Public Speaking

I've been busy this past week with getting my children ready for school. While I'm so very happy for their opportunity to attend excellent schools, and associate with wonderful teachers and friends (We live in such a lovely corner of the world!), none of us are very excited about next Monday. My little darlings want to stay home and just hang out. I want my babies to never leave home! Okay...I say that, but I absolutely want them to have life experiences outside of our home—without Greg or I there. I want our children to learn and grow. I especially want their precious souls to associate with others, and have experiences that will teach them how to respond (or not respond) in varied environments/situations. Yes, we run into this I-don't-want-to problem every August. Thus, we're s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g out our relaxing/lazy days as far as they can go without snapping.

Isn't life grand?! :)

Anyway, this is the reason for my lack of blogging. Well, that, and my preparation for the Mia Maid Young Women lesson I'm teaching tomorrow. I cannot wait to share what I've created, here on my blog! I actually have about four additional posts I've been tinkering with for a while now, but my family always comes first. Thus, I'll probably have a blog explosion within the next few weeks! *A blog explosion is not to be confused with a head explosion, a.k.a, exploding head syndrome—it's a real condition, look it up!

Until I write more, I'd like to share this great blog post (below) on public speaking. I know, I'm random! But public speaking is what I was thinking about tonight and I wanted to share. Plus I thought, "Oh, it'll just be a short blog post!" Yeah, right. I'm never short in talking or writing! Ha ha.

In my church, members are given many opportunities to speak publicly—even from the time we are about four years old! I've always appreciated the experience and knowledge my church talks have given me, but I wish I would have taken an actual class on public speaking in addition to just getting up in front of my church's congregation. That said, no matter the ward (church congregation) I've spoken in front of, the members were all so kind, attentive, and supportive of my talks...even when I went over my allotted time! (Side note: I've spoken publicly in situations other than church, but church is what I think of immediately when I think of public speaking.)

A few years ago, I spent a fair amount of time researching public speaking. I analyzed myself and figured out my public-speaking flaws:

• I speak too quickly.
• I don't look up at the audience enough.
• I don't like "winging it" because I can easily become side-tracked and forget my point.
• I completely write-out my talks word-for-word, and read them word-for-word. Apparently, this a no-no in public speaking...yet I'm not so sure because it is very comfortable to me! ;)
• I wish I could use a teleprompter that would broadcast my perfectly-written-out talks on the screen!

Yes, I still have areas to improve in my life. ;)

The idea that helped me the very most with public speaking is this (I have no idea where I read it):

The audience members want you to succeed! They don't want you fail any more than you want to fail! (Which you don't want to fail!)

Audience support was something I had never thought of previously. Yet when I thought about my participation as an audience member, I thought about many of the people I've listened to over the years. Not once did I wish any of them ill will. I truly only wanted to learn from them and support them. It was a great moment to realize the audience was on my side!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this great (and relatively short) public-speaking resource by Nacho Caballero:

3 Techniques to Tame Fear and Speak Confidently While Presenting

Happy Saturday night, everyone!