Using Glen Luckman Humor in Speaking

The 9 Pillars of Gesture for Public Speaking

By: Jon Weaver

Gesture, embracing movements of the head, body, arms, hands, legs and feet, is a natural and necessary part of public speaking. Mastering this art and making it appear natural take much practice, but can not be mastered any other way. So here are the top tips to help speed you along your way.

1. The head should be well-poised and not held on one side as if scrutinizing an audience. When held erect it denotes a normal attitude, courage, joy, pride, or authority; when upward it indicates hope or prayer; when downward, shame, modesty, or reflection; when forward, appeal, listening, sympathy or anticipation; when backward, surprise, terror or independence; when shaking, denial, discontent, or emphasis.

Frequent and meaningless movements should be studiously avoided. In bowing, incline the head and upper body together, so as to bring the bend from the waist. It should be done slowly and pleasantly, with the eyes looking down.

2. The face should be trained to promptly and truthfully reflect the emotions of the speaker. Quintilian says: “The face is the dominant power of expression. With this we supplicate; with this we threaten; with this we soothe; with this we mourn; with this we rejoice; with this we triumph; with this we make our submissions; upon this the audience hang; upon this they keep their eyes fixed; this they examine and study even before a word is spoken.”

3. The eyes are wide open in joy, fear and surprise; closed in faintness, half-closed in hate and scrutiny; raised in prayer and supplication; drooped in modesty and veneration; look askance in envy, jealousy, and appreciation.

4. The nostrils are extended in fear and indignation, and elevated in scorn.

5. The lips are closed in repose; partly open in surprise and wonder; wide open in terror; turn upward in pleasure, courtesy and good humor; turn downward in grief and sorrow; pout in discontent; and compress in anger, defiance and determination.

6. The body should move in harmony with the other members as required by the thought. In turning from side to side the movement should be from the waist and not from the neck.

7. The arms move from the shoulder, excepting in conversational gesture. They should rest at the sides without crooking the elbows. Movements may be slow and gentle, slow and intense, swift and light, or swift and strong. The size, length, and velocity of a gesture depend upon the thought. The lines are usually in curves, expressing grace, while straight lines are used when special emphasis is required. The general purpose of gesture is to locate, illustrate, generalize or emphasize.

8. The hands should be carefully trained for flexibility and expressiveness. The fingers should be slightly apart and curved. A gesture has three divisions:
- The preparation, made in an opposite direction from that which the gesture is to take.

- The gesture proper, which must be precisely upon the word intended.

- The return, in which the hand should be dropped gently and slowly without slapping the sides of the body.

And here are the most common hand gestures:
- The supine hand, palm upward, is used to express good-humor, frankness and generalization.

- The prone hand, palm downward, shows superposition, or the resting of one thing upon another.

- The vertical hand, palm outward, is used in warding off, putting from, and in repugnant and disagreeable thought.

- The clenched hand is used in anger, defiance and great emphasis.

- The index finger is used to specialize and indicate.

- Both hands are used in appeal and to express intensity, expansiveness and greatness. Usually one hand should slightly lead the other. The hands are clasped in prayer and wrung in grief.

9. The feet. The standing position should be easy, the feet at an angle of forty-five degrees, one foot in advance of the other, the width of the base depending upon the height of the speaker. The knees should be straight, shoulders even and chin level. Avoid rising on the toes and too frequent change of foot position. The most graceful effect is secured when the left foot is forward and the gesture made with the right hand, or vice versa. This combination gives balance, though it is not always possible to use it. The change of foot position will not be so noticeable if done in the act of making a gesture.

The 9 Glen Luckman Pillars

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The Guaranteed Cure for Severe Public Speaking Anxiety

By: Al Gammate

Public speaking is the most prevalent fear, I heard. And I believe it, because my acquaintances have this fear. However, people do not have the fear to the extent that I had. There were times where I, completely freezing at a scheduled speech, could not perform at all. But usually before this happens, I attempt to cancel the scheduled speech or not show up.

My public speaking fear began in the ninth grade of middle school. I vividly remember the turning point. I spent days preparing for a history class speech. As I sat in the history class, ready to give my speech, a friend seated next to me began teasing me. He laughed, “You look nervous.” “Are you sweating?” “You will hyperventilate while giving your speech.” “Don’t stutter and shake while standing in front of the class.” The teasing continued for some time, since others were scheduled to speak before me.

Then the teacher called my name; I walked to the front of the class. I looked at the audience, spotting my friend who was teasing me. He eyed me, smiling. Fear coldly filled me. My hands frozen, I began to breathe rapidly, concentrating difficultly. Speaking quickly, I stuttered, stumbled, and sometimes paralyzed. Time slowed; I torturously concluded my speech. The sympathetic audience did not ask me any questions during my speech conclusion. I returned to my seat in the back of the class-defeated.

Before this incident, I easily gave speeches, giving them well. But after this incident, my public speaking fear was born. I am sure that my friend who teased me never intended for this to happen. He probably thought his teasing was good-natured.

Throughout high school, I difficultly and poorly gave speeches. After every failed speech, my confidence waned. When I entered college, speeches petrified me. So whenever I enrolled in a course requiring me to give a speech, I quickly dropped the course and added a course without this requirement. By the time I graduated from college, dropped and added courses riddled my transcript.

Afterwards, I entered graduate school. I was in trouble; almost every course required me to give speeches. This panicked me. I performed poorly on the scheduled speeches that I attended. I did not attend many of them. Whenever I gave a speech, the audience gazed downwardly, attempting to ease the situation. After some time in graduate school, the mere thought of giving a speech terrorized me. My grades suffered. However, I eventually graduated.

Following graduate school, I entered the workforce. My job required me to regularly give speeches to large audiences. Unaware of this requirement, I accepted the job offer. Public speaking situations followed me wherever I went. I had to find the solution-fast. So during my spare time, I read articles and books on public speaking fear. Reading, I found the following:

1. Strong feelings of specific situations are produced by mentally connecting the feelings and situations together. For example, you, strongly fearing driving, fearfully experienced car accidents or fearfully heard about someone who experienced them. So whenever you drive a car, you fear. If you fear enough, you avoid driving. The same is true for fear and public speaking.

2. Some people are born with sensitive sympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system protects you from danger. For example, you, being chased by a wolf pack, run more energetically; because your sympathetic nervous system released large adrenaline amounts into your blood stream. This adrenaline also causes you to breathe rapidly, sweat, quiver, and shake. However, some people’s sympathetic nervous systems are easily triggered, triggered by even safe events. These people overreact to events.

3. Some people are born with brains wired for worry, fear, depression, frustration, or agitation. Brains wired this way have low levels of a calming chemical naturally produced in the brain. This chemical is called Serotonin. Serotonin calms the brain, producing feelings of relaxation and well-being. Also people born with normal brains, thinking negatively, lower their Serotonin levels. Therefore negative thinking, genetics, or both contribute to low Serotonin levels.

4. People diffident in giving speeches, being unprepared, fail at giving speeches. The better prepared you are, the more confident you are.

5. A person regularly facing a specific fear loses the specific fear.

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Win over the Fear of Public Speaking

By: Vincent Stevenson

Fear of public speaking surrounds us. Ask anybody how they felt that first time they had to speak in public. Perhaps it was in a presentation at work, delivering a eulogy for a friend or family member, or even worse, the dreaded best-man speech. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly natural.

The fear of public speaking is the most serious phobia known to man. In a recent survey, 90% of people said that they would rather die than stand up and make a speech in front of their family, friends and colleagues. This is a serious problem. But how have we come about this crazy statistic?

It’s easy. Who wants to make a fool on themselves. I know that when I was a child, I was of terrified visiting my aunties and uncles’ houses at the weekend, because we were expected to perform a ‘party piece’, a two minute tortuous entertainment. A song, a monologue or a little dance would do the trick.

Real fear was not performing the ‘party piece’. This is all tied up with the fear of public humiliation. As if the moment of humiliation isn’t bad enough, there’s always people close to you who can drop it into the conversation, anytime, anyplace, anywhere.

As children at home, we were always told to be quiet. Similarly, at school, shut up, be quiet, go away if you want to talk! My grandfather had a rather unpleasant saying, “If you can’t improve on the silence, then shut up!”

As a child, it was rather difficult to know how to improve on the silence, I found it all terribly confusing. But surely this was what granddad wanted, a quiet life with no interruptions from children who knew, well, nothing.

It’s not surprising that we feel less than confident when we stand up and actually want to communicate something serious. This is hardly supportive conditioning for our careers, is it?

Do any of these scenarios strike a chord with you? An amazingly high percentage of people feel exactly the same way. You’ll be glad to know that help is just an email away. If you live in the United States you’ll find a number of speakers clubs in your locality and they belong to an organisation called Toastmasters International.

Fear of Public Speaking by Glen Luckman

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Public Speaking: Use Props to Make Your Presentation Memorable

By: Keith Longmire

Most of us are familiar with using visual aids in our public speaking. Even if you are not an active public speaker yourself it is pretty certain that you have suffered from the odd day or two of ‘death by PowerPoint’. There are alternatives.

One of the most memorable presentations I ever saw used a child’s toy as a prop. Jon was a project team leader. He had to give an update on his project to a group of team leaders, project managers and support staff. An audience of twenty five to thirty in all.

On the face of it his subject matter was not that great. He was responsible for the implementation of a payroll outsourcing service. The client was a pubic service works company. They were particularly well known as refuse collectors in the London area though the services they offered were much more wide ranging.

All in all, the client employed around 20,000 monthly paid staff and almost 10,000 weekly paid workers. At $2.00 a payslip this deal was worth just short of $1.5m per year. No small matter for a relatively junior project leader.

I was a bit surprised that Jon didn’t prepare any slides. Instead he turned up with a large plastic supermarket bag. When it came to his turn to present Jon stood up with his bag in his hand. He outlined the basic details above. And then reached into his bag and pulled out a pretty well used and abused child’s toy. It was a battered refuse truck.

Jon then proceeded to use features of the toy to illustrate his project.

To start with Jon pointed out that the two characters in the cab of the truck were not looking at each other. He used this to describe the relationship between the client’s project manager and their existing payroll manager. They didn’t get on, weren’t communicating with each other or him.

He then spun one of the wheels – it was distinctly wonky (does that translate in American?). When pushed the truck moved reluctantly and erratically. Again Jon used this to describe the difficulties in maintaining progress, directions and momentum.

The presentation continued in this vein for some time. Each quirk of the truck was used to illustrate some feature of the project. All delivered with wit and controlled humour.

Once we understood the difficulties Jon then explained what he had done to correct each problem. The wheels were aligned and balanced, the headlight fixed, the suspension greased.

At the end Jon pulled out a new toy refuse truck. It was bright and shiny and in the client’s corporate colours. Jon then removed the 2 figures from the cab of the first toy and placed them in the cab of the new one. Both figures were still rigidly facing in opposite directions. It seems he had fixed all he could but he couldn’t get these two protagonists talking.

Now, I can’t remember all the points that Jon made – it was more than five years ago. The fact that I remember the presentation at all is truly remarkable. How much of your public speaking is as memorable?

Memorable Glen Luckman Presentations

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 Overcoming Public Speaking Stress 

Author Sean Kenaston

From Glen Luckman on Stress

For most of us, public speaking is a common source of stress and nervousness. Many people may never overcome their fear of public speaking, which can have a negative impact on their careers and overall success in life. It’s an unfortunate reality that if we wish to succeed in our professional and personal life, we will be forced to speak in front of a number of people at some time or another.

Public speaking does not need to be so hard and stressful. If you put in a bit of effort and learn its secrets, it is very possible to overcome the stress of public speaking.

Speaking in front of large gatherings doesn’t need to be too stressful, difficult, and demanding; clear your mind of this negative opinion. Every great speaker started as a novice. It was through intense effort and dedication that they turned out to be the best in the business. With the same kind of commitment, you can be just like them.

To succeed in public speaking, you do not need to be the most brilliant person on the planet. You just need to give it an honest effort. Your audience doesn’t expect you to be a master of all things known to mankind; all they want from you is dedication and determination. You’re there to present some relevant information in a way that’s easy for the audience to understand. They’re not expecting a brilliant and polished speech.

It is important to assert yourself. You want your audience to know that you understand what you’re talking about. If you feel a bit nervous and jittery when you first stand up in front of your audience, don’t worry! It is quite common and natural. All speakers feel that way, even the best! Just take a deep breath and try to relax. Try to establish eye-contact with your audience. Wait until you’re ready. Once you’ve achieved this, you’ll be well on your way to a powerful speech.

A lot of the stress of public speaking is caused by the feeling that you won’t be able to perform well when the time comes. To prepare for this, start practicing various speaking techniques in front of small groups of people during your daily routine. Tell a joke or story to a group of friends. You can even practice your speaking when talking to a sales clerk when you’re out shopping. After a while, you’ll begin to feel more confident speaking to larger and larger groups of people.

Glen Luckman on Stress

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10 Publicity Tips for Professional Speakers

By Joan Stewart

In a funk because other speakers seem to be snagging all the media attention? It’s time to start claiming your share. Here are a baker’s dozen of tips that will boost your publicity efforts and help you finally get noticed.

1. Every time you speak before a group, offer to submit a short
summary of your presentation for the group’s newsletter. Don’t forget to send your photo. It gets you in front of those you just spoke to as well as those who missed you the first time around. Many groups also send their newsletters to the media. Be sure the last paragraph tells people what you do and how to get in touch with you.

2. Call the advertising department of every newspaper and magazine you want to get into and ask for a copy of their editorial calendar. It’s a free listing of all the special topics and special sections coming up during the calendar year. It will tip you off to sections where your story idea would be a good fit, so you can query the editor weeks and even months ahead.

3. Call a reporter from your local newspaper and invite her to lunch or coffee. Offer yourself as a resource and Ask “How can I help you?” Feed her tips and story ideas. Become such a valuable source that she keeps coming back to you for more information and eventually writes about you.

4. Consider starting your own television show on your cable TV station’s community access channel. The station will provide the camera equipment for a $20 fee, and you can produce either one show or an entire series of programs. Air time is free. Call your cable company for details.

5. Build a network of other speakers who concentrate on your topic or area of expertise. Agree informally that you will refer reporters to each other whenever the media calls. Often, reporters want more than one source for a story. It’s a chance for all of you to get additional publicity.

6. Whenever someone asks you to write for their ezine or online magazine, visit their web site first and see if they have a resource section where you would be a good fit. Ask to be listed for free, in exchanged for providing an article.

7. If you publish a print newsletter, be generous with free subscriptions for the national and local media. You’ll be amazed how many reporters start calling you for interviews. If you can’t afford to pay people who submit articles for your newsletter, be sure to tell them they will be seen by national media who get your free subscription.

8. Don’t forget newspaper and magazine columnists. They’re always hungry for fresh ideas. Keep in touch with them and feed them ideas regularly.

9. Call local radio talk show hosts and invite them to call on you when other guests cancel. They will be thankful you offered.

10. Write articles for print newsletters. My favorite resource is the Oxbridge Directory of Newsletters, which lists more than 18,000 newsletters by topic and includes detailed information on the type of audience and subjects covered. Most larger libraries have this resource directory.

Glen Luckman 10 Publicity Tips

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Guidelines For Effective Public Speaking

By: Lee Dobbins

Public speaking is something we cannot avoid in our life. The situation will arise when we are called upon to stand up and speak our minds out. When that situation comes are we ready deliver?

Public speaking is one of the most feared activities in a person’s lifetime. Anxiety and stress will usually attack once you get off your seat and start to speak. Sadly, this fear is the cause of lost promotions, low self esteem, miscommunications and similar situations. But why do some people excel on it? They make it look so easy – I guess through practice one can improve his public speaking skills but in the mean time here are 6 guidelines and questions that you will make your life easier when speaking in public.

Who?

Who are you talking to? Know your audience, their background, values and common interests that may help you in your presentation. If you are speaking to a group of accountants then it will help if you focus your speech on data and statistics, or if you are speaking to a group of teenagers, you should know the latest fashion or in-thing so you can establish rapport and make your speech lighter and simpler.

Knowing your listeners is imperative to a successful speech. It will also help you relax if you know the people who are going to listen to your presentation.

Where?

Knowing the venue and being there early is half the battle. Try to get a feel of the place. Stand on the stage or where ever you are suppose to deliver your speech. Try to visualize your audience listening to your speech.

Check the sound system and the availability of audio-visual aids if you need to use some. Being at the venue early will give you some time to prepare and compose yourself. You can also afford time for a last minute tweaking of your speech.

What?

What do you want to say? What is the speech for? If you are speaking to educate and inform your audience, make sure that you have accurate and updated facts in your presentation. It is not enough that you have prepared and have memorized your speech; you should also know what you are talking about and have made a thorough research about it.

How?

How can you deliver your message across? A sound language skill is not enough to ensure success as a public speaker. Choose your words carefully and be sure to enunciate them. Poor articulation and pronunciation weighs much in evaluating your presentation.

Visual aids are helpful to get your message across. You may use handouts or technical presentations to support your points. But the best visual aids are your facial expressions, hand gestures and body language. When practicing your speech, try to do it in front of a mirror to see how you look

Make sure that you have a solid opening, a good transition and a memorable conclusion.

When?

When is the best time to speak and stop? In communication, words are not the sole means of conveying a message. Your pause and stops also play an important role in delivering your point across.

Know when to start speaking and when to stop. Be aware of how long your speech is and tailor it to suit your audience. If you are speaking to a groups of seventh graders, then chances are their attentions span is shorter than that of a twenty something university student.

Why?

Why should they listen to you? Why were you chosen to speak in public? Determine the reasons why you were picked to deliver a speech. It may be because of your educational background, your work experience or your status in the community. What ever it is, they want something from you. Identify the reason and prepare your speech to answer the audience expectations.

Glen Luckman Guidelines

Placed by Glen Luckman

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By: Mark Goodworthy

One of the most terrifying things to do is to speak in front of a large group of people. But if you wish to be successful in your career, you should learn how to overcome your nervousness and anxiety. Public speaking is a skill that can actually be acquired by following some helpful tips.

Use Visual Aids
If you become nervous because the audience attention is focused on you, you should try using some visual aids like charts and video presentation. This way the attention is shifted away from you and you would feel less anxious.

Be Well-Prepared
One of the most important things you can do is to come to your speaking engagement well-prepared. This means that you have researched your topic and practiced the things you will be saying in front of these people. If you want you can practice with some friends so you would get honest evaluation on your speech. You should also try to get enough rest before the day of your speech so that you are alert and focused.

Try Relaxation Techniques
Before speaking, remove your nervousness through a couple of relaxing techniques such as deep breathing, stretching or meditating. Some people get relaxed by drinking a glass of water or listening to some music.

There are some people who feel extremely nervous and show signs of dizziness, nausea and sweating. This nervousness may even be translated as fear and can be removed using several treatments like psychotherapy and hypnotherapy.

Psychotherapy would usually involve counseling, which would help pinpoint the exact cause of your fear and anxiety. There maybe some events in the past which contributed the present situation. The sessions can last depending on your response to the treatment. It could take for as short as three months or as long as several years.

On the other hand, hypnotherapy is known to provide quicker results. The treatment usually involves hypnotism performed by a qualified individual. Depending on your problems with public speaking, hypnotherapy can rid you of your fears after one to five sessions and it is relatively cheaper.

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