Delivery Chronicles- Conflict and Perspectives

The idea of preparing a hip-pocket speech was not as difficult as anticipated after it finally hit me that I should choose a topic that I am passionate about and can know from my hip-pocket. (Yes, I suffer from thick-skull syndrome.)

The topic I finally chose was that of Conflict and Perspectives. This relates to how our differing perspectives internally and externally are constantly being challenged and we must be open to viewing those different perspectives otherwise we will be in conflict. I also shared how we then cast around and even troll for others to join our internal conflicts. The resolution of course is to look at and sometimes change our perspective on that subject in order to resolve our conflict.

The greatest challenge I faced for this speech was gathering a crowd. My audience ended up being most of my extended family on my wife's side. Once a month we all get together to catch up on news and of course eat. This month was no different, except I told everyone that I would like to give a speech for my class. They were thrilled to hear about my topic and agreed to do a short evaluation afterword.

I was hoping that only the adults would want to stay and listen, but it ended up that the little children were anxious to see what I was doing as well. So, I adapted my speech for ages three to seventy.

I began by using my laptop to show an example of differing perspectives. This was quite effective in catching everyone's attention. I then introduced my topic of conflict. I kept my audience involved in the speech by using analogies and examples backed by pictures. For the children I also used a small fishing pole with a stuffed animal tied on to the line. When I explained how we cast out our conflicts in an attempt to catch others and involve them in our conflict with us, I used this prop to effectively keep their attention. The adults related well to this too.

For the speech evaluation I handed it to all of the adults and asked them to please be brutally honest in their evaluation. (My almost eighteen year old daughter was the most brutal, but she has taken speech and debate in school for years.) I also asked them to comment on any other issues that they noticed that may have added or detracted from the speech. One commented that they appreciated that I kept eye contact with them instead of just talking to hear myself talk.

For further evaluation and in order to see if they had learned anything from the speech, I also asked them to write down something that they took away from the speech. I was pleasantly surprised at the messages that were gleaned from what I had shared. One person shared that they felt the message was just for them and that they would change the way that they looked at conflict from now on.

I learned a ton from this experience. I realized that I can give a great speech without notes and memorization, especially if it is a topic that I am passionate about. I also found out that I like using the word "okay" to transition instead of "um". I also learned that even though I may not say everything in a speech that I wanted, it tends to work out just right when you focus on the needs of the audience.