My senior year in college I got a bug up my pants and decided to do something stupid: I enrolled in a graduate seminar in philosophy. I was an undergrad, majoring in economics. Perhaps I was bored with supply/demand diagrams and wanted to try something even more abstract, I'm not sure. At any rate, for the next ten weeks I suffered every monday night through four hours of lecture on an obscure book written by a philosopher named Emanuel Kant, "The Critique of Pure Reason." The book made even the instructors head hurt. None of us, including him, understood it. We would read the 500 word sentences aloud to each other, debate what they meant, rub our heads, then give up, hoping we would be smarter next monday. Out of everyone in the class, I was the most hopeless. But for some reason, one section stuck with me. I'm not sure why, but I felt like I got it. I wasn't sure what I would do with this useless piece of knowledge, but I filed it a way, forgot I ever had it, until fifteen years later when I watched a nervous man deliver a well practiced speech to his Toastmasters club. How in the world does Kant help a Toastmaster?
Well, here we go. This Toastmaster gave a fine speech. He was prepared, used no notes, and had a clear structure and main point. However, there was something about the delivery and style of the speech that felt off. It was then that I thought back to Kant's point.
Kant said that humans perceive the world through space and time. He called these "modes of perception." It is hard for us to see the world outside these modes. Everything we see is through the filter of space and time. More importantly, everything derives its meaning from its relationship in space and time. For example, let's say I see a friend at the airport about to board a plane. Clearly she is in a hurry. If I say "hi" to her, the way I say hi will be judged based on the element of time. If I start a longwinded conversation, she will get angry because I'm ignoring she needs to catch a flight. Instead, I'll keep my greeting brief and to the point, and she will be happy. On the other hand, if I see her at a coffee shop on a Saturday, and I give her a brief and to the point hello only to then move on, she'll be hurt. Instead, she would have expected the longwinded stay. Thus, time dictates meaning.
Space has similar rules. If a close friend stops me on the sidewalk to say "hi" but I stand five feet back and wave "hi" back before talking to him, he will think I'm cold. However, if I am introduced to someone I've never seen before and I immediately launch into a hug, I'm asking for trouble (Think Borat). I got my expressions crossed. I should have given a hug to my close friend and the long handshake to the associate. Thus, space dictates meaning.
The brain knows this. It learns this complex set of rules on space/time over many years of social interaction. After thousands, if not millions, of social interactions, each of us, seemingly effortlessly manage through this complex spacial-temporal web of rules. We are formal when required. We are intimate when appropriate. We are quick when it is called for. We are elaborative when preferred. We change tones and gestures to drop in and out of an authoritative to a sympathetic and intimate voices based on what is called for at any moment. We do it automatically.
So, now to the speech. The Toastmaster was basically doing what every new public speaker does. he was speaking with no sense of time or space. He had a single voice and a single position. He was "speech guy." It didn't matter what the moment called for or what his relationship with the audience called for, he was fixed in a practiced but one dimensional, state. He had One voice. One position. One energy.
Try to imagine going through life talking with people every day like this. It would be silly. So why do we do it in front of a group of 30 people? Because, what we know so naturally in our every day interactions with each other, we forget when we get in front of a group. It's as if our sense of space and time vanishes and we get frozen as "presentation man."
What I'm saying is that to be a good public speaker, we first need to take what we already know, and find a way to get comfortable expressing it in the public speaking realm. Thus, learning to be a public speaker is less about learning what works and what doesn't, it's more about learning how to get comfortable doing what you already know in a new realm. It's about expanding the realm by which you clearly understand the rules of space and time.
When you get this, you will easily flow back and forth between formal and informal, consultative and intimate as your speeches will breath naturally like your everyday conversations do.
When first developing a speech, try delivering it sitting down in front of a mirror. Deliver it just like you are having a converstation with a friend. Note where you change inflections, tones, expressions. These natural changes are the ones that will make your speeches more authentic, powerful and better too. By doing this you will be a more authentic speaker. You gestures and vocal changes will have meaning. They will be congruent with your content.
Connecting With Story
1 hour ago
