Can I Read My Speech?

Many of my students come the to the TalkPower Workshops with the idea that reading a speech is unprofessional; they fear that reading will make them lose their spontaneity. This is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard and completely impractical. An all-or-nothing approach will only serve to discourage you from ever taking the risk of ever speaking in public.

Isn’t it better to feel confident, using a script? Why avoid an opportunity to speak because you will forget what you wanted to say? If you do accept and opportunity to speak, isn’t it foolish to run the risk of rambling on and on, feeling insecure and embarrassed? Is it any wonder why there are so many terrible speakers out there when people are taught that using a script is a big no no? Of course you can read. Common sense will tell you that confidence comes from feeling secure, and this will happen only if your speech is accessible.

The fact is that people use their spontaneity when they read from a paper because they prepare a talk as if it where a term paper. “Fill up as many pages as possible and you’ll get a better grade.” If the professor had to skim over repetitions and irrelevancies, that was his problem. A listening audience cannot skim. Go of the beaten track for half a millisecond and you lose your crowd. The audience tunes out planning dinner, lunch, the weekend, counting the tiles on the ceiling…

Learning how to write for a listening audience, not a reading audience in a TalkPower workshop makes all the difference. After you have been using a written script for some time, and have internalized what a real beginning, middle, and end are all about, you will be able to speak without a script.

An old wives tale maintains that if you read from a script you will sound stilted. Actually, you sound stilted when you constantly read with your nose in the text. The secret of appearing spontaneous lies in rehearsing the script so that you look up at the audience and then back at your script, from time to time. Practice your talk looking at the text, then looking out at your imaginary audience, then finding your place and looking at your text again. Not only will you feel secure, you will appear charming, knowledgeable, and in control.

Each year I subscribe to a series of play readings in New York City, produced by a very talented theater company called TACT (The Actors Company Theater). The actors are all seated in a semi circle and every actor reads from his script. These readings rank among the best theater I have ever experienced. Much work and rehearsal goes into each production, yet not one actor memorized or improvises his part. Every word is read from a script, and the results are always delightful.

Politicians read their speeches from a teleprompter and they usually go off without a hitch.

Perhaps last month you saw a professional speaker a long, magnificent, hilarious presentation without reading fro ma single note. And perhaps you felt envious and inadequate. Let me assure you that this professional speaker has probably given the same talk 100 times in the last five years.

“I was scheduled at two colleges on two successive days. On the first day my talk on Ecology went over so well I decided to get more mileage by giving it the second day. My teenage son was with me and during dinner, prior to the second talk, I suddenly became aware that my son was regailing the head table with an exact account I had given the night before- and was about to give again!”

                                                            -Issac Asimov

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.

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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Facing the Audience

When you first face the audience you will feel a slight shock. It is in this moment that you shift from being a private person to relating to the audience. A few seconds of silence before you speak will help you to make this transition. The silence now allows an introductory process to begin so that you and your audience can tune into one another.

On the other hand, if you start speaking immediately, you will be skipping a very important step. Imagine meeting a new person and launching right into a conversation instead of introducing yourself and shaking hands. This behavior is just as awkward as facing your audience and starting your talk without an initial pause.

A good way to do this is to stand still, face your audience, and slowly squeeze your toes thee times before you say the first words of your speech. This gives the audience time to focus their complete attention on you.

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Thinking in public

The most difficult thing for a person who is anxious about speaking in public to do is to think his/her own thoughts while other people (the audience) are watching. The reason for this is that as children they were interrupted by powerful others, who barged in on them and humiliated them, challenged and criticized them. Again and again students report that they were punished for speaking up and voicing their opinions. Little or no attention was paid to their feelings or boundaries as mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and teachers dismissed their expression as if it was worthless. Another way that thought blocking is developed is when a parent or a teacher pressures a child with “what is the answer? Quick, quick! Hurry, hurry! Tell us the answer, talk, talk!” as if to say, “What is the matter with you? Are you stupid or something?”

Such a forceful intrusion into the mind of a young person is terrifying and causes a freezing up or a temporary mental paralysis, as a result you lose the ability to think or talk quickly, when others in authority are present. This condition persists into adulthood and occurs in all performance situations. Although people may have no problem speaking or thinking in a one on one, where a friendly or even a professional exchange is a usual style of talking, whenever the speechphobic individual is in a performance mode being observed or judged by others, the result is thought blocking and an inability to perform.

Although it would seem that since this problem was initiated in early childhood, you could overcome your fear and thought blocking in therapy; in my experience as a therapist and working with highly anxious professionals, knowing why you have this problem and talking about it will not change the automatic reaction of the inability to think on your feet in front of an audience.

For a strep-by-step method for regaining the ability to think fluidly in public see Chapter 5 A Panic Clinic for Public Speaking: How-to for the Hopeless in The New TalkPower available in print on Amazon or as a kindle book (TalkPower: A Panic Clinic for Public Speaking).

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