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Practice Your Point of View

So, our next section is called "Practice your Point of View." As we promised, we wanna really get into what is our unique point of view, and how can we bring that up to the surface for people. So this exercise we call "solo debate." So one volunteer, hop up here with me and I'll tell you what we're gonna do once you're up here. And I'll take care of you, as always. Great, thanks, John! Give John a round of applause. (audience applauding) Yay, John! So find your "I love my spot" like we did in the other class We're together, right? No, this is all you, bud! This is all me? It's all you. So find where you wanna be, and I'll adjust to you. Okay. So you can see me, yeah. Is that where you wanna be? Yes. Great. So this is called "solo debate" and I'm gonna give you a topic. Okay. Okay, and you're going to debate yourself. Alright? So Do you need walk the streets of Berkeley or something while I'm doing this? If you'd like to, it's not required (John laughs) but i...

t's always an option, always in this exercise, yes! And that's for everyone at home as well, pause right now (Kimberly laughs) So the way that it will work, is that I will first give you this signal, which means, "Give me the setup." This is "My name is Kimberly MacLean and I'm gonna talk to you about bumblebees." Right, when I do this, I want you to give me the positives, the pro's, and when I do this, I want you to give me the cons, and I'm just gonna switch back and forth at my pleasure. So pro's, cons. Yup. And at the end, I'm gonna do this, which is obviously the international symbol for "stick the landing." Right? And you're gonna give us whatever your culminating sentence is. Summation. Okay. Yeah. Got it? Wow. This is hard. Oh, it's so easy, and you're gonna be so good at it, I know it. Yeah, I'm gonna go sit in your seat so you can see me more easily, yeah? Okay, alright. Okay. And your topic is going to be: "Beaches." Beaches. Beaches. Are you ready? Yes. I love beaches in Portugal, it's so sunny. Oh, give me your name first. Oh. That's okay, rewind. Yup! I'm John Libman. I'm gonna talk about the importance of beaches. I love beaches in Portugal. The food is right near the beach. The wine is flowing, the sun is up, they speak a Well, there's a lot of garbage on the beaches in Portugal and it doesn't smell so good, and there're all those Portuguese people! But, those Portuguese people, they sing and they dance, and they jump and they're so beautiful and they actually speak this lovely language that I can't understand and it's ridiculous! If you speak Spanish, it's even worse because... it is so musical. And when you're there and you walk around the beach, you realize: this is the beach I was born to live and die in. Give us your ending. And I am going back there as soon as possible. Yay! (audience applauding) That was awesome! You said it was gonna be hard. That didn't look challenging at all, you coulda done that forever! How did it feel? Well, I was nervous at the beginning Yeah, fair enough. In fact, I couldn't remember my name at the beginning. Sometimes we forget our names! I'd never quite done that one before. Yeah So it was kind of exciting. Awesome! What did you like, notice, appreciate about that exercise and about watching Johnathan do that exercise? Yes! He was in awe how easily you were switching from the positive and negative: "It's so wonderful, but it's stinky." and it was just like, and, without even a blink, perfect! Right, so it felt seamless and magical. Yes. Did it feel seamless and magical to you? I sort of was just hoping I didn't fall down, but... You didn't, yay! (John laughs) You didn't! It does feel magical for us. I think, sometimes inside, maybe internally, we're trying to build the bridges. But it felt from the outside like it was easy for you, right? Oh yes! John, I really liked your facial expressions and your body language. You were really getting into it so it was like, the positive and the negative and that was just fun. Thanks. Ava. I feel as though I got to know a little bit about John. It just was really... interesting and people are interesting...and yeah! People are interesting! Yeah. One of the things I didn't say yet was to try to keep it personal, and I didn't have to tell you that. You already knew that as someone who is a storyteller and a writer rather than talk about beaches in general, that you went personal immediately and had a real experience that you could talk about which makes it so much easier than for us to not only sort of know you and feel like it's something we want to know more about you, but it feels really special, right? And then also we get to see you visualize. We get to see you picture things and sort of react physically. So we could see you see the beach and we could see you see the garbage and we could see you kind of remembering what it's like not to understand the language. "But it's so beautiful," right? So all of those things we got to experience that again with you in a way that was really nice. Really delightful, I thought. Yeah? Thanks. Yeah. Thank you! Let's give Johnathan a round of applause. (audience applauding) Who else would like to try that? Come on up, you know it's fun! Alright, I'll go. 'Chelle, yes! (audience applauding) Okay, I'm next. Do you wanna do this one? No, I was just getting up. Oh, oh great. (chuckles) Just stretchin' your legs? Over here. Okay! Yeah, so find your spot, you got your light? Yeah! Awesome, great! I found my light. So I'm gonna go take your spot again. Okay yeah, please, sorry there's a lotta stuff right there. I'll be you. I'll be you for a minute. Okay. Sammy, what's a topic that you would like to learn about? A topic I would like to learn about? Yeah, what do you wanna know more about? The newest exercise trends and fads. Great, so will you just talk to us in general about your experience kind of with exercise trends, fads, whatever that is. So, give us an intro, are you ready? Yeah, absolutely. My name is Michelle. Great to be here! I'm gonna talk to you about exercise fads. So as you can imagine, we just started the new year and everybody wants to do the Whole so everyone wants to be really virtuous and I think that's great, it's good to have goals. However, I'm also somebody that really believes in moderation, so when you just cut sugar out, and you cut alcohol out, I mean, how sustainable is it? It's pretty difficult. That said, I always try to have a positive attitude and I give people, you know, I don't bring candy around, or chocolate, and I try to make it really easy for them in the workplace. But again, generally, I just think trying to figure out moderation is a much better approach, but that is the latest trend that people like to be... you know, they're in, or they're out. I think exercising is really important. I personally subscribe to something called ClassPass, which is another tend, I can go to any different gym in the city, I get five passes a month. You'd think that would be easy to use, but it's actually not. So, at the end of the day, the latest trend is that people, I think, want to... have a diet, but I subscribe to moderation. Thank you. (audience applauding) Yes! Very good! So good. My god, that was so good. Thank you. Sit back here a little bit with me with me I want you to get your feedback. Okay. Oh yes, Ava already has stuff to say. I thought it was great the way what you said applied to right now, what's in the new year and how we're all thinking, "Wow, okay, maybe we should do something." (Kimberly and Michelle laugh) Yeah, I feel like I got some tips! Yes! Also it seemed really conversational all your transitions were different. Even though you're going back negative, positive, you chose a different one each time, which seemed natural. Yeah I hadn't even noticed that! What a great observation those transitions, each time, felt different for us. "However, having said that" Yeah, yeah. Great. How did you feel? Oh, I mean, you know, there's a lot of adrenaline and the need to be eloquent but it's a topic that isn't totally foreign to me. So it was fun! I just tried to have a good time. Yeah, I was almost gonna end it and then you started talking more personally about ClassPass, and I was like, (gasps) "Oh! We wanna hear this!" (Michelle laughs) 'cause now it wasn't sort of just general, "I feel about moderation," but "here's my experience" so I think we love that, right? As soon as you started talking even more personally, all of us leaned a little bit forward. There was that moment of "Oh now we get to know you, you." Yeah? And as we sorta heard, there was an amazing amount of detail. You had lots of detail, and your language varied even with this game, right? Yeah. Thanks. Nice, like, change of pitch, and pace, and all of those things we've talked about, yeah. It was really fun, well done! Thank you, yay! Thank you! (audience applauding) And going back to three things, the warmup, think about when you are put on the spot with like, talking about a certain topic, or category, or passion. How quickly you can just kind of rattle off just a very short list of the components within that category. So she told us about two or three different trends, potentially. The Whole 30, was it? Yeah. And then the ClassPass, and then, you know, just kind of summing up there was all about moderation. Just a matter of knowing that you don't have to know everything about a topic. So if somebody threw at me, like, zoology or something, I'd be like "Ahhhhh" thinking of every animal in the animal kingdom, but I could just probably go into great detail about the two animals that live in my house: which is a Maltese Yorkshire Terrier, "Morkie," that's what it's called. And then a little black cat and I could tell you at great length about those two animals so I don't have to tell you about every single thing and you will get a lot of me, and a lot of point of view outta me speaking about them 'cause I have so much personal experience about them 'cause I like one way more than the other! And I'll tell you about that afterwards. (laughs) I'm so curious. And this is a really easy one for practice at home because it is something where you can just give yourself a topic and then you can just set a timer, even. Or just try to iterate back and forth. Sometimes what we'll do, is we'll set a timer for like, 10, 15, 20 seconds, and then iterate on that and then wait for the timer to ding and then know we'd need to switch and just go back and forth and back and forth. It's great at practicing, I think, the same kind of thing that three things does where it asks you to just switch on a dime really quickly and engage your brain in a way that we're not often used to. And it's really fun, and it also can be a good practice for setting an introduction, and then sticking your landing which is also something that we want to practice is how do we introduce ourselves? We have the middle stuff, and then how do we make sure that we have an ending that feels strong and confident and that the audience knows that we're done and we've done a summary. and we've let you know, like, we're all good now you may clap for me, right?