Speaking Excellence with TJ Walker

Posts Tagged ‘presentation skills’

James Arthur Ray charged with Manslaughter

Posted by TJ Walker on February 4th, 2010

I hope James Arther Ray gets a fair trial on his manslaughter charges, but since I’m not going to be a jury member, I’m free to weigh in. I hope he gets convicted and serves some time in his own “sweat lodge” with no easy escape.

It’s important to remember that history shows us that the greatest leaders who help humanity are usually great speakers. But it’s also important to remember that the worst self-serving tyrants who lead people to their own deaths are usually great speakers too.

Here is the rough draft for the intro for my new book on public speaking

Posted by TJ Walker on November 3rd, 2009

How to Give a Pretty Good Presentation

Introduction

Shortly after my book “TJ Walker’s Secret to Foolproof Presentations” went to #1 on the USA Today Bestseller list, I received a call from an editor. “Hey TJ, congrats on the book, but what about all the people who don’t want to give a “Foolproof Presentation?”

I said “What?”

She responded, “Well, your book talks about how to give a Foolproof Presentation, and it seems like all the books on speaking are on how to get a standing ovation, an exceptional presentation or and insanely great presentation. What about the 99% of the world who don’t want to be the next Tony Robbins? What about the people who either don’t like giving presentations or fear public speaking and just want to get through the darn thing? What about all the people who just want to give a pretty good presentation, but not one that will set the world on fire…don’t they have a right to get what they want?”

And that’s how this book was born.

If you want to become the next Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, or Winston Churchill, then this book is NOT for you. (There are already a gazillion books written for you) If there is nothing you would rather do than deliver a PowerPoint to 1000 people, give a toast to a wedding party of 500 or do a live interview on CNN, then this book is not for you (though you would be just like me).

This book is written for normal people (I readily admit I’m not one – I was the nerdy, dweeby JR High School student council President who loved giving speeches in front of 1200 students at age 13)

I’m not going to waste your time giving you time-consuming and difficult exercises in order to make you the next king of the motivational speaking circuit, as seen on late night infomercials. Instead, I’m going to give you the fastest, shortest, simplest ways of giving a pretty good presentation. Period.

I work with thousands of business people, political leaders, United Nations officials and beauty queens from 6 contents every year—and they have varying skills and goals when it comes down to their speaking abilities. Everything I’m going to share with you is based on real world experience helping people just like you—most of them sent to my presentation workshops reluctantly — usually by a boss who believed in them and wanted to help them gain skills needed to advance to the next part of their careers.

While there are a million different kinds of speakers and speaking situations in the world, I boil everything down into three main categories. First, there are the truly awful speakers: these people do boring data dumps. No one in the audience remembers anything from the message or the speaker other than that the speaker was boring and perhaps seemed nervous. This is the widest variety of all presenters in the world.

Second, there is the category of truly outstanding speakers. Whether it is someone on the international level like a Steve Jobs in business or Tony Blair in Politics, they have the ability to make any presentation truly memorable, engaging, interesting, and useful—plus they convey confidence, warmth and likeability in the process. At the local level, your own mayor or head of the Chamber of Commerce may be like this. This is a small group of people, typically less than 1% of all speakers.

There is also a third group of people. These individuals are able to speak much better than the second group, but not nearly as well as the first group. The third group is able to come across professional, competent and understandable. These presenters are able to get to their points in a concise manner and have their points remembered. No one was ever moved to tears after listening to someone in this third group give a presentation. But no one ever fell asleep while one of these third group speakers was presenting either. Members of this third group don’t spend days preparing and rehearsing their speech the way Ronald Reagan did or the way Steve Jobs does. They don’t spend days rehearsing because they have too many other demands on their time at work and home and giving a spell-binding speech simply isn’t a top priority in their life. But they are willing to spend between 5 minutes to one hour preparing their speeches because they know they have to in order to get what they want done for their career and in life. They want to eliminate the pain of giving an awful presentation and avoid the pain of dozens of hours of rehearsal. Members of this third group simply want to give a pretty good presentation—and they do it, every time.

If you want to be in the group, the third category of speaker who can give a pretty good presentation, then this book is for you. I promise you that if you follow the simple and straight forward lessons I have laid out for you, you will consistently be a pretty good presenter. You will never fail to get a promotion or win a new client, just because your presentation skills are considered substandard. You will never have to spend another sleepless night before a big speech worrying that you will bomb, because you will know that it will no longer be possible for you to bomb.

I am going to respect your time because I know that speech making is not your number one concern, so I am only going to give you the most important and least time-consuming tips to make you a better presenter.

Here’s what else you will learn: 1. the most common blunders in every speaking situation that plague most presenters. 2. The difficult and time-consuming advanced techniques that professional speakers use THAT YOU WONT HAVE TO USE. And 3. The simple, easy, fast way to give your presentation better than 80 percent of your colleagues so that you can sit down and get on with the rest of your busy life.

Shall we begin?

to Give a Pretty Good Publication
Introduction
Shortly after my book “TJ Walker’s Secret to Foolproof Presentations” went to #1 on the USA Today Bestseller list, I received a call from an editor. “Hey TJ, congrats on the book, but what about all the people who don’t want to give a “Foolproof Presentation?”
I said “What?”
She responded, “Well, your book talks about how to give a Foolproof Presentation, and it seems like all the books on speaking are on how to get a standing ovation, an exceptional presentation or and insanely great presentation. What about the 99% of the world who don’t want to be the next Tony Robbins? What about the people who either don’t like giving presentations or fear public speaking and just want to get through the darn thing? What about all the people who just want to give a pretty good presentation, but not one that will set the world on fire…don’t they have a right to get what they want?”
And that’s how this book was born.
If you want to become the next Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, or Winston Churchill, then this book is NOT for you. (There are already a gazillion books written for you) If there is nothing you would rather do than deliver a PowerPoint to 1000 people, give a toast to a wedding party of 500 or do a live interview on CNN, then this book is not for you (though you would be just like me).
This book is written for normal people (I readily admit I’m not one – I was the nerdy, dweeby JR High School student council President who loved giving speeches in front of 1200 students at age 13)
I’m not going to waste your time giving you time-consuming and difficult exercises in order to make you the next king of the motivational speaking circuit, as seen on late night infomercials. Instead, I’m going to give you the fastest, shortest, simplest ways of giving a pretty good presentation. Period.
I work with thousands of business people, political leaders, United Nations officials and beauty queens from 6 contents every year—and they have varying skills and goals when it comes down to their speaking abilities. Everything I’m going to share with you is based on real world experience helping people just like you—most of them sent to my presentation workshops reluctantly — usually by a boss who believed in them and wanted to help them gain skills needed to advance to the next part of their careers.
While there are a million different kinds of speakers and speaking situations in the world, I boil everything down into three main categories. First, there are the truly awful speakers: these people do boring data dumps. No one in the audience remembers anything from the message or the speaker other than that the speaker was boring and perhaps seemed nervous. This is the widest variety of all presenters in the world.
Second, there is the category of truly outstanding speakers. Whether it is someone on the international level like a Steve Jobs in business or Tony Blair in Politics, they have the ability to make any presentation truly memorable, engaging, interesting, and useful—plus they convey confidence, warmth and likeability in the process. At the local level, your own mayor or head of the Chamber of Commerce may be like this. This is a small group of people, typically less than 1% of all speakers.
There is also a third group of people. These individuals are able to speak much better than the second group, but not nearly as well as the first group. The third group is able to come across professional, competent and understandable. These presenters are able to get to their points in a concise manner and have their points remembered. No one was ever moved to tears after listening to someone in this third group give a presentation. But no one ever fell asleep while one of these third group speakers was presenting either. Members of this third group don’t spend days preparing and rehearsing their speech the way Ronald Reagan did or the way Steve Jobs does. They don’t spend days rehearsing because they have too many other demands on their time at work and home and giving a spell-binding speech simply isn’t a top priority in their life. But they are willing to spend between 5 minutes to one hour preparing their speeches because they know they have to in order to get what they want done for their career and in life. They want to eliminate the pain of giving an awful presentation and avoid the pain of dozens of hours of rehearsal. Members of this third group simply want to give a pretty good presentation—and they do it, every time.
If you want to be in the group, the third category of speaker who can give a pretty good presentation, then this book is for you. I promise you that if you follow the simple and straight forward lessons I have laid out for you, you will consistently be a pretty good presenter. You will never fail to get a promotion or win a new client, just because your presentation skills are considered substandard. You will never have to spend another sleepless night before a big speech worrying that you will bomb, because you will know that it will no longer be possible for you to bomb.
I am going to respect your time because I know that speech making is not your number one concern, so I am only going to give you the most important and least time-consuming tips to make you a better presenter.
Here’s what else you will learn:  1. the most common blunders in every speaking situation that plague most presenters. 2. The difficult and time-consuming advanced techniques that professional speakers use THAT YOU WONT HAVE TO USE. And 3. The simple, easy, fast way to give your presentation better than 80 percent of your colleagues so that you can sit down and get on with the rest of your busy life.
Shall we begin?
How to Give a Pretty Good Publication
Introduction
Shortly after my book “TJ Walker’s Secret to Foolproof Presentations” went to #1 on the USA Today Bestseller list, I received a call from an editor. “Hey TJ, congrats on the book, but what about all the people who don’t want to give a “Foolproof Presentation?”
I said “What?”
She responded, “Well, your book talks about how to give a Foolproof Presentation, and it seems like all the books on speaking are on how to get a standing ovation, an exceptional presentation or and insanely great presentation. What about the 99% of the world who don’t want to be the next Tony Robbins? What about the people who either don’t like giving presentations or fear public speaking and just want to get through the darn thing? What about all the people who just want to give a pretty good presentation, but not one that will set the world on fire…don’t they have a right to get what they want?”
And that’s how this book was born.
If you want to become the next Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, or Winston Churchill, then this book is NOT for you. (There are already a gazillion books written for you) If there is nothing you would rather do than deliver a PowerPoint to 1000 people, give a toast to a wedding party of 500 or do a live interview on CNN, then this book is not for you (though you would be just like me).
This book is written for normal people (I readily admit I’m not one – I was the nerdy, dweeby JR High School student council President who loved giving speeches in front of 1200 students at age 13)
I’m not going to waste your time giving you time-consuming and difficult exercises in order to make you the next king of the motivational speaking circuit, as seen on late night infomercials. Instead, I’m going to give you the fastest, shortest, simplest ways of giving a pretty good presentation. Period.
I work with thousands of business people, political leaders, United Nations officials and beauty queens from 6 contents every year—and they have varying skills and goals when it comes down to their speaking abilities. Everything I’m going to share with you is based on real world experience helping people just like you—most of them sent to my presentation workshops reluctantly — usually by a boss who believed in them and wanted to help them gain skills needed to advance to the next part of their careers.
While there are a million different kinds of speakers and speaking situations in the world, I boil everything down into three main categories. First, there are the truly awful speakers: these people do boring data dumps. No one in the audience remembers anything from the message or the speaker other than that the speaker was boring and perhaps seemed nervous. This is the widest variety of all presenters in the world.
Second, there is the category of truly outstanding speakers. Whether it is someone on the international level like a Steve Jobs in business or Tony Blair in Politics, they have the ability to make any presentation truly memorable, engaging, interesting, and useful—plus they convey confidence, warmth and likeability in the process. At the local level, your own mayor or head of the Chamber of Commerce may be like this. This is a small group of people, typically less than 1% of all speakers.
There is also a third group of people. These individuals are able to speak much better than the second group, but not nearly as well as the first group. The third group is able to come across professional, competent and understandable. These presenters are able to get to their points in a concise manner and have their points remembered. No one was ever moved to tears after listening to someone in this third group give a presentation. But no one ever fell asleep while one of these third group speakers was presenting either. Members of this third group don’t spend days preparing and rehearsing their speech the way Ronald Reagan did or the way Steve Jobs does. They don’t spend days rehearsing because they have too many other demands on their time at work and home and giving a spell-binding speech simply isn’t a top priority in their life. But they are willing to spend between 5 minutes to one hour preparing their speeches because they know they have to in order to get what they want done for their career and in life. They want to eliminate the pain of giving an awful presentation and avoid the pain of dozens of hours of rehearsal. Members of this third group simply want to give a pretty good presentation—and they do it, every time.
If you want to be in the group, the third category of speaker who can give a pretty good presentation, then this book is for you. I promise you that if you follow the simple and straight forward lessons I have laid out for you, you will consistently be a pretty good presenter. You will never fail to get a promotion or win a new client, just because your presentation skills are considered substandard. You will never have to spend another sleepless night before a big speech worrying that you will bomb, because you will know that it will no longer be possible for you to bomb.
I am going to respect your time because I know that speech making is not your number one concern, so I am only going to give you the most important and least time-consuming tips to make you a better presenter.
Here’s what else you will learn:  1. the most common blunders in every speaking situation that plague most presenters. 2. The difficult and time-consuming advanced techniques that professional speakers use THAT YOU WONT HAVE TO USE. And 3. The simple, easy, fast way to give your presentation better than 80 percent of your colleagues so that you can sit down and get on with the rest of your busy life.
Shall we beginHow to Give a Pretty Good Publication
Introduction
Shortly after my book “TJ Walker’s Secret to Foolproof Presentations” went to #1 on the USA Today Bestseller list, I received a call from an editor. “Hey TJ, congrats on the book, but what about all the people who don’t want to give a “Foolproof Presentation?”
I said “What?”
She responded, “Well, your book talks about how to give a Foolproof Presentation, and it seems like all the books on speaking are on how to get a standing ovation, an exceptional presentation or and insanely great presentation. What about the 99% of the world who don’t want to be the next Tony Robbins? What about the people who either don’t like giving presentations or fear public speaking and just want to get through the darn thing? What about all the people who just want to give a pretty good presentation, but not one that will set the world on fire…don’t they have a right to get what they want?”
And that’s how this book was born.
If you want to become the next Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, or Winston Churchill, then this book is NOT for you. (There are already a gazillion books written for you) If there is nothing you would rather do than deliver a PowerPoint to 1000 people, give a toast to a wedding party of 500 or do a live interview on CNN, then this book is not for you (though you would be just like me).
This book is written for normal people (I readily admit I’m not one – I was the nerdy, dweeby JR High School student council President who loved giving speeches in front of 1200 students at age 13)
I’m not going to waste your time giving you time-consuming and difficult exercises in order to make you the next king of the motivational speaking circuit, as seen on late night infomercials. Instead, I’m going to give you the fastest, shortest, simplest ways of giving a pretty good presentation. Period.
I work with thousands of business people, political leaders, United Nations officials and beauty queens from 6 contents every year—and they have varying skills and goals when it comes down to their speaking abilities. Everything I’m going to share with you is based on real world experience helping people just like you—most of them sent to my presentation workshops reluctantly — usually by a boss who believed in them and wanted to help them gain skills needed to advance to the next part of their careers.
While there are a million different kinds of speakers and speaking situations in the world, I boil everything down into three main categories. First, there are the truly awful speakers: these people do boring data dumps. No one in the audience remembers anything from the message or the speaker other than that the speaker was boring and perhaps seemed nervous. This is the widest variety of all presenters in the world.
Second, there is the category of truly outstanding speakers. Whether it is someone on the international level like a Steve Jobs in business or Tony Blair in Politics, they have the ability to make any presentation truly memorable, engaging, interesting, and useful—plus they convey confidence, warmth and likeability in the process. At the local level, your own mayor or head of the Chamber of Commerce may be like this. This is a small group of people, typically less than 1% of all speakers.
There is also a third group of people. These individuals are able to speak much better than the second group, but not nearly as well as the first group. The third group is able to come across professional, competent and understandable. These presenters are able to get to their points in a concise manner and have their points remembered. No one was ever moved to tears after listening to someone in this third group give a presentation. But no one ever fell asleep while one of these third group speakers was presenting either. Members of this third group don’t spend days preparing and rehearsing their speech the way Ronald Reagan did or the way Steve Jobs does. They don’t spend days rehearsing because they have too many other demands on their time at work and home and giving a spell-binding speech simply isn’t a top priority in their life. But they are willing to spend between 5 minutes to one hour preparing their speeches because they know they have to in order to get what they want done for their career and in life. They want to eliminate the pain of giving an awful presentation and avoid the pain of dozens of hours of rehearsal. Members of this third group simply want to give a pretty good presentation—and they do it, every time.
If you want to be in the group, the third category of speaker who can give a pretty good presentation, then this book is for you. I promise you that if you follow the simple and straight forward lessons I have laid out for you, you will consistently be a pretty good presenter. You will never fail to get a promotion or win a new client, just because your presentation skills are considered substandard. You will never have to spend another sleepless night before a big speech worrying that you will bomb, because you will know that it will no longer be possible for you to bomb.
I am going to respect your time because I know that speech making is not your number one concern, so I am only going to give you the most important and least time-consuming tips to make you a better presenter.
Here’s what else you will learn:  1. the most common blunders in every speaking situation that plague most presenters. 2. The difficult and time-consuming advanced techniques that professional speakers use THAT YOU WONT HAVE TO USE. And 3. The simple, easy, fast way to give your presentation better than 80 percent of your colleagues so that you can sit down and get on with the rest of your busy life.
Shall we begin?

my video reaction to Sonia Sotomayer’s speaking skills

Posted by TJ Walker on May 26th, 2009

Should I tell my audience how happy I am to be speaking here in front of them today?

Posted by TJ Walker on February 11th, 2008

Should I tell my audience how happy I am to be speaking here in front of them today?The following comes from TJ Walker’s upcoming book “The Wisdom of Your Audience” Your Speechwriter: “This is a classy way to begin a speech. It shows a proper level of respect for your audience.”Your Director of Business Development: “You must tell your audience how happy you are to be there. We don’t want to offend anyone.”You: “I would feel rude if I didn’t tell everyone how happy I am to be there today. Plus, this will give me time to calm down and figure out what I want to say before I really get going into the speech.”Your Audience: “We don’t give a d*%n if you are happy to be here at this stage of the relationship (we just met you a few seconds ago). Why don’t you forget talking about yourself for a few minutes and tell us something that is interesting to us. And if you do talk about yourself, make sure it is actually interesting and is not a boring, mundane, trite cliché like “I’m happy to be here this morning.’”

New Rating System for Public Speakers

Posted by TJ Walker on December 30th, 2007

I am fine-tuning a new rating system for evaluating public speakers. Here is a sneak-preview. If you have somone you wnat me to rate. Send me a note and a video link to tj@tjwalker.com. 

The WalkerSpeakâ„¢ Rating (0-50 rating)

Movement
Message
Memorablity
Motivation
eMotion

The WalkerSpeakâ„¢ Rating system judges speakers based on five criteria:

1. Movement. Does the speaker move his/her body/hands/face/eyebrows/voice in a natural, comfortable and confident manner? (0-10 pts)
2. Message. Does the speaker have a clear, understandable and relevant message for the audience? (0-10 pts)
3. Memorablity. Does the speaker use memorable stories, case studies and examples or does the speaker dump data and remain abstract? If the person uses PowerPoint slides, video clips, or other media, does the speaker use the media in a visual, memorable manner (i.e. images only and one idea per slide or image) or does the speaker use the media as a boring crutch for holding text and bullet points. (0-10 pts)
4. Motivation. Does the speaker motivate the audience to take a specific action? (Note: the speaker is not being judged by the standards of a cheesy “motivational speaker.”) (0-10 pts)
5. eMotion. Does the speaker connect with the audience on not just an intellectual level but an emotional level? (0-10 pts)

General Ratings

40-50. An outstanding speaker who communicates substance with style
39-32. A competent, above-average speaker
31-26. An adequate speaker 
25-21. Not a painful speaker to listen to, but little communication occurs
20 and below. A problem speaker who needs major improvement in style and substance

The WalkerSpeakâ„¢ Rating was created by TJ Walker, founder of The Speaking Channel www.speakingchannel.tv and the CEO of Media Training Worldwide. Walker has conducted presentation training for thousands of executives, CEOs. Prime Ministers, Nobel Peace Prize winners, Miss Universes, athletes and celebrities since 1984.
 

Why I am starting this Public Speaking Blog

Posted by TJ Walker on December 28th, 2007

I confess, I underestimated the power of blogs. For years I treated them as just another distribution method, like a fax or an email service. Now I have come to learn (belatedly) that blogs are their own end, in and of themselves.

For years I told people that I blogged. I did, indeed, write a daily column, occasionally about stuff in the news. And this column was posted at either www.tjsights.com  www.speakingchannel.tv. But I wasn’t writing a true blog. I wasn’t connecting to the greater blog community and I wasn’t linking to the rest of the world. I was simply taking an old-media world column and shoe-horning it into a different format. It wasn’t working.

I stand chastened. Today is the first day of my first real blog. Here are a several guiding principles I plan to follow over the coming years:

 

  1. I will take you into my world of working with high level leaders around the world on their speaking skills.
  2. I’ll take you through the many processes of refining the speaking craft.
  3. I’ll frequently point out my own flaws and mistakes as a speaker and ask that you learn from my blunders.
  4. Political leaders will be a frequent focus of this blog, but I will examine only the speaking skills of leaders. Of course I have views on political ideas themselves, but I have found that there is no way to start a discussion about political values without politics consuming the discussion and driving away the 99% of people who don’t care to enter a political debate. Please don’t presume to know anything about my politics because of how I rate a politic ian’s speaking skills (you will be wrong).
  5. I will explore all areas of spoken communication in life, not just so-called “formal business presentations” that constitute the bulk of my business running Media Training Worldwide.
  6. I will give honest assessments and ratings of speakers around the world, and I will let you do the same (even if that means giving me a low rating to one of my own speeches).
  7. Everything I share with you will be based on a combination of personal experiences speaking, experiences training people around the globe, plus my attempts to analyze and synthesize everything else I can find that is written about or discussed as it relates to speaking.
  8. This blog is primarily about you. And by you, I mean someone with an interest in speaking, spoken communication, public speaking, and everything else that goes into talking to people. However, I am going to draw upon many personal things that happen to me, as they relate to speaking. No, I won’t tell you about what breakfast cereal I ate or what movies I like (unless a movie has a speaking focus), but I will tell you about personal mistakes and blunders I make while speaking to large audiences or even one-on-one situations.
  9. While I will try to write every day for you, I will try to use the medium that is the most effective way to deal with speaking, i.e. video, even though it is not as convenient as typing.
  10. I want to hear from you. Please send me your questions or suggestions for topics for this blog to tj@tjwalker.com.