It may be presumptuous of me to reflect on nearly 30 years in the speaking business and offer a few tips I’ve learned along the way. But I’m doing it anyway, and let me start by inviting you to add your insights, disagree with mine, or simply say yes. That way the lessons won’t just be one person’s thoughts but a magnificent edifice of ideas built by many minds.
Here goes.
1. Like any other field, this one is changing – and faster than ever. You’ve got to speed up. The speakers who are successful are the ones willing to change their speeches up even when the current ones seem to still be hitting. You never get the word from your audience that you’re outdated – the audience just melts away. So don’t lose the passion and the focus that got you to the stage, but do keep reinventing, even if it hurts. Even if you still love your current message. Reinvent yourself now.
2. Despite your fixations (and mine), the success or failure of your speech is not about the technology. Speakers spend a lot of time obsessing about the right technology – and of course it can add a gee whiz factor and make you look cool. But it’s way, way more important to get the story right, and to get your attitude toward the story clearly focused, than any slide or video or comfort monitor. People connect to people in the end, always. Stop worrying about the slides and get the story right.
3. You have to take care of yourself; no one else will do it. Speaking can run you ragged, it can put stress on families, and it can eat you alive with the emotional swings, the headiness of success and the bottomless pit of failure – and that’s just from one speech. It’s your job to work out a regimen that will keep you healthy, sane, and connected to the people that matter in your life. Figure out non-speaking things that will feed your soul and keep you happy.
4. Not every speech is going to be a winner. Despite your best efforts and the good intentions of everyone involved from the technical people to the meeting planner to the driver who got you there, not every speech will connect. Audiences have bad days, and so do speakers. And a message can misfire. So you’ve got to find ways to deal with both the winners and the losers. Sometimes the feedback is helpful, and you need to hear it, and sometimes it was just the wrong event for you. Learn to let go of both the good and bad.
5. Public speaking is a performance art. That means that you have to show up every time. That’s the professional part, and the unforgiving part of performance. Picasso could paint a picture and leave it on the wall, but you have to give the speech with energy and passion for every audience, not just the ones that seem particularly important or cool. You can’t just do it right once – you have to be able to repeat the phenomenon. Get ready to switch on when the lights are up.
6. Some of the most painful — and important — lessons in public speaking are the ones you learn in public. Rehearsal and coaching can of course help you find your best self faster and get to your peak with fewer missteps. But in the end, you’re going to have to learn some lessons in front of the audience, on camera, with bright lights shining in your eyes. Because until you perform, you won’t know whether or not you’re a performer. And how you do that best.
7. The speaking hour is short; the rest of it is long. You can never do enough to push your career forward. There will never be an end to the calls, the emails, the social media, the blog posts, the television, the radio, the you name it. But that hour that you live for, the performance, that will go by in a heartbeat. So don’t mistake busyness for progress and don’t forget what all that other stuff is for. And don’t get distracted by all those distractions when the lights go up and the Voice of God says, “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome….”
That’s your moment. Be there with all your being.
Good morning
How truly presumptuous of me to offer a comment to 30 years experience in the pubic speaking business, I am just starting out. My passion for public speaking and helping others to overcome their fear all stems from Toastmasters.
My comment is on Gratitude. On writing a speech, on practicing and on delivering a speech, I keep a deep sense of gratitude for the audience. It is they who afford me the opportunity and it is they who lend me their ears, their hearts and minds. My mantra is “Communication is not about perfection, communication is about connection.” Without gratitude, connection with the audience is not possible.
Every audience knows for who the speaker is speaking.
I am deeply grateful to you for all your wise words and for making them Public Words,
Kind regards
John Keating
West Cork
Ireland
p.s
The name Morgan is a strong Irish name, I have relatives with that name. Is there Irish blood flowing in those veins of yours?????
Thanks, John for your kind words and wonderful addition. I love the idea of gratitude. And yes, while the Morgans in question are in fact Scottish, my mother’s family comes from Ireland, at least the ones who will admit to it.
Thank you for sharing your experiences, Nick. Lots of valuable and practical lessons for anyone who is passionate about pubic speaking. Just recently I was commenting, you can have all the best coaching but until you stand up in front of an audience to deliver a speech, it’s only theory. I parallel it with practicing Kreutzer studies on the violin – an excellent discipline to develop technique etc but the real test/benefit/learning curve takes place when addressing a score by Bach or Mozart.
Warm regards
Austin.
Thanks, Austin — I’m impressed that you warm up for speaking by practicing Bach. My deep breathing doesn’t seem so grand!
Outstanding list Nick, and so true. As usual, you nailed it. The only addition I’d make is that “a great speech is about the audience, not the speaker.” Now I can’t claim credit for this concept, since I learned it from you. I will say that this mindset has helped me greatly – knowing that my job is to serve the audience and help elevate THEM, not to simply make myself look cool.
As always, thanks for your wisdom and advice. I always say… you are the “Yoda” of the speaking biz.
Thanks, Josh — so glad you brought up the audience! And so true:-)
“That hour that you live for, the performance, that will go by in a heartbeat.”
I felt such a wave of recognition at that line, Nick!
You know how when you’re a kid and you dream of something you’ll do as a grownup, it rarely lives up to expectations? Not so with the talk show. It’s more fun than I thought it would be! It never gets old, the opportunity to get a conversation right — with enough help to make it worth listening to, and enough laughter to make you glad you did.
I don’t know anyone whose life is as boring as mine for six days out of the week. But on the seventh, the day we record those two hours of the show, I feel like the luckiest woman alive.
Guests like you, I should probably also point out, are the biggest reason why!
Maureen — thanks for the comment and the insight into why you’re such a great host!
Excellent work Nick! Great info that’s right to the point with no fluff! I’m a beginning speaker (read struggling) and I sure wish there was a book out there that explained how the speaking industry really is and how to succeed in it. I’ve read quite a few books and follow many speakers but none have actually said, “this is how it really is so expect to do this and expect this to happen”. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors in the speaking industry (from my experience) and it takes some time to weed through everything to find out how it really is. Thanks again!
Thanks, Ed — check out this blog space for occasional articles on the speaking biz….And there are a few in the archives that should help.