This week I received the third request in one month for one-on-one public speaking trainings. Like in the other two cases I kindly rejected the offer. Why?
My experience tells me there are two rigorous reasons why one-on-one public speaking trainings cannot work well.
First, subjectivity. There is nothing more subjective in the world than our perception. The beauty of having six, ten or twelve subjective views present in a seminar is that you obtain an objectified perception of one’s speaking performance. It’s the sum of subjective views which makes you learn patterns of audience reaction. One single point of view – even by an expert – will never replace the power of multiple points of view. You don’t want to know one spot on the Gaussian curve of perception. You want the full fan.
Second, comfort zone. One-on-one is such a comfortable situation for any human being. No alarm bell shrieking in your head. No heart beat racing at techno speed. No cerebellum vomiting. No blackout. No stress, no fright, no panic. Is it this zone you want to be in when you learn how to speak in public? Your cozy zone of comfort?
No way. Not with me.
If you plan to work on a specific presentation in terms of content and delivery – fine. One-on-one will do. In all other cases attend public speaking seminars or join Toastmasters. In the meantime, I will continue to kindly reject any one-on-one public speaking training request.
zoe
I bet that out of those 3 requests at least 2 would join your seminars after the initial one-on-one hour 😉
fm
hahaha… ok, you won. next time i’m in berlin we meet… let’s call it a meeting of “orientation”! 😉