Quick Public Speaking Tips to Improve Your Communication Skills

On this episode of the podcast, I'll be talking some quick and easily applicable public speaking tips you can use to improve your presentation skill abilities. I'll be covering body language, eye contact, tone, pace, confidence, and much more! 

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This is a podcast by Jon Peng where I’ll be sharing life lessons, stories, and laughs in a fun and relaxing way! 

I also go by:

Jon Peng English
Jon彭
Jon彭玉印
Jonathan彭玉印

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Transcript

Jon 0:00

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the podcast. And today is going to be a quick one. I'm sorry. Actually, I have to go on a business trip very, very, very soon. In fact, uh, I am afraid that I'm gonna get so into this podcast that I'm gonna be late by train. Okay. Again, if you are coming back uh to our podcast, I want to say thank you for your support. Remember to like, follow, subscribe. And of course, every comment helps everybody. And we are slowly uh gonna be available everywhere. I'm working on it. All right, and of course, we are slowly optimizing our uh equipment as well from the camera to the mic, etc. etc. Uh this camera, uh this sorry, not camera. This microphone, I just got it a few hours ago, okay, and I've adjusted a few settings. Uh, you can tell me how it sounds and let me know in the comments. All right. Now, with that said, we got to keep it short today. Um, I want to get into something I think is uh super useful for all of you, and that is how to improve your speaking ability. So a lot of people said, Well, John, I like the way you speak English. I like the way you speak, I like the way you communicate and present. So I want to say that again, actually, my speaking style is not for everybody. Some people would say I speak too fast. Some people would say my energy is way too high. Uh some people prefer more slow, more deliberate, more, you know, slower-paced speaking, not so much crazy energy. So, with that said, remember that everyone's speaking style is different. Everyone has different taste in what they like. As an example, sometimes when I listen to podcasts, I prefer funny podcasts, comedy podcasts, high energy, lots of laughs. If I hear a podcast where someone is speaking like this about the news or about current events or very uh low energy or monotone, for me personally, that makes me tired. That will put me to sleep. But again, someone else could be completely different. Okay. But with that said, if you do like the way I speak, if you do like the way I present myself, today I want to share some tips with you and how you can improve your speaking skills and how you can speak and present like I do. All right. So, tip number one I want to talk about is my body language. Okay. Uh I'm going to put body language as our first tip because uh I think even the best speakers, if they don't have any body language, if they're so stiff like this, they don't move their face, they don't smile, they don't move their hands. This can really, in my opinion, um kind of cripple their abilities as a speaker. It can really make you disengage with what they're saying. So there's there's a few things that I do when it comes to my body language when I speak. First of all, my hands. My hands are always moving when I speak. Um, you know, whether they're doing like this or this or this or this or this or some some some kung fu, you know, uh, they're always moving in some way. And of course, if you're listening to the audio version of today's episode of today's video, you can watch the video version. Okay. Um, so your hands should always be doing something. Uh that doesn't mean you should be like punching the air or something like that, but you should try to move your hands when you speak in some way. Try not to keep your hands by your sides when you speak. You know, you're not a, you know, you're not a soldier, you know, you're not saluting. You know what I mean? Don't be so stiff. Um, a lot of people have different rhythms they like to get into. So, for example, for me, when I speak, you'll notice that I do a lot of this. So, my hands kind of do like a waving motion like this, waving motion like this. Some people, when they speak, do this. Some people like to do this, like this, like this. It's different for everybody. Some people like to chop vegetables. The most important thing is that you want to get in a rhythm with your hands so that when you're speaking, it just comes as a natural motion. You want to become a habit. You want to train yourself to do that. Okay. If you're thinking to yourself that, okay, when I say this word, I'm gonna move my hands. Now it doesn't work like that. Okay, that's too deliberate, that's kind of weird, okay? Um, so again, get in a natural flow with your hands. Think of a way you can move your hands in a way that will improve your hand body language. All right. Now, the next thing is your face. Okay, so two things. One, very important is eye contact. When you're speaking to people, when you're speaking to a crowd, in any situation, eye contact is very, very, very powerful. Very, very, very powerful. Okay. They say the wit the eyes are the windows to the soul. And some people actually will get very uncomfortable when you make eye contact with them because again, it's very um, it's a very strong action. Okay. Now, I'm not telling you to like be on the subway or in public, stare into someone's soul like this and freak them out. Okay, not like a stalker. No, I'm saying that if you're speaking to someone, if you're speaking to a crowd, strong eye contact can really help you build a strong connection. So, as an example, when I am speaking to someone one-on-one, I really try my best to make good eye contact with them. And I don't look at my phone, I don't, you know, check my phone all the time. I want them to really feel like I'm really engaged in what they have to say. Regardless if we know each other well or if we're just strangers, I think that's very important. You know, actually, I feel like this tip right here is kind of saying, put your put your phone down. Okay, we're humans here, okay. Put your phone down. Okay. Now, if you're speaking to a group of people, a crowd of people, um, now you can try your best to make eye contact with the entire crowd, every single person there, but that's gonna be nearly impossible because you'll be like this. Hello, hello, hello, hello. Looking at every single person, like like a, like a, like a, like a crazy bird or something like that. You know, hello, hello, hello. Okay.

Jon 6:24

Now, what I want you to do instead is try this. I want you to look and scan the crowd. And what does that mean? So I'll give you an example. Uh, pretend right now that I'm I'm speaking to you, but I am speaking like a crowd of like a hundred people, okay? So, what I would do is that I would begin speaking to the crowd like this, and slowly scanning from here, left to right, and even looking at the people in the back as well, and making sure that I can kind of look in their general direction. They feel that I'm paying attention to them. Okay. Don't forget the back of the crowd. Don't forget the back of the crowd. Because again, if you're only speaking to a bunch of people, but you're only looking at the person in the front, that's kind of not cool, right? If I'm sitting in the back, why should I pay attention to you, right? Okay. Making eye contact also has this a very powerful uh effect that if if if I see someone is like not paying attention, they're on their phone, they're kind of ignoring what I have to say. Well, then from here, if I make eye contact with it, it's kind of like a saying, like, hey, pay attention to me. I'm talking to you. And they'll say, Oh, they'll put their phone down, okay? And not like, hey, I'm calling you out, stop using your phone. It's more like a, oh, oh, oh, I should be paying attention, okay? Okay, eye contact is very powerful. Another thing is smile. Smile, please smile, everybody. Please smile when you look at the ground, look at people. Smile in general. Don't look sad all the time. Don't look grumpy. Don't look just smile. Smiling is such a powerful thing. You know, the other day when I was was walking out in public, I saw this person. It was it's funny, it's really interesting. I saw a person walking down the street and they were smiling. You know, they're I think they were like listening to music and they're just like walking around smiling looking happy. And at first I was like, what's going on? You why is this person smiling? What's this weirdo doing? Why is this person? What's this person smiling about? What are they gonna try to do? They're gonna try to do something to me? Is it a pervert, a weirdo? Uh, but then I I after I kind of got over that, I realized I was smiling too. Smiling is infectious, you know. Laughter, happiness is infectious, and you should should should do that too. You should be smiling if you can, if you're happy, okay? You know, sometimes when you smile, you can make yourself happier as well, all right? So smile, okay? Body language. Try to move your hands in a way, uh, try to make icon, try to smile, okay? Uh, we can talk more about body language another time, okay? So next thing I want to talk about is the the the the the tone of your voice. So I think this is a big challenge for people, uh, especially if uh the language you're speaking is your second language. So you'll notice that when I speak, that that my the tone of my voice is is always very different. If I'm talking about something serious, my my energy is is is a bit lower, I speak a little bit slower, I speak a bit deeper. But when I'm excited about something, when I'm so happy and excited about something, my voice goes higher, the energy is there, I I'm really exerting myself here. So this is really important if you're if you're speaking about something. So right now I'm kind of talking about a like a neutral part of the subject I'm talking about. So my my the tone of my voice, the energy is quite in the middle. But when I'm excited, when it's a very important point, I'm going higher. But when it's a very important point, I want you to pay attention to. I want you to take notes, I want you to really focus on that. I'm gonna go a bit lower and slower here, okay? So, you know, this point is kind of like the the energy and the tone as well as the pace, okay? Three things. I'm gonna put them all together, okay? The energy, the tone, and the pace. All right. So again, my speaking style, I tend to speak really fast, but I will slow it down when necessary. And that's not easy for everybody. For me right now to slow down my speaking pace is very difficult for me. I've had to work on it for a long time because I like to speak like this. My natural energies are really fast and I'm very excited about this. I'm like a dog, you know. Okay, but that's something you need to learn how to control. Whether you need to speak slower or faster, or you improve your pace for this situation, depends on what the subject matter is, as well as the energy and the tone of your voice. Okay. Now, third thing, third thing, third thing, third thing, uh, I think this is very important, is be confident. Be confident. All right. Now, this is a lot easier said than done. A lot easier said than done, right? Um, I think for me in general, I'm a very confident person, but I wasn't always a confident person. Um, before I, you know, was bullied a lot as a kid. You know, I I don't have the best skin. You know, there's there's a little bit of magic going on. My skin is doesn't look great in the video, but it it's it's in real life, is is not that great. It looks a lot worse. But in general, I'm a very confident person. I had to put a lot of work into that to really find myself worth and to really uh be confident in what I do and what I say and how I present myself. Not I'm not gonna pretend like I'm always like that, but in general, I'm a confident person. And when you're a confident person in your own life, that will also exude into the things you do. That will also be represented in the things you do. For example, uh when you speak to people, when you do things, uh, when you present, you know, when you uh whatever, right? The more confident you are yourself, the more peace you're at yourself, the more it's gonna show in the things you do and how people see you. And again, when it comes to speaking, that is in extremely, extremely evident. All right. Now it's hard for me to teach confidence, you know. It's not easy, you know. It can be trained, but there's a lot of self-help and and and self-work you have to put into yourself. But if I could give you a few tips to be confident when it comes to speaking, I'd say the following. First, in general, you know, unless it's like some very high-stakes meeting where there's like a lot of money or something on the line, if you're just if we're just talking about like general situations where you're speaking to a crowd, people don't care about, you know, if you speak poorly or if you're gonna make a mistake, or if you have grammatical issues, or if if English isn't your your your your mother language and and and and and et cetera, et cetera. You know, in general, when you're speaking to people, um, they want to get to know you, okay? They're there for you, and so they have to give you their time, so make the best of it, okay? In general, people are are not you know hating you or wanting to fail. Uh, you know, to be honest with you, if we're talking about like speeches or workshops, sometimes people don't even want to be there. Okay, like more than you don't want to be there, right? But if that's the case, you can still take that time to make their day a bit better. Okay, so people don't care about that stuff with you, okay? That's number one. Number two, it's human to make mistakes. And it's also endearing as well. This is kind of like a reason, for example, like you you'll notice, like as you're watching this video, I've noticed that like I've seen a lot of videos recently go very, very viral, very popular, where people are just like outside, having their camera, no professional mic, no professional editing, no professional camera, just filming their lives and talking. Why? Because that's real. That's real. I think people are getting sick of like artificial, fake. Um, you know, I'm rich, I'm that, my life is great. This is this. It's all like kind of just like edited and put together, especially with the rise of AI, who knows what's real or not. So being genuine, being a real likable person, um, especially when it comes to speaking, is very endearing. So making mistakes is okay. It means you're human and it's good. Okay. Um the next thing I'd say is that, you know, if you want to, for example, memorize a speech. Now, here's my suggestion. If that's the way you memorize things, right? If you have to give a speech or a talk, if you have, like, for example, a two-page speech, now, if you want to memorize it word for word, go ahead. That's that that's your way, do it, fine. I will say that I've encountered a lot of people that they memorize a script word for word, but the problem is that when it comes to the actual performance and speaking, uh it sounds very poorly performed. Sounds sounds terrible, sounds like crap. Why? Because they're trying so hard to memorize what they have to say, they forget about being natural. They're very unnatural, they're very clunky, they don't use body language, no tones, nothing, basically. They kind of like, okay, I'm speaking to you right this, and I sincerely hope I don't mess up this line. Uh what was that word again? You know what I mean? So I would suggest to you that if you can, if possible, bullet points. Bullet points. I'll give you an example. I have no script for this video right now, or this audio podcast, whatever you're listening to right now. I have no script whatsoever. Okay. What I'm doing right now is I just have a general framework, a few bullet points of what I want to talk about. I knew before I began talking to you today that I want to say, okay, first my introduction, that I'm gonna tell you how to be more confident speaker. Okay. And I'm gonna focus on body language, pacing, tone, and confidence. Okay? And that's it. And from there, because I consider myself to be somewhat of a at least experienced, I'm not gonna say expert, but I'm experienced in the subject, it's all here in the back of my head. It's all inside me. I know per perfectly well how to present this information, okay? So for you, what you consider is bullet points. And bullet points, again, is easier, in my opinion, to give a speech or presentation or just to talk about anything, because from there, you don't need to memorize everything word for word, just the main ideas, okay? And if, for example, if you ever mess up, instead of pulling out a uh a script with three million words, maybe you just look at a note card, it's got like five points on there, quick, and you go again. Okay. All right. So, ladies and gentlemen, that that's that's all I have for today. Uh, just a few tips for you, a few bite-sized tips. Uh, I will go into this uh a bit further uh uh in in in the future. Uh but for now, let me know what you think about these tips. Let me know what you think about uh these pointers. Let me know any tips you have on how you can become a more confident speaker, uh, things you do in your daily life to be more confident, more powerful when you're speaking, whether it's just in your daily life, speaking another language, speeches, whatever. Let me know in the comments, let me know what you think. And everyone, don't forget to like, subscribe, follow. Uh stay tuned more for more episodes of the podcast. And I will see you next time, okay? Thank you. Take care. Bye bye.