Professional speakers Anne Skare Nielsen and Soulaima Gourani have launched NerdySpeakers.com, an online masterclass for future keynote speakers and visionary leaders. NERDY SPEAKERS helps individuals become expert speakers by transforming the way they communicate by finding their strength, voice and their unique story. Students learn how to speak from the heart, share what impassions them most, and unlock their potential to earn a living as a speaker. Professional Keynote speakers Soulaima Gourani and Anne Skare Nielsen, each with 20 years of experience, have developed an interactive step-by-step video series program that contains 21 lessons. The program also has a community of supportive, like-minded visionaries to connect with and access to live Q & A sessions.
Together, Anne Skare and Soulaima Gourani have held about 5,000-6,000 speaking presentations all over the world and have spoken in fronts of thousands. From Mongolia to Middelfart, to Greenland to New Zealand, and in front of kings and queens, state leaders and Nobel Prize winners, gurus, rock stars and world-famous entrepreneurs. Soulaima has been hired as a mentor for TED in the USA, and Anne has had her own TV show. Not a week goes by without these duos receiving an offer to go on the screen, interviews at radio and podcasts or to contribute to other media channels.
Soulaima states, “there is no better, more challenging and enriching work than what we have, and now we are excited to teach other people what we know and how they can succeed on the big stage,” Soulaima Continues, “Everyone deserves a good working life, and being able to communicate in a fun and efficient matter can a way to open a lot of doors.”
Whether is how to carry an important message or profile your product, below are few tips from Soulaima and Anna on how to master your audience.
Love your audience.
When it comes to the art of communication, we know what we want to communicate, and each time you get up on the podium, you get the most beautiful gift in the world, the attention of other people and the chance to communicate your message. However, no matter how good you are, you are never more important than your audience. Therefore, it is your job to take your audience on your journey and into new heights, by transferring your energy, giving hope, and showing them the way to new opportunities.
Show trust & empathy.
Imagine your audience are like babies. Cute creatures who have entered this world filled with hopes and dreams. And then somehow along the way they’ve got lost, never really acknowledging all that they do. It’s important to engage your audience by gaining their trust and showing empathy. When you do, you’ll get them to open up to you. Ask yourself: What is my audience missing? What is it that they don’t get enough of? For examples, Nurses, teachers, and educators, generally receive way too little gratitude. So, if you are speaking to this crowd, say something like, “there’s something I’d like to say to you. It’s a word you hear way too little and which you deserve so very much, and that word is, thank you. On behalf of all those people who have not said so, those who forget to say so and all those who do not say thank you to you in the future, I just want to say … thank you for all that you do.” You can be sure that there will be tears and applause and a much larger openness towards you and the things that you say.
Be a calm gorilla.
It’s quite normal to feel anxious when you’re standing up in front of others. Always remember that “fear is for the ego.” It’s only the ego that feels anxious: Anxious to lose status, to be made a fool of, or to say something stupid. Face the anxiety, and do not take anything too seriously. It’s less important to be sharp and to control everything and more important to create a relationship with your audience. Notice other people’s body language – turmoil manifests itself as “the dancing bear,” i.e., you walk back and forth when you stand on the stage, back and forth, or tilt your feet. Don’t do that, because it’s infecting others and you appear unsure of yourself as if you don’t accept your own message. The same applies to index fingers and raised eyebrows. Speakers who do best are the ones who speak directly to people so that it hits them right at heart. We connect with people through our feelings and our subconscious. We support politicians who we consider to be trustworthy. We connect with those when we see their passion and personality. We do not like shrill voices, condescending looks and wrinkled foreheads. We do not like “uppity” language, statistics and boring models that do not relate to our own realities. Our instinct tells us that it is this person we cannot trust. Charisma makes a massive difference as to who gets to sit at the head of the table, and very often, it isn’t the one who is most competent. Unfortunately.
Your energy becomes other people’s energy.
I believe it is essential to take note of what it is that you are doing right before you go on the stage. If you do “small things” before you go in, you also diminish yourself. If you do “big things,” you also think bigger. It sounds absurd. But why risk it? Do not sit, all rolled together, and look down on your tiny phone display before doing something important. Stretch out, get up on your toes, and take on a winning pose. Imagine you have just won a huge prize or have important news to deliver. Walk around the room and greet people. Like an alpha, doing the rounds to mark off his territory. Be nice, look people in the eyes, smile, listen and learn. Just 5 minutes with a small selection of the target audience changes your mood, your energy level and allows for much more resonance. Let the people you talk to resonate with you. Your mood and energy are contagious. See yourself as a wedding band: never the center of the party, but essential in creating a pleasant atmosphere. Some want jazz, others pop and later on maybe some rock-n-roll. And it is of no relevance to them, that you had a bad day, you must still deliver. Every. Single. Time.
The great thing is that good energy will be your success criterion. You are forced to do everything that charges your batteries: practice sports, eat nutritious food, get some peace, sleep properly, learn new things and, of course, chill for the entire weekend. Spend a whole weekend with your comforter and some Netflix!
Take yourself and your message seriously.
“Cough, cough, clear throat, (drink water), (set microphone), hello, does it work? Do not do that! People are hoping for fireworks and distracting your audience with nonsense before you speak makes you look like a dud. We have seen countless CEOs and politicians speak while clinging to their speech papers. And perhaps there was a time when that was considered good enough, but that time is over! We expect our leaders to speak from the heart. We fully understand that you can become nervous, forget what to say and that you want to do it right, but please, take a guess at what message that sends.
Talent is good. Training is better.
Talent is a gift that some have been lucky enough to possess since birth. Some people never discover their talents, and other people use their talents to break boundaries. In the book Mindset, Carol Dweck (the author) found that having a talent often sabotages one’s long-term success. If you get success too soon, you won’t develop that spine and discipline that is necessary in order to become really, really good at something for many years to come. Instead, you quit once you face resistance, and you take your mistakes way too personally. However, you can not get good at anything without going through phases where everything just stinks. The stinking phase is part of mastering your industry, craft, and career.
Being able to do talks, speak to journalists, give an amazing speech in front of your employees, or touch people’s hearts at a wedding is not magic: it’s a matter of exercise. The people we remember from world history, those voices we can hear in our heads forever are those who have trained, trained, trained to find the tone and style that allows them to get an authentic message through – from Hitler to Martin Luther King.
Make an active decision that this is something you want to be good at, and spend some time making an effort to do it, just as you would with other kinds of training: Take courses, read books, watch TED talk, notice what others are doing when they’re on stage. It’s perfectly ok to copy a style until you find your own unique form.
Have fun with it.
The biggest reward, funnily enough, isn’t recognition, money, experiences and everything else that comes with the life as a world-class lecturer. Lars Ulrich from Metallica had said, “the stage is the ultimate free space. Here, no one calls, interferes or wants something – you are there, enjoying life, the mood and your own ultimate power of creation.
Many of us have become “stress bunnies,” with often feeling buried alive in our own lives and never really feeling like they’ve reached their goals. In the pursuit of inner peace, some choose to do ultra-runs. Others begin gardening or cooking, but we find that there is simply no greater high than to do a great talk in front of an audience who, by their own free will, chooses to go with you. It is a great feeling to live a life where people pay you to develop yourself, research your passion and give you a platform on which you tell them about it. However, you have to be yourself. You must exude credibility, gain confidence and in many cases also appear strong, warm and competent. Research shows that people can see through it if what you’re saying has become too “learned.” That’s what is called “from the outside and in.” You achieve the most substantial effect when communicating if you do it from “the inside out,” but being able to do that requires you to relax so that you appear natural and authentic. So enjoy yourself, relax and give yourself some praise for daring to be you.
Touch up the façade.
And before going all Zen Buddhist here, let’s also talk a bit about the exterior. There is a reason why you are continually being touched up with powder when you are on television. There is nothing that breaks the illusion of wisdom like a sweaty forehead. It has been said that Nixon “had a face made for radio.” He was sharp, evil and skilled, but TV was the new medium, and the clean, beautiful, and cleanshaven JFK won bigtime. You can complain all that you want and think it superficial, but the exterior really does mean a lot to your message. To avoid falling in your own laces. Once a year, have some really great promotional photos taken by a skilled photographer. A lot of media outlets can no longer afford to send out their own photographers, so if you already have some beautiful photos of yourself lying around, you can get a lot more sunshine that you’re indeed entitled to. Incidentally, Obama, like the French Macron, used vast amounts of money on make-up and clothes. And you can do that too. Once again – have fun with it. Get a stylist and a wardrobe that gives you peace of mind. You must feel comfortable!
Get your message through.
You can foster credibility through the right training. And you can lose it by committing minimal, almost insignificant mistakes. When you stand up on a stage, people basically believe what you say. You got their attention. Your appearance, your nonverbal communication, and your personality should support this particular fact.
A lot of people begin their speeches by talking about their research, their status, their many experiences, etc. to establish their credibility before they get to the message, but most people (and especially the younger generations) don’t care the least about all that. Talk isn’t teaching. An interview on television is not a Ph.D. defense. People want to hear your message, and they want to be seduced to see what it is you see.
You can ruin your credibility when you do the following below,
- having a tired, uneasy or annoying body language
- appearing unkempt, tactless, style-less and with no personality
- being dull and boring, speaking entirely from a PowerPoint slideshow
- saying something that is factually wrong
- trying to be clever about something you don’t really understand
- not knowing what you’re talking about
So: being smart and uncharming gets you just as far as being super charming but really stupid.
Both are equally bad. So, make sure to go as high as possible on all parameters.
After all, the parameters are only tools. Tools to get your message through. Your message is the most important thing, and it is what people should remember afterward. What is it, that you want to say? And why is it important? Your message should never take more than 5 minutes to get across – for the rest of the time, you can use examples, data, metaphors, anecdotes, images, taboos and hypotheses. All things that support your message.
The stage is yours. The keys are handed over, and you just have to open the door. Make your decision and make it the right one, and we are here to help you all the way through.
To learn how you can become a great speaker, please visit https://www.nerdyspeakers.com/english
