Polished words and shoes
March 26, 2009 06:36 AM
Gave a talk yesterday in a school in St Albans to a group of lads who would soon be leaving. I could tell as soon as they started coming in that they - or should a say of few of them - would prove a hard crowd.
Right from the start I felt like I was trapped in an avalanche, struggling to stay on top and keep there concentration.
Some motivational speakers have a well crafted spiel, each work worked through gig after gig so it buts in titled to the next, until their story is as polished as their shoes. I’m not really like that. First off I can’t help being a scruffy bastard, and would rather not do it than wear a suit (I wore jeans, T-shirt and my sandals…and my hair could do with cutting).
My dad once asked me if how much I’d liked to be paid as a speaker, and I answered £1000, to which he replied “well you need to look like your worth £1000”. I guess I’m yet to put that into practice.
The problem with kids is that their attention span is calculated by their age+2, and although I’m told I have a remarkable ability to connect with young people - especially those who don’t respond to polished words and shoes - yesterday even I felt like I was struggling.
You see kids are like any wild animal, show any weakness and they will close in. Lay down and die and they’ll rip you apart. And so a talk like this is often an exercise in grabbing their attention and wrestling with it for 50 minutes.
The highlight for me was when I showed a slide of Karen Darke and said “This is my girlfriend” to which the whole place exploded with the typical boyish cat calls.
Waiting for a few seconds I added “She’s dead now” the atmosphere and sound changing in an instant, half intakes of breath, shock, embarrassment and nervous loughs, followed by really surprised and genuine laughter when I said “only joking”.
The bottom line of all speakafying is that your audience should never really know where your going, and I guess after that they didn’t.
The low point was in the Q&A at then end. State schools are just terrible at this kind of things compared to the private sector. I don’t know if the kids aren’t brought up to stand out as individuals, or lack the confidence that a good education brings (THE number one reason for success that private education brings in my experience).
Anyway I had a few good ones (“do you train” and “have you ever had any injuries”), then when the questions dried up I asked for any embarrassing questions, to which a spotty boy lifted up his hand.
“Sir do you ever wank on a big wall”
I guessed I asked for it, and to be fair I did ask a big wall climbing this question myself at a lecture so I guess it was karma.
Anyway here a 3 different ways to tell a story:
Andy Kirkpatrick: Climb your Own Mountain from The DO Lectures on Vimeo.
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