Five Keys to Great Speaking

So, you want to become a great speaker, but that huge speech textbook is daunting! As a college speech teacher I can tell you that book is probably worthless. I’ve seen so many different ones and they’re all the same—a huge collection of facts and concepts that give you an overview of the field of public speaking. Truth be told, these eggheads don’t understand speaking. All they’ve done is give you a boring museum of facts and ideas from people far more intelligent than they. What you’ll find is an amateur teaches by looking at everything in a field. A true expert can boil down a field to those few points that make an impact. If you want to become an expert work on these five things:

1) Find your purpose. Who are you? What is it that you truly understand? What lessons has life taught you? Why are you on this earth? Once you know the answers to those questions you know what to talk about. And, you’ll talk about those topics with wisdom and passion. This is often called your voice—your unique perspective, insight and wisdom about life. No one else has your voice. It’s what sets you apart from every other speaker.

2) Overcome stage fright. Now, by that I don’t mean you won’t have some jitters. Some of the best speakers have jitters before taking the stage. But, you can’t be scared of getting up front and letting it fly. When you’re afraid your heart and spirit doesn’t come through. When you’re scared, your voice is muffled. Fear hinders everything—from your preparation all the way through the delivery of your speech.

3) Learn to use stories. I’ve seen it over and over—vibrant storytellers captivate audiences. This is true for preachers, teachers, motivational speaker, trainers and even standup comedians. Many of the stories will simply be stories of your life. The power of story cannot be underestimated!

4) Learn to use analogies. Study great speakers and you will see analogies over and over. Dr. King was a master at using analogies and the analogy’s little brother—the metaphor. Jesus taught through parables—analogies in the form of stories. Start paying attention anytime you have that aha-moment, “Oh, now I understand!” You’ll be amazed at how many times these aha-moments are connected to either a story or analogy.

5) Get in tune with your inner rhythm. One thing that separates exceptional language (both written and spoken) is it has a beat to it. We’re wired to connect to a beat. There’s a rhythm center in our brain. In music we call it beat. In poetry we call it meter. In comedy it’s called timing. Great language has a beat to it. You need to develop your ear and find your own inner rhythm if you want to become a great speaker.

Certainly there is a great deal more to learn about public speaking. But, if you watch great speakers you’ll see these five things over and over. Master these five and you’re well on your way to captivating your audience!

How to Develop a Speech

            I’ve spent about a decade teaching college speech. I’ve dealt with numerous college textbooks. In general a textbook will recommend an approach to speech development that revolves around choosing a topic, developing a thesis and organizing support for that thesis. A student following such a textbook may progress along the following points: 1) choose a topic, 2) do some research, 3) develop a thesis, 4) do some more research, and 5) organize the research to support their thesis, which general involves following some sample outline or pattern given in a book. What they often produce is devoid of passion and mechanical.

            Why would such a process produce a lifeless presentation? For the most part they don’t own the ideas. They have collected and organized the ideas of others. I have never seen a great speaker who doesn’t have their own unique ideas and perspectives on things. In order to teach people how to become great speakers, we must find a process that begins with their own ideas. We must teach a person how to develop ideas.

            A second problem with the academic approach is one is relying primarily on book knowledge as opposed to experiential knowledge. Book knowledge lacks understanding. How can one develop unique ideas without understanding? There is a useful test for the ideas you want to communicate. If you can’t support your ideas with specific examples from your own life, you don’t know those ideas well enough to talk about them.

            A third problem is book knowledge is devoid of passion. If you’ve experienced something, it’s made you angry, sad, happy or frustrated. Experiential knowledge is connected to passion and every audience member deserves a heart-to-heart connection with the speaker.

            I have seen great speakers use statistics, quotes, newspaper stories and other forms of research in their speech. So, incorporating book knowledge is not bad. What is bad is when the main ideas come from others as opposed to coming from your own experiences. The main ideas must come from the thought processes and experiences of the speaker. The use of research is to complement and reinforce those ideas. Research and book knowledge is a servant; your own thinking ability is the master. College often turns secondary concerns into the master and destroys the learning process.

            With that background, I’m going to share a method of speech development that begins with experiential knowledge. Although I will communicate this in a step-by-step fashion (which is often helpful to the rookie) realize that public speaking is an art form. Speech development is not linear. You may find you work better following a different order. And, you may find certain parts of the process are circular, where you end up back tracking to an earlier step. So, the step-by-step approach is merely a starting point. To become a great speaker you will need to find your own process.

            The first step is to find a story. Just think through the stories of your life. The ones most vivid in your mind represent your strongest experiential knowledge. Which stories do you end up telling people over-and-over? Which stories represent life lessons that you keep revisiting? Which stories make you laugh, cry or feel the deepest emotions? The collection of these stories is the heart of your experiential knowledge. Take some time to explore them.

            Of course, what happens when you are not free to pick the topic? Maybe you’ve been given an assignment at work or school. In most cases if you take some time to think, you’ll have some stories that relate to the topic at hand. If you spend a great deal of thought and you don’t have such experiences, then what I am suggesting may not work for you. In such cases, you’ll likely have to follow the more academic approach. It’s not the best way, but at times may be necessary.

            Second, pick a story. I know what you’re thinking. How do I know which story to pick? Simply ask yourself which story you most want to talk about. Often your gut will know which one if you don’t think about it too much. You need to trust your gut. Your gut knowledge is based on experiential knowledge. Often gut feelings are your brain tying things together behind the scenes. It often means there is a deep lesson just below the surface and if you learn to follow your gut you’ll find ideas flow much easier. The commitment to follow your gut will help bring that about-to-surface wisdom into focus.

            Third, find the life lesson in the story. There might be many lessons. Find the one your gut tells you is most important. This life lesson is the theme you will develop for your speech.

            Fourth, you need to translate that life lesson into the big idea you’re going to communicate. In the world of academia this would be called developing your thesis. I recently had a student of mine whose thesis was sixty-three words long. It was a single sentence and was grammatically accurate, but imagine if you’re sitting in the audience and your brain is trying to absorb such a long, complex sentence. By about word twenty your eyes begin to cross. I suggested an eleven-word thesis that communicated the same idea. It’s much easier for the mind to grasp a shorter, simpler sentence.

            So, don’t allow your mind to slip into academic-writing mode when you figure out your main idea. Instead, think of finding a marketing slogan for your life lesson. Consider what commercials do. They communicate ideas in short, vivid and memorable ways. Even a week or month later the jingle is stuck in your head. I will give you some general rules for your marketing slogan: 1) Keep it to fifteen words or less. 2) It must be memorable. 3) It should have a natural beat to it. By that I mean it has a rhythm to it that is musical in nature. Of course, remember that all these rules are merely guidelines. At times the greatest artistic expressions break the rules. So, what I am giving you is a starting point. The rules and step-by-step process are merely training tools. The tools are a means to helping you achieve the ends of understanding how to communicate. Once you gain that understanding, you should move beyond the rules and begin to develop your own tools.

            Fifth, develop support for that main idea. You already have one story. So, you’ve already started that process. If you’re only giving a short speech, this may be enough. If it’s not, then how do you support ideas? If you read a speech or English composition textbook you might be thoroughly confused. Textbooks often try to be comprehensive in their coverage of a topic, so a textbook will likely give you innumerable ways to support ideas. However, there are only a few go-to ways great speakers use over-and-over. Three are primary: stories, analogies and demonstrations. Since you’ve already thought through your life stories, you might find there are more stories that strongly support your marketing slogan. You might have two, three or fifteen stories. You may likely have more stories than time will allow you to communicate. So, you might need to ask your gut which are most important. Generally you want to start and end strong. So, as you’re organizing your speech think about what will have the greatest impact and put those things on the two ends.

            You might be wondering, “Does this mean I can give a speech that is merely a collection of stories that support a marketing slogan?” Yes. I have seen great speakers do that. Having a simple, vivid idea and telling stories are so powerful that in many cases this is not only sufficient, but the best way to communicate. If you’re a rookie speaker, I would recommend learning how to develop your big idea and telling stories as the starting point. These two skills are so fundamental and so powerful that until you master them, you don’t need to worry about anything else.

            Another strong way to support ideas is through the use of analogies. Basically an analogy is using one thing to explain something else. Consider how I used the idea of marketing to explain developing a thesis. I’m using one thing to explain something else. Or, to put it another way, I’m using life experiences to explain a concept. With an analogy there are two things in play. First is the thing you’re trying to explain. In general this is something the audience doesn’t know or understand. The second is the thing you’re using to explain the unknown. So, basically an analogy is using something the audience knows at an experiential level to explain an unknown concept. Analogies are extremely powerful, but it will take a while before you master their use.

            Another way to support ideas is through demonstration. If you want to teach someone how to cook a steak, sometimes the easiest way to do that is to bring in a Porterhouse and a grill. If you want to teach someone how to block a punch, you can’t do it through lecture. They have to see and experience blocking a punch. Demonstrations don’t work for every topic and I think if you use common sense you can figure out when they apply.

            There is one big problem with demonstrations. They take time. You can’t rush them for them to be effective. You need to take your audience through the process at the pace they can absorb it. Often their ability to absorb is far slower than your ability to demonstrate. For example, say a professional baseball player was to teach a group of Tee Ball players how to hit a baseball. They could demonstrate a bat swing in a matter of second. To fully explain it, might take days as they break the swing down into it’s various components, explain each in detail, give kids time to practice each step and give feedback along the way.

            At this point you have a marketing slogan and have developed stories, analogies and/or demonstrations to support that slogan. If you develop things following this method, you will likely have more material than you can cover in the time you have to speak. So, again you may need to listen to your gut as to what is most important. If you don’t have enough material, you now know the primary ways to support ideas. So, at least you know what to look for. You can also do some research to help fill out your speech.

            Sixth, you need to figure how to organize the material—what order to put it in. It is possible to overcomplicate things. So, consider what you have. Give it some thought and see if you can find a way that just makes sense. How can you present ideas in a way that your audience will remember your marketing slogan? Is there certain material that won’t make sense unless you cover some other material first? Is there a certain way to organize material that will give it the strongest emotional impact? Is there something that just naturally grabs people’s attention? If so, you may want to start with that. Is there something that will really leave the audience with something deep to ponder or show them how to apply what you’ve talked about? You might want to close on that. If there is something you have that is really strong, you might want to open with it and also refer back to it at end.

            This process I’m taking you through is the exact opposite way of how most students operate. Most students pick a pattern of organization from a textbook and then fill in the boxes. But, the patterns are merely a tool. Developing and supporting ideas is the prime goal. You want to begin by thinking through the how’s and why’s of organizing. Develop ideas first. Organize them second.

            Now, I realize you might think and think until your brain bursts open and a pattern doesn’t rise to the surface. At this point you might need to look outside your thought process to find something that works. I would suggest patterns that fit how the mind naturally thinks and processes information.

            So, how does the mind think and process information? Our mind is connected to our body and designed to process information from the body and output commands to the body. So, our thinking has a strong physical component to it. We exist in time and space. We are also emotional beings. This immediately suggests some patterns of arrangement.

            Stories contain time, space and emotional elements. So, it’s possible to arrange a speech around a story. If there is one story that vividly illustrates your marketing slogan, just organize your main points around the story. Now, you may wonder what happens if that single story is not enough material for the time you need to speak. You can use the structure of the story to organize the speech and then for the high points in the story, where the story really illustrates important life lessons, bring in shorter stories, analogies, demonstrations and/or outside research to help heighten those high peaks.

            Another way to organize things is to follow some sort of time arrangement: step-by-step or following the chronology of events. This is particularly true for speeches that are demonstration oriented, teach a specific skill or are historical in nature.

            Our brain also thinks spatially, so can you find a way to organize things spatially? If you’re teaching about the parts of an engine you might progress from front to back. If you’re talking about a castle, you might organize the speech around giving the audience a mental tour. If you’re explaining different weight lifting exercises, you might work from top-to-bottom: leg exercises, core exercises, upper torso exercises and arm exercises.

            Our emotions are closely linked to our thinking. So, you might want to think in terms of how to move an audience emotionally. Persuasive speeches often build the emotions of the audience to a high point. It’s like climbing an emotional mountain and leaving them at the peak.

            People absorb information better after you’ve connected to them emotionally. So, you might think of a speech as a series of grabbing their heart and giving the mind something to ponder, grabbing their heart and giving the mind something to ponder and so on.

            Sometimes your audience will have a series of emotional hurdles they need to overcome in order to absorb the message. For example, when I teach speech I know the first thing on everyone’s mind is the fear of getting in front of an audience. So, the first emotional hurdle is to deal with stage fright. After stage fright, their next biggest fear is, “What am I going to talk about”? So, the next topic I cover in class is choosing a topic. The next thing they are thinking is, “How am I going to put together a speech?” So, I talk about how to organize a speech. I organize my content based on their psychology—the set of emotional hurdles I need to overcome.

            If you’re an experienced speaker you will likely know what I mean by organizing a speech emotionally. If you’re not an experienced speaker, you may need to get some more experience before you thoroughly grasp these concepts.

            Sometimes what you are trying to communicate doesn’t fit one of these patterns. So, let me give you a few other patterns that make sense. One pattern is: 1) Grab their attention. 2) State your marketing slogan. 3) Support your marketing slogan. 4) Summarize and reinforce. This is a simplified version of what a textbook would call a deductive arrangement. One of the advantages of this is it’s easy to follow.

            You can also organize a speech like a murder mystery. Think about a murder mystery movie for a moment. It generally has the following points: 1) Grab the audience’s attention. 2) Introduce a question. For a murder mystery this is generally a who-done-it question or how-did-they-do-it question. A murder mystery revolves around having a compelling unknown. If you organize a speech in this fashion, you must have some interesting question that drives the curiosity of the audience. 3) Present information that helps to answer the question. In a murder mystery, this information is carefully doled out piece-by-piece. The movie producer must balance two conflicting challenges: giving the audience enough information to give a sense of direction, but withholding enough information to keep things suspenseful. This arrangement is compelling, but it can be difficult to pull off. 4) Answer the question. In the movie, this is where the killer is revealed. Sometimes the movie will end at this point. Sometimes there might be a few loose ends that need tied up, but once the question has been answered things must conclude rather quickly. In a textbook this pattern would be called an inductive arrangement.

            There are far more ways to organize a speech. These patterns will work in most cases. If you’re a novice speaker studying speech, it would be helpful to have a decent speech textbook in your library. In many cases textbooks are not a good tool for learning, but are a good reference source. You wouldn’t read a dictionary and thesaurus to learn how to write, but when you become stuck finding the right word the book may be extremely helpful. A speech textbook will catalog lists of ways to organize and support ideas. Nothing wrong with using a textbook when you’re stuck, but don’t blindly follow a pattern. There should be purpose and thought behind everything you do.

            If you follow my suggestions you have a starting point to developing a speech. The ideas I’m giving you are different than what I’ve seen (and often hate) in academia. Whereas a textbook or college class will likely begin with book knowledge, I’m suggesting it is far more powerful to begin the process of speech development with experiential knowledge.

A Contrast in Self-Expression

            At present I feel as if my brain is about to burst. I am taking a break from grading college papers. Besides the mental workout of grading papers, I’ve also been reading Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus and watching an educational video on how comic books are produced. One thing that stands out is how differently communication occurs in each case.

            My students for the most part are doing a great job answering the questions for their assignment. However, their writing is somewhat bland. I find myself consistently challenging them to work on the vividness and forcefulness of their writing. But, why aren’t they expressing their ideas as vividly as I’d like? Part of the problem is the ideas aren’t really theirs. They are answering questions and so the seeds of the ideas are coming from outside as opposed to inside. Their motivation is fulfilling an assignment as opposed to their ideas coming from the fires deep inside their souls. They are talking about things the class requires them to cover as opposed to expressing what they deeply care about.

            Watching the video on comic production, I am amazed by the artistic expression. Both the writer and illustrator have tapped into their creative souls. I’m also struck by the simplicity of imagery. As the illustrator is drawing the scene, his use of line, shadow and background set an emotional context. His visual orientation is in sharp contrast to my students’ conceptual orientation. He is conveying ideas through images. In many cases my students just convey the ideas. Ideas without images are powerless. Even in writing or speaking, one creates images through language, stories and analogies. When my students write in a way that taps into the senses of the reader (sight, sound, smell, taste and touch) I notice the writing seems to reach out and grab me.

            John Gray’s Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus is a great example of writing that relies heavily on stories and analogies. He tells stories about himself and his wife. He shares examples of dialogue between men and women. He uses analogies to explain the cycles of intimacy men and women experience. His writing is extremely easy to understand. He writing is exactly what I challenge my students to produce—vivid, forceful and it reaches out and grabs the reader.

            So, what is the take home? The best communication comes from deep inside of us. The best communication is often simple. The best communication connects to the senses of the reader.

Avoiding Longwindedness

            Most sermons are longwinded. Most college lectures are longwinded. Every presidential State of the Union address is longwinded. We’ve all been sitting in the audience thinking, “Would this guy just SHUT UP!” Meanwhile, our speaker is thinking, “They’re already falling asleep and I’ve only been speaking for two minutes!”

            So, how can we ensure our audience enjoys the sound of our voice as much as we do? Longwinded orators speak conceptually. Captivating speakers communicate visually. I’m not referring to visual aids. I’m referring to using stories, analogies, demonstrations and play-acting that create a mental picture. So much of our brain is wired towards sensory input: touch, tastes, sights, sounds and smells. There is nothing wrong with communicating concepts. The problem arises when one communicates lists of concept. That’s why so many college lectures are brain-numbing. They have lists of concepts disconnected from real-world experience. Concepts only become real when they’re made concrete—tapping into the experiential, sensory nature of our brain. Take time to translate concepts into concrete experiences. You’ll cover far less concepts, but your audience will grasp them!

            Each of us has a need for relationships. Great speakers form a relationship with their audience. But, how do you do that? Support your speech with examples from your life. Tell them about: your loves, your failures, your successes and your foibles. But, what if you don’t have those personal examples to support what you’re talking about? Quite simply, you don’t know the topic well enough to talk about it. Impersonal book knowledge will quickly put your audience into a coma.

            Great speakers move an audience emotionally. Laughter is the most powerful emotion. If you can present an intelligent presentation that has people laughing two or three times per minute, you can be a professional speaker. If you consistently receive four to six laughs per minute, you can be a professional comedian. You can find countless books on how to write jokes and structure comedy. You can learn a ton from them. You can also learn a ton by getting on stage. What I’ve found is people are most funny when they share their: loves, failures, successes and foibles. Laughter is more an outgrowth of the speaker-audience relationship than it is about finding a magic joke formula.

            Great delivery also helps conquer longwindedness. The secret of delivery isn’t focusing on delivery. The more you focus on it, the more you’re focused on yourself and the less you’re focused on the audience. The secret of delivery (at least for most people) is overcoming fear. We fear when we focus on our ego. We overcome fear when we focus on our audience, purpose and message. Dynamic delivery is a restoration of who we are when relaxed and talking with family and friends.

            One component of delivery is critical in overcoming longwindedness—eye contact. If you don’t look at your audience, you lose your audience. If you aren’t paying attention to them, why should they pay attention to you?

            I’ve given you several points on overcoming longwindedness: 1) Speak in concrete, sensory-oriented terms. 2) Form a relationship with your audience by sharing your life. 3) Connect to your audience emotionally by uncovering your life. And, 4) Look at your audience. I’ve communicated these concepts in a few minutes, but mastering them will take a lifetime.

Opening the Curtains

            In any form of communication there is the potential of four levels of connection: physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. These four are related to the four components of man: body, heart, mind and spirit. The connection between two people can be seen in the following diagram:

Spirit

|

Mind

|

Heart

|

Body

**

**

Body

|

Heart

|

Mind

|

Spirit

            The first level of connection between any two parties is the physical. We see, hear, smell or touch the other person. The connection then deepens to heart, mind and finally spirit. When there is a roadblock at any level, it hinders deeper communication from occurring. For example, if one has an emotional roadblock, two parties cannot connect at the emotional, mental or spiritual level. If one has a mental roadblock, one cannot connect at the mental or spiritual level, and so on. The deepest connection between two people is the spiritual connection.

            At each level there are common roadblocks that occur. I will refer to them as curtains. When two parties drop all their curtains a spirit-to-spirit connection occurs. So, what are those roadblocks and how do we drop them?

            At the physical level the biggest curtain is an overemphasis on the physical. Ever hear a woman tell a man, “Look at my eyes!” The man has become too engrossed at the physical level and he is not connecting at a deeper level. Ever see a speaker become so nervous they just read from their notes? They have become so focused on all the physical symptoms of stage fright that they have broken off their physical connection with the audience. When a speaker doesn’t look at their audience, they quickly lose them.

            At the emotional level the biggest curtain is fear. Fear overwhelms its victim. Ever seen someone go through a period of depression. Depression is what’s left of a person after they’ve been beat down by fear. If you’ve ever known someone severely depressed, they come across as a zombie. You don’t connect to them at a heart-to-heart, because fear has trampled their heart. Ever see a public speaker who is afraid? What happens is their emotions come through in muted tones. As opposed to their emotions being color, they are now black and white.

            At the mental level the biggest curtain is the ego. The ego could simply be defined as our mental focus on ourselves. I have seen and experienced two opposite, but equally detrimental, manifestations of the ego. One is self-defeating thoughts. I think of this as my inner heckler. The other is self-protecting thoughts, which sometimes manifests itself as my inner perfectionist. In order to protect one’s image one strives to be perfect. In a speaking situation, what happens is one’s thoughts turn inward. They spend a great deal of focus reading the perfect little script in their head, but they never make a deep connection with their audience. In relationships, it is better to be imperfect but connected.

            At the spiritual level the biggest curtain is a lack of love. When you truly love someone, it becomes far easier to make a spiritual connection. The amazing thing about love is that it works from the inside out to make all the other connections easier. Love causes us to forget about ourselves. All of a sudden ego is pushed to the side. Love conquers fear. Love means we don’t just want a physical connection, so we look someone in the eyes to find something deeper.

            Our education system conditions us to focus on content when we communicate. The focus is placed on making a mind-to-mind connection, but the other components are overlooked. This is one reason why our education system is such an abysmal failure. We can’t connect to the mind unless we first make that physical and emotional connection. But, our society has become so hedonistic that we view physical and emotional connections in terms of sex. For fear some pervert may do something wrong, we have put in place all kinds of safeguards that stop us from treating another person like a person. There will always be perverts and they should be punished, but we have allowed fear of misdeeds to stop us from experiencing normal, healthy physical and emotional connections with others. It’s no wonder our kids can’t do math. They’re starved for human contact!

            So, when you communicate with another person look them in the eyes, cast away fears, push your ego to the side and love them. However, don’t just do these things externally. Learn to love people from the inside-out and the curtains will begin to drop.

Clash of the Titans

            I’m working with a friend of mine putting together a seminar on overcoming stage fright for a church. Yesterday, I think we finally hit a point where we were rubbing each other wrong. We were in an email exchange firing back-and-forth the details of our endeavor. I hear him droning on about minute details on having every little point meticulously planned. We even got into a detailed discussion about the brochure. I’ll be honest. As long as the brochure looks good and communicates the basic points we are going to communicate, I’m good with it. I had reached the boiling point on all the little details.

            Now, I can only imagine what my friend was thinking. I live in the fantasy world of daydreams and possibilities. He is grounded and detailed oriented. He was likely thinking, “This guy needs to get his feet on the ground. He’s daydreaming again—all concepts, but no clear practical application. He’s far too intellectual and not being practical.” I suspect he was growing weary of my creative spirit, which is a nice way of saying my head is in the clouds.

            Anytime two people collaborate there is going to be a point of friction. If there isn’t, you’re dealing with two closed-minded people: two people who are simply pulling the status quo and don’t have an independent thought in their minds. But, why do these points of friction happen and what can we learn from them?

            Often friction is a result of ego. We want things our way and when someone else doesn’t see things our way we become angry. That kind of friction causes a diminished final product. That kind of friction is also the hardest to deal with, because the solution is to look at ourselves instead of the problems around us. I will readily admit I have a strong ego. It’s an issue I constantly have to deal with.

            In this case our primary issue was simply we view things from a different perspective. There is a great deal of strength in my creativity. There is also a great deal of strength in my friend’s grasp of reality. The friction was really a result of our two strengths meeting each other. It’s like rubbing two pieces of sandpaper together. There’s only friction when both grit sides (the useful part of the sandpaper) meet! I’m of the belief that this type of friction should not be avoided. It should be embraced!

Faulty Assumptions Poison Presentations

            It was the best of speeches. It was the worst of speeches. That is how I feel about a speech I gave last night. Most of the people enjoyed my speech. I received quite a bit of feedback, some from a friend who is willing to tell me the truth. So, what went right and what went wrong?

            My delivery was strong. I was animated and my friend mentioned my eyes were “piercing”. There were some points of strong humor in the speech. I also had some vivid description both in wording and how I used body language to portray a story.

            The weak point was I didn’t make a genuine connection with the audience. The speech was too rote. It simply lacked the dynamic of someone dropping their guard and having a heart-to-heart with the audience. It was a good speech, but not a great one.

            So, why was it lacking? Much of it was due to me approaching things with faulty assumptions. I’ve spent about ten years teaching college. A group of college freshmen is one of the toughest audiences I’ve ever dealt with. In some ways they are even tougher than addressing a bunch of strangers at a comedy club. At least at the comedy club, the audience is there to have fun. A college student often enters the class reluctant to listen. While a minority may love the topic at hand, it is often a battle to gain consistent enthusiasm. For many my class is simply a line on a checklist of classes needed to obtain the degree.

            I have seen students’ attitudes change tremendously over the course of a semester. Some students have entered reluctantly and left loving my class. The problem is that constantly motivating others is tiring. I used to enter the classroom with the assumption that it was my responsibility to energize the class. After nearly having a nervous breakdown, I realized the fault in that assumption. In terms of motivation, I had to allow students to meet me halfway. I know in some cases that means I’m a less energizing presence in the classroom. But, I also know that a true give-and-take is more conducive to real learning. My assumptions were directly impacting my teaching and even my sanity.

            In many cases we are basing things on assumptions without even realizing it. But, if we look inward and are honest about how we approach an audience, we can uncover what is truly guiding our speaking.

            So, what assumptions were guiding my presentation last night? I think a part of me was approaching the audience like they were students—expecting a degree of reluctance and expecting that the success of “the show” was dependent on me. I wasn’t thinking in terms of the audience meeting me halfway. Instead of forming a two-way relationship with the audience, I was an actor on a stage. Sure, I may have been a good actor with piercing eyes, but I didn’t reach that highest level of being real, genuine and fostering a heart-to-heart with my audience.

            A second assumption was that I needed to be perfect. I had carefully prepared what I was going to say, even memorizing much of the speech. I’m not sure my audience was aware I was reading a script, but the script in my head was a barrier to me dropping my guard. There is an assumption in my mind that I need to be in control. Intellectually, I know control is an illusion. You cannot control an audience. You can put yourself out there and the audience can give you control, but they can take it back at any moment. My own desire of wanting the big laugh, the perfect line and the poignant description became a barrier to just meeting my audience at a person-to-person level.

            At a deeper level, a need to be perfect and “in control” is grounded on a fear of failure. I want the audience to embrace me. I want the applause, the laughter and the accolades of being the greatest speaker they’ve ever heard. In order for me to reach the next level, I’m going to need to deal with my own ego. This is the interesting thing about public speaking. While it is a communal event, for the speaker it requires one turning inward if they want to reach the highest level. A good deal of it might have to do with loving myself more than the audience. Once I love my audience more, will fear all of a sudden drop away? Is my biggest issue not dealing with mechanics, organization or any mastery of skills? Is my biggest issue really dealing with a mastery of myself and overcoming my own assumptions of self-importance? Ouch! Maybe I shouldn’t have written this blog! 

The Power of Failure and Public Speaking

            Teaching public speaking, my students are filled with fear. They’re afraid they’ll faint, forget their speech, sweat profusely, look like an idiot or say “um” uncontrollably. My experiences doing standup comedy have taught me that our perception of failing is based on a false assumption: that failure destroys an audience’s perception of us. I’m defining failure loosely to apply to anything that goes wrong while speaking. In truth, I've found that a certain amount of failure—if one has the right attitude—actually endears the speaker to the audience.

            Let me share some experiences I’ve had on stage. One was during a comedy competition. It was a three-night competition. The second night I bombed badly. I had a joke about a mouse caught in a trap and described the poor fellow as felt covered in maggots. Apparently “maggots” is the trigger word that mystically causes all funniness to evaporate.

            I continued with my juvenile parody of the Mickey Mouse song. The audience just stared in disgust. Looking back, I can understand why. The material I had wasn’t funny. I hadn’t been doing comedy long and I was trying so desperately to be funny that I was grasping at anything.

            Is that awkward moment I created the death of comedy? I’ve seen more skilled comedians tell worse jokes than that and recover from it. My failure wasn’t what killed my performance. My attitude killed my performance. I heard that little self-critical voice in my head say, “You’ll never get this audience back!” And, that night I didn’t.

            The next night of the performance the pressure was off. I wasn’t going to win, so I took the stage and just had fun. I talked about my failures the night before. I even roasted the judges. Of all the competitors, that was one of the strongest performances. A different night and a different mindset made all the difference.

            I remember another performance at a small comedy club. No one that evening was getting laughs. The audience just stared blankly. At this point, I was a little more experienced doing comedy. I had accepted the fact that I was going to have some failures on stage, but I had changed my mindset on failure. I saw failure as an opportunity. Failure is real and relatable. People understand failure. When a joke bombs, it’s the most human moment a comedian can have on stage. So, why view bombing a joke as a failure? When a joke bombs, just find the funny in the experience. That night most of my jokes bombed, but I just reacted to the awkward silence with a positive attitude and made light of the situation. Those attitudes and reactions were receiving big laughs—bigger laughs than others who took the stage.

            What is true of comedy is true of all public speaking. Your mindset is often the determining factor. If you allow the fear of failure to poison your mindset, when something unexpected happens on stage (the mic doesn’t work, your joke bombs, you drop your note cards or whatever) your inner, self-critical voice is going to tell you, “You’ll never get this audience back.” Those unexpected circumstances that we view as failing are often ripe with the opportunity of endearing us to the audience. All it takes is a change in mindset.

The Music of Language

            You’re driving down the street when a jamming tune comes on the radio. You start bobbing your head in rhythmic unison. “I love this tune!” Music is a universal experience that transcends cultures. Everyone likes music in one form or another. Our brains are hard wired with an internal time-keeping system. I like to think of this as our rhythm center.

            In terms of language, we are attracted to language that has a beat. This is one reason why Dr. Seuss is so popular. He tells stories in poetic form. There is a strong sense of rhythm that gives his stories a sense of movement, purpose and direction. All exceptional writing has a beat to it. In some cases it’s far more apparent than others, but when it is missing the writing seems lifeless. People may be clueless as to what is missing. They may describe the writing as “choppy”, “stilted” or “lacks flow”. It would be more accurate to say the writing doesn’t tickle the rhythm center of the brain.

            This explains why things that are technically wrong sometimes sound right. When speaking, it is sometimes more effective to use “ain’t” than “is not”. Technology, it’s not good grammar, but at times the single beat in “ain’t” sounds more natural than the double beat of “is not”. Ever hear someone overly cautious about pronoun agreement using “he or she” instead of “their”? While “he or she” may be technically accurate, sometimes “their” feels right. “He or she” is simply more awkward rhythmically.

            Great public speaking has a beat to it. Comedians will refer to this as cadence or timing. A master of timing was Rodney Dangerfield. His setups and punch lines had the rhythmic point and counterpoint sometimes evident in brilliant music—like Mozart. All successful comedians and public speakers have a sense of timing interwoven throughout everything they say.

            Having taught college speech classes, I see students struggle with this concept all the time. As they produce their speeches, their minds are in academic writing mode. The problem is writing and speaking have different rhythms. In writing, one is able to use longer, more complex sentence structures. For speaking, one often uses shorter, simpler sentence structures. It is more common to use ellipsis, which is a fancy way of saying leave parts out. The context and delivery fills in the missing pieces. The transcription of a great speech doesn’t always make for great writing. The same can be true of great writing—that it doesn’t always transfer to the spoken word.

            I have had some experience on stage doing standup comedy. When I first started, I was terrible. The material I was writing was grammatically flawless. My sentence structures were masterfully composed. At the time I was teaching several writing classes, so all the sermons I was giving about grammar were spilling over into my comedy writing. On stage, my material was lifeless and longwinded. It didn’t have the right rhythm for the spoken word.

            The take home is to become aware of the rhythm of language. Study the musical beat that underlies great writing and speaking. In so doing, you will become a stronger writer and speaker.

Public Speaking and the Learning Process

            A panic fills your mind. “Ah! Tomorrow is the big final!” You open your notes to page one. The notes stare back at you, piercing your soul with the question, “Did we cover this?” You flip through eighteen notebooks filled with unfamiliar material. You seriously wonder what you paid tuition for; thinking, “If I wanted to read a book, I would have gone to the library.”

            Unfortunately, this is the all too familiar outcome of the average college lecture. Much is covered; little is absorbed. Why? Why are paid educators often the worst teachers?

            Your mind fades for a moment and you remember the comedy club you attended last weekend. Now, that guy was a communicator! You can vividly recall the story of his grandmother and her nylons. You remember the intimate details of his dad’s fishing trip. You also remember the argument he had with his wife. Apparently Mr. Comedian was a far more effective teacher than Mr. Lecture. At least you remember what he covered! Why?

            The answers to the why’s come down to the learning process. The process involves at least three distinct steps: inputs, processing and outputs. The input is when you take in information. Processing is where your mind does something with the information—perhaps you come up with a theory, see how the material relates to your life or ask yourself an intriguing question. The output is where you take what your mind is processing and put it into action. This brings us to three key principles of the learning process: 1) The deeper the processing, the move vibrant the learning experience. 2) The output completes the process. Without output no deep learning occurs. 3) The more meaningful the output, the greater the learning. This by necessity means the learner is emotionally engaged.

            Think for a moment about Mr. Lecture. Mr. Lecture approaches people like they are sponges. He dispenses knowledge and the audience is supposed to absorb it. For the most part, this involves passive processing—little depth and little emotional involvement. There is also little output, beyond some rote regurgitation for the midterm and final.

            Now, think about Mr. Comedian. The fundamental structure of comedy is setup followed by punch line. The setup gives the mind something to process. When he tells the story about his grandmother, you can picture your grandmother. You can see her struggling with her nylons. He is talking about everyday life, which is far easier for the mind to process than lists of terms, definitions, names and dates (the diet Mr. Lecture gives you). During the setup the comedians gives the audience information the mind starts processing. During the punch line, he introduces a twist. Sometimes that twist is misdirection. Sometimes he ties things together in such a succinct way, that you chuckle while thinking, “That is so true!” In both cases, you experience a deep emotional release when you laugh. Any deep emotional release is an output! Laughter is connected to the learning process.

            Compare the two speakers. For forty-five hours of instruction with Mr. Lecture, you only had two, emotionally meaningless outputs: the midterm and the final. For an hour comedy show, you had two-hundred-fifty emotionally gratifying outputs. While it may not be popular to say this within the hallowed halls of academia, in many cases Mr. Comedian is a far better educator than Mr. Lecture!