Coaching Philosophy

All communication is a “work-in-progress.”

Communication is not about the sender (you) but the receiver (the listener) of your message.

How do we do it?

I’ll coach you from strength to strength.

l’ll help you neutralize impediments that are interfering with your message. Every coaching opportunity is a safe place to try out new tools and take risks.

Public Speaking

Key Points: 

1. Public Speaking is not a performance. It’s a conversation: one on one, on one, on one, et. cetera. A performance is memorized like dancers in a ballet, musicians playing in a symphony, singers remembering lyrics, actors remembering lines.

But, speaking to a group had better not be memorized. Your listeners want to feel that you’re spontaneously communicating ideas to them, not reciting a pre-ordained set of memorized words. 

And guess what. We all know when someone is reciting. And we don’t like it.

2. Everyone in an audience is listening with his or her own ears, looking with his or her own eyes, individually deciding whether or not you’ve got something to say that they can use. If they decide (and they do this quickly) that you aren’t worth the trouble of listening to, you’re out in the ocean without a life raft. The key to remember is that no matter how many people are listening to you, each one is listening as an individual. So, you need to speak to him and her conversationally, about something that they already care about. You need to answer their unstated question, “What’s in it for me?”

The solution?

All you need to do to keep them on your side is to find out what they need. Or, you need to make them  aware of a need that they don’t yet have but now want. Now you’ve got them rooting for you. Good news. Unless there’s someone in your audience who wants your job, everyone wants you to succeed out of pure self-interest. Bingo!  No one wants to be bored or feel that it’s a waste of his or her time to sit and listen to something they don’t care about. They're hoping against hope that you’re worth their precious time. Your job is to make them believe that what you’re sharing with them is going to help them in some way.

Anxiety

Last time I spoke about the need to get your audience to trust you enough to want to listen to you. Now I want to speak about public speaking anxiety. Not to worry --- everyone who isn’t a narcissist gets nervous. Everyone! 

Why? Fear of forgetting what you want to say, worry about whether your listeners will like you, most of all fear of making a fool of yourself.

Solution to Public Speaking Anxiety?

Good news/Bad news
It’s not about you! It’s always about “them”!

 Unless someone is in the jewelry or menswear business, in one week no one will remember your earrings or the color of your shirt. What they will remember is that you made them feel that you cared about them enough to share with them some great ideas that they can use. That you made them feel important. Maya Angelou said it:

“People won’t remember what you said or how you looked. But they will always remember how you made them feel.” (Judy check this quote.)

 Once you’ve established for them that you’re focused on each of them (their personal most important person in the room), and they recognize that you’re giving them something that’s of importance to them, you’ve won their trust. Now they’re ready to listen up.

 So, plan, prepare and rehearse ahead of time, and then forget all about yourself when you’re speaking to your listeners. Think about whom they are focused on --- themselves! The more you can do this, and the less you focus on yourself, the more relaxed and successful you’ll be. (Forget multi-tasking ---- you cannot think about them and you at the same time.

 Focus solely on them:

• Do they look puzzled? Say ‘I’d better clarify that point. Say something like, “I’m not sure I was clear – let me say this another way…’ (Secret --- never blame them or even ask them if they ‘got it.’ Seldom will anyone acknowledge that they are in the dark. It’s up to you to take the blame if you see that they’re lost.)

•  Have you given them examples to relate to that help get your idea across?