156. Tips to improve public speaking skills and boost confidence

You can boost your confidence by realising that you are a unique human being and that your contribution to this world is welcomed. What you do and say matters and has value. Do not try to copy others, develop your style, have fun and be happy.

What I have noticed is that people who lack confidence are not happy with their physical appearance. Such people are often victims of the beauty industry and spend a fortune on plastic surgery and procedures.

By daring to be your natural self, having a haircut that you fancy but that may not be in fashion and clothes that others might find odd-looking will boost your confidence; it will shout out “I don’t care what you think of me”.

Secondly, educate yourself and master the skills that you want to have and that might be of value to others. Monetise these skills and become prosperous. Money is a huge confidence booster.

To become a good public speaker, work on straight posture, correct breathing, speech, voice, use of gestures, and visual aids to boost your presentations.

Here are a few public speaking tips:

1. Practise articulation exercises regularly. This will help you to have clear and crisp speech

2. Use pauses. It is one of the most effective means in public speaking; it separates ideas, creates a dramatic effect, creates anticipation and so much more.

3. Stress key messages. This technique helps to make your speech easy to listen to

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155. How can I become better at small talk?

Small talk has three main purposes:

1. It helps to break the ice and create a friendly atmosphere

2. It is a great opportunity to size up the other person

3. It is an opportunity to showcase your personality and social status in a subtle way

What to discuss during a small talk? I would suggest something general, positive and relevant to the situation you are in. The typical topics of small talk are weather, holidays, school, university, places, sports, music, art, shopping, etc.

Topics that are controversial and those that might embarrass, offend or make people feel uncomfortable, such as religion, politics, and very personal things, should be avoided during small talk. Avoid talking about wars, your political preferences, judging people from different cultural backgrounds or your diseases and sex life.

I recommend that you smile and connect to a person on an emotional level by being understanding and sympathetic. This will help another person feel comfortable and safe.

Another thing you can do is adjust yourself to another person and create a rapport. For example, if you are a PhD in Quantum Physics and you talk to a builder. The topic of your dissertation would not be the best way to break the ice! What would work better when you talk to a person, try to find some common ground sport, for example. Or, if you see that the other person looks very sad, your laughter and a smile would feel odd. Perhaps, a neutral expression would work better. Be sensitive to people’s needs and feelings.

I recommend not rushing your speech and allowing space for pauses to make the talk relaxed and pleasant. Do not interrupt the other person; instead, listen and nod along when appropriate. Connect with what was said and continue by saying something to support the other person.

Avoid arguing, and try not to appear superior. Let the other person shine.

How can you showcase yourself during the small talk? First of all, by the way you speak and listen. If you boast and interrupt others, it can only show a lack of manners. If your speech is bare and primitive, that might imply a lack of education. People will understand that you have been properly educated if you use a rich vocabulary.

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154. How to prepare for a presentation?

We recommend that people who take our elocution lessons should practise their presentations in the following order:

1. Firstly, write the structure of the presentation in key messages, introduction, body, and conclusion. For example: - in the introduction, you can greet your audience and say what your presentation is about; - in the body of the presentation, you will discuss examples and statistics which support the topic and purpose of your presentation; - in the conclusion, you will call for action.

2. Then read the presentation three times, and then record yourself reading it. Listen to your recording and make a note of your mistakes, then practise again until you are satisfied with the results. It would be useful to perform articulation exercises with the app Get Rid of your Accent for a few days before your presentation.

3. Finally, practise it in front of the mirror and make a video recording of yourself presenting

Practising in front of the mirror is helpful for public speaking because you will see how confident you look, and you will also see your posture and gestures. All three, confidence, posture and gestures, can support your presentation or distract from it.

The main characteristics of bad posture are:

1. Slouching

2. The body tilted backwards or forwards

3. Lifted shoulders

4. Looking down

5. Toes pointing left and right, looking like a penguin

6. Both toes are pointing inside and heels are pointing outside

7. One shoulder is higher than the other

8. Hunched back

9. Humping on one leg

Stay straight and create zigzag eye contact with your audience. Do not walk to often from one side to another as it can be destructive. Use zigzag eye contact with your audience. Download the app 4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause, to practise posture preparation, use of pauses and voice modulation. These useful skills will help you improve your presentations.

Below, I list gestures that weaken your presence and your speech delivery.

1. Lack of gestures resulting from the stiffness of the body. Sometimes a person feels so nervous. They hold their speech in their hands during their entire presentation. This creates a closed body posture and shows a lack of confidence.

2. Scratching your head, nose, or any part of the body can look a bit distracting and even inappropriate.

3. Trying to adjust your clothes and moving a ring on your finger are also gestures that indicate that the person feels somewhat nervous.

4. Touching and trying to improve your hair shows that you are not sure of your looks and feel you are not confident enough.

5. Too many gestures and repetitive gestures show you are trying too hard to compensate for a lack of confidence.

I recommend using descriptive gestures. Consider how your gestures can help your audience easily absorb the information. Using visual aids is also very powerful and brings an element of play into your presentation. Just 15 minutes before presenting, perform body relaxation exercises so that anxiety does not interfere with the smooth delivery of your presentation.

You can find out more tips for speech mastery and public speaking on www.batcsglobal.com

153. Active listening checklist

Empathetic listening or active listening involves listening not only to the content but also to how it is said. Nonverbal messages that a speaker is using can give you clues. The foundation of empathetic listening is a sincere interest in a person speaking.

The checklist of what not to do during active listening:

Do not interrupt others’ speech

Do not anticipate what will be said

Do not finish a speaker's sentences

Do not judge, observe what is being said and how it is being said

I recommend the following instructions if you want to master empathetic listening:

Create eye contact with a speaker and look at them with empathy and a smile. People relax when you smile at them

Observe the way a person speaks. Namely intonation, tone of voice, speech speed, loudness, etc. You can learn more about it in the book Get Rid of your Accent Part Two, Advanced Level, and the apps Fluent English Speech and 4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause

Listen to the feelings and emotions behind words and voice, and respond to them appropriately

Imagine that you are a psychotherapist who is talking to a patient and that you are paid for listening

Allow a pause after what was said, and connect with what was said

Motivate yourself for active listening by knowing that a person who is listening is in a more powerful position than the one who speaks

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152. Learn to communicate your emotions and feelings

I have noticed that many of us were not educated to communicate emotions and feelings. Instead, we were taught "how to think right." In kindergarten, school, university and then at work, even in the family, we learned how to think and speak appropriately.

The thing is we are not robots; we are humans with feelings and emotions. In Western civilisation, we learned how to neglect our feelings and just say "the right thing." We learned that expressing vulnerability is a weakness and that being tough is a real strength. Is it? I am not so sure about it.

We often communicate the feeling of frustration with anger and aggression. In England, where I live, it is very fashionable to express feelings in a passive-aggressive way. In other words, acting nicely but with hidden aggression. Is there a need to be aggressive or passive-aggressive? Is there a better way? How can we do it differently?

Where does the aggression come from? In my opinion, the basis of aggression is judgment. What often happens is we see that someone breaks "a rule" that we expected he/she should observe, and we are quick to judge and then may even attack that person. We evaluate, judge and attack.

What if we stop evaluating and simply observe? Instead of judging, we start observing other people's speech and observing our own reaction to it and what feelings and emotions we have at that moment. This process takes time. If we do this exercise on a regular basis it will become automatic. It will substitute our reactive/aggressive responses to communicating our observations in a calm, measured way. When communicating, it is much better if we look at the person with compassion rather than with judgment.

Observation is neutral, whilst judgment is negative. When we feel negative, our body reacts in a certain way: we get tense, become stiff, and shorten breathing. By pausing, relaxing your body and breathing correctly you will help yourself to communicate your emotions as observations.

Many students who take our elocution lessons often tell us that they want to become more confident. Feeling confident is expressed by your body language, voice and words. The key to confidence is calmness, feeling relaxed and at the same time in control of your emotions.

You can find useful breathing exercises and how you can use your intonation and voice to express different feelings and emotions in the book Get Rid of your Accent Part Two, Advanced Level and the apps Fluent English Speech and 4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause.

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