My love hate relationship with speaking in public

  

(Why I love/hate speaking in public.)

I realise that this particular blog topic was probably supposed to be about either loving OR hating speaking in public, but personally I associate this activity with a healthy dose of both. As a city tour guide, speaking in public is what I do for a living. I will regularly find myself standing in the bustling town square of Munich’s historic centre, regaling a crowd of 40 or more people with stories of Bavaria’s convoluted history. In these instances, with these people I’ve never met before hanging on my every word, I seize the spotlight and relish in their attention. Here I find public speaking exhilarating, it gives me a buzz which I latch on to and let it whisk me along for the ride. Sometimes it’s great, I’m a superstar and every joke I tell brings the house down. At other times, even after delivering my best material, my audience will remain staring stone-faced. On the odd occasion I’m sure I’ve even heard crickets chirping in the background. This all comes part and parcel with the job though, you win some you lose some. At the end of the day it’s a fantastic job and I love it.

On the other hand, when I’m not working, for example when I’m catching the train home or standing in the queue at the supermarket, I normally put a lot of effort into drawing as little attention to myself as possible. In fact I try so hard to avoid attention at times I have been known to walk out of stores knowing full well I’ve been short changed, yet saying nothing because I don’t want to make a scene. This version of myself, this ‘real’ me is self-conscious, he hates being the centre of attention, gets sweaty palms in fact just thinking about clearing his throat and yelling “May I have your attention please?!” in a public situation. But this is the same person (me) as the guide who will effortlessly weave a tale of royal intrigue in front of a group of spell bound tourists.

I think this is relevant to this week’s lectures where it was noted that one may find it helpful to pretend they are an actor when they are speaking in public. Public speaking can be excruciating, for the speaker and the audience. I’ve come to realise that it’s all about how you, as the speaker, approach the challenge. Now before I speak in front of a group of strangers I take some time to put on my (imaginary) cape and strap my metaphorical underwear proudly on the outside of my pants. I look at public speaking as playing a role, this helps me to reduce anxiety by distancing myself from the threat of things not going well. This in turn gives me more freedom to enjoy the experience, something which I think is extremely important. 

Trials and tribulations of a modern parent.

As the proud father of a four week old baby, I've discovered that being a parent can be quite the emotional roller-coaster. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, I had been warned after all, but I have to admit that when setting out on this fatherhood thing, I was more than a little naive. In the last month I've been peed on, puked on and pooed on. I've been bought close to tears with a screaming, red-faced, writhing ball of terror in my arms at 4 in the morning, pleading with her to just, please, go to sleep. Then bought close to tears again, on the opposite end of the emotional scale, gazing in wonder as two pure blue eyes peer peacefully back at mine.

The most difficult part of parenting for me though, the part which I'm sure has already tuned a few of my hairs grey, is the not knowing. There's been a lot of guess work. Does that cry mean I'm hungry, I'm too warm, I have a stomach cramp, or I've just crapped myself? So much of early parenting is trial and error. And when at a loss, often I will turn to Doctor Google for help.

The internet has proved an invaluable resource as a parent with a new-born, with a wealth of information at my finger tips, sometimes I wonder how past generations coped. On the other hand, when it seems every link I click on expresses a different, often conflicting point of view, I can see how it could have been a lot simpler in the good old days. Although there is some metaphorical gold on offer on the internet, there is a whole lot of rubbish to wade through as well.

Recently I read an article attention-grabbingly titled Dear Parents, You Are Being Lied To (Raff, J 2014) which I found very relevant and interesting.

The topic of the article was child immunisation and public perception. The author Dr. Jennifer Raff is a health professional obviously frustrated with what she sees as public misperception over immunisation practises. In short she discusses the debate over whether immunising children is safe, effective and/or necessary. She answers all these concerns with an emphatic Yes It Is.

In my opinion the worthiest point Raff makes in her article is the importance of educating oneself in the right manner. This means finding out what the scientific community thinks and learning about the immune system and how it works. She also suggest talking to older generations who lived before today's immunisation techniques existed.

In today's modern society, there is an ever growing distrust of "Big Pharma" - large pharmaceutical companies who are seen as having purely financial objectives. Calls for disregarding modern medicine for natural "alternative" remedies are becoming more common. Personally I believe both have their place. The difficult part is finding the right balance between the use of natural remedies, synthetic medicine, and the faith that the body can  to an extent remedy itself.  I feel this is doubly important as a parent when it is not only your own body you are responsible for but also that of a completely helpless human being.

It's true it can be hard to find the kernels of truth when wading through the swathes of information available to us these days. A great quote mentioned in Raff's article, which I will take with me is the following which comes from astro-physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson "the good thing about science is that it's true, even when no-one believes in it."

Week 6 - Belbin team roles - where do I fit?

I found this weeks lecture on Belbin team roles equal parts illuminating and frustrating. I have come across similar systems in the past, where different behaviours or personality traits are categorised in different ways. Over the years I have been classified as everything from an an elephant, to a fish, a number 3 and even a sail on a boat. I always struggle with these classifications as by their nature they are generalisations. I realise for the most part they are only meant as guide lines but I believe human beings are just too complicated to be shuffled away tidily into different boxes.

The Belbin system turned out more or less the same. I can see how it could be useful when evaluating roles within a team, but again I felt the generalistaions too broad. I could relate to aspects of a wide variety of roles: the plant, the coordinator and the implementer for example, but felt that none of them really seemed to fit me all that completely. Take the implementor role for example, I really enjoy getting stuck in and "doing" but I see this as an important part of leading. In fact I think that there are many situations where a good leader should lead by example and therefore a healthy dose of the implementer comes in very handy.

Maybe I am taking it all just a little too seriously (is that the monitor evaluator coming through?), if so I apoligise. I do believe systems such as this one have their place, it is just that when it comes to individuals there is a whole lot of grey between the black and white.