It has always been a challenge to maintain the view that the customer is always right – not just in speaking, but in business especially. It can try the most patient and accommodating business owner or customer service professional.
But if we can achieve it, maintain that view, go into our speaking with that view, then everything will fall into place so much more easily.
Validating your audience in any communication is guaranteed to build trust and engagement.
One of the basic premises of storytelling is that you need to meet the audience where they are.
And yes of course our audiences have the right to their objections to our propositions. The sooner we address those objections the sooner we can hope to succeed in putting forward our visions for them.
The structure of your presentation falls into place.
If you believe that your audience is always right, that they deserve the respect that that entails, then you will be happy to prepare all that you can to gain the understanding you need of what your audience feels, thinks, knows is right.
You will build confidence and calm because you are not trying to manipulate, you are giving respect and service.
And you will have laid the groundwork for success for yourself and for your customer/audience.
The sooner speakers understand this, that public speaking is not a manipulation, not a performance to be judged, not all about themselves, the better the standard of speaking will be. No, we may not have great “orators”, but we will have more successful public speakers, not afraid to be authentic and of service, and more audiences prepared to come back for more.
“People think I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.”
— Matthew Arnold
I don’t like it.
I like Florien Mueck.
If you can get to his YouTube channel, do, he’s worth watching.
But I wish he hadn’t said that, or hadn’t been quoted as saying that.
Starting with a negative.
No, there is no perfection.
I live in a household of sporting people, and the shelves are lined with trophies. In any sporting competition, there are distinct winners and losers. A swimming race, say, takes a measured amount of time and the fastest wins. Simple and cut-and-dried (usually!)
A speech on the other hand … well! I have won many speaking competitions since about the age of 12. I have lost just as many. People come to me afterwards and tell me they thought I won. Sometimes I agreed, sometimes not. Despite the number of very well articulated criteria, there will always be that element of subjectivity involved. I know. I also judge!
So if there is no cut-and-dried “best” speaker, how can there ever be a “perfect” speaker, or a perfect speech?
Perfect according to whom? Perfect according to what criteria?
What if, on the other hand, we went to the second part of this quote and look at a speaking high.
What does that look like? What does that feel like?
To me, it feels like being in flow
– speaking fluently and with enthusiasm
– connecting with members of the audience so that they respond with emotion, or they participate
– it can feel powerful
– it can feel gratifying
– it can feel something close to perfection
And if we looked at the audience members after the speech, they would be doing what we, as speakers, aimed to have them do – repeating, remembering, rehiring, buying, changing, being motivated, or any number of other things we had designed.
It’s what keeps me speaking, meeting the challenge to be the best I can be, to climb higher and higher towards
no, not a mountain top,
not a peak
not perfection even, whatever that may be,
but certainly to more highs and greater heights.
And of course the corollary is that we all need to avoid becoming complacent, thinking that there is no better in us, no better experience we an provide, no need to strive or create anything new or better.
So, yes, Florian, I agree with you, and the quote stirred me to do that!!
And it’s what I want for all of us here – you, Florian, me and all of our fellow speakers and readers.
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[Quotation about public speaking] The success of your presentation depends on more than your knowledge
“No audience ever complained about a presentation or speech being too short”
― Stephen Keague, The Little Red Handbook of Public Speaking and Presenting
[Quotation about public speaking] Public speaking will have its place
“As long as there are human rights to be defended; as long as there are great interests to be guarded; as long as the welfare of nations is a matter for discussion so long will public speaking have it place.” ~ William Jennings Bryan
In my current obsession with storytelling, I have discovered a Hopi Proverb which says the “Those who tell the stories rule the world.”
Leaders everywhere are those who give their followers something to believe in, a narrative that explains the present and paints a future.
And leaders are not just those in government or religion.
They lead in business, they lead in our institutions, they lead in our families.
We all have the capacity to be a leader at some time.
I am only thankful that the skills of public speaking are there to give us the power to lead and to create a world with values that we can uphold.
“A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that ‘individuality’ is the key to success.”
— Robert Orben
“There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.”
— Winston Churchill
Ah Mr. Churchill! He created resonance with the audience, knowing that most find speeches difficult, intrigued them with the mention of two things, and used wonderful “rhetoric” with his phrases that repeated structure and image. What a speaker!
“….. understanding and communicating the essence of things is difficult,
takes a lot of thought, and has a big impact.”
— Carly Fiorina
Fiorina served as chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard
from 1999 to 2005 and previously was an executive at AT&T
Image: "CarlyFiorina49416" by Antônio Milena/AB - Agência Brasil [1]. Licensed under CC-BY-3.0-br via Wikimedia Commons.
All the great speakers were bad speakers at first.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Does this seem such a truism?
Are great speakers born or made?
Do people think they will be great speakers to begin with?
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Why do you think Ralph Waldo Emerson actually wrote this set of words?
Incidentally they come from this passage from “The Conduct of Life” published in 1860.
Practice is nine tenths. A course of mobs is good practice for orators. All the great speakers were bad speakers at first. Stumping it through England for seven years, made Cobden a consummate debater. Stumping it through New England for twice seven, trained Wendell Phillips. The way to learn German, is, to read the same dozen pages over and over a hundred times, till you know every word and particle in them, and can pronounce and repeat them by heart.
“Imprison it”…? Hmm. My mother used to say to me “Put your words on the palm of your hand and look at them before you speak.” I liked that. Sweet Benjamin needs to guard against speaking without thinking.
If he’s going to be a speaker, he needs to consider his message and his audience before he speaks.
But “imprison” …? What do you think?
It’s such a lovely old-fashioned quote, isn’t it? “Whip with a switch” from the days of horses and horse carriages. And I would think that if you used a switch without leaves it would certainly tingle, though these days we shudder a little at the thought of beating the poor animal.
Nevertheless, writing as he was, in his time, Henry Ward has made a timeless point – waffling does not drive home searching truths.
And there’s another wonderful term “searching truths”. Ah! If all the points I make when I speak cause my audiences to search their beliefs and themselves, I would be very happy!
I wish you (and me) speaking experiences that drive us and our points home … in fine style!
The quote today is from Jonathan Swift …
In oratory the greatest art is to hide art.
And that’s true …
but sometimes it’s fun to share a little dig at the art with an audience!!
“Presenters using visuals conduct meetings in 28% less time, increase audience retention as much as five times, and get proposals approved twice as often”
~ Claire Raines and Linda Williamson
“The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.”
– George Jessel
… so I say TG for rehearsal. It has saved me more times than I care to count!!
“In public speaking, we must appeal either to the prejudices of others, or to the love of truth and justice. If we think merely of displaying our own ability, we shall ruin every cause we undertake.”
William Hazlitt
Maybe stories are just data with a soul.
~ Brené Brown
Are you using stories to make your data more attractive and effective?
True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, and that only.
-La Rochefoucauld
“You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.”
Anatole France
I hadn’t heard about Dan Quayle’s reputation, though at least I had heard of the man. I was researching quotations about public speaking and found this one.
Public speaking is very easy.
~ Dan Quayle
Intrigued, I had to find out more – what was the context?
Why did he say that?
Was he being arrogant?
Was he joking?
I still haven’t discovered the context, but I have discovered some amazing statements attributed to him. What a speaker he really was!!
“Of all kinds of success, that of an orator is the most pleasing.”
— Oliver Goldsmith
Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.
Alfred North Whitehead
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
Winston Churchill
A speech is poetry: cadence, rhythm, imagery, sweep! A speech reminds us that words, like children, have the power to make dance the dullest beanbag of a heart.
~Peggy Noonan
It’s quite simple. Say what you have to say and when you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending, sit down”
Winston Churchill
Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I sometimes marvel at the extraordinary docility with which Americans submit to speeches
~Adlai E. Stevenson
Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it hot.
Author: D. H. Lawrence
“If you want me to speak for an hour, I am ready today. If you want me to speak for just a few minutes, it will take me a few weeks to prepare.”
Mark Twain
“He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.”
– Joseph Conrad
True humor is fun – it does not put down, kid, or mock. It makes people feel wonderful, not separate, different, and cut off. True humor has beneath it the understanding that we are all in this together.
-Hugh Prather
“As long as there are human rights to be defended; as long as there are great interests to be guarded; as long as the welfare of nations is a matter for discussion, so long will public speaking have its place.”
– William Jennings Bryan
“As long as there are human rights to be defended; as long as there are great interests to be guarded; as long as the welfare of nations is a matter for discussion, so long will public speaking have its place.”
– William Jennings Bryan
Every speaker has a mouth; An arrangement rather neat. Sometimes it’s filled with wisdom; Sometimes it’s filled with feet.
– Robert Orben
Every speaker has a mouth; An arrangement rather neat. Sometimes it’s filled with wisdom; Sometimes it’s filled with feet.
– Robert Orben
“Be interesting, be enthusiastic … and don’t talk too much.”
– Norman Vincent Peale
“Be interesting, be enthusiastic … and don’t talk too much.”
– Norman Vincent Peale
Today’s public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can’t read them either.
Gore Vidal
A good orator is pointed and impassioned.
Marcus T. Cicero
“We are all cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is,
knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”
-Ray Bradbury
