Practical Eloquence Blog |

What We Can Learn from Michael Bay’s Meltdown at CES

By Jack Malcolm / 1.7.2014 / No Comment

In case you haven’t heard, director Michael Bay had one of those awful speaking meltdowns we all dread but hardly ever see. Watch this before reading on:

I feel bad for him, but his loss is our gain. What can we learn from this?

Be antifragile. I’ve written about this before, so I won’t repeat all the details here, but when Bay said he would just wing it, that was his beautiful opportunity to wow his audience with his knowledge, confidence and adaptability. If he had seen the glitch as a positive, his entire emotional mindset would have changed, from mortification to inspiration. Instead of being dispirited, he could have been energized. Things will go wrong, but this is a perfect opportunity to gain strength and give Mr. Murphy the finger.

Know your stuff. Teleprompter isn’t working right? Who cares, if you know what you want to say. You don’t have to memorize your speech, but you do have to remember it. By remembering, I mean having a clear theme engraved in your mind, a single crystallized point that you want the audience to take away. I also mean having—and remembering—a clear structure for your points. If you know your points, the details will follow. I teach my students to become instant masters of impromptu speaking by simply putting a stake in the ground—just state your main point up front and then elaborate on it or defend it. If you remember the landmarks, you don’t have to memorize the exact route, but you will have the confidence of knowing you will get there.

Presentations - Uncategorized

Speaking Resolutions for 2014

By Jack Malcolm / 1.7.2014 / 2 Comments

Whether you’re a beginning speaker who gets nervous when the audience size exceeds two, or a veteran who makes a living delivering important keynotes, there is always something you can improve, and the new year is an excellent time to take stock and set goals.

If you’re having trouble thinking of New Year’s resolutions, here’s a list of suggestions to get you started:

I will begin preparing earlier.

I will tell more stories.

I will make the customer the hero of my stories.

I will use fewer slides.

I will do at least one important presentation without slides.

I will rehearse my presentations, using video.

I will seek out objective feedback and coaching.

I will join Toastmasters.

I will embrace nerves, and use them as added energy and incentive.

I will seek out more opportunities to speak, especially where I’m uncomfortable.

I will read a book about speaking.

Have a happy and successful 2014!

Productivity

Going Deep

By Jack Malcolm / 1.6.2014 / No Comment

Forty miles from Johannesburg SA is a vast gold mine called Mponeng, and it’s the deepest manmade hole on earth, according to a fascinating article in last month’s WSJ. It is so deep that one elevator does not reach to the bottom, because the steel suspension cable gets heavier with every foot descended. It is so deep that the cold winter temperature at the surface increases to 140 degrees at the bottom. The entire three mile journey to the bottom takes an hour. But it’s the only way to get to where the gold is.

I’ve learned that with some tasks, it takes about that long to get deep enough to where the gold is. In my case, it’s usually writing an article or working on my book, but it also applies to solving problems, strategizing, or just about any task that requires quality thinking. It’s why I’ve learned to schedule my writing in time blocks of 90 minutes; it takes that long to get deep enough to where the good thoughts come.

I often begin an article with an idea that I want to flesh out, and frequently the first outline comes quickly enough. Filling in the words and choosing the right metaphors and stories takes a little longer. But all told, I can often churn out an average article in 30-45 minutes.

Yep, average.

But who wants to be that? The rich veins of gold lie much deeper. It’s easy to skim the surface of the trite and true in the first couple of passes through an idea, but it takes time to go deeper. Deeper is where the new ideas come from. Deeper is where your mind starts freeing up some half-buried memories that suddenly seem to be exactly the right analogy you’re looking for. Deeper is where just the right word or turn of phrase presents itself, like an old friend who turns up unannounced at your door. Deeper is where the hidden connections between seemingly unrelated ideas reveal themselves. Deeper is where insight lurks.

In fact, as I’ve thought deeper about it for this article, I’ve realized that there are generally four layers to a deep session:

The first layer is the Distraction Zone, where you still haven’t cleared your head of other thoughts or your previous tasks. Plenty of research[1] has shown that there is a cost involved in switching between tasks because our minds have trouble quickly locking in to a task after an interruption.
The second layer is the Cliché Zone, where all the easy thoughts are found. Some ideas come quickly to mind, but they come up first precisely because they are the most common, so you haven’t really created anything new or worthwhile.
The third layer is the Struggle Zone, and it’s where most of the real work gets done. When you realize that the clichés are not good enough, you struggle to think of better ideas. You may stare at the screen for minutes on end trying to come up with just the right word, spend time re-writing sentences or rearranging paragraphs, or deleting entire blocks of text—sometimes you delete the whole thing and start over. It’s hard, frustrating, very discouraging, and absolutely necessary, because this is where you stretch. You’re not just dredging up old ideas, you’re creating new ones.
The fourth layer is the Flow Zone, where you break through to the gold beneath, and the ideas start coming fast enough that you’re not always sure you can keep up, and you eventually look up and realize that an hour has gone by and you’ve actually produced something you’re not entirely embarrassed to show to the world.
Actually, there’s an unofficial fifth layer, and it’s a free added bonus. After your deep session, your subconscious mind keeps working, and new ideas or refinements will pop into your mind at the oddest times.

(Of course, this is totally unscientific, being based on a sample size of one and recorded by a biased observer. But Cal Newport, who has studied this more deeply than I have, tells us that that notable creative people spent an average of 5.25 hours per day in deep work.)

Going deep is not easy, but I suppose that’s precisely the point, isn’t it? Here are some suggestions to get more deep work done:

Cultivate a ritual. Rituals are a great way to prime your mind and get through the Distraction Zone.
Set time blocks. Make an appointment with yourself and keep it. Just make sure you have buffer times set up between blocks to deal with all the unplanned stuff that will come up. I find that 90 minutes works for me, although I’m planning on increasing that.
Use the nothing alternative. If you don’t feel like it, you don’t have to write, or plan or think about your problem during your time block, but you’re not allowed to do anything else during that time.
Record your sessions and time. It will keep you honest, and especially works well if you’re competitive with yourself.

One final note of encouragement: like training for a marathon, it gets easier over time. But you have to start.

[1] Worker, Interrupted: The Cost of Task Switching, Kermit Pattison, Fast Company

No Task Left Behind? Examining the Nature of Fragmented Work, Gloria Mark, Victor M. Gonzalez, Justin Harris

Expression - Persuasive communication

I Yam What I Yam

By Jack Malcolm / 1.3.2014 / No Comment

Have you ever heard someone proudly proclaim some version of Popeye’s phrase? It’s most often said to justify themselves right after they’ve said something tactless, or even offensive. Or they might say something like “what you see is what you get”, or “I tell it like it is.”

People who think this way pride themselves on being brutally honest, as if brutality is a badge of honor.

If I wanted to be brutally honest with them, I would ask them if they were born a–holes, of if they just work hard at it. But of course I don’t, because that kind of brutal honesty, while it might make me feel good, would not help the situation.

The only time to be brutally honest is when you want to hurt someone, when you want to demean that person, or bludgeon them into submission, or prove how much smarter and better you are. I suppose there could be times that would be appropriate, but it’s hard to imagine situations in professional life where that’s going to result in the ideal outcome.

People who talk this way think it displays an admirable independence of spirit, some personal toughness that allows them to be authentic despite social pressures to conform.

What it really displays is a lack of concern for others, selfishness and crass personal manners.

It may also display laziness and/or helplessness. For example, the person who says she’s just not a people person, that she doesn’t play the political game, may just be masking an unwillingness or genuine inability to master the skills needed to work smoothly with others.

Or, they could be laboring under the misimpression that they are stuck with the personality traits they were born with. They think that if they are introverted or analytics, or drivers, or INTJs, or any other label they’ve learned to accept, that their behavior is channeled into a narrow path defined by who they are. Any behavior that crosses those boundaries is “inauthentic”, thus automatically wrong.

Is it “inauthentic” to be tactful? Is it inauthentic to express your ideas so that the other person can best understand your meaning? Is it inauthentic to try to see the world through their eyes? When you look at it this way, inauthenticity is actually a sign of maturity. What makes us effective and influential as adults in a professional environment is precisely our ability to be inauthentic, to dress up our inner selves to go out in public.

Can you go against your normal tendencies if it will leave everyone better off? Clearly, the answer is yes. Just as you choose what to wear depending on where you’re going or what you’re doing, you can choose what to say, how to say it, and what to do. Think about it from the perspective of the other person: they only know who you are by what you say and do. Fortunately, those are the only things you can control; whether you choose to do so is up to you.

It’s a simple choice: be “authentic” or be effective.