“The ‘Yes, but…’ Man”
Another Monday night meeting is successfully behind me. I still haven’t got up there and strutted my speaking stuff, but it was good to take part and hear some excellent speeches.
The “Yes, but…” Man
The quality at Maidenhead Speakers Club is outstanding, and now I’ve been going for a few weeks I can really see the improvement in some of my fellow members, even if I have yet to do much speaking myself.
The first real speaker of the evening (real, as opposed to table topics or educational speaker) was David. I’d seen David speak a couple of months ago (actually, on my first night) and while his good humour had come across, and he’d really given a great speech, there was certainly some evidence of nerves that time.
This time, however, he was much more relaxed; better able to deal with the subject matter. One or two “erm”s crept in, but it was a great speech to listen to – really funny. I was especially impressed when he attempted to do a Brummy (= Birmingham, for non-Brits) accent – and failed. He fluidly managed to turn it into a joke and moved on.
His speech centered around an anecdote, about a Portugese person he’d been on a sales training course with, or given a training course to – I forget. Anyhow, this Portugese chap would not/could not accept responsibility for anything. No matter what the circumstances, his reply was always “Yes, but…”.
Now, this was interesting. Books on improving your public speaking will tell you it is important to use self-deprecation in your speech humour. And here was David centering his theme on a fault of someone else. It was funny. And it worked…
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