Authentic Professional Speaker Training
If you were to ask me what is one of the most important keys to success in a motivational speaking career this would at the top of the list. This is one of the first topics I address at my motivational speaker training course. This point is very dear to my heart as a professional speaker. I don’t even like the word “conformity.” In fact, I despise it. And yet it’s rampant. I think it starts in our school systems. We seem to have it on straight at the Preschool and Kindergarten levels. Children come in, they have fun. They eat snacks. You get to sit wherever you want on the floor. Little bit tired after lunch? That’s fine! Lie down, take a nap. Listen to stories? Play time? What fun! It was in such a flexible, dynamic environment that some
of the most eager learning of my life occurred. Hmmm… When we get to First Grade, the change begins.
“Enough individualism,” I believe they’re saying.“It’s time to conform!”
We now must sit in our chairs. The chairs are in rows…and every room looks the same.The conformity has begun. A child laments, “No nap time now?”“No, just pay attention and sit up straight in your chair!”
“No, you may not go to the bathroom without a lavatory pass!”It goes on.“Did I hear someone speaking or whispering? You don’t speak in this class without permission.”“Who brought these crayons? This is no place for crayons. You should have outgrown them by now. And by the way, the
only pencils you’ll use are #2 pencils!”(I don’t even see #1 pencils in the stores – I think they’ve actually been discontinued due to all this conformity!) We’re not all #2 pencils. No wonder Neil Poston wrote: “Children enter school as question marks, and exit as periods.”
In his motivational book The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz concludes: “All our normal tendencies are lost in the process… We create an image of how we should be in order to be ac- cepted by everybody.”
In becoming a professional speaker you must-Be yourself. Be your authentic self as motivational speaker. Here is my shameless plug. Attend my Motivational Speakers Training school and I promise you it will be the most authentic and real training course you’ve every been apart of.
“A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates
when he becomes a conformist.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Grateful Professional Speaker
As a motivational speaker trainer I spend a lot of time on the road. Being away from home and family is the most challenging part of my motivational speaking career as a professional speaker. However, gratefulness is like a spiritual Prozac for me. I mean, I think it’s nearly impossible to be depressed when we’re busy being grateful. What is depression if not repressed anger? Gratitude extinguishes anger…and fuels the fire in that torch we all have inside. Gratefulness has been a key element I teach in all my speaker training classes for various companies. When professionally speaking to employees and managers I like to ask them to think about being grateful for where they live, what they
do, and who they serve. Yes, who they serve! In all my professional speaking jobs it is important to remind myself who I serve each time a step to the microphone as a motivational speaker.
I now live in Southern California, and if you’ve known me for more than five minutes or so, you will have heard me rave about how beautiful it is here. I always say, “Los Angeles is the best place I’ve ever lived!” One time my wife reminded me that I’ve said that about all the places we’ve lived…Boston, London, Phoenix, and Atlanta. I guess I’ve been purposely looking for the positives, no matter where I am. It is important to be grateful for your family and friends, for your job and co-workers, and for where you live. Thank people who have helped you, and give credit to others when it’s appropriate
(and, by the way, it’s always appropriate). Be grateful for your pets! Be grateful for a good movie on a rainy day. Be grateful for a good roof on a rainy day. Be grateful for rain……be grateful.
“What a wonderful life I’ve had!
I only wish I’d realized it sooner.”
—Colette
Business Speaker
A business speaker needs to do his/her homework before delivering a business keynote speech. This requires more work on the part of the business speaker but shouldn’t you expect that of every business speaker that you hire? The best speakers send out a questionnaire which starts the research process and fact gathering on a particular business. Some business speakers deliver the same keynote year after year with little or no
redesign. A professional business speaker gets to know not just about the company but the people in the company before they arrive. Let me ask you a question about your last business keynote speaker?
Did they ask permission to call some of your managers to briefly interview and ask profound questions in order to customize their keynote speech? Did they arrive 45 minutes to an hour before their scheduled speech to meet and greet the audience and then integrate those interactions into the business keynote speech? If not then make the choice to hire someone who will be that tuned in to your company so that it is not only a customized keynote but in the end you’ll say you hired a personalized business speaker.
The Humble Business Speaker
Now that I’m a Professional Keynote Speaker it is so important to be a humble business speaker. With so much praise and applause,business speakers can swell with pride and get a big head. Is there anything worse than having to listen to someone brag and boast about themselves in a business speech?
Here’s a fantastic and simple way to genuinely be unique as a speaker. Ready for this? Be a servant. That may mean something as simple as getting your spouse a cup of coffee or buying your co-worker a Coke. Don’t ask “How much will this inconvenience me?” Instead, ask “How important is it to them?”
One of my friends was having marriage difficulties. Separation seemed imminent. I asked, “What do you want from your marriage?”
He replied, “I want to make it work. What do you suggest I do?” I offered this most important question:
“What is the one thing you could do tonight that would absolutely shock her with glee?”
Without even a blink, he chimed, “Oh, probably cleaning the toilets.” I said, “Well, there it is, my friend. There’s the solution.”
With a disgruntled look, he complained, “What do you think I am – a servant?”
I mused, “Now you’re getting it.” He did not clean that toilet.
“It just didn’t ring true for me,” he later told me. By the way, they’re now divorced.
In my rather old and worn binder, that I take to all my speeches, is an index with the words
“who can I serve today?” as a reminder to me each time I arrive as the business speaker.
Perhaps there is no nobler position or title to describe us. Be a servant.
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy;
I awoke and saw that life was service;
I acted and behold, service was joy.”
– Rabindranath Tagore