The Accidental Communicator

More and more speakers are being asked to deliver their speeches remotely. On one hand this is a good thing – we are being asked to give more speeches and we can share the importance of public speaking. On the other hand, it can be challenging to transform our in-person speech into a speech that works when presented on a computer screen. The good news is that this can be done. You have the ability to give a speech that will connect with your audience and you just may change their lives even though you are not there with them. However, in order to make that happen, you are going to have to change how you give your speeches. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

I think that we can all agree that we are now living in the 21st Century. The old school way of giving a speech required us to show up at a location, take the stage, and deliver a speech so that we could demonstrate the importance of public speaking. In our modern time, we no longer have to travel to a location in order to deliver a speech – we can do it virtually. However, with this new found flexibility comes the responsibility of knowing what it takes to successfully deliver a virtual speech. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

As speakers, we are always looking for ways that we can use the importance of public speaking to make our next speech have more of an impact with our audience. We'll consider what we can do with our body language, the use of props, and many other things. However, it turns out that one of the most powerful things that we can do to give our next speech a better chance of connecting with our audience is to enhance the words that we use when we are creating the speech. Great idea, now just exactly how can we go about doing that? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

If you are like most speakers, the next time that you give a speech you are going to be hoping that your audience understand the importance of public speaking and puts their phones down while you speak. I mean really, you've spent time creating and rehearsing this speech, the least that they can do is to give you their undivided attention. Unfortunately, I think that we all know that this probably is not going to happen. Perhaps a different approach is called for. Maybe you should be telling your audience to take their phones out. Maybe that Twitter app just might be your new best friend. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

Let's all agree on one thing: you've worked hard to prepare for the next speech that you will be giving. When you take the stage, you are assuming that your audience will be interested in what you have to say and they will pay attention to you while you are speaking. However, in this day and age, there is a very good chance that some of the members of your audience may not be giving you all of their attention. Instead they may be using their mobile phones to text or tweet while you speak. What's a speaker to do? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

So just exactly what does disaster look like to a speaker? I think that we can all agree that disaster can take on many forms when it comes to delivering a speech in public. However, I think that if you are on a stage and you lose your train of thought and can't remember what you wanted to say next, then that can count as a speaking disaster. This is something that can happen to any of us at any time. We need to be ready to deal with it the next time that it happens. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

As speakers we can become comfortable standing in front of an audience giving a speech because we know about the importance of public speaking. However, if we are asked to be the moderator of a panel everything changes. It's almost like we will be giving a speech, but we can't practice this one beforehand. Additionally, there are a lot of things that we are going to have to do in order to get the most out of our panel members. We are going to have to use all of our speaking skills in order to make moderating a panel a success. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

The ability to stand in front of an audience and use the importance of public speaking is a powerful skill to have. It turns out that we can take this skill one step further if we are willing to teach ourselves how to use our speaking abilities to sell a product. The good news for speakers is that we are already doing most of the work that is required when we create, practice and deliver a speech. However, when we want to use our speech to sell something, there are a few extra steps that we'll need to take. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

Back in the old days, when we came up with a new idea that we wanted to use in a speech, we really didn't have a lot of choices when it came to trying out our new idea. Oh sure, there were family and friends, but you know as well as I do that because of the importance of public speaking they would never tell you if one of your ideas was really bad. What we were desperately missing was a test audience – one that could give us honest feedback on our speech idea. Well, fast forward to today and it turns out that now we all have what we've been looking for – a social media audience. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

Speakers want to be remembered. We've put a lot of effort in to creating, practicing, and then delivering our speech. We want this effort to mean something because we understand the importance of public speaking. We want to be remembered. The challenge that we are facing is that we are talking to a diverse audience. Everyone who is listening to us is different and they all remember things differently. We need to understand how they remember and then find ways to make them remember us. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

When we give a speech, we do it for a purpose. Perhaps we are sharing information or perhaps we are trying use the importance of public speaking to motivate an audience to take action. It's those cases in which we are trying to get our audience to take action that we need to be able to deliver a persuasive speech. These kinds of speeches can connect with our audience, make them believe the same things that we do, and then take action. Now the big question is just exactly how can a speaker go about creating a persuasive speech? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

So why are you willing to go to the effort of giving a speech? If you are like most of us, you have a goal in mind. What you want to do is to use the, importance of public speaking to influence your audience to either change the way that they think or to take an action. If you can do this, then you will have become a powerful speaker. We may all think that having the ability to influence an audience is hard to do; however, it may turn out that doing this is easier than any of us may know. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

So the interesting thing about a speech is that they don't all look the same. In fact, sometimes a speech may look completely different from what you might think that they should look like. When you find yourself in a situation where you want to sell an idea to an audience, sometimes it might make sense to use the importance of public speaking and engage yourself in a debate. This allows your audience to see both sides of an argument and with a little luck they will agree with the arguments that you present. What we need to know is just exactly how to go about speaking during a debate. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

All speakers want to become better speakers. The challenge that we face is that we just don't know how to go about doing this. We can hire coaches, we can attend classes, there is no shortage of things that we can do. However, it turns out that if we truly want to become better, there one thing that we can do. Take the time to video record ourselves. The camera never lies. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

So why do you give speeches? Is it just to hear yourself speak? Is it because you understand the importance of public speaking? I suspect that the answer to this question is “no”. We give speeches because we have information that we want to share with an audience. Our goal for sharing this information is to persuade and influence them in order to get them to take some sort of action that we want to have accomplished. In order to make that happen, your audience is going to have to understand your message, accept it, and then act upon it. What you need to do is to learn how to speak persuasively. It turns out that there are a number of things that you can do while you are speaking that will make this happen. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

I'd like to be able to tell you that every audience that you will address will be excited to hear you talk and are open to your message because they understand the importance of public speaking. However, as we all know this is not the case. There will be times that as you stand on that stage you will be able to feel the hostility coming from your audience. When you find yourself in a situation like this, you need to know how to deliver your speech in a way that will prevent your audience from tuning you out and may allow you to build bridges to them. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

Would you like to have a big audience show up for your next speech? I mean, would you like to have the room filled to overflowing? It turns out that this is actually fairly easy to do: just agree to give a speech about a controversial topic, you know what I'm talking about: sex, religion, or politics. The reason that so many people are going to show up is because a lot of them are going to disagree with what you have to say. Just exactly how is a speaker supposed to go about giving a speech like this? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

Often when we are creating a speech, we spend our time thinking about how we can connect with our audience. What it's going to take in order to get them to believe what we are telling them. Since we understand the importance of public speaking, we also spend our time looking for ways to get our audience to take action after we are done talking to them. It turns out that all of these things are exactly the same things that sales people do when they are trying to close a sale. Speakers can play the role of a salesperson. We just have to know how to build a speech that will help us to sell… --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

Congratulation, you now have the ability to stand in front of an audience and give a speech – you understand the importance of public speaking. What comes next? Have you ever thought about branching out? Perhaps you can use your speaking skills in a different way in order to communicate with a group of people. One way to do this is to become a trainer. If you think about it, being a trainer is very similar to giving a speech. Just exactly what does it take to make the switch from being a speaker to being a trainer? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

As speakers, the one thing that we want to happen when we give a speech is to use the importance of public speaking and be remembered. In order to make this happen, we will spend countless hours thinking about what we want to include in our next speech. We will often think about how other people have been able to reach out and connect with our audience and sometimes we'll decide that we want to do the same thing that they did – we want to use their material in our speech. When we make a decision like this, we are starting to travel down a dangerous road. If we use too much of someone else's material then we may run the risk of violating their copyright. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

I've got some good news for you: you are a powerful speaker. This means that you are brilliant. You have incredible ideas. Every question that you ask is insightful. You have compelling ideas to contribute, important businesses and organizations to build, and provocative questions to share. However, there is the possibility that the way you speak fails to command your power when you are sharing the importance of public speaking. You may equivocate, apologize and look away as you speak. What you are doing is subtly undermining yourself with your words and body language. As a result, your ideas do not have the impact they could. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

When we stand in front of an audience to give a speech, not always, but many times we are actually standing behind a lectern. We all know what these look like; however, has anyone ever told you how to go about using one? No, there are no buttons to press or levers to flip. However, it turns out that a lectern can help you to give a more powerful speech – if you know how to use it correctly. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

I think that we can all agree that giving a speech can be a very stressful thing to do. There are so many different things that are out of our control and any one of these things can go wrong and end up destroying our speech and preventing us from sharing the importance of public speaking. One of a speaker's greatest fears is that half way through our speech we are just going to forget what we wanted to say. Our mind will go blank and we just be staring at our audience. It turns out that if we don't want this to happen, there are several things that we can do in order to prevent it… --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

So here's a question for you: what is the most important part of your speech? Is the opening? The middle? Or the ending? We all know that we have to grab our audience's attention right off the bat. We also know that we have to support our main points during the middle of the speech. However, what's up with that conclusion? Just exactly what are we supposed to do with that? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

Let's face it – giving a speech is a lot of work. It's a lot of work to prepare the speech and then it's even more work to actually give it. If we are going to go to all of that effort, we really want to use the importance of public speaking to get our audience to remember what we've told them. However, all too often that does not happen. What's missing here is that our audience won't remember what we've told them if we don't find a way to connect with them during our speech. How go about doing that is just one more thing that we have to get good at doing. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

When we give a speech, one of the most important things that we want to accomplish is to find a way to connect with our audience. If we can make this happen, then what we tell them just might sink in and perhaps we can use the importance of public speaking to change their lives with our speech. If we can connect with them, then we have a better chance of having them listen to our message and accept what we are telling them. We've got a lot of different ways to make this connection happen; however, one way that we don't talk about very often is the simplest: pronunciation. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

When we go to the effort of giving a speech, what we would really like to have happen is for our audience to remember what we told them. We struggle to use the importance of public speaking make this happen. It turns out that if we want to be remembered, then what we need to do is to find a way to make our next speech appeal to each of senses of our audience. Given that all we have to work with is words, you may view this as being difficult to do. However, if you take the time to think about it, you just might be able to create a speech that will tickle your audience's senses and cause you to be remembered long after your speech is over. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

Wow – how great would it be to have a perfect memory? You'd never forget anything and once you had learned something you would be able to recall it anytime that you needed it. I can only speak for myself, but I certainly don't have a perfect memory. In fact, I forget a lot of things all of the time. The one time that I really don't want to forget something is when I am in the middle of giving a speech. However, even that happens sometimes. So what are we to do as speakers when we are giving a speech and all of sudden our mind goes blank? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

As speakers the one thing that I think that we can all agree on is that we want our next speech to be the best one that we have ever given. The challenge that we are all facing is that we really don't know how to go about making that happen so that we can show our audience the importance of public speaking. Well, it turns out that there is probably no one “silver bullet” that you can change or add to your next speech that will make it your best. Instead, there are a number of different, little, things that you can do that will help to move your next speech closer to being the best speech that you have ever given. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

So let's spend a few minutes talking about noise. Yes, yes I realize that when you are giving a speech you are generating noise and you are in control of that. You can speak louder or you can speaker softer, but you are always in charge. What I want to talk to you about today is all of the other noise that may be present when we are giving a speech. We all understand that our speaking environment is never silent; however, it's the amount of noise and what we can do to control it that speakers need to understand. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

Pity the poor speaker. All that he or she has to work with during their speech is words. It is their challenge to find a way to draw their audience into their speech and make them experience what they have experienced only using words. In order to make this happen, we need to find a way to paint a “verbal picture” with the words that we use. We want our words to create a mental image in the mind of each member of our audience. Just exactly how can we go about making this happen? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

Honesty is soooo overrated. When we are asked to give a speech, we know what we need to do in order to deliver a good speech. We need to make sure that we know who will be in the audience, we have to sit down and create a speech that will allow us use the importance of public speaking to connect with our audience, and then we have to get up there and deliver it in a way that will allow us to clearly communicate what we are trying to say. How hard could all of that be to do? It turns out that it becomes a lot harder when we are telling ourselves things that just are not true. Our lies can have a negative impact on our speech and we really should stop saying things like this to ourselves. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

I'm pretty sure that this has happened to all of us. We're standing in front of an audience giving a speech and we've just said something clever or meaningful. We pause and get ready to go on to our next point when all of sudden we realize that we have absolutely no idea what we want to say next. This is probably the worst possible feeling that a speaker can have. What can we do now to save the situation? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

I'm pretty sure that we've all been there: we're standing in front of an audience ready to use the importance of public speaking to give a speech that we've practiced and then all of sudden, our mind goes blank. There's nothing there. The speech that we've spent so much time practicing has suddenly packed up and left. This has got to be the worst feeling in the world. There has got to be a way to prevent this from happening, or if not that, then dealing with it when it does happen. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

What's the worst thing that can happen to you as a speaker? Having the audience get up and leave during your speech would certainly be a bad thing, but since there is very little chance of that actually happening perhaps we should focus on things that are more likely to happen to you. Like completely forgetting your speech as you stand there on the stage. That can happen to anyone at any time. If it happens to you, what should you do? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

As speakers we all know that the more humor that we can work into our next speech, the better chance we have of connecting with our audience. Everyone likes to laugh and if we can make our audience laugh, they'll remember what we had to say and we just might be able to make an impact in their lives using the importance of public speaking. The challenge that we face as speakers is that getting an audience to laugh is never easy. One of the best ways to go about doing this is to add jokes to our speech. However, we are then faced with the challenge of just exactly how should a speaker go about writing a joke? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

Every speaker wants to be able to use the importance of public speaking to connect with their audience. We all know that there are lots of different ways to make this happen. If we can find a way to work humor into our next speech, then we have a pretty good chance of being able to connect with our audience. The challenge here is that humor can be very difficult to work into a speech. The good news is that you can do it if you understand comedy structure. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

If there is one thing that every speaker wants from their next speech, it is for it to mean something so that our audience can realize the importance of public speaking. The way that we determine if one of our speeches means something is if our audience can remember it after we are done speaking. In order to be able to claim some of that valuable mental real estate, we've got to be able to create a speech that is original – our audience has to be treated to something that is new and novel. If, as speakers, we can discover a way to create a speech that will come across as being original to our audience then we'll have a very good chance of being remembered long after we've stopped talking. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

Who doesn't like winning an award? We all do. When we receive an award, it's because we did something special or we have done something better than anyone else has. These are great moments for us. When we get an award, we are often asked to stand up and say a few words. Oh, oh – this is where things can start to fall apart. If we don't have a plan for what we want to say, then we're going to end up fumbling over our words and we won't do a good job of communicating. What is the best way to handle situations like this? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

I can only speak for myself, but I can tell you that every word that I write when I'm putting together a speech is pure perfection. The words just flow together and create a seamless whole. The very idea of going back and editing one of my speeches after it has been written just seems to be a travesty – who would want to mess with perfection? This is the speech that I am going to use to show my audience the importance of public speaking. Ok, so maybe my writing is not really all that good. However, the effort involved in editing one of my speeches is so great that I often don't want to do it. However, it turns out that if you want to find a way to pack more of a punch into your next speech, you are going to need to be willing to do some serious editing of what you've written. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

As speakers, we tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the importance of public speaking and how we speak. We try to find ways to connect with our audience and we try to be aware of anything that we are doing that might take away from our speech. However, it turns out that we also have another job that we need to be doing. We have to help out our friends and colleagues who are giving speeches. Since this is something that we have spent time trying to become better at, we are the ones who are best positioned to be able to help them to become better also. What we need to learn to do is to help them during the three stages of their speaking. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

As speakers, we all know that creating a great speech is hard work. All too often we can sit down to start to create a speech and have no clear idea where we are trying to go or just exactly what points we want to be making while we deliver our speech despite our understanding of the importance of public speaking. As we put our speech together, things just tend to go from bad to worse – our words start to fall over each other and we end up with disjointed ideas and incomplete thoughts. We all understand that our problem is not that we can't write words down, rather it's that we can't get our words to make sense. The reason that we are running into this problem is because we are not being clear in our objective. Instead, we find ourselves trying to say too much and, as result, ending up saying nothing. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

How lucky we all are. We get to live in these modern times with all of the advantages that technology can bring to us. Yes, giving a speech is still a difficult thing for any of us to do. However, it turns out that if we're willing to invite some technology to our next speech we can make the whole process a great deal easier and do a better job of sharing the importance of public speaking. I'm sorry to have to tell you that you are the one who is still going to have to stand up there in front of the audience and deliver a speech. However, there just might be ways to better prepare you to do that and to provide you with some assistance while you are up there. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

All to often when we are giving a speech, we do it in what is called the “classic style”. This means that we stand on a stage and we speak to our audience and they listen to us because of the importance of public speaking. This is a one-directional monologue. However, times are changing. We are no longer limited to having to give our speeches in this way. Our audiences want more interaction with us during our speech. As speakers we need to understand what new tools are available so that we can start to work them into our next speech. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

All The World's A Stage – Are You Using Yours? As speakers, when we are standing in front of an audience, we are actually pretty naked. All that we have to work with when we are giving our speech are the words that are tumbling out of our mouths, some hand gestures, and perhaps some props that we've brought along. That's pretty much it as we try to show the importance of public speaking. Unless you realize that you actually have a very large visual aid that is just sitting there waiting for you to use it. What am I talking about? Why the stage that you are standing on, of course. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

As speakers, the one thing that all of us want to do is to become better. We may go about doing this in a number of different ways. We may take courses. We may watch videos of other speakers. We may have our friends listen to our speeches and then provide us with feedback. However good all of this is, in the end we may still not be getting all of the feedback that we need in order to become better speakers. What we really need to be able to do is to look at ourselves. We need to see how we look and how we act while we are delivering our speech. In order to do this, we need to see ourselves on camera. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support

As speakers we spend a great deal of time worrying about the importance of public speaking and what we are going to be saying the next time that we give a speech. We think about our topic. We mull over the words that we'll use. Finally, we lay out the sequence that we want to use in order to share our thoughts with our audience. This is a lot of work. However, it turns out that we may be missing a key part of what it takes to deliver a great speech. The way that we speak affects how our audience listens. In fact, how they listen, affects how we speak. Just exactly how are we supposed to make use of this circle of communication? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jim-anderson1/support