Stage Fright Archives — NIMBLE FOUNDATION BLOG

Six Parameters to Analyze your Audience before Preparing your Speech

Whenever you’re preparing a speech, it is necessary to know your audience thoroughly. After all, you deliver the speech to help your audience in one way or the other. It could be a speech to inform. It could be a speech to convince or influence your listeners. It could also be to entertain the audience. You cannot succeed unless you study the audience beforehand. We have chosen six most important parameters which will enable you to know your audience well enough. These are as follows:

How many people will attend?

You need to know approximately how many people you’re going to address. A speech which is meant to be delivered to a small group of 10 people may not be valid, for example, for 40 people. When the no. is small, you have to be personal. This is not possible or feasible if you are speaking to a large crowd. Even the language you may use will have to be different for different groups.

What is the gender composition of your audience?

It’s also necessary to know the gender composition of the audience. Treatment of your speech should be different for a group of male or female or both mixed males and females. Your message should crafted according the majority of the people you are going to address. The way you handle ladies only group may not be suitable if you’re addressing an all male crowd. Women and men react differently to various topics at most of the time.

What is the purpose of the speech? Why you have been invited to speak?

The general attitude of your listeners should be known to you. This is particularly so when your objective of speech is to convince or persuade. Application of mind on the issue will provide you sufficient information about the reaction of audience. For example if you are addressing an uninformed group, you will have to be more detailed and rather basic in expression. Further, if you expect your audience to be more apathetic or against the subject, you will have to modify your speech accordingly. Such knowledge beforehand will also help you to determine the language and the method of delivery of your speech.

What is the age group of the audience?

It’s equally necessary to know to which age group your audience belongs. Younger people will react in a certain way to a topic. It may be totally different from the response of elderly audience. If the crowd does not represent a particular age group and has both young and old, you have to write your speech accordingly.

What is the educational qualifications in general of your audience?

It may also be required to know the formal education of your audience, generally speaking. When the audience is highly educated, they will look for a trainer to speak in their language. Undoubtedly, this will be quite different from the language you will use to address a group of people who may be doing well in life but whose qualifications are much lower. The objective of the speech will not be served if the listeners don’t understand the implications of the message involved.

Is the audience composed of a specialised group? What is your qualification to address such specific group?

Whenever you are speaking to a group of people who specialize in one subject or the other you have to be sure of many things. Superficial knowledge of the subject will not work. Your definition of the topic should connect with the level of the specialized knowledge that this group may process. More of professional jargon may be expected from you, lest you appear to them too elementary. The language of the specialized group is best used as their own.
All the parameters detailed above will come in handy for formulating an approach which would be most suitable for the audience you are going address.

Thanks for reading!

One Day Public Speaking Workshop on 22nd July 2018

Background:
An intensive full day programme offering training on important aspects of verbal communication. This programme covers various exercises that focus on the development of Public Speaking Skills with additional inputs on Voice & Speech enhancement. Video Recording and role-play enhance the interactivity and the effectiveness of the programme. These are further supplemented by specific suggestions on areas of improvement to each candidate. Details of the programme are offered below.
Objectives:

Help raise level of consciousness about voice in communication
Development of Modulation in tone of Voice
Control over nervousness/hesitation etc.
Refinement in Communication
Fluency in speech; and overall clarity in communication.
Poise & Confidence in appearance.

Contents:

Communication & Presentation Skills:

Voice & Speech Training

Building better breath control
Enhancement of capacity of voice.
Effectively using Modulation of Voice
Developing cordiality in voice.

Public Speaking Training

2-Minute & 5-Minute presentations
Video Recording & Play Back Sessions
Preparing a Presentation – Developing the Structure
Keeping the Presentation on Track – focus on important points
Including the right content
Connecting with the audience
Handling Stage Fright

Trainer’s Feedback:

Personal Feedback on performances
Counseling & Guidance on areas of individual improvement

Articulation in Communication

Handling Q & As effectively
Avoiding verbosity – Sticking to the issue
Ensuring an appropriate tone of voice in speech
Focus on Speaking Sentences

Commercials:
Duration              : One full day of training
Timing                 : 9.00am to 5.30 pm
Venue                  : Nimble Centre, 318/3^rd floor, Tulsiani Chembers, Free press road, Nariman Point,
Mumbai – 400021.
With regards,
Satish Kakri
Director,
Nimble Foundation
Contact: 022 22810000/9930527551.
Email ID: info@nimblefoundation.org
Web: www.nimblefoundation.org

6 Stages of Stage fright

Stage fright has been troubling people from the times armorial. One wants to speak to a group, to express himself or herself, they have the ideas and want to share knowledge but the stage fright scares them.

What is stage fright and how does it operate?

I’ll describe six stages of stage fright to explain in totality why and how it takes place. After understanding the root cause of the problem, I will also give suggestions as to how you can avoid stage fright. This video has been prepared for all those friends who are afflicted by the demon called stage fright, but do not know how to avoid, how to overcome or how to conquer this enemy of the human confidence.

Stage 1:

It starts no sooner you accept the assignment of making a speech. After confirming, you start thinking why did you agree? You are not a public presentation. What if you tail to come up to the expectation of the audience? You will make a tool of yourself and for no reason. Instead of sitting downer and preparing, you harbor these negative thoughts unmil you get involved in your activities.

Stage 2:

These constant negative thoughts start scaring you. You feel something ominous is ahead of you, recollection of the previous occasions when you could not perform well bring a kind of misery. Efforts to prepare the speech even when you sit down to write do not bring positive results. What happens next? What does it lead to?

Stage 3:

Fear provoking thoughts make you anxious. The anxiety starts working. It breeds worry making it extremely difficult to prepare a proper speech. For sure, there are more negative thoughts. And that leads the stage 4.

Stage 4:

You anxiety is increased with deepening fear and non-preparation. The problem grows and disturbs your logical thinking. But now it’s a point of no return. Some days have passed and there is no way you can come out of the predicament. Then it leads to stage5.

Stage 5:

Focus on fears, anxiety and worry cause distraction. This makes the task even more difficult. But somehow you prepare the speech. It doesn’t even appeal to you. But you can do nothing. So you are ready but with a substandard speech.

Stage 6:

You are on the stage. You are nervous. Whatever you had prepared, even that plays hide and seek with you. You start making the same mistakes which you had predicted. Your legs shake, hands shiver voice cracks. Instead of 15 minute speech you could last only for 5 to 6 minutes. Your enemy stage fright had the day of celebration. It had won. You come down as a defeated person.

Now, let me tell you how to tame this wild bull, your victor – the stage fright. I’ll briefly but clearly explain the five steps formula to beat your enemy down.

Step One:

The day you agree to speak, on the same day you should note down the points which you will like to project. Whatever you know is fine. Google out the rest. Having the points is just like collecting your ammunition.

Step Two:

Next day, you go through these points a number of times. You may find some of them not so lethal while you find others like dynamites. Retain the dynamites and throw away the weaklings. Don’t keep anything extra. Now, you are ready to wage a war. You have all the weapons.

Step Three:

Again you go through the points you have now collected. As you have slept over them for 2days, you will find it very easy to put them in proper order. One naturally will lead to another and you will have a good sketon for your speech. It is the framework of your final delivery. Just like a general of an army strategizes the attack and keep ready to wage a war against your abominable enemy stage fright. This done, you must visualize yourself as the victor in the mar. See yourself battling away all the enemies, big and small.

Step Four:

Just visualization will not help. It will inspire to put in all the hard work that lies ahead. Now, for balance days that you have, you must practice, practice and practice. Since it’s your first big battle no am omit of practice is too much. Practice as much as you can but also some more.

Step Five:

On the day of reckoning go to the appointed place at least ½ an hour early. Meet organizers and others who have come. Talk to them informally. You know your subject in and out. You have practiced your speech more number of times than anyone can imagine. You are sure to come out as a winner. Stage fright will be scared of you and you will rock the stage. Wherever there is applause allow people to have their way. Don’t limit their appreciation. Thank them with you facial expression and then centinue. At the end receive compliments grace fully and not sheepishly.

Now you are ready for the next expedition.

3 Tips on Developing a Good Presentation

We all have to make presentations these days. Presentations, when we have to speak in Public. Undoubtedly, it is difficult and often avoided slyly. There could be various reasons, but the foremost among them is ‘Stage Fright’. Primarily stage fright occurs because of inadequate preparation and/or because of faulty preparation.

Today, I will give you 3 important tips which will help you to prepare a good presentation.

Be clear about Objective:

The first tip is that you must be clear about your objective. Why you have been asked to speak on the subject and why you have accepted the invitation? Both must be understood and realized. The best thing is to write it down. What is the expectation of your audience is something of cardinal importance. So, contemplate on it and note down the main points. It may require you to define the group, the profile, age group, gender mix, no of people, likes and dislikes or whatever other information you can gather.

Content is the King:

The next and critical step is the content. Even when you know the subject very well, you have to modify it every time you speak regarding the same subject. Redesign it, keeping in view your new audience and their objectives. Content is the king. It you don’t have anything significant to say, anything which will improve then knowledge or something they can use in their daily life; then keep your mouth shut. In short, there must be good amount of takeaway from your speech for your audience.

Express Effectively:

The third but most important part of your speech is your ability to express yourself effectively. Never think of impressing anyone. But you just have to express yourself. You should be able to communicate exactly what you have in mind. You are already clear about your objective and the objective of your audience. You have already gather information which will interest them. You already know what you are going to give them as takeaways. But if you lose out in holding their attention, if your audience is not hooked by you on the subject, all knowledge might get wasted.

So, the third and the vital tip is master your verbal skills.

Thanks for reading.

Six Critical Aspects of Public Speaking

For a Long time Public Speaking has posed a great problem to most of human beings. Traditionally, public speaking was known as the leader addressing a crowd from the stage. It is not so today. Verbal communications have become extremely important. So even if you are speaking one on one, same articulation and clarity in voice is required as if you are talking to a group. PPT presentations have become very important in day to day functioning of the office. We will therefore deal with the six most critical aspects of Public Speaking, which are:

Stage Fright:

Stage Fright is the fear of speaking to someone or to a group of people. When you are addressing a group of people the intensity of stage fright may be more. However if an executive is speaking just to one person – his Big Boss, he/she may experience the same fear as if they are speaking to a crowd. The strength of the fear may very from person to person and situation to situation.

Preparation:

You must thoroughly prepare to meet the requirement of any speaking assignment. And how do you do that? First of all, you must know your subject well. Content is the king. You should never pretend and display your ignorance of the subject to a group or even to an individual. If you don’t know, your best option is to say ‘I don’t know about it as of now’. Nobody can be expected to know everything under the Sun. Further, you should know your audience very well and you should speak in their own language.

Body Language:

This is also very important to convey your massage. If your body language does not contribute to the efficacy of your speech, the audience will not appreciate your message. They will feel that you’re not speaking from your heart. This will go against the basic can tenets of public speaking- Ethos, Pathos and Logos. So far as body language is concerned, everything counts. The way you stand or sit, your facial expressions, the movement of your hands and legs if you’re standing. All are important.

Practice:

Practice is critical for making a presentation. You must practice by reading your speech many times. You should also practice the way you’re going to deliver your speech. In delivery, it’s important to maintain an eye contact with the audience. And enthusiasm should be maintained throughout the speech. It is possible only if you breathe properly. Deep breathing is recommended. In fact yoga and various yogic practices help you to develop a habit of deep breathing. The importance of practice in public speaking can never be exaggerated.

Audience connect:

You should connect with the audience. It should appear that you are speaking to them individually. You may roll your eyes in the entire hall. Verisimilitude will take place. The speaker should never look toward the ceiling or any corner or only in one direction. This will disconnect the rest of the people. In turn, they will become disinterested.

Inject humor:

Any speech devoid of humor becomes very dry and uninteresting. Humor can be created in many ways. Experienced speakers ask the audience simple questions a in such a way that they burst into laughter. A new speaker has to be more careful. He should practice interesting anecdotes, or humorous stories. We must remember that the relevance of the story with the subject or the situation we face should be unquestionable. Story telling is also an art which must be practiced extensively.
Public speaking is no doubt difficult. But its advantages are immense. Today, when lots of presentations have to be made by executives, any kind of stage fright or hesitation is a serious handicap. Likewise, clarity in speech in order to articulate your ideas is important to make an impact. Practicing by finding opportunities to speak in public will go a long way to making you good public speaker.
Thanks for reading.

Speech was never as important as it is now. Today, it’s necessary that business leaders must be able to speak clearly and effectively. There are a number of speech blemishes which cause embarrassment while making presentations. Sometimes an executive in an important conversation finds himself/herself less than ‘up to the mark’. This is best avoided. I list below 7 of the blemishes which need to be addressed.

Lack of clarity in speech: Often times we find that the speech of a person is not as articulate as it should be. Sometime they speak too fast; sometimes they mumble some words in a sentence. Though overall message is communicated but listener finds it’s difficult to assimilate. Each and every word, therefore, should be spoken clearly. The problem arises due to improper/inadequate use of speech organs. While the sound is produced by the vocal cord, the words are created by the speech organs.

Inability to hold the attention of the listener: If the speaker does not modulate the voice, it is difficult to hold the attention of the listener. Modulation is the speaker’s ability to bring in variance in pace, pause, pitch, emphasis on the keyword and the tone. This can be corrected with the help of appropriate speech exercises.

Use of filler words: At times, one finds that the speaker repetitively uses filler words which are: ‘like’, ‘you know’, ‘actually’, ‘basically’ etc. The filler words could also be just sounds uh…uh……and uh…. plus other such fillers. Since they are used as a matter of habit, so it requires focused attention to bring in change of such habit.

Improper breathing: It is breath which creates the sound. We have to have sufficient amount of breath in our lungs. This requires practice of deep breathing. The best practice is to take breath at the time when you pause, and consciously, until it is a part of your speech habit.

Improper pause: Pause if not taken at a right spot mitigates the efficacy of the speech. Pause must be taken at the end of a clause or at the end of the sentence. It should not happen that we have to take a pause because of the lack of breath.

Body language: The speaker must be aware and maintain proper body language. Business etiquettes demand that he/she must maintain just right kind of eye contact- neither more nor less. It helps in bringing about a rapport between the speaker and the listener.

Last but not the least; I must talk about the stage fright. Even experienced speakers suffer from stage fright, primarily due to the speech blemishes detailed above. Further, stage fright also inflicts the speaker due to lack of preparation and not understanding the needs and the profile of the audience.

Thanks for reading.

Stage Fright

Stage Fright is a much used term these days. In fact, almost every professional is required to design and deliver powerful presentations while confidently facing the audience. The basic question remains – What is Stage Fright? And how does one overcome it?

Stage Fright begins with certain overt and physical symptoms. These include trembling of the hands, quavering of the legs, dryness of the throat, or just a feeling of the mind going completely blank. One needs to understand that these are only early signs of stage fright. If stage fright is controlled in its early stage it can be prevented from transforming itself into a strong and very real fear of the audience. In fact the speaker must take positive steps to overcome this situation. Here is what can be done:

Prepare: This is the first and most important way to overcome stage fright. Inadequate preparation is in fact an invitation to stage fright. Never make a presentation without full preparation.
Practice: It is said practice makes perfect. Practice is that part of preparation, where the presenter not only creates a beautiful PowerPoint – but he also well rehearses it before an imaginary audience. In fact, good presenters anticipate and answer all sorts of questions to fully prepare themselves.
Focus on the opening: Well begun is half done. Since stage fright is generally at its maximum in the beginning, a good opening will ensure that you catch the audience interest and attention. That will do work wonders with your confidence.
Interest in the subject matter: A speaker must have strong interest in his subject. Any speaker who is disinterested or half-hearted, can hardly expect his audience to listen to him intently.
Shift focus of attention: Some presenters are always worried about doing a good job at the presentation. Rather the speaker should focus on the audience’s requirements. What do they need? Why have they gathered to hear him speak? How are they responding to his communication? A positive focus on these questions will enable him to gain greater confidence as the presentation rolls along.

Someone has said that stage fright and confidence are two sides of the same coin. You turn one and the other appears. So the next time you are feeling a little nervous, tell yourself your feeling confident, and believe me you may quite be able to work things out. Remember, it only takes one really good presentation to take your communication skills to the level of a public speaker.

Seven Secrets of Public Speaking

Great leaders are great speakers. Public Speaking is an Art as well as a Science. One needs to understand what goes into making of a great public speaker. Today, I will talk to you about the seven secrets of Public Speaking.
Secret No. 1: Confidence
You must have confidence in yourself. You must respect yourself and value your opinions. You can only achieve this if you are not judgmental. It can be achieved if you have an open mind. Once you realise that like any other human being you can also make mistakes, you become confident. Again you become confident because you have nothing to hide and nothing to fear!
Secret No. 2: Overcoming Stage Fright.
Public Speaking dates back to the origin of history. Likewise stage fright has been felt by the Public Speakers from the time immemorial. There is no short cut for overcoming stage fright. We must realise that when we speak to audience it is not stage fright but it is heightened feeling. This is also a feeling we get whenever we are about to do something important. The more we find opportunities to address the audience, the faster we will overcome stage fright.
Secret No. 3: Body Language
This refers to the way you stand; the way you walk – it refers to your posture while speaking and your dress must also be cool!
Secret No. 4: Eye Contact
While speaking it is necessary that you make eye contact with you audience. It should appear that you are talking to the people. Each person of the audience should feel that you are talking to him or her. This can be achieved by practice along.
Secret No. 5: Articulation
Articulation for a Public Speaking refers to the clarity in his ideas, and the clarity of each and every word that he/she speaks. This is more of a Science. It can be achieved by understanding the principles and with lots of practice.
Secret No. 6: Ability to hold the attention of the audience
You have to develop modulation in your speech. This can be practiced by memorising and repeating dramatic monologues of Shakespeare and others. A lot of hard work has to get into building talent to modulate.
Secret No. 7: The Structure of the Speech
Every Speech must have a clear cut beginning. The various points that you want to communicate to the audience form the body. You need to be clear about these points which should not be more than three or four. In conclusion you must summarize what you have talked about and your speech on a happy note.