The scalable, profitable strategy is to change the game, not to become the most average.

If you want to become the best speaker you can be, you need to stop doing what everyone else does.  A New Year is fast approaching.  Use 2010 as an opportunity to redefine yourself.  Here are some ideas:

1. Compete in all the Toastmasters contests.  Yes, even Table Topics.
2. Prepare.  Prepare your speech.  Prepare for the contests.  Talk to the speaker before the meeting.
3. Join an advanced club.  Start a new club that pushes the envelope.
4. Present outside your club.  At a job group, Kiwana’s, Rotary, etc.
5. Push the limits of all of the Toastmaster roles.  Act out the Quote of the Day, do a backwards meeting, etc.

You left your comfort zone when you joined Toastmasters.  You regained it by being a member for a year or two.  Now is the time to push the envelope again.  Join me, and have fun!

I would add the word “thing” to the list for speeches.  ”Thing” is such a non-descriptive word.  There’s always a better word than “thing” that describes the subject of your attention.

In a recent post, Seth talks about Ignoring Sunk Costs.  Go take a minute and read his post.

How does that relate to speaking?  Glad you asked

We are in the throes of contest time at Toastmasters.  There are many speakers vying to become the World Champion of Public Speaking.  They likely have a number of speeches from previous contests that they could consider using.

When considering which speech to choose, ignore the sunk costs.  Don’t consider the amount of time you put into a speech as a reason to use it.  Just because a speech has been evaluated more does not mean it is better than a fresh speech that only you have seen.  Go with the speech that energizes you.  Go with the speech that you can infuse with passion.

Seth boils down the discussion into such a simple form.

…if you don’t go the extra mile and I end up not caring, all the tactics in the world won’t help.

Although Seth is not talking directly about giving a speech, his words are just as relevant.  No amount of vocal variety, movement, or gestures will help you if you don’t go the extra mile to share your message.

If there’s no passion behind your message, please stop wasting both our time.

No matter how scary the prospect is to put your passion into your speeches, you owe it to yourself to share it with the world.

It doesn’t have to be a speech about world hunger or curing cancer.  It can be as ordinary as a fishing trip, a kitchen disaster, or a trip to Costco.  I don’t care about your mechanics.  All I care about is that your eyes light up when you speak.

Update:

Just read a post entitled Passionately Speaking by Robert Killen.  Complementary to this post:

Passion is the one thing that will get your audience to sit up and take notice. Without it, all the best slides and statistics will inevitably fail to ignite them.

The following is a fantastic article by Craig Valentine on making your stories visual:

Legendary speech coach, Patricia Fripp, once told me that audiences will not remember what you say as much as they will remember what they see in their minds when you say it. Fripp is absolutely correct and below are seven tools you can use to make your stories more visual for your audience.

1. Put your audience members somewhere inside of the scenes you create. For example, I say, “I wish you were in the passenger’s seat as I drove up to the KFC.” In other words, I put you in the passenger’s seat inside of my scene.
2. Check the VAKS (Visuals, Auditory, Kinesthetic, and Smell). For example, I might say, “If you had been sitting beside my wife and me on our old beat up black leather sofa (visual and kinesthetic), with the chocolate chip cookies baking in the background (smell), you would have heard my wife say (auditory). Do this quickly as you set your scene so that all the different types of learners will be brought into it.
3. Set your scene and remember where you mentally put everybody and everything on the stage. Do not be like the one guy we had in a bootcamp who buried his uncle on one part of the stage and then proceeded to have lunch on that very same spot during the same story.
4. Create and walk your timeline. You should turn the stage into a timeline that the audience reads from left to right. That means, if the story is chronological, the first events take place on the your right side of the stage (the left side from your audience’s point of view) and then you can walk to your left as you relate the later events of that story. Remember you must be the aerobics instructor and do everything in the opposite direction so it is the correct direction for your audience.
5. Give your characters a hint for how they look. For example, I might say, “This big burly guy in the front row yelled out to me.” Doing a visual gesture here to show is size also helps.
6. Attach a visual to all of your verbal foundational phrases. For example, when I say, “Don’t get ready, stay ready,” I have a gesture I use with my arms at the same time I give the phrase. When I do this a few times during my speech, the visual begins to have the ability to stand on its own. When I give my 4 Rs to Remarkable Results speeches, I can give the four gestures (one for each point) without speaking and my audience will know exactly what I am saying.
7. I have saved the best for last. Here it is. Show the visual before the verbal. This means, don’t just give the lines of dialog. Instead, give the lines and then show the visual reaction of the other character before that character gives the verbal response. For example, one character might say, “Craig, I admire you for having a dream but you can’t leave the organization.” At that point my other character (who happens to be me) shows the visual of confusion on my face before giving the verbal response of, “What do you mean I can’t leave?”

Too many speakers are simply delivering lines of dialog back and forth without showing the reactions. As the 2001 Toastmasters World Champion of Public Speaking, Darren LaCroix, says, “Reactions tell the story.” Show the visual reaction before you give the verbal response.

Final Thoughts:

When you use these seven tools in your stories, not only will your speeches be more visual, but you as a speaker will become more visible. This is because great storytellers that have profound and practical points are always in high-demand.

#1: Dialogue is key to making stories come alive. & #4:You must record your presentations AND watch them.

I recorded a speech I did on Tuesday.  In addition I used dialogue more than I ever have.  I haven’t yet watched my speech, but I will do so.  I know I will hate it, but I have heard that after a few times I will get over it.

#15: You cannot be creative in isolation & #16: Create a mastermind group

I organized a meeting with 3 other speakers present on Monday and also 1 other speaker that wanted to be there.  We met for 2 hours and the synergy is evident.  The creativity was definitely flowing in this group of 5 people.

We have one other person that is interested in joining, making a group of 6 speakers ready to propel their speaking to the next level.  We are going to meet every other week for 2 hours where we can practice and get feedback.  We think 6 people will be our limit although we may change that once we have our first meeting.

Thank you Patricia for bringing us together and for providing excellent ideas to start our group with.

How do you Improve a Speech?

by J.A. Gamache: Third place Champion at the 2001 Toastmasters International World Championship of Public Speaking

When you have to deliver the same speech several times, I suggest you record every one of your live performances. You will improve your text by working from the recording. Here’s why I record all my speeches:

1- To Capture the Inspiration of the Moment

During a performance, I often have some really good ideas. Sometimes a participant says something that makes me think of something relevant that I spontaneously add to my speech. This new idea often turns into a real gem of a text. If I don’t record my performance, there’s a good chance that I won’t remember that specific moment of inspiration.

2-To Keep the BestWording

I often express myself better when I am on stage. Small improvements to my text naturally come to mind. And the recording helps me remember them. These changes are precious especially when you want to include humor. A joke works best when it is delivered in the right way with the right use of words.

3- To Unveil the Potential for Humor in Your Speech

A recording helps you seize every reaction of your audience, no matter how small. When I hear someone giggle, it shows me there is potential for humor in what I have just said. A sentence or the context in which I said it was funny for a few people. By reworking my text and my delivery, there’s a good chance I’ll find the RIGHT combination which next time will make the whole audience laugh.

I hope the reasons mentioned above will inspire you to record each one of your live presentations. It’s a great way to improve your speeches. You won’t loose the gems you come up with spontaneously during a speech. You will be able to listen to the audience’s reaction to uncover the humorous potential of your talk.

©MMIX J.A. Gamache www.jagamache.com. All rights reserved.

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PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO REPRODUCE THIS ARTICLE in whole or in part if a copy of the reproduced text is sent to J.A. Gamache at info@jagamache.com after publication and also provided that this byline, including  the following paragraph, appears along with the reproduced text:

This article was reproduced from “Speaking in Public with J.A.”, a FREE electronic magazine authored by J.A. Gamache, International Inspirational Speaker. To subscribe to his FREE e-zine or to find out more about his presentations, visit: http://www.jagamache.com.

1. Dialogue is key to making stories come alive.
2. Having a good I/You ratio is an excellent technique for connecting with the audience.
3. Your dialogue does not have to come from people.
4. You must record your presentations AND watch them.
5. We need to fall in love with our own content.
6. Have someone else transcribe your speeches if possible.
7. Move with purpose using movement specific phrases.
8. Stand still at the start of your presentation.
9. You can connect intellectually or emotionally.
10. If you don’t know what questions your audience has, you don’t know your audience.
11. Storytelling for speeches also works for blogs.
12. Lead your audience from what they can do to how you can provide it.
13. Use the words of your clients in your presentations.
14. You can make eye contact on silence too.
15. You cannot be creative in isolation.
16. Create a mastermind group.
17. Make the people in the audience the heroes.
18. Use phrasing to punctuate your speeches.
19. Punch words need to go at the end of a phrase.
20. Take your audience along with you in your presentation.

This really only scratches the surface of what I learned.  I will come back to many of these comments on this blog.

It is absolutely necessary to write a speech and refine the speech as many times as necessary.

It is important to have a speech written down so that you CAN edit it.  This does not mean that you have to write it first.  To keep your speech conversational, many experts suggest that you use a voice recorder to capture the speech and then transcribe it.

I agree with this advice when it relates to a 7:30 Toastmasters contest speech.  Every second counts.  When it comes to an hour long speech, I think being genuine and conversational is much more important than culling a few words here and there.

Packing more into a speech may not be what the audience really needs.  They may need to feel a connection with a real human being who isn’t concentrating on giving a highly optimzed speech.

My recommendation is to record your speech.  Transcribe your speech.  Then, take key areas of that speech and edit those.  Internalize, but don’t memorize.  Don’t edit the whole thing – unless it is for the World Championship of Public Speaking contest.  Even if it is for the contest, determine if highly edited speech is your style.

I think it is about time we stop this intense focus on these disfluencies.  There is so much more to communication than the utterance of a few ums here and there.  Sure, if a speaker has more than 10 for a 5-minute speech, then their evaluator can let them know, but do we really need a Grammarian to keep track of everyones?  (Many clubs combine Grammarian and Ah Counter)  The Grammarian can concentrate on real grammar, the use of metaphors, similes, alliteration, etc.

I have found that when speakers become comfortable speaking in front of an audience that most of their disfluencies go away.  Shouldn’t the focus then be on building confidence rather than reducing verbal utterances?  Just because a speaker has no ums or ahs does not make them engaging, compelling, or interesting.

There are a number of ways to build confidence:

• Stage time
• Positive feedback
• Mentoring
• Skill building
• Pushing past our fears

Start a revolution in your Toastmasters club.  Remove the focus on ums and ahs, and instead start building on the road to confidence.

Next week at your Toastmasters meeting start a “grammarian focus of the month.”  Here’s 6

• Power Words
• Alliteration
• Metaphors
• Similes
• Active tense
• Internal Rhyming

Leave a comment to let me know how it goes.