The verbally facile among us were not born with the ability to think and speak fluidly. Their skill is the respond of practice and a desire to appear articulate and in control. Here are three ways to practice your quick-thinking skills so you can appear more verbally fluid yourself.
ODD QUESTIONS
Print out the following questions and cut them apart, trying not to look at the actual words. A week later, turn on your tape records, take on of the questions, and respond to it. Do this every week for a year. (Ask friends to supply additional questions.) Critique your replies each time and make notes about your "performance."
What door do you wish you had never opened?
What is an obsession of yours?
If you could relive a single day or moment, what would it be?
What is the most gracious act of kindness you have witnessed?
What is the most bizarre thing you have ever seen?
What would you refuse to eat?
What is the greatest risk you have ever taken?
What is your earliest memory?
What is the most terrifying experience you have ever lived through?
What is your greatest talent?
In four sentences, how would you describe childbirth?
What do you believe you cannot do? Why do you believe that?
What truths have you recently discovered?
QUOTES
Follow the same process for the quotes but challenge yourself a bit more. Interpret the meaning of the quotes and provide examples. Try to organize your thoughts into a self-contained structure with a beginning, middle, and end.
"A good listener helps us overhear ourselves." --Yahia Lababidi
If you wish to be loved, show more of your faults than your virtues." --Edward Bulwer-Lytton
"To freely bloom--that is my definition of success." --Gerry Spence
"We take our colors, chameleon-like, from each other." Sebastien de Chamfort
"No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place." --Maya Angelou
"A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets
used up." --Albert Schweitzer
"Art is known to grow the soul." --Kurt Vonnegut
"Society is composed of two great classes: those who have more dinners than
appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners." --Sebastien de Chamfort,
"Like cars in amusement parks, our direction is often determined through
collisions." --Yahia Lababidi
"Our heads are round so that thoughts can change direction." --Francis Picabia
"Surely joy is the condition of life." --Henry David Thoreau
IMPROMPTU TOPICS
Do the same thing with these impromptu topics, which are the hardest assignment because they are just a single word, around which you have to create an interesting story.
Chipmunks
Mental institutions
Rain
Firecrackers
Prayer
Loneliness
Friendship
Microscopes
Valleys
Hot dog stands
Newspapers
Aches
Handsome men
Elbows
Dirty feet
Spiders
Tailors
Toenails
Yes, it's hard work aquiring the skills that others admire. But, if you are interested in a leadership position and/or career advancement, keep the words of James Hayes, former head of the American Managemetn Association, in mind: "Leaders who are inarticulate make us all uneasy."
