Posts Tagged ‘reading’

The Secret To Becoming An Expert In Anything

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
Audiences Seek Speakers Who Are Experts To Teach Them

Audiences Seek Speakers Who Are Experts To Teach Them

If you forget all of the advice that you’ve ever been given about speaking, then please at least remember this: audiences come to hear experts speak. No matter how badly you stutter, lose your place, don’t make eye contact, etc. an audience will always forgive a presenter whom they believe is an expert in what he/she is talking about.

What Is An Expert?

Great I hear you saying, but just what is an expert? It turns out that this is a pretty simple question to answer: an expert is someone who knows more about a topic than the audience does. It really is that simple.

It’s not easy to become an expert; however, it is possible. The key to success is to transform yourself into a non-stop learning machine that is never satisfied with what you already know.

How Can You Become An Expert?

Shawn Doyle is a speaker who has looked into the whole “become an expert” thing and he’s found the secret. He says that the key is to get motivated and stay motivated.

Perhaps you thought that learning stopped when you got out of school? Sadly some people do; however, with any luck they are out there sitting in your audience. It’s really not that hard to acquire additional knowledge if you know the secret of how to do it. At the heart of knowledge is books and it turns out that, just like your mom told you all those years ago, the more you read, the smarter you’ll be.

Are you groaning yet? Complaining that you read magazines (while you are standing in line waiting to check out at the supermarket) but you haven’t read a book in years? It turns out that the time that you spent in school was just a brief part of your overall life (hopefully) and continuing to learn is something that you need to keep doing for your entire life if you want people to show up and listen to you.

Steps To Becoming An Expert

Another name for an expert is “learner“. If you want to find a way to work learning into your already busy schedule, then you are going to have find out how to find the knowledge that you need in order to wow your audiences. The good news is that I’m going to tell you how to do this.

Learners read books. They might also watch TV, they might surf the web, they might do a lot of things, but most importantly they read books. Not only do they read books, they have a plan for what books they are going to read. They create a monthly list of the books that they are going to read. They add books to their list by asking other people that they know and respect what books they are reading.

If you are going to become a learner in order to become an expert, then you are going to have to start doing more reading than you are doing today. Here are some suggestions for how you can make this happen:

  • Create A Reading Budget - you create a budget for everything else in your life, why not reading? By doing this you’ll know how much you have to spend (and when you have it to spend) when you are surfing the Amazon.com and BN.com book web sites.
  • Get A Library Card - remember the library from your childhood? Good news – it’s still there. No matter where you live, no matter how big or how small your local library is, almost all libraries have some sort of inter-library loan program that can provide you with access to just about any book that you might want. Check it out!
  • Become A Sale Shopper – you don’t have to buy the newest books immediately when they come out. Look for the slow seasons and stock up then. Right after Christmas most books stores have great sales so that they can get rid of the extra stock that they bought for the holiday season.
  • Befriend Local Used Books Stores – when I lived in Dallas there was a bookstore called Books-A-Million that was huge and always seemed to have a book in the area that I was looking for. If you don’t have a local used books store then you can always make use of half.com which is Ebay’s used book store.

Other Ways To Become An Expert

With all that being said, reading books isn’t the ONLY way to become an expert in your selected area (although it is the best way). You can always supplement your reading by doing additional things like:

  • Searching The Internet – however, you need to remember that you can’t always trust what you find on the Internet. Verify, verify, verify.
  • Ask Questions Of Smart People – seek out people who know more about something than you do and take them out to lunch. Ask them questions and then pay attention to what they have to say.
  • Read The Newspaper – yeah, just like your parents used to do. You just might be amazed at what you find out is going on around you.
  • Watch DVDs – no, not Hollywood films, but rather instructional ones that will teach you something.
  • Attend Seminars – since you are trying to become an expert, take the time to go see other experts and learn from them – how did they get their knowledge and how do they use it.

Final Thoughts

One characteristic of an expert that many speakers never realize is that they are always growing, always changing. One self-help book that I read awhile back had a great way of putting it. The author suggested that we should plan on reinventing ourselves every year – sorta a you 1.0, followed by a you 2.0.

By doing this you will always have fresh and interesting things to tell your audiences about and they will always be interested in hearing what you have to say.

Make the effort to become an expert and you’ll be able to intimately connect with your audience and make an lasting impact in their lives.

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

The purpose of giving any speech is to be able to reach out and connect with your audience. No matter whether you are trying to inform them, entertain them, or convince them to take some action, none of this can be done unless you are able to make a connection with them. What you say is an important part of doing this, but did you know that what you wear also plays a role?

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Posted in learning | 3 Comments »

When Presenters Run Out Of Ideas, It’s Time To Read A Book

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

Presenters Can Get New Ideas By Reading More Books

Presenters Can Get New Ideas By Reading More Books

Sometimes when we are called on to give a presentation, we sit down to create the presentation only to find that our creative juices have somehow run dry. Oh, oh – this can be a big challenge. What always just seemed to “be there” can go missing just when we really need to draw upon it. What’s a presenter to do?

Despair not fellow presenters! This situation has happened to me and other presenters and we have a fairly simple solution that will get you out of this pickle: read a book.

Katherine Meeks is a New York City based speech consultant and language coach. She’s spent a lot of time with speechwriters and has made a not-so-amazing discovery: those of us who read a lot seem to have the best thoughts, the best style, and the most precise ways of using our vocabulary to make our presentations memorable.

I can hear you now: “Hey, I have a subscription to People magazine – I’m well read!” Umm, nope that’s just not going to cut it.

How often do you work on expanding your vocabulary? Probably  not all that often. It turns out that once we are out of school, the size of our vocabulary stops growing as fast as it once did. Reading turns out to be one of the most effective ways that as adults we can continue to grow our vocabulary. Once again, a word-of-the-day desk calendar is not going to get you to where you want to be.

If you want to become a great presenter, then you have to become a great reader. In order for this to happen, you need to discover interesting books. The best way to do this is to simply ask other people that you know what they are reading.  The key here is to find a way to filter the unending stream of books that are produced every year into a manageable trickle that you can have a chance of reading.

Other good ways to fette possible books for you to read include seeing movies and then reading the book. I was touched by the movie “Pursuit of Happyness” and just had to follow this up by getting and reading Chris Gardner‘s book that the movie was based on. Wow – the book was much different from the movie, I was very glad that I read it. Another way to pick out the books that you might want to read is to spend some time with the book review section of your local newspaper – this can be a great way to spot stinkers.

Once you’ve created a list of books / authors that you’d like to read in order to have your presentations become inspired, the next thing that you need to do is to get your hands on some books. This is actually quite easy to do, but you’ve got to remember that you’ve got a lot of choices. Remember when you used to go to the library as a kid? Well guess what – the library is still there. When was the last time that you went?

Other sources for books include your local used book store (why pay full price?), the local Borders / Barnes & Nobel, and your on-line friend – Amazon. It really doesn’t matter where you get your books from, just make sure that you get them and that you read them! Your audiences will thank you…

Do you think that you read enough books? Have you ever used some of what you’ve read in one of your presentations? What types of books do you think help your presentations the most? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Posted in speech writing | 2 Comments »

Presentation From A Book: How To Do Dramatic Readings

Monday, October 27th, 2008
Speakers Can Use Dramatic Reading To Make Their Presentations Memorable

Speakers Can Use Dramatic Reading To Make Their Presentations Memorable

In the bag of skills that a public speaker needs to have, there is one that is not used very often: dramatic readings. Now just because we don’t use it very often, does not mean that we shouldn’t be using it more. Remember that anything that we can do to make our presentations stand out from everything else that our audience gets assaulted with each and every day will help to make it more memorable (in a good way) and improves the chances of our message “sticking” with our audience. The big questions are when should I use a dramatic reading as a part of my presentation and just how do I go about doing it?

The first question is actually the easiest to answer. A dramatic reading from a book is a great way to do two things: add color to  a presentation and add credibility to WHAT you are talking about. Published authors often have taken a great deal of time to get their words just right. Opening a book during your presentation and reading their words to your audience allows you to capture the time and effort that they put into creating their ideas and enrich your speech by doing so. Additionally, in order to motivate your audience to make a change or to take some action (the purpose of any presentation), you need to convince them that you know what you are talking about. By reading a passage from a published book perhaps written by a well known figure in the field that you are talking about, you can reinforce your words by having them appear to support your position.

Now the big question is how best to do a dramatic reading. The problem here is that most of us have very little experience with either listening to or actually doing dramatic readings from a book. That’s why we can turn to Mark McLaughlin who is an author of horror books. Mark is often called on to give speeches that contain, what else?, dramatic readings. He probably does this much more than the rest of us ever will; however, this also means that he can teach us a lot about how to do them correctly.

Here are Mark’s top 10 tips for how we can all do dramatic readings as a part of our presentations correctly:

  1. Don’t Read From The Book: Books are great for sitting by a fire and reading. They are quite poor to read from during a presentation: their print is too small, it can be hard to find your place, and turning the page is awkward at best. Instead, copy the pages and blow them up.
  2. Use Voices: Something that you may not realize is that we all make different characters sound different in our head when we read a book. When you are reading from a book, you need to use a different voice for each character so that your audience doesn’t get confused about who is talking or thinking.
  3. Prepare Using A Rainbow: Mark up what you are going to be reading using many different colored highlighters. This way you will automatically remember to switch voices when you are reading.
  4. Characters Are More Than Just Voices: Different characters can have different mannerisms and these can be useful when you are reading their lines. Smokers should have a raspy voice, nervous characters should speak quickly, etc.
  5. Try Out Different Voices: You won’t get it right the first time so be sure to experiment with different voices in order to find the one that will capture the character the best for your audience.
  6. Practice, Practice, Practice: This is always a good idea and it’s even more critical when doing a dramatic reading. McLaughlin recommends that you practice at least a dozen times and even more if you feel that you need it.
  7. The Power Of A Friendship: Nothing beats live feedback. Try your presentation out on friends and see what kind of feedback they give you. This can be worth its weight in gold.
  8. Look At Your Audience While Reading To Them: You can’t do this all the time of course; however, eye contact is always a good idea.
  9. Have A Panic Button Ready: Look, anyone can lose their place while doing a reading – it happens to all of us. If this happens to you, have a question about the reading ready to ask an audience member. Use the time that they are speaking to find your spot again, mark it with a finger, thank the audience member for their answer and then continue on.
  10. Enjoy Yourself!: Dramatic readings are done all to rarely in presentations today. The fact that you have been willing to step up, practice, and then deliver a dramatic reading shows that you are better than the average speaker. When your audience sees that you are enjoying yourself, then they will get into it also and your presentation will be your best ever!

Have you ever been to a presentation where the speaker used a dramatic reading? How did it turn out – was it well done or half-baked? Have you ever had a chance to use a dramatic reading as a part of one of your speeches? Did you practice enough? How did it turn out for you? Leave a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Posted in presentation tips | 3 Comments »