Master Your vOICE 

What does Public Speaking have to do with Careers and Life Hacking?

Working on your interpersonal skills If you want to change careers or maybe you’re made redundant can build your confidence and can open up opportunities you may have avoided in the past. Maybe you want to try something new and different from what you are comfortable doing. Public speaking is just that. It’s communicating using your body language, your voice and the words you say.  It’s about you standing up in front of people you don’t know well and speaking your truth.

Here are different public speaking scenarios

• Speaking in an interview

• Being the interviewer

• Speaking up in a meeting

• Speaking with a group of people out for dinner

• Meeting knew people

• Presenting at work

• Presenting at a conference

• Training new employees

• Sharing your experiences and stories

• Sharing your opinion

• Sharing your perspective

• Sharing your ideas

Public speaking is not always formal and the best way to start is to have no rules or structure around it. We all know what fine tuned public speaking looks like, but we all don’t start off like that. First, lean into the fear then concentrate on the language you use.

When I started practicing formal public speaking, the thing that gave me permission to continue public speaking at Toastmasters was to listen to myself and choose what feedback was helpful or not. One person continues to pick up the fact that I use filler words and they are completely right, however, I am aware of the reason as to why I use filler words and that is because I have so much anxiety that I am not conscious about what is coming out of my mouth. The feedback is useful to a point. My first step is to get comfortable enough when I speaking to be conscious of what is coming out of my mouth then the second stage is to concentrate on not using filler words.

How do you do this?

The very first step is letting go of what people might think of you and even though you might be a little crapola, giving it a go anyway. To be okay with getting it wrong or making mistakes and not doing it the “right” way. Because who made up the rules anyway, right? Who cares if you are not following the rules. The point is that you give it a go to improve your confidence and reduce your anxiety that is the first stage. Everyone is different and when someone is giving you feedback it’s from their own perspective and beliefs system. So what I mean by this, is trust yourself enough to move forward without being influenced by someone’s feedback.

When this person keeps bringing up the point that I use filler words I could add that to the list of things to concentrate on whilst I’m speaking which would just heighten my anxiety and possibly influence me to quit or I can ignore it for the time been and be patient with myself. I can keep showing up, and acknowledge how far I have come. So I am not looking for external validation. I am reflecting on my own development.

So this is what I want you to do.

This is what you can do today 

Write down where you are at with your public speaking. 

1. Avoiding it completely

2. Doing it only when I have to which means barely never 

3. Going to workshops and meetups and improving

4. Elite

 If you’re at number 1 or 2, write down how your life would change if you started public speaking? If you shared your experience stories and perceptive more.

Think about times at work or in public where you would like to speak up and if you know what you would say write it down.

Start sharing your stories and ideas with people.

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The results you get from public speaking are the:
💥The ability to be judged without allowing it to change your course of actions
💥 Trusting yourself, your capabilities
💥 Being able to filter out the feedback that's unhelpful 
💥 Grow in confidence in speaking your mind and sharing your perspective.

Here’s a list of interpersonal skills that you can develop in life and your career – remember growth mindset. Many of them relate to communication.

Active Listening

Collaboration

Communication

Conflict Management

Conflict Resolution

Constructive Criticism

Creative Thinking

Customer Service

Developing Rapport

Empathy

Encouraging

Flexibility

Group Facilitating

Helping Others

Humor

Inquiry

Inspiring Trust

Instructing

Interviewing

Kindness

Leadership

Life Skills

Listening

Management

Mindfulness

Mentoring

Motivation

Negotiating

Networking

Nonverbal Communication

Patience

Positive Reinforcement

Problem Solving

Public Speaking

Relationship Management

Respect

Social

Sympathy

Team Building

Teamwork

Tolerance

Verbal Communication

Workshops