And that's why stories are so powerful. If you want to get a message across
you change your audience's state. I am standing next to the Bethesda
Fountain in central park in New York City. Hi, my name is Grace Lee and I'm the host of
the Career Revisionist podcast where I help savvy professionals to build careers of significance and
expand that into living a fulfilling life. Today I want to talk to you
about speaking confidently, and I'm going to give you 10 secrets
on how to speak confidently in any endeavor. So come with me for a walk
in central park and let's get to it. Secret number one is to know that
this is a skill that you can learn. There's no such a thing as
being born with it. In fact, if you talk to any of the best speakers
out there, they weren't born with it. They had struggles with it and they
had to overcome their challenges. They had to develop their confidence
and they had to develop the skill. So it is a skill like any other
skill that can be developed. Let me give you an example. Have you ever seen the movie
King's Speech by Colin Firth? Colin Firth played England's
Prince Albert. He was, in history Prince Albert was to be on
the throne to become the next King George the sixth. And he needed to speak in front of the
nations here to speak to England and to all the people, all the citizens
that were following him. But he had a speech impediment.
This is a true story. So King's speech is based on the
true story of his life. So, Prince Albert's wife hired a leader, hired a coach to help him
overcome that speech impediment. And later on he was able to develop
into the leader he is known to be. So you see speech being good
at speech, being confident public speaker is not an innate trait. You aren't born with it. The
great leaders aren't born with it. They work at it and
they develop the skill. So what can you do to develop that
skill? Well, let me tell you what I did. I'll share with you what I did.
English was not my first language. My first language was Cantonese
because I'm originally from Hong Kong and so I struggled with learning
English. I had to learn vocabulary, I had to learn grammar and I had to learn speech because I used to speak
with an accent and so I had to study phonics, I had to study
English pronunciation, and what I did when I wanted to expand
my vocabulary was I read the dictionary, not just any dictionary but the
Oxford dictionary of difficult words. Now I'm not saying you have to read
the dictionary from A to Z in order to become a confident speaker,
that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that if you want to become a
confident speaker and start to develop your skills somewhere, then you need to expand your vocabulary
and the words to focus on are the words that will help you express
yourself. In other words, these are words that
are emotional of nature. When you express yourself
from human to human, whether or not you are speaking
one-to-one or one to many, you need to learn to express
yourself. So learn some vocabulary, expand your vocabulary around emotions and get real and get
authentic with expressing yourself. And in that way when you learn
a lot more emotional words, you can also learn to express your ideas. Secret number two is to
make it about your audience. Have you heard the term that the number one fear that people have is stage
fright? I mean comment below. Do you have stage fright? Have you experienced going on stage and
becoming like a deer in the headlights and being nervous right before a performance? I mean
comment below if you experienced that, I mean it is the number one fear, but the reason why you
experienced stage fright, the reason why stage fright is so common
is because you are making it about you. When you are fearful, when you are
nervous on there, it's because you are so concerned about how other
people think of you. You are so concerned about
what they're thinking about, how you're looking about how you
appear and that is making it about you. So make it about them instead because
you are speaking for a reason. You are speaking to be heard.
Yes, but the main reason, the real reason why you are talking
to real reason why you are engaging in public speaking is because you
want to get a message out there. You have a message that other people
want to hear and maybe other people when they're hearing what you have to say, that's something
they needed to hear for the longest time. So make it about them, right? So make it about them and
when you make it about them, you are no longer focused on you and
that is how you overcome stage fright. Secret number three is to visualize
yourself as a confident speaker. If you're not a confident speaker,
if you've not experienced it, chances are is because you can't
see it. You can't see yourself as a confident speaker. So
practice that. Just imagine, use your imagination and ask
yourself, what do I want to look like? Ask yourself, what do I look like? And
imagine yourself speaking from stage. You want to be as detailed as
possible. What are you wearing? How big is the audience? Where is the stage that you are speaking? What is the event and more
importantly, how are you dressed? What is your posture? How are you showing
up? What does your voice sound like? And when you project your voice, when you deliver your message and
you look around in the audience, what are they doing? Are they
making eye contact with you? Are they nodding their heads? Are
they smiling? Are they writing notes? Are they in agreement with you?
Are they connecting with you? Visualize that whole experience
because if you haven't experienced the confidence that you want
to experience on the stage, it's because you haven't been able to
see it yet. You aren't seeing yourself as a confident speaker, so instead of waiting for yourself to
get there before you see yourself that way, already start seeing yourself that way
and then your actions that you would take will get you there. Secret number four is to know your stuff. Whether you are speaking to
one person or to a stage of hundreds or thousands of people, you
have to know what you're talking about. Knowing what you're talking about
does two things. First and foremost, it gives you confidence because
when you know your stuff, you know that whether or not there's
going to be an interruption from the audience, if people ask you questions
or if they object to what you're saying, you're not going to get sidetracked
because you know your stuff. You know it inside out and
backwards. And competence, the competency in which you know your
stuff is going to give you confidence. The second thing that it is going to do
is it's going to to give the audience confidence because they want to know
that the time they're investing, listening to you is worthwhile. They
want to know that it's time well spent. So if you know your stuff, you're
going to come across confident. You're going to be able to deliver your materials well and you're not going
to be sidetracked by objections or questions. And so that gives the audience confidence and when they're
confident in you and they feel that, "Oh, this is very, very worth my time,"
then they will connect with you more. They will resonate with you more and
they will also learn your material. They'll take in what you have to say
a lot better. So know your stuff, practice in and out, know your stuff.
And it doesn't matter what your goal is. It doesn't matter if you're there
to entertain or just to inform or if you're there to express your
ideas or to tell your story, you still have to know your stuff. Secret number five is to
learn how to tell stories. Stories are what connect people
and it's also what allows you to build rapport with your
audience. So when you're on stage, when you're in front
of a group of people or when you are speaking
with one other person, learn to tell stories because
when they hear a story around it and you wrap your
message around a story, your audience will remember it better. And it gives you confidence because
when they are engaged in your story, you can see it because you can feel
that connection that they have with you. And when you're building
rapport with them through story, it also helps to build your confidence
when you are about to tell the message. So learn to tell stories and remember
when you are telling stories to incorporate emotions into it. So it does back to the first secret
is expanding your vocabulary, learning how to express yourself so
that you can tell better stories. I'm standing next to the conservatory
water in Central Park and look what I came across, Hans Christian Anderson. Now
who is Hans Christian Anderson. If you haven't heard of him, you
might have heard of his stories. Hans was a Danish author and he's
best known for his fairy tales. So you might've heard of his
stories, The Little Mermaid, Frozen, which is super popular right now. A lot of his very tales have since been
turned into stories have since been turned into movies. So why do we remember them so
much is because movies connect. Movies get us to feel an emotion. Movies get us to remember something
that happened to us in our lives, in our childhoods. And that's
why stories are so powerful. If you want to get a message across,
you change your audience's state. So what am I mean by that?
You changed their state. You get them to experience. What you experienced when
you were telling your story. Now, when I was a little girl, my mom didn't speak English and
I didn't speak English very well, but she gave me an education and
she wanted me to learn English. So she couldn't read me bedtime stories,
so instead she had me read them to her. And so when I was young, what I
did was every night before bed, I would read her a bedtime story. And the first bedtime story that I read
was a book called the book of nonsense. There were mini stories all gathered
into one. It was written by Edward Lear. He was an author back in the day as
well. And he wrote phenomenal stories. And every time I read each
story, it was one story a night. I would read these stories
to her and she would listen. She would listen, and she would
learn English in the process as well. And I would improve my pronunciation. And those were my earliest, earliest childhood memories was
bedtime stories with my mother, I was reading to her. These days
most parents read to their kids, but my experience was the opposite. I read to my mum and that was the
earliest childhood memories that I had. And I remember those so well
because they were wrapped in story. So the same is true with you.
If you want more confidence, you want to connect with your audience. If you want to communicate
effectively and make sure that your audience understands and
hears what you have to say, give them an experience and you give them
an experience by telling them a story. Secret number six is to dress confidently. You want to give yourself the
best chances of feeling confident. And when you feel that you look good, when you're confident in
the way that you look, then you will come across confident. So design for yourself how
you want to appear on stage. Design that outcome. And it
starts with the way you dress, it starts with the way you present
yourself. So dressing, yes it is clothing, it is accessories, it is the way
that your outer appearance looks, but dressing also affects your posture.
So how do you want to present yourself? How do you want to show
up when you go on stage, what is the posture that you want to have and all of these things when taken
together, it elevates your confidence. Secret number seven is that
practice makes permanent; practice makes permanent.
So what do I mean by that? When you do the same thing over
and over again, that action, that thing that you're doing becomes
ingrained in you and over time as you keep repeatedly doing it, in other words, you
keep practicing it, it becomes a habit. So that's how habits are formed because
you do them so often and everyday and over and over again the same way that you develop
unconscious competence in doing it. You don't even have to think about
it. You just know how to do it. So that's also how bad habits are
formed. Good habits and bad habits are formed the exact same way, by repeatedly doing the same actions
again and again until it becomes routine. Until you become so good at it, it becomes like a reflex to you and
you don't even have to think about it. So practice makes permanent.
In case of public speaking, you want to be practicing
the right thing, right? Cause if you are forming bad habits, it's because you are
practicing the wrong thing. So practice the right thing and how
do you know what the right thing is? That's why it's important to get
feedback, get feedback from yourself, get feedback from a trusted mentor. Get feedback from someone who has achieved
the confidence from stage that you want, the success of public speaking
that you desire for yourself, right? And in order to get feedback
for yourself. First of all, what you can do is record yourself
talking. If you are starting small, if you are starting in a small group or
maybe a meetup group or small stages, make sure that you have someone record
that for you. And note for yourself, how do you look from stage, right when
you are watching yourself perform. When you are watching you speak,
are you bored by what you're saying? Are you captivated by what you're saying
is the way that you are delivering it, the words that you are using,
the way that you're expressing yourself and your ideas, is it compelling? Is it getting the message across?
Is it clear? Is it engaging? So that is one thing you
can do to start to get feedback is to look at yourself with
an honest eye, without judgment, without criticism, and
with a beginner's mind. So that is the seventh secret and
that is that practice makes permanent. Secret number eight is
to know your audience. This is where you want
to do some research. Just a little bit of recon work here. Think about your audience
and who are they? What are the challenges
that they're facing? What are the problems that they
have that they're trying to. solve in their life? What
are they looking for? What language do they use when
they're describing their problems? What language do they use
on a day to day basis? And where are they currently
searching for their results? Where are they searching for answers,
solutions to their problem and what kind of results are
they looking for, right? But when you have that
clarity about your audience, you're able to formulate your message better and it gives you more confidence
because you are able to design what the outcome that you want to
have in your communication. When you deliver your message, what
outcome are you trying to have? Are you trying to inform someone of
something? Are you trying to show them and to sell them a solution? Are you trying to entertain
them or what is that outcome? When you know your audience, you're able to design an outcome
that the audience is going to receive when they attend your presentation or
when they attend your communication or your keynote address. So know your audience and when you know
your audience and you will be able to build rapport with them better, connect with them better as well and use
the right language that will resonate with them and that will all, when taken
together, it will raise your confidence. Secret number nine is don't dwell on your
mistakes. When you are giving a talk, when you are presenting, when you are delivering your
message, telling your stories, you're going to stumble and you
might even use filler words. So filler words are those Ums and
Ahs that people try so hard to avoid. But it might happen because if you've
had the habit of using filler words, is that something you always go to? Chances are when you are delivering your
message, you're gonna use filler words. You're going to stumble, you're going
to make mistakes. Don't dwell on them. Simply just move on. Act as
if you meant to say that. Act as if it didn't happen. Because
if you don't draw attention to it, your audience will not draw attention to
it. It's when you say, "Oh, I'm sorry, or excuse me, or I didn't mean to say that" you're
drawing attention to that mistake and then that draws the audience's
attention to that mistake. Because if you've done everything well
up until now and you make a mistake, they're more concerned
about what you're saying. They're more concerned
about how you made them feel than picking out every little mistake
that you made and the thing is, we are the worst judgment of ourselves. We are the worst of doing that and so
we pick up every single mistake that we make, but chances are your
audience is not going to do that. They're there to listen to you.
They're not there to see you fail. They don't hope that you're
going to fall on your face. They want to see you succeed. They
want to see you do a fantastic job, so don't dwell on your own mistakes
and your audience won't as well. Secret number 10 is to change
your physiology. When you
are having stagefright, when you are nervous, when you
are stumbling, when that happens, your body is giving a
physiological response. Did you know that if you are
experiencing stagefright, that experience, you know a lot of it, a lot of people describe that experience
as, oh my heart rates going up, I'm starting to sweat, this cold
sweat. My palms are getting sweaty, my pupils may be dilated.
I'm scared, right? That physiological response is not
that much different from being held at gunpoint. It's not that much different
from a life or death response. You see your body, your body's
reaction, the physiological reaction, can not tell the difference. Fear is
fear. So when you change your physiology, it means that you move. You are moving. You are assuming a posture of confidence. Think about a time where you were
confident. What was your posture? Chances are your shoulders were rolled
back, your head was held up high. Your eyes were looking forward. You
know, not down. And look at your posture. Think about your posture. When
you're not feeling confident, chances are you are slightly hunched
over. Your eyes looking down. Your head is lowered, right? So your
physiology makes a huge difference. You can change your physiology
simply by changing your posture. So change your posture,
change your physiology, and that will help you
to be more confident.
