Top Ten Ways to Conquer the Art of Public Speaking

Oof that feeling when your voice suddenly falls silent and the entire crowd erupts into cheers, clapping and showering you with praises because your speech or presentation was that great! Can’t relate?

How about the feeling of your throat drying out, your hands shaky, your thoughts racing and your voice cracking as you look into the enthusiastic but doubtful crowd in front of you? Yeah that’s definitely something everyone can relate to.

We all want to rock the stage but by the time we step down and walk back to our seat we all often turn into rocks from the numbness after short episodes of embarrassment, disappointment and frustrations on the stage.

I hope you all must have heard about Demosthenes who was one of the most influential and legendary orators of Greek during his time. But he wasn’t always a legend. While he worried about even the most intricate details like his posture while addressing the crowd, the real struggle Demosthenes faced was his speech impediments. But did Demosthenes let his stammer get in the way of a good speech? No! He worked very, very hard to get rid of it and is said to have even practised his speech with pebbles in his mouth to get rid of the stammer. He was also said to have taken up many harsh training techniques to bring about patience, dedication, clarity and proper posture in this skill.

While I’m not going to ask you to find pebbles and rocks to stuff your mouths with I do have a list of things that could actually build up your confidence and skill over time.

So not boring you anymore, here we go :

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➤Practice !!! :

Practice… practice…and more practice because nothing ever beats practice. There can never be enough practice.

BUT never make it look like you practised the speech like a dance routine!! This is the GOLDEN RULE. People should believe that you are talking to them and not reading something out of a textbook.

While it does show that you worked hard for the presentation, to be frank, for many, it just shows that you aren’t really confident enough in your topic that you actually had to byheart it word by word.

Seriously, there is nothing more off putting than a person repeating the same line multiple times while looking at the ceiling to get a head start for the next sentence. (Also on that note, never look at the ceiling ever!! Like ever!!!)

So, don’t byheart but organise the ideas in your mind. That is what I meant by practice. You should practice so hard that whenever you say one sentence, the next idea that you should speak about automatically pops up in your head.

Also, always try to research on your topics. This builds confidence to present your ideas and also you won’t be a nervous wreck during the Q&A session.

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➤Audience Is Everybody….or Nobody :

Think of your audience as either your friends or just… strangers.

Now this is supposed to work in two ways depending on what you want. If you are a person who is more comfortable with speaking to friends and you think you can pull it off only among a group of people who are not intimidating to you then you need to think of all of them as your close friends who are supporting and rooting for you. Just think of them as your closest friends with whom you share your stupid 1 AM ideas with, the ones that know you and your goofy self and won’t judge you.

Now if you are a person who overthinks as much as me and you are terrified of the idea of presenting it in front of your friends and family (Eg. : “What will they think?” , “Will they make fun of me later?”,  “Will their opinion about me change after this?” type) then think of all of them as people you don’t know... just completely random strangers. What they think or feel about you doesn’t matter to you because they are just strangers. 

When I do this, I get so much confidence that I’m perfectly fine with even screwing it up in front of them!

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➤Keep the Humor Intact :

This is not just an advice for public speaking but life in general. Be funny! Everybody loves funny! Being funny actually makes you seem like an approachable person. You start your speech with a joke? Viola! You have everybody’s attention from the start.

Of course, do not go around joking throughout the entire presentation until you get fired if it is a very formal presentation. But just saying..the more witty and clever your jokes are the higher you get ranked in people’s ‘Like List’.

➤Be Human :

Connect with your audience. Add personal touches to your speech. Maybe it could be something you experienced. People often respond positively when you narrate an embarrassing experience. If you don’t have any personal experiences regarding your topic then narrate somebody else's experience. Stories make everything interesting.

The crux of this is engaging your audience and encouraging them to relate. Don’t let them zone out and make them keep relating to your words and introspecting about them.

Nobody wants to watch or listen to a robot exploring his newly invented speech capabilities.

(PS : Is somebody else's a legit word?........Yeah, it is! Well, you learn something new everyday, huh?)

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➤Relatable Topics :

This is in relation to the previous point. If you get the option to choose the topic, always choose something that you and others can relate to.

Do not try to choose something just because it sounds great or sophisticated because if you can’t build up enough enthusiasm within yourself about the topic then you probably can’t make other people too.

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➤Presentability :

Preparation only pays off when it is accompanied by a dope presentation. Here are two things you need to keep in mind while presenting :

·        Adjust the volume and the speed of your speech. Too slow is very boring but never be too fast that nobody can even comprehend what you are saying. It is going to be a hell lot of awkward when you say an important point and you get no reaction from the crowd.

·       Keep your voice and vocabulary clean. Do NOT attempt to sound extremely smart. There are better opportunities to show off your smartness but do not try it here because it can come off as cringey. Use your normal accent and your normal vocabulary. You might not realise it but majority of people only really care about the content of your speech and how clearly and confidently you can express your thoughts and views.

      Voice modulation. It has been repeated so many times. that I dont even need to explain it. Be expressive. Feel every word....okay, that sounds weird but you get the point, right? Talk like how you would talk to humans.

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➤Come On! Give them some attention :

Don’t neglect your audience. While speaking try to distribute your eye contact generously.

Personally speaking, if somebody ever made eye contact with me during their speech, I would be so damn honoured by the fact they even considered me as a candidate for eye-contact that I would actually be obligated to listen to them…lol.

Now, some people find it easier to maintain eye contact with other people but for me I always dread maintaining eye contact with people for too long because then I’d shift my attention onto that person. Your attention should solely be on your speech and nothing else. So, don’t make deep meaningful eye contact with people during speeches if that isn’t your thing.

But do not misunderstand this and become non-interactive with people. Connect with your audience while keeping your entire focus on your topic.

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➤Code RED! Then What? :

I often only get scared before I step on to the podium because your girl here likes over-thinking a lot! But once it’s kick started I’m all good and I can keep my mind clear but also receptive to my audience.

BUT that doesn’t mean that the ride is all that smooth every time. Sometimes I do get overwhelmed while speaking and lose the flow of my thoughts... it’s embarrassing and I feel like I could get a heart attack just right in the middle of all of those people.

But what I usually do when I forget the successive point is, not try to remember the exact words but rather just choose the closest words I can get to make people understand the idea of my sentence. Or just cleverly try to repeat the same point again using different words so that people dont catch on. Doing this actually gives me time to think about the next point. And once I remember then I quickly move on to the next part like nothing happened.

Do not look at it as if you screwed it up because the people sitting there have no absolute clue of what your speech is. They would just think it’s a normal slip up which is not that horrible to be frank. Just pretend like you forgot to mention it or something.

Imagine how you would be talking to your friend and forgot something. You just bring it up later in the conversation again. That’s it. That's how casual you should aim to be.

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➤Life Advice #2  :

(Lmao….)

Do not try to be someone you aren’t!

Your friends or colleagues should never feel like the person standing in front of them is completely different from the person they know. They should feel comfortable and not cringed out by listening to you. Often I think people are scared of public speaking because they are afraid that they might not be able to pull off an image that they want people to see them in.

You don’t have to worry about anything if you go up to that podium as YOU and speak like you are speaking to one of your friends on a Monday morning about your weekend adventures... Just do you!

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➤All is well that ends well  :

(Yeah, yeah.. I know it's cliché to insert that saying as a heading but try coming with 9 creative heading if you can..huh....well except the first one...)

Always end well.. anything with an epic ending, I guarantee you, will leave an impression on people.

Many people stress on making good beginnings too which is also pretty great except I am not a sucker for that idea because sometimes it can come off as a bit cliché or try-hard if you don’t pull it off well if you know what I mean.. but if you want to do it then one classic idea would probably be to start off with a story and (choose a story with a good twist because nobody..absolutely nobody hates twists) drop the twist and then connect it to your theme or in the end, the most important part, find a punch line... something humorous and witty or maybe you can choose a famous quote and twist it around. So many things!

Get creative in this segment because it really pays off!!!

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Bonus Tip : 

Do not be discouraged when the crowd doesn’t respond according to your expectations. 

More often than not, we all aren’t lucky enough to end up with a energetic and enthusiastic crowd. Just always do your best remembering that there is still some significant part of the crowd that is listening to you!

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When you actually put a lot of hard work into something, there is a natural assurance that you won’t screw it up and that will serve as more than enough confidence. Believe that you can pull it off. 

While you may not be able to put all these tricks into good use the first time itself, the more opportunities you get to speak in front of people, the more you get used to it.. and one day you might even be able to pull off a speech on spot!