Becoming a more powerful advocate

• What were your most important "take-aways" concerning the role and importance of writing in being a persuasive family advocate?

This week we watched a presentation that Marcia Barlow did a few years ago for BYU-I.  I loved her presentation.  She taught many good traits that would be good to learn to become a better, more powerful advocate.  One thing I liked that she said was that people like to hear stories and relate better when stories are told.  She pointed out that Jesus taught in parables/stories, and that President Monson is an awesome story teller.  When we are writing or speaking to an audience we need to tell the story of self, the story of us (or how it pertains to everyone), and finally the story of now (how and why is this important now.) 

Another formula she gave us that I thought was profound is narrative+empirical data=persuasion (a powerful persuasion)  In other words we have to have a good story, plus some research to back us up, helping us create a powerful persuasion.  We also need to be well read on the opposing side so that we can point out these points.  That helps in our persuasion.  We need to dig deep into this research. Another good point that she brought up is that we should not be using gospel sources.  We need to be using empirical data.  Your title is super important and a good subject line is also very important.   

• What did you learn about persuasive speaking (From Marcia Barlow?  From the UFI videos?)

Marcia gave a speech that she gave somewhere and it was really really good.  She had it memorized.  She had a great story about her mother, but then she related to everyone's mothers.  She was powerful in her speech.  She gave some great advice to us in helping us become the same way. 
We also had to watch some videos this week about 2 boys standing up defending the gay movement.  We were supposed to evaluate them and discuss them in a Google Hangout.  One boy was mostly  quoting scripture.  When I first watched the movie I was impressed with his boldness, but I could see that he kind of made the audience uncomfortable.  It reminded me of David and Goliath that he came before them in the name of God.  He seemed to have power as he was quoting these scriptures.  However when we talked about him in the Google Hangout other views were put forth.  He was more boring because he didn't have a personal story.  He came down pretty harsh. 

The second boy to me was a smooth talker.  I thin that he would have made a great salesman because he was so arrogant.  He did have a personal story, but for me it just created more questions.  Others in my group like him better because he related to the people better.  But his speech was harder for me to like just because he was so smooth.  I think he is the type that says what the people want to hear.  He definitely had the crowd on his side compared to the first boy.

• What if anything was confusing to you or would you like to better understand?

I really enjoyed this lesson, and felt that I learned a lot from it.

• As a family advocate, how has this lesson been helpful to you?

I think this was super important lesson to have.  I felt like I could become a powerful advocate like Marcia Barlow.  I really feel that the lessons she taught we meant for me.  After hearing her presentation I turned to my husband and said, "Now that is what I want to do."  People ask me all the time what I want to do with my career.   Do I want to become a family counselor some day?  Maybe, but what I would rather be is a family advocate.  Marcia had some great pointers, that could totally help me later in life.