Public Speaking to Win
by Dale Carnegie
– Nearly everything powerful in life comes down to how you say it, your persuasion.
– Have an air-tight knowledge of the subject you’re speaking about.
– Use plain language, illustrations and stories.
– Appeal to your listeners by talking
– Preparation requires thinking, studying, and getting to know your subject well.
– What topics should you speak on? Anything that interests you.
– When preparing a speech, collect 100 thoughts about the topic and discard 90 of them. Be over prepared.
– Notes will distract or destroy any intimacy between the speaker and listener’s. Be very cautious of using notes. Notes should be the emergency tool, something you have to make you feel safe but you do not necessarily use them. If you do have to use notes, make it very discreet, glancing only every once in a while where nobody can detect it.
– Get comfortable with your talk. Walk around practicing it. Rehearse it in your head and be ready.
– Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is one of the most important ingredients in selling something or getting something done.
– Every time we speak, we determine the spirit of our listeners. If we are lackadaisical, they will be as well. If we are not concerned, they will not be concerned either. If we are reserved, they will be as well. But if we are excited and convinced about what we are speaking about, our spirit will be contagious.
– Do not lean against the table, do not rock back-and-forth, stand up straight and tall. Control yourself physically to show that you are at ease and in control, if not they will know that you are nervous and unprepared.
– Look at your audience as with a sense of what you are saying is urgent and important.
– Use gestures, they will reveal importance, enthusiasm and excitement.
– The finest thing that you can do in your speech is not physical or mental, it is spiritual, loving people. If you can love others and think of others while you’re speaking, it will make the greatest difference.
– Use certain words while you’re speaking, keywords. Vary your tone of speech going up and down. Slow down at times and speed up at other times, but do not stay monotone. Pause before and after important parts of your speech.
– Before your speech, get rested up. It is not good to go before others when you’re tired.
– Eat sparingly before you speak. Do not eat too much, just enough to nurture you.
– Stand near your listeners, get them all together, breakdown the formalities and be close to them in order to speak intimately to them.
– The gestures of the speaker should be depend on the character of the speaker. Do not act like someone you’re not.
– It is seldom that a story is funny, it is often how the story is told that makes it funny.
– Never start a speech by apologizing. Why insult a group of people by telling them that you are not ready or did not prepare enough, etc.
– Arouse your audience with the first sentence of your speech. Catch their attention right away.
– Study how magazine and newspaper articles hook readers with their titles. You can learn more from them then you can from listening to multiple speeches.
– Be very clear, talking in terms that the people understand.
– Talk to the people about subjects that interest them. Remember that everyone’s favorite subject is themselves.
– Always remember that your audience will be only interested in the subject to the degree that you are interested in the subject.
– Be distinctive. Do not just use coined phrases that everyone knows, say it in a fresh way.