I will be holding a few talks on Public speaking and how you can connect with people from the stage. Do you know that public speaking is the number one fear and is ranked higher than dying itself. But what if you could overcome that fear? What if you were to speak infront of audiences, how do you engage the audience and make them feel for you? Most people can speak, but how many actually do well? This little preview will help to share quick and useful tips that will accelerate your speaking capabilities and charm your audience!

Workshop Synopsis:

• What you are missing out if you are not able to speak publicly.
• Learn ways to emotionally connect with your audience from the stage.
• Experience a speaking tip to overcome your fear of public speaking.
• How to influence people from the stage and get them to constantly listen to you.
• Learn different ways of starting a speech and how to end it well.
• Learn the one important tip that will change your whole speaking style.

Workshop Details:

Workshop Date: 19th January 2012 (Thursday)
Workshop Duration: 2 hours (7:30pm to 9:30pm) (Registration from 7 pm onwards)
Workshop Fee: Complimentary
Workshop Venue: Wealth Directions Office (9 Penang Road #13-15 Park Mall S 238459)

Who needs to attend this workshop:

Those who desire to gain an unfair advantage over others, these could include professionals, leaders, sales personnel or anyone who wishes to improve public speaking and influence over people.

Registration:

To register for this workshop, please email your Name, Mobile Phone Number and email address to

coach (a) deepimpactonline (dot) com.   It is spelled this way to avoid automated spam.

Please email us ASAP to grab your seat now since there are limited seats.

About the speaker:

Kenneth Kwan is a keynote and motivational speaker employed by corporations to stir desire with their audiences. He has personally spoken to 6700 people and has travelled to 6 countries. Clients like Ministry of Manpower, Sime Darby, AIA, Ricoh, Immigration and Checkpoints Authority and many more have invited him to excite and inspire their staff.

He has also been featured over National Radio, 938FM and has eight articles featured in the Straits Times and HR magazines. He seeks to help you make an impact, not an impression.

What do people say about Kenneth Kwan:

“This program got me started to do something which I always avoid. It makes me face my greatest fear and I found that it is not so difficult after all.”

Chelsia Lim, Relationship Manager

“We may have witnessed great speeches but what Kenneth has done is to distill down the techniques so that we too can move and inspire from the stage.”

Serene Loong, Investor

 “It’s a really great experiential learning experience. Your techniques added my knowledge in these areas.”

Hendra, Software Development Engineer

Come and meet me in person and do register for this special workshop at. Include your Name, Mobile Phone Number and email address to

coach (a) deepimpactonline (dot) com

See you!

Popularity: 2% [?]

Trainer Bob Pike uses a magic formula in his trainings which is the 90/20/8 rule. He mentions that most adult audiences can listen with understanding for 90 minutes, listen with retention for 20 minutes and we need to involve them every 8 minutes.

My tried and tested rule for all the corporate trainings that I have done is a little different. I have modified it slightly because over time, people’s attention span has decreased.

My magic number for training is ridiculously simple but yet extremely effective. I call it the 20 minute rule. After speaking to adults for 20 minutes, we need to involve the audience and induce a ‘state change’.

Question: What does involvement and state change mean?

Actually its simple. Involvement will mean to get the participants to do something with you while state change means to change the current state of condition they are in. This means if they are sitting straight, they move around or move something in their bodies that will change the current state they are in. Here are the different ways I induce a state change in an audience:

1. Get participants to echo what I write on flipchart board.

2. Get the audience to turn to a partner and say a catch-phrase, eg. “Habits determine your success level” or “Success leave trails.”

3. Get participants to take part in activities, either in pairs or group level.

4. Allow them to discuss with their partners on their action steps.

5. Give time to process their thoughts by writing it down.

(This is not an exhaustive list and there are hundreds of ways to do it but these are the ones that I use a lot during my talks.)

Why 20 minutes? You might ask. Well, that’s a good question.

You see, the Hippocampus, part of the limbic brain is that part that pays attention. A person’s attention is calculated using the following formula:

Attention span = (Age/2) + 2 mins     [Note that the max attention span is 22 minutes]

Therefore, using 20 minutes is a pretty good gauge and is easy to monitor.

Hope this helps you when you speak to audiences or conduct your own training. Have fun!

PS: I will be launching my new DVD soon on “Stirring & Connecting with your audience, anywhere, anytime” which will launch in 5 December 2011. It is a DVD that teaches you how to engage and stir the emotions of your audience. Most people can just talk but how many can actually stir your heart? More information will be released soon about it.

Popularity: 2% [?]

I noticed that a lot of people around me tend to get mixed up with what is the difference between talent and strength. They sometimes use these words inter-changeably. However, I would like to clarify the main differences and how it will help someone to clarify what they can really do in life. Once you can be very self-aware, you will tend to do things that will make you more happy and successful.

If you are ready to find out what is the difference, do read on.

First of all, let’s define the terms.

Talent is the ability to quickly pick up a certain skill compared to the majority of the people. You have an ‘unfair’ advantage and can learn it faster. This means that you are naturally predisposed to learning a particular skill at a faster rate.

Strengths are basically what you can do really well. If you have strong vocals and can sing in front of people well, you can consider that singing is one of your strengths.

However, remember that having talent does not equate you to being strong at it. Let me explain further.

If you wish to be a professional athlete in running short distances, you will first need to have talent. Having talent means that you should be able to run fast naturally and qualify to be in the selection process. However, you will need to work on extremely hard on your talent and be willing to take the long grueling hours of training to make running your strength.

You will notice that professional athletes tend to work very hard and strive for excellence in their training. They keep wanting to beat their previous timing and will put in the time and effort to be the best of their field. They gradually be strong in their skill and people finally consider that particular skill to be their strength. I wish to highlight that nothing ever becomes your strength; if you do not put in the necessary hours of hard work.

The interesting thing about being strong in a particular skill is that it has some transferrable skills that will help you pick up other skills related to it. For example, if you know how to play the guitar well, you will tend to pick up other instruments quickly.

The good news is also if you are not naturally talented in doing something, you can compensate it with a lot of hard work to eventually make it your strength. However, this takes a lot of determination and constant practice.

Let me share with you my life example on this:

I knew from a very young age that I had a ‘little talent’ in speaking from the stage. Actually the truth was that I was extremely chatty. In primary school, I was considered to be an outstanding student and this meant that I was usually punished to stand outside the classroom because of my excessive chatting.

When I was around 17 years old, I was served as a volunteer in a youth organisation that constantly ran indoor and outdoor programs. Somehow I was always given the role of planning the program and also emceeing it. It took about nearly 10 over gigs before I started becoming a better emcee. It was only after 60 over programs then I started to be very good. I learnt that emceeing is not about speaking from the stage, but about entertaining people and creating high energy. I moved on from emceeing in front of small crowds to doing dinner and dances, events and beauty pageants to 700 over people.

Kenneth emceeing Paul Mitchell's beauty contest

Over the years, I did nothing much but to constantly grabbed whatever opportunity to speak in front of the public. It was then I realised that I was actually pretty good in speaking and entertaining.

People said that I was rather talented, but I beg to differ. I really worked hard on it. While people were staying at home or going out with their friends, I was working hard in ensuring that I will be really good in my skills. Inspirational speaking became my strength. When I finally understood what my strengths were, it really helped me to decide what I was going to do in my life. I knew that it had to be a role where I was in constant contact with people and somehow had to be in-line with educating people.

My Decision to be a Trainer

It was because of knowing what I was really strong in and then asking myself what I was really passionate about. It took me a long time to figure it out but finally I knew that I wanted to become a trainer. If you looked around, most trainers in the professional services were usually older, usually in their 40s. However, I decided that I had this unique talent and was willing to work hard on it. I gave it everything I had and I started at the age of 27. I was one of the youngest trainers around in this particular market.

I truly hold on to the view that we just need to be good in doing one thing well, in fact it must be pursued with so much excellence that people will actually pay you money for it. It was then I became extremely good in running team building programs. By constantly working on my strength, I was actually getting better and better at what I was doing. This further increased my fierce motivation to be even better at training. If you can recall from an earlier blog post, I wrote about my decision that changed my life.

After years of hard work, I became a platform speaker on the areas of motivation and building high performance teams. Even right now, I am paid a lot of money to give keynotes and educate professionals and executives on my speciality. I have travelled to six countries so far to provide trainings and talks. If you asked me if this was what I ever dreamed about, I honestly want to say that I have never dreamed that I could get so far.

Kenneth speaking to 60 HR professionals in a Learning & Development Conference

Its about you now

If you constantly work on yourself and ask what kind of role you could do to play on your strengths, I believe that you definitely become better and successful in what you do. Even in your job, you have to ask if what you are doing is helping you to stay in your strength zone and growing it?

Work on your strengths, not on your weaknesses.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Kenneth speaking to 220 Immigration Officers

Do you know that the number one fear in people is the fear of public speaking. It is ranked even higher than death itself. Speaking in front of people is already difficult, but how do you handle it when your audience throws at you challenging questions or even disagrees with what you say? What do you do when people start walking right out in the middle of your presentation?

As a speaker and trainer, I have my fair share of people disagreeing with me. When I speak at seminars or conference to hundreds of people at a time, there will always be that small bunch of people who will either say that they know it all or just cannot agree with me. There’s nothing we can do to them, but being prepared for such things is extremely important.

For most people, when others disagree with them, they tend to freeze and then fumble to get a right answer. Our brains are not naturally wired up to handle rejections and disagreements. Therefore, when this happens, a lot of people tend to blank out and not know how to react appropriately. In addition, when emotions set in, it is really difficult to give a clear answer to your audience.

Here are some scenarios that I have experienced before and hope that it will give you an insight on how I defuse potentially tough situations while maintaining credibility with the audience. Do note that the following is not rocket science but more of a way of doing things. I am not saying that it will always work but it has worked for me and I sincerely hope that it will work for you as well.

1.       A person stands up and disagrees with your certain parts of your presentation openly.

The first thing is to thank the person for their statements and then understand the reason behind the disagreement.

Why?

Firstly, we need to set a safe environment to allow people to express their views. If I were to thank a person for their views when they disagree with me, they will tend to be more relaxed and know that I acknowledge his/her views. The unseasoned speakers will tend to quickly disagree with the person raising their objections. This will make the person become defensive and find all ways to prove his/her theory to be true. This is unnecessary conflict we can avoid.

Secondly, I have learnt that if a person is disagreeing based on his or her experience/opinion, I will tend to allow and agree with that person. Why? This is because all our experiences in life are pretty much relative. I will usually say “That’s a valid viewpoint and you could be right. What I was sharing just now was based on what I experienced and found to be true to me.”

By painting a personal experience that I have personally found to be true and good, will quickly help others to know that if it works for me, it might work for you as well. Remember, experiences are never right or wrong. It is how we interpret the events and learn from it that makes it true.

Tip: Remember not to use absolute statements, eg. This is the ONLY right way to do things. You are actually inviting trouble.

2.       A person asks a question that you do not understand.

It is best to ask the person to repeat the question or rephrase it. After that, you can also rephrase the question and ask this person whether you have understood the question correctly. This is a simple process but yet a lot of Asians tend not to do it. We tend to just jump into answering the question without fully getting it.

Here’s a simple phrase I use:

“I heard your question but I don’t get it. Would you mind repeating the question or rephrasing it for me? I will appreciate it.”

Tip: Clarity is important before you reply. Ensure you are answering the right question.

3.       A person walks away out in the middle of your presentation.

We need to always focus on the crowd than allow a particular individual to affect us. Most people will tend to think that person particularly dislike/hate/_________ (fill in the blanks) their presentation and gets affected by it.

You have to remember that if the entire audience is still paying attention to you, we should not let a single person affect you. However, if you notice that more and more people start to leave, it is good to just ask what is happening. The worst thing as a presenter is to be oblivious to what is making people leave.

I had in a few times notice that people left and only to come back. This could because they had to take an urgent call or even need to go to the washroom. Take heart and not let it affect you. There are those who left and decided not to come back. The only thing I could do is to wish them well.

Tip: Consider the forest first before you look at the individual trees.

Conclusion:

Being prepared in advance is crucial to help you handle tough questions. I honestly think that you can only get better by doing it and wish you all the best in handling people’s behaviours and questions.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Kenneth giving a talk on Service Excellence to Marketing Insititute of Singapore

I have been giving a lot of talks to corporate clients and know that even the most seasoned speakers sometimes have problems in engaging audiences. Most speakers I have seen are very content focused and do not focus so much on delivery. Sometimes, they do not make it a point to stir interest within their audiences. If you can truly engage the audience, they will love you and keep asking you back to speak for them.

Allow me to share with you some techniques that I personally use when speaking to crowds, as small as thirty, to hundreds of people. The techniques are pretty much the same and will definitely work. Master them and the crowds will adore you.

1. Processing

An effective tactic that I usually use is to get audiences to find someone and discuss with each other on what you have taught so far. This helps your audience to process and clarify with each other on what you have said.

Another method of processing is to give them some time to write down their thoughts. This helps an individual to consolidate their thoughts and write down key concepts or action steps that they can do immediately after your talk.

2. Create High Energy Movements

Using actions accompanied with words are a great way to stir the audience as well. This also creates an anchor where people can recall what you have said in an easy fashion because of the action. This also appeals to different learning modalities which basically separates people into the visual, auditory and kinestatic modes.

Getting people to raise their hands is also another great way to create movement. However, when you ask a question that requires them to raise their hands, make sure that you ask in a deliberate manner and wait for the response. Do not rush in to talk after you have asked a question so that the audience can respond to you.

If you have a large audience, your actions must be huge. This is so that people sitting behind are able to see your actions clearly.

3.  Use Stories To Illustrate Your Points

Stories are extremely powerful in engaging and breaking down mental barriers that could have been erected by individuals. I really like compelling stories because they are able to put a face to the lesson that you want to put across. In addition, good stories speak to heart and open up avenues of belief and trust in what you have to say.

4.  Speak Loudly

Most people lose interest in a person speaking when they cannot hear them. How many times have you switched off simply because someone asking a question is not clear or loud enough for you to hear? Ensure that you are able to maintain clear voice modulation throughout your talk and you will get people interested in what you have to say.

5. Create Quotable Quotes

Every good speaker knows that they have to create good quotes that their participants will scribble furiously into their notepads. Every time I attend a seminar, there will be tons of quotes copied down. Whenever you have people quoting you, you have made a deep impact!

Conclusion

Speaking to crowds is not difficult but can be learnt and mastered. A usage of engagement techniques can make a normal person become very good in their delivery. I hope you find it useful!

Popularity: 13% [?]

Kazakhstan is located in Central Asia and is a previous Soviet Union state. It is literally the world’s 9th largest land mass (for a country) in the world. Just to give you an idea how big it is, the distance from one end of Kazakhstan to the other is the same as from London to Istanbul. This country has one of the most beautiful mountain ranges in the world and from Almaty, I can see the mountains surrounding the city.

Location of Kazakhstan

The people are mainly Kazakhstanis and they speak their own Kazak language and Russian as well.  My assignment was to conduct a public talk for a few companies and also a management retreat to Nurai Company, one of the largest travel agencies there.

It is simply amazing to witness how the people are resourceful in getting things done with whatever equipment they have. There was a time when the car I travelled in could not be used further and someone offered to take us to the destination for a price. Taxis are rare there, but you can just hop into anyone’s car provided if you are willing to pay for it.

The people there are pretty hungry to learn and very energetic in the way they speak. I was also amazed by the manager’s ability to sit down for many hours and share about their experiences of leadership. One of the trainings that I covered was on creating dynamic teams and a good work environment. It was really an eye opener for most of them because it was most of the managers realised that they did not have to be the best in everything but to create strong teams to help them through.

A display of strength is also important in that culture as well, it is interesting  to note that whoever is the most domineering and aggressive tends to get their way first. I believe it might be because of the previous Soviet Union culture they were exposed to.

Here are some photos to share with you.

Translator, Roslan and me

Seminar on Service Excellence

Teambuilding Program for Management Staff

Management Retreat in the Mountains

Food

Kazakh food is generally very meaty and they love to eat meat! Vegetables are secondary and it was my first time eating horse meat and drinking Camal and horse milk. Both milk (shubat and kumys respectively) are really horrible to drink (although the men there totally disagree with me)! They taste very acidic and sour. I was commenting that it actually tasted like urine, but one of the managers asked me whether I tasted urine before? I told her that after this experience, I might just want to taste it just to compare the difference! (In case you were wondering, I didn’t drink urine after that).

Beshparmak (on the right)- Meat Meat and More Meat

Beshparmak (called “five fingers”, in the manner it is eaten) is a traditional Kazakh dish and it made of chunks of meat! I heard that they had sheep’s head cooked in some of the Beshparmak and is usually served to guests. I was pretty thankful that all I saw was just meat and no head!

Traditional way of eating, which is on the floor

Horse meat being served

Conclusion

Kazakhstan is a place filled with many beautiful snow capped mountains and has an old rustic feeling of the 1980s. If you are game enough to try different types of meat, Kazakhstan is the place you will want to be!

Popularity: 19% [?]

I am currently sitting down in a Starbucks cafe in Subvarnabhu Airport, Thailand waiting for my flight to Almaty, Kazakhstan. So, I thought to be more productive, I hope to write to you on this topic of Excellence.

I recently gave a few talks to the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority of Singapore, Sime Darby and Domino’s Pizza and can’t help but ask what is Excellence and why does it matter to us? I mean, honestly… why should we display excellence in what we do?

Before I begin, may I ask you what is the difference between Excellence and Perfectionism? (Do answer the question before you read on).

Excellence, to me, is the desire to constantly want to be better in what we do. We look through our processes and system of doing things and want to make them better. This means that processes need to be as carefully thought out as possible and then implemented.

Perfectionism is the whole idea of doing things right. It has to work very well and absolutely have no flaws in the process. It has to be simply… perfect! Anything less is really fowled upon.

I don’t know about you but I find the idea of being perfectionist pretty scary and somehow not very useful. People who are perfectionist in nature tend to criticise everything and also refuse to do anything because they know that things might not work or turn out well. People of excellence, on the other hand, will give considerable thought in the whole process and do what they think its best at that moment. It might not be perfect, but they know that if things are not implemented or done in the first place, it cannot be improved.

However, excellence in what we do is not achieved simply by desire, but also by putting a lot of effort in making sure that we constantly improve our abilities. Ask any athlete who prepares for the Olympics, they have to constantly train and discipline themselves. As a Public Speaker and Trainer, I have committed myself to constantly read and summarise what I have learnt every single month. There were times when I spent many nights just reading and rereading even on topics that I am extremely familiar about. I can recall the countless times where I literally was ‘working on myself’ when other people were watching TV or going out. There is a price to pay for excellence and somehow, it does not come cheap.

So, why subject yourself to hard work and discipline? Here are some reasons that why you must display excellence:

1.    Displaying Excellence is lucrative in today’s society. How many people do you know can actually display intense knowledge and skill in what they do? These people are always rewarded with a much higher pay and return on their time.

2.    Displaying Excellence causes a person to be proud of what they do. It is in every human being’s desire to constantly want to be better in what they do. Your intrinsic self-worth is dramatically increased.

3.    Displaying Excellence commands the respect of people. If you see people doing things extremely well, won’t you envy or praise them? This causes a person to feel proud in what they do and will increase their desire to do things better.

Conclusion
I hope you will display excellence in what you do, whether in your personal or professional life. Anything that is worth doing, deserves to be done with excellence.

Popularity: 24% [?]

This is my 4th article to be featured in the Straits Times and is personally one of my favourite since a lot of people constantly ask me if motivational talks really work at all.

Read the truth behind such talks and what value it can bring.

You can read download the article here.

Popularity: 21% [?]

As some of you know, I am part of the Asia Professional Speakers, Singapore (APSS). As speakers and trainers, we have decided to do what we do best and give back to the community by presenting a seminar called “Raise Your Game”. We will donate all the money we have collected from this seminar to the Singapore Cancer Society.

In this program, you will get to listen to top notch speakers in Singapore on Mindset Change, Increasing Productivity, Attracting people to you, Steps to raise your career, increasing your memory power, service excellence and much more!

Date: 1 Mar 2010
Time: 0845-1730
Place:Singapore
Lecture Theatre 23, 3rd floor,
SIM Headquarters, 461 Clementi Road
Cost: $188

To register or donate, click here.

Here is the line up of speakers:

Play a Higher Service Game in 2010…and Win
Ron Kaufman

Lessons from Everest:
Climbing High when Everyone Else is Feeling Low
David Lim CSP

5 Key Steps to Success to Consistently Raise Your Game
Shirley Taylor

Turning Everyday Struggles into Everyday Greatness
Dr William Tan

Simple Strategies for Becoming a Magnet for Success
Christian Chua

Raise Your Career, Raise Your Team and Raise Your Life!
Michael Podolinksy CSP

Raise your Game by Maximising your Memory Power
Nishant Kasibhatla

To register or donate, click here.

I appeal to that you come for this event. As you learn and be empowered, you are also giving back to the community. Let’s do our bid and show love for our fellow friends.

Do forward this blog link to your friends!

Popularity: 9% [?]

Here are some photos of the recent Batch of Dare To Train participants. They wanted to learn how to be a GREAT Trainer infront of large crowds. We basically addressed all the important elements that Trainers needed to have.

Participants were taught techniques of how to generate training content (on any topic), create high energy in training, practice skills to speak to the crowd, how to get crowds to echo what they say and instantly get people to participate in group discussions.

If you are keen on taking up this program want to be a GREAT Trainer, do email us at

coach(a)deepimpactonline(dot)com or call us at +65 6274 5145.

Adrian receiving feeback on his Presentation

Three Minutes to Engage the Crowd

Brainstorming on why Trainers are not Effective

A Technique to Overcome Fear

Graduates of Dare To Train, Woo Hoo!

Popularity: 14% [?]