Wait: have you actually been listening? Feels anything but smooth to me!
This video series is a classic Ask Me Anything, with 1-2 questions answered each week. It’s for ThisIsTrue.com readers who are curious about whatever. Questions are accepted (only) from Premium subscribers. My wife and I live on a Residential Cruising ship, and I record from my office there.
Questions in this Episode:
- 0:16 Me: Do I answer all questions in the order received?
- 0:52 Gary in Texas: What’s the hardest part about doing these videos?
- 5:32 Steve in Norway: What’s your secret to talk so smoothly?
Since Youtube Comments are typically a vast, brain-free wasteland of obliviocy, I’m putting the videos on my site where there can be intelligent discussion. The comments are NOT a place to ask questions.
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Regarding filled pauses: what helped me, and others weird enough to try on my advice, is to “prescribe the symptom.” Deliberately say “uh”, “um”, “like”, etc., so often that it makes your gorge rise to say it. Every other word, every third word, whatever it takes.
(Do this by yourself, during practice, please,and not during a live presentation.)
I ended up just pausing with silence. This sometimes had the unintended consequence of people thinking I was finished when I wasn’t. I corrected that by learning to pause in places where the thought was unfinished. Places where you wouldn’t put a punctuation mark. I noticed you did that in this video yourself.
A signed Berke Breathed poster? Wow. How?
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Print; not really a poster. MANY comic artists have come to realize that they can supplement their income by selling off their originals, prints, or limited-edition prints. When they create their work digitally, then even a print is effectively an “original” piece of art. Even scans can be spectacular with today’s high-end color printers with archival inks. They can add value by numbering and signing them — mine is #808 of 850 — and, of course, by adding a doodle, such as the Bill the Cat on mine. Unfortunately, Breathed’s cart seems to have gone offline some months ago, which indicates older ones like mine (from 2013) are likely increasing in value. Yay! -rc
People really do not like to remain quiet while they are speaking. I am an improviser and an improv teacher. One of the things we work on is quiet. Many people think they need to talk all the time. Silence is a valuable tool to help gather thoughts or maybe just to bracket a thought. Another thing is one sentence at a time. By practicing brevity in thought and speech you can get clarity. Most do not realize how much we ramble when speaking. Speaking of rambling, thank you for the blog and all other parts of your enterprise. I enjoy them very much.
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Thanks, Wes! -rc