We all know speaking too fast during our high stakes moments is not good, for us or our listeners.  It makes us sound nervous, disorganized and hard to understand.

So what can we do in private to teach ourselves to slow down?

Here’s a presentation tip,  practice the following voice and speech training techniques every day:

Break your speech into breath-groups

A breath-group / is basically a phrase. /  For instance, / if I were to recite / the Gettysburg Address, / I would take a breath / at each of the following marks./

Four score and seven years ago / our fathers / brought forth / on this continent / a new nation, / conceived in liberty / and dedicated to the proposition / that all men / are created equal./

Start by whispering each phrase, and use up all your air on each phrase.  Take your time, (count at least to 3) when breathing in at the breath marks.

Don’t grab with the muscles of your throat when whispering.  Keep an open, relaxed throat so the air can stream out without any tension.

Honor every consonant

When whispering in short phrases, pronounce every syllable (every letter!) with care and love.  Lavish your attention on each little letter.   Hold the “n”s and the “m”s longer than you normally would.  If you whisper the word, “lavish,” you can stretch out the “L” the “V” and the “SH.”

Paying attention to each of the building blocks of speech will help you slow down, and will teach your tongue and lips to shape each and every element of the words you speak.

There are other voice and speech training techniques, but this is a good place to start.  Ten minutes a day is a good regimen and the beginning of your own public speaking course boot camp.   Mark a newspaper or magazine article into short phrases and whisper it, breathing at all the breath marks.

Let me know when you make progress, share the results of your next high stakes presentation, or call if you have any questions.

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

It begins with an agonizing silence–The Duke of York standing at a microphone in Wembley Stadium trying to bring the world’s greatest exposition to a dignified conclusion for the entire British Empire listening on the radio.  His stammering and stage fright make him unable to speak.

In the historical moment, when the new medium of radio is the new global technology for the dissemination of the English language, this is a crisis both personal and institutional. 

The institution of the monarchy is shaken by the death of George V, the Duke’s father, and the abdication of Edward VII, the Duke’s brother, leaving the stammering Duke (and future king) to be regent of  the Empire as Hitler sets war in motion. 

The country needs a king it can stand behind in its darkest hour.   The Duke and his wife search for a speech teacher, and after engaging a few quacks, find a keeper in Geoffrey Rush playing Lionel Logue, the Australian son of a brewer smitten by Shakespeare yet lacking in the peculiar talents required for the thespian art.

Nevertheless, Lionel is a fine teacher, and pulls the King out of his tailspin to stir the nation with his radio addresses to the Empire.

If you’ve ever had stage fright; if you’ve ever stuttered; if you like anything English; if you like eavesdropping on Royals; if you are fascinated by history; if you love Shakespeare and “sad tales of the death of kings”; and if you want to see two or three extraordinary performances in one movie, go see this film.

I particularly liked it because it casts a speech teacher in a heroic light.   There is in the film acknowledgement that through his speech, the King confers an identity on his people, that through his personal courage in overcoming his affliction, he communicates courage to the nation.

As the new King is left alone and ill-equipped to lead by the death of his father and the abdication of his brother, so is England left alone in Europe to confront the German war machine.  The king rises to his challenge, and in so doing, embodies the story of his people.

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.

On the first day of a workshop, an accomplished client delivered an effective presentation with verve and style.  On the second day, I asked him to reorganize his talk to make it more customer-centric, a challenge he embraced with enthusiasm.  However, when he delivered it, he was tentative and less effective.  Why?

The simple answer is that the new is hard.  Learning to play a musical instrument is hard, as is hitting a golf ball, or hitting a golf ball with a new grip, or getting used to being alone when you’ve been accustomed to being with people, or being with people when you’ve been flying solo for a while.

This is odd when you consider all the recent neuroscience demonstrating the plasticity of the brain.  The research suggests that our gray matter can rearrange itself quite readily.  Patients with damaged areas of the brain can, in some cases, recover lost abilities because another part of the brain steps in to lend a hand.

I assume the brain responds to demands placed on it.  Maybe not right away.  You have to keep knocking on the brain’s door before it will wake up and pay attention.  But when it does, it gets busy figuring out how to meet your request, and puts together the infrastructure that will allow you to do what you’re trying to do.

The same is true of muscles.  You put consistent demands on them, and they get stronger, more efficient.  It’s not easy, but if you push yourself through your own resistance, they respond to the challenge. 

I had to leave my client while he was still in a state of uncertainty, frustration, and diminished capacity.   He was calling on other parts of his brain, and it wasn’t leaping out of bed and rushing to his rescue.  He was in pain. 

Here’s the $64,000 question:  will he continue to try the new approach to his presentation, which I am certain will raise the level of his game?   Or will he give up, and drop back to his default operating system?

The new is hard.  If he’s like most of us, he will take the path of least resistance and stick with the tried and true.  If he’s got an engine in him, he will drive himself into his pain and frustration, and come out on the other side with a sense of self-mastery and a new skill.   He will have made the new familiar, and with the awareness that he is able to persist, he will continue to grow.

At least that’s my hope.  I’m going to send him this post to light a fire in him.

Sims Wyeth is an executive speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.