In my last article I described how the below-conscious levels of our brain act as a security guard, choosing either to pass incoming information on to our thinking brain or to block it. That below-conscious (instinctive and emotional) brain bases its choice, to a huge extent, on whether the speaker looks, sounds and feels safe and appealing. My first suggestion of six behaviours to get you, the speaker, past the security guard of your listener’s brain is “Stand with energetic, open body language.”
I enjoy watching a program called “The Dog Whisperer” on National Geographic TV. It features a dog behaviour expert named Cesar Millan. I’m impressed at how often Cesar mentions the owner’s body language as a factor in generating the desired response from a dog or ending up with behaviour problems.
Dogs watch human behaviour with an intensity that would surprise most of us. They register every nuance of face and posture, taking cues for their own behaviour (or what they can get away with.) Cesar frequently instructs a dog owner to stand with upright carriage, “claiming their space” as leader of the pack. When the dog sees calm, dominant body carriage, she recognizes that the owner is in command. She can relax and be responsive, because her leader has everything under control. Without those behaviour cues from the human, the dog feels leader-less, an unnatural state for a dog, causing her stress and anxiety. Her uncomfortable mental and emotional state manifests in what the owner describes as misbehaviour and resistance, but from the dog’s point of view, she’s simply coping with stress.
I see the owner-dog situation as a direct parallel to the speaker-listener dynamic. While listeners may not be aware of it, their below-conscious brain registers every nuance of a speaker’s face and body language. These are silent cues that dictate response or resistance.
Consciously or unconsciously, the first thing your listener registers about you is body carriage. Does it show self-value and assurance, or is it unsure, or even, in dog-language, submissive? Your position as the speaker – one-on-one or to a large audience – makes you leader of that particular “pack”, for whatever length of time you are speaking. If your body language doesn’t match your position, you give a conflicting message to your listener’s below-conscious brain, making it feel as stressed as a leader-less dog. It registers an uncomfortable situation and resists. (Make no mistake, wandering attention is a form of resistance.) When you look like a leader, the watch-dog part of your listener’s brain is assured that you have everything under control. It feels safe to relax, respond, and allow the thinking brain to pay attention to what you are saying.
How many of us received instruction in good posture beyond, “Stop slouching!”, “Stand up straight!” or “Shoulders back!”? For me, the term “good posture” has become a bit tainted with the idea of rigidity, as if we were all meant to stand like soldiers on parade. I prefer to think in terms of body carriage rather than posture, lift rather than ramrod straight. In my book, “SPEAK UP!” I give a number of physical exercises to develop upright carriage. Today, let’s create a mental image for your body to fulfil.
Imagine standing inside a vertical rectangle. To claim your leadership space, you want that rectangle to be a large as possible. Rounding your shoulders narrows the rectangle, but squeezing your shoulder blades slightly so that your arms fall along the sides of your body pushes the sides of the rectangle outward. It also raises your chest. Now let the top of your head push the ceiling of the rectangle as high as possible. Do you feel how that pulls in your chin and stretches out the vertebrae of your neck? Shrug your shoulders and move your neck around to keep yourself relaxed and not stiff, but return to that chest-and-head-lifted, large-rectangle feeling. That’s leadership carriage. And in the words of Cesar Millan, “Remember to relax and breathe.”
There you stand at the front of the room. There sits your expectant audience, and the gap between you and them can feel as wide as an ocean. It’s up to you, the speaker, to bridge it, because only when you do will you have the full attention of your listeners. The question is, “How?” The answer: “By appealing to the correct part of your listener’s brain.”
You want your audience to think about what you’re saying. Therefore, your goal is to reach to the thinking, analyzing and decision-making part of their brain, the part called the “pre-frontal lobes”, located just behind the forehead. It’s a mistake, however, to imagine you will achieve your goal simply by appealing to that conscious, rational part of the brain. The route is more circuitous than that.
Words and images do not go directly from the ears and eyes to the pre-frontal lobes. First, the incoming sound waves and light energy are conveyed along nerves to parts of the cerebral cortex called the auditory and visual cortices. These are interpretive centres, translating the nerve impulses into recognizable sounds and pictures. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that the next stop would be the conscious part of the brain? Not so fast! Another destination comes first.
The limbic system is the seat of our emotions. It appeared in fossils hundreds of millions of years before evidence of pre-frontal lobes showed up. (The pre-frontal lobes, by the way, are also called the neo-cortex, or “new” cortex, since this part has only been around for three or four million years.) The most primitive part of our brain is the brain stem, or pons. The earliest evidence of this brain structure has been found in 500 million year old fossils of fish. The brain stem regulates the involuntary and instinctive functions in the body.
Emotions and instinct work in close partnership to ensure the survival of the human body that houses them. This brain stem/limbic system partnership is the next stop on the journey of information from the eyes and ears to the “new brain”. This partnership is a security guard, screening the interpreted sounds and images to determine whether or not they are a threat to survival. If the speaker is deemed safe, the incoming information is passed on to the frontal lobes for focused attention. If not, this “ancient brain” security guard has the power to barricade the pathway to the frontal lobes, and the speaker’s content is not allowed access to the thinking part of the brain. When that happens, the listener’s mind wanders off along any number of safer and more interesting paths of thought, and the speaker’s words are neither received nor remembered.
What’s important to realize is that the limbic system and the brain stem operate below the level of conscious thought. They don’t understand ideas and concepts. Their territory is behaviour, specifically body language and tone of voice. In plain terms, this means that everything you do and say in your presentation must pass scrutiny by the emotions and instinct before your listener’s thinking brain will pay attention to you. No matter how convincing your ideas are, you must show the security guard that you are both friendly and interesting to be deemed safe enough to pass its “gut response” test. How do you do that? By how you look and sound.
In my experience, there are six behaviours that will get you past the emotions/instinct security guard.
- Stand with energetic, open body language
- Speak with a vibrant voice and clear diction
- Make eye contact
- Tell stories
- Be yourself
- Smile
I’ll elaborate on each of these points in coming articles, but for now, stand tall, speak with enthusiasm and look your listener in the eye. And remember to smile! That security guard is your friend!
In a speaking engagement, it can happen that one or more people in the audience do not respond in a way that you would like. They might be typing on their smart phone or scowling at you from the front row. Do not assume these behaviours are about you!
An incident happened this week that points up the importance of not letting your self-view be shaped by anyone else’s opinion. A woman who has started a networking organization contacted me with an idea for providing professional development for her members. Her proposition was not a good fit for me, but rather than turning her down flat, I wondered, what could I offer her? I told her about my “Tips on Talking” blog, and said that as long as she gave me credit, she was welcome to reprint any of those articles in her online magazine, if she felt they would be helpful to her membership.
In her rather shocked-sounding refusal of my offer, my caller said, no fewer than three times, that it would be “unethical” of her to use my articles, and that she would never do that to her members. After the call, I was both puzzled and perturbed that she had, in effect, accused me of suggesting something that was morally wrong. What could possibly be “unethical” and a betrayal of her members to offer free access to resource material?
Eventually, I realized that she and I were looking at the issue through different “lenses”. I was offering my material, no strings attached, simply asking that the author (me) be credited. My caller’s organization, however, is all about self-promotion for entrepreneurs, so that’s the lens she sees through. What I didn’t know at the time was that her online magazine carries coaching articles by members only. It’s a benefit of their paid membership and part of their self-promotion. Oh. My caller must have heard my offer as an attempt to gain self-promotion without having to buy a membership. Seen that way, I agree, it would be unethical to reprint my articles. Except that self-promotion was the last thing I was thinking about! It was a classic misunderstanding, based on two people seeing an issue from opposite viewpoints.
Time was (and not so long ago) having unravelled the mystery of her reaction, I would have wanted to phone my caller back or email her, explaining the misunderstanding, and trying to change her negative view of me. I would merely have succeeded in digging myself deeper in a hole. Happily, this time I just let it go.
Here’s where this incident relates to public speaking. Audience members have the right to think of a speaker whatever they choose, good, bad or indifferent. As I see it, anyone who stands in front of a group is putting him- or herself in a kind of “line of fire”. Speakers who are unsure of themselves react by lowering their energy output, speaking in a monotone and avoiding eye contact. Why? They are unconsciously keeping their head down so nobody will shoot them! They become memorable only for how boring they were. But if anyone shoots “bullets” at you (that is, doesn’t respond as you would wish) those bullets are about the lens they are looking through, not about you. I read in a novel recently, “Never be put off by rude people; they are the ones being rude, not you.” Lift your head up! If you ramp up your energy, speak with a vibrant voice and make eye contact, your audience is more likely to throw flowers than bullets of disapproval.
No one likes to be misunderstood, rejected, or met with disapproval. The prospect causes unspeakable angst among performers and presenters – experienced and inexperienced alike. My caller may view me as greedy and unethical for the rest of her life. OK. That doesn’t mean I am greedy and unethical. You can’t control how other people respond or react to you, so don’t try. That’s not your concern. Your concern is to be assured of your own value so you can give confident, full-out value to your listeners. And, then! Ah, then you’re speaking from the inside out.
The presentation skills trainer on You-Tube was talking about positive self-talk. She said that when she’s getting ready to speak, she tells herself, “I’m the best! I’m the best!” In principle, I agree that you need to focus your thoughts in a positive direction. If you allow yourself to get caught in negativity and self-doubt, those thoughts will drag you down and down. Believe me; nothing that you want is down there!
In my experience, however, if you’re struggling with self-doubt and performance nerves, simply parroting, “I’m the best!” is worse than useless. It’s actively counter-productive, digging you deeper into the mire of negativity and fear.
No amount of reassurance can soothe a person if they don’t believe the words. Nothing anyone can say, for example, can convince a person suffering from anorexia that she isn’t fat. As a pre-teen, I became convinced I was ugly. When my parents tried to un-convince me by saying I was pretty, I said to myself, “They’re just trying to make me feel better. That must mean it’s really true. I’m even uglier than I thought!” Positive words that are too far away from what a person believes simply make the mind shout, “Liar!” and run in the opposite direction.
Words and feelings operate in different parts of the human brain. Language is a function of the cerebral cortex, whereas emotion is seated in the limbic system. The language of “I’m the best!” is a world away from the feeling of being terrified. Just as you can’t leap suddenly from despair to joy, you can’t leap from fear of public speaking to confidence just by saying positive words. It’s as if the neurons for the words and the feelings are firing too far apart. If we want positive self-talk to work, we have to find a way to get those neurons firing closer together. We have to find words that carry an idea your feelings can relate to – something that you feel is true.
Having walked this path, let me share with you the steps that worked for me.
- Start by finding a way to feel good – about anything. If you’re feeling bad, positive affirmations might just make you feel worse. Distract yourself from your upcoming presentation. Walk in the woods, listen to music, meditate or pet your cat. Do something to help someone else. Think about your grandchildren, your lover or your vacation. Do anything you can to get yourself into a relaxed, appreciative, good-feeling space. Feel good first before you work on your positive self-talk.
- Look for a thought that’s in the positive direction you want to go, but close enough to your current emotions that you can feel a resonance with it. Hmmm… like, “Even if I mess this up, I won’t be taken out and shot.” (Did you know that it’s impossible to laugh and worry at the same time?)
- Keep looking for thoughts that feel gradually better and better. Take baby steps.
“I won’t be fired based on this one presentation.”
“I’m eager to do a good job.”
“I’m still a good person, whatever my speaking ability is.”
“I have researched my topic, and I know my stuff.” (Make sure this is true, or your mind will call you a liar.)
“I have practiced my talk and I can operate my equipment.”
“If I get some coaching I’ll be better at this and feel more confident.”
“I don’t sit in judgement when others are speaking, so I’ll bet my audience isn’t doing that to me.”
“The audience wants me to do well, since they’ll have a better time if I do. So they’re already on my side.”
“If I focus on doing this for the audience, I won’t be concerned about myself.”
“I can speak with animation and emotion one-on-one. Since a group is just a collection of “ones”, I can speak that way to those “ones”.
“The people in the audience are my fellow human beings. I have as much right to speak as any of them.” (Don’t bring this thought in too early, or it might make you feel a bit belligerent.)
“I can do this! I can give value to my audience, and I can be good at it.”
As with any tool, positive self-talk only works when you use it correctly. By working gradually and thinking increasingly positive thoughts that you can feel agreement with, you will train your thoughts upward into a better and better-feeling place.
In my last article, I pointed to the paradox that a confident speaker is interested only in the audience’s good experience, yet the speaker’s ability to deliver a good-feeling experience springs from interest in his or her own inner good feeling. The fastest way I know to feel good inside is to be kind and caring of others. The speaker, then, needs to care so much about her own experience that she is willing to care solely about the audience’s experience! When she does that, she fulfills her own need to feel good, and is then in a position to deliver a good experience to the audience.
An attitude of caring outward (instead of self-concern inward) was what enabled me to move from fear to confident presenting. Let’s put that attitude into practical terms. What does it mean, in practice, to care about your audience? It means that everything you do, both before and during your presentation, is done with your listeners’, not your own, needs in mind.
What do they need from you? In broad terms, they need you to show them that you are in confident command of yourself. When you give listeners that, you enable them to relax, to open their minds and hearts and be comfortable with you. When you show confidence, you allow your listeners to have confidence in you.
Getting down to details, your audience has physical, intellectual and emotional needs that are your responsibility, as the speaker, to fill. Those needs could be the subject of many articles, but here are three basics.
- In a physical sense, they need to be able to understand your words. Few people are able to make an accurate assessment of their own diction, so seek an unbiased opinion. I’ve heard people with lazy, mushy diction who thought they were speaking with perfect clarity. Clear diction comes from crisp consonants and distinguishable syllables, which, in turn, come from energetic use of the lip and tongue muscles. If you’re not used to doing that, it will feel nothing short of weird when you try it. In fact, it will feel wrong! Nevertheless, persevere. If you care about your audience’s experience, you will make the effort to fill their need.
- Intellectually, they need only a few main points. They won’t remember more than three, anyway. And they need them presented as narrative rather than as data. Data is boring, but stories act like glue, sticking your ideas in the audience’s mind. Look for ways to present your ideas as stories, and save the dry data for a handout. Keep your stories short and to the point. Every story has lots of details, but does the audience need to know every participant’s name? If details are not necessary to the point of the story, leave them out.
- Emotionally, we all need to feel we belong. If a caring attitude toward your listeners holds full sway in your heart, it manifests in ways that fill that need. Far from fearing them, you make everyone in the audience know that you value and appreciate them. You smile at them. (So vital!) You don’t see them as a solid group, a faceless blob, but as individuals, and you look directly in the eyes of individual listeners. I once asked an audience member if it made her uncomfortable when I looked at her for several seconds while speaking. She said, “No! It makes me feel important.”
Caring about your audience means you behave in ways that directly enhance your listeners’ experience. It also makes you a more interesting speaker. In the introduction to his book What the Dog Saw, Malcolm Gladwell writes, “Self-consciousness is the enemy of ‘interestingness’.” He wasn’t talking about public speaking, but we can take a lesson from his words. In a presentation, the more interested we are in the audience, the less conscious we are of ourselves, and the more interesting we are when we speak.
When I read, “Kindness raises the level of serotonin in the body,” the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. The chemical serotonin has an impressive array of functions in the human body, but perhaps best known is its contribution to a feeling of well-being. Because of this contribution, it is sometimes dubbed “the happiness hormone”, even though it’s actually a neurotransmitter, not a hormone.
Have you noticed that the most engaging speakers have an aura of relaxed self-confidence? Clearly they feel good. They are coming from a state of inner well-being. How did they get there? A good speaker’s attitude toward her listeners is caring (a.k.a. kind) and her primary focus is the audience’s positive experience. The speaker’s kind attitude toward the audience raises her serotonin level, increasing her inner sense of well-being and self-confidence. In other words, she feels good in herself because she came out of herself to care about her audience.
There’s a paradox in this phenomenon that never ceases to intrigue me. We can only express positive energy if we’re connected to positive energy. If we want to have anything good to give others, we first need to feel good in ourselves. Without that, it’s like opening a faucet that’s not connected to the water main. It is in our thriving that we have something to give others. It makes sense to me, then, that our first priority as human beings is to feel good – to find and maintain (as much as possible) our own feeling of well-being. Is that selfish? Darn tootin’! It’s that very selfishness that makes us have benefit to others. Unless we are selfish enough to care that we feel good, our faucet is dry and our audience goes thirsty.
The quickest way I’ve found to feel good is to be kind and caring of others. We could call that “love”. Here’s the paradox I get such a kick out of: to be of benefit to others, my first interest must be myself – my own well-being, my own good feeling about myself; yet it’s a caring, loving attitude toward others that helps get me to that self-love. Why? Because our body is hard-wired to release the “feel good” chemical, serotonin, when we are loving and kind. Everyone functions better when they feel good. Moral considerations aside, it seems to me that being caring and loving is just plain efficient!
Performers who feel good about themselves have self-confidence. I began musical training and performing in very early childhood. I became skilled at singing, acting and polished stage presence, but underneath the veneer, I had very low self-confidence. It wasn’t until after I left full-time professional performing that I learned to be more interested in my listeners than in myself. Now speaking to an audience is pure joy. Finally I understand why the about-face in my focus made such a dramatic difference in my experience – from dread to joy. When my sole concern is to care about my audience – to love them – I’m working in harmony with the way I’m made. A kind attitude causes serotonin to flood through my body and I feel good. When I feel good, I feel confident.
Adrenaline is always uncomfortable, but if ever you find it building beyond the point where it is energizing and helpful, you’ve crossed the line from butterflies into fear. Pay attention to that feeling, because it’s telling you that you are caring in the wrong direction. Turning your caring around doesn’t come by magic. You have to work at focusing your thoughts on your audience’s experience instead of worrying about your own. I promise you that when you “get it”, when you come out of yourself so that the quality of their experience is all you care about, “stage fright” will be a thing of the past. You will stand confidently before your listeners and love them from your place of inner well-being. The bonus is that they will feel your energy and respond in kind.
Next time: how does caring about your audience translate into the practical terms of giving a presentation?
An interesting fact crossed my computer screen this week: “Doing and relating tame the amygdala.” The what? Spell-check doesn’t even recognize that word!
The amygdala is part of the limbic system of our brain. The limbic system, sometimes called the Mammalian Brain, contains our emotional centres. Every time you feel an emotion, some part of your limbic system has been activated and is sending out signals. Different parts of the limbic system are responsible for different emotions.
Fear and rage are centred in the amygdala, which is also the area that responds to a perceived threat. People suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) perceive a threat from, say, germs, causing their amygdala to spring into action. They do things like constantly washing their hands to counteract the perceived threat. There may not be a factual threat, but the point is that they perceive one. Their fear is real. Therapists have had success helping OCD patients using what’s called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. When the patient perceives the threat and its resulting fear, he or she consciously acknowledges that the feeling does not prove the fact, and that the problem is not outside, but inside, in the wiring of their brain. They understand that their amygdala is over-reacting, and then do some kind of enjoyable activity to intentionally change what’s occurring in their brain. The doing calms the amygdala. I wonder if it’s simply because doing something distracts it.
I have a young singing student who was having difficulty reaching the high notes in her song – not because the notes were out of her range, but because every time she got near them, her threat response fired up, causing her throat muscles to constrict. I asked her to focus solely on the shape of her mouth and the muscles of her face. When she did this, her voice sailed up to the high notes without the slightest strain. The doing distracted her mind away from the threat response, taming her amygdala.
Similar to OCD patients, people with irrational fear of public speaking (the majority of the population) have an amygdala that is on “red alert” in this field. They perceive a threat from the audience, even though rational thinking would show there is none, and counteract it by avoiding situations that would require them to speak to groups. In so doing, however, they forfeit a sense of self-confidence and accomplishment, and often even career advancement.
How can doing something benefit a speaker caught in this loop of threat response, fear and avoidance? One effective activity is intentionally lengthening eye contact with listeners. Reluctant speakers tend to seek refuge in their notes or script and make very little eye contact with their audience. If they do look up, their eyes skitter around the room, never resting in one place long enough to make a connection. It takes three to five seconds of eye contact to create connection with another person. That’s about how long it takes to make a complete point. For myself, I found that locking eyes with an audience member and speaking a complete point did not come naturally. I had to carefully practice it before I could do it with an audience. But once I developed some skill, I discovered that I was now so busy doing eye contact, my amygdala didn’t have time to get all fired up with threat response. The doing tamed my amygdala. What’s more, taking specific action gave me a sense of empowerment, pulling me out of a cowering victim consciousness. The result? Less fear.
The bonus of lengthened eye contact is that it increases your sense of relatedness with your audience. The more you develop your relationship with your listeners, the less your amygdala sees them as a threat. “Doing and relating tame the amygdala.” Why do we want that? Because we do our best work when we are not fearful, but assured. Anything that helps us get there is worth practicing.
 Some time ago I wrote about making eye contact when speaking in public. I think the subject deserves another…er…look. So here it is again.
Television broadcasters use a teleprompter so they can look at the camera (which in effect is their audience) instead of down at a script. Think of the number of times you have seen someone deliver a speech with his or her eyes glued to the paper on the lectern. Did you feel an emotional connection with the speaker? Probably not. We pay a high price for the security of reading from a prepared script. Why do we want to look at our audience? To make eye contact. In western culture, eye contact is expected in verbal interchange.
People only listen when their basic needs are met. Consider how hard it is to pay attention when you’re cold, hungry or tired. As well as physical needs, we also have emotional needs, one of which is to feel seen and acknowledged. Isn’t it unpleasant when someone behaves as if you’re invisible? Many speakers “spray” their eyes around the audience, never actually locking eyes with anyone. Consequently, the listeners feel as if they, as individuals, are invisible to the speaker. They feel she is speaking at them, not to them.
As a speaker, your goal is to create an atmosphere where your listeners want to join you, where they feel you are speaking directly to them as individuals. That’s connection. You have two main tools with which to create connection – your voice and your eyes. The eyes don’t just receive information; they also project the energy of the speaker. When you look directly into the eyes of your listener, that person becomes the sole object of your attention. It feels good to him. He relaxes because his need to be seen is fulfilled. In that relaxed state, he actively listens, and your message hits its mark.
Eye contact commands attention. Especially if you are smiling, it’s a friendly way to insist that someone listen to you. It’s hard to daydream when the speaker is looking directly at you.
What’s the first thing to go when someone feels a lack of confidence? Eye contact. Have you ever met someone who talks to your left shoulder? He doesn’t look too sure of himself, does he? Direct eye contact radiates confidence. Your audience only knows what you show them. If you lock eyes with your listeners, even though your knees may be shaking, you are broadcasting self-confidence.
Spraying your eyes around the audience allows for about one second of contact, at most, with another pair of eyes. American presentation skills trainer, Doug Jeffreys, recommends a technique he calls “Lock, Talk and Pause”. 1) Lock eyes with one person. 2) Talk directly to that person, as if he or she were the only person in the room. Speak a complete thought to that person. 3) Pause (that’s the hardest part) while you move your eyes to someone else and repeat the process.
When I first learned this technique, I found it challenging. I practiced for an upcoming speaking engagement by designating items in my living room as people, and speaking to them – five seconds to the chair, pause, five seconds to the lamp, pause, five… Now I wouldn’t speak any other way. I love the positive “magnetic field” generated with eye contact. It seems to draw both speaker and audience together, and we become partners in the event.
Finally, in western culture, eye contact is seen as a sign of openness and veracity. I’m not trying to teach you to be a con-artist, here, but the fact is that when you look people in the eye, they are more likely to believe you are telling them the truth. Which is what you want. Because you ARE telling the truth. Aren’t you?
I’ve just been sitting in the sunshine in our kitchen, eating granola and thinking about an upcoming “Lunch and Learn” I’ll be conducting next week. The topic is “Turning Performance Butterflies into Positive Excitement”. I’m already hearing in my head what I want to say about each point, even hearing the transitions from one point to another. I don’t often have an opportunity to extract one idea from my workshop and focus on it for a whole hour. It’s an exciting project, and I’m enjoying how it’s coming together.
I’m looking back at how I felt three years ago, when a career change into teaching presentation skills was just emerging as an idea. I wasn’t sure if I believed in myself enough to make it work. Would anybody want to hear what I had to share? After all, didn’t everybody already know this stuff? Well, jeez, if it took me a lifetime as a musical and theatrical performer – out there on the front lines – to figure it out, why did I imagine that everybody else would already have done so? Take next week’s presentation. If everybody already knew that management of performance nerves is almost 100% an inside job, would the organizers of the Lunch and Learn have chosen that topic out of the several choices I gave them? Do presenters need to hear that confident speaking is a matter of perspective and attitude, with specific points, one through six? Who doesn’t need to hear this message?
So, here I am three years later, and my Skilltime business is growing steadily. I’m fully confident in the value of what I have to offer and in my ability to deliver it in an engaging manner, in a way that changes people’s lives. It blows me away! (Of course, I’ve worked at it, hard, for those three years.)
What blows me away even more is how lucky I was to meet a corporate trainer who believed in me, right from the start. My stepson had connected us via email, and the first time we “met” was over the phone. It seemed we had hardly exchanged a dozen words before she was talking about the possibility of our doing something together. But I was an entertainer and an educator! What did I know about the world of business? I asked her recently, “How did you DO that? What did you hear?” She replied, “There was a SOMETHING in your voice which went beyond your dramatic ability. Power? Potential power? Ambition (as in seeing possibilities in the future)? Articulation? A handle on what public speaking is really about? Probably it was all of those, and it was contagious.” She heard all that, before I was even sure those qualities were there. Today, Cheryl Crumb and I together present a two-day intensive workshop on business presentations called “On Stage”.
What’s the point of this personal story? Is there a “Tip” somewhere in here about talking? Well, yes, there is. Believe in yourself. Surround yourself with people who believe in you. Cheryl (and others, among them my dear husband) believed in me when I wasn’t sure I could do it, myself. They helped me keep faith with myself. If you want an audience to believe in you, first you must believe in yourself. If you think you have something valuable to say, then you do. Believe it. If your dreams are inviting you in a certain direction, believe in them. Believe in your ability to follow them. You can do it. You’re worth it.
‘Tis the season. Of weddings, that is. The prospect of giving a wedding toast need not spoil your enjoyment of the day. There is a wealth of helpful information on the internet, but I did some research for you, to get you started.
Traditionally, wedding toasts are given by four people: the father of the bride, the groom, the best man and the maid/matron of honour. Nowadays, many couples depart from tradition with other speakers and even guests invited to offer their congratulations. As I recall, even I said a few words at my husband’s and my wedding.
Putting yourself in the audience’s shoes, and especially in the shoes of the one receiving your toast, will give you a guide for creating your speech. Think about what makes it easy for you to engage with the speaker, and what turns you off. Here are a few basic tips.
- Be brief. Under five minutes. An audience never minds if a speech is short, but they sure don’t like it when someone goes on and on.
- Be kind. Of course you want to be amusing, but never at anyone else’s expense. Poking a little fun is fine, but be careful with your humour. Remember that parents and older people will be present, so don’t be risqué. Prince Harry, in his speech at the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s reception, referred to his brother, Prince William, as “the Dude”, but apparently, and wisely, edited out a remark about Kate’s having lovely legs. It would have been in poor taste, especially in that company! If you are not comfortable telling jokes, don’t feel obliged to do so. Your positive tone and the smile on your face will be sufficient. Never divulge anything that the recipient of the toast would prefer not to be general knowledge. It’s a toast, not a roast.
- Be focused. Craft your speech with a clear structure – a beginning, middle and end. If at least half the people present don’t know you, begin by briefly describing your relationship to the couple and saying something positive about the wedding ceremony. Focus the body of your speech on the bride and groom. What occurs to you about them as a couple? What are their shared interests? Are there a few anecdotes you can tell about how they met or about their engagement? Finish your speech on a high and hopeful note, wishing the new couple a happy, healthy and prosperous future.
- Be authentic. Don’t be afraid to let your loving feelings for the couple show. After all, the whole event is about love, isn’t it?
- Be prepared. Don’t imagine that you can wing it. Know what you are going to say and practice it, several times. It doesn’t matter if you don’t say exactly the words you had planned, but by being well prepared, you can vary the way they come out without losing your way. People who ad lib well are those who are thoroughly prepared in the way it was intended to go.
- Make eye contact. To begin, meet the eyes of the person you are toasting, but you don’t have to stare at them the whole time. Look around the room and make eye contact with other people in the audience. Return your eyes to the subject of your toast several times during your speech, and meet his/her/their eyes as you finish with “To (name of the bride) and (name of the groom).”
- Speak sober. Contrary to what you may have heard, drinking champagne does not make you more clever. You want this speech to be something that everyone, including you, looks back on with pleasure, not embarrassment. Go easy on the booze, at least until after your speech.
The best speakers are those who genuinely enjoy connecting with their listeners. Bear in mind that everyone present is there for the same reason – to celebrate the new couple. They are already your friends. You are all on the same team. Prepare well, then reach out to your audience and enjoy giving your well wishes.
** What do you think? Is there interest out there for workshops and/or coaching on giving a great wedding speech?
Here are a couple of websites you may want to visit:
Write and Give a Great Wedding Toast
http://honeymoons.about.com/od/weddingsaway/ht/wedding_toast.htm
Order of Toasts and Toasting Etiquette
http://www.idoweddingtoasts.com/articles/Order-of-Wedding-Toasts-Toasting-Etiquette.html
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