Your Speech Coach

Yesterday I recommended that you speak the truth, today I want to discuss with you how to respond to truths you may hear.

My first regular speaking client was the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. I did a three day workshop that had gone extremely well; I got back my critiques and discovered that most everyone had rated me as excellent but two officers rated me poorly. My mentor at the time Edi Walker, was the head of training for the FDLE and she told me that those mixed critiques told her I was an excellent presenter, because I had affected two officers so much that they didn’t like me. That I had made them question the way they had been presenting. Wow! What a radical concept. Sometimes when and audience member is offended it is because you made them think. But here is more insight:  Sometimes when you hear something that upsets you, it is because the information is making you think.

Since that incident their have been many times I have heard information in speeches and even in my more interpersonal conversations that have made me emotional, and when I do, I pause and reflect. If I feel really angry or offended or threatened or insulted about what I am hearing I ask myself is it because that information may be holding a mirror up to my life so that I can see myself and some insecurity or fear I have.

I have a friend who is extremely smart, an officer in the military, 42 single and never married. She is truly a phenomenal woman. She shared with me that a man she met on the internet she liked then he emailed her that there must be something wrong with her if she had never been married. She said, “I was so mad I couldn’t respond to him for day.” I thought about how I would have felt hearing that message and all the issues that would have brought up for me as  a single woman. His comment was offensive, but it made me think.

Recall right now about the last time you were mad or upset…and ask yourself was there something they said that would rock your world, your beliefs about your self and how you live your life? It is so easy to make someone bad or wrong or stupid it is harder to ask yourself if that person is sharing something that will make your life better.

I am addicted to the home improvement shows like Clean House, Mission Organization were they go in and clean up peoples houses. Sometimes the organizers share harsh truths and the home owners get really mad and upset. But the end result is always a clean beautiful house. Sometimes we need to listen to the truth, clean out the clutter, and get a new a more wonderful life.