The Speaking Coach

THE SPEAKING COACH

By Dr John B. Molidor

I WAS ORIGINALLY DRAWN TO THE CRAFT BECAUSE I COULD LEARN BOTH FROM A SPEAKER’S TECHNIQUE AND FROM THEIR CONTENT. OVER TIME, I LEARNT MORE ABOUT THE BUSINESS SIDE OF SPEAKING THAT COULD GENERATE SERIOUS INCOME.

From there, the journey took me to learn about passive income and different income streams.

I think that a professional speaker is someone who brings Expertise in an Eloquent fashion as part of their Enterprise in an Ethical manner.

The four pinnacles of speaking are eloquence, expertise, enterprise and ethics. There is no single pathway to professional speaking. If you already have your expertise, then you want to learn about eloquence, then the enterprise side.

If you already have a level of eloquence, then you work on your expertise and enterprise. You must treat it as a business and make the commitment to it as a profession.

My original driver was to learn the medium of speaking. How do you convey the message in the most impactful way? You want to convey knowledge, wisdom, expertise and emotion in an effective way. The business and message parts changed over time, but there was a strong sense that if you know how to connect with your audience, the people in the room, you have a greater possibility of conveying the message. Over 27 years, the message has changed but the method of connecting has been consistent.

I knew that this was always going to be where people were going to connect. Even with the new technology coming, I always thought there was a role for a live event when people come together. The face to face, live event still has incredible power.

I grew up as 1 of ten children, so every dinner time was a live event. Different family members could tell a story or demand attention in different ways. I really started out just wanting to learn the art and craft of speaking. Once I knew more about that, then I could work on my message and the business.

When you are building yourself as a speaker you must have something to say. So, over time reading, studying, learning from people and my own life experiences, I hope to have built up a body of knowledge, expertise and wisdom. This is one of the paradoxes of speaking, it helps to have expertise but sometimes this takes a while.

My advice for people who want to be speakers is to stay at it. You want experience, expertise and comfort level to be able to convey your information with power. I would recommend you learn about speaking by getting trusted feedback, listening to other speakers and practicing your craft. Reading, practicing, trying different things and learning just as my medical students learn.

Expertise without eloquence is a professor. Eloquence without expertise is just the gift of the gab. You really need both to be long-term speaker.

A couple of colleagues of mine talk about eloquence and expertise as journeys rather than destinations. You keep working on both areas and cycle back as you grow. Audiences change, cultures change, technology changes and you cannot always use the same references as times change.

Since I started speaking, the craft has changed. The days of just standing up and pouring out information doesn’t work anymore. Presenting information with time to reflect, interact and learn helps the smarter, more cynical audiences. Doing an exercise for the sake of the exercise doesn’t make sense. If, however, it is tied to what you are talking about or your point, then it has power.

I am seeing much more interaction, especially with the younger audiences. They now discuss, or even decide in a small group as part of a session.

Of course, technology has made its impact on the profession. Film, music, PowerPoint can all be used well or poorly. I can now use an avatar to make a point that I might not be able to say myself. There are things that I say through an avatar to a young audience that they might not accept direct from me. Of course, I wrote the script, but hearing it from a relatable avatar can help drive home a message. I am using this more and more with young audiences. I have even had a discussion with the avatar where my live section is all scripted out.

I think the audiences we have are changing too. The world has become very visual and the neuroscience would say that to make a brain-friendly presentation, then both words and vision are required.

To make the transition between coaching and speaking, I would look at the principals of coaching that would convert to a speech. So, if you are a coach and want to get into speaking, ask yourself how you would translate the principals of coaching to drive home a point to your audience.

Research has shown…

I make a distinction between experimental and experiential learnings. If you know through experiments and research that a principal works. If it is based on experience, then I use the phrase ‘in my experience...’ but if it is based on evidence, then you can say ‘Research has shown…’. I find this is a very important distinction for speakers starting out. If I hear “these are the three things you must do...”, I find myself saying, “Who says?”.

Remember that you can be fact-checked in a moment. I can pull out my phone and find that you are perpetuating a myth or extending a truth, you lose credibility instantly.

The intermediate phrase would be “In surveying coaches...” then you have more power and credibility. There is power in declaring research over experience.

The Future of Speaking

I see the future of speaking is moving from a club mentality to a profession. We will gather our facts and evidence on principals that always work. There is information coming out of the neurosciences already that is useful. Looking even further into the future, I think we will be able to map out individual learning genomes. We will know how your brain lights up when it processes information and will match the delivery of information to your individual learning style. The technology may allow the use of holographs with variable speech cadence and language style to match your individual learning style. We are not there yet, but I think this is coming.

When you stand in front of a group of people, trying to connect with an audience, you are exposed and vulnerable. I still find that after speaking to an audience, that I feel privileged to be able to make a connection with an audience.

Speaking of Benefits

There are benefits of learning the craft of speaking, even if you don’t plan to be a professional speaker.

We know from the neurosciences, that if you want to be better at one skill, go learn another skill. When you learn a new skill, your brain doesn’t know what is important and what is not, so it lays down a huge neural network and as you get better, it pairs this down. As it streamlines this network, it overlaps with other skills, so you might be a better coach, use metaphors in a different way or relate to clients in new way. If you can take some of the art and craft as speaking, you will be a better coach.

What you say to your audience must always be correct.

Just remember the underlying principle: what you say to your audience must always be correct.