TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking has so much to offer it’s worth a whole month of poseyblog’s time. Today we’re talking about people. When you give a talk, you are a person. Talking to people! Focus on your humanness and your audience’s humanness to deliver a great talk.
Chris Anderson writes, “Elizabeth Gilbert offered me this advice: “Choose a human being—an actual human being in your life—and prepare your talk as if you will be delivering it to that one person only. Choose someone who is not in your field, but who is generally an intelligent, curious, engaged, worldly person—and someone whom you really like. This will bring a warmth of spirit and heart to your talk. Most of all, be sure you are actually speaking to one person, and not to a demographic (‘My speech is for people in the software field who are between the ages of twenty-two and thirty-eight.’), because a demographic is not a human being, and if you speak to a demographic, you will not sound like you are speaking to a human being. You don’t have to go to their house and practice your talk on them for six months; they don’t even need to know that you’re doing this. Just choose your one ideal listener, and then do your best to create a talk that would blow their mind, or move them, or fascinate them, or delight them.”
This is great advice. When you prepare and deliver your talk with one person in mind, each individual person who listens to the talk can feel the humanness, the intimacy of your talk.
Speaking of what your audience feels, Anderson says this, “Great speakers find a way of making an early connection with their audience. It can be as simple as walking confidently on stage, looking around, making eye contact with two or three people, and smiling.”
And on building trust with those humans in your audience. “The best tool to engender that trust? Yup, a smile. A natural human smile. (People can detect fake smiles and immediately feel manipulated.)”
A natural you talking to a room full of natural humans is so much more effective than a choreographed, staged managed performing you. Find that ease by anchoring yourself in the quality of your content, your knowledge of your audience and preparing as if you’re speaking to one wonderful friend. Then your idea can soar!
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