Often during conversation, a few words will suffice. "Less is more."
Professional speaker and best-selling author Alan Weiss writes: "Tell people what they need to know, not everything that you know. Bad examples: Any TV "meteorologist." They're giving me wind directions and high tides and I merely want to know if it will be cold and if I need an umbrella."
Why Be Brief?
- Sometimes brevity is required, like when the moderator of your group says "Now go around the table, and in a few words, state your reasons."
2. Sometimes brevity is more effective, as in one-line humor. Examples:
"I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize" --Stephen Wright
"Politics is just show business for ugly people." --Jay Leno
3. Often at social events, guests are asked "to say a few words."
4. If you say too much, you might be cut off, like being interviewed by a radio or TV host.
5. Brief talk is more memorable than lengthy talk. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was 10 sentences long. Edward Everett's speech at the same event was more than an hour, and no one remembers what he said.
6. If you talk at length, listeners may tune you out. As part of your conversation skill-set, you should be able to speak at the length appropriate, not more, not less. Many extraverted and voluble people seem unable to do this. They ramble on and on. Not good. This article is primarily for them.
Fortunately, methods to learn brevity are at hand: Practice brevity in both writing and speaking and you'll get the hang of it.
Writing practice:
1. Six Word Memoirs, such as Six-word memoirs on Love and Heartbreak
Critical, clenched husband. Heavy, heavy heart.
It never hurt as good again.
Got the ring. Mailed it back.
Magnetic attraction
fused to polar opposites.
Love at first sight is blind.
(Can you write a memoir in 6 words? Give it a try.)
2. Write Haiku, the Western form of Japanese poems
This method, simple and clear, is borrowed from Wikihow.com:
- Understand the haiku spirit. Basically, this really has to do with looking at things in nature with reverence. To understand that the beating wings of a humming bird is a small miracle itself is to begin to understand haiku for it seeks to capture the "small" things and make them big.
- Take a macro view of the world in the first part of the haiku poem,the fragment. For instance, if we begin a haiku with something like this: "winter twilight," we've established the background or mood of the haiku...the macro view.3
- Add a present tense phrase that contributes some detail of something that is happening now. It doesn't have to be sophisticated and there's no need to search for something. The best haiku use simple direct language to describe things. For example, if we were to create a phrase like: "ice crystals hang off the pine," what we have just done is composed a micro view of something that is specific and can be described visually. Now the finished haiku would look something like this:
winter twilight--
ice crystals
hang off the pine
Now, try writing a haiku. (Maybe write one for Valentine's Day for your sweetheart, who will be impressed!)
Talking practice:
- Sometimes a therapist or coach asks a client to "sum up your predicament in one word." This request forces the client to capture the gist of their situation, and that often results in an "ah-hah!" insight. Examples I have heard:
"helpless" "victim" "stupid" "pessimistic" "trapped" "confused"
Choose a real-life problem you are dealing with. Maybe about work, or finances, or relationships. Capture the essence of that situation in one word.
2. Practice one-line humor:
Here are two I recently used to get laughs:
How come wrong numbers are never busy?
Do people in Australia call the rest of the world "up over"?
Do you have some one-line humor available? Way better than long jokes or shaggy-dog stories. Try concocting some, or borrow them from the internet. Google the term "one-liners" or "one-line humor" and you'll find many.
3. Join a Toastmasters club in your area and you'll learn to be succinct by observing others, then practicing how to pack a lot of meaning into a short speech. No blabber-mouthing allowed. You'll get lots of help and support from fellow members, and the cost of joining is minimal! (To locate a club near you, go to www.ToastmastersInternational.org.)
President Calvin Coolidge, aka "Silent Cal," was legendary as a man of few words. One story has it that Dorothy Parker, seated next to him at a dinner, said to him, "Mr. Coolidge, I've made a bet against a fellow who said it was impossible to get more than two words out of you." His famous reply: "You lose." Mr. Coolidge wasted neither money nor words!
Finally, Mark Twain, brilliant writer, speaker, and conversationalist, recommended that generally, "the fewer the words that fully communicate or evoke the intended ideas and feelings, the more effective the communication."
Good advice, indeed. So, overly talkative folks, take heed!
(If you like this article, please forward it to your friends.)
Until next week,
Loren
