Speaking Powerfully

Photo by Daniel Sandvik on Unsplash

We all want to influence other people. In order to do that we need to speak powerfully.

Speaking powerfully is What you say and how you say it. - Julian Treasure (Udemy Course, TED Talk). This talk and course changed “What I say”!

Per Julian in order to speak powerfully, we need to avoid the 4 leeches and the 7 deadly sins of speaking. While adopting the four foundations and two rules for powerful speaking.

The four leeches:

They suck power away from our speaking. They come from a place of fear. Things to avoid which rob us of our power in our speaking. And lead to seven deadly sins.

1. Looking good: Saying things in order to be respected, being affirmed, acclimation from people. Lead to a few behaviors that make it hard to listen to people.

   1. Competitive speaking: Someone says “I just visited Greece”. O “I have been to Greece 6 times”

   2. Speech writing: When you are talking I'm thinking about what I will say next. Your talking is a convenient pause to my speech.

   3. Embellishment / Exaggeration

   4. Self-aggrandising lies

   5. “I know!”: If you know everything, I’m going to stop already

2. Being right: It often involves making other people wrong. 

   1. Telling not testing

   2. Being Aggressive

   3. Not trying to learn from people

3. People pleasing: Saying yes when we mean no, and vice versa. Not saying what is true to us to be liked. 

   1. Not saying no

   2. Seeking approval

   3. Trashes your values

   4. Denies your truth

4. Fixing: Not ok for people around them to be not be fine.

   1. Taking away people’s permission to feel!

   2. Involves withholding to make others feel better

   3. Tries to make it all right

   4. Obstructs real solutions

Seven deadly sins of speaking:

1. Gossiping: Speaking ill of someone who is not here. Speaking well is fine, speaking ill is bad when they are not there to defend themselves. The person who is gossiping will be doing the same thing to us in five mins.

2. Judging: When people judge and find us wanting, condemning. It is hard to listen to someone if what they say comes loaded with judgment.

3. Negative: Everything is awful. Hard to be with someone who is always negative. 

4. Complaining: Complaining is viral misery. Not having gratitude and finding reasons to complain all the time.

5. Excuses: Blame thrower. It is not my fault it wasnt me. Blame someone else. No taking responsibility for our own lives.

6. Embellishment / Exaggeration: Overuse of the word awesome means that we can’t use it for something awe inspiring. Make it a practice to speak precisely so that we take control over how we speak.

7. Dogmatism: Confusion of opinions with facts. Telling you stuff that is just opinion.

Four Foundations of powerful speech

The positive things to do to speak powerfully that form the foundations of powerful speech.

1. Honesty: Being clear and straight. Saying what you mean and saying what you mean

2. Authenticity: Being who you are. Standing in your own truth. 

3. Integrity: Doing what you say. Be your word. Being someone who can be trusted to do what they say.

4. Love: Wishing people well. It is difficult to judge people and love at the same time. Be in the practice of wishing people well. If you are secretly judging people it is hard for them to listen to you.

Two additional Rules

1. 3 second rule: Wait for 3 seconds after someone has finished speaking before you say anything. Gives an appropriate silence to digest what the person said and respond to it. Sounds so simple, yet so counterintuitive.

2. Conversation is decorated silence. If we are going to speak, let us decorate it with something beautiful.