A piece of advice I received when I first started as a speaker was to always be dynamic. Only years later did I realize that when you’re always dynamic, you’re no longer dynamic.
Take a look at the following video lesson (a sample lesson from my 50SpeakingSecrets.com program) to see why many speakers are making the same mistake I used to make and are losing their audiences as a result.
How do you Bring It Down to a Conversation?
A fantastic bit of advice I received from Patricia Fripp over a decade ago was to overemphasize whatever you need to fix in rehearsal. For example, if you need to work on slowing down, overdo it in rehearsal. In other words, speak MUCH slower than you ever would on the real stage.
If you need to be more conversational, than overdo it in rehearsal. Take it WAY down as if you’re having almost a whispering conversation with one person.
As a result, you’ll find the happy medium when you reach the real stage. I’ve used this “overdo it” strategy for everything from my diction to my pace to my conversational tone and even to my facial expressions.
Overdo it to overcome it
Your Turn
On a scale from 1-10, how conversational do you believe you are when you are outside of your story and speaking face to face with your audience?
What can you do to improve that score?
What a sobering question about your wife. That’s made me reflect on my own day-to-day actions!
As for how I’d score my conversational style, I’d say it’s about a 6. I mostly speak at work, and my bigger issue’s that I don’t use many stories to liven things up.
A few months ago I mentioned your “dynamic” line on my blog, showing how Jamie Oliver started his impassioned TED speech (on obesity) in quite a subdued way. So would you say the line can apply to building momentum during the length of a speech, rather than coming out with guns blazing and staying at that pitch right to the end?
Anyway, I’ll update the link in that post, so thanks for homing in on being dynamic!