The following is a speech I gave at my Toastmasters club in New Orleans this past Monday. Some notes follow the video.
In a nutshell, the speech is about the importance of taking action. If you’ve seen the movie The Secret or are otherwise familiar with the Law of Attraction, you may have noticed that a lot of emphasis is placed on the thinking side of things, and not so much on actually getting out there in the world and taking action.
Now that’s not to say that The Secret sucks or that the Law of Attraction is worthless; I’m simply saying that positive thinking is only half the battle.
If you’ve tried and failed putting the Law of Attraction into practice, it’s likely that you spent too much time thinking, and not enough time acting. To reach your goals, you need to do both consistently. Think the right thoughts and take the right actions.
It’s been said that luck is the meeting of preparation and opportunity. I agree with that, so I’d advise you to get busy preparing for the opportunities that are coming your way. Spend some time thinking and visualizing, sure, but then go attend those classes, make those phone calls, run those laps or do whatever it is you need to do to get yourself ready.
I’ll leave you with the quote from Yvon Chouinard that I used in my speech:
There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens.
Last week I wrote quite a lot about training methods that helped me finish in the top 200 of the Crescent City Classic. There was one method I wanted to save for its own post, and here it is.
What is Hyperclocking?
I first heard of the concept in Tim Ferriss’ Trial by Fire TV pilot, which you can watch in its entirety online here. In that video (starting at about the 24:20 mark) Tim is trying to get faster at drawing an arrow, loading it into a bow and firing. He uses hyperclocking, a concept borrowed from computing, to do this. His description:
[Hyperclocking] usually refers to changing settings on a computer so the hardware runs faster than the manufacturer intended. In my case, that hardware is my nervous system.
The idea is to practice doing something at an outrageous level, so that, come the real challenge on the big stage, it’s relatively easy to meet your goal.
In essence, hyperclocking forces you out of your comfort zone, forces you to stretch yourself a bit more. And the more you stretch your comfort zone, the bigger it becomes.
How can you use it?
I’ll give you a couple of examples of how I’ve used hyperclocking to great effect.
For the Crescent City Classic, my goal was to finish in the top 200, meaning I would have to run the 10k in 41 minutes or less. To make that goal seem easier, I worked out what time I would need to finish in the top 100 (39 minutes or less) and that became my new target. It worked out to an average of 3:54 per kilometer, and so that’s what I aimed for. Of course, I ended up falling well short of that, but just pushing myself to get there ensured that I did finish well inside the top 200.
I’ve also used hyperclocking for practicing speeches. In Toastmasters, we have a time limit for each speech, and sometimes I find myself running up against it as I rehearse. Usually my biggest problem is not being able to recall different parts of the speech fast enough, so I’ll have lots of wasted time while I’m trying to think what comes next. To force faster recall and cut down on those gaps, I practice delivering the speech as fast as I can. I’ll race through it, trying to get everything said in half the allotted time. After doing this a few times, I revert back to my normal speaking pace and the real time limit suddenly seems like an eternity.
The possible applications for this are endless. I plan to use hyperclocking again soon to ramp up the emotion I display when public speaking. For my next speech, I’ll go way overboard with my emotions and gestures as I practice, then reign them back in for the real delivery.
If you’re having difficulty reaching a goal, identify what specific part of it is giving the most trouble, then brainstorm ways you can apply hyperclocking to help you break through.
Aim for the impossible, the unrealistic, the completely ridiculous. Even if you fall short, you’ll still be in a pretty good place.
Recently I’ve been reading Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins. I’ve found lots of good advice and food for thought in the book, and there’s one part in particular that I’d like to share here. It’s called The Precision Model, and it helps us cut through the mental fog and fluff and get to the heart of matters quickly. It can be used to greatly improve our communication with others, and to gain more clarity with our own thoughts, feelings and beliefs.
You can picture the five parts of this model on your fingers, as illustrated below.
Pinkies – Universals
The pinkies represent universals; words like all, every and never. Be careful with these type of words. If someone says they never win anything, is that really true, or just a generalization? Often it’s the latter, and such generalizations do us no favors.
I caught myself falling into this trap at a dance class a few weeks ago. After botching a certain step for the umpteenth time, I turned to my dance partner and said “I’m sorry, I always mess that part up.” I had to stop and ask myself, “Really? Always?” Besides the fact that I was being my own worst critic, I realized that saying such a thing didn’t send the best message to my brain. Think of a child who is constantly belittled and criticized by her parents. What kind of self-esteem will she have? What chance will she have to succeed in life? The same principle applies to your internal dialogue. Every now and then, stop and ask yourself if you’re feeding yourself accurate information, or if you’re selling yourself short.
Ring fingers – Limitations/Restrictions
The ring fingers represent limitations and restrictions in The Precision Model; words like should, shouldn’t, must, can’t and so on. Lots of people go around saying they can’t do something, or believing they have to do things they don’t like to do. You can break the cycle by asking certain types of questions. Examples:
What would happen if I did do that?
What would happen if I let that slide, if I just said no?
What would happen if I could do that?
The goal here is to train yourself to challenge the status quo, to see possibilities and opportunities instead of limitations and restrictions.
Middle fingers – Verbs
Middle fingers next, and these represent verbs. If someone tells you that they’re unhappy, or if you’re unhappy, you can’t do much to solve that problem until you find out how specifically you or that person is unhappy. You need to break through the fluff and get to the root cause of the unhappiness. So you probe and keep asking why why why until you expose the real problem, and then you can work towards solving it.
So the next time you tell yourself that you’re bored, lonely, sad or depressed, instead of just wallowing in your own misery, force yourself to be more specific. What is it in particular that’s causing you to feel that way? Drill down as much as you can; try to pinpoint the specific problem (a conversation with self might help you get there). Once you have it defined, there’s a much better chance that you’ll be able to move towards a solution.
Index fingers – Nouns
Index fingers represent nouns. You often hear people say “They don’t understand me… They’re never going to give me a fair chance… If it wasn’t for them…”
Who is they? Who is them? Are we talking about a whole group of people, or is it just one person in particular? Or do they only exist in your mind, some imaginary or overblown blockade you use as an excuse not to take action?
Another example: If you present a plan and someone says “That plan won’t work,” odds are that they only have a problem with a specific part of the plan, not the whole thing. So, again, you probe and ask why until you find out what the real problem is, and then you can work on overcoming it.
Thumbs – Comparisons
Lastly, the thumbs, which remind us to be wary of comparisons. When we say or think things like “That’s too much, that’s too many, that’s too expensive”, once again we’re restricting ourselves and often creating problems where there really aren’t any. For example, some of my friends here in the States think I’m too skinny, but back in Ireland I’ve never been called that. It used to upset me a little, but then I realized that in America I’m being compared to Americans, who on average are known to be a little on the chubby side. Once I saw it that way, being considered skinny was no longer problem for me. It was just perception, not reality.
A similar thing often happens with money or possessions, people thinking they don’t have enough. Consider who you’re comparing yourself to, and check if the problem is real or just something in your head.
…
So those are the five parts of The Precision Model. Once again, this model can be very helpful in communicating more effectively with others, and for sorting through your own internal dialog and figuring out where you might be limiting yourself.
To become more familiar with this model, I delivered a speech about it at Toastmasters this past Monday. You can watch it here (thanks to Darlyn for the camera work), with some notes below.
“You only have control over three things in your life — the thoughts you think, the images you visualize, and the actions you take.” That part of my presentation came from Jack Canfield’s book The Success Principles. Thanks to some feedback after my speech, I’m considering that thoughts, words and actions might be a better trinity, since visualizing can be considered a form of thought. Also, the latter approach fits better with Gandhi’s teachings of non-violence: peaceful thoughts, words and actions.
Giving a talk on clarity and precision and my name tag was turned backwards the whole time. Oops.
I could have done much better with the visual aids. I took the diagram directly from the book but it wasn’t the best way of presenting the information to a live audience. I noticed at the beginning that everyone was gawking at the flip chart and trying to make sense of the diagram instead of listening to me. It would have been better to break up the visuals into more pages and step through them one at a time, revealing each part as I was talking about it. Lesson well learned.
Besides the flip chart, I didn’t use any notes and I cleared the lectern out of the way. I felt good about those things. I rehearsed the speech quite a bit at home (recording my practice runs on video and reviewing them several times) and so felt confident that I could deliver it without those common crutches.
There was quite a lot of content in the speech and I was pushing the 7-minute limit. One thing that helped me prepare for this was to practice delivering it as fast as I possibly could, trying to get everything said in 5 minutes or less. That forced me to organize my thoughts more quickly, cutting out a lot of the pauses where I was trying to think of what to say next. After doing that a few times, 7 minutes felt like an eternity. Some folks call this type of thing hyperclocking, and you can apply the concept to much more than public speaking.
Something I definitely need to work on: Vocal variety. I was at pretty much the same volume and speed for the whole speech. Not good for keeping the audience engaged.
Last Monday I delivered my sixth Toastmasters speech, entitled A Dozen Ways I Can Be a Better Public Speaker. The goal was to force myself to do a lot of the things I’d been hesitant to do as a public speaker, such as moving away from the lectern and expressing a controversial opinion. Here’s a video recording of the speech (with thanks to Dominic for manning the camera)…
The dozen ways:
Open dynamically
Get rid of the lectern
Use direct eye contact
Loosen up the body language
Sound like I care
Express a controversial opinion with confidence
Use less notes
Use notes on purpose, not by accident
Use long pauses
Video tape myself speaking in front of an audience
Recently I’ve been trying to recognize my own fears as they arise, then attempting to overrule those fears with curiosity. An example:
Fearful thought: “I can’t ask that girl out; she might reject me.”
Curious thought: “I wonder what will happen if I ask that girl out.”
My curiosity and my fear are always battling with one another. When fear wins that battle, I do nothing, and so I lose. The challenge is to make my curiosity stronger than my fear.
Learned behavior
Us humans are funny creatures, fearing situations we create in our own minds. That’s a learned behavior; we’re not born with that. Think of how a child learns. It’s all through curiosity. “I wonder what happens if I put my hand in the fire.” They’re not afraid because they don’t know any better. But as children grow, they learn not to be so curious and not to take risks, because that might result in pain, failure or rejection. Curiosity dies, fear wins, we lose.
A common misconception about fear
Most people, when they fear doing something, avoid taking action until the fear goes away. “I’m too afraid right now. I’ll do it when I’m feeling more confident.”
The problem is that fear never just goes away by itself. Most people have it backwards. You don’t overcome the fear and then do the thing; you do the thing and then you overcome the fear.
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave.” – Seneca
I’ve found this to be true time and time again in my own life. Two specific examples:
I was terrified of public speaking, so I made myself go and talk in front of 20-30 people each week at Toastmasters. With each speech, my fear subsided, and now I look forward to the Monday meetings in that big old library on St. Charles.
Many times I’ve been afraid to approach certain people in social situations. On those occasions when I ignore that fear and approach such people anyway, the fear always evaporates, regardless of whether I make a good impression or crash and burn.
More curiosity, less fear
I believe the key here is to keep with you that sense of wonder at all times, like a child.
If someone at a party looks interesting, go talk to him/her, and do so enthusiastically. If they’re not responsive, don’t get dejected; remain curious. “Hmm, that person didn’t want to talk. I wonder if this person does.”
If you’re afraid of flying, diminish that fear by focusing on all the incredible experiences that could await you overseas. Start imagining what it might be like to explore the streets of Beijing or to hike with some CouchSurfers through the Italian countryside.
The fear ebbs, curiosity flows.
If something goes horribly wrong, don’t fear the repercussions. Remain analytical. “Okay, that didn’t go exactly as planned, probably because of X, Y and Z. I’ll try it a different way next time and see if I get better results.”
In the moment
The trick for me is remembering to be curious in the moment. That’s the hardest part. I’ll often look back at a situation and realize I was being ruled more by fear than by curiosity. But I’m getting better, becoming conscious of those moments as they occur, then reminding myself to wonder. The results have been encouraging.
Closing it out with some wise words…
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do… Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
