Random Pensées

Public Speaking

I love public speaking. I have no fear about getting up in front of a group of people and speaking. This is a useful thing for a trial lawyer. In fact, I don't know how I could be a trial lawyer if public speaking bothered me. But Wednesday night was a bit different. I had to give a small speech to a small group -- about 60 people -- in my new role as chairman of a committee that was sponsoring an event. As chairman, I was the master of ceremonies. The dinner ran for about 3 hours and my speech was very well received. The crowd laughed in the right places and were solemn in the right places. It was very satisfying.

There is something about good public speaking that is a combination of Aikido and seduction. Aikido, in part, is premised on the belief that you can take another person's energy, control it, redirect it and then throw the person. Seduction? Well, you know what it is even if you can't explain it. When it goes well, it goes like this. You stand in front of the group. You make eye contact with some and you speak. And as you speak, you sense the energy of the group. You change your tone and your rhythm and your cadence and your volume as you speak. You force them to pay attention. To be drawn in to your words. Then you pull them along with you and make them think that they are interacting with you, that you are speaking to them. It feels seductive and you know you succeed when people you've never met before come up to you afterwards to say how much they enjoyed your talk and you can tell that they want to just linger, just to chat. You've seduced them. You've taken them from cold, although mildly interested, to warm, to hot. You can feel the energy in the room as it changes and you wrap yourself up in it. I really like that.

And the corollary, of course, is that sometimes your speech goes over as well as a "come here often" line. Happily, that didn't happen this time. And if you have a decent sense of rhythm, you ought to be able to avoid that entirely.