etc in the private sector. Even for those whose careers do not adhere to public speaking also have abundant opportunities for speaking in public. Some may like the task while some may not, but the better option always is to give it a skillful try, for which you need to be acquainted with certain public speaking guidelines and other tricks in the business.
- 5. The first among the public speaking tips should definitely concern the audience you are addressing. every time you prepare to for a presentation, you need to keep you addressees in mind, what goals you want to achieve, to inform them, persuade them, reach out with your idea and engage them therewith. Next important among the techniques for public speaking includes choosing the right topic for yourself, from among the ones in which you excel. Then, determining your purpose of presentation is what public speaking techniques will then prompt you to do. You need to focus your purpose before going for any presentation, so that it is easy to persuade your audience into thinking what you are thinking, that is the central idea of your presentation. Then research your topic well and safeguard your presentation from any potential flaw, and make your presentation comprehensive and precise. Select support material, which will emphasize important points in your presentation. Among the most important public speaking tips is that you should organize and structure your presentation well so that there is no break in your idea getting across to the audience participants. You should work on your mode of presentation and may as well rehearse on it beforehand. Your appearance, body language, facial expression and gestures have a very important role to play in your presentations and you can consult an expert for techniques for public speaking. There are many other aspects related to public speaking guidelines for which you may enroll your name with some reputed public speaking training institute, which will help you to orient yourself completely with the skill demanded of you. So, overcome your fear, speak and speak loud, and let the world hear you. Presentation Skills Training ________________________________________ Gone are the days when good communication skills were considered as an added advantage. These days' being able to communicate well is almost as important as it is being academically qualified for a job. Owing to the growing cut throat competition among business houses and the drive to succeed and be the best, one slip or one bad presentation can cost you a fortune. Needless to say, the popularity of presentation skills training programmes is on a massive rise. Going to a presentation skills training course is probably the most effective way of improvising communication skills amongst employees, managers and executives in any organisation. Not only does it teach you how to put your views across to people effectively, it also trains one how to sound convincing and interesting enough to be able to hold people's attention for long enough. Also, as you develop your presentation skills you develop your self confidence, which
- 6. in turn helps in improving your personality so you may leave behind a great impression and impact on your listeners. This not only improves your productivity to a great extent, it also goes a long way in making your job profile look all the more impressive. Workshops on executive presentation skills training are generally very short term in nature and hardly take up much of your time. They are neither very expensive nor are very demanding during your presentation skills training period. Varying form one workshop to another, these training programs hardly last for more than a few days, and they focus on various aspects of making the prefect presentation. These aspects include presentation overview, guiding you on how to Establish your aims, teaching you how to structure your overall presentation, how to start and end it with impact as well as interest, while punch lining your presentation. They also focus on voice modulation, while skillfully using impressive visual aids. Business presentation skills training can be undertaken by anybody and everybody, wishing to learn how to make their presentations more confidently. This may include directors, senior managers, government employees, team leaders, department heads, academic and technical team members, supervisors, managers, etc. Though learning how to speak and present yourself well is not as tough as it might sound to you, selecting an advanced presentation skills training to suit your needs is surely not easy. This is because of the fact that these days there are so many workshops on presentation skills, that you are totally spoilt for choice. However, the real trouble comes up when you opt for a workshop, and soon end up realising that you could have done with a better option. Therefore, do your research well, before you go and risk your time and money on these training programs. After all it must be able to meet your purpose of getting yourself a presentation skills training programme that can bring out the best speaker in you, so you may leave people astounded with each presentation you make! Effective communication skills for managers and executives need to be fined tuned and developed continuously in any dynamic business or otherwise they remain stagnant and cease to be effective. Look at any movie from the 1960s to see how times change. Fundamentals Of Public Speaking ________________________________________
- 7. Many people have difficulty speaking in front of an audience and still have to work on their self- confidence and communication skills. However, there is a way for everyone to learn and master the needed public speaking skills in order to become more confident, competent and persuasive when speaking in public. Here are some fundamentals of public speaking that one needs to bear in mind before he steps up to a podium. 1. It is important to establish rapport with the audience by building up their interest in your words, ideas and gestures by getting their attention through creative and innovative means. Do not attempt to monopolize or squeeze their attention to your every word but try to establish a listening attitude in them by the way you stand, speak and convey your ideas. Using visual aids and audio-visual tools or telling stories and citing examples and other similar strategies could create a better interaction between the speaker and the audience as well as captivate their interest and critical thinking. 2. Effective public speaking is not simply about talking but it is more about communication. Make sure that your ideas are stated clearly and directly and ensure that your audience is directed to every thought and concept that you share to them. Do not simply try to dictate your ideas to them and leave it for them to think by themselves. Aside from being grammatically correct at all time, ensure that your audience is able to identify the right transitions and emphasis in ideas and statements that you make. It would help to make a summary of the ideas every after subtopic in order to help your audience to cope up with your train of thoughts. 3. Speak clearly and slowly and try to speak on a consistent and full volume. Avoid mumbling on phrases and try to pronounce each word well. Likewise, it is important to make constant eye contact not just with the people in front of you but to the entire audience. Try to move your focus around your audience as you go about your speech. Make sure to emphasize by stating more emphatically key sentences and finish up your speech with a strong statement that would not only wrap your ideas but likewise pose a challenge or a call to action to your audience. 4. A public speaker should sound convincing. This does not only help you become more confident while speaking, but it also helps to gain the respect and attention of your audience. Presenting evidence and facts to support your statements could be a good way to develop trust with your audience and thus communicate with them easily. However, as much as possible, avoid reading from a text or from your audio-visual presentation and be sure to inject some spontaneity into your statements.
- 8. 5. The only way to build self-confidence while speaking in public is doing the right and necessary preparation. Once you know well your material, you become more confident about what your statements. It would also be easier for you to extemporize and elaborate on your ideas once you are very much familiar with your topic. Be also sure to practice speaking in front a mirror or a crowd beforehand so you could try out for yourself how you can improve on your delivery. Finally, besides these fundamentals of public speaking, the most important thing to keep in mind when speaking in front of an audience is to have fun. When your audience would see you having a good time sharing your ideas, they would like have a great time listening to them. A career in public speaking await many people who stick to public speaking fundamentals and have learned to say things in interesting ways! ________________________________________ Whether you will believe it or not, public speaking, yes, that thing which they call an art but makes you nervous in front of so many people, has its own benefits. It may cause dryness in the throat, a butterfly sensation in your stomach, and makes you feel like ending the moment to a sudden halt and run away from the podium. These are all natural physical reactions to what you are about to face: a group of people that may or may not like what you are about to say. Sometimes, these "phobias" are simply fruits of an underlying lack of self-confidence, which can be dealt with the right thinking and outlook about things. This is where the benefits of public speaking come in. Self-confidence is one benefit that you begin to feel through practice and the first steps towards combating any phobia of public speaking. From self-confidence emanates other benefits as well such as learning to become more sensitive and skilled as a speaker. Contrary to what some people believe, self-confidence is not arrogance. It is being confident in one's ability to touch, build, encourage, and even enrage people. And from these, public speaking benefits include the positive mindset that there is something in you that maybe of value to others and therefore, worth sharing. You also learn that your words carry power that through them people can be destroyed or built, maintained or transformed, depending on the measure by which they are delivered. Through public speaking, an individual also learns how to focus on a topic, how listen, critic, and evaluate. Active learning becomes an inevitable result. Such are the personal benefits of public speaking. For students, public speaking can, therefore, give help in class because of self-confidence. For graduates, public speaking can improve once oral communicative competence. Most employees today deem such skills as very important. Because of public speaking, an individual can likewise learn how to be clear, concise, and compact in his or her speech. This explains why
- 9. most experts view public speaking as self-esteem building. It is no doubt an effective way of building self-confidence. Public speaking, thus, adds depth to our mastery of communication. In time, we find ourselves persuading others and find them convinced by what we have said. Other public speaking benefits include gaining an open mind on other cultures. It helps an individual shed his or her stereotypes. In essence, public speaking widens one's point of view. It teaches one to angle social, political, and cultural issues the right way. It trains the individual on where and when to continue or stop in a flowing conversation, as much as it allows a person to have the self-esteem to stand and speak to many people. Although it is normal to feel nervous about speaking in public, public speaking will help a person to overcome such unwarranted fears and replace it with positive thinking. Undoubtedly, public speaking as self-esteem building is a relevant concept worth enriching. With self-confidence coming from a firm public speaking training, one can land in a good job, have a raise, and even get promoted. It can also help improve your network of friends, become a more sociable person, and have the success you deserve and have been working for. Business Motivational Speakers Many a times it is seen that after a point in time, your team gets exhausted, starts lacking in enthusiasm, and need a boost up for ensuring more sincerity and productivity in their work. if you want motivation for your team to make them feel good about what they are doing, or in case you want to bring about a meaningful transformation in the workings of your team, or you company for that matter, you may arrange for an event that will include motivational business speaking by some one who excels in the field, from amongst people who are dedicated towards unleashing your employee potentials. Motivation can be the driving force for any organization's performance based success. Researches prove that employee morale can be boosted up through proper motivating force, and this can be assured by inviting some inspirational business speakers for speaking to your employees and thereby ensuring an enthusiastic team. The increased productivity of your firm will prove it to you. Motivational business speakers, proficient in their job, can not only inspire your team to be qualitatively and quantitatively more productive, but also help you rekindle their visions and bring about the transfer of skills to almost all the sectors of your firm. You can enable this by arranging business conferences, events, management programs, seminars, workshops, exhibitions, or even personal interviewing. Motivational speakers for business are generally chosen from amongst world's most appealing personalities hailing from business background, sports, politics, entertainment, academia, and so on.
- 10. Working with the inspirational business speakers you can be sure of the fact that these personalities qualify to be the most respected in motivational business speaking by the virtue of their knowledge, inventiveness and commitment. You may organize an event and choose among pure business events, dinner parties, keynote addresses for your speaker to deliver his or her speech. most of the best companies arranging for a motivational speaker for business see to it that the speaker is fully acquainted with the team it needs to address, understands, agrees to and fulfills the terms and conditions of the brief provided to him or her by your firm. Be sure to guarantee peace of mind and contentment of yourself that the speaker understands the requirements of your team and comes fully prepared to deliver a memorable speech that will be remembered by all and that will fetch the results desired by you. People desire business motivational speakers for varying reason. You need to decide what purpose you need them to serve; whether you want to open up with new experimental programs for your firm or you want to increase on the current productivity of your company, this will dictate the kind of speaker you any invite. For example, in regard to the first instance, you may invite an adventurer who is known to have broken newer grounds, and for the latter you may think of a business personality who is known to have climbed to success from scratch. So, whatever may your target be, whatever be your preferences, you have the option to choose from a host of motivational speakers for business and accomplish your desired ends. Motivational speakers are like trainers and coaches. They all say that the most successful people listen to success tapes while they drive instead of listening to silly radio commercials. Motivational speakers are sometimes arranged to help with stress management and life balance in our challenging careers. We look forward to seeing both old and new friends at the two meetings each year to share our common problems and solutions. Motivational speakers are also invited by the CEOs of big companies to motivate their employees or to introduce a new product. Even non profit organizations welcome motivational speakers to make their message reach effectively to the people. Motivational Speakers are dynamic individuals who never give up and who, as an outsider, can spot where your team needs nurturing, motivating and sending on their way. As with any industry there are those living in the shadows of the great, so try to avoid buying into a speaker based solely on the fact that they have the title. Motivational speakers are able to offer inspiration or impart wisdom to your company's best asset: people. Comedians can help your attendees to unwind after a long day of meetings or break the ice among strangers. Motivational speakers are capable of pointing out the reasons, you should never quit chasing your goals. Not only that, but they show you how to succeed like they did. Motivational
- 11. speakers are motivated by competition. So are we - from sports to keeping up with the Jones. Motivational speakers are divided and categorized in function of their domain of activity and also in function of their area of expertise. So if we analyze the cases and situations and preaches of some motivational speakers we may notice that the only preach in cases in which people need their relevant experience in a certain domain and also need their professional opinion regarding a certain issue. Humorous motivational speakers are a type of motivational speakers who can keep the meeting live and humorous. Some humorous motivational speakers have taken their unique laughter programs, such as laughter yoga, to the business meetings. These laughter programs are perfect for alleviating the stresses of meeting participants. Humorous motivational speakers are regarded by most of the audience as their favorite speakers as they easily establish friendly relations with employees. The best part is that they give emotional satisfaction to the audience that boosts their morale. Inspiration comes from the inside. Inspiration doesn't wear out. Inspirational speakers are talented at engaging the audience. Good speakers deliver entertaining presentations with powerful messages about self-belief, challenging limits (and other people's expectations), creating effective teamwork and leadership, high performance and overcoming set-backs and adversity. Executive Development Training Today we live in a world of fast forwardness and this world demands of us to give our hundred percent in all the spheres of life, may it be personal, social or business. All the more special demands are made by the today's corporate world where you need to have the capability of a leader in order to aim high and aim higher. You are to have the qualities of future leadership and that is why you need to have complete idea and knowledge of teamwork and technological support. And, in order to help you in this, various executive development training programs are offering their help to you. An executive development program involves preparing mid-management executives develop into effective principal figures and leaders, and to helping them in bringing about remarkable changes in the firms and organizations they work for. Executive development coaching shows you newer pathways to success and teaches you how to compete using tactical thinking, finally helping you to establish required goals for your firm. The program will also provide you guidance in executive development and train you in leadership skills with which you can manage key functions so as to achieve positive results.
- 12. Rigorous training, provision of accessible faculty, outstanding opportunities of networking, good atmosphere of working as a team and cooperation are the key to any good quality executive development training. This not only helps your team members gain confidence from an escalated understanding of the roles specified to them, but also opens them up to the interaction that is functional in any business firm. Positive factors in any program that provides you with guidance in executive development include strengthening the communicative skills of your team members and develop on their ability to understand, interpret and apply information regarding functional areas to take and be convinced about taking decisions. It helps your employees acquire fresh insights on how to efficiently lead the firm and bring about changes in the organization. Exploring fresh concepts viable in the market, studying perspectives regarding the same, studying trends and then accordingly implementing changes so as to fit the competitive marketplace are some of the things that a successful executive development coaching should aim at achieving. In this program, your team members are also taught to discover more priced and practical knowledge when networking is concerned with other peer groups. Executive development courses maximize your experience through recognizing the commitments of your firm and those of your team members. The employed methodology stimulates fresh thinking in your employees and encourages them to rethink and reconsider the strategies and their personal as well as professional targets, and reformulate them for up gradation. the taker of this program get an excellent opportunity to work upon their peer learning, and the program also arranges for matching levels of managerial guidance with the aid of innumerable diverse industries, and you can choose your preference. Executive management development training provides you with all possible opportunities to develop the leader in you and your team members, and help you learn all the management skills which you can bring back to your company in the form of profit. Unconventional tips for eliminating the fear of public speaking Applies to: Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 Presenting scares me to death. What can I do? Public speaking can be exceptionally rewarding, stimulating, and enriching for people who do it well. It can make or break careers and open up opportunities that would never exist otherwise. There's just one small problem. Most of us are petrified of grabbing the
- 13. Microsoft Office PowerPoint remote and getting in front of people. Fear of public speaking makes us dread the very activity we should be pursuing as often as possible! The question, then, is what can we do to lessen this fear and make our presentation experiences more productive and fun? Warning! The following suggestions are not at all normal because they approach Microsoft Office PowerPoint from a very nontraditional perspective. You may be tempted to scratch your head in disbelief. However, the effectiveness of these ideas has been borne out through years of experience, across hundreds of presenters just like you and me. So ponder them carefully. Step 1: Be interactive and responsive with your audience The most important action you need to take right away is to reconfigure all (or most) of your presentation materials to be interconnected and flexibly accessible. If someone asks a question, you should be able to show them an answer, whatever that question may be. If time is running out and it's necessary to cut a performance short, there should be ways of secretly eliminating slides or otherwise sculpting messages on the spot. Don't ever deliver a single linear presentation. Constantly move between multiple smaller presentations instead. This allows more adjustment possibilities. If a thought pops into your head and you want to show your audience a slide that was not originally anticipated, make sure you can find and display that slide within seconds, even if there are thousands of options from which to choose. To see video demonstrations of this kind of flexible, interactive presentation, visit the Aspire Communications home page. Create forms of navigation like the ones showcased there that work best for your situation, so that you can quickly locate just the right slides at a moment's notice. Being that much in control of what you show and when you show it causes fear to melt away like nothing else.
- 14. Step 2: Integrate visual clues to guide the selection of content Our network of slide shows that we use during speaking and training activities now contains well over 14,000 slides. A question we frequently hear is, "How in the world can you find one slide quickly when there are that many options?" Our response: "How do you find individual items in a grocery story, a library, or on the Web?" Quickly finding individual items out of thousands of choices is really quite easy if you follow certain organizational principles. For example, notice the following illustration. Each of the little pictures on this menu is actually a screen shot of the slide shows that will open once the link is clicked. That visual information gives the presenter previews of available content before any links are clicked, a kind of cheat sheet as it were. In other words, he or she doesn't have to try and remember all of the shows that are available because the navigation in this case acts as a subtle reminder. There are at least 10 different forms of visual clues that can be included in your network of slides, and you should use them all — constantly. Such clues are enormously comforting when under pressure.
- 15. Step 3: Build high-quality content that is universal enough to be used over and over again, across multiple audiences Think about your messages. I can almost guarantee there are core ideas and themes you can use again and again, during many future speaking engagements. In that case, take the time and resources to build those slides with high-quality, descriptive graphics and place those slides in a prominent place within your network. When such content is needed, simply navigate to its fixed location and show it. The slide shown here helps us explain the various applications of Zone Navigation. We use it in every training event and virtually every speaking performance, regardless of whom we are talking to. Accessing core, reusable slides like this is a huge confidence builder for presenters. Repeated use of core slides leads to greater familiarity with content and correspondingly higher confidence in the delivery of that content. Higher confidence results in stronger feelings of being in control. Control leads to less fear.