Unlike many people I don’t fear public speaking. I’m generally happy to take the mic and start bossing (ahem) directing people. The problem is the mic doesn’t help if you mumble (check), speak too quickly (double-check) and have a smallish voice (three strikes-I’m out). Despite all this I’m still a relatively good public speaker, when I concentrate I can control all of those vocal issues but concentration is tricky when 100 people are staring at you. I’m a fairly good public speaker, but I want to be a great one. I want to facilitate large rooms of people with ease instead of frustration. I want to pick up a microphone with Kanye West-level confidence.
So logically I’m creating a self-designed “run the room like a boss” course. First up are Comedy Improv classes. Have you ever seen people trained in improv comedy? They are amazing. They assimilate a suggestion and then immediately start performing with commitment and swagger. Rolling with the punches, fearlessness and communication with the audience is imperative for improv and if that’s not good training for running a room I don’t know what is. I’ve been doing the comedy improv classes for a little while and hope to blog about them eventually but until then I’m interested in hearing what else I might add to my coursework. Suggestions? Does anybody want to come over and yell “You have a voice!” at me King’s Speech style? Be bold. :)
OMG, Em, I didn’t know you were into Community! This opens up whole new vistas of nerdy conversation between us!
I agree about improv being great practice for running the room. I’ve always had a quiet voice, too… I often hear women in crowded restaurants whose natural laugh is basically louder than my “I’m being murdered” scream. But I did learn to project much better after a high school drama/speech teacher told me I had “vocal fry,” meaning my voice trails off into a low register at the end of phrases/sentences. I was so annoyed at him that I actually worked on it.
Perhaps watching/listening to some really skilled speakers could be helpful in your quest. Like, I recently watched a video of a 1963 interview that MLK gave on Meet the Press (it’s on Hulu with their Black History Month stuff). We all know he was a great speaker, but I couldn’t believe how he commanded that thing. He was asked extremely high-pressure questions (the tone of which was creepy and racist, at least by today’s standards… no doubt he was used to it), and his answers were not only clear and authoritative but also completely free of even a single “um,” “uh” etc. Maybe this was more common in the ’60s, when media wasn’t as conversational as it is today, but I don’t know, I thought it was pretty impressive. It reminded me to work on being less rambling and hesitant in my everyday conversations.
This is great advice!
Doing improv is on my list as well since I really want to run fun + electrifying workshops on marketing and definitely need to work on my group presence.
How do they teach comedy improv? I’m really curious to know!
It was very fun. You learn a set of rules, exercises and strategies that help you move scenes forward and take them up s notch. It’s great practice for being on stage in weird situations. I got started through a Groupon. Hopefully I can write a longer post on the experience soon.