Squeaky Bubble

Demand Dignity in Public Speaking Training

By Melissa Mayers Lewis

After nervously waiting through five other talks, Mandy took her place at the front of the room-her heart pounding and hands shaking. She plowed through her 10-minute presentation with her mind in an out-of-body blur. When she finished, Mandy obeyed the instructor’s direction to remain front-and-center to receive her feedback. Comments started with a few “That’s a good color on you” and “You had good eye contact” platitudes, but then the real critique began. She used way too many “ums.” She shifted her weight too much. Her hair was in her eyes. Her voice was too soft. Most of all, her excessive gestures simply had to be brought under control! Luckily, the instructor had a gesture-reduction plan. He playfully took a piece of rope from a cardboard box, used it to bind Mandy’s hands behind her back, and had her give the entire presentation over again.

Did this experience help Mandy overcome her feelings of vulnerability and self-consciousness? Of course not. She shuffled home feeling humiliated and victimized. Rather than compassionately working with Mandy as the vulnerable, dignified, gifted human being she is, the instructor treated her like a horse whose spirit and wild habits had to be broken with ropes. Literally.

Previous Training As A Source of Fear

In my 15 years of coaching public speaking, I’ve worked with hundreds of anxiety-ridden speakers. Surprisingly, they often referred to previous speaking training as a source of their fear. They’ve been badgered, nit-picked, and intimidated-all stemming from a well-intentioned belief that if you fix the mechanics, confidence will follow.

For many people, this approach is, at the very least, ineffective-and it can damage one’s sense of dignity. If you see the audience as the enemy, mastering the art of the upward-hand-sweep-with-the-dramatic-flourish will not make those faces any less threatening. Even worse, this mechanical approach can be devastating if you feel insecure to begin with, then walk away with an even longer list of deficiencies to correct.

Of course, there’s value in noticing distracting habits and getting them under control. If you’re already comfortable in the spotlight, great; go ahead and fine-tune the mechanics. But if you’re like Mandy and anxiety is your primary issue (and believe me, you’re not alone), a mechanical approach may do more harm than good.

What You Need from Training

So what do you need, if not the mechanics? Here are four things you’d be wise to demand from your training session:

1. Work on the cause of your discomfort, not merely the symptoms.

Most people say that one-on-one or in a small group, they’re comfortable with speaking; they only feel awkward when speaking to a large group. If that’s the case, there’s good news: You don’t have to work on your speaking; you have to work on getting comfortable being the center of attention. It may not seem like a significant shift but it is. Speakers tend to work only on what they’re putting out to the audience (content, appearance, visual aids, voice). Often, the real work is learning to let in what’s coming from audience members, namely their attention.

2. Demand a dignified, healthy process, not just a good outcome.

In Mandy’s case, even without ropes, she would probably gesture less the next time she spoke, but is that really success? Though the end result of her training was fewer gestures, the teacher cut a swath of emotional destruction on the way. Desired ends don’t justify humiliating means. Always demand to be treated with respect as you work to develop your speaking skills.

3. Insist on privacy regarding your video.

A common tool in presentation skills training is video, but your video is no one’s business but yours. I have seen accomplished, respected professionals shrink in horror as their video was shown to and critiqued by the entire class. All learning value was lost because they were too mortified by the public display to learn anything. Besides, it’s a waste of time. The class just saw you present the real thing. Why make them watch you twice? In my workshops, students go to the fun and funky “Learning Lounge” where they have a private video monitor with earphones, snacks, a comfortable chair, cozy quilts, and a soothing foot massager. The lighthearted atmosphere takes the sting out of self-awareness so students can concentrate on learning. Nothing good comes from public humiliation, so if you’re not comfortable with a public video viewing, stand up for your right to privacy.

4. Feel free to explore your gifts.

“Stay inside the lines.” Remember that one? You got a new box of crayons and wanted to go crazy with them, but a teacher or parent squashed your creativity by making you color inside pre-existing lines. The same happens in speaking. Max, a former student of mine, had always been told to follow the rules as a speaker, so he concentrated on his voice, his stance, his visual aids, etc. When given permission to forget the rules and speak from his heart, a delightful dry sense of humor emerged that made him much more likeable and, therefore, more persuasive. He incorporated this gift into a presentation that was already effective in the traditional sense, but now had a wonderful new dimension that would have been missed had he not played “outside the lines.”

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The Porch Light* Method to Speaking Confidence

By Melissa Mayers Lewis

You know the feeling. Looking out at a sea of faces, you notice a few scowls, frowns, even droopy eyelids on some of your audience members. What are they thinking? Do they disagree with your points? Are they in a bad mood? Do they just not like YOU? You bend over backwards to win them over. You smile, establish eye contact. But the longer you speak the more hopeless you feel as you see your desperate attempts to please fall flat. At the end, feeling discouraged and anxious, you limp away.

It doesn’t have to be that way. By using a simple image–the porch light–you can give the same talk with such enthusiasm that scowls won’t bother you. In fact, you may even be able to turn those frowns upside down!

Remember going trick-or-treating as a child? You would carefully examine all the houses to determine which ones would yield the good “loot.” Most likely, the brightly lit porches with elaborate Halloween decorations would have friendly, generous, confection-laden people behind the door. Also, you most likely skipped the houses with dark, unswept porches for their lack of promise.

Imagine the faces of your audience members as porch lights. Some will be brightly “lit” with smiles and encouraging looks; others may appear uninviting. The trick is to speak into the spirit of the bright porch lights. Let in support from those who are encouraging you. Speak into the generosity of those porches that are lit, rather than into the perceived criticism of the uninviting ones.

Does that mean you ignore the unlit porches? No. Instead of speaking from a panicky need to win them over, addresss the frowning faces with the same energy that you project toward the friendly faces. Easier said than done? Perhaps, but you can make it easier if you remember the following:

1. Negative expressions probably have nothing to do with you. People frown when they have a stomachache; they scowl when they’re reliving a fight with their spouses; they drop off when they spent the night rocking a sick baby. Nine times out of ten, they had turned off their porch lights long before you walked in the room.

2. Usually far more porch lights are ON than off. Most people in your audience want you to succeed. But you can get so focused on forcing the negative ones to like you that you don’t let in the support of those who already do! It’s a shame when warm, supportive energy goes unused. Besides, if you speak appreciatively into the positive energy of the “on” porch lights, the “off” porch lights see the magic that’s happening between you and your supporters. That’s often all it takes to turn on lights all over the room.

3. Just because a person’s porch light is off, it doesn’t mean nobody’s home. The person might just be concerned, anxious, or distracted. With a little more information or reassurance, that listener’s porch light might come on more brightly than all the others.

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Porcelain Veneers - Offering More than Just a Pretty Smile

By Tara Pingle

Cosmetic dentists use porcelain veneers for many different purposes. People choose to have porcelain veneers placed on their teeth to give them the smile they have always wanted. Often this is to correct disfigured teeth, misshapen teeth, and gaps in their smile, however, porcelain veneers are also used for people who need tooth reparations as a result of worn teeth, cracked teeth, or chipped teeth.

While some people choose to get porcelain veneers to give them a pretty smile, many people need porcelain veneers to correct the problems with their teeth. If you need to have your teeth repaired because you are suffering from worn, chipped, or cracked teeth porcelain veneers may provide the solution for you.

Porcelain veneers are ultra thin, custom-made, porcelain shells that are made to fit on the front surfaces of your teeth. Because porcelain veneers are translucent, reflect light, and are stain resistant, they look just like natural teeth.

A cosmetic dentist will discuss with you which teeth need to be repaired and what options you have to achieve the results you want. If you choose to have porcelain veneers applied, an impression will be made of your teeth and sent to a dental lab where a wax model of what your teeth will look like can be made.

When the wax model returns from the dental lab, you and your cosmetic dentist will review the corrections the porcelain veneers will make and what they will look like. You can decide whether to make additional changes or to approve the wax model. Once the wax model is approved, the dental lab can create your custom porcelain veneers.

After you have approved the wax model, the cosmetic dentist will prepare your teeth and apply temporary veneers to them. The temporary veneers will not only provide you with an idea of how your porcelain veneers will look and feel, but also correct your dental problems until the porcelain veneers arrive from the lab.

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Social Corporate Responsibility - A New Trend in Job Security

By Debra Yergen

We all want to make a difference. To most, that means sharing some combination of their time, talent and financial resources. During the global economic crisis of 2008, a lot of people didn’t have the financial resources to continue to give to their families, friends, and the worthy foundations and causes they valued. So choices had to be made.

People still wanted to give - they just had to find creative ways to do it. In lieu of candles or coffee, Alison, a marketing director in Pittsburgh, opted to make a donation to a local pet shelter in honor of her sister. In Chicago, the adult members of the Bergh family drew names for their annual Christmas exchange. Only instead of physical gifts this year, they each made donations to non-profit organizations near and dear to the heart of the person’s name they drew. Gail, a development director in Yakima, Wash., adds money to the Salvation Army bell ring buckets and adds meal coupons for the Union Gospel Mission to her grocery bill when she checks out.

All of these people make a difference in their own way. But none of them stop there. They also look to spend their consumer dollars at companies dedicated to corporate social responsibility. Understanding this, today, multinational corporations — while still in business for profit — are adopting new corporate social responsibility [CSR] initiatives that are changing the way organizations of all sizes do business. CSR is not a widely-used term yet. Give it time.

The premise of CSR is that when an organization makes money in a community, they reinvest a portion of profits in that community and/or other global regions in need. That investment can come as a combination of money, employee volunteer time or products, such as pharmaceutical giant Merck which donates a drug to cure river-blindness, a dreadful disease which affects tens of millions of the world’s poorest people.

Even in a down economy — or perhaps enhanced by an economy in turmoil — consumers and businesses alike are prioritizing CSR. So much so, in fact, that CSR is emerging as a new trend in job security with companies adding entire departments dedicated to designing and implementing CSR initiatives.

Many Fortune 500 companies have committed their resources to CSR, in many cases budgeting for entire departments dedicated to setting and implementing their CSR strategy. It’s a job industry that will grow tremendously in the next decade as Internet retail gives consumers worldwide a greater choice of where to buy the products they need and want.

London-based Acre is a staffing organization dedicated exclusively to CSR/SRI [social responsibility investment] positions. At ethicalperformace.com visitors can search global listings of CSR and SRI professional services organizations, as well as learn more about events and training associated with this emerging trend.

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