"Opened Dawes" Podcast

"Opened Dawes" Podcast Ep 4: Speed is of the Essence!

July 21, 2021 Chris Dawes Episode 4
"Opened Dawes" Podcast
"Opened Dawes" Podcast Ep 4: Speed is of the Essence!
Show Notes Transcript

This is the podcast of  “Opened Dawes” Live, which runs weekly as a live video show on YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn at 11 am on Tuesday mornings so that we can throw open the doors and welcome you in for a relaxed sharing of information, tips, thoughts, and answering any questions about public speaking and presentation/communication skills you may have.

So, make sure you set the reminders for the shows on Facebook or YouTube (links below) as they are scheduled online and get involved.  The stream is designed to be interactive, with comments/questions able to be shown and attributed on screen.

This week’s show looks at a habit that is priceless to form because it will impact your nerves, your delivery, your recall, your flow, and dramatically improve the impact and absorption of your information from those you are sharing it with!

Whether the nerves make us speak too quickly, or we get nervous because speaking too quickly increases the chance we will forget and/or make mistakes when presenting, it is probably the hottest topic we cover in our training because of the ratio of people who it applies to.  Working on it will impact so many things that I would say that it is the number tip from observations and personal experience and something that needs to be considered ongoing and even by many seasoned speakers. 

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This show can be watched live (and previous shows recorded) from the following locations:
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/OpenDawesTraining/live

YouTube:
www.youtube.com/channel/UCnwlPiWylgEDLrwemI8ZZjw (or search YouTube for Open Dawes Training and click subscribe to be notified)

Thanks to:
www.opendawestraining.co.uk
www.chrisdawescomms.co.uk
www.opendawestraining.co.uk/connect

Thank you for listening to the Opened Dawes Live podcast. This is actually the audio taken from our weekly live video show that you too can get involved in or watch past episodes back by going to Facebook, YouTube or LinkedIn and searching for Open Dawes Training. That's da w e S. For other ways to connect with us go to Open Dawes training.co.uk forward slash Connect. There you'll find ways to communicate with us free downloads and information about our training programs, whether that is face to face online, or a blend of the two, all designed to help people grow in confidence, willingness and skills to communicate in public. Whether that is giving presentations or speeches, providing training, having great presence or communication skills in meetings, or just having those difficult conversations effectively. public speaking is a soft skill that gives your core skills of voice and can open doors that you may not even know exist yet. But for now, let's dive into this episode of Opened Dawes Live. Good morning. Welcome to Episode Four of Opened Dawes Live. Cheers, welcome for the coffee. And that's the whole idea. And it is nice and warm. This time I got the timing a bit better. My name is Chris Dawes, founder of Open Dawes Training. And this is the weekly show that that we do, just to sort of like give little tidbits of information. And it gives the opportunity for people that are watching to also get involved with, with comments with questions with thoughts with their own experiences. So please do jump in if you've got anything as we're working our way through, let me know if you got anything to thought, anything to add at all, or anything to ask. It is obviously from personal experience that this training was built on and working with more people is it sort of added to it and today's topic is speed. Speed is of the essence, as the title says, and it's for me, if somebody nailed me down as to what is the the number one element, the number one piece of advice that you'd give anybody with regards to public speaking, communicating, participating in meetings, delivery of training, whatever it happens to be, I would say speed is the most important thing because it impacts so many elements that you'll be surprised how much of a difference it'll make to yourself, to the delivery and to the to the absorption of what you're trying to share as well. It's a very big human reaction that if, especially if you're nervous, is that we just suddenly go a million miles an hour and we're trying to lose control, we're losing control, and then we start making mistakes. And we start getting stressed because we're making mistakes. And then I remember that next time because I've mumbled over my words, and what about things like stock words, such as arms and ORS, and things like that? That really comes from speed. And I'll explain why as we work our way through very quickly, I just want to give you a brief video that just shows a whistle stop tour of our online training program and make sure that you're aware. So there we go. That was just I'd be wrong if I didn't do a little advert was in the middle of this wasn't it but that is our online training program that I say online. It's kind of a hybrid between face to face and online. And we're about to also add Tuesday talk club, I think it's probably going to be called where as part of the members only group is that one per week gets to actually give a presentation and we get peer feedback and things like that. So, so much being added to the the Open, Dawes Training offering at the moment is really, really exciting, but really hard work, right? In terms of speed, then it's the kind of thing that if you can really address it, it will give you more control over what you are talking about, and how you're, you're informing people, it will create a better connection with the people that are there listening to you. Because if you think about it, if someone is talking really, really, really, really quick, and you're trying to keep up with what they're saying, trying to digest it. And it's just too quick too much. You give up, I can't, I can't keep up, I'm just going to take snippets of it, I'm going to take bits and pieces. And guess what we're playing the luck game, they're hoping that they're actually grabbing the the most important parts identified about you, but I don't like playing the luck game, it's it becomes a bit more worrying. So it will add impact to add clarity, you'll have a better connection with your audience, all of those kinds of things. But it gives you more control over yourself and what you're sharing. Think about in terms of everyday life. If things are happening too quickly, how do you feel kind of on edge, you know, when certainly I do is that if things are just too quick, you're just on edge. And ironically, you're then going to speed up with it and start making those mistakes. But if you go fast, your adrenaline's up and you're putting yourself on edge, so you are the one that's in control of it. So if you can bring that down, you're bringing your adrenalin levels down, you will feel a lot more measured. In everything that you're going to say and a lot more relaxed, I have a phrase that I use with when I say my training, I used it previously, when ever since I've been presenting and commentating and all of the things where I'm presenting in some way or another is that if you can slow down, you put your brain ahead of your mouth, you keep your brain ahead of your mouth, if you think of, say, a snooker player, where they are typically sort of like, you know, three shots ahead of the one that they're taking, possibly more. I'm not sure I'm no good. It's no good to be fair. But that's what we hear is that they are deliberately ahead of themselves. Now, if you slow your mouth down your brain is working, we work on a really, really fun practical exercise that that kind of forces that to happen in our training where you have to come up with the history or the backstory of something, you pick a card or you're given something, and you have to come up now The best thing is actually not to make it correct. But actually make it up we've had some hilarious examples, I can assure you. What that means is that you are forced to slow down because you are thinking ahead thinking ahead, right? Where can I I've made this nonsense up about it. Where can I go next? Where can I go next? So you're always going to have your brain able to think ahead, what have I already said, What am I going to say next? Or somebody just nodded? Somebody just made a comment? How can I now interact with that? It will make that kind of difference. We have you know, comments on the last one again, don't forget, put your comments or your questions in but during the last show last week's And don't forget, you can go back and watch it. We had Andy that made the comment that he has in his head what he's going to say when he's doing the award given section of his job. And then it just runs away from himself and he loses the track of what he was going to say. Whereas if you just kind of go right, last week's was about making it a conversation. So I know the core of what I've got to say how it works, let's just relax, keep it slow. Keep it as a conversation. And my brain was sort of thing I want to say this next, this next this next I can react, I can interact, I can do whatever. So that is the impact of of being in control, you're going to be able to ad lib, it's going to feel much more like a natural conversation. The other one is that if you consider what happens How many times have you sat in a presentation, maybe you you do it and only you can really answer that and how obviously when somebody keeps Amen, um, and and then I remember being at school when they would be certain teachers that would do that a lot and we'd start beating typical school kids bang out of order. But we would do things like take bets on how many items are we going to get from them or if they've got a stock word like like, like and we work with people to try to remove those habitual stock words. But it's a key. The biggest advice I would always say to be able to get rid of them is speed. Why? Think about what an arm or an urge is? What are you doing? When you were thinking? Yeah, that we have just, I'm thinking, somewhere in our evolution, it was decreed that we are going to just let everybody know, that we are thinking, why do I need to let somebody know that they are thinking? I don't need to that's that's the reality. Sorry, I just had somebody decided to put abusive messages on on YouTube. So they're blocked. Sorry, we don't need to let people know that we're thinking, we all do it, we all when we are communicating, we take that time, just go well, I don't need to let people know my visual cues are gonna make it clear, it is okay to pause, you know, I don't even do it in this one. But a whole other area that kind of goes hand in glove with this is actually taking pauses, letting your information sink in for a second. And it does apply with your speed. It's just it enables you to just think about what is going on silently, and let them soak in. So if this is a prime example, I got focused on a comment Sorry about that. So allow yourself to slow down think ahead, take a pause if necessary. Allowing your audience to just digest it, it kind of almost allows you to have that boom, drop the mic moment as well, doesn't it. If you just build up to it, in fact, once you're really professional is to be able to, you know, play around with your speed because you can build it up to a crescendo. And you are taking people in all excitement level, I always say if you are up there going too quick, you've got nowhere to take people in terms of building it to some kind of crescendo sub, bring it down, play it steady. Keep the breath going. If you find that you're suddenly going too quick, and you start arming, and earning or tripping over your words and making little mistakes. My advice is to just stop, take a breath and then move back on again. At a measured speed. You just get it come back under control again. And it is a label people to digest what you are saying. So speed, historically has been my number one piece of advice, I still stick to it now. And by the way, it's not something that we kind of say right, you're going to learn it press the magic button and that's it you will have it right forevermore. Absolutely not. It's, it's more a case of that. If you are aware of it on an ongoing basis, then you are always going to be able to kind of acknowledge and recognize where something has gone a little bit wrong. And you will then sort of allow yourself that moment to just take a breath to just take a pause, recompose and then go again. So I still do it myself when I am whether it's commentating whether it's hosting awards nights, whether it's giving business presentations, I will suddenly become aware that I'm starting to trip over my words, right. It's probably because my adrenaline's gone up and so you need to just bring it back down again and get it back under control. So think about it, work on it, be aware of what is happening. So you might sort of go Oh, I'm getting stressed because I'm forgetting what I'm going to say I'm I'm stumbling over my words. I'm saying I'm too much address the one thing the speed and you will be amazed how much it will knock on and have an impact tacked on all of those bits and pieces. So that was Episode Four. I hope that you found it useful. If there's any thoughts, comments, questions, drop me a line. Thank you for watching out on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And I look forward to seeing you I think next week show is going to be about presenting to camera present his particular webcam, because of course, we're all having to do that a lot now, and I think it will stay, we're able to go back to work and that will increase but I think there will be times when you know, a speaking to camera is sufficient for people. So that is the next one. It deliberately follows after this because last week's of make it a conversation rather than the presentation and this week's about, you know, speed slowing it down. Those two really apply for how you can get the most out of communicating on camera rather than suddenly going I'm on camera and I'm not going to look at it and all of those things. So we're going to address speaking on camera. Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure having you accompany for today. I look forward to seeing you next week. Cheers. Thank you for listening to Opened Dawes Live. I hope you enjoyed it and it was useful. Remember, go to Open Dawes training.co.uk forward slash Connect, to find out more about how you can interact with us and how we can help you