Book Friends Forever
Don't Say Um By Michael Chad Hoeppner
Learn the fastest, most effective way to improve your public speaking and communication skills by focusing on delivery—because how you say something matters more than what you say—with exercises that can boost confidence and influence.In the age of technology, we're getting worse at communicating by the day, but the good news is, everyone can improve their speaking. Michael Chad Hoeppner is the foremost expert on effective speaking. He's coached presidential candidates, prominent CEOs, and Ivy League deans on their communication skills. Now, he shares his wide‑ranging knowledge in Don't Say Um.Hoeppner has created an entirely new approach to communication training, providing physical exercises to quickly improve speaking. With simple-to-master exercises like finger-walking to stop using filler words or silent storytelling to avoid monotone, think of Don’t Say Um as an essential reference book, one to revisit on the path to improving your speech.Through these exercises, you will be able to talk to a group with complete confidence or simply effectively tell a joke. Don't Say Um challenges our preconceived notions of good speaking techniques and offers powerful tools to become master communicators.
- Duration:
- 3m
- Broadcast on:
- 07 Jan 2025
- Audio Format:
- other
I once helped a sociologist who had just finished her PhD. As an academic, she was a groundbreaking scholar, brilliant thinker, and beloved mentee of several professors. But she couldn't get a job, and she was becoming panicked. She was considering rethinking her geography, her ambitions, even her career. She felt that people didn't take her seriously and that was evidence her research and writing weren't good enough. Over a period of four months, I coached her to master three behaviors. One, rather than speaking at a relentlessly fast speed, we use the kinesthetic drills you will learn in this audiobook to vary pace, one of five musical dynamics of vocal presence. Two, rather than resonating her voice primarily in her sinuses, we use the physical and vocal warm-ups you will learn in this audiobook to unlock resonance throughout the body. Three, rather than littering her language with the useless modifier "like", we use the linguistic precision exercises you will learn in this audiobook to actively choose words. Note that none of those adjustments had anything to do with her research. Four months later, she had a job in her chosen field. Obviously, many factors went into her getting hired, but one of the key ones was her ability to get out of a deeply self-destructive pattern. She was stuck in an unhelpful cycle of beating up on herself and her research, trying harder to improve her research, feeling even worse when people weren't impressed, then trying even harder to improve her research and so on and so forth without putting any focus on how she was communicating about her research. I share that story, not to show that I'm a miracle worker, but rather to show what miracles can come from focusing on delivery for even a fraction of the time we focus on content. And focusing on delivery doesn't mean focusing on how you're feeling. I founded a communication training company, GK Training, in 2010, and as head of that organization, I have been coaching and teaching in industries that range from pharma to legal to finance to tech to academia to reinsurance to retail ever since. In all those industries, and to all those audiences, I tell my clients the same thing. I actually don't care how you feel at all. I hope you feel calm or centered or serene or capable or authoritative because those are all nice feelings, but ultimately, I only care that you can come across well no matter how you're feeling. When you're feeling scared or insecure or nervous or self-loathing or unimportant or like a fraud or any of the other uncomfortable feelings we humans experience, true confidence in your ability as a communicator comes from knowing that you can perform no matter how you are feeling. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Learn the fastest, most effective way to improve your public speaking and communication skills by focusing on delivery—because how you say something matters more than what you say—with exercises that can boost confidence and influence.In the age of technology, we're getting worse at communicating by the day, but the good news is, everyone can improve their speaking. Michael Chad Hoeppner is the foremost expert on effective speaking. He's coached presidential candidates, prominent CEOs, and Ivy League deans on their communication skills. Now, he shares his wide‑ranging knowledge in Don't Say Um.Hoeppner has created an entirely new approach to communication training, providing physical exercises to quickly improve speaking. With simple-to-master exercises like finger-walking to stop using filler words or silent storytelling to avoid monotone, think of Don’t Say Um as an essential reference book, one to revisit on the path to improving your speech.Through these exercises, you will be able to talk to a group with complete confidence or simply effectively tell a joke. Don't Say Um challenges our preconceived notions of good speaking techniques and offers powerful tools to become master communicators.