I had a very interesting evening this last Tuesday. I had travelled down to the South-East corner of Calgary to attend a Toastmasters meeting at the Pace Setters club. It’s about 15 miles from where I’m currently hanging my hat, and, in good traffic, hardly takes more than 15 minutes to get there. I went down late in the afternoon, the better to avoid the rush hour traffic. Shortly after my arrival, as I was doing a little surfing of the Internet variety, a light shower began; little did I suspect that, before the evening was out, all of Calgary would be surfing, (the H20 variety!) The light rain soon changed into a regular ‘gulley washer’, and lightening pummelled the cityscape horizon like the fist of an angry God. This was going to be no baby boomer!
The meeting went very well, and, I had been allowed the honour of giving a presentation; # 10 from the C&L manual, "Inspire your Audience". As my topic I’d chosen ‘Overcoming Nervousness’, and I’ll attach the speech itself below. A young lady named Cynthia gave a presentation on the ambiguous etiquette dictating when and where it is appropriate for men and women to wear hats, and how the rules are different for each gender. Les, a geologist, gave a presentation on the pros and cons of living in a city swept up in a boom, and, while the pros were clearly evident, he gave an entertaining overview of the subsequent cons. All this while the ‘booming’ continued above the United Church building where the Pace Setters set their heady pace. I too managed to squeeze my message into 9minutes and 8 seconds, and it seemed to go over very well; mind you, the Pace Setters are a great audience, receptive to my words, and very forgiving of my customary blunders.
It was the trip home which made the evening really unique. The Deerfoot Trail, the main artery connecting the north of the city with the south, was partially closed for reparations, but, usually the traffic at 9:30 is such that it allows easy travel in spite of the closure. I had been tired when I went there, from a 15 hour drive the previous couple of days, due to a spontaneous trip to Saskatoon in Saskatchewan. I have to rise at 3:00 am on weekdays in order to best keep all the literate Calgarians happy, and I was worried that I might sleep through my alarm, but, I figured that if I was home by 10:00 pm, I could be asleep by 10:30, and stood a good chance of being up, but lacking energy, in time to do the paper work.
But it rained on my Parade! Quite a parade it was too, with yours truly surrounded by six lanes of bumper to bumper 18 wheelers, and various diverse motorists. It was safe though, as traffic seldom reached, and never breached 5km per hour. At first I thought it was an accident, for I have seen the Deerfoot Trail really clogged late at night by just such; but no, that night traffic patterns all over the city were disrupted by such things as police cars floating away into the night. In places the water was 4 to 6 feet deep! It was, according to the papers, a 75 year record rainfall, and, don’t quote me on this, but I heard 70mm of rain, most of which arriving in three to four hours.
It took me over an hour and a half to get home, and, subsequently, it was well past 12:00 before I trod the land of Nod. Needless to say, neither rain nor snow nor dark of ....well, you know what I mean, the papers got delivered! When I returned at about 8:00 pm my bed was like an oversized magnet, and I clung to it like iron filings till well after noon. I have grown accustomed not to find any registered complaints when I pick up my papers, but this morning there were two! Now, that’s not too bad, as I have managed to look at the invoices of other deliverers, and many of them get lots of complaints, but I was just getting used to not receiving any. Both complaints pertained to the delivery of wet newspapers! Can you imagine? In a record rainfall? It’s clear to me now; if I’m to succeed in this entrepreneurial adventure, I have only to learn how to walk on water, and between rain drops!
Actually I have been enjoying my paper route; my legs like the work out, and the only thing I find difficult about it is the necessity of going to bed before the sun goes down! However, it’s been fun while it lasted, and I’m going to miss it when I have to, eventually, give it up.
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Make Yourself Easy!
Easy is a slippery word; we speak of ‘people of easy virtue’ and don’t necessarily mean it in a complimentary way. When I use ‘easy’ I mean it more in the sense that a sergeant means when he says, "At ease!" i.e., drop the formality. More specifically I mean it in the sense of, "Make yourself easy", the title of an old Folk song I love, by which the singer meant, "Make yourself comfortable; you’re amongst friends.
Many of you, like myself, are a little uneasy when you are before an audience. Tonight I want to tell you a little about a book I was given by my friend Gary. He knew that I was attending Toastmasters, and thought it might help. It was called, "Public Speaking for Stutterers". If you felt nervous when you gave your Icebreaker, can you imagine how much worse you might have felt if you had a speech impediment?
The author claimed that many people, when faced with an audience, felt exactly as if they had just been parachuted into the midst of a herd of rhinoceroses. They don’t make eye contact, they don’t move, they want to make themselves as small and unnoticeable as possible, perhaps they even hide behind something; after all, you don’t want to draw the attention of the rhinos. I hope that you never have a herd of rhinos as an audience, but the instincts involved are much the same; how can a speaker get past those instincts?
Some have suggested that you picture the members of your audience sitting in their under wear; that wouldn’t work for me, I can’t imagine anything that would make me more uncomfortable than addressing a room of semi-naked people. Instead, I fantasize about each individual in my audience, and tonight I’m going to share my fantasies with you. Don’t worry, I’m a farm boy from Creemore, Ontario, and my fantasies are simple ones; I’m going to picture each and every one of you in my favourite place in the world, my living room at 56 Helena St. Wasaga Beach. It won’t just be those of us here this evening; no, my wife Julie will be there too, laughing, talking, and serving coffee and tea.
When you are host in your own home you move freely, you smile, when you speak to a guest of course you look them in the eye, and you wouldn’t dream of hiding from them. The author described the best speaking performance he’d ever seen. It was Danny Kaye, and the event was his fair well tour; Mr Kaye simply walked on stage, made a few opening remarks, then walked to the edge of the platform, sat down, dangling his feet, and, for two hours held that audience in the palm of his hand. It was an unorthodox delivery, but each of the 1000 people in that audience felt that they were at home with Danny Kaye. He made them feel that way by being perfectly at ease himself.
Emotions are funny things; they telegraph! Have you ever watched a group of horses grazing? Everything is peaceful, but suddenly one horse rises its’ head in alarm, and suddenly every horse in the herd has its’ head raised. A speaker is like that first horse; if he is nervous the audience will sense the fact, and they will be nervous too! Years ago I explained that phenomena to a group of 50 novice speakers, and, worse still, I made liars out of each of them, that’s something I’ll never do again. "If I, as a speaker were nervous, would you feel nervous? Can I have a show of hands? Not one hand went up, but, oddly enough, all fifty, suddenly acted like I was a Rhinoceros! They fidgeted, they wouldn’t meet my eye, they looked extremely uncomfortable! It was time to switch topics!
"OK" I admitted, "I’ve obviously misjudged my audience, it’s time to move on to the door prize, and every one of us has won an all expenses paid trip to the Bahamas." However, because of the club finances it will have to be a charter flight, on Toastmasters on "Flights of Fancy." Limos will take us to the airport and when we get there we’ll be taken to a private waiting room with two hostesses to make us comfortable. The hostess explains that, because we are Toastmasters, normal security will be dismissed. We have a couple of hours to socialize, and the pilots will drop in to be introduced to us. Because there are so many of us there will be two planes, hence two pilots.
Everything is going splendidly, when the first pilot arrives; I can’t believe it, it’s Clark Gable! He walks in with that warm, cockeyed smile, and his silk scarf thrown loosely around his neck. Immediately he begins working the room, joking with each man, flirting with every woman. After 15 minutes of this the second pilot arrives; this time it’s Don Knotts. As he comes through the door he slips on the silk scarf that dangles from his pocket. His briefcase flies open and all his papers and charts cascade across the floor. Clearly flustered he gets down on hands and knees gathering them up in his arms. Finally, having not said hello to anyone, he places the whole mess on the table and rearranges the briefcase snapping it shut on the end of his tie. Thus hobbled he makes a hasty exit!
The hostess announces that, as there are no tickets, we can choose whichever pilot and plane we’d prefer to fly on. The pilots, she explains, have flown similar miles, both with impeccable safety records, now, who wants to fly with Clark Gable? Who with Don Knotts?
As a Speaker you must utilize the three secrets of Toastmasters success; Preparation, Preparation, Preparation, and then the other three, Practice, Practice, Practice. But, once prepared and rehearsed, you are the Pilot, and the audience your passengers. Their fate is in your hands and their comfort your responsibility. You can only make them comfortable if you are comfortable first. Make yourself easy!
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