Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to remember the eight X rule. You can
Speaker 1: become known as an excellent speaker simply by spending more
Speaker 1: time preparing than most people do. Today's tip is from
Speaker 1: my recent Before Breakfast interview with Bill McGowan. Bill is
Speaker 1: an award winning journalist who now coaches people on giving
Speaker 1: memorable presentations. In our discussion, he mentioned that as a
Speaker 1: general rule of thumb, you should spend eight times as
Speaker 1: much time preparing for a presentation as you will be talking.
Speaker 1: So if you are giving a five minute welcome to
Speaker 1: a group, spend forty minutes practicing. If you are giving
Speaker 1: an hour long quey keynote, spend eight hours practicing. Now
Speaker 1: it is possible that for a really big presentation, let's
Speaker 1: say you are giving a TED talk on the main
Speaker 1: Ted stage, my guess is that you'd spend more time
Speaker 1: than that preparing. But for your average talk, people don't
Speaker 1: spend anywhere near that amount of time preparing. If someone
Speaker 1: is asked to give a toast at a colleague's farewell luncheon,
Speaker 1: my guess is they spend nowhere near eight times the
Speaker 1: amount of airtime practicing that toast. That fifteen minute presentation
Speaker 1: to your team about the new review process also nowhere
Speaker 1: near two hours spent practicing for that, And you know what,
Speaker 1: it probably shows. We sometimes have this idea that some
Speaker 1: people are excellent speakers, or even natural public speakers, and
Speaker 1: some are not. And maybe some people are more inclined
Speaker 1: that way than others. But the biggest difference between people
Speaker 1: who seem to be good at speaking those who aren't
Speaker 1: is how much time the good speakers spreend preparing and practicing.
Speaker 1: If you rehearse your presentation multiple times, you are going
Speaker 1: to do better at it than if you don't. So
Speaker 1: once you have figured out what you intend to say,
Speaker 1: build in eight times the amount of time to practice
Speaker 1: as the length of the talk. This might seem hard,
Speaker 1: but it also might not be. I practice my speeches
Speaker 1: in the car. If I've got a thirty minute talk
Speaker 1: and I am driving an hour to the airport to
Speaker 1: fly somewhere to give it, that could be two rounds
Speaker 1: of practice right there. In the past, people suggested practicing
Speaker 1: in front of a mirror or a friendly colleague, but
Speaker 1: as Bill noted, your phone is one of the best
Speaker 1: options for practicing. Film yourself giving your talk, then watch
Speaker 1: yourself giving the talk. You will learn lot. Though, if
Speaker 1: you have a friendly colleague who might be willing to
Speaker 1: watch the video and give you feedback, that can be
Speaker 1: helpful too. People list public speaking as one of their
Speaker 1: main phobias, but I think this is as much about
Speaker 1: exposure as anything else. Pilots are not frightened of turbulence.
Speaker 1: Professional deep sea divers are not scared of sharks. They
Speaker 1: are fascinated by them. Likewise, if you have practiced a
Speaker 1: talk eight times, including maybe once or twice in front
Speaker 1: of a smaller group, if that is possible, you are
Speaker 1: just not going to be as nervous as if you
Speaker 1: don't do that. And since anxiety and nerves can kill
Speaker 1: a lot of time when you might have been relaxing,
Speaker 1: making time for practice might just be a move that
Speaker 1: seems like it takes time but actually saves time over
Speaker 1: the long run. In the meantime, this is Laura, Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to before breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
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