Yesterday we shared a great guest post by Frank Simmons Jr. who encouraged you to be yourself – and to believe in yourself – to avoid becoming a cookie-cutter professional speaker.
To take the topic a bit further, I thought I’d share this clip of Ira Glass, the host and producer of the radio program “This American Life,” speaking on the topics of believing in yourself and perseverance.
Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.Glass is talking specifically about storytelling — about the crafting of oral and written stories. However, I believe that what he’s saying applies to any sort of creative work, and certainly to professional speaking, which is really a form of oral storytelling.
I especially like the line: “And the thing I would just like to say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste, and they could tell that what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short… And the thing I want to say to you is, everybody goes through that.”
As a professional speaker you have to find your own unique voice. And you have to find your own unique message. These two things – your voice and your message – are what will help you avoid what Frank Simmons Jr. refers to as the professional speaking cookie cutter.
I think it’s an important message for every professional speaker to remember. You don’t become a professional speaker overnight. It takes days, weeks, months and years of finessing your message, honing your presentation skills and developing your voice.
“It takes a while. It’s going to take you awhile,” says Glass. “It’s normal to take awhile and you just have to fight your way through that, OK?”
For more on how to craft your professional speaking voice and your message, check out some of the teleseminar resources in our Speaker Resource Centre. Some you may want to consider are:
• “Digging for the Treasures in Your Stories” by professional speaker Emory Austin (scroll down to the eighth seminar on the page).
• “The Anatomy of a Remarkable, Convention-Maker Keynote” by restaurant owner, business author and branding consultant Joe Calloway (scroll down to the seventh seminar on the page).
• “Beyond Presentation Basics: Creating a Home Run Speech Every Time” by national communications expert, best-selling author and entrepreneur Bert Decker (scroll down to the seventh seminar on the page).
• “Create Clear, Concise and Creative Keynotes: Make Every Word Count” by award-winning speaker and presentation expert Patricia Fripp (scroll down to the ninth seminar on the page).
To your speaking success!
