WHY DON’T YOU PAY ATTENTION TO ME?
How many times in your life have you experience ignorance when you speak in front of public? How many times have you to tell your friends or audience so that they listen to you speaking to them? That is so heartbreaking to have such experience, I know. Yet, we can not force people to listen to us, force them to change, except we let ourselves make a change.
We all understand how sad it feels being not paid attention when we talk to other people, whether in private or public conversation. When it happens, it feels like everyone does not respect ourselves. It makes us mostly show our anger as the response to what we face. But, that situation tease my mind like “is it really people not respect us? or is it just us not interesting to be listened?” Because in this life, we can not force people to always listen to our words. Moreover, when the way we deliver the speech is not interesting. At least, this can’t be forced in public speaking. Well, in private talks we could choose to whom we want to share; we could choose who will we share our story that listen to us better. But, in public? I believe we are going to be crazy if we only force people to change, but not the way of how we speak.
In public speaking, we have so many type of audiences with broad interests. With so many people, the concentration to listen to someone speaking is so easily to be distracted. Not to mention, people tend to be bored of the long speech. If we keep thinking that we need to force our audiences to listen to us, how many people should we change? Uncounted. That is why it is better to change ourselves; improve our public speaking skills.
We could start improve our skill by practicing to choose a current and emotional-attached to our audiences. That will help us giving a close and concrete example to our audiences’ life. This also means knowing our audience, to whom we are talking. In addition, it is very suggested to practice when and how to talk, with what intonation, volume and gesture. Also, the most important is that to be able to blend with the audience. It give the positive energy and nuance to audience when listening to our talks.
At last, what I am really trying to say is that, whenever you experience ignorance in public speaking, take it as reminder for you to enhance your ability to speak in front of public. Improve your speaking skills at its best so that people will be dying to listen you giving speech. Change the question from “Why don’t you pay attention to me?” into “What skills or strategies could I improve to make you sincerely listen to me speaking in front of public?” Because, we can not change and force public to listen to us if we never change and improve the way we speak to them.