Speak to Win: How to Present with Power in Any Situation PDF Download

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Your ability to speak to an audience is essential to your success. Speaking well can garner the respect and esteem of
others, make you more valuable to your company, and get attention from people who can help you and open doors for you. Good
speaking ability will also convince people that you are generally
more talented and intelligent than others who do not speak as
well.
What is your most valuable asset? Your mind. One of the most
precious skills you have is your ability to think well and to express
yourself clearly. This skill can help you earn more and get pro1

2 Speak to Win
moted faster as much as any other talent you can develop. After
all, the only way you can demonstrate your mastery of a subject is
by expressing your thoughts and ideas clearly aloud and in writing. When you speak well, people say, ‘‘He really knows what he’s
talking about.’’
The good news is that your mind is like a muscle. It grows
stronger and more capable with use. Organizing your thoughts
and words in advance makes you more alert and aware of what
you are saying and how you are saying it. The act of planning,
preparing, and delivering talks and presentations forces you to use
your mind at a higher level, and it actually makes you smarter.
Eliminate Your Fear and Turbocharge Your Career
Some years ago, I gave a one-day seminar on executive effectiveness to a group of businesspeople. During the talk I emphasized
the importance of being able to speak well and influence people
in business.
At the end of the day, a somewhat shy businessman came up
to me and told me that, as a result of my comments, he had decided that he was going to learn how to be a good speaker. He
was tired of being ignored by his supervisors and passed over for
promotions.
A year later, I received a letter from him telling me his story.
He had immediately taken action on his resolution. He joined a
local chapter of Toastmasters and began attending weekly meetings. At each meeting, each member was required to stand up and
speak on some subject, and each person was given a grade at the
end of the meeting.
Toastmasters uses the process of ‘‘systematic desensitization.’’

Introduction: Speaking to Win 3
This means that if you do something over and over, you finally
become desensitized to it. When you speak repeatedly in front of
others, you eventually lose your fears and misgivings.
He also took a Dale Carnegie course for 14 weeks. At each session, he was required to speak in front of his peers. Within six
months, he had given so many long and short presentations to
friendly groups of peers that most of his fear and anxiety about
speaking was gone. In its place was a growing confidence in his
ability to express himself to an audience.
Doors Open for You
At about this point in his growth and development, there was a
small emergency at his engineering firm. One of the partners had
been scheduled to give a presentation to the members of a client
company. But the partner was ill and unable to make the meeting.
The businessman’s boss asked him if he would prepare and present the company’s proposal instead. He accepted the assignment.
He prepared thoroughly throughout the evening and the following morning. He then went to the client’s office, made an excellent presentation for the firm’s services, and got the business.
When he returned to the office, his boss told him that the president of the prospective client had called and thanked him for
sending someone to give such an excellent presentation of the
firm’s services.
Within a few weeks, he was being sent out regularly to call
on the firm’s prospects and clients. He was promoted, and then
promoted again. Soon he was a member of senior management
and on his way to becoming a partner. He told me that his whole
life changed by making a decision to become a good speaker and
following up that decision with specific actions.

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Increase Your Self-Esteem
Becoming an excellent public speaker will help you in every part
of your career. But there is an even more important reason to
learn to speak well to an audience. Psychologists tell us that your
level of self-esteem, or ‘‘how much you like yourself,’’ largely determines the quality of your inner and outer life.
The better and more persuasively you speak, the more you like
yourself. The more you like yourself, the more optimistic and confident you are. The more you like yourself, the more positive and
personable you are in your relationships with others. The more
you like yourself, the healthier, happier, and more positive you
become in everything you do.
Improve Your Self-Image
When you learn to speak effectively, your self-image improves as
well. Your self-image is your ‘‘inner mirror.’’ It’s the way you see
yourself and think about yourself prior to and during any event.
The more positive your self-image, the more competent your performance. The very act of visualizing yourself performing at your
best prior to any event or activity will improve your performance.
We are all highly sensitive to the thoughts, feelings, and especially the respect of others. Somerset Maugham wrote, ‘‘Everything we do in life is to earn the respect of others, or at the very
least, not to lose their respect.’’ So when you speak well, your audience likes and respects you more. As a result, you like and respect yourself more as well. When you get positive feedback from
others as the result of speaking well, your self-image improves.
You see yourself and think about yourself in a more positive way.
You develop a sense of personal power. You walk, talk, and act
with greater confidence.

Introduction: Speaking to Win 5
Excellent Speaking Is Learnable
Perhaps the best news about speaking to groups is that it is a
learnable skill. Most people who are competent speakers today at
one time could not lead silent prayer in a phone booth. Many people who appear confident and articulate in front of an audience
were at one time terrified at the idea of standing up and speaking
in public.
Your goal should be to be in the top 10 percent of communicators. And you should continually remind yourself that almost
everyone who is in the top 10 percent today started in the bottom
10 percent. Everyone who is doing well was once doing poorly. As
Harv Eker says, ‘‘Every master was once a disaster.’’
You have probably heard it said that practice makes perfect.
Some people go even further and say that perfect practice makes
perfect. However, the truth is that imperfect practice makes perfect.
On your journey to mastering the art of speaking to an audience, you will make many small and large mistakes. You will often
feel nervous and inadequate. You will say the wrong things and
forget to say the right things. You will mumble and stumble and
wonder if you will ever get it right.
Move out of Your Comfort Zone
But in order to achieve excellence in speaking or in any field, you
must be willing to move out of your comfort zone and into your
discomfort zone. You must be willing to feel clumsy and awkward
during your growth and development if you are ever going to
move to a higher level of competence.
You may remember the story of the famous Greek orator, De-

6 Speak to Win
mosthenes, considered one of the finest speakers of antiquity.
When he began, he was nervous, shy, and troubled by both a stutter and a speech impediment. But he was determined to be a good
speaker. To overcome his difficulties, he put pebbles in his mouth
and spoke loudly to the sea for hours every day. In time, he eliminated his stutter and overcame his speech impediment. His voice
grew louder, stronger, and more confident. He became one of the
greatest orators in history.
If you are a beginning speaker, this book will show you how to
accelerate the process of speaking with competence, confidence,
and clarity. If you are a more experienced speaker, this book will
give you some of the most powerful techniques, tactics, and methods of great speakers in every area of business, politics, and personal life