Public and Conversational Speaking

Do you think that you're a good speaker?  And what exactly does being a "good speaker" entail, anyway?  To me, this is an area that has been a major stumbling block in my life.  I apparently have little problem communicating my thoughts through writing, but when it comes to expressing myself by talking, my mind freezes and I stumble around like a complete idiot...unless I can get what I want to say accomplished by a very quick one or two sentences.  And then quickly retreat back into my personal world of self-imposed silence...

In the eleventh grade, back in the spring of 1973, I took speech class as a mandatory graduation requirement...something that I had been dreading for some time.  There are some folks who are natural hams and can't wait to get up before an audience...I remember "show and tell" from early elementary school and how some kids would recount what happened with them the previous day from the time they woke up all the way to when they hit the pillow at night.  But in speech class I discovered a problem besides my extreme shyness in front of a group: for communications to be effective, the message has to both be something that the speaker is interested in conveying and that the audience is interested in hearing.  I felt back then...and even now to an extent...that there is often a great discrepancy between what I feel is relevant and interesting and what others are attracted to.  With writing this blog, that doesn't matter since people can ignore it at their pleasure, stopping by from time to time to read about a topic I've written about that interests them.  But with speaking, it can be difficult to keep an audience focused on my message.  And it's not just me with that problem: good public speaking is a rare skill, greatly appreciated when experienced...

I feel the need right now to distinguish between public and conversational speaking.  In the former, a boring or rambling speaker may quickly lose the interest and attention of his or her audience, but isn't likely to be interrupted.  In conversation, though, it is often a verbal jungle out there with people interrupting and even simultaneously talking over each other.  A good conversational speaker needs to be a good listener and be prepared to allow the other to do the lion's share of talking, if that is where the conversation naturally leads.  And not to interrupt.  I have great need of improvement both in conversing and speaking publicly...why not figure out a roadmap for getting better in both areas?

With conversational speaking, it is important to find out what interests the other person and engage them about it.  Without interrupting!!! With public speaking, I've wrestled with my personal demons on this and think I have a solution: create my own spoken audio monologues on various topics of interest to me...i.e., the same way I tackle this blog...and put them out on the Internet.  YouTube may be a viable way to do this...I wouldn't necessarily need to video-record my monologues and I could post links to them that others could access.  Of course, this would be pretty uncomfortable for someone as habitually reclusive as myself, but sometimes you have to step out a bit in order to grow...