7 WAYS PUBLIC SPEAKING CAN IMPROVE YOUR LIFE

Learning to speak in public about who you are, what you do, where you come from and what you can do without fear can go a long way in expanding your social circles, building strong relations with successful people, getting yourself your dream job and representing and giving a voice to the voiceless in your community.

In this article, I want to share with you the 7 biggest ways public speaking can drastically improve your life:

1. Helps Identify Yourself: In a very real sense, we are the sum of our communication experiences with other people. As you put together speeches on topics that you care about, you will explore your own interests and values, expand your knowledge base, and develop your skills of creative expression. In short, you will be seeking your own voice as a unique individual, a voice distinct from all other voices.
2. Critical Thinking: Public speaking is also a great way to build critical thinking skills. Writing a speech requires a great deal of careful thought, from the audience analysis to the outline and conclusion. It's not enough to have a message – you also need to figure out how to tailor the message to fit the needs of your audience. How can you make your points relevant to your listeners? How can you help the audience understand your views? Thinking in this way is a great exercise for improving general communication skills. If you start thinking critically about your speaking style, you may find ways to improve your general communication style at home and at work.
3. Personal Development: Communication skills are crucial for personal and professional success. Preparing a speech forces speakers to take a step back and think critically about effective ways to communicate. In day-to-day life, it is easy to fall back on communication habits we formed many years ago. If communication is the backbone of the important relationships in your life, isn't it worth taking some time to work on? Improving your communication skills can make life more fulfilling on many levels.
4. Develop Transferable Skills: Transferable skills, such as finding information and organizing ideas, can be carried over from one context or occasion to another. So, for example, when you learn to manage anxiety in your public speaking class, you’ll be able to apply that skill in other settings such as a job interview. The skills you learn in your public speaking class will help you in other communication situations as well.
5. Increased your social networks considerably: Putting yourself forward as a speaker makes it easier for you to meet others. You'll find people want to talk to you. You will draw people to you. Are you looking for new ways to network and make social connections? Try public speaking. Giving a speech is like starting a conversation with a room full of people – and you can continue that conversation as soon as you step down from the podium. You and your audience share an interest in the topic of your speech, so you already have something to talk about! If the schedule allows, try to mingle with the audience after your speech, answering questions and seeking fresh perspectives on your topic. Give audience or members the option of getting in touch with you at a later date by listing contact information on handouts or slides. If you have a website, you can direct audience or members to find more information there.
6. It Increases Your Opportunities: Your increased visibility will no doubt lead to new opportunities. In the workplace, you’ll be given more opportunities to present at important meetings. Coworkers that are either afraid to speak to groups or feel they lack the charisma that you possess, will ask you to help with them with their presentations (or even request you help give the presentation). This can give you a mentoring relationship with someone at or slightly above your level in the workplace, which can be used to argue your case when it’s time for promotions. It can also help you establish relationships with people outside your regular work group. In business, you’ll be able to pitch your products and ideas to larger audiences. You’ll be invited to speak at conferences, share your knowledge in workshops and address audiences full of people that can buy your product. If you get really good at it, you can even make money speaking or barter for referrals and publicity. And when you can communicate to groups well, you’ll not only enjoy career success but success in your personal life.
7. Career Benefits: Advancement: Public speaking is a great tool for career advancement because it provides opportunities to impress the boss, seek publicity, and networks             You can read more about Public Speaking in my Book Titled The Confident Speaker's Book on Amazon

10 Great Ways to Generate Business Ideas

Ideas are things that come and go and fairly frequently too. However, the really great ideas usually spring unexpectedly in moments of inspiration. The reality is that great ideas are around you, yes I mean you, it’s your duty to find and nurture them

To start your search for that powerful idea that's going to set the world on fire, come with me to take you through the idea generation process. In this article, we are going to explore some of the possible ways we can generate marketable business ideas for our dreams and visions
Here are 10 ways to keep your mind fresh and open to enable you to generate your own Marketable and top-notch business ideas for your business and dreams.

1.     Meditate: In this world of technology and information overload, we are so distracted that our minds can’t function to its full capacity. A busy, stressed mind is unlikely to access the inspiration and clear thinking required to come up with a business idea, and build that idea into a reality. Taking some time to clear your mind and become aware of the world around you through meditation could open up a myriad of potential ideas.
2. Go online & explore: Almost all the top businesses and founders can be found online, you can get billion-dollar business ideas by surfing the Internet. Don’t waste your time watching or sharing funny videos and images online, Go on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and search relevant hashtags to see what people are talking about. For example, if you’re interested in social finance and social innovation, consider hashtags such as #impinv (impact investing), #socfin (social finance), #socinn (social innovation), #susty (sustainability), #socent (social entrepreneur or social enterprise). Visit popular entertaining websites, question and answer platforms, popular forums, Youtube, Blogs and learn what people are talking about.
3. Meet new people: In the words of Albert Einstein “The thinking that has brought me this far has created problems that this same thinking can’t solve”. Talking to new people who don’t only think like you but who don’t know how you think can help freshen up your brainstorming process. You can talk to people around your community, School, workplace, networking and learning events. This will help you gain new perspective and knowledge to help you develop and sharpen your ideas.
4.  Solve a Problem or a Challenge: If you look around your house, Community, workplace, Place of Worship or even across the globe, you’ll see a huge number of problems or mundane tasks that could potentially be made easier by a new product or service. If you identify a problem in your community, write it down and do some marketing research on that idea, chances are there will be a huge market for it. This is how most of the world great inventions and ideas came about. Just like how Richard Branson Started the Virgin Empire of business, he was quoted by saying “We were trying to catch a flight to Puerto Rico, but the local Puerto Rican scheduled flight was canceled. The airport terminal was full of stranded passengers. I made a few calls to charter companies and agreed to charter a plane for $2,000 to Puerto Rico. I divided the price by the number of seats, borrowed a blackboard, and wrote VIRGIN AIRWAYS: $39 SINGLE FLIGHT TO PUERTO RICO. I walked around the airport terminal and soon filled every seat on the charter plane. As we landed in Puerto Rico, a passenger turned to me and said: ‘Virgin Airways isn’t too bad—smarten up the service a little and you could be in business”. That was how Richard Branson got the idea to start Virgin Atlantic which is now an empire of global Successful Businesses. You can do more looking at the myriad of challenges we face every day in our communities or the world in general
5. Travel More: There’s a whole big world out there of great ideas that aren’t yet in your market. If you see an idea you love in your travels, you can take it back home and give it a new spin that specifically addresses the needs of your market or community. Even if you don’t find inspiration, traveling will help take you out of your surroundings and refresh your system. There’s also places around the world that has ideas waiting to be commercialized, such as in universities, research Centers etc. 
6.  Tap into your interests: Thousands of clever people have taken up hobbies and turned them into a successful business. Tim and Nina Zagat, who launched the Zagat Surveys, a publishing empire that sells restaurant guides for many major U.S. and European cities, are great examples. In the early 1970s, the Zagats were high-priced corporate attorneys whose passion was dining out. For fun, they created a newsletter in which they asked their friends to rank popular restaurants in several categories. Each year, the newsletter encompassed more restaurants. Eventually, it became such an expensive and time-consuming undertaking that the couple began charging money for it to allay their expenses.
7.  Examine your own skill set for business ideas. Do you have a talent or proven track record that could become the basis of a profitable business? To find a viable business idea, ask yourself, "What marketable skills and experience do I have? Will people be willing to pay for my products or services?" If you answer positively to the above questions then proceed to seek coaching and mentoring to help you unearth that idea and bring it into reality.
8.  Keep up with current events and trends: If you watch the news regularly with the conscious intent of finding business ideas, you'll be amazed at how many business opportunities your brain generates. Keeping up with current events will help you identify market trends, industry news - and sometimes just new ideas that have business possibilities. Just like the recent invasion of block Chain and 3D printing, one can innovate around that to build or develop a million Dollar business ideas.
9.  Read more books and get Coaching: Reading can show you where to start and coaching can help you nature and develop new ideas, books can help you to learn many lessons, give new business ideas and understanding how to implement them.
10. Build your network: Building a good network of Influencers and Change makers will give you an opportunity to switch from working hard to working smart. Connecting with professionals in the sphere of your business niche or industry can bring not only understanding of The highest customers’ needs but can help you to get tons of smart advice from influencers and top leaders.

These are among others some of the ways you can generate some great ideas for your vision but remember that “The values of ideas lies in the using of them”.

Book Ibrahim Mustapha to grace your occasion as a Guest Speaker or to train your members in Public Speaking, Team Building, Sales Presentations or Business development. Email: mustapha@mustaphainspires.com or call via +233209022398