Your Public Speaking Mentor

Why do audiences like stories so much? Because stories help them put the point of the lesson into context, but also add an emotional element to what could be a dry subject. In addition, our brains are wired to remember emotionally charged events. As we become emotionally involved in a story, our entire being changes at the physical level.

Continue reading →

We may not realize it, but we gain experience every single day, and if we look closely enough at the events of the day, we can find profundity in many situations and turn that into a lesson worthy of a talk. About twenty years ago, I was standing in the middle of a river, fly-fishing. I love to fish, and there I was, waist deep in this beautiful river, just having a great, relaxing time when it suddenly began to rain. I walked over to my day camp along the shoreline, where I had set it up under the bridge where the highway crossed over the river. It was mid-afternoon and I hadn’t eaten anything yet, so I fired up the little grill I brought and began to cook my lunch. I had packed a nice, big, juicy steak, a baked potato, and some veggies.

Continue reading →

In my courses we work a lot on storytelling. We do this because there’s a greater impact on an audience when they accept a point and frame it into a well-told story. There are many neurological reasons why this happens, but for the purpose of this chapter, suffice it to say that a powerful way to make your point and to have an impact is through your stories. The most common approach I see in my courses is for a speaker to provide an entire history of the situation, to establish the characters and events before they actually get to the meat of the story.

Continue reading →

When you’re telling a story as part of your presentation, you need to set the stage for it in the first ten seconds. Your audience has a very short attention span, and if you begin a story with a long, drawn-out introduction of facts, you’ll likely lose them, and then have to work that much harder at getting them back again.

Continue reading →

 Think about your life for a moment. What are your core values? What is the one message you would want to share with this world on your death bed? Who are you, really? What do you stand for? For what or for whom would you fight? What wrongs would you right? What truths would you spread or inequities would you rectify? Ponder these questions, and come up with your own answers. The answers you come up with will form the basis of your story, the story you will bring to life, and this will help you begin your part in making this world better as a result of your existence. Once you have an idea as to what your core messages are, even if there is only one, then you can decide which stories to tell to support your message.

Continue reading →

When telling your stories, engage your audience’s imagination by speaking in the active voice as much as you can. What does that mean? It means making the characters in your story actively involved so your audience can visualize the action. For example, when I say, “This book was written by Steve Lowell,” the first thing you picture in your mind is the book. There is no action. But when I say, “Steve Lowell wrote this book,” you picture someone, some representation of me, writing the book.

As a speaker, you want to create action pictures in the minds of your audience, and active voice allows you to do that. There are times, however, when the passive voice is preferable. If the emphasis is placed on something other than a person, or if the person is unknown, passive voice can be used. “The package was sent last week.” Notice, however, that there is very little visual context with that statement. Sentences in the active voice have energy and directness, both of which will keep your 0audience listening So, what’s the lesson? Speak in the active voice whenever you can. It keeps your conversation livelier.

Here’s an example of how a simple story can make a great point. In 1990, I walked into a clothing store looking for a new pair of pants. I was wearing new sneakers I had just purchased from another store. I was standing by a display of pants when a salesman came up to me and asked, “Can I help you?” I gave the standard response, “No thanks, I’m just looking.” He replied, “Well, if you see anything you like, let me know,” and off to other business he went. I selected two pairs of pants that looked identical in every way except for the price. I now found myself needing help. I looked around the store and spotted the salesman who had offered to help. He was standing near the back of the store with another salesman, and I was the only customer in the place. I caught the salesman’s eye and beckoned him over with a wave of my finger. He looked at me with a scowl and held up his finger as if to indicate that I was interrupting him, and I was to wait until he had time for me. Now, had he been helping another customer, I would have understood. Had he smiled and gestured with some measure of friendliness, I would have been satisfied as well. Instead, his posture was completely negative and he was displaying irritation that I would dare bother him while he’s in conversation with another salesman. I felt his manner was not appropriate, so I left the store without buying either pair of pants.

Continue reading →

When I was twenty-five years old, I was working with a major training organization and was scheduled to speak at a local service club. When I arrived at the auditorium, I was stunned as I walked into the room and looked around at the audience. The entire audience was comprised of males that looked quite old.

The plan was to have a dinner before I was scheduled to take thestage, so I sat at the head table with my host and some delegates. During the dinner, I asked my host what the average age of the audience members was, and he told me the average age was 84.Now, that wouldn’t have been such a big deal if it weren’t for the topic I had prepared for my talk: “GOAL SETTING!” Throughout the dinner, I was trying to come up with ideas for a talk that would be relevant to this group of highly distinguished, profoundly experienced and very old men. I could come up with nothing, so I knew I had to go with my originally prepared plan and speak about goal setting.

Continue reading →

In late summer of 2010, John Heney took the stage at a networking and business education event called “Your Stage,” which I facilitate in Ottawa, Canada. Prior to that time, I knew John Heney simply as “John.” I knew nothing about John because he was this seemingly nice, quiet guy who came to the events and never said much. At these events, we invite our members to speak as a regular part of the program, thus the name “Your Stage.” On this day, it was John’s turn to take the stage.

John’s presentation wasn’t a retelling of his life experiences, although he did include some of that. His talk wasn’t an information session in which he reported on his research, although he included some of that as well. No, the dominant message in John’s talk, the gist of his speech, was that we’re all on stage all the time, and everything we do is being watched by others, sometimes having an effect that changes their lives. In just a few minutes, John put a new spin on the value of “Your Stage,” and personalized its value to each and every person in the room. John opened our eyes to a new way of looking at the world in which we live. He shared the philosophy by which he lives his life with us, and invited us all to explore that philosophy and see  how it might apply to our own lives.

Continue reading →

While my wife Sharon and I were struggling with her mental and emotional illness, I was doing constant research about the illness itself and I became obsessed with the brain and how it functions. I read all I could find about the brain, about depression and how it affects the brain from a medical standpoint, and so much more. I began researching this in the summer of 2004, six years after Sharon and I married and when we had reached the lowest point in our lives.

To this day, I continue to study the brain and how it affects the systems in the body, because I’m fascinated with the way the brain’s function relates to every aspect of our lives, including pubic speaking. When Sharon and I hold seminars and speaking engagements, we include scientific information that we’ve researched over the years.

Continue reading →