Public Speaking, Presentation & Leadership Skills

Toastmaster Project 9: persuade with power   The ability to persuade people - getting them to understand, accept and act upon your ideas - is a valuable skill. Your listeners will more likely be persuaded if they perceive you as credible, if you use logic and emotion in your appeal, if you carefully structure your speech and if you appeal to their interests. Avoid using notes because they may cause listeners to doubt your sincerity, knowledge and conviction. Objectives: Persuade listeners to adopt your viewpoint or ideas or to take some action. Appeal to the audience's interests. Use logic and emotion to support your position. Avoid using notes. Time: Five to Seven minutes. Why is it important At some point everyone tries to persuade someone else for something. It may be selling a product or lobbying for a promotion or even just trying to win a debate competition.   As we face challenges from the person/persons we are t...

Toastmaster Project speech 8 I delivered my Project 8 Speech on using visual aids effectively at city of Perth Toastmaster Club and won the Best Prepared Speaker Award for the session. The tips and ideas for creating your Project speech 8 are discussed in the previous blog . This speech was about how wisdom is available in day to day life and activities, it was about how even a small thing like pen, pencil can teach us important lessons of life.  The visuals used were Paper of the size of $50 $50 note Pencil and eraser Toastmaster Lantern Before you start the speech make sure that the above visuals are readily available and also not visible to the audience.  I kept the visuals on the lantern and the lantern was on my side. The lantern (none of the audience thought that the lantern is a prop) easily blended into the scene with almost nobody suspecting that this can be a prop.  In the speech the use of props are marked in red. Wisdom Wat...

Toastmaster Project 8: Get Comfortable with Visual Aids Visual aids help an audience understand and remember what they hear; they are a valuable tool for speakers. The most popular visual aids are computer-based visuals, overhead transparencies, flip charts, whiteboards and props. The type of visual aid you choose depends on several factors, including the information you wish to display and the size of the audience. Visuals must be appropriate for your message and the audience, and be displayed correctly with ease and confidence. Objectives: Select visual aids that are appropriate for your message and the audience. Use visual aids correctly with ease and confidence. Time: Five to Seven minutes. Why is it important Human two most important senses are hearing and view. We have a natural tendency to start visualising the ideas the moment we hear them in order to remember. Any visual aid helps us in that stimulating the sense of hearing. This is the main reas...

Title of my Project 7 Speech is  “The Epidemic” As discussed in the previous blog this speech is about my own feeling of being left out which was a product of my shyness ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`SPEECH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dear Mr.Toastmaster, Fellow Members and Guests – Very Good Evening. Can anyone guess which disease has the most probability of being the greatest epidemic of this century? Malaria?... Swine Flu…?Aids…?Cancer…? No According to recent research in US by the National Office of Statistics, one in five people will go a whole week without speaking to anyone, with a staggering one in ten people spending up to a month without any human connection. The World Health Organisation has rated  “LONELINESS”  as a higher risk to health than smoking and as great a risk as obesity. When I was living in Kolkata, I had a person residing on my apartment block. I met him almost every day, but never spoken to him more than a “Hi” or a d...

Toastmaster Project 7 – Research Your Topic urges us to have the knowledge on the topic before we speak. The Objectives for the Project 7 speech Collect information about your topic with numerous sources. Carefully support your points and opinions with specific facts, examples, and illustrations gathered through research. Time: Five to seven minutes Why is This Speech Important? If you want to convince an audience, you need the facts to support your message. Facts and statistics if used correctly are the best arsenal to influence the audience. Your speech will be more effective if you can support your main points with statistics, testimony, stories, anecdotes, examples, visual aids and facts. How to Begin Start your research by compiling what you already know or have on your speech subject. You may have had personal experience with the subject matter, perhaps even have files, magazines and other litera­ture about it. Organize what you alrea...

As discussed in my previous blog my Toastmaster Project 6 - "Vocal Variety" was named “The Wind”. The speech was about finding a relation between nature and life. The speech was written in a way to have a drama, inorder to incorporate both movement and vocal variety . In red are the emphasis I had attempted of incorporating. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“THE Wind”~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Fellow Toastmasters and guests… A few years ago while I was in India, my wife and I traded our condo keys for house keys. Our floor space doubled, but there were two much larger changes. First, our mortgage jumped from something quite manageable to something which scares me considerably. Second, the few hours that I once affectionately called “free time” (emphasize it with a sarcastic voice and imaginary quotation sign) became known as “yard work.”  Yard work is a bit like working at MDA for me. I don’t have any clue what I should be doing half the time, but somehow I always end up be...

Ever heard of the saying “It’s not what you say it’s how you say it?” Does your voice put your audience to sleep? Does it put you to sleep? Do you find it hard to convey emotions with your voice? Are you easy to listen to, or does your voice let you down? Toastmasters Project 6 – Vocal Variety guides you to harness your own voice. The previous projects were about communicating coherent ideas, simply, and to the point. This project takes it a notch higher making you aware of how to use your voice to communicate. The most interesting thing is that we innately know how to use our voices to convey excitement, joy, surprise love or sadness as these are all key ingredient of our daily and we unconsciously use it almost all the time. In speech or public speaking we are conscious that our voice has to communicate the emotion we have to say, and that’s where something strange happens and we forget the very basics. Remember that our voice is the best tool available i...

Project 5 – The Body Speaks - Speech As discussed in my previous blog my Toastmaster Project 5 was named “The Choice”. The speech was a scarstic take on the choices we make in the urban fast paced society and how it impacts us at the end.  As described in Toastmaster Project 2 – Organise your speech – used the beginning to introduce the problem - put in couple of examples in the middle to highlight the issue – and talked of the action required in the conclusion. In red are the body movement I had attempted of incorporating. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“THE CHOICE”~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Few days ago, I was reading a humorous speech loud. It started with: If you want to be a monkey, eat bananas and insects If you want to be a giraffe, eat shrubs, leaves and barks If you want to be a buffalo, eat the movie posters If you want to be a lion eat the monkey, giraffe, and buffalo My Three and half year old Son, who was doing his trademark gymnastics, asked “If you wan...