The purpose is why? Why do they need to listen to you? And I said need to,
because you understand their problems.
How to communicate effectively with key individuals and to
communicate with confidence.
The thing is communication is a skill and it doesn't seem that way because
I mean if you've ever attended a conference or a public speak or watched a Ted
talk and those people,
the speakers sound so fluid and they sound so wonderful and their words,
and it's captivating, it sounds like they're born with it.
It could seem that way or at least they've been gifted in some ways of
communication or gifted in terms of having a large vocabulary.
It seems that way. But communication is a skill. Nobody is born with it.
It's kind of like leadership. Leadership is a skill, people aren't born
leaders and people aren't born communicators.
I mean there are individuals who are born from a third world country,
are born where English is not their
first language and they become marvelous,
compelling speakers in the English language. I mean I myself,
I was not born a speaker.
I was not born a communicator and I had to work very hard to expand my
English vocabulary. English was my second language. You know,
I had to take English lessons from
a principles-based English teacher and I also had to see a speech pathologist to
make sure I enunciated my words clearly.
And I wanted to be able to speak one day from stage and yet I was shy. You know,
I was born very shy and everything is,
I mean you think about people who are communicating and you wonder,
does it feel natural to them? Maybe not at first,
but it can feel that way. People who are effective communicators,
sometimes it can feel natural. Sometimes it does feel, you do feel confident,
but there are days where even though you are communicating your message,
even though you have an audience
who's resonating with you and you're in front of an audience who's fully engaged
sometimes even then,
you might feel that you might be losing connection with them.
Sometimes even then there are moments
where you feel like you're not confident or you feel like you didn't deliver
your best, right? And these are natural, but the key is,
to become a good communicator is to understand that it is a skill and it's
something you can work towards.
Today I'm going to give you eight key indicators,
eight pillars that you can implement
right away to communicate more effectively with your audience.
And most people, when they're preparing for a talk,
when they want to become a great speaker,
when they will want to become an effective speaker, they focus on the tactics,
right? They ask questions like, well,
how can I make sure I'm not saying those filler words,
those ums and ahs and likes, I want to get rid of those. Or they think about,
well, how do I construct my talk? You know,
what's the beginning and the middle and the end? Those are all tactical, right?
So here in today's video, I'm going to give you eight principles on
how to become an effective communicator.
And the first one is to give them a purpose, right?
Because the goal of communication is to be able to convey ideas in a way that
your audience can understand. You want to move them to take an action,
change your life, or to make
a different decision or to think differently.
You want to move them towards something.
So you have to figure out what is that something?
What is the intent of your communication?
Do you want them to take a specific action?
Do you want them to think differently?
Do you want them to approach a thought or a problem differently? Right?
So what is the intent of your talk? And you have to give them the purpose.
The purpose is why. Why do they need to listen to you?
And I said need to because you understand their problems.
Why do they need to hear what you have to say? Right?
And when you are thinking about the purpose, your why of giving the talk,
you have to be confident that you have something important to say
and that other people want to hear it. Either people need to hear it.
The second principle is to know your audience. I mean, after all,
you're not talking to an empty room. You are not talking in front of a mirror.
You are on stage, you are on a platform, you're in front of a group of people.
And it doesn't matter how many people there are. It could be five people,
a 10 you know, a hundred, a thousand or tens of thousands of people.
It is a collective. But you are talking to one person.
No matter how many people are in the room or in the stadium with you,
act as though you are talking to one person because each person in the audience
will only be having a perspective of themselves, right?
So when you're talking to them, think about this, the one individual you
are talking to, who is that person and what are their challenges?
What is the future that they want for themselves?
What does the future of an improved version of themselves or an improved future
that they want to be?
Right? Because your talk,
and the first principle was that you know the purpose of why you did deliver the
talk.
So the second principle is to know what moves them.
So this is where you have to do your research.
Figure out what are the challenges they're facing?
What are the questions that they have in their minds,
questions that they're asking, and in your talk,
that's where you structure to answer those questions,
to address the roadblocks that they're facing in their lives right now or in
their business right now.
Address the roadblocks and also to present a solution to the problems that
they've been facing. Because up until they hear you talk, in their minds,
all that they think about are the problems that they have,
the questions that are unanswered and the roadblocks they've been facing.
So do your research on the audience, right?
You know your purpose, why you are giving the presentation,
and why they need to hear what you have to say.
And now it's about what is the problem that you're trying to solve, right?
Get to know the audience.
Principle number three is to wrap your message in a story, right?
Stories are what people love to hear. Stories are what sticks in your mind.
Stories are the things that we can attach an emotional state to,
and when you tell a story, tell it from your perspective and your audience.
Each and every individual in
your audience is going to receive the story in their own way, right?
They're going to be able to see the story in their own lens.
But the thing about a story is that it changes their emotional state and when
you change their emotional state, they're able to resonate with you.
They're able to captivate your message
and remember it a lot longer than if all you did was give them the facts.
The story I told you at the beginning of this video about me being an English as
a second language
learner about me having to see a speech pathologist in order to be able to
enunciate my words clearly, well here's another thing that I had to do.
I read the dictionary. One thing I did, the biggest thing that I
did to expand my vocabulary to be a more effective speaker was to read the
dictionary and the dictionary I wrote, that I read, I should say,
is the Oxford dictionary of difficult words because I wanted to challenge
myself and I felt that at that time I felt that the only limitation I had in
communication was my vocabulary. And yes it was of course,
because I really didn't have the words to express myself,
but it wasn't just that,
it was all these things that I'm sharing with you today.
So I would say that, you know,
I'm not saying that you need to focus on vocabulary, but if you were to focus
on vocabulary,
the most important words to focus on are the ones that pertain to emotion.
Because emotion is what moves people to action, right? The action words.
So this is the principle. It is to wrap your story in a message,
whatever you have to say if it's facts right, if the purpose of your talk
is to inform, then wrap that message in a story. If your purpose is to inspire,
then wrap that message in a story.
Principle number four is to make yourself accessible,
and what do I mean by that?
I don't mean that you have to free your calendar up and take phone calls and
emails all day. That's not what I mean by accessible.
I meant accessible by your language.
I mean if you are a writer, you know,
if you write at a grade level reading level that's too high,
then it's accessible not to a wider audience,
but the lower your grade reading level, the more accessible your writing is.
The same thing is true with your speech. If you're giving a presentation,
if you're communicating, the goal of your communication is for your audience.
It's all for them. Communication is never for you.
It's never for you as the speaker. Of course you have great joy and
satisfaction in doing it.
But what I mean is that the outcome is all driven by them, right?
You are focused on your audience. How can I serve them? How can I help them?
How can I solve their problems?
So therefore that's why you have to be accessible,
make your language accessible.
And if you've been following me for a long time,
you know I have a PhD in neuroscience and
I love neuroscience. I love to talk about the brain.
I love to talk about how humans behave. And in that process,
sometimes I get caught up, I like to use jargon, I like to use words that only
neuroscientists can understand or people with PhDs that can understand,
you know, in that community. But if I communicated like that,
how many people could really understand what I say? You know,
it's interesting because my first book was a book on the ethics of neuroscience
research and that book made it into the,
it was published by Springer and it's on, it is, it's available for sale online.
But if I look at it,
really not very many people download it or sell it and the people that do are
scientists themselves, they're PhDs themselves.
So that book is definitely not going to make the New York times bestseller list
because it's inaccessible, right?
The language I use is for scientists and that was the intent of it, of course.
But the book itself will not be read by a wide audience.
So if you want to be heard, if you want to be an effective communicator,
make yourself accessible in the words that you say. Comment below,
I'd love to hear from you. What's your journey in becoming a communicator.
Where are you at right now? Have you spoken on stage before?
Are you starting out or are you midway through?
And let me know in the comments below. And that's it for today's video.
I'll cover one to four in today's video and if you want to know five points,
five to eight, I'm going to cover five to eight the principles of
communicating effectively to your key audience. Join
me in hearing those points in the next week's video.
So remember to subscribe to my channel. Ring that bell below.
So you receive notification when I released that video points five to eight on
how to communicate effectively.