Speaking your way to Success – 3

Do you think, people who are good speaker have a great style? rather they have to have a style, a certain kind of mannerism, always charged, smiling, cracking jokes, absolutely witty, have good attractive voice? If you think so, then let me tell you a fact, a fact which you should believe – Average people with natural speaking voices can deliver outstanding presentation.

One should always speak in a manner, tone, accent, dialect language one is comfortable in. You should sound like you, not like someone else. When you are speaking the audience wishes to listen to you and not some caricature or poor imitation of some great speaker.

You must have heard about a great radio announcer called Mr. Amin Sayani, yes announcer; at that time round jockeys use to ride horses not play records. Some of you might have heard him also, and those who haven’t please check on the internet you sure would find recordings of many of his interviews and shows on YouTube. When you listen to him, you would also remember that many people imitate him, and those who have heard the original most certainly won’t like the imitation. Imitation can be good for entertainment but certainly not good for serious presentation and speeches.

One of the most widely accepted myths of public speaking is that a speaker must take on a different persona while on the platform. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Speaking is about communicating and communicating is about connecting. So the key to become a good speaker is to establish a connect, a bond with your audience.  The successful speakers bond with their audience by being themselves and speak in a normal, down-to-earth manner.

Public speaking is not acting, neither is it a performance. As speaker Kirk Kirkpatrick says, “If you are merely putting on a show for the purpose of appearing to be a showroom, your audience will know it and resent it, and they will turn you off.”  It is futile to mimic other professional speakers. While you can gain valuable insight by watching others and will learn from the tools they use to enhance their effectiveness, you should never attempt to copy them. It just doesn’t work. Martha Burgess, famous speaking coach advices “You need to live up to your potential instead of imitating someone else’s.”

If you think you must dramatically change your style when standing before a group, you are making a serious error that will perpetuate your speaking fear. When you consciously imitate someone you are under pressure and become very conscious, which further magnifies your fear, which your audience can easily sense, and might not respond favorably, which may seriously affect your confidence and your ability to be a good speaker. When you think public speaking as a performance, anxiety and nervousness begin to build. That apprehension, however, can be quickly dispelled, if you start connecting, building relationship with your audience.

The uniqueness of one of most successful standup comedian Kapil Sharma is his ability to connect with the audience, right from script to the way he speaks, its conversational, his likability is due to this connectedness. Amitabh Bachchan as KBC host created history of sorts, apart from his start value, people loved the way he connected with most ordinary people of the society and gave them respect. Those who remember during the 1^st or 2^nd season of KBC another show was launched Sawal 10 Crore ka with Govinda as a host and another one where prize money was 100 crore and show host was Anupam Kher, but both the shows did not work, despite one having 10 times and another having 100 times the prize money. You may watch the recordings on the YouTube, and you would easily understand what made one show click and others despite having more lucrative prize money bombed. Even if you do not give entire credit for success or failure to just one element, it certainly was one of the most significant elements.

Another element of the show hosted by Mr. Anupam Kher was, his mocking style when a person used to lose in the game. I trust that also didn’t go well with the audience and helped the TRP to slide and shows to be taken off the air. Never, ever “talk down” to an audience or assume you are somehow superior. At the same time you are also not inferior. I am OK you are OK attitude is best approach for communicating. You should also not act sugary, extraordinarily humble it would be visible and people would consider you fake. Don’t try and be the person you are not. The only assumption that you should make is that you are equal with those in front of you – and have something worth sharing.

Don’t lecture, talk, connect, and speak. Lecture is one way, audience needs someone to communicate with them. Communication is always a two way process, take out connectivity and off goes your audiences’ attention.  No one wants to attend a lecture, yet most everyone enjoys a conversation.

Remember – Effective speaking is simple speaking.