Eye contact is one of the most important aspects of public speaking and can really make or break your presentation. In my public speaking training and coaching, poor eye contact is one of the common problems I see in my students. Many people are just not comfortable using genuine and effective eye contact, and they are unsure how they can …
Learn From Others
Some of the best sources of information and lessons in public speaking come from watching and listening to others. As a public speaking trainer and coach I attend as many seminars and presentations as I can, mostly so I can observe and learn from other presenters. In my public speaking workshops, I get each person to do mini speeches and …
Connect With Your Audience; Build Rapport
One of the keys to effective public speaking and presenting is the ability to connect with your audience. You will all have experienced workshops and seminars where the speaker really connected with you and had a massive influence over your thinking. And there will be other presenters who may have been quite confident and eloquent, but they failed to have …
Body Language – Let Your Gestures Talk
Malcolm Gladwell in his book “What The Dog Saw” describes research where the results of a full 1 hour job interview are compared with the assessment of a group of people who just get to watch a video of the first 15 seconds of the same interview process. The first 15 seconds is generally the hand shake, the smile, eye …
The Importance of Gestures
Varying research reports that over 50% of our message and our ability to connect and communicate with an audience comes from our gestures and body language. I have been watching the regular reporting of the Queensland floods and have been shocked and shaken by the enormity of the disaster. I have also been watching with great interest the interviews that …
The Kings Speech
As a person who stutters, I really enjoyed the movie “The Kings Speech” It captures beautifully the emotions, the struggles and the embarrassment that a person who stutters goes through when they try and speak. The movie was very close to home for me and at the age of 8 a drama and elocution teacher did put marbles in my …