Hide and Seek

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“Only connect.”

E. M. Forster

Ours is a culture of shame.  Just ask John Bradshaw and the other pundits of co-dependency.  Very few Americans grow up without acquiring a burden of childish guilt, embarrassment, or painful remorse from the natural missteps and faux pas of youth.  We carry them everywhere, like Morley’s chains, except they dog our steps in this life, not the next.  These fetters snare us when we rise to speak.  This is the fearful risk we meet in the eyes of every audience: we might mess up.  

“Mike Landrum stiffly played a stiff young man.”  That was my review in the Cleveland Plain Dealer after a performance in summer stock.  I was eighteen years old and, yes, a bit stiff.  It’s a sentence that has found a home in my mental “cupboard of shame” for over forty years.  There is little compensatory satisfaction in the thought that I have probably outlived that reviewer.  The words still sting.

Actors are the easy targets for shame, putting ourselves on display with our eager egos.  But of course, we are not alone.  That is the fate of all who aspire.  The Japanese have a discouraging proverb: “The nail that sticks up gets pounded down.”  They are a culture so rigidly shame-based they have made suicide an accepted means of redemption.  The relationship a speaker, or any performer has with the audience, pivots on his or her fear of shame and their choice of strategies to overcome that fear.  

There are two basic strategies: You can Hide or Seek.  You can put on armor, build a defensive persona, and get some distracting audio-visual aids to hide behind; or you can seek rapport with the audience, take the greater risk of remaining vulnerable, and open yourself to them.  This reflects a dispute that has been going on in the community of actors for at least the past half century: whether an actor should work emotionally or technically.  The technicians like to work with the externals, ignoring their actual feelings and providing the appropriate indications of the character’s emotional life.  In other words, faking it.  For those who work internally, the genuine emotional life of the actor trumps these pretenses and creates a greater rapport, or belief, in the audience.  

Speakers face a similar choice.  Here, technique has morphed into technology, which is most apparent in the TelePrompTer, PowerPoint, and other computer-generated tools.  But there are subtler, non-technological ways a speaker can use technique, such as the development of a performance mask.  An experienced speaker who has found a successful speech and delivered it over and over for a period of years, will find that the speech follows its own well-worn groove automatically.  He or she will become stuck in the ruts created by constant repetition, and rapport with the audience will diminish or disappear. 

A telemarketer or salesperson who works from a set script, will create an automaton-like delivery.  Often these people will develop this style intentionally, go through training to achieve exactly the same inflection on certain words in the script.  At this point speaking has become a lifeless, mechanical thing; the listener is no longer relevant.  These speakers don’t even seek rapport, only sales.  Amazingly, they must get them or the practice would not persist.

The rapport seeker knows that the truest communication occurs between human beings directly.  Keeping in touch with the audience is primary to this speaker.  While the analogy for the technical speaker might be a tape recording, or a puppet show; the analogy for the rapport seeker could be a dancer, or jazz musician.  Her focus is on interaction and responsiveness.  Dancers move in a flow of action and reaction to the many variables around them, the music, their partners, the ballroom, the observers and so forth.  

I have recently experienced an interesting concept called ‘Speaking Circles.’  The invention of a former stand-up comedian and screenwriter named Lee Glickstein, Speaking Circles operate from the premise that your vulnerability is your strength.  The way it works is simple and effective: a few people (not more than 8) sit in a circle and agree to be entirely supportive of one another.  Criticism, advice and instruction are off limits.  Only positive, encouraging and supportive feedback is allowed.  Their chief objective in speaking is rapport; they seek to listen to one another with selfless generosity, and in doing so, they reach a deep, harmonic, understanding we seldom find in conventional speaker-audience relationships.          

I am impressed with Glickstein’s book “Be Heard Now,” which I recommend highly and unhesitatingly.  He teaches the importance of listening skills, especially in the speaker, who must make an effort to receive communication from the audience.  Long-time readers of this newsletter will recognize a favorite theme of mine.  

But there are ditches on both sides of the road.  Glickstein does not address the problems facing the speaker in the normal course of business presentations, where questions of time, clarity, purpose and objective must be met.  In the everyday world, the audience is not there for the speaker’s benefit, but the other way around.  There are times when nothing will serve but meeting their expectations.  This requires a certain technical facility, even a working knowledge of PowerPoint.

The best method is a blend of these two styles of speaking.  We need to be in touch with our feelings, and the audiences’, but we need to maintain enough detachment to accomplish our objectives.  Too much feeling and we become self-indulgent, too much technique and we become robotic.  All things in moderation, the Greeks taught.  There are techniques essential to the success of any speech, which can and should be learned and practiced.  It would be a shame to ignore them.

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Something to Ponder

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children. 

-KahlilGibran, mystic, poet and artist (1883-1931)

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© 2003 Michael F. Landrum

 

Every Speech Should Entertain

The Passionate Speaker

A Newsletter for Speakers
By
Michael Landrum

Every Speech Should Entertain

"Ennui, felt on the proper occasions, is a sign of intelligence." – Clifton Fadiman

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A speech should have a solid and serious purpose: to inform, persuade or inspire the audience towards a specific goal. But if a speech is not entertaining on some level, it will fail in that purpose. Every speech must entertain, in the broadest sense of the word.

There are many ways to entertain. Stories are the most common element of entertainment, but any sort of surprising or unusual phrase, rich language, a startling metaphor, or a little-known fact, can intrigue and entertain an audience. So, rather than just say 87 years, one well-known speaker chose "fourscore and seven years ago. . . " and transformed the mundane into the memorable. Lincoln had a genius for making phrases that were poetic and interesting; he makes us think, pause, relish the words and ponder their meaning long afterwards. That's entertainment.

While I am not in favor of speakers telling ‘jokes,' I do appreciate it when one goes to the trouble to season a speech with wit – borrowed, bought, stolen or homegrown. Quotations, epigrams, and wisecracks from the past are an excellent source of wit. Casey Stengel could have been describing the talent of quoting rather than managing when he called it: "The art of getting credit for all the home runs that somebody else hits."

I love quotes. I'm also fond of daffy-nitions such as "Nut – a fruit built like an oyster;" or "Kibitzer – the unmarried Siamese twin," or "Fun – which is like insurance – the older you get, the more it costs." The problem is, these things are like peanuts – it's hard to know when to stop. Unfortunately, some speakers have come to resemble the airlines who now give peanuts where we used to get meals. Too many speeches offer a couple of one-liners and then back to the heavy lifting.

The square meal of speaking will always be the story. There is an art to finding a story with a point that is entertaining and can stand on its own. If it carries a message congruent to the speaker's point, that is a pure trifecta. A good story well told can be pressed into service to illuminate many different points. It's a challenge to find stories and turn them in the light to see their various facets and meanings. Here's a story from my childhood that has been a standard at the Landrum holiday table for years. I would be interested in knowing what moral or message it carries for you.

When I was six years old and my little brother, Mit, was four, we lived in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Steamboat was mainly a cow town in those years just after World War II. With a population of 1,500 or so, it was hardly the resort it has become since. Dad was driving a bulk gasoline truck for Mobil, and times were hard for us. The winter of 1948 was one of the toughest in the history of that area. We had snow in August. By fall the blizzards came as regular as breakers on a beach, and by December people had to tunnel out of their houses. We had been snowbound for a long time and the week before Christmas we still had no Christmas tree in our newly-built, four-room cement-block house.

Then one day, the sun broke through and the sky blessed us with that clear, deep azure the mountain people love to see on a winter afternoon. "Now's our chance to go get a tree!" Mom said, and we all piled in the Chevy.

Folks in Steamboat didn't buy their trees at the grocery store in 1948. They figured, living in the middle of one of the largest evergreen forests in the world, the thing to do was cut your own. We drove out on the back roads and admired the trees. "There's a nice one, Stu," said Mom, pointing to a little fir about fifty yards from the road. "Are you sure, Becky? I'm only gonna cut one." We voted and that tree was it. So dad got the ax and some rope out of the trunk and stepped off the road toward the tree. He immediately sank into the snow up to his armpits. "My!" said Mom, "It didn't look that deep."

Dad waded across to the tree, and with much effort and many stops for breath, he managed to cut it down. He tied the rope to it and dragged it back to the car. When he reached the firm road at last, he was so exhausted that he just lay there and gasped for air. Mit, already showing signs of becoming the scientist, examined him closely and asked in a detached tone "Is he gonna die?"

The tree, which from the car had seemed about six feet tall, was three times that length when he got it back to the road. So when dad recovered, Mom picked out the best looking eight feet and they cut it and tied it to the roof. It trimmed up nicely and its fresh, wild, scent filled our little house to the rafters. It was the first Christmas I can vividly remember and it gives me great pleasure to bring it out again to share with you, like an old and cherished ornament.

The next summer we found ourselves out driving again, when Mom suddenly exclaimed "Oh! This is the road where we cut our Christmas tree! Let's look for the stump." At first we had no luck but finally, on the return trip, Mit sang out "There it is!" And there, across a deep ravine stood a twenty-foot tall Douglas fir tree with a missing top.

A Thought to Ponder

"More die in the United States of too much food than of too little. "

-John Kenneth Galbraith, economist

© Michael F. Landrum

Looking for a speaker for your event? Bring in Mike Landrum for an entertaining and informative talk. And if you think you never audition, think again!


His latest talk was to the NY Chapter of the National Speakers Association

The Habit Of Courage

Mike Landrum

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.”

Anais Nin

Bea Resnick rose to give her first speech as a Toastmaster, her Ice Breaker. She walked to the front as though the ice was thin beneath her feet and breaking it was the last thing she wanted to do. She reached the lectern and clung to it, blinking helplessly at us. “My name is Bea. . .” there was a long pause. “I just can’t do this,” she said, blushing vividly and returning to her seat. The room was silent for a long moment. Every one of us sitting there empathized with Bea. The Toastmaster stood up and spoke to her. “That was a good first step, Bea,” he said, and began a hearty round of applause. “We look forward to your next speech.”

Bea did make the speech on the next try and proceeded to rip through the manual in less than a year, while climbing the leadership ladder. Within three years she became president of our club and an Area Governor.

I would guess that most people come to Toastmasters in order to overcome their fear of public speaking. I love going to meetings because I know at the very least I will see a demonstration of courage. We all feel more vulnerable when standing before a group of attentive, listening people. A mantle of leadership descends on our shoulders and with it the weight of responsibility, expectation and opportunity.

Why is speaking in public so terrifying? What are we afraid of, anyway? I believe the roots of this fear go back to the beginnings of the human race and into the depths of the human brain. Stepping out of the group onto the savanna three million years ago or to the lectern today it triggers a fight, flight or freeze response in humans. Science has traced this response to a vital part of the deep brain called the amygdala, the emotional switchboard of the brain. Signals come here before they enter the higher cognitive parts of the brain so that instant action can be taken if necessary, before we even have time to think it over.

In his groundbreaking book, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman cites research that indicates that some people have a more sensitive amygdala, a lower threshold of fear, than others. It appears to be a genetic trait. But he also shows that many people born with this trait are able to overcome their predilection to fear when given support and encouragement. They are gradually able to face the fearful and become bolder and more confident.

We in Toastmasters know this process well. Through encouragement and support we acquire the habit of courage. Remember the first time you tried to ride a bike? Or ski? Or drive a car? There is at least a small fear involved in almost every new endeavor from skydiving to attempting the Sunday Times crossword with a pen. Practice and repetition gradually diminish these fears. The third time you try ice skating is easier than the first, and by the tenth time you find those moments of trepidation to be part of the fun.

“Outward Bound” programs teach the habit of courage by putting people in life-threatening situations such as surviving in the wilderness or scaling a sheer rock wall. I knew a fellow who paid good money to be cast adrift in a lifeboat with six other guys 200 miles out in the Atlantic. Now that’s scary. But the point of those exercises is to stretch the courage muscles. Once you have faced fear and prevailed, you stand taller, feel stronger and stride through life with greater confidence.

Toastmasters is a sort of “Inward Bound” program, it seems to me. Our members often face an internal demon that paralyzes them with fear, as in the case of Bea. But like Bea, we discover that once the fear is faced and conquered, we are propelled into a life with larger ambitions. For some, an experience of victory over fear brings a tremendous sense of accomplishment and a thirst for more. Like Cyrano, they want to crow, “I am too great to battle with mere mortals. Bring me Giants!”

Here are four useful tips that may help alleviate the fears and anxieties of public speaking.

1) Become “other-conscious.” People think they become self-conscious as a result of their fear, but actually it works the other way around. If you are self conscious, as many beginning speakers are, you are more prone to the fears and anxieties of your situation. Fear feeds on itself and there is no cycle as vicious as feeling afraid and constantly reinforcing it with thoughts like “I’m so scared I can hardly breathe,” or “My palms are sweating and my legs feel weak. . . “ This sort of self-talk can lock you up for good.

Instead, replace your self-consciousness with other-consciousness. Make a strong conscious effort to focus on your audience. I know that’s the last thing you feel like doing, but it’s the best way out. Find a single person out there who is listening to you and make contact with your eyes. Smile at them. Now stay with that person long enough to deliver a full sentence or a complete thought, making sure they understand it. Then move to another person and repeat the exercise. The key is to connect and communicate by actively taking responsibility for the other person’s understanding of what you’re telling them. If you really do that, by the third person, you will have forgotten your fears, sweaty palms and knocking knees.

2) Anxiety feels worse than it looks. My early years as an actor in New York were marked by failure. I couldn’t get over my anxiety at auditions - especially for television. I felt transparent in front of the camera, convinced that all these powerful feelings of fear and self-doubt were clearly visible to everyone. I would often point them out to the auditors and hope they would take pity on me and cast me for my candor and courage – “What a brave guy to admit he’s scared to death.” Somehow, that didn’t work.

Then I got onto a TV quiz show, on NBC in the afternoon and I hit the jackpot! I won gobs of stuff - cars, televisions, trips to Europe, furniture, a sailboat and even some cash. I went from welfare and the unemployment line to a state of world-class materialism - at least that’s how it felt. But the most important benefit I got from that experience was when they broadcast the shows a couple of weeks later. Throughout the taping, I had felt all my usual anxieties and self-doubts, but when I saw myself on the broadcast it looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth. I seemed calm and collected. That’s when I realized that anxiety feels worse than it looks. If I can only refrain from calling attention to my fears and anxieties, nobody will know about them. I can get on with doing the task at hand and not bother stopping to tattle on myself. It’s a classic case of fake it till you make it - act confident and soon enough you feel confident.

3) Make it look easy. I once saw the debut of a young clarinetist with the New York Philharmonic doing a Mozart concerto. After each solo the clarinetist would slump and gasp and make a great show of effort before launching once more into a rapidly fingered cadenza or a set of arpeggios. We in the audience became fixed on his effort and worried that he was somehow out of his depth with this music. Actually, he played quite well, and I finally realized that this was his way of showing off. He was trying to make the music seem more difficult out of some misbegotten idea that we would then admire him more. The result was that we could not enjoy the music through our concern for the musician. Many of us ended the concert feeling angry and resentful toward the young man for so needlessly drawing attention to himself.

Making a great show of effort is pushing your ego at the audience. We want to hear the speech rather than the speaker. Successful speaking requires a measure of humility. The ideas and thoughts of the speech and how they may benefit the audience are the vital thing. Deliver these with grace, style and by all means enthusiasm, but do not punish us with laborious effort or other irrelevant ego needs. A speech easily delivered is gladly received.

Another tip to make the speech seem easier is to vary the rate of delivery. If you’re normally a slow talker your audience is probably way ahead of you. Pick up the pace and your delivery will feel more natural. If your nerves cause you to increase your rate of speech, ease up. Motor-mouthing will tire an audience out.

4) Let yourself be encouraged. Some people resist encouragement. Low self-esteem, false modesty, or a need to appear self-effacing will cause them to say “Oh, thanks for saying so, but I’m not really that good, I know. . .” Toastmasters is a place where it is safe to nourish visions of success. Take advantage of that supportive atmosphere and get on your own side. Learn to give yourself the benefit of the doubt you would easily extend to anyone else. Persistence is the most useful virtue in the human heart. You’re never beaten until you admit it.

Eleanor Roosevelt was by nature a timid, introverted person who was terrified of speaking in public, but because she was married to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, she found herself facing audiences regularly. She suffered horribly from her stage fright, and yet she faced her fear and moved beyond it to become one of the great speakers of the 20th century, a tireless advocate for the disenfranchised in America. Her words can inspire us still:

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” . . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

- Eleanor Roosevelt

©2016 Michael Landrum

Advice for Donald Trump . . . and the voting public.



"Much has been given to us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with other nations of the earth; and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words but in our deeds that we are earnestly desirous of securing their good will by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights. . . No weak nation that acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression."

Theodore Roosevelt

Acting Lessons - How it all started

A Landlubber's Lament