What do you want? What do you know?
...and what's the difference?
When I teach my first lesson to my students, I always begin with two questions:
What do you want?
What do you know?
The gap between these two questions will show us where we’re heading and where to start.
Asking these questions also empowers them. They’re not starting from scratch. They know things.
It’s actually harder for my students to know what they want. Or they don’t feel like telling me. So I ask leading questions.
“Do you want to be able to pick up a piece of music and play it on first sight?”
“Do you want to play with ease?”
“Do you want to be able to make up your own music?”
The answers to these questions are usually “yes.”
In my “Finding Your Voice” workshops, the participants are adults looking to improve their public presentation and confidence. Even so, I still have to ask leading questions.
“Do you want to be able to have conversations with strangers when you are very nervous?”
“Do you want people to remember who you are and what you do?”
“Do you want to make more money?”
The answers to these questions are usually yes.
It’s harder to get them to tell me what they’re good at. In piano lessons, I just ask the students to play something they know or make up a piece of music. In the workshops, I may ask them to talk about themselves in three sentences.
Once they do these things, I just point out the obvious things I’m seeing: “You have good breath control when you talk.”
It’s surprising how people discount what they’re good at because they assume that if they can do it, it must not be hard (or even valuable.) But finding out that you’re already half way to improvement can make the difference between beginning the process and not getting started.
Knowing what you want, and knowing what you already know, reduces the gap between the two. It makes learning into a series of manageable steps rather than an unbridgeable gulf. Suddenly finding your voice is something you can do, this year, starting right now.
If you know you’re a good writer but can’t speak in front of people, then you can use your strength to craft a speech that will make you sound good. That will reduce your worries to the speaking part. It’s now a manageable problem, because there are techniques you can use to improve your speaking skills.
If you’re good at talking to people but are insecure about crafting a good speech, then you know what you have to do: Use online resources, friends, and an experienced coach like me to help you learn the elements of a good speech. Your problem is now manageable.
All of this starts with knowing what you want and knowing what you know.
You know me. And you know I’m hosting a workshop for people interested in finding their voices, as writers, as speakers, as growing businesspeople. Do you know how to sign up?
Right here! https://acole.net/finding-your-voice-public-speaking-workshop-for-writers
So what do YOU know? And what do you want?