Last week I was flying Southwest Airlines on my way to speak at a conference in Columbus, OH. The flight attendant handed out a flyer about our pilot. This was to be his last flight before “regulations” forced him to retire at midnight that night. Within moments, fire trucks approached our terminal and began squirting a rainbow of colored water onto our plane in celebration for him. We were asked to stand and applaud as the pilot came from the cockpit. It was quite an emotional scene, especially for those close to him. Everyone was smiling along with shedding some tears.

Share This

In no particular order….. since all are equally bad…

Blooper #1: Not telling us why we should listen to you

Never assume that just because you have an audience, we are obliged to listen to you. We may love you (that’s why we came in the first place) but never take advantage of the trust we have for you. It is an extreme turn-off when the audience has to do the work i.e. figure out how your presentation is relevant to us. We are a bunch of selfish egomaniacs. We love ourselves so much! And we don’t care about your experiences unless it teaches us something that we can use for ourselves. So here’s a word of advice: If you want to share your experiences, please do. But always include a message, something that will benefit us, your beloved audience!

Share This

Wow! I just learnt that one of my articles in this blog The Art of Schmoozing has been featured in Straits Time (under Recruit) on 29th August. For those of you who are not from Singapore, Straits Time is the main paper in our country. Just like New York Times in NY and Philadelphia Inquirer in Philly. It feels good to be acknowledged and it comes with a pay cheque! Because of the article, I am offered a $300 training assignment at the end of the month. Beeeaaaauuuutttttiiiifffffffuuuuul!!! I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have been faithfully supporting this blog. THANK YOU VERY VERY MUCH! Look out for pictures taken from today’s inaugural public speaking workshop titled “From Brown Cow to Purple Cow: What it takes to be a remarkable presenter”

Share This

Author’s Note: Last year during my one year stint in Philadelphia, I met up with this amazing guy, JJ at a speech contest. We became fast friends after that. Who won’t especially after you learn that he is as crazy about public speaking as you are AND he is cool about exchanging speaking pointers over beer and buffalo wings? Enjoy the article below penned by Mr Charismatic!

A topic that is often addressed in public speaking is how – How do I overcome anxiety? How do I deliver statements with maximum impact? How do I organize the contents of my speech? – but very seldom do we address the why. Why do we give speeches, and what should be our purpose?

Share This

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)

Share This

This marks my maiden post after two weeks of hiatus. (grins) Yes I am back in Singapore for good, at least for another year or so! Notice that there is still a regular influx of visitors (albeit lesser) even though I have not posted for quite a while. Really appreciate your support! Now that I am back, do expect more regular posts.

Share This

:: Caution - This is not for the faint-hearted::

In the marketing literature, we learnt about the infamous 4Ps: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. They are important variables to a successful marketing campaign. However not long ago, Seth Godin introduced the 5th P: Purple Cow. An equally, if not more important ‘P’ to transform businesses by becoming remarkable. Although this book was written for business people and entrepreneurs, I would strongly recommend all of you to get a copy of it too! The principles he shared in his book can be directly applied to public speaking too. How cool is that!

Share This

SPEAK FROM YOUR HEART

Over the two years, I have seen and heard my fair share of speeches that fell between the spectrum of “Spectacular” and “Horrendous”. Interestingly, it is not the most spectacular or most horrendous speeches that leave me the deepest impression. It is the speech that is given from the heart that made the most impact. In my opinion, when you give a speech that comes from your heart - a message that you care deeply about - you have already won the audience over!

Share This

One of the toughest kind of speeches to make is an after-dinner speech since everyone will be feeling sleepy after their meal. And worse, they may not even give you their full attention. There are many things that can go wrong and as an after-dinner keynote speaker, there are a couple of things you have to observe in order to be successful or at the very least, to sit down without feeling embarassed.

1. Find an appropriate topic

Share This

We are all experts at playing the role of the audience, thanks to the countless presentations that we have sit through. Quite frankly, we have seen it all! I thought it would be interesting to give you my list of ten things a presenter can do to piss me off. See if this tallies with yours!

Starting from the bottom…

Share This