Welcome to Public Speaking Skills For Dummies!

If you’re thumbing through this book, you’ve probably seen a speech or two in your life that had a message that really affected you. Maybe it made you think on the way home in a way that made your brain feel good, as if it were exercising. The speaker gave you the feeling that you were involved.

The next day you woke up depressed. How could someone be so darn convincing with nothing on the lectern but a glass of water?

Most people think of public speaking as just that: a well-dressed person under a spotlight with one of those headset microphones that are reserved for someone who is speaking to hundreds or thousands. These people are the elite of the public speaking world — they’re the pros. But when you think of baseball, do you think only about the major leagues? Or do you have memories of playing as a youngster?

That’s more like how this book treats public speaking. In my view, public speaking happens anytime anyone is speaking publicly. For some, that fancy mic is the goal. For others, maybe the goal is getting the confidence to speak to a stranger at a party. Maybe the goal is to carry a long story to a group of friends all the way to what you know is a beautiful payoff at the end. Maybe you want to nail that interview. Or maybe you want to tell your boss what you really think about how things are being run — without falling over or sweating from your palms. I’m here to tell you, even if you do want to get under that spotlight, the problems you’ll face are the same whether you’re speaking to 2 people or 2,000.

This book is intended to help you find your voice. As a vocal pedagogue (a fancy name for speech coach), I’ve seen just about every problem a speaker can have. I’ve worked with mumblers. I’ve helped fidgeters. I’ve dealt with those who have no problem delivering speeches that are written for them, but can hardly speak when it’s their own words. And of course, I see many people who are just scared to death of public speaking.

I can help you with those things and more. The first thing this book will do is help you figure out what your problems are in order to solve them. Being an effective public speaker takes time, patience, and practice. You may never get the opportunity to speak to a rapt crowd through a microphone headset. But if you’re diligent enough, you will be able to if you ever get the call.

How This Book Is Organized

This book is laid out the same way that I teach my voice and speech classes. My workshops are 3–6 hours long. For individual one-on-one coaching, each session lasts an hour. The progression of learning is different for everyone. That’s why this book offers solutions for every problem that I commonly work with.

Do you lack confidence? Do negative thoughts manifest themselves and hinder your performance? What can you do to stop them?

For some, the problem is physical. Breath is a vitally important part of the process. We’ll dive into common breathing habits and issues and find out how to address them. Something else we’ll look at is how that stubborn old evolutionary fight, flight, or freeze response factors into performance anxiety. How can we get over such a natural function of our bodies?

We’re going to get into particulars, too. Reading a speech is more than just speaking: First you have put on your writer hat. Before my clients walk in the door, I ask them to have a speech ready to practice with. For many people, even if they’re pretty good at writing, their writing doesn’t sound like them. It should. We’ll delve into crafting your speech before you have to give it.

Once that speech is written, how do you lift it from the page? You can use devices like punctuation and all kind of markups to show how you want to say it, but not everything can be indicated on paper. We’ll work on tone and pitch, when to get quiet, what raising your voice does, and how to do it effectively.

Then we’ll try to put it all together. We’ll talk about the resonance of your voice and how that affects your message. We’ll go into what articulators are and how to use them so even people in the back of the room can understand you. Breathing is once again important in making sure all your words are heard.

We’ll go through which style of public speaking might pertain to you and your needs. How can you have more impact with a slide show presentation — or do you really even need to bother with that? What to do for a job interview? How do the rules change when you’re having a conversation and there’s no script? What do you do when things don’t go as planned?

There are exercises sprinkled all over this book. And I want to point out that you can read this entire book and learn absorb everything in it, but I can’t take you the rest of the way. You must practice regularly to become the type of speaker that you want to be.

Foolish Assumptions

Because you are reading this book, I’ve made a few assumptions about you:

• You don’t have a degree in public speaking and have not been formally trained.
• You may be required to speak publicly. Maybe it’s part of your job. Or maybe you’ve been asked to speak at your brother’s wedding. Or maybe you’re tired of missing out on conversations at parties. In some way, you’re looking to enhance your presentation skills.
• You’re tired of freaking out every time you have to speak in front of people.
• You think your presentations are boring.
• You feel that you’re often not understood by those you’re talking to.
• You want to rock a presentation.

Maybe you know which problems with speaking you have, and they’re very specific. Chances are, you’ll find them addressed in this book. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If you’ve already gone insane and grabbed this book as a remedy, congrats on the first step. You’re already on your way.

If you don’t know what’s wrong with your presentation style, or if you even have a style, how do you know how to fix it? We’ll talk a lot about that too.

Most people don’t know what makes a great speaker, but they know what makes a bad one. I work with clients who stop me when I’m giving them feedback after they’ve presented and say that they thought they were pretty good. That may be true, but you don’t want to be just pretty good. You want to be fabulous. That’s what we’re going for.

Icons

Throughout the book you’ll see little graphics that flag certain paragraphs. Here’s what those mean:

This one indicates something helpful that you would do well to pay attention to or try yourself. These are often the result of hard-won experience that you can take and use for yourself.

This icon points out information you’re advised to tuck in your mind somewhere for later use.

This rarely used icon pops up when it’s time to get into some nitty-gritty details that may go beyond what you really need. Feel free to skip these if you’re in a hurry.

This icon points out potential trouble or other things you should avoid, usually giving at least one good reason you should avoid it.

Beyond the Book

To view this book’s Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Public Speaking Skills Cheat Sheet” for a handy reference guide that covers common questions and insights about public speaking.

Where to Go from Here

You can read this book from beginning to end if you want, or you can jump straight to chapters that especially pertain to you or your situation. The book is divided into separate parts and chapters. The table of contents and the index are there to help you easily find topics and dive right in to those.

For example, do you sound like bacon frying in a pan? Do you end sentences with a question even though they should be a statement? Do people always comment that they can’t hear you? These and other specific situations are listed in the index and table of contents.

Of course, if you just want to start learning how to improve your public speaking skills, you can always tackle this book the old-school way. You know, by finding a comfortable chair, pouring a cup of tea or coffee, and turning to Chapter 1. However you use this book, I hope you find it helpful on your journey to being a great public speaker.

IN THIS PART …

Find out all the different skills involved in becoming an effective and well-rounded public speaker — and what you’ll gain from this book.

Reprogram engrained habits of negative thinking, understand the fight, flight, or freeze response, and start thinking Yes Let’s when confronted with the challenges of public speaking.