Authentic Speaking

Here's an exercise that Keith Fail developed for a group of Toastmasters, to help them practice speaking with more presence and from the values that are important to each of them personally.

After teaching the prerequisite pieces (see below), he had the group do the exercise. Once they put all the pieces together, they didn't want to stop talking!

This post assumes you know the Circle of Excellence and can use the meta-outcome questions to come up with a core value.

Before Doing the Exercise
Before beginning, gather this information for yourself and a partner:

• What is one important value of yours? Use meta-outcome questions to get a really good one.
  
• Create a Circle of Excellence for that value (each partner does so for his or her own value).
• Practice "being present" with your partner, looking into each others' eyes, without talking, for 30 seconds, and then a minute.

The Exercise
Standing up, position yourself about 5 feet from your partner, facing each other.

1. Each person imagines his or her own Circle of Excellence one step in front of them... and then steps in.
2. After fully stepping into the Circle of Excellence, each person adds "being present" to that circle, looking into their partners' eyes.
3. Each person takes a turn speaking a few sentences, only as quickly as he or she can hold both the original Circle of Excellence value and "being present" with the other person.
   

Modifications
You can modify this exercise to be used with increasingly larger groups of people, one person standing at the front as a speaker, with the rest of the group as an audience.

You could also modify this exercise to use it with a couple. The Circle of Excellence could be individual states, as outlined above, or a shared resource state.