Step 1: Improve Speaking and Pronunciation
Before I dealt with issue of speaking in public, I first wanted to be a good speaker. There’s an unfortunate catch-22 with public speaking: good speakers have confidence, but they have confidence because they are skilled at public speaking. To raise my own abilities, and confidence in those abilities, before I ever spoke in public I first practiced just speaking.
Read out loud. I had a number of choose-your-own-adventure novels I enjoyed when I was young. In addition to being entertaining, reading them out loud allowed me to practice speaking with a broad, exciting vocabulary. Choose your own adventure books also lend themselves well to dramatic interpretation, which allowed me to play around with inflection and tone. My brother and I would sometimes take turns with them, reading a page and then debating which was the best approach. If I had to pick reading material to start with now, I would probably use op-ed pieces in newspapers.
Emulate other speakers. As a child I watched Wheel of Fortune with my family. Pat Sajak had a calm, clear speaking voice. When I started looking to improve my speech, I would watch and quietly repeat what he said to myself, and later while reading out loud in my room, or even in conversations with friends, I would ask myself “How would Pat Sajak say this?” Pat Sajak was the ultimate host – he made people feel at ease, projected confidence and charisma, and spoke clearly.
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