#fmquicktip #70 #authenticperformer #oxymoron #publicspeaking #charisma
Peter Zinn on cross training
How do you build your speaking muscles? Not just on stage according to Peter Zinn, our resident storyteller, who says in his newest video: “get better at presenting by not presenting”.
Quick tip from Florian Mueck: write it down!
Write it down!
#fmquicktip #66 #writeitdown
A message from the Berlin Wall
Olivia Schofield live from Zürich
Rhetorical Devices: Antithesis
Device: Antithesis
Origin: From the Greek ἀντί (anti) meaning “against” and θέσις (thesis) meaning “position”.
In plain English: Contrasting two different (often opposite) ideas in the same sentence or in two consecutive sentences.
Effect:
- The contrast between the two ideas is starker than it would be in ordinary speech.
- The message or focus is usually on the second idea.
Notes:
- Antithesis always contains two different ideas.
- The grammatical structure of antithesis should be balanced. The contrasting ideas must be expressed in a parallel manner.
- Aristotle said that antithesis makes it easier for the audience to understand the point being made.
Examples:
“Speech is silver but silence is golden.”
— Unknown
———
“Man proposes; God disposes.”
— Unknown
———
“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”
— Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1771)
———
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!”
— Martin Luther King, 28 August 1968
———
We find ourselves rich in goods, but ragged in spirit; reaching with magnificentprecision for the moon, but falling into raucous discord on earth. We are caught in war, wanting peace. We are torn by division, wanting unity.
— Richard Nixon, 20 January 1969
———
“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
— Neil Armstrong, 21 July 1969
———
And finally, we must have a sense of responsibility for the future. We are not destined to be adversaries. But it is not guaranteed that we will be allies. For us, there is no fate waiting to be revealed, only a future waiting to be created — by the actions we take, the choices we make, and the genuine views we have of one another and of our own future.
— Bill Clinton, 5 June 2000 (Speech to the Russian Duma)
Post courtesy of: John Zimmer @ mannerofspeaking.org [link to source]
This post is part of a series on rhetoric and rhetorical devices. For other posts in the series, please click this link.
Getting ready for action
Great delivery in public speaking does not only depend on your eye contact, your body language or your voice. Great delivery also depends on how you use your stage, how you handle your tech and how you prepare your room. As always, good preparation is the secret ingredient for success.
#publicspeaking #charisma #preparation #stage #tech #room #fminsights
Peter Zinn on the Curse of Knowledge
One of the most common traps speakers fall into is called the curse of knowledge.
They assume that the audience knows the same things they know.
It happens to all of us. We tend to forget the time and energy we put into acquiring the knowledge we have, we forget there was a time when we didn’t have that knowledge. We can no longer even imagine that people don’t have that knowledge.
Tapping
One way to explain the curse of knowledge is with the tapping experiment:
Take a song that other people will know. Tap the rhythm on the table while you hear the melody in your head. Let the other people guess what it was. Most of the time, they won’t guess it. (Famous exceptions: Happy birthday and We will rock you)
This is the curse of knowledge: the melody is so clear in your head that it’s hard to imagine they won’t get it from the mere taps.
Now tell them the title of the song. If they know the song, and you tap it again, they will now hear the melody in their head as well.
And this is the way out: tell them. Explain. Give examples. Lead them to the melody.
How do you break the curse of knowledge?
So how do you overcome the tendency to speak about things they don’t know in a way they don’t understand?
Three tips:
- Don’t assume. Write out your speech and read it over with the mindset of a beginner. Ask the questions: what does this mean? Is it explained when it gets introduced? Better yet – let someone else read it.
- Talk to people in your audience before you start your presentation. Gauge their level of knowledge.
- Ask your audience during your presentation. Make a habit of asking if they can follow along, know what it is you’re talking about – if not, or when in doubt, explain.
Of course, when preparing your material you always need to make some assumptions. But that’s the material of another blog post.
Post courtesy of Peter Zinn @ speakfreak.eu [link to source]
Instagrammable
New video from Florian Mueck:
#fmquicktip #67 #instagrammable #message #publicspeaking #charisma
The Public Speaking Fear Grid
It’s no secret that many people are afraid of public speaking. As Jerry Seinfeld has said, “According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two! This means, to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”
Even those who are not afraid of public speaking get nervous from time to time. Just remember the words of Mark Twain: “There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars.”
Being nervous is completely natural. I am always a bit nervous whenever I have to speak in public. The adrenalin is flowing and I want to do a good job. But after years of practice, I am able to channel that nervous energy in a constructive way and the audience doesn’t see the nervousness. I relish the opportunity to speak at every occasion because it is another chance to pass a message to people and it is another chance for me to improve.
Public speaking fear is personal
Having worked with thousands of people over the years, I have noticed an interesting phenomenon. While there are those who are extremely nervous in any speaking situation, more often than not, people tell me that they are only really nervous in certain specific situations. And those situations are usually based on two criteria: the number of people in the audience and how well the speaker knows those people.
I have set out different possibilities in the grid below.
The vertical axis on the left measures the number of people in the audience. It starts with one person—because it’s not public speaking if there is nobody in the audience—and goes to 1,000. The number 1,000 is purely arbitrary; it could have been 5,000. I just wanted a number that indisputably represents a large audience. The more important factor is orange line “a”.
Orange line “a” represents the number beyond which a “small” audience become a “large” audience for a speaker. It is entirely subjective. For some, an audience of 25 is a large audience; for others, an audience is not large unless there are at least 75 people. There is no single number and there is no wrong number; it depends on the speaker.
The horizontal axis represents how well the speaker knows the audience. At the extreme left, are people we know the best: family; friends; colleagues. At the extreme right are complete strangers.
Blue line “b” represents the dividing point between an audience that the speaker knows and an audience that the speaker doesn’t know. It cannot be pinpointed like orange line “a” because it is not easily quantified. A speaker might know the audience a little, but not well. He might know some of the people, but not all of them. Again, it is entirely subjective. In general, I think of blue line “b” as the dividing point between an audience where I know the majority of the people and an audience where the majority of people are strangers.
Thus, we have the following “speaking quadrants”:
- Small audience / People you know
- Small audience / People you don’t know
- Large audience / People you know
- Large audience / People you don’t know
People often tell me that they are fine when it comes to speaking to certain quadrants but not others. Some people enjoy speaking to an audience they know but are fearful of strangers; for others, it’s the opposite. Some people like large audiences but are very nervous in front of small, intimate groups. Others are fine up to 15 or 20 people but start to seize up in front of larger audiences.
Again, it is entirely personal. The question is: How can we be more comfortable speaking in those quadrants that are problematic? The answer: Practice!
How to get comfortable in any quadrant of the public speaking fear grid
Public speaking is a skill like any other; the more you do it, the better you will become and the more comfortable you will feel. And, getting comfortable with public speaking in one quadrant should help you feel more confident in the others. Nevertheless, to be truly confident in all four quadrants, you need to speak in all four quadrants. Below are some suggestions about ways in which to get practice in each.
Small audience / People you know
- Practice a speech in front of your family.
- Practice a work presentation in front of a few colleagues.
- Give a presentation to a longstanding client.
- Toast your friends at a bar.
- Give a speech at a Toastmasters club (assuming the number of participants constitutes a small audience for you and you know most of the people).
- Host a dinner party and play Rhetoric – The Public Speaking Game™ with your friends.
Small audience / People you don’t know
- Practice a work presentation in front of a colleagues from a different department whom you don’t know (or don’t know well).
- Give a speech at a Toastmasters club (assuming the number of participants constitutes a small audience for you and you don’t know most of the people).
- Strike up a conversation with people on the train or at the bus stop or on an elevator.
- Try your hand at stand-up comedy at an open mike session.
- Join a local business networking group and introduce yourself at an event.
- Look for speaking opportunities on sites such as Meetup, Glocals and Eventbrite.
Large audience / People you know
- Practice a work presentation in front of a few colleagues.
- Give a toast to friends at a bar.
- Give a speech at a Toastmasters club (assuming the number of participants constitutes a large audience for you and you know most of the people).
- If you are a member of a church or other religious institution, do the readings at a service.
Large audience / People you don’t know
- Offer to speak at an event in your community.
- Offer to give a talk at your local chapter of an organization such as Rotary, Lions Club or the Chamber of Commerce.
- Give an educational talk at your local university.
- Apply to speak at a conference on your area of specialty.
- Try your hand at stand-up comedy at an open mike session.
- Apply to give a TED or TEDx Talk.
- Compete in a Toastmasters speech contest. If you are successful, you will have the chance to compete in front of progressively larger audiences.
Of course, there are other options in addition to those listed above. Please feel free to share your ideas in the Comments section below. The goal is to make a conscious effort to speak in those quadrants that make you the most uncomfortable. When we move toward the things that scare us in life, we experience our greatest personal growth.
So if you don’t like speaking in a certain quadrant, why don’t you make a plan to do so in the next two months? If you do, you are on your way to getting off the grid.
Post courtesy of John Zimmer @ mannerofspeaking.org [link to source]