Day #10 - The Editor

As a speaker, I have written speeches that failed to engage the audience. As a mentor, without knowing the subject too well, I have been able to figure out some ways to improvise other's speeches. At times the impacts have been so dramatic that I was surprised myself including my mentee. 

Content and engagement - like all students of public speaking - have been two faces of my split personality. One face lit up when I used to be the speaker and the other face glowed when I became a mentor. I wanted the faces to look at each other. 

After years of writing my own speeches and mentoring other Toastmasters, it dawned to me that we, as writers, are hostages of our own emotions. The emotions to protect the content, concepts we have given birth to, the right to be "right". We fiercely hold our ground within our frame. And this limited creativity and sometimes the "X-factor" to woo the audience. 

Mentoring others taught me to see a speech from the outside of the writer's frame as emotionally detached as a doctor from the process of "giving birth". As I realized it, the doctor's diagnosis shaped up the well-being of the new-born. An "editor" was born to edit out the nuances of the in-frame subject and to edit in the much-needed "X-factor".

Over time, the editor in me nurtured the writing in one sitting and the "X-factor"-ing in another. Editor bloomed, speaker blossomed and audience "expectation" mounted. The two faces started seeing each other. Thanks to the editor.

Have you found the "editor" in you?

Thanks,

--Samit