Professional Keynote Speaker

A Professional in any arena is one who learns to embrace feedback.  A professional business speaker must seek it and yearn for it.  I believe the “ball and chain” that impedes our desire to learn from others is our ego. This is our number one enemy—our own EGO!  A professional business speaker once told me that he only listens to the feedback of a fellow professional speaker.  And I replied sadly, “I’m sorry to hear that.” I responded that way because when it comes to getting some worthwhile information after giving a speech or a training session, some of the best and most practical input you can ever receive is right there on the feedback sheets. And a lot of people don’t even read them.  Why?  I think it’s that ego. I once attended a three-day training session in San Diego.  Overall, it was quite impressive, but at the end of the third day, a participant in the class asked the instructor whether we would have a chance to evaluate the past three days.  The business speaker answered, “No, I don’t believe in evaluations or feedback because I think most times only negative things are said, and I’d rather not hear it.”  I was slapped by her response and a little insulted.  Did she not even care about our experience?  I realized that so many of the things that had upset people probably could have been avoided had that conference keynote speaker paid attention to feedback from prior training sessions.  So why no feedback?  That infernal ego?  I will say that you should not take to heart every criticism as a professional business speaker.

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