Have you ever heard a speaker deliver an inside joke? Did you feel included? If not, did the joke make you feel left out? Now imagine yourself with the inside joke. You know it will be funny to a few people (or maybe just one), and you know it will be funny to you. Do you [...]
READ MORE »Posts tagged common mistakes
Are you a selfish speaker?
When you get on stage, is it for the audience, or for yourself? Don’t confuse “on stage” to mean only a physical stage in front of a large audience. “On stage” can include a job interview, talking to your kid, training some coworkers, or even taking on a leadership role. No matter what “on stage” [...]
READ MORE »Before I Begin…
Have you ever heard a speaker say, “Before I start…” (or something similar) when beginning their presentation? Are they using phantom time? Bad news – “Before I begin…” was, well, before…you…began… That’s right, once your introduction is complete, everything you say is counted against your time. If your boss asked you to provide 1-2 minutes [...]
READ MORE »Toastmasters: Don’t overdo it
As the Toastmasters contest season is progressing, I’ve seen some speakers do a few things that may have cost them the win in their club contests. Of course, one or two corrections won’t make you world champ, but if your making some of these mistakes, you won’t even be club champ: 1. Don’t add words. [...]
READ MORE »You must get them involved
When you speak to a friend or your boss, do you simply talk for 30-minutes without a pause? Do you ask a list of questions and proceed without hearing any answers? Do you read slides to him/her the whole time? If you answered “no”to these questions, you’re probably normal in that regard. But, would the [...]
READ MORE »Toastmasters: The advantage of cutting content
Way is one of the most powerful tips you can learn as a speaker? Would you believe that how to say less can be as valuable of a skill as knowing what to say? Have any of these happened to you? 1. Slow down your speaking. Have you ever been given this advice? You might [...]
READ MORE »Speaking like a store
I was recently listening to an audio lesson from Lance Miller, and he mentioned that some folks ask him about being a professional speaker. When asked what they speak about, they’re looking for ideas about what to talk about. He likened this to how being a speaker is like having a store, with a storefront, [...]
READ MORE »Afraid to ask for help?
Do you think you can do it all yourself? Are you suffering from an irrational fear of asking for help? I watch a lot of people working on improving their speaking ability, and they tend to fall into two camps: those who seek help to become better and those that don’t. Those that look for [...]
READ MORE »Credibility – talking about everybody
Have you ever heard or read a reference to something “everybody” does, and realize that you don’t do it? i.e. “Everybody likes President Obama”, or “We checked with Everybody and couldn’t find someone who could do that”. You get the idea, right? You may have heard the old reference that 80% of all statistics are [...]
READ MORE »Speaking Tips: Language use – word pairs
Have you ever heard the wrong word used to describe something, and realized the mistake happened because of similarities? Here are a couple of examples, and how they’re used/misused: Simple vs. Easy These words are not only used interchangeably, but also as a redundant pair on a regular basis. If fact, it is simple and [...]
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