Friday Sermon Workshop #02

Bismillah R Rahman Al Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa Salatu was Salam wa barik Carnaby, you know, Habibi, now Muhammad Anwar earlier he was not happy, as you may know about.

So today, Inshallah, we will start, we will start with the theory of this of this course, as I explained last time, the course will be divided into two sections will, there'll be the theory, and then will, there'll be the practice, I'll do the theory theory in sha Allah, and maybe, hopefully, nothing more than six sessions, I hope, I hope I can keep it to that inshallah. And then we'll have similar a similar number of of sessions that will be more based on practice, we'll be pairing up and groups, and we'll be working together in sha Allah in different in different ways. So today, we'll start with building a data delivery, the theory will talk to start with delivery,

the theory will be delivery will be part of it will be content, and then part of it will be job specifics, maybe there'll be a few lectures, a session or two, we'll just talk about specific things for jhamora. In opposition to to other forms of public speaking, where the rules of thumb I don't really apply. So today, we'll start with delivery. Now, this is called this is called the Elbert Moravians 738 55 rule, you can look it up and you can read the article. And you can read that there was actually some books that were written after that, around this, if you take a look here, you'll see that what this is,

in order for you to capture the attention of the audience. This is what this rule is talking about capturing the attention of your audience, what aspects of public speaking, play into capturing the attention of the audience. Now what I want to I want you to look at is the word content.

So look at the content, it responsible for 7% only 7% only. That's it. That's why scholars of the highest level are alumna who are speaking about issues that are so deep and so important. Don't really have an audience I can I can direct you to YouTube series online, for scholars that are talking about issues that Jani can blow your mind, but no one listens to them. Because it's not about content content only contributes 7%, to actually be able to capture the audience. 55% is body language. We'll talk about that. And then Volker presentation is 38%, which we'll talk about today. Today, we're talking about vocal presentation in sha Allah. And the next time we'll go into will,

we'll dive into body language a little bit. But this is the very scary part, we're going to talk about content, because it's still it still matters. But really, when you're capturing the attention of your audience, the content only plays 7% role.

Which is a problem. In what in what way, if you have good content, you have this you have really, really excellent content, you're saying things that need to be heard, people have to learn what you're saying. But then all this here doesn't work for you. You don't have the proper vocal presentation. You don't have good body language. It's not gonna, no one's gonna listen. And people aren't gonna be interested. This is why this is so important to understand, to learn how to do public speaking so that you actually have content. And that's why clowns are guys who have nothing to say, Oh, look, people have nothing to say. It's just, it's just garbage. But they know how to

stand. They know how to smile, they know how to speak, they know how to play with their voices, and people watch them millions and millions of views. And when you actually look What did they say, What was the content, nothing, the content was nothing, not even good jokes, even. But this is the reality. This is just a study, there's a number of studies that were done after this to have similar numbers, you may find small variations that are different terms of the numbers. But in general, this is what this is what the rule looks like, which I think is something worth noting here. So today, inshallah we'll talk a little bit about vocal presentation. There are four bad vocalizations.

If you're always Hi,

if you're always up here, all the time, the whole time, it doesn't work. If you're always up there the whole time. People will stop listening to you. They can't you'll you'll if you're if you're going through your feed on Facebook. And if someone speaks like that 234 Or five seconds, you move on you just even if they're saying something important, just because it's hard to listen to, there's nothing with volume, this issue of of your voice, the tone, it's not it's not characteristic of your voice, not the volume of the voice that I'm talking about here. You're always high. People don't want to listen, if you're always low. If you're continuously low, too deep all the time, people

don't listen to that either. Now, what we're going to talk about is how you're going to use both how you're going to go up and down a little bit, depending on what you're saying, depending on what you're trying to emphasize what you want people to hear how you want to affect them. So yes, you're going to go up, you're going to be high sometimes, and it's gonna be low sometimes. But you can't be one all the time. These are bad vocalizations to hold on to. Too loud.

I am 100% guilty of that. 100% tune out 100% It's wrong. You shouldn't be too loud.

You shouldn't get, you get passionate to start yelling, and then you yelled for seven, eight minutes, and then you recognize that the hook was over and you're still yelling, You shouldn't, you can be loud for a few moments to capture people's attention. But he can't continuously be loud, you have to have to bring it down to sharp

if you're too sharp, and this is an issue of this is more of a technical issue mean where you're carrying the microphone, if the microphone microphone is a bit too close, or if the volume is played within a certain way, so the sound is very sharp, if it's too sharp, people don't enjoy listening. So you know that whenever whenever it makes that sound, everyone they kind of cringe for a moment, even yourself, if it's too sharp. And that's a problem as well. There's just bad vocalizations that you kind of want to watch out for. You don't want to fall into any of these traps. Alright, so here's some rules regarding regarding vocalization, first of all speed. Now, if you think I'm a fast

speed, or now you should have seen me 1015 years ago, I was like a machine gun.

It was just a machine gun, where the point where I had people say, no, no, no, in the middle of my talk, they wouldn't wait until I was done. Now they wait. They wait until I'm finished, come to me after and say especially the older, I'm those who are tired of life, and they just don't have that. So they say to me,

that's fine. But before when I did this, when I was younger, I was so fast that people would stop me in the middle of it. No, no stop, we understood nothing, you have to go back and repeat everything again. So I would go back. So this is, again, you can't No one, maybe there are some perfect public speakers out there. I'm definitely not one of them. But you can learn the rules. You can learn to observe those rules and try to improve yourself as you go along, get better, you know, make, fix the mistakes slowly. And sometimes you'll be stuck with something it'll turn to your persona later. And those who enjoy it will continue to listen to you and those who don't enjoy it will kind of move on

move on doesn't it's not a problem. But speed is important. Speed

allows you to control certain things that I talked about a little bit. Yeah. So let's talk about here. In general, slow is better than fast. As a general rule of thumb, if you are stuck between the two, the slow is always better. If you're slower, it's better people will enjoy that more, they'll be able to understand you better. The problem with slow is that you can deliver all of your content, most of the time slow means that you're not going to get through 15 to 30% of what you actually came just to talk about. And and it's and sometimes it your brain is moving forward and you're and you're trying to slow it down. If you slow down the way you talk, you slow down your thought process, you

start forgetting things. So it becomes difficult, it's not easy to control your the speed of of your words, because when you're controlling the speed of your words, you're also controlling the speed of your brain and processing what it wants to talk about. So it's not easy. But in general, if you are stuck between being too quick, or too slow, slow is general and I I'm fully guilty of this. So you don't have to tell me later. I know. Second point where it just speed become important when it comes to emphasis. So you're telling a story, you don't tell the story with the same speed. If it's all the same speed, people don't know what you're interested in, they don't care, they don't know.

They're not sure what point of the story you're trying to bring forward. So you need to kind of jog through the parts that don't matter that much. Now, they're important for context, but they don't matter that much. You'll find that in the Quran, by the way, go and take a look at Musa anywhere in the Quran, you'll find that each time and each in different sutras that this or the story will emphasize a certain part of the story that won't be emphasized in another in another stool. The point being, all of the elements of the story will still be there. But Allah Subhanallah I know we'll talk about Musa speaking to for our own and 50 verses if it's important, or in two verses, if

he just wants to make sure you understand the context that that happened, and then move on to the point that's after that. So for even the Quran does all the time, you just if it's not that if this is not the point of the story, it will give you two or three verses, and then it will move on to the actual point of the story. But it will completely remove it. So I'm not saying that you don't tell them the part of the story that it's not important to you. You just have to make sure you speak you're you're a bit quicker and going through it. And then when it comes to the part of the story that actually matters. You slow down and you emphasize each word.

And you can think of any story if you want, you can come in and you can do that quickly in your head, especially for winning when you for example Narrator hadith of the prophet for the Prophet alayhi salaatu wa salaam, he the Prophet SAW Selim went somewhere and did something with somebody, you're doing it very quickly. And then someone asked him something. And this is what he said to him. I said when you slow down and you say the words that he said Allah is very clearly because that's the point of the story that you want people to think about. Doesn't mean that that first part isn't important. It's just you're actually directing people's attention to what you want to the point of

your story, or else people won't understand, meaning they'll hear a story and they'll go

go home and say I heard a story today. But they really won't know why they heard that story that day. They're not sure what he's I don't know why he told the story. Unless your speed changes throughout the story is difficult for those who are listening to figure it out what point matters to you. Because you can take a story and have like maybe eight to 10 points that are really important, that are very, very deep, that are worthy of talking about which part of that story is important for you right now your speed will make a difference, it will emphasize something if you're a bit slower, repetition, repetition can be helpful, we can know for a fact that the Prophet Alia, has done

repeated himself three times. Right. And he didn't do it. Sometimes we think, you know, sometimes we think that the Prophet alayhi salatu salam would repeat himself in the same way. And he would just say the same thing, in the same way three times. And that's not what he did. I think in salatu salam?

Yeah. So I'll give you example, I'll just say something in English and, and show you how you, so if I, if I'm talking about something, that's my opinion, important, and at the end, I say this, I say?

What, let me think of something good, okay. This is something, I need a random here.

This will affect your behavior.

This will affect your behavior.

Think what you want, but this will definitely affect your behavior. So that's repeating three times just something random, repeating three times that wasn't the same. It's not saying this will affect your behavior. This will affect your behavior. This will affect your behavior three times I'm done. No, I didn't. I never did that. When he repeated himself three times. It wasn't just for the fact of repeating himself, even when he didn't sit down. It's not that I'm audio Mr. Dominique, Mr. Harmonic. No, it's Santa Monica, Santa Monica, Santa Monica. So their petition was there. But their vision was actually functional. It did something it was there for a reason. It helped people

understand what the point was of what was happening. So the point of it is something you find in the Hadith? Well, Kabbalah has a lesson, which is everywhere. In his Hadith, he would repeat things three times, it wasn't just a repetition.

He would do it in a way where each time, he would get people to think about what he said, a little bit more civilized. And then because he was very good at doing this, so repetition is helpful. And you'll find any good public speakers, they will find ways, they'll find a sentence, a sentence, that means something to them, that's important. And they will repeat that sentence throughout their routine, or throughout their talk multiple times different ways, trying to get you to memorize that one sentence. Because if you memorize that sentence, they've achieved their goal, they got you to hold on to retain something that they were interested in you learning and actually thinking about

data regarding speed. That's the first point we're going to talk about is speed is important. Repetition is a part. Especially if you're quick like me, then you need to repeat yourself a few times when you're when you're talking definitely. Second rule regarding vocalizing emotions

is very important vocalizing emotions,

your voice has to reflect the emotion that you are trying to relate to people. If you if your voice doesn't reflect the emotion, it can be very awkward, and very weird.

And if it's the opposite emotion, or it doesn't make sense, people won't know how to deal with it. So when you're sad, your voice has to reflect that sadness. You have to come down a little bit.

If you're saying the Prophet sallallahu sallam, and he lost his Sunday, Ibrahimi looked at him, and he couldn't help himself from crying.

You just couldn't help it. And then with your voice, you come down, and you give some space, because that's how you that's how sadness is kind of related to people. You can't force sadness on people with no, you just calm down, you bring it down, and you phase out the words. That's how you kind of make sure, again, you're reflecting your own emotion, what you're trying to say. But that's how sadness comes forward. You give people a moment to kind of think about what was being said, if you're loud when you're sad. We'll talk about that. There are people who are loud when they're sad. They're on that member and they're crying and they're yelling, and they're trying to make you sad

with them.

It's done. I don't think it's right. But it's done. It's playing on emotions. It's turning the content from logical to emotional, we'll talk about that. We talked about content. But if you're trying to vocalize sadness, that's how it's done. You just kind of come down you slow down. When it comes to anger, anger is is one of the more difficult ones to vocalize you want to vocalize anger.

Loudness is usually what is used, you become a bit loud, right? And you become sharp

and you become a bit abrupt in whichever way you're gonna say something. If you're talking about the Prophet alayhi salatu salam, when he came when he found them fighting over something that is racist, if I call if I called the Rasulullah Fatah they're all

For Tina, that's how you say it, leave it, this is disgusting. And then your, everything kind of puts us together. So the sound your voice, you have to go up, you have to go up, your voice has to come a bit loud, it has to be a bit abrupt, it has to be direct, if anger is gonna, is gonna come across, that's how it's going to happen. That's why the hotel bar again, we'll talk about that drink drama a little bit. What is the most known thing for drama is that usually hope are pretty angry.

Because the Prophet Alia saw Sam had a persona on the member where his voice was loud, and he looked angry, Alia salatu salam, the reason being that he was talking about something that was usually very, very critical, very difficult, and he was trying to get a response of people to be a bit more meaty he wanted the level of,

of preparation to be high, have you want everyone to be ready, instead of being just laid back, especially on a drum, I remember, he doesn't want to be laid back, he wants you to be listening, focused and ready for change. That's the whole point of drama to begin with. Happiness. Happiness in the voice means you're gonna go up higher, a little bit,

sadness, to go down, happiness to go high. We'll talk about the, you know, the facial expressions and the kind of the body language later, but in happy, you have you have to kind of go up was a great day was beautiful. So you go up a little bit. And that kind of, again, people don't even necessarily need to understand what you're saying. I remember, there was a good public speaker, I won't name the person, controversial individual that my mother used to listen to when I was young, I use lunch all the time. And my mum used to listen to with me, my mum, for a long time didn't understand Arabic, clearly, especially if the person is speaking in an accent. That's not the accent

that we have in our little village. It's hard for her to comprehend. So I remember she would watch this person with me. Every time I watched, I asked her, Are you understanding anything that he's saying? He doesn't know. But every it's clear to me what he's talking about, just with the ups and downs of his voice, you can figure out Yeah, I think I hear a few words here and there. And then just the usage of voice voice you can come across to the person that's listening to you. And that is the power of good public speaking that if your body language or vocalizations, all that is intact, that even if the person who's listening to you doesn't understand the language 100% they can still

get across what you're trying to say. And they can walk away saying, Yeah, I think I think I got I got what they're trying to teach. So So happiness, you got to go up a little bit in that. That's how you get it. mockery. Mockery is a problem. mockery, you want that, that? That voice where you say.

So you're telling me

that you wanted to do that and didn't see that's how you that's mockery. That's kind of being as mocking someone or being a bit cynical, or having a bit of sarcasm, as the as the narration goes, that they came to know how they sit down when he was building the ship. I thought, oh, yeah, no, flutter. Net, Zhao, run by Dan Quinn. Tenebris. Yeah, you were a prophet. Now you're, now you've turned into a carpenter. That's what's going on with you. So Marguerite, to Marguerite, sorry, are being cynical or being a bit sarcastic. It also needs a certain playing with your voice. In order for that to come across. One of the worst things that you can do in public speaking, is use sarcasm

or mockery, not to vocalize it properly, and people not understand what you just did. Because the opposite of what you're trying to do mockery and sarcasm is actually the opposite of the message. So if people don't get it, if they think that you actually meant it, and this happened to me once, this happened to me actually more than once, but in recent, like, in recent years have been once and the person can actually come up, come up and ask you, you know, why would you say that? About any about the prophets of Allah? How do you send them?

What are we seeing was, it was during a time where they had you know, they were mocking, or they made those drawings about MIT. So saying things, so I was saying, and then they come along, and they say that the Prophet SAW I said, that I'm somehow is, yeah, is pushing for terrorism and trying to get people killed, is obviously sarcastic, obviously, mockridge I was gonna be upset. But sometimes your audience won't understand it. And they'll think that that's what you just tried to explain. And they'll come and say, Well, why, you know, why would you say that? And then, so it's very dangerous, being using mockery, using sarcasm and being cynical. It's helpful as a strong public speaking, any

tool to use, but it's very dangerous as well. So if you feel like you can't pull it off, then just don't don't go down that line.

And you have to make sure that that vocalization part of it is very clear. So if you're someone who is cynical all the time, what happens is your cynic your regular voices, your cynical voice, if you're always being sarcastic, then you stop using vocalizations for your sarcasm, because it's how you speak all the time. You can't do that when you're doing public speaking. Your sarcasm has to be vocalized differently so people can recognize this is his tone when he's

talking normally and explaining things, and this is his turn when he becomes sarcastic. So they can see that they can differentiate and actually appreciate what you just did. Questions. Obviously a question should be should be vocalized differently. I don't think I need to give you example of that. But whenever is a question?

What did you do? It's a question. There's some you kind of go up high at the end that the last bit of it there just to make sure that people understand that this was a question intended. And even when you read the Quran, by the way, scholars would tell us to do the same thing.

It's hard to do when you're reciting in Salah, but we were told to do it, I've never been able to actually pull it off. Because in the Quran, it's a bit it's a bit more tricky. But even in the corner, wherever it's a question, you weren't, you're actually supposed to vocalize it as if it is a question,

which isn't

ideal AKA, right? How would you? How would you kind of make sure that that comes off as a question? It's a bit hard, nice and vocalization, some people don't appreciate it. So we don't do it. But scholars in the past would ask for you ask us to actually do that surprisement being surprised. So this is a very powerful tool. Whenever you if you're building, you're building up your story properly. And there's a lot of suspense in it. You want that moment when someone is being surprised, or you're being surprised, or you want the audience to be surprised that your vocalization has to reflect that there has to be an abrupt change in the tone and volume and nature of your voice. In

order for that to happen. It doesn't have to be loud and sharp, it could be the opposite. But there has to be an abrupt change, there has to be something different in order for surprisement to actually come across. It's a very, very powerful tool. If you use it properly, it will literally make your make your whole speech, meaning you can you can fail a lot of other things. But if you can get that one thing done properly within your talk, then people will actually remember that and it will stay with them. That's in terms of kind of getting emotions across clarity.

Clarity is a big deal. Especially for us here where you're speaking to people who actually have

English as a second language most of the time, or when you're speaking something, say something in Arabic, and Arabic is not the native language for the majority of people who are listening to you. So clarity is important. What add there's two aspects of clarity that are important enunciations and pronunciations. enunciation means just to be clear.

Make sure that every letter that you say is coming out properly not eating off the last letter.

We have a joke that we have people in our country that don't say the last letters

of words. So someone comes up to them and say, Why do you chop chop off the last letter of every word? So We answered Arabic. The question is the relationship often have fall home or Johar.

Which letter and they actually chop off the last letter of the word letter itself. So it is something that people do. Being clear, making sure that every letter is coming out clearly is important. That's why you should read, you will learn the Quran really what you're learning is you're learning a bit a bit of the science of linguistics, and you're learning what how to make sure that when you say something, it is heard clearly that each letter is clear. Pronunciation is different pronunciation is focusing on the emphasis in a word. I remember I first came here, like six years, seven years ago, every time I give a talk about it with Muhammad Hamill, and he would

tell me all the words that I said wrong. I had the word I just didn't know how to say it. Right. I hadn't said it in years, I forgot how it's supposed to be pronounced. So pronunciation is important to make sure that you're saying the word properly, or at least saying it in a way that the people who are listening to you are used to because sometimes, there's a word that is pronounced differently in different cultures. So you make sure you say it in a way that they can actually, they can actually understand it. So both enunciation and pronunciation are extremely important. Sometimes.

Just having those two things can carry you as a public speaker for many, many years. Meaning you may not have all the other tools or skills, maybe the skill set doesn't really work for you. But if you can enunciate and pronounciating meaning people are hearing everything you're saying very clearly, they're not guessing at what that word was. Or guessing what that word meant. Because it wasn't clear, then that can take you far. So it's important skill to kind of hold on to that in terms of clarity.

Tone, here's the last tone.

monotonic

being monotonic is probably the most annoying thing in the world. If you have someone who stands there and speaks in the same way, the whole time for an hour and a half never changed. A word never goes up, never goes down. Within a couple of seconds. You're you can't you it's hard to sit. It's hard to sit in that and that's one of the reasons I believe that people fall asleep and drama. And the all around the globe, being the fact that sometimes most of them I never leave can be monotonic for a long period of time. You can't be monotonic. For more what is the rule for more than 10 to 15?

seconds. And then you have to you have to change your tone, you have to go up or down, you have to change something, you cannot continue with the same tone for more than 15 seconds. Because at that point, if you continue, people will get bored, and you'll lose everyone's attention to they won't be listening to you anymore after that. So I think 10 to 15 seconds is what most people, most researchers in this field, talk about as, as the longest period of time where you can be speaking in one tone, I believe that not even one sentence should be the delivered in one tone, I think you should always be changing your tone the whole time from one that was in one sentence, you're going

up and down all the time. That's how you emphasize that's how you get people to continue to listen to you and wonder what's coming. And so one and think about what you just said, You shouldn't say anything monitoring, but if but if you are someone who tends to be a bit more monotonic, make sure it's no longer than 1015 seconds, and then find a way to actually step it up or step it down a little bit.

Do not exaggerate changes. This is probably my this bothers me the most out of all, of all, the all the mistakes that are made in

in public speaking is exaggeration of tone change.

Meaning whether you're trying to vocalize an emotion, or you're trying to get people's attention, so you go so you make sounds or you make it your to change your tone in a way that is obviously not genuine. What you're gonna find in this whole series, is that really, a good public speaker is a public speaker who is

natural.

When they're talking mean, they're being as normal and as natural as they can. They're not, they're not forced to act, or be something that they're not, people pick up on lack of Genuity immediately. If someone's not genuine, you feel it, you hear it. It's just, it's just a part of who we are. If you feel someone's non genuine, you don't listen to anymore. If you feel like they're acting, you feel this is not real. If you feel this showmanship is good, but it has to be moderate in moderation, there has to be what we're, what we're actually talking about here is how to perform some showmanship so that that 7% of the content actually makes its way over. That's the whole point

of this is that you learn a bit of showmanship so that 7% can actually arrive up in people's minds and hearts. But if you exaggerate the usage of these things,

whether it's surprise, anger, sadness or happiness, then people will feel that something isn't fitting, and they will take a step away. Sometimes I'm not sure if you do this, sometimes, if you're watching. And if you're going through your feed and video clips, and someone and he acts in a way that is too much for you. You can't, you know, you feel uncomfortable. So you change if the way that they cried or the way that they laughed or the way that they were performing, or the way that they spoke made you feel uncomfortable. The reason that you felt uncomfortable, if you ever wonder why am I feeling uncomfortable? Why don't why don't why don't I want to continue to watch this. The reason

is because you just didn't feel if you were genuine, you felt that that was an exaggeration. So you can ask questions, you can ask the question by saying what? Or you can ask him, I think what that's too much, that's like, Scooby Doo. It doesn't work anymore. It seems more theoretic, it becomes theatrical. When this is not theater, standing here, this is not theater. In theater, that's what they do. They go up and down, and they exaggerate. And that's the but that's their craft. That's what people are going in expecting. This is not that when you're doing public speaking, people aren't expecting you to be theatrical unless that's the form of public speaking that you are

delivering. Again, I'm catering this a little bit towards genre and religious talks or, you know, addressing public in a way that's trying to help them trying to move them forward, offer them some solutions, help them change behavior, stuff like that. I'm not talking about being a stand up comedian. If you're a stand up comedian, things changed, the rules for public speaking actually changed. Being a stand up comedian is probably the most difficult thing. It's right under hobo drama, in my book is very difficult to stand in front of a room of a couple of 100 people make them laugh. It's very, not an easy thing to do. However, what I'm telling you talking to you about here

doesn't that's not, you're not gonna learn to be a good stand up comedian for what I tell you. That's not really gonna get from me.

So don't exaggerate the changes of your tones. All right. Here's some tips.

Find someone to imitate not fully, but find someone to imitate meaning. Watch public speakers that are good that you've listened to in the past. When you were when you were younger, that you enjoyed that you felt I would like to be able to speak like that. And then watch what they do. And learn from them. You have to come up with your own combo at the end. You have to you have to you have to have your own thing, but it's helpful to have someone that you're willing to imitate.

I did that when I as I grew up, I had a couple of people that I tried to imitate. It's not apparent because after you imitate a little bit, learn how to do it, you end up breaking up and doing your own

thing, but it's helpful if you find if you'd be willing to watch and you're not listening to the content, you're just observing. You're observing how they're delivering the content, how they're doing it. And you'll start picking up on the tricks. Because I'll go through all the tricks for you. And you'll see them you'll say, I like that I like I like this. I like this combination. I like this recipe that this person has put forward, and they will try and imitate them. Not fully, though. It's important to make that but I don't think that you can become a good public speaker. If you don't imitate anyone, if you just start on your own, even if the imitation is from mockery to begin with,

if you learn to imitate a public speaker, then you you're on this tracks, you can make some adjustments, you know, make something genuine and original to who and authentic to who you are, and then keep on going. Just like when I was younger, or people who learn the Quran, when they're young, and they don't imitate a Kata, they never develop a good voice ever. They read, they read the Quran in a very boring way all their lives because you have to imitate a Kata someone you have to like someone at some point, imitate them long enough, and then break off and do your own thing later. Every person who's had a good voice on reads well, imitating someone growing up 100% It's never

happened any other way. And I've had students who, who didn't imitate anybody, anyone, and they finished the whole Quran and became witches and taught and oh my gosh, yeah.

Not the joy to listen to at all. But again, that's that's an issue of it's not as important I guess, in the Quran was very important public speaking, be careful of tics.

You know,

you know,

I was doing, you know, I went to that place, you know, I've listened to people speak and use the tick, you know, maybe 11 times in nine seconds, just continuously using the same. That's the problem. Watch out for ticks in Arabic from today, from today, from today from today.

This repetition of the same word is a problem, tics. Some things are okay, some things are cute. Some things are actually they identify people, some Michelle made their own tics and people start to know them by the tics that they have. But you still you can't overuse these things. You can have them these filling in these words that fill in you don't want to have them a good public speaker doesn't have these filling in words, just continues to offer the content doesn't really use them. And if they do use them, they use them for a point

I have a shave, my stick is Yanni even English to it. Sometimes it's a fully English talk, I will insert a Yanni even in an interview for medicine. I will insert a Yanni somewhere into that

into that interview and some will ask me why are you Yanni I'm not Yanni. But we'll continue.

We can act like that didn't happen. We all have these ticks, but you want to really become a good public speaker start to get rid of these ticks whenever she would say none.

And when he's all the time he would say something now I'm not I'm so once he was praying, and he was reciting the Quran, he made a mistake and four or five people corrected him. So he said nom nom, and then

he didn't know. So we asked him afterwards, aka Salah Maka Bula is about Lila, what do we do so actually repeated that shot for that. And people weren't happy with that at all, something that wasn't good. So be careful of tics. When it when you talk it there, they're almost unavoidable. You can you can't fully avoid them. But you don't want to have you don't want to be a public speaker stands there, and continues to repeat the same tick because they're not sure of what they want to say. And I'll talk about that, in a moment. be diverse.

Humor, but let's take a moment. And let's talk about humor.

The most dangerous thing in public speaking, is humor. Whether you start with it, or you end with it, if someone Sliva, if it doesn't work, if you start with humor, and you bomb, that's it. You might as well say, Okay, folks that I'm on a coma and just walk yourself out, because it's not going to work anymore. So starting off with the joke is very dangerous. I would never advise starting off with a joke ever. It's just not. It's just not smart. You can do it if you feel confident about what you're doing. But if you start off with a joke, you should make sure that you're very careful. And never tell people that oh, this is a great joke. Never sell your joke before you tell your joke.

Just Just if you gotta say it, just say it, do not sell it by telling them is Isn't that amazing job. Don't do that. Because now the expectations are high.

And you can completely ruin this. So don't do that. Don't end with a joke either. If you're having a great session, you're going through you, you did your talk, you went through everything and then you tell a joke and no one laughs

It's like the we have a it's like a method in Arabic where the you milk the cow and then the cow steps right into the Sultan at the end and in the in the pail at the end of it. So just don't just don't do that you want to go and with the joke unless you're ready. Jokes can be inserted inside your talk. Now, they can't be random. It can't be I'm talking about something. And as you know until we take a minute I just tell you this random joke no humor has to be functional.

There has to be purposeful meaning yours to tell it you're saying this joke, and it somehow is associated is going to help along with your Jani, the sequence of thoughts or sequence of topics, it can't be just something random, just for the sake of making people laugh. Again, we're not doing any stand up comedy. Here, you're trying to insert a joke that helps.

Humor is a very powerful tool. In public speaking, beware, Do not joke about about disabilities. Do not joke about religions. Do not joke about catastrophes Do not joke about how people look, Do not joke about how people about people's weights Do not joke about anything that especially now in this era, that can come off as sexist. Especially if you're a Muslim man. The jokes of marrying the second woman are completely off the table No, which takes away 95% of my material. When it comes to jokes. That's all I've got. That's all I ever learned growing up, because that's all I have just those jokes that where a man is, you know, with his wife and the face to head over these things.

That's all I was taught. You can't use these jokes anymore, you seriously, don't never touch them. Be very careful about what you joke about because A, again, humor is not necessary in the form of public speaking that we're doing. I don't think it's wrong to even use humor in German, I don't think it's wrong. But it has to be done well, it's very helpful humor can, it draws a smile on people's faces, they're more relaxed, they're more likely to listen to you. But it's very dangerous. Because if you joke about the wrong thing, or your joke is misunderstood, it can ruin everything you've done.

Or if a joke doesn't arrive, as I said, deliver it, and people don't understand anything, then then it's a complete waste of your time. And you look and you look and you feel really, really awkward after it will lie. I rarely tell jokes in public speaking. But yeah, again, it is it is a powerful tool within, within public speaking, humor is important. I want to take a moment to talk about it. Because I'm going to allude to humor throughout the throughout the whole series a number of times, I need you to start thinking about how you would see yourself, if you're going to do this job, how would you see yourself being a bit humorous, and what you say how

the Sahaba would sometimes talk about the Prophet sallallahu Sallam and say we would listen to him. And we would laugh and cry. They would use those terms. Now, when many He will make us laugh and make us make us cry some of my sentiment in the way he talked, he knew how to do that. Because both laughing laughter and crying are emotions. People enjoy when they are capable of expressing emotions in any time. Not in a way that is that is awkward, but just in a natural way where you feel you feel true sorrow about what you heard, but you also feel a bit happy as well, that comes from a good public speaker, being able to make sure these emotions all come naturally to those who are

listening. So humor is important. But if it's not used properly, it can it can be catastrophic. It can really harm everything that you do. All right? seriousness.

You don't have to be like this to be serious.

Your face doesn't have to look like that. You don't always have to be

with a high pitched voice. very abrupt. That's not how you can be serious. No, you can use humor and be serious. But serious isn't important. You have to make that shift. You're talking in a way we're a bit laid back, where it's just an explanation. You're telling a story, you're talking about a situation in life, but then you want people to feel that this issue that you're coming to is extremely important. Being able to make that transition, being able to make sure that you go from a laid back easygoing flow of a story to becoming extremely serious, to bringing up the tension in the room a little bit. So okay, it's not wrong.

That tension in the room has to kind of go up and down. To use humor, it comes down, everyone's now relaxed. on us, they have a good laugh. You can see all the kudos going up and down and happiness. And now you want to raise the tension and get everyone to really, you know, those pupils to dilate and to listen, going from one to the other is extremely important. And being able to make that transition again. vocalizing emotions is going to do that right? Speed is going to be talking speed is going to do that tone up and down. And all that is going to help but what I'm telling you is tips if you understand how to use the rules that we talked about speed, vocalizing emotions, playing

around with your tone a little bit, all that then you need to be able to go from humor to seriousness to move back and forth so that people actually pay attention. The span of human attention today has decreased significantly, like significantly. I remember. Let's just take it from music. Uncle Tim will stand there and go for an hour.

As long as now we're three minutes

tops are nothing more than that. That's just an art. Art has changed significantly.

People used to listen to lectures for an hour or two hours. Now the lectures now, what is the I think the median is like maybe they say that if you want something to listen to you listen to less than 10 minutes, and less than 10 minutes. If you put it online, you have a higher chance of IT people actually listening to it. But what can you possibly offer in 10 minutes, when it comes to somebody that's actually actually has substance to it is very difficult to deliver something worthy of other people's attention in 10 minutes or less. It's doable, if you have all these tools, and you prepare properly. And I think that's why these these this series is important. We're coming to a

time where you have to be an amazing public speaker, to get a very small amount of people to pay attention to you.

You have to be really high up there to get just a couple of people to listen. Back in the day. If you hide a few of these tools, you are golden, you can go ahead. My dad tells me that he remembers when he was young that to the village a guy called the Makati would come to the village. This is just a dude will come and sit down. And the whole village would gather around for him to tell them made up stories.

Just stories because there was no radio there was no Internet, there was no TV, there was no info, there was nothing. Books were hard to come by. There's nothing so all you had is this guy who didn't tell you a story. People loved it. He was in the unknown. sauce or love were a big part of of human history. Now it's not the same. Now if you want people to listen, you really have to use all these tools and use them properly. Slang. slang is important sometimes especially for those who are going to do Arabic speaking. So in Arabic, this first half

and it was IMEA

as a speaker you should use force her. And if you can't if you're not good then use force her mercy upon what does that mean? Where you make the end of each letter second?

Omar for call the habit

Suikoden all them is Jah Omoto follow the hub to that's how we're supposed to be. But if you're not, you're not comfortable. You're not sure. Then you give sukoon to act

every every year into the last letter of every word. And that's what our teachers used to tell us. If you don't know, don't make a mistake. The moment you're on the member and you know, something that has should have been my you give a TA and I knew that was the end of you know, maybe not here but back home. Yeah, don't leave any sometimes people would be corrected on the member. I witnessed once someone correcting someone while they're on the member.

unsub monitors. Well, you know, they also be a chef, he told you.

These things happen here. It's not as much of a problem. But I think it's still worth talking about that. Yes. Sometimes when you transition into slang, people listen.

In English, you can speak proper English and then you can maybe use a few words that people use in their daily interactions or a certain age group or a certain group will use. It's not that they're rude or you know, it can't be profanity, obviously, you'll never use profanity on even these type of talks ever. And it will Louis. If it was possible, I would have done it believe me, but it's not possible.

I've tried I've tried many times to is doesn't work doesn't work. I've tried everything. If you're capable of doing it. I will Yanni I will idolize you I've tried to insert it doesn't work. But slang is helpful. If you can get a word in that a certain group of people recognize and associate or relate to, then you can get their attention more than others, which means you have to be a bit more. I guess we all have to be a bit more educated about what's going on in the world around us. The profit is all just for example, learned words from the Habashi language. And when the people the Muslims from Hypatia came, he would use these words with them SallAllahu Sallam just to make them

feel involved to make them feel appreciated to make them feel that they were relevant. And the Hadith where he's talking to one of the saying this is nice, called he Sinha which means Hesson are good in Habashi language. So he had learned a few words where you could say you don't understand the language, they would come and speak to him in the language had no idea what you were saying you needed a translator, but he would learn certain words. So learning slang or learning phrases that will help people relate to what you're saying is very, very helpful.

Okay.

The power of silence in a pub in public speaking, public speaking is the art

of this.

It's the art of the pause.

That's what public speaking is it's the art of the pause knowing when and how to stop.

Now you know I'm stopping because for this so it doesn't mean anything to you right now. But in a public speaking session, maybe a hello Gemma. If you stop for a second,

two seconds, three seconds, four seconds.

You get people thinking,

you get people thinking either wondering

the importance of what you just said,

anticipating what you're going to say, and giving people a moment to absorb what happened. The power of silence, don't feel like you have to fill in every second of your public speaking with words, you don't don't feel compelled to do that. Knowing when to be silent, and giving people a moment to absorb, I believe that enjoy my husband. The reason that he was sitting alongside him for a moment was that give everyone a second to absorb what they just heard, wasn't just a concept of just sitting down and standing up and doing too hot buzzword. Not all scholars even agree that it has to be.

But the concept of giving them a moment, just to listen, just to think listen to their own thoughts. Because when you're speaking, the people who are listening to you, they can't listen to their own thoughts. They can't listen to both. So they're listening to you, they're trying to stay focused. But that's not fair. Because they have a brain that is working in there that is producing thoughts and, and questions. And so you need to give them a moment so that they can listen to that for a second, the power of silence is very powerful tool. Too much silence is awkward.

Make sure that when you're you are showing your you're using silence, that it doesn't seem that you've forgotten what you're gonna say.

Even if you have even if you have as good public speaker will be able to play silence so that people in front of them don't think the audience doesn't think that this person forgot what's next. Because you will, you will definitely be standing and speaking and then you will come it's a it's shift, delete, there is nothing there nothing, you've come to this point, you know, there's at least 10 minutes of material, but there's nothing and it didn't upload somehow, they're just not there. So you use the power of silence. But then you have to use it properly. And you have to make sure that it's not coming across as if you don't know what's coming in. So it makes it makes people feel very

awkward. But silence is a blessing.

And public speaking is blessing, the art of the pause.

The pause is just a matter of when you're talking about something.

And you really want to emphasize an idea.

So you go use a flow. And just before that word, that very, very important word.

You stop just for a few seconds, and then you say the word, then you stop, and you continue your flow. And that pause is good enough for everyone to continue to remember that word going forward. When you're talking even afterwards. Just knowing don't use a never do that. Never stand here and say, no, no, no, no, no, ever, if you forget to not share, then just use the art of pause. Just use the power of silence. Stop for a moment, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with you pausing and being silent. In actually any.

As a public speaker, you should become comfortable with silence. If you're uncomfortable with silence, it can it can really make it difficult for you to actually deliver material

properly. If you ever do therapy, you'll sit there in a room with your therapist, and they'll just sit there quietly, you'll feel very awkward, but they don't mind. You don't need to talk they're completely happy with silence. Silence is fine. Silence is good. Silence is helpful. It gives you time to think we're very rarely silent in our lives. I've no I don't talk a lot. I know you don't talk a lot. But you're always doing something. Me there's always noise, physical noise or or thought noise is always something going on silence is refreshing. And it gives everyone a chance to think for a few moments. So if you really want to try Oh, you try this, you can take you can take any

story and tell it without pauses and then try and tell it with some pauses and silences. I'm not giving examples because we're gonna do the examples and show them the practical part. Like I'll give you the examples once we because we'll be practicing all these things. I'll give you an example. I'll show you how it's done both ways. But now I want you to think about these concepts. And understand that they're there that this is a big part of what public speaking is being able to accept silence use it for your advantage to allow people to think about what you said, anticipate what is coming or absorb what just happened. And then learn how to pause, know when to stop, what to

emphasize, and what to continuously move on quickly with. And that's really it the in terms of vocal presentation, that's kind of everything that you need to know. Alright, let's go quickly over over them and then once you go. So make sure you not always high make sure not always low, make sure not too loud. Make sure you not too sharp. You can use all of these. All these are fighting go really low and go really high. You can get very sharp you can you can be loud, but it has to be something that you are trying to use for a specific period of time to get an idea across and then you regress back again. The rules speed, vocalization of emotion, clarity and tone these four things have to be

in your mind all the time. All four. You have to have an answer when you're speaking

Being okay, what is your speed? You have an answer for that. Am I trying to be quick? Am I trying to be slow? And is there a reason for me choosing what I'm going to do right now? When I'm booking the emotion that I have? What do I have an emotion right now? Or do I not have an emotion? Am I vocalizing it with my voice? Or am I not? Am I really happy? Am I really, really sad? I mean, very end you What am I that has to be something coming out of your mouth that explains that people even don't understand the language, or they missed a few of the words you said they can still feel it through your vocalization, you have to be clear. Make sure that you pronounce if you have problems

with letters, take time to fix those letters. If you don't know how to pronounce the word, don't come and say it. I have like a little there's a there's a there's a YouTube channel. All it does it just pronounced his words.

I want to talk about the hood a few weeks ago, I have no idea when listening. No idea. So I look it up. And the spelling gives me no clue of how to say this word. Like I just look at it like what is how do I What do I say? So actually, I just go to the same. It's if you look it up on YouTube, you'll find it and they pronounced it for you in the American and British accent. So it's Hoopoe and who works both ways. I didn't like Hoopoe sounded dirty, so I stuck with Hoopoe. So But anyways, you have to learn how to say the word properly. So it actually becomes a dress and the tone. Your tone is important. You have to learn to change you have to learn to play around with it a little bit. So

you have to have an answer every time you're talking. You have to have that answer. What is my speed? What emotion Am I vocalizing? Am I clear? And what is my tone?

These things have to be clear to you.

Make sure you divers, make sure that there's humor at the seriousness and use slang occasionally, whenever whenever that's applicable. And finally, the art of the pause, learn to use silence be comfortable with it. It's not a problem. It's actually helpful.

I don't use it as much as I should. When I do my clothes I know I don't use it and the reason is that there's not enough time there's never enough time. There's never enough time so I'm going to pause for a few seconds here in pilot because nothing will ever get done in this article will take 15 years to finish in the hope of drama. Dr. Amador kick me out Yanni physically because I won't be able to finish so but using the pause giving people time to actually accept and and think and take a moment is very important and helpful. I hope that was beneficial inshallah we'll see you next week. So Michael, should hola hola Atlanta's tough to break.