I'm off to a relatively good start, I've decided to tackling my avoidances, Last Saturday I went into a local shopping centre with two objectives, I wanted to buy a book and also get my son's feet measured.
So experiment one was to go in to the book store and ask for a "book on memory techniques". I had no problems, kept Eye contact, was perfectly fluent, the shop assistant checked for a book and even though they didn't have any she recommended anything by Tony Buzan, I took the opportunity to repeat what she had said, "what was that name again? Tony Buzan?" not a hitch.
The second experiment proved a little tougher, on the first attempt I walked into a packed shoe shop, full of mothers sitting around chatting and waiting for the same thing, this in any man's day would be stressful, so I walked out. Not to be put off I regained me composure and walked back in after a couple of minutes, this time I had no bother!. My preparation in thinking about my body language and keeping myself open and with a smile definitely helped.
Reading the blog
This was a lot tougher, I set up the camcorder and printed out the blog, pressed record and BAM not a fecking word I had one of the worst blocks in ages, probably longer than 30 - 40 seconds. I do get though it and relaxed, when I watched it back I've picked up on one or two things that I avoided and how that looked on camera. I also did a piece at the end just ad libbing and was very fluent in that piece. Doing it in front of people though (namely my wife) will be my real goal, She thinks I over analyze my speech too much, I know I don't and getting over the awkward feelings of reading this on camera in front of her will be a real challenge.
So experiment one was to go in to the book store and ask for a "book on memory techniques". I had no problems, kept Eye contact, was perfectly fluent, the shop assistant checked for a book and even though they didn't have any she recommended anything by Tony Buzan, I took the opportunity to repeat what she had said, "what was that name again? Tony Buzan?" not a hitch.
The second experiment proved a little tougher, on the first attempt I walked into a packed shoe shop, full of mothers sitting around chatting and waiting for the same thing, this in any man's day would be stressful, so I walked out. Not to be put off I regained me composure and walked back in after a couple of minutes, this time I had no bother!. My preparation in thinking about my body language and keeping myself open and with a smile definitely helped.
Reading the blog
This was a lot tougher, I set up the camcorder and printed out the blog, pressed record and BAM not a fecking word I had one of the worst blocks in ages, probably longer than 30 - 40 seconds. I do get though it and relaxed, when I watched it back I've picked up on one or two things that I avoided and how that looked on camera. I also did a piece at the end just ad libbing and was very fluent in that piece. Doing it in front of people though (namely my wife) will be my real goal, She thinks I over analyze my speech too much, I know I don't and getting over the awkward feelings of reading this on camera in front of her will be a real challenge.
1 comment:
Great post! I especially liked the part where you wrote about walking into a shoe store is stressful for any man. How I can relate. Well, not shoes, really, more like this past Christmas when I was in a children's clothing store buying clothes for my 5 year old niece and 1 year old nephew. I was a stranger in a strange land! I didn't know a thing about sizes for kids. Good thing there were lots of other women around to help.
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