Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! -Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), 40th President of The United States, dubbed the Great Communicator for his ability to use anecdotes that ordinary people could understand.
Have you ever heard someone speak and just marvel at how the words seem to flow like a lazy river just doing it’s thing? How about when someone walks into a room and just lights it up without even saying a word? Have you ever envied someone who seems to command respect and action just from the tone of their voice? Who comes to mind when these provocative questions confront you? Celebrities? Presidents? Drill Sargents? Actually these are all traits of master communicators…but what does that even mean? We’ve talked about how so many of us get locked in fear when we have the opportunity to speak to a crowd even though we have always dreamed of having the chance, but what we really need to know is how the heck do the best make it seem so simple. The argument could be made that master communicators are just born that way, but there we go again with stories that we latch on to to justify our own shortcomings! I know of many people that overcame extreme odds to become great speakers…think about the vast number of people that overcame stuttering or other speech impediments! You know plenty of people that stumble and bumble all over their tongue but still seem to command attention…so if you feel like a stumbler there’s hope for you too!
Do the thing your fear to do and keep on doing it…that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear. -Dale Carnegie (1888-1955), developer of famous courses in self improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking and interpersonal skills.
In the 1970s there was a great commercial for cereal that featured a couple of kids not so happy about trying this new cereal called Life…it was supposed to be good for you! After a quick team meeting they decided to delegate the task to a younger kid named Mikey because Mikey will try anything!Turns out, much to the shock of the two conspirators, Mikey actually likes it! The greatest part about Mikey is that he’s not afraid to take the risk and it turns out the result in this case is pretty good stuff! Well flash forward to the next millennium and I had the chance this weekend to watch a bunch of “Mikey’s” give it a try…happens to be that five of the Mikey’s belong to me! My three girls all had the opportunity to be involved in a singing pageant for the Holiday season. Now my kids have had some voice lessons but let’s just say we are a long way from winning American Idol…and that would go for the rest of the kids in the pageant as well. Yet I have to say, I was really impressed by these kids because they just went for it! Most of them were featured in either a solo or a duet so it was pretty hard to hide when they sang a bit off key or swallowed the words, but the best part was that not a single one of them quit…they played right through and gave it their absolute best! Forget about public speaking fears, how about public singing fears…if these kids were in a panicked state, you certainly could not see it!
If you don’t speak up when it matters, when would it matter that you speak? The opposite of courage is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow. -Jim Hightower, (1943-), syndicated columnist and author.
In his New York Times bestseller, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell reveals the incredible truth behind the challenges that Korean Air encountered from 1988-1998; during which time they had multiple plane crashes including one incident involving the shoot down of a 707 by the Russian military.To put the rate of loss in perspective, Gladwell calculates that United Airlines’ loss during the same period as .27 per million departures versus Korean Airlines’ 4.79 per million departures…seventeen times higher! So what the heck was happening? Was it the level of skill? Was it the number of hours flying? Technical malfunction? Pilot error? Well it turns out that the answer is embedded within the Korean culture! In Korea the societal hierarchy is a very real and recognized structure…so much so that the Korean language includes multiple ways of addressing other people depending on where they stand in that hierarchy. So what does this have to do with the plane, well it turns out that the reason for these errors lies within the cultural, mitigating behavior of the first officers. What does that mean? Simple…the first officers are too afraid to really speak up when something is going wrong or off course! Can you believe that?! The cultural pull is so strong that a first officer will not even speak up until it’s too late!
The family wage has been eroded by the same developments that have promoted consumerism as a way of life. -Christopher Lasch (1932-1994), American historian and social critic.
At this very moment it appears that the US economy is in a tailspin…Wall Street has seen the collapse of several companies that have been fixtures for a long time followed by a $700 billion bailout intended to restore economic stability. Following closely behind is the discussion of a secondary bailout for the failing American auto industry. Something has clearly gone wrong here but is it really that complicated? NO! You see what the government is really trying to do is stimulate average Joe and Jane to run out and keep spending money by making credit remain accessible. Certainly I understand that businesses can always make proper use of credit to smooth the ebbs and flows of cash flow or even push innovation by financing research and development efforts, but let’s focus on what really drives any economy: PEOPLE! That’s right it’s us! Consider the fact that the US Gross Domestic Product is comprised primarily of “consumption” and guess who does that…you do! So the incredible irony is that our money (taxes) funneled through the government back into the economy is ultimately there to bait us to buy MORE! Crazy really when you look at it that way!
