Welcome to the October Issue of Speaking-Out-Loud write-out-loud.com's monthly E-zine to help you effectively 'talk your walk'.

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Happy speaking,

Susan

In this Issue

If you don't have time to read the whole ezine, click on the topic that interests you. This month you will find:

• Susan's Spiel

• Ain't it Awful?

• Toughening Up Soft Skills

• Getting Feedback

Susan's Spiel

Ain't it Awful?
This month's Article introduces scaling 'catastrophes'. What truly is absolutely appallingly ghastly? Find out how scaling public speaking nerves between magnitude 1 and 10 helps.

Toughening Up Soft Skills
A collection of 'how-to' speech ideas for demonstration speeches focusing on strengthening interpersonal or soft skills. These make a welcome change from the usual 'how to change a car tire' type of demonstration speeches while delivering vitally important information to your audiences.

Getting Feedback
If you're not getting the feedback you need to improve your public speaking skills, check this out! Working with a buddy to evaluate your speeches will pin point where you'll want to put your energy.

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I hope you enjoy this month's Speaking-Out-Loud!

Susan

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Ain't it Awful?

When I was a child I was frequently told to STOP being a drama queen. Because the hem of my dress came down, it was not a sign the dress was completely ruined or when my cat got lost it didn't automatically mean it had been run over.

However the temptation to fall into catastrophe mode was hard to resist. I felt events so keenly that the 'Ain't it Awful' club and me seemed a natural fit.

Fortunately, I've mostly outgrown those extreme reactions where all I saw was a total disaster, or an absolute debacle of gigantic proportions.

The strategy largely responsible for getting my rampant imagination reined in was 'scaling'. With prompting I could stand back and place whatever the current situation was on a 1 - 10 rating scale.

It worked. Perspective diminished the sense of all pervasive doom. It helped me see what was and what wasn't controllable.

Do try scaling to check the reality of your public speaking nerves.

If your present state of mind as you stand up to give your speech was on a scale of 1-10 where would it be?
10 is a total cataclysmic disaster of world shattering significance
1 is a minor temporary blip

Are you likely to die through giving a speech?
Is the world ending?
Are your loved ones threatened?
What is the very worst case scenario that public speaking nerves can cause? Think of it and holding it in your mind put it on the 1-10 scale.

Your answer will put fear in perspective. Once it's there it is much more manageable. If the very worst that can happen is forgetting what you're going to say, you can do something about it. It's called practice.

If it's something beyond your control, a tidal wave washing away the entire building, check it for the likelihood of occurrence and let it go.

You can only ever control what is within your reach. Attempting anything else is futile and a waste of your energy.

Accept and focus on what you can do right now. Fears retreat when they're faced. What you thought was 7 or 8 on the scale when you stood up to speak becomes 5 when you've remembered to breathe properly. By the time you're into your speech and the benefits of practice kick in, it's 3 and those public speaking nerves are fading fast.

Click for 4 more strategies to turn public speaking anxiety into public speaking confidence.

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Toughening Up Soft Skills

Here's a different take on demonstration speeches. Mostly these are about demonstrating a hard skill - a show and tell of some sort. We demonstrate how to bake a cake, groom a pet, tie a tie, read a road map and so on.

But what about demonstrating soft skills?
There's oodles of these vital interpersonal skills that could be used to create valuable 'how-to' speeches suitable for speaking clubs or students in communications classes. They're adaptable to all age groups and could easily be made to fit specific sitations.

Examples:

1. How to say 'no' politely
2. How to settle a dispute
3. How to respond to bullying toward yourself or others

As with any speech you need to do your preparation; fitting audience and subject matter together, deciding on a format, the tone, and the goal or purpose of the speech. You may not have articles for the audience to handle or pictures to see but there is potential to fully involve them all the same.

A soft skills how-to speech begs for role plays. For example, you can demonstrate/model an effective way to say 'no' politely against an ineffective way. You could ask your audience for feedback and then get them role-playing it for themselves in pairs. They trial both ways, effective and non-effective and report back.

Why toughen up soft skills?
Because it's these interpersonal attributes or qualities that shape our lives more than any other. We can be the most intelligent or the cleverest at a particular hard skill,(running, programming, cooking ...), but unless we also know how to foster and maintain good interpersonal relationships we will find it extremely difficult living in the real world.

Click for 50 soft skills how-to speech ideas.

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Getting Feedback

One of the most important yet potentially problematic aspects about public speaking is getting feedback. Not just any old feedback but useful criticism that you can work with.

Being told that you're fantastic is flattering. Being told that you've got a long way to go or worse, is disheartening. But neither statement actually lets you know which aspects of speech making to focus on and how to improve them.

To get the evaluation you need to develop your skills you either have to be part of a public speaking group (class), or you can round up a couple of volunteers and train them to evaluate you usefully. Chiefly this involves, helping them learn to listen and look beyond the immediacy of your presentation. Better yet is to find a partner.

Teaming up with a buddy with similar goals within whatever organisation most of your public speaking occurs is a good win-win solution for both you. It's one that's worked really well for me in the past. You take turn about listening and evaluating each other. Discussion will help you identify areas of strengths and weaknesses giving you specifc aspects to concentrate an evaluation on.

For example:
If you're working on transitions, that's what they'll pick up on.
If it's eye contact and body language, the feedback will focus on that.
Or it could be how you manage to integrate using powerpoint and a whiteboard. The possibilities are endless.

If you're part of a club or class this form of feedback should be an integral part of a session.

To be thoroughly useful make sure that the evaluation goes further than a mere statement that you could work on, for example, getting rid of stock phrases or fillers (ums and ahs). Becoming aware that you use them is good but the next step gives you the tools for improvement. This is the HOW step.

What do you do to work on the problem? What is the best way to get rid of fillers? How do you avoid resorting to habitual or stock phrases?

If you don't have ready answers, say so and offer to do the research to find them. You do not have to be an expert but you need to be willing to learn, work for and trust each other. And yes, sharing is hugely rewarding.

Check this link to see what aspects are included as part of a formal speech evaluation.

You'll find further suggestions about how to work with an evaluation and a link to a printable evaluation form. The form is based on those I used in teaching and has a standard 5 point rating scale.

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Thank you for reading the October Issue of Speaking-Out-Loud. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or feedback through the form at the foot of the Speaking Out Loud Page. I love hearing from my readers!

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Until next time,
Happy speaking,

Susan

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