For my sins, I am writing a book: a book on the art of good communication. And what a journey it is. I am writing the book because after five years with London Speech Workshop, delivering our particular method in Effective Communication, it feels like it’s about time to do the work justice, and let more people experience the delights and intuitive wonders of a method that proves itself, time and time again to—quite simply—work.
The thing is, at the moment all of this is delivered by one of the most amazing Effective Communication teachers the world has known, I believe, in the form of one Jamie Chapman: I realised that even if Jamie worked every hour God sends in any given week, there would still be so many people who couldn’t benefit from our method. The wonderful Anthony Shuster is about to be trained up in our method, so more people will soon be able to access it, but still, it’s not enough.
This sounds full of largesse I know, and that’s partly because I have been writing all day and now all I have left are rather large high falutin' statements, but there’s a real truth to it. Time has shown us that we have something good. One of the great joys of this work is the regular ‘eureka’ moments with our clients, after they see themselves on film before and after learning the LSW method, and many of them well up with emotion. They see themselves as the communicators they have always wanted to be, and yet have told themselves it isn't possible to be. It can be a special thing bearing witness to that.
But—and please please listen carefully to this—good communication is not some innate genetic ability that a few lucky people are born with. No, not at all. Everyone has the thing that excites them, the stuff that makes their eyes light up, their breath drop into their diaphragm and their arms reach out to add to what they’re saying. Our techniques simply release that inner communicator, and show you the path to access it, even when you are nervous.
As you can probably tell, I really believe in this stuff!
Finally, a tip to work with for the week: if you are having to do a speech and are not feeling it—the communication thing—you can work from the outside in. Get your hands and arms moving in the space around your midriff. That will send messages to your brain that you are comfortable and energized by the subject matter, which will relax you and get you—yes!—more energised with the subject matter. Enjoy!
