Another Five Reasons Why You Fail at Delivering Your Message (Part 2 of 2)
- Daniel Avinash
- May 12
- 9 min read
If you have not read part 1, I suggest you do.
In this blog, I’m going to introduce 5 more points as to why speakers fail at delivering their message. These 10 points sound simple but are frustratingly difficult to conquer. And if it makes you feel better, most speakers never actually conquer them. What they do is, they grasp the idea, practice it consistently, own the idea, and on the day, put all this theory aside, and simply deliver the message from the heart. These ten areas have become their mind’s go-to primary go to behaviour for public speaking and performance.
Great speakers don’t think about speaking at a conscious level. They just are.
That’s why I say it’s frustratingly difficult because unless you incorporate these principles into your life and make them habit on a daily basis, you cannot possibly put them aside on the day and perform naturally.
Great speakers don’t present. They don’t perform. They converse. They make every hearer feel like they are being spoken to as though there’s no one else in the room.
Here are the last 5 points I’ll be talking about today:
6. Not being authentic
7. Not slowing down and feeling your environment
8. Not showing passion and enthusiasm
9. Showing no empathy
10. Not knowing your text enough
6. Not being authentic
Find your voice
Find your voice! I found mine. And before that, I was quite inauthentic. I was constantly trying to imitate other professional speakers and when I listen to some early recordings on my YouTube Channel, I cringe! I still can’t recognise my voice and even if I do, I know I’m faking it. But in my more current recordings, I feel free and expressive. I recognise my voice and my friends and family do too! I have found my voice. And in doing so, I found a part of me that was suppressed all this while. How to find your voice is beyond the scope of this blog. I will write on it soon. But in the meantime, I suggest finding a reputable voice and dialect coach who could help you out. I suggest you learn the basics of voice and speech before learning how to present. I don’t think it’s the other way around.
This is a recent recording of what I mean of “finding my voice”. I was myself. I can recognise this as my work; my true accent. It is raw.
Be yourself. Be Vulnerable.
You see, the audience didn’t travel all this way to hear Morgan Freeman or Natalie Portman, they came to listen to you. The authentic you. There’s only one of you in this world ever to be created. The you with the middle eastern or Asian accent. The you with the lisp or stammer. It’s ok. Just be yourself and you’ll be able to connect with the audience on a deep emotional level, build trust, and make your narrative resonate in meaningful ways. I know all this makes you vulnerable and at risk of looking foolish, but remember,
it is our weakness and vulnerabilities that emotionally connect us as humans.
As voice coach Kristin Linklater said,
“Once you get to the point where your vulnerability is your strength, you’re in-charge.”
Inauthenticity
When you are inauthentic, the audience will sense it. People are not stupid, and you must not assume they are. They’ll see right through that you’re “putting on a show” and they’ll disconnect immediately. If you’re a child they’ll pass you of as “being cute”. If you’re an adult or at least look like one, they’ll pull out their phones, start whispering to each other, or use your speech as an extended toilet break.
7. Speaking too fast and not feeling your environment
The auctioneer
Unless you’re an auctioneer trying to sell a house and it’s your job to speak at a rate of knots, for heaven’s sake just slow down. Of all the languages we humans speak, Japanese is the fastest at the speed of 7.84 syllables per second (SPS) followed by Spanish at 7.82 SPS. English however, sits at around 3.3 to 4 SPS. That’s almost half the speed of Japanese. Of course an emotionally enraged conversation in English might speed up a little. Now imagine an emotionally enraged Japanese argument! English isn’t a fast- talking language. Japanese and Spanish is because of the way it has evolved. English isn’t. English requires proper use of all articulators (lips, tongue, and jaw especially) to ensure clear pronunciation. Japanese, as I’ve personally observed, doesn’t really use the lips and jaws as much as competent speakers of the english language. And that’s fine. It’s not a defect in any way. It’s simply how they speak. But it certainly doesn’t carry into speaking English. English isn’t “designed” like that. If you attempt to speak too quickly and ignore the use of your articulators, you might start slurring and mumbling.
Size of auditorium
On stage, depending on how big the hall is, you may need to slow down a little because of the time it takes for your voice to get pumped out of the speaker and fly across the auditorium and hit the back wall. The speed of sound is about 340 meters per second. Meaning, if the auditorium was a thousand meters from where you’re standing to the back, it’ll take your voice about 3 seconds to get from the front speakers to the back door. Now this is obviously not a perfect “1+1=2” formula because there are so many factors involved. Thankfully, there are ways sound engineers balance all this by using sound absorbers, sound reflectors, professional audio equipment such as delay units to delay the sound between speakers, and hopefully reduce this echo.
But regardless of how sophisticated the technology might be, an echo will always exist and speaking too fast will only create a cacophony of your reverberated voice all over the hall and make you unintelligible. To put it bluntly, your well-planned speech will fall short of its glory simply because you spoke too fast. If you’re going to fail, make sure this isn’t the reason!
So, remember, you need to slow down and allow the echo of your voice to build up and decay before commencing the next sentence. This might mean slowing down your pace just a tad bit, we’re thinking a few milliseconds, depending on the size of the hall and number of people present. Here is an example of a great speaker who understood the importance of slowing down and allowing the words to sink in as he addressed the nation of India.
Get comfortable
Seasoned speakers always check-out the hall and get comfortable before the audience arrive. World renowned author and speaker John C. Maxwell visits the venue at least a day before he’s scheduled to speak. He mentally gets a view from the stage. Then he walks around the auditorium. Sits in the chairs and sees what it looks like from the audience’s perspective. He’s feeling the environment and getting comfortable.
Now if you don’t have the privilege of doing this, you could test the echo of the hall and adjust your pace within the first two lines of your speech. Just write on your script at the top something like “listen to echo, slow down!” to remind yourself just in case you get too carried away by the faces and bright lights. Yes, you can do it discretely on-the-fly. The audience won’t know and are usually forgiving even if they do. But if you don’t, and you speak too fast and ignore the laws of physics, forgiveness might come hard.
8. Showing no passion and enthusiasm
If you’re passionate about the topic, your voice will show it! Ever had anyone comment on how your eye’s lit-up whenever you spoke about that something you’re so passionate about. That’s why it’s advisable to not speak on topics you are unfamiliar with or not interested in.
We hardly hear of a great speaker who spoke about something he’s unpassionate about because he never quite stuck around long enough to be known.
Your passion will feed your emotions. Your emotions will touch the audience. Your energy will flow like an unseen force. They will feel you.
9. Showing no empathy
Speak to the old person next door
Someone once told me that if you can sit patiently and have an authentic conversation with an elderly person, you can pretty much communicate with anyone. After working at a nursing home for about 2 years and speaking to elderly patients at various hospitals for the last 15, I truly believe that. My job has taught me patience, the value of life and the shortness of it, and most of all, it’s taught me empathy. How to sit beside someone who’s got almost nothing to offer you and empathise through simple conversation. Your tone, body posture, eye contact, pace of conversation will all change as compared to speaking to a housemate. Try it. Sit and speak to an elderly family member. Or just head to the local mall and find one.
I know this has nothing to do with speaking on stage per se, but I want you to the nuts and bolts of authentic conversation. What changes do you notice in your tone, pace, body language, eye contact? Then take this skill to telling your story on stage. Use it when talking about a traumatic experience such as the war you experienced as a child or the abuse you suffered under the hands of an oppressor. When you speak empathetically, the listener will lean in and want to listen. They will cry when you cry. They will laugh when you laugh. This requires effort. But if you are game-on, it'll pay off I promise!
When you show empathy through your voice and body, the audience will respond by empathising along with you. The entire hall will resonate in harmony. I don’t know why. I guess it’s just one of the most beautiful things about being human.
Never judge your character
If you’re playing the part of a murderer or rapist (or both!), don’t judge that character. Just be it. If you’re narrating a poem written by someone who doesn’t align with your values, simply put your prejudices and judgments aside. Only then can you empathise with the author or character. In other words, put yourself into his shoes and see the world through his eyes. It may be miserable, lonely, unrealistic or a combination of them all. Regardless, be that character. Transform into it. Feel what it feels. Think how it might think. Empathise with it.
For example…
If you’re reading Little Red Riding Hood, you would naturally empathise with the young girl, but don’t forget to empathise with the big bad wolf too. Anyone can empathise with the young girl, but from the wolfs’ perspective, the woods is his grocery store and he’s quite hungry. He simply needs a feed so what’s so bad about eating the young girl? I mean, you and I would delightfully kill a chicken for a nice stew, right? Similarly, the wolf needs to eat as well. So put yourself into the wolfs’ mind, and think how he thinks at that moment.
Can you see the struggle here? Everyone in the story has a perspective and needs to survive. Not just the young girl. If you can empathise with your characters, your listener will hear it in your voice. And you’ll evoke a strong emotion within them. If you do, bravo. You’ve done your job as a storyteller!
10. Not knowing your text enough
Nothing sound’s more wasteful than a refined, rich and resonant voice narrating a story with a malnourished delivery. You must know your text! You must have read it at least ten times before the performance and know the plot and characters well. If it’s an “unressurectable” topic such as “How to Build Flat Pack Furniture” or “An Indepth Study on Kale”, you must know the topic well enough to have immersed yourself into its theory. I hear educators take someone else’s presentation slides and yack on topics they know very little or almost nothing about and you can hear it in their voice and see it written all over their face!
Practice →Familiarity →Confidence
Practice builds familiarity. Familiarity breeds confidence. When you are familiar and confident about what you are saying, you can divert a chunk of your focus and attention to the timing and pace of your speech. You get to focus on the rhythm of your delivery — slowing down for dramatic effect, pause for reflection, or speed up for intensity, and almost all the ten points I’ve spoken about in these two blogs. You might even be able to improvise along the way — make it funny and memorable. You cannot do all this if you’re unprepared and your mind fumbling through the details.
Eventually, it comes down to connecting with your audience at an emotional level. Resonating with them. Feeling the energy move from you to them, through your breath! Looking them in the eye and having a genuine conversation with them. Speaking to them rather than at them. If you can embrace these ten tips, I’m certain you’ll take the next step to becoming a great speaker and more importantly, a great conversationalist!
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