At first, this post was going to be very simple: I love public speaking! And then I was going to say a few words on why and all of that. But I let it roll around in my head a little bit more, and percolate (burble, burble) a bit longer, and then, on Tuesday evening, as Jim and I were watching The Biggest Loser, I had a brainfart: this is not just about public speaking, and why I love it. It is about all the things it can do for you, and how good it can make you feel.

I know, that sounds insane. Isn’t public speaking  one of the most common phobias, or something like that? I’m going to tell you briefly why it shouldn’t be.

1. You are speaking about something you care about.

Even if you’re terrified of public speaking, the fact that you’re talking about something personally meaningful to you is a huge boost. Take advantage of it. If you aren’t speaking about something you feel invested in, get someone else to do it. Really.

2. You know your audience.

This sometimes has to be accomplished on the fly. If you walk into a room and it’s all stern-looking suits, make sure you speak  their language. Likewise if it’s a bunch of college students who’ve just rolled out of bed.

Many speaking engagements are preceded by a meal of sorts, or at least some lag time. Get there early, and use the time wisely: Observe the people at the table; mingle; get to know the people in the room. Ask questions about the group. Engage from the first minute. And, for God’s sake, do your research. Take every advantage you can.

Learn to read body language. Reading people on the fly is immensely useful.

3. You are a role model while you are speaking.

At the very least, you are an expert on your topic. This is an incredibly powerful idea. For 45 minutes, or whatever, you are the end-all, be-all of the reason people are in the room. Use this knowledge!

4. You can only be yourself.

No one is asking you to be anyone else. Be casual. People came to see you. Surely, that’s worth something. Big public-speaking gaffes, like inappropriate jokes, or drinking so much prior to said speech that you’re woozy and slurring, happen because you’re nervous. Little public-speaking gaffes, like too many “ums” or “y’knows” happen because you’re nervous. Don’t be. It’s OK.

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OK. So now back to the Biggest Loser. They do this thing on the show where, at some point during the season, they make it so that each contestant has an opportunity to become a role model. Last season they did it twice: once they made the contestants go round getting people to participate in a Biggest-Loser-led exercise class on the Washington Mall, and, later in the season, they had the contestants speak on what it’s like to find motivation for losing weight. They had them tell their own stories, in short.

And I think every contestant suddenly felt, after watching everyone applaud and give standing ovation after standing ovation, that they were worthy of something.

How precious is that?

At a recent ShelterBox event at East Woods School

]]> http://thegooddirt.org/publicspeaking/feed 1 http://thegooddirt.org/perhaps-our-last-snow-day http://thegooddirt.org/perhaps-our-last-snow-day#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:59:01 +0000 Yi Shun Lai http://thegooddirt.org/?p=824 It was near fifty degrees out yesterday, so Jim and Sprocket and I went for a stroll at a nature preserve that I’ve been reading a lot about, but haven’t actually visited myself.

The Teatown Lake Reservation is in Ossining, New York. They are the hosts of Eaglefest, an annual event celebrating that most noble of carrion-eaters, and have 15 miles worth of hiking trails. They’ve been in our local news quite a bit, as they’re about to acquire another 72 acres of land as part of an open space initiative.

It was such a beautiful day out, bright sunshine everywhere, and, obviously, mud, as all of the snow that was piled up from the previous weekend melted. There were lots of people out everywhere–the overflow parking lot was full–and although we didn’t get to visit the nature center, we did have a really nice day.

I wore my slick-soled Blundstones, which proved to be a big mistake–the snow, which was wet and heavy, was also packed down in enough places where folks had walked earlier that day. Anyone who’s ever skied in the late afternooon knows what that means: mini-berms everywhere, some iced over, some mushy, some hidden under kicked up snow.

I had my twenty-pound pack on, too, all of which combined to make our 2.5-mile walk quite adventurous, at least insofar as my core, hamstrings, ankles, and knees went. Here are some photos.

I love this bridge, although I wasn’t able to capture the running water and the reflections it made on the rocks just above the brook. Jim crossed this bridge stomping at the crusty snowy bits and kicking them off, all in the guise of making it easier for future visitors to walk and not slip, but he inadvertently let loose his true intent by muttering, under his breath, “DESTRUCTOR JIMMY!” Sigh. Boys are so transparent.

I love these trail markers. They were everywhere. I was very tempted to pull them off and use them as coasters in my own home.

There’s apparently a permanent orienteering course at Teatown. Very cool. This marker says that if you turn 96 degrees from looking at the sign and walk 23 paces, you’ll find the next marker. Orienteering. The sport that proves that the universe makes sense, after all.

Why does everyone say “mossy green”? Personally, I prefer this color, which I am calling licheny green. Okay, so they’re two different colors. Still, this one is preferable to me.

Some deer had been before us. I did not take pictures of the deer poo. This was good enough evidence.

Spotted this way-cool underbelly of tree. Looks like a massive star anise. Good for a garnish on a massive cocktail.

Overlook Trail is very very short but very steep and slippery and sometimes treacherous. At some point I slid down on my rear. Stupid pack!

I liked this little wishbone in the snow. Sprocket was completely insane on the ride up there. Now he is lying flat on his side, moaning. He must be pretty pooped, too.

I hope this is not the last of our snow days yet, although it’s supposed to rain later this week, and I must confess that standing outside in nothing but shirt-sleeves was really nice this morning.

In May we will have been here a year. It hardly feels that way…!

I didn’t get to see this in person. Perhaps it’s just as well. A fellow SCBWI member posted the Q&A from her daughter’s Girl Scout troop’s interaction with Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl. If I WERE there, I may have peed my pants laughing.

Christine Wolf’s Blog.

Really, really cool stuff. Of course, today the work begins–I’m back to scheduling stuff and just waiting, waiting, to go on deployment while I steal a few moments here and there to devote to my other clients.

“Other clients”–ha! as if ShelterBox is a client! Still, I find the work they’ve set upon me interesting and a natural extension of the work I’d be doing anyway. However, now that I know I have some folks depending on some productive results, there’s an added extension of pressure. At the moment, I’m itching to deploy. It seems all of my friends are going! Agh. Nothing to do but move forward and wait for the call.

In the meantime, here’s some of what I saw in Florida.

Erica picked me up from the Winter Workshop. We got locked out of her car–it was still running!–and E’s brother Nick tried to make it right. Three older folks (we were in Florida, after all) stopped by to help, and two hours later, the locksmith showed up.

This bird seemed to think it was such a good sight that it stuck around to watch how we did.

We had lunch and then we went back to Erica’s place, where we walked Russell, Erica’s dog, and I met all of Erica’s various pets and friends:

There is no photo of either bunny, the cat, or the fish cos, respectively, I am a bad photographer; the cat and I had a raging fight and I have started to referring to it as North Korea, a la Erica’s boyfriend Kevin; and I did not want to scare the fishies with the flash on my camera.

Anyway, E and K went off to Tampa to celebrate Valentine’s Day and I proceeded to spend the rest of the night editing, watching the Olympics, and fighting with the cat.

I went to volunteer at the ShelterBox USA offices the next day. Good fun. Busy. Crazy.

The following day E and I went to the Ringling museum to check out the Norman Rockwell exhibit. It was way, way cool.

Cool, right?

And then I go to meet Lindy for lunch! Lindy! Lindy! Lindy from my ARFE life! Crazy! She’s started up her own company based around Nordic Walking…we had a really lovely day on Siesta Key, and I realized that I need sunglasses if I’m going to do this kind of thing. I mean, I have them, but I’ve been wearing my spectacles a lot, and I wanted to see everything crystal clear, so I went without on this bright day. What a moron. Needless to say, I went and ordered a pair of photochromic glasses then next morning.

We walked about five and a half miles along the incredible sands…they were beautiful. I was so grateful and happy to see Lindy. It’s not that I had despaired of ever seeing her again, but I didn’t know if we would stay relevant to each other after she left her job and I left ARFE. But personalities don’t change with jobs, and I always liked Lindy. Along the way we did this:

and saw a bunch of terns lined up like a runway:

and also discovered these things:

Lindy says they’re “seablobs.” Jim is informing me over my shoulder that they are actually jellyfish, and that he and his friends used to throw them at each other when he was growing up in Rhode Island. Yuck!

That night I had dinner with some ShelterBox USA board members and then drove home to hang out with Erica, read, watch some Olympics, and have a glass of wine.

Next morning, last day of my stay in FLA, Bev, another SRT, came and picked me up. We had lunch at Simon’s, a lovely little whole-food joint. I had some gorgeous haddock wrap thing with smoked gouda and a mango salsa. Yum.

it was an hour ride to the airport filled with terrific conversation, then, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I had a great time. It was well worth the effort to go down there. If I hadn’t, I doubt I’d be either as energized or as overwhelmed by the work ahead. In the end, the added energy and sense of cohesion about the organization–and face time with key folks, friends, and admin alike–make it all worth it.

There’s not much to say here, really. I’ll post what I said during my toast to the happy couple, as best I can remember it.

“Hi. I’m Yi Shun. I’m Bor’s sister. I write for a living: I tell stories. I’ve got a couple of good ones about Bor (some involving some embarrassing bits), but I’ll only limit myself to one tonight. We can talk about the embarrassing ones later.

“When I was nine or ten–that would have made Bor four or five–I considered myself a really cool kid, too cool to be seen with the likes of a little brother. So one day, I was out playing with the way-cool neighborhood kids, and Bor was tagging along, and I told him, in so many words, to Go Away. So he went, all tears and sniffling, and I went on playing with the cool neighborhood kids.

“Not five minutes later, they turned on me. We got into a huge fight, me on one side, them on the other, yelling across the street. I think they did something to my bicycle. Now, if you ever wondered what five-year-olds do when they’re not trying to play with their older sisters, I can tell you: They’re spying on their older sisters. I know this because, suddenly, from around the corner, came Bor.

“You have to picture Bor at age four or five. He was perfectly round. So from around the corner comes this perfectly round little kid, and he’s screaming, ‘HEY! Don’t pick on her! That’s my sister!!’

“That day, I knew. I knew what loyalty meant, and unconditional love. Some four, five-year-old taught me that.

“So when Bor met Laura, years later, and we met Laura, I was so pleased to find someone who not only was deserving of this level of loyalty, this brand of love, but someone who understood it, gave it back, reflected it onto her community, her friends, her family. I am proud to call Laura my sister. I mean, I always wanted one of those anyway.

“At this point in the wedding, someone usually cracks the old joke. They ask the bride to put her hand on the table, and the groom to put his hand over hers, and then they say something like, ‘Oh. Cherish this moment, because this is the last time the groom will have the upper hand.’ That’s funny and all, but it doesn’t work that way for Bor and Laura. They’ll go through life hand in hand, on equal footing, sharing all of their major decisions and as true partners. Congratulations, you two.”

Yeah. That’s about it. Great ceremony, great to see friends and family, great to be a part of the wedding party, great to see them get married and celebrate under a warm California sun.

It goes something like this: When she was eight, my mother was in a class with a girl whose parents bought her the best of everything. It should be said here that while my grandfather was a gentleman landowner, he didn’t see the need to shower his children with all sorts of geegaws and flashy items. So my mother wore hand-me-downs, often, and my grandmother often had to fight to get my aunts and uncles new items of clothing.

This did not bode well for the girl across the aisle from my mother, although she didn’t know it yet. My mom loves pretty things. Lately it’s ruffles. In the 80s it was skinny jeans with zipped ankles (don’t I wish I still owned a pair!). Back then, it was red velvet shoes. The girl across the aisle had them.

My mother went home, dragging ‘cos she didn’t have a pair, and my grandmother asked what was wrong. “Red shoes,” moaned my mother, and proceeded to ask for a pair. Of course her father snorted. She had perfectly good shoes; why would she need red ones? Pretty wasn’t a good enough reason. In the end, she begged and pleaded and finally struck a bargain: if she reached the top of her class in all of her subjects, she would get a pair of red shoes.

Oh, joy! Mom jumped at the chance. She studied hard and got great grades and did indeed reach the top of her class. Her mother sent the kitchen maid to pick up a pair of red velvet shoes.

My mother paced in the courtyard. Back and forth, back and forth. She waited until she couldn’t take it anymore, and then she ran onto the long drive leading from our home to the street. She stood there until she could see the puffs of diesel smoke from the tailpipe of a moped that signaled the maid’s return from her shopping trip.

The maid smiled to see my mother so excited, and then handed over a paper bag. My mother tore it open and set her eyes upon a pair of cheap velvet shoes, colored like dried blood and stiff with sub-par fabric. Her eyes welled with tears. She turned away so the maid wouldn’t see.

“Aren’t they okay, little bear? Just what you wanted?” The maid was anxious to see that she’d done a good job.

“They’re okay,” said my mother, and sat on the ground to pull on her new shoes. She says she remembers what they felt like, crisp and rough against her feet.

The next day my mother wore her shoes to school. And the girl across the aisle had acquired a red velvet school bag to go with her red velvet shoes. My mother saw spots. She pulled the girl’s school bag off her desk, emptied it, and threw it on the floor and stomped on it.

Then she got sent home for the rest of the day.

Yesterday I went shopping with my mom. We got me a pair of red shoes. I am really partial to them.

My mom and I don’t always get along. Sometimes the sense of wistfulness is so great–the sense of wistfulness, I mean, that we aren’t ever really going to see eye-to-eye, I mean–that it’s like a fricking hole in my chest.

But we do, at least, share a love for fine things, the written word, great movies–and red shoes. To me they mean aspiration and joy; hope and envy. It’s pointless for me to try and explain really. But I’m glad I did. And I’m glad I bought these with my mom.

I was telling my brother, in somewhat of a dazed state after a ton of activity, that I finally understood what it meant to him that he was a Peace Corps volunteer. No matter what happens, no one can take that away from him. He walks taller because of it. When I am wearing the ShelterBox shirt or pin, I walk taller. I know that.

These past few days have been incredibly taxing. We’re literally in the middle of a huge earthquake that I think did even more damage than the 7.6-magnitude earthquake that leveled Taiwan. Haiti, which had no real infrastructure to begin with, is buried in rubble. ShelterBox is there helping, and we’ve got a ton of attention now because of it. Because our goods are so tangible and so easily trackable—do you see a big green box here? Yes? Well, that’s your money, at work—CNN is following a big shipment from Newquay until they get to their destination in Haiti. It’s my hope that they’ll follow the shipment until it gets delivered into the hands of the Haitians. Our tents are now being used as medical tents in a makeshift hospital, so that amputations and treatment can be carried out in more sanitary conditions than they have been previously.

It’s incredible, how fast we mobilized. As a result, I am completely knackered. Here’s the schedule since the earthquake happened:

Tuesday evening. Earthquake happens while I’m at a meeting with Adam Stone, publisher for the Examiner newspapers, for whom I’m doing some copy-editing.

Wednesday. I spend all morning and the early afternoon organizing efforts to get ShelterBox top of mind with Rotarians and tweeting about our efforts, just in case anyone else is watching. My girls at Rotaract of the UN spend some time organizing a fast happy hour, to take place on Monday. I send a quick note to a buddy at Pepsi who knows some folks who live in the city who might go to the fundraiser. I go out Wednesday night and drink too much, feeling a lot of pressure and not believing that such a horrible thing could happen to such a defenseless country. I get a note back from my buddy saying that his Haitian friends at Pepsi have taken an interest. The thing begins to take form.

Thursday. Our teams arrive at Port-au-Prince. I wake up hungover to an e-mail from Pepsi asking if I’m available for the next week to demonstrate the box at Pepsi headquarters. Jim calls to tell me that it’s actually going to be a whole week-long promotion, with bake sales, raffles, and presentations. I go to do a taping for the middle-school kids across the street. I get home to urgent requests for a conference, a phone conference at least, the next day, to arrange all the details for this promotion.

Friday. Conference at Pepsi. Interview for the Examiner’s Business of the Week feature. I get notice that the Westchester Tweetup Group is planning on making the following Thursday’s Tweetup a benefit for ShelterBox. I get a lot misty at the thought of so many people rallying around. I finish up my personal statement for an MFA application and send it in. One step closer to being done. I also file my story.

Saturday. I wake up to a tweet from a local green enthusiast who does cooking demonstrations with local ingredients at the Katonah Farmer’s Market. She wants to make one of her demonstrations a benefit for ShelterBox. We agree on the following week. I spend the rest of the day editing The Examiner. Jim and I head to a friend’s house in New Jersey for the evening—some good conversation and much-needed decompression occurs, although, as we’re walking the dogs on the beach, I’m taking phone calls, trying to arrange coverage for the Farmer’s Market.

Sunday. I can’t remember Sunday. At all. I only remember that Jim and I went to Aileen’s for BACON EXPLOSION. Have you ever had bacon explosion? It is a veghead’s nightmare. For me, pudgy little post-Ironman me, it’s not so good, but it was OH SO GOOD. Anyway. Oh, right, I also did a lot of editing on Sunday.

Monday. More editing. And a happy hour. Some long-lost friends came out. I was all verklempt to see such support. And really happy to hear that we’d raised enough money for a whole box. Awesome. All that from a $10 open bar and passing the bucket. Fricken awesome. We go to a sushi dinner with friends to celebrate.

lookit my new double chin! wow!!

Tuesday. Big, big day at Pepsi. People were in awe. I was in awe, as I am every time I unpack the tent. Probably the crowning achievement was hearing the cafeteria manager say that she and her crew were taking up collections to help Haiti and that we were going to be it for them. The chef came out. I almost cried.

Wednesday. Big day at Pepsi R&D headquarters. Full presentation this time. Awesome to hear all the questions; great to see peoples’ faces again as they saw the tent. They did a raffle. The company matched. We had donations from $10 to $750 that day. I almost cried, again. I went home and struggled to pack and work on my critical essay. But I’ve been very disjointed lately.

Thursday.  I’m away from my desk, of course, but still tied up in ShelterBox stuff. I have a feeling I’ll be tied up in it for quite some time, don’t you?