The Secret Sauce For Self-confident Public Speaking

Join me as I illustrate how familiarity with your topic, paired with genuine enthusiasm, can turn even the most introverted individuals into eloquent speakers. Through anecdotes about incessant cat lovers, proud mothers, and sports-obsessed grandparents, you'll see how passion for a subject makes words flow effortlessly. This is not about imagining your audience in their underwear but about embracing what you know and love. Whether you're gearing up for a big presentation or looking to improve everyday conversations, there's something here for every aspiring orator.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Here for the memories thought-provoking audio memoir shorts filled with stories, humor, anecdotes and commentary on social, cultural, business and religious issues. Whatever Lyndon remembers and thinks will entertain, challenge and inform is a possible subject. The collection of memories about one's life allows for the development and refinement of a sense of self, including who one is, how one has changed and what one might be like in the future.

Speaker 2: 0:35

Greetings and salutations. This is Lyndon Wolfe and you have providentially found my audio memoir here for the memories, a podcast. It's me sharing about my life, my experiences, my opinions, for those that love me and even for those who don't, if they want to listen. Usually people who don't love you don't want to listen to you, but that's really not the point here. Anyway, I I'm glad you you dropped by and I hope you do want to listen to me and maybe hope you love me.

Speaker 2: 1:05

Today we're going to talk about public speaking. I've entitled this the Secret Sauce of Self-Confident Public Speaking. That sounds like a massive oxymoron. People detest speaking in public. When people are polled about the things that they fear the most, the list typically looks like this Number one, snakes. Number two, public speaking. Number three, debt, which means that people would rather die than speak in public. I find that ironic in that most all speaking is in public. But I digress.

Speaker 2: 1:52

Why such nauseating dread to utter words that others can hear? We do it daily, don't we? Why does the term speech elicit such strong negative emotions? I'm not totally sure, but what I do promise you is that I won't mention imagining the audience as naked as a possible solution to the mortified paralysis that you might experience while giving a speech. Nor will I tell you that leading with a story or anecdote will go a long way in capturing the audience's attention. So here is my secret sauce to aid in overcoming the fear of public speaking, you have to have two elements primarily Knowledge and emotional attachment, which is passion. If you have those two things, you should be fine. You give someone a topic they know nothing about and engenders no passion. All they can think of is their trepidation of looking like an idiot, which, by the way, is probably what causes them to look like an idiot. Someone recently told me and this is kind of a side issue that I was making them. But back to speaking.

Speaker 2: 3:12

Ask a mother to talk about her son, who just turned three years old, and words flow like water over the cliffs of niagara. Ask a cat lover like my wife. We have total of 13 in the house now. Eight of those are our own and five fosters. Oh, and the five fosters, five tiny all-black siblings that we call by the colors of their collars, since they are indistinguishable. Anyway, she can talk endlessly and fluently about her latest rescue or the new foster family she just found. She can appear to be a subject matter expert by calling herself an allurophile. Allurophile, that's a cat lover, and she is a subject matter expert, by the way.

Speaker 2: 3:59

Ask the shy kid to describe their favorite toy or paw patrol, and you have the otherwise mute demonstrate unequal prolixity. Ask the typically reserved grandmother by the way, side issue, my grandfather name is Grandest, Grandest. Thought of it myself. I'm sure that's surprising to you. Anyway, you ask the reserved grandmother about their grandkids or great-grandkids and you have something akin to a filibuster, and the man a few words becomes loquacious when the Tennessee Vols football team is referenced. What is my point? The combination of knowledge and passion is 90% of being poised and powerful as a communicator, no matter the size or makeup of the audience. The other 10% is confidence, which is only gained by doing the thing and then doing it again in the end, until it becomes not as frightening and maybe even second nature.

Speaker 2: 5:02

During junior high, my parents forced me to do something that I an introvert, as I would later discover abhorred. It was a speech contest. As a seventh grader, there was no other endeavor I could imagine more torturous. Well, there were the six years of piano lessons that ultimately trained me to find middle C and nothing else. But at first I loathed the idea of a public speaking competition. But with the success I had came the awareness that being recognized, even rewarded, for a certain art or skill was good for my self-worth. I won the Optimist Club competition three years running, even though I was the youngest participant in each of those competitions. My final competition, however, was a disappointment, as I placed second to a younger entrant. One of the judges told my father it just didn't seem right for one person me to win every year that they competed. So, abandoning any form of meritocracy, I was relegated to silver medalist and given a trophy that never again saw the light of day. So my love and appreciation of public speaking had been unleashed. I found myself intoxicated with oratory and powerful, persuasive communication. In that context, I even studied great speakers as diverse as Martin Luther King Jr and Adolf Hitler who was, by the way, a brilliant speaker Billy Graham, Winston Churchill and John F Kennedy Jr, who sadly and tragically was assassinated on my third birthday.

Speaker 2: 6:40

As you will learn in other episodes, public speaking became an important and transformational part of my life and story. It allowed me to speak with great ease in front of thousands as a mere 18-year-old. My comfort with it allowed me the honor of preaching my mother and dad's funerals and so much more. And if I can do it, I'm convinced anyone can, and that includes you. Knowledge, passion and practice. That's the secret sauce. Or you could just imagine the audience naked. I'm Lyndon Wolfe. This has been here for the Memories. I'm so glad you joined and heard a little bit about my thoughts on public speaking and some experiences surrounding that issue. Come visit again. Love having company.

Speaker 1: 7:48

God bless, love having company. God bless, that's buymeacoffeecom. Much appreciated.