Quote: (10-10-2011 05:12 PM)speakeasy Wrote:
I totally hear you. I commend you for coming clean on this because it takes a high level of self-awareness and self-honesty to realize that this is because of something you are doing and not just on account of a rude audience. This doesn't always happen to me, but sometimes it does, and I hate when it happens because it makes me self-conscious and wondering what I'm doing wrong. I also notice when I'm with a large group of people, you can tell who the alpha males are because people shut up when the talk, they hang on his every word, and they are nodding in acknowledgment when he delivers a story. I try to carefully watch the way they deliver their words. How they hold their body posture, how their voice projects, whether they build momentum and anticipation in telling the story, their eye contact and such.
If people's eyes are glazing over when you tell a story, then your words aren't being given enough value. Either that's because they see you as a low value person that they don't have to listen to or your good words are wrapped in poor delivery. I'm thinking about joining a local Toastmasters speaking group just to get better at public speaking and learn how to tell a story in a way that holds an audience's attention.
Have you ever thought about recording yourself when you're talking to others? Just about every phone now has digital voice recording. It's easier to evaluate your speaking ability when you can review it later without your attention focused on others. It may then become obvious what the problems are. Listening to an audio of yourself talk or even better, a video can be an eye-opening experience. Maybe even making you cringe. That's a good place to start I think.
Maybe they do see me as low value. Hard to judge that though. Depends what people consider 'value' I guess. I'm definitely not the best looking, well dressed or most confident (not shy either) of guys but I'm educated, cultured (been told this by a few people), well travelled and have done a lot more than most people I know because of my adventures across the world. Whilst everyone I know was stuck in a rut and getting blind drunk in their home town every weekend since the time they left school I was off at uni in a big city and then off travelling the world and have continued to do so since.
As for recording my voice, because a lot of my work involves making calls my boss actually recorded a few of mines recently and let me play them back. Apparently I sounded confident, upbeat, assertive and talked like I knew what I was talking about. Whether I translate that into normal convos I don't know.
I'm going to work on eye contact and speaking loudly, more clearly and more directly.