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Are you a natural-born good speaker? Unless you just took to the stage like a fish to water, you more likely to be among the majority of the population that takes to public speaking more like a newborn calf — wobbly at first, but gaining ability through experience.

You don’t need to be born with the gift of eloquence in order to be good at public speaking. Like a lot of skills, public speaking can be learned. And, luckily enough, there are plenty of training opportunities available to you. Here are just a few:
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Public speaking skills can take you far. The benefits of being a good public speaker do not only stop at name recognition. You can take control of your time, build a business around your core expertise, travel as much or as little as you like and more.

• Having a public speaking career can offer you the opportunity to do what you love to do.
   
• Public speaking can bolster your self-esteem and self-confidence.
   
• Being a good public speaker can build your business, for you will be seen as an expert.
   
• Public speaking experience and help you become a more organized thinker.
   
• Public speaking can help you recognize your own potential.
   
• Public speaking can help you conquer you fears.
   
• Public speaking gives you a powerful avenue to help others.
   

These are compelling reasons for you to polish your public speaking skills. These skills can provide a great lift for you and your career.

Your body movement during your presentation has the ability to strengthen the impact of your message … or it can seriously be a distraction. One of your goals as a speaker is to look so natural with your movements and with what you say that no one even notices that you are using intonation and inflection or body movement as a means of emphasizing the points of your speech.

What kinds of mannerisms are distracting?

• Swaying to and fro
• Hanging on to, dare I say clutching, the podium or lectern
• Finger tapping
• Licking your lips or biting your lips
• Fidgeting with clothes, pockets or jewelry
• Frowning
• Fussing with hair
• Bobbing your head
• Flailing arms at inappropriate times

Being of Mediterranean descent (Spanish) and having ADD, I know how difficult this can be. But if I can do it, you can too!
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One of the most common reasons people fear public speaking is that they blank out and forget their entire speech. I remember when I was competing on the speech team in highschool, I did a speech on memory. In the middle of the speech during the competition, I blanked out and ended up saying something stupid like, “And it does this [blanked out, paused] for many reasons.” Arg!

Sometimes it feels like you can practice and practice and practice and when the moment comes that you need to remember your presentation, everything goes blank! However, there are ways that you can fool proof your message so that the parts you actually have to memorize are minimal.

You do this by incorporating triggers into your presentation. These triggers can be things like power point slides, props, and stories that you scatter throughout your speech. What the triggers do is prompt you to talk about the next point in your presentation. The triggers also serve as a trigger to help you remember what to say next.

There are four primary ways to remember your presentation.
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