Sunday, May 21, 2006
Are You In the Right Room?
I remember in college, on the first day of a new semester, every professor would start off class by saying what the class number was and what it was about. This was then followed by a question.
"Is this the class you signed up for?" the professor would ask.
Invariably, there would be two or three people who would get up and walk out. Maybe they went to the wrong room or maybe they didn't realize what the class would involve. Nevertheless, they were smart enough to leave when they had the chance.
Recently, I've had several reminders of situations where people are sitting in a class they should have left.
One takes place every week in one of my spinning classes. These take place on a stationary bicycle. During a vigorous workout, you can burn more than 1,000 calories in an hour. But only if your mind is focused on the class. Lately I've noticed a woman who sits on a bike in the front row but doesn't really seem to want to be there. During the entire class, she's craning her neck as she watches to see if she knows someone who's walking by the glass windows that separate the class from the rest of the gym. Usually she'll then smile and wave to them. I'm no fitness guru but I can't believe that you're getting all that great a workout when you're not devoting your full attention to the class.
A week ago I was sitting in a daylong seminar that was put on by the Florida Speakers Association. The group does a fabulous job of helping people learn how to succeed in the professional speaking business. For this session, where people paid around $70 to attend, I was seated next to a woman who had a confession to make.
"I really don't like the sound of my voice," she whispered.
She then asked for and I gave her several suggestions for ways that she might be able to improve the quality of her delivery."Yes, those are good," she said, "But I still don't like my voice."
This is when I pretended not to have a voice. I was tempted to tell her that if she didn't like the way she sounded then she needed to give up her dream of professional speaking and start writing a book instead. How does this woman expect to compete with the many speakers who don't have a problem with the way they sound or at least are willing to address their shortcomings? It sounded like she was happy to live in a quicksand filled pool of self-doubt.
But I didn't say all that. Instead I said something supportive that I would imagine Dr. Phil telling one of his TV patients before a commercial break.
Bottom line: If you're going to do something, do it with all your heart and hold nothing back. Otherwise you're just taking up space in the wrong room.
"Is this the class you signed up for?" the professor would ask.
Invariably, there would be two or three people who would get up and walk out. Maybe they went to the wrong room or maybe they didn't realize what the class would involve. Nevertheless, they were smart enough to leave when they had the chance.
Recently, I've had several reminders of situations where people are sitting in a class they should have left.
One takes place every week in one of my spinning classes. These take place on a stationary bicycle. During a vigorous workout, you can burn more than 1,000 calories in an hour. But only if your mind is focused on the class. Lately I've noticed a woman who sits on a bike in the front row but doesn't really seem to want to be there. During the entire class, she's craning her neck as she watches to see if she knows someone who's walking by the glass windows that separate the class from the rest of the gym. Usually she'll then smile and wave to them. I'm no fitness guru but I can't believe that you're getting all that great a workout when you're not devoting your full attention to the class.
A week ago I was sitting in a daylong seminar that was put on by the Florida Speakers Association. The group does a fabulous job of helping people learn how to succeed in the professional speaking business. For this session, where people paid around $70 to attend, I was seated next to a woman who had a confession to make.
"I really don't like the sound of my voice," she whispered.
She then asked for and I gave her several suggestions for ways that she might be able to improve the quality of her delivery."Yes, those are good," she said, "But I still don't like my voice."
This is when I pretended not to have a voice. I was tempted to tell her that if she didn't like the way she sounded then she needed to give up her dream of professional speaking and start writing a book instead. How does this woman expect to compete with the many speakers who don't have a problem with the way they sound or at least are willing to address their shortcomings? It sounded like she was happy to live in a quicksand filled pool of self-doubt.
But I didn't say all that. Instead I said something supportive that I would imagine Dr. Phil telling one of his TV patients before a commercial break.
Bottom line: If you're going to do something, do it with all your heart and hold nothing back. Otherwise you're just taking up space in the wrong room.
# posted by tvguy @ 2:05 PM 
