A good communicator is not somebody who’s smooth, polished or not say ‘uh’. Everyone says ‘uh’ sometimes even if they are highly proficient. In this article, we will talk about how to become a confident communicator.
Being a good speaker has nothing to do with glib and articulate. A good communicator is somebody who is confident, means when you communicate you are looking like you mean what you are talking about and sounding like you mean what you are talking about. A good speaker draws you in and engages you. A good speaker makes you feel they are talking directly to you even though dozens or hundreds or thousands are watching. That’s the recipe of being a confident communicator. Confident communicators connect to others through words, gestures and voice.
People interpret the attitudes and emotions of others on the basis of three factors. Three V’s.
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Three V’s
- Visual – How we look and carry ourselves, our facial expressions
- Vocal – How we sound, our tone, our volume
- Verbal – Words we use to communicate
All these factors are important but study says, 55% of people interpret your emotions and attitude is by Visual, 38% of people interpret your attitude and emotion is by Vocal and 7% of people interpret your emotion and attitude by Verbal.
Three V’s
A confident communicator is someone who is thoughtful with words. who recognize the impact of language. and has facial expression that reflects the mood and texture of what’s being said, someone whose voice owns the message. To achieve that, we need to come across and be seen by others. For instance, if we are delivering a Presentation on a bold new plan, What words would you want to use to describe how you want to see yourself and have others to see you? Words like, confident, knowledgeable and engaging to name a few. If you are in a conversation delivering a tough message, words you mostly use are genuine, concerned , empathetic. A good speaker is also someone who is willing to be vulnerable in front of others. Sometimes through the heart-warming story of loss or failure. Other times sharing experience which that holds meaning for you as well. A good speaker touches you, makes you listen, can make you act and is connected to audiences.
Some Vulnerabilirties
- What is I say something wrong?
- What if they think I am boring?
- what if I lose my place?
These are some public speaking anxieties which we all fear. Aside from nerves, a number of factors holding back people from being a confident communicators. Sometimes, its the high expectation that people set to themselves, feeling a need to be perfect speakers never saying ‘am’ or ‘uh’. And as soon as they stumble, they focus more on where the stumble, and this goes downhill from there. Feeling lack or preparation, fear of Audience, having bad past experience(if I screw up).
Racing Brain Syndrome(RBS) – Most times the issue is when our mind and what we are speaking are out of sync.
To overcome Racing Brain Syndrome(RBS), we can follow these techniques to become a confident speaker:
- Focus on connecting with yourself first
- Focus on connecting with others in the room
- Breath properly in between the sentences
After you overcome the anxiety of speaking in public. You should focus on honing your message, means you need to prepare well for the material you want to convey to the people.
Two most important aspects of Honing your Message are :
- Know what you are saying : You should have thorough knowledge of what you are saying and what message the listener needs to make the communication engaging, and make the listeners encouraged to listen to you.
- Organize your thoughts : Prepare yourself for the topic before the presentation/communicator and organize all the topics in the order of there meaning and the way a message is needed to come before other, to give it the absolute meaning.
Best Techniques to become a confident Communicator
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Making every word count
- Every word counts when we talk.
- Use the words more which are related to the topic/message you want to convey.
- Emphasize on the words by changing the tone – low, medium, high.
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Sounding confident
- When you talk, keep one thing in mind you have to convey you heart, not just words
- Try to communicate with full confidence as when you talk when you are alone
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Power of a Pause
- Try to pause in between the sentence
- While speaking normal sentences you can add short pauses
- But while conveying important messages, you can pause for bit longer. To make the listener grasp the message
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Slowing Down
- When you are delivering your concept to people, you can slow down for the topic which is hard to understand
- Slowing your talking speed when you are conveying important message, you make listeners to focus on each words by making them enthusiastic and engaging.
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Using your Eyes
- During communication using eyes is a great asset to use
- While delivering one sentence focus your eyes on one person at a time.
- It helps you understand, how effectively you are talking with the crowd
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Talking with your hand
- Using hands while talking also help communicator to communicate more efficiently
- It becomes easy to convey your messages with more visuals
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Gesturing Naturally
- Try to be relaxed while communicating
- Don’t be hard on yourself, by standing still while talking
- You can walking around the stage, or move yourself a bit
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Managing Facial Expressions
- While talking, its also very important to manage your facial expressions.
- When talking sad sentences, be humble and use low voice
- When talking surprised experience, your expressions should look like you are surprised with numbers or the data
- When talking about happy and fulfilled achievements, smile and feel happy that you achieved something that itself comes to your face.
Conclusions
To become a good communicator, we need to be ourselves and overcome the fear and nervousness of being seen by a lot of people. By practicing more on talking and become thorough in the message/topic we have to deliver, we can became fluent in communicating our thoughts.