Why Is Emotion Important?
Companies work hard to create impressive branding. Unfortunately, the impact of these efforts can be undermined by ineffective communicatiors. Your communiction is your exposure. Frequently, speakers become trapped by viewing delivery tactics as merely providing information. They disseminate info instead of making arguments. Because emotion and thinking are neurologically interconnected, when triggered effectively, they drive people to take actions. An info approach doesn’t!

A speaker tells a story. Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio claims that telling stories preceded words because it would be a condition for language. Instead of focusing on the specific words, speakers should concentrate on the emotional images they want others to value. If these are powerful images to the participants, the words will become more powerful and motivate participants to action.

Speech Anxiety Talk® vs. Anxiety
Anxious about speaking? Self-focused attention causes anxiety while Speech Anxiety Talk is the harmless chatter a speaker does prior to a speech. Because memory and imagination have a connection, Speech Anxiety Talk can become debilitating self-focused attention.

Cognitive neuroscientist Eleanor Maguire discovered that the hippocampus function goes beyond encoding of new memories to include the retrieving of stored memories and more importantly, the imagining of new experiences. The amygdala and hippocampal complex govern two independent memory systems that interact when emotion meets memory. Because the amygdala helps regulate fear, self-focused attention may impair the ability to imagine being an effective speaker, and thereby undermine a person’s actions during a presentation.

More About Anxiety

Speaking Tips
How you think about communication affects how you communicate.

Most speaking problems are merely mannerisms

The eyes signal fear more than other facial features.

Random head movements interfere with interaction by diminishing gesturing

Did you know that
40% of the public report a fear of speaking

treating public speaking as acting increases anxiety

self-focused attention underlies social anxiety

gimmicks to eliminate anxiety make it worse

most anxiety studies have been conducted on male rats who don't do a lot of public speaking

Speech of the Month

Mahatma Gandhi is one of the top 10 speakers of history. Link

In the next newsletter

Tips on PowerPoint Designs

Tutorials on gesturing

ENGAGE March 2008

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