5 Unorthodox — But Highly Effective — Mindsets for Public Speakers

Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash

Crafting and delivering 500+ speeches, talks and presentations over the past decade has taught me two important lessons:

1 — Whether you’re a ‘novice’ or a ‘pro’ being an effective public speaker is tough (if you actually give a damn about the impact you have on each listener in the audience)

2 — There are 5 mindsets that can save you tons of time (as you craft and practice your speech, talk or presentation) and significantly increase your intended impact on each listener in the audience.

Lesson 1 — Effective public speaking is tough

Anyone who has conscientiously crafted and delivered more than a handful of speeches, talks or presentations has probably come to realize that doing this bit of magic effectively is tough!

No matter where you are on the novice-to-professional public speaker spectrum your task is always the same.

Transform whats in your brain into visuals (props, stage movement, body language) and sequences of sounds (tone, emotion, words, concepts, ideas).

All this light and sound triggers a complex set of processes in each listeners brain that will — hopefully — create a fairly close version in their brain of what you have in your brain!

Throw in that you should also:

A — know your listeners (well enough that you use words, concepts, ideas and visuals they can quickly grasp)

B — know where you want to take the listeners (so your speech, talk or presentation has a trajectory)

C — use an optimal organizational structure (one that is optimally designed for where you want to take them and how you want to take them there)

D — find and craft the best words and visuals

E — practice enough (so your delivery is fluid, not stiff and boring)

F — and, deliver it in a confident and engaging way (so your listeners will like, trust and engage with you from the beginning)

And voila, the magic of human to human communication happens.

That’s a lot of moving parts to learn and get right!