MODULE 1

Setting Direction | Achieving Composure

Course Outcomes

  • communicate with increased confidence and conviction when speaking in public

  • create a great first impression and leave an excellent lasting impression

  • have developed my awareness of what makes an effective public speaker

  • harness my awareness to bring me out of Fight / Flight / Freeze

  • use Intercostal Diaphragmatic Breathing to reduce my anxiety enough to harness my nervous energy

  • harness my nervous energy to improve my performance, both visually and vocally

  • apply breath support to increase vocal effectiveness

  • get my message across clearly and dynamically

  • use my voice in a more flexible, powerful and persuasive way

  • consciously use my voice to qualify what I’m saying by the way I say it

  • use eye contact to communicate and connect with my audience

  • use body language to enhance the effectiveness of my speeches / presentations

  • develop my spatial awareness

  • use specific gesture to communicate my message

  • move with purpose, allowing my movements to support my message as opposed to detract from it

  • adapt my communication style for different audiences

  • structure my speeches / presentations to be purposeful and engaging

  • adapt my style to fulfil different speech purposes

  • use visual aids to support my delivery

  • bring my personality into my speech / presentation

  • engage and command my audience

  • think on my feet and handle question and answer sessions more effectively

  • be able to apply my public speaking techniques and presentation skills to my work and everyday life

Goals

1. Select your top 3-5 outcomes from the list above. Which of these do you think require the greatest amount of improvement for you personally?
2. Set your goals. What do you hope to achieve by doing this training? These are short-term goals, however it is worth placing them within the context of long-term goals (see below). When setting your goals, bear the following in mind:
• Set goals that are realistic and achievable, yet aspirational – allow yourself to dream big!
• Keep your goals simple, clear, positive and realistic. Use active verbs and positive language when writing down your goals.
• Visualise the results you want to achieve. Paint a picture in your mind’s eye, imagining yourself achieving these goals. What do you see? How do you feel?

Objectives

  • gain a clear understanding of what this training involves

  • develop a vision of what I would like to achieve by doing this training

  • define and set specific goals to achieve

  • take charge of my development journey

  • set out to continuously develop my awareness of effective public speaking

  • develop an understanding of the practical nature of communication

  • know how to influence the 1st impression I make

Introduction to Public Speaking and Presentation Skills

From early on we’re taught to prepare mentally for presentations or speeches – think of those school orals, standing up in front of the class. We always seem to plan WHAT we’re going to say, but not HOW we’re going to communicate it – communication is a job in its own right (few people realise this). As in any job, there are skills that you can learn that will enable you to do it more effectively or you can be thrown into the deep end and learn the hard way. The problem with the latter in public speaking, is that effective communication is so closely linked to confidence and confidence can take a battering when it comes to botching presentations – a fear of embarrassment and humiliation can sometimes be debilitating – and the deep end can sometimes be counter-productive. The advantage of learning the skills and being able to put them into practice, is that once you learn how to use them, each time you successfully deliver a speech or presentation, your confidence increases and the spiral is reversed into a positive process.

One of the fundamental principles that makes this course a success is the antidote to common misconception that if you know how to do something (mentally), you should be able to do it (practically). There are countless books and blogs on public speaking, but neither can cater for the practical skills necessary for effective public speaking. The theory & the practice are 2 very different things, just because you know how to do something in theory, does not mean you know how to do it in practice.

Think of driving a car. Passing your learner’s licence test (the theory) does not mean that you can drive a car – you may know how to in theory, but to actually do it, you need to be taught practically and then practise what you’ve learnt – without which, you wouldn’t be let loose on the roads.

Communication is a physical, practical activity – yes, even speech is physical (which many people don’t know).

Many people think that if you can speak, you can speak in public. In fact, public speaking has an entire skill set of its own. If you’re expected to know how to engage in public speaking without having been taught the practical skills to do it – no wonder you feel overwhelmed!

Developing your awareness

Observe and listen to how people speak and present themselves and ask yourself the following 2 questions:

  1. What works and why?
  2. What doesn’t work and why not?

Start to develop your awareness of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to effective communication and public speaking. As you learn about the various components involved in effective public speaking, you will build your awareness even further. As you develop your skills, you will be better and better equipped to incorporate what you think works and replace what you think doesn’t work in your own performance.

1st impressions

You have one chance to make a first impression. Let it be what you want it to be.

A first impression takes only a matter of seconds to form. It is important to present yourself using the voice and body language you feel best represents you and the confident person you know you can be.

In communication, the message that your audience/listener receives is communicated through your body language, your tone of voice (and other vocal elements) and the words you use.

We can develop practical mastery* of these elements to assist us in communicating not only our intended messages related to WHAT we are trying to say to someone (or in this case, an audience) but also to communicate messages that the listeners or audience may not consciously realise they are receiving. First, people will assess you visually, before you even open your mouth to speak. Elements like dress and grooming, even physical features will affect their perception of you. However, this is also where you can use your body language intentionally to communicate the way you want them to perceive you and thereby influence their impression of you – we can’t control how other people perceive us, however, we can influence it.

Secondly, the sound of our voice (and how you use it) can also assist you in commanding your audience and communicating to them that you are capable, confident, at ease with your subject matter, or whatever you want them to ‘read’ from you.

The messages communicated by using both these elements of non-verbal communication will naturally need to be reinforced by the words you choose to speak.

Learning to harness the power of these three elements (body language, vocal elements and chosen words) can help you improve your first impressions.

*’Mastery’ is a lifelong journey – we use it lightly here. However, bear in mind that developing your communication skills is an ongoing process and working towards mastery of your skills over your lifetime is a worthwhile pursuit.

Achieving Composure

Objectives

  • understand how stress affects me mentally, physically, emotionally and vocally

  • understand how to bring myself out of Fight/Flight/Freeze mode

  • understand the benefits of Intercostal Diaphragmatic Breathing

  • understand the impact good posture and stance on your state of being

  • know how to use ‘Touch, Pause, Engage’ to ready myself before starting a speech

  • use Intercostal Diaphragmatic Breathing and stance correctly to reduce anxiety

To Complete: How the stress of Public Speaking affects me

Identify what happens to you when you feel stressed when engaging in public speaking. Divide these symptoms up into four categories:

Harnessing your nervous energy to improve your performance

Everyone feels nervous sometimes. This nervous energy can overwhelm you or you can harness it to improve your performance.

Instinctively, we have different energy levels when we need to deliver important information to an audience to the energy levels we experience when relaxing on the couch or sitting around the kitchen table with close family. There is a degree of performance involved in the former. By ‘performance’, we don’t mean acting – we don’t want you to pretend to be something that you’re not. Authenticity is essential to being a great communicator. By performance, we mean the performance referred to in a high-performance car or in performance appraisals at work…by performance, we mean stepping up to the plate, operating in a different mode. We can still be ourselves, we are just fulfilling a different function, simply showing a different version of ourselves – the higher performance model.

When the stakes are higher, the nervous energy increases (e.g. when you’re faced with a particularly large audience, an audience of a very high status or circumstances which may significantly affect the trajectory of your career). Not surprising, as we need this additional energy to meet the greater challenge.

However, sometimes the nervousness is so overwhelming that it prevents you from even thinking clearly let alone performing at your optimal level. This is because you Fight / Flight / Freeze reflex, controlled by your autonomic nervous system, has been activated.

Often, when faced with an audience, particularly when the stakes are high, we are sent into Fight / Flight / Freeze mode – this is a survival mode that is activated when we are in danger or our life is under threat. The purpose of this mode is to protect us from danger and equip us to deal with it. It is however not useful in public speaking, yet it is frequently activated when we stand up to deliver a speech or presentation or are faced with a particularly intimidating audience or set of circumstances. Because it is not a useful state of being for public speaking, it is imperative that we take the edge off the nerves and harness the balance of nervous energy to enhance rather than limit our performance.

In Fight / Flight / Freeze mode, a number of things happen, some of which are that:

  • our heart beats faster and our arteries constrict to send blood to our extremities (so we can flee or fight)
  • we have a sudden sense of dread, our heart pounding
  • our adrenalin increases – again to give us the power to flee or fight
  • our breathing either quickens to take in more oxygen (however it is typically stuck in the upper chest – clavicular breathing – for fight or flight) or our breath is held or restricted (for freeze)
  • our pre-frontal cortex goes offline and our minds ‘go blank’ (except for our awareness, which is heightened)

Two of the biggest problems for public speaking are:

  • the overwhelming feeling of nervousness which causes panic and seeks release in physical movement, leading to fidgeting, shuffling and other distracting movements. This makes you feel and appear far less confident than you would be if you were at ease – even if you are confident with your subject matter. This unchecked nervousness and dread also creates self-doubt, negative thinking and self-criticism.
  • the fact that your thinking brain (your pre-frontal cortex) doesn’t function properly which impacts on your ability to concentrate, causing you to lose your train of thought or forget what you had planned to say.

Being faced with an audience is not a real threat to your life however, your brain can’t tell the difference between a real threat and a perceived threat, so it sends the relevant messages to your body to behave as if it is in real danger, activating the Fight / Flight / Freeze response. This is part of the construct of public speaking – if this happens to you, you are not alone – it is quite natural.

The challenge is how to get yourself out of it and back to a more composed state of being. At Confident Communicator® we propose a two-pronged strategy – mental and physical.

Mental

Using your awareness (the only part of your thinking brain that is still active in Fight / Flight / Freeze mode), you can bring yourself back into reality. The reality is that your life is not in danger and that you are simply communicating with other human beings. Use self-talk to remind yourself of this reality.

Physical

Because your body has already had the physical reaction of the Fight / Flight / Freeze response, we need to calm your system. This we do through the combination of Intercostal Diaphragmatic Breathing and spinal movement and lengthening.

We propose a 3-step process for you to bring yourself out of Fight / Flight / Freeze mode:
  • Touch…base with yourself (self-talk reality check and adjusting your stance, lengthening your neck and spine)
  • Pause…think of this as synonymous with ‘breathe’
  • Engage…connect, communicate and engage your powers of persuasion

Self-talk (Reality Check)

Write a clear and positive statement that resonates with you and that you can use as self-talk whenever you start to feel nervous, particularly at the beginning of a speech or presentation (a reality check during the moment of ‘Touch’).

Let it be something that will reassure you and help you bring yourself out of Fight / Flight / Freeze mode and into your current reality. Whatever statements you choose will be a far better depiction of reality than ‘my life is in danger’. Keep it simple, clear, positive, calming and realistic.

I am safe.

Breathing: Intercostal Diaphragmatic Breathing (IDB)

The breathing we use to support our voices and achieve a sense of self control is controlled by the diaphragm and the muscles between the ribs (the intercostal muscles). The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle at the bottom of the rib cage. During inhalation, the diaphragm contracts and flattens and the external intercostal muscles pull the ribcage outwards and upwards. This decreases the pressure in the chest cavity, creating suction that draws air into the lungs. During exhalation, the diaphragm relaxes and returns to its dome-like position and the internal intercostal muscles pull the ribcage inwards and downwards. This increases the air pressure in the chest cavity and the air is expelled from the lungs up through the windpipe (or trachea) and out through the mouth and/or nose. By using this type of breathing, we are able to support our voices and keep the upper bodies free from excess tension which can interfere with voice production. We can control our breathing through developing our use of the diaphragm and intercostal muscles. By controlling the breathing, we can control the voice.

It is best to develop the habit of breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. Breathing in through the nose helps you to focus your breathing and allows for more moisture to pass through the vocal folds. Breathing in through the mouth tends to dry out the back of the throat and the vocal folds. However, when speaking, it can sometimes be useful to breathe in through the mouth during the shorter pauses as the mouth is normally slightly open between words, poised for speech, and allows for the quickest passage of air to the lungs. This will make more sense when you work on the voice, particularly with regards to using pause and phrasing. We always speak on the exhalation, as it is on the exhalation that the breath makes the vocal chords vibrate and they translate that breath into sound vibrations. The breath becomes the sound.

In addition to the role it plays in effective voice production, breath control plays a major role in harnessing this nervous energy and allowing you to use it to deliver your message. As you learn the various skills taught in this programme and how to apply them, you will realise just how accessible it is to harness your nervous energy and use it productively and effectively to enhance your performance.

Our bodies are designed to use Intercostal Diaphragmatic Breathing. If you’ve ever watched a baby breathing, you may have noticed that the tummy moves as he/she breathes, not the chest. If you’ve ever heard a toddler yell, you may have wondered how such a huge and unbelievably powerful voice manages to come from such a tiny body – or how the sound can be so remarkably loud yet clear and unforced. Breath support. If you look closely, you may notice that that howl is directly linked to a lot of movement in the abdominal area. When children are young, they are typically more in tune with their bodies than we are as adults – they also have had far fewer years to develop some of the bad habits that we seem to accumulate as we grow up. Not all is lost, however. We still use Intercostal Diaphragmatic Breathing – only, normally when we’re asleep – it is what keeps us alive at night. We may just not be used to using it for speech, but we have all the equipment and the potential to do so. Now all we need to do is to retrain our muscles to use this type of breathing to support our voices. We need to learn how to translate breath into voice and thereby achieve the same efficiency and effectiveness of sound production that a toddler achieves (seemingly effortlessly).

Benefits of Intercostal Diaphragmatic Breathing

Intercostal Diaphragmatic Breathing allows you to:
  • Keep your upper body free from excess tension (excess tension interferes with the voice – it can cause strain, a raised pitch, a tense jaw). This is because of the placement of the breathing action, in that it is in the diaphragm region and far away from the larynx (or voice box), throat and organs of articulation and the economical nature of the breathing in that the diaphragm can move freely without having to lift the heavy bones of the rib cage. On the other hand, breathing into the upper chest (clavicular breathing – named after the clavicle or collar bone) requires far more work and immediately creates tension in the upper chest.
  • Have more control and flexibility than with clavicular breathing. Clavicular breathing only allows short, shallow breaths as the breath is only drawn into the upper areas of the lungs which have less capacity than the lower areas. Breathing into the upper chest can also make us feel out of control and thus more anxious. This is not surprising as, if we breathe into this area, we have very little control over our breathing as in the upper chest, the ribs don’t move (unless the entire rib cage is lifted) – here it is literally a cage, whereas at the bottom of the chest cavity, there is more possibility of rib swing and far more possibility for breath control.
  • Take in extra oxygen which assists with:
    • Reducing anxiety by allowing oxygen to your nervous system
    • Thinking on your feet by allowing oxygen to your brain
    • Voice and speech production by allowing oxygen to your muscles (relaxing and energising your muscles)
  • Centre yourself and feel at one with yourself (an overall calmness) as it feels as if you are breathing into your abdominal area (your emotional centre) as well as assisting you with emotional expression
  • Use your breath to support your voice

Posture and Stance

Good posture is important for effective voice production and speech as it allows for the muscles and organs involved in voice production and speech to do their job uninhibited. We need to be aligned to avoid unnecessary excess tension. We all need a certain amount of muscle tension to hold ourselves up, but we tend to walk around with far more tension that is necessary (particularly upper body tension) and posture is part of the problem. Your stance can also impact on your state of being. This will be explored practically with your facilitator.

For the maximum benefit, when standing, ensure that your feet are parallel directly beneath your hips and that your body feels supported by the ground beneath you as well as balanced and aligned. Soften your knees and lengthen your spine and your neck as an extension of your spine. When seated, feel your sitting bones against the seat of your chair, allowing them to align your body, while being supported by the chair beneath you. Always allow your head and neck to be free, head floating, long neck and spine, shoulders relaxed and dropped.

Your facilitator will assist you in finding what we call the neutral body – aligned, balanced, energised and ready for anything.

Assignment
Relaxation Audio
To Practise: Breathing & Stance