As speakers, we tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the importance of public speaking and how we speak. 

We try to find ways to  connect with our audience and we try to be aware of anything that we are  doing that might take away from our speech. However, it turns out that  we also have another job that we need to be doing. We have to help out our friends and colleagues who are giving speeches.  Since this is something that we have spent time trying to become better  at, we are the ones who are best positioned to be able to help them to  become better also. 

What we need to learn to do is to help them during  the three stages of their speaking.

As speakers, we all know that creating a great speech is hard work. 

All  too often we can sit down to start to create a speech and have no clear  idea where we are trying to go or just exactly what points we want to be  making while we deliver our speech despite our understanding of the  importance of public speaking. As we put our speech together, things  just tend to go from bad to worse – our words start to fall over each  other and we end up with disjointed ideas and incomplete thoughts. We  all understand that our problem is not that we can’t write words down,  rather it’s that we can’t get our words to make sense.  The reason that we are running into this problem is because we are not  being clear in our objective. 

Instead, we find ourselves trying to say  too much and, as result, ending up saying nothing.

How lucky we all are. We get to live in these modern times with all of  the advantages that technology can bring to us. 

Yes, giving a speech is  still a difficult thing for any of us to do. However, it turns out that  if we’re willing to invite some technology to our next speech we can make the whole process a great deal easier and do a better job of sharing the importance of public speaking. I’m  sorry to have to tell you that you are the one who is still going to  have to stand up there in front of the audience and deliver a speech.  

However, there just might be ways to better prepare you to do that and  to provide you with some assistance while you are up there.

All to often when we are giving a speech, we do it in what is called the “classic style”. 

This means that we stand on a stage and we speak to  our audience and they listen to us because of the importance of public  speaking. This is a one-directional monologue.   However, times are changing. We are no longer limited to having to give  our speeches in this way. Our audiences want more interaction with us  during our speech. 

As speakers we need to understand what new tools are  available so that we can start to work them into our next speech.

All The World’s A Stage – Are You Using Yours?

As speakers, when we are standing in front of an audience, we are  actually pretty naked. All that we have to work with when we are giving  our speech are the words that are tumbling out of our mouths, some hand  gestures, and perhaps some props that we’ve brought along. That’s pretty  much it as we try to show the importance of public speaking. Unless you  realize that you actually have a very large visual aid that is just sitting there waiting for you to use it. What am I talking about? Why the stage that you are standing on, of course.

As speakers, the one thing that all of us want to do is to become better. 

We may go about doing this in a number of different ways. We may  take courses. We may watch videos of other speakers. We may have our  friends listen to our speeches and then provide us with feedback.  However good all of this is, in the end we may still not be getting all  of the feedback that we need in order to become better speakers. What we  really need to be able to do is to look at ourselves. 

We need to see how we look and how we act while we are delivering our speech. In order  to do this, we need to see ourselves on camera.

As speakers we spend a great deal of time worrying about the importance  of public speaking and what we are going to be saying the next time that we give a speech. 

We think about our topic. We mull over the words that  we’ll use. Finally, we lay out the sequence that we want to use in  order to share our thoughts with our audience. This is a lot of work.  However, it turns out that we may be missing a key part of what it takes to deliver a great speech. The way that we speak affects how our audience listens. In fact, how they listen, affects how we speak. 

Just exactly how are we supposed to make use of this circle of communication?

As speakers we often get a chance to hear other speakers present.  

Sometimes we’ll be memorized when a speaker puts on a show that  captivates their audience. They are able to deliver a powerful speech  for a number of reasons. Perhaps they have mastered the art of using  body language. Maybe they used props that caught our attention. However,  all too often it can be easy to get dazzled by things that are on the  surface of a speech and end up overlooking how a great speech is really  built: using words. 

The good news for us is that if we want to create a  powerful speech, all we have to do is to pick the right words.

When we give a speech, we really only have one main tool that we can use to communicate the importance of public speaking: our words.  

Our goal is to capture and hold the attention of our audience; however,  sometimes this can appear to be very challenging because all we have to  work with are words. However, what we need to realize is that we actually have a number of rhetorical devices that we can bring into play that can help us to achieve our goals. 

We just have to know what these devices are.

With a little luck, I think that we all understand the before we give our next speech we need to do some practice.  

I mean, you’ve put in the time to create your speech, you’ve probably  jotted down some notes, now it’s time to give it a run through in order  to make sure that it all works and you can show your audience the  importance of public speaking. However, this is where things can get a  bit tricky. Just exactly how much time should you allocate to this  practice thing? For that matter, just exactly what should you be doing when you practice? 

What do speakers have to do in order to be prepared to deliver a great speech?