Let's start with the first p buy practice, I mean practicing the art of public speaking, you can do that by setting up your home in an effective way. And simply practicing the art of public speaking on your own. You could have a TV screen behind you as your screen. You can have a couch in front of you or sofa in front of you, with people on the TV like as your audience, and then you simply imagine yourself in the real place. Now, that's easy to do. You may not want to do it over and over again.

But it is very, very powerful, particularly if you start to take a record of it. And my first very strong tip to you, in order that you don't practice faults, or practice errors is record yourself Now you can do that on a simple phone. If you've got a smartphone, it probably has apps which would allow you to record audio, you can get a specialist audio recorder. And this old zoom here, the h2 is the one I still use Actually, I love it. It's a very high quality device. And it's very, very simple to operate.

And small, portable, very robust. It's done 1015 years for me now, zoom and other companies like that make much more sophisticated devices if you want. Anything that will allow you to record audio will give you a really good feedback in how you sound. You probably sound different from how you think you do, and you may be better than you think you are. One step up from that of course is recording yourself using video, a camera on a tripod, or you can get a little clamp and put your phone or pad or tablet on a tripod and just video you yourself that is enormously revealing and hugely rewarding, you will tend to spot the little things you do that you didn't know you did, which can be distracting or slightly undermine what you say. You can practice again and again feedback to yourself and become effectively your own coach.

As long as you're recording yourself, you have feedback. So that's the first major tip. Of course, if you can, then it's a wonderful idea to get a real coach. The reason that guys like this became world champions and dominated their particular sport is because they had a coach and that coach is there because you cannot see your own game. You never can even if you video yourself, you're listening through and looking through filters as we've discovered and the coach has the job of listening or looking through different filters. seeing things that perhaps you wouldn't see as issues or problems, seeing things that you could work on.

Coaches with people of this quality are always working on something, there's always one little thing to get that little bit better. Perfection is never attained, and it is always a goal. So there's this constant striving to get the extra 1%. Now, if you can get a coach, that's fantastic. I've recommended before in this course that you engage with a voice coach. Well, you could get a drama coach or a performing coach and have somebody look at your whole delivery, your stance, your gestures, your voice, the way you're looking and so forth your eye contact, get them to assess every aspect of your speaking style on stage that will have a dramatic effect.

You don't have to go to the level of engaging a personal project. personal coach, there are organizations or you've got friends. So around the world, there's a thing called Toastmasters International, if you haven't come across it, it's a very strong organization. With chapters in almost every major town in the world, if you look it up, you'd be able to go along to a local Toastmasters group where you'd get a coach you know, somebody who will work with you. They have a particular system of ratings and they will coach you through stages, and becoming an excellent public speaker. And the most important thing of all about it is that you get the chance to speak in front of a group of people, they will rotate so everybody gets to stand up and everybody gets to assess and the focus is there on quality speaking.

So Toastmasters is a very good way to get that practice. If you can't get Toastmasters or you don't feel it's for you, then why not engage with some friends, maybe people at work in your social circle who also have to stand up from time to time and present in front of people. engage them, enroll them in the idea of becoming a buddy group. And you have maybe a weekly practice where you'll go around to somebody's house and you have a little two minute or five minute talk that you've all prepared. And then you all give honest. And let's be kind feedback and feedback, you can either give really hard vicious feedback, which is just, this is what you did wrong.

Or if you want to put that in a more positive way, here's your stretch. Here's your challenge. Here are the things I think you could work on. Or you can of course, give sandwich feedback where you start with a well done that was what I enjoyed about that particularly was this. Now here are the things I think you could work on. Overall, though, I thought it was really good.

So you you do a nice bit. And then the tough bit, and then a nice bit, as long as everybody's committed and made an agreement at the beginning, that we're all going to work together and be straight and honest in our feedback and accept feedback in that spirit, then it can be a very, very effective way to improve your speaking. So that's it A little bit on practice, set up your home so that you can practice at home. It doesn't take much to standing in front of a couch with a screen behind you. Ideally, if you use a screen, or even just standing in front of a chair, if you're not using a screen and you're using some other form of AIDS, then you can do that record yourself is probably the most important thing of all. Get a coach or a buddy or a group so that you can practice, practice, practice, the art of public speaking and the more you practice, the better you will get