Paddy Spruce | Confident Public Speaking

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The Value of Values

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People usually give goals a thought at the start of the New Year.

You know the usual mantras ‘ The difference between a dream and a goal is a plan’.

Let me suggest something different for 2008 and maybe what’s left of 2007.

Rather than focus on a goal that can be achieved and ticked what about focusing on a value that cannot be achieved or completed but will motivate you for the rest of your life. Goals usually have a time frame.

Values are forever.

Take honesty for example… will you ever be able to say you have achieved it? I was honest in 2008. How about kindness or compassion or generosity? You can’t tick these off the list like losing weight or writing a book or visiting a country. They can go on motivating you forever, like shooting for the stars and knowing that you won’t get there.

Here’s my suggested New Year’s resolution. Think about a value that you are ready to get serious about and get started on living this value every day. Make this value a part of your everyday life.

Here are some values to choose from…

  • Co-operation
  • Honesty
  • Respect
  • Compassion
  • Kindness
  • Patience
  • Cheerfulness
  • Responsibility
  • Courage

Any of these will create a challenge if they are to permeate our lives. Just try one and consider how it can become a part of everything you do. Honesty is a huge challenge if taken seriously. People are not so fragile that they can’t handle the truth. If you think people are not ready for your honesty, try combining it with respect.

Just an idea to get you past the goal setting and New Year’s resolution that is a necessary task at the start of each year.

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and an exciting start to 2008.

Regards,

Paddy Spruce CSP

Emotional Slippage

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I was working with the Melbourne Zoo and was told how two elephants adapted to the new enclosure. The new enclosure was larger, greener, provided a swimming pool and was more like the natural environment of an elephant in the wild. You’d expect two elephants to react positively to such a one sided choice. The old postage stamp or the new jungle with pool.

The female elephant seemed excited from day one and enjoyed the opportunity to walk to the new enclosure exploring all the way.

The male elephant did not like being out of his usual enclosure and refused to co-operate. It took over two years of gradual encouragement to get him used to moving and behaving himself in a new environment. Even at the last moment he needed to be taken by truck to his new home.

I am not wanting to make a gender comparison here but simply a comparison of two reactions to change. Some people do change easily. Some do it very hard. If you are managing and implementing change, remember that the decision to make the change is done in a moment. The times it takes for everyone to accept the change can be much longer.

Some will deny, resist and fight against the change. Some will grieve as they would the loss of a friend. Some will be excited and want to move quickly. As a manager of this process, you will feel like you are herding kittens. You will need to be very aware of the range of reactions and accept that everyone is doing their best.

You will need to explain to the deniers that it is really happening and won’t go away. You may need to this often until they accept. Their reaction is not rational so it can’t be explained away simply. You will need to listen to the angry ventilators without agreeing to them. The may want to hang on to ‘the old way’ because they know it so well. You will need to show compassion to the grievers and help them move on into the present.

What to do with the excited ones that want to get on with it. You can use them as an example or ask them to move at a pace that allows everyone to stay together.

Rationally, we all know that we need to improve to stay in business and keep our clients and customers satisfied. Emotionally, we move at different rates to accept this change. Some of us move so slowly that it looks like resistance.

We want all our elephants to change and continue to improve. As a skilled change agent, your challenge it to help everyone move at their own pace whilst keeping the client satisfied. Back to normal is not normal. Forward to normal is.

Paddy

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So, What's a Heroine Anyway?

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According to the Oxford Dictionary, a hero or heroine is a person who exhibits extraordinary bravery, firmness or greatness of soul in connection with any pursuit, work or enterprise. One who does brave or noble deeds.

Our society seems to value heroes and heroines who earn their status in a moment of valor. The lecturer who struggled with the armed student after having been shot twice. The person who ran into a blazing house to save a child.

We seldom define someone as heroic who has earned the status over a decade. How many moments in a decade?

In a newsletter sometime ago on my site I included…’A Poem’. It was written by a true heroine, Maree Bourke-Calliss. Maree had a stroke on 5th May, 1994 and has been ‘locked in’ her own body since. She can blink… nothing else. Just imagine being struck down suddenly with a stroke and only being able to blink. Hearing, thinking, feeling but not being able to move or communicate verbally with others.

The story has moved since she published her poem. Maree spoke at the CPA Conference in Adelaide a couple of years ago. She has written her story slowly and laboriously by blinking her eyes. The story was spoken by my wife, Hilary, who is an actor, speaker and singer. Maree’s family were there from Quambatook and Queensland. She had been preparing for months to tell her story to assist others to truly value themselves and their lives.

Let me quote a paragraph from her story just in case you didn’t see this.

“Be clear about who you are”
You have to have a purpose for being, not just a purpose for doing. Even though I cannot do all those normal activities you associate with living such as walking and talking, I have a big reason for getting out of bed in the morning. I have a purpose that is about achieving, doing the impossible, and challenging myself to go that little bit further everyday. I don’t wake up thinking about money or getting the car serviced or doing the grocery shopping or wishing that I had read that report on the weekend so work would be less pressure today – that’s the doing stuff and you know you’ll get to it sometime during the week.I wake up thinking about what will make a difference today, what I need to achieve, what I need to do to make this day worthwhile for those around me. It’s a waste of time and energy to act from a position of imprisonment. You must come from a position of resilience and learn to cope with everything that’s thrown at you. You know the saying “It’s not what happens to you that’s important…it’s what happens within you”. I am a worthwhile human being because I now know myself so much better and I love myself for who I am and not for how I look.

So, you have advice from someone who has earned the right to give advice by behaving heroically over ten years. Someone who was offered the choice of living or dying and embraced living. Maree lives a very full life with the ability to think and blink. Are you making the most of your life?

Paddy

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Really Connecting With People

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There are some people that you really connect with. Why? Why can’t you do it more often? Why can’t you do it on purpose? You know what I mean; you skip first base and get to know them so quickly. The rapport is almost instant. Maybe you are interviewing people for a job or being served in a Bank. Some people just simply stand out. Either your guard is down or they are remarkable people, or both.

Wouldn’t it be great to find out what happens with the occasional people and make it happen much more often? Imagine if most of the people that you met were impressed by you and took you into their private world without the normal caution and grilling.

Let me tell you about a way of accelerating the process of getting people to trust you. This is a powerful technique so tread carefully. We are not playing with people and their defence systems. We are trying to create rapport, hopefully for positive reasons.

Try this… copy the breathing pattern of the person you are speaking to. Don’t be obvious. Synchronise your breathing to theirs. Next copy their pace of delivery. Fast or slow and halting, maybe machine like. Just copy it subtly. Now for the volume and inflection. Are they going up at the end…eh? Do it yourself. Don’t be bothered about being found out. The person will be focusing on what they are saying and after all, you ARE listening 100%, which is a very hard thing to be doing. If you need to contribute to the conversation, ask questions and paraphrase what is being said…. ’so you’re saying that…’ It will take a supreme effort to do any one of these behaviours so it is best to try them one at a time and gradually build your level of skill.

How will you know that you have got close rapport with the person? Simply move your hand or body and see if they copy you. If you have close rapport, they will mirror your movements. If they don’t, go back to your copying of breathing, tone, volume and pacing and give your full attention.

If you use these behaviours from an ethical base with the aim of assisting the person you have a much greater chance of success. It is surprising how often people will know your motives and put up their guard again.

Paddy

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Just a Job?

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Do you have a job? Just a job, I mean, you do it for the money? If you won enough money, you would quit on the spot?

o you have a career? If you work hard and get your qualifications you will move a rung on the ladder. Maybe you will become a team leader or a manager. Who knows, one day you may even become the CEO.

Jobs and careers are mainly to benefit you, not the people that you serve. The focus is inward. The benefits are external – money, promotion, status. Often the expectations of a career are not met and retirement starts to look attractive. Imagine looking forward to the end of something that you have been doing for most of your life. You do feel relieved when a loud noise stops….for a short time. The people that I have met who are retired don’t seem as contented as they had planned to be.

What’s the alternative? How about a calling? A ‘calling’ or vocation is something that you believe that you are called to do. You are good at it and enjoy doing it and it helps others. You truly believe that this is THE job and that you were meant to be doing it. The money is not critical but the contribution you make IS. The person who is meant to directly benefit from your ‘calling’ is the person you are assisting. I have known taxi drivers, receptionists, sales assistants and guides at theme parks who seem to have a ‘calling’. It is easy to tell from their attitude that this is so much more than a job or a career. They want to help and obviously enjoy what they are doing. They are also good at what they do and get added enjoyment by displaying their skills.

What is your calling? What are you good at? Are you doing what you are good at as part of your working life? If a voice from the clouds told you what to do with your talents and working life, what would it say? Would it say ‘Stay in the Bank until you retire!’ or “Hang on for another ten years”.

Maybe this is the only life we get and is not a rehearsal for something else. It may seem risky to leave a perfectly secure job for a faint calling. Imagine the desperation of coming to the end and thinking ‘Why didn’t I do what I really wanted to do when I had the time?’
So get started on identifying what it is that you enjoy doing that will benefit you and others and has a sense of vocation. Of course we all need money to exist but you would do this ‘calling’ even if you were not paid because you enjoy doing it so much. Maybe the money will come if you truly identify what you are best at and do it for life.

I once sat with a man who was dying as he told me what he had not done with his life. Following your heart is not for a privileged few. Maybe it is for the courageous few.

Paddy

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Are You Silly Enough?

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The original meaning for ‘silly’ was more about enjoyment than looking foolish. You can imagine someone looking at a person having a wonderful time and judging that this person looked foolish or ‘silly’. Silly walks, silly hats, silly answers.

If you are having fun you will look silly to someone. Better to be having fun than being a judgmental voyeur.

Are you having enough fun in your life? What gives you enjoyment? Do you look forward to anything the way you did as a child or has life become serious and mundane?

Here are some activities that I have tried to increase my FQ (Fun quotient).

Visit a magic shop
I visited two magic shops yesterday and bought some hats, a whistle that sounds like a siren, a brick that is really a sponge and a gun that fires soap bubbles. They are all for a conference in Brisbane where I have an audience of over two hundred to educate and entertain.

Take up dancing
My wife and I are attending a dance class for Swing Dancing. It is great fun but we do increase the average age. We are attending with another couple who are close friends and it is a highlight of the week. Something to look forward to.

Develop your sense of humour
I cut out and keep unusual headlines like ‘Iraqi head seeks arms’ or ‘Prostitutes appeal to Pope’. There is enough humour in everyday life if you look closely. Just watching barristers dash around the city in their wigs is comedy enough. I also read humour books often to get new ideas for stories or humour activities. Put up a humour notice board at work and seek contributions.

Your sense of humour and fun is very much a part of who you are. Your sense of humour is your shock absorber and needs to be kept flexible with plenty of play. Watch children if you want to see a natural sense of humour and fun in action. Children laugh around three hundred times a day. Adults around thirty times.

So…find a way to let your sense of fun loose at least once a day and don’t worry about looking silly. Silly is good!

Paddy

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