Note : If you have not already done so, please read Part 1 of the article here
Some of you may have wondered as to why was the previous part was titled “Becoming a better speaker” ? Why not “Becoming a good speaker” or even “Becoming a great speaker”.
The answer is simple.
If you want to become a good speaker, you will get there one day, and then you will stop growing.
If you want to become a great speaker, you will get there one day, and then you will stop growing.
But if you want to become a better speaker, there is no end to the journey.
There is always room to improve. At attitude of never-ending growth and improvement as a way of life lies at the heart of becoming a better speaker.
A lot of people improve more and more slowly as they become good and even great at a particular skill. But here, the philosophy is different – It is about the having the mindset of “Just getting started”. It is about approaching learning and growth just as ardently, enthusiastically, and humbly as a beginner would. That, in essence, is at the core of the philosophy of becoming a better speaker.
Now, If you have a gone through Part 1 and also practiced it, you would already be pretty a good speaker.
So, what’s the next stage ?
The first few stages in growth is all about improvement in skill and competence. One perhaps may even become brilliant at that skill. The next stage is what I like to call as an advancement in consciousness.
Let us understand this through an example – Say, someone trains to become a doctor. They go through a long and advanced training, and they have become a brilliant doctor. The next level, then, is not going to come from skill advancement. It would likely come from an advancement in consciousness- Do they empathize deeply with a patient? Can they reach out and comfort a patient, as they notice tears streaming down a patient’s face? Does seeing a patient wince with pain bother them, even after they’ve seen a thousand patients ? A great doctor is operating from a higher zone of consciousness, and not merely a higher zone of skill. Often, the higher zone of consciousness is characterized by caring more and by having a human touch in everything we do.
In the context of public speaking, how do we transcend to a higher level of consciousness?
· Let the spirit of your speech surpass its technical brilliance – Too many brilliant speakers saturate simply there. At being brilliant. Their speeches are all about demonstrating their skill. They speak with dazzling fluency, powerful body language, and witty one-liners. But the problem with that is this - Their core agenda is all about being in the spotlight and about coming across as impressive and charismatic.
But here’s the thing
You don’t touch people’s hearts through brilliance. You touch it through spirit.
Have you ever heard Sudha Murthy speak ? She is not a sophisticated speaker with an English accent – And yet, she is a very memorable speaker. This is simply because of the spirit of her speech. Her meaningful stories, down to earth mannerisms, and unassuming nature emanate a spirit that far surpasses the technical brilliance of her speech.
So, how do we infuse more spirit into our speeches?
To infuse brilliance into our speeches, we use our brain
To infuse spirit into our speeches, we need to use our heart.
The key to the skill vs spirit debate is settled by one question – Who is the real hero of your story - Is it you or your message ?
If you are the hero of your story, you will come across as impressive perhaps. However if your message is the hero of your story, your spirit shines through and your message will be memorable.
· What connotation does your struggle have ? Particularly so in toastmasters, many speakers talk about their journey from struggle to success, and we feel inspired. And yet other seemingly similar speeches make us cringe. What’s the difference?
The difference lies in what I call as “The struggle connotation “ and it comes down to this-
Is your journey conveyed in a way that makes people feel inspired by you?
Or
Is your journey conveyed in a way that makes people feel sympathy towards you ?
People look up to inspiration
People look down with sympathy
So the way one talks about their struggle is terribly important. If you add a couple of jokes as you describe it, you’ve grown out of it. The moment you start elaborating on how miserable your life was, you are invoking sympathy. Especially, if you portray yourself as helpless, you paint a picture of someone who is weak, and loves playing the victim. The simplest way to fix this is to share that you really really tried hard when things were tough.
Does the audience feel inspired or sympathetic- The difference often comes down to how you portray your challenging times.
· Make the listeners care – As you speak with passion, your enthusiasm will certainly rub off on the audience to a degree. But how engaged the audience feels will depend on one thing – “Do you make them care about what you are saying ? “. To make them care, we, as speaker need to go a level deeper – We need to articulate why that particular topic is of deeper interest to us.
The more meaningful our why, the more listeners will care. The more they care, the more spirit of your message will reach them. So, a key part of infusing spirit into our speech is to articulate our why, and articulating that is what makes people care about our message.
· Talk to the listeners with respect. We have all heard speakers who talk about the ‘idiots’ they are dealing with. They label their boss a ‘hitler’. The audience members may laugh or chuckle, but at the back of their minds they have a thought – ‘This speaker is a person who puts others down to make himself appear superior”.
Needless to say, this will kill the spirit of your speech. No one commands gravitas by putting others down. And it says a lot about us – How we speak of others says more about us than it does about them.
· The perils of being too polished –Have you ever witnessed someone speak with impeccable language, remarkable fluency, and stunning confidence, and yet somehow, you felt a certain disconnect with them ? The speaker comes across as perfect. Too perfect. Too good to be true, even.
A real life story illustrates how powerful being imperfect is – Neils Bohr, a world-famous physicist in early 20h century discovered that other physicists were intimidated by his stature. Whenever Bohr gave a talk, no one challenged him and no one asked him any questions. He realized that he had to find a way to break that barrier, and he came up with a strikingly simple and yet exceptionally efficient idea. Soon after Bohr would start speaking, and writing down some equations on the black board, he would “accidentally” drop the chalk piece on the floor. He would then pick it up, and continue writing on the board, and within a couple of minutes , he would “accidentally” drop it again, and at that point , he would exclaim “How silly of me”. This simple act immediately broke the barrier, and everyone in the audience felt connected to him and opened up more.
Infact, there is a name for this – Pratfall effect. The Pratfall Effect states that people who are considered highly competent are found to be more likeable when they perform an everyday blunder than those who don’t.
So, how do we apply this in the context of public speaking – One simple way is to combine confident delivery with vulnerable content - For example , you may talk about how you did something really silly as part of the content. Or how you weren’t always as confident as you seem to be now. Or some other goofy attribute of yours that no one would expect.
Another way would be to talk about an accomplishment of yours, but with a markedly toned down voice, or by attributing it to contribution of others.
The moment, both your delivery and content come across as painting an overwhelmingly positive picture of you, people will no longer relate to you.
To summarize, become a really confident speaker. And then occasionally make some mistakes. Use the Pratfall effect to bridge the gap between you and the audience.
· Leave the listeners with a feeling. A very specific feeling – We listen to an achiever speak. They talk about their gazillion achievements. We are impressed. But we have a feeling that we can never be like that. Because that person seems to be different. Maybe the speaker sounded like he/she was an achiever from birth.
Many speakers revel in the feeling of assuming they are special. All they talk about is their accomplishments and how they great they are. In a speech of moderate length, this might impress an audience. In a longer speech, this is bound to irritate the audience.
For the longest time in my life, until my 20s, I had a very specific limiting belief – That others could accomplish something, but I would not be able to accomplish that myself, because I was different in some way. That I was flawed in some fundamental way. But what changed it was a very generous spirited individual, who believed in me, thought I had potential, and spoke to me in that suggested that it was obvious that I would be able to deliver on a certain task.
He made me feel that if he could do it, I could do it too !
There, I said it ! The specific feeling that you want to leave the audience with, whenever you talk about an accomplishment of yours is that “If you can do it, so can they “
· Embrace your inner weirdness – We all have our odd peculiarities, idiosyncrasies. Mannerisms or physical attributes that stand out. Maybe we’ve got a funny nose, an elephant like ear. Most people with such attributes, try their best to hide it.
The more we try to hide something, the more obvious it is to others that we are trying to hide it 😊
The solution – embrace your weirdness. If possible, crack a joke on it. It will endear you to the audience in a way, that no amount of talking about your awesomeness ever can. Many will find your weirdness cute.
There is nothing that conveys that someone is comfortable in their own skin more than when they wholeheartedly embrace their weirdness …
· The mistake most speakers make – This is a mistake I have seen some of the most polished speakers make. I’m sure I make it too sometimes. A speaker delivers an incredible speech. A speech that leaves everyone feeling inspired and empowered. The speakers smiles. And then abruptly, their expression changes to something more neutral or perhaps even stern. One of the most important things to do in a speech is to slowly fade out the last expression on your face. That is when the taste of your speech lingers long after you have finished it. When we abruptly wipe a smile off our face, it seems like everything that happened before that was an act.
I have shared a few strategies above to become an even better speaker. These give a glimpse into the fact that there is a nuanced way to go about pretty much any aspect of speaking. If we are willing to reflect and think, there is a next level we can get to in every single aspect. A scope for improvement in every aspect, regardless of how skilled we already are. And that is wonderful. The opportunity to learn forever is one of the greatest gifts that life has to offer us.
The key to practicing these strategies is counter-intuitive – It is to not think of these as strategies at all ! Rather , it is to become a person for whom these behaviors' seem normal
To become a person who focusses on the message rather than on making themselves seem impressive
To become a person who tries their very best even (especially) when things seem challenging
To become a person who does not speak badly of others in order to make themselves feel better
To become a person who is willing to talk about or show imperfections to others, and has made peace with their weirdness
To become a person who fades out the smile while smiling at anyone
To become a person who leaves others with a feeling that if they can do it, others can do it
Because when we use these ideas as strategies, it is separate from our authentic self. They become something we do only while delivering a speech in public. Instead, if we become a person who embodies the above characteristics, these elements of speaking naturally arise from that.
Part 1 of becoming a better speaker was all about tips , strategies to being effective. Part 2 goes deeper , including elements like infusing spirit into your speech , into making audience members your allies, into accepting ourselves and peculiarities wholeheartedly.
Is this all there is ? Is this the end ? Is there a next level ?
If you have mastered the above elements, and want to get to the next level, remember that it all begins with the belief ”I’m just getting started”. The secret to mastering anything is retaining the beginner mindset forever, and staying curious and open to learning forever. To celebrate the opportunity that life offers us to explore and delve deeper into its infinite possibilities.
No comments:
Post a Comment