Eulogies: A Public Speaking Challenge for Everyone

Eulogies are never easy.

They're not easy to listen to when they're about your most precious loved one. A eulogy is particularly difficult when you're the one giving it. This post is about what to include and how to structure your eulogy. I'm assuming here that you're making a eulogy for a family member, or very close friend or colleague. I'm not writing on the premise that you're the CEO representing a company and making the official after-death speech for your company.

In my other blog Conquer Your Fear of Public Speaking, I give you particular advice about how to overcome the world's #1 fear - that of public speaking. It's such a universal fear that comedians joke that "most people would rather be in the coffin, than having to give the eulogy".

Not quite. This post is about form and content: not overcoming your fear of public speaking.

Capture the person's essence
Recently, I gave the eulogy at my father-in-law's funeral. And although I was born in Ireland, I delivered it in Greek. I'll write another post about public presentations in your non-primary language since I know that many of you speak a number of languages other than English. For now, I mention my most recent eulogy because it was particularly difficult for too many reasons you don't need to know.

Preparation time is limited

A eulogy can't be postponed or re-scheduled. Usually the person asked to give the eulogy is also involved helping to arrange the funeral, so accept that you have a limited time. In my Public Speaking Success Ezine and in the related Public Speaking e-Program, I outline how to approach short talks. In the short time you'll have, follow these steps to prepare your eulogy:

1. Set aside at least one quiet hour of preparation time when nothing and no one is allowed to interrupt you. Take the phone off the hook and turn off those dreadful intrusions into our peace - your mobile (cell) phone.
2. Spend at least ten minutes in meditating about the person.
3. Answer this question: What was the most splendid thing about her/him? In my father-in-law's case, he was originally a shepherd in Greece. His son, my late husband and I were both tertiary educated professionals. One might think therefore that Vasilis had achieved very little in life. He achieved more than most of our most famous public figures, more than many people I know. What was that achievement? He loved and accepted me from the beginning although I was neither Greek, nor of his religion and at that time I didn't speak Greek. In fact, one might say that I represented everything he didn't want for his only son. And how did he react? He loved me. His great achievement was his ability to love, tenderly and truly beyond the narrow confines of his background. As I said in my tribute to him, in Greek which I learned, that acceptance and love were no small feats in a world torn by division and by ethnic and religious intolerance. So, whoever you're speaking about may or may not have written great books, music, run companies. If they had, tell your listeners how you admired those achievements. Tell them also about the human behind the famous writer, politician, sportsperson.
4. Write your two to five minute talk out in draft format.
5. Think about one amusing and highly recognisable characteristic about the deceased person. Tell a short anecdote that captures that unique trait. A funeral is a sombre occasion, but your eulogy must celebrate the person's life. Therefore, it must be uplifting.
6. Once you have the material, the anecdotes which best capture your father, father-in-law, best friend, spend time thinking how best to convey that information in a succinct way. Eulogies are definitely best kept very short.
7. If you feel up to it, tell the congregation how you feel about losing the person. If yours is the only speech to be given, end your address by saying "I know I speak on behalf of everyone here when I say 'God speed' or ' Go well' or 'our lives were enriched by knowing you, and always will be.'
8. Never be afraid to show your genuine sadness by crying, but please refuse to give the eulogy if you know you'll be too upset to speak.
9. Once you've written your eulogy, rehearse it as I've advised with all your presentations. Now is the time to be ruthless with timing. Cut it back if it's too long.
10. Finally, once you feel you can make the speech without your written text, reduce the text to mnemonics or memory cues. Please try not to read the speech word for word. It will sound much more sincere if you look at the people attending the funeral rather than read your eulogy.

Be Kind to Yourself

Having said that it's much better if you can use only cue cards, or memory prompts, remember that the eulogy is not only about public speaking standards. It's about speaking from your heart: about losing someone precious. So if you'll feel better reading the entire text, you do that. As I make plain throughout my coaching and my e-Program, little steps are the way to public speaking success. Making a eulogy is a giant step for all of us.

Public Speaking Fears are not YOUR problem

Change your mind to achieve public speaking success

Easier said than done! I can (almost) hear you say. Let's walk our way through those two ideas.

1. Extremely powerful and helpful idea number one: change your way of thinking and you can easily achieve public speaking success.
2. Extremely powerful and very unhelpful idea number two: "I can't just change my mind. I'll always have a fear of public speaking."

Let's deal with an irrefutable fact - always a pleasant change on the Internet. The neurobiological fact is that, magnificent though it is, the human mind doesn't know the difference between a 'real' experience and an imagined one.

You know that already. Think about the last time you recalled how terrified you were at that public speaking event! That's right, my sweet, just thinking about it, just recalling that event brings all those feeling of terror back.

Your memories (thoughts) evoked the panic reaction and a huge dose of adrenaline was immediately pumped into your body, getting it ready to react to 'danger, danger'. Your mind caught in the middle didn't know that there was nothing to fear at that moment. You were safe and sound in your dining room when you recalled that last event. In fact, there was no real danger at that public speaking event itself but we're just talking about you remembering, thinking about, how afraid, nervous, upset and downright terrified you were.

Just the memories, the thought, of that event brings on the automatic boost in adrenaline and with it, the fear symptoms. That's the hormone you'd need to race out of the way of real and present danger so it's a useful reaction. It's just not at all helpful when all it does is produce panic attack symptoms such as:

• dry mouth...particularly unhelpful when you're just about to speak to a few thousand people.
• quivery voice...again, not the best help when you want to appear cool and calm;
• racing pulse... feeling like you'll pass out is enough to make the best of us feel even more nervous;
• upset tummy...that urge to rush to the bathroom due to...well, this is a polite blog so we won't mention diarrhoea. Did you know that in the First World War nervous diarrhoea was a huge combat problem and an indication of (in those terrifying trenches) of appropriate reactions to the environment.

All those fear symptoms are related to the extra huge dose of adrenaline coursing through your body. And they are all directly related back to your thoughts.

I've written a whole e-book Calming Words about how to escape from anxiety and panic attacks, but the most powerful way to react to fear of public speaking and any anxiety or panic attack is this: Accept your reactions. Float with them. Do not tense up and fight them.

Welcome them. They're just part of a not-so-helpful way you reacted to certain cues in your environment. Now fear and anxiety are habits. Welcome your fear feelings. Look at them, as if you were observing someone else with those feelings. Look at them and realise the truth that will set you free from them: your fears are only reactions to your thoughts.

You can easily change your thoughts and hence your feelings.

Instead of "I'm so scared about that next presentation", deliberately say out loud to your self: "I'm well prepared, the audience wishes me well and I'll be wonderful".

You may find that hard to believe right this very minute but rehearsing for success is the core of my e-program. Why? Because it works.

You've spent too long rehearsing for fear and failure. Together we can change that around.

To your continued public speaking success.

Speaking Success in a Cruel World

Define what 'success' in public speaking means to you

Jeannette here again with just a quick reminder about public speaking success.

When you're starting our on your public speaking career - at whatever level you want that to be - you must be the person who decides whether or not you're succeeding. Please don't judge yourself against some of the best and most experienced speakers in the world, before you've had a chance to acquire their opportunities. Even people like Tom Antion had to start somewhere.

What are your standards?

Make a list now of the criteria, the standards, by which you'll judge or evaluate your own success. As always, be kind to yourself. Remember that your audience is most unlikely to judge you even half as harshly as you judge yourself. If you doubt that that's true, recall the last time you listened to someone give a lecture or another type of public presentation. Even if s/he stumbled over a few words, or made some errors with presentation of slides, I'd guess that you still went away with some information you found useful. If you're half as wonderful as you should be, you probably felt a degree of empathy with the less-than-stellar-performer. It's rare that as an audience member, you feel you've completely wasted your time, listening to a dreadful speaker.

Except of course at far too many of our Universities and Colleges! Just when one should be exemplary in public presentation, many of our lecturers let the team down.

That's a tangent of mine: I've lobbied for years to require University lecturers to at least have to undergo some public speaking skills training. Even if they don't have to qualify as teachers. A lost cause perhaps.

Getting back to you, and your public speaking success, remember that it is a journey, a gradual development of skills and confidence. So when you write out your standards, maybe one of them could be as simple as:

• I was better prepared than in my last presenation because I started my prep earlier and asked for help. Or...
• I arrived in plenty of time to check the microphone and all other equipment, so I could relax about that.

For now, to your public speaking success. Please consider signing up for my free e-course simply by clicking this little link --->>> Public Speaking Success

A big factor in public speaking success

Sleep may be the key to your success as a public speaker

Improve your memory, get more sleep is an article by Dr Joseph Mercola. Click that red link to be taken, magically, to his website. As always, his articles have many more links to lots of great material. On his site, you’ll read about how sleep is more important for public speaking success than….well, just about everything else.

Except of course – sorry to mention it – your timely preparation.

You’re unlikely to be able to sleep peacefully and well the day before your big event, if you’ve left most of the preparation until the last minute. Look, I know, I do know how busy you are. I know that you’re not all that keen on the conference you’ve been delegated to attend, and that there are countless other reasons for not getting on with the sort of preparation I outline in my Public Speaking Success e-Program.

That said, it’s up to you. But I hope that after you’ve read Dr Mercola’s article, you’ll be a little bit more inspired to allocate more than the night before to your preparation. I do feel a bit hypocritical saying that: I’m the one who did many of my University assignments the night before they were due, and I’ve been known to cram for public presentations too. However, as my public speaking engagements increased in volume and as more of my professional reputation rested on how well I delivered the presentations, I had to change my ways. If I can do it, any leopard can – in the name of public speaking success.

Multicultural names

Chairing a meeting or introducing speakers

Papagiannopoulos or even Patsiketheodorous is a cinch of a name to say compared with some names from Eastern Europe or Asia - if you speak Greek. We live in such a diverse society and although we can't all be as good as those newsreaders, we do need to put in the extra preparation needed to show respect - by not mis-pronouncing a person't name.

To put that more positively, it's absolutely vital that you pronounce a person's name correctly. To help you do that, if you're introducing speakers with polysyllabic names or names without vowels, make sure that you:

• Ask the person how to pronounce their name. Check with them on the spot that your hearing of that prononciation was correct. Practise saying that name until you feel comfortable that on Graduation evening, or whatever the event, you'll breeze through.
• I find it easier to telephone the person, do that checking and record my pronunciation for later re-inforcement.

Remember that names like Roberts or even Smithson can be tongue twisters for people whose first language is not English.

If you're a keynote speaker, an executive who regularly hosts staff meetings, a Dean at a College or University you must be prepared to put in the extra time to achieve public speaking success.

Eye contact is important

Public speaking success rests on a number of easy-to-learn basic rules. I don't really like to call them rules, so maybe principles is more appropriate.

Eye contact with your audience is an absolute must
Public speaking is different from having a conversation with your best friend in two main ways. First, there are more people listening. Secondly, when you're making a public presentation, not many people are speaking back to you. Except if it's an interactive type of lecture or a seminar in which you want the audience to speak.

I only mention the conversation with your best friend because the way you talk to her/him is the model you need to use when you're speaking to a room filled with strangers. Think about it. You look at your friend's face, you smile, you look into her eyes - without staring. You basically communicate with your eyes, that you are paying full attention to him. Right?

Eye contact tells your audience that you're interested in them
Some public speaking courses and some speech coaches make this part of public speaking success out to be akin to rocket science. It's not. It's very simple and straightforward.

Simply find three people in the first five rows of your audience, or three people in the circle if you're addressing a workshop of people sitting in a single rowed circle. Look at each person for about three seconds. Look into their eyes, as if they're the only person there. Then see if you can make eye contact with people ten rows back. That's not always possible, but when it is it gives you greater scope to individualise your message.

Please vary those people in the course of your talk. Start out with three, move then to another three people, either in the first row or the first few rows. Move your eyes back to the first three and so on. To give your poor eyes a rest, you can always look a the top of the head of person at the back of the hall.

As in all communication skills, it's a two-way benefit. The members of the audience with whom you make eye contact feel special and that you're talking to them. You benefit because you begin to realise that you are communicating with your audience in a truly authentic way.

Smile and the world smiles with you..

Public speaking success depends on using the full range of your communication skills to convey your message. As we'll discuss later in this blog, your 'message' will vary greatly. In one instance, it might be a complex set of data and your analysis of those data which you have to present (poor you!) to your clients or colleagues.

In another instance, it might be a heartfelt Toast to your best friend who's just turned 40, 50 or better still, 90. If you're really fortunate, you may have a daughter or six, and you'll be asked to deliver the most important Toast at her/their wedding. A little tangent here, if you'd like to have a great guide to everything you need to include in that speech, please visit one of my websites - Public Speaking Success e-Program. Once there, you can download for no cost at all, my blueprint for the father-of-the-Bride speech.

A genuine smile wins the day and helps win the audience
It doesn't matter one iota what your message is, where you're speaking, to how many people, if you puncutate your speech with a genuine smile your audience will respond much more positively.

I won't bore you with the psychological reasons, or alleged reasons, for that. I know intuitively that you already know how important a smile is to you in all your communications.

Remember yesterday when you were walking through the city streets and person after person rushed by in their own busy little world. Then, one person smiled at you. And moved on. It was great wasn't it? Of course, there can be times when strangers smiling at you can be a bit disconcerting but again, I am talking here about sincerity, about real smiles, about reaching out in a friendly way to others.

Even if you never have the opportunity to talk one-to-one with members of your audience, a genuine smile as part of what you're saying to them, automatically relaxes them and makes them feel more 'at-one' with you.

I found a wonderful website recently called Speechmastery (www.speechmastery.com). It's about public speaking and speechmaking generally. On that site was a very interesting article about learning how to master the art of smiling. It's here just for you http://speechmastery.com/smile.html Read, enjoy and learn about public speaking success.