Susan Berkley

Your "SQ" is your "Speaker's Quotient." It's a measure of your ability to communicate your ideas in an effective and memorable manner.

ANSWER YES OR NO

When you give a presentation, do you:

1) Feel as if the audience is scrutinizing you and judging your performance? 2) Compare yourself to other speakers and feel that they are generally better than you? 3) Feel as if the audience knows more than you and might question your expertise? 4) Suffer from symptoms of speech anxiety such as: sweaty palms, weak knees, pounding heart, dry mouth, trembling voice and sleeplessness? 5) Believe that the better you look the better you will be received by the audience? 6) Believe a perfect presentation is one where you do not make any mistakes? 7) Speak so softly that people ask you to speak up? 8) Hate the sound of your voice or the way you look when you see your talk on videotape? 9) Wait until the night before your presentation to prepare?

Give yourself one point for every "no" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1-3 points: You suffer greatly when you have to speak in public. In fact, your anxiety level can be extreme, especially before a big presentation. You endure this misery because you are projecting your best qualities and even your expertise onto others. You lack confidence in your abilities and even your own sanity. You set unrealistic expectations for yourself and minimize the value of what you have to contribute. You deny yourself the joy and satisfaction you would feel if you would only allow yourself to develop your natural talents and share these gifts with others. Because of this, you hold yourself back in your career and in life.

4-6 points: You have a moderate SQ but you still lack the confidence to become a truly inspirational speaker. While you may try to improve your skills, you do not really appreciate or nurture the qualities you have inside. Your presentations may be good, but they are never truly inspired. When speaking in public, as in life, you rarely take risks. You try to keep things under control and expose very little of who you really are. By doing so you might eliminate the "downside", but you also limit your potential for giving a presentation that will have a lasting and powerful impact on the audience

7-9 points: You have a high SQ! Your mature appreciation of your own qualities can enable you to become a truly memorable communicator; the kind of person who can inspire, motivate and even change society for the better. If you hone your speaking skills through practice and feedback and work to strengthen your shortcomings, you can make it to the top. But watch it! Human nature is such that we tend to sabotage our gifts and project both our problems and qualities onto others. The more successful we become, the more vigilant we must be.

Psychological background for this quiz is based on the work of psychoanalyst Dr. Norberto Keppe. Dr. Keppe found that communication difficulties are due largely to the fact that the speaker projects not only his psychopathology but also his inner qualities onto others For more information on Dr. Keppe's work I highly recommend "The Origin of Illness" by Dr Norberto Keppe, available at your favorite bookseller or from www.greatvoice.com.

From "The Voice Coach" ezine by Susan Berkley. Copyright 2002, reprinted with permission.