Negative Niggles

Public Speaking is a great opportunity to practice detachment. Where people become confident is when they are no longer thinking of the audience as judging them. When they are passionate about the subject matter and that passion shows. The listener is thinking about the ideas and the person delivering the sparks almost fades away. Their thoughts are being triggered about things they care about. Seth Godin points out that the audience may even be shooting off at tangents where they are being fired up about their own ideas. You don’t live in their heads but what you are sharing helps them connect dots that light up their creativity. Where your words spread in ways beyond your control. It ceases to be about you. They walk away from the talk excited about what they are going to do. A lot of anxiety comes from judging ourselves and others. Weighing and measuring. Separating people into good enough and not good enough. Are they going to choose me? Are they going to kick me out? Am I going to fail? These negative niggles are what prevent us from honest reflection because they lack fundamental commitment. Feedback cycles only work with deep underlying security. Deep knowledge that not only is it okay to make mistakes, but that that is the way we learn. You are okay. You are enough.

Deep Commitment - speaking at my wedding

 

Connecting Us

I have done lots of formal presentations. Despite that, I always put in hours of preparation. Each one is brand new, crafting a clear message. A cardinal sin of presenting is apologising to the audience that you were busy, “I did not have time”, and so “slapped a few slides together.” Like arriving late for a meeting, that is the same as saying your time is more important than theirs. Except, you can multiply that by the number of people giving you their attention. I did lots of dry runs. As many as I could with dummy audiences. Ideally people who give good feedback, and are anal in slightly different ways. Some about typos. Some about visuals. Some about facts. The key to communication is realising that how you intend to say something, and how it is heard… is not the same thing. Listening is a part of sharing information. That is why we are all wired to detect the difference between a conversational tone, and someone vomiting their world view on us. The only world view that matters is the one that connects us.

Learn about presenting with Garr Reynolds

Self Promotion

I hate interview processes and CV/Resume building. Partly because people who are good at interviews aren’t necessarily good at the job. Partly because hiring and firing is often just an opportunity to project prejudices and politics by dividing people into categories of good enough and not good enough. The interviewers and firers seldom hold themselves to the same standards as the person they are judging. The final decision seldom relies on anything other than gut feeling and hindsight justification. But such is life. Sometimes we just have to do things because that is how they are done. Writing a CV always felt nauseatingly self-promotional to me. A way I got around this was asking a few people I had worked closely, and well, with to write 100ish words (roughly the length of this post). Two or three authentic testimonials from people you have genuinely worked well with that demonstrate the skills and knowledge that are being looked for. My impression is that relationships and chance connections are the real catalyst for opportunity. Be part of the conversation and genuinely interested in other people. Do good work. Then change the way things are done.

Life is a Galton Board

Kool-Aid

As a wet-behind-the-ears Marketing Actuary, I can remember one of my first workshops standing in front of a room of independent financial advisers to explain the risk and investment products the company I was working for had launched. A few clearly had a bone to pick. Any bone. And I was fresh meat. As a newby, I was attempting to be very polite. It took a senior marketing person to step in and answer back with skilful banter. As a youngster, it is easy to take all “the adults” seriously. Not as the bunch of adultchildren you realise we all are. It’s easy to drink the Kool-Aid and see the company you work for as a cult, rather than part of something bigger. Gradually you will see people move companies, and get treated by companies they bought into the rhetoric of as gangrenous limbs. Gradually, you can learn to detach. Public Speaking (and work in general) can be frightening because you feel like you are being judged. Until you realise that even the Emperor is wearing no clothes. And giggle at the love handles.

Incompetence

Life can become a bit of a pissing contest. One of the reasons public speaking at school is such a nightmare for so many people is you are being judged. The content isn't the thing that is important, it is how well you deliver it. Often the classmates listening are there because they have to be. The true magic happens when everyone who is there wants to be there. When everyone who is there is far more interested in the content than success, hierarchy or anything to do with who is smart or stupid. Meritocracy is a double-edged sword. It leaves us constantly worried about whether we deserve to be where we are. Signaling our intelligence. Earning our place. Add Trust. Add Love. Add Commitment. Then you won't feel like your bladder is about to burst.

Passionate Speaking

People aren't nasty. Some are, but those skebengas are a rounding error. One of the biggest fears people have is public speaking. This is a great example of where we think people are thinking things they aren't thinking. Usually when you have an audience of people listening to you, they really aren't trying to shoot you down. We want to enjoy ourselves and when we listen to someone speak, we look for reasons to enjoy it. Perhaps our fears come from school orals. Little kids standing up in front of other kids and doing talks when they are nervous. Now you may have already started finding holes in my story... people aren't nasty but sometimes kids are horrendous. They haven't learnt yet that no one really likes a bully. At some point even the nastiest of kids learns that it is more fun for everyone if you play nice.

My favourite TED talk is one of the first I watched. What Ken Robinson does so well is that it is just a conversation. His voice is the same voice you would imagine him using if you were sitting having a cup of coffee together. So you feel like that is what is happening. Now he is a witty Brit, and does have a way of telling stories. But mostly, he is calm. He is in control of his breath and the focus is on the content. The best way to become a great communicator is to really know and be passionate about what you are speaking about. This shines through in his talk. He really believes that we can do a better job of finding the magic that makes people tick. We all feel passionately about something, and it is rather sad that we don't tend to talk, write or share because we are worried about what people will think about our ability.

Perhaps the trick is to write or talk like you are with someone you trust. When your voice switches to school oral mode the fear may have kicked in. You forget that actually people want to hear what you are passionate about.

For some fantastic resources on presenting, check out PresentationZen.com.