I was about five years old and had ended up in a painting circle, I don't even know how, together with other children older than me. It was the first time I was going there, the others were already familiar with the place. They kept boasting in the school hallways where drawings that had won prizes in this circle were displayed. I was bursting with impatience, all ready, with brushes, a drawing pad, gouache paints, of which I was terribly proud, all arranged by color from the lightest to the darkest. I thought nothing could stand in my way. We all sat around a large table, on the first floor of the Pioneers' House, as it was called back then, and waited. In front of us, elongated brushes were already arranged, along with a large sheet of drawing paper and a rectangle of glass, like a mirror. I stared at it for a long time. Then, around me. Everyone was calm. My eyes were slowly widening. I would have liked to ask someone something, but shame overcame fear. I stayed silent. Shortly after 10 o'clock, the drawing teacher came in, smiling at us as I sank into my chair. And she says: Alright, today I'm going to ask you to paint an icon on glass. And she leaves, saying she'll be back in half an hour. An ic… an ico… Tears knot in my throat, which I struggle not to cry. I barely manage to hold them in. I get up and go out. Only when I'm sure no one is around do I let them do what they know best, to wash away the trouble.
I met this story again more than twenty years later, when this time I took it out of the closet and told it on a stage in a speech about courage. Of course, back then, long ago, I could have said: no, I don't know how to paint on glass. After all, what could you ask of a five-year-old child? To paint snowmen, probably, no glass to speak of, let alone icons. Ever since, I choose to deliberately meet this story of mine again, entirely mine, as a lesson that reminds me that we are none other than those we accept within ourselves with honesty.
But what does that have to do with public speaking? It does. It's said that the biggest saboteur of public speaking, no matter how many people are listening to us, is, obviously, fear. But that sounds too simplistic, doesn't it? Fear fed by feelings of shame, the dread of being rejected, of not proving as much as is expected of you, of being irrelevant, of stumbling over your words, of failing to convey your message exactly in the form you want, etc. are just so many blockages that kill, before it's even born, any chance we have of voicing our opinions or thoughts. We're the ones tripping ourselves up, not someone else.
Late in life I chose to turn the story about the drawing—or so many others from the same closet—inside out, more precisely in my favor, stories which later helped me bring, literally, onto the stage the fragility I once found myself in. And for it to become a story in which others could see themselves too. We know it's possible to talk about public speaking in a schematic way. How to master the art of public speaking in x steps, or the x secrets about public speaking that will guarantee your success, etc. Of all the ingredients and strategies hyper-circulated over time about the art of public speaking, I believe the real bet is naturalness. This is where things get complicated.
When we talk about naturalness in public speaking, we move away from a composition, meaning a construction, which by its nature is artificial. I'm not saying we shouldn't rely on techniques necessary to the art of speech—rhetoric, rhythm, voice, narrative thread, discursive flow, etc.—but I believe these come naturally following our own authenticity brought up onto the stage. Where does it come from? We might say it's simple. What's authentic, just is. And that's it. But, like anything that seems simple, it isn't. It requires another kind of negotiation with oneself—a form of deep understanding, alignment or harmonization with who we are, fully owning ourselves in order to then feel comfortable showing ourselves to others as well—in our case here, on stage. Brené Brown talks about the courage to be vulnerable[i] by carrying our own shadows, without living any longer under the axe of mistake or judgment or a debilitating perfectionism. Of course, after deep work, not as a leap into the void.
What seems essential to me, even before this peaceful relationship with vulnerability, is first of all honesty. The more honest we are about ourselves, about who we are, the more an openness that can reveal fragments of ourselves—perhaps more fragile ones—shows us to be natural. And we will be received the same way by those who listen to us. Why? Because people see themselves in such a story of someone else's, whether they admit it or not. And if there's something that wins someone's attention (in reality, their heart) while telling a story, it's precisely this recognition of oneself in the other, of no longer being alone, of belonging to a group that sees, feels the same way. In short, of shortening the distance. Which de-alienates.
We are, indeed, talking about a bringing together in public speaking. But on several levels. The first has to do with magnetizing the audience through story. If we dress up any subject we have to convey in a story, we pull the audience out of their own time and throw them into the time of our story. They become captive, for a few minutes, to our time, they take part in the succession of events through which we carry them through the story we're telling. The second has to do with authenticity, because we speak from within the experience, the story we're telling. Whether it's a personal story, like the one about the drawing that I brought up at the beginning of these lines, or a story heard from someone else, the fact of passing that experience along through story brings the audience closer to the reality being told. So it makes it credible, and people can resonate with the story more easily. Outside of stories remain numbers, data, facts. Important, of course, but dry, without the power to move. It's said that people may not remember what you talked to them about, but they will surely remember the emotion left behind. And finally, the third level has to do with a significance, a meaning you give to the message, the speech. Each of us needs to understand the purpose of the things we do or take part in. And the story contains these cardinal axes, from which people carve out the meanings they're looking for.
In recent years, perhaps nothing is more fragile than truth. Pulled in every direction, twisted, camouflaged, perverted, etc. in this whole elastic web of the post-modern era. But if we were to stay loyal to our own compass, perhaps orienting ourselves toward the north of honesty of our own values, guiding how we express ourselves outwardly, in any speech, regardless of how many people are listening to us, from one to a full room, is the most stable approach.
[i] Brené Brown, 2102, Curajul de a fi vulnerabil. Schimbă felul în care trăiești, iubești, educi și conduci, trad. L. Dascălu și C. Rusu, Bucharest: Curtea Veche Publishing.
written by Andra Samson