Speaking Skills - CNN's Kaitlan Collins

Not everyone in finance is the greatest speaker but it is a skill that is important. How can we improve? One way to improve is to be listen carefully to others as they speak. Unless she is completely reading off of cue cards, CNN's Kaitlin Collins is a very good speaker. She must have practiced speaking quite a bit or learned from some very good speakers. Her speaking flow is almost flawless in that you do not hear any, ahs, ums, etc. At the same, her sentences tend to be on the long, which makes her speaking skills even more impressive. Plenty of people who you would think should speak well like attorneys, politicians with strong educational backgrounds, etc., do not always speak very well.

 

dude you want to talk about a good speaker - Barack Obama was a good speaker. Excellent orator - complete command of the English language - and I disagreed with every point. But a great speaker.

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 
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ditto. I've had the pleasure of seeing obama speak in person before he was POTUS and was always polished. I actually studied him to try to improve my own speaking, here's what I came up with

  • pauses are your friend, don't be afraid of silence, it keeps the audience wanting more
  • if you want to appear polished, don't riff/ad-lib. have a succinct point to make and say no more than that (less is more)
  • head, shoulder, arm, hip posture. you should be upright but not rigid, do not lean to one side, have your shoulders back and down but at the same time don't stand at military attention. your head should be straight up and down, no head tilt, and as I've said before, try to learn to talk with your hands without appearing like a spaz
  • use volume changes sparingly, the more you go up and down the less impact it has
  • smile, make eye contact, use open body language to engage the audience
 
financeabc:
Not everyone in finance is the greatest speaker but it is a skill that is important. How can we improve? One way to improve is to be listen carefully to others as they speak. Unless she is completely reading off of cue cards, CNN's Kaitlin Collins is a very good speaker.

Butttt... she is not in finance?

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

Not sure why this is getting MS. She is an embarrassing human being but damn can she speak in public

 

I agree on this however I strongly recommend that people develop their own speaking styles as opposed to emulating the speakers they are listening to..

There was a student in my communication class that would make the same pauses as Barack Obama in his speeches, and it was just cringe-worthy to listen to..

Ex: I am going to talk (pause + same hand gesture as Obama), about this issue (repeat)

 

It really depends on the setting and situation. Many of those uh’s and uhm’s are actually very useful in the right situations. For prepared remarks like speeches or television appearances, I agree to remove them. But for a lot of the kind of speaking you’re doing in finance, I believe there’s actually utility in not sounding so polished.

Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome.
 

I think one way to remove "uhm" and "ah" is to keep saying it in with your mouth but try not to make a sound out of it.

It works fine with me but there's somewhat a drawback if you are used to talking in a fast paced manner since people might not catch on what you were saying. Other underrated aspect is definitely intonations. You don't have to pronounce words clearly but tone optimization works wonders on delivering key points and trying to obscure some things. Especially in consulting when you really have to be convincing and sound extremely articulate.

 

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