You know what I think is harder than blogging everyday, starting projects, and finishing well?
Yep, you guessed it. Speaking. Give me time to process my thoughts, write them down in the security of my home, edit, and I’m good.
Put me on a stage and ask me to communicate clear, compelling vision and I freak out.
It’s not surprising that mankind’s greatest fear is public speaking. It requires focus, vulnerability, and charm. You can’t do it on the couch with a bag of cheetos. A little effort is required.
The truth is, if you consider yourself a leader, you can’t avoid public speaking. Your followers are waiting to hear you speak.
Types Of Speaking
When we think of public speaking it we usually conjure up images of large conference rooms, church pulpits, and angry audiences that hate our guts. But great speaking isn’t just reserved for the big stages.
What about:
- persuading your children to obey?
- a job interview?
- a small group?
- a proposal?
- a staff meeting?
Anytime you open your mouth, you are influencing others.
Great leaders always communicate well, and blogging has helped me develop my speaking like no other discipline. No, blogging doesn’t take away the nerves or magically turn you into a persuasive communicator. I wish I could promise that. But it can help you in these 5 ways:
How Blogging Makes You A Better Speaker:
1. It helps you get to the point – to be an effective writer, you can’t be a rambler. Nobody wants to hear you drone endlessly about randomness. Get to the point and say it well. Because I force myself to write easily scannable content and a lot of list posts, it forces me to think through a topic and say it as succinct as possible.
2. It helps you know what you’re talking about – nobody wants to read someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. You can spot a faker or a plagiarizer a mile away. Blogging pushes you to research topics and know your niche.
3. It constantly stretches your creative muscle – great speakers are curious people. They are constantly learning, seeing life from new perspectives. Blogging helps you do this. In order to constantly create compelling content, you need to be curious. You need to view your life as a learning experience. Stretch that creative muscle every day.
4. It provides instant feedback – comments are a wonderful thing. They provide instant feedback to your writing and a lot of times, you learn from your readers. This will help you as a communicator because you’ll get a feel for how your audience reacts to the topic.
5. It helps you speak convincingly – to be a great blogger, not only does your writing need to be succinct, it needs to be convincing. You want to move people to action. You want your readers to know what you’re asking of them. It’s the same way with great speaking. You don’t leave your listeners guessing as to what you want them to do.
So what can you do?
Next time you speak, blog about it first.
Get to the point with as few words as possible. Then practice out loud. You’ll notice a massive difference.
Question: In what other ways has blogging helped you? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
Blogging has forced me to open up and become more transparent. It was very difficult for me to make my first comment on a blog with my name attached. There is something powerful in putting yourself “out” there. Also, as you say above, blogging forces me to fine tune my thoughts and narrow them down to what I really want to say. And, finally, blogging is giving me confidence because with each blog post, I realize that I DO have something to say – something to put out into the world with my name attached.
Great thoughts. Thanks!
So true, Jason. I love hearing this stuff. Thanks for contributing!
One way that blogging has really helped me in speaking is that when you write you think about the end before you ever start writing. You must do the same when speaking.
Great point, DVest. How often do we start speaking and forget where we were going? It’s like telling a joke but not knowing the punch line 🙂
Brilliant. Love this.
Blogging has (and is still) forced me be more precise and concise. I’m still not great at it, but it’s a work in progress and it shows when I go to speak.
Definitely. We’re all a work in progress, Matt. Just checked out your site. Looks great!
Thanks man. Look forward to connecting more!
Definitely
Blogging has really helped me in my speaking and writing. When I speak, I am straight to the point. I really don’t like to ramble off cliche thoughts and concepts that everyone has heard before…if you know what I mean?
I blog for my church once/month, but have been feeling a lot recently like I have more things to say that might be valuable and maybe I should thinking about it. There’s been a plethora of blogs in the last couple weeks that have screaming at me to stop thinking and start doing. And this post is just one of many that provide a concise and precise benefit to doing just that. Thanks, David!
What’s the blog url for your church, bro? And if you started a blog, what would it be about? (besides how to be awesome 🙂
http://www.myabundantlife.com
And I’m not sure. Something on spiritual growth maybe. That’s what I wanted to pick your brain about for 5 minutes. That, and how to be awesome 🙂
I’ve learned the opposite – successful public speaking techniques have made me a better writer.
Maybe this is a separate post, but what speaking techniques have have helped you the most? Interesting. Learning is an endless loop, isn’t it?
David, once again – another outstanding post! I’ve long believed that clear writing requires clear thinking and vice versa. Blogging daily helps declutter my mind, while streamlining my thoughts. I think that in turn, makes my speaking crisper and more precise. In PR, we always strive to prep our execs with talking points before any speaking engagement. That modest outline (or mini-blog if you will) acts as frame that they can build on or riff from, while still staying on message.
So true, Tor. So what do you do for a living?
Great insights David! I think blogging is helping build my communications skill set by forcing me to focus the message more on the interests of the listener/reader.
That’s such an important part of blogging-making it about THEM. Good insight man.