So if you had to classify yourself, which camp would you place yourself in: introvert or extravert? If you have placed yourself in the introvert camp, then understanding the importance of public speaking and becoming an effective public speaker is going to be that much harder for you to do. However, the good news is that if you can understand the challenges that you’ll be facing as an introvert, then you can take steps to overcome them and become a world-class public speaker.
Why Is Hard For Introverts To Become Good Public Speakers?
People who don’t feel comfortable expressing themselves to others often find it hard to give a speech. There are number of different reasons for this. One of them is because the introvert does not realize he or she has an issue. Generally an introvert is very good at doing some task or skill in their life. They somewhat naturally assume that this means that they’d be good at anything that they attempted to do. When they give a speech, even though they are not connecting with anyone in their audience, they may be completely oblivious to this.
Introverts don’t necessarily see having strong communication skills as being something that is all that important to have. When they attend a meeting or a speech, they really want the speaker to skip everything else that they are saying and just get to the main point that they are going to make. Additionally, a lot of introverts know that they are introverts and thus believe that others are going to give them a pass on this whole communicating thing. They know that they are good at doing other things and so they think that people will be understanding if it turns out that they are not all that good at communicating.
Many introverts tend to give up on becoming better communicators. What happens is that they may take a look at themselves and just decide that being an effective communicator is not in the cards for them. Alternatively, they may find themselves surrounded by extroverted people and just feel as though they can’t compete. The good news is that introverts are not bad at communicating. In fact, introverts generally tend to be very good listeners. If they are able to find a way to become motivated, they can turn into very good communicators.
How Can An Introvert Become A Good Public Speaker?
If an introvert decides that he or she wants to become a good public speaker, how can they go about making this happen? The answer starts with a first step. This first step consists of the introvert admitting to themselves that they are going to need help in making this happen. They want to develop a set of skills that they don’t currently have and so they are going to have to find someone who already has these skills and ask them to help them.
An introvert is going to need to get training in order to become a good public speaker. We are all different and we all respond to different types of training differently. The introvert is going to have to take a step back and determine what kind of training is going to work out the best for them: individual one-on-one training or more of a group setting like Toastmasters offers? Once they pick what type of training is going to work best for them, they need to fully commit themselves to become a better public speaker. This means that they have to keep working at it and develop the skills that they are going to need.
Change is never easy to do. When an introverted person decides that they want to develop the skills that will allow them to become a good public speaker, this is going to require a great deal of change on their part. It can be very hard to make that initial decision and then it can be even harder to stick with it once the decision has been made. However, in order to become the speaker that they want to be the introvert has to find the strength to stick with it. It’s only by doing this that they can realize the benefits and finally become a powerful and effective public speaker.
What All Of This Means For You
The world is filled with many different types of people. Two groups of people who are out there include introverts and extraverts. If you classify yourself as an introvert and you’d like to become an effective public speaker in order to realize the benefits of public speaking, then you’ve got your work cut out for you. The good news is that it can be done, you just need to go about doing it in the right way.
It’s not easy for introverts to become good public speakers. Being good at communicating is not necessarily something that introverts see as being a needed skill. Many people will allow introverts to be poor communicators because they are good at doing other things. Introverts can give up on becoming better communicators because it just seems to be too hard to do. The good news is that introverts can become good public speakers. If they can start out by admitting that they need help then they’ll have made the right first step. Next they need to decide what kind of public speaking training is going to be best suited to their needs. Finally, once they get started they are going to have to stick with it.
There is no reason why introverts can’t become good public speakers. It might be a little bit harder for them to make the decision to improve their public speaking skills, but once they do it they’ll be on the path to becoming someone who can connect with an audience and get their message across. If you are an introvert, take action to become a good public speaker!
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™
Question For You: What would be the best way to cause an introvert to stick with a program of change?
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Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!
What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
When you stand up in front of an audience to give a speech, something happens to you. You are transformed from just another person who happens to be in the room into the person that everyone is going to be listening to. What’s interesting about this transformation is that it has to have an impact on your voice also. However, sometimes when I’m listening to a speaker I’ll realize that they didn’t transform their voice and it’s impacting the speech that they are giving. Do you change your voice when you give a speech?