The importance of being inauthentic | Mark Bowden

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A lot of people, myself included, often talk about the importance of authenticity when it comes to communication.

But in this video Mark Bowden blows this notion out of the water with his incredible talk on body language and how to use it to manipulate how other people feel about you.

Mark is a body language and human behaviour expert and a very very good speaker.

In this fascinating and very funny talk, Mark explains how our brain works when we begin to communicate with people.

He starts by talking about how we use our brain to make snap judgements within nanoseconds based on people’s behaviours.

In our primitive brain, has four categories that it uses for everyone we interact with:

  1. Friend
  2. Enemy/predator
  3. Potential mate
  4. Indifferent

Mark goes on to explain that unless you already know someone , the default category that people we interact with is ‘indifferent’.

From a speaking and presenting point of view, if the audience decide in their brains that the speaker/presenter is ‘indifferent’ to them, then it won’t matter how powerful the message or idea is, they most likely wont pay attention.

“Behavioural psychology says that you’re just not going to pay attention to me unless I can get into the category – ‘friend’ with you.”

And this is when Mark begins to explain and describe the tiny little signals that he has been doing during his talk to get the audience to put him into their ‘friend’ category within their brains.

And his tips and techniques that he describes are not difficult for us all to learn from:

  • Smile

Mark explains that just creating a smile with your mouth isn’t good enough “the smile must build over 3 seconds and it must sustain for 3 seconds otherwise it’s insufficient data and your primitive brain gores ‘ah predator’”.

  • Eyebrow Flash

Mark then goes on to highlighting the importance of just raising your eyebrows when you first meet someone; “This is the universal signal for ‘I recognise you, i know you, you’re my friend…”

  • No tools, no weapons

As in the David JP Phillips video, Mark discusses the importance of open and closed body language.

He explains that when we feel threatened or unsafe, we close our body to protect ourselves. Whereas when we open up our arms, hands and our bodies, we are highlighting that we are unarmed and not dangerous.

Mark finishes his talk by explaining and demonstrating what his true ‘authentic self’ would look like if he was presenting on stage.

The contrast involves him raising his voice, pacing angrily and scowling as he is angry/defensive at the thought of being judged by the audience and uncomfortable.

And this is where the message hits home, Mark is asking the audience not to be indifferent to the people they meet.

He wants them to use the smile, eyebrow flash and open body language so that they can enter into the ‘friend’ category.

We can all learn from this talk and use these simple signals to ensure that the message and ideas that we are presenting or speaking about are not lost on the audience.

If you want to see more TED Talks on public speaking then take a look at my Top 5 TED Talks to improve public speaking.

The secret structure to great talks | Nancy Duarte

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In this fascinating talk Nancy Durate breaks down some of the most iconic speeches in history to show a pattern, shape and structure that we can apply to our own speeches and presentations.

Nancy is hugely passionate about presentations and the value that they can have.

The world has been and still can be changed through powerful and meaningful presentations.

And just like Chris Anderson’s talk, all presentations and talks h ave to start with an idea.

“The idea has got to be spread, or it won’t be effective. So it has to come out of you and out into the open for people to see. And the way that ideas are conveyed the most effectively is through story.”

A story with the correct structure can be easily consumed and remembered by the listener.

The big question that Nancy asked was; how do you incorporate stories into presentations?

She then goes on to break down structures of stores:

  • A beginning, middle and end
  • A likeable hero
  • A desire
  • A roadblock
  • Overcoming to emerge transformed

What I like is that Nancy highlights that in a presentation or speech, the speaker is not the hero in the story.

If we truly want the audience to engage and have the emotional response we want them to have, the audience have to be the hero, the speaker has to be the mentor.

To present our ideas with the biggest impact, we need the audience to believe that they are the heroes in our story, we create a desire from them through our idea.

Then we bring in the roadblock through creating curiosity, making the audience want to know how they can overcome the roadblock.

And that’s when our idea gives them the transformation in how they think, behave or act.

But to have this impact, Nancy has created a shape which we can all fit our presentations and speeches into so that we can have the desired impact when we tell our stories and share our ideas.

The shape identifies that there are 2 main features

  1. What is
  2. What could be

To break this down further, Nancy explains; “At the beginning of any presentation, you need to establish what is… And then you need to compare that to what could be.”

She goes on to explain that there needs to be a back and forth between the ‘what is’ and the ‘what could be’ to highlight the idea even greater.

Using another tip from Chris Anderson, Nancy goes on to use a sailing metaphor to highlight how her structure works when encountering resistance to your idea.

By working with the resistance in the ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’, just like a sailing boat using the wind to generate more power, the structure helps the presenter pull people towards their idea.

And finally, after the back and forth of using stories, analogies, metaphors to highlight to the audience the ‘what is’ and then the ‘what could be’, the speech or presentation ends with the call to action which should leave the audience transformed.

Nancy goes on to show how she uses this shape as an analysis tool for famous speeches like Steve Jobs and the iPhone launch and the iconic Dr Martin Luther King ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.

I’ve used this talk so many times to work on my own public speaking skills which is why I’ve put it on my Top 5 TED Talks to improve public speaking.

 

The 110 techniques of communication and public speaking | David JP Phillips

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David JP Phillips is a public speaker, coach and renowned TEDx speaker.

In this talk, he explains that he dedicated time to analysing 5,000 public speakers from all over the world to understand “what makes a good speaker good, what makes a great speaker great, and what makes an outstanding speaker outstanding.”

From his studies, he created a list of 110 core skills that we can all learn to improve in public speaking.

“The more of them you fulfil, the greater you are”

One of the key takeaways in this talk is that these are skills, not talents.

There is often an argument that being able to stand in front of a group of people to speak or present is a talent.

But in this video, David is quick to highlight that skills can’t be learnt, practiced and developed.

And if you follow his 110 core skills, anyone can become a confident and established speaker.

Here are some of the tips he shares in the talk:

  • Stepping forward increases focus
  • Tilting your head to the side increases empathy
  • Changing the pace of what you’re saying increases focus on your words,
  • Lowering your body increases trust,
  • Lowering your voice creates anticipation and
  • Using pauses gets audiences attention.

He shares 5 of his most important skills that he focuses on when he is coaching:

  1. Using open body language
  2. Stepping forward into focus
  3. Use functional gesturing
  4. Slow your speaking pace down
  5. Use pauses to add impact

I’ve followed a lot of these skills and techniques and worked hard on honing in on the ones I need to work on more.

Being aware of how you’re speaking, what you’re saying and what you do when you are speaking are essential to becoming a better speaker and/or presenter.

This video gives so many tiny lessons we can all learn from and improve our communication skills.

This is one of my Top 5 TED Talks to Improve Public Speaking.

How to speak so that people people want to listen | Julian Treasure

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This is one of my all time favourite TED Talks.

Julian is a sound and communication expert, author and international key note speaker.

“What would the world be like if we were speaking powerfully to people who were listening consciously in environments which were actually fit for purpose?”

His talk has amassed nearly 40 million views on YouTube and explains to the viewer his ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ of speaking, his four cornerstones to make our speech more powerful, the toolbox we can use to say our speech better, and his speaking warm up exercises.

Julian Treasure’s Seven Deadly Sins of Speaking

  1. Gossip – “Speaking ill of somebody who’s not present”
  2. Judging – “It’s very hard to listen to somebody if you know that you’re being judged”
  3. Negativity – “It’s hard to listen to somebody when they’re that negative”
  4. Complaining – “complaining is viral misery, It’s not spreading sunshine and lightness on the world”
  5. Excuses – “They pass it [blame] on to everybody else and don’t take responsibility for their actions”
  6. Embroidery, exaggeration – “exaggeration becomes lying, and we don’t want to listen to people who are lying to us”
  7. Dogmatism – “Confusion of facts with opinion.”

Julian Treasure’s Four Cornerstones – HAIL

Julian talks about his four “really powerful cornerstones, foundations that we can stand on if we want our speech to be powerful and to make change in the world.”

Honesty – Be clear and straight

Authenticity – Be yourself

Integrity – Be your word

Love – Wish them well

Julian Treasure’s Toolbox

According to Julian, we all have a toolbox which contain really powerful tools we can use that will make our speeches much more powerful.

Putting all of these tools together can ensure that when we have something to say, we know that it will have the power and affect that we wanted it to have.

Register

  • “We vote for politicians with lower voices because we associate depth with power and with authority”

Timbre

  • “We prefer voices which are rich, smooth, warm, like hot chocolate”

Prosody

  • “It’s the root one for meaning in conversation.”

Pace

  • “I can get very excited by saying something really quickly, or I can slow right down to emphasise, and at the end of that, of course, is our old friend silence.”

Pitch

  • “pitch often goes along with pace to indicate arousal, but you can do it just with pitch.”

Volume

  • “Some people broadcast the whole time. Try not to do that. That’s called ‘’sodcasting’.”

There are some really valuable public speaking skills that I have taken from this video as well as the the other TED Talks I use to enhance my public speaking and presentation skills.

TED’s secret to great public speaking | Chris Anderson

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Chris Anderson is the head and curator of TED.

So if there’s one person who knows the secret to a great speech it’s him.

In this video, he explains in that there is no such thing as a ‘TED Talk formula’.

But from all of the talks that Chris has listened to and watched, he does point out that there is one thing that they all have in common: A speaker transferring an idea across to an audience.

“Your number one task as a speaker is to transfer into your listeners’ minds an extraordinary gift, a strange and beautiful object that we call an idea.”

He describes an idea as being:

“A pattern of information that helps you understand and navigate the world.”

Ideas can help change how people think about the world and can impact on the actions that the audience take.

Chris then goes on to give his four guidelines on how to build an idea inside the mind of your audience:

1. “Limit your talk to one major idea”
  • Don’t overload the audience with loads of different ideas, focus on the single idea that you are most passionate about.
  • Share examples and paint the picture for the audience to give them context to your idea.  

2. “Give your listeners a reason to care”

  • It’s all about creating curiosity.
  • Identify why something doesn’t make sense by asking the audience questions to get them thinking.
  • Creating a knowledge gap, the audience will need that gap to be bridged through your idea.

3. “Build your idea”

  • Use concepts that the audience already understands.
  • Language is a huge tool when helping people understand your idea, but don’t use complicated and technical language, what language will your audience understand?
  • Using metaphors and analogies help people understand complex ideas and can be a great tool to get your idea across.

4. “Make your idea worth sharing”

  • When crafting your speech, ask yourself who the idea benefits.
  • TED don’t want this to benefit the speaker or a related business or organisation, they want it to benefit the audience.
  • Will your idea brighten up someone’s day, change their perspective on a subject for the better, and/or inspire someone to do something differently?

In this short video, Chris Anderson is able to convey the importance of creating an idea and how to share it with an audience in the most effective way.

I use his 4 guidelines regularly when I am working on creating a new speech.

My Top 5 TED Talks to Improve Public Speaking

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