Your Public Best - Lillian Brown [4]
No matter what your present status is, you will find something in this book to help you become a better public person.
WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK
Your Public Best is the distillation of thirty years of experience that I’ve had helping people in the public eye to improve their personal appearances, their voices and speaking habits, and their media management skills.
I started out in the mid-1950s in the days of black-and-white, live television as the host of three documentary series. Behind the camera, I produced several Emmy award-winning educational television programs, such as “The Other Two Billion” and “Focus on the Law.”
For a total of twenty years, I served as the director of radio and television for two major universities in Washington, D.C.—George Washington University and American University. Currently, I’m the producer of a nationally distributed radio program for Georgetown University, also in Washington.
During most of these years, I have also worked for CBS News and other broadcast entities as a television makeup artist, associating with such stars as Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite, Eric Sevareid, Charles Kuralt, and Diane Sawyer. And I’ve run in and out of the White House as the personal makeup artist to five presidents during their terms of office (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter).
Over the years, a number of political candidates running for public office from the presidency on down have hired me as a media consultant. This has meant everything from searching through stores for the perfect dress or suit for a crucial speech, going through closets and pointing out what clothes should or should not be worn on the campaign trail, transforming wooden gestures into effective, natural ones, and demonstrating where in the body the voice should originate from.
I’ve conducted hundreds of workshops and seminars on dealing with the media, improving the appearance, and speaking in public for leaders in business, members of Congress, and many other groups. Some of my workshops are for people who want to learn everything they can about appearing in public. Others might focus on just the voice and/or giving a speech. The seminars that focus on appearing in front of television cameras usually involve making an on-the-spot video tape of each participant and then critiquing the result. Sometimes I simply address small groups on a very specific subject, such as when I advise freshmen congressmen about clothes, makeup for TV, and the use of gestures when speaking in public.
I have also been a voice and diction teacher for international radio broadcasters for the United States Information Agency’s “Voice of America,” as well as to numerous other groups and private individuals.
During all of these years working in the media, I’ve observed and experienced firsthand many historical events. I’ve enjoyed the friendship of presidents, members of Congress, and foreign dignitaries. Perched on top of a network TV truck, I watched Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Washington. I’ve ridden in Air Force One and presidential motorcades, stood in the wings at political conventions with Secret Service agents, and watched space shots and moon walks from a network TV news control room.
I wrote this book because in all these years working both in front of and behind the cameras, I have never seen a definitive book that teaches what I teach, that helps people to improve their public appearances in a comprehensive way. The truth is, no matter who you are, you can improve your public persona.
CAN YOU HELP ME? THE TWELVE MOST-OFTEN-ASKED QUESTIONS
At my seminars and workshops around the country, people ask me the same questions over and over again about some aspect of their public appearances. Often there is just one small thing that is acting as a barrier between the individual and others.
Here are the twelve most frequently asked questions:
1. What kind of clothes should I wear (when I’m giving a speech, making a business presentation, appearing on television, etc.)?
2. What colors are best to wear when appearing in public?