In this short TED talk, Julian Treasure gets straight into sharing the 7 deadly speaking sins. We’ve all experienced these from a listeners perspective, but also no doubt have fallen into these traps ourselves. Have you committed any of these ‘sins’?
Gossip
We all know that the person gossiping now will likely be doing the same about us in 5 minutes times.
Judging
How do you feel when listening to someone who you believe is judging you? Do you engage? Listen intently? Most likely not.
Negativity
All this does is drain the life and energy out of people. This is a sure-fire way to have people turn off and most likely looking for a way to exit the conversation and avoid future ones.
Complaining
This is quite like the negativity and all it does is spread misery rather than brightness into the world.
Excuses
We all know ‘the blame thrower’. That person who takes no responsibility for their actions. (There’s a leader overseas who best demonstrates this one!) People turn off very quickly to this as they wonder who’s going to get the blame next.
Exaggeration/lying
The more people exaggerate the bigger the stories get. Sometimes this can be fun and entertaining. But much of the time it is the path to lying and people start to question what is fact, and what is fiction.
Dogmatism
The confusion of fact with opinion can be hard to distinguish. Especially if it is being rammed down your throat by someone.
What to do?
To counter these, Julian shares an acronym (HAIL) that he suggests we should remember in our engagement with others:
- Honesty – be clear and straight
- Authenticity – be yourself and stand in your presence
- Integrity – be your word
- Love – wish them well
If in our heart we are wishing people well and following these pillars, it would be quite difficult to fall into the speaking sins trap.
Here is the 9-minute TED talk where Julian shares these deadly sins of speaking, his speaking pillars, your voice toolkit and some practical warm-ups for your voice. Quite a lot of knowledge in such a short talk.
Want to watch even more TED Talks we have shared. Check them all out here.
