I read another great post today on Men with Pens. This post, titled How to find your writing voice leads with the same picture as this post (yes, I stole it). My point: when you want to find your speaking voice, you may want to start by examining your writing voice.
In fact, the main reason I read writing blogs like Men with Pens is to improve my speaking. After all, how can I write great (or even decent) speeches if…I…can’t…write???
Just a thought…
For the next few days, let’s learn about crafting an Icebreaker speech for a Toastmasters meeting. The Icebreaker is generally the first speech given in a Toastmasters club, and sometimes elicits a bit of anxiety in new members.
For most speaking, I would suggest beginning with some audience analysis. Who is your audience and how can your speaking benefit them? For this project, the main thing to consider is that your audience is a group of Toastmasters who want to see you succeed, and the best way you can benefit them is to let them know a little about you.
For future projects, we’ll take more time with this concept. But for the Icebreaker, it’s not as critical.
After you know your audience, the next step is to decide on your message. Again, this is one of those rare projects where the overarching plan is there for you: tell who you are. Since you have but a scant 4-6 minutes, you do want to be a bit more specific. Here are some ideas:
1. Talk about who you are in your current job
2. Talk about your experience as a college student
3. Talk about your experience in the military
4. Start from zero, and give a brief overview of your upbringing
5. Tell what made you decide to join Toastmasters, and what your goals are
As you determine your message, it may lead you to decide on how to deliver that message. You also may need to take some time to determine the best method. That is the last step, deciding on your delivery.
You can use many techniques in delivering your message, but the one that tends to work best for the Icebreaker is Chronological. We’ll discuss some of the other techniques in future projects.
With just 4-6 minutes, you may choose to tell one or two stories, or you may decide to use three main points (i.e. 1. Where you were born and went to High School, 2. College, and 3. Where you work).
The three main points method is easy to set up in structure, and wil work well for a variety of projects in the future.
For the next step (tomorrow’s post) we’ll take an example message and work though the process of creating an opening and a closing, and then move on to our three main points.
<Ed Note: Part two will be posted on Thursday evening>
Do you struggle to get your ideas heard and remembered? Maybe you are having trouble deciding what your core message is? Maybe you don’t know that you need a core message?
In the book Made to Stick – Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath, the authors discuss a logical and repeatable two step process you can use to make your message stick.
Have you heard (or read) the story about the guy who gets drugged and wakes up in a bathtub full of ice? The “stolen kidney story” has pretty serious stickiness, where your last meeting probably does not. Chances are you can describe a number of specific facts from that kidney story, but nothing from the last staff meeting you attended. What is the difference?
First, the message is simple. Not simple as in dumbed-down, but simple as in “core”. What is the message? “Don’t take free drinks from strangers.”
Second, it fits into the SUCCESs formula, described in the book: Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotions and Stories.
Simple: The message not to take free drinks from strangers
Unexpected: Waking up in a bathtub full of Ice? Hello
Concreteness: Very specific steps in the process
Credible: E-mailed to you from a friend, happened in Vegas (in some versions) and we all know anything is possible there, and we know there is a black market need for kidneys (according to TV and Internet sources)
Emotional: You could lose a kidney!
Story: Presented in a short, readable story format
Knowing that, you can take the first step in getting your message received and repeated like the kidney story. Find your message, and make it simple. 10 words or less is ideal. If you can’t state it clearly, how will your audience understand it?
Simple: Find your message
Are you struggling for a topic for your next college paper, staff meeting, or pending speaking opportunity? One of the ways to get a number of ideas on the table is to do a brain dump. Now, don’t confuse this with simple brainstorming, which is very similar. This type of brain dump won’t be about simply generating ideas, but about getting what’s already cloggin’ up your mind down on paper.
I attended a class recently, and the instructor made a great point by saying that we tend to manage our time and schedules from multiple lists, including one in our head. I won’t belabor the studies and statistics, but the fact is moving all of your lists to a single location does three things (and did for me):
1. Puts all or your obligations in one place – easy to sort and control
2. Frees up space in you mind, less worrying “did I forget something?”
3. Lets you identify “quick victories” that you can knock out and be done with.
One misconception: If you put it all on one list, the list will be too long. Guess what? The list is already that long. You are just hiding the length by not looking at it as a whole. I know I was and so were the others in my class.
Now the class I took, ran by The Effective Edge, suggested placing this list into MS Outlook as tasks. I agree with that idea, if you are an Outlook user. If not, grab a pen and paper or open a word processing program and let’s get started.
Another misconception: Your work list should stay at work and your home list should stay at home. Really? Does anyone truly compartmentalize that list in their own minds? Probably not. One list. Period. It doesn’t mean you do a bunch of home stuff at the office, but if it’s on the same list, you can see it and not have to worry about it.
Also, are you asking yourself how this is a writing tip? Here’s the answer. Anything you write is writing. For those of you that are expert writers, this is a great idea for emptying your mind. For those that are not great writers, this is a great way to get some thoughts on paper and find out that you can write!
Here are the steps:
1. Spend 10 minutes listing every thing you can think of that is on your mental “to-do” list and just write them down (or type them).
2. If you get stuck, go through all of the major categories in your life (i.e. work, home – yourself, home – family, car, house, church, school, spouse, kid(s), parents, siblings, Toastmasters, etc.)
3. Breathe
Don’t worry about prioritizing. Just categorize it. For big items (i.e. finish college), figure out the next task (i.e. finish economics report). Once you do that task, you can figure out the next one.
Just getting this part done will really free your mind up. You may want to repeat this exercise from time-to-time, as you may find yourself migrating back to your old mental list style. Bonus! This list could serve to give you some ideas for that next paper or presentation we talked about in the opening. If not, it should at least free up your mind to think about some things besides your to-do list.
Put it on paper and keep moving forward!
This week I’m going to add something new to the blog: The weekly column. Starting early next week, I’m going to do a weekly post on a series of topics. The first series will be about habits of successful entrepreneurs. This will be loosely based on a similar concept to Covey’s Seven Habits, and based on my experience and learning how to be successful as an independent consultant.
The reasons?
Like the book reviews on Sundays, this will be something I intend to do on a regular basis.
I can cover a variety of topics over a specific period of time.
Reader can have something to look forward to.
This might be something you could try for yourself, as a writer or as a speaker. Come up with a topic and spread it out over a few weeks, and work on one point per week until you have your topic covered.
Expect to see the first weekly column this Monday evening.
Once again I’ve been surprised by some killer content.
I recently posted on my woes with customer service at a well-known blog. I was looking for help with my blog-writing skills, and I found a product that sounded promising. When there was a snafu with the automated process and a lack of support from the site owners, I decided to start looking elsewhere for the right product.
I want to clue you in on a couple of sites I found, although I will say up front I haven’t made any purchasing decisions yet. The reason I want to make these sites seen is that they make my list of sites with great free content as well as the option for premium services.
The first one I found is remarkablogger.com, written by Michael Martine. If you’re able to look past the fact that he lives in Vermont (now you know they have the Internet there), I think you’ll find his blog interesting and his writing creative and fun to read.
For his premium content, he has a course on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for WordPress users (like me). All hail WordPress. His program has a book, audio files, and video lessons and has caught my interest. At $127.99 it could be a really good investment. If you happen to have used this product, or even any of the parts (e.g. the $47 book), I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.
Michael’s site led me to Chris Garrett’s site. I’ve heard Chris’ name before, but had just never checked out his site. One thing I found of interest right away was his attitude. He has a very positive focus and the thing we all need: a successful acronym. His regular readers will know that one of the things he teaches is what he calls the “ARC System” which stands for (this part taken from his blog):
His site also had some interesting premium options. If you look at www.authorityblogger.com you will seewhat looks to be a very extensive product for being successful with your blog. In fact, if you’re early in your blog/business life and really need a jump-start, this looks like a program you may want to consider.
Why this post? I love reading great (free!) content, and I love getting ideas and trying out new things with my speaking and writing. Are there too many good blogs out there? Maybe, but as I keep finding ones that could be interesting to my audience, I’ll keep letting you know about them.
After I wrote my post on why you should be brief, I received a request for a more practical “how to” series to improve your writing and speaking by being brief.
The first step to being brief is to eliminate unnecessary words. Take the following example:
I went to the store, with my dog, to shop for some groceries.
You have three ways to work with a sentence like this:
1. Eliminate the prepositional phrase, “with my dog” – best if you don’t really need to include the dog in the story
2. Eliminate the redundancy of store and groceries – I went shopping or I went to the store for <something specific>
3. Eliminate the lack of humor – You may wonder why I took my dog grocery shopping? He never knows what flavor of kibbles he wants until he sees them.
Brevity isn’t always about shortening your first draft. It’s really about finding the best way to deliver your message without wasting words or repeating yourself (first draft said “repeating yourself unnecessarily”). Take that first draft and see where you can eliminate the needless words.
Every now and then I find someone else’s blog that flat out impresses me. Today, one of my friends at work told me about a blog that I will talk about shortly, but that one led me to others that I think are truly remarkable and dare I say it…awesome.
http://www.remarkable-communication.com, written by Sonia Simone isn’t simply remarkable in name. The content, frankly, knocked me out of my seat. Seriously. I read two of her posts, 7 Dumb Things Small Businesses Do and 7 Things Big Dumb Companies Do That You Can’t Afford (Especially Now) and I was thoroughly impressed. These blogs are aimed at small businesses, like my own consulting business. Oh yeah, The Complete Flake’s Guide to Getting Things Done might just be on my top 10 favorites of the year. Not Kidding. If you’re not a flake, you won’t understand.
www.ittybiz.com, written by Naomi Dunford is simply awesome. After reading a couple of posts, I listened to a 20-minute video lesson on how her site makes money. Very informative. Plus, it was very easy to listens to, entertaining, and…oh yes, awesome. The site started out based on her consulting business, helping really small businesses with their marketing. The tagline is Marketing for Businesses without Marketing Departments.
This led me to another blog that I found interesting, and where I found the picture at the top of this post. http://johnnybtruant.com is subtitled the Internet made awesome, which is a phrase that I am now totally jealous of. After reading a few of his posts, I found myself really enjoying his writing style, and laughing quite a bit. His area of expertise is web hosting, blogging and he’s a big proponent of WordPress. All hail WordPress.
Finally, the blog that started it all for me today: http://www.copyblogger.com. This site has a plethora of ideas and how-to’s on writing copy for your blog or business site. Tons of information on social media, writing so people will read your copy, and some solid humor spread throughout. What led me to other blogs was that this particular blog has multiple contributors.
So, the other shoe: be prepared for a bit of colorful language. There’s nothing my 7th grade son hasn’t heard at school (unfortunately), but it’s there none-the-less. It doesn’t detract, but I just wanted to warn you since I’ve written topics about that sort of thing before.
So what common threads do I like about all of these? I’m glad you asked! First, they totally strike me as real. That may come off as understated, but if (like me) you have read some of the crap out there in blog-land, you will know what I mean by real.
Second, they all provide plenty of free content to try for yourself (and it’s really good). I signed up for a couple of their e-mails, and they are not “sell you crap” marketing zombie-ware.
Third, they all have a genuine “get off of your a..” style that makes America great, and lets you know you are in for some work if you want to be successful. Not a “click here to get rich” concept like you have no doubt seen on other sites. It was an odd coincidence to me because I saw (and responded) to a LinkedIn post today asking, “how can I make money with a blog?” I had a lot in my brain when I read that, and I responded to tell him to have some worthwhile content, do his homework, and expect to do more work than just wait to get rich. Later, when I was reading these blogs, I felt the same sense of “it’s not easy, but it’s worth it” from all of them. Gotta respect that.
A couple of quick disclaimers: all of the links above are direct links. No affiliate links to make me money or anything. I’m telling you I like it because I like it, straight up. It’s not that I’m opposed to affiliate links. In fact, I expect to have some up on my site next month, and that will include one for Johnny Truant’s site (the human that makes the Internet awesome). But those will be on a separate page, and not hidden scammily into my daily posts.
If you know me at all, you know I enjoy writing my own blog, and I enjoy knowing people read my work. Also, you know I enjoy reading too, and that’s what led me to those blogs. If writing or blogging is your thing too, start with the copyblogger site, and make sure to check the rest out as you have time. Of course, my blog still belongs in your “must visit” list, but what kind of a human would I be if I kept all the awesome stuff on the Internet to myself?
What happens when you post blog entries at a clip of nearly a post per day? In truth, you get a lot of good advice from around the globe, and you learn a lot about writing, blogging, and yourself too.
Here is a short (?) list of what you can learn from my experience, and also some things you can only learn from yourself:
1. There are a lot of blogs on your subject out there.
- You’ll be shocked and amazed at the quality of some of the work out there, and a little surprised at how quickly some folks gave up. Don’t give up!
2. Figuring out a way to stand out is not easy.
- Nearly 4 months in and I’m still working on this one.
3. FaceBook, LinkedIn and Twitter are not enough.
- But, I agree with some others that a fan page on FaceBook is important, I also use the networkedblogs app on FaceBook to automate putting my posts there. Plus, with WordPress I have automated posting my blog entries to LinkedIn too.
4. You MUST review your material from time-to-time.
- There are some posts I look back on and can’t believe I wrote. Oh, I do mean that in a good way. Those older posts also spark ideas for new posts, articles, and professional speeches.
5. As soon as possible, refine some articles for article banks online. Try to put something out there weekly.
- I’m liking www.ezinearticles.com right now. My site is http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Rob_Christeson
What do I think you can only learn by doing it yourself?
1. You are a writer.
- I know you don’t believe it, that is why you have to get started and see.
2. You will get better.
- Just doing it will start that process. Like anything in life, if you want it to happen you will make it happen.
3. You have a ton of experiences.
- And they can be fun to remember, but I understand maybe some of them won’t be.
4. Writing every day can be good for you, but Blogging evey day is just plain hard.
- Do not commit to posting every day, just commit to writing every day. If it takes you a week to create your post, then that is okay.
Personally, when I started this blog I worried about a few things: Will there be any value to the world? If there is, will anyone even know? Will I be able to keep moving forward? It turns out that the hardest part was moving past deciding and actually getting started. After that hurdle, it seems like those questions faded out of existence and I just had fun doing it.
I’ve also found that I enjoy doing the book reviews, although a weekly schedule for that was also a bit aggressive. I have actually heard from a couple of the authors who I reviewed…so that was pretty cool. In fact, next month I’m getting an advance copyof Seth Godin’s new book, Linchpin. I’ll be posting a review as soon as I can after receiving it.
What do the next 100 posts hold? Great question! I’m learning that I like getting user requests, and I have a couple in the queue that I’m working on now including a leadership tip called “How to be a better boss in 10 minutes a day” that will be out soon, and a Toastmasters-related post called “Not everyone wants your evaluation”.
Here are some recent posts that were by request:
Speaking Tips: Confidence vs. Comfort
Speaking Tips: Meeting Expectations
Send me your requests either as a comment or via e-mail , and I’ll work to put them on the blog. I’m not ready to quit this ride just yet…
Sometimes it’s just plain hard to be creative, isn’t it? There can be a lot of pressure on you every day to come up with creative solutions, or creative ways to do things, or creative things to say.
How would you feel if I told you the age-old secret to being creative? Why is it age-old? Because I don’t know the number, so I had to be creative!
So what is the secret? Change.
Yes, just change what you are doing, how you are looking at things, who you are talking to, and see what happens.
Seriously, just change something about your circumstances and see how that changes your perspective and lets you think about some things differently.
Simple solutions to serious problems. Give it a try…
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