[Fredslist] The Passionate Speaker #74 - The Inner Critic

Fri Jul 8 08:30:04 EDT 2005

eNewsletter

      The Passionate Speaker 

      A Monthly Newsletter for Speakers

      by 

      Mike Landrum

      July, 2005 - Number 74

      The Inner Critic

      "The choice is simple: between now and the inevitable end of our days, we can choose either to live or to die. . . We cannot expect anyone to help us live; we must discover how to do it for ourselves."

      - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - Finding Flow 

            Contents
            Something to Ponder
            Speaker's Workshop 
            Tape / CD
            Party Like It's Tomorrow!
            Money/Mouth

            Contact Info

            Speaker's Workshop 
            Some friends in the Hudson Valley have asked for a speaker's workshop like the one we did in the city last month. If at least five of you will send me an email confirming your interest I'll set it up for August or September. I'll drop the price to $400 and still offer discounts for Gotham, BMA, Toastmasters, NSA and prior clients. We'll set up a date we can all agree to, and meet in the Newburgh area. Class size will be limited to 8. For more info on the workshop, click here

            Party Like It's Tomorrow!
            , my good friend and colleague Joanne Dennison is throwing a party/growth opportunity that you should consider attending - On July 23 in Somerset, NJ 

            It's a Party for Your Goals! 

            Ever tell your friends and family about a dream or goal of yours 
            only to be told you're crazy for trying to achieve it? 

            What if you surrounded yourself with people who, like you, dream big, 
            set goals and think nothing is impossible?

            Now you can - click this link for more.
            Let's Party!

            Money/Mouth
            To book Mike's newest presentation, Put Your Mouth Where Your Money Is, Call: 917-647-7893
            for more info click here!

            Tape / CD

            For a copy of my keynote 
            "Playing With Fire - Leadership Lessons from Life Stories"
            at the Arden House Summit, please send your check and return address to:
            Mike Landrum
            Creative Coaching
            P.O. Box 112
            Blooming Grove, NY 10914
            The speech is available on DVD as well as audio cassette or CD
            Prices: Cassette - $10
            CD - $15
            DVD - $20
            plus $2 shipping and handling.

            * * *
            I sometimes wish I could give a speech without any words. It's a difficult admission for a writer, speaker and appreciator of fine language, but words are too much with us, I think. They have become so enmeshed in the fabric of existence that it feels as though they are existence. We build our world with words the way my little daughter builds her play world out of toys, convincing herself that these dollies are genuinely her babies. Words are woefully inadequate to make a world. They are much farther from concrete reality than Elizabeth's dolly is from an actual baby. And yet we talk our way through life as if it were the only way to live - with our "monkey minds" chattering away, filling every gap, every tiny instant, with chatter - uttered or not. 

            Have you ever known someone who just could not shut up? There's a word (of course) for that: logorrhea. It's a sad and irritating condition whereby a person seems to be allergic to silence. Every instant must be commented on, or at least filled with some sort of verbal packing - like excelsior - to insulate everyone in earshot from the actual experience of living that moment. Many people suffer under the illusion that it is only those moments which are described, judged, and turned into verbal narrative, that are really being experienced. In fact, the opposite is true.

            Words are abstractions of the world. They are the symbols and surrogates we have created to pass the world around from one head to another. While it may seem to us that they describe the here-and-now in an instantaneous way, they are always at some remove from the suchness of the world. The play-by-play is not the baseball game. 

            There is a saying: "you are not the voice in your head, you are the hearer of the voice." I think that 'voice' part of our mind, the left hemisphere, the super-ego, is trying to get control, and it just can't seem to manage it. Why? The words set us apart from our existential present moment just a bit, a tiny fraction of a nanosecond, while we write a quick critique of the movie we are living. Isn't that so? Isn't the substance of these word-filled thoughts often a bunch of judgements and frets and worries and regrets, casting back and forth between the past and the future, distant and near? Mind-chatter is a sort of mono-logorrhea in our brain's left hemisphere where that critical, parental-sounding voice in our head just won't shut up. 

            That nagging inner critical voice can be deadly for speakers and performers of any stripe. I remember working in an acting class led by Frank Corsaro, the great director, writer and teacher. After I had finished acting a scene he told me: "We can see you battling with your inner critic. You are so eager to be good, you cannot permit yourself to simply be, without judging it good or bad at the same time. Acting is the ultimate act of trust in your self. Good, bad or otherwise, you are the character and therefore everything you say and do is perfectly appropriate. Furthermore, if somehow, you were able to succeed in being the perfect performer that your inner critic is demanding, the performance would be dull and dead. What makes any performance compelling is its human-ness. The flaws and vulnerabilities that your inner critic finds objectionable are in fact the interesting and exciting aspects of any performance."

            This wise counsel applies equally well to speakers and anyone else who must perform for others. The moment of the performance requires a commitment to self-trust. Bad acting is almost always bad because it is self-conscious. Is that not also true for speakers? We can see when the performers are divided from the performance, watching, judging themselves, and it undermines our belief. 

            To neutralize the critical voice, we need to learn how to empower the 'hearer of the voice' don't we? We often neglect the right hemisphere of our human brain because it is mute - completely non-verbal. The question becomes: can you live in that mute, silent half of yourself? I submit that you can, and do - and that it is a great benefit to do so as often as possible. How? By becoming so absorbed in some project - gardening, carpentry, cooking, making music, any sort of work with the hands - that you lose all track of time. When you come to the end of such a task and are startled to find that hours have elapsed, then you know you have been living in the timeless moment, on the right side of the brain. 

            If you examine that experience, you may realize that there was little or no mental chatter happening then. You were in a state of 'Flow' as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author and psychologist, has described in his important books on the subject. This special state, Flow, is only accessible from the right hemisphere of the brain, from that part of the human mind that is always and only alive to the present moment. The 'Hearer,' the genuine you, your actual self, resides there. The more value and attention you give to that part of yourself, the more available it will be for the crucial performances of your life, like speeches. For some exercises on developing that part of your mind I recommend studying the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards. You will discover astonishing abilities in yourself, see the world with new eyes, and, as a bonus, learn to draw. 

            I do not mean for you to throw away the left side, which has many vital skills and abilities. The ideal is to combine the talents of both the right and left so that harmonious integrated activity ensues. Peak performances always display this undivided concentration of skills from every aspect of the self. We need our entire mind, balanced and equalized like the magnificent stereo system it is. Then we can bring forth the music from the whole orchestra of our creative potential. 

            * * *
            To Read Previous Issues of The Passionate Speaker, Click here

            Something to Ponder

            "It is in order to really see, to see ever deeper, ever more intensely, hence to be fully aware and alive, that I draw what the Chinese call 'The Ten Thousand Things' around me. Drawing is the discipline by which I constantly rediscover the world. I have learned that what I have not drawn, I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing, I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle."

            - Frederick Franck - The Zen of Seeing

            * * *

            Put Your Mouth Where The Money Is! 

            Great Communication Skills Are Essential For Success

            A New Presentation/Workshop 
            Now Available for Your Group!

            by Mike Landrum

            Speaker's Coach / Speechwriter

              a.. How can your presentations always succeed? 

              b.. What's the key to all great communication?

              c.. What is the secret to overcoming stage-fright?

              d.. Is PowerPoint working for you or against you?

              e.. Which powerful tool do most speakers ignore?

              f.. How can you make a great first impression?

              g.. What should you be telling people that you're not?

              h.. What is the single greatest enemy of any performance, and how can you defeat it?

            Discover the answers to these provocative questions - and much more - in this informative, entertaining and useful presentation. Mike Landrum has emerged as one of the top corporate speakers' coaches in the country. He brings a wealth of experience from a rich and varied career as an actor, writer, director, producer, teacher and spokesperson. His understanding of the problems for successful performance and communication is unparalleled; and his solutions are imaginative and, most importantly, effective. In this presentation he employs all the tools a gifted, classically trained actor can provide along with personal stories and anecdotes from his forty-year career in television and theatre. You'll leave with new insights into how great communication skills make for successful business relationships. 

            This presentation can be delivered at various lengths 
            from a twenty-minute talk to a full day workshop.
            To Inquire About Rates, Scheduling, etc., 
            Call:
            917-647-7893

            or email

            Contact Info

            Mike Landrum
            32 Hardscrabble Road - Suite 112
            Blooming Grove, NY 10914

            http://www.CoachMike.com 

            Mike at CoachMike.com

            917-647-7893

            The Passionate Speaker is a free email publication written and published by Michael F. Landrum. Feel free to distribute to friends, associates and organizations - provided you include this paragraph and the copyright and attribution. Further information on Mike Landrum, as well as previous issues of The Passionate Speaker can be found at the web site http://www.CoachMike.com. Do you have any questions, comments, complaints or praise? I welcome all feedback! You may reply to this email or directly to: Mike at CoachMike.com Thanks!

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             © 2005 Michael F. Landrum

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