CHAMPION STRATEGIES – PUBLIC SPEAKING WORKSHOP – DECEMBER 16, 2020
The Most Important Public Speaking Skills for Politicians
Confidence
You should exude a sense of extreme confidence with everything that you say to people on a public forum.This confidence will translate directly to those you want to reach and give them a sense of security that your message is legitimate and worthy of the time they spend listening to you.
You may have a message that will truly help countless amounts of people, but if you do not show confidence and conviction in the words you are speaking, the sense of insecurity will be felt by your listeners. If you aren’t confident in your speech, those that hear it certainly won’t have confidence that they can trust your message.
A great way to achieve this much-needed confidence is to constantly practice your speeches alone and then to increase significant numbers of people who are willing to give you constructive criticism to improve your sense of confidence.
As long as you are truly excited about your message and believe in what you are saying, you can allow your excitement to overpower any sense of nervousness or hesitancy you may feel.
As long as you are yourself when you are speaking, this authenticity will be exuded to the public who will grow fond of you as a person and couldn’t care less if you fumble over a word or two.
Be Yourself
This may seem like a pretty simple and obvious trait to have, but it is truly a skill in every sense of the word. Politicians so often lose focus on being an actual person and become a walking billboard for their platforms.
At the end of the day, people want to be able to connect with those of which are looking to represent their best interests. It becomes very clear early on in one’s campaign if he or she is a genuine person and not just another talking head that is worried more about fitting into the box that makes a politician.
You should allow your personality and beliefs to shine through in everything that you say. If at any point, you are uncomfortable with what you plan on saying to people, then don’t say it.
Everything that you do as a politician should come naturally. If you have even a semblance of inhibition or uneasiness with any aspect of your central goals, you should throw them away. If you cannot fully endorse everything that you say, you cannot expect others to.
Throw away any preconceived notions of what you think a politician is and just focus instead on being a good person who wants to use your position to help as many people as possible.
Speak Naturally
There is little more frustrating in the world of politics than listening to a politician that sounds like everything that they say is completely rehearsed. This monotonous tone and inflection immediately come off as insincere to anyone that hears it. Part of this robotic cadence can be attributed to nervousness.
When speaking to the public, you should be focused on treating it like a conversation you are having with your friends and those of which you hold in high regard. If you are truly in politics for the right reasons, the people that you are trying to reach should be considered your friends or at least people who you genuinely care about.
Speak to them just as you would with friends or family. The people just want honesty and respect. They know when something sounds rehearsed and not heartfelt. To better prepare you for talking to large amounts of people in an honest and natural way, start out by giving talks to your friends and family.
Focus on your ideas and key points instead of memorized lines. Allow these central ideas to flow into your head naturally just as the talking points come naturally during a conversation.
We don’t get nervous when talking about sports or the weather and we should get nervous when speaking from the heart on matters that are important to incite change.
END OF PART ONE
MAKE IT A CHAMPION DAY!
