Yet these insidious verbal hiccups are ubiquitous, uttered by most speakers in most speeches every day.

Robin Hutchins writes:

I teach a college speech class. The most common struggle my students have is the use of filler words such as um and uh. Do you have a strategy that helps to omit filler words?

What can be done? Is it hopeless?

In this article, we examine why filler words have a negative impact on your effectiveness, and learn a five-step strategy for reducing them.

Um… What’s the Problem?

Some people adopt a zero tolerance policy when it comes to filler words, believing that a few ruin the delivery and invalidate an otherwise solid speech.

I’m not one of those people. An occasional filler word does not trump passion and a great message. Furthermore, I’ve heard audience members comment that an occasional filler word makes the speaker seem human (and not robotic).

Nonetheless, speakers should strive to minimize filler words. They contribute nothing, and weaken your effectiveness as as a speaker in two primary ways:

• Filler words represent verbal static that has to be filtered out by your audience. (It’s one of the communication barriers cited in a recent article by guest author Stacey Hanke.) Why say it if the audience has to immediately filter it out?
• Repeated and excessive use of filler words weakens your credibility. It may be perceived as indicating lack of preparation, lack of knowledge, or lack of passion. All of these perceptions are bad for you.

Filler Sounds, Filler Words, and Filler Phrases

I’ve started this article using the collective term “filler words”, but this is really a convenient shorthand for three related speech fillers:

• Filler Sounds — e.g. um, uh, ah, mm
• Filler Words – e.g. basically, actually, literally
• Filler Phrases – e.g. “I think that”, “you know”, “what I’m trying to say is”

All of these — and there are more in each category — contribute nothing and could be completely wiped from your vocal patterns without any loss in meaning.

[Note: There are cases where some of the words/phrases do convey meaning, but this is rare.]

A Strategy for Removing Filler Words from Your Speech

I wish there were a switch that could be flipped to strike these from a speaker’s vocabulary. (I would flip the switch for myself!) Since the magic switch is elusive, here are the steps I recommend for minimizing these fillers.

Step 1 — Assess how often you are using filler words.

Before you embark on an effort to extinguish filler words, you should assess how frequently you utter filler words in your presentations. There are three easy ways to do this:

1. Recruit an audience member to track it and provide feedback. Ask them not only to provide a count of each filler used, but also to comment on the impact.
2. Record your voice, and do an objective analysis. I occasionally do this with a digital voice recorder. This can be done non-obtrusively for nearly any speech you deliver.
3. Record yourself on video. This is marginally more obtrusive, but delivers more benefits. You get verbal feedback, but you also get to see the expressions on your face and what happens to your eyes when you are… uh… filling in words.

Your goal in assessment is to answer the following:

• How often are you inserting filler words?
• Are they distracting?
• Are they undermining your credibility?

Step 2 — Understand why you are doing it, and why it is unnecessary.

Filler words — that is, filler sounds, filler words, and filler phrases — are inserted when our brain needs a moment to catch up to our mouth.

In certain contexts, filler words can serve a minor purpose. In a phone conversation, for example, a filler word sends a signal to the other person which says “I’m still thinking, and I’m not willing to pass the conversation back to you just yet.” In this way, the filler word fills the otherwise dead space which might indicate that you have completed your thought.

In the majority of public speaking situations, however, this is a completely useless signal. There isn’t any risk of someone in the audience taking over as soon as you go silent for a moment. You don’t need to fill that space to say that you’re thinking. You just need to … think, and your audience will understand.

Step 3 — Raise your level of preparation.

I have observed my filler word usage is highest when my preparation is lowest. Failure to prepare adequately has two effects:

1. Your brain needs to “create” words on the fly, as opposed to pulling them from (preparation) memory. This increases cognitive strain, making it more likely that you’ll fall behind.
2. You are (usually) more nervous when unprepared. Feeling nervous makes most people speak quicker, thus making it more likely that your brain won’t keep up.

One additional aspect of preparation which merits mentioning is the importance of adequate rest. When you are rested, your brain will be sharper and you will find it easier to articulate your thoughts without stumbling.

Adequate preparation (which has many other benefits) will thus reduce the occurrence of filler words.

Step 4A — Slow down.

Slowing your pace will also reduce those um’s and ah’s, because it makes it easier for your brain to keep up. It doesn’t have to be a drastic change; even a modest reduction in pace will help. As an added bonus, speaking a bit slower probably improves the ability of your audience to understand you.

To make this possible, you must be realistic about your time constraints and the amount of material you have. As speakers force more and more content into their presentation, they’ll have to talk faster and faster to complete it on time. Avoid this temptation.

Step 4B — Embrace the pause.

The best advice I ever received to reduce ums and ahs is to just pause. Replace the filler word(s) with silence. Since you’ve probably become accustomed to using filler words, replacing them with silence will take practice. Commit yourself to the change, and it will happen.

Step 5 — Monitor your progress, and be patient.

Every so often, step back and monitor your progress. Revisit the assessment tasks in Step 1, and compare the results.

• Have you reduced the frequency of filler words in your speech?
• Have you reduced the negative impact on your effectiveness caused by using filler words?
• Do you notice a correlation between preparedness and speaking filler-free?
• Is your pace slower?
• Are you simply pausing when you think about what to say next?

Your Turn: What’s Your Opinion?

How would you answer Robin’s question? Do you have a strategy to stop using um’s and ah’s?

Similar Articles You May Like... Are… um… Filler Words… ah… Okay? Speech Critique: Elizabeth Gilbert @ TED (Author of Eat, Pray, Love) Breathing: The Seductive Key to Unlocking Your Vocal Variety Toastmasters Speech 6: Vocal Variety Bookending Your Speech: A Master Technique How to Ace the Short, Impromptu Speech

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.

Have you ever thought about the relationship between time and public speaking?

On the surface, you engage your audience second by second, stringing together words into sentences that, over the duration of your presentation, may last minutes or perhaps hours.

Yet, the impact of your speaking experiences may last days, weeks, months, or even years — for you and for those in your audiences.

In this article, we examine time scales ranging from a tenth of a second to hundreds of years, and consider how each of these scales is relevant to you as a speaker.

One Tenth of a Second

A typical speaking rate is 150 words per minute, or 2.5 words per second. This means the average time between words is just four tenths of a second. When you consider pauses, a syllable leaves your lips in about a tenth of a second. (Your brain, of course, has to operate on a much faster scale to keep up.)

In one tenth of a second, perceptions form in your audience’s mind – either positive or negative. It could be an inflection that makes them cringe, or a visual that evokes a warm memory. It could be a facial expression which betrays a lack of sincerity, or a crackling voice which signals genuine emotion.

One Second

Pauses in your speech range from a short “comma pause” (about one second) to longer pauses for rhetorical effect (lasting several seconds). The duration of pauses is critical; if it’s too long, you’ve got an uncomfortable pause.

The enemy of the pause is the filler word: utterances which include “um”, “uh”, and “ah”. Everyone has a few filler words, but they are more common among speakers who are inexperienced, unprepared, or especially nervous. Skilled speakers understand that, instead of filler words, you can simply pause while you collect your thoughts; you don’t need a filler word to mark the moment.

Although the audience perceives slide visuals on the sub-second level, slide recognition occurs on the order of a second. Well-designed slides are recognized easily, and their meaning is associated the words of a speaker quickly. Particularly confusing slides can cause several seconds (or more) of high cognitive processing.

Ten Seconds

Effective eye contact is achieved when your gaze finds an audience member, and then stays there for perhaps a sentence or two — generally in the ten second range. Eye contact which is significantly shorter — like a ping pong ball — will seem insincere. Eye contact which is significantly longer may be uncomfortable, and perhaps leave other audience members feeling “left out.”

Ten seconds is also the range in which complete sentences are spoken, including most memorable phrases and quotations. You should be able to clearly summarize your main message within ten seconds.

One Minute

One minute is about the length of good story which a speaker might tell. Stories significantly shorter probably do not develop adequate conflict, emotion, or a significant message. Stories significantly longer could likely benefit either from aggressive editing (removing superfluous details which detract from the story) or splitting in two (in case more than one point is being made).

One minute is about the maximum time needed to introduce a speaker in most contexts. Any longer than this, and the introducer risks boring the audience and stealing attention away from the speaker.

Ten Minutes

Ten minutes is the upper limit for what many people might call a “short” speech. In ten minutes, you’ve only got time to properly develop one central idea, while supporting it with several stories and supporting points. It requires precise focus and discipline from a speaker.

Many popular formats hover around this average.

• Speaking formats such as Pecha Kucha (six minutes forty seconds) or Ignite (five minutes) restrict speakers down further and yet are wildly popular social events.
• TED talks (which have been reviewed numerous times on Six Minutes) come in various lengths, but the longest top out at 18 minutes.

Ten minutes is long enough to read most articles on Six Minutes, or another speaking blog. These bite-sized lessons are intended to motivate, instruct, and challenge you to improve your skills.

In a longer speaking session (e.g. a training session), ten minutes is a rule of thumb for switching gears. It’s wise to vary your technique, switch formats, and otherwise add variety to your session to keep the energy of your session high.

One Hour

One hour is a common length of a keynote address or the corporate staple known as the noon-hour seminar. One hour provides time for a speaker to cover their topic in much more depth and breadth, as well as allowing for an extended question and answer (Q&A) period.

One hour is the most common length of a Toastmasters meeting. It’s short enough to allow members to fit it into their hectic day, but long enough to cover the core elements (prepared speeches, evaluations, and impromptu speaking).

One hour is also a convenient duration for speech coaching sessions. A good speaking coach can work with you to explore your strengths and weaknesses, and one hour provides lots of time for repetitive practice as well.

Ten Hours

Ten hours is the upper bound for a daily seminar, or the daily program at many conferences. Most people will get pretty fatigued with 10 hours of listening to speakers. Speaking in this environment requires special skill in balancing valuable information with lighter, less cognitively draining activities.

One Day

One day is a practical upper bound for someone in your audience to act on your call-to-action. Nick Morgan claims that “the only reason to give a speech is to change the world.” I agree, and that starts by changing the thoughts and actions of individual audience members. Your speech should be designed with a clear and emphatic call-to-action. It should be challenging enough that opting to do it truly does represent change, but simple enough that it can be started within a day of your speech.

• For example, “losing 20 pounds” is not a call-to-action,
  but “starting an exercise habit tomorrow” is.

One day is also the outer range where you can receive useful feedback on your presentation (assuming it was not recorded, of course). The best time to solicit feedback is during (e.g. a feedback form) or immediately after (e.g. mingling with your audience) your presentation. Asking for feedback days or weeks after a presentation is not likely to reap many rewards as the feedback you receive will tend to be generic.

One Week

One week is a healthy period to practice your presentation. You certainly don’t need to practice twenty-four hours a day for a full week; thirty minutes per day will usually suffice. Rather than cramming all of your practice into the night before your presentation — or worse, the morning of your speech — consider spreading it over a week to allow yourself the time to become more comfortable with the content.

One week is also a good interval during which you should try to devote some time to developing your speaking skills. Like any habit, it’s hard to built momentum if you don’t get regular exposure. This includes both speaking before an audience, as well as support activities like working on speeches, gathering speechwriting material, or reading speaking blogs and books. It is not a coincidence that Toastmasters clubs (and most other extra-curricular activities) are designed to establish weekly participation.

Ten Weeks

Ten weeks is about the length of time it takes to establish a new speaking habit. Most of us resist change, either consciously or subconsciously. If you want to develop a new habit (speaking or otherwise), doing it once or twice will not suffice.

Ten weeks is the also upper limit needed to fully prepare for most major presentations. Do you think that’s too long? Well, let me bound it a bit.

• By “major presentations”, I’m talking about the ones which can make or break your career (like landing a new client) or help you achieve a personal goal (like making your case before city council for a new bylaw).
• By “fully prepare”, I mean the time from your initial idea that you’d like to give a speech to the time you deliver it. You might spend the first four or five weeks just brainstorming or researching content. Then, you might spend the next few weeks writing, practicing in front of a test audience, and honing your delivery.

One Year

One year is long enough to set yourself on a new speaking path. The new path depends a great deal on where you are now, and what your goals for the future are:

• Maybe “I’m terrified of speaking” gets replaced with “I’m scared, but I speak”.
• Maybe “I’m scared, but I speak” gets replaced with “I feel nervous, but I harness that energy”.
• Maybe “I speak when I am required to” gets replaced with “I enjoy speaking whenever I can”.

In one year, you could recognize an opportunity, develop a course, market yourself, and launch supplementary income or a whole new career.

Ten Years

Over a span of ten years, you can completely reshape yourself with a disciplined, committed approach to improving your communication skills, and translating that into becoming more effective at whatever path you choose to pursue.

For example, maybe devoting yourself to becoming a master communicator will launch you into management and steer your career to new heights.

One Hundred Years (and more)

You may not live this long, but your words can live one hundred years or longer.

Maybe you’re going to give a political speech that is quoted for centuries to come.

Or, more likely, you’re going to inspire your children, your grandchildren, and your audience members with a message that continues to become more and more powerful as the years pass.

Individual syllables, which last only tenths of a second on your lips, can last for hundreds of years if they are carefully chosen. Consider that the next time you are writing your speech.

Inspiration for This Article

You may be interested on know that the inspiration for this article is Powers of Ten, a classic documentary by Charles and Ray Eames which can be viewed below.

As a science geek, the documentary is fascinating, but there are lessons to be learned for speakers too. Some particularly effective techniques include:

• The use of a common, everyday occurrence to set the initial context.
• The frequent use of comparison to easily understandable distances (e.g. 100 meters: the distance a man can run in 10 seconds)
• The simple, repetitive use of 10 and the consistent pace of the documentary.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Similar Articles You May Like... How to Stop Saying Um, Uh, and Other Filler Words How Many Slides Should You Have? How Many Slides Do You Need? Speech Critique: Elizabeth Gilbert @ TED (Author of Eat, Pray, Love) How to Axe Your Presentation… and Still Deliver Value The 10-20-30 Rule: Guy Kawasaki on PowerPoint Breathing: The Seductive Key to Unlocking Your Vocal Variety

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.

It is a touching performance. Even though I have seen it numerous times – I use it as part of one of the courses that I teach on public speaking – I never tire of it. Although there is room for improvement, the positive aspects of Gilbert’s talk make it moving and memorable.

This is the latest in a series of speech critiques here on Six Minutes.

I encourage you to:

1. Watch the video;
2. Read the analysis in this speech critique; and
3. Share your thoughts on this presentation in the comment section.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There is a lot that can we learn about public speaking from Gilbert’s talk. For the purposes of this post, I have chosen three things that I liked and three areas where I see room for improvement.

First the positives:

She speaks with sincere passion.

Garr Reynolds, the author of Presentation Zen, has said that if he only had one tip to give to speakers, it would be to be passionate about the topic and let that enthusiasm come out.

“The biggest item that separates mediocre presenters from world class ones is the ability to connect with an audience in an honest and exciting way. Don’t hold back. Be confident. And let your passion for your topic come out for all to see.”

Gilbert is certainly passionate. It is easy to see that she truly cares about the subject matter and that she wants the audience to understand what she is saying and why. Her passion builds to a crescendo as her talk progresses. Note, for example, her description of the moonlight dances in North Africa (15:53) and her encouragement to the audience to “do your job” (18:27).

For me, the passion with which Gilbert speaks is the biggest strength of her talk. It more than compensates for any shortcomings. When you show your emotions like Gilbert did, it’s true that you are taking a risk. You are going out on a limb. But that’s where the best fruit is.

She tells stories.

Stories help us connect with our audiences in a way that all the charts, graphs, statistics and bullet points in the world will never be able to do. They help to make our messages resonate in people’s minds long after the telling.

Gilbert uses the power of stories to great effect. Going through the transcript of her talk, I found five personal stories from her life and five stories about other people. The stories reinforce her points in a powerful way.

Psychologists who have studied the power of storytelling have concluded that people are hardwired for stories. It is perhaps the oldest method of communication. So be sure to incorporate stories in your presentations. You have stories too, and telling them will bring your presentation to life in a way that bullet points never can.

She engages the audience.

As Gilbert’s speech progresses, it seems less like a speech and more like a conversation that she is having with a close friend over a cup of coffee. She engages the audience throughout and that makes her very easy to listen to.

Gilbert does not put on airs. Her voice is natural. She smiles. She makes good eye contact with the audience. She laces her talk with humor at appropriate points. All of these things help to “shrink the distance” between Gilbert and her audience. They make her likable and being liked is very important for a speaker. (Just ask anyone who has ever spoken to a hostile audience.)

Now the areas for improvement:

She needs to slow down and pause more often.

Gilbert makes many important points and backs them up with wonderful stories and anecdotes. However, she often runs her ideas together quickly. Furthermore, often when she comes to a point where it would be good to pause, she fills the space with words like “you know”, “right?” and “OK”. These “filler words” eat away at the fabric of our speeches and make them weaker.

Pausing serves us well in many ways:

1. It allows our audiences to absorb and digest what we have said.
2. It can be used to signal that something important is about to come, and thus focus our audience’s attention.
3. It helps rid us of the bad habit of feeling compelled to fill the silence with awkward filler words.
4. It makes us look thoughtful, confident, and credible.

Pauses need only last a second or two, but the effect can be profound. It’s been said that music is what happens between the notes. I believe that a great speech happens between the words, during those moments when the audience internalizes our words. Always remember to pause.

Her hand gestures were frequently distracting.

It’s obvious that, especially at the beginning of her talk, Gilbert was nervous. (Who wouldn’t be at least a bit nervous speaking at TED?) But the nervous energy was frequently released through the wringing and grinding of her hands (see, for example, at 0:30 and 1:05 to 1:25). This is a shame because at other times she used her hands quite effectively to emphasize her points (see, for example, 6:26 to 7:26, 10:20 to 11:03 and 15:59 to 16:40).

Effective gestures can enhance the impact of your message, but they have to be used properly and in moderation. Think of adding gestures to your presentation the way in which a world class chef would add spices to a fine meal: judiciously, to enhance the flavor of the food, but not to overpower it.

Practice getting comfortable with leaving your hands at your side from time to time when you do not need them. That way, when you do gesture, the gestures will be more effective.

She could have related the message to the audience more than she did.

I love the message that Gilbert conveys – that we should do our work as best we can, even if the recognition and acclaim do not come, because it is the doing that is important. I feel, however, that she could have done a bit more to relate it to the audience. Indeed, in the entire speech, which lasted almost 20 minutes, I counted relatively few times when she expressly mentioned the audience:

• 2:20: “Is it logical that anybody should be expected to be afraid of the work that they feel they were put on this earth to do?”
• 12:12: “And I would imagine that a lot of you have too.”
• 14:35: “I fell into one of those pits of despair that we all fall into when we’re working on something that’s not coming.”
• 15:50: “And I know you know what I’m talking about.”
• 18:31: “Just do your job.”

Don’t get me wrong. I do not question for one moment the sincerity behind Gilbert’s message. I am simply saying that it would have been nice to hear her talk more about the audience and the challenges that the people there might be facing. Also, it would have been nice for her to state that her message about creativity applies to people beyond the fine arts, because I do believe that her words have meaning for us all.

Never forget that a speech is, first and foremost, for the audience and about the audience. Why should the audience care? That is the question that we as speakers must always ask ourselves.

So there you have it. Some thoughts on a great speech by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Your Thoughts?

What did you think of this speech? What are Elizabeth’s strengths? How could this speech have been made better?

Please share your thoughts in the comments.

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

John Zimmer is a Canadian now living in Geneva, Switzerland. A lawyer by training, he has spoken extensively before courts, tribunals, business conferences, bodies of the United Nations, and more. He lectures on public speaking and presentation skills at the University of Lausanne and elsewhere. John is a four-time European champion of Toastmasters International public speaking contests. His writes regularly about public speaking and presentation matters on his blog.

However, if you ask singers to name the most important part of vocal technique, 9 out of 10 will say “breathing.”

So, is there some special way to breathe that makes your voice better?  Yes!

In this article, we explore breathing as it relates to vocal variety as a speaker. I’ll provide you an easy to follow technique, as well as tips to improve your voice through better use of air.

The results of applying these tips will be more Power, better Pacing, more interesting Pitch and more effective Pauses in your speaking.

Contents

• Lose Your Breath, Lose Your Voice
• Overview of Breathing
  • Breathing 101
• Breathing and Vocal Variety
  • Pace
  • Pitch
  • Pause
  • Power
• Practical Advice for Daily Life

Lose Your Breath, Lose Your Voice

In Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “Loss of Breath”, the narrator loses his breath as he is about to berate his wife. Except for some frog-like utterances, his voice also stops with his breath. Shocked by this, he agonizes, philosophizes, and tries to hide his condition, all to no avail. Eventually, he finds his voice when he finds his breath. (Did I mention that someone stole it? This is Poe, after all!)  Although the story is a bit macabre, it underlines the fact that if you lose your breath, you lose your voice … and it’s never a good idea to berate your wife.

Overview of Breathing

So how does one breathe for better speaking and singing? Well, watch a baby breathe. You’ll see that she seems to breath from her stomach, but she is really using her abdominal muscles. It’s breathing 101 — so easy a baby can do it. Here’s how it’s done:

Breathing 101

Read the following instructions out loud carefully, and then try them. (An audio file of these instructions can be heard by clicking here.)

1. Sit forward in a chair and let your stomach muscles relax.
2. Breathe in through your nose and imagine that you are a vessel filling up with air as you would pour water into a vase. Fill up your abdomen first, then your lower ribs (you should feel them expand) and then all the way up to your chin.
3. Hold this breath for a count of ten.
4. Now exhale slowly. As you exhale, keep your ribs expanded and tighten your abdomen as you would if you were doing a “crunch”—that is, the lower abdominal muscles should come in first as though you were rolling up a tube of toothpaste. (Since you are not a tube of toothpaste, keep your chest up as you exhale.)
5. Repeat. Once you have mastered the exercise sitting down, practice incorporating it into your speaking and singing. You may need to do it slowly at first until you can coordinate all the actions smoothly.

The key thing to remember is that breathing should be low and expansive. If you do the exercise correctly, your stomach will go in while your chest stays out and expands. Practicing this technique will provide many benefits, including:

• Awareness of your breathing will enable you to breathe more effectively.
• Proper posture for breathing creates a confident, strong appearance. Deeper breathing makes you feel more confident and strong as well.  Andrew Weil, MD writes, “You cannot always center yourself emotionally by an act of will, but you can use your voluntary nerves to make your breathing slow, deep, quiet, and regular, and the rest will follow.”
• Deep breathing decreases tension and helps to focus intellectual activity.  Charles Kirk describes how proper breathing technique helps him to remain calm on the trading floor.

Breathing and Vocal Variety

An earlier Six Minutes article advised you to “use your voice to complement your message.” This is what I refer to as vocal image: how you are perceived by the sound of your voice.

Ideally, you want your content to align with your delivery method and both to align with the sound of your voice.  Vocal variety is all about the sound of the voice and, in this case, that vocal image is created through several aspects of your sound, including pace, pitch, pause, and power.

Pace

Pace is the speed of your delivery. In general, for vocal variety you are encouraged to vary your pace by speeding up and slowing down appropriately for the message you are delivering. However, some people have trouble with pacing due to poor breathing. If you speak too quickly, or if your speaking is labored or too slow, consider the following:

• Speaking too fast is often the result of not stopping to breathe often enough.
  Solution: To slow down your speaking with the breath, consciously take a breath before you begin. Remember to stop and breathe between ideas. The next time you practice a presentation, take time to inhale and exhale deeply five times before you start to speak. Then take one more deep breath and exhale vigorously into your first words.

• Speaking too slowly can also be caused by not taking in and using enough air.
  Solution: Not using enough air can cause a person to sound dull and lifeless. This may also be caused by poor posture. Practice the breathing technique above, paying special attention to posture. Be sure you move that air with the abdominal muscles as you speak. Overdo the latter when you practice so you really feel the breath in the sound. By breathing deeper and then using all the air in your sound, you create a more energetic sound and you feel more energized, too.

Pitch

Pitch is determined by the notes we use when we speak. Yes, we use notes when speaking just as we do for singing. Speaking notes, however, are random, informally ordered, and usually of shorter duration than notes we sing. To create vocal variety, one uses different pitches to make their sound more interesting.  Sometimes problems with creating variety in pitch can be the result of poor breathing technique. Here are two such problems, their likely causes, and some ways to fix them:

• A voice that is too high-pitched and thin can be the result of shallow breathing (without abdominal expansion and support).
  Solution: The solution to shallow breathing is to relax the abdomen and drop the air in lower. This also relaxes the larynx so it doesn’t ride so high. A high larynx can create a higher, thinner sound.

• If your voice sounds squeezed or strained, or too low, you may not be using all the air you take in.
  Lisa Braithwaite comments rightly that speaking too low can do vocal damage.
  Another lesson from Poe’s prose is that you can produce a sound without breath. He writes:

I discovered that had I, at that interesting crisis, dropped my voice to a singularly deep guttural, I might still have continued … this pitch of voice (the guttural) depending, I find, not upon the current of the breath, but upon a certain spasmodic action of the muscles of the throat.

If you don’t want to be limited to a guttural growl, air should flow freely in your voice. You can improve a strained sound by practicing a breathy sound and then gradually adding more and more vocal sound to it. I call this “energizing the voice.” It also has the effect of making pitch variety much easier to achieve because the voice becomes free to move and create more pitches. If you do this correctly, you will definitely feel the freedom in your voice!

Pause

When speaking, pauses are the golden silences that allow your listeners to take in what you are saying. They are the “beats” an actor uses between phrases; they are that special something that leads to “comedic timing.” Importantly, pauses also give us time to breathe.

Here’s how to apply breathing to your pauses:

• Breathe before speaking your first words.
  Taking that first breath allows you to align everything physically, mentally, and emotionally. It also allows your larynx to be stimulated but relaxed. And finally, it gets the oxygen flowing so that you can think more clearly and look your best.

• Be aware of your breathing.
  It is amazing to see how many people simply forget to breathe when they are in front of an audience. As you may have experienced, nerves can play a big part in forgetting to breathe and feeling out of breath. So the short term solution to this, as blogger Denise Graveline mentions, is to pause and breathe!  The long-term solution, however, is to practice being aware of your breathing all day long. Awareness of breathing makes for natural pauses. The more you practice, the more likely it is you’ll remember to breathe when you’re speaking in public.

Power

A common misconception about Power is that it is the same thing as volume.  The truth is that vocal power is so much more than how loud you are. Vocal power is all about the impact your sound has on others. Your personal vocal power may be found in the tone of your sound or in how you phrase a thought.  Many people are surprised to learn that power can be heightened or lessened by how they breathe and how they use their breath.

• Sound moves on air, so you need to have air to get a powerful sound.  You can speak loudly, but if you aren’t incorporating that air into your sound, you will be shouting. Your impact on others may be quite different than you intended! In addition, keeping the air moving with the sound allows for wonderful control of your voice so that you can use all of your vocal variety techniques more effectively.

• A powerful speaker is one who is relaxed and comfortable. A powerful voice is relaxed and comfortable. Breathing deeply relaxes the larynx so the voice can settle into a comfortable, natural sound rather than one that is contrived or forced.

Practical Advice for Daily Life

Try to practice good breathing technique several times a day and soon you will naturally incorporate it into your everyday speaking. Here are a few tips for practicing breathing:

• Practice breathing while driving. Your hands are raised as you drive which makes it easier to keep your chest high. And practicing breathing can also ease road rage significantly!

• Practice breathing while sitting at your desk when you would normally be slumped over in your chair. Sit on the edge of your chair and take 10 practice breaths three times a day.

• Practice breathing when you are about to go to sleep or lying down on the floor at the end of a workout session. When you are lying down, it is easier to isolate the abdominal muscles and strengthen them for proper breathing. (You can even put a book on your abdomen to exaggerate the way you use those muscles for even better awareness of how to do this correctly. Watch the book go up and down as you breathe “with your stomach.”)

The final and real test, of course, will come in how well you incorporate good breathing into your presentations. On the day of your big presentation, remember to consciously practice using the air you take in. Take time to inhale and exhale deeply five times before you start to speak, then take one more deep breath and breathe into your first words. Don’t forget to slow down and breathe from time to time during the course of a talk in front of an audience.

As they say, practice makes perfect. So practice and it won’t be long before you are able to make your learned breathing as natural as the breathing you are using now, and the benefits will be enormous.

Similar Articles You May Like... Toastmasters Speech 6: Vocal Variety How to Stop Saying Um, Uh, and Other Filler Words Speech Critique: Elizabeth Gilbert @ TED (Author of Eat, Pray, Love) Speak Up! A Guide to Voice Projection Speech Preparation #7: Choreograph Your Speech with Staging, Gestures, and Vocal Variety How to Thrive When Speaking Outside

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

Kate Peters is a singer/actor, voice coach, speaker, and the author of Can You Hear Me Now? Harnessing the power of your vocal impact in 31 days. Through her presentations, seminars, workshops and private coaching, Kate helps executives, speakers, and performers find the strengths in their voices to better express themselves in their professional and personal lives. For more information, visit Kate’s blog.

Does your voice put your audience to sleep? Does it put you to sleep?

Do you find it hard to convey emotions with your voice?

Are you easy to listen to, or does your voice let you down?

The sixth Toastmasters speech project guides you to harness the power of your own voice. This article of the Toastmasters Speech Series examines the primary goals of this project, provides tips and techniques, and links to numerous sample speeches.

Why is This Speech Important?

The aims for this speech project are to use your voice to complement your message by enhancing your:

• pace,
• pitch,
• power, and
• pauses.

Your voice is the best tool in your delivery toolbox. You must learn to use it effectively to enhance your presentation.

Tips and Techniques

1. Plan Around the 4 P’s: Pace, Pitch, Power, and Pauses

Be conscious of all four major vocal variables, and work all of them into your speech.

1. Pace — One of the easiest ways to incorporate variable pace is to slow down through key statements.
2. Pitch — A convenient way to hit different pitch points is to play with different emotional content. A sad voice takes on a different pitch than a content voice, which is distinct from an excited voice, and so on. Stories are good speech building blocks for many reasons, including how they bring a speaker’s voice alive through different emotions.
3. Power (Volume) — Don’t overdo it with changes in volume. Again, align your variations in volume with emotional content. Anger or joy tends to bring out a loud voice. Fear or sadness calls for a quiet voice.
4. Pauses — There are a multitude of ways to incorporate pauses in a meaningful way (watch for a future Six Minutes article dedicated to pauses). For this speech, keep it straightforward. Make sure you’ve got short pauses following every sentence, and longer pauses at the ends of paragraphs or transitions within your speech.

2. Be Deliberate (Keep Score if You Have To)

Don’t just write a speech and try to incorporate vocal variety on the fly as you deliver it. You won’t get any value from this speech project if you take that approach.

As you write, edit, and rehearse your speech, select words or phrases where you will consciously vary your voice in each of the four P ways. As you grow as a speaker, you’ll hit all four of these unconsciously, but when you are learning, it’s okay to be a little more deliberate.

Consider annotating your speech with colored pen to highlight vocal variation opportunities.

You might even consider making a “scorecard” in the margin of your page, and giving yourself one point for each vocal manoeuver. Shoot for a score of at least 3 for each P.

3. Align Your Voice with Expressive Gestures

One of the best ways to bring out your most expressive voice is to use expressive gestures, particularly facial gestures!

If participate in teleconference calls or webinars, you may have learned this trick. Even though nobody can see you, it really helps to stand up in your office and give body, hand, and facial gestures as you talk on the phone. Your voice will naturally come alive, as if synchronized with your gestures.

The same trick applies to face-to-face presentations as well. If you are expressive with your face and other gestures, your voice tends to naturally align.

4. Ditch the Notes, Keep Your Head Up, and Project Your Voice

Maybe you have used notes for the five previous Competent Communicator projects, but now is a great time to break free of your notes.

• When you glance down to read notes, your neck and throat bend and can get contorted. Your voice tends to be low, or poor quality, and low volume.
• Without notes, you’ll be able to keep your head up high and your eyes on your audience. With your head high, your neck and throat will be stretched out, and the quality of your voice will be much more resonant.

5. Exaggerate Words

If your speech allows, find some words where you can play with the pronunciation to add some vocal spice to your delivery. For example:

• Instead of saying “The car was a long way from the beach,” you could say “The car was a looooooong way from the beach”.
• Instead of saying “The hamburger was delicious,” try “The hamburger was deeee-licious.”

6. Don’t Speak About Vocal Variety

When choosing your topic for this speech, avoid the temptation to speak about vocal variety, like this guy (who admits he “cheated”). If you do, you are missing the point of this speech project.

Your objective for this speech project is not to educate your audience about vocal variety. Your objective is to incorporate vocal variety to enhance your delivery.

You have infinite speech topics at your disposal… explore!

What I Did for Speech 6

I chose to deliver a biographical speech about Theodor Seuss Geisel, the children’s book author better known as Dr. Seuss.

This topic was fantastic as it begged for me to use my voice in a wonderful variety of ways:

• My “normal” speaking voice was used for “bones” of the speech — the biographical details which formed the framework. Even in this section of the speech, I used vocal variety to emphasize key words, phrases, and points.
• I included numerous quotations from his stories, each carefully selected to both (a) illustrate the biographical details and (b) allow me to convey a different emotion or mood. Each of these required varying the pitch, pace, and volume. For example, I included:
  • Happy, sing-songy passages from Fox in Sox and The Cat in the Hat
  • A stalwart, committed passage from Horton Hatches the Egg
  • An angry passage from The Lorax (this was one of my all-time favorite moments in Toastmasters as I used one of the audience members as a “prop” to be the source of my anger)
  • An optimistic passage from Oh, the Places You’ll Go

Reading Dr. Seuss books and other stories with my daughter is one of my favorite activities. Therefore, this topic revealed an inherent passion, and I knew this would come through in the quality of my voice.

Toastmasters Speech 6 Examples

Here are a few sample video speeches which may provide inspiration for you. As you watch some of these videos, ask yourself which speakers are using vocal variety to enhance their speeches, and which are missing opportunities. Then, try to emulate the best behaviors in your own speech.

• How to Communicate with Me by Shana(?)
  • Pauses are used effectively, particularly before/after transition statements. This (along with clear language) helps convey the structure of the speech.
  • Increase volume and pace when impersonating another person @ 2:00
  • Varying voice to mimic personality traits on “the person who needs love more than information” @ 2:35
  • Emphasis on the word “perturbed” (to make it sound perturbed!) @ 2:55, and the great emphasis on  “I wish you’d show me more respect” (in a way that is demanding respect)
  • “I was in this one loooooooooong class about muscles” @ 4:05
• For the Love of Animals by Emilie Staryak
  • Effective use of pauses throughout, particularly in the opening minute of the speech, to enhance the understandability. For example (starting @ 1:00), notice the pause after phrase  “herding, hauling, and hunting”; brief pauses after after “loyalty” and “security”; and then the longer pause after “companionship”.
  • Effective exaggeration used in the phrase “DESperate meOW” @ 2:08
  • Notice the variation in pitch @ 2:25 and 2:40, and also how this is accompanied by gestures
• The Art of Procrastination by Chance Litton
  • Effective vocal variety throughout.
  • The speaker’s variation in pace and pauses conveys much of the humor.
• Is Your Dream a Loud Gong or a Faint Whistle by Daniel
• Unknown Title by Anonymous
• Last Child in the Woods by Paul Miller
• That’s Just Rude by Dianne
• Friend or Foe: It’s All In Your Perspective by Robin
• Sioux Hockey Fan by John Sanders
• My Turn Around by Jerome Moore
• Who Wrote That Book? by Stephanie Bryant
• Beyond the Nineteenth Hole by Glenn Woodson
• It’s Your Money by Anonymous
• Unknown by Dick
• The Upside of Failure by John Armstrong

Next in the Toastmasters Speech Series

The next article in this series examines Toastmasters Speech 7: Research Your Topic.

Similar Articles You May Like... Breathing: The Seductive Key to Unlocking Your Vocal Variety How to Stop Saying Um, Uh, and Other Filler Words Speech Critique: Elizabeth Gilbert @ TED (Author of Eat, Pray, Love) Speech Preparation #7: Choreograph Your Speech with Staging, Gestures, and Vocal Variety How to Thrive When Speaking Outside Powers of 10: Time Scales in Public Speaking

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.

No other two letter word says so much when a speaker says so little.

Except perhaps ah or uh or so.

Are filler words the most sensational speaking sin you can commit? Or do they make you imperfectly human and help you connect with your audience?

The topic has created quite a buzz in public speaking blogs recently, so read on to find out what the experts are saying.

Um… the Book

Authored by Michael Erard, Um… : Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders and What They Mean aims to be the most authoritative work on the topic.

Personally, I haven’t read it, but I am curious due to positive reviews from highly credible sources.

New York Times Book Review:

…An enjoyable tour of linguistic mishaps… …Rewarding.

Publishers Weekly:

…Challenges the reader to think about his or her own speech in an entirely new way.

Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Erard’s enthusiasm for his subject is infectious. He gets you wondering about blundering.

Oprah’s O Magazine:

…An absorbing survey of the (mis)spoken word, from ancient Egyptian cases of speechlessness to television bloopers…

You can listen to the author read chapter one here [MP3].

If you’ve read the whole book, please let me know whether this should be required reading for Six Minutes readers.

Perspective on Filler Words from Public Speaking Bloggers

If the book doesn’t grab you, maybe the opinions of several excellent public speaking bloggers will resonate with you?

• Jerry Weissman draws attention to Obama’s filler words.

… “er” or “um.” When spoken, those two sounds are known as “fillers” or “unwords,” because they have no meaning. Unwords are the bane of any speaker’s existence because they produce a perception of uncertainty. …

I can tell you with absolute certainty that unwords undercut any presenter’s effectiveness, including that of the current President of the United States and his far more often than not charismatic speaking style.

• Olivia Mitchell offers a cure — chunking — to eliminate ahs and ums.

To be effective at stopping the habit you have to focus on something else – something positive that you can do, as an alternative to um’ing. That alternative is chunking. Chunking is talking in short chunks of words with breaks in between the chunks. When you chunk you get into a rhythm: burst of words/break/burst of words/break….Focus on that rhythm and your um’s will go.

• Steve Arrowood lists “situations that motivate us to inadvertently utter ‘non-words’?”

1. We are processing at a deeper level than surface thoughts or well-rehearsed phrases, while at the same time we feel the expectations of people around us to speak.
2. We were asked a question and feel social pressure to start speaking quickly or we will look dumb.
3. We are running 0ut of allotted time and feel pressure.
4. We pressure ourselves to sound like what we think an expert should sound like.
5. We don’t want someone else to start speaking yet.

• Steve Arrowood argues that filler words are okay in moderation.

Because there are no defined rules in the court of public speaking law, somehow the rule of speaking just defaulted into: NEVER USE A SINGLE FILLER.

But that rule is wrong. It is a ‘letter of the law’ rule rather than a ‘spirit of the law’ rule.

• Richard Garber summarizes an academic paper on the subject by Stephen M. Croucher (read the full paper here – PDF).

Croucher found that college men and women used about the same numbers of Uhs and Ums. However, women used both Like and You Know a LOT more than the men. He suggested this was due to a cultural influence from Southern California as humorously portrayed by Frank Zappa in the song, Valley Girl.

• Max Atkinson points out a possible correlation between “the” and “uh”.

Interestingly, the definite article often comes before ‘uhs’ and ‘ums’ when we’re speaking. Even more interesting is the fact that, when it does, speakers invariably use the ‘thee’ form: ‘thee-uh’.

• James Feudo questions whether Toastmasters needs the Ah Counter role.

… society has become less formal in recent years and therefore, the standards for what constitutes a good speech (or a good speaker) have dropped. …

Now if you can relay a powerful message, most audiences will forgive a few filler words…

What’s Your Opinion on Filler Words?

Credibility killer for a speaker, or nothing to worry about?

Similar Articles You May Like... How to Stop Saying Um, Uh, and Other Filler Words 6 Communication Barriers and How You Can Avoid Them Powers of 10: Time Scales in Public Speaking Speech Critique: Elizabeth Gilbert @ TED (Author of Eat, Pray, Love) Breathing: The Seductive Key to Unlocking Your Vocal Variety Toastmasters Speech 6: Vocal Variety

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.

Wrong. You only have words on paper, and your audience doesn’t want to read your speech.

Your audience wants to see and hear your presentation. You will dazzle them by complementing your speech with staging, gestures, and vocal variety.

This article shows you how.

Vocal Variety: The Four P’s

Monotone delivery puts your audience to sleep, no matter how riveting your content. On the other hand, an energetic and varied voice will be music to their ears.

Vocal variety covers the 4 P’s:

1. Power (or volume)
2. Pitch
3. Pace
4. Pauses

Power

Power refers to the volume you project. At a minimum, be sure that your entire audience can easily hear you without straining.

• Turning your voice volume up or down adds interest. Use both variations when they match the emotion you want to convey. For example, speaking loud might be used to convey excitement. Speaking soft might convey sadness.
• Use a microphone to amplify your voice in large rooms.
• Eliminate outside noises, if you can. If you can’t, consider moving the audience closer to you, or moving into the audience.

Pitch

Pitch is the frequency of the sound you emit. To some extent, you are born with your voice pitch, whether it be soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, or baritone. However, if your speech contains dialogue for several characters, varying your pitch is an excellent way to distinguish between them.

Pace

Pace is your speaking rate, and varying it throughout the speech adds great interest. There are many effects that a variable pace can generate, but the most basic are:

• Speed up to heighten the emotion in a dramatic story.
• Slow down when delivering key phrases.

The most common pace problem is speaking too fast for the audience to absorb the material. There are two underlying reasons for this:

• Lack of editing leaves too much content and too little time. The resulting pace is far too fast for the audience to absorb.
• Nervousness also contributes to a rapid speaking rate.

For an example of rapid speaking rate, see Majora Carter in Greening the Ghetto.

Pauses

Pauses are magical. On the lips of master speakers, pauses can be used for a multitude of purposes.

• Short pauses can signal the end of a clause or sentence. Your audience needs these because they can’t read the punctuation in your text.
• Longer pauses signal the transition between major points or stories. Experienced speakers will often take a drink of water, ready a prop, or consult notes at these times.
• Pauses before and after key points are wonderful buffers. The preceding pause signals to the audience that you are about to say something important. The following pause gives the audience time to reflect on what you just said and internalize it.
• Pauses can also be used to enhance audience interaction (e.g. ask a rhetorical question, and then wait).

Example: Steve Jobs demonstrates a powerful pause in his Stanford Commencement speech.

Gestures / Body Language

Hundreds of gestures are available to help complement your words. Gestures throughout your speech make you interesting to watch. If you are interesting to watch, then your audience will be more attentive to your message. Failure to use gestures will lead your audience to watch the inside of their eyeballs.

Rather than attempting to itemize hundreds of different gestures, I’ll highlight a few general principles:

• Your body will naturally want to move as you speak. Don’t inhibit these natural gestures as they convey a sense that you are comfortable and confident in your message.
• Mix in deliberate gestures to coincide with key points. Mimic the actions of your speech (e.g. throwing a ball), or convey concepts through recognizable symbols (e.g. convey “censorship” by covering your mouth).
• Use a variety of gestures. Don’t use the same one over and over and over again.
• Increase the size of your gestures to match the size of the room. When presenting to three of your co-workers at a table, your gestures can be small (e.g. hand gestures that start at the wrist). When presenting to a packed auditorium, your gestures should be large (e.g. full-body gestures originating from the shoulders)
• Don’t neglect the power of facial gestures. Your audience will feed off the facial gestures you make.

For an outstanding demonstration of gestures which complement a speech, see J.A. Gamache deliver Being a Mr. G.

Staging

Staging your speech means utilizing the 3-dimensional space around you in the most effective way possible.

• Novice speakers will chain themselves to the lectern or stand in one spot on the middle of the stage.
• Intermediate speakers will meander randomly around the speaking area. Body movement appeals to the audience and keeps attention.
• Great speakers move around the speaking area with purpose. Every time they take a few steps, they are doing so with a distinct purpose in mind.

Like gestures, there are innumerable ways to stage your speech, but here are a few general principles:

• The simplest act of staging is to prepare the speaking area before you begin. Move the lectern to the side. Move obstacles away, or at least be aware of them. Make sure every person in the audience has a clear sight line to you (or your slides). Simple acts like this show the audience that you’ve thought of everything, and that you want no barriers between you and them.
• If you are using props or other visual aids, plan where they will be before and after you use them. When they are not being used, you want them out of sight.
• Just as long pauses can signal the transition between major points, so can considerable movement within the speaking area.
• You can map specific locations in the speaking area to be virtual locations for certain stories of your speech. Then, when you refer back to these stories, a simple gesture back to that area of the speaking area is valuable to help the audience make the connection.
• In very large rooms, be sure to balance your position on the left, center, and right of the speaking area.
• Not every speech allows for it, but don’t forget about the forward/backward direction as well as up/down. If you can meaningfully bring in these directions, it will make a powerful statement. For example, consider what climbing on a chair might allow you to do within your speech.

Example of Staging, Gestures, and Vocal Variety — Face the Wind

As I have done with previous articles in this series, I will use my 2007 contest speech Face the Wind to illustrate the use of staging, gestures, and vocal variety.

Below is an annotated summary of key staging, gestures, and vocal variety — the choreography of the speaking performance. The summary is time-indexed e.g. [1:15] according to the video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• Staging: Throughout the speech, note how most of the humor “punch lines” are delivered looking right or left. Similarly, many of the serious lines are delivered front and center. This is a technique that I was exploring in this speech for the first time.
• Gesture: Arm gesture to left, then right to match the trading of house keys for condo keys. [0:27]
• Vocal variety: “escaped … loud vacuous whoosh“. Also complemented by arm gestures to the right [0:42]
• Gesture: Facial expressions on “yard work” [0:56]
• Gesture: Arm gesture referring to audience on “a Toastmasters club officer” because many in the audience were (or have been) officers. [1:00]
• Staging: The walk around my yard looking at numerous bushes and trees [1:26]
• Gesture/Staging: Introduction of the Japanese maple tree is with arms up to indicate the height of the tree. Notice how this stage position is mapped to the tree location. [1:34]
• Vocal variety: Vocal variety: “no, not wide enough” [2:10]
• Gesture/Staging: Difficult to see this on the video, but the hole-digging sequence involves stage movement from front to back, diagonally. [2:13]
• Gesture: Arms open wide to indicate the breadth of the “moat” [2:21]
• Staging: Drop to the floor to wrestle the tree. [2:30] This position was also the setup for the “roots like tentacles, as expansive as its branches” gesture [2:50]
• Gesture: Triumphant gesture [2:34]
• Staging: Note the location of the neighbour’s monster tree is off to the right (actually above the audience). This position is mapped for future reference to the monster tree. [3:12]. For example, notice reference to monster tree at [3:51] and again at [4:12].
• Gesture: Forceful gestures to mimic the gas BBQ being lifted up [4:05]
• Gesture: Double hand gesture for “force combined with direction” [4:30]
• Gesture/Staging: Full body gestures for wind blowing and tree resisting. Notice that for these gestures, I am facing to the side so that the majority of the audience will see these gestures in profile. This is more effective than facing the audience. Note also how the contrasting wind directions are indicated [4:39 to 4:55].
• Vocal variety: Voice is quieter at the start of the miscarriage story, then gets louder with “when that wind came for them, not once but twice” [5:05]
• Gesture: holding infant Maximus [6:22]
• Gesture: incubator [6:30]
• Gesture: Notice the gestures in the “yesterday-today-tomorrow” segment [6:45] It starts on the audience’s left, then middle, then right… just as if they were viewing a standard timeline from left to right.
• Vocal variety: Lengthy pause before “We are not trees” [7:04]
• Gesture: Emphatic gestures to indicate we are not trees [7:12] and roots going through the seat [7:13]. Energy here is amplified.

Next in the Speech Preparation Series

Your speech is finally ready. No… wait… you haven’t practiced it yet. The next article in the Speech Preparation Series discusses techniques to get maximum benefit from your rehearsal sessions.

Similar Articles You May Like... Speech Critique: Elizabeth Gilbert @ TED (Author of Eat, Pray, Love) Boost Your Speaking Confidence Through Improv Breathing: The Seductive Key to Unlocking Your Vocal Variety Toastmasters Speech 6: Vocal Variety How to Thrive When Speaking Outside How to Stop Saying Um, Uh, and Other Filler Words

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.

Suppose you were delivering a speech to raise awareness in your community about school security. How would you open your speech?

• “I’m going to talk to you today about security in our schools…“
• “School security is an important issue that we must deal with…“

Both openings are direct, to-the-point, and boring! What if there was a better way?

A Better Speech Opening

Great speakers know how to open a speech in a way that hooks the audience into the presentation immediately. (Opening strong is one of the 25 essential skills for public speakers.) There are many ways to do this, including the use of drama and misdirection.

Imagine opening your speech with the following lines:

Tobacco. [long pause]
Alcohol. [long pause]
Guns. [long pause]
Criminal items seized in a search [slight pause] of a 6th grade locker in a bad school district.

Why does this speech opening work?

Beginning the speech in this way generates interest for several reasons:

• Employs a classical technique: the Rule of Three.
• “Seized in a search of a sixth…” uses alliteration.
• Pauses after the three opening words add drama.
• Drama also created because the danger increases with each item (i.e. guns are more dangerous than alcohol and tobacco)
• Mid-sentence pause after “search” signals an important statement coming up.
• Audience thinks these items were seized from some criminal hideout, and then surprised to learn they were found in a school locker.
• All this in just 19 words.

If these items really were seized from a nearby school district, then you’ve got a “ripped from the headlines” opening. Otherwise, you might transition into the rest of your speech with “We must act decisively to prevent this from becoming reality in our schools.”

Try adding drama and surprise to grab the audience early in your next speech! Begin strong and keep going…

This article is inspired by index card wisdom from Jessica Hagy.

Similar Articles You May Like... Speech Critique: Steve Jobs (Stanford, 2005) Speech Critique: Dan Pink (TED 2009) How to Speak: 7 Speaking Tips from Patrick Henry Winston Video Critique: J.A. Gamache (Toastmasters, 2007) Bookending Your Speech: A Master Technique 3 Common Ways Speakers Sabotage Themselves

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.

Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln came to me as a great Christmas gift — a stocking stuffer which will improve my speaking skills considerably.

I was skeptical at first. I guessed that this was another stuffy book filled with speeches and anecdotes from famous speakers who lived so long ago that their speeches are part of history and their anecdotes are no longer relevant. That’s what I thought as I opened the book.

What I discovered is not really a “book full of speeches and anecdotes” (although there are many, many speech excerpts and anecdotes). Rather, I discovered a practical book of speaking techniques that will bolster the repertoire of any speaker who aims to lead.

About the Author – James Humes

Author James Humes knows what he is talking about. He has written speeches for five American Presidents. He is a respected authority on the speaking habits of Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Franklin, Ronald Reagan, and others. He is the author of many public speaking books, including several on these great orators alone.

Contents — Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln

Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln makes for easy reading with 21 chapters averaging about 10 pages each. Each chapter follows a straightforward pattern:

• Introduce one simple speaking technique;
• Surround it with demonstrative quotations from history’s greatest speakers;
• Summarize the technique in simple and memorable language; and
• Show how it can be used today when writing or delivering a speech
  e.g. in the remarks of a CEO speaking to a corporate audience.

The 21 chapters span the spectrum of writing, preparation, delivery, and even spontaneous speaking. This format makes it an excellent reference book to have on hand when approaching any speaking occasion.

1. Power Pause
2. Power Opener
3. Power Presence
4. Power Point (not what you think…)
5. Power Brief
6. Power Quote
7. Power Stat
8. Power Outage
9. Power Wit
10. Power Parable
11. Power Gesture
12. Power Reading
13. Power Poetry
14. Power Line
15. Power Question
16. Power Word
17. Power Active
18. Power Dollar
19. Power Button
20. Power Closer
21. Power Audacity

Example: Chapter 19 – Power Button

As an example of Humes’ instructive method, consider Chapter 19 — Power Button.

Now that you have worked up a dandy Power Line [Chapter 14], you need to know how to turn it on. You have to light your line so it stands out like a neon sign.

Look, you put in some time to work for that zinger of a line. Don’t you want to make sure it really registers? If you don’t know the secret of turning on your Power Line, you won’t turn on the audience.

The Power Button says to the audience “Ready — Set — Listen” to set them up for the Power Line that follows.

When writing an article, you can italicize. You can underline. But how can you italicize or underline in a talk? Listeners cannot hear the underlining of a sentence.

A lot of you may use a highlighter pen to emphasize a significant line when you read a report or survey. Well, the Power Button phrase is your highlighter pen, illuminating the Power Line that follows.

Humes highlights several examples. In these famous speech lines, the Power Button is in CAPITALS, while the Power Line (the one we remember) follows.

Winston Churchill:

I WOULD SAY TO THE HOUSE AS I SAID TO THOSE WHO JOINED THIS GOVERNMENT [pause]
I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, and sweat.

Patrick Henry:

I KNOW NOT WHAT OTHERS SAY, BUT AS FOR ME, [pause]
Give me liberty or give me death.

John Kennedy:

AND SO MY FELLOW AMERICANS: [pause]
Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.

Five Reasons Why You Need to Read This Book

1. It delivers practical advice for speakers of all levels.
2. It shows how to apply the master tips and tricks apply to your speeches.
3. It emphasizes techniques to speak the language of leadership like a classical orator.
4. It is an entertaining historical view of history’s greatest speakers.
5. The author’s experience and expertise is unparalleled.

This is a book that I will read again and again. As one of my most used public speaking books, I will reference the advice within each time I prepare for a speech.

I wholeheartedly recommend reading this book to improve your public speaking skills.

Reviews from Public Speaking Experts

Tally Wilgis:

It’s an easy read from a literary perspective and it makes practical sense from a speaking perspective.

John Rallison:

The book is filled with practical tips for becoming an engaging speaker and driving your message home.

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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.

The style and content are very different from his Apple product launch presentations, but no less worthy of study.

Noteworthy elements of this wonderful speech include:

• strong opening;
• simple classical structure;
• the Rule of Three;
• rich figures of speech; and
• a recurring theme of birth/death/rebirth.

My suggestion is to:

1. Watch the video.
2. Read the analysis below.
3. If you like, read the full speech text to gain further insights.
4. Share your thoughts on this presentation. What did you like? What could have been done better?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Strong opening: Praise the audience and show some humility

Jobs opens with a compliment for the audience: “I am honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world.” He follows that by showing humility in admitting that he never graduated college. In just a few sentences, he has made the audience feel very good about themselves, and increased their receptiveness to his message.

Conversational Style

Contrast “Steven Wozniak and I started Apple” with “Woz and I started Apple.”

• The former is formal, and invokes an image of two entrepreneurs who founded Apple.
• The latter is conversational, and invokes an image of two close friends. Jobs chooses a conversational style, and this is a wise choice. His audience is composed of college graduates for whom graduation often means diverging paths from their close friends.

Simple structure and sentences

Jobs adopts a simple and traditional structure. Opening >> Three stories >> Conclusion. He guides the audience through the 14.5 minutes with simple sentences.

• “Today I want to tell you three stories.“
• “The first story is about connecting the dots.“
• “My second story is about love and loss.“
• “My third story is about death.“

Pauses and Timing

Jobs executes effective pauses before and particularly after key points to allow the audience time to digest his points.

• For example, he concludes his first story with an apparent reference to Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken: “even when it leads you off the well-worn path… and that will make all the difference.” This is followed by a full six seconds of silence. (5:16 – 5:22)

This speech is littered with humour, but I felt the comedic delivery was a bit lacking. Perhaps this was intentional – was his goal to imitate an academic orator? Regardless, the timing was off on several punch lines.

• For example, consider his delivery of “I didn’t even know what a pancreas was.” (10:07) The line is delivered with only a hint of emphasis and barely any pausing before or after. I would have liked more. This is a particularly tense moment in the speech, and the audience would benefit from stress-relieving laughter.
• A minute and a half later, he does a better job of injecting humour in the midst of a serious point: “No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there.” (11:40) The timing is better here.

Rule of Three

Jobs structures his speech around three main points, and he applies the Rule of Three in many sentences and paragraphs.

• “I learned [1] about serif and san serif typefaces, [2] about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, [3] about what makes great typography great.” (3:39)
• “It was [1] beautiful, [2] historical, [3] artistically subtle…” (3:47)
• “... [1] started a company named NeXT, [2] another company named Pixar, [3] and fell in love…” (7:16) Jobs follows this up with three sentences which demonstrate how each of those turned out great.
• “[1] all external expectations, [2] all pride, [3] all fear” (9:33)
• “[1] It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. [2] It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. [3] It means to say your goodbyes.” (10:28).
• “… [1] don’t waste it living someone else’s life. [2] Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. [3] Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” (12:18)

Several of those (marked in bold) are additionally examples of anaphora – repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences.

Figures of Speech Abound

Jobs employs numerous figures of speech in his remarks.

• An antithesis (or antitheton) is a figure of speech using the juxtaposition of contrasting words, often in a parallel structure. Jobs uses several well-crafted examples:
  • “If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in…” (4:34)
  • “Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” (4:40)
  • “The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again…” (7:05) Note also the alliteration of “being a beginner.”
  • “…Death is very likely the single best invention of Life.” (11:55)
• Parallelism (and another example of anaphora): “… that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school.” (1:38)
• Anadiplosis (repeating a phrase from the end of one sentence at the beginning of the next): “the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” (8:15) This example is effective, but rather loose due to the repetition of “the only way to.”
• Assonance (repetition of vowel sounds): “And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” (9:18)
• Repetition. In addition to the many examples highlighted previously, Jobs concludes his speech by repeating “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” three times. Repetition adds strength to key arguments, especially in a conclusion.

Recurring Commencement Themes: Birth, Death, and Rebirth

In a literal sense, Jobs talks about his birth in his first story, and about confronting death in his third story. However, this speech contains numerous other metaphorical references to these “circle of life” concepts:

• In addition to his physical birth, he relates how the original couple decided they wanted a girl (a symbolic “death” since his life with them was “snuffed out” due to gender). He then tells about how he experienced “rebirth” with his parents.
• His college career had a short “life.” The “death” of his formal academic career made way for the “birth” of his informal learning process.
• His relationship to Apple (in his 20′s) was “born”, grew, and then “died.” Later, when NeXT was purchased by Apple, his career at Apple is reborn.
• He uses the word “renaissance” (a rebirth or revival) to describe the current state of Apple.
• He receives the cancer diagnosis (a “death sentence”), but later is saved by an operation (a rebirth).
• The Whole Earth Catalog. Stewart Brand “brought it to life“, and “then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue.”

Interspersed with these stories, Jobs repeatedly ties it back to his audience. This is particularly clear in the conclusion when he relates these metaphors to his college audience one last time with “as you graduate to begin anew.”

Your Thoughts?

Did you enjoy this speech? What did you like from a public speaking perspective? How could this presentation be enhanced?

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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.