Do you want to make your audience fall in love with you at first sight? They will certainly fall in love with you when you share your 4 F’s: Failures, Flaws, Frustrations and Firsts. When you open your heart to the audience, they will open their hearts and minds for you. Your stories will connect deeply with them and you will be able to drive home your message effectively and effortlessly.
Failures. Failures are big learning opportunities. What are your biggest failures? And what did you learn from them? Share them with your audience. Your audience members had their own share of failures in life. When you talk about your failures, they will see you as someone who is just like them. Do not build yourself up to be a superman who is a success all along his life, you will lose the audience’s connection. Even Bill Gates had his own shares of failures before building his empire. So that puts me, you and Bill Gates in the same league – The Failures League! Is in it nice to know that other people failed and raised again to succeed? Learn from the past, use the present to build a better future. Let us join the Legends’ League!
Flaws. Flaws can slow you down from achieving your dreams and desires. What are your flaws? And what are you doing to overcome them? Again, the audience members, just like you, are likely suffering from this flaw and will be on the edge of their seats to learn how to deal with their flaws to move forward in their lives. I suffered from being a very picky person and that cost me a lot. For example, when I was searching for a Doctorate Program, I just kept searching and searching. I wasted four years. Guess what, it takes on average four years to finish a Doctorate Program! I could have finished by now and I could have added a lot of credibility to my professional image. Do not be picky, this can get tricky. Select something reasonable and move on.
Frustrations. Try this at work. Talk about one of your frustrations and see how your colleagues will be engaged in the conversation. People love to vent their frustrations to others because this helps them in relieving themselves and, at the same time, feeling better even though their situations may have never actually changed. Look at stand-up comedians. They thrive on frustrations because each of their audience members are sitting and saying: This man is speaking to me. He feels my pain. And that is how they establish a strong connection with the audience to make them laugh. In your case, the frustrations will help you connect and convey your message more effectively and if you get laughs in the process, bravo. The audience will feel much better and are more likely to accept your message. So now, let us talk about one of my biggest frustrations: Maintaining and remembering countless passwords. Are you suffering from this? Welcome to the club!
Firsts. All the above F’s help you in providing hope, inspiration and solutions to your audience members’ common life issues. However, this one is my favorite. It is a great way to provide hope and to tell the audience not worry about where they are right now because the tools you will share with them will take them places. Talk about your Firsts. For example, often times, I share this story with my audience when I start my speech workshops and it goes like this. When I was 13, I delivered on of the worst speech of my life to more than 100 people. I was rambling and mumbling. I felt miserable and horrible. After this disturbing experience, out of fear, I avoided public speaking for many years, until I learned that public speaking is a skill that I could learn. Tonight, I will share with you some practical insights on becoming a better speaker.
Three final notes. First, sharing your 4 F’s is an intimidating advice, to say the least. Not many people are comfortable sharing their own stories with others. Take it from me, you will come across as a more authentic speaker when you apply this advice. Secondly, make sure you establish a link between your message and your “F.” That’s is you litmus test, if there is no link, it is pointless to share an “F.” Thirdly, start compiling a file containing your 4 F’s, it will be handy for your next speech. Go on, be fabulous!
Mohamed Isa is an Executive Speech Coach who guides his clients in designing and delivering dynamic speeches so that they get laughs, applause, and their message across. He is the Co-Author of Amazon’s Best Seller: World Class Speaking in Action.