Public speaking can be some peoples worst nightmare. It is important that if you are going to be an influencer or if you are going to run a successful business or climb the ladder in your company, that you learn to communicate in a more effective and powerful way. 

Tamara is a Communications specialist coach. Day in and out she is teaching people who work in business about how to communicate, how to make a speech or do a presentation without losing your audience. It is quite a job to keep the attention of an audience. We see all these Ted talks and they make it look so easy. But it takes time and dedication to really nail the art of speaking

Tamra teaches about breathing, taking a pause, using different words, our comforters and learning new things to get the neurons firing in our brains. If you are interested in improving your communication this is your first step in your journey. Find out what a person like Tamara Wentzel could do for you or for your business. 

You can find Tamara on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamara-nicola-wentzel-28293212a/

Or

on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tamaranicolawentzel/

Transcription: 

Interviewer: Welcome to the LifeShot podcast. We've got Tamara Wentzel. Tamara, welcome to the show. 

Interviewee: Hi Clint, thank you for having me on your show today. 

Interviewer: My pleasure, all the way from South Africa. 

Interviewee: Yes.

Interviewer: In sunny Durban, I take it? Or is it raining there? 

Interviewee: A bit. Slightly cold. I think it's about 16 degrees, but you know, that's warm in the northern side of the world. But yeah, in Durban we're having Winter at the moment, so we're quite enjoying it. It's still sunny outside. You can still go to the beach. It's quite enjoyable. 

Interviewer: Oh man, I miss the beach. I like this type of thing, because communication is one of my things. I'm speaking to a communications person here, but I just want to introduce you to the listeners. So Tamara is a communication specialist who helps people in corporate industries to communicate better. So using speech development, vocal range and tone, body language, gestures, eye contact, speech formula patterns. And her top four skills are public speaking, vocal management, customer service communications and English development frameworks. Tamara, it's so good to have you on the show. And today we're gonna talk about communication, like listening and speaking. You were telling me that you're gonna be traveling soon, just tell us about your travels that are coming up.

[00:02:35] Interviewee: So I train different types of groups for different trainings in Durban and also locally and internationally. So it all depends on different workshops that we do. Sometimes it's customer service, sometimes it's communications and public speaking. For example, I taught a one day eight-hour public speaking conference yesterday with 10 people from a transport company and there are all different types of conflicts. Sometimes people are sales managers, some of them are executives or some of them are in management and they just don't know what to do when they come up to present in front of a class or in front of their team. And they freeze or they start stuttering.

Interviewer: Stage fright.

Interviewee: Stage fright. And yesterday we had one example of a man, he was a sales manager and he came up and I just asked him to read one passage. It was a speech from Nelson Mandela and three times in the passage he ran away. Because he could not keep standing there. And it's really this fear that we have of conversations, of dialogue, of public speaking. So I travel to all different places. I've been to Nigeria, I've done training there. I've done a training in Sao Paulo in Brazil. I'm often called after Johannesburg or Cape Town for training. I work with different corporates, like in Empangeni and Richards Bay and Kokstad. And at the end of September I will be going for a mini conference. One of my clients are setting up a public speaking forum at their academy and I'm going to just be talking about the aspects of accent neutralization as well as different phonic sounds when it comes to the English language. So that will be happening in Tel Aviv, in Israel. And I decided that I'm not just going to go for one day, fly all the way there for one day. So I've also joined a touring company. So I will be exploring Israel, Jordan and Egypt over 12 days. It will be my first time in those countries. I'm quite excited. But also, I'm going to be going looking at the history, historical aspects of different religions as well and obviously through the Christian religion as well. But I'm quite excited for it, because what I like about my job is that it takes me places. And wherever I go, I try and squeeze in an extra day or two to find out about the cultures, about the people and the languages. And I think people are amazing. You're really out of your comfort zone when you get to travel. And you also miss home a lot more when you travel.

Interviewer: And you're taking your kids with you?

[00:05:10] Interviewee: My son, Luka, he's 21 months old, so he won't be able to come with me. But I've got my grandparents and my parents and his nanny will be watching him. And this will be the longest away from him. I have normally gone five days. Last year I went twice to Nigeria for five days and I travel and I come back. So this will be the longest, but he is used to me traveling and then I often take the week off of work when I come back to spend time with him. He's still young, but I do like to take him when I travel as well. When I go to Cape Town, he comes with me. We're going back to the UK next year, hopefully in May. So he's going to come through. You've got to juggle it. 

Interviewer: You have to come see us.

Interviewee: Yes, I will come through. We're mainly looking to go to family in Bristol and Colchester and obviously Monmouth and Wales. But we will definitely find out where you are and just try and map it through.

Interviewer: We can collaborate in something.

Interviewee: Yes!

Interviewer: You've got a small child and obviously the way we communicate can really help us in life or hinder us. Just give us a framework of why it's important. I think we all know intuitively why it's important to communicate well. But I suppose from your perspective, you're trying to teach people how to communicate well, maybe doing a speech or something like that. But just from the life perspective, would you encourage people to get better communication just for general purposes?

[00:06:45] Interviewee: Yes, I would definitely recommend them because if you look at the human form in all types of nature, even when you're looking at animals, they communicate. Dogs through barking, lions through roaring, different gruntings. And when it comes to humans and the psychology, if we look into it, we have to communicate through eye contact, through gestures, different cultures have different gestures. You might find that Italians or Brazilians like to use their hands more. Different people like to have closed-off gestures. But your body without you even speaking is giving off signals all the time. Your body posture, your eye contact, what your eyebrows are doing, whether you're smiling or not, your head position. So that all comes into factor before even someone starts talking to you. If someone starts to talk to you and already they're squinting their eyebrows, you already feel, "Okay, this is quite serious. What are they saying?" And you might even think that the person is... Maybe they've lost their glasses and they're actually squinting at you because they can't see you. But you think, "Oh my goodness, they're so rude, so disrespectful". So communication is key to all elements because for you to be taken seriously, whether it's a conversation between a husband and wife, between a kid and the parent or a boss and his employee, we've got to take into effect our communication. And with having cell phones, we constantly have the screen in front of our face. So when we go to a restaurant, the first thing we do is we sit down and we put our phone on the table. And even though you're talking to a friend or a spouse or child, you are already adding a third person into the conversation. We've also stopped describing. So before we used to say to people, "You know what, I watched a beautiful movie on the weekend, it starred Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. And it was in Venice. It had great stone walk areas. They had little cafes". Nowadays, we don't even describe colours or pictures or sizes or shapes. We just say, "I watched this movie on the weekend, now here's the trailer". So we're actually going back, we're not learning anymore. So then people coming to the workplace, often enough... There was a communication expert called Dr Leo Buscaglia, and a lot of his videos - he died in 2006 - so his videos are quite old on YouTube. But 30 years ago, he was talking about how we need to communicate better. And nowadays, can you imagine what he would say if he was here? So a lot of the time we stop using face to face interaction. We treat people like robots or machines, in a machine type of way and we are not like that. And I think it's so essential, even myself, we all make mistakes as parents, but I'm trying my best with my son. I only really look at my phone or laptop when he goes to sleep.

Interviewer: Oh, that's tough.

[00:09:51] Interviewee: It is very tough.

Interviewer: I'm there with my phone. I'm thinking "I should get off this phone, but I just got to do this thing quickly". You always got to do something quickly. Why? 

Interviewee: And you always feel like saying to the child or kid, "Just wait for me to finish. I'll be with you right now". Which is fine to some point, but I always say, even when you're out with the kids, I know myself when Luka's flown on the airplane, he had my phone and he watched Postman Pat. Because it's the only way for him to not scream and cause havoc. But when we go to the restaurant, it's also looking at the element of play as well with the kid. Describing things to your kids. Even on the table, you might have a salt and pepper. You might say, "What shape is the salt? What colour is the salt? What does salt taste like? What does salt smell like?" It's a simple thing like salt, you could really describe with your kids. The other night when I was in Empangeni, I was by myself and I went for supper and I found a couple and they had three young daughters. I think the oldest was nine. There was a five-year-old and a two-year-old. And the parents, the whole time, were on their phones. And there's these three little daughters waiting for their food. And the whole time the parents are like this. And I just felt so sorry and you can't intervene. I mean, I'm a communication specialist, I feel like saying "Get off your phones", which you can't, because they've got to realize it themselves. But these three daughters ended up playing with themselves and the youngest one obviously being two years old, running around and the parents disciplined her about three times. But I looked at that and I said, "You don't realize that you are the problem, being on your phone". So I always say, if you don't need it, if it's not urgent, you need to prioritize your time. So you can say to the child, "Look, two minutes. I've just got to message this person. I've just got to send this email". Then put it away and try to spend time with them. And we need to prioritize our kids and the communication factor. And I always say it starts at home because whatever starts at home is related to work. If you're successful at home, you're successful at work. If you communicate well with your spouse and your kids and your parents and whatever, you communicate well at work. A lot of people don't think it's interrelated to them. And every day a lot of people in corporate go to work for eight hours a day. You're spending eight hours with someone that is a colleague and you might not like that colleague, but you spend more time with your colleague than you do with your own spouse. Because you only see them at night, in the morning and the weekend. You spend more time with your colleague than your child. So say if you can practice communication at home and at work, it has a bounce-off effect and you'll find that you're more open with people. And life is to be lived once. I mean, tomorrow - if you think about it - if you didn't go to work, they would replace you. But if you had to pass away, God forbid, the next day, your family would suffer. And I always say, "No one ever remembers what you have to say, but how you said it". When people pass away, a lot of my clients, they always look at pictures of their moms and their dads, their brothers, but they say, "I just want to hear their voice one more time". And I always say to clients, "Make sure you record your voice". All our iPhones, all our devices have recordings. It's free. And sometimes it's just life advice, which I like, it's what you do, Clint, your podcasts. Because your kids, can you imagine, in maybe even 10 years’ time, they are going to want life advice. And maybe you're traveling and you can't always talk to them. At least they can have somewhere to download your files, to inspire people. Because audio is so important when it comes to psychology and memory.

Interviewer: That's brilliant. I spoke to Carvin Goldstone. I labelled him the master storyteller, he's really good at telling stories and it just really, really struck a chord when you said, "We don't describe things anymore". And for me, I find it hard to describe things, with all these pictures. So is it something that we could work on? Even now as adults, is the dog too old, basically?

[00:14:02] Interviewee: No. We always have the saying "A dog is never old for new tricks". I've got clients, I had one neurologist, he was 74 years old and he spent his whole life figuring out the brain and surgeries and dealing with people with back injuries and strokes. And he came for an eight-week communications course and he said it was the first time ever in his life that he's actually heard his voice. Because every day you're in conversation with people, every day you're listening to what the person has to say, how to respond, how to diagnose. You're not paying attention to your pitch, your volume, your control, your breathing, your dynamics.

Interviewer: It's almost embarrassing, in a way. 

Interviewee: It is. Because he's this professed neurologist in our country and he goes to tons of conferences and he's like, "Oh, I didn't know that, my r's, I over-pronounce it". So what happens is, with our words, we need to be aware of how we sound, like recording our self every night. But also, what we can do is look at synonyms. A lot of clients, I say to them, "You need to get a thesaurus". And they go, "What, is that a dinosaur?" And I said, "No, thesaurus is a dictionary". They said, "What?" I said, "Yes, it's a dictionary for all the synonyms". So they're like, "What's synonym? Is it an ingredient?" I said, "No, a synonym is another word to describe something similar". And for example, we get very mundane. We say "That's very good. That's very great. That's good. That's good". All the time. I say change it up every week, adopt a new synonym.

Interviewer: I caught myself on my podcast. I always said the word "Interesting". I said "Clint, you have to stop saying the word 'interesting'. 

[00:15:47] Interviewee: Yes. So all you can do with Google, it's amazing. And when people use 'good', I say "Say perfect, say fantastic, say phenomenal, say amazing". All these words, you can even just Google every week and say, "What's another word, or what's the synonym, for interesting?" And then there will be at least 12 other suggestions and choose one of those. And every day, implement it. So every day say 'phenomenal'. "Oh, that is phenomenal. That's a phenomenal cheesecake. Oh, that was a phenomenal talk".

Interviewer: So you have to change it every week or something?

Interviewee: Yes. So say 'phenomenal' at least nine times a day with different circumstances applied to the right situation and then the next week choose another synonym. And you'll find that, "Oh wow, I'm learning new words". And also, the best place to learn and the cheapest place to learn is the newspaper. When we read, our attention span is so short, because on Instagram and Facebook we just swipe all the time. And I say, get the newspaper down, choose the front cover and read every single word out loud from every article on the front cover from the top to the bottom. And then you start to realize, "Oh, there's words there that I've never heard before. What does the word 'methodology' mean? Okay, let me Google it. Oh, it means this". I mean, Google is so amazing now, you've even got the Cambridge dictionary, you've got the normal Google, and it gives you the audio. So you can hear the pronunciation, the American and the British pronunciation of it. It's incredible. It's actually just us reteaching ourselves and keep on inspiring. I've got a bachelor of arts in English literature and a lot of people think, "Well, once you've studied there, that's enough". I'll still be learning new English words until I'm 90 years old. One of my goals in life is just to master myself. And that I think that's the process of it. No one can fully understand each language. And I believe also expanding our languages help. I'm fluent in Portuguese because I spent some time in Brazil and through that, a lot of words are similar. The letter structure...

Interviewer: You see similarities, don't you?

[00:18:08] Interviewee: English came from Latin. So in English you will have the word serpent. And in French the word serpent means snake. And then in Portuguese, there'll be a word 'differentia', which means differences. So it's not completely different. But I think the most important part of life is that we learn all the time, continue learning. My mom is one of the great examples. She got her PhD two months ago, in oncology nursing, in compassion fatigue. So she's looking at burnout for doctors who have cancer patients, so they get suicidal and depressed. So she looked at interventions and my mom's 56 years old and she got her PhD and she's continually learning all the time. And I get sick of it when people my age or in their thirties or forties say, "You know what, I've got a masters, I've got a PhD, I'm done for life". You're never done. And the learning is not always just at a university or courses. Learning is for anyone. Around us. I always teach this to my clients, in an office - like yesterday - I had 10 clients and within those 10 clients there were four languages, English, Afrikaans, Zulu and there were two Chinese people that spoke Mandarin. And I said, "Sometimes, if you notice someone who speaks another language, just ask them every week or every day, "What's the word for sugar, or milk, or conversation?" And you just get a little book and write it down. And then you've completely learned and you're starting to learn a new language". There are apps that are free, like Duolingo as well to help you with languages. But once you keep on learning, your brain develops new neurons and the more you have new neurons, the more intelligent and wiser you become, because you are more sensible and humbler to the world and it's understanding.

Interviewer: We did have a whole lot of questions. We kind of covered a lot of ground already, which is great. So I mean, we can always repeat some things. I was listening to one of the guys you recommended. 

[00:20:11] Interviewee: Yes, Julian Treasure. 

Interviewer: Yeah. And I really liked what he had to say and I know you learned from him and others. So when I was younger, I got a Larry King book and I was like, "Yeah, I want to learn how to speak better". And in that book, he was talking about something like prosody and all that. So I want to get down to that question, why is the use of vocal intonation or prosody important? For people to hear our voices so that we're not monotone and we're so boring? What do you have to say about that?

[00:20:44] Interviewee: So prosody, we normally simplify it in South Africa as emphasis and infliction. So when we're looking at the voice, there's all different aspects that you need to work on. Breathing, there's resonance, for example, if you're speaking from your chest resonance, your throat resonance, your nasal resonance. And then you look at all different aspects of the voice. But the most important we look through is prosody and modulation, which is really to say how your voice sounds different. So a lot of people are monotonous. They speak on one tone all the time. So their pitch is not falling through. And sometimes we practice pitch exercises, like when you're singing. Highs and lows, like if you can say the word 'sweet' for me?

Interviewer: Sweet. 

Interviewee: Very good. And can you say 'low'?

Interviewer: Low. 

Interviewee: So your e's and vocal range are normally higher pitch and your o's and ow's are lower pitch. So can you try say 'sweet', but say it low?

Interviewer: Sweet. 

Interviewee: Can you say 'low', high pitch?

Interviewer: Low. 

[00:21:53] Interviewee: Okay. It's uncomfortable. So what happens is, with our vocal range, you often find that we need to practice those through. So what we start doing is using infliction, because we use infliction every day. If you think about Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory, he was very sarcastic. So he was never asking the right questions. He might ask a question like, "Do you want a cup of tea?" You're not like, "Are you stating that? Or are you asking it?" So we have the rising infliction on "Do you want a cup of tea?" which is part of prosody, because it's an infliction. But if you have to denotate someone's name or let's say we have a really bad relationship with Larry, you'll put a falling infliction, you'll say, "Don't speak to Larry". So the Larry goes down at the end, the last R and the Y. So that's the importance when it comes to prosody because people know what you're saying. And they also have emotions to it. I'm not saying to you that Larry's a negative person, but just from the falling infliction of Larry's name, you know that you can't speak to him. So there's really a huge psychology behind prosody and how our mind wires it and it comes from parents as well. Because we have grown up with parents that speak a certain way. When we communicate at school, the teachers used to say to us, "Say the sentence". And we used to practice questions and answers as a child at school. So from there, our memory comes in and we know the differences between prosody high rising and falling, but sometimes when it comes to life, that falls away and we forget. So we really have to go back into that and make sure that we are asking right questions. I have a lot of corporate clients that end up asking this question, "Is the report finalized?" But they'll say, "Is the report finalized?" And you're like, "Is that a statement? Is that a question? Are you interrogating me?" If you want to talk fast paced, make sure that it sounds like a question. "Is the report finalized?" You might emphasize report. So 'is the' will be quite plain, 'report' will be emphasized, 'finalized' will then have the rising or falling infliction. Naturally, when there's quite a severe circumstance like death or if there's been an accident or something very negative, our voice will automatically go to falling inflections. Like "I'm so sorry to hear that". So it will continue to go up and down, up and down, but it's important to have prosody, so people can understand the emotion also behind it.

Interviewer: Very good. You spoke about speech formula patterns that you teach. Let's say there's somebody listening to us right now. They want to get better at public speaking or they speak at their work, they do lunchtime talks, whatever they do. It's quite popular at my company where I work. And they want to be better at talking. So do these speech formative patterns play into that scenario?

[00:25:09] Interviewee: Yes, they do. So speech formula is looking like the mathematical equation of how to make something. When you look at for example a cake, you need the ingredients for the cake to make the cake. Because if you don't have ingredients, the flour, the eggs, the milk, the sugar will just sit there. So when we look at the ingredients and we look at the cake, we need our method and that's what we look at speech formula for. We have our ideas in our brain on one side and then we have our speech on the other, but we're really not sure how to patternize it. So some people come on and say, "Hi everyone. Today I'm going to talk about..." The next minute as they're talking, something else comes up or someone talks to them. So they need sort of a structure. And that's what we call 'speech formula'. So there's all different types of speech formulas that you can find online that you can apply for. You do have your basic speech formula, which we also use for essays. So we normally say with that assignment or your speech formula, we have your special start. So you always start with your audience - be it in person or on radio, or whatever - with something special, to get their attention. Because you have seven seconds to get your audience's attention. 

Interviewer: That's not a lot of time. 

[00:26:30] Interviewee: So if you start "Hello everyone, welcome today...", you've lost the audience. A lot of people end up doing that. They'll say "Today I'm going to read..." and then all of a sudden everyone's off. So you can start a speech, general speech formula, special start, people like to use humour. Like a joke. Some people use statistics. I had a client once, she runs Blue Sky Society Trust. So they look at elephant conservation in Africa and she started with a statistic and she said "Did you know that 42 elephants are killed every day in Africa?" And then the whole audience kept quiet. That's the special start. Now you've got your audience's attention. So once you've got your audience's attention from the special start, just do your introduction. So you say "Today I'm going to be talking about..." And your introduction shouldn't be long. Normally with writing, we write a paragraph, it should be two sentences. So you can say like "Today I'm going to be talking about how to effectively use your voice for public speaking". Very simple. And then the basic speech formula you go through is your middle. So you cover a couple of points and then you summarize at the end and that's it. But I've managed to come through different speech formula patterns with different clients. And as the one I discussed with you here, I'm just gonna read it out a bit, as prep. So I've got a couple of clients that are in government as well. And what happens is, they need to have a type of acronym. And I love acronyms. I think they are fantastic because it helps you remember what you have to say. So the one that is often used is 'prep'. Like a preparation. So the P is 'presenting that idea', what are you presenting? So you might say, "I'm presenting a new water system to happen in the city". And then R is for the 'reason of the idea'. So you put statistics, the needs, the complaints, the recommendations. So you can say, "We've had a dire situation in Cape Town where there were water problems. There was dehydration and they're all statistics. Everyone knew about it. It was all over the world". Complaints, recommendations. And then you talk about the 'efficiency'. So you're going to say, "How will this idea be implemented?" The time frame and quality controls. So you can't say, "Oh, we will get it fixed next week". You've got to say, "Okay, it's a five-year plan or it's a ten-year plan and the Department of Waterworks or the local government or the different water companies across the world will be coming in. They will be constructing a dam or constructing new pipes". So you've got to talk about the efficiency of it and then you end it off with the 'purpose'. You have to sort of re-incline why we need it. So who will benefit, how the community will find purpose with this idea and where will this idea factor be within the next 5 to 15 years? Because we've always got to look to the future aspect if you want something positive. And this prep-acronym that we use as a speech formula has helped so many clients. Because sometimes they will get people asking questions at the R or at the E, the efficiency. And then they just summarize and remember, "Oh, I've done P, I've done R, I've done E. Well let me finish up, I've got five minutes left, let me finish the P". And it helps you in your mind to just gauge control of what you have to say, how you've said it. And also ending off on a positive note, making sure everyone will benefit. Because when people listen to you, they want to benefit in some way. So that is the speech formula framework. I'll go through them again, for the listeners out there, P: to present the idea, R: the reason for the idea, E: efficiency, and P: purpose, that is prep. So you can try and shape your speech patterns or formulas into that. It could be that you're talking at your school, it could be that you are talking at your office, it could even be a wedding speech or that you are doing it for a friend. That speech formula will help you to summarize and be concise. And it will help you summarize what you have to say and coherent in what you say.

Interviewer: Yeah, that's a nugget there for the listeners. So go ahead and use that from Tamara, prep. So Tamara, we've spoken about some really good things thus far and I'm just conscious of time here. So I want to move on to eye contact, because it's something that I'm not the best with, at the best of times when I should be doing it. Because it probably takes a bit more effort to do it. But with eye contact, we talk about when we talk to someone and when we are listening. People who are not confident, they struggle with that. But how do we deal with it? How much emphasis should we put on eye contact?

[00:31:34] Interviewee: I think quite a lot of emphasis on eye contact is very important, because within the digital age, we do become very distracted. So our eye contact is always going somewhere else. Even right now, I'm talking to you on Skype, if I just had to - while I'm talking to you - start looking over here, you can see that my eye contact is completely away from the screen. So then you feel like the person's not listening. So that often happens, I've got clients who like to take notes on their phone when they're in a meeting, so they're taking notes and then I say to them, "But then your team doesn't feel that you're interested". And they said, "Yes, that's so true". Because often they get told, "Are you listening? Is that important on your phone?" So I said "Rather take notes so they can see that you're not just distracted, but you are listening and they obviously have something valuable to say if you're taking notes", on paper and pen. Getting back to the importance of writing. Writing is so important. Typing is using the one side of your brain. Writing is using both sides of the brain at once. So writing is so important, as well as people feel that you're listening, especially with eye contact as well. So if you're taking notes, you're looking up to the person and you're writing, they can see it's more important than if you were on your phone. Because how often do we also just look on the phone for other things? We get distracted and see messages and emails. So with eye contact, you can also practice this through. So for example, the tellers at the shops, I don't know if it's in the UK, I know sometimes they have those self-service tills, which I got very confused about two years ago when we were trying to use them. But what I liked to say is, often enough when we go to the tellers, we don't think we need to look into their eyes. We just say "Hi, here's my card". We're almost too scared to use eye contact and I say use it as a practice with people around you. We do have like a cultural cloak sometimes to some cultures, especially in South Africa, they're told not to use eye contact, because it's disrespectful. For example, in the Zulu culture, in the Islamic culture, young women aren't allowed to use eye contact. But when it comes to the professional climate, I say we have a cultural cloak. And what we do is we take off our cultural cloak and we hang it on the door and we ask people permission. We are going to say to them, "Every one, I'm going to be using eye contact today. Not to be flirtatious, not to be disrespectful, but to talk human to human". And then you've got to work on your eye contact as well. Practice going through every person in the room, one by one. You don't want to bulldoze someone and give them direct eye contact or intimidate them, because they're probably going to run away. But you also don't want to avoid them. Because sometimes you don't like someone in the office. We all have people that we don't get on with, it's human nature. But if we completely avoid that person and talk to everyone else, that person who you are avoiding will take out their phone, take out their laptop and start talking to the person next to them. If you don't like the person, give them eye contact. Obviously don't be demeaning eye contact, but give everyone adequate eye contact and that's something you need to practice. You also have to assess it. I know there were studies being done at Cambridge University that children and animals, pets at home, they felt to be important in more adult contact. They felt that they needed a screen in front of their face. Because when you get home after a long day at work, you have your phone in front of your face. So kids and animals are growing up thinking that this digital device is important to have contact. And you know that when you come home from a long day, if you have a dog, he'll probably look at you and your eyes. The same with your kids. So we know eye contact is important, but somehow through awkwardness and all sorts of different types of disrespect, we think we can't use it. So it's something for you to practice with, making sure everyone feels included in the audience, as well as just practicing and implementing it every day.

Interviewer: Yeah, I notice that, the other day I was in a social environment. There were a few guys talking. But one guy kept on talking at me and I'm quite conscious of body language and eye contact. And so, is it important that that person be rather looking at all the people in the group? Or is it just natural that people are like, "Oh he's an interesting person, I'm talking to this guy"? Even when there's three other people around?

[00:36:14] Interviewee: It is hard, because I'm also a body language specialist, so I do assess the whole element. People who are tilting their heads, moving their hands, which fingers are moving. So sometimes you might find that someone's more comfortable with you, because you get people that are socially awkward. So they might find that by looking at you, you might not even know it, maybe in the circle of group of friends, you might have had someone who doesn't like eye contact. That they grew up in a family that doesn't use eye contact at all. And I think it's a British nobility thing, as a British culture, that if you don't like something, you turn your head away. So often we don't see things, like class and being superior and that's all to do with eye contact. So you might find that someone's grown up in an environment where they don't like eye contact. So this person might've been talking to them and they're looking on the floor, they're looking up or they're looking away. It's also very militant eye contact as well. So, in the military you don't use eye contact, you don't look anywhere but at the target. So when it comes to eye contact, sometimes that person might have felt more comfortable looking and talking to you because you're engaging with them. But then you feel like, "Okay, he's just talking to me" and you might then see that those people actually move off. And then it becomes a one-on-one conversation. And then they are probably thinking, "Did I say something wrong?" Meanwhile, it was just eye contact. You never looked at them. It's so important.

Interviewer: We spoke about the body language and our posture and folding arms. And I find that quite difficult. And you had something to say about that as we were growing up. About when we're crossing our legs. What is it that you tell your clients about the actual body itself?

[00:38:09] Interviewee: When we are speaking in public, so public can be one-on-one or it could be quite a few people, you might find that you are feeling uncomfortable. Now this could be for various reasons. It could be that you don't know the person. It could be climate, that you're actually quite cold and you need a jacket. It could be that you're just tired. But your body language, without you knowing, is sending off signals. Let's for example say that I don't know the person, or even in public, we're having a conversation, I'm feeling uncomfortable. So your body, psychologically, if you think about it when you were a child, we were hugged, we were held. When we fell on the floor, our parents would hold us. If you think of a baby, when they were born, they were swaddled, they were held. So in our subconscious, we have those psychological emotions that come through. So when we're feeling uncomfortable in public, you might find that you actually hold yourself. So that is crossing the arms, this is a comforter. So right now, I feel very good. So I have clients that sometimes sway. And that goes back to the swaying mechanism of when you were a child. So right now, I could have a really good voice and I could have correct pronunciation, a great facial expression. I could have a fancy suit on and amazing jewellery, but me just swaying and closing my arms is really distracting you. So it doesn't matter how you sound, your body has to be in sync with your voice. So what we always say is looking at gestures, finding out the right gesture to use, descriptional gestures. Because sometimes people use their hands too much. But also having your hands just on the sides of your body is better, so you don't fidget too much, we are not closed off. I do find a lot of clients, especially in corporate, they end up putting their hand here. And they think it's to be taken seriously. But if someone's looking at you like this, it's almost a closed body posture. So that's the most important thing that we need to look at, getting rid of our comforters. Some people use words as a comforter, like 'hmm' or 'ah'. A lot of people use the word 'so' or 'like'. So, to continue. So, so as we, so, so, so or like, like this, like that, like that. So the words are often used as a comforter for something you're feeling. Like insecure, you're not practiced in your speech, you're not practiced in public speaking. And it happens. But we always say, take a deep breath in, go back to your normal body stance, and you carry on. And it's about letting you have a deep breath. And you know, [00:40:55] said "There's nothing wrong with silence". A little bit of silence can't do any harm, especially if you're rushing and rushing and rushing. Your breathing will be fast, your heart rate will be fast. There's nothing wrong with just doing a pause.

Interviewer: Pause, get your thoughts back together.

[00:41:12] Interviewee: And then re-engage with your audience. You would probably know that, with all your experience and radio and recording. But a lot of people don't know that, and they feel that they have to talk fast because people aren't listening or they're wasting someone's time. But the faster you speak, the more that you can make mistakes. So you need to take that pause, that deep breath in and then re-engage with your audience. 

Interviewer: No, the audience is not going to go anywhere. 

Interviewee: No, they're not. 

Interviewer: Not within two seconds. 

Interviewee: And people can always go over-time, as long as you ask them. If you're really engaging, you might say to everyone, "Look, I'm just going to be an extra two minutes. Is that okay with everyone?" And more than likely, no one - unless they're very rude - will say "No, you can't".  So you can always ask the audience and just remember, when you have an audience, it's like having a conversation, everyone thinks it needs to be a performance. And within drama and performance, what I've studied, it's important to see the audience and yourself as a performance. But also, it's a general conversation. Can you just have a conversation with 50 or 100 people at once instead of one-on-one? So if we can treat each other just like a general conversation, be more comfortable, you'll feel more comfortable and they will listen to you more of what you have to say. 

Interviewer: And then it could be more influential.

Interviewee: Yes.

Interviewer: Which leads me on to listening and being influential. So... There's that word 'so' again. 

[00:42:43] Interviewee: It's fine. Don't worry. It also happens to me. And I'll be honest with you, because everyone thinks that when you're a coach, you supposed to be 100% perfect. I also review and analyse people in public. If you watch Prince Harry in the UK, he often has a comforter where he puts his hands in his pockets and he's been taught in public speaking because you can see it. Look up a couple of videos with Prince Harry, you'll find that he'll try put his hand in his pocket and then he'll take it out. So it's somewhere in the back of his head and he's like, "Oh, I shouldn't do that. Let me undo that". So even people in big public areas, people in monarchy, they also make mistakes, but it's knowing about how to make your way around it. We're human, we're going to make mistakes. But it's about comforting, the thought of it afterwards, to practice. There's even the king of Jordan, king Hussein, he has a comforter and it's in speech. He likes to say the word 'tremendous' all the time. "It was tremendous. It was a tremendous time. We had a tremendous number of people". And that's his comforter and he's been doing public speaking for 34 years. So there's always areas that we can all improve on. So it doesn't matter if you're top in the monarchy or just an average person like me, you will always find ways to improve. 

Interviewer: Yeah. So this is going to be a good lesson for me. I'm on a journey. So my journey is one of  self-exploration, in a way. I've been intrigued by a lot of podcasts that I've been watching myself, with the London Real and Lewis Howes and Joe Rogan and Impact Theory, I've been watching all those guys. And so what I'm trying to do for my listeners, is to help them to be a better version of themselves and also to be confident about who they could be in the future. So when it comes to being somebody of influence, this is what I want to tackle right now, which is listening. Because sometimes we think that we always have to speak and speak to inspire and talk so that people can hear us. But what is it about listening? I've been listening to you awhile and I'm gaining a lot of information. But what could we do as listeners in a conversation? And it would also help us to influence people to say, "Hey, this guy is a good guy", even without saying words. "This guy is somebody who is influential". 

[00:45:18] Interviewee: Well, a couple of listening techniques I just jotted down here earlier this week that's important, it's also just about knowing that the person is listening. So sometimes when you're talking to someone, you know they're listening if they're doing something like vocal or verbal signals like 'ah hah', 'yes, really', or nodding their head. I always say, put digital devices away. So, if you are influential and you know that you're making an impact to your audience, not a lot of people will be on their phones. And you are allowed to, as the speaker, to ask everyone to put their phones away. It's okay, I often say it. The biggest group I've ever taught was about 400 students at UK's Den, they've got this new thing where every student has a laptop. And I just say to everyone, 'I just want to this to be a professional climate. Please, could you just put your laptops away? And then once I'm finished, you can open them up again". I think it's very important information. You don't need your digital devices. You might find one or two people might have to take a call that is urgent, which is okay. But if you can address it in the beginning, you're going to help with problems later on. So I always say, put all digital devices away. Use your posture inclined towards another person. So what happens is, my body posture is right now to the computer to you. You know I'm talking to you. If I just had to swivel my body posture just over here, you can see my shoulders are posturing towards - obviously you can't see - the door. But if I had to talk to you like this, I can turn my head, but you will know that I'm not really listening because my posture's inclining towards somewhere else. We always say: Don't let architecture stretch your body. If a chair is stuck or even a podium is stuck, you can still move around on stage. There's nothing wrong with a short walk to get your audience's attention. I have a lot of clients, who have podiums at the city halls, who are stuck on the stage. And I say, there's nothing wrong with walking forward, backwards. Don't get stuck behind the podium or the microphone. Sometimes, if your audience is quiet enough, you can talk without a microphone. It's all about vocal projection. Or I get a handheld microphone. We'll try walk through with a microphone on a cord. But make sure your posture is always - we call it sometimes the performance V - so everyone is in your V. Make sure your audience is in your V, that no one's behind you, your posture's inclining towards everyone and that you can be open and talk to them. Because a simple thing like a square, if you have a boardroom and no one's in your performance V, then someone is going to feel left out. And then they won't be listening. Another one is use open arms and hands to show that you're listening. If you're pointing at people, people will start feeling a bit destructive, "She's singling people out". Also, if you have your hands closed, a lot of people do this, which shows sincerity, but at the same time it is closed. So, you know people are listening also when you mirror their body language. If they're open, they're like, "I agree with you". Then you know they are listening. Make sure your back is always straight, your shoulders are composed, it shows you are awake and listening. There's nothing worse than talking to an audience like this.

Interviewer: Slouched in their chairs.

[00:48:56] Interviewee: Because they are going to fall asleep. With some presentations, especially if I'm presenting towards the end of the day and people have been sitting in six and seven hours of meetings, I say to everyone, "Everyone stand up, take a deep breath in, breathe out and sit down". And then they're like, "Oh, that was refreshing". And that was a couple of seconds and their backs are straight, they're listening again. So sometimes you physically have to put them in that element. Nodding your head, using vocal or verbal signals like, 'aha' or 'yes, really'. And then also ask for clarification. So I often use this with my clients and I think it's so important. When you're talking to someone, get your fingers out of your hands and you portray it as 'what', 'when', 'how', 'where', 'who', and also 'why'. So we always say what happens. So when you're talking to someone and they are over-expressed and emotional, they are rushing you say "Okay, can you tell me what actually happened?" And then you move on to "When did it happen?" Time, what part of the week, the day, whatever. Then you say "When did it happen?" And then you say "How did it happen?" "Where, who was there? And do you know why it happened?" And with those simplistic things, already they know that you're listening, because you're asking for specifics. So you are reverting back questions to them. And that really helps with listening skills. 

Interviewer: There is a steep rise in podcasting. I think it's because people, maybe they want to learn more. I don't know. Is there more of an appetite for education? I'm not too sure. Maybe there is, because for me personally, I'm starting to listen to more podcasts. I want to learn more, I want to become a better version of myself, I want to transform, I want to be on this journey of bettering myself. And so, there's this rise in podcasting and with the rise in podcasting, people need to talk and people need to listen. It's important then that, if you're going to be a speaker, that they take on some of this advice that you've been into. You've given us a lot of recommendations already today, but are there some resources out there? What could people do as a next step, to take their communications to the next level?

[00:51:29] Interviewee: There are a lot of free resources on Google, there are also different vocal coaches in the world. And there's all different types of training companies that you could join. You could also always follow me on Instagram or LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn as well. There's a lot of places like the New York business insider, the London insider, they talk about communication skills, because if we look at soft skills, everyone used to call them soft skills. So people thought, "Oh, it is to be softer". So they've re-branded it as communications skills, which is much better. It all has to do with listening, to speaking and reading and writing and all these types of things that you need. But I think the most important is being aware of how you speak. And I think if anyone wants to do a podcast or any type of audio or going to speak in front of people, you need to go home tonight, take one page of a book, choose a random page, number 72, and read it out loud and record it on your phone. And after that, listen to it. And if the first thing that comes to your head is, "Oh, my voice sounds horrible!", then you know you need to work on it. Because you don't have a relationship with your voice. We're born with a voice and we die with a voice. But a lot of people end up not knowing how they sound. So you need to build a relationship with your voice. And that's what I do as a vocal coach, I often train people, but you can do it yourself. And through that, you need to start recording every week how you sound. So you can start to hear if there's improvements. The most important factors I look at is pace, modulation as you know is prosody, breathing and emphasis. So rarely looking at the pace of your voice, notice that most influential speakers use pace. If you are on a podcast and two minutes in, you are hearing, [talking fast] "Welcome today, and as we go through here, we're going to, la, la, la, la, la". That's all you hear. You'll switch it off. You know, so look at your pace. You don't always have to stop at the full stop or the commas. You can choose pace whenever, there's a difference between written and spoken language, like written and spoken English. So maybe after every two or three words you might pace yourself. 

Interviewer: So changing the pace?

[00:53:52] Interviewee: Yes. Changing the pace, you create your own pace. You might have a sentence, for example that will have no commas and only a full stop. "Hello today we're going to talk about the world". So there are no commas, just a full stop. Now if you had to talk with that on one breath with no pace, it would sound like this. "Hello we're going to talk about the world". So maybe for my example I'll say "Hello. Today, we're going to talk about, the world". So I've already added in two pacing lines. You, however, might do differently. You might say, "Hello, today, we're going to talk about the world". So you've got to figure out your pace. But pace is so important with speaking. You obviously don't want to be too monotonous with pace, like saying "Today.. we.. are.. going to.. par-ti-ci-pate in..", obviously those are the politicians, because they've been taught about pace, but they do it incorrectly because they're not practicing it. So you really have to figure out, where does your pace come into? And the next would be then modulation, the prosody. So looking at how you say words, are you going to be influential? Or are you just going to speak on one tone all the time? Because if you have good pace but you are speaking very low, you might find that your audience will doze off. If you're talking for 20 minutes and you really want to look at the fact that you want to sell something or you want to talk about the importance, you've got to find out when you can re-invite your audience to feel enthusiastic about what you have to say. For example, a song. You get the chorus of the song, that's the part when everyone goes mad, they love the chorus. You've got to find a part of your speech that has a chorus. If we had to take the song Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, the whole Bohemian Rhapsody doesn't really have a chorus. But it continually goes up and down and up and down and up and down. But everyone knows that the most amazing part is the opera 'Galileo' and that guitar solo at the end. So obviously they emphasized to that point, but if Queen took the Galileo and the guitar solo by Brian May and put it in the beginning of the song, it wouldn't have the same impact. So you've got to look at your speech like Bohemian Rhapsody, which part of it do you want to emphasize? How are you going to emphasize it? Through pitch, through influence? You might play a song, you might even stop for a pause. It's really important. And with those things, you're going to look at inflection, asking your audience questions. And one thing you should do is ask your audience questions, you shouldn't lecture. When I was working at UK [00:56:51], I found that every time I did workshops or lectures, you've got to influence your students to keep awake. And the way you do that is with questions. Ask people questions. Don't always state the facts. Say to them, "How many of you got eight hours of sleep last night? Did you get to sleep last night or did you suffer from insomnia?" But if you had to state "Many people don't get to sleep at night, they suffer from insomnia", it's completely different when you turn it into question, because you personalized it in your audience. So they want to listen. And then I forgot what other elements I was talking about. [laughs] Mainly modulation, asking questions. And pace is the most important part when it comes to speech. And really also being enthusiastic. 

Interviewer: Yeah, you have to love your topic, don't you? 

[00:57:40] Interviewee: We've got to have more fun as people. We're so boring all the time. And then we have this Instagram post and we go and quote this amazing quote. I say every day should be enthusiastic. Like Leo Buscaglia, who I completely loved. If you watch this video online, it's called 'Only you can make the difference'. It's on YouTube, but it was recorded many years ago and he was saying that he would love to greet people on campus. He was the type of person that would say "Hello!" And he sometimes would get strange responses from people and they would say, "Do I know you?" And he says, "No, but wouldn't it be fun?" And the person said, "No, it wouldn't". So he walked off and then he said the next day he would go along the campus and say "Hello!" And the person would say, "Do I know you?" He said, "Yes, we met yesterday". So the whole element of it is just being fun again. You never know when that person comes back into your life, that audience member. They could end up being your next boss, your next partner in work. Maybe your family ends up marrying them. But the amazing thing about people is that we need to keep connected and we need to be enthusiastic. And if you're enthusiastic in your podcasts, you will find that people will listen to you. Also start to assess people that you listen to, on podcasts, there might be a certain people you want to listen to more. If we look at political figures, like Barack Obama in the USA, he had a very soft, comforting voice. Donald Trump, he has a very loud voice. Some people like it. Some people like Barack Obama, we may never know. But when you listen to your podcast, think of the people you currently listen to and assess their voice. Not to be a copy of their voice, but look at the elements. Do they talk loud or soft? Are they enthusiastic or boring? Do they use high pitch? Do they use low pitch? Where do they speak from their resonant passages and what do they have to say? Look at the words they use. Are they simplistic words, are they academic words? Maybe they repeat words throughout. And those elements apply to your own podcast and see how you are talking, how you can inspire others around you.

Interviewer: Tamara, it's really been great talking to you and I'm really going to take on board some of this advice that you've given. Hopefully improve the podcast, yes. It's been really good. 

[01:00:12] Interviewee: That's great. I'm so glad I can help you inspire. And I love to inspire people everywhere, to realize that you don't need a lot. You just need your voice to inspire. And certainly as people, we have a lot of noise around us. A lot of the time, we have audio clips or we have pictures and we have things flashing. But the most phenomenal people, if you think about it in your life, talks you've gone to, people you've listened to, they didn't have all that noise. It was just themselves. And that's the phenomenal part of about life. I think one of my most amazing performances, I have watched many people across the world, I've watched U2 live, Coldplay live, Foo Fighters live and if I look at U2, Coldplay and Foo Fighters, who happen to be my favorite bands, and I've watched them live and I've also watched Elton John and Mariah Carey. I've watched performances like Cats, all sorts of things. But within U2, Coldplay and Foo Fighters, the lead singers, Bono, Chris Martin and Dave Grohl, the most important part of the concert is when they get personal with the audience. When they sit on the edge of the stage with the guitar or they just sing with the audience. And that doesn't cost a lot. There's no noise, there's no extra lights. They normally black down the stage and people love that, because they're like, "Oh, they actually know their audience". And I think sometimes we need to take that sort of performance act and apply it with our audience. Be more personal, be open, but also be happy and enthusiastic.

Interviewer: That's great advice. Tamara, it's been really, really good having you. 

[01:01:51] Interviewee: Yes, I'm so grateful and yes, if you ever need to contact me, you know where to contact me from. And I think it would be great when I cut through next year, we need to meet up. I just want to finalize my flying dates and then I'll let you know where I'll be running around. [laughs] And we can definitely collaborate or do something. And I wish you well on your journey with podcasts. I will be listening more tentatively. I haven't had time to go through it, but that would be great. And well done for inspiring people, I think you're on a great track. I see you interviewed quite a few people so far. And I'm glad I got into the beginning phase with you, because I know Clint will be up there in the big podcast world. 

Interviewer: I'll never forget. So how can people get a hold of you? What's your handle at Instagram?

Interviewee: My handle on Instagram is very simple. It's @tamaranicolawentzel. That is the handle.

Interviewer: I'll put it on the screen as well. 

Interviewee: Thank you. It's the same for LinkedIn as well. Because I'm quite active with LinkedIn. And yeah, you can get a hold of me, you can follow me on my journeys, I always upload wherever I'm traveling to. It could be just a cup of tea with a zebra in the background. [laughs] Wherever it is, I like to make it fun and interactive. 

Interviewer: Well, thanks Tamara!

Interviewee: Thank you so much, Clint. Bye.