Have you ever counted the number of “uh”, “urm”, “you know”, “hmm” or “now” littered in your speech? I did. Not pretty. I still remember the first time when someone counted for me. It was so bad that he stopped counting at 60. I wasn’t alone of course. In fact, it got to a point where the President of my former Toastmasters Club contemplated fining 10 cents for every “urm” and “uh” in our speeches; in order to get the club out of the red! (Shan’t name the club for “face” sake)

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In every business (especially start-ups), its survival is usually dependent on two factors: competitve advantage and point of differentiation. This principle is also extremely applicable to speakers. With so many speaking resources available (books, workshops, coaches etc), how can an individual stand out from the rest? I believe the answer lies in finding his or her unfair advantage.

Knowing that you have to find your unfair advantage is the easy part. The hard part is finding it! However I would like to suggest a few things you can do to get started in finding your own unfair advantage over the rest of the speakers.

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Just finish hearing a 5 mins audio lesson by David Brooks on public speaking. For those of you who do not know him, he is the 1990 World Champion Speaker. In this week’s audio lesson, he talked about two sets of six words that can essentially cover all you need to know about public speaking. Sound too good to be true? I thought so initially but after hearing it, it does make sense. Let me give you a quick recap.

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Wassup! I recently noticed three articles from my blog being featured in an online e-mag for entrepreneurs. It is titled TrailBlazer. Do take a look and I will talk to you soon!

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Last week, I wrote a rather long self evaluation on my recent talk at Singapore Polytechnic: Learn by reflecting on your experiences. One of the dilemnas I had at that talk was whether to thank or not to thank the audience at the introduction. If you recalled, a large portion of the audience was made up of senior lecturers who are much more experienced than me (i.e seen more of the world than me). As such, I am fearful that if I did not set them up correctly by letting them know that this is a sharing more than a lecture, they may be resistant to what I have to say. There may be internal conversations like “Why should I listen to this young punk?” or “I already know everything that he is going to say”.

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A month ago, I wrote an article on how you can be twice as good in 70 days by doing daily debriefs. How is it coming along? Notice any significant changes in your presentations? As you may recall, a person learn NOT by his experience but by REFLECTING on his experience. As such, for an individual to see improvements in his or her speaking ability, he or she needs to consistently evaluate their speeches and then plan how they can be better than their previous speech. This applies to professionals too.

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Here’s an article from Paul Evans which I could relate extremely well. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Have you ever worried that you might freeze? concerned that you might forget what you’re supposed say next? Here’s some GOOD news for you! There some aspects of your speech you SHOULD forget. Public speakers are notorious for using dead words an valueless phrases. Even some of the pros use far too many. Eliminate the following…

“How’s everyone doing today?”

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We keep talking about good presentation techniques but nothing can beat this one… Take a break and enjoy this video.

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A couple of days ago, I shared with you my realization at the local library. However, I forgot to give you the titles of the five books I borrowed, out of the forty I randomly selected. Will share with you my thoughts when I am through with them.

Meanwhile, the top five finalists…

1. Success Secrets of Motivational Superstars by Michael Jeffreys
   

2. Peak Performance Presentations by Richard Olivier and Nicholas Janni
   

3. How to run seminars and workshops by Robert L. Jolles
   

4. The Seven Strategies of Master Presenters by Dr Brad McRae and David Brooks (1990 Champion of Public Speaking!)
   

5. Successful Presentations for Dummies by Malcolm Kushner (yes yes… laugh all you want…)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SINGAPORE!!!

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Yesterday after my morning swim, I ended up in the local library browsing through stacks of public speaking and presentation related books. Sadly, only a few are worth borrowing back. The rest of them (~90%) talks about the same stuff. These books either spell out 101 techniques to giving a better speech or they let you in on yet another 101 tips that all speakers should know (yeah right!) The titles didn’t help much either. They are bland, boring, common, dull, monotonous, uninspiring… (yawns) You get my point! And then it dawned upon me why there are still so many bland, boring, common, dull, monotonous and uninspiring speakers out there terrorizing the unsuspecting audience like me and you…

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