How to Talk
How to talk By Graham Miller
Sounds daft doesn’t it? How to talk! If you haven’t developed your speaking skills by now well it hardly bears thinking about.
But that’s the point. So few of us actually think about what it is we’re going to say. Mostly we just open our mouths and spew out random thoughts and phrases.
But if we think about what we want to say. If we prepare in advance. If we work on our communication skills and techniques well that’s a different story entirely.
We’re mainly talking here about speaking in public. Talking to your work colleagues at a key meeting. Delivering a formal business presentation. Or maybe just making important phone calls.
Preparation, preparation, preparation. It’s such an important skill to develop its worth saying thrice. Alright it’s not quite New York, New York! There’s no song there - but you get the point. Preparation is the key to every communication skill you can ever wish to master.
Go back to your school days for a moment. It’s Monday morning and your English teacher tells you that on Thursday you have to give a talk to your class about the American War of Independence. What do you do?
I mean after you curse the world for being picked on in the first place.
What you do – or what you did then – was prepare. You called it homework and over the next three days you researched the subject. You read as much as you could. And you wrote out an essay to read in front of your classmates at the dreaded time on Thursday.
What happened? You did well. Good grade. Teacher happy and your self esteem hit the ceiling. And all because you prepared.
Nowadays you’re older and wiser remember, and you have to make a presentation or give a talk what do you do? Curse again yes! But because you’re too busy to do any homework you tell yourself you can wing it. You can deliver without preparation.
Stupid isn’t it. Obvious in fact. And yet we’re supposed to be adult. We wouldn’t have tried it as kids. Too frightened of the consequences. But we do it now.
Well don’t! Next time fate calls – prepare. Work on your communication skills. Teach yourself how to talk again. Do your homework. Write the essay. Rehearse it this time so that you only need notes to say your piece. Well there are some advantages to being grown up. And see those good grades again.
Your communication skills will improve. Your self esteem will rocket once more. And you’ll actually start to enjoy speaking in front of your peers for once.
About the Author
Graham Miller is a journalist and broadcaster. He now runs his own media company.
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