The Top Five

The Top Five


I spent probably close to an hour this morning listening to a famous public speaker that I had never heard of but who threw out names of people I had heard of and was a great communicator talk about how to better your communication skills. He began by saying he spent all his time focusing on technical skills, knowledge, and expertise in his subject area but wasn’t getting jobs, promotions, or anything like that and didn’t know why until he read a book about how you have to pair communication skills with expertise to go anywhere in life. This coupled with the YouTube video someone posted about how people who don’t fit in societal norms typically also get passed over for jobs and promotions made me listen to this guy’s three videos. I know I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to in-person communication, though sometimes I nail it! I’m much better in writing, which is why I have a blog and not a podcast or video blog.

In his second video, the presenter mentioned videoing yourself and reviewing three different ways; auditory so you get a sense of how your voice inflects or doesn’t, visually so you see your facial expressions and body language or lack thereof and see how you can improve it, and transcription so you can see the noises and non-words you make to lessen those interruptions that decrease flow and confidence in you as a presenter. Since I did a lot of that in ASL classes in college, I may not do that again, but it was very helpful information!

His third video made me not like him so much. He talked about you are a reflection of the top five people you spend time with. I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. He then went on to explain that he wanted to get better at public speaking so he took classes, but didn’t gain public speaking engagements, and his teacher told him that’s because he was hanging around IT and coding people that didn’t talk to each other at all. He needed to have people in his top five who were public speakers, so he researched the top public speaker in his country and emailed him until he agreed to meet with him. Stuff like that doesn’t always happen… Then story after story of how he wanted to learn a new skill, so he introduced this famous person into his top five. He wanted to learn negotiation techniques, so he locked himself in a room for three days with a top hostage negotiator and learned 30 years of negotiation techniques in three days instead of taking time to do it like everyone else without millions of dollars would have to do it.

That being said, I believe communication and learning to communicate effectively is important! I want to learn how to be a more effective communicator. But I’m not shelling out $500 for his classes when he makes $30-50,000 per engagement and that’s “cheap” to him. I am scared to impress whomever these “big wigs” are for this social work job that I really want. I want to stop job searching and just start working. But I also want to help my clients the best way I can, and the best way I can is by researching more (which I’ve already started) and by communicating in a calm manner. Most of this presenter’s style and many public speaker’s styles have to be high energy, and that’s just not me. The last thing a frenetic family in crisis needs is a high energy person telling them a ton of information that will just go through one ear and out the other. So I appreciate the tips, but keep your high energy elsewhere.

Enough about him. I don’t think I have a top five people right now. I have friends I check in with on a daily or weekly basis, but I don’t know whether it’s my mental health or my social awkwardness that makes me feel socially isolated all the time. I feel like I need constant reassurance that I’m not alone. I bug people typically more than they bug me. That being said, there are a couple people I talk to almost every day, but not even five. I hope with a new job that I can get that number up, and that I can find friendly people with a positive outlook on life. I know now more than ever that life is difficult for a lot of us, but we need to keep our heads up. Things will change, but most things won’t change unless WE change something. That usually means getting outside our comfort zones. I for one hate getting outside my comfort zone, but I don’t even know where it is anymore. I feel like I lost it when my job took it away from me. Now I’ve had to find myself, let go of my past, heal myself with tons of help, and move on. I’m finding a new normal. I think I need new diversity in my top five, not that there’s anything wrong with the friends I have now! They’re just all gay, white, liberal, males… 

I’m going into a field outside my comfort zone in a skill set inside my comfort zone.

What steps are you taking to go outside your comfort zone?

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