What do baseball and spring training have to do with public speaking? Even for those of you who aren’t baseball fans, here’s a great learning moment.
Manny Acta is manager of the Washington Nationals and is committed to not giving outs away.
His Principle: do not give away outs that you have the choice to avoid giving away
His Specific Goal: zero outs due to double plays (two outs on one play) on a line drive with no outs.
While this may be deep detail for non-baseball fans, there are two key points you can apply to your public speaking strategy
1. Set an ambitious goal (zero in this case) and do everything in your power to achieve it
2. Imagine every single thing no matter how seemingly small and plan a response to it
Practice involves honing skills such as hitting, fielding and running. These are done daily separate from specific game situations.
Rehearsal builds on practice. Manny Acta gathers all the players at first base and gets them to visualize being on first base, no outs and the batter hits a line drive. They plan what they will do in that situation.
They all move to second base: imagine being on base, no outs, line drive, what will they do?
They all move to third base: imagine being on base, no outs, line drive, what will they do?
The team spends one hour planning how to avoid double plays when there are no outs and the batter hits a line drive. One hour on a specific detail in a sport that has zillions of details. Will it make a difference? Manny believes that it will, and he made the time to help his players prepare for the occurrence of that detail. When they are wrapped up in the action and intensity of an actual game, they will know how to respond because they have rehearsed it.
When you’re in the action and intensity of your speech, what you prepared for in your rehearsals will give you the freedom to respond to the details of the moment, making a big play that will endear you to your audiences and hitting a home run for your own career.
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