Great Speaking Happens in Real Time

Free Your Speaking Voice in Matters of Communication & Performance Skills. How to Impact with Power and Transform Your World

GOOD SPEAKING HAPPENS IN “REAL” TIME

There are essentially two times in matters of communication and performance skills: mind time and real time, also called body time. One is experiential (real time) and the other conceptual or mental (mind time).

Mind time is the realm and speed of thoughts and images. Mind time sees everything conceptually and abstractly. If I ask you to think of a house right now, you will picture it abstractly in your mind without questioning its lack of reality (the concept of a house versus the real house). The house will have a certain shape, color, background, etc. You will “see” or project the house in your mind, but there will be no “actual” house. The same goes for the illusion of art. The artist may have arranged shapes, lines and colors to paint, let’s say a horse or a portrait of someone, but there is no horse or person on the canvas. The mind believes it is a horse because it projects and remembers what a horse or a person looks like.

Contrastingly, real time or body time is experiential and therefore, physical in nature. Animals and children exist in physical time and are surrendered to it quite happily. In real time everything has a beginning, a middle and an end: a sunset, the making of a meal, boiling water, opening a door, the birth of a baby, sitting in a chair, etc. Real time is the time of physical reality or physical life which begins with gravity, weight and breathing. For example, if you go to the gym to lift a 50 pound weight, you cannot imagine you’re doing it…you have to lift it inch by inch. That’s REAL time.

At some point in our adult development, we cease to “belong” to our bodies in real time and start apprehending life through concepts. We start giving much more attention to our thoughts than our responses to life, our senses. Things, the world and of course, people around us become conceptual images to us. While it has obvious advantages, it also robs us of important “actual” experiences.

For instance, a mental experience has no scent. Imagine going to a restaurant and being served the menu to read and imagine but not the actual meal on the table. While you can visualize the sumptuous meal on the printed menu, the actual experience of tasting the dishes is profoundly different.

Mind Time is Distorts Everything

There are certain realms where mind time just doesn’t cut it: playing a game, running, speaking to a child, drawing, driving a fast car, kissing someone you love for the first time, sharing an intimate moment with someone, making love, etc. Public speaking, business communication and performance, such as singing, dancing or playing an instrument, are certainly included here.

The Best of Life Happens in “Real Time”

It means that we do not actually live in the past or the future. We can think about the past but we are not there physically. A moment such as a sentence or a touch has to be executed and felt in real time—physically in our bodies.

Effectiveness in doing anything well is 100% connected to moment by moment living: real body time.

You cannot skip ahead when things really matter. Can you imagine listening to your favorite song while it skips every 2 seconds? It would drive you insane.

Generally, speaking and communicating are viewed as just extensions of our minds. The mind thinks 7 times faster than we can speak words and sentences. To build credibility and earn respect, you must align with real time. Elocution, diction and modulation, to name a few elements, too often take the back seat because the mind (our thought process) has taken over.

Whatever you want to do well, real time is your best friend. Mind time creates much of the dysfunction we see around us. People get frustrated and even will give up because they have not understood that mind time does not work, except when we think.

Performance

For example, performance skills are what make a singer or dancer attractive to watch and riveting to listen to. The command of the skills acts as the gateway to the hearts of our audiences. Those skills were learnt in real time—every single one of them. The same goes for a great story teller.

When you live your life in real body time, every second counts. Your senses are heightened. Ironically, you even think more clearly.

People, audiences, your peers, family and friends, are moved, touched and inspired only when you express yourself in real time. You cannot tell anyone to be inspired on command; you have to experience it yourself in real time in your body. What you are passionate about expressing has to be honored moment by moment in order to give it power.

Body time or real time lives in the present, I like to call it the now-moment (because you can also conceptualize the present). People say “I have to stay present” but they are “thinking that” not experiencing it. The now-moment has a distinct quality: it is relaxed and aware. By being willing to play in body time, everything you do becomes natural and easier to manage.

How do I Practice Real Time?

By making sure you follow the rhythm of your breath. It’s simple, if you can feel your breath you are in real time. If you only hear your thoughts, you’re in mind time. It means that all sensations have to be felt through your breathing for you to feel relaxed and be seen and felt by others. For some people it’s a revelation and a genuine breakthrough. It boosts their confidence and establishes a newly found source of personal power.

If you lose the connection to your breathing, you have switched to mind time. The second level of awareness is to make sure you speak through your breathing, not separate from it. If you leave your breathing in order to finish a sentence, you have left the moment. People will stop listening or watching. You have become a ghost or shadow of yourself.

Learn how to make it into a fun discipline. It is not difficult, it just takes diligent practice. I guarantee that it will increase your credibility and popularity exponentially—whatever craft, art form or activity you love to do.