Lessons Learned from Speaking Without Pressure!
By Jim Magadanz
Practice without Pressure - As an active participant in our local Toastmaster’s Club for over 20 years I’ve had an opportunity to continuously practice speaking without pressure. Toastmasters is an organization that focuses on public speaking, communication skills, and leadership development. Feel free to visit a club near you – there are over 8,800 clubs in the United States!
Lessons Learned - After 15 years of continuous focus, development, and speaking, I had finally attained my Distinguished Toastmaster designation. As I look back on those years of development, which never stops by the way, several items that I learned stand out.
Time Awareness – As a speaker it is critical that we are aware of the amount of time that we are speaking. Speak too short and now the leader of the meeting needs to get creative in filling that time – time that they were depending on you to fill! Speak too long, and now you’ve cut into the next speakers time. Not only does this throw off the cadence of the meeting but is very rude and disrespectful to the next speakers and meeting attendees.
Crafting Presentations – If you do something long enough and often enough, you will find that you cannot help to get better at what you do, despite yourself! A good title is always a good start – the time you spend kicking around ideas for a title are always worth it. It’s important enough that newspapers actually hire people whose only job is to create titles!
Your opening statement is also critical in that it sets the stage and hooks your audience! Your body should only contain a couple of key points. I’ve learned long ago that it’s better to only use three, maybe four, key ideas. If not, each additional key point will only tend to dilute the impact of the previous points you made! Lastly, your close should summarize your key points and finish with a call to action or power phrase.
A key question to ask yourself – Is my speech memorable?
Ums and Ahs – Nothing is more distracting than listening to a speaker continually use Ums and Ahs! This was always something I personally had to work on over the years. Awareness that you are slipping these little Distracters into your presentations is the starting point. At the same time, you need to keep alert for other distracters that slip into your language. In Wisconsin, for example, it is very common to hear someone start a sentence with so. So, notice I did not use any ums or ahs in my sentence!
Focusing on your time speaking, crafting your presentations, and avoiding distracters can help take your speeches to the next level. For more practice without pressure checkout a local Toastmasters club near you!
Jim is located in Madison, WI and is the owner of The Fun S.U.N. Company. He is an expert in helping women become financially independent. He can be reached at jim@thefunsuncompany.com or by texting/calling at 608-347-2090. His website is www.thefunsuncompany.com.
