{"id":235667,"date":"2012-07-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-06T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/full-speech-ahead-a-fear-worse-than-death\/"},"modified":"2012-07-06T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-06T07:00:00","slug":"full-speech-ahead-a-fear-worse-than-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/full-speech-ahead-a-fear-worse-than-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Full Speech Ahead: A fear worse than death"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Milo Shapiro | Guest Contributor<\/strong><\/p>\n

For years, Americans have ranked public speaking as their greatest fear. DEATH ranks second!\u00a0 Yet the ability to communicate effectively (be it one-on-one or to a crowd) can make or break careers.\u00a0 A man who can share an idea clearly and concisely is seen as a winner.\u00a0 A woman who can see a problem and eloquently convey a solution to a group has “management” written all over her.\u00a0 (And vice versa; looking at the ranks of the National Speakers Association shows us quickly that platform skills have no gender bias.)<\/p>\n

Where we do find bias is against people who lack the skill.\u00a0 A perfectly nice person may have a room full of people thinking deadly thoughts about him\/her just because they want the speech to end!<\/p>\n

\"Full<\/a>
Milo Shapiro<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So why, then, write a column about public speaking? \u00a0Because it IS important and because ? keepin’ it real, here ? I know most people aren’t going to read a whole book on the topic.\u00a0 Little bits are easier to take.<\/p>\n

In future columns, we’ll be looking at the many ways that you can make changes ? from big organizational ones to minute ones with impact ? in your preparation and delivery.<\/p>\n

Even if you’d rather eat a Brillo pad than speak to a group, I hope you’ll follow this column. You might be surprised someday when a mike is handed to you and you’ll be glad you had a little info behind you.\u00a0 It may never happen at your day job, but it could come up at your religious center, your PTA meeting, or the day that Channel 10 asks you a question at a public event.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve survived these first few paragraphs, you\u2019ve already real\u00adized that I don\u2019t write like most other training authors. I prefer to write the same way that I might speak to you \u2014 which, oddly enough, is valuable if the topic at hand is how to speak to people!<\/p>\n

But people get all hung up on how the printed word should be more formal (like not starting a sentence with “But” or using a phrase like “all hung up”).\u00a0 The reality, however, is when we write for speaking, we should write like that because we talk like that.\u00a0 Otherwise, when we read, we get that strange professor-ish sound and feel like maybe we should add a British accent or something to account for it.<\/p>\n

So \u2026 I\u2019ll try to keep things light to make sure that this column is a comfortable and fun read, but not at the expense of saying what needs to be said to help you find your voice, make fewer blunders (especially if sharing mine can spare you a few), and excel from the platform.<\/p>\n

If my speaking style sounds too informal for the type of speaking you might do, let me share a few thoughts with you:<\/p>\n

With each passing year, our audiences include more of Generation Y (born 1981\u20131994) and even Millennials (1995+). These are folks who do not remember life before MTV, The Simpsons, or reality TV.\u00a0 Changes in schools and media have trained them to expect a more informal approach than Gen X and Baby Boomers received. Studies show that including the right percentage of informality holds their attention better.<\/p>\n

Besides, some people reading this may think that speaking to a group is scarier than bungee jumping off a space shuttle. So just reading a column on public speaking may have their stomach in a knot.\u00a0 If I can keep this column a little lighter, maybe it\u2019ll help those people to keep breathing, thinking \u2026 and reading.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re still reading an introductory column, which is probably a good sign.\u00a0 Just wait ’til we dig in! And if you could read a whole book on this topic, I know one by a guy who writes just like this \u2026<\/p>\n

Milo Shapiro is a San Diego-based<\/em> interactive motivational speaker,\u00a0<\/em>speaking coach is the author of<\/em> <\/em>\u201cPublic Speaking: Get A\u2019s, Not Zzzzzz\u2019s!\u201d<\/em> Learn more <\/em>on his coaching & training at <\/em>www.PublicDynamics.com<\/em><\/a> ?and as a speaker\/teambuilder at <\/em>www.IMPROVentures.com<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0To get questions answered for this column, send them to Milo at\u00a0\u00a0PublicDynamics.com\/column<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Milo Shapiro | Guest Contributor For years, Americans have ranked public speaking as their greatest fear. DEATH ranks second!\u00a0 Yet the ability to communicate effectively (be it one-on-one or to a crowd) can make or break careers.\u00a0 A man who can share an idea clearly and concisely is seen as a winner.\u00a0 A woman […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1192,"featured_media":235668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Full Speech Ahead: A fear worse than death","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11552,11600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-opinion","category-sdnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1192"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}