Get your kids speaking!
Jul 27, 2016Here's today's story ..
‘Who’s going to introduce you?’ Susan asked me.
‘I’m not sure, who do you think?’
‘What about Amelie?’
Having our daughter introduce me seemed like a wonderful idea, but she was only 8 years old.
‘Would you like to do it Amelie?’
‘Yep!!’ she said with a beaming smile, full of confidence.
So that was that.
When Amelie walked into the ball room with our Nanny, Hatti, and looked at all the tables of people, spread out across the room as far as the eye could see, it was not quite what she had in mind when she said yes!
She looked up to Hatti for reassurance. Hatti’s face was filled with terror. ‘Oh my gosh!’ Hatti said as she scanned the room, wide eyed.
Susan looked down at Amelie and said ‘Let’s go up to the front, and get ready’
The ambience of the room as 750 people talked excitedly in the decadently laid out ball room would have presented a daunting prospect for most people. ‘I feel sick for Amelie .. ' Hatti said to me, looking a bit green around the gills.
Even though Hatti was only 23 years old, she had known Amelie since she was tiny and was a cross between a big sister and a 2nd mother!
‘She’ll be fine!’ I said.
When Amelie walked up on stage with Pharrell’s ‘Happy’ booming around the room, it was a magical moment.
‘Good morning everyone’ she said, and then paused for the reply.
‘My name is Amelie ..’
The next 90 seconds was simply unbelievable. She was calm, confident, her timing was perfect. She was funny and challenging and inspirational. She got several rounds of applause and when she said at the end ‘If I can do this, you can too .. because you’re all grown ups!’ the room erupted!
She got a standing ovation at the end. I found it difficult to speak when she introduced me, I was so moved.
People who were in the room still mention it to me.
‘She is so talented.’
‘She was so confident, I couldn’t believe it.’
‘You’re so lucky to have a daughter like Amelie.’
‘So she’s got the speaker’s gene too!’
It’s so interesting to see people’s reactions and assumptions about speaking. The truth is Amelie was terrified when she got to the venue. But she did it faultlessly. She did it confidently. She did it just like she practiced.
And practiced. And practiced.
Weeks before the event she was drafting and redrafting her speech.
She was practicing it out loud. She was practicing it in front of Mum. She was practicing it in front of her siblings.
‘Can you video me again Dad?’
We videoed and watched and re-videoed and re-watched her introduction over and over again. We debated the audience’s reactions, what would work, what may work, what should be changed.
We drew out her approach to the stage on the whiteboard and the time it should take.
At 6am on the big day, we were in the room, practicing. She practiced walking up to the stage, maybe 10 times. She practiced her introduction out loud 3 or 4 times. Then she practiced with a microphone. Then she did a sound check and practiced hearing herself through the PA system.
By the time she took the stage for real, she had delivered her introduction in a variety of forms at least 50 times. She was ready.
Even though she felt very nervous when she was called to the stage, she did it just like we drilled.
Denzel Washington has a great quote in one of his movies, ‘There’s no such thing as luck, there’s trained .. and there’s untrained’
It’s the same for everyone .. children and adults .. little Amelie .. and you!
Yes, you can .. and you absolutely should. Get speaking and get your kids speaking, it will change your lives!
Until next time ..
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Communicating is not just about words. We need to think about our body language, tone, and pacing. How we feel impacts the way we speak. Struggling to find the right content makes us ineffective. Great speakers know that becoming an exceptional speaker isn't just an art - it's a process with many essential elements.
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