Michael Phelps Tactics for Great Public Speaking
The following is a time-coded Transcript of the show:
so what lessons are there from michael phelps that might be appropriate and
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helpful to people trying to learn how to be better speakers better communicators
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after all he’s an athlete is a swimmer we don’t think of him as some great
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public speaker i was watching the olympics last night with my wife and
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daughter and was struck when the video camera zoomed in on Michael Phelps’s be
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after he won one race was about to run another and he wasn’t closing his eyes
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meditating he wasn’t eating some sort of soy product he wasn’t getting another
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one of those suction things on his arm and body now he wasn’t doing any of that
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he was watching video on a computer screen and swimming now I don’t know if
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he was watching his own race although i suspect that it was it could be that he
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was watching strokes of his competitors in another race but to me that is
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extraordinarily relevant to what good public speaker should be doing you want
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to get ready for your speech
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watch a video of yourself already having given that great speech
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Michael Phelps has never won any race in the Olympics swimming any stroke without
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having watched video of himself doing it exactly the way he wants to do it
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stroke by stroke breath by breath the the number of kicks and strokes down
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each way the pulling back he’s counted out he knows what it is he’s watched it
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he’s seen that he has a firm vision in his mind of exactly what he wants to do
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and it’s not his mind’s eye
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it’s not a metaphorical vision he’s actually stared at it on a computer
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screen right in front of him and that I think is also the absolute best advice
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for anyone trying to get ready for a speech literally watch a video of
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yourself giving that speech or that rehearsal do that and you
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who might not win gold medals but you’ll do well