“Are You Looking for the Common Ground?” If you want to stimulate a conversation or engage a new contact at a business function it is important that you find the ‘common ground’.

If you are paying attention and asking the right questions you will find common ground. Finding the common ground is simply discovering what you both have in common.

I can’t recall a single person I have met that I wasn’t able to find some common ground. It might be that we are from the same province, possibly the same town, we like the same sport, we have similar hobbies, etc. The list of common ground possibilities is endless.

The secret to finding them lies in the questions you ask and your openness to the responses.

If you are meeting for the first time or you are at business function personal questions should be avoided. They could make the person uncomfortable and stifle the natural flow of conversation.

When you ask a question make sure you listen to the answer. It may provide insight to what your next question should be.

If you approach every conversation with a desire to find common ground you will not be disappointed.

Now go out and Make Your Voice Heard!

Want to learn the 5 Tools (you already have) to become a confident, engaging and effective speaker? Click the link for FREE video training. The Speaker’s Tool Box

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave me a comment or suggest a topic for a future blog.

“Three Ps for Managing Your Speaking Anxiety.” To manage your speaking anxiety effectively you have to consider three Ps.

The first P is Participation. You have to do it. You don’t learn to speak by listening to me speak. You need to “do it”. Yes, you should apply the knowledge you have gleaned from training, coaching, reading, and observation of others. Take advantage of every opportunity to speak. This will increase your comfort and confidence and will help you develop your unique style.

The second P is Persistence. You have to continue to do it. Yes, you will have set backs. They are simply set backs. You have to stick with it. The more persistence you have the greater your opportunity to improve and become confident.

The third P is Patience. You have to be patient with yourself. You are not going to get rid of your speaking anxiety overnight. There are no silver bullets or magical pills. You have to do the work and you have to accept that you are on a journey. You don’t start off being great. You evolve into that.

So remember, in order to manage your speaking anxiety effectively, you have to Participate, you have to be Persistent and you have to be Patient.

Are you applying the 3Ps to your speaking journey?

Now go out and Make Your Voice Heard!

Want to learn the 5 Tools (you already have) to become a confident, engaging and effective speaker? Click the link for FREE video training. The Speaker’s Tool Box

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave me a comment or suggest a topic for a future blog.

“It’s Not the Shot You Make, It is the Shot You Leave.” I borrowed this phrase from the game of pool. When you make a shot in pool your focus should be more on what shots you will leave for yourself than it is on making the immediate shot. Of course, you still need to make that shot.

If I apply this analogy to life it tells me that, Yes, I have to complete what I am doing. At the same time I need to have a sense of what I have to do next and am I setting myself up for it in an appropriate way.

Most goals have multiple milestones. In order to successfully achieve our goals we need to need to accomplish those milestones in such a way that we are setting ourselves up to tackle the next one successfully.

Now go out and Make Your Voice Heard!

Want to learn the 5 Tools (you already have) to become a confident, engaging and effective speaker? Click the link for FREE video training. The Speaker’s Tool Box

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave me a comment or suggest a topic for a future blog.

“Don’t Be Afraid to Show Your Personality.” One of the best ways to show your personality is to tell a story. When we share a story that is unique to us we share a part of our personality. We give our audience a window into our world. The story could be about our triumph over adversity. It could show our vulnerability. It could show that we are human and we sometimes make mistakes and/or do dumb things. We can use those moments and the subsequent stories to reinforce a key point we want to make.

This blog post is the result of a request on an earlier blog about story telling. The request was to give an example of using an actual story. I have a lot of stories. This one came to mind almost immediately. It’s a story that I was embarrassed about and suppressed for many years. Now it is just funny.

You, also, have lots of stories. I encourage you to use one or more in your next speech or presentation. It will make your speech/presentation more compelling, entertaining and engaging. Don’t forget to link your story to the point you want to make. Otherwise it will sound out of context.

Now go out and Make Your Voice Heard!

Want to learn the 5 Tools (you already have) to become a confident, engaging and effective speaker? Click the link for FREE video training. The Speaker’s Tool Box

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave me a comment or suggest a topic for a future blog.

“There is Power in Knowing that You Can.” Have you ever questioned if you could do something? The first time we try something new there is a lot of uncertainty about our ability to do it. I have experienced this many times in my life. The most memorable one was with my running.

I ran for many years. Early on I wanted to participate in a local road race called the ‘Tely Ten’. It was a 10 mile distance. I had never run that distance before. The most I had done was 6 miles.

I was really concerned about my ability to complete the course without walking a part of it. So 3 days before the race I decided to prove to myself that I could. I had my wife drop me off at the starting point and I ran the entire route in about 74 minutes. I was pleased with my time and more importantly I now knew I could do it!

One of the cardinal rules of running is that you don’t do a long run in the days leading up to the race. The next morning I was stiff from the waist down. The same was true on Saturday. I thought I was going to have to drop out of the race.

Fortunately Sunday morning I felt great. I ran the race in a time of 67 minutes. A full 7 minutes faster than my first time! I had the power of knowing I could. That power allowed me to run 9 more Tely Ten races. The last one I did with no training. I signed up the night before. My time wasn’t great however I ran the entire course.

What would you do if you knew that you could?

Now go out and Make Your Voice Heard!

Want to learn the 5 Tools (you already have) to become a confident, engaging and effective speaker? Click the link for FREE video training. The Speaker’s Tool Box

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave me a comment or suggest a topic for a future blog.

“Tell it With a Story.” One of the best ways to make a point is to reinforce it with a story. The power of a story is being recognized more and more by speakers and presenters. The ones that have mastered the art of story telling are frequently seen as great speakers as well.

Many speakers feel that they don’t have any stories. If you have been around long enough that you are giving speeches and presentations then I guarantee that you have loads of stories. The secret is being aware of them and being able to incorporate them into your speeches and presentations.

Creating an inventory of your stories is a great way to get them more top of mind. I use a simple spreadsheet. It has 4 columns;

Date of Entry (information for me),
Short Title, Brief Description (2-4 lines, not the exact script),
Keywords (these are used to trigger themes, potential use, etc),
Used Where (list of speeches the story was used in)

Take a bit of time to get your inventory started. List as many stories as you can come up with. Once you have your inventory started you can add to it at anytime. If you are away from your computer and you remember a story or experience a new one, make a note of it and add it once you are back at your computer. The stories should be yours or ones that you have permission to use.

Review the stories from time to time to keep them fresh in your mind. This will allow you to share the story or stories in a spontaneous fashion and because you haven’t written out the entire story it will come across more as more natural.

Use stories to make your next speech or presentation more memorable.

Now go out and Make Your Voice Heard!

Want to learn the 5 Tools (you already have) to become a confident, engaging and effective speaker? Click the link for FREE video training. The Speaker’s Tool Box

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave me a comment or suggest a topic for a future blog.

“I’ve had a lot of troubles in my life. Most of which never happened.” This statement is true for many of us. It is particularly true when it comes to how we feel and think about public speaking. We can spend a lot of time dwelling on negative outcomes, anxiety about how we will perform and actually visualize ourselves failing. The irony is that most of these things never happen.

Most professional athletes are masters at visualizing success. Olympic athletes will rehearse over and over in their mind how they will succeed. How they will perform. They never visualize failure, only success.

Why can’t we do the same thing when it comes to public speaking and presenting? Why use all our energy imagining ourselves being nervous, losing our train of thought and being perceived as not confident? Instead we can use that same energy to do something positive. To visualize succeeding. To visualize being a confident, engaging and effective speaker.

What will you choose?

Now go out and Make Your Voice Heard!

Want to learn the 5 Tools (you already have) to become a confident, engaging and effective speaker? Click the link for FREE video training. The Speaker’s Tool Box

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave me a comment or suggest a topic for a future blog.

How you handle the Questions and Answer session after your speech/presentation can have a significant impact on how you are perceived as a speaker.

There are two important things to keep in mind.

First, make sure you let the person complete the question before you start to answer. Otherwise you could be answering what you perceive the question to be instead of the actual question.

Secondly, repeat the question. This will serve a couple of purposes. It will insure that you are answering the correct question and it will insure that the audience knows the question as well. It will also provide you with a few extra seconds to formulate your response.

If you want to create a good impression as a speaker learn to master the Q and A session.

Now go out and Make Your Voice Heard!

Want to learn the 5 Tools (you already have) to become a confident, engaging and effective speaker? Click the link for FREE video training. The Speaker’s Tool Box

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave me a comment or suggest a topic for a future blog.

“What we do is of little significance but it is very important that we do it.” Many of us go through life thinking that what we do has little or no impact on the world around us. The truth is that it does. We may never truly know or fully understand what that impact is. What we do makes a difference. Are you making a negative difference or a positive difference?

An analogy that I often use with this quote is a pebble beach. If you look at the peddles you will see that they all different. Different sizes, colours and shapes. Yet each one them makes a contribution to the beach. If you were to take away all the pebbles the beach would not exist.

We are like those pebbles on the beach. The world is defined by our collective contribution. If you take away our collective contribution the world ceases to exit. So our contribution is important and we should strive to make it the best that it can be.

Now go out and Make Your Voice Heard!

Want to learn the 5 Tools (you already have) to become a confident, engaging and effective speaker? Click the link for FREE video training. The Speaker’s Tool Box

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Leave me a comment or suggest a topic for a future blog.