Perhaps the hardest thing to watch is presenters who’ve made the biggest sacrifice of them all to become ‘Professional’ Speakers – the essence of who they really are.
Through too much technical training that’s kept them in their heads, to their perception or fantasy of how its ‘meant’ to be done to fit in as a professional and what they believe is expected of them from an audience.
During their journey to become professional Speakers it’s the loss of their true selves with their words now lacking any personal vibration that feels perhaps, the saddest to watch.
Our personalities are the very thing that allows us to Stand Out from one another.
Can a Speaker who works with corporate be a round peg in what is predominantly a square hole? Absolutely! Every single day people are reinventing what is possible; they’re doing it in a way that’s not only adding huge value to their audience but in a way that’s personally satisfying creatively. We’re artists and that’s how we should approach our role as Presenter, to make the intangible tangible, to make the complicated simple, to make learning engaging and fun and to create memorable connections with our audience.
But we can’t do this by forcing ourselves to be someone we’re not. It’s not satisfying. Creatively it’s barren. And it’s not sustainable because once the thrill of being on stage is gone, you’re left with the reality you’ve created a living by being someone you’re not. And that, and I speak from experience, is empty.
I see Presenters more often than not, feeling like they’re forced into performing or filling the role of what they think a professional speaker looks like. But what does a Speaker look like? If you’re on stage, your delivering a message with value in a simplistic way and have an engaged audience and words are coming from your lips, then you’re a speaker.
Great Presenters are in alignment with who they truly are, they’re making sure they’re so damn good at what they do, a client just can’t so NO. If you’re going to be good at this why not be World Class right?
Over these last two years of mentoring Presenters all around the world, the hardest part is assisting potentially incredible speakers effectively un-learn what they’ve been taught which is suffocating them not just creatively but as a person.
Speaking is a congruent extension of who we really are and our audience wants to see that. They want to feel the words you speak actually land, touched by your essence, which creates a lasting feeling.
Being professional is many things, but trying to fit in by being a carbon copy of everyone else is not!
Create a pathway for yourself, trust in who you are and your style, reach for greatness and play the game as you would like to see it played.
