Oreo's and Public Speaking

This reflection focuses on my recent experience public speaking. It shows a new interest in the way communicators maximize their influence, and the creativity it takes to make ideas stick in the minds of an audience.

This summer I am an intern at Northpoint Church Austin. Last week we had an event that was designed to train high school students to lead six person teams of high school students throughout a summer long program. My task was to present our student leaders helpful leadership skills to use practically over the summer. While deciding on what to talk about when leading middle school students it proved to be a difficult task. I knew all the politics of the middle school hierarchy, especially the middle school I navigated my adolescence through. What I decided on was Oreo’s and humility. Humility seemed to be one of the roots in middle and high school that can take away from a student’s ability to lead a team. When I look back at the leaders I instantly want to follow it is because their humility has gained my respect. Once that respect is gained a leader has the ability to gather a crowd, give trusted advice, and honestly empower those around them. This is where the Oreo came in. I used an illustration using Oreo's to demonstrate this idea of valuing people the same. I went through multiple scenarios of what the Oreo would symbolize. A leadership position might make you stack a second Oreo on top of your first one, or maybe you have some accomplishment that makes you more intelligent, physically fit, spiritual, or any other measure of success someone can have; and they add more and more Oreos to their pile and you can view yourself above someone who’s stack has less cookies. However, when you take a Birdseye view of the cookie stacks you see one single Oreo. That is to say that we are all the same. We can create these success standards that allow our leadership abilities to fail because we don’t see others on the same level as ourselves.

The feedback from this talk was great and unexpected. Not only did I give high school students a cookie during a weekend of multiple seminar type talks, it was also something simple and easy to remember. I gave the same talk last summer to a much smaller group, and students from last year also remembered this talk. To remember a seminar a year later I knew that this was something very practical to communicate a point. I also really liked being out of my comfort zone while presenting to this larger group of students. It was exciting to be creative on how to present ideas in a way that would stick and make a lasting impression.

I am more aware of these kinds of long lasting impressions you can make when you have a sticky idea. By “sticky” I mean an idea that sticks with people much longer than your presentation occurs. I am now more attentive when I listen to any kind of public speaking. I look for ways that speakers can clearly communicate and create these sticky concepts that people with remember a whole year later. My sudden and strong interest in this subject makes me think that I like to speak more than I had ever had before. Perhaps this is my natural inclination to want to learn new things and this is the next new thing. I had never had a strong liking for public speaking, like most people, but it is exciting to learn about and to see how people use their influence to communicate.

#CommLabSummerReflections