Can’t see the video? Click here.

There’s a bit in every Toastmasters meeting called Table Topics. Someone stands up at the front of the room and calls on others to answer a question they’ve just heard for the first time. The whole idea is to get better at impromptu speaking in front of an audience.

It’s tough in the beginning, trying to formulate a coherent response on the fly and deliver it as best you can. But it got much easier for me once I learned the trick from a wily old Toastmasters veteran down in New Orleans. And the trick is simple: You don’t have to answer the question.

That is, you can stand up and talk about whatever you want. You’re under no obligation to answer the question that was asked.

“What’s my take on the European debt crisis? Glad you asked, Agnes. But what I really want to talk about is this guy I know who walked across America…”

This is also true outside of Toastmasters. Whenever and wherever someone asks you a question, there’s no rule that says you have to answer it. You can say nothing at all, or you can answer a completely different question, one you actually want to answer.

Same dealio when life throws a Q at you.

Of course, not everyone will like you doing this, but hey, not everyone will like you answering questions straight-up either. Nothing you do will ever be good enough, so you might as well take control and have some fun.

Here’s a game you can play: Every time you get asked a question today, answer a different one. See what happens.

Can’t see the video? Click here.

Consider this post an ode to constructive critics.

I’ve been taking notice of more of them in my life lately. I think they’ve always been there, but for a long time I ignored them, shut them out. Now I’m welcoming them in. I’ve come to realize how important they are.

I’m part of a Mastermind group that meets every Thursday. I love it. A bunch of cool people with big ambitions show up and we talk world domination (the nice kind).

There’s one person whose contribution to the group I especially appreciate. She also annoys me the most. See, like most of us humans, I’m inherently lazy and I like to bullshit myself into believing stupid things that let me off the hook. When someone calls me on that laziness and bullshit, I get annoyed. Or at least that’s my first reaction. Then I realize that they’re right and I go do that important stuff I was pretending didn’t matter or exist.

Many commenters on this blog also serve as constructive critics. Here’s a recent example. Whenever I see a comment like that come through, my lizard brain gets all pissed off and sulks for a few minutes. But then his bigger, more-evolved brother kicks in and realizes that hey, disagreement is a good thing. This alternative viewpoint ish broadens my perspective and deepens my understanding. Yay for that.

There was a time when I turned away from all criticism, constructive or otherwise. I couldn’t get past that initial annoyance. I just wanted to be left alone with my laziness and bullshit. Ignorance is bliss and all that. Except the bliss doesn’t last. I’ve learned the hard way.

I’ve come to appreciate constructive criticism at Toastmasters, too. Some speakers love getting glowing evaluations. I’ve come to realize that those are the worst. The speaker learns nothing from them. That was the best speech I’ve ever heard and you couldn’t possibly have done anything any better! Oh right, might as well quit now then.

No, give me something to work on. A pat on the back is nice, but please throw in a few suggestions for improvement. How do I get better? That’s what I really need to know, even if that knowing stings a little at first.

Don’t worry, I’m a big boy, I can handle it.

How to recognize a constructive critic

We all need constructive critics in our lives. They help us grow and improve. You probably have a few in your life already but you don’t realize it. Here’s how you recognize them:

• They’re often annoying.
• They tell it to you straight, no sugarcoating.
• They don’t belittle or disrespect you.
• They want you to succeed.
• They ask why a lot.
• You can’t hate them without hating yourself.

Returning the favor

Having realized the value of constructive critics, I’m trying to become a better one myself. I’m a recovering people-pleaser, so this is a challenge for me. I grew up always opting for the cowardly path, afraid to offend anyone, avoiding conflict even when I knew it would lead to a better place.

I’m improving steadily. I’ve learned to embrace those awkward and tense moments. I’m starting to poke around in them rather than turning and running in the other direction. I try to introduce elephants and call people on their laziness and bullshit. I believe I’m a better friend when I do.

Who annoys you?

Who are your constructive critics? Have you shown them your appreciation lately? You could offer them a simple thank you, or you could annoy them right back

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Reminder: I’m launching A Course In Courage on Thursday. Join the priority mailing list here if you’d like to be one of the first courageous participants. Spots are limited.

It has been a fantastic year in the life of me. I met a ton of legendary people, tried lots of new things and had numerous great experiences. I march into 2011 feeling more true to myself than ever and excited for the journey ahead.

Below, in no particular order, are five important lessons I learned over the past twelve months. You might also want to check out the five lessons I learned in 2009.

1. You must give yourself permission

This is really two lessons rolled into one.

One of the more popular posts I wrote this year was titled Permission to Suck. The message is that you should do what you love even if you suck at it, because everyone sucks at first. You must give yourself permission to suck for a while. You must embrace that discomfort and awkwardness and embarrassment and keep going back for more. And if you do that consistently, you’ll eventually stop sucking.

Unfortunately, most people refuse to embrace the suck phase and give up long before they get over the hump. They never give themselves permission to suck. They’re too concerned with looking foolish at their first few dance lessons, or being the last person picked for sports, or not making any money within the first few months. The few people who can stick with something despite the suckage are those who succeed in the long run.

The second part of this lesson is that you must give yourself permission to be awesome. (If this sounds like a contradiction to the last bit, it’s not. More like a paradox.)

I learned this lesson via the Toastmasters humorous speech contest that I won in October. As I wrote in that post:

There’s this strange resistance we encounter when we set out to do something remarkable. I encountered it in the first three rounds of the contest. My speech was good enough to get me through those rounds, but I was holding back each time. I was fine practicing the speech alone in my bedroom, but when it came to delivering it in front of an audience, everything was dialed down a few notches.

It made no sense. I knew that my speech would be better received if I went all out, exaggerated my gestures, raised my voice, kept my energy high. Yet there I was, reluctant to let loose. It was as if I was afraid to succeed.

In the hours leading up to the final performance, I kept telling myself that I had permission to go all out. I even stood in front of the mirror in the restroom for a few minutes, giving myself permission to be awesome.

And hey, it worked!

Fear of failure is an obvious enemy, but just as crippling can be the fear of success. You have to believe you can be remarkable and then get out of your own way to make it happen.

2. You need less than you think

At the start of the year I owned approximately 350 things and my recurring weekly expenses amounted to more than €340/$450. Right now I own 58 things and I expect my recurring weekly expenses to be less than €230/$300 (likely closer to €200/$265, but I’ll estimate high to be safe) for the next four months.

I’ve sold my car and given up things I once considered must-haves, like television and internet on my phone. I’ve also managed to live quite comfortably for the past four months without paying any rent (here’s the CraigsList ad I used to start that adventure).

Having eliminated many of my expenses and gotten rid of all but my most useful possessions, I find myself happier than ever. There’s less clutter in my life, which makes it easier to prioritize and focus on important things, like doing meaningful work and building real relationships. With such a low overhead, I’ve also given myself a much better chance to make a living running my own small business.

I look around nowadays and see people addicted to their televisions, slaves to their wardrobes, jonesing for mobile Facebook updates. When they learn that I go without such things, the response is usually something like, “Oh, I could never do that.” But of course they can. Some expenses/possessions might be useful and worth keeping, but they’re not essential. We think many of them will make us happy, but more often than not they are blocks to happiness.

3. Environment is stronger than will power

I had known for a long time that it was important to surround yourself with the right kind of people, but Steve Pavlina‘s Conscious Growth Workshop in Las Vegas in July really drove this lesson home.

On the first day of the workshop, Steve assigned the whole group a bunch of power and courage exercises. We were asked to run down through the list and give each exercise a score from 1 to 3, the low end signifying something that was no big deal for you to do, and the high end signifying something that you’d find extremely embarrassing, scary or difficult. An example of a 1 for me was, “Ask a stranger for the time.” A 2 for me was, “Give a stranger a compliment.” And a 3 for me was, “Dance for 30-60 seconds in a public place where nobody else is dancing.”

After rating each exercise, we split up into groups of three and went out onto the Vegas Strip to do as many of them as we could. I was amazed at how much easier it was to do my 2′s and 3′s when I had support from the friends I had made at the workshop, all of whom understood what I was trying to achieve and were there to pick me right back up whenever I failed and encourage me to keep trying. By the third day of the workshop, I was doing some 3′s for the fifth or sixth time and having a blast. On returning to New Orleans, I found it more of a challenge to do the same exercises since I didn’t have the same level of reinforcement.

Since that experience, I’ve been much more selective about who I spend time with. I’m careful to surround myself with positive, passionate people who think deeply and work hard to achieve their goals. I support them, they support me, and we all accomplish far more than we ever would alone.

4. Play

My experience in Las Vegas also taught me to be a lot more playful. I learned to approach each scary situation as a game to be enjoyed, and as a result it became far less intimidating and I was more likely to receive a positive outcome.

I found this to be especially true with flirting. When I went in thinking, “How can I impress this girl?” things usually didn’t go so well. But when I went in thinking, “How can I have some fun here?” everything would flow much more easily and I’d often end up making an impression without even trying.

I delved even deeper into this lesson via my two-month experience with improv comedy before I left New Orleans. On a bit of a whim, I signed up for eight weeks of classes and learned how to look at the world like a comedian (a happy comedian, not a self-loathing one), finding humor and joy in even the dullest, most insignificant things.

I also learned how to trust myself creatively, to the point where I could eventually step out on stage in front of a crowd of people, with no script and no idea of what was about to happen, and somehow build a hilarious scene with a teammate.

To achieve this you have to give up your attachment to your identity and allow yourself to create. You are not your past. You can forget who you are and reinvent yourself at any moment.

I believe it was Tony Robbins who said, “Don’t just ask yourself, ‘How can I achieve my goal?’ Ask yourself, ‘How can I achieve my goal, and have fun in the process?’

5. Sometimes, the best thing to do is just listen

I learned this from Glen Allsopp in his birthday post on ViperChill (see #15):

A common thing for men to do when a woman is sharing her problems is to constantly offer solutions and then get frustrated when their partner is still talking about the problem after offering these “fixes”. What women want men to do at times like this is simply to listen.

I love helping people figure stuff out and offering solutions so this was a completely different approach for me, but I found it to be excellent advice. I’ve been amazed at how people (not just women) who are going through a tough time will open up and start to feel better if I just sit back and listen. It seems we all need someone to talk at every now and then, to help us verbalize our thoughts and figure out how we really feel.

I still often catch myself dispensing advice (or is it my opinion?) and offering my two cents, but I’m getting better at simply being there for people and listening more than I talk.

(By the way, if your listening skills could use some work, this post might help.)

Here’s to 2011

I’m excited for the new year. I’ll be focusing on upping my writing game, building my audience, making a living online, becoming fluent in a language other than English, and travel. At the very least, it should be an adventure

What about you?

What lessons did you learn in 2010, and what are you most looking forward to in the next 12 months?

I learned a lot from the experience, and I’ll happily share a few key lessons with you in a minute. If you’re not into the public speaking thing, I encourage you to give this post a quick read anyways, since many of the lessons can be applied to other areas.

First, here’s the video of my winning speech (recording started about 15 seconds into it):

Now on to the lessons. I want to emphasize here that I am by no means an expert on public speaking or humor, but this stuff worked for me, and hopefully you can find something in here that works for you, too.

1. Preparation wins

The guy who came second place in the contest had actually beaten me in the previous round. (Luckily, the top two moved on from that, which was how I made it into the final.) He definitely deserved to win that previous round, because his speech was much better than mine. However, for the final, he admitted to not having practiced at all in the week leading up to the contest, whereas I had practiced my speech at least 20 times in the 24 hours before.

I recorded some of my practice sessions on video and reviewed them to see where I could improve. I even put the audio from one of my better practice runs on my iPhone and listened to it on repeat as I drove to Baton Rouge for the contest.

Excessive? Absolutely. But to paraphrase Will Smith: “Somebody might be just plain better than me, they might be more talented or they might have more experience. But I can always work harder than them. That’s within my control.”

Also, if you practice your ass off, you can rest a little easier right before you get on stage, because you know you’ve put in a ton of prep work and you deserve to do well.

2. Get feedback (and use it!)

There’s no way I could have won without help from my Toastmasters club. At our club meeting before the contest, I delivered my speech and had everyone give me feedback. It was golden. I made lots of tweaks in light of the advice I received. In fact, you can see for yourself just how much my speech evolved between rounds three and four, since I have video of my round three performance, too:

To note a few specific things that I changed:

• Lots more gestures. Where I talk about running up the hill and tiring myself out, I was advised to actually look exhausted on stage, have my body language emphasize my words.
• The armpit sniff. That was an idea straight from a fellow Toastmaster.
• Vocal variety. In round three I was at pretty much the same pace and volume for the entire speech. But in round four I mixed up a lot more, slowing right down in some places, whispering in others, then raising the volume significantly for the more dramatic moments.
• Less foot movement. I paced and shuffled a lot in round three. Moving between spots on stage isn’t a bad thing, but those movements must have a purpose. Just wandering around aimlessly can distract the audience from what you’re saying.

3. Give the audience blanks to fill

For storytelling, I’ve learned that it’s a good idea to let the audience fill in the blanks. In the earlier rounds, I described what Bridget looked like (“brown hair, more cute than sexy”). A fellow Irishman from another club advised me to be more general in my description and let the audience use their imagination. So, in the final, I described Bridget’s appearance simply by saying, “she… was… beautiful!” Everyone listening could then envision their own idea of a beautiful young woman and thus become more invested in the story.

In other words, it’s not always a good idea to spoon feed the audience. If you’re giving an informative speech, details become very important and you want to make sure the audience has a specific picture in mind. But for an entertaining speech, you want them to use their imagination.

Many popular TV shows leave blanks for the audience to fill. They don’t describe every little thing. Think of The Sopranos, Lost and The Wire. These shows assume the viewer ain’t stoopid and let you connect the dots yourself.

4. Letting loose

A few weeks ago I wrote about giving yourself permission to suck. That in a nutshell: you shouldn’t fear those first few weeks/months/years of trying something new, that phase when you inevitably suck and you’re tempted to quit and avoid the awkwardness and embarrassment. You have to give yourself permission to suck for a while, and eventually you’ll get better.

Likewise, I’ve found that you often have to give yourself permission to be awesome. There’s this strange resistance we encounter when we set out to do something remarkable. I encountered it in the first three rounds of the contest. My speech was good enough to get me through those rounds, but I was holding back each time. I was fine practicing the speech alone in my bedroom, but when it came to delivering it in front of an audience, everything was dialed down a few notches.

It made no sense. I knew that my speech would be better received if I went all out, exaggerated my gestures, raised my voice, kept my energy high. Yet there I was, reluctant to let loose. It was as if I was afraid to succeed.

In the hours leading up to the final performance, I kept telling myself that I had permission to go all out. I even stood in front of the mirror in the restroom for a few minutes, giving myself permission to be awesome.

And hey, it worked!

Even if I had lost the competition, I would have come away satisfied because I really gave it my all up there, held nothing back. It felt great.

Next time you’re trying to achieve something, make sure you give yourself permission to really get after it. It’s okay to suck for a while, but don’t hold yourself back.

5. Visualization and the breath

I meditate for 10 minutes every morning. In the week leading up to the contest, I used that time to sit quietly and visualize myself delivering the winning speech. I imagined myself being confident, going all out, and wowing the audience.

I had never given a speech with a microphone before, but I knew I’d have one for the final so I visualized what that would be like and imagined being comfortable with it. Likewise, I knew it would be the biggest audience I had ever spoken to (~50 people), so I tried to picture in my mind what that would be like and how I could feel good about it.

I also did some breathing exercises right before I delivered my final speech, exercises I learned from an Art of Living course last year. I felt that helped me keep calm and focused.

I believe all that visualization and the breathing exercises made a big difference. Even though the stakes were higher and the environment more intimidating, I felt more at ease getting up to deliver my speech in the final than I did in any of the previous rounds.

Wrap up

I still have a lot to learn about humor and public speaking, but I’m happy with the leaps I’ve made in the past few weeks. This whole contest experience showed me once again that you can make significant progress when you step out of your comfort zone.

Last week I dropped by a local bar to check out an open mic comedy night. They had about 15 comics do 3-7 minute sets throughout the evening. The crowd was rowdy and some of the comics failed miserably. I left feeling intimidated, thinking I’d have to be crazy to get up there and try it sometime.

I woke up the next morning, determined to give it a shot.

Today I’d like to share with you what a typical Toastmasters meeting is like. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Toastmasters is a network of worldwide clubs in which members help each other become better public speakers and leaders. Tis nice.

My club in New Orleans meets every Monday (6pm) at Latter Library on St. Charles Avenue. The meeting typically lasts about 90 minutes. Each meeting has distinct sections and members typically rotate between different roles each week. I’ll describe a few of them here. Note that some clubs have slightly different roles and formats, so this information may not be entirely accurate for everyone.

Toastmaster

The Toastmaster runs the show. He picks the theme of the meeting in advance, and has several opportunities to speak on it throughout. I’ve acted as Toastmaster twice for my club and have used themes of “Self-Discipline” and “How to be More Effective.” The Toastmaster also introduces various other members in their roles throughout the meeting.

Table Topics Master

It’s always fun to be the Table Topics Master. When in this role, you get to stand at the lectern and pick people from the audience to give short, impromptu speeches. You’ll usually have a list of questions/topics prepared in advance. For example, if I’m the Table Topics Master, I might say: “Last night I had a dream about a giraffe sitting on roof singing Eye of the Tiger in Spanish. Mary, tell us about a strange dream you’ve had recently.” Mary will then have to stand and try to give a confident, well-spoken response lasting at least one minute.

Speaker

We usually have three featured speakers at each meeting. These folks will have prepared 5-10 minute speeches on just about any topic. Each member does receive speech manuals to work through, and so each speech typically has a focus, be it body language, vocal variety, entertainment value, etc. But within those frameworks, you can speak about anything at all. The first speech any member gives is an Icebreaker, where they simply introduce themselves to the other members, say who they are and what they’re about.

Evaluator

Each speaker has an evaluator. An evaluator will stand up for 2-3 minutes near the end of the meeting and deliver feedback on the speaker she was assigned to. There are many different styles of evaluation, but the goal is always the same: help the speaker improve. An evaluator will often say what she liked about the speech, and then suggest some areas for improvement.

General Evaluator

The General Evaluator leads the evaluation team, introducing them at the beginning of each meeting and calling on them for reports at the end. She wraps up by giving her general thoughts on the meeting, noting anything remarkable and offering any suggestions to improve future meetings.

Story Master

We end the meeting with a short joke or anecdote from the Story Master. At our club, it’s typically the same person who performs this role every week, and he never fails to get a laugh.

President

The club President opens and closes the meeting, and makes any official announcements. We elect a new president every year, and that person is responsible for the proper running of the club.

Other roles

At each meeting we also have people act as the following:

• Timer – keeps track of how long everyone speaks for and works the light signal so speakers know when to finish.
• Grammarian – notes interesting and inappropriate uses of grammar.
• Ah Counter – keeps track of any filler words (ah, um, you know, etc.) used by the speakers.
• Ballot Counter – we vote for best Speaker, best Evaluator and best Table Topics participant at each meeting. The Ballot Counter gathers the ballots and counts up the votes.

What Toastmasters can do for you

Now that you’re familiar with a typical Toastmasters meeting, I’d like to describe some of the benefits I’ve gotten from being a member. I decided to sign up about 18 months ago for three main reasons:

1. I wanted to minimize my fear of public speaking and become better at it.
2. I wanted to learn how to organize thoughts in my head better and faster (Table Topics is great for this).
3. I wanted to meet more people interested in improving themselves.

I’ve gotten all that and more out of Toastmasters. I’m no longer terrified of getting up to speak in front of people. Some fear still lingers, but it’s more like a nervous excitement now, not complete dread. I’ve definitely improved as a speaker over the 18 months. In fact, I just recently won the club and area contests for Table Topics and Humorous Speech. (Wish me luck as I compete in the division contest this Thursday!)

Toastmasters has definitely helped me think better on my feet and express my thoughts coherently. Before I joined I would often try to make a point while talking to someone, only to go off on a tangent and forget the point I was trying to make. That doesn’t happen to me anymore.

I’ve also met lots of great people in my club and division. There are many distinct characters, but everyone seems to have at least this much in common: they want to better themselves, and they want to help others better themselves.

A few other things I’ve learned from Toastmasters:

Constructive criticism
Giving regular evaluations has helped me get better at providing useful feedback. Evaluations in Toastmasters are always constructive. Nobody will stand up there and shake their head at you. As an evaluator, you first and foremost focus on what the speaker did well and congratulate them on their progress, while throwing in some tips for further improvement. That’s not to say everybody is trying to be overly-nice and avoid hurt feelings. It will be made clear to you where your weaknesses are and how you can improve them, but it’s all done in a supportive way so you never feel you have to go it alone.

Do it your way
There’s no “right way” to do something. There are a million different ways to run a meeting, deliver a speech or give an evaluation. Some members get flustered when someone deviates from the traditional meeting format (and I’ve been one of those members), but it’s always been the most fun when someone turns the meeting on its head and comes at it from a different angle.

Highs follow lows
You’ve heard the saying, “night is darkest just before the dawn.” I’ve found this to be true in Toastmasters, and I’m sure it’s applicable to many other areas of personal development. My biggest growth spurts as a public speaker have all come right after significant low points. For example, one of the best evaluations I ever gave came a week after the worst. It’s good to keep this in mind when you find yourself struggling. You’re probably not far from a breakthrough. You just have to keep going.

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So that’s Toastmasters. Go along to a local club as a guest and see for yourself. If you decide to become a member, it will cost you a $20 sign-up fee and $27 every six months beyond that. For the value you receive in return, that’s the steal of the century.

If you want to check out some speeches I’ve given at my club, you’ll find video included with these posts:

• A Dozen Ways I Can Be a Better Public Speaker
• The best you can be
• What the self-help gurus don’t tell you about the Law of Attraction

As a teenager and into my early 20′s, I was the shyest person I knew. I was the guy sitting in the corner waiting for others to come talk to me. I had to be around someone for a long time before I would open up and act natural. Only two things saved me from having no social circle whatsoever: my huge passion for basketball, and my uber-social cousin (thanks, Cuz).

I was especially shy with girls

I remember once when I was about 15, my Dad and I were visiting relatives. I was getting along reasonably well with my cousin (a different one) and his guy friends as we hung around the neighborhood, but then we were joined by a group of teenage girls. I clammed up and faded out. I remember sneaking back into my Aunt’s house and sitting down to watch the Grand Prix with my Dad. I’d never really been interested in the Grand Prix before, but I feigned fascination so when my friends came looking for me I’d be able to explain my disappearance: “Sorry fellas, but I can’t miss this!”

Yup, I was willing to endure two hours of fancy cars going round and round a big track just so I wouldn’t have to talk to those terrifying teens with the female body parts.

Shyness = fear

My shyness lingers until this day. I don’t believe we humans can ever fully overcome it. Even the most courageous and self-confident people can become embarrassed, even if they don’t display that embarrassment outwardly.

This makes sense since shyness is essentially a form of fear, mostly the fear of what others will think of us. Some people say they don’t care what others think of them, but I think, at best, they don’t care what most people think of them. We all care what certain people think of us, whether it be a spouse, parents, close friends, peers, whoever.

When you’re really shy, like I was, you care what everybody thinks of you. And that’s bad. Because, for the most part, what other people think of you is none of your business. If a stranger in a nightclub sees you out dancing and thinks you look stupid, well that’s his business. If a steak-eating, deer-hunting, Hummer-driving nihilist reads my blog and thinks I’m wrong about everything, again, that’s his business. Nothing to do with me.

Not everybody has to like you

This realization was one of the big leaps I took in overcoming shyness. Not everybody has to like you. In fact, it’s better that some people don’t like you, because if you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. So the best course of action is to figure out what you really want, and then work at pleasing yourself (and I mean that in a non-alone-in-the-bathtub-feeling-frisky kind of way).

Figure out what your values are and what you really want out of life, then work hard to live those values and make your dream life a reality. In doing so, you’ll find that you’ll please many people who share your values, and you’ll probably piss off a lot of people who don’t. And that’s okay. If you really want to make a difference in the world, you’ll need to create a movement, and it’s as important to keep the wrong people out of your movement as it is to make the right people a part of it. (Seth Godin writes a lot about this in his book Tribes, which I highly recommend.)

Plan of attack

Okay, so let’s get to some practical things you can do to overcome shyness.

1. Join a social group (or several)
Practice meeting new people and you’ll get better at it. Obvious, right? One social group I’ll give special mention to is Toastmasters. If you want to grow, you have to get out of your comfort zone regularly. Toastmasters is great for that, not only because you get to meet lots of new people when you join a club, but you also get to practice speaking in front of a crowd at each meeting, something most people are uncomfortable with. I’ll write more about Toastmasters soon, but if you’re in New Orleans and want to check it out, my club is currently meeting at the JCC (Jefferson and St. Charles) every Monday at 6pm. If you’re not in New Orleans, you can find a club near you via the Toastmasters website.

2. Whenever you’re feeling shy, view the situation as an opportunity for growth
Realize that the fear will never go away. You just get better at handling it. Try to recognize when you’re feeling shy, and say to yourself, “I’m feeling shy now. If I can push through and do the thing my fear is trying to keep me from doing, next time it won’t be so hard.” I’ve noticed over time that my most rewarding experiences tend to occur when I turn towards fear rather than running away from it. Short term pains, long term gains.

3. Put yourself in sink or swim situations
The biggest leap I made in overcoming my shyness was to head off on my own and spend 10 months working in the US. I lived in a New Jersey trailer park with another 300 internationals during the summer of 2004, working at Six Flags Great Adventure. It became obvious soon after I got there that I had two choices: I could either be the shy kid all summer and not have any fun, or I could get out of my comfort zone, start taking the initiative to talk to people, and have the time of my life. I chose the latter, and proceeded to explode out of my shell that summer. That experience remains the biggest leap I’ve ever had in overcoming shyness, and it only happened because I forced myself out of my comfort zone.

4. Environment is stronger than willpower
If you want to overcome shyness, it makes sense to surround yourself with lots of confident and outgoing people. It’s just like any sport you might play: the fastest way to improve is to regularly compete with an opponent who is better than you. If you only practice with or play against people who are weaker than you, you’re not likely to improve very much. Of course, you should try to find someone who is not only better than you, but who is also willing to support you in your efforts to improve. I’ve played basketball with lots of guys who are better than me, but some of them have been complete assholes who loved telling me how much I sucked. Not the best learning environment. When it comes to overcoming shyness, the best people you can surround yourself with will be confident and outgoing folks who desperately want you to succeed. They’ll act as your cheerleaders as well as your coaching staff.

5. Learn to love yourself
It’s hard to let the real you shine if you don’t much like who you are. As such, you might want to go about accepting your imperfections (some of them will never go away, so you better make peace with them) and working on your character before concerning yourself too much with overcoming shyness. You’ll find that as you become more accepting of yourself, you’ll no longer seek permission from others to act natural.

6. Develop new skills
Competence helps build confidence. Find out what you’re passionate about and become really good at whatever that is, then build up skills to supplement that passion. So if you really like fashion design, put in the time and effort to become a kick-ass fashion designer. Learn how to sketch designs, learn how to mock up those designs on screen, learn how to make your own clothes, learn how to build a portfolio website, learn how to market yourself online, learn how to catwalk, learn how to put on a fashion show, dabble in other creative habits that help you come up with new designs, learn about self-employment… and on and on and on. With each new skill, you grow more confident in your abilities. You start to believe in yourself. Shyness takes a back seat.

Your turn

What am I missing? What tips can you share about overcoming shyness?

If you have a specific problem with shyness that you’d rather not discuss in the comments, contact me privately via this page. I’d love to hear from you.

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.

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.

One thing that saddens me is when people settle for less than their best. Much of the time it’s for no other reason than they believe that their best, if they were to give it, wouldn’t be good enough anyway.

I had a conversation with a friend recently and discovered she has a secret desire to become a published author some day. Now that surprised me. I’d known this girl for years and I never even knew she liked to write. As it turns out, she writes short stories quite frequently, but they usually end up in a drawer somewhere, unread by anyone but herself. Once she even took part in that National Novel Writing Month, where you try to write a 50,000 word novel from scratch in the month of November. My friend completed the challenge, actually wrote a 175-page novel in four week, but again, once she was done, she decided to hide the pages away in a drawer and not let anyone read them.

I listened to my friend tell me all this, and I asked her why she didn’t enter her stories in some competitions, or post them on the internet? How did she expect to become a published author if nobody ever got to read her stuff?

She replied that she didn’t feel her stories were good enough. She reads quite a lot herself, and couldn’t see her own stories and writing skills measuring up to the those of the pros.

Here’s a girl with all the intelligence and potential in the world, and she was telling me she believed her best simply wouldn’t be good enough. That saddens me. And the fact that there are sooo many people like her out there… well, that saddens me even more.

I’m lucky in that I was able to overcome such a limiting belief — the belief that my best isn’t good enough — and I’m so glad I did.

A little more than six months ago, I started this blog about personal development, which was kind of a ridiculous thing to do. Ridiculous because, if you Google the term “personal development blog,” you get back more than 50 million results. That means there are literally millions of other blogs out there on the same subject, many of them with huge followings and massive archives of great content. What made me think that I could carve out a niche for myself in such an already over-saturated market? What made me think that people would find and read my blog, and benefit from it? I mean, with all of those other blogs out there, you could assume that pretty much everything that ever needed to be said about personal development has already been said, said in hundreds of different ways and translated into languages that I’ve never even heard of.

Really, what the hell was I thinking, setting up a personal development blog?

Well, truth be told, I wasn’t thinking too much. I wasn’t worrying about the big picture. All that really mattered to me was that I loved personal development, and I wanted to help people. And so I started with that. I focused on sharing concepts that helped me and writing about my own experiments and experiences.

And you know what? These last six months have been fantastic. I’ve accelerated my own growth by forcing myself to research and write articles once a week, and I know for a fact that I’ve helped people and made their lives better, got them thinking in new ways and believing in themselves more. I’ve gotten feedback from people all over the world, folks thanking me for writing something that resonated with them, or challenged them in some positive way. One article I wrote resulted in a lengthy e-mail exchange with an old college friend, who had never been interested in personal development, but who is now setting lofty goals and striving to become a better version of himself.

What it all comes down to, is that I know I’m making a difference in people’s lives.

And it makes me wonder, what if I hadn’t set up my blog? what if I’d kept my passion for personal development to myself? what if I’d been scared to compete with those 50 million other blogs and decided not to bother?

Lots of folks would have missed out and I’d be feeling a lot less fulfilled, that’s what.

Now, I know I’m not the best personal development blogger out there, and I might never be… and I’m okay with that. What’s important though, is that I’m giving it my best shot. I realize that I don’t have to be the best in the world. I just have to be the best that I can be.

And when you think about it, everyone can be the best that they themselves can be. Personal greatness is within everyone’s grasp. The only person you have to compete with is yourself. Nobody else.

I’d like my friend, the secretive writer, to know this, too. She doesn’t have to be the best writer in the world. She just has to be the best writer she can be. If she strives for that, she’ll find an audience, she’ll make an impact by doing the thing she loves to do, and, most importantly, she won’t wake up some morning 50 years from now, filled with regret, wondering what her life would have been like if only she had followed her dream.

I’d like to leave you with this short poem, author unknown. Read it more than once, then let it sit with you for a while.

At God’s footstool, to confess,
A poor soul knelt and bowed his head.
“I failed,” he cried. The master said,
“Thou didst thy best. That is success.”

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.