Build on What You Already Have

I coach people to become confident speakers, and I do it in a day or less. But how do I achieve this miracle? How do I give them this wonderful, intangible, magical, seemingly unattainable quality of confidence? Well, it’s simple:

I cheat.

Hold on, let me qualify that; yes, I give people brilliant, tried and tested techniques from my stand up experience, but I also do something very crafty and effective: I show people what they already have. A little bit like Jason Bourne discovering his forgotten abilities. So it’s not cheating as such, but it’s a shortcut; a lot of people I coach are down on their abilities, and it takes a fresh perspective to show that the negative stuff they often tell themselves is nonsense e.g. “I’m rubbish at this.”

 

Secret Identity

OK, you’re not a brainwashed multilingual assassin, but you do have the ability to physically stand up and speak in front of a group – even if it feels deeply, hideously uncomfortable to do so – and most of the people I coach actually have a good basis to build upon (no-one ever refuses to get up). We work together to fill in the gaps and liberate them from the burden of thinking that they are inadequate and have to become something that’s not them.

The most interesting and useful (because it’s interesting) aspect is the person’s personality – the character that they are and the one they appear to be (I’ve devised my own simple archetypes to help with this). When an audience ‘gets’ your communication persona, it can create a high level of likeability, which is very valuable indeed. You can get way with all kinds of stuff.

 

Discover Yourself

Ask a trusted colleague (not your family, they may be too nice) for feedback, video yourself, find out how you’re perceived by others. A grim, daunting task? Perhaps. But you’ll find out about your communication style – and what you are already good at – so that you can build on it and become a brilliant, confident speaker. And if you find out you can kill people with your little finger… well, that’s a bonus, surely?

 

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