2nd Hand Advice

Of the things people fear the most, surveys show the fear of public speaking is second only to death!  How can that be?  I know lots of people who do public speaking with such ease and seeming comfort.  Don’t you wish you had that sort of innate ability to be glib and comfortbale in front of audiences? 

Well, if your like me, the thought of public speaking can be daunting and depending on the circumstance, terrifying.  Having been in a variety of public speaking situations, some successful and some not so, I would say the process tends to be worse than the result.  The anxiety leading up to the event can be the worse feeling on earth.  To get control of the process and minimize  the “jouney”, the anxiety, I came up with 4 principals of public speaking that have helped me. 

  See if they resonate:

1.  Purpose – you must find meaning and purpose in doing the speech. What’s the payoff?  Are you sharing valuable knowledge and experience that someone can really use?  Are you trying to urge an action for a cause you feel deeply about.  Is the speech going to advance your career, get  that new job, a promotion, more money etc.  Indentify how the speech will move the needle for you.

2.  Preparation – there’s nothing like preparation.  Even the guys who speak professionally will tell you to prepare.  That means script your words and thoughts.  Never wing it unless you’ve given the speech a hundred times before.  And even then, you should write out a script because anyone can get brain freeze or forget some detail.

3. Practice – meaning rehearse.  Always practice your speech.  Its foolish not to.  If you can get away with doing a good job without practicing, think how much better you would be if you practiced.  Practice gives you the chance to workout the flow of your speech, to make sure your ideas tie together and to make sure you stay within your time limit.

4.  Prayer – I pray during the preparation process and before the speaking engagement.   I give all my skills, talents and abilities over to God so that he can use me to make greatest impact on those I’m speaking to.  I can’t control the outcome of an assignment, but I can sure mess it up if I come at with the wrong attitude or misguided sense of purpose.  I pray God puts me in the right frame of mind and spirit so that I will give my best and my best will have a positive uplifting impact on the listener.

Why do we allow certian thoughts and behaviors to exist in our lives? Why do we give them value. Seems like the things that really matter come so infrequently, hardly given any reflection, any time. There are so many good things, noble pursuits, admirable ways, altrustic goals and objectives, yet sometimes we invest more time in, say, what’s on TV, the trivial.

We give too much value to the trivial. That probably is why the bible tells us to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added. All THOSE things are secondary to the things of God. We’re also admonished to focus our minds on things that are beautiful, lovely, noble, admirable, holy/pure, of good report, on the things above not on the things below.

How do we get there when we’ve spent a half century gravitating toward the trivial. How do you make the shift, find a new paradigm, a new way of thinking? How do you move away from the trivial, and toward the meaningful?

You do it through awareness…..awareness of how your past thinking has impacted your life. The more awareness, the more potential exists for your perspective to shift. You must learn to identify and reconstruct automatic thinking patterns and patterns of thought. You have to understand how those auto thoughts got shaped. Where they came from.

A pattern is something observed by you, that you pick up. When you pick it up, you repeat the pattern and it becomes you. If its a bad pattern, it may be holding you back or having a negative impact on your life. For example, you observed Dad express his displeasure with people talking at the commencement. He got up turned around and confronted. That is a pattern of behavior for him. I and my sister probably have been exposed to that pattern and have accepted that pattern as acceptable behavior. Therefore, that may explain why Deb and I can be short tempered or if pushed to a certian point, can get very emotional. At the same time, my passivenes could have come from observing my mother’s reaction to circumstances, which is quiet, humble, but can appear to be passive.

All that we are, are patterns of behavior that we have observed, absorbed and practiced. You will keep practicing those those patterns until you seek awareness, identify the patterns that are not you, that make you uncomfortable, then strive to change until you are free enough to define your world according to your views and your thoughts, and then to stand by them. At that point, you start being you.

You get to be comfortable with yourself when you no longer fear being challenged, rejected, when you no longer fear at all. You have to be comfortable with yourself. You have to be your own advocate. You must stand for something and for yourself. No matter what others think or whether your accepted or not, no matter the criticsim, you must stand by your convictions, and stick up for you.

I woke up this morning ready to reach for the blackberry, check my phone for messages, which I did, then started for the TV remote control. At that moment, I stopped, got back in bed, and in the midst of the silence, laid still. I let the noise of nothingness get inside of me. Instead of being consumed by the news on TV and messages popping out of the BB, I just let the silence, my inner throughts, the meditations of my heart consume the moment.

What rose to the surface were memories of things that had happened in my life, some lessons I learned, and most of all just how beautiful silence can be. I could look out the window at the rolling plains and really see them. I don’t mean glance at them and not really see tham as is typical while I’m running around trying to get ready for work. But really see, take it in, absorb their beauty. Really appreciate the vast expanse, contours across the horizon, blends of colors, shapes the trees and roof tops in the forground.

We allow so much intrusion in our lives from the background noise of TV, the buzz of cell phones, the beeping and vibrations of blackberrys. All of this consumes our time and mental space. It also suppresses so much of who we are. It masks our inner being. It shuts out creativity, intution and the meditations and cares of the heart. It keeps me from hearing Almighty God speak into my life.

Silence. What a precious thing. What a powerful resource, and you have complete control of it. No one can take away your power to create it anytime and anywhere. Try this. Take the next 3 mintutes and find a place of utter silence. Shut off all the phones, PDAs etc. Just let your innerself consume the time. At the end, reflect on the thoughts, emotions, ideas, feelings etc that came to the surface. Write them down. You’ll be amazed. Then, if you’re like me, you’ll appreciate the power of silence.

You are complete in Christ.   So stop trying to please others.  Stop doing things to get attention.  To make yourself look good and feel good.  Gratuitous self adulation.  You don’t need that.  That’s ego….edging God out.  Stay focused on who God is and how he sees you.  Why he made you the way your are.  Ask Him what He wants to do with your life.  That’s the big picture.  Stay with it.  Don’t let you life become consumed by trivial thoughts and desires.  In fact every time a thought comes to mind, catagorize it.  Its either trivial or meaningful.  Dont blindly accept what comes into your head.  Question it.  If it is not of God, discard it.  You know better.