Much of today’s self-help and personal development programs and materials are geared towards the ‘quick fix’ crowd. People want results fast and the want them with minimal effort. It’s like the film The Matrix where whenever a character within the supercomputer needs to learn a skill, the needed knowledge is downloaded in a matter of seconds. Unfortunately, despite the fact that many tools only feed this frenzy, life simply does not work like that.

I think it would be excellent if learning worked the same as it did in science fiction films like The Matrix or Total Recall – imagine hooking yourself up to a computer and downloading a new language as opposed to taking months worth of classes to learn it. But in our world, new skills take time to develop – and a significant amount of it to master. You first need to properly learn the skill, then experiment with it and practice it. And then you can finally start to apply it to your own real world situation.

My Fear of Public Speaking class really opened my eyes up to this desire. I normally teach it (when it’s a public course) over four sessions. This allows time for everyone to participate and reflect on the lessons and assignments between each session. Some people feel like this is too long for this type of course and opt for a one night overview session and this came up during a break in one class. A woman shared with me that she had originally wanted to take a one-night course offered by someone else, but the location of the course made it too difficult so she took mine. She didn’t want to commit to four nights, but then after the class ended, she told me she wished it had more sessions.

This is the paradox that we face as speakers. The expectations that are set for us are almost unrealistic. People want five hours of knowledge in a 30 minute talk. Sometimes you can cut it down and just deliver the highlights, but the audience loses out on the rest of the story: the exercises that allow them to put the skills to use, the memorable stories that drive the point home and the use of props and other visuals to strengthen the connection in the mind.

I’m often asked to condense courses to fit a client’s schedule and needs. The public speaking course is meant to be between eight and ten hours. I’ve successfully delivered most of the material in four hours without the audience feeling like it was rushed. When I first started out, I tried it in one hour and it didn’t work out as well as I would have liked it to. So now I know better and I only offer a subset of the material (such us how to organize your speech or how to improve your delivery) for smaller blocks of time.

It’s unfortunate because a lot of us fall into the trap because there’s always a new fad program or book that comes out that promises better results with less effort in less time. And people buy them and try them and typically don’t get any results. The books and programs are usually created in a way that you have to follow strict instructions for them to work – and in some cases, following them step by step will give you your desired result. But your average personal development addict will get halfway through the program, get frustrated because of the amount of effort involved and then just go out and buy the next greatest fad which promises the same results in half the time.

So what can those of us who honestly want to help people do? We can keep on delivering our time-tested material and focusing on the people who want to put in the effort to improve. These are the people that make us most proud and they serve as living, breathing examples of how our programs deliver – and the best salespeople for your program that you could ever ask for. If you’re looking for a quick buck, create an overly complicated system that promises big results in a short amount of time that’s set up so people will feel overwhelmed and give up early into it. If you truly want to help people, create good programs with material that works within a realistic timeframe. The choice is yours.

Post from: Overnight Sensation

Public Speaking and The Matrix

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Many professional speakers use social media but most of them use it wrong. They see it as a virtual extension of their speeches and simply talk to their audience while completely ignoring what’s coming back their way. While this is one way to use social media, it’s not the best. Most people don’t care about your blog posts, coupons, tips, events or products unless they know something about you. So if all you do is post this “me” information– everyone is going to ignore you.

Social media is about interactivity – something many speakers may not be used to with their presentations. I’m connected with a number of speakers on various social media services and I see so many of them posting things such as:

• A note about how well a recent presentation went or how happy a client was with them – AKA bragging.
• A note about a new product or service they’re offering.
• A note about a discount or deal that they’re offering.
• A note about an update to their web site or newsletter.
• A random piece of advice about their topic.
• A reply to another user’s question that’s worded like something you’d normally here from someone pushing a “business opportunity.”

Posting these things isn’t a crime – I’m guilty of doing most of these (except the last one). But if all you’re doing is posting notices like this, you’re not going to keep your followers attention and pretty soon, you’ll be ignored all together.

Since there’s no perfect formula about what to post to social media, experimentation is key. Interact with people, tell stories, share tips, share links, answer questions, post a quote, etc…. If you look at my Twitter stream for example, you’ll see that I post a lot of different things – and just because something works for me doesn’t mean it’ll work for you. I interact with people (sometimes more than I probably should, but it’s fun) and share links related to my interests outside of speaking. While there are some people out there that might prefer all I do is talk about speaking related topics, I’ve found that a lot of followers like seeing my human side.

If you find that your social media postings are just going in one direction, mix it up a little bit by conversing. You might find that people will start paying more attention to you and even recommending you to others – something very hard to do when you use social media as an email blast.

Post from: Overnight Sensation

Why Most Speakers Are Clueless About Social Media

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I’ve never been a big fan of “date” movies – romantic comedies where you know the guy and the girl are going to get together at the end, but not sure exactly how they’ll get through the mess created during the first twenty minutes of the film. With these types of films, part of the plot line usually has to do with a guy who’s afraid of commitment.

I usually get frustrated with this plot line – the gal should just move on (or to make it a movie more to my liking, blow up his car while he’s driving away). But no, it gets drawn out for 90+ minutes and somehow the guy sees the err in his ways and decides that he was wrong to not commit in the first place and spend the second half of the movie trying to correct the situation. In most cases, there’s a happy ending but not always. But what’s interesting is that fear or lack of commitment happens a lot in real life and the results are often not a happy ending.

Lack of commitment is the biggest reason for failure – period. It’s not just with relationships either. If you know someone struggling to lose weight, 99% of the time it’s their lack of commitment that’s the problem. 80% of businesses fail during the first five years and the reason such a good chunk of them do is because the people running them aren’t as committed as they need to be. And of course, with over 50% of marriages ending in divorce, lack of commitment towards the relationship is the prime culprit.

When I was involved with Toastmasters, I used to tell people that they could overcome any fear they had with public speaking as long as they are committed to doing so. It’s easy to come to a meeting and sign up as a member. It’s even easy to schedule that first speech. But finding the time to do the nine extra speeches to complete the manual – especially when things like work, family and other commitments come into play – is where the challenge lies. I met my goal of completing my first ten speeches during my first year because I committed to speaking whenever I could. I set other goals within Toastmasters – some which I reached and others I didn’t. And to be fair, sometimes our goals change so it’s not lack of commitment, it’s a change to focus on a new goal. When I started out as a professional speaker, my speaking goals changed. That DTM (Distinguished Toastmaster – one of the highest awards a Toastmaster can receive) wasn’t as important as getting more speaking gigs.

So one of the first things I explain to the people that attend my public speaking seminars is that they can overcome their fear provided they are committed to doing so. I also share that it’s easy to overcome their fears – they simply have to get up and speak. While I do my best to encourage them to get up and speak and try to make the experience as fun and as comfortable as possible, I occasionally get a person every now and then that doesn’t want to participate and they don’t get the same results that those who participate do.

Again, the best example of lack of commitment is a person’s physique. While some are blessed with good genetics, the rest of us have to rely on diet and exercise to look good. And of course, diet and exercise require commitment. I recently saw a commercial for P90X
– an exercise system that promises you amazing results in 90 days. I haven’t tried the system yet (I plan to and will post when I do) but even though it’s selling like crazy, I suspect a small percentage of people that use it actually get the desired results. And it’s not because the system doesn’t work – in fact, my research on leads me to believe that one will get impressive results if it’s followed. It’s more because the system requires a big commitment: 60-90 minutes of intense exercise per day for 90 days.

The recipe for success isn’t always complicated. In fact, in many cases, it’s quite simple. There are thousands of systems out there to help you do anything from get healthy to learn a new language to improving your golf game to making more money. Want to get your MBA? Simply find and sign up for an MBA program, attend classes, study and do your homework and projects. Again, the recipe is simple but the commitment requires effort. Even the best designed systems won’t work if you’re not willing to put the effort and commitment into them. If you want to become one of the few that rise to the top, then you need to be willing to commit. And I’ll share a secret with you: once you’ve committed to something tough and followed through you’ll find it much easier to do it again the next time.

Post from: Overnight Sensation

Why People Fail

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Growing up, I had a bad habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Sometimes it was because I lacked tact and good judgment. Other times, I just used words that could be taken a multitude of ways depending on the listener’s perspective. While most of us outgrow the first scenario, the second one is little more difficult to avoid. In fact, I have a humorous story to share about me making this very mistake just a few years ago.

To set up the scene, I was out with two friends and they wanted to check out a new gourmet ice cream parlor that had some interesting flavors. Of the three of us, I was the only one that had been there before so I was excited to show them some of the more interesting flavors. As we walked in, I noticed the red licorice flavor that I had recently tried. So I said “Guys, check out the red one” somewhat excitedly. My two friends gave me a mortified look and one whispered “dude, we saw it – not so loud.” I shook my head not understanding what the problem was. But then I turned back to the ice cream counter that I was just pointing to excitedly and that’s when it hit me. Next to the ice cream counter was an attractive woman wearing red pants and smiling at me.

Movies and TV shows are made up with scenes like these – “Three’s Company” ran for eight seasons with most episodes focusing on a big misunderstanding. Politicians at the national level add certain words into their speeches or phrase things a certain way just so they can convey messages that can be interpreted different ways. In fact, many are purposely vague so that they can say something, without actually saying something.

So as speakers and communicators, we need to both watch out and use this to our advantage. Had my goal been to break the ice with the young woman at the ice cream parlor, my actions would have been a great way to do it. Where it wasn’t my intention, it proved to be an embarrassing moment that I was unprepared for.

So how can you prevent the unexpected from happening? Here are a few ways:

• Think before you speak.
• Don’t be vague (unless that’s your purpose). Had I said “check out the red ice cream,” I wouldn’t have had a story to share with you.
• Practice your speeches and/or new material in front of a mock (or safe) audience.

Since you can’t control the way other people hear or interpret things, don’t sweat it if something comes out the wrong way. Just laugh, explain what you meant and move on. You never know, you might end up connecting with someone you otherwise wouldn’t have or recapturing the attention of your audience. While it can be good to avoid an embarrassing moment, it’s certainly not bad if you can capitalize on one.

Post from: Overnight Sensation

When Words Take on a Life of Their Own

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