| Start a career in public speaking and earn money while having fun. Learn how to make $5500 or more for each speaking presentation you do.  You can get all the latest public speaking tips and tricks for FREE by signing up for Tom's Great Speaking Ezine. Vulnerability Recently at the National Speakers Association convention I was talking to some other presenters and learned some more tips to help my career in public speaking even better. John Meluso spent some time listening to me and noted that I was not showing any vulnerability to the audience near the start of my presentation. I would just roll along and then tell a signature story at the END of my talk that bared everything. John, showed me that being the take charge kind of presenter that I am, I have probably been alienating many of the more sensitive audience members. Once alienated, those audience member don't hear you anymore. It is likely that right from the start my style ran over them and caused them to run for cover, therefore making it very hard to connect with them emotionally. Because of John's astute observation, when I'm speaking I will change the order of some of my material to better connect with more sensitive audience members. Having grown up not far from Pittsburgh in Washington, Pennsylvania, and having my brains battered playing lineman in football at school at West Virginia U, I can still recall how an old boy coal miner friend of mine once told me, 'The schoolhouse door is always open.' The vulnerability is to admit that not always can we say "Our minds be always open". John, I want to thank you for reminding me that as we master skills during our career in public speaking, always and in all ways, we all can get better. Home
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