Bert Decker’s revised edition of  You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard was one of many books recommended by Six Minutes readers last year.

Now I know why.

Decker’s public speaking classic is a comprehensive book which deserves to be on your public speaking bookshelf.

This article is the latest of a series of public speaking book reviews here on Six Minutes.

There is much to like in Decker’s book. To keep this review shorter than the book itself, I’ll focus on the three parts of the book that stand out the most for me.

1. Emotion and the First Brain

The first half of the book establishes the case that effective communicators (Decker describes these as New Communicators) understand the importance of emotion in the communications process. That is, communication is more than logical arguments. More than facts and figures. More than metaphors and triads.

Decker explains the importance of emotion by reasoning that our brains are composed of two parts:

• The New Brain – the intellectual part of the human brain which reasons and processes at a conscious level, and
• The First Brain – the nonreasoning, nonrational, subconscious, primitive part of the brain.

The First Brain, he argues, acts as a powerful filter. Before your message can even get to the New Brain, it must first pass by the First Brain. For that to happen, you must connect emotionally.

2. Communication = Leadership ?

Decker asserts that communication and leadership are intimately linked. He clearly reasons that to effectively communicate is to be a leader; to be a leader is to effectively communicate.

Decker is not unique here. I, too, hold the belief that communication and leadership are joined at the hip. However, Decker is so persuasive on this point that, as I was reading, I began to wonder whether leadership and communication are actually the same thing. Are they really separate concepts at all?

3. Speechwriting and Delivery Tips Abound!

While the first half of the book is somewhat theoretical, the second half is packed with practical tips for speechwriting and delivery.

Here are just a few of the public speaking issues addressed by Decker in You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard:

• Eye contact,
• Posture and movement,
• Dress and appearance,
• Gestures,
• Vocal variety,
• Word selection,
• Pauses,
• Fear of speaking,
• SHARPs (Stories and examples, Humor, Analogies, References and quotations, Pictures and visual aids), and
• A comprehensive speech organization method he names The Decker Grid System.

These tips can be found in other books or blogs, in one form or another. The great value here is descriptions offered by Decker, and the relationships he makes between them and the concepts introduced earlier in the book. For example, Decker offers insights into public speaking fear drawn from the First Brain concepts.

What Could be Improved?

I loved this book, but it’s not perfect.

• Is emotion ignored in traditional communications training?
  Decker claims that the role of the First Brain (that is, the importance of emotion in communication) has been “virtually ignored by communications experts”. While I concede that many traditional public speaking books underestimate the importance of emotion, I think “virtually ignored” is overstating it. For example, one of the oldest books on the topic of public speaking — Aristotle’s On Rhetoric –  recognizes emotional appeals as one of the three primary forms of persuasion. Aristotle’s lessons have may have been skewed a bit, but they are not ignored.
• Slow start
  When I read a book for review, I mark the page whenever there’s a key insight or a golden quote. In the first 75 pages of this book, I only marked two pages. By contrast, I marked 15 in the final 150 pages. Those first 75 pages ran through a large number of politicians, business leaders, and celebrities, and labelled them as either old (bad) or new (good) communicators. The analysis isn’t superficial, but I still would have liked to see deeper analysis here to demonstrate the positive and negative communication traits. It’s difficult to do this, however, in print… perhaps this book needs a companion DVD?

About the Author – Bert Decker

Bert Decker is the CEO of Decker Communications, a communications training company that has worked with hundreds of thousands of executives, managers, and salespeople in the past 30 years.

Bert is the author of several books, including Creating Messages that Motivate and You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard.

And he writes a public speaking blog too.

What Others are Saying about You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard

Nancy Duarte:

This updated version of Bert’s book is fantastic.

Mark Sanborn:

This book is a classic bestseller that has been revised and updated … I recommend it.

Trent Hamm:

You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard is brilliant at helping you to become a better speaker mechanically by breaking down speaking into lots of little, practicable pieces.

If you’re involved with public speaking – or would like to be – You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard is a very worthwhile read.

Chris Spagnuolo:

The book concludes with a section on organizing your content to create a focused message… Bert’s proven Decker Grid System. … It’s a simple method, but one that I find to be extremely powerful in helping deliver targeted messages to the needs and wants of your audience. I’ve been using it for about three months now and I am amazed at the results.

Jeff Bailey:

This is THE book on presentation that you have been looking for: If you learn the contents it will literally improve your life. I don’t say that lightly and I am not exaggerating — I mean it!

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Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Are you facing an important interview?

Would you like to go to your interview totally prepared and feeling like a well-toned athlete ready to win the championship?

Being interviewed for a job or by the media can generate the same tension and anxiety as public speaking does for many people.

In this article, you will learn to take on interviewing like an athlete preparing for the championship. You will understand how to prepare yourself to be transparent for interviews so that you can share yourself, your ideas and your expertise authentically.

Think about the word interview. Break it into syllables: in-ter-view. To be interviewed means to let someone see in to you, and that will feel vulnerable. So, like an athlete, you must prepare, not only to answer questions, but to open yourself to be transparent and to manage the physical tensions and emotional anxieties that happen when you are being evaluated or questioned.

I will outline nine steps for conquering your nerves and communicating clearly that I have both taught my clients who were preparing to interview and used successfully myself.

These steps will be divided into three sections

1. Changing the way you think about the interview process
2. Preparing to share your experience and expertise
3. Handling the bodily-felt tension and anxiety

How to Think about the Interview

1. Be there to help.

Don’t think about an interview as an audition or test. Thinking so puts you in the position of being judged, which will trigger tension and anxiety. Instead, think about your interview as an opportunity to help the interviewer.

Remember that the interviewer need help. He is looking for someone to hire because his company needs someone to help them be successful. So, think in terms of helping the interviewer find out how you can help his company. If you are being interviewed by the media, think about helping the reporter and his listeners understand something that you know about.

2. Detach from the outcome.

Let go of it having to be a certain way. Evaluate your expectations and really look at what you think needs to happen in the interview. Anytime you have to have it be a certain way, you will be stressed.

So, evaluate what you are pressing to have happen and then let it go. Be willing for it not to happen the way you want it. This puts you in neutral energy where you can feel open to more possibilities. Turn your results over to a higher power and ask that the outcome be for the highest good of all concerned.

Prepare to Answer Questions

3. Determine likely interview questions.

List on paper the questions that your interviewer will most likely ask you to answer. Be sure to include the really hard interview questions that you are afraid to answer. And also include, “Tell me about yourself.”

4. Write and practice your answers.

For each of the questions, write your answers on paper.

Then, practice them aloud until you can share your answers fluidly. You may be tempted to skip the practice, but don’t. Vocal expression is different from the thought process. You must speak your answers out loud for fluid expression.

5. Decide how to sell yourself.

Next, list on paper the important points that you want to communicate to the interviewer about your background, abilities, qualities, experience and expertise.

6. Illustrate key points with stories.

For each important point you want to make, write down the things you want to share and an example (story) that backs up the point.

For instance, if you say you managed a team effectively, tell a story about a challenging situation that happened that proves you managed the team well. Then, practice sharing your points and stories aloud until you can speak them fluidly.

Handling Tension and Anxiety

7. Warm up your body.

Before you go to your interview, do enough physical exercise so that your body is loose and flowing. Make sure you stretch fully and that you elevate your heart rate so that blood is pumping.

Most people don’t realize how much physical tension impairs their ability to communicate freely. Actors and athletes know the power of warming up. You should too.

8. Ground yourself in your body.

Get out of your head and into your body. Learn to relax your mental attention down into your body all the way to your feet.

Imagine you melt energy out of your head and let it flow down through your body until you fill your entire body. Grounding clears your head and creates a sense of physical strength and emotional safety. You can think on your feet when you are in you feet, and you can speak from your heart when you have attention in your heart area. This is the most effective antidote to performance and presentation anxiety I know.

9. Breathe.

Really. Breathe. After you ground yourself, take deep breaths, fast breaths, and slow breaths until you relax. Breathing helps your brain oxygenate and relaxes your body. Focus on breathing for 10 minutes an hour before your interview.

When you have finished these steps, you will feel ready to interview. Instead of feeling dread, you will be eager to get to the interview so you can share yourself. You will feel like an athlete who is ready to take on the current world champion.

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Sandra Zimmer is a former actress who is now a professional presentation coach. She works with professionals who are struggling to communicate in front of others. Her specialties are transforming fear of public speaking, telling authentically persuasive stories, speaking voice and accent reduction for foreign-born professionals. Visit Sandra's blog: Speaking Freely

Web comic xkcd has charted the number of deaths from numerous activities, but no public speaking deaths have been reported.

As I write this, Google searches demonstrate that public speaking is a non-life threatening activity. All of these return zero results:

• “died in a public speaking accident”
• “died in a speaking accident”
• “died in a presentation accident”
• “died in a PowerPoint accident”
• “died in a Toastmasters accident”

On the other hand, two people have apparently died in a blogging accident, so subscribing to my blog via RSS or email may be risky business…

• “died while reading Six Minutes”: 0 results

But, I think you’re safe.

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Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.