I read out loud to find some confidence in my own voice before I went out. I didn't have to feel confident already. Finding what confidence sounded like for me was part of the work.
In a conversation with Don, I described looking for a cadence, a pattern, a flow. Something that sounded a little more confident. I wanted the feeling of, hey, this is my flow. I'm talking good for me.
That was something I wanted to hear from myself before I walked into another speaking situation.
Read something you can get into
Don't read boring shit. That was how I put it. Read material you like, something you can feel passionate about. Sports, music or another subject you enjoy. I wanted to lean into it and let some excitement come through.
Enthusiasm mattered because I was working with the way my voice sounded and felt. I wanted energy and interest in what I was saying. Simply knowing the words on the page wasn't the whole purpose.
In that call, I kept coming back to the idea of hearing myself talk well. I was looking for a little confidence I could recognize in my own delivery.
What came before the grocery-store conversation?
In the grocery recording, I explained three things I did before getting there. Reading aloud was one. I also thought about a time when my speech had been a little better, even if it hadn't been perfect. I wanted to remember how that felt.
The other part was music: something I could play in the car or while walking that changed my emotional state. Reading, a remembered experience and music were parts of how I prepared myself before going out to speak.
Then I entered the store. That is where I had to do the next part.
The person wasn't following a page
I saw a man looking at cookies and commented on them. I said that if they were on sale, I was in trouble. I talked about how I used to eat junk food and asked, “how about you?”
He said he was diabetic and couldn't touch it. I answered, “But you still look at it. Smart.” Then I explained the little conversation we had just had.
The cookies gave us something in common. The answer gave me something to respond to. I hadn't known what he was going to say when I approached him.
That is why actual conversations remained part of my practice. I had to learn to ask, hear, respond and trust myself when the words were not written down. I still blocked and missed things while learning.
Where reading fitted in my work
The private reading gave me a chance to work with my voice before the encounter. The encounter asked me to use that voice with another person and respond to them. I spent time on both.
When I explain reading aloud, that is the purpose I want to make clear: finding a little confidence in how I sounded, then going out to use my speech. It was one part of a much larger effort.
Being asked to read a fixed passage in class was a separate experience in my life. I tell that story too. Here I am describing what I chose to do privately as preparation for speaking.