CH 12: Delivering Your Speech

Chapter 12 goes into great detail about what entails a great speech and things you'll need to complete "perfection". In fact, at the beginning of the powerpoint it tells us how practice makes perfect. As much as I know this is used amongst certain individuals to promote practice in harnessing your craft, I often remind my students and young athletes I train that there is no such thing as perfect. And that practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent. How you practice is how you'll play....a common saying amongst athletes in sports. 

    Using the two p's will provide stability throughout your speech and give you the confidence you need when delivering your speech. Going into a speech blind is absolutely the last thing you want to do! Speaking from personal experience, I went into a best man's speech going off of the tip of my tongue and spoke for a period of time far too long than what was expected! Whether you memorize or use a manuscript, using the two p's will tremendously help in delivering a speech and ensuring you capture your audiences attention.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a process I've had to use in my life growing up an athlete, playing various sports, and utilizing this process to provide advantages over opponents. However, when discussing critical thinking and assessing a speaker, I've never really given it as much thought as the PowerPoint breaks down. For me, I'm always far more concerned with the questions I raise in my head when I'm delivering a speech rather than what questions I should be asking when I'm listening to a speech. Generally speaking, I think when it's personal, and relating to yourself, you're far more concerned with the outcome than using your ears and paying attention to what is said when your listening to a speaker. As we continue on with the course and listen to each other's stories, using the questions from the slides I will try to dissect more information given and pay close attention to the details following the story.  

CH 9 Takeaway

     When it comes to public speaking, gaining your audiences attention is key in delivering a good speech. As discussed in Chapter 9, the text stresses the importance of grasping your audience's attention and pulling them in. On page 9-2 Hellmut Walters states, "To be persuasive, we must be believable. To be believable, we must be credible. To be credible, we must be truthful." Walters hits the nail on the head with this quote from the book. If I'm delivering a persuasive speech, with hopes of you buying into what I'm trying to say, if I'm not believable I'll lose my audience, which, in turn, will then lead to the loss of my credibility. Gaining the audience's attention is one of the biggest factors I focus on when delivering a speech. When I begin to notice eye contact and the look of being alert, it puts my mind at ease letting me know that I've drawn my audience in and they're interested in what I have to say. 

    To feel confident when giving a speech in public, I enjoy telling a story or recalling on a certain occasion to give myself that feeling of credibility. Relating back to a past experience allows me the certainty of speaking clearly and with truth behind my tone of voice. I look forward to expanding on my public speaking skills over the course of the class and hearing each and everyone's own story from week to week.

Zoom Call Takeaway

     Going back to last week and recapping our zoom call, I enjoyed the conversation and the introduction to what we'll be doing over the course of the class. Public speaking has never been enjoyable for me, yet I'm not one to really sit back and keep quiet. Coming from the world of sales prior to jumping ship and changing careers, I relied heavily on my social skills as well as my ability to conduct face to face meetings and present business models to small and mid-sized business owners. I can definitely say that picking up the phone and making 100 dials a day, or sitting down for a face to face meeting has greatly improved my public speaking skills and it's helped tremendously. 

    During our zoom call, we touched on being uncomfortable and speaking in public with others. Going off the small class size that we have, I hope we all can relax a little bit, be ourselves and listen to the stories that are told. Having a small class definitely makes for a "less intense" moment yet I still find some awkwardness during a zoom call lol. There's something about the process that just seems a little off to me but overall it gets the job done!