Understanding life

Conventional public speaking wisdom states that one should never apologize.

However, I recently argued that there are very few public speaking rules.

• Is “never apologize” a strict rule?
• What is the rationale? What’s wrong with apologizing to the audience?
• Under what circumstances, if any, is it okay to apologize?

Is “never apologize” a strict rule?

No.

I think that, in general, too many speakers apologize for too many things unnecessarily, but it isn’t a universal rule.

What is the rationale? What’s wrong with apologizing to the audience?

The fundamental rationale for this guideline is twofold:

1. You usually gain little by apologizing.
2. You may damage your credibility.

Consider the situation where you are designing a presentation. You’ve assembled a wealth of information, and it is time to edit your material. With each component — a slide, a prop, a story, a joke — you ask yourself whether it adds to the core message, or whether it detracts. Is there a net gain by keeping this?

You might ask the same question of inserting an apology into your presentation. There is often very little to gain by apologizing. On the other hand, you may damage your credibility with the audience. If you apologize for not being an expert, for example, your audience will begin to question why they are listening to you.

Under what circumstances, if any, is it okay to apologize?

There’s no magic eight ball which will tell you when an apology is warranted. Having said that, you may find it helpful to consider these questions:

Question #1: Is the audience even aware of what you are apologizing for?

• Norman Wei recently suggested: “Never tell your audience you are nervous!” The audience is usually completely unaware of your nerves. They can’t feel your butterflies. They don’t know if you lost sleep over this presentation.
• Similarly, you need not apologize if you forget to include something that you had planned. Only you know what the plan was. The audience will never guess.

How to handle it:

• Don’t call attention to negatives. They will only distract both you and your audience.

Question #2: Are you apologizing because you are really sorry, or because you are embarrassed?

• If it is the latter, it is quite possible that an apology will only call attention to and amplify the source of your embarrassment.
• For example: “I’m sorry. I was rushing to get these slides together.” The audience has probably already judged the quality of your slides. They likely don’t care that you are embarrassed, and are unlikely to think “Oh, that’s okay. No problem.” Instead, their mental response is more likely “You didn’t prepare adequately. You are wasting my time.“

How to handle it:

• Prepare adequately so that you have nothing to be embarrassed about or apologize for. Additionally, your confidence level will increase and improve your delivery.

Question #3: Are you apologizing for something completely out of your control?

• Example: Your presentation is interrupted by a very noisy air conditioning unit that has just “clicked on.” Some speakers may ignore it. Others may express their own disappointment with an apology “Oh… sorry for that.“
• Example: You are booked to teach a course into a room which is too small to accommodate your students comfortably.

How to handle it:

• If there is some action you can take, and that action improves your ability to deliver your message, then act decisively. (“Why don’t I move closer to you so that everyone can hear over that air conditioner.“)
• If there is no meaningful action for you to take, you might try to relieve the stress of the situation with some appropriate humor. The key is to acknowledge the problem without apologizing for it.

Question #4: What if I need to apologize?

• A speaker I mentored once told me of a presentation where she felt a compelling need to apologize. She described a strong feeling of guilt which was negatively affecting her ability to speak. Ideally, such feelings would not impact her ability to continue, but that was not reality for her.

How to handle it:

• If you feel this need, then deliver the apology quickly and sincerely. Don’t dwell on it or repeat yourself. Just resume your presentation. You may or may not lose credibility points from the audience, but there are far worse things you can do.
• The key thing is sincerity. A sincere apology may even gain favor of the audience. It all depends on the context.

Thank you for your attention!

I was reviewing a technical presentation for a client. The topic was the latest dental procedures. Every few slides a cartoon popped up. Cartoons about people with bad teeth. They were tangentially relevant to the topic of the presentation – but didn’t help to promote the message of the presentation. When I asked the client why she had included the cartoons she said: “My presentation is soooo boring. I need something to keep the audience awake.”

Can you relate?

It’s a great temptation to do this. But is it justified? This list of pros and cons regarding using cartoons in your presentation by Philippa Leguen de Lacroix of Cornerstone Presentations will help you decide:

“Why you shouldn’t include a cartoon in your presentation

1. The cartoon can be a distraction

If the cartoon is at a tangent to the topic, it may remove your audience’s focus away from you and your message. You risk losing attention with each audience member going off into their own daydream provoked by the cartoon. For example, including this Dilbert strip in a presentation about creating better PowerPoint slides:

2. The complexity or subtle humour of the cartoon may be lost on the audience

In the case where half the audience laughs and the other half doesn’t: were they not amused or did they just not get it? In either case, you may have lost rapport with some of your audience members.

3. Your credibility may be undermined

If the cartoon is misunderstood, or is inappropriate to the subject matter, then there is a risk that your presentation won’t be taken seriously and that your credibility will be undermined.

The style of cartoon needs to be appropriate too. For example, adults are likely to prefer the Far Side to Mr Men.

Why you should include a cartoon in your presentation

1. You can reinforce your point

If the cartoon is “on-message” you will be reinforcing your point with an apt and powerful visual – this is priceless and highly likely to be retained by the audience.

2. The cartoon is a mind-break

A well placed cartoon can perform the role of a “mind break”. Mind breaks can be essential to keep your audience’s brains focused. By letting their grey matter have a rest now and again, you’ll be more likely to get them focusing again on your real content. The cartoon acts as a punctuation mark or breather for your audience – ensuring attention is refreshed when you start your next topic/message: this is more relevant when your content is particularly complex of course.

3. Cartoons are entertaining!

The role of comedy and humour can make a boring experience become a whole lot more fun. This will relax your audience, have a welcoming effect, which could make the presenter seem friendly and approachable – which would hopefully then result in a more productive meeting.

4. Communication and learning works best using a combination of images and narrative

Cartoons (and well designed presentations) fit this mold. Ideally an entire presentation follows a story, and this makes a presentation extremely powerful. It’s possible to go a step further and illustrate an entire presentation with a cartoon story (essentially all the slides would form a long comic strip). In this case, a well crafted narrative, with well built themes, and fleshed out characters and situation would be a powerful presentation.”

What would you add to Philippa’s list of pros and cons?

Thank you for your attention!

Metaphors help a skeptical or apathetic audience better embrace and value a new concept or idea.

Metaphors make the connection of that new idea to an object the audience already knows.

Read on to discover a treasure chest of metaphor speech examples.

The dictionary defines a metaphor as an implied comparison between two unlike things (e.g. human body and garage) that actually have something important in common (e.g. storage). “Your body is a garage to park your soul,” writes author Wayne Dyer.

Metaphors are Meaningful Bridges in Speeches

Think of a metaphor as a connection or a bridge between the new and the familiar. This connection provides a new perspective and a new meaning that can persuade an audience to reconsider its skeptical or apathetic attitude.

Metaphors are so powerful that Aristotle said: “The greatest thing by far is to have mastered the metaphor.” And the Spanish philosopher and writer Jose Ortega y Gasset added, “The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man.”

Metaphors provide a frame of reference to more fully apply new concepts or ideas. That’s why the first trains were called horseless carriages. After all, people already knew the purpose and the premise of a carriage. So a carriage without a horse must roll on wheels.

Metaphors pique the interest of an audience to see the old in a new way. Even the students who think science is boring might reconsider if they thought that those who studied astronomy were “peeping Toms at the keyhole of eternity,” as author Arthur Koestler observed.

When Kodak invented the camera, the technology was so new and different the camera could only be valued by linking the new technology of a camera to something more familiar. Kodak called its camera a “mirror with a memory.” They connected two dissimilar things that actually have something in common. A camera’s film is the memory and the lens is the mirror. Link the two knowns to the unknown — a camera — and a metaphor is born.

Charles Revson, the founder of Revlon, used his metaphorical thinking to expand the reach of his business. “In the factory we make cosmetics. In the store we sell hope.” Likewise Porsche pays homage to the metaphor in its advertising: “A Porsche is not a car. It is the best engineered executive toy in the world.” Metaphors are so powerful they can transform much like the antique dealer who says your trash is our treasure.

Metaphorically Speaking… More Metaphor Examples

Consider the following speech metaphor examples:

• Chances are your audiences would see more value in making an appointment to see a smile stylist rather than a dentist.
• Chances are your audiences would be more interested in learning how to purchase jewelry for their windows rather than window accessories such as curtain rods, rings, tie-backs and swag.
• Chances are your audiences would do more research if they thought of themselves as infonauts and the library as the delivery room for the birth of ideas.
• Chances are your audiences might enjoy exercise more if they thought of their treadmill as a flight simulator.
• Chances are your audiences would eat more fruit if they thought they were eating God’s candy.
• And chances are members of your audiences might more readily volunteer to become the designated driver if everyone kept calling him or her the Life of the Party.

Analogies: Close Cousins to the Metaphor

In addition to the metaphor, polished speakers show up with their “A” game to engage audiences and help them better understand a complex policy or procedure.

Use an analogy whenever you need to explain a new process or new procedure particularly to a general audience. The dictionary defines analogy as a “similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar.” To create an analogy, find an object that your audience is already familiar with. Then look for characteristics in that object that could be compared to traits or various aspects of your process.

Example of an Analogy to Open a Speech

Let’s say you are a nutritionist and you want to deliver a speech on the value of fasting for a general audience, many of whom would be completely turned off by the prospect of not eating every 4-5 hours. Let’s call up the A-team and begin your speech with an analogy that engages the audience and builds greater understanding first with something they already are familiar with.

In your research on fasting you find that one of the key benefits to fasting is that your digestive system gets a lot more efficient after a fast. During a fast it reorganizes parts and pieces of the digestive system that normally are too busy digesting food.

Is there something in your audience’s everyday lives that reorganizes itself and gets more efficient especially when you are NOT using that process as you normally would?

How about computers? Is there any way to connect computer processing to a fasting process that reorganizes the digestive system to make it work better? Consider the following analogy that opened a speech on fasting to a general audience:

My computer was running so slooooowwwwww. Defrag it, my friend told me. I thought he said “Rag it.” What! What was I supposed to do with a rag? Dust off the computer? Well after my friend had his good laugh at my expense, he explained that defragging helps the computer better digest information you feed it. And then your computer works better, faster and more efficiently, he told me.

I wondered if there was a defragging process for the human body… to make the food I eat digest more efficiently and make me feel that much better! Voila! There is! Fasting is like the defragging process for the human body.

When you fast, you make The Pit Stop of Your Life. And like that pit stop at a NASCAR race track for example, we stop briefly to reset repair, and restore. We stop. (pause) eating for several days or more.

And we free up our body’s digestive system, so that it no longer is expending 60 percent of the body’s energy on digestion. Now it can redirect that energy to reset, restore and repair itself to be that much more effective and efficient when eating resumes.

 

Another Speech Analogy Example

Here’s another example of an analogy that links specific processes of a stove and stomach to encourage people to eat breakfast. This one is written by John Gray in his book The Mars and Venus Diet and Exercise Solution:

“Think of your body as an old-fashioned steam engine. You need to feed the fire with coal. When there is no coal available, the stoker slows down so that all the available fuel is not consumed. Likewise, your metabolism slows down for the rest of the day when you don’t eat breakfast.”

 

Metaphor and Analogy: Tools for Every Speaker

The metaphor and analogy are two of the sharpest tools in the public speaker’s shed to weed out the confusion in your audience and plant the seeds of understanding.

Thank you for your attention!

Is your audience listening even before you speak your first words?

Do they have high expectations?

Are they prepared to be convinced by what you have to say?

If not, you are suffering from poor ethos.

The first article in the Ethos, Pathos, and Logos series introduced these core concepts for speakers.

In this article, we define ethos, we look at ways that an audience measures your ethos, and we examine why it is so critical for a successful speech.

What is Ethos?

Ethos was originally defined by Aristotle in On Rhetoric as being trustworthy. He stated that we are more likely to believe people who have good character.

Aristotle later broadened this definition of ethos to add that we are more likely to be persuaded by someone who is similar to us, whether by their intrinsic characteristics (e.g. physical age) or the qualities they adapt (e.g. youthful language).

Aristotle does not include the concept of either a speaker’s authority (e.g. a government leader) or reputation (e.g. an industry expert) in his definition of ethos, but this reflects the rather narrow role for public speaking in his world. In our world, where speaking takes so many forms and where we often know a great deal about the speaker, we will include both of these elements in our definition of ethos.

So, then, we will measure the ethos of a speaker by four related characteristics:

1. Trustworthiness (as perceived by the audience)
2. Similarity (to the audience)
3. Authority (relative to the audience)
4. Reputation or Expertise (relative to the topic)

We will explore each of these characteristics below. In a later article, we will look at specific things you can do to improve your ethos as defined by these root characteristics.

1. Ethos = Trustworthiness

An audience is more likely to be persuaded by someone who they trust, and this is largely independent of the topic being presented. If the audience trusts you, then they expect that what you are telling them is true.

Your trustworthiness is enhanced if the audience believes you have a strong moral character, as measured by concepts like:

• Honest,
• Ethical or moral,
• Generous, or
• Benevolent

Additionally, your audience tends to trust you if you are a member of a group with which these qualities are often associated (e.g. a pastor; a firefighter).

2. Ethos = Similarity to the Audience

Your audience is more receptive to being persuaded by someone with whom they can identify. Like trustworthiness, this aspect of ethos is largely independent of the topic.

If you share characteristics with your audience, great!

If you don’t, you can adapt your language, your mannerisms, your dress, your visuals, and your overall style to match your audience. Consider this the chameleon effect. Keep in mind that there are limitations to how much you can adapt your speech and delivery. Beyond this limit, your audience will see you as lacking authenticity and that’s bad.

There are many characteristics which you might share with your audience:

• Age, Gender, Race, Culture
  Example: A youthful audience identifies with a youthful speaker, just as a mature audience will identify more with a mature speaker.
• Socio-economic status
  Rich? Poor? Educated? Middle-class? Urban? Rural?
• Citizenship
  Where you are from, whether in a global sense (what country are you from?), or in a local sense (are you urban, or rural?)
• Career or Affiliation
  Do you share a profession with your audience?
  Are you a member of the same organization as your audience?
• Personality
  Analytical? Emotional? Reserved? Outgoing?

If you are similar to your audience, then your audience will be more receptive to your ideas in the same way that you are more likely to open a door at night if you recognize the voice of the person on the other side.

3. Ethos = Authority

The greater a person’s authority, whether formal (e.g. an elected official) or moral (e.g. the Dalai Lama), the more likely an audience is inclined to listen and be persuaded.

Authority comes from the relationship between the speaker and the audience and is, in most cases, fairly easy to recognize. Several types of authority include:

• Organizational authority
  e.g. CEO, manager, supervisor
• Political authority
  e.g. president, political leader
• Religious authority
  e.g. priest, pastor, nun
• Educational authority
  e.g. principal, teacher, professor
• Elder authority
  e.g. anyone who is older than us

In addition to these, every speaker has authority just from being the speaker. When you speak, you are the one at the front of the room, often on an elevated platform, sometimes with a microphone or spotlight. You control the moment and thus, have temporary authority.

4. Ethos = Reputation (or Expertise)

Expertise is what you know about your topic.

Reputation is what your audience knows about what you know about your topic.

Your ethos is influenced by your reputation. Of the four characteristics of ethos, reputation is the one most connected to the topic of your presentation.

Your reputation is determined by several related factors:

• Your experience in the field
  How many years have you worked with or studied this topic?
• Your proximity to the topic or concept
  Are you the one who invented the concept? Were you involved at all? Or are you more of a third-party?
• Your production in the field
  Books or academic papers written. Blogs authored. Commercial products developed.
• Your demonstrated skill
  If you are talking about money management, are you a successful money manager?
• Your achievements, or recognition from others in the field
  Awards won. Testimonials earned. Records achieved. Milestones reached.

How do these characteristics combine?

Ethos cannot be assessed it with a checkbox (“yes, you have ethos” or “no, you don’t.”) like you can with, say, pregnancy. It’s more like beauty in the sense that there’s a whole range of beauty and many ways to obtain it. (And, it’s in the eye of the beholder… your audience!)

This is easy to see if you examine how the four characteristics of ethos combine in various ways. Consider the following examples:

• A CEO speaking to her employees
  As the CEO, she has organizational authority, and this is usually accompanied by a reputation built on years of success within the company. However, she may not be very similar to most of the employees (older than most; richer than most; perhaps more reserved and analytical). Nonetheless, her trustworthiness is solid based on past history of honest communication with employees.
• The U.S. President giving the State of the Union address
  The President has more authority than most people on the planet based on his job title.  His reputation and trustworthiness probably depend a fair bit on your political beliefs. As for similarity to his audience, it’s a mixed bag — He’s American, and he’s not too old nor too young. But, he’s a politician and in a socio-economic class which puts him apart from most citizens.
• A Teacher speaking to his students
  He probably has a record of trustworthiness, as long as he truthfully announces when assignments are due and exams are scheduled.  He has authority over the 16-year-olds, both by way of position and by age. He has taught in the school for 10 years (expertise), including many of his students’ older siblings (reputation). Unfortunately, he’s not really similar to his students in terms of age, wealth, career, or choice of music.

All of them have significant ethos as they score high on several measures. In particular, authority and reputation often are closely related. (The things you did to earn the reputation often earn authority as well.)

On the other hand, none have perfect ethos. Indeed, this is very hard to obtain as some measures conflict. For example, your authority relative to your audience often weakens your similarity with them.

Why is Ethos Critical for Speakers?

If you have high ethos, your audience is listening and attentive from your first word. They expect that you have something valuable to say, and they are eager to hear it. They are likely to be persuaded by you, provided that your speech is compelling. A bad speech will still sink you, but you’ll have more leeway.

If you have low ethos, your audience may not be listening or paying attention. (In fact, they may not even show up! Poor ethos doesn’t attract a crowd.) Expectations are low, and a poor opening will kill you. Your audience can be persuaded, but your speech needs to be much better to do it.

How do you Establish Ethos?

Unlike pathos and logos (about which we will learn in future articles), your ethos as a speaker is primarily established before you speak your first words. For example, either you have expertise about your topic, or you don’t. Either you are the CEO of the company, or you aren’t.

Having said that, there are many ways to establish ethos and to boost your ethos throughout your speech. We’ll examine this in the next article of the series.

Thank you for your attention!

Times are tough, but saving money isn't. Just decide what you can do without. Here are 8 common but unnecessary purchases you don't need.


1: Jeans

The average woman owns 8 pairs or more. Even at 75% off put them back.


2: Box Covers

Research has shown tissue works fine without a cover.



3: Big Box Bulk

If you don't use it, it's not a bargain. It's a waste.



4: Air Fresheners

If your house stinks, clean it. That should take care of the odor.



5: Detox

Teas, colonics, even Japanese foot pads claim to detoxify your body. Your liver and kidneys do that for free.



6: Home Exercise Equipment

Most of it ends up unused, and there are far cheaper ways to hang up wet socks.



7: Satellite Navigation

The vast majority of drivers know exactly where they're going. If you don't, online directions are free.



8: Gag Gifts

Gag gifts are only funny once. And they're not even that funny. No refunds. Same goes for cutesy knick-knacks.

Thank you for your attention!