Delivery
We can great ideas, but if we don’t have the ability to control how they’re expressed, we can fail to express them in the way we want them to be expressed.
The same speech can be performed in a boring way and an exciting way- the difference lies in a few, simple things:
1. Body language
The way we use the body tells other people how we’re feeling, which is important for a speech because it tells others how closely we should listen to them.
Both anxiety and confidence are reflected naturally in our body language.
2. Speech Speed
We know when someone else is speaking in a way that feels too slow or too fast for us, but it may be difficult for some people to know when we’re doing the same thing.
Giving ourself time to breath is important because it gives our audience time to mentally digest everything we’ve just said- otherwise, the information gets piled up such that no more is accepted in.
3. Tone of voice
Our vocal tone does a lot to express what we mean, but also how we feel. Someone who‘s tone inclines too much will come across as if they are asking to speak- even when they’ve been given a platform to do so.
A good practice for developing our ability to use vocal tone to our advantage is to experiment with saying the same thing with different tones.
We can say the same sentence but the undertones will be different depending on our vocal tone.
The sentence ‘I want to go to the shop’ can be said like:
• I want to go to the shop? (upward inflection) • I want to go to the shop. (downward inflection)
The effects of stressing different words
Interestingly, the same sentence can give off a slightly different feel depending on which words we stress.
For example, we could experience the difference between:
• I went to the shop and I went to the bakery.
• I went to the shop and I went to the bakery.
• I went to the shop and I went to the bakery.
Managing pre-speech stress
It’s a good idea to take a deep breath and set the mind on the task ahead: to deliver a great speech. “I’m gonna make this really enjoyabke for them to listen to” is an intention that can out us in the right mind-frame to deliver our best.