توضیحات ای جی

BEC : Presentations -AJ

Hello, this is AJ. Welcome to my commentary for this conversation. So we’re talking about presentations, giving speeches of some kind or another. I think the main point is preparation. We talked about that in the conversation, my dad mentioned it, this idea of being totally and thoroughly prepared, almost over prepared. And, again, what that does not mean, it does not mean memorization.

Please, do not try to memorize your speech word for word. That will make you terrified, because if you have to remember every single word you’re going to get up on that stage feeling nervous and you’re going to be worried. What if I forget! What if I forget! Oh, my God! Then you probably will forget and then when you forget you’ll freeze and panic. It’s terrible. Don’t do that, please.

The other thing you don’t want to do is just write it out and read it, okay? That’s a reading. That’s not a speech. It’s not a presentation. Nobody wants to sit there while you read to them. I mean that’s what we do with little children. It’s boring. So the question is how can you be super prepared, right? I mean what should you do to be prepared? Of course, you need to know the subject, whatever it is you’re talking about very well.

So I’m assuming - I believe - that if you’re going to make a speech about something that you know about it and if you don’t then you should really study that subject very, very well, know it very well. So I’m not going to talk about that. You have to do that of course, but that’s different for every speech, it depends on the topic, but I can talk about more general things you can do to prepare, kind of how to prepare for a speech.

The first thing to do with a speech is to just kind of gather, take notes. Not word for word writing the speech, but just take notes like maybe on little cards of kind of all the main ideas you want to talk about. You might take notes about certain statistics or research that you want to mention. You might write down a basic outline, a basic idea of the stories you want to talk about. Don’t write them out word for word, but just make notes.

Make an outline.

Now, probably you’re having to do this in English --that’s why you’re listening to this -and that makes it even more scary because you’re probably worried about your pronunciation or your English skills. Don’t worry about it. I mean your English skills are as good as they are. You’re trying to make them better in the long-term, but in short- term just don’t worry about it. You might make mistakes with English.

I make mistakes with English. I’m teaching English to groups, 300-500 people, and I’ll make a grammar mistake sometimes. So what? Who cares? It doesn’t matter. What is important is the information, the stories, the data, that you speak in a confident way.

That’s what you have to focus on. Don’t even think about grammar.

So, after you make your notes the main preparation will be just talking about your subject. You’ll just start standing up in your room alone and you’ll just start telling the stories. You’ll tell one story to yourself as you walk around the room and then you’ll tell another one. You’ll give some facts and some ideas and then you’ll tell them to take certain actions. So, basically, you’re practicing your speech, but you’re not doing it word for word. Every time you practice it will be just a little different. You might use a little bit different wording. You might do the order a little bit differently.

The point is you’re just getting used to talking about it. Talk to your friends. Talk to your coworkers about the subject as much as you can. Talk to family members. Just get used to talk about it, talking about, talking about it so that it’s really natural to tell these stories and to give this information and to tell people to take certain actions and to talk about the benefits. Get constantly talking about it. After a while you’ll get used to it. It will all be in your head. It will be easy for you to tell the stories. It will be easy for you to give the information.

The next step then will be to give that information in a powerful and interesting way and that’s more about your emotion. Now, this is where you can use the same exact technique I taught you in the interview commentary. That’s that anchoring, that peak emotion lesson I gave you of how to use music and strong movements and strong emotion to create a very strong confident feeling in yourself. Well, guess what? You can do the exact same thing before you give a speech.

Again, you should practice it at home first. So you could put on that music, get really excited, get really confident feeling. Change your body, your posture, your facial expressions, how you move, make all of it very strong, very powerful. Exaggerate it, make it stronger than normal. Then when you’re feeling that way, start talking about your subject again walking around your room. You could even talk to the mirror, but being very strong, very confident and very powerfully emotional in a positive way.

Then just get used to doing that again and again. Several days you keep doing that, practicing it, practicing it, practicing it, so now you’re telling the stories and giving the information while you have this feeling of confidence, while you have this feeling of strength and power. The more you do it you start anchoring, connecting those feelings to the subject and to the act of speaking so it becomes more and more easy to do, less and less scary.

Finally --step three of your preparation --you’ll actually try to practice the entire speech.

So now it’s going to be more organized. You’ll follow that formula maybe of telling a story, an analogy or a direct story and then giving some supporting information and then telling them the action they should take. You should do this because … and the ‘because’ part is the benefit. Tell them the benefit --because if you do this your teaching will be better, because if you do this we’ll make a lot of money, whatever.

So story, then the data, then the action they should take and then the benefit of taking that action. You could have several of those little units if it’s a longer speech. If it’s a shorter speech or a presentation it might just be one of those, one story, a couple things of information, one action and one benefit.

So you’ll practice that entire speech, the entire thing and, again, first you’re going to get yourself very confident, very strong and very powerful. Super exaggerate this. It has to be much stronger than normal. Because in the real situation you’re going to feel some nervousness and so it’s not going to be quite as strong, so you have to make it much stronger when you practice.

So, again, you get in that strong, powerful emotional state then you practice your speech. You can use notes or not use notes, it’s up to you, but do not read your presentation. So after you practice this in that peak emotional state, that strong, confident emotional state many times over several days, you should be quite ready and you should be ready to give your presentation in a confident way.

Just before your presentation you want to be in a strong, confident emotional state, right? You want to be feeling good and strong, so if you need to go to the bathroom or go outside somewhere private and jump around. If you have an iPod or some music play your favorite song that makes you really excited and strong. Kind of review in your head, imagine that you’re giving the speech. Get yourself really, really powerful then go back into the room and then give your speech. One last thing about this is that the more speeches you give, obviously, the more comfortable you will become.

So, even when you do all of these things I just said, your first speech you know you’re probably going to be kind of nervous, but you’ll still do a good job. You’ll do a good job.

Then after you do that first one though, you’ll sit down. Maybe you’ll be shaking a little bit and then you’ll realize well, that wasn’t so bad. It actually went pretty well. It wasn’t a disaster.

Well, if you can, try to get another opportunity as soon as possible to do another speech. You might even join a group, a class, a course, a club, that’s focused on giving public speeches. That’s the way you really practice this. There’s an international group called Toast Masters. They’re a public speaking group. They practice speeches and they’re international. They’re all over the world in lots of different countries.

They’re not my favorite group, honestly. They’re a little old fashioned in some of the ways they do things, a little too formal, but that’s a small criticism. In general, they’re a nice group and they give you a lot of opportunities to practice making speeches and the more you practice, the more you do, the easier they become.

An excellent course that I recommend that you’re going to have to pay for, but it’s still excellent is the Dale Carnegie Public Speaking Course. They are also international, I believe. I’m not such which countries they’re in, but they’re in a lot of countries. That is a truly excellent public speaking course. If you have a chance, an opportunity to take that course, do it. It was the first speaking course I ever took and it really helped me a lot.

Other than that you could always start your own little club in your house for public speaking. You and some friends or you and some coworkers or you could do it at your job, start a little public speaking club. Then just every week you get together and everybody makes a three or four minute speech.

Whatever you do just practice, practice, practice. It does get easier and eventually you will enjoy it. So talk about it a lot then practice it in that kind of strong emotional state.

Then practice the whole thing while you’re feeling very strong and powerful and then just before the speech get in that powerful emotional state again and then do your speech. That’s it, quite simple. Not necessarily easy, but it is simple.

So get out there and do it and whatever happens do it again, do it again, do it again.

That repetition will really help. By being a good, you don’t have to be great, but just being a good public speaker, a good presenter you really will help your career a lot.

Because people who are good presenters, people who are good speakers usually do well in their career.

You know they get noticed. Bosses notice them. The boss’ boss notices them. You make a lot of connections that way and people begin to see you as an expert in your area because you’re good a presenting, because you’re good at speaking, so this is a very important skill to develop. Even if you’re afraid, work at it. Work hard at it because this will help you so much in the long-term.

Okay, that’s all. See you next time, bye-bye.

The End.