Public speaking Series, part 2

Public speaking involves muscle memory. I use this phrase to emphasize that public speaking is a very physical activity. It should make you tired, because all of your self is involved—brain, mouth, body. Just as in learning a sport, you have to physically practice to learn what your body should and should not do in front of an audience, because (and I hate to say this because it will enhance some of your anxiety), everything tends to be pronounced in public speaking—it’s bigger, projected. Two examples. Females often wear their hair in a way that it falls into their faces. That might not be a problem for you personally, but it’s a problem for an audience. We either can’t see your face, or you will be constantly pushing it out of your face, which gets annoying after the tenth time in a minute. Answer: hairspray? Barrette? New ‘do? Second example: Eye contact. All of us tend to have a bias, looking either to the left or the right hand side of the room. But you don’t want to leave out half of your audience, so you have to learn to balance your eye contact so everybody feels included; eye contact is the number one way that the audience feels connected to you.