~Mark Twain
You have a big interview or presentation in 2 days...how many things are on your to-do list? Are your personal prose and dialect a priority?
Imagine this:You’re sitting there calm and poised—you really want this job. Or, you’re standing at a podium doing your best to engage an audience that is approaching it's breaking point for lost attention. You’ve already promised yourself you wouldn’t resort to picturing the crowd naked, so that's out. The questions from the crowd (or the interviewer) are tame at this point, but your mind starts questioning whether you’re putting your best foot forward. You have solid points to make, so the middle of a sentence is an unfortunate time to a have a quiet panic attack. Beneath all the dialect, your subconscious is summoning all the practice and rehearsal that’s critical to your success. But here’s the kicker: Unless you’re aware of your speech deficiencies, all the practice in the world won’t eliminate the nuances you’ve been projecting naturally for 20 years. So the next time you’re in front of the mirror, add these 3 Kamikaze tactics to your list of things to evaluate (and avoid):
1. YOUR SPACE FILLERS, YA KNOW?
Ummmmmmmmmm, you’re flowing so smoothly that your fallback
job could easily be a car salesman. You actually sound like a subject-matter
expert. Then, before you know it, you realize you’ve paused in place where a ‘period’
should go…but, sadly, you made it a 'comma.' No worries—your brain comes to your
rescue by muttering sounds (not necessarily words) it finds pleasing. This assistance
comes in many forms that includes but is not limited to:
“UMM,” “YA KNOW?,” lip-smacking, excessive use of "like," “LITERALLY,” “BASICALLY,” and “AH.”
Your space fillers are inserted naturally, and using fillers doesn’t necessarily make you a bad public
speaker...but they add absolutely NOTHING to your presentation and they may attack
your credibility. Inadvertently ending a stence with ‘and’ falls into this group as well because many people are
so eager to speak their next point, they forget they don’t really have one. Excessive use of 'like' is a big no-no if you want to avoid teenage girl dialect: "I was like uh huh, and she was like no!, and then i was like oh yes it did!"
Remedy: Preparation
and Analysis. Voice and video recording can help you pinpoint the
situations where you use fillers and why you might be using them. Sometimes
slowing down your talking pace will allow your brain to shutdown your thoughts
on time, so your words imply ‘period’ instead of ‘comma.’ Preparation through repetition also improves
your knowledge and timing of your speech, which would allow you to avoid
fillers through confidence. The practice would also allow you to rehearse other
actions such as advancing a slide or asking the audience for feedback. Finally, PLEASE be sure to practice reenacting dialogue and conversation by not using the word 'like.'
2. FADING and DYING
You start
out strong and really energetic, but even Father
Time catches up to
sentences and eventually strangles
the life out of what you
have to say leaving you at
zero volume or a mumble when you’re done.
Down the sink they go: your powerful points. Your closure. Your ‘drive it home’…all
lost. Your skeptical audience doesn’t get a chance to hear your finish or feed
off your energy because your ran out of energy and volume in the home stretch.
Remedy: Pace and Breathing.
With an interview or public speaking engagement, several thoughts might need
your car salesman closure, and even though you want to start out with
full-force, pacing yourself would be the better option. You can still be
emphatic at the beginning of a paragraph without running out of gas by the end.
First, figure out how you’re breathing. Most
experts for public speaking encourage you to breathe in through the nose and
out through the mouth while using your diaphragm muscles to project your voice. If
you feel you’re pacing yourself nicely, simply monitor your volume to
maintain a good voice throughout your entire point. Close out a sentence with clarity and emphasis.
3. THE INDECISIVE...LUNCH?
To drive this point home, all I need is for you to recall
the frustration the last time your colleagues couldn’t decide on a place to eat because 1
person couldn’t decide on what ‘sounded good.’ Nerve-racking…pick a place for
lunch, already. A cousin to Space Fillers, the indecisive soul may begin with
solid planning and direction, but then sadly erases credibility at the very end:
“In other words, the 60% growth shown in the TSP reports
can be easily outsourced to our Omaha branch…I guess.” Starting and especially ending anything with
‘I think’ or ‘I guess’ will only have you thinking
and guessing who gets the next
promotion.
Remedy: Stand Firm and be Conclusive. After you eliminate ‘I
think’ and ‘I guess’ from your prose, then you can work on driving every point
home as if you’d bet your first born child and mortgage on whatever you’re
selling.
Figuring out how your speech is affected by stressful
situations will also help eliminate the barriers between you and your next big
goal. Practice, combined with the analysis of your dialogue is a powerful, yet often forgotten, method to enhancing your professional profile. You get one shot at an interview or to impress a crowd- make it count.
Until Next Time,
~Coach Jake
Request a FREE copy of the Maximal Me 12-Point Interview Checklist from: jake@MaximalME.com
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