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Chapter 5 - Cut your pace if you are unsure what your next clause will be. Lots of people put whatever they think into words exactly as in their thoughts. In other words, they talk very fast. Yet, you should think before talking since every faulty word that leaks from your tongue cannot be retrieved. Is there a reason people talk fast and for a long time? We are likely to talk for a long time and at a higher speed if we are apologetic or concerned. Several people regard themselves more persuading when they act like this, although they appear as vague and neurotic. This attitude is because of the excessive pace of the thoughts of anxious and stressed people, and thus over speeding of them. If you talk at an excessive pace or for a very long time, words that can hurt your prestige can be spilled from your mouth. Remember the previous BP head Tony Hayward’s ending remarks at the time of the disastrous result of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? He said, “There is no one who wants this thing more than I do. You know, I would like my life back.”. Why did he say such a thing carelessly? Maybe he was stressed, or apologetic. In one way or another, allowing this one, egocentric expression escape at a press conference caused his expulsion from BP. On the contrary, talking briefly and slowly allows you to show confidence and refrain from the hazard of spilling something inconsiderate. In this way, you will not be in a condition that you need to take your phrases back - as people sometimes do when they talk without completely thinking about what they are talking about - or reconstruct your mind over and over again. Rather, by allowing your mind sufficient time to arrange your opinions, you will discover a powerful design for your opinions. In this way, your thoughts will be more concentrated and your statements more convincing, which will foster more confidence. Chapter 6 - You look more confident with a decent body position and the right clothes. Imagine you attended a conference and the presenter wears a creased shirt, discolored aged jeans, and his hair is shaggy. When he started to talk, the waving of his hand distracts your attention. Now you are more concentrated on this presenter’s look and body movements since they conceal what he is talking about. This is why you should straighten up your body while you are speaking and make gestures only when it is necessary, i.e. when highlighting an important part. Your confidence and behavior are influenced by your posture and this is why it is very significant. Standing decreases your stress levels by 25 percent, thus, while presenting, standing up instead of sitting is important. Your back is more straight when standing and this causes your self-reliance to boost, which in consequence, meaning your speech will possibly have a bigger influence on your listeners. Furthermore, although gestures can help you highlight important points, you should restrict your usage of them: do not always wave your hands while talking, or describe things with your hands too much. Rather, you must use gestures rarely, and when used, only make small ones. You would not like your listeners’ attention to be directed to your sagging posture or disturbing hand waves from your words. Likewise, you need to refrain from selecting clothes that will take the attention of listeners, and make certain that your look is unostentatious. Your look is significant: an unclean shirt or unbrushed teeth will be observed by listeners. If they are disturbed by your appearance, you cannot transmit your message well. For this reason, make certain that your outfit will not make listeners think: “What is going on?”. For instance, you may remember the female author and chef that was wearing lots of low-cut outfits on TV. Her outfit selection had an unfavorable impact: women were intimidated by her. Of course, they would not like to have a person that their husbands would like to take to their bedroom in their living room! To soothe the concern of the women audience and make them buy her books, she changed her clothes to more conservative ones. Chapter 7 - Gain reliance by showing solid interest in your audience. All of us met with people who speak too much and do not listen to others. Maybe not intentionally, but these people make us feel unimportant. This is why, to be a great communicator, not only during presentations but also in daily life, it is very significant that you refrain from this attitude. Rather, you need to demonstrate care, and this will take you to better discussions. If the person you are talking with can observe that you pay mental attention to what he/she says, they will feel better speaking with you. To seem and behave in this way, you need to allow the speaker to talk without your interference, and always show a brief reflection before you talk. In this way, the speaker will likely appreciate you more, since he/she will think that you are truly interested, and in consequence, he/she will feel that he/she is important and listened to. While talking with business customers, this is specifically relevant, as they would like to be listened to and will like your unbreakable attention. Lastly, by showing a vital interest in them, you can obtain significant information about the customers. For instance, think that a shopper comes to your sports gear store, and you learned that she got a canoe for her birthday. Here is the opportunity: by posing her more questions - how much she likes canoeing, what types of sports she likes, etc. - you may be able to direct to what she wants and you may make her buy something from your store. However, it is not sufficient to demonstrate attention; the best orators are bountiful and humble as well. Being bountiful - in other words, seeking for others’ contribution, being interested in their tales, and regarding their ideas - will allow you to discover the desires of others to involve in conversations with you and look for your contribution in answer. And being a humble orator - in other words, looking for learning about others before explaining yourself - will be very beneficial for you. For example, an entrepreneur that would like to talk about his business idea may come to you and talk about himself quickly and immediately begin with his idea. However, this is not the best practice. The entrepreneur should have begun the talk by asking about you and wait till you inquire him about his ideas. A benefit of this practice is that he would have a brighter view of how to make his idea relevant to what you care about. Chapter 8 - Make certain that the focal point of the talk is around your strengths. In some aspects, an argument is like driving a car: either you take a seat in the back and let someone else drive your way, or you can take over the driver’s seat. If you allow others to drive the argument, that may be hazardous. If someone else decides the scope of the argument, you cannot highlight your strengths. Think a moment that you are near to make a deal with a customer and your colleague starts to destroy everything by speaking about your broken-down marriage. What to do to save the conversation and take it back on track? If you realize that your customer is turning red, or getting mad, you must switch the subject to a proper one. If you fail to do that, you may undermine the deal. Taking such a condition to an advantage? Easy: you should just politely switch the track of the conversation. Delicacy is very important at this point since research demonstrated that the sensed reliability of speakers diminishes if they swiftly switch the subject. This is why it is essential that you at least point a bit on the general subject you want to (re)raise. If somebody inquires about a topic you would not like to talk about, you may reflect a little information involved in the inquiry or statement in your answer. This would allow you to change the subject painlessly. For instance, think of a situation where you and your wife gathered with another couple you know from your university times, and the man, from his phone, displays a Facebook picture of a former classmate in a bikini. “Did you see that? Cindy has an unbelievable physique now,” he said. You realized that the subject of the talk has put his wife and yours to shame and you would like to gently change it. What do you do? You can answer: “Indeed, I feel like our age group need to begin looking after themselves immediately after graduation. My mom and dad never even began walking till the age of 30.” With this statement, you gently deviate from the topic to talk about distinctions between age groups in doing sports and well-being. Chapter 9 - Seek to refrain from being spontaneous, and be certain that you get ready. Just being an excellent orator is not sufficient to be great at the stage. Everyone, including the best, should get ready to refrain from shame. If you have a free day or you are not careful enough, you can rapidly fail in the spotlight at that time. Just with a minor, incautious point to damage your prestige and turn the attention of your audience away from the deliberate message. At the time the harm is made, there may not always be a return. For instance, the professional wrestling director Abraham Washington erstwhile talked about wrestler Titus O’Neil’s show live on air, telling that O’Neil “was like Kobe Bryant at a hotel in Colorado … He cannot be stopped.”. Washington is dismissed from his job. The reason? Around those times, Kobe Bryant was arrested in a hotel in Colorado on rape charges.