Avoiding Longwindedness

            Most sermons are longwinded. Most college lectures are longwinded. Every presidential State of the Union address is longwinded. We’ve all been sitting in the audience thinking, “Would this guy just SHUT UP!” Meanwhile, our speaker is thinking, “They’re already falling asleep and I’ve only been speaking for two minutes!”

            So, how can we ensure our audience enjoys the sound of our voice as much as we do? Longwinded orators speak conceptually. Captivating speakers communicate visually. I’m not referring to visual aids. I’m referring to using stories, analogies, demonstrations and play-acting that create a mental picture. So much of our brain is wired towards sensory input: touch, tastes, sights, sounds and smells. There is nothing wrong with communicating concepts. The problem arises when one communicates lists of concept. That’s why so many college lectures are brain-numbing. They have lists of concepts disconnected from real-world experience. Concepts only become real when they’re made concrete—tapping into the experiential, sensory nature of our brain. Take time to translate concepts into concrete experiences. You’ll cover far less concepts, but your audience will grasp them!

            Each of us has a need for relationships. Great speakers form a relationship with their audience. But, how do you do that? Support your speech with examples from your life. Tell them about: your loves, your failures, your successes and your foibles. But, what if you don’t have those personal examples to support what you’re talking about? Quite simply, you don’t know the topic well enough to talk about it. Impersonal book knowledge will quickly put your audience into a coma.

            Great speakers move an audience emotionally. Laughter is the most powerful emotion. If you can present an intelligent presentation that has people laughing two or three times per minute, you can be a professional speaker. If you consistently receive four to six laughs per minute, you can be a professional comedian. You can find countless books on how to write jokes and structure comedy. You can learn a ton from them. You can also learn a ton by getting on stage. What I’ve found is people are most funny when they share their: loves, failures, successes and foibles. Laughter is more an outgrowth of the speaker-audience relationship than it is about finding a magic joke formula.

            Great delivery also helps conquer longwindedness. The secret of delivery isn’t focusing on delivery. The more you focus on it, the more you’re focused on yourself and the less you’re focused on the audience. The secret of delivery (at least for most people) is overcoming fear. We fear when we focus on our ego. We overcome fear when we focus on our audience, purpose and message. Dynamic delivery is a restoration of who we are when relaxed and talking with family and friends.

            One component of delivery is critical in overcoming longwindedness—eye contact. If you don’t look at your audience, you lose your audience. If you aren’t paying attention to them, why should they pay attention to you?

            I’ve given you several points on overcoming longwindedness: 1) Speak in concrete, sensory-oriented terms. 2) Form a relationship with your audience by sharing your life. 3) Connect to your audience emotionally by uncovering your life. And, 4) Look at your audience. I’ve communicated these concepts in a few minutes, but mastering them will take a lifetime.

Opening the Curtains

            In any form of communication there is the potential of four levels of connection: physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. These four are related to the four components of man: body, heart, mind and spirit. The connection between two people can be seen in the following diagram:

Spirit

|

Mind

|

Heart

|

Body

**

**

Body

|

Heart

|

Mind

|

Spirit

            The first level of connection between any two parties is the physical. We see, hear, smell or touch the other person. The connection then deepens to heart, mind and finally spirit. When there is a roadblock at any level, it hinders deeper communication from occurring. For example, if one has an emotional roadblock, two parties cannot connect at the emotional, mental or spiritual level. If one has a mental roadblock, one cannot connect at the mental or spiritual level, and so on. The deepest connection between two people is the spiritual connection.

            At each level there are common roadblocks that occur. I will refer to them as curtains. When two parties drop all their curtains a spirit-to-spirit connection occurs. So, what are those roadblocks and how do we drop them?

            At the physical level the biggest curtain is an overemphasis on the physical. Ever hear a woman tell a man, “Look at my eyes!” The man has become too engrossed at the physical level and he is not connecting at a deeper level. Ever see a speaker become so nervous they just read from their notes? They have become so focused on all the physical symptoms of stage fright that they have broken off their physical connection with the audience. When a speaker doesn’t look at their audience, they quickly lose them.

            At the emotional level the biggest curtain is fear. Fear overwhelms its victim. Ever seen someone go through a period of depression. Depression is what’s left of a person after they’ve been beat down by fear. If you’ve ever known someone severely depressed, they come across as a zombie. You don’t connect to them at a heart-to-heart, because fear has trampled their heart. Ever see a public speaker who is afraid? What happens is their emotions come through in muted tones. As opposed to their emotions being color, they are now black and white.

            At the mental level the biggest curtain is the ego. The ego could simply be defined as our mental focus on ourselves. I have seen and experienced two opposite, but equally detrimental, manifestations of the ego. One is self-defeating thoughts. I think of this as my inner heckler. The other is self-protecting thoughts, which sometimes manifests itself as my inner perfectionist. In order to protect one’s image one strives to be perfect. In a speaking situation, what happens is one’s thoughts turn inward. They spend a great deal of focus reading the perfect little script in their head, but they never make a deep connection with their audience. In relationships, it is better to be imperfect but connected.

            At the spiritual level the biggest curtain is a lack of love. When you truly love someone, it becomes far easier to make a spiritual connection. The amazing thing about love is that it works from the inside out to make all the other connections easier. Love causes us to forget about ourselves. All of a sudden ego is pushed to the side. Love conquers fear. Love means we don’t just want a physical connection, so we look someone in the eyes to find something deeper.

            Our education system conditions us to focus on content when we communicate. The focus is placed on making a mind-to-mind connection, but the other components are overlooked. This is one reason why our education system is such an abysmal failure. We can’t connect to the mind unless we first make that physical and emotional connection. But, our society has become so hedonistic that we view physical and emotional connections in terms of sex. For fear some pervert may do something wrong, we have put in place all kinds of safeguards that stop us from treating another person like a person. There will always be perverts and they should be punished, but we have allowed fear of misdeeds to stop us from experiencing normal, healthy physical and emotional connections with others. It’s no wonder our kids can’t do math. They’re starved for human contact!

            So, when you communicate with another person look them in the eyes, cast away fears, push your ego to the side and love them. However, don’t just do these things externally. Learn to love people from the inside-out and the curtains will begin to drop.

Clash of the Titans

            I’m working with a friend of mine putting together a seminar on overcoming stage fright for a church. Yesterday, I think we finally hit a point where we were rubbing each other wrong. We were in an email exchange firing back-and-forth the details of our endeavor. I hear him droning on about minute details on having every little point meticulously planned. We even got into a detailed discussion about the brochure. I’ll be honest. As long as the brochure looks good and communicates the basic points we are going to communicate, I’m good with it. I had reached the boiling point on all the little details.

            Now, I can only imagine what my friend was thinking. I live in the fantasy world of daydreams and possibilities. He is grounded and detailed oriented. He was likely thinking, “This guy needs to get his feet on the ground. He’s daydreaming again—all concepts, but no clear practical application. He’s far too intellectual and not being practical.” I suspect he was growing weary of my creative spirit, which is a nice way of saying my head is in the clouds.

            Anytime two people collaborate there is going to be a point of friction. If there isn’t, you’re dealing with two closed-minded people: two people who are simply pulling the status quo and don’t have an independent thought in their minds. But, why do these points of friction happen and what can we learn from them?

            Often friction is a result of ego. We want things our way and when someone else doesn’t see things our way we become angry. That kind of friction causes a diminished final product. That kind of friction is also the hardest to deal with, because the solution is to look at ourselves instead of the problems around us. I will readily admit I have a strong ego. It’s an issue I constantly have to deal with.

            In this case our primary issue was simply we view things from a different perspective. There is a great deal of strength in my creativity. There is also a great deal of strength in my friend’s grasp of reality. The friction was really a result of our two strengths meeting each other. It’s like rubbing two pieces of sandpaper together. There’s only friction when both grit sides (the useful part of the sandpaper) meet! I’m of the belief that this type of friction should not be avoided. It should be embraced!