E Evaluation
Hi, welcome to 5 Minute Speech Coach, an audio course to help anyone get better at public speaking through consistent practice.
Before we go any further, let’s take 3 deep breaths together. Try to breathe from your stomach as much as you can.
Ready? Okay. [3 deep breathes]
Today is our last lesson and the last piece of the GAPE system: evaluation, or how you know you met your goals or not.
A quick note for this lesson: if you want, you can absolutely listen to it right before you actually have the conversation itself, or wait until after you have the conversation. Either way, part of this lesson is about setting up some time for a final recap after the conversation -- there’s guidance on this in the show notes.
So we’re at the last step, evaluation: often we finish up a tough or scary conversation and have no idea what happened, or we assume the worst. Mostly, no matter how it went, we’re usually on to the next thing, or our perception of how the conversation went is totally colored by one emotion, maybe even an emotion that wasn’t even how you felt for most of the interview.
Story:
We’re not doing any line by line breakdowns of your conversation today -- that’s not realistic or useful for our five minutes.
Instead, I want you to pick a single detail of your part of the conversation that you’re proud of, that you want to remember. Maybe it’s
If you’re still feeling your hormones and fight or flight system going, take 2-3 deep breathes again. Ready? Go for it.
Then, I want to know: did you use your anchor?
Reflect on that. When did you use it? If you didn’t use it, why?
I want to be really clear that you’re not a failure if you didn’t use your anchor.
Part of getting better is getting comfortable with paying attention to what happens in the moment. And honestly, that’s really freaking hard!
For your exercise today, take a second to think about how you’ll evaluate if you hit your goal or not -- get corny and really think about when you’ll do it (right after? A few days later? Will you make a calendar event for it or add it to your to do list?) and where (in a notebook? In a google doc that you’ll check?).
Then, if you have a few more minutes, use your evaluation tool to see if you met your goal.
