During Scott Appleby's presentation he misspoke and called our website "Broken Halo." I mention this not to slight the good professor's name (God knows thousands of people make the same mistake--so much so that we even tried to buy Brokenhalo.com a few times), but rather to offer a few funnies.
One Paulist yelled out: "BUSTED halo."
To which Appleby replied: "Shoot...right sorry. Wow! It's even more drastic than I thought."
To which I replied: "At least it isn't SHATTERED."
And it was all that quick. Laughs all around.
My advisor said to me..."You've got a real gift for quick retorts. Were you always that quick? Or does that come from your radio training?"
I said, "Well I learned a bit in radio...but I was the state extemporaneous spaking champ for a club I was in in high school. That's where I really learned it. In fact, that's probably where I learned how to preach."
And I went to public school...
In short--the rules I learned for extemporaneous speaking are as follows:
1) Tell stories throughout--and one that grabs the audience right away up top.
2) Speak vibrantly and strong as if you were trying to make a point that the audience just had to know--as if their lives maybe didn't quite depend on it--but rather something that you just had to share.
3) Speak between 3-5 minutes only. That makes you narrow in on a point.
4) Have ONE point and one point only. Stay on topic and don't try to go through any back doors.
5) Speak ENGLISH. No high fallutin words.
6) Know your audience--and if you don't know your audience (for some odd reason) try to lead with stories that everyone can resonate with.
7) Make people fall in love with your idea--not neccessarily appealling only to the intellect but more to the heart.
8) Don't go overboard with syrupy stuff--have a gentle balance while leaning towards the heart.
All good advice. Hopefully I've lived up to it.
Jun 24, 2008
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