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The Inner Critic

The Passionate Speaker

A Newsletter for Speakers

By

Michael Landrum

 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

 

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 judgments 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.

 

A Thought 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

 

©2005 Michael F. Landrum

The Most Vulnerable Point of Leadership

by Mike Landrum


We in America are being treated to a rare phenomenon in this presidential campaign. We have seen the ascent of Barack Obama from far back in the lists only 18 months ago, to riding the crest of a wave of enthusiastic support that will probably take him to his party’s nomination and on to the White House. How did this happen? Not with shrewd marketing, a huge outlay of money or great political connections, no, this came about purely on the ability of the man to speak. For a student of the speaker’s art, it is a thrill.

At first, it seems he has little to bring in the way of tools. No great resonant voice, no particularly handsome demeanor, no charismatic physical endowments to speak of; and yet he gathers crowds like a rock star and can leave the throng in a frenzy of excitement. Meanwhile the competition, Senator Clinton, a former first lady with, as she proclaims, 35 years of experience in the political circus, and John Edwards, a very handsome and charismatic trial lawyer, have been beaten all hollow. How?

Public speaking is the most vulnerable point of leadership. Most speakers try to hide that vulnerability, to show power, to override it with energy and gestures and a big smile. Obama lets it be. He seems comfortable with his physical limits. He opens up to his audience, accepting them and himself as human beings sharing the experience. He delivers a simple message - often criticized as platitude - that aligns with his audience. Hope and change are what they want.

Edwards always seemed to be speaking to people who weren’t in the room. The “other Americans” were down and out, mill workers, poor people that few could identify with. Hillary has been campaigning against resistance for so long that when she came down off the top of her voice for a few minutes in New Hampshire some weeks ago, people recognized her as a person again and her poll numbers climbed dramatically. Unfortunately, she did not learn to stay simple and direct and has gone back to the default style again.

What lessons can the rest of us take from this? Trust yourself. Find the appropriate level of energy to address an audience. Don’t hide. Go ahead and be vulnerable - it may be where your strength lies.

The Speechwriters Conference

I've just returned from my annual trip to the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel on Connecticut Ave. in Washington, D.C. for the national Speechwriters Conference. Every February speechwriters from business, government and academe gather for two days of networking and learning at this conference put on by Ragan Communications. This year, one of the stars was the closing day Keynoter, Drew Westen, author of The Political Brain. Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University, gave a fascinating speech on the importance of emotional intelligence for political campaigns.

His insights on the use of words and images to strike emotional and persuasive chords in the hearts of an audience are valuable for speakers beyond the political sphere.

Other great takeaways for me were provided by Wendy Cherwensky, a free-lance writer from Ottawa. Wendy's seminar contained many valuable tips but the strongest takeaway for me was her recommendation of Garr Reynolds' great new book PresentationZen. This book and the excellent blog that he maintains with the same title - http://www.presentationzen.com/.

Both are briming with great ideas for simplifying your visuals and strengthening your PowerPoint presentations. The blog also features many links to speakers who make good use of the principles that Reynolds (and yours truly) espouse. One of my favorite discoveries from this site was the annual Technology, Entertainment and Design conference, TED, held in Monterey, California. It's an amazing conference with speakers from all disciplines, limited to less than 20 minutes to present their ideas. Check it out!

Sorensen Speaks

Speechwriter Dana Rubin, founder and force behind the New York Speechwriters' Roundtable, scored a coup last September by persuading Theodore C. Sorensen to be our lunchtime speaker. For 11 years, Sorensen was a policy advisor, legal counsel and speechwriter for Senator and then President John F. Kennedy. The Kennedy administration brought many changes to Washington, D.C. In January 1961, JFK was 43 years old and the first president born in the 20th century.

He surrounded himself with the "best and brightest" young aides and associates the country had to offer, chief among them Theodore C. "Ted" Sorensen, a lawyer from Lincoln, Neb.

Kennedy's energetic diction, his tone of voice, the simple, measured language of his speeches snapped overhead like a banner in a fresh breeze. It was Sorensen's job to create that banner. He first joined the staff of the newly elected Sen. Kennedy in 1953, and quickly earned a position of trust and responsibility that lasted for the rest of JFK's life. Much of Kennedy's legacy flowed through Sorensen's pen and into the hearts of all Americans.

In private conversation Ted Sorensen is modest and soft-spoken. Listeners around his lunch table lean forward to catch his words as he banters about the current political scene. At the lectern, he stands tall, still trim at 77, and his hair still dark. Though his eyesight is failing and his voice is quiet, it carries vigorously and with a barbed political point.

"Don't worry about the fact that I can't see … I have more vision than the President of the United States."

He greets us as colleagues and proceeds to entertain us with stories from his true peers, the presidential speechwriters of prior administrations. Under the leadership of William Safire, they have formed the Judson T. Welliver society, named for President "Silent Cal" Coolidge's speechwriter, the first of his trade. This group meets periodically at Safire's house to commiserate and wrangle, aiming jibes at one another across the aisle. A few years ago, Peggy Noonan, speechwriter for the Reagan administration, did not show up for a meeting. It seems she had a new book out, Sorensen said.

"So when it came my turn I told them I was sorry Peggy was not there, that rumors that I had helped ghostwrite her book were untrue … and then I shook my finger at them and said 'Listen to me carefully. I did not have contextual relations with that woman!"

He spoke with pride of being a speechwriter and urged us not to permit anyone to refer to us as "just a speechwriter.
"Bear in mind that Alexander Hamilton was a speechwriter for George Washington; Seneca was a speechwriter for Nero; Winston Churchill wrote at least one speech for the King of England. At least he was King until the speech was over."

"Now, if you'll all promise not to violate my copyright, I'll share with you the secrets of speechwriting," Sorensen continued. (Readers are hereby cautioned that the future use of any of his remarks must be accompanied by attribution to Theodore C. Sorensen.) "Speechwriting really comes down to four words and five lines. The four words: brevity, levity, charity and clarity.

Then the five lines are: Outline absolutely indispensable, always the best place to start. No. 2: headline what do you want the headline to be? Third: Frontline what's the most important point, what do you move up to the front? Fourth "Sideline" put in a quotation from a poem, an allusion to history, a bit of eloquence or precedence from the past. Finally, the "Bottom line" what is your conclusion?"

Everyone at my table took notes. Sorensen moved on.

"Humor is extremely valuable to warm up an audience, and sometimes to make a point, but it's not totally without risk. In my very first year, working for Senator John F. Kennedy, I gave him a line which he used. One of our fellow Senators was a very rich Rhode Island nonagenarian, Theodore Francis Green … and Kennedy, late for a speech at one of the hotels in Washington, began, at my suggestion, saying to the audience "Well, I'm sorry to be late but fortunately I had a very good cab driver, he got me here in a hurry. I was going to give him a big tip and tell him to vote Democratic, but then I remembered a good idea that Senator Green gave me. I gave him a small tip and told him to vote Republican." It got a good laugh. Unfortunately, the AP reported the joke as though it was actual fact, and Kennedy heard from every cab driver in Massachusetts."

Sorensen's last tip on speechwriting before opening the floor for questions was to "Keep the speech and the speaker together." He then told of an incident when Senator Kennedy was scheduled to speak in Knoxville on the topic of the TVA. Arriving at the airport, the Senator was whisked away in a limousine while Sorensen rode in another car with the staff. "The driver turned on the radio," said Sorensen, "and we hear 'Now from TVA, our speaker for today, John F. Kennedy.' And I've got the speech in my pocket. I said, 'We'll probably want to stay tuned here …' It was amazing what that man knew about TVA … after that, he kept the speech in his pocket."

In answer to a question from the floor on writing a great speech, he replied: "A speech is made great, not from the words used, but from the ideas conveyed. If the ideas, principles and values and substance of the speech are great, then it's going to be a great speech, even if the words are pedestrian. The words can be soaring, beautiful and eloquent but if the ideas are flat, empty or mean, it's not a great speech."

Asked about the famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech"when did he discover that the local German idiom translated the phrase to mean "I am a jelly donut?" Sorensen responded that his office quickly received that news. "My only recovery was when, two . . . no three years later when the USIA sent me on a speaking tour to Germany. I went to the University of Hamburg and explained to them why the President couldn't possibly come there and say "Ich bin ein Hamburger." At which point some wag in the group chimed in "or Frankfurt!"

There were questions about working with JFK, of course, but Sorensen joked about the need for security clearances and declined to answer with a simple, "Ask not."

The phrase speechwriters use when they are asked to inspire an audience is "reaching for the marble." It is a rare and gratifying experience to be in the room and hear the thoughts of one whose words achieved a place on marble walls across America. Ted Sorensen is best remembered for his role in carving these words into the history of America: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask rather, what you can do for your country."


© 2005 Michael F. Landrum

This article was published in the January, 2006 issue of The Speechwriter's Newsletter



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Something to Ponder


John F. Kennedy has been dead for nearly as long as he was alive. His most famous words are easily remembered - here is a random selection of other quotes from the years when Ted Sorensen served as his speechwriter and policy advisor.

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.

I just received the following wire from my generous Daddy - "Dear Jack, Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide."

I'm an idealist without illusions.

The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie: deliberate, contrived, and dishonest; but the myth: persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.

The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.

The new frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises - it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them. It appeals to their pride, not their pocketbook - it holds out the promise of more sacrifice instead of more security.

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

When we got into office, the thing that surprised me most was to find that things were just as bad as we'd been saying they were.

You never know what's hit you. A gunshot is the perfect way.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

The Value of a Speech Coach

Giving a speech can be the most vulnerable moment in any leader’s career. A poor presentation can cost an election, a contract, a top position or a ton of money. It’s a task filled with pitfalls, some of which can only be avoided by an experienced speaker’s coach. Here are a few samples:

• Which foot leads when stepping onto a stage?
• How can a speaker regain dominance over PowerPoint?
• What’s the best exercise to relax the voice before speaking?
• When is a hand-held mike a better choice than a lavalier?
• What mind-set is needed when addressing a television camera?

Many consider speech coaches merely cheerleaders. This notion probably arises from bringing the coach in too late. With only a week or so to go, all the major decisions have been made and encouragement is about the only tool that’s left. And, that is a vital tool - after all, this is a game where confidence counts most. Public speaking is frightening, even for big shots. The first task of a coach is to deal with that fear, to encourage the client that they have what it takes.

The best coaches like to be there early, working with the writers on the plan of attack. Many corporations have no professional speechwriters on staff - the copy emerges from various corporate departments such as marketing, finance and always, legal. Then coach who can also write becomes a crucial necessity to bring the text back to simple spoken English. A writer/coach can create apt metaphors, incorporate physical action into storytelling, and bring pedestrian communication to vivid life. Writers create speeches, coaches create great performances.

A great performance depends on three things: presence, purpose and practice. Presence means grasping the nettle and being willing to step forward to deliver the speech personally and directly. The components of presence are: good posture, a strong, pleasant voice, confident gestures, and above all, eye contact. Hiding behind a lectern, burying the head in a stack of pages or slides is more like absence. Unfortunately, hiding has become the rule for business speakers these days. Reading from a page or teleprompter without losing the audience is a deceptively difficult skill that often requires coaching to master.

Purpose has to do with the desired outcome, of course. During the last Presidential campaign, George W. Bush was kept “on task” by strong coaching - always focused on the purpose of the speech. I might quibble with some of his ‘presence’ choices, however, and he's a poor reader. Senator Kerry had excellent presence - but tended to wander from his purpose too much.

Practice is probably where coaching proves most valuable. A good coach can direct a tight, productive practice session to make sure the speaker solves the problems of performance economically, one at a time. Timing, pauses, emphatic gestures and the vital opening and closing lines all take repetition and incisive coaching to correct mistakes without undermining the speaker’s confidence.

“The eye sees not itself but by reflection,” wrote Shakespeare. The performers’ problem is always the same - they are stuck inside the performance and need an outside observer to guide them. Video helps, of course, and I often use video with my clients. Speaking is a performance. As in the theater, success depends on a trustworthy director, exercising the good judgement born of experience, to bring out the best performance in any speaker. That’s the speech coach’s job.

© 2005 Mike Landrum

Don King is Roasted by Donald Trump and the Friars

Everyone with the least ambition for fame should be made to sit through a Friar’s Club Roast. If you don’t come away with a healthy appreciation for a life of quiet obscurity, then you deserve all the celebrity you can handle.

Friday at noon 1400 people gathered at the Hilton Hotel’s immense ballroom to witness the public excoriation of Don King, fight promoter and felon. The “RoastMaster” was Donald Trump, and the Master of Ceremonies was Friar’s president Freddie Roman. Sharing the dais were sixty or so luminaries, David Dinkens, Michael Spinks, Fred Klein, etc., all lined up like ducks in a shooting gallery. It turns out that at a Roast, anyone within earshot is meat for the grill. I was glad the Hilton was only one block long.

Freddie Roman got first crack at them, introducing most with a respectful list of accomplishments. Then he turned the lectern over to “The Donald” and away we went. With the sound over-cranked, the air in the Hilton turned suddenly blue. Among the dozen comic talents that he introduced some produced a few great moments of hilarity.

My favorites - Stuie Stone dissing the Donald for getting a million bucks to teach people how to get rich. . . “What do you know about it? Your father gave you $40 million!” And “Donald, I think your hair is turning prematurely orange.”

Lisa Lampanelli said: “Abe Vigoda is here. . . I’m just saying that so he’ll know. . .” One of the few remarks from her that can be repeated in public. (Somehow, the Friars roast with 1400 people in the Hilton ballroom is not really in public. . .) Ms. Lampanelli was the only one of her gender to speak, but she understood the game for sure. With a vocabulary that would blow the doors off a porn shop, she just about won this strange race to the gutter.

Dick Capri thanked Don King for saving his life “from a vicious gang of Hassidim.” Leroy Neiman presented the honoree with a five-by-seven inch portrait that he had painted. Freddie figured it must be worth “eight to twelve bucks.”

Norm Crosby was great - pointing out that Canadians prefer making love “doggy-style because that way they can both watch the hockey game.” Al Sharpton sounded a protest on behalf of all the black tenants in Trump Tower . . .

Roasting was as perilous as being roasted, it turns out. Some of the greatest humiliation was self-inflicted as several of the comics crashed and burned. One even threw a little extra gas on the fire by continuing to drone on through a page of weak one-liners after he had gotten a big round of applause for saying “Maybe I should just shut up and sit down.”

Ironically, after being the target of this pie-throwing contest (with cow pies, yet), when Don King rose to speak, he was almost preacher-like in his response. He acknowledged the invective hurled at him with dignity, while admitting the pain he felt, particularly in front of his son. “There is no pain without gain,” he said. He spoke with justifiable pride of the distance he had come from his beginnings, and called himself a patriot who wears the Screaming Eagle in homage to the 101st Airborne. After the load of insults he had listened to, he sounded grateful and a bit surprised that there actually was a watch in the box he was given.

Now I graduated high school a long time ago, served a hitch in the U.S. Army, fought a war and made my living surrounded by theatre people, so there’s almost no depredation I haven’t become acquainted with. I’m no wuss. I too, have paid my dues, acted like a jerk and said unworthy things. I understood that this Roast was going to be a raw event with foul language and every sort of hostile, sexist, racist, scatological, anatomical, just plain dirty bit of Beavis and Butthead adolescent crap imaginable. As an actor I know there is nothing harder than comedy and nothing easier than criticism, but I left the Hilton Friday feeling like I’d been shot at and missed and shit at and hit. I’m sorry, but the ratio of actual humor to groans, cringes and gorge-raising images was disappointingly low. I was glad I had not brought a woman with me. I’d be hard pressed to explain why grown men must sift through so much manure for so long to find so few seeds of wit.

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© 2005 Mike Landrum