The King's Speech by Nick Morgan

Author:Nick Morgan [Nick Morgan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612300191
Publisher: New Word City, LLC
Published: 2014-02-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

RESPECT THE CRAFT AND THE JOURNEY

It’s one thing to understand that you need to change. In fact, in George VI’s case, it was easy: He wanted to lose his stutter. But it’s another thing to do the work of finding your voice, changing your behavior, and adopting a new communications style. That takes time, and sometimes a difficult personal investigation.

I worked once with a professional speaker who had a couple of bestselling books and a fairly full speaking calendar at mid-market events. But he’d hit a plateau; he was unable to get booked at premier events. In the course of working with him, it became clear that his communication style projected arrogance, and that that arrogance masked deep-seated self-doubt. In order to improve his communication style, he had to understand, explore, and finally surmount his self-doubt. The result was that he could show up with a new kind of openness and humility that was far more engaging.

Logue had a profound understanding of the kind of humiliation and pain the King had experienced because of his stammer, and it was that pain he had to help the King face and overcome. That kind of psychological exploration - and ultimately healing - is never a trivial exercise or a quick journey. Finding your own voice takes hard work and time.

The movie showed Logue teaching the King some bizarre exercises in order to strengthen his breathing and vocal cords, from rolling around on the floor, to singing and dancing his lines, to shouting vowel sounds out the window.

In fact, the exercises may have been more mundane vocal strength building (we’re not sure, because the real-life Logue never produced a manual of his techniques). But in any case Logue taught the King that if you want to achieve the goal, you have to do the work of the journey. You can’t think your way to the end or skip the difficult parts.

Public speaking is performance art. You have to create a fresh performance every time, and you have to express it through your body. That’s demanding, and nearly impossible to fake successfully. Hence, you need to take the time to do the work of personal exploration in order to find your authenticity and be able to tap it each time you speak.

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