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Climbing Up the PowerSpeaking® Ladder of Success
Whether you are a beginning swimmer or a beginning speaker, there is hope! Our daughter, Kate, attends swim lessons every week. The school has an ingenious way of helping kids and their parents see the road ahead as they embark on building skill in the water. They have 11 levels from baby swimmer to advanced, grouped into three larger skill sets.
- Psychological and emotional skills include:
"Baby and Me" Classes include parents in the water with babies.
Age range is 2 to 36 months. Everyone sings songs and plays in the water.
"Pink Ribbon" Has graduated from "Baby and Me" and can separate from parent.
"Rainbow Ribbon" At least 36 months old and may cry in the water. Ribbon is earned when swimmer doesn't cry for 3 weeks straight.
"Green Ribbon" Can hold breath and dogpaddle.
- Basic Water Safety Skills
"Blue Ribbon" Can do breathing while dog paddling, jump to teacher and climb out of the pool.
"Red Ribbon" Can float on back for 10 seconds and can swim 38 feet.
"White Ribbon" Can dive into the pool and retrieve a ring from the bottom.
- Technical Skills
"Purple Ribbon" Can swim 38 feet using crawl, backstroke, and dolphin kicks with kickboard.
"Orange Ribbon" Can use backstroke, crawl, sidestroke, and swim 38 feet underwater.
"Gold Ribbon" Has mastered four different strokes, can swim underwater and perform a racing dive.
"Advanced Swim Class" Must be at least 7 years old. Learns racing dives and turns. Performance measured with a pace clock.
Watching Katie swim last week, it dawned on me that in our business, too, we see people progress through various stages of accomplishment. Building on this fine model for training swimmers, in PowerSpeaking® and HighTechSpeaking® we might use skills level ribbons too.
- Psychological and emotional skills
"Pink Microphone" Ability to stand before group and not burst into
tears or throw up.
"Rainbow Microphone" Can get through two minute talk without going blank.
"Green Microphone" Can deliver talk with some awareness of self and others in the room.
- Basic Speaking Confidence Skills
"Blue Microphone" Can deliver a talk with a core message.
"Red Microphone" Uses strong gestures without fear of losing credibility, and can sustain eye contact.
"White Microphone" Uses space effectively. Is comfortable with pause and does not read PowerPoint slides from the screen.
- Technical Skills
"Purple Microphone" Eagerly accepts speaking opportunities.
"Orange Microphone" Dumps technical detail, uses personal stories, and talks about vision.
"Gold Microphone" Does not need visual aids. Keeps the lights on in the room and uses audience participation
"Platinum Microphone" Moves large groups of people to action. Sees speaking as a way to change the world. In a category with
Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, and John F. Kennedy.
There you have it. Whether you are working on your racing dive, or weaning yourself from PowerPoint slides, know that the stages of growth are not a mystery. The path is clearly marked. While we can not coach you on the finer points of the side stroke, we can help you learn the skills of clear, direct, and powerful speech communication. At the risk of mixing metaphors, come on in, the water's fine.
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