The Speech of Your Life...

Why You

Not too many people have ascended Mt. Everest with 137 people in tow, but that guy on the Discovery channel last week has.  He’ll be in demand as a motivational speaker for the rest of his life.  Not too many people have flown with wings and a jet pack attached to their bodies to cross the English channel.  Bam.  Fifteen minutes of fame. 

It doesn’t take losing a limb, rocket science or Wiley Coyote like tendencies.  There is a demand for a speaker who has a tale of their own, a story which is somehow fascinating and stands apart from everyday life.   If we research a new effect of a combination of drugs and re-grow limbs, we’ll stand out.  If we chair the committee to design a bigger oil-sucking water cleaner, we’ll get some attention.  If we spend a career as a marine biologist fascinated with squid, we’ll stand out.  But let me ask – how much do you really relate to those speakers?  Are you about to close a multi-billion dollar deal on your home-grown business?  Are you recovering from a plane crash?  Did you manage to outlive the statute of limitations on your Swiss bank heist, and you are feeling remorseful now?  Lucky you, the talk shows and speakers bureaus are looking for you. 

But what about the rest of the eager speaking talent, the skilled but “regular” human populace? What if we lose someone and live through it?  Doesn’t everyone?  What if we’ve loved and lost?  Doesn’t everybody?  How interesting can that be?  Who wants to hear another story about the pain of life?  No one?  Oh, contraire.  The most interesting stories lie in the smallest and most common details of human connection. 

Some of the most valued and most memorable motivational speakers simply instill a new vision of an everyday experience.  They give us their story, told through their unique perspective, often rising above pain.  A divorced mother steps forward to articulate of the unspeakable pain and loss of her daughter to a life of drugs and prisons.  A father of six speaks of how proud he has become of his children as they have formed a team to help the disadvantaged.  A child dying of cancer stands before an audience to speak of the endless joy in his heart for the many gifts of care and love and comfort he has received to ease his pain.   In their stories are the moments of human realizations and everyday emotional triumphs.  From them, we are encouraged to see beyond our day by day challenge, to lighten the load of our own lives, to see through the eyes of optimism.  Often, all it takes is seeing life a little differently to find lessons to share.  With a little self-examination we can find life’s details which just beg to be told.  A child points out the ridiculousness of our sensitivities.  The suddenness of death reminds us of the joys of living.  A co-worker reminds us that our values should be with our families.  Victims of natural events often have amazing stories of loss and triumph.  Lonely vigils are kept in remote places, where great thoughts can emerge.  A spouse encourages a hobby which brings that most elusive of treasures, “quality time”. 

For the aspiring speaker, impassioned by the desire to make their skills of value, the search for valuable material is no further away than the experience of the heart.  Loss and tragedy find us all.  So does joy and enthusiasm.  What did we learn?  How do we overcome?  What will come next?  In what small way did we improve ourselves in the midst of change, turmoil, or conflict or embarrassment?  To find valuable speeches within you, perhaps a simple question can assist…  How do you value your moments? 

Beyond dialogue

Plato condensed the definition of dialogue to argumentative conversation. Apparently a politician was listening. I appreciate a civil argument for or against any position. Conservative or liberal, dog or cat, solar or wind.  Dialogue should be open and at least two way.  Modern language analysts (like those over at languagemonitor.org) look for trends in word use, word evolution, word invention, topics, analyze speech content for coherency, and they make some sometimes funny leaps about trends.  The dialogue about dialogue is endless.  

Think monologue> dialogue> discourse. Discourse is different. Discourse is control and knowledge of a position and the topic. It is dialogue, but the bigger idea.  Considered formal discussion or debate, discourse is studied as a sociology unto itself.  It is the communication of debate, contrast, and possibilities which shape ideas into futures. Abstract as it may seem, CNN and other media groups put a lot of effort into understanding the discourse of politics, to discern the direction of societies values.  Studies of discourse investigate the relationships of language, structure and group, including politics, feminist studies, anthropology, ethnography, cultural studies, literary theory, and the philosophies of science.  For instance, comparing Barrack Obama’s inauguration speech to John F. Kennedy’s implies a drop in the grade level of the modern dialogue, and therefore a lowering of the expectations inherent in social discourse. Naturally, the notions of discourse itself are subject to further discourse.

In the foreground, language is evolving speedily.  Our environment of change requires new words, useful and cultural. Got Web2.0? It is considered a word.  Defriend anyone lately?  You wouldn’t have before 2007, and three years later, millions everyday.   And I bet you know the meaning of the word.  Consider, too, that internationalization hybridizes language, and a lack of connection can be met with blank stares and smilence.

What does this have to do with giving a better speech?  Our discourse establishes social context - “How we say it” matters a great deal. As the world rapidly shrinks, local dialogues include world issues. Common concerns ask for solutions not just for the neighbors, but for the global neighborhood.   Young leaders, like those at yesworld.org, and the entrepreneurs at netsquared.org are taking on problems which reach the remote villages of other continents, then taking the stage to encourage others to lend a hand.  Their discourse is what you will hear from future politicians.  The future is an engaging global discussion; businesses are competing for the ears and eyes of the globe – messaging must be uniquely cutting-edge as dialogue and discourse rapidly evolve within a changing communications landscape.   As we make our points and take our stands, to our groups, customers, and post our messages for the world, we could strike the highly sought “viral” chord with our message - if it is both in modern dialogue and in step with the discourse. 

More and more, a grass-roots common discourse is binding the world. Language is both simplifying in order to reach broader audiences and adapting to changing technical and social standards.  Common messages and concerns now span the globe (who speaks which actual language is another topic).  If you want be in step with who is heard and how they say it, to understand the largest communities the world has ever known, look to young leaders and to the social analysts to see what will be the discourse of great speeches of coming days. 

Writing clarifies

I happened across a concept recently which triggered a bit of internal irony at the moment. I was reading. I tripped up on the idea that writing clarifies, focuses and energizes.  It is a process of thinking things through.  I’ve never undertaken what I would call scholarly pursuit which would have the effect of demanding more writing, but I always appreciated the idea that I can improve upon my thoughts this way.  I just hadn’t grasped the value of it as its own mental process.  I thought I already had plenty of those. 

Sometimes improving my thoughts is enough challenge – we all have the strains and stresses of living, putting up with neighbors, paying the bills, and trying to be all we can be.  I’ve been inclined to speaking for many years, but I didn’t fully appreciate the process of writing speeches until I began speaking about more complex ideas.  In the multi-tasking mind, simple thoughts can be problem enough. Complex thoughts can be downright perilous to convey:  i.e., because we live through our egos and our filters and pains and worries that are parts of our value systems and our beliefs change slowly it’s difficult to free ourselves enough to listen to what we have to say to each other, so we have to stop ourselves which is like policing thoughts with more thoughts.  Follow that?  How about; we listen better when we want to.  For speechcraft in this era, shorter is often better.  Short attention spans mean “power listening”, or, get to the point.  It’s easy to get carried away explaining the detailed complexities of any issue or topic.  Writing can help to distill an idea, or, like here (hi there), is the means of discussion itself and can be used to provide many facets which don’t translate well to the spoken word. 

A number of modern spiritual influencers state that they undertook writing to help themselves sort out their complex thoughts; Aldus Huxley, famous for his mescal experiments, committed the “Doors of Perception” in order to clarify some rather vicious misunderstandings.  Turned out he actually was having cohesive thoughts.   Thich Naht Hahn wrote “The Miracle of Mindfulness” and compared the writing process to meditation, stating that it aided in clearing the mind of clutter.  Both valued the writing process for what it did for their individual sense of calm. 

Writing speeches is both calming and energizing; it is a process of facing the challenge of fully conceiving messages and forming them into cohesive threads of everything from humor to tears, from facts to flippancy, from the germinated idea mentally astray in the distractions of everyday anxieties, to the page.  It increases speaker’s confidence and calms the classic speaking jitters.   But its real value is for the audience, creating a veritable and viable path for other minds to follow.  (That’s not to say that reading a speech is such a good idea, but that’s another issue and another blog).  There is both an inner clarification and an outer value which emerges.  The greatest speeches of history, and the most impactful speeches I’ve heard personally, were well written.  Well thought through.  Well trimmed.  Well clarified.  After this process of preparation, they were also well delivered.  Passion in the passionate parts, and usually, compassion throughout.

Great ideas occur to us every day.  When we take the time to compose, tasking our thoughts to the message, we give form to feelings; we give a greater life to the idea.  Whether delivered in a beautifully refined oral connection, or given in written form, we can make “viral” the possibilities of our dreams through the power of writing.  Why else would blogging and social micro-blogging be so incredibly popular if not the innate need to put forth thoughts? Helping them realize their real potential just takes a little time to think them through.

That connection

“As the environment shifts to more social, are our brains actually changing the way we process spoken information?”  Ya gotta love a thinker.  A probing question opened the Q&A session of my discussion about presenting vs. communicating.  I had made the point that the social sites are just a display of peoples needs to connect with people and people are looking for social and ethical messages from (our) leadership. 

As the world has shrunk through technology, so expectations have changed.  Geez, we’ve got grandmas paying nightly visits to grandchildren across the keyboard.   We’ve got live internet video enabling greater emotional availability, and tearing down the barriers of cultures.  We’ve got sites which allow us to monitor oil spills, check the security status of town squares, and to crawl inside the space station to cheer up our space nerds. And to think, we’re just getting started. 

Presentation and communication are very different things and what people crave today is a connection with their (corporate) leadership, not just a dry view from the top.  Inspiration is not the same as motivation to action.  Inspiration taps into the need to be more, to rise to the occasion, and better yet, to create the occasion of helping others rise.  Vision is a matter of passion, and very much dependent upon getting the audience to “see” in the minds eye the vision of organizational performance and need fulfillment, to cause inspiration.  It's like a mental food chain; presentation>communication>vision>inspiration. 

Companies (and people) used to “present” an image.  Changes have emerged with the broad adoption of Corporate Social Responsibility policies and programs, enabling even more community awareness by sharing the company resources for common good.  Organizations of all sizes are adopting Youtube, Facebook and Twitter to connect employees and clients.  The shift to “connection” is light years beyond the simple presentation.  People (and companies) now experience fewer barriers to human connection, and to the question, our expectations of public messaging are moving with these abilities. 

Does all this change what people are listening for?  I answered, “Yes.  We can’t change the way our brains are wired so readily, but people are changing their orientation about what they are listening for. It’s a matter of evolving personal values.” 

You are probably selling something, whether you are selling corn seed or international management services, or ideas in your department.  Speakers are advocates in every setting, whether it’s the monthly status meeting, or the highest-ranking annual vision statement.  As speakers, we should be aware that people are listening for the human connection, the personal implications of every topic.  The audience is actually becoming psychologically “wired” for greater human connection.  "What’s in it for me?" is becoming "what’s in it for us?". People are now listening for words of compassion, emotion, and stories which evoke the sense of connection. By including the human concerns, quality of life, morale or social issues, speakers fill a valuable gap in normal human interactions. 

The question clarified for the room that yes, people are changing what they are actually hearing.  If a leader is not advocating active personal and organizational connections, the message is missing the contemporary target, the mindset of the era.  Are our brains changing?  DNA reorganizes much slower than that Facebook update to the Blackberry.  We are still the same humans.  We just expect leadership and speakers to see our world the way we do – connected. 

In the everyday

People feel uninteresting, stuck without “good” topics, and the mind goes blank at the beginning of the task.  It’s a common question of the average student of speech - what do I have to speak about?  I was asked recently to provide a training session on “speech topics in the everyday world”.  I was busy in the everyday, so, OK.  I often enjoy making speeches from the smallest moments in my oh-so normal, oh-so average, everyday world.   There was an encounter at a restaurant when a bird hit the window and a fit of compassion snuck up on me, or the advice column that inspired me to go back to college.  I understand why I was tagged for this one - note to self, book those flying lessons.  

The thought process went something like this:  What happens every day?  Events.  Too generic.  What types of events?  Events with people, or places, or things.  That’s some progress in high-level categories, but not enough to be helpful.  In the people category, what’s next?  How about children?  If you have children you have stories.  Teenagers! If you have experienced the teenage mind, you have been in the proximity of a full-time drama-generating bio-unit.  Lots of drama, and constant stories.  Usually ends in tears as a new awakening and leads to another drama.  Audiences love a drama that does not involve them.  OK, this was progress.  Emotional drama or human conflict exists constantly in the everyday.  Insights, predicaments and divergence. 

The idea became more clear – to discover everyday topics worthy of sharing, they should be specific enough to provide good emotion, and what else?  This was a way to see content, but what about a message?  After all, isn’t the purpose of speaking to convey some learning?  Find the message in the moment by finding the human elements – the natural conflict, irony, humor, joy, triumph, persistence, etc. etc. etc.  Then too, in daily drama, we find learning, growing, looking at life in new ways, and as with kids, lessons of ethical and moral values.  The same is true for the office routine, or with your best friend.  Forgiveness, honesty and perseverance are just a few of the major themes we live through every day.

Look back on your day, and you may see a moment of triumph, or a thankless job which made a difference.  That quiet time you spent repairing your wife’s favorite chair, or those precious hours you spent helping your son ride a bicycle, or the moments your spent looking at the photos of your now-grown daughter, could be an inspiration…What did you feel?  What did you learn?  What do you share in those memories?  What lessons do you see in that moment?  What moments made your day worthwhile, and can you encourage others to experience similar joys?  Compelling stories will emerge from the smallest details of a quiet day.   

Each of us is infinitely unique. The speaking great, Zig Ziglar, became renowned for his short vignettes about his home life, things that occured in the kitchen or in the yard.  Can you appreciate the richness of your life’s many blessings?  Can you see the humor in your own conflicts?  Capturing great speeches from the details of an everyday scene to the lesson within it is a matter of how we value our moments.