Nurture a Growth Mindset for Lifelong Success (524 words)
THE BUSINESS PROFESSIONALS I'VE SEEN BLOSSOM into top public speakers generally have 2 character traits in common.
1. They keep pursuing growth, no matter how discouraged they get.
2. They are sufficiently modest to go after help when they need it.
When you both believe in the benefit and importance of work and are hungry to improve exponentially and quickly at your craft, that’s a winner’s mindset.
On the other hand, when you think you know everything and you need no further improvement in your skills, you’re not going to improve.
KNOWING IT ALL
Case in point: I recently offered my speaker coaching services to someone who had shown clearly in her LinkedIn videos that she needed help with her speaking skills to take her career to the next level.
But she declined my offer, saying:
“No need. I already have full public speaking skills.”
“Full” public speaking skills? I was taken aback.
Clearly, this person would not have been a good candidate for improvement, since she thought she knew it all.
But I still believe it’s worth trying to educate people who think there’s nothing you can teach them.
KNOWLEDGE ROADBLOCK
Because if I’ve learned one thing over the years as a journalist, university public speaking instructor, musician, speaker and speaking coach, it’s that people don’t know as much as they think they do.
(Most) everyone can always learn something new.
I’ve seen this again and again in my talks to groups.
Invariably, at the conclusion of a presentation, I will get one person coming up to me and saying:
“Thanks. I had thought I already knew everything I needed to know about public speaking, but you showed me some things I didn’t know.”
INFORMATION WORTH KNOWING
Of course, it's gratifying to receive comments like this. It vindicates my view of how best to coach people to become stronger public speakers.
But it also satisfies me to hear I am helping people know what they don’t know.
Here are some of the biggest knowledge gaps exhibited by my clients:
- Feeling lost at arousing audience curiosity and capturing attention with emotional stories and ideas.
- Struggling to make themselves and their ideas relatable to audience members.
- Not knowing how to deal with unexpected questions in Q&A sessions.
- Misunderstanding that a speaker's role is to be a performer and that audiences expect performers on speaking stages to put on shows.
- Having no idea how to make a talk or presentation feel like a dialogue.
- Baffled by having to motivate audiences to buy in to ideas and answer calls to action.
The answer to all these issues, generally, is to go to your relationship with your audience.
That's where all talks start and begin. And make all your words and actions subservient to one question: "How will this affect them?"
Visualize how you want the audience to react and then reverse-engineer a speaking strategy back to the speaking objective.
You can accelerate your growth as a speaker by going to michaelbarris.com/mini-course and subscribing to a free public speaking series based on my bestselling book, “How to Become a Super Speaker: The 7 Principles for Speaking with Confidence and Connecting with Audiences.”
You will receive tips, strategies and take-action assignments to guide you toward becoming an empowered speaker and expert at overcoming the knowledge roadblocks that can prevent you from getting your desired speaking results.
The fact is, you can’t help somebody who doesn’t want to be helped.
But you can change the life of somebody who does.
MICHAEL BARRIS
PERMISSION FOR REPRINTS
Michael Barris is the consummate evangelist for speaking better to be at your best and create an impact with your career.
He is a transformational public speaking coach and speaker who has a background as a former adjunct professor of public speaking and expository writing at Rutgers University.
He also is the author of "How to Become a Super Speaker: The 7 Principles for Speaking with Confidence and Connecting with Audiences."
A longtime journalist, he worked for Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, producing articles on many of the world’s biggest financial and business news stories.
In total, he has produced over 3, 500 print articles over his journalism career, including more than 300 for the Wall Street Journal, and countless more published online.
Learn more about Michael and his work at michaelbarris.com
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