The picture above was taken in Kandy (the religious central of Sri Lanka) last weekend. I was trying to light up my candle (to the right) but the wind was very strong and the flame kept getting extinguished. What I did later was an epiphany. I placed my candle beside the one that was burning strong. Adjusted the wick so that when the wind blows, the burning candle will continue lighting my wick. This way, no matter how strong the wind is, my candle will still remain lighted.

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Here’s my top five recommendations for this week.

Conquering Your Fear of Public Speaking

Steve Tobak, tech executive and blogger at CNET, has a few words of advice to help anyone facing down a crowd get into the right frame of mind. To avoid feeling isolated and on-the-spot, for example, interact with your audience:

Draw them into your presentation by asking leading questions and encouraging interaction. You’ll instantly feel more comfortable, and so will your audience. A great side benefit is it will make you a far more dynamic and engaging speaker.

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1. Audience always comes first, ask yourself “How can they benefit from listening to me?”
2. Remember, it’s never about you!
3. Stage time, Stage time, Stage time.
4. Humor is greatly appreciated by your audience. Have you ever hear someone complain “This guy is way too funny!”?
5. Never try to wing a speech - your audience will know it.
6. Most people seek validation and not education - don’t be like most people.
7. If you want to be twice as good in 70 days, do a self evaluation after every speech or presentation.
8. We all bomb - get over it.
9. More importantly, learn how you can get better the next time.
10. Don’t ever imagine your audience naked. Unless you are a pervert who gets your high on seeing naked bodies.
11. Tell a story, make a point.
12. Tell another story, make another point.
13. Make a serious point after you get your audience laughing - they remember better.
14. Read Public Speaking for Success by Dale Carnegie - best book ever written!
15. Read The FAQ Book on Public Speaking by Eric Feng and Andrew Zhan - 2nd best book ever written!
16. Create a story bank. Each time something interesting happens - big or small - write it down. You never know where you can use it.
17. Stories from Chicken Soup for the Soul don’t cut it. Original’s better. Repeat after me. Original’s better.
18. That applies to quotes too. Pay attention to memorable quotes said by your dad, your boss, your best friend, your arch-enemy, your crush etc. Your audience will love it.
19. This will also give you the opportunity to tell a story about how the quote came about. Twice the fun for your audience!
20. The more you prepare, the less nervous you get.
21. Do some warm up exercises before you go on stage. I find simple stretching and push-ups to be extremely helpful.
22. The art is hiding the art itself. Be so prepared that you can appear natural on stage.
23. Follow the 80/20 rule - 80% prepared. 20% impromptu. Being prepared is extremely important but when you are too prepared, you take the fun out of a speech. The 20% spontaneity allows you to milk any situations that arises while you deliver your speech.
24. If you want to be a phenomenal speaker, hone your improvisational skills.
25. Sign up for an improv class.
26. No class? Watch an improv instead. I recommend Whose line is it anyway?
27. Join Toastmasters. This is one of the best ways to gain confidence and clock stage time.
28. And don’t just speak at your club. Make it a point to visit at least one new club every month. Volunteer for an appointment. Serve and more important, speak!
29. Participate actively in the Table Topics segment, it will help you hone your improvisational skills.
30. Even though you can only do one table topic on stage, you can run through the rest in your head. It’s a form of warm up.
31. Know your audience very well - understand their needs, pains and desires.
32. A powerful speech is one that can help solve your audience’s problems.
33. Be audience-centric - think about how your speech can benefit them.
34. Your nervousness stems from you being too I-centric: Will they like ME? Will MY speech bomb? Will they laugh at ME? Will I forget MY lines? Will they think I am good? Trying focusing on your audience instead.
35. You can start by asking “How can the audience benefit from listening to me?”
36. If you want to become a better speaker in a shorter amont of time, get yourself a mentor.
37. Observe other speakers, both good and bad. If there is something a speaker did right, learn from it and incorporate it in your speech. If there is something a speaker did wrong, find out why and avoid it at all cost.
38. Practice makes permanence.
39. If you think you are good enough, that’s when your downfall as a speaker begins.
40. Find like-minded friends who want to get better at their speaking. Meet regularly and help each other grow.
41. Make your audience the heroes. Share success stories from people in your audience.
42. A powerful story has four elements - it makes you think, makes you feel, makes you laugh and most importantly, it delivers a message that can change your life.
43. The best way to learn is to teach somebody else. Find opportunities to do that. Offer pointers. Offer coaching. Offer suggestions. Remember, you can’t give away what you don’t have. Once you teach somebody else what you learned, it reinforces and improves your speaking skills.
44. Solid content and high speech value will always win your audience over. No questions about it.
45. Punchi Dewal, Loku Dewal (in Sihalese), which means small step, major stride. Focus on doing the small things right and you will get there soon enough.
46. When you pray to become a confident and charismatic speaker, you don’t just immediately become one. Instead you are given opportunity after opportunity to become one. So grab them!
47. 3 questions to ask after every speech - (i) what have I done well? (ii) what can be done better? (iii) what’s one thing I want to improve in my next speech?
48. Keep doing the things you have done well and focus on getting the one thing you want to improve done well as well. If you are successful, move on to the next thing. If you are not, don’t dismay. Find out why and work at it.
49. Even Rome wasn’t built in a day. So be patient!
50. Don’t try to impress. Instead try to, share, help, inspire, teach, inform, guide, persuade, motivate… or make the world a little bit better.
51. Stay present in the moment. Forget about the conversations running in your head. Be with your audience. Enjoy the time you have with them.
52. Keep your presentation simple. One message, three points and a kick-ass call for action.
53. Remember, less is more. Keep your speech short and sweet.
54. Be conversational. Put aside your “stage voice” and just be yourself. Talk to your audience like they are your friends.
55. What’s one story that only YOU can tell? Spend time creating that signature story.
56. Start strong (always).
57. Tell half a story and the proceed with your main message. Make sure your message ties in well with that story and don’t forget to tell the rest of your story at the end of your speech. You won’t want to leave your audience high and dry, will you?
58. Ask a question that gets your audience thinking.
59. Do a demonstration that leads to your message. Recommended to involve your audience.
60. Shock them with facts and numbers, but please don’t overwhelm them. Shock not kill.
61. Start off with a video or cartoon, funny is optional.
62. Pause…leave them wondering. Grab their attention, and then start.
63. Once in a while, do something different or crazy.
64. Remember, the greatest enemy of speakers is same-ness. (Thanks Patricia Fripp for the tip!)
65. Never ask your audience how are they doing at the start of your presentation because we know you don’t really care. It’s just a sign that you are unprepared.
66. That includes “Good morning”, “Good afternoon” and “Good evening”.
67. Memorize your introduction because in the first 30 seconds, you are the most nervous and your audience is the most skeptical. A memorized introduction will help you stay composed.
68. Likewise, memorize your conclusions so that you end strong and remain memorable.
69. However, don’t memorize your entire speech. Internalize. (Thanks David Brooks for the tip!)
70. Never, ever go overtime.
71. Don’t introduce a new point in your conclusion - you will only confuse them.
72. Don’t end with Q&A. Make sure you have the last word.
73. Don’t end abruptly either.
74. Avoid abstractions. Always relate to a common experience.
75. A fail-safe question to answer in your speech - What’s in it for me?
76. If you fail to answer that question, your audience will not buy into your speech. You might as well not deliver your speech.
77. In order to successfully deliver an inspiring speech, you - the speaker - has to first be inspired.
78. No pain, no action. If you want to get your audience into action, you need to first understand where their pains are. Once you have identified that particular pain, poke at it. Recreate the scenario so that they can re-experience the pain, both physically and emotionally. When you have successfully brought your audience to that state, they will be begging you to offer them a remedy or a quick solution to rid them of the pain.
79. Grabbing your audience’s attention is easy. The challenge is keeping it.
80. The key to grabbing attention is surprise. The key to keeping attention is interest.
81. In order to generate interest, you have to first create a gap in their knowledge. As George Loewenstein, a behavioral economist at Carnegie Mellon University explained, “Gap causes pain. When we want to know something but we don’t, it is like having an itch that we need to scratch.” In order for the pain to go away, the gap has to be filled.
82. Tell them enough to whet their appetite but do not reveal the big secret yet. Here’s one you can try: tell them a story of how a man from the streets became rich and famous overnight without giving them the specifics.
83. Look at ONE person at a time when you are delivering your speech.
84. Look them in the eye, don’t be shy.
85. But please don’t stare. It’s rude.
86. Do this whether you are speaking to a small crowd or a big crowd. You will make them feel very loved.
87. Smile. Smile when you are walking up to the stage. Smile when you make a mistake. Smile when your audience laugh at your story. Smile when you are delivering your message. Smile when you conclude. Smile when you leave the stage. Smile.
88. Avoid bullet points in your powerpoint presentation. They are sleep inducing.
89. Pictures tell a thousand words. Use them in your presentations.
90. Your slides are NOT your notecards.
91. Your slides are NOT for documentation purposes.
92. Your slide is NOT your note page.
93. Your slideshow is NOT the star. You are!
94. Too many tables, figures and graphs may not be a good thing. Remember, everything in moderation.
95. Have a mix.
96. Do a spell check on your slides before you flash them on the screen. They are glaring.
97. Who says you have to use the default powerpoint templates? Create your own.
98. Using Microsoft clip art and sound effects for your presentation are things of the past.
99. If a picture can replace the words, do so!
100. Use professional pictures from Stock Images or Stock Xchng instead.
101. Try flickr. They have very original pictures too.
102. Have you ever thought about embedding a video in your slide? Try youtube. They have every video under the sun.
103. Ten steps to becoming a better speaker. (see below)
104. Speak.
105. Speak more.
106. Speak even more.
107. Speak even more than that.
108. Speak when you don’t want to.
109. Speak when you do.
110. Speak when you have something to say.
111. Speak when you don’t.
112. Speak all the time.
113. Keep speaking.
114. In short, it is all about stage time. (Yes I said that before but it’s so important that it warrants a 2nd reminder)
115. Having said that, don’t speak for the sake of speaking. It helps if you WANT to speak. It makes the entire process more fun for you and the audience.
116. Videotaping yourself speak can be very confronting but necessary, especially if you want to improve.
117. Take extra effort to remove all your pause fillers from your speech. Common culprits include “urm”, “ah”, “so”, “you know”, “hmm” etc. They are known to reduce your credibility ten folds.
118. One way of overcoming them is to get used to the silence.
119. Music happens where there are no notes. Magic happens when there are no words.
120. Don’t just obey the speaking rules just because they are rules. Instead, question the rules! Every rule is there for a reason. Understand the reason behind it and you can better decide if you should stick to the rule or do something different.
121. By all mean thank your audience. They deserve it contrary to popular beliefs. However, don’t you think it is a waste to thank them at the end of your speech when you can do something more impactful and memorable? My suggestion is to thank them, before you deliver your conclusion.
122. You can use cue cards but make sure they don’t distract you or the audience.
123. And if you have to use them, make sure they are in card form instead of paper. It will be very obvious that you are shaking if you hold on to paper.
124. Give your audience what THEY want and not what you think they want or even what you want… That’s right people, it’s always about them!
125. Speak on something that you believe in. Your sincerity and enthusiasm will come through strongly.
126. Focus on your strengths as a speaker. Make sure you know how to recreate them, and even make them stronger.
127. Make your strengths so strong that your weaknesses are a non-issue.
128. Stop asking WHY. (Why am I so sucky in speaking? Why did the audience look so bored?) Try asking HOW. (How can I be less sucky? How can I make the audience interested in what I have to say?) Why gets you defensive and stuck. How gets you moving forward.
129. Return to basics.
130. Search for your old speeches; make some changes and give them again.
131. Review your notes; apply those pointers that you may have missed.
132. Take up a basic public speaking workshop and relearn!
133. Offer to coach new speakers and teach them the basics.
134. For advanced Toastmasters, redo your basic manual.
135. Remember some of your audience’s names and use them in your speech. They will love you for it!
136. A host or emcee is also a cheerleader.
137. Play simple games with them and make them look good. Embarass them and no one will participate in your activities.
138. Do your homework - make sure you know the flow of the entire program.
139. Remember, you are not the star of the show. Your audience or your guests are.
140. The best speeches are not written, they are rewritten.
141. The next time you prepare a speech, do some imagination. If your speech is a piece of music, what music will it be? If your speech is a colour, what colour will it be? If you speech is a dish, what dish will it be? The secret is to cross and merge different senses so that your speech becomes richer and more real to the audience.
142. Have “flesh” time with your audience before you get up on stage to speak.
143. In other words, go shake their hands and get to know them. Make small talk. This way, you won’t feel like you are talking to a bunch of strangers when you are up on stage.
144. Here’s 9 sure-fire ways to piss your audience off. Try at your risk.
145. Starting weak: “I guess I should probably get started…. uh…ok here goes…”
146. Giving the audience zero eye contact
147. Reading off the slides
148. Having slides with heap full of words (and MORE words!)
149. Having NO message (Variation: Failing to make a point and leaving us confused)
150. Mumbling throughtout the entire speech
151. Apologizing to the audience right at the start:“I’m not exactly sure what I want to say but I will try…”
152. Ending late - it’s obvious you don’t respect our time!
153. Be totally unprepared - it shows how much you value us!
154. Before you go up on stage, recall an incident where you were successful. Re-experience the emotions, be it excitement, pride, joy, euphoria. If you want, you can clench your fist and do the Tiger Wood “Yes!” gesture.
155. Plan-Pause-Scan: Plan where you want to stand. Pause and get yourself composed. Scan at the audience. And then begin your memorized introduction.
156. Once in a while, take a risk in your speech.
157. Bite your tongue when you feel very dry in your mouth. Lightly, please. You won’t want to die in front of your audience, will you?
158. Make it a daily habit to observe one speaker. Preferably someone you want to learn from.
159. Sing karaoke. It helps.
160. Everyone is a public speaker. Yes, even YOU!
161. Here are eight compelling reasons why you should master public speaking.
162. Public Speaking is the #1 fear for most people, surpassing the fear of death. At least you won’t be tormented with this unnecessary fear anymore.
163. At some point in life, you will be forced to speak in public whether you like it or not. How about preparing yourself in advance?
164. A successful leader must be competent in expressing himself/herself to a group of people. Unless you do not want to be a leader, public speaking is a must-have skill!
165. Being a better speaker can help you to stand out from the crowd in a positive way, which leads to increased self-confidence and better grades.
166. You will inevitably learn to write well because writing skills and speaking skills are not mutually exclusive.
167. When you are good at one, you will naturally be good at the other as well.
168. Let’s face it! Employers consistently rank public speaking and related communication skills as one of the top skills they look for in employees. You won’t want others to have an unfair advantage over you, will you?
169. Public Speaking is a trainable skill i.e. you are capable of being an excellent public speaker. Why deprive yourself of such an opportunity to shine?
170. You will be giving yourself the most important gift of all – the ability to speak up and stand out!
171. Oh one more thing, you get more dates.
172. Challenge yourself - join a speech contest.
173. You can win by giving it your all.
174. A remarkable speech is a memorable speech. And here’s how you can make it remarkable.
175. Come out with ten ways to modify your speech and overwhelm your audience with its remarkability
176. Each time you think of something safe to do for your speech, reverse it!
177. Find things that are “just not done” in the speaking industry and go do it (for the fun of it!)
178. Ask “Why not?” Almost everything you don’t do has no good reasson for it. It is usually the result of fear and assumption. So why not?
179. Treat your next speech like a game! Have loads of fun with it!
180. I learnt this from Seth Godin: One message per slide. Part of the less is more rule.
181. This one too: One story per point. The story doesn’t have to be long. Just make sure it underscores your point.
182. Find opportunities to surprise your audience. It keeps them at the edge of their seats.
183. Likewise, find opportunities to involve your audience. No matter how interesting you are, it gets boring if you do all the talking.
184. Variety keeps your audience on their toes. Find different ways to deliver your content. It could be a story, a videoclip, a demonstration, a pair share, an activity, a guest share, quotes, numbers, graphs, visuals and the list goes on.
185. Be really interested in your audience. It shows.
186. When you put your heart and soul into doing one thing, results are bound to show up. This applies to life too.
187. Ask and you shall receive. Never be afraid to ask for feedback. Do it for yourself.
188. Murphy’s law does apply to speaking too. Be prepared.
189. Always write your speech because what is written can be edited to be more colorful, concise, powerful and precise.
190. Write it not for the eye, but for the ear. Make sure it sounds conversational.
191. Start small to win big. Here’s two ways.
192. Read ONE public speaking article a day. Try The Public Speaking Blog.
193. Try ONE tip/technique that you have read about in your next speech.
194. Tip from 2001 World Champion of Public Speaking, Darren LaCroix - on the scale of 1 - 10, find your “11″! Be exceptional.
195. Don’t be afraid to ask for evaluation. Remember, it is for your own good. Take it with a pinch of salt.
196. Having said that, not all advice is good advice. Test them out. If they work, keep it. If they don’t, drop it.
197. You are only as good as your last speech.
198. The two main arsenal of a speaker is his stories and analogies. The better his stories and analogies, the more he get paid. (Thanks Darren La Croix for the tip!)
199. Avoid using bombastic words or technical words that no one understands. It doesn’t make you any smarter.
200. Here are 6 more ways to persuade your audience. Repeat the same point (usually your key message) in many ways. This will ensure that your message gets sticky.
201. Trust in the power of the word “because”. Psychological studies have shown that people are more likely to comply with a request if you simply give them a reason why… even if that reason makes no sense.
202. Get your audience to agree with you many times, as early as possible. It’s hard for them to say no when they have say yes to you 20 times.
203. Have social proof. Quotes from famous people adds a lot of credibility to your speech.
204. Show comparisons. By relating your message to something familiar (using similes, metaphors, analogies), you help to make your argument more palatable for your audience.
205. Address all objections to your case. Remember, every objection is an opportunity for them to say yes to you.
206. Being funny has less to do techniques and more to do with attitude.
207. Always look at the funny side of things, ask yourself “What’s funny about this?”
208. Pay attention to stories and things that happen to us. (funny stuff does happen)
209. Jot them down and store them in a humor bank. This way, you can refer to them each time you give a speech. You can save money on joke books even!
210. Audience laughed when they are successfully tricked. That’s the mechanic behind humor.
211. People learn the best when they are laughing.
212. Practice – test your humor in your presentation and conversations.
213. Seek out other people in the limelight who are funny - learn from them.
214. Make a serious point after your audience laugh, it sticks better.
215. It helps if you are optimistic about life.
216. People are developed funny, not born funny.
217. It’s never about you, it’s about the audience. (don’t tell jokes that YOU think it’s funny)
218. Self effacing humor works. (don’t insult your audience, make fun of yourself)
219. Keep your funny stories short. The size of the laugh is inversely proportional to the number of words used to get to the punchline.
220. Avoid off language, sexist and racist jokes.
221. Being funny starts from being creative. To churn your creative juices, get a journal and start free writing (at least up to 3 pages). In a diary, you think about what you want to say. However in free writing, you don’t. There are no filters. All you have to do is to keep your pen moving. If you are using a computer, then keep typing. This will help in speeding up your thinking ability too.
222. Contrary to popular belief, it is easier to make a crowd of 100 laugh then a room of 10. This is because when you have more people, the audience feels more comfortable. And when they are comfortable, they laugh easier.
223. If possible, speak in a small room. This way, all your audience will be packed together. It will make you look good. And there will be more energy in the room for you to play around with.
224. Be knowledgeable – know your stuff. Present 70% of what you prepared. Keep the rest for emergency purposes for eg. during Q&A or when you need to show off.
225. You get creative ideas at all time. Carry around a digital recorder or notebook everywhere you go. Whenever a creative idea strikes you, record or write it. You only have 37 secs of window time to capture the idea. Don’t wait till you are booked for speech before you think of what to say.
226. It’s really easy to be a memorable speaker.
227. Be hideously bad.
228. Or you can be exceptionally good. It’s your choice.
229. Audience voted these three characteristics as the most important for a speaker - sincerity, knowledge and humor.
230. Come early. Walk the stage and get used to being on top.
231. Test your mic. Test your slides. Test your pointer. Leave nothing to chance.
232. 95% growth happens when you are out with the audience. It’s just another way of telling you to get stage time!
233. Don’t be afraid to say this to your audience - “RIP ME APART!” Repeat after me, “RIP ME APART!”
234. Don’t be afraid to show your emotions. When you are sad, be sad. When you are excited, be excited. When you are be angry, be angry.
235. Make sure you enunciate your words correctly. Diction is a tell tale sign of your ability as a speaker.
236. If need be, speak S.L.O.W.E.R.
237. Practice breathing from your diaphragm. It enhances your vocals and also make you sound less breathy.
238. To start, you don’t have to be good. But to be good, you have to start.
239. 10 “You” for Every “I” in your speech! Remember, keep your speech audience-centric.
240. The next time you speak, leverage on another “AHA” moments by other speakers. If there is a particular word or occurence that made your audience laugh previously, find ways to bring them into your speech. This will not only make you popular. It demonstrates your speaking prowess as well.
241. Stories are only an asset to your speech if you bring your audience into your story through a “U”-centric question. For example, “Have YOU ever step on a scale and was forced to face reality?” And then you proceed with your story.
242. This is much better than telling your audience blatantly that you have a story to tell. Avoid this too “Oh, and this remind me of a story…” Equally lame.
243. Always organize your speech. Start with a simple structure. It’s like the backbone to your speech. Without it, no matter how good your content is, it will fall flat.
244. Writing a speech is similar to writing a hollywood script or a thriller novel. Don’t waste time. Start where the action is! Let the audience do the figuring out - they like it.
245. 台上十分钟，台下十年功 (realized this when I was competing in Macau in 2006). What it means in English is “Ten minutes on stage is equivalent to ten years of training offstage”.
246. It’s ok to fail or bomb on stage. What is more important is the lesson behind it. Learn it well and make sure you don’t forget.
247. Be willing to fall.
248. Fall forward.
249. Don’t let a bad presentation stop you. We all have them, learn from it and go get them.
250. Persistence is key. And I think you have it if you have read from point 1 all the way to point 250.

P.S: If you have yet to download the free chapter of my soon-to-be published book The FAQ Book on Public Speaking, click here to get it before it is taken down.

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Have you read Scott Ginsberg’s 4th book “Make A Name For Yourself”? If not, you should. That is, IF you do want to make a name for yourself. You can download the book for free here.

Anyway, while I was gorging away at his million-dollar tips on how to be THAT guy, I found three so far that would make a GIGANTIC difference to your speaking skills. It’s ok, you can thank me later.

1. The Best Swimmers Are ALWAYS In The Pool

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“Cut Your Learning Curve By Getting Solid Tips From Speakers Who Have Already Taken The Journey”

The FAQ Book On Public Speaking will help you become a more connected and authentic speaker. Cut your learning curve by getting solid tips from speakers who have already taken the journey.

– John Kinde, Professional Speaker, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (http://www.humorpower.com/blog/)

Today’s Free Chapter: Chapter 5 — Preparing & Rehearsing Your Speech The Optimal Way

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