Thinking of a career move to add motivational speaking to your talents? If you want to be a world-class speaker, get speech coaching!
"We are such stuff as dreams are made on," says Duke Prospero in Shakespeare's play, The Tempest.
He means that all things are insubstantial, and "shall dissolve/And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,/Leave not a rack behind." But as you well know, dreams are also aspirations. Do you dream of adding motivational speaking to your repertoire, now or in retirement?
Shakespeare also said, "All the world's a stage." Command your stage! Take a look at my public speaking books for leadership. You'll also find them on Amazon. Or click below!
In the Performance Arena, You Need The Right Guide
It can seem like a natural—even an easy—step from professional expertise to a career as a motivational speaker. Look at the web sites of speaker's bureaus, and you'll find speaker after speaker who has made that career move.
But now take a look at the cover of my book, Speak for Leadership, in the illustration above. You'll notice that the photo on the cover is of an arena. The photo is there for a reason.
When we speak in public, we enter what I call the oral arena. This place is different both figuratively and literally from the rest of our professional lives. This is a place of performance. When it comes to how to speak as a leader, you need an in-depth approach to preparation and practice that's not the same as your everyday job. Public speech is fundamentally different from the other areas of your experience and expertise. That's why you need the right kind of guide to show you how to excel in it (and on it in terms of the stage itself).
As I tell clients, "You don't need business on top of business; you need performance on top of business." That means working with someone whose professional life is all about performance to show you how to serve your audience's needs. Where do you find such a speech coach? The answer is: from the world of the theater. After all, actors are the best communicators in the world when it comes to being in front of an audience and moving that audience!
Ready to not just present, but to lead? Learn how in my book, Speak for Leadership: An Executive Speech Coach's Secrets. Engage and inspire any audience! On Amazon.
Make Honesty Not Fireworks Your Guiding Light
The other link to the theater is this one: you will only influence people in the right way through honesty and trustworthiness. The world of motivational speaking is often a rah-rah world, where the speaker tries to create excitement through a spectacular level of energy and exhortations to the audience members to raise their arms, shout, and otherwise show their enthusiasm.
If their message is exciting, shouldn't that be enough to light a fire in people's minds and hearts? Here, I can't escape a comparison with the actor's trade. Any actor who tries to be exciting—to get a rousing standing ovation—won't be exciting or even interesting, except perhaps on a superficial level.
Consider the alternative scenario: the actor devotes him- or herself to the needs of the character and the script. Then in performance, he or she stays honest. That means that the actor remains in character, believing during every second of performance that they are that person, responding as if for the first time to what is happening to them. (This skill is called, in fact, "the illusion of the first time.")
In other words, it is honesty, not self-concern and performance pyrotechnics that lead to belief in the audience members. It's all about knowing how to connect with an audience. Once we believe in someone and see them as authentic, we are more apt to take what they say to heart. Working along these lines in another way that a stage-trained actor can help you boost an audience's trust and belief in you.
Want more tips on performance-based world-class speaking? You'll find 101 easy-to-learn skills in my Public Speaking Handbook, How to Give a Speech. Find it on here Amazon.
You Are So Much More Than Your Content!
Finally, the speech coach you want will be someone who can help you understand your true worth to an audience. For that, once again, you need someone who understands the nature of the speaker-audience dynamic.
Most speakers think that the information they are about to impart is the holy grail of their speech or presentation. It isn't. It's you. Think about it: if your content—your deck or your spreadsheets or the bullet points of your plan—is where the gold lies, why are you speaking at all? Wouldn't it be easier to just send it to everyone via an email attachment? Of course, that's not the same as knowing how to achieve presence and charisma.
It should be obvious that your data won't carry the day by itself. You need you to explain it, and put it into context. You need to advocate for our acceptance of it, tell us how it fits into our organization's mission, etc. Even more than that, we as an audience need who you are, with all your expertise, experience, wisdom, humor, and sheer humanity on display. That's the reason we're here, after all: to hear you speak.
Only someone whose life has been dedicated to the connection between a performer and an audience can show you how to make this happen. So, whether you want to become a world-class speaker in your industry, will be working with an events management company, or are considering joining a speaker's bureau, get a speech coach. And make it someone who truly understands the nature of spoken performance.
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Gary Genard is an actor, author, and expert in public speaking and overcoming speaking fear. His company, The Genard Method offers live 1:1 Zoom executive coaching and corporate group training worldwide. In 2022 for the ninth consecutive year, Gary has been ranked by Global Gurus as One of the World’s Top 30 Communication Professionals. He is the author of the Amazon Best-Seller How to Give a Speech. His second book, Fearless Speaking, was named in 2019 as "One of the 100 Best Confidence Books of All Time." His handbook for presenting in videoconferences, Speaking Virtually offers strategies and tools for developing virtual presence in online meetings. His latest book is Speak for Leadership: An Executive Speech Coach's Secrets for Developing Leadership Presence. Contact Gary here.
Main photo credit: Vlada Karpovich on pexels.com
