Verbal Graphics

The TalkPower Action Formula (refer to TalkPower Kindle) provides a perfect vehicle for stylizing the look and sound of your talk. Verbal graphics is the TalkPower method of breaking a speech down into sections and then shaping the speech with strategically placed pauses. These pauses give your presentation the same design you would find in a poem of an essay. Just as the written page is designed with headlines, margins, bold print, bullets, and spaced, spoken word needs the contrast of silence and sound for style, beautiful design and dramatic effect.

Verbal graphics create the space (silence) for the audience to take in and reflect upon what you are saying. These pauses create a rhythm that brings your presentation to life. The rhythm causes the speaker and the audience to move back and forth, figuratively, in unison. This movement is the catalyst for the intensity that occurs between speaker and audience when so-called dynamic speakers perform. For example:

Speaker: When I was doing my research for this talk I got the strangest call. (Pause)

Audience: (leans in)

Contrast this with the following:

Speaker: when I was going my research for this talk I got the strangest call. It was a young man that claimed he had been abducted by aliens!

As you can see, a pause brings dramatic tension to a speech, providing the speaker with a mysterious quality called presence or charisma. I can think of many well-known speakers (I will not name them because I do not wish to embarrass them) who speak well, but are not thought of as dynamic presenters. They speak in endless even blocks of sentences with no pauses at all. In that case, the entire speech becomes one long ribbon unraveling with no values, colors, shades, or changes.

If speech without the logical pause is unintelligible, without the psychological pause it is lifeless

                                                            -Constantine Stanislavski

Even if the speaker has an interesting voice filled with a variety of intonations, he/she will not project a dynamic personality if he/she does not pause properly. What begins with and exciting liftoff for the audience when the speaker first appears, fades as the speech progresses and the attention of the audience suddenly begins to diminish. I have seen this happen on numerous occasions, and I thought, “if only there were 10-15 well places pauses in this speech, the speaker would surely receive a standing ovation instead of polite applause.”

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Me, Likable?

Many of my students who feel very nervous and uncomfortable in front of an audience, cannot believe that their discomfort is not visible. Yet as long as their practice the TalkPower techniques they appear very likeable and are easy to listen to. Time and again, after a wonderfully entertaining talk, a student in my class reports, “Oh I thought I was speaking so slowly…You mean you really like my talk?” “Yes, yes” the class responds, “You were not slow at all. You were a pleasure to listen to.”

LIKABILITY IS A SKILL

You realize of course, that appearing likeable is a technique, a learned skill. You can learn that technique you really can. If you have any doubt about this, take a look at this quote by Jose Ferrer in Actors Talk About Acting.

            “Who know what happened to me. I may have a cold, I may have a hangover. Maybe I couldn’t sleep last night because my wife left me. I have to be good for a sharp audience who demands only the best. My voice, my body, my everything has to work for me. That is what technique is.”

                                                            -Jose Ferrer

LOOKING THOUGHTFUL

People know when you are thinking. They can feel it as you draw within for a mini second to think about something—to answer a question, to find just the right word—and people like thoughtful leaders. They like to know that someone is responsible enough to care about how he will handle their destiny or deal with their fears and concerns. Thoughtfulness is a very attractive quality for a speaker, a leader, or a sales person. In contrast, standup comics don’t have to be too thoughtful on stage, because standup comics are only entertaining you and not attempting to impact your life. However, leaders, speakers, and sales people should look thoughtful because when they don’t, people don’t trust them. How does one look thoughtful? Don’t talk too fast, pause before you answer a question, and practice the TalkPower program so that you can look thoughtful in a relaxed and natural manner.

 Dear God, please, please I'm begging you, help us lose that competition so I won't have to make the acceptance speech.

Copyright 2015 TalkPower

Where to Look

Should you make direct eye contact with the audience before you begin speaking? The answer, you might be surprised to learn, is no.

Making eye contact (which means having a nonverbal eye to eye conversation) distracts you at a time when you need your concentration to focus on your first words, your adjustment to this high visibility, the strangeness of the distance between yourself and the audience, your rapid heartbeat, and the general shock of the performance situation. You need time, about 30 seconds or even more, to get used to all of this.

ADJUSTING TO THE AUDIENCE:

The next phase involves your awareness of the audience, so that you can slip into an easy and comfortable relationship with them. This will happen automatically if you stand still when you first face your audience. You don’t have to do a thing except squeeze your toes three times slowly before you speak your first words. This phase is enormously important. If you do it correctly you will feel very much in control.

WHERE TO LOOK:

Look straight ahead at the faces in your audience, perhaps at their foreheads or even their hair. Look neither too high above their heads, nor so low that you appear to be looking at the floor. Making eye contact is not necessary because if the audience looks into your eyes and you are looking at their faces, you will feel as if you are making eye contact. The necessity for direct eye contact is a myth. For example, when you go to the movies and become involved with the story you laugh, you cry, you may become terrified, yet none of the actors in the screen make eye contact with you. In the same sense, when you are speaking, in is not necessary for you to look into the eyes of your audience for them to feel involved with you. Just don’t look above or below their faces. After two or three minutes have passed, and you feel you have established yourself in front of your audience and your presentation is flowing, you may choose to make direct eye contact with one or several of the members in your audience, as long as it does not disturb your concentration. Do what feels comfortable to you.

While keeping your gaze at the face level of your audience, do not fix anyone with a prolonged stare. Actively staring into the eyes of your audience implies that you are perusing them “Do you like me? Is this good?” Don’t look for approval. The audience looks to you for leadership. Lead!

SCANNING THE ROOM:

When you fist stand in front of your audience, please—do not mechanically scan the room, moving your head from right to left as if your eyes where great flood lights emanating from a controlled tower. This is extremely awkward and looks unnatural. Instead, as I have just said, when you first stand in front of an audience, before you begin to speak, be as still as possible and look straight ahead in the general direction of their faces. A smile is nice, but it isn’t essential. If you can smile a small smile, smile. If you want the complete attention of the audience, your physical stillness, rather than your physical activity, will make this happen.

As your speech progresses and you become more comfortable, from time to time, you can move your head slowly, looking at your audience to the left or right. Once again, naturalness and comfort should decide when and if you look at various people in the room. If at first this pose seems stiff and robotic, do not change back to your old nervous behavior. Eventually, you will relax into physical stillness so that you feel comfortable and empowered.

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copyright TalkPower 2015

Public Speaking Phobia Acquired Later in Life

I used to love speaking in public and I don’t know what happened but for the last three years, whenever an opportunity comes up when I have to make a comment, address a group, or ask a question at a meeting, at that precise moment all of my brain functions jam. And there I am, hopeless, shamed…I fee like a victim in front of a firing squad.

                                                                        -Erwin, accountant

 Some 70 percent of my students and clients recall that from early childhood they were shy and didn’t speak up, the other 30 percent who suffer from public speaking phobia had a different story. These people were once excellent speakers. Generally outgoing, they were active in drama and debate clubs, were class valedictorian or presidents of class societies.

They all report that one day their ability to speak in public vanished and they had abandon all opportunities. Behavioral psychology tells us that phobias happen after a traumatic event—usually an experience that shakes the individual to his/her core—like a psychological near death experience. This could be as serious as a terrible car accident, sudden death of a loved one, a natural disaster, and experience in combat, acts of terrorism, rape, etc. Oddly enough, experiences that one can consider rather benign can also produce such an effect. For example, going away to college, moving to a new community, losing a job, etc. although these events are no where as near as life threatening as those in the previous list, with certain individuals they can fall under the category of traumatic events. As a result one sense of personal control and safety is utterly shattered at the deepest level of self, resulting in Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. The stress reaction can appear immediately or up to two years after the traumatic event. No matter what the cause, or the variety or precipitating events, the result can be a phobia, such as fears of flying, driving, fear of heights, or enclosed spaces. The phobia triggered by a particular event can them generalize to other areas, such as fear of escalators or trains, or a sudden panic attack in front of an audience.

The panic attack causes an episode of thought blocking and becomes another traumatic event that will not be forgotten. The next time an opportunity for speaking arises you are psychologically transported to the past—and that moment when you are speechless. You simply cannot do it; you decline with some excuse. One avoidant excuse leads to another, and in a very short time you have glossophobia, an irrational fear of speaking in public.

Shame

I feel very damaged…like I have a major handicap when I stand in front of other people and have to speak. I am like a non-person.

                                                                        -Arthur

Trapped---Silent---blaming themselves, phobic speakers hide among us. Millions of people are so afraid of public exposure that they invent the most bizarre excuses to avoid speaking in public. Accidents, dead relatives, illnesses, robberies, and cutting class, serve to avoid the dreadful task. These people have a common despair, yet do not know one another and have no idea that so many others suffer as they do. Many other groups come out, talking openly about their problems. People in 12 step programs, for example, find support and dignity by telling their stories. They have learned the healing power of sharing and do not avoid speaking out. However, those with public speaking phobia would be horrified by the idea, they have a terrible need for secrecy. Memories of past denigration are so painful that they are paralyzed by shame.  Avoiding the natural impulse to reach out, they do not ask for help. Embarrassed they withdraw and remain silent.

Donald, a workshop participant, introduced himself as a nuclear engineer. He mentioned that he had an identical twin brother. Donald’s fear of public speaking was so intense that he found himself literally hiding from his manager on the days of the month when summary presentations were made. Later when I asked if his brother had the same problem, Donald said he did not know. So deep was his shame that he had never even shared his problem with his twin brother.

This story is typical. To avoid public speaking speech phobic clients turn down jobs, promotions, invitations to chair meetings, to teach, to make a toast, even to accept an award. One CEO of a major corporation told me sadly that he had been invited to speak all over the world but could never go. Another man fainted when he was nominated for prestigious award. So terrible was his anxiety about standing up to receive his award in public.

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