The Speech Coach Recommends: Master This One Skill
It does not matter if you are an executive or an emerging leader, communication skills and the ability to effectively convey your message to your audience is important if you want to shine. Yes, there are several formal “basic” skills that everyone should practice to help speak with authority and clarity. A speech coach can help you practice these communication skills. Yet there is one additional aspect that is often overlooked by other speech coaches that help take someone from an OK presenter to an incredible one.
For the sake of this article, we will call the formal skills that everyone should practice and master the basic ingredients. What our speech coach has identified and you can read about below is the “secret sauce.
The “Secret Sauce” from Our Speech Coach: Authenticity
Being authentic means that you have the capacity to interact with people in a real manner and tell your audience that they are listening to the real person behind the presentation. This is a very valuable leadership skill and it can help motivate employees and teams to go above and beyond for the company.
People have a natural ability to speak genuinely and offer ideas in their own unique way. It’s something you do all the time with your friends and family. We forget what we already know when we’re stressed or in an anxiety-inducing setting like when we are speaking in public.
The next logical question is, if you have practiced all of the basics and have those down, how do you practice being your authentic self?
RELATED: 6 Top Ways for How to Improve Your Communication Skills
Practicing Authenticity
So, how can you prepare for a presentation if being completely spontaneous is not the right way to go (yes, you do need to prepare) and traditional practice may lead to stiff and mechanical communication?
Our speech coach has found that the way to practice your own authenticity is to make a note of your own body language the next time you’re discussing a topic in a relaxed setting. That’s what you should be repeating when giving a presentation, not trying to imitate someone else’s, regardless of how incredible they look to you when presenting.
You can define goals to assist you to focus on authentically presenting, but they are more about adopting a specific mindset and experiencing it rather than thinking about it.
Putting the basic skills aside for a moment, you actually don’t need to practice specific skills to be authentic but instead be sincere about adopting the intentions so that your genuine feelings will emerge. When you give your speech, you will be able to then marry your internal motivations and feelings with how you are presenting yourself in front of your audience.
The “secret sauce” to being authentic which our speech coach wants you to take note of include the intention to:
- Relate to your audience
- Stay Open in front of the audience
- Excite the audience
We’re betting that you already know how to access these intentions and use them fairly effectively and regularly. A speech coach can help you practice and internalize the “secret sauce” of presenting authentically so that you will look and feel more relaxed. Then, your authentic self will come through on its own.
Download a Free Copy of the Speech Coach’s Basic Communication Skills & How to Master Authenticity
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