Andy Harrington: Public Speaking Tutorial Video Lecture | Understanding the art of Public Speaking: Become a better speaker - Self Help Learning

hi and welcome to our first training
session together now look most speakers
will never make it to the big time
because in front of big audiences they
literally become scared stiff the
presentations become boring and even
wooden so in today's session we're going
to go through the stress-free speaker
system so you never dry up or break down
onstage so follow me now to the home
studio and let's take you through this
so at this point you're probably
thinking to yourself who is aunty having
snow why should I believe anything else
to say about speaking well look I don't
want you to believe anything blindly
that I have to say instead it's probably
a better idea if you kind of put into
practice the things that I'm going to
share with you and you'll probably find
the magical effect they can have on both
what you and your presentations look I
can still remember the very first
presentation I ever did I was working
for Churchill insurance and they asked
me to give a presentation to five people
and I was completely overcome with fear
and the thing was I also made some
pretty stupid mistakes as well because
one of the things you begin with as a
presenter is not always knowing what to
do with your hands and I was fiddling
with the flipchart pin so much so that
it must been completely irritating to
the audience I was taking the lid off I
was putting the lid back on again and I
was I was pretty boring as well to be
honest I must have bore them into
submission but let me tell you that
wasn't the worst thing because when I
finished the presentation I went into
the restroom afterwards to wash my hands
and there was pen on my hands but some
of that pen had got transferred to the
middle of my forehead and I'd been
presenting with this giant black spot
right here in the middle of my head
so as you can see being a well rewarded
professional speaker it's not something
that anyone's born with but it is
something that you can learn to become
however let me make a distinction what
you're about to learn is not your
classical public speaker training look
there's more death organizations doing
that already
Toastmasters the professional speakers
Association and a thousand and one other
train-the-trainer courses what you're
about to learn are techniques that can
make you into a professional speaker
inside months not years and may just
make you thousands if not millions from
sharing your advice so look this is
exactly why I develop the stress free
speaker system so that when you walk out
on stage and say the London ohter arena
Hollywood Bowl or maybe even Wembley
Stadium you'll nail it on stage - we
have people traveling from all over the
world to put this system into practice
in their presentations at the public
speakers University and getting feedback
from the very best speakers in the
business on their presentations so look
only continue to watch this if you're
committed to putting this into action in
your presentations and getting feedback
so you can perfect this system all right
so what I want you to do now is go and
get a pen right now and a piece of paper
and once you've done that for the go
ahead and write system right down the
side of the page as I've got here all
right so the very first step in the
stress free speaker system is so
important because if you fail to pay
attention to this you'll never look
confident onstage and more importantly
you'll never ever have the audience
believe what you're saying and so what
is the first step well it is to focus on
your state what does that mean it simply
means that you've got to be able to come
trol your state before and on stage in
such a way that you come across as a
true professional so what that means is
you've got to be able to do two things
to control your state number one you
first got to control your physiology and
what I mean by that is really your
breathing think about it what is
speaking anyway
well it's speaking whilst breathing out
you can't actually speak without
breathing out I mean if you try to kind
of speak whilst you're breathing in that
would sound pretty weird so in order to
be able to speak effectively you've got
to first before speaking take a breath
and if you think in your own mind now
about some of the most inexperienced
speakers that you may have heard one
thing that's predominantly true for all
of them is they speak often way too fast
and the problem with that is that not
only will they not sound professional
but also their voice will go higher and
more importantly the audience will be
tired and won't be able to keep up
because think about it in order for the
audience to consume what you're saying
you've got to give them a few seconds or
a moment to take in that piece meal that
bite-sized chunk make a picture of it in
their mind and then relate it to their
lives if you don't do that it's just
noise for the next hour while you're
doing your presentation so you gotta
pause to give them that chance to catch
up with what you're saying so the second
thing that will determine your state is
your focus I'm talking here about how
you use your eyes you see your eyes can
be used essentially in two different
ways either your eyes will be in fove
your vision where you collapse down and
look at just one thing to the exclusion
of everything else or the other way you
can do it is rather than be in fove your
vision to be instead in peripheral
vision and when you're in peripheral
vision you see what happens is you are
aware
of many many things not just one thing
so as you look right now me here through
the camera I want you to begin to become
aware of all the things on the outside
of the screen even though you're looking
at me keep your awareness now on all the
things on the outside of your computer
screen and you notice if you continue to
do that looking at me but becoming aware
of all the things here on the outside of
the screen
sure enough you'll begin to start to
feel very very relaxed and more
importantly your state become very calm
and you come across as very very
measured indeed so you want to make sure
that you're able to put yourself in that
state now think about this remember when
you first learn to drive a car I want to
go back in that remember that for a
moment you're sitting in the car you
feel a little bit nervous and you're
maybe holding the steering wheel in your
hands you look all these levers and
dials and look down the floor there's
three pedals and you've got two feet if
you're using a gearshift and you're
feeling somewhat kind of overwhelmed
with all the many things to focus on and
if you think about it as you look
through that windscreen what did you do
well probably you look through the
windscreen held on the steering wheel
and looked at the edge of the bonnet
hoping that you wouldn't hit something
now obviously you know that by doing
that you begin in foveal vision the
problem with that is you're excluding
everything else like the cars coming
towards you think you're about to hit so
you don't want to do that in the same
way that when you were driving a car
when you were first driving a car and
another car came toward you on the other
side of the road part of a row ten
should began to look at that one thing
and then you start to steer probably
towards it so you don't do that anymore
do you so what do you do instead to have
your state more in tune with becoming
excellent outstanding driver of a car
well I suspect now you've got into
peripheral vision meaning the
what you're doing now as you're looking
out the windscreen but your sight not
looking at the bonnet in fact you're
looking out and surveying the whole
scene and taking it all in in fact
you've probably driven your car to
different destinations who probably out
even thinking about it consciously at
all because you've put yourself into
peripheral vision you've allowed your
unconscious to be the most important
driver for your behavior and you want to
do that when you are presenting because
if you're conscious about it and you're
thinking about it and effectively as a
speaker you're focusing on the edge of
the bonnet which is probably the edge of
the stage you're going to be in
conscious awareness and you're going to
be in fove your vision and you will be
focusing on your fear rather than
focusing on your audience and living a
message that has passion and the one
that means you care about the people
taking that message on board so to
repeat if you want to control your state
then what you have to learn to do is two
things but one focus on your breathing
which means you can get passionate at
times but after a while you've got to
slow down to give people the chance to
breathe themselves for you to breathe
and for them to consume your material
and second you've got to use your focus
from foveal out here to peripheral
vision when you do that your state will
be the very best it can be to be a super
outstanding professional speaker the
second point in our stress free speaker
system is important if you want to be
seen as a true professional and have
real credibility on stage and it's
probably not what you think because most
new speakers really struggle with this
one in fact some experienced speakers do
- what it is is that you must always on
stage be yourself what that means is is
that don't stand up there and try to
pretend to be someone that you're not
what I mean by that is is some speakers
try to put on like a training persona
almost like a suit of armor if you will
that to protect them if you will the
challenge with that is if you think
about if you're wearing a suit of armor
what does it mean it means you're
presupposing that you'll be attacked and
sure enough someone's going to try to
find the chink in their armor because
look nobody's perfect so drop the act
drop the idea that you need to be
perfect no one's perfect so get up there
and instead be real does that mean you
have to become a little bit vulnerable
yes disclosing part of yourself and
being who you really are means that
people will trust you more now I tell
you this because I made the same mistake
myself when I began as a speaker having
modeled Anthony Robbins I wanted to be
like him now if you've ever been to an
Anthony Robbins seminar when you first
walk in you'll find dancers on stage and
they'll be kind of just clapping like
this and the audience kind of join in
it's a good way building rapport with
the audience and then Tony comes in and
takes that rapport so you know clearly I
thought this would be a very good idea
to do so what I did was I tried to
become Anthony Robbins and so if you
walked in in 2003 to my live seminar now
it's a free event I was offering to
people right here in the City of London
and as they walked in maybe half past
seven not knowing me just having
responded to a newspaper or radio advert
you would have walked in to a seminar
off the street to find my mum my sister
my wife and my father-in-law dancing on
stage what do you think people did when
they saw that they kind of walked in a
win what just kind of turned around and
completely left so you know had 170
people registered for the event and I
ended up speaking to around 60 because I
completely alienated the audience by
doing something that wasn't natural it
wasn't normal it wasn't what people
expected I wasn't Anthony Robbins after
all so I made this mistake so don't try
to pretend to be someone that you're not
be you you are important and you are
good enough to stand there and deliver
this material because
it's not actually about you more
importantly what it's about is your
processes it's about what you have
learnt that you can teach somebody else
to do exactly the same thing don't try
to come across as some celebrity don't
pretend that you're someone amazing
yes years ago this is what we used to do
as speakers we used to come out and be
some amazing superstar some and we
concentrated really on our image but all
of that has completely changed why
because what we need now is to know that
people are real look at social media
look at everyone's trying to become
smaller look at how everyone's trying to
become closer to their people rather
than aloof from it years ago you
couldn't reach speakers because they
were there on stage that disappeared
behind the curtain gave a saw him again
don't make that same mistake instead be
yourself be vulnerable and be real and
don't try to pretend to be something
other than not and definitely don't try
to be perfect so the third element in
the stress free speaker system is
crucially important if you want to look
really good on stage you can be
confident inside but if you don't
demonstrate that to the audience again
they're not going to buy into your
message and you will ultimately become
more stressed because things won't be
going your way on stage so the most
important thing you need to do to master
this is to have an amazingly fantastic
brilliant professional stance now most
people don't actually know how to stand
on the stage if you looked at an
unprofessional rookie speaker you'll
first note that when they took to the
stage they probably wouldn't stand right
at the very front of the stage they'll
actually back off a little bit and stand
a little bit of what we call upstage and
the problem with that is is that you're
pulling away from the audience and
they'll feel it the other thing that
will happen is as they stand there on
that stage they'll look in a posture
that looks anything other than they're
comfortable in their own skin so this
whole thing begins with your feet so
let's go through it briefly now now of
course we cover this in much more detail
at the university program
but let's give you a snapshot now of
what you to focus on so you can start
practicing this at home yourself
alright so follow along right now
wherever you are stand up right now so
you can follow along with how I can
guide you into having the professional
speaker stance now if you take a look
down at my feet now you'll see that my
feet are pointing pretty much straight
forward now this is unusual because if
you're a man most likely what you'll do
firstly is have your stance too wide
meaning you probably got your feet at
shoulder width apart rather than at hip
width apart now think about it the more
you have your feet closer together
the taller you're going to be so you
know this just take this to an extreme
if I now stand very wide I've lost about
two inches of height now when you meet
me for the first time you'll see I need
all the height I can get so but it look
it's not about you being tall but it's
about looking like you're using all of
your available height and so start with
your feet hip width apart now you don't
you know obviously if you have your feet
even close you'd be taller but that
would look very very odd indeed okay so
just hip width apart and the feet must
point straight forward so again a big
common tell if someone's not done this
before as a speaker is they'll put their
feet if you're a man at what we call
10:00 to 2:00 on the clock face now
think about it as soon as you put your
feet out at 10:00 to 2:00 what will
happen is if you now look at my hips
you'll see that what naturally happens
is my hips will just rotate forward like
that so my hips are now over the top of
my toes the problem with that is is that
now your belly sticking out which
doesn't look particularly good and what
will happen is now your back will have
to be going at this kind of an angle so
that you'll actually stand up straight
and of course now with your head if your
head was in line with your back you'd
look like that so to avoid that because
you look really weird it's uncomfortable
you'll put your head forward and from
the side you now look like this
the beam if you've ever seen that TV
show which effective means you look
really uncomfortable now most people
think they're standing up straight when
they do this so instead turn the feet in
and put your hips vertically above the
ankles and now with your body upper
posture lengthen your spine do not
breathe into the chest because that
won't work you'll be uncomfortable just
think about lengthening the spine and so
you look like you're totally 100% owning
your body posture and looking like you
can own the stage command the stage as
soon as you go from this and we look at
the difference between this if I was to
present to you the whole time like this
how would that look it looks like I
don't mean what I say which means you
aren't buying into the message okay it
might be more comfortable for me if I'm
used to doing that but it's not the
right kind of impression that you want
to be purveying to your audience
okay now ladies what you'll tend to do
if you look down at my feet is what
you'll do is tend to have one foot
straight forward then the other foot at
an angle like that and you put your
weight distribution on - in this case
the right side and tilt your hips very
slightly this is a very feminine posture
now whilst that's good because you're
feminine it may be comfortable what you
know is going to happen at some point is
you're going to do that
and you'll shift to the other side and
then a few moments later you'll have to
shift to this side and then your shift
to this side so what do you think the
impression of the audience is when you
keep shifting your balance from one to
the other that's right you're shifty not
someone who can be trusted so no matter
whether you're a man or whether you're a
lady you want to have an outstanding
speaker stance which means your feet
will be hip width apart your hips will
be vertically over the top of your
ankles nice central position and a nice
upright lengthened spine your shoulder
should be balanced your head should be
balanced on your shoulders so you look
everything to be the consummate
professional that you know that you are
inside the next element of the stress
free speaker system is vital if you want
to have the audience hang on your every
word
and stay totally engaged with your
message because one of the things you
must be able to do as a great speaker is
to control your tonality and what I mean
by that is you've got to have a range in
your voice
it's contrast that keeps people on the
edge of their seats what I mean by that
is that you've got to be able to change
your voice pattern going to be able to
change your voice tonality change the
volume change the number of different
things in order to keep your audience
engaged because the last thing you want
to do is come across as monotone a
monotone well if you were to have a
heartbeat monitor on you and we heard a
monotone you would be dead and that's
exactly how your audience are feeling
when you are presenting in a monotone
meaning they just want it to end because
they are dying in their seats so what
you must be able to do is to change
these various elements of your voice so
let's talk about that now the first
thing you can do with your voice is to
use a medium pace and to use a medium
volume and a medium pitch and
concentrate really in this tonality on
this part of your body sounding out the
words correctly meaning that your
diction is good and you've got a crystal
clear clarity sounding in your voice
however just staying in that modality
only whilst quite comfortable would
eventually lull your audience into a
sleep pattern because like anything if
done over and over again it becomes the
norm so people will learn to fall back
into their own patterns in fact what
will happen is they'll fall back inside
themselves and what they'll do is have a
conversation with themselves rather than
focusing on your message that you're
delivering on the outside so the next
thing you can do is change your tonality
as I'm beginning to do now and speed up
a bit you can hear that I'm speeding up
now is getting faster and my words are
getting shorter and we'll punch it in
the way I'm delivering that message and
this is really good if you want to call
your audience to action and raise
the volume your voice become really
triumphant and becoming someone that
really means what they say now of course
if you overdo this you become
overbearing so you don't do that too
much but at times it can really wake
your audience up Bob Proctor is very
good at this if you know him as a
speaker he'll be speaking one tonality
you're speaking like this and suddenly
go and this is what you must do and he
suddenly jumps out the middle of nowhere
and really ignites the audience it's a
kind of explosive way of doing it but it
really works as a speaker so the last
voice pattern is where you slow right
down and even pause for longer than you
ever dreamed was possible as a speaker
and even breathe like that and then wait
for a few hours before delivering your
talk you're even lengthening the words
even maybe as a whisper I mean you know
the funny thing is that when you speak
in this tonality you can be saying
something that has no meaning at all and
yet you can really still have that
kinesthetic effect where you really open
somebody up and it almost magnifies what
you're saying so remember your
punchlines don't always have to be livid
in that triumphant way sometimes if you
have a foundational phrase something
that sums up what you just said almost
like a golden I get a quote that may one
day be in a book with your name over the
top of it sometimes you can deliver that
in this tonality and you know something
else that's good about that tonality to
is if you continue to stay in the
speaker stance and to stay in-state you
can be inside not knowing what you're
going to say next but you're just
pausing while you gather your thoughts
as long as you don't look up as long as
you don't look down the lawns don't
touch your face or give anything away
that you don't know what you're saying
next the audience will think you pause
for effect
the very next element in your stress
free speaker system is what I think the
most important because if you really
want to grip your audience if you want
your audience hanging on your every word
then you must learn to put this into
action you see most speakers never
really ever truly connect with their
audience because I'm talking here about
I'm talking about eye contact
you see I learnt this in a very shocking
way because I was at a seminar in 1992
with the great Brian Tracy and about
halfway through we got the opportunity
to meet Brian personally and I can still
remember vividly walking up to shake his
hand as I did so he looked down at me
and completely berated me for the way
that I'd shake in his hand you see I had
looked down and not locked eyes with
Brian and that's definitely not a good
thing to do with someone like Brian
Tracy he lets me said young man how dare
you shake my hand not look me directly
in the eye let's do that again shall we
now I was completely taken aback but
I'll tell you it shifted me and later on
as a speaker I recognized that if I was
going to connect with someone I better
damn well make sure I had good eye
contact so what about speakers do well
the majority of speakers what they'll do
is they'll look and survey the audience
they'll kind of spray their eye contact
around never really holding eye contact
for more than just a few moments at a
time
let's take a look live now as I teach
this on stage I contact so here's what
you do there's 8,000 people in this room
my job is to have 8,000 individual
conversations with you meaning I pick
one person out I focus on you I speak to
you for five seconds I pick somebody
else out I speak to you for just five
seconds I look in the back and I look at
my focus over there pick one person I
look directly at you and I look at you
for the speak to you Percy for that time
I come right back here and I speak just
to you for that period of time I look at
the back and I find someone else to
speed in for five seconds and hold that
gaze you do that and you'll do something
very important it meets a very important
human need if you looked at Tony Robbins
human needs it fulfills your need for
significance write it down I contact
with your audience held longer than most
speakers will hold it for will make you
feel very significant man-mountain
because when the speaker looks at you
and gives you that message you're like
when Tony did it to me when I was in
that seminar I was like he's talking
just to me he made me feel so important
but most speakers don't do it they kind
of just spread their message around look
up look down you've got to focus and
hold that bond for longer than you
normally would because most of us when
we look I contact with someone will look
away the moment it gets uncomfortable
and you know why do you want to know why
we look away when it gets uncomfortable
because the bond is starting to be
created and you are not ready for that
level of intimacy with that person and
you cannot afford to do that as a
speaker you need to be intimate you need
to love your audiences love them really
connect with your heart to your audience
and share who you are because most
people gap and speak and try to pretend
to be someone they're not you just be
you on stage don't wear any armor don't
be pretend somebody different be you be
authentic be real be transparent who
agrees on that by the way raise and say
I because you'll never feel comfortable
stage don't pretend to be someone you're
not
it feels difficult just be you learn to
be you with more people and connect with
people with eye contact so let's take a
look at this here so randomly select
but the audience got to be random you
can't do five seconds with you five
seconds with you five seconds you can't
just go down the line that doesn't work
it's got to be randomly done that's how
it works next look directing tonight
while speaking and then hold the eye
contact until the bond is created okay
who understands that little piece please
very antsy I make sure you do that even
in your small conversations with three
or four people sometimes we get stuck
just looking at one person ignoring the
other to connect with em for five
seconds come and bring this person in
draw this person in that's the key to
great presentations remember very
important part of the stress-free
speaker system eye contact not knowing
the final step in the stress-free
speaker system could mean that as a
presenter you'll come across as wooden
because the thing that a lot of speakers
struggle with is what to do with these
you know do you put them in your pockets
do you put them down by your sides too
wide around wildly while you're speaking
how do you have your hands under control
because as a speaker you've got to
disconnect these from this your hands
have to be disconnected from your mouth
which means if your hands are moving
they're moving because you want them to
not because they're just moving and not
under your control so I'm going to
introduce to you now the last part of
our stress-free speaker system which is
knowing all about movement how do you
move specifically how do you move your
hands around so the adds value to your
message rather than be distracting from
your message so there are a number of
different gestures that really can mark
you out as a truly professional speaker
Oh
Oh
Oh
Oh
so that is the stress-free speaker
system and it's just one of a number of
systems that we teach our students at
the public speakers university program
where you don't need just learn it but
you implement it into your presentations
live there in the workshop and on every
teaching you another one of these
systems in the next video in this series
and let me tell you why you must watch
it because if you've ever sat in front
of a blank PowerPoint slide and gone
completely blank yourself and didn't
know what to do to put it together
you've ever sat in front of a blank
piece of paper and thought I have no
clue how I'm going to put this whole
entire presentation together you want to
make sure that you get my kick start
content creator something I created for
myself that means not only of you create
presentations that gets you standing
ovations they may just make you a
fortune in sales at the back of the room
as well oh one last thing actually will
you do me a favor I really really love
to hear from you and love to hear your
feedback what is it that you learn in
this video that stood out for you and
how are you going to use this stuff in
your very next presentations so
underneath this video you'll see a place
where you can leave your comments go
ahead and leave your comments there and
tell us about how this presentation you
saw today has helped you transform your
speaking so until next time I wish you
all the happiness and all the wealth in
the world