As I was surfing the web the other day, I chanced upon a video of Randy Pausch’s inspiring yet bitter-sweet public lecture (on 18th Sept 2007). He’s a Carnegie Mellon computer professor (and founder of Virtual Reality) who was diagnosed with an incurable pancreatic cancer. This was probably his last public speech as the doctors have only given him a few months to live.

Yet, standing at the podium in McConomy Auditorium on the campus, Randy Pausch did not focus on impending death. Instead, he celebrated the chance he had been given to live the life he had always dreamed of.

Share This

The video clip that you are going to see below is the late Mr Rogers (creator of children’s TV programming) speaking before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications and Chair, the late John Pastore (D-RI) in 1969. At stake was a $20 million grant for the Corporation For Public Broadcasting. Although the chairperson was initially hostile, Mr Rogers was able to win him over by being authentic and sincere. Watch the video carefully - Mr Rogers’ style of speaking is worth studying and emulating!

Inspired by John Kinde’s Post - The Power Of Authenticity

Cheers,
Eric Feng
Your Public Speaking Coach

Share This

Came across an article written by Deborah Patel, a voice and presentation coach in Asia. And since you guys are fans of lists, I decided to share one with you. In her list, you will learn ten quick tips to reduce your public speaking fear.

Here are my comments on her list. As you can tell, I don’t necessarily agree with all of them. However, I suggest you test them out anyway. At the end of the day, if the tip works for you, that’s all that matters.

Share This

With one more week to go before our book launch, Andrew and I are working our heads off to make sure that everything goes as planned. Till now, we have a total of 536 unique downloads of the free chapter and still counting! (THANK YOU!!!) The feedback and testimonials we have received thus far have also been nothing but encouraging. Some of you have started asking how we are going to launch the book on Children’s Day (1st Oct). Seriously, we have not made any elaborate plans except to make announcements at our blog including an email blast to all those who have downloaded our free chapter. Having said that, I strongly encourage ALL of you to visit The Public Speaking Blog on 1st Oct (next Mon) as there will be a special one time offer for the early birds!

Share This

Finding quality content on public speaking is like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s almost an impossible task! Try searching for “public speaking” in google and you will be overwhelmed with over 64 million websites and bear in mind that the first five websites may not be necessarily what you are looking for. It’s not like public speaking isn’t stressful enough. Thankfully, life’s a bit easier at Technorati, one of the top blog aggregators on the internet. A quick search on “public speaking” pulls out 182,263 blog posts. Nevertheless, it is going to take years to plough through every single post… and your business presentation is day after tomorrow.

Share This

It takes a lot to make a Singaporean laugh these days. With the rising taxes, erratic weather and high cost of living, there isn’t really much to laugh about. This is also the same country that made an outroar about Gotcha, a local TV program - which is similar to Candid Camera or Just For Laughs - simply because we don’t like to be made fun of…

Share This

Yes…that’s us with the constipated look! (grins) I wonder why they chose this over the other more “decent” ones. Nonetheless Andrew and I are very thankful for the paper’s interest in our book. The BT team in charge of Campus Life (Jamie, Huifen and Siti) were extremely kind and committed in putting us in positive light. They will send us emails late in the night like 2am asking us to provide them with more information. If you have bought the paper, you will agree with me that it was a very well written article.

Share This

To speak like a champion, you have to first observe and learn from champions. Here’s one guy you can learn a lot from. He is David Brooks, World Champion of Public Speaking for 1990. Click on the link below to read the exclusive interview conducted by Steve Pavlina, an A-list blogger known for his insightful articles on personal development.

David Brook’s Interview

It won’t take you very long. At most 10 minutes. Here’s a quick overview of the questions been asked.

1. What overall strategy did you use to become the 1990 World Champion of Public Speaking? How did you do it?

Share This

A quote is like pepper on soup, salt on eggs and vinegar on lor mee. (for those of you who are not from Singapore, lor mee is noodles in thick gravy). Just writing this line alone has got me salivating. BOY, I MISS SINGAPORE FOOD!!! Someone please please please ship me some hainanese chicken rice, laksa and mum’s cooking via DHL!

Though pepper, salt and vinegar are not the centerpiece, they add flavor and character to the dishes. Without them, the food will taste blend and boring. Similarly, though quotes don’t make up your speech, they are very powerful in adding omph in your message. When used correctly, they add credibility and memorability to your speech.

Share This

Headline directly translated as “Learning Public Speaking Online”

Yes, that’s me on national paper (Lianhe ZaoBao - Sept 12, 2007). If you scroll down, you will also see Andrew, my partner in crime! With the book launch approaching, Andrew and I are getting very very excited. Not surprising really, especially with all the challenges we had faced since Feb. Of course, we are also extremely appreciative of the attention that media has been showering us over the past week - Business Times, ZaoBao, Radio 93.8, The New Paper, Channel News Asia and several media publications online as well. It really goes to show that when you want something very badly, the entire universe will conspire to get it for you, in one way or another.

Share This