In August I had my 80th birthday. On the same day I received a birthday card from the mayor of Saarbrucken. :-)

It says (according to Google Translator):

For her birthday, I warmly congratulate you and thus connect my best wishes for your continued well-being.

In the hope that you celebrate their special day festive and in good health, I remain
your

Charlotte Britz

I'm pretty sure that signature was hand signed with a fountain pen. Blue ink, and a different blue than the printed parts of the lovely card. Maybe not. But this isn't a huge town and how many newcomers had a birthday on the same day as mine?

Even if the signature is printed, all the same, somebody here figured it would be a good thing to send a birthday greeting to its citizens. And I got one.

Now, I've lived in a few towns in the U.S., some for years, and in New York for over 45 of them, but I'm pretty sure that none of the mayors ever sent me a birthday card before. So, in spite of Google's problems with pronouns, I'd like to thank the mayor of this increasingly lovely town for this very gracious gesture. As soon as I manage to take a photo of the card, I'll post it here. For now, I'll show you a very nice painting of Saarbrucken painted in (I think) 1730, and hanging on the wall of one of the beautiful older buildings we visited on a walking tour.

                              

A day in the life of a writer-speaker

So what does a writer-speaker do on a typical day? I’m always conflicted about whether or not to begin my day by looking into my most important email inbox. I know once I get started there, I could stay till midnight. But as I tell myself, something might be important or urgent so I have to go there first.

The fun part, the most seductive part, hardest to resist, are notifications of comments from students in last month of my latest coach training class (which meets every two months in Frankfurt). Today one of my students told us all about her first standup speech for a big company.

Public speaking is one of the scariest things for most people to do. Big, tough CEOs of successful companies admit to having stress for months before a scheduled public speaking performance. 

Unlike many writers, I’m usually comfortable speaking in front of large groups or small groups. I'm not entirely sure why but I can see the kind of practice I got during my life and that may have something to do with it. My mother liked me to show off in front of her older sisters in a competitive way. But I think I was born unafraid to be a 'show off.' Chicken and egg thing. So I don’t know why I’m not nervous, but I do know how I stay that way. 

I can see that most of the advice given to people about speaking publicly is not good. Concentrating on avoiding saying things like ‘uh’ for example which someone once had the temerity to do to me :-), and which I’ve seen other instructors do, only makes us self-conscious. If there’s one thing I know it's that self-consciousness - that is, the fear and a blinding sense of nothing but yourself, how you look, how you sound, etc.- is deadly. It’s not unusual to feel that way while standing in the wings, but if it doesn’t disappear in the first few minutes of speaking, you might as well leave the stage and go home.

For one thing, you won’t be able to do a good job. But much more important is the fact that you don't care about the right thing. You're focused on yourself. But talking to an audience is not about you at all.

The only thing that should matter to you when you're on the stage is whether the audience is ‘getting' what you need to tell them. How they look is what counts, not how you look. Are they confused? Are they interested? Are they agreeing?

I said "what you need to tell them," and I used the word “need" deliberately, because if you don't need to tell your audience anything, if it doesn’t matter to you whether or not they ‘get’ what you’re telling them, you're already a boring speaker.

Anyway I won't give you the whole lecture - you can see how much it matters to me, I’m sure.

But this morning one of my coaching students sent in a report that made my heart sing. She got it right, and she got richly rewarded for it. I’ll quote some parts of it:

******************

Just recently I was the co presenter in a workshop. I was excited but scared. The audience looked at me like they expected miracles.  But after the first minute I got into the flow and I felt so good. I felt warm and comfortable. I recognized it is not so important what you are saying. When it comes from your heart people listen to you.

Some of them smiled at me, some people had no reaction at all and some gave me a feeling of agreement by just shaking a little yes with their eyes. At the end they gave me an ovation. I think I had the biggest smile in years after my little speech.

It was one of the best feelings I ever had and I really want to have this feeling again. I was so fulfilled and felt right after like I'd had one of the best meals for a long time. Like I was starving for years not going out to tell my stories and talk to people just about simple little tiny things.

This showed me that if you care for humans it will touch the listener and reach them. I saw the magical "energy floating" and felt like a pop star on stage.  

Thank you Barbara Sher for making me brave. 

Thank you to this wonderful group for making me brave. 

Heike

******************

So now you know why I sometimes spend too much of my day online, looking into my computer, reading and responding to comments. Posts like this one above on my class’s Facebook page are nourishment for any writer-speaker …although I must confess I also love my morning walks by the beautiful river in this lovely town, and I fully intend to tell you all about them soon.

Hello, Saarbrücken!

In Saarbrücken now. We found it and got here in a very roundabout manner which I'll tell you about one of these days. I'm happy because I plan to write my next book here. I have the space to write, don't have to put my papers away every night (and be unable to find them in the morning) because of a very lucky discovery of a fine old apartment near a top-flight French-German school, and with my top-flight editor at my side, I think we're on the track to a very happy and productive new chapter in our lives.

Yesterday I went to the gallery and saw some beautiful Max Beckmanns and a glowing, gorgeous painting of a Japanese Geisha by Max Slevogt. (Make it bigger if you can, and feast your eyes on the luscious shapes and colors.)




Last week we met Dr. Bruno von Lutz from the Deutsch-Amerikanisches Institut.  He was kind, funny, informative, and full of interesting ideas. I've got a lot to learn (like, um, German) and some useful things to teach (support teams and Idea Parties, following a dream in a structured way, backwards planning, what to do when you have 'too many' interests, how you're never 'too old' to go after a dream, that kind of thing).

We talked about me having a blog, and I liked the idea. I'm excited about talking to people from this very special part of Germany and letting you all know what I'm up to as I write my next book and plan my next talks and spread my ideas about how important it is to find what you love and do it.

The town itself is a very pleasant surprise. It may be Germany's best-kept secret. A woman I met last month worked as an actress at the theater in Saarbrücken and she said she loved it here. She spent six or seven years in this area said the people are friendly and easy to talk to. (We've noticed the same thing, again and again.)

But it seems to be a world of its own. People stay here (or return) because their families are here. (That's why most Americans leave their towns.) "No one comes to Saarbrücken and no one seems to leave it, " she said. "We did great productions but no one came from other towns to see us. Fortunately the Saarbrückers love theatre so we always had a full house."

In the beautiful river park near our place we take long walks. People are so friendly and less formal than in some other parts of Germany. Most of them speak both French and German (and English).

This is some town.

More to come. Watch this space.