#39 - Do a Public Speaking Course
I spend a lot of my time at work presenting and speaking to a wide variety of people in different levels of seniority. I’ve never really had a problem with addressing large people, but I’ve always known I could improve.
I think this bucket list will take me to a lot of new places, many out of my comfort zone. I would love to be able to confidently stand in front of hundreds of people, get my point across and entertain everyone in the audience. Hence why I think I put this on the bucket list.
Getting started, I went on Udemy to find an online Public Speaking course, finding one for £20 which was about 16 hours long and all about how to build and clearly communicate presentations. As always, I became very inpatient and frustrated with this course and the coach. I wasn’t interested and it wasn’t getting the best out of me.
In a non-Covid world I think I would have just paid X amount for a day’s coaching and see what it’s all about, obviously not possible. Googling the market, looking at lots of different ways to do this I came across London Speech Workshop (https://www.londonspeechworkshop.com/). I booked myself in for a taster session to see what it’s all about with one of their experts (why not throw money at it and go for it). I was assigned Cat Clancy as my Principal Coach. I love her, I think she is great! She really reminds me of one of my close friends from travelling, Bekki, very well spoken, very interested in the person she is speaking to and loves a good discussion/opinion/debate.
After my initial session, I decided to go for it. 5 x 1 hour coaching sessions on Public Speaking. Through this journey we went through pausing, identifying where to take breathes, on which word to deliver to the audience. I now really understand just how much there is to ‘speaking’ and how we express ourselves through communication. It is an art and a science. One session was based on ‘verbal target practice’ which in a sense means delivering with your audience at the right time with eye contact. Vocal Tone was very interesting as people tend to go, loud, long or higher with words to tell a story in a very different way. I use to stick to being loud being the charismatic extrovert that I am. ‘Don’t wake the baby’ is a technique to move me away from using volume and focusing on other ways to engage my audience. Finally we looked at body language and how to use your hands to communicate. The key thing for me here is to pause. I found this really interesting and enjoyed all of it.
Tool Kit for me to continue to work on:
1. Don’t wake the Baby!
2. Verbal target practice. ‘Aim… Fire!’ ‘Pause & Plan’
3. Hands – bring them back to the off button
4. Prep notes in Bullet Points
5. Start with Posture
6. Focus the energy
One final point to summarise, with another one off the bucket list, again this feels like further self discovery, you really get deep about why I communicate the way I do, mainly upbringing and parents. It’s really enjoyable to continue to be made more self aware by putting myself outside of my comfort zone.