I’m often asked to speak to student organizations about public speaking and how it can help them succeed once they graduate. I tell them that communication skills in general are often as important as the technical skills required for a job, but public speaking in particular has so many benefits.

It Increases Your Confidence:

The biggest advantage of being effective at speaking in public is that it will increase your confidence in your abilities in other forms of communication. In my classes, I teach the concept of small successes that you can build on. Success is like a snowball rolling in the snow. Every time you have a success, it’s like rolling that snowball a few feet in the snow which the makes the snowball (your skills and area of influence) larger. The more you roll it, the bigger the ball.

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The conclusion is another often overlooked part of a speech. In its most ugly form, the speaker, realizing that he or she has no more to say, simply looks at the audience with a blank stare until finally blurting out “well, that’s all I got” or “Thanks for having me.” I guess some folks take the advice of leaving your audience wanting more a little too literally.

Conventional wisdom in the realm of public speaking is that your opening statement and closing statement must be perfect. While I agree that it’s important to develop these two parts of your speech, I don’t think they are as important as others make them out to be – which is the other extreme.

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When people who speak hear the phrase “speech introduction,” they often think of the introduction portion of their speech as opposed to the introduction that is given to them prior to their talk. While most speakers spend a significant amount of time on the former, very few put a lot of effort (if any) into the latter.

It’s too bad because a speech introduction is a great opportunity to make a great speech even better. An effective introduction sets the tone for your speech. It provides the audience with a background on you and your expertise and a well written introduction can help create interest in you and your speech.

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Have you ever paid close attention to the music you listen to? Music is all around us: on the radio, in movies, in our CD/Tape/MP3 player and at events. Music has a powerful way of triggering emotions in us. Sometimes a song will remind us of people, places or events. Other times, the music itself (the key, tempo, style or lyrics) can make us feel a certain way. Some even say that listening to certain types of music (mainly classical) will make you smarter or more productive (the Baby Einstein Company made a fortune out of this concept).

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I think even Delta Airlines is surprised with all the recent buzz over their new in-flight safety video (which you can watch at the end of this post). Katherine Lee, a 33 year-old striking redhead and actual Delta employee, is the star of the video and explains how to exit during an emergency and which portable electronic devices are allowed.

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Networking is a term that means different things to different people. To some, it has a negative connotation such as relying on others to get things or trying to get something out of everyone you interact with. To others, it strikes a chord of fear because they associate the term with having to introduce themselves to a total stranger.

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Last week, we discussed how time is something that we never seem to have enough of. Once you’ve looked at how you spend your time and made changes, the next step is to save time when you do things. You can accomplish this in a number of different ways, many of which fall under personal organization.

Here are some examples of how lack of organization can add more stress to your life and make you less efficient:

• You’re late for an appointment because you spent 20 minutes looking for your car keys.

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