Empowering College Students For Lifelong Success

I recently spoke at Central Connecticut State University to the Students for Professional Advancement (SPA) and Empowering Dreams for Graduation and Employment (EDGE), two very special groups of talented college students looking to take their academic careers, student leadership abilities, and lives to the next level. They are student leaders and it was an honor to give them useful strategies. My speech focused on presentation and interview skills, building confidence, leadership insights, and more. I’m so passionate about sharing this knowledge with college students because it wasn’t taught to me at an early enough age. I’ve made it my mission to equip and empower college students across the world for success not only in school, but also in life.

Developing Presentation Skills

Public speaking is an underrated skill. Practicing, growing, and harnessing your public speaking skills benefits you in all areas of your life: work, relationships, business, general communication, and many other areas. College students will not only be presenting in their classrooms, but they will be showcasing themselves to people their entire lives. It’s essential they know the keys to presenting themselves in a professional and powerful way for a variety of situations they will encounter throughout their lives.

This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to making a good first impression and mastering your stage and speaking presence, but they are nonetheless very powerful tips that will help you crush your next presentation. Here’s what I shared when it comes to presenting:

• Be authentic: don’t try to copy or be like someone else. Yes, you can learn from others, but when presenting make sure to be yourself and let your unique personality shine through.
• Breathe, visualize, and practice: everyone gets nervous, even the best speakers in the world! The way to overcome this nervousness is frequently practice (even if you feel like your practice is not going well, you’re making more progress than you think), spend time beforehand vividly visualizing a successful presentation/interview/discussion, and take many deep breaths before and during your presentation.
• Make eye contact: Locking eyes with various members of the audience during your presentation (or during a group or one-on-one conversation) shows confidence and poise. It also keeps them engaged with your speech.
• Make use of pauses: pause after a dramatic, powerful, or especially important point to make sure it sinks in.
• Make use of the stage: move around. Show love to all different areas of the room. Make sure no one is left behind.

Everyone, including professional speakers, goes through periods of doubt and uncertainty when preparing for a speech or important conversation. But if you use and implement these skills, you will be ready to leave a lasting impact on the person/people/audience you interact with. As my friend Brian Olds says, “favor progress over perfection.”

Building Confidence

Remember that confidence is a skill that can be learned by college students (and anyone else, for that matter). Just because you’ve had periods of your life where you were fearful and insecure does NOT mean you can’t build confidence. In fact, it’s just the opposite – it’s our darkest times as college students that lead to periods of genuine growth, progress, and confidence-building. Here are four quick tips to build confidence on a daily basis:

• Closely monitor your inner dialogue and become conscious of how you talk to yourself. Winners talk to themselves in an uplifting manner by purposefully replacing bad thoughts with the good. There will always be something to complain and be negative about, but you can choose to shift your attention to the good.
• Do one thing that scares you each day. It doesn’t have to be something huge and overwhelming – it can be something like talking to a stranger while waiting in line or speaking up at a meeting when you’d normally remain quiet. When you take small, daily risks, bigger risks such as speaking in front of a massive audience become more manageable.
• Activate the power of asking. Ask for what you want! The worst that can happen when you ask someone for what you want is they say no. I used to think hearing “no” was the worst but it’s really not that bad and you’ll hear it less than you may initially expect. I frequently ask myself, “What do I really have to lose?”
• Surround yourself with the right people. This is deceptively simple yet incredibly powerful. The people you hang out with on a daily basis have a huge effect on the kind of person you become. Choose your friends wisely and get around people who are successful so you can learn from them and implement their strategies in your life.

Take it from someone who has had his fair share of insecurity: you can move beyond the doubt!

Integrating Leadership Insights Into Daily Life

Leadership is an incredibly powerful topic and one that I hold near and dear to my heart. There is a lot of useful information to share here, but just like I do when keynoting to college students let’s start small and learn something we can actually apply in our lives:

• Leadership is about doing the right thing regardless of circumstances – it doesn’t necessarily mean doing what’s popular. It’s about those inner tests, the times when you have to stand alone, that allow you to determine your true leadership prowess. Leaders will never compromise on their integrity, even if it means losing friends.
• Leadership is about creating leaders in others, not about collecting followers. Yes, we all love it when people are following us and it’s great to have people willing to engage with our content, but the true heart and soul of leadership is turning other people into leaders themselves. Encourage other people around you! Welcome others becoming massively successful. Cheer on everyone you know. They’ll love you for it.
• Commit small acts of service: volunteer at a local soup kitchen/homeless shelter, stand up for someone who cannot stand up for themselves, or even send someone a silent blessing. Halfway through my freshman year of college I volunteered at a homeless shelter in Bridgeport, Connecticut and it shifted my perspective and changed my life. I also became friends with the staff of the shelter.
• Learn! Read books, have conversations with winners, and absorb articles that fill your mind with hope, knowledge, power, and purpose. Refuse to be sucked into the garbage known as gossip and the news.

Keynoting at Colleges and Universities is Really About Giving Back

It’s important to know this is all about the students, not the speaker conveying the material. These students are stars and will definitely make a positive impact on this world in more ways than one. The ultimate purpose here is to give college students the knowledge, information, and know-how to succeed in both school and life. By applying these tips and insights (and many more), college students will reach their personal and professional best both during their time at University and beyond.

 

Jeff Davis is a Professional Speaker who has spoken at middle schools, high schools, colleges, universities, and graduate schools across the United States and Europe. Jeff and his team are always researching the latest trends and insights when it comes to student success, student athletes, creating student leaders, building better teams, and sustaining a more lively and engaged campus. For more information, please call Jeff’s team at 800-315-4832, email Jeff’s assistant Meg at meg@jeffdspeaks.com, or contact Jeff directly at jeff@jeffdspeaks.com.