B.E.E.F. Up Your Speech

Ask any professional bodybuilder how he/she approaches a competition and they will all, most likely, answer in the same way. “Ya gotta beef up!” The same is true for speeches. But instead of grabbing the carbohydrates, we need to do the following:

1. BODY LANGUAGE – Body language is a powerful form of nonverbal communication. It’s all about how your body position, movements and facial expressions are perceived. Basically, body language clues others in on what we’re thinking. It’s fairly easy to spot bad body language and avoid it, such as sagging posture, a weak voice and fake smile. BEEF up by leaving all of these behind.

2. EYE CONTACT – Another important way to change the nature of your presentation is with eye contact. When we look a person in the eye, we communicate confidence and belief in our points of view. The bonus, in looking directly at your audience, is that it often makes YOU feel more assertive! 

3. EXPRESSION & TONE – Expression is defined as the process of making known one’s thought’s and feelings. Tone is the verbal emotion used in delivery. When speaking, it is important NOT to confuse sharing a thought or a feeling with the freedom of speech to say anything that pops into our heads. Each statement or idea, inside a speech, must be well supported by logic and rationally delivered. In this way, you are BEEFing up your own credibility. 

4. FILLER WORDS – We bring our speeches into the forefront when we make the effort to remove all of the filler words we can. They are the essence of verbal hiccups and we all have our favorites. Um, Uh, and Okay seem to make almost everyone’s list. Identify how often you use them and resolve NOT to be afraid of silence. Less is definitely better!

Bodybuilders pick their show in advance. They train and eat quality food. And on the big day, when their name is announced, they step up on the platform already BEEFED UP! We can do the same as we B.E.E.F. up our speeches!