Confessions of a Master of Ceremonies What are your worries about public speaking? Ready for some confessions on the topic? Please read on. 1. What can you do about technical hitches? The microphone stops working as soon as you open your mouth to greet your audience. The speakers emit a piercing shriek in the middle of your remarks to introduce the guest of honor. A pole supporting the canopy dislodges itself and comes crashing down close to where the invited guests are seated. Obviously as a speaker you cannot control these technical issues – what you can control however is your reaction to these problems. Quick thinking, a cool head and a dose of appropriate humor can usually help you to smooth over these hitches. Even a collapsing canopy can be handled without panic. When this happened while I was speaking, I was initially alarmed. What if someone had been injured? Then I quickly recruited the tallest person in the audience to help the technicians and got the audience to reward my problem solvers with a warm round of applause. 2. What is the correct posture? Your posture speaks volumes about you. Stand straight, occasionally look people in the eye and smile - it tells them you are confident even if you don’t feel it. Move around the stage if it helps you to dissipate tension or make your points. If you are seated while speaking, sit upright and lean slightly forward to show the audience you are interested in them too. Relax but don’t overdo it or you may be communicating a message that you don’t care that much about what you are saying. Another thing. If you are patiently waiting your turn to speak or just listening to someone on stage, never close your eyes. Why? Long before you approach the rostrum, the audience is watching you. What impression would they form if they saw you with your eyes closed while I someone else was talking? I find that I somehow concentrate better with my eyes closed and so I used to do that in order to shut out visual distractions. Not any more though. I finally got tired of protesting that I wasn’t sleeping in the middle of someone’s totally captivating speech.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Jul 2013 15:42:13 +0000
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