Researching the Art & Science of Public Speaking

Still doing research on the topic of public speaking.

Doing a bit every day to get towards the goal of completing it.

I've gathered the materials... 12 books in fact

... what have I gotten myself into?

I have to remind myself that I'm not writing some award winning piece but I sure don't want to be putting out something which I'm not proud of.

Which is why I don't want to just "wing it" and tell people how to public speak just by relying only on my own experience.

I believe there's a method to the madness to good public speaking, and the research I've done so far has proven me right.

Thankfully, what I've been doing all these years have not been completely bonkers according to my analytical probing.

However...

A lot of them came through observation of really good & highly paid speakers from stage which I am not going to assume my prospective reader/buyer of my book/course is going to have.

The experiences I've learned have enabled me to be able to speak to audiences who are familiar as well as alien to me.

I've had the opportunity to hold private speaking engagements where the average attendee paid an average of $40,000 (once, there was 122 in attendance) where they had to listen to me talk for about an hour.

These were veterans of the business world in their own rights of multiple industries and here's one key I've learned...

I'm given a certain amount of credit and authority just by me being in front of them.

Though... It is based on the willingness of the audience to accept that what I'm going to say has value to them.

And if what I was going to share wasn't of value, things could turn ugly quick.

(Ah... as I write this, I remember an incident in the past as a younger speaker where the audience of about 30-40 people, each who had paid an average of about $3,000 to be in that room... quite literally demanded refunds... that was an experience in itself too. Should I share about this in another post?)

While going through the books...

There's a lot of stuff which wouldn't be necessary to the average person who probably just needs to know how to speak on a Zoom meeting or to present an idea to a bunch of people.

The old data that there were more people afraid of death compared to speaking on stage... well... with the advent of Zoom, I think that statistical data is no longer relevant.

Am I wrong?

Anyhow, back to hitting the books.