Passion. You’ve heard this many times, I know. But really, this is where it all begins. If you do not believe in your message, it will come through and you will immediately lose your credibility with the audience. Speak about what you believe in, speak about your loves, your convictions, your joys, your causes. Faking it just because a topic happens to be “hot”, even if you don’t believe in what you are speaking about, will not cut it. So, find your true passion and let that be the foundation of your speaking.

Personality. Your personality is a combination of your life and work experiences, your knowledge and education, the way you look, your voice, your humor, your personal stories, your family history, your culture of origin. For many years, I’ve tried to copy female newscasters – Katy Couric, Sharon Tay, and a few others. Although my speeches were well received, they were just okay. These speakers are a hit with audiences because they are who they are. I was trying to be but a poor copy. I can’t really identify the point when I decided to speak as who I am, it has been a few years ago, but I got up and loosened up. I looked at the audience as my close friends and talked to them as if I was at the dinner table, let my hair down and be me. Modestly speaking, I grew exponentially in my speaking. Many times, I was a hit ! Though professional, I am a bit mischievous and brought out the friendly bantering that I enjoy sharing with friends. I’ve never thought of myself as being funny, but when I loosened up, the audiences were laughing with me. I discovered a part of myself that enhanced my speaking.
Discover your strengths and project those in your speaking instead to trying to copy somebody else’s style. Do you tell picturesque stories about your country of origin? Are you good with the oratorical style or the more conversational mode? Are you serious or laid-back? Are you great at humor? Use your own strengths. You have many, ask your friends and family to help you identify them. Give those gifts to your audience in your speaking.

Play. We take ourselves (our egos) too seriously. We need to take our work, the preparation that goes with good speaking, and our messages seriously. But when the time comes to deliver, why not try to play with it. Play brings out the fun in us. It allows us to relax about ourselves and keep our focus on the game. Basically, it allows us to park our egos and devote our attention to reaching the game’s goals – in this case, having your audience receive your message. When we play team games, we work with the team. In public speaking, your team is your audience. With the spirit of play, you involve your audience, you allow them their space and their moments of glory, too. You may be the captain at this game, but your audience rises from the passive bench warmer to a team player. You look at your audience differently when you realize that you cannot force them to receive your message, but if you allow them to play on the team, they are now also involved in achieving the goal. Needless to say, they will have more fun listening to you and you will have more fun speaking.

Next time you are tempted to mold yourself after someone else, think about these 3 P’s of authentic speaking, and be the best YOU that you can be.

Email has made communication so readily available to us. Why not send a friendly reminder before the event? Introduce yourself and let your participants know that you are eager to meet them and work with them. Ask them to email you any concerns or questions that they would like addressed during the event. This simple gesture communicates your interest in their achieving their goals and success from the session.

Before the training is scheduled to start, do you arrive at the site early enough? This means that before the first participant walks in, all your room set-up, refreshments, materials, visuals, and miscellaneous equipment are all ready. This frees up your time to relate to the participants as they walk through the door.

Smile, shake hands, introduce yourself. More importantly, ask for their names. And remember them! If you have a hard time remembering names, use name tags or name tents. Instead of saying, “the lady in red”, you’ll be able to address your participants by name. Ask them what brought them to your training. Any special topic that is important to them? Any current or future projects they are working on where they expect to apply the skills they’ll learn from your training? Be ready to respond and incorporate their interests and concerns.

Seeing your participants as individuals with likes and dislike, listening closely to their communication (verbal or otherwise), and having a genuine interest in them can really pay off. When your participants sense that you genuinely care about them, they like you. When they like you, you can move through any obstacles from that starting point.

One particular session comes to mind. It was a tough audience, a software class to a technology-challenged group. As expected, there were many objections and strong resistance. They were not happy to be there at all; and they had no reservations in letting me know and feel their irritation.

One lady complained, “I could be home playing with my babies instead of being here!”
I could have ignored the remark; but instead, I responded to it with much interest, “How old are your babies?” A simple question. But mind you, you cannot fake this kind of interest. It has to come from the heart. I was genuinely interested since I am a mom, too. I like talking about kids. She laughed. The group laughed. Everyone knew she was referring to her two cute poodles who she spoils, like grandmas spoil babies. So she explained that she has two poodles and how she pampers them silly. “Any pictures?” I asked. She eagerly pulled out her cell phone and showed me the prized pictures.

The next five minutes were spent talking about pet spas, grooming and massages. A spontaneous bonding among participants and the trainer. Five minutes, well spent, made all the difference in that session and the remaining three sessions to come. I asked the participants to bring in or email me pictures of their pets and be ready to show and tell. Every session after that first one, a few participants were selected do a one to two minute talk about their “babies”. Participants without their own pets, talked about friends’ pets. It was a blast!

More importantly, the rapport broke the resistance. It seems magical how pets and technology don’t really mix, yet that personal interest bridged the gap. Many of the participants from that session have turned out to be enthusiastic mentors of the software for their departments. Go figure.

Other participants tell me about their challenges in their jobs. I email them resources: Internet links, seminar information, articles, and whatever I can find to address those concerns. These may have nothing to do with the training; but I find establishing rapport with my participants and caring for their success contributes to my own enjoyment of my career.

Yes, I get near perfect evaluations. But that is never my intent, it just is a product of my interest in my participants. I love what I do and establishing rapport is really a great springboard for a fun and effective training session.

Put that effort in all your classes and you will feel the difference. You’ll enjoy it as much as your learners do.

Related Articles

• How to Build Rapport With Online Teachers (distance-education.org)

“When it comes to the requirements for pleasing an audience, all the knowledge and instruction and apparatus in the world is worth less than one ounce of soul.” – Ottawa Keyes

You may have seen the best techniques, gizmos, and eloquence employed by a presenter and something was missing. And you may have experienced listening to a presenter who wasn’t totally polished yet left you with a fullness and satisfaction from the time you spent with him.

It is sharing from the S-O-U-L that makes all the difference.

S: Sincerity. Your audience will quickly sense whether you are coming from the heart or just faking it. Psyche yourself up so you deliver a message that you truly believe in and are passionate about. Then, you do not have to feign sincerity; you will be talking from that very essence.

How can I be sincere about presenting a class in PowerPoint? I do get excited about animation, transitions, tips, and tricks. Templates on the web get my blood pumping as well. Nerdy, perhaps! But just taking a little time to find something that you can sincerely be excited about goes a long way in communicating that to your audience.

What if I need to present something that truly runs against my grain? I probably will have to beg off and not take the engagement.

O – U: Only U. You are the only one who can give the message in your own unique way. Discover your own style, your own giftedness. If you try to copy somebody else, you’ll only end up second best. But you can always be the best you. Learn from experts and observe good techniques. But find out what makes you special and unique and project that uniqueness in your work.

L: Life, Love, Learning. Share of yourself. This is where soul comes from – your experiences, lessons learned, your passion. Quit trying to impress. The best messages are those that come from being human.

Soul, remember to put a great dose of it in your next presentation. You’ll experience an exhilaration, energy, and enthusiasm that will make you love every moment of your speech. More important, it will give your audience the best of you that they deserve.

Related Articles

• Give Your Soul A Break (everydaygyaan.com)

We have all been there.  Training sessions and seminars that are painful – montonous and drab – reminiscent of our long school days.  The information may have been superb but the delivery was unimaginative and uninteresting

These days, trainers and presenters are expected to not only educate, we are expected to deliver information in an entertaining way. It is a challenge we need to meet to succeed in our sessions.

Today’s audience is used to various media that is entertaining, content-filled, fast-paced, and diverse. Though we may be limited by our resources to deliver training that will match TiVo, You Tube, and Playstation quality, we can definitely add some features to our presentations that will add the entertainment value. The following are some suggestions you may want to try with your future engagements.

1. Interactive Audience Participation. For designers and presenters alike, it is important to build learners’ participation into the training, presentation, or seminar.
- Ask questions. Allow the participants to share their knowledge and ideas.
- Play games. There are countless resources for learning games published online and books.
- Small group activities. Allow your learners to work within small teams and socialize a little during the training.

2. Storytelling. This is as old as time and has been proven effective in the business world as well.

3. Humor. You do not have to be a comedian to pull this one off. “Stand Up Comedy, the Book” by Judy Carter is a wonderful resource to start developing your sense of humor. I also especially found this book “Wake ‘em Up Business Presentations” by Tom Antion very helpful with humor, storytelling and other areas.

Incorporating these techniques in your training or workshops builds the entertainment value in your training sessions. Of course, I assume that you have mastery of your content to begin with. One other thing, if you slip with your content, your learners will be more forgiving if they are having fun.

If you are not already a member of Toastmasters, find a club today and join the organization. They help you practice and polish your delivery skills in a friendly setting. I personally think it’s a “must” for all presenters.

Let’s give our learners the best, let’s take the time to polish up our edutainment skills!

“Seek first to understand, than to be understood” – Stephen Covey, Seven Habits of Higly Effective People

In a conversation, the intention should be to arrive at a win-win solution.  Otherwise, the communication is stilted.  We are all eager to talk and prove our point.  “Surely they will see the light!”  When this is the attitude one brings to a meeting, he seeks to convert, to dominate, to have his way.  Sad to say, those who feel dominated, overruled, and converted leave the conversation with a bitter taste in their mouths.  When both parties (or more) are affected by the decision at hand, it pays to explore the other side of talking, listening.  We often times forget about it, lost in the heat of the discussion, we give in to our desire to prove the other/s wrong.  Where does that lead us?  A battle won (maybe), but the war lost or started?

There is more than one way of resolving conflicts.  A person of character can acknowledge that others may not always feel the way he does.  He can receive the idea that his solution may be great for him but not always positive for others.  He can bend a little to accommodate other ideas, other paradigms, and other methods.  He can listen, not with the intent to disprove, but to include.  From this, he becomes wiser, and maybe even develop relationships that may be significant in the future.  After all, others have their own light to shine.

In our time of diversity, we need to listen even more closely.  There are times when we seem to be speaking different languages.  Not only should we pay attention to the words spoken, we seek to understand the body language, the tone of the conversation, the emotions involved, the background and history of the other parties.  It is time to really set aside our preconceived agenda, and aim for mutual understanding.  There usually are a number of ways where parties arrive at great solutions, where everyone involved feels heard, considered, and included.

A simple reminder, we were born with one mouth and two ears.  God has a reason for that, that we may heed the other side of talking – listening.  For what good does it do us if we get our immediate desires, needs, and agenda met; when we build roadblocks to what may be bigger and better things in the future?  Surely, listening to all parties concerned brings about a win-win situation.  Creative people know this.  Unfortunately, there are times when we do not desire  to engage in such a pursuit.  When we find ourselves at an impasse, it is time to take a deep breath, relax, backtrack, and remind ourselves that it is time to move to the other side of talking, we may all grow the wiser for it.

If we are coming from a long winter’s rest and hibernation, spring is the time to pick up the pace. Picking it up one level, it is the time to set the pace. Is it your desire to set the pace: for yourself, for your friends and associates, and the community, the world at large?

Passion. Renewing our passion for growth brings about that excitement we need to be the pacesetters and trail blazers. Take a moment and reconnect with the passion that brought us growth, a path where we experienced fulfillment, a career where we excelled.  Don’t allow that passion to get lost in the shenanigans of today’s economy.  Don’t let that passion die or lie dormant another moment”.  What was the passion about?  Was it to make a difference in environment conservation?  Mentor the next generation? Better quality of life for the family?  Mindmapping can be a useful tool to bring to mind those passions that may have been left unattended and unremembered.  Do not censor any idea that comes up; there may be some precious treasures to uncover in the most unlikely places in out thoughts.  Below is a sample Mindmap on my passions.  Google “Mindmapping” if you are not familiar with this tool – it will really boost your creativity.

Many of us have been through some major challenges recently, (did I hear a sigh) and the passion that fuels our dreams may have been buried in hibernation but it is just a little digging away.  Let’s start digging so our passion can bask in the warmth of the sunshine and experience new life and growth.  Envision that passion moving your dreams to reality.

Action. Now let’s move that passion into dynamic action. Act on the dreams that may have been put aside for a while. Create that next masterpiece. Build those relationships. Step into leadership. Prepare and perform our best at everything we do.  Chart the course for our goals.  There are many goal setting programs, many books written on achieving our goals.  Read a book and follow a program that resonates with you.  Zig Ziglar, Stephen Covey, Tony Robbins, Michael Port are just a few authors you may want to check out.  There are so many others and it may be a good starting point to get our juices flowing.  Have a plan and follow it.  Act on your dreams and make them real.  Life is waiting for your unique contribution.

Creativity. Life offers a myriad of opportunities to move from the boredom of daily routine to the excitement of learning, growth, and contribution.  Think out of the box, experiment, do things differently and see what might develop from taking risks.  Let your hair down and shake your behind a bit, loosen up and let the real you shine through.  This has been a challenge for me recently.  Working on a technical writing project for almost a year, my writing had to follow certain standards– great for the project, not too much for my personal writing.  I am currently working on loosening up and infusing my writing with my own personality.  Is there an area of life where you need to mix it up a bit?  Go for it!  Don’t let anything come between you and your new ideas.  Newness is always refreshing.

Empowerment.  The opportunities to learn and grow are at your fingertips.  The internet, countless books and publications, mentors, and peers have so much to offers to add to our growth.  It’s all there for the taking.  Let’s get out of our pj’s and start each day with renewed enthusiasm to expand our world by delving into the world outside our comfort zone.

Setting great personal expectations to broaden our impact, our contributions, our lives is a good place to start.  Next, with our Passionate, Active, Creative, and Empowered selves, we can move that influence to set the pace outside of our personal arena to make a significant contribution to our communities and the world at large.

It is springtime, make sure we don’t left get behind hibernating.  Let’s pick set  the pace.

Though, yes, there are some aspects that we may miss in the virtual environment, there are also lots of pluses.  Dwelling on down side is not going to earn you points or excuse you for a mediocre performance.  Get to be an expert in using the various tools in the virtual classroom that are designed to allow you to “see” your audience.

How do we replace eye contact?  What about “voice” contact.  Work on your voice to make it friendly, inviting, and professional so your audience will gain the confidence to respond to it.  Use the emoticons.  Insert some smart remarks so they’ll feel compelled to click on the smiley face.  Have them clap for each other.  Make them comfortable enough to give you the confused icon when necessary.

Be prepared with documents, slides, and programs that you’ll be sharing.  A little elapsed time of silence or clumsiness as you search for these seem to take an eternity.  Have them opened and ready before your class that you can access them with a click.

Be comfortable enough with the technology that you do not hesitate to allow control to your participants.  Be authoritative appropriately when you need to take back control of the classroom.  Not having the confidence to do this is no excuse for running a drab monologue with no participation.

Have fun!  Nobody expects you to be perfect; but they all hope you won’t be boring or stiff.  When the apologies come before anything else, it sounds an alarm to the audience that “this is not gonna be good”.  It sets up the audience to find faults — after all, you already gave them permission to do so.

So, please do not apologize for the virtual platform.  Find reasons to appreciate it and use it with a positive attitude.  It is time for a mental shift.  It is happening; and holding on to the face-to-face classroom like your life depends on it isn’t going to stop it.  Virtual training is quickly and dynamically taking its prominent place in training; we, as trainers, need to get on board or we get left behind.

No more apologies, please.

F – Fun Factor. We love to see our audience having fun, laughing, and smiling at us in face-to-face presentations. Could it be that because we do not get that reward virtually, we forget to infuse our virtual events with fun? Often times, we miss the stories, the humor, and the friendly banter. Make notes on your script to include these elements and it will really help you come alive virtually.
A – Activities. It is so boring for me to just sit and listen, sometimes watch the computer screen, when I attend these virtual events. In the classroom, we ask the participants to raise their hands, stand up and stretch, take notes, answer questions, and other activities (some of these are very creative and engaging) to reinforce learning, and yes, keep them awake. There are many underused techniques in virtual space that presenters are ignoring. Even the really user-friendly emoticons and chat features are often times left untouched. Sophisticated attendees will often use these on their own. The presenter needs to bring these to the audience attention and remind them that these are available for their use and prompt them to use these features by asking questions. There are many more activities that we can include in virtual events — breakout sessions, whiteboard, blogging, interactive workbooks, and many others. Activities keep our audience engaged, awake, and interested.
C – Collaboration. Notice how participants in the classroom might whisper something to those sitting next to them? Or maybe scribble a note? Do they come alive when we divide them into small groups so they can talk to each other and exchange ideas? People love to come together and collaborate to learn from each other. What are we doing to include these in our virtual events? Many of the attendees have great information to share. Are we making time and encouraging the collaboration? Even a simple Q&A session can encourage this to happen naturally. Often times because of time constraints, we forego this exchange of ideas. Build it into the time, it is so essential for participants to feel they are really a part of the event.
E – Energy. Many of us (we may not realize it) do not project our voice energy over the air waves like we do in face-to-face presentations. Somehow, it gets toned down. Realize that when our audience just have the audio to go by, we need to really focus on energizing our presence. In face-to-face events, the audience see our gestures, our body language, and our eye contact. Not so over the air. Our audio, specifically, our voices, can make or break the event. How is your voice energy? Record yourself and see if you are coming across as the alive, passionate, and enthusiastic facilitator that you are. Is your smile coming through? Is your passion coming through? Try this – smile, walk around, gesture while you speak through the mouthpiece or the microphone. This will make a great difference on how your voice comes through.
On the other hand, if you come across with too much energy, you may drain your audience as they try to keep up with extremely high energy level. In face-to-face, too much energy can be easily defused by visual elements. Your gestures, body language, other visual props in the room can balance high level auditory input. Over the air waves, the focus is so strong on your voice that a long high-energy delivery can be exciting at first, but draining, if not tempered.
Achieving a balance is essential. Mix it up!

So what’s missing when we transition from face-to-face to virtual? Most of these events leave the FACE behind, remember to keep yours. Have Fun, Activities, Collaboration, and Energy, and watch your virtual presentations come alive.

• Communicate. It is of foremost importance to keep communication flowing to let your team and your manager  know what you are working on, what progress has been made on projects, what issues and challenges come up.  Brush up on your writing skills, as email and instant messaging take the place of face to face conversations.  Make sure that your written communication is clear, concise, and detailed enough to avoid any miscommunication.  Instant Messaging has been a constant in telecommuting, make sure that you are available for these messages that may need your urgent attention during work hours.  Even when using teleconferencing or virtual meeting environments, the absence of face-to-face feedback presents a challenge.  Always prepare to speak clearly and present your points in clear and succinct fashion.  Make sure that you listen carefully; develop keen and active listening skills.  When in doubt, ask, paraphrase, or follow-up with an email.

• Minimize distractions. Although it is tempting to have Oprah in the background, or have a friend drop by during the day, keep your focus on your work by minimizing distractions.  Make sure family and friends know that your work day is for working, not socializing or running errands for them.  If you facilitate or participate in meetings or trainings by phone or VoIP, make sure that there are no background noises that will make you appear as unprofessional and out of control.

• Shun wireless. For your network and phone connections, stay wired.  Wireless connections can become unstable and can be frustrating when you are in a virtual class or meeting.  The phone, especially, should be plugged into a wall connection as bad audio can be really annoying to your listeners.

• Organize. Your main work area should be designated for just that, work.  Avoid using the kitchen table and counters where your documents can get trashed by oblivious family members, or spilled on by the family chef.  Make sure that you can easily find resources and supplies that you may need.  You want to prove yourself productive and do not want to waste time hunting for the stapler or the package your boss sent you yesterday.  Strive to remain organized with your work space, as well as with your time.

• Remain visible. Visibility at work allows you to develop relationships and credibility.  Make sure that you do not neglect your network at the office.  When appropriate, make sure that your speak up and contribute positively during business meetings – live or virtual.  Attend work social events (office potluck, holiday parties, welcome lunches, etc.) when you can. Devote a few minutes a week catching up with work friends.  A phone call, email, or Facebook  allows for easy ways to keep in touch.

• Get out. It is so easy to skip the shower and stay in your pajamas all day long.  Before long, it becomes a string of days that you remain secluded in your home office.  Make sure that you plan to go out daily and mingle.  And dressing nicely will help you maintain self confidence socially.  Join volunteer groups or professional associations, take a night class, sign up for an exercise class.  It is so vital for your mental, social and emotional well-being to get out in the real world.

• Sometimes, mix it up. When the nature of your current tasks or projects allows for it, enjoy the outdoors by working in the patio or under the willow tree.  It is amazing just how relaxing it is to be out in nature.  You’ll notice that your creativity flows and there’s a joyfulness that comes from the change of venue and pace.

Do not be surprised when after a few months of your blissful telecommuting arrangement, you feel left out and closed off to the real world.  It happens to many of us.  Keep your energy and excitement alive by consciously pursuing various avenues for growth and learning.  It is an awesome arrangement that frees up much time and resources to enrich your work as well as other important areas of your life.  Enjoy!