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I think most people can relate to having that one, horrible, haunting moment: You’re the center of attention and the smiles that were one everyone’s faces are now morphing into looks of either shame, disgust, or confusion. What went wrong? You had them in the palm of your hand at first. You were the life of the party of the conversation, and then you turned into Michael Scott. Please tell me I’m not the only one who’s been in this situation.
For many years that was my reality. I’ve been transparent with my early struggles with stuttering, so when I finally mastered it, I was so excited to talk to any and everyone who would listen. The problem was that I didn’t know when to stop. So, I would start off being very engaging; but near the end, the room would become eerily quiet as someone gently pushed me into another direction and quickly changed the subject. It was as if all of the air was let out of the room and the adults needed to get away from the child who just ruined the atmosphere.
I remember asking my two older sisters what I was doing wrong. I thought I was talking just like them. Their critique to me was always: “You were doing well at first, and then…” So, once I hit high school I decided to start a personal experiment. It was a take on Jerry Seinfeld’s theory of “leaving on a high note.” I decided that I would start ending conversations one sentence early and see how it goes for me.
Before I realized it, it was a habit, but I couldn’t tell if it was just due to the “experiment” or from just pure maturity. However, as we look at things from the news and examples on social media we can see that there are people who are in desperate need of ending things one sentence early.
I think we can all remember a celebrity or politician giving a pretty good interview that just went left. Then, when they recognize their folly, attempted to clean up their comment. See Patricia Arquette. They would try to fix it, but only justify their ignorance by saying more offensive things to cover it up. Then, there’s that failed apology that no one believes, and the think pieces that we write addressing the folly.
We’ve all seen it on the larger scale, but we also see it in our everyday lives as well. People we interact with daily, and even the unfortunate comments that we let out, not realizing how over the line they were.
It also comes into play on social media. People are tweeting or posting pics and then they just go over the line with a post that ends up going viral and causing harm to their social standing.
So, my gift to you, is an invitation to my life long experiment. You don’t need to give me the results, but in this world of oversharing, let’s try to see what happens when we leave on a high note? Let’s use the underused ability of showmanship to see what happens when you leave your audience wanting more, as opposed to revealing too much and having to clean up your reputation.
Get to the point where you’re the way Michael Scott sees himself, as opposed to how everyone else saw him.
Kendra Koger dropped the mic and headed over to her twitter @kkoger.
