{"id":795,"date":"2013-06-20T18:47:52","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T18:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=795"},"modified":"2014-07-17T03:25:42","modified_gmt":"2014-07-17T03:25:42","slug":"how-to-improve-your-public-speaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/how-to-improve-your-public-speaking\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Improve Your Public Speaking"},"content":{"rendered":"

I highly recommend the highly practical book Confessions of a Public Speaker <\/em>by Scott Berkun.\u00a0 Whether you speak in front of large groups often, or just small groups occasionally, Berkun, a professional public speaker, offers numerous insights, ideas, and tips to making your public speaking better.\u00a0 From dealing with fear and failure, to how to really make an impactful speech that actually teaches people, Berkun brings his wealth of experience and research to provide a book that can help anyone improve and grow in public speaking.<\/p>\n

While I have had ample opportunities to speak and preach throughout my life, I found Berkun\u2019s insight about feedback to be particularly helpful. \u00a0Berkun explains that most people are going to say that you did a good job after a public speaking engagement.\u00a0 They are nice people.\u00a0 But, for the most part they are not going to tell you what they really think.\u00a0 Other people who are extremely critical may give you negative feedback, but here also lies a pitfall.\u00a0 Negative feedback comes, but in comparison to what?\u00a0 Or, possibly the person is simply being negative and not objective.\u00a0 This means that speakers rarely are given the true truth about their speaking and how they can improve and what they are doing well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Berkun offers a number of practical ways to get real and constructive feedback.\u00a0 He suggests a number of questions that can draw out actual feedback, such as: \u201cHow did my presentation compare to the others?, What one change would have most improved my presentation?, What questions did you expect me to answer that went unanswered?, etc.\u00a0 Furthemore, Berkun suggests that when people give you positive but empty feedback, you should ask, \u201chow could I have made it better?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Through most of my speaking life, I have been happy to accept the platitudes of others, and simply ignore the opportunities to real seek out genuine feedback.\u00a0 I did this mostly out fear, or sometimes because I didn\u2019t trust anyone to give solid feedback.\u00a0 However, Berkun makes the even more important point.\u00a0 Our speaking is not about us, and our satisfaction, but it is the audience and how they connect with our speaking.\u00a0 If they are not getting what we want to communicate, then we need to improve.\u00a0 Therefore, the feedback of our audience is essential.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I hope to begin to make a more concerted effort to receive honest critical feedback on my speaking moving forward, with the expressed intent of improving my skill in public speaking.\u00a0 I have seen a few other practical steps that can work in this area.\u00a0 For instance, seek out an honest and trusted friend or source who can give you honest and maybe even expert feedback.\u00a0 Once I spoke briefly at a church (in both service) giving a short synopsis (just 2 minutes) of ministry in Spain.\u00a0 It had to be quick, but it had to be impactful.\u00a0 My former high school drama teacher happened to be in the congregation for both services, and being a person who made his living critiquing, teaching, and improving young people\u2019s dramatic performances, he was able to give honest feedback: where I had stumbled in the first service, and where I succeeded in the second.\u00a0 I knew I could trust him, because of our long relationship, his expertise, and our rapport.\u00a0 Another practical way to get good feedback is something I learned from my current director.\u00a0 Every time he speaks, he gives a few people in the audience and evaluation sheet that they can fill out during the talk.<\/p>\n

How can you improve your public speaking?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I highly recommend the highly practical book Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun.\u00a0 Whether you speak in front of large groups often, or just small groups occasionally, Berkun, a professional public speaker, offers numerous insights, ideas, and tips to making your public speaking better.\u00a0 From dealing with fear and failure, to how to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[304,21,312],"class_list":["post-795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-berkun","tag-dminglp","tag-speaking","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1259,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions\/1259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}