I think of speaker confidence as a muscle, something you have to train over time to make it strong and resilient. But readers of The Eloquent Woman on Facebook reminded me that sometimes, just like a muscle, a quick move or two at the last minute also provides that rocket-boost for your bravery. I asked readers: "What's something small you do to boost your confidence when you're going to speak or present in public (before, during or after)?" And most of their responses fell into the "before" category--sometimes with seconds to go:
My list? I agree with the readers--getting yourself in the mood, feeling prepared right before you go on, and smiling at the audience all help me rev up and feel confident right before I talk. But over time, I've also learned that working on confidence in between speaking gigs also helps me call on it at a moment's notice. Here are my longer-term exercises for the confidence muscle:
Figure out what's getting under your skin, and address it. If you can identify what's undermining your confidence, you can find a way to deal with it. Make a list of your worst confidence-busters, then make a plan for each one. Work one at a time, master the problem and the fix, then move on to another.
Stop your inner critic from talking. Henry Ford said it best: "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're probably right." Those are good odds, so think you can.
Practice. Where would you rather mess up as a speaker? I'd rather mess up in a practice session than during a real speech, any day. That way, I can figure out what trips me up and fix it--and go into my presentation knowing I've already slayed the worst dragons. One of the great ironies of speaking is that the speakers who look the most extemporaneous are the ones who've practiced the most. How much should you practice? Until you'd rather dig a ditch.
Start small. If you haven't spoken up in a meeting, plan ahead and figure out where you can dive in, then speak up. Hint: Asking a question makes it easier to interrupt and join the discussion, or practice disagreeing in a productive way. Do it again. If you haven't done a presentation, start by doing it for one colleague to see if you can make your case. Then do it for two more people. Then a small roomful.
Start short. A short stint speaking is always easier than a long one when you're aiming to build your confidence. (It's over faster, for one thing.) Try one of my 4 stepping stones to get speaking practice, all short opportunities that will help you get real-time practice before you try a stem-winder of a speech.
Smile. The readers have it right: Whether you play an anthem, do a meditation that ends with a smile at the audience, or just do something that makes you happy, a smile will engage your audience and spread the chemicals that signal your body to relax and feel good. It's the easiest way to boost your bravery--think of it as a one-second charge forward.
Looking for famous speeches by women? Check out The Eloquent Woman Index of Famous Women's Speeches, with a wide variety of women speakers, types of speeches and topics to inspire your next speech. Each one comes with lessons for speakers, plus video or audio and a transcript, where available.
Are you using Pinterest? The hot new social sharing site is still in beta and requires an invite, but it's already full of photos, videos and other resources and ideas. You use bookmarklets and buttons to "pin" visuals you like onto topical "boards" you create. Pinterest suggests some topical boards for you, and you can create your own--and follow, like or comment on others' posts, or contribute to their boards if they permit it.
Need an invite to participate in Pinterest? Email me at info[at]dontgetcaught[dot]biz. I look forward to seeing you there!
Looking for famous speeches by women? Check out The Eloquent Woman Index of Famous Women's Speeches, with a wide variety of women speakers, types of speeches and topics to inspire your next speech. Each one comes with lessons for speakers, plus video or audio and a transcript, where available.
Folks who work at universities have heard more commencement speeches than the rest of us--that's part of the job. So when reader Kathy Schuetz, a communicator at the University of Maryland, wrote to suggest Margaret Edson's 2008 commencement speech at Smith College and called it "remarkable," I took notice.
Edson, a public school teacher in Atlanta, also is the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of the play Wit, about a scholar of English literature who is in the hospital and dying of ovarian cancer. (There's a current production of the play on Broadway at this writing.) Edson, herself a Smith graduate, uses the occasion to speak about what happens in classroom teaching. She uses anaphora, the rhetorical device that repeats a word or series of words at the start of a series of sentences--in this case, to tell us that classroom teaching is all about nothing, for both teachers and students:
We bring nothing into the classroom -- perhaps a text or a specimen. We carry ourselves, and whatever we have to offer you is stored within our bodies. You bring nothing into the classroom -- some gum, maybe a piece of paper and a pencil: nothing but yourselves, your breath, your bodies. Classroom teaching produces nothing. At the end of a class, we all get up and walk out. It’s as if we were never there....Classroom teaching expects nothing. There is no pecuniary relationship between teachers and students....Classroom teaching withholds nothing. I say to my young students every year, “I know how to add two numbers, but I’m not going to tell you.” And they laugh and shout, “No!” That’s so absurd, so unthinkable. What do I have that I would not give to you?
This is a speech by a lover of language, but even its eloquence is not the most remarkable thing about it: Edson never looks at her notes during this commencement address. That's because there are no notes. The speech, all 18-plus minutes of it, is entirely delivered without a script or notes of any kind. Here's what you can learn from this famous speech, which engages the audience in three ways:
Set up a clever contrast to make your point: Edson spends several paragraphs telling us about the "nothing" of classroom teaching, underscoring that it yields nothing tangible. Along the way, you realize that this "nothing" is yet substantial, meaningful, rewarding. Then Edson carries that line of thinking through and transitions it to the future that lies ahead for the graduates: "If you can point to something, you might lose it, or you might break it, or someone might take it from you. As long as you store it inside yourself, it’s not going anywhere -- or it’s going everywhere with you." Suddenly, that nothing sounds pretty good.
Sly humor suggests they're all in on the joke together: Edson builds a bond with her audience from the start, using the typical salutations to honored guests and her hosts humorously (speaking of her own class, she deadpans, "when the history of the college is written, the record will note that this class was the best looking"). She pokes fun at trite honorifics, gently, and uses an exaggerated tone to suggest she, too, finds some of the pomp a bit much. For college graduates and faculty who've heard one too many commencement addresses, it's just the right touch.
Speaking without notes: Whether you use notes or not is up to you and the speaking situation--there's nothing wrong with it. But here is a lovely example of what speaking without notes can do for a speech, particularly a commencement address with a big crowd to engage. The lack of notes lets her address the audience while looking at it directly, something every audience craves. As a result, she connects with this audience in a way many commencement speakers never do.
Read the transcript of the speech here, and do watch the video below, listening for the words she enphasizes vocally. What do you think of this famous speech? (Photo from Smith College)
Looking for famous speeches by women? Check out The Eloquent Woman Index of Famous Women's Speeches, with a wide variety of women speakers, types of speeches and topics to inspire your next speech. Each one comes with lessons for speakers, plus video or audio and a transcript, where available.
You want to give one of those big talks someday, maybe soon. An Ignite talk, a Moth presentation, a TEDx or TED talk--that kind of big talk. And there's just one thing standing between you and that goal: One big idea.
That's because if you're going to make the most of those 3- or 5- or 15- or 20-minute opportunities, you need to narrow your focus down to one big idea. To stay in the minds of the live audience and get liked and shared by the online audience, just one idea will do. Not 50, not 15, not even three, but one. And that's the tripping point for many would-be givers of big talks. What's the big idea? That's the question they can't answer. A big idea requires a point of view, an opinion, the ability to zero in on a target.
Close readers of the blog will recall that I advise breaking your message into three key points, as most speaker coaches do--that's because we remember things best in threes and are almost hard-wired to do so. (And that's true for both speaker and audience.) Here's the connection: You'll use your three key points to put across your big idea. They're the three reasons we should decide to do that crazy thing you just proposed, the three arguments against that popular trend, the three things you're missing when you decide to do x. But you still need to give us that big idea to move toward, even as you lay out the steps to get us there.
I know, you have lots of ideas. And lots of facts to share. And, oh, those opinions-by-the-score. I'll even let you work some of them into the three points you'll get to undergird your big idea, if you promise to just focus on one big idea for this big talk. For technical experts and scientists who are used to backing up and giving us all the background we might possibly need to grasp the big idea, this can be a particular challenge. But I promise, your audience will sit in the palm of your hand and do so more happily if you can winnow it down to one idea.
Don't forget that the audience you need to win over starts with the conference organizers, by the way. The folks who put together these high-stakes conferences want smart people who can share new thoughts and approaches...if they can focus on one big idea. Failure to focus when you are proposing a big talk, or when you're approached to give one, can mean you don't get the opportunity...or if you get up to speak and that big point doesn't come across, it may mean you won't be asked back.
Here's one example of a detail-filled talk with a wonderful big idea for cancer patients: A surgeon describes a way to make cancer tumors and nerves fluorescent so they can be surgically removed (or avoided) with more accuracy. It's worth taking the time to develop a message with your big idea in it before you pursue those big-talk opportunities--and so you're ready when the call comes. Let me know if I can help you work on that; just email me at info[at]dontgetcaught[dot]biz.
Looking for famous speeches by women? Check out The Eloquent Woman Index of Famous Women's Speeches, with a wide variety of women speakers, types of speeches and topics to inspire your next speech. Each one comes with lessons for speakers, plus video or audio and a transcript, where available.
It's always instructive for a speaking coach when the shoe is on the other foot and she needs to ask for help with a speech. When a reader who also is a speaker coach wrote to ask "How do I help a dying friend with a speech about her life and illness?", she added that she was willing to cast a wide net and see whether The Eloquent Woman community had any tips or ideas to help her. "My sadness and our attachment are blocking my ability to think clearly about how to help her prepare - let alone write the script. I'll find a way to ensure my feelings don't overshadow our prep for this gig - I want it to be her triumph." That willingness to ask for help has yielded many offers. I'm happy to say that our fellow speaker coaches, in particular, came up with a wide range of ideas, examples and options. Since many of them are available on video, I've included them here along with the generous thoughts and ideas these coaches shared.
"Let her dear friend shine"
Janice Tomich shared this short clip from Virginia Greene's presentation at an ovarian cancer awareness event held in her honor in Vancouver over a year ago. The event presentation is combined with an interview with Greene that was used as a public service ad. I think this comes as close as any example to the situation our fellow coach and reader is facing. Tomich wrote, "Virginia Greene was a force to behold in our community who sadly passed away not long after the event. I watched and listened to her speak many times and she was a no-holds-barred spitfire of a woman who also had a lovely big heart. Interestingly, in looking over the clip, she appeared very robust, but I remember thinking at the time she was a shadow of herself."
She added, "The woman who is requesting help in how best to serve her friend has answered her own question--not to let her own feelings get in the way. Simply let her dear friend shine...her friend will guide her. As her coach and friend she just needs to be there for support."
I'll add that this example offers some practical considerations for a speaker who is terminally ill. It's fine to speak from a seated position on stage, and to have water and a box of tissues handy for the speaker. It's extraordinary enough that she is willing to speak at this stage--no need to make it into an endurance test. In this case, there appear to be large-screen monitors on stage behind her, and those might be useful if the speaker needs to stay seated, but is addressing a large room. I'd ask her, however, whether she minds having her face projected large to the room.
The partnership between vulnerability and conviction
Speaker coach Jill Foster wrote, "Is the fundraiser raising monies to find a cure for her particular illness? I'm working with that assumption here. The partnership between vulnerability and conviction comes to mind. As in: even in our most fragile or precarious moments, we have the chance to stand up to the larger battle in some way. There are no guarantees that cures will come in time for our unique purposes. But the chance to research a cure for those yet to be diagnosed is still within our reach if resolve stays on course by the greater team, researchers, volunteers, advocates. The cause still deserves attention. She can build off that truth openly and let it be context to the greater need to hold steadfast even in the face of loss....sprinkled with a few Seinfeld jokes if at all possible. But now I'm deflecting my own emotion. Blessings to her and her voice."
The late Randy Pausch is famous in the United States for "The Last Lecture," a tour de force of a talk that played off of the conceit in academe, where professors give a lecture as if it were their last one, summing up what they know and believe--but in this case, Pausch was dying when he gave this lecture. Speaker coach Nancy Duarte wrote that this one is her favorite, and it was the first one I thought of to suggest to our fellow coach--but because she's not based in the U.S., this was a new example to her. Since the friend who will be giving the speech is a physician, the concept of a lecture might make the speech easier to pull off. A caution: Pausch's energetic delivery--at one point, he drops to the floor and does push-ups--may not be as helpful an example for someone who's not feeling as well as he did when he gave this talk. His motivation was to leave a record for his young children, something that summed up his life, work and philosophy, and that may be the motivation this speaker needs.
Dying doesn't mean you have to be trite.
I shared this clip from Sex and the City in which Samantha, the public relations rep who's fighting breast cancer is asked to speak at a fundraiser. But it goes wrong in many ways. The PR pro in her has written the type of speech a disconnected speechwriter would write, full of platitudes and trite observations about breast cancer ("If you want to see the face of breast cancer, look around you. It's the woman next to you at the drycleaner..."). But Samantha-the-patient is sweating profusely, a side effect of the drugs she's taking, and uncomfortable under the wig she's wearing because she lost her hair and still wants to look stylish. Finally, she pulls off the wig, mid-speech--and so do all the other women like her in the audience, making her point better than that speech ever could. From this, I take a couple of lessons and ideas. One is that your audience at a fundraiser might well include people like you, who are ill or dying, so don't assume that everyone at a fundraiser is there just to give money. The other is that when faced with these big moments in life and death, we often fall back on platitudes. But your own particular details and observations will always be more compelling. Just tell us what it feels like, what you regret, what you wish for, in your own way...even if that means showing us something ignoble.
If you can't say it out loud, flash cards are an option
This video also came immediately to mind. Ben Breedlove, a young YouTube blogger who gave relationship advice to his peers via online video, made this two-part video using flash cards to explain his heart condition and the different times in his young life when he cheated death. Breedlove died shortly after making this video, on Christmas Day 2011. It's a quiet and poignant, at times funny, message that turned out to be his last "speech."
The irony of death is not lost on the dying
I include this, the opening from the play Wit, as something our coach can use with her friend to acknowledge the ironies that come with terminal illness--the play is about a professor of poetry who has ovarian cancer and has to move from being a researcher to being the subject of research herself. "It is not my intention to give away the plot, but I think I die at the end," she says. If your friend chooses to address these ironies in her speech, that also can be an effective approach--it's black humor, but a type that points out how ill-prepared we all are for what lies ahead.
I'm so grateful to all the coaches who responded to create this collection of options for helping someone who's dying prepare a significant speech...it's the Internet equivalent of bringing over a casserole during a challenging time, and I'm honored that this blog has been the delivery system for all these great ideas about how to handle a true speaking challenge.
Looking for famous speeches by women? Check out The Eloquent Woman Index of Famous Women's Speeches, with a wide variety of women speakers, types of speeches and topics to inspire your next speech. Each one comes with lessons for speakers, plus video or audio and a transcript, where available.
"We're living, on average today, 34 years longer than our great-grandparents did. Think about that," Fonda told the TEDxWomen event in 2011. "That's an entire second adult lifetime that's been added to our lifespan." She uses her talk to discuss her current passion: How we use that "third act," the last three decades of your life, not only to improve your life, but to create a cultural shift.
The talk is based on a theme carried through in her book, Prime Time: Love, health, sex, fitness, friendship, spirit--making the most of all of your life. Fonda--now 74 herself--emphasizes in this talk that some studies suggest that people in their third acts are even happier than they were at other stages of life. "As I was approaching my late 40s, I would wake up in the morning and my first six thoughts would all be negative," Fonda said, noting that she comes "from a long line of depressives." She added that "now that I am smack-dab in the middle of my own third act, I realize: I have never been happier." Here's what you can learn from this famous speech:
Empathy plus data: Telling stories on herself without self-congratulation or self-deprecation, Fonda manages to weave her own experience into the speech without making it all about her. She balances personal anecdotes with an empathetic approach, speaking about issues that she herself faced, but without mentioning herself. Instead, she couches them as issues anyone might face. Finally, Fonda's done her research, finding data points to reinforce her stories and the empathy. The combination sings.
Using notes without reading: Many actors use notes for public speaking and abhor the extemporaneous--they're used to lines they learn in advance in their work. I don't know Fonda's preference, but here, she uses a written text, yet you don't see the top of her head much during this talk--because she refers to her text, but doesn't read it straight through. As a result, she's better able to connect with her audience. Notice, too, that while she stays at the lectern, she looks all around the audience: down in front, up in back, and to either side, another must if you are going to remain stationary on the stage. (By the way, it doesn't hurt that Fonda's already written a book on the same lines as this talk. She knows the messages she wants to convey, and that helps her avoid reading.)
Quiet delivery with great vocal variety: "It helps us become what we might have been" she says, with a suggestive, knowing, sidelong look at the audience. Fonda doesn't speak above a normal volume level, but uses outstanding variety in her inflections, tone and emphasis throughout this talk, hitting a wide range of low, middle and high notes, pausing and pacing, and making her voice an essential tool.
Here's a video of Fonda's TEDxWomen talk. What do you think of this famous speech?
Looking for famous speeches by women? Check out The Eloquent Woman Index of Famous Women's Speeches, with a wide variety of women speakers, types of speeches and topics to inspire your next speech. Each one comes with lessons for speakers, plus video or audio and a transcript, where available.
Fonda--now 74 herself--emphasizes in this talk that some studies suggest that people in their third acts are even happier than they were at other stages of life. "As I was approaching my late 40s, I would wake up in the morning and my first six thoughts would all be negative," Fonda said, noting that she comes "from a long line of depressives." She added that "now that I am smack-dab in the middle of my own third act, I realize: I have never been happier." Here's what you can learn from this famous speech: