Let's start off by really defining what our goals are when we speak and what are not our goals. I have seen with a number of my female clients, they come in with a goal of wanting to seem serious, wanting to seem like they have just as much gravitas as their male counterparts to be seen as official. These are not the goals you should have. When you speak here, the goals you should have, when you speak to, number one, come across comfortable, confident, relaxed and engaging. Number two to speak so that people can understand you. Number three to speak so that people can remember your messages.

That's the hard part for most. So that number four people can take the actions you want them to take. If you do that, you're automatically going to be the top 1% of all speakers, male or are female. And those are tangible goals that anyone can achieve if they focus on it, but you've got to focus on the right goal. So I want you for the purposes of this course to think of a topic that you're going to speak on either something in real life you'll be addressing in the next couple of weeks or something that you might like to talk about in the future. Go ahead and think of a topic that you're going to speak on.

But now I want you to really come up with this specific goal. What is it you want people to do? That should always be the starting point. The end, what is it you want people to do from that? You determined what the message is and what you want people to remember? And you figure out ways of getting people to remember it.

So that's the real goal. Anytime you present. If you do those things, people will assume you're smart. People will assume you're confident people We'll assume that you are authoritative. They will assume all sorts of other good things. If you can actually come across comfortable, relaxed in your own style, not the style of Mitt Romney, or Ronald Reagan, or Bill Clinton, but in your style.

And you can actually get people to understand your ideas, remember them, and to take action. That's a huge, huge accomplishment. That's what your focus should be. That's what I'm gonna ask you to do right now write down what is your goal from your speech. And to focus on that what I don't want you to do is to go into any speech with a defensive mentality. Well, I want people to think I'm just as serious as my male counterparts.

So I'll be serious. By going through all the data quickly, having more PowerPoint slides than anyone else and speaking with a deeper path, going to work that's going to make you seem insecure. And boring. And I'm sorry, but whether you're a man or a woman coming across as insecure, and boring, doesn't help, it doesn't help anything. So let's start off by really focusing on a legitimate communication goal. If we actually accomplish that, the other things we're trying to get across will happen naturally.