RoundRobinSpeechWriting

Sorry for the hiatus but my wife broke her leg in early December and I have been playing Private Duty Nurse since then.  I will try to put out a chapter/speech every week or ten days over the next several months.  I want to thank everyone who has commented since my last posting and apologize for not monitoring the site for several weeks.  OK, here is the speech.

A Is for . . .

Most motivational speakers would say that A is for Attitude because having a positive mental attitude (PMA) is the key to success in life.  As the hackneyed sayings go, “If you believe it, you can achieve it.” and “Fake it until you make it.”

Recently, however, several authors have questioned the magic of PMA.  Two of these are Barbara Ehrenreich who wrote ‘Bright-sided’ and Barbara Fredrickson who wrote ‘Positivity.’  Some reviewers have suggested that the studies cited in these books were cherry-picked to prove their theses but, to my mind, the two Barbara’s do make some convincing arguments.

But that is not to say that I am not a positive person.  In fact, most people would characterize me as an optimist who sees the bright side of life.

The A that I am going to talk about is Addiction.  You might ask, “What does addiction have to do with public speaking and connecting with the audience?”   Let me paint you a picture of where I am coming from.

When I was a Department Head at the Applied Research Laboratory of Penn State, I travelled frequently to Washington, D.C. to attend meetings at various Navy Program Offices.  As I walked the streets during the day, I would be approached by less than nattily attired individuals seeking my spare change and, at night, I would see other individuals sleeping on grates to stay warm.  I used to dismiss them as ‘druggies’ and people who could not make a normal life for themselves.

Then I had a revelation.  It is estimated that the habitual drug user requires $500 to $1000 per day to feed that habit.  That’s 365 days a year for a total of $180,000 to $360,000 per year.  That would be a pretty good salary if you were working but that street person has to beg, steal, or otherwise come up with the cash every day, whether they want to get up or not, whether they are sick or not, whether it is week day or weekend.  Their habit, their addiction forces them to do it.

I am not saying that you as a speaker should become a beggar, a thief, or a drug user.  What I am saying is that you should become addicted to improving your skills through speaking and study.

Darren LaCroix, the 2000 World Champion of Public Speaking, admonishes you to get ‘stage time, stage time, stage time.’  Others call for ‘practice, practice, practice.’

But practice alone is not enough.  It must be focused, deliberate practice.  This is the thesis of two other books: ‘Talent Is Overrated’ by Geoff Colvin and ‘The Talent Code’ by Daniel Coyle.  No matter what you want to become good at, both authors stress the need to practice by setting a goal just beyond your present abilities, by stretching, by making mistakes.

And they both warn you that it won’t be easy, that it takes a long time to become excellent at something.  They point to many studies that show that it takes ten years of directed practice to become an expert.  Coyle also references 10,000 hours of practice to reach expertise.  Ten thousand hours is close to three hours of practice every day for ten years.  Colvin says that four hours of practice seems to be the upper limit for directed practice and it is most effective if it is broken down into 60 to 90 minute chunks. And the area of specialization does not really matter.  It can be art, music, writing, speaking, anything.

Coyle refers to Ericksson who defines deliberate practice as working on technique, seeking constant critical feedback, and focusing ruthlessly on shoring up weaknesses.  As a speaker, to improve through practice requires that you speak and speak often.  Audiences will provide the critical feedback but an organization like Toastmasters International with its program that includes honest thorough evaluation of all speeches is an excellent source of feedback.  The feedback from advanced Toastmaster clubs with round robin evaluations is even better.

Deliberate practice often benefits from a teacher or coach.  It must be designed to be repeated a lot, to be mentally demanding, and not much fun.  The teacher must be unbiased.  Since it isn’t fun, most people won’t do it.  Your mind set must be to constantly find those areas where your performance is unsatisfactory and work to make those areas better.

Deliberate practice has to be done with passion and motivation (or, as Coyle calls it, ignition.)  Your objective has to be something that you truly and intensely want, that you must achieve.

The success of dedicated, directed practice does not seem to depend on any natural or inherent talent.  It seems that, if one attacks a domain with passion, persistence, and practice, one can become an expert, someone who audiences mistakenly refer to as a natural.

When I was a young man and an avid golfer (admittedly one who seldom practiced), Lee Trevino was my hero, my golfing role model.  Lee seemed to be someone with a natural talent, who started out as a happy-go-lucky hustler and became a champion.  He said: ‘There is no such thing as natural touch.  Touch is something you create by hitting millions of golf balls.’  You will probably never give a million speeches but you will have to create, develop, refine, and deliver hundreds and hundreds of speeches to get in the required 10,000 hours of deliberate practice.  Begin today becoming the best.

Thank you for all the comments on “S Is for . . .” and the earlier post describing the objective of this blog.  These will replied to in an interim post (between this speech and the next) that will be published next week.  I will also be introducing a new page with links to websites and blogs that you have provided me.  (If you want to be added to the list, email me at charlie@charliewilsonphd.com.)  Now let’s have your comments for:

B Is for . . .

You are not who you think you are.

Ladies and gentlemen: We like to think of ourselves as conscious, rational beings; logical, deliberate, solving problems one step at a time.  We think of ourselves as Mr. Spock.

But to a large degree we are controlled by our emotional brain, our subconscious, the part of our brain that operates below our awareness.  Our actions are determined by our biases, beliefs, and habits.  We are Dr. McCoy.

Ladies and gentlemen: B is for bias.

Normally we think of bias as a negative trait, a synonym for discrimination against those who are different than us and wrong thinking, a personality flaw.  But your brain is designed to be biased and to learn and apply rules without hesitation, so that you can react quickly to danger, adapt instantly to a situation, and anticipate your needs.  You are wired to jump to conclusions.  If you did not have these biases, you would have great difficulty surviving.

Learning is teaching your subconscious a set of rules which become habits, beliefs, and biases.  You are being constantly bombarded with so much information that, if you had to process it all before making a decision, you would end up making very few and many of those you did make would be too late.  So the biases make the quick decisions.

But biases can steer you and I in the wrong direction.  Psychologists and neuroscientists have identified and characterized a number of biases.  I am only going to use six of these to show how biases can cause us to make the wrong decision.

First, there is the Confirmation Bias.  We prefer and deliberately look for information that agrees with and confirms our existing beliefs.  We reject, without true examination, information that disagrees with our biases.  In fact, we will distort and interpret new information to make it fit what we believe to be true.

An example of this bias might be love.  When we first fall in love, the object of our affection is ‘the one.’  Every thing she does is just perfect.  Others may make some less than glowing comments but that it because they are jealous of her wonderfulness.

Confirmation Bias leads to what psychologists call ‘inattentional blindness.’  We don’t see what we aren’t looking for.

Next, there is Self-Attribution Bias: We credit our skills and talents for the good things that happen in our lives.  We blame bad things on someone or something else.

For example: When one of the stocks in my portfolio goes up, it is because of my research, my stock selection techniques, my genius.  When one of my stocks goes down, it is the fault of the banks, the hedge funds, the Federal Reserve, the weather, the phase of the moon.

The next, Confidence Bias, extends the Self-Attribution Bias.  We use confidence to measure of skill.  Confidence gives us the illusion of knowledge.  We prefer people who act and sound confident, those who can ‘fake it till they make it.’

Bernie Madoff acted and sounded confident and attracted a lot of money when knowledge would have shown his bragged about performance was impossible.

Next is Introspection Bias where we see the behavior of another as showing what kind of person he or she is.  We see our own behavior as driven by circumstances and that we our really good people.

For example, you see a woman pass a beggar without dropping any money in his can.  You just know she is a selfish person.  But if you pass by with contributing, it is because you don’t have any spare change, you are late for a meeting, you will do it tomorrow.

Finally, there is the Prediction Bias.  We think we can predict the future.  When it doesn’t work out, we do an if only argument.  I was almost right.  It just hasn’t happened yet.  Everybody can be wrong once.

The Hindsight Bias is like the Prediction Bias except that we do it after something happens.  Once we know the outcome, we convince ourselves that we knew it would happen.  We just didn’t mention it.

For example, I knew Peyton Manning was going to have a let-down.  I knew that horse was going to win but I didn’t have time to go to the betting window.

What does all this mean to us as human beings?  When faced with a new situation, a new problem, or an important decision, we should override our biases and not jump to conclusions.  We should stop and think.  We should make a conscious effort to be rational and consider all available information.  (Of course, when that truck is heading at us at a high rate of speed, we might want to rely on our biases to jump out of the way.)

What does all this mean to us as speakers?  We should be aware of our biases and beliefs and how different audiences will react to them.  We should be aware of the biases and beliefs that audiences have in common and make sure our message will not be rejected by them.  Audiences will be bored by facts and subconsciously reacting to what we say, constantly relating it to their experiences, their memories, their gut reactions.

You and your audience members are B for biased not bigoted.  Use that characteristic of us all to relate to them emotionally so that they will be more engaged and more receptive to your message.

Preface

I have set up this blog to try an experiment in writing a book. The working title for the book is ‘Speak the Audience’s Mind, Not Just Your Own’ and I will introduce some concepts that I have discovered in my research into the human brain and mind. The chapters of the book will be made up of an alphabet of speeches, with each letter of the alphabet devoted to a particular concept.

Each chapter will be posted for two weeks or until forty comments have been received. The ten folks with the most comments incorporated into the book will be listed as co-authors. Anyone who provides a comment that is incorporated will be given the opportunity to purchase the book at a discount and those who provide multiple comments can buy the book at even bigger discounts or receive the book free.

I have read so many books, attended so many seminars, gotten so many newsletters, visited so many websites, and listened to so many speeches that I may have inadvertently used the work of others without attribution. So please chastise me for any unconscious plagiarism, as well as clearing up any muddled thinking and suggesting improvements.

I won’t be going is alphabetical order. This first posting is ‘S Is for . . .’ It deals with an important element of speeches, stories.

Your suggestions, comments, and contributions, please.

S Is for . . .

My mother showed the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s ten years before she died. As I watched her slowly disappear over that decade, I became curious and concerned. I wanted to know what caused it and what could be done about it. I wanted to know if I was vulnerable to it.

I became a student of the human brain and mind. I found that there is no known cure for Alzheimer’s and the fact that my mother was in her late seventies when it hit meant that it wasn’t the inheritable version which begins earlier in life. I also found some research that suggested that those who exercised their brains were less likely to develop this terrible disease. Based on that, I created a workshop on “Brain Aerobics.”
I also found that perhaps the most powerful tool you have in getting your audience engaged is the human mind, particularly the audience’s mind and that you can access that tool through stories. Thus, S Is for Stories. The human brain is wired for stories. When we remember, we tell ourselves stories. We love to immerse ourselves in the stories of others. As World Champion Craig Valentine says, “Facts tell; stories sell.”

The number of different types of stories depends on who is doing the categorizing, but I would like to talk about the two types that I believe are the most important to you as a public speaker. The first is what I term the EBB story. You are Embarrassed, Befuddled, and/or Bizarre. Notice that I said ‘you are’ since this type of story works best when you are making fun of youself rather than of someone else.

The second type of story is the TIDE story. This class of story includes one or more of the following elements: Transformation, Introspection, Destiny, and Endurance.

I don’t know why I decided to use the acronyms EBB and TIDE unless it is because most of my career was spent as a consultant to the Navy and I have a tendency toward sea stories.

Audiences enjoy EBB stories because we all have a sense of schadenfreude, the German word for the pleasure that we derive from the misfortunes of other. As the old expression goes: If we slip on a banana peel and fall, that is tragic; if someone else slips on a banana peel and falls, that is funny. We like to feel superior. Humor is frequently the product of tragedy. And exaggeration puts the icing on the cupcake.

When we tell an EBB story, we are showing our vulnerability, our humanness. I have used the EBB approach to win the Toastmaster District Humorous Speech Contest four times. In one speech, I was the befuddled owner of an aquarium full of tropical fish who found that they were not the carefree and inexpensive pets they were advertised to be. I discovered how short fish life spans can be, how to successfully siphon water from an aquarium, and how heavy eight gallons of water can be.

In another EBB speech, I talked of the first time I auditioned for a play and after getting a part was embarrassed to find that I was cast not for my acting ability nor for my good looks but for my buttocks. There was a lemon involved.

A third EBB speech had me costumed as an eccentric scientist who was convinced that he was receiving Super Ordinary Communications from Kind Spirits (SOCKS) about the future when one of his socks disappeared in the laundry.

TIDE stories are more serious although humor makes them work better. They frequently deal with the grief and introspection associated with the loss of a loved one or the transformation associated with surviving a life-threatening event or disease. Because of the personal nature of this type of story, you should make sure that you have emotionally distanced yourself from the emotional circumstance before telling it to an audience. Your presentation should be educational, enlightening, and transforming. It should not be a therapy session.

In one of my TIDE stories, I talk of my father’s last breath, the deep sigh that ended his life. The first few times I told this story, my voice broke and there were tears. Obviously, it was too soon to tell the story of my father and how he influenced me, my family, his church, and his friends. It was more than a year before I could properly pay a tribute to this great man.

On my way to the finals of the World Championship of Public Speaking in 2008, my story related my bout with cancer and how laughter and love got me through that terrifying and depressing time of my life. A very heavy subject that had to be leavened with humor, particularly how I handled the hot flashes associated with the treatment for the disease.

Your most effective speeches will incorporate stories, whether EBB or TIDE, and the effectiveness will be enhanced when the stories are about you. The audience wants to know how you dealt with a problem, whether you came to the same solution that they did for a similar situation or, if they didn’t solve the problem, how your solution will help them. They want to learn from your experience. They want to share in your victory.

Use stories. Embrace stories. Entertain others with stories.