The following is a guest post from Dean Hunt. What leads me to putting up this post is two-fold. One, Dean is a very energetic and determined man. He has goals, and he intends to meet them. Two, Dean shares his experience of drawing similarities between learning how to be a “pick up artist” and how that relates to speaking. Why that’s interesting is that I saw the entire first season of the VH-1 show, The Pick-Up Artist, and thought there were actually some communications lessons hidden in their less-than-savory intentions. Human nature is what it is. The TV show chose to apply it in ways I wouldn’t, but the information wasn’t inaccurate.
So, with that as a backdrop, I give you Dean Hunt:
Learning To Become a Great Public Speaker by “Picking Up†Women
Flashback a few months and I was dreadfully afraid of public speaking. And being a buzz marketing “guru†meant people weren’t expecting show and tell about my goldfish in front of 5 year olds. They wanted me speaking in front of hundreds of people who had paid thousands of dollars to be there.
Well it’s hard to be a “guru†when your knees are knocking together and sweat is dripping off every part of your body. Obviously, something had to be done– and fast. The problem was that public speaking is BORING. Most people run off to Toastmasters (which I tried), read a bunch of books (which I did), and even throw some hypnosis or NLP in there for good measure (I did this as well)
Luckily for me, I’m NOT most people. I decided to do what I do best, turn this into something exciting and fun, so I am learning public speaking by “picking up†women. Why? Because meeting women can be just as terrifying as public speaking, and it basically involves a lot of the same skills. Let’s take a look at a few:
Self Confidence – No one will listen to a speaker who isn’t confident in their own abilities. Pick up artists require the same self confidence or a woman will smell their fear and send them home with their tail between their legs.
Body Language – Public speakers need to display confident body language, understand what messages their body is sending, and read the body language of the audience. Well, pick up artists do exactly the same thing.
Vocal Tone – Public speakers tend to slow down their speech and lower their vocal tone to display confidence. Pick up artists… you guessed it.
Charisma – Boring people have a very hard time making a living as public speakers. But everyone one loves the charming, interesting, and funny person at the party, bar, or on stage.
Performance – You don’t have to be on a stage to put on a performance either. Pick up artists actually use routines that can range from magic tricks to conversations with seductive hidden undertones.
At the end of the day, public speaking and meeting people are intertwined with the same skill sets. While “picking up†women may sound sleazy… what it really means is making yourself more attractive to the opposite sex. I.e. Making yourself a more interesting and appealing person.
So, whether you’re in front of thousands of people or in a more intimate setting, you should be practising the skills mentioned above. It just so happened that meeting women was more fun for me than trying to conquer stage fright.
And that’s the most important lesson here: the more fun you’re having, the more you’ll learn. So try to find ways to learn skills that motivate you, not terrify you.
Have you ever found a way to “cheat†your learning system like this? Have an amazing pick-up or disastrous public speaking story? I’d love to hear from others that feel my pain. Or just challenge me to make your own goals more fun.
I will do an update post on here in a few months, with the specific things I have learnt, techniques I have developed etc.
Dean provides a bio:
Dean Hunt is the net’s leading buzz marketer. He is also a high-end business consultant, and is famed for his killer bunnies, entertaining insights, oh… and getting over 260,000 unique visitors to his blog in an 11 day period…. for FREE.
You can read his rants and tips at www.DeanHunt.com,receive over 7 free buzz reports at www.BuzzProfits.com and find out more about his services by emailing [email protected]