Meditation’s effects on public-speaking

It’s important for our attention to stay in the present during a speech, because if not, our mind will likely take us and our audience to places that are irrelevant to the speech. We often access memories of the past and visualise the future the future during a speech, but doing this is most effective when we’re able to confidently bring our audience back to the present moment whenever we‘d like. It shows that we’re in control of what we’re doing which gives us credibility and shows that the mind is sharp.

A regular meditation routine of 20 minutes per day is enough to cultivate the ability to stay in the present moment and communicate confidently.

Our degree of inner confidence plays a big role in whether our message gets across or falls on deaf ears- our instincts tell us to ignore what unconfident leaders say…

Here's some insights from today's session:

Gestures

My first speech was about three things I like about elephants- I said "one thing I like about"... while holding my index finger up, but didn't give a hand gesture for the second or third thing...

One audience member said this seemed a little odd, and broke the continuity of the speech, and I agree with this- it's inspired me to think about ways I can bring more subtle patterns into my speeches to give it some extra structure. Me and @Vijay Patel discussed changing our pose subtly for each point.

Imagine you were talking to a friend

This makes both the speaker and the audience feel at ease, and could even work in formal settings.

Such a good session yesterday!!!

Here are some helpful tricks we can use for structuring a speech! I'll be adding to this over time, so check back often if you find them helpful.

The 123 technique

The 123 technique is as simple as telling everybody what your speech is going to be able, in three steps.

Examples:

• "Today I'm going to tell you three things I love about India"

• "Today I'll be sharing three benefits I've experienced from meditation"