Monday January 13, 2003 by Hal
copyright 2003 Hal Warfield
Nearly as dreaded as snakes and spiders, public speaking ranks high in causing fear in many of us.
Whether your motivation is a desire to learn or simple necessity, here is a really simple guide to writing and giving a speech.
Your Topic: is this speech about something already know? Then take a blank piece of paper and write down as many facts as you can think about this subject. Put them randomly around the page with circles or boxes drawn around each thought. Then draw lines to link the thoughts together in a meaningful way. An excellent website for this type of brainstorming can be found at www.mindmap.com.
Once you’ve exhausted your inner knowledge or, if this is a topic you don’t know much about, do a google search (www.google.com) on the topic. Visit the sites that seem to speak to the topic and again write down individual thoughts or ideas on a blank sheet of paper.
Your Introduction: Now take your sheet of ideas and write a 3-sentence introduction. If you were going to describe this to me over a cup of coffee what would you say? A key to giving a speech is a conversational tone. In the introduction tell your audience what you’re about to say.
Body: In three subsections (A, B, C or I, II, III or i, ii, iii) expand on your introduction. What is the first most important thing you want your audience to know? The second most important? The third? Make each section about 2 or 3 paragraphs long. Keep referring back to your brainstorm page.
Conclusion: In the introduction you told them what you were going to say. In the body, you told them again in detail. In the conclusion now tell them again. Tell them what you’re going to say, tell them, and then tell them what you said. Make the conclusion about 2 times as long as your introduction.
Do you want action with that? A speech is made to inform, to persuade, or to move to action. Finish off your speech with a statement that meets one of those purposes.
As a rule of thumb, a single-spaced, typed page should take 3 to 4 minutes to read through at the correct pace. If it takes less, you’re going too fast.
Practice, practice, practice - do NOT read your speech to your audience; either from 5X8 cards or from a typed sheet. To give a good speech you must sound familiar with the material; to become familiar with the material requires repetition. Repetition means reading the material aloud up to 50 times if necessary until you are totally familiar with it.
A good speech also involves feedback. During practice sessions you must recruit family or friends or coworkers to listen to you. Don’t ask them if it’s “good” or not; rather ask if it sounds conversational. Rewrite as needed to make your sentences sound like a normal conversation.
Fear: Since speech making often causes fear it must be dealt with beforehand. First, familiarity with your content will reduce fear. Repetition causes familiarity so practice, practice, practice. Ultimately, if you need notes for fear you’ll forget, you are not familiar enough with the material. If you MUST use notes, keep them to a minimum - perhaps your outline points (introduction, ABC, conclusion).
While giving the speech do not READ, do not look down, do not go too fast. Some tricks - if you wear glasses, take them off. You’ll be less nervous if you can’t see the audience so clearly. If you have notes you’ll be looking down and just make it more obvious how uncomfortable you are - especially if you lose your place and have to stop. Again a sign you are not familiar enough with your material. Instead of making eye contact, look at each individual’s forehead. To your audience it looks as if you are making eye contact without actually having to.
Make your speech about half as fast as you feel the urge to. When giving a speech we often speed up making ourselves sound silly and making it difficult for the audience to get your points.
Speech making comes to most of us sooner or later. If you’ll think out and organize what you want to say, if you’ll practice until you sound conversational, and if you’ll deal with fear up front, then you’re speech will be well received.
As a final incentive, remember that your audience is not out there to ridicule or belittle you. They are actually rooting for you to give an interesting talk. Do you actually think they’re there just waiting to pounce on your mistakes?
Good presenters are worth their weight in gold. How do I know? Just think for a moment about all the poor speeches you’ve endured. You would have given anything to be elsewhere. Now think about someone who made a memorable speech. Which would you rather listen to? Which would you rather be?
If you have questions about making a presentation, write me at the email address below.
Hal Warfield is a speaker, teacher and coach. Email him at warfield@midsouth.rr.com. Or visit http://www.halwarfield.com.
Saturday August 31, 2002 by Hal
How you got into a rut and how to get out.
Introduction
WordNet defines a rut as a groove or furrow (especially in soft earth caused by wheels) or a monotonous routine that is hard to escape; as in “her job made her feel that she was stuck in a rut”.
What is this thing that we call a rut? Is one man’s rut another man’s rapture?
I. What is a rut?
In nature, weight and repetition form a rut. A wagon wheel travels the same path over and over and over again until the ground retains the impression. If you’ve ever driven a rutted road you know that once in the rut it becomes difficult to get out. On the other hand a rut may serve a useful purpose; before a road gets paved and straightened out, it often begins as a series of ruts. So a rut may lead you to a useful place; it may just need paving.
The elements of a physical rut on a road can be compared to our ruts in life. Our lives are full of repetitious activities from eating to sleeping to brushing our teeth. Our jobs require that we take the same road or train or bus. We take the same elevator, we encounter the same people, we do the same work, we go home, sleep and start all over again.
Some repetition is useful and necessary - too much seems to lead to the formation of a rut. Let’s look at the emotions that being stuck in a physical rut cause. If you can’t get your bike or car out of a rut, you quickly begin to feel trapped, frustrated and stressed. Sometimes you bow to the inevitable and simply continue to move forward until the rut runs out. You may not be carrying the equipment needed to bust out of the rut. You might need someone else to help you pull out of the rut.
II. How did you get there?
When you were a toddler you learned to walk often by falling down a lot. Sooner or later repetition had its effect and walking became second nature. You might remember the first time you successfully dressed yourself or tied your shoes and now these activities are second nature.
Our human selves are gifted with this ability to learn a task so well we don’t have to think about it at all. This makes us more productive; consider how long it would take you to dress and get out of the house if you had to think consciously about each step of the process.
This learning process will eventually affect any behavior that we do consistently. And this can lead to ruts. If you get home at 6 p.m. every evening and lay on the sofa for an hour, you’ll eventually find you’ve fallen into a rut. I guess you could say that a rut is a habit that we don’t like anymore.
Look at the areas of your life you consider ruts - what activity did you do repetitively that got you into the rut? Why was it a good thing at first and not good now?
III. Do you want to get out?
But if we say we don’t like the rut - are we sure we really want it to go away? We must sometimes examine the reasons for our ruts. It may be there to protect us from some pain we perceive that the effort to change would cause.
Most of us don’t change (behaviors, attitudes, relationships) until the pain gets great enough. This doesn’t need to be physical pain - psychological and emotional pain can cause us to change as well. The desire to get out of a rut - in our relationships, our jobs, our free time - will only motivate us when the alternatives become unattractive enough.
So your first task in rut busting is to honestly ask yourself if the pain you feel is sufficient to move you in some other direction. If the answer is “no” then the next task is to begin to add reasons to change. Start a list - write down as many reasons as you can to change and a second list of reasons to let the status be “quo”.
IV. How to get out of the rut.
Move in a direction perpendicular to the rut. In daily behavioral terms, this means applying direct pressure in the direction away from the rut. It means going out and walking instead of sitting in front of the TV. It means confronting the jerk at work instead of knuckling under. Ever notice how loud an engine gets when it’s trying to power out of a rut? This is hard to make ourselves do but probably the quickest way to get results.
Get a plank or some other tool to increase your traction. In life terms this means taking a class or joining a support group or reading a book. It may mean asking for help which, if you’ve ever been stuck in a rut, can be embarrassing.
Call a tow truck. Hire a coach or get some counseling. In this day and age it is not a negative stigma to establish a relationship with a professional who can guide you and provide you with the life tools you need to change. Email me at the address below for information on a free coaching session.
Get a more powerful vehicle. Go back to school. Strengthen yourself physically. Eat better, sleep more. One of the things I learned after I’d taken Time Management and Stress Management classes was that I was able to handle more “things” in my life which kept me out of a rut.
V. How to stay out.
Map out the road ahead to avoid the ruts. If you have no life goals or plans you’ll tend to get back into ruts easily. Read Barbara Sher’s book “I Could Do Anything in Life, If I Just Knew What it Was”.
Get a guide who can show you how to stay out of trouble. Ole Steve, the Croc Hunter, never seems to need a guide - but most of the rest of us do. Again, the key here is a relationship with a coach or counselor or support group who can help you stay honest.
Conclusion: if you still don’t know how to get out of a rut after reading this, then write me with your circumstances. I’ll try my best to give you an objective evaluation of your situation - though you may not like the answers!
Hal Warfield is a professional speaker, teacher, and coach. Contact him at warfield@midsouth.rr.com.
Saturday August 31, 2002 by Hal
This is a compliment to the Personal Discovery Workshop - an ongoing set of “encounters” in person and online designed to provide continuous help and support to a small group. This small group is intent on achieving goals and the Success Team is their support group.
A Success Team is a buddy system in which everyone in the group helps the other participants go after their dream. It’s another way to foster community - a little differently.
You’ll tell me your dreams and I’ll tell you mine. I’ll help you and nag you until you’ve gotten your dreams and you help me and nag me until I’ve got mine. Most of us have shortcomings in the strengths that are required to push ourselves consistently toward goals.
The goal of the support team is to provide mutual help, support, encouragement, and assistance to individuals in achieving their personal dreams and goals.
The mechanism is a small group meeting occasionally in person and, the rest of the tim, via an internet-based, online community. Activities would include defining dreams, goal setting, problem-solving, opportunities to “vent”, encouragement, prayer, and motivation.
Groups would be no larger than 10 individuals. Some possible activities of the group could include:
Where am I on my personal journey through life?
How long might I possibly live?
What stage of life am I in?
What is my temperament/personality style?
How does this style affect me and others?
What am I doing or not doing to nurture/maintain my personal health?
Am I taking care of myself the way I should?
What about my diet, exercise and sleep?
What are my passions?
Do I do things that are meaningful to me?
Do I even know what those “meaningful things” are?
Where do I want to see myself in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years?
Spiritually, physically, mentally/emotionally
Am I where I need to be financially?
Is my job/career correct for me?
“Write your own obituary” - what do you want to be remembered for?
Dealing with fear
What is your tolerance for risk/change
The format I envision is a monthly meeting to create a sense of community. Then, using the Internet-based tools of group calendars, email, and chat rooms, the group would meet on a weekly basis to update each other, to give and receive ideas, and, most importantly, give and receive encouragement.
Additionally, using email, participants can request prayer and post thanksgiving reports.
The idea here is to provide an additional means of providing community though an online small group. Hopefully, participants would begin to make progress towards achieving goals that they had had for a long time.
Saturday August 31, 2002 by Hal
Saturday August 31, 2002 by Hal
1. I don’t understand this stuff about non-verbal language. I say what I mean - how does the way I say it make a difference?
A recent article in Discover magazine on how we recognize faces said that we have such powerful brain “circuitry” for facial expressions that we insist on seeing faces where there are none - in clouds or in the wallpaper pattern. Non-verbal communication takes place whether you think it is important or not.
There are underlying, unconscious mechanisms in our brains that insist on evaluating everything about what the person is doing; not just what they are saying. And we judge the other whether they say anything or not. How often have you thought “that person has a bad attitude” or something similar just by observing them?
2. What constitutes non-verbal communication? Is it body language?
Non-verbal communication is everything except your words. It includes body language (which by itself includes facial expression and body attitude) but also include many other factors such as object language (driving a BMW says something, wearing torn jeans and a dirty sweatshirt says something). All of us have looked at someone standing across the room and thought, “Man, what an attitude.” That constitutes non-verbal communication.
3. I think body language is overrated as a way of understanding someone. Why is it important?
Close your eyes and hold a conversation with someone. See if your level of understanding is hampered in any way. Remember phone conversations where you weren’t sure where the person was coming from. And remember, as well that body language is just one component of non-verbal communication. So while body language is not a complete method of understanding someone else, it is a key factor.
4. How can I use non-verbal communication to improve how others perceive and understand me?
Remember that our listeners process non-verbal cues automatically and almost unconsciously. Use gestures and facial expressions to reinforce what you’re saying. Be aware that you are sending out non-verbal messages all the time. Become more self-aware of how you speak and the impact of your mode of dress and even the way you stand or sit. Increased self-awareness (without becoming self-conscious) and using non-verbal cues on purpose are probably the best ways to improve your non-verbal impact on others.
Hal Warfield is a speaker, teacher and coach. Contact him at warfield@midsouth.rr.com.
Saturday August 31, 2002 by Hal
1. What is listening? How is listening different from hearing?
Listening and hearing are not exactly the same thing. While it is true that you must hear in order to listen, it isn’t always true that if you hear you ARE listening. Hearing is a function carried out by your brain wherein the sounds received by your ears are assigned meaning. But just because our brain understands the words doesn’t mean that our minds will understand what is received. Listening is a skill but one that very few practice as much as they practice speaking!
2. Why do I seem to lose interest in what people are saying to me?
Obviously there are topics that hold our interest. For one it’s sports, for another it’s office gossip - when you expose the sports person to office gossip they may soon yawn or move on. And stories of those with no interest in sports are common. If you are listening to a topic that is uninteresting you will soon “tune it out” and while you may still hear the words, you will lose the meaning.
Another less popular reason for losing interest is focus on self - for some psychological reason, no one seems as fascinating as ourselves. Learning to be interested in others can improve listening but that doesn’t make it easy. Country singer Toby Keith sings “I like talking about you - usually. But some of the time - I wanna talk about me!” If you can stay interested in the other person, you’ll usually be better able to listen to them.
A third reason for losing interest lies in the fact that we hear at one rate and process (in our brains) at a much higher rate. It’s easy to “wander off the path” because we think we know what the person is going to say or because we find the topic uninteresting. We’ll suggest ways to use this “extra interior time” later.
3. How can I make others listen to me?
You can’t MAKE anyone listen. All you can hope to do is to create a stimulating, interesting and attention getting message. And remember that your responsibility ends at your listener’s ears. If you’ve put forward the best message you can and made it as clear as possible, then you’ve done all you can.
If you want to help make sure that you are listened to, then involve more of the other person’s senses. This means making your voice pleasant and easy to listen to; it means using gestures and facial expressions to add a visual component, and it involves listening to yourself - that is, asking yourself “am I being a person that ‘I’ would want to listen to?”
4. I thought they heard what I was saying - how come they didn’t do what I said?
This takes us back to the difference between listening and hearing. WE know exactly what we meant and we put it in words that described the inner picture we wanted to get across. Our hearers put their own mental “spin” on the words. They may have only partially listened, they may have had different meanings for the words, or they may not have had a complete understanding.
If we want to be listened to, we have an obligation to solicit feedback from our listeners. I hate to say it’s like dealing with children but you have to ask, “Now what did I say?” sometimes.
5. How can I improve my listening?
Listening improves when we involve more of ourselves in the listening process. What do I mean by more of ourselves? Be interested in the person non-verbally - look at them as they speak. Ask questions - make sure you cover points you don’t understand. Provide feedback - say something like “so what you’re saying is …” and then summarize what you’ve heard. Take notes - if it’s that important then write it down.
Also, as mentioned above, you listen faster than you can hear. Use that extra mental processing time to review what the person is saying. Ask yourself quick questions that check to see that you are understanding what is said.
It irritates us when we’re not listened to - so put yourself in the other person’s shoes and remember how you feel when you’re not paid attention to.
Hal Warfield is a speaker, teacher and coach. Contact him at warfield@midsouth.rr.com.