Here is a quote – All great speakers were bad speakers at first.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
No matter who you are, if you have spent time on this planet, you will obviously have some ideas that have helped you in making your life more livable, and in doing things in a different way. These ideas may not be better than what others follow, but they would surely be different, and if you bring these before the world, who knows, they might ultimately bring about a positive change.
The world needs your ideas
The world is brimming with negativity. Even if you have a small bud of something positive in you, give it to the world. Don’t worry about failure, rejection or criticism, these three would leave you, or at least cease to matter if you are diligent enough. Rather than complaining about things around you, it would be better if you advertise or at least speak up about what you think is good. In ancient Indian scriptures, thought is described as the subtlest of forces. It doesn’t matter whether people are visibly influenced by you or not, if you just give them a thought or something to ponder upon, it might change their lives.
In modern times, giving speeches or interacting with a gathering has become an unavoidable part of expressing our ideas. The immense popularity of platforms like TED testifies to this fact. The different types of people associated with such organizations make it clear that nowadays anyone who is well versed in just the basics of public speaking can easily impart his or her valuable ideas to a larger audience. You need not be an expert speaker. You only need two things: your own idea, and faith in yourself. Everything else can be learnt.
Why do we keep our best ideas to ourselves?
Ever since we were children, we were told to keep our own ideas to ourselves and listen to what our teachers or parents had to tell us. No wonder, many of those who went out and achieved something were rebels during their teenage years. Many of us usually take recourse to propagate ideas of people who are already famous, as that gives us authority and frees us from the responsibility. Presenting our own ideas requires courage and creativity, something that our upbringing doesn’t usually encourage.
Discover what you believe
All of us are unique and different. The reason why so many of us believe in the same ideas is that most of us don’t want to look odd. If ten people come to us and say something is true, we start believing it to be true even if our instincts and experience tell us the opposite. Our real beliefs stay there, and in time they become part of our subconscious self. To discover them once again, expand your horizon. Read more books, watch more informational videos, and especially hear the ideas of all those who have spoken on topics that interest you.
Once you hear something that even remotely links to what you truly believe, ideas will pop in your head. At that time, just be ready with a pen and paper and make notes. Keep those ideas as your benchmarks and try finding information related to them. Soon, you will have your own ideas along with many facts that support them in some way. These won’t be your true ideas. You would find your true ideas much deeper within yourself. However, you won’t reach them unless you fail with these primitive ideas first. So, for the time being, focus your energy on spreading these ideas. Later, after discussing with others, and after discovering loopholes and mistakes in your own beliefs, you will look for and ultimately find out even better ideas.
Give a platform to your thoughts
The easiest way to become an expert at doing something is by doing it. Therefore, if you find any opportunity or a contest where one is supposed to express one’s views, go for it. Initially, don’t concern yourself too much with the theory, as when you go on stage, you would automatically forget most of it. Keep it simple. Don’t plan to talk about too many things. Prepare a short script and rehearse it well – in front of the mirror and other people before going on the stage.
As it is common, in your first few attempts, it would be a miracle if you end up doing well. So, learn from your failure and don’t give up. Once you have appeared many times before the public, you will start getting the feeling that what you are doing is quite easy, and you can add more definition to it. That is the time when you should begin focusing on other aspects of your speech.
Turn your speech into a performance
Do you know which art form people most easily connect with? It is music. And why do people connect with music? Because it has depth and it has emotion. It makes people experience the same feeling that the singer or the musician is experiencing.
Well, you can’t go out on stage and sing your speech. That won’t be possible. But you can surely perform it. You can add gestures, facial expressions and wordplay to express the intensity of your thoughts. For that, it is important that you stand straight, be comfortable, natural and relaxed. You should neither slouch nor put an unnecessary effort on your posture, as that would make you look more like a soldier and not a speaker.
While delivering your speech, pay special attention to your hands. Don’t fold your hands in front of your chest, don’t clasp your hands behind your back, and don’t put them in your pocket. All these indicate a defensive and nervous attitude. Use your hands to reinforce what you are saying. For example, gesture to convey the weight and height of something. Make sure your hands make it evident when you are talking about something important.
Next, comes your face. When talking to the audience, always maintain eye contact with them. Therefore, if you are bringing a PowerPoint presentation with you, don’t make it too detailed. Just use it for headlines and for showing images and facts. Wear a gentle smile on your face, and add a slight element of humor to your speech, so that the smile also stays on the faces of your audience.
However, if you think that you are too diffident, and gestures and facial expressions are not your cup of tea, don’t pay too much attention to them. Just practise whatever comes naturally to you, and do it perfectly.
No one likes a self-absorbed speech
Generally, things that matter to us may or may not matter to others around us. You may have done years of research in some field, and you want others to know the exact results in all their complexity and imperfection. However, you shouldn’t convey them in bare mathematical figures, or something that sounds too statistical, as that would, in all likelihood, confuse the audience.
People can find all these facts in books or in survey reports. You are there to interpret these facts for them, explain what it means, and how their lives will be thus affected. The Internet has made it extremely easy for people to access limitless information. The only way to grab people’s attention is to make your speech more interesting, informational and entertaining.
Find out the interests of your audience
There is nothing like people in general. Depending on what you are saying, there will be some who will applaud you, while for some it will just be the opposite. In most cases, people who like your speech are those who can relate to it. Therefore, before preparing your speech, try to find out about the audience you are going to face.
If you are going to address people working or studying in some particular field, you can use scientific or technical jargon related to that field. Otherwise, you should avoid it. If the audience belongs to or is living in a particular place, it’d be great if you can talk about something related to their regional identity or just allude to some recent happenings in the region. This way, the audience would identify you as one of their own and develop trust in you, which will go a long way in making your speech intimate and enjoyable.
All’s well that ends well
Imagine yourself listening to a beautiful song for the first time, and suddenly it stops in the middle. How would you feel about it? You would feel irritated, wouldn’t you? This is what happens when you fail to give a proper ending to your speech. The ending is the most important part. Even if your speech didn’t go well, by ending it on a high note, you might make people forget many of your shortcomings.
It is customary for the audience to end the speech with applause, so why don’t you make a statement that is bound to get applause? First, make clear that you are ending your speech. You can say something like, ‘At the end, I would like to quote…’ or ‘I would like to finish my presentation with this one story…’ this would make the audience anticipate the ending, and won’t make them feel that you are leaving them in the middle.
It would be best if you end your presentation with a quote or a story that summarizes your entire speech. People can remember them easily, and if they relate it to your speech, they are more likely to recall your entire speech just because of its conclusion.
