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“With public speaking, your audience will know if you didn’t rehearse.” Colleen Kettenhofen

All of us recognize that public speaking ranks among one of the greatest fears for most people. Whether speaking at a meeting or before a group of 400, many people get nervous just anticipating giving a presentation. A comment I frequently hear in my public speaking seminars is, “What’s the best way to overcome nervousness and gain confidence with public speaking?” Here are some proven secrets many great public speakers practice:

1. Your audience will know if you’re not prepared. They’ll pick up on subtle clues in your body language. 95% of your success is determined before the presentation. Rehearsing minimizes 75% of your nervousness. No one likes to rehearse. Instead, see if you can have a friend or colleague videotape you. Yes, I realize no one likes seeing themselves on video either! Still, the camera will be your most objective ally.

2. Once you’ve fine-tuned your presentation, rehearse and practice in front of family members, colleagues, friends, or a public speaking coach. Ask for honest feedback. What did they like most? What did they think of your energy level, passion and commitment to what you’re saying? What do they think could be improved? Also practice in front of a mirror. This will help you rehearse standing up and let you see what needs to be improved. The more you rehearse standing up, and the more familiar you become with your material, the more comfortable you will be with your public speaking. This one tip alone can dramatically improve public speaking skills.

3. Put your presentation as a “rough draft” on a micro cassette recorder. Listen to it while you’re driving to and from work, picking up the kids, or driving to the supermarket. I know what you’re thinking. “I don’t like how I sound on audio tape!” I realize that. But this is a convenient way to learn material quickly. Again, where do you sound convincing, passionate and interesting? What parts of your presentation do you think need work? The audio cassette recorder is another objective ally.

4. Visualize yourself giving a successful presentation. Better yet, if you know the exact room you’ll be speaking in visualize that, too. Olympic athletes practice visualization. It works for public speaking as well.

5. To improve public speaking skills, do a dress rehearsal. Before I conduct a keynote speech or breakout session at a conference, I take a peek inside the ballroom. If the room’s empty, I’ll go in and practice a “dry run.” This is something I try to do in full dress rehearsal mode. If the ballroom is being used until morning, I go in that morning.

Rehearsing in the exact room will give you an edge in feeling more comfortable and conquering fear of public speaking. This is one of the biggest public speaking secrets of many great public speakers. Guaranteed! If you’re usually presenting in small meetings or groups these same techniques work.

6. Are your notes and visual aids large enough print that you can see them standing up? Your notes should be “fast food for the eyes.” Never read your presentation. You’re the presenter. Your audience expects you to be the expert. You want that connection with them. A secret to effective public speaking is bonding with your audience through stories, activities, appropriate humor and understanding their needs ahead of time.

7. Stand up when speaking in public. Even if only three people attend, it sends a signal that says, “You’re so important that I’m going to stand even for the three of you.” According to a University of Minnesota study, when you stand in presenting your ideas, you are more believable, credible and persuasive.

8. Stand “center stage” when presenting your most important point. It grabs the audience’s attention. The rest of the time you can move around as long as you aren’t nervously pacing like a lion. Again, that’s where the videotaping helps!

Visual Aids and Public Speaking: Less is More

9. With public speaking and visual aids, less is more. Don’t use more than three or four colors per slide. Otherwise, people start focusing more on color and less on content. Use graphs for sales figures or sets of numbers showing a trend over a period of time. Graphs are pictures that increase retention and comprehension. No more than two or three lines on a graph. Use pie charts for market share, budgets, expenses analysis, income sources and the like.

10. Avoid slides with yellow, pink or orange print. They don’t show up well. Dark blue, black or any other dark color is better. White is okay with a darker background. Red stands for negatives like “danger,” or “warning.” Only use red to indicate problems, your competition, stopping or something similar.

11. Public speaking and eye contact: Approximately three to five seconds of eye contact per person with a small or medium sized group. Many public speakers make the mistake of using their visual aids AS their presentation. A key point in persuading your audience is establishing connection and credibility.

12. What if someone in your audience doesn’t like what you have to say because they don’t like the product or service you’re selling? Or what if you fear public speaking because you often have to deliver bad news? Know and research your audience ahead of time. What will be their biggest objections? THINK AHEAD when planning your presentation how you’re going to handle those issues.

13. Never lose emotional control. Often, these difficult people are trying to rattle your cage. They want control. And they want it in front of others. What if they continuously discount what you’re saying? Tactfully respond to them at first. After a while, say something like, “You bring up a good point, and yet, due to time constraints see me at the break and we’ll discuss that privately.” Your audience will be looking to see how you handle the situation.

“When speaking in public, you are your own best visual aid.” Colleen Kettenhofen

Colleen Kettenhofen is a speaker, workplace expert, & co-author of “The Masters of Success,” as featured on the Today Show, along with Ken Blanchard and Jack Canfield. For free articles, e-newsletter, or to order the book visit http://www.ColleenSpeaks.com Topics: leadership, managing people, difficult people, public speaking. Colleen is available for keynotes, breakout sessions and seminars. 1(800)323-0683 http://www.ColleenSpeaks.com

Fashions are social phenomena common to many fields of human activity and thinking. Fashion houses and their associated fashion designers, as well as high-status consumers (including celebrities), appear to have some role in determining the rates and directions of fashion change. Fashion is in the sky, in the street; fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening. Fashion is a field dominated by women and primarily meant to serve women.

Fashion

Men’s fashions largely derived from military models, and changes in a European male silhouette are galvanized in theatres of European war, where gentleman officers had opportunities to make notes of foreign styles: an example is the “Steinkirk” cravat or necktie. The pace of change picked up in the 1780s with the increased publication of French engravings that showed the latest Paris styles; though there had been distribution of dressed dolls from France as patterns since the sixteenth century, and Abraham Bosse had produced engravings of fashion from the 1620s.

Although tailors and dressmakers were no doubt responsible for many innovations before, and the textile industry certainly led many trends, the History of fashion design is normally taken to date from 1858, when the English-born Charles Frederick Worth opened the first true haute couture house in Paris. Since then the professional designer has become a progressively more dominant figure, despite the origins of many fashions in street fashion.

A stylist is either a person who co-ordinates the clothes, jewelry, and accessories used in fashion photographs and catwalk shows or a kind of designer whose designs are based on existing things, trends, and designers collections. A buyer is responsible for ordering stocks of clothes for shops, particularly the larger chain stores. An illustrator draws and paints clothes for commercial use. Talented illustrators–among them Paul Iribe, George Lepape and George Barbier–drew exquisite fashion plates for these publications, which covered the most recent developments in fashion and beauty. A model models clothes at fashion shows or for photographs. A photographer photographs the clothes on fashion models for use in magazines, newspapers, or adverts.

Season

Fashion design differs from costume design due to its core product having a built in obsolescence usually of one to two seasons. A season is defined as either autumn/winter or spring/summer. Ready-to-wear collections are usually presented by fashion houses each season during a period known as Fashion Week. They often wait around a season to make sure a style is going to catch on before producing their own versions of the original look. To do this, they look at what the fashion directions have been in previous seasons, keep an eye on what others in the fashion business are doing, and read fashion forecasting magazines. They also rely on knowledge of their own customers to see which styles succeeded and which were less popular in past seasons.

Fashions may vary significantly within a society according to age, social class, generation, occupation and geography as well as over time.

Trishia Lopez is a successful Webmaster and publisher of www.TheFashionGurus.com. She provides more information about Fashion and fashion issues that you can research in your pajamas on her website.

Online Automotive Training Schools offer instruction on the basic concepts and functions of automotive engines through instruction modules. Online Automotive Training begins with instruction on the fundamentals of electrical circuitry, fuels, batteries, motor functions, etc., presented in written, diagram, and sometimes animated forms.

Automotive Training curriculums must continually be updated to keep apace of rapidly changing technology in the automotive industry. Today electronic systems and complex computers run automobiles while measuring performance on the road. Automotive technicians have become high-tech diagnosticians, using electronic diagnostic equipment and computer-based reference materials. The ability to diagnose the source of a problem quickly and accurately can be the most challenging and most rewarding skill for a good Automotive Training student.

Students can expect to learn the essentials of maintenance and auto repair procedures from tires and suspension to computerized functions through Online Automotive Training modules. Courses will emphasize the development of a solid understanding of functions that will be necessary to effectively diagnose and analyze automotive problems.

Course studies in Online Automotive Training may include good communication skills and techniques in relation to customer service. Other skills that will serve an Automotive Technician are sound reasoning capabilities and a thorough knowledge of the complex components and interactions of auto bodies and motors.

Fulfillment of examinations for the basics of automobile functions can be completed online. Passing the Online Automotive Training examinations will allow students to enter the laboratory phase of their automotive education with hands-on experience in a shop.

Online Automotive Training programs may take up to a year. Completing an Automotive Technician Associate Degree, which includes laboratory studies, can take up to two years. Certified Automotive Technicians can expect to be subjected to regular review and recertification requisites.

Find an Online Automotive Training program at http://www.schoolsgalore.com and begin your training for a career in automotive maintenance and repair.

Copyright 2006 – All Rights Reserved

Michael Bustamante, in association with Media Positive Communications, Inc. for SchoolsGalore.com

M. Bustamante is a staff writer for Media Positive Communications, Inc. in association with SchoolsGalore.com. Find Automotive Training Online at SchoolsGalore.com; meeting your needs as your educational resource to locate schools

If your children are couch potatoes, it will be better for you to encourage them to participate in sport activities. However, being transfixed by video games, computers, or TV does not give good effect. It is better to get up and do some exercise to bring a positive effect to their body.

Having a physical activity routine since in the early age is very beneficial. It can help to increase the capacity of the heart and lung. It can also be helpful in keeping the weight down. Based on a research, it is found that regular physical activity can lower the blood pressure, lower the risk of heart disease, arthritis, and also cancer. Therefore, regular exercise means healthy life.

What are the Benefits of Sports?

Some studies revealed that children who take part in physical activity or sports achieve better in academic. Sport teaches them to be discipline which they bring to their studies activity. It will also teach them to manage their time efficiently to match the schedule of the group. They will be getting used to plan the right time for their projects, homework, and so on. Moreover, they will stay in school longer so that they can keep themselves away from drugs.

One of the effective sports your children can practice is soccer/foot ball. The rule of this sport is easy to understand even for the youngest children in the age of 5 to 7. They can easily kick the ball into the field for the goal. Although there are some strategies and subtleties to obey, they can learn it by themselves with their experience.

Another benefit they can experience is that they can develop their social sense. This is sensible since they take part in team sport. It will be easier for them to work in team which then can lead them to easily make friends. Moreover, team sport can teach them to think quickly, accept seatbacks, coordinate with others, as well as enjoy factories. His positive impact can last long even when they grow up.

It is now better to start introducing them to the sport, especially team sport. You can do it by giving them tools which can support them do it such as the ball, the shoes, the t-shirt, and so on. You can place them in a basket which is specially designed for sport. Find them on http://italiangiftbaskets.org/, which lists you the best sports gift baskets for your needs.