In the learning of a new skill, there’s almost always a part in the middle that’s a tough slog. The newness and excitement has worn off, the quick improvement from “knowing nothing” to “knowing something” has slowed to a trickle, and proficiency seems  very far away. Some days it seems like you’re going backwards. This is exactly the point when many people quit.

But what about those times when you can’t quit? When the process must be experienced until the very end? I’m directing a play right now, and we’re in that middle portion when the things that were funny in the first few days of rehearsal aren’t funny any more, and the tricky parts of the script loom large. A good friend asked me the other day how rehearsals are going, and I answered, “We’re right where we should be. It will be frustrating for the next few days, and then everything will start to fall into place.”

I know this process inside and out. I’ve been directing for 25 years, and this moment, this dip, is something I now expect and know how to navigate. What I’m thinking about is how to apply that knowledge to other processes, times when I’m not so familiar with what may happen next.

What if I can borrow that certainty the next time I’m not so sure? What if I can just remember: “This is the part that’s a slog. I’m right where I should be.”

If you’re on the phone with your best friend, she’ll be confused if you talk to her with long, formal sentences and deliberate enunciation.

On the other hand, if you’re giving a presentation and you use a lot of slang and never land a sentence, your audience may wonder if you (or they!) are in the wrong room.

These are extreme examples, but the premise holds. Your audience has an idea of what you may sound like. You get to decide whether to meet that expectation.

Contact us for more information about our vocal coaching for webinar and podcast hosts!

I was watching a college basketball game the other night, and the team I was rooting for played well for 38 out of 40 minutes. Then in the last 2 minutes, everything they had been doing right seemed to abandon them. They made wild passes, took bad shots, and generally fell apart. When it came down to the wire, they reverted back to old habits and patterns that didn’t serve them or the team well.

I’ve been noticing that tendency in other places, too. In a tough competition, form and technique that an athlete has been working on for months can fall apart. When a speaker realizes everyone is looking at them, they often abandon the good habits they’ve practiced and start talking faster and more quietly.

There are a couple of reasons this happens. In the case of the basketball team, I suspect that the pressure of the moment and the urgent need to win made them get in their heads. Instead of doing what had worked for the whole game, staying loose and staying connected to each other, the individual team members started playing like individuals.

For the speaker, the feeling of vulnerability in front of the crowd is new. She hasn’t felt that when she practiced, and her reaction is to get smaller and get it over with.

The paradox in each case is that the behaviors they reach for in the feeling of crisis is exactly what will tank them. The point guard who decides that the outcome of the game is on his shoulders alone starts throwing up bad shots instead of finding an open teammate. The speaker who shrinks from her audience hides her message from them.

When it feels like everything is falling apart, that’s the time to rely on what you did in practice. That is what practice is for. Practice is what carries you through the moments when the voice in your head is yelling at you, terrified.  Turn down the volume on that voice, and lean into what you practiced when everything was a little calmer. That was when you made good decisions. That was when you set yourself up for success.

In a recent New Yorker article, the art critic Peter Schjeldahl shared his formula for grappling with a work of art that he found not to his taste. He asks, “What would I like about this, if I liked it?”

How refreshing! Sometimes it fees like the world is full of people walking around looking for something to dislike, to criticize, to bring down.

What would it feel like to employ this idea instead? To let go of our own reflexive opinions and look for something else? To experiment with seeing a work of art through the eyes of a fan? What might we gain from assuming an attitude of curiosity rather than critique?

I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t be critical thinkers, or that we have to like everything. Far from it. But it’s worth noticing when we reflexively look for the negative, rather than looking for what we might like, if we liked it.

 

When you read, you’re getting a lot of information from the way the words are arranged, how they’re punctuated…even

where

they

are

on

the page.

In a typical article, you’ve got a headline, which sums up what you can expect to read about. You have paragraph breaks and italics, bold words and commas and semicolons. Thoughts are broken up with periods. You don’t have a question about when a section of idea begins and ends; it’s laid out for you on the page.

When you’re speaking, you have to provide all of this. Your voice provides the color, the pauses, the emphasis, and the changes in thought or direction. Remember, we can’t listen as fast as you can talk, and we aren’t familiar with your content. Allow the audience time and space to really hear you; don’t be the verbal equivalent of a single-spaced page of text!

I’ve been listening to a fascinating podcast called “Cautionary Tales,” recorded by an economist by Tim Harford. In each episode, he recounts a real story about something that went famously wrong, and he illuminates a larger lesson.

In the first episode, he tells the story of the Torrey Canyon, a huge and beautiful ship that wrecked on a famously deadly reef after its captain and crew steered it there. The story of how it happened is an example of “plan continuation bias,” defined by the APA Dictionary of Psychology as the tendency of people to continue with an original course of action that is no longer viable.

Of course, I started thinking about instances of PCB in my own life and work. As a person who is neurotically punctual, I will sometimes prioritize being on time (the original plan), over other, arguably more important needs, like packing a lunch or picking up a prescription.

But the place I see this most often is with clients, and it comes up this way:

The reason PCB takes hold is that we don’t have the bandwidth, in a high-pressure situation, to figure out a new plan. All we can do is move forward with the first one.

I propose that you combat PCB with a three-step process. First, take a breath, and lower your anxiety. (Watch this video!)

Second, think about what you want the outcome to be. What do you want to happen as a result of your presentation? What’s most important?

Third, make a new plan that will still achieve the outcome. This will be much easier if you initially plan your presentation with a clear understanding of what outcome you are trying to achieve. You can get there by answering the question, “If my audience doesn’t remember anything else, what do I need them to walk out of here thinking about?”  Once you know the answer to this, it becomes much easier to find that new plan when things go sideways. The objective keeps you focused on what you are there to create for your audience, not the defunct plan you put in place.

 

Every time we communicate, we’re guessing. What words will convey our meaning most closely? How can I say this so that she really gets it? What tone of voice will help my words hit their mark?

This gets harder when the message is more complicated—not necessarily technically complicated, but emotionally complicated. How can I give this feedback so she knows I’m still on her side? How do I ask for what I need without seeming needy? What words can I use to convey the gravity of the situation without making anyone panic?

The approximate nature of communication is particularly worth remembering when we are listening. Instead of rushing to conclusions, try asking more questions to make sure that we are getting as close to what the speaker intended as possible. Try assuming that the speaker has the best of intentions, and work together to reach understanding.

If your PowerPoint slides can do the work of your presentation without you, just email it out and save everyone the trouble and expense of travel.

Elevate your presentation beyond the slide deck. We can read your slides at home; we came to listen to you.

When you speak about a topic you know well, one the hardest things to do is determine what information belongs in the presentation and what you must leave out. The default position is to fit as much in as you can, to tell the audience everything you know, to show your homework. “After all,” the thinking seems to go, “they can’t fault me if I give them all the details.”

 

 

 

 

A million articles will tell you what you need to do to be successful, get more done, make more money, lose weight, get fit, get organized (especially this time of year). But most of them leave out a big component of any new venture.

When I joined my gym in 2013, it wasn’t the first time I had tried to build an exercise habit–far from it. In fact, I had tried so many things that I was about to give up. But this time was different because the gym had a built-in support system. There were people there who looked for me every day, and called or texted when I didn’t show. They were invested in my improvement. They noticed what I was good at and where I struggled. I need that support, at the gym and in lots of other areas of my life, to really invest long-term in the effort.

The listicles that promise the secrets of productivity and wild success always seem to suggest that these early-rising enterprising folks do it all by themselves. They have a set of habits that they implement like clockwork and poof!, success. In my experience, however, people create success when they are diligent in finding the support system that they need to stick to the habits, the plan, the strategy. We can’t do it alone–or not for long, anyway.

What changes are you going to make in 2020? What support do you need to make these changes stick?