Crazy Hair and Other Important Things No One Tells You

All Signs Point That Way: One Family's Experience with Early Identification of Autism

Heather Young

Parent Advocate

September 16, 2014

 Tomorrow I am giving a presentation at the Univ. of Iowa about my granddaughter Eleanor and the process we went through to get her diagnosed with autism. My topic for tomorrow doesn't have a thing to do with my book, so why would I tell you about it on this book blog site? 

 Good question.

Here's the deali-o: I am doing quite a bit of public speaking this fall semester about my book. Tomorrow is a random topic that I agreed to speak about because the organizers knew I was comfortable with talking to groups and they asked me to do it. I said "Yes, of course!" because I am a big believer in education and making the world a better place.  The point of all this information is that I am getting a crash course in Things No One Tells You About Public Speaking and that is what I want to share today. See? Another fine example of me helping out the world, right here.

I read internet articles and books about public speaking. I did the homework on the hows and whys to make an awesome presentation. What no one said was this: 

Crazy hair
Lipstick

Water bottle

Reading glasses

Relax 

In specific: 

Even if you look marrrveelllooouuuusss in your bathroom mirror at home, bring a comb or brush because no matter how great the weather is, it is guaranteed a gust of wind is going to come along just as you are getting out of your car at the event and it is going to blow your beautifully coiffed head to smithereens.  Crazy hair. It happens. 

For my girlfriends, just like crazy hair, even if your make-up looks fab at home, by the time you get where you are going to speak, your lipstick will need a touch up. And when speaking, it is best to wear lipstick/makeup just so your face will be seen from the back of the room. That is why actors wear makeup, to make sure their facial features are seen. For my male friends, I have no idea how you overcome "blank face" at an event without wearing makeup. I guess that is why God gives you people bushier eyebrows, so you can be seen from far away. So not my problem. 

Water bottle. Take water with you. It is stunning how thirsty you get while you are waiting your turn to speak. Man, they aren't kidding when they say adrenaline causes dry mouth. Water. It does a body and parched mouth good. 

Reading glasses, if you need them. I use mine only when I read from my book, which irritates the h-e-double hockey sticks out me .Why-oh-why did I publish my book in such small print? Why is any book ever printed in anything other than large print? It is a conspiracy towards people over the age of 40. I thought I forgot my glasses the first time I spoke and I almost had a heart attack. How was I going to do a book reading without my reading glasses?!? Luckily, I found them in the backseat of the car where I put them when I was packing the car. I have no idea why I did that, but now my reading glasses ride first class in the front seat where they belong. 

More than one of the articles I read on public speaking gave tips about "pumping yourself up" and getting energized before you perform, like an athlete warms up before a game. 

I tried that the first time I spoke and it totally didn't work for me. I was already feeling frazzled and all it did was make me feel exhausted before I even started. 

I read an interview of the actor Bill Murray where he talked about how he prepares to perform*. He said,

 “Someone told me some secrets early on about living. You have to remind yourself that you can do the very best you can when you’re very, very relaxed. No matter what it is, no matter what your job is, the more relaxed you are, the better you are. That’s sort of why I got into acting. I realized that the more fun I had, the better I did it, and I thought, Well, that’s a job I can be proud of. I’d be proud to have that job, if I had to go to work and say, ‘No matter what my condition or what my mood is, no matter how I feel about what’s going on in my life, if I can relax myself and enjoy what I’m doing and have fun with it, then I can do my job really well.’ And it’s changed my life, learning that. And it’s made me better at what I do. I’m not the greatest or anything. But I really enjoy what I do.”

I tried the relaxation approach and found it works very well for me. I still get nervous right before I speak, but that it is a very different feeling than being all jacked-up and wild inside. Besides, if it's good enough for Bill Murray, it's good enough for me.

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* Amended quote. The first few hours of this blog post, I had a quote from Bill that said basically the same thing, but not as well. I knew I read a fuller, more nuanced quote of his, but I couldn't remember where I read it. It took me all day, but I found the better quote and swapped it in.

 You are very welcome, I really am all about customer service and I'm thrilled you noticed.