People get furious at themselves when they don’t speak well in a meeting! Or if they don’t get their message across perfectly. People actually think they should be incredible communicators in high-stakes situations.
The truth is they shouldn’t be excellent speakers. Unless they learned the techniques and learned how to put them into practice.
“I’m mad at myself because I should be an awesome speaker, and I’m not.”
They’re hard on themselves when they don’t speak well in an interview or before an audience. And that seems to be because people think they should automatically know how to communicate well in high-stakes situations.
Here’s the rub: Most people don’t know how to communicate well in high-stakes situations. They don’t know the steps to being an incredible speaker.
You’re already a good communicator! It’s not until you start expecting more from yourself that you find yourself in these high-stakes situations.
Techniques to Improve Your Speech
To be a highly effective communicator, systematically achieve these goals.
- Defeat fight or flight.
- Record yourself without fear.
- Prepare until you don’t have to prepare anymore.
- Speak in bullets.
- Resist the pervasive advice to over-articulate.
- Master your skills in easy situations first.
There will be links to the systematic steps to improve your speech, and we’ll go into more detail below.
You want & need to be an incredible communicator.
It’s like thinking you should be an excellent pianist after only a few lessons. Is there anything in the world that you’re incredible at that you haven’t learned & practiced?
The people who do know the steps to become an incredible speaker are crushing it right now. They speak so well that they can merely say something at an event or in front of an audience, and people are offering them jobs.
They’re sought-after.
Just because you’ve been speaking your whole life doesn’t mean you can do it with great skill when the stakes are high. You have to learn the specific techniques and put them into practice in real-time.
So just because you know that you have to slow down and use pauses and eliminate filler words doesn’t mean that you can. So stop beating yourself up and learn the techniques!
How to improve your speech in high-stakes situations
If you strive for a particular outcome (find me credible! like my ideas! hire me! etc.) and can’t predict the outcome, you’re in a high-stakes situation. Congrats! That means you’re climbing the ladder to success.
When you’re in a meeting, you want people to be magnetized by your message! You want people to love your suggestions and run with them! You deserve that! Your ideas are excellent!
What happens in high-stakes situations?
Your body goes into fight or flight, that’s what. And in fight or flight, your throat closes up, and you lose access to your pre-frontal cortex–the most recent and sophisticated part of your brain.
Have you ever wondered why you draw a blank sometimes or can’t think of what you wanted to say? Ever wonder why you lost control of your speech or kept over-explaining? Yup, fight-or-flight is to blame.
Not a mystery, folks. It happens to every normal person in the world. (Not psychos. And you don’t want to be in that group anyway.) It’s just that people are so ashamed that they don’t talk to each other about it.
Go ahead and ask your colleague if he or she feels like a fantastic communicator. Ask them if sometimes they talk too fast or draw a blank or use too many filler words or want to be more concise. Go ahead; I’ll wait.
If your friend is “normal,” you’ll have a lot to talk about!
You’re not supposed to be an excellent communicator until you learn the techniques and systematically implement them into your life.
So, improve your speech a little every week! Be sure to learn the techniques. It’s one thing to say, “I have to stop using filler words,” and then beat yourself up because you used them in your last meeting.
Techniques to Improve Your Speech
- Defeat fight or flight.
- Record yourself without fear. I know you hate your voice, but once you learn the techniques and apply them, you’ll have a voice that sounds gorgeous! And is quite magnetic and compelling.
- Prepare until you don’t have to prepare anymore.
- Speak in bullets. This is the easiest way to be concise. Eliminate superfluous wording and get to the point.
- Resist the pervasive advice to over-articulate. Most advice for speech improvement out there tells you to enunciate your words. That leads to over-articulation, boring speech, and being interrupted. The proper solution for mumbling is to use a lot of air when you speak.
- Master your skills in easy situations first. When we talk about systematizing the integration of speech techniques, you want to remember that you can’t just apply these skills to your spontaneous speech. So first practice on the phone before you practice in meetings. Master your skills when you order food and beverages before you try them in front of an audience.
9 Secret Steps to Influencing Others
Want to be more influential? We all want to communicate our most important messages in a way that encourages others to take action. Whether that action is voting for our candidate or picking up milk from the store, the words we use and how we speak play a huge role in getting the job done.
Improve Your Speech with The Voice Spa
You’ll learn each of the above steps thoroughly throughout your life when you take The Voice Spa.
It will change your life. This isn’t a class where I recite tongue twisters and ask you to repeat. The class teaches you each technique necessary to be an incredible communicator in high-stakes situations.
You’ll be sought-after!
Hi Ita –
I made it through my Bloomberg interview yesterday, and I did well.
The perfect teacher shows up in life when I’m ready for it, and that teacher sure was you.
I was in total freak-out mode when I signed up for the Voice Spa. Not only is the Bloomberg Radio show live (yikes!), but it has 25.5 million listeners (double yikes!)
I’ve tried a number of public speaking courses over the years and even hypnosis. Your Voice Spa has been by far the most helpful thing I’ve come across.
I found it so helpful that the Voice Spa starts with relaxing and belly breathing. Those first few days, I did a lot of belly breathing. I was so nervous I was practically bouncing off the walls. Most relaxation programs have you doing meditation or counting breaths. There is no way I could have done those things – I was too agitated. But I could belly breathe -and it always calmed me down. Talking in phrases was also hugely helpful – it’s a great way to slow down without sounding mechanical.
Thank you for what you do. The Voice Spa is so well thought out. You saved my sanity.
-Betsy Clark, Ph.D
The Voice Spa online video course will change your life!
3 Unbelievably Easy Steps to Sounding Smart – Convey Clearly
Let me know what you think in the comments below!
An Introduction to Accent Reduction
This brief introduction will get you started on the road to speaking Standard American English.