For your summertime reading, here are a list of ways to think about becoming your best self as a speaker. To be repeated every morning over your coffee or other morning ritual.

My aim is to share my message in a spirit of selflessness. As soon as you take as much of the ego as possible out of public speaking, it becomes fun.  Believe in your message and share it.  That’s the test of success, not how much other people like that message, or you.  In a social media era, the test has become far too often “likes” – and that’s reminiscent of high school, and not in a good way.

My aim is to focus on what I do well and do that better. I often get called in to work with executives who have been told they’re almost good enough for the promotion, or the top job – if they’ll only cure this fault or that bad habit. It’s always hard work. We humans do better focusing on what we love, not what we have failed at. To their credit, those executives do their best and often do improve. But minimizing faults is the upside down way to be your best.

My imperfections are what make me human, interesting, and unique. I celebrate them too. When we sign on to join the human race, we sign on to the whole package. We don’t get to choose only the perfect parts of ourselves to bring to work, or relationships, or the stage.  We all know this. So why is it that when someone else does something wrong, or falls short in some way, we say they’re a bad person?  And yet when we do something wrong, we say, “I’m having a bad day.”  I think understanding (and embracing) imperfection means seeing it in yourself as well as in everyone else.

Today I’m going to be realistic about my progress.  Remember American Idol? At the beginning of every season there were a couple of shows that ran clips of hilariously bad singers. Surprisingly often, the would-be singers reacted with outrage when Simon Cowell, or someone else, told them they weren’t destined for greatness. Everyone around them (while they were growing up) had told them they were wonderful, because love means sometimes wearing blinders.  So you do yourself a favor by not being too sold on yourself and too wildly optimistic about your chances. And not too self- critical either. Finding that balance is hard.

Today I’m also going to put the whole project of my speaking into perspective.  We are, at the end of the show, players who strut and fret their hours upon the stage and then are heard no more.  That should be both humbling and liberating.  What we do can inspire, elevate, and even change the world.  But we are also only one voice each in a world of billions of worthy people.

The speaking world has become vastly more crowded with entrants in the last few years alone. We have more and better competition than ever.  We all need to up our games, and at the same time remember that the world spins on an axis that doesn’t involve a stage, and in the cosmic scheme of things, there are many other stories to be told.  If you take that in the right way, it will both inspire you and enable you to relax and enjoy the summer sunshine.