Why Is It Important for Everyone to Practice, and/or Learn, About Public Speaking?

As a professional actress/singer, I have grown up in settings where my public speaking has been a prominent factor of whatever success I have achieved. I have spoken for UNICEF, to youth groups in artistic programs, and led tours for my schools, as well as been a part of leadership groups where the quality of the presentation is just as important as the content.

This is how it should be!

Why?

Without good presence, your content will suffer. With it, it will succeed!

How many of us have sat through presentations, be it at work, school or anywhere, where the information is actually compelling and groundbreaking, or simply interesting, but the person delivering this info is not doing much to engage us? I’m sure the answer is: many of us.

If you have good info, but do not seem confident, or are simply uncomfortable presenting your info, your audience will take your lead. The audience will go where you lead the way.

This does not mean that you should attend an eight week meditation intensive in another country to become one with your spirit and chakras, and live happily ever after. This simply is an indicator that you can benefit from examining your level of comfort when having a convo, ordering food on the phone, or even look at how you behave when you first meet someone. Taking time to explore the area of public speaking, perhaps through seminars or research, you can pick up simple, but effective tips, on engaging an audience and believing in your own work among others.

Advice:

Start to pay attention to your natural behavior. Pay attention to your breathing. Your respiration is more important than you think, we tend to be even more dependent on it as our mood changes, and we breathe faster because maybe we’re anxious or angry, and we breathe slower because we’re at ease, etc. What is your intention? Stick to it. The audience will believe what you want them to believe through a purposeful tone and good body posture. Another note: evidently, public speaking is also about body language, not just the speaking. Speech is partially affected by your body posture and sometimes it’s condition. However, most of all, remember it is a process. We must never strive for a finished product in every aspect of our lives, because then we come to a stop, and that’s not what life’s about isn’t it?

A Few Key Exercises:

Learning about public speaking, and acquiring some quick exercises such as the few that I will provide below, will help you leap across the pond of opportunity:

1. (For a presentation setting more so than some conversations): Make sure you know what you’re presenting about. This is one of the initial steps to ensuring a confident presentation.
2. Take an article, read it well, and present it to a family member or friend. Ask for their feedback on what they were able to interpret from your presentation, if they heard you clearly, etc. Alternatively, you can record yourself, and playback the video as your first step to progress.
3. Take a deep breath, and slowly exhale. Try not to over-breathe. Now begin to say a few words, and try to notice if you are speaking so long that you feel like you need to gasp for air. What you want to do is speak naturally; take breaths when you need to. This will help you maintain your authentic way of speaking, which will engage someone more.

Be authentic.