thinking in the future tense
I almost stepped down from performing a keynote address at Toastmasters last night. I had written a commencement speech to my alma mater’s graduates… class of 2020. Assignment #2 from the “Professional Speakers” advanced toastmaster manual… present an inspirational speech to a specific group of people… speech must be 15 – 20 minutes (more if its okay with the club).
I listened and studied several commencement speeches as well as read transcriptions on well stumbled graduation speeches and was feeling well inspired to write one myself when my computer crashed. It began earlier in the week with a tiny crash which I easily sorted out but computer issues gradually grew into a larger problem that attention to writing my speech was compromised.
All my bookmarked references sat in my fainting computer while I tried to reincarnate my ideas using a friends computer. I really struggled with getting my second wind while I had too many oops moments while trying to navigate myself on an unfamiliar computer. I had to keep pressing forward, I had afterall, written a speech on overcoming challenges and taking a powerful stance in life. It seemed obvious that I had to at least have a go at my presentation despite not having my thoughts as organized as I had liked.
I received good comments and critiques specifically on voice variety and am glad that I showed up to doing the speech anyway. It is also interesting to write a speech to the graduating class of your alma mater. You have to think of yourself in the future tense and consider that you’ve created your success thus making you worthy of being called on for your opinions and wisdoms on living and getting on with grown up life.
Not only did I have the mind spin of thinking of myself in that future tense and then begin the writing exercise of creating the speech, I also had the mind spin of having a lot go wrong on the technical side of things. I had a moment where I felt so wounded when I wanted to remember those perfect quotes and streams of thought that existed as bookmarks stuck in my computer.
Since the speech demanded that I get out of my head and get in that future head instead, I managed almost 9 minutes in front of everyone and presented a decent representation of what I really wanted to present.
I signed up to speak at the next meeting to have another go. I want to expand this interesting game… of speaking before a crowd as your future self.
JNET
No comments:
Post a Comment