Speaking Blog

Confidence, energy, vitality, and enthusiasm when speaking

Another of  the recommended Paths to Speaking Well is focused on energy, vitality, and enthusiasm in order to give your audience the impression that you are a confident speaker . 

A focus on this Path will help you to be a confident speaker. This Path is really important in both work situations and social settings as well as at your local Toastmaster Club.

If you take the advice on offer in this Blog and in the attached reports you will become a more confident, more compelling speaker as your energy and enthusiasm are released and in addition, the audience for your talk or presentation will believe that you are confident.

In fact anxiety and fear give you an energy that you can turn into confidence when you speak. How can you do this?

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To give your best speech, talk, or presentation you need to be well organised

At The Speaking Well we advocate 7 particular Paths to speaking success. 

One of these Paths is focused on how you organise your speech and the importance of time when speaking.

If your talk, presentation or speech is well organised it will be:

Easier to follow
Easier to understand
Easier to remember

The format for most methods of creating a speech is to consider the talk under the following headings:

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My personal journey to speaking using Memory Mapping

For many years when giving a speech I did what many of us do. I learned my speeches off by heart and word for word.

This made it difficult to deliver in a relaxed manner and at times I couldn’t remember the exact words of the speech or talk and would stumble over them, on one occasion completely freezing as I couldn’t remember what it was that I wanted to say next.

You will see below how I attempted to solve these speaking issues and how I eventually found the most fantastic solution.

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The Speaking Well & Memory Mapping visits the oldest speaking and debating club in the world – Cogers

I was invited to a meeting of the oldest speaking and debating club in Britain and indeed the world, Cogers, pronounced Koh-jers. Cogers was founded in 1755 and the meeting was held in the beautiful setting of the original Bank of England in central London just next to the Royal Courts of Justice.

The wood panelled walls and marble clad columns made a wonderful backdrop to the Memory Map speaking method’s first outing to the club.

The topics spoke about that night by the other speakers ranged through all the current events, politics and news of the last month and then it came to my turn to speak. It was here that I used a Memory Map to create an impromtu speech to great effect. I had previously  used Mapping to create impromtu speeches at Toastmasters for the purposes of speech evaluations.

Using a Memory Map I prepared in the meeting itself and I then gave a six minute impromptu talk that I entitled ‘Has Britain got oomph?’

How was I able to do this so easily?

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President Barack Obama and speaking confidence – Use a Memory Map!

Barack Obama is a brilliant speaker who can inspire and connect with peoples emotions. How does the President of the USA speak with such confidence and power? One major reason is that he knows what he is going to say.

If you knew what you wanted to say in a talk, presentation or speech you too would appear confident and actually be more confident.

The great news is that there is a very simple way for you to know what it is you want to say and be a confident speaker as well whether you are speaking at work, in your community or at your Toastmasters Club. How does the President know what to say? Well, for most speeches he uses an autocue, and this helps him know what it is he wants to say. To see the contrast between Obama speaking with an autocue and without have a look at the two videos.

The contrast is striking.

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