My weird quirk is that I absolutely love presenting, especially lecturing or teaching. But as soon as I see one person not paying attention I get totally taken out of it, and would rather be doing anything else. Like, I don’t think it’s rude, and I don’t take it personally, but it pulls me out of my flow state and kind of bums me out for the rest of the day.
That’s why one of the tricks they teach you about public speaking is picking one person and talking to them specifically. It helps if the person is engaged, but it kind of diffused the need to control a whole crowd.
I think that trick is more to overcome the anxiety of speaking to a group. I’m constantly scanning the group to get an idea of what level engagement is at, and if I’m losing people or if my efforts to be at least a little more entertaining are working or I need to try something else.
It’s definitely not a control or anxiety thing, being ignored is a trigger probably from some childhood shit where I would info dump my latest interest and get ignored by my parents. Giving a training to people just to be ignored feels the exact same, even though rationally I know it isn’t.
I see, yeah. It sounds like you’re a very competent speaker already, so I believe you can work on that issue! (hope this doesn’t come off as condescending or anything, I’m tired and trying to be positive)
It’s such a weird thing, I have a hard time explaining it without just sounding like I’m an asshole, so most advice is like, don’t be an asshole.
I know it’s a me problem, if it ever gets bad I just take a break and refocus, and most of the time even a quick ten minutes gets everyone else reset and focusing again too. If there’s a really egregious individual I try and one on one with them during the break and ask what’s up, but ironically I have terrible one on one social anxiety.
My weird quirk is that I absolutely love presenting, especially lecturing or teaching. But as soon as I see one person not paying attention I get totally taken out of it, and would rather be doing anything else. Like, I don’t think it’s rude, and I don’t take it personally, but it pulls me out of my flow state and kind of bums me out for the rest of the day.
That’s why one of the tricks they teach you about public speaking is picking one person and talking to them specifically. It helps if the person is engaged, but it kind of diffused the need to control a whole crowd.
oh no, now I can’t listen to speeches, what if I’m the person the speaker chooses to specifically talk at???
I think that trick is more to overcome the anxiety of speaking to a group. I’m constantly scanning the group to get an idea of what level engagement is at, and if I’m losing people or if my efforts to be at least a little more entertaining are working or I need to try something else.
It’s definitely not a control or anxiety thing, being ignored is a trigger probably from some childhood shit where I would info dump my latest interest and get ignored by my parents. Giving a training to people just to be ignored feels the exact same, even though rationally I know it isn’t.
I see, yeah. It sounds like you’re a very competent speaker already, so I believe you can work on that issue! (hope this doesn’t come off as condescending or anything, I’m tired and trying to be positive)
Not at all, thank you!
It’s such a weird thing, I have a hard time explaining it without just sounding like I’m an asshole, so most advice is like, don’t be an asshole.
I know it’s a me problem, if it ever gets bad I just take a break and refocus, and most of the time even a quick ten minutes gets everyone else reset and focusing again too. If there’s a really egregious individual I try and one on one with them during the break and ask what’s up, but ironically I have terrible one on one social anxiety.