Next level communicators are themselves and forget themselves.
Next level communicators are themselves and forget themselves.
One of the great challenges we all face as communicators when we first start out is we tend to focus so much on content we forget our personalities, making us really hard (unbearable even), to listen to. The reason this issue confronts us all is because of the uniqueness of what we do. Think about it, at no other time during the week are you asked to stand and talk non stop for at least a half hour…uninterrupted. Public speaking is a natural headwind to our unique makeup as humans. Then there’s the rookie mistake most of us make in our preparation where we become so obsessed with remembering our content, we forget to also deliver our natural selves. It’s kind of crazy, but to be a next level communicator we need to practice both the message and our personalities.
In 1946, James Stewart wrote a book on preaching, and what he has to say about the importance of personality is not just for proclaimers of God’s Word, but would be wise for all communicators to heed, “God has given to each man his own individuality, and standardisation is emphatically no part of the divine intention for your ministry. How intolerably dull it would be if every preacher had to be cut to the same pattern!… Do not think that personal idiosyncrasies are merely to be suppressed and levelled out. Be yourself.” Solid wisdom. Thanks James. If you are extroverted at home, be so on stage. If your humor tends to be dry, bring that to the event. If your emotions tend to be easily stirred, why would you shut that off completely? Listen, I get it. We have to pick our moments. We can’t tell jokes all or most of the time, and if you fall more to the sullen side of things, for all of our sakes, put a little pep in your step. We understand speaking will require moments which are unnatural to ourselves, but on the whole, may our audience leave having experienced us.
Why is my personality so pivotal to my effectiveness as a speaker? Because more than people connecting to content, people connect to people.
When thinking about unleashing “you” I have found the following to be helpful:
Add more training wheels. New speakers should listen to next level communicators…a lot. This period in your development is like putting training wheels on a bicycle, as someone else’s voice, approach and even mannerisms will help you find your way. But be careful, because you will absorb more than their content, you will also take on their personality. See the tension? We all need to grow in our gift, and one of the best ways to do that is by watching others, but too much of that will cause us to lose our unique personality and prolong the process of finding our voice, so what are we to do? Diversify who you watch. Instead of just one great communicator, add three to five.
Get to levels 4-5. There’s a wonderful tool called the communication pyramid. In essence it gives us the five levels of communication going from the most superficial to the most intimate: 1. Cliche; 2. Facts; 3. Opinion; 4. Emotive; 5. Transparency. For now, I want you to think of these five levels of communication as the journey from ineffective to next level speakers. When we start out we tend to hover at levels 2-3, which is all about content. People who give the news are taught to just give the facts, with no emotion. But as we grow as communicators we should get to levels four and five, where our true selves are unmasked, and effective, persuasive communication happens.
Get pre-talk feedback. By now you should know I’m big on this. What will immediately take your presentations from okay to good, and good to great, is to solicit input before you give the message, and one of the things you should ask people is, “Did you experience me when I practiced my talk?”
Forget yourself. I know, it sounds like I’ve just contradicted everything I’ve said, but I’m willing to bet you are most yourself when you are not thinking about yourself. And you are most yourself when you are not straining to remember what you want to say. Be yourself and forget yourself. I’ll close with what one of the greatest communicators in world history said, “What is the rule then? It is: be natural; forget yourself; be so absorbed in what you are doing and in the realisation of the presence of God … that you forget yourself completely. That is the right condition. That is the only place of safety. That is the only way in which you can honour God. Self is the greatest enemy of the preacher, more so than in the case of any other man in society. And the only way to deal with self is to be so taken up with, and so enraptured by the glory of what you are doing, that you forget yourself altogether” (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, page 264).
What I’m Reading:
The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fizgerald, by John U. Bacon.
