Shatter Your Writer's Block Pt II: 7 Quick & Dirty Writing Solutions

A few weeks ago, I wrote about 'Speechwriting in Reverse' as a solution to Writer's Block. In a nutshell, it means Speak, Record, Transcribe.

That doesn't work for everyone, though, and we don't always like to have just one solution, so I promised more to come. Here we go:

1. A Funny Thing Happened to Me....Today. Yep, sit down, and think about your day. Anything different happen? Anything funny? Anything awful? Anything boring? Even if it was the same old same old day you always have, there's something to talk about. Write down a blow by blow description of the day, and somewhere, you'll find something to talk about that will lead to something more.

2. Life Biography. If you haven't already gone over your life story, do it. Any significant moment, good or bad. Lessons learned. Heartbreaks. Great joys. Successes and Failures. Accidents, broken bones, getting caught doing whatever. If you've already done this - do it AGAIN. You've probably been around long enough to forget a few things the first time, or the tenth time, around.

3. How-To. What do you know how to do? Cook? Get paint off furniture? Build a birdhouse? Change your own oil? Plant a garden? Do your taxes? Play Poker? I guarantee you know something someone in your audience won't - teach it, and you'll suddenly bring up memories and stories of you learning how to do it, and doing it. Poof - instant speech.

4. Reports & Reviews. What have you been reading lately? Tell us about it. Why you chose it, how you liked it, how it affected you, if you'd recommend it. Works for Music, Movies, TV, or any consumable media - heck, it even works for restaurants. Where have you been eating lately? If its good enough for Instagram, its good enough for a speech.

5. In the News. Be cautious so as to avoid political/religious material, unless that's what you want to do intentionally. There's so much news available, you've got thousands of potential speeches just waiting for you on the web.

6. Finding Forrester Approach. In this movie, Sean Connery played a fictional writer in seclusion who mentored a young writer in the neighborhood. One of his tricks was to give him one of his old articles, have him start re-typing it, and then take it into a different direction after the first few lines. Consider watching some YouTube speeches, bringing out your old speeches (you've saved them all, right? RIGHT?), looking at famous speeches - and doing the same. Just be sure to give credit where credit is due if you don't change things up enough. And the movie, Finding Forrester? Well worth a watch.

7. Table Topics. What was the question the last time you got up in your club? Wish you'd answered it differently? Here's your chance, and with more time to address it, to boot.

I'm not saying you're going to build something brilliant right off the bat. The key is simply to start building, and the above gives you the material to start building with. Once the mind is in motion, it will stay in motion, and your Writer's Block will fall away before you even realize.

Go write your next speech, and then Speak....& Deliver!

March Madness and the World Championship of Public Speaking

I just finished sweeping my Area Contest last Friday night, both Table Topics and International Speech, as I make yet another run at a third District Trophy in Topics, and hopefully, finally, a 1st place trophy at the World Championship of Public Speaking (WCPS).

Similarly (or not), Duke, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Michigan State all won their Elite Eight games to send them into next weekends Final Four in the NCAA Basketball National (USA) Championships, where one of them will end up winning it all, and be considered the best team in the country, out of a couple hundred overall, and 68 who ended up in the tournament, commonly referred to as March Madness.


They say that between 30,000 and 40,000 contestants start at the club level, and average of roughly 2.7 per club (15,543), which is where we get the statistic oft used in marketing the WCPS - best out 35,000 speakers worldwide. Once you get past club, you'll compete in one of 3277 Areas, 712 Divisions, and 97 Districts (thanks George Marshall for running these stats down), meaning at any various level you can say you're in top 10 percent of competitive TM speakers after winning Area, the top 2 percent after Division, the top two hundredths percent (I think that's how one would say it - .00277) after District, and so on....whether you win the Final or not. Not bad, right?

Both March Madness and the WCPS have six rounds, though it can have seven, if, in basketball, you end up in a 'play-in' game, of which there are four, or in the Int'l Contest, if you're in a large district that has a run-off after the Division level. But basically, the best team plays six others teams out of the 68 to claim their title - in a seeded tournament, with the 'best' ranked teams facing off with the worst - one seeds down to sixteen seeds.

The World Champion goes through Club, Area, Division, District, the Semi-Finals, and the Finals. During that run, the Champ will face anywhere from no competition to 5 competitors at the average club and Area contest - so let's be optimistic and say 10 total (your mileage may vary). At Division, I've seen as few as two contestants, as many as 8, so lets be optimistic again and say 5, and most districts have between 4 and 10 competitors, again we'll go with 8 as a high average. The semi's feature 9-10 competitors, the Finals, nine.

OK math majors, that means the World Champion actually faces, in direct competition, around 39 other speakers, with gusts up to 50. We won't even go into the fact that all these speakers are Toastmasters, leaving out the vast world of professional speakers who typically aren't members of TM, much less interested in competing for a trophy they don't 'need'.

Surely, though, these are 50 of the best speakers Toastmasters has to offer, right? Well, it depends. The path for some of the best speakers can end early, if two (or more) top-notch competitors face off too early. I knew a WCPS finalist who lost the next year, at club, to someone else who then went to the Finals for the SECOND time in her career. So the equivalent of two #1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament faced off in ROUND ONE! This can happen at any round, and who knows if all the speakers in, say North Carolina are better than all the speakers here in Colorado.

When I compete at Division on the 11th, I'll be facing the fall District Humorous Champion - meaning the two of us hold the last two speaking trophies in District 26, and neither one of us is guaranteed to even PLACE. Will we suddenly fall of the the map as quality speakers?

Additionally, in any given year, a large number of top-notch speakers aren't even competing, as they've taken a year off either in leadership roles, or just to rest awhile.

So, if you can be a World Champion after facing as few as, perhaps, 30-50 other speakers, is there true value in the title?

Elsa/Getty Images

Considering I've been going after this title since 2001, I really have no choice but to say YES. Just as one of the four teams in the NCAA Tourney will eventually be considered the best, even if it's Michigan State, with 11 losses, who gets hot at the right time.

Contestants can only compete with those put before them, after all. They aren't responsible for the format, just as the basketball teams can't always control their seeding in the tournament, or who they will play from round to round. The speech contest is equally unpredictable, thanks to the diversity of judges, and the randomness of speeches created from talented speakers throughout the organization.

And the pressure - oh the pressure. Whether you're facing an audience of 10 at club, or 2000 at the finals, the one loss and you're done nature (in most cases, though some Clubs, Areas, and Divisions send the top two) of the event puts the pressure on.

Craig Valentine, 1999 World Champion of Public Speaking

Winning the championship of public speaking, much like winning any contest, takes a unique combination of talent, performance, and plain old luck. Whether you win on your first try, a la Craig Valentine and Ryan Avery, or after several false starts, like Lance Miller, or several close shaves, such as Jim Key, Mark Hunter, and of course, the King of also-rans, Jock Elliott, who won on his record sixth try in the Finals, you're a champion. You're a great speaker, with a marketable title who has achieved something that, by design, only one person per year can achieve.

Does it mean you're the best? Maybe. Maybe not. It does mean you're a champion - and the truest champions always get better, and usually faster than non-champions. After all, now everyone expects them to be the BEST of the best, not just 'pretty good'. Craig Valentine famously said that the first thing he did after winning the championship in 1999 was to go buy a book on speaking. Good move, I'd say.

Am I trying to run down the credibility of the champs, or the contest? No, not by any means. I still want to win this thing some day before I die. But I am saying that if you don't win, that if you NEVER win, such as John Howard, 5x finalist who died as he went up the leadership ranks, just before he was to take on the Int'l President role, it doesn't mean you aren't a great speaker. If I'm counting right (he says he doesn't remember), J.A. Gamache has gone to the Semi-Finals 8 times, the Finals twice, but hasn't won. He's still a great speaker, right? Rory Vaden? Twice in the Finals, took 2nd in 2007 - seems to be doing fairly well.

It may mean you aren't a CHAMPION, and that you didn't WIN. But as I like to say - WIN ANYWAY. Find your own victories outside of the trophies. Be a champion to your audiences that aren't awarding you little plastic trophies - that's where the victories truly await.

Speaking isn't about Championships, and neither is basketball. They're both about developing skills, promoting emotional (and physical) growth, and sportsmanship. Go Speak & Deliver - and Go Wildcats :)

Shatter Your Writer's Block Pt I: Speechwriting in Reverse

I don't know what to write!

You'll have to Google James Caan/Misery to find out what he's actually typing...

A common malady among writers, it is a shared obstacle between writers of prose and writers of oratory. It's a complain I hear from all kinds of speakers, whether they're writing a keynote, a business presentation, or their next Toastmasters speech.

I totally get it. I hated writing down speeches, even though I enjoy writing. I went through many of my early years just speaking off the cuff off of a brief outline, or nothing beyond my own mental notes. And I did ok. I actually did pretty well.

Two problems with that - not everyone CAN have success with this method, and those that do, like me, are easily fooled into thinking that's the way it should be done, and believe it's the way to get the best results.

So often I hear clients tell me they don't have to write it out, that they have the 'gift of gab', and feel more natural when they just go 'off the cuff'. Sure, it might be better for you, but that doesn't mean it's better for your message, or your audience!

It was through the Toastmasters contest process, as I competed year after year for the World Championship of Public Speaking, that I forced myself to wordsmith. I had to both stay within the given time of 5-7 minutes, and enhance the impact of each section, each sentence, even each word. I soon discovered my speaking pace to be about 100 words a minute, taking into account laughter and pauses, and kept track of word count accordingly.

But I still hate writing. So when I have the opportunity, I'll practice a speech from an outline (real or mental), record it, and then go back and transcribe, edit, and prepare it for prime-time. In fact, I did this just last week, at a club contest that I intended on being just a practice for my home club contest.

Recording is a lot easier now than ever. I just used my smartphone - but in the past I've used digital recorders as well. If you're still holding out from the 80's, bring along the cassette recorder!

My club contest (1 of 2 clubs) was last week. I had an idea I'd been thinking about for months. I had a couple of stories. But I hadn't honed it, hadn't quite figured out how to open or close it, or even what I might say beyond the two core stories and the point. I figured I'd just go up and give it my best shot, and see what happened.

Keep in mind, of course, I've been competitively speaking for 15 years, so I can still manage to do 'well enough' to have a cohesive speech, even on the fly. If you're still at the beginning, I would be more cautious about where practice this way. Your regular club meeting is a much safer bet, and since Toastmasters is essentially a learning laboratory, it is more than acceptable to experiment with this technique.

THE RESULTS
Time: 7:02
Word Count: a bloated 884!

Lowlights:

Run-on sentences - One sentence had about 100 words and 7 'ands'. In fact 'and' appeared 44 times!

Lane Changes - Starting a sentence one way, then stopping and going a different direction mid-sentence

Double Clutches - Saying something before I'm ready to continue the sentence, and stuttering to start again

Disconnected Points - Was I talking about love? dreams? anger? rejection? They all showed up, and never got tied up.

Highlights:
Lots of emotion - I could hear the spontaneous passion throughout, which too much of the wrong kind of practice can beat out of a speech.

Audience engagement - with a small audience, I made reference to individuals there, and made the speech personal on the fly.

New ideas - since I made so much of it up on the spot, new ideas, good and bad, got a trial run. I have some great thoughts for humor and emotional phrasing that I may not have gotten by writing it first.

In the end, the total freedom I felt in the situation helped me tremendously, and that's what I want you to take away from this post.

I'm looking forward to turning this raw speech into something that will live a long time. It'll end up 160 words shorter, and have twice the impact.

But if I hadn't gotten it out there, If I'd stayed in front of my computer, my notepad, whatever, and let myself get tied up with the paralysis of perfect prose, it might never have existed.

I have a few other strategies to share in coming posts, and depending on how I fare this season in the contest, I will eventually share a side by side comparison between this speech and the finalized version.

If you can't sit and write, go speak. Even if it's not a speech, but a blog post. A book chapter. A letter. Record it. Transcribe it. Be free from judgment in the moment, then come back and start editing.

Shatter your writer's block so you can Speak....& Deliver!

Levels of Credibility & the Big Lie for Speakers

Credibility - it's a quality every speaker must have.
Credibility can help us believe in ourselves.
Credibility can help other believe in us.
The fear of not having Credibility can stop us from speaking altogether.

Are you Credible? Take a look at this list of Levels of Credibility and decide for yourself - because if you don't believe you're credible, it doesn't even matter if others DO.

Levels of Credibility

1. Celebrity Credibility - You've walked the walk. Up Mt. Everest, on the Moon. You've won the trophy, you've held the office, you've earned the money. You're famous, or just infamous. Bottom line - people want to hear you because they just want to be in the same room with you. Your content may or may not be directly related to your credibility, but as long as it is connected in some way, your content is elevated by your Credibility.

2. Survivor Credibility - You've survived cancer, a car accident, a plane crash. You survived the military. You've lived your life with a disability, or acquired one along the way, be it Parkinson's, Neurofibromatosis, or a Super-Deluxe Robot Leg. You survived abuse as a child or an adult. Bottom Line - you survived some extreme, though not necessarily unique, circumstance of life. Both the survival, and your willingness to speak about it, are your Credibility.

3. Process Credibility - You've been where your audience is, and found a better way to go from where they are to where they wish to go. You've figured out how to be a great salesperson, manager, leader. You've been fat, and now you're not, because of the diet and exercise regimen you're teaching. You've found and used the best way to find the best mate, be the best parent, or invest your money wisely. People want to hear you because they want to know how you do what you do. Your content must be directly related to your credibility.

4. Educational Credibility - perhaps the most commonly used, yet ultimately weakest, form of credibility. You're a PhD, MD, MA, or any other of a myriad of educational degrees. Not to say they are meaningless. Academic Credibility has it's place. But that place is rarely in the hearts of your audience, unless it's combined with the one or more of the first three. In other words, I don't want to hear from a doctor about the latest surgical technique for brain surgery, I want to hear from a doctor whose USED the the latest surgical technique for brain surgery.

Many of the above examples are extreme - and it's often the way we think about Credibility. If we haven't climbed Mt. Everest, had our leg blown off in Iraq, or earned our way to Warren Buffet's dinner table, we're not credible enough.

That's the Big Lie. We are ALL credible. We just aren't credible on ALL things. 

We are credible when we have done something the audience has not, something the audience aspires to, or something something the audience hasn't done as well. We are credible when we have knowledge, or a combination of knowledge and experience the audience does not.

Before you pick a speaking topic, do a credibility inventory. How much do you really know? What success have you had in that area? This can be empowering or discouraging, depending on how you approach it. First, don't compare yourself to others. There's always going to be someone with more knowledge, experience, and results than you. That's OK. Second, if you do feel you're falling short, treat it as a guideline for gaining more education, experience, and results.



Unless you're choosing to speak on something that is way off in left field - say, you're a single male who's done nothing but play video games his whole life and you want to go speak about cultivating successful romantic relationships - you're going to discover you do, in fact, have several items on the list that separate and elevate you above your average audience.

Remember too, that your audience will with self-select, so they want your information, or you be selected to speak by someone in authority, meaning they'll often believe they'll need your information.

The only other danger comes when we try to artificially enhance our credibility, and say we've done things we haven't. Like lying on a resume when you're hired as the football coach at Notre Dame. Or say your helicopter got hit by enemy fire in Iraq, when it was actually the helicopter in front of you. Misstating, or mis-remembering, our credibility, which leads to misrepresenting ourselves, will only lead to embarrassment at best, and a complete loss of respect, revenue, and future returns at worst.

You have either have enough authentic credibility or you don't. If you don't, get it, or change your topic. If you THINK you don't have ENOUGH credibility, you probably DO, unless you KNOW you don't have ANY credibility. Live a credibility building life, and in six months, you'll be even more credible than you are now. Take credit where credit is due, and build your assets as you grow your speaking career.

Don't let fear of a lack of credibility silence you. Go SPEAK - and Deliver!