I read an average of 25 blog entries, 2 ebooks and half a book every day. And I still think it is not enough. A good 50% of the content relates to public speaking, the other 50% relates to internet marketing, holistic living and branding. What about you? What do you read on a regular basis?

In a recent survey to my SpeakEZ subscribers (see box on top right hand corner), I posed a series of questions to them including this one: “What other public speaking websites do you visit?”. The results was shocking. A good 74% of them only visits sites that I recommend in my emails and blog. I am not sure if I should be flattered or worried. Flattered because they trust my opinion. Worried because they are lazy… and they don’t bother googling for more speaking resource.

Oh and one of them was ultra sweet. She says, “You mean there are other public speaking websites??!! Yours is the only one in my world…”

*blushes*

Anyway, my point is this - there ARE very insightful public speaking articles and resources that you can read and apply. But knowing you are busy (who don’t these days), I decided to do this instead. Every Friday, I will put up links to the five best articles that I have read over the week and you go read them. Bookmarked them for future references. Print them out to read as you travel. Either way, read them! Make it your daily damnit.

Here’s my top five recommendations.

A Toastmasters Speech Contest

Most of us have heard about Steve Pavlina. He was recently ranked 7th in the “PSB’s 10 Most Influential Bloggers on Public Speaking” and he owns a highly visited (in the millions) blog titled Personal Development for Smart People. However I have never thought of him as a funny guy. Apparently I was wrong. Check out his speech that he wrote for the Toastmasters Humorous Contest. And here’s the best part, we have humor pro, John Kinde, to do an evaluation of what made his speech funny.

How To Analyze Your Audience When Preparing For Public Speaking

Love the simplicity and straightforwardness of this article. We all know how important it is to know the audience but what exactly do we need to know? Click link above to find out. You will find the situation he painted very, very familiar.

Don’t Say These Words When Speaking

I forgot how I chanced upon Steve Boyd’s website but that’s ok. Out of the 7 articles he wrote, this one stood out. I think it is it the title, it made me wonder what exactly are these words that we are not suppose to say. (Persuasion technique!) This is a very short article yet an important one because many of the taboo words that Steve mentioned are frequently used by speakers, even the experienced ones!

Upon more clicking, I found another article (digged 1776 times!) that highlights another five more phrases that you SHOULD NOT say in your presentation. And here’s the best part, you hear them all the time! So if you want to be a more polished speaker, take another five minutes and read this article.

Halloween Humor - Get Dressed To Thrill

We all know who John Kinde is - he’s the funny man! And a very popular one too, at least in the eyes of my subscribers. Way to go John. This time round, he invited Avish Parashar (also my friend!) to post an article. A very timely one too, since Halloween is just around the corner.

Unfortunately in Singapore, Halloween is not well embraced. We have a chinese version of Halloween, it’s called the Hungry Ghost Festival. Instead of dressing up like one (like what people in Halloween do), we burn them stuff.

I still remember my first Halloween experience in California. I dressed up as The Mummy. Had three full rolls of toilet paper wrapped around me. I ended up becoming a walking toilet paper dispenser at the party. Not nice.

Since we are on the topic of humor, another friend of mine, Brad Montgomery, has recently set up the Humor Colleage. He grilled some of the top talent in the land to get them to divulge their pet secrets, their techniques and tactics for getting laughs from any audience. I would strongly recommend you to check it out. Click here.

And lastly I end off with a blog post by Robin Sharma, the author behind “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari”.

The Courageous Question

So what is a personal development article doing here? Well, becoming a confident and compelling speaker is not just about building up your speaking skills, there is a lot of internal work to be done as well. Do you have the courage, the persistence and the discipline to overcome all odds? And above it all, do you dare ask that courageous question?

Have a great weekend!

Cheers,
Eric Feng
Your Public Speaking Coach

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