We have a brand new "holiday": the Professional Speakers Celebration Day, on March 14th. This is when speakers from around the world come together to celebrate the inspiring work of communities, of individuals like myself, who are professional speakers and experts who speak. We all have different topics, different talents, different things we can bring to the table...

Yes, we're all diverse, but we're all one big community that learn, share, grow, and belong together. This week, I'm dedicating my blog to the speaking profession. I wanted to bring back a few luminaries that told us a few things about the speaking business.

Interesting. Yes, all great speakers were actually bad speakers at first, me included. It's not always something we're born with, especially not myself, as I started to cry in front of my seventh grade class because I did not remember what I was about to tell them. Now, I don't know if you know this, but it's not very popular to start crying in front of your classmates in grade seven. It's pretty humiliating.

True. I was not born as a speaker, but I got trained. I learned. Whatever you do, you need to practice and you need to acquire the skills that you need in order to become better at your profession.

If you step on a stage or if you are just hosting a meeting, whatever it is that you do, you have to make sure that you understand the people that you are speaking to. Before any speaking engagement, I have this long three-page list of questions that I ask my clients to really understand what my audience members are going through. What is their goal in life? What is their challenge? What is the negative self-talk that they have in their head? What are the things that drive them and what are their daily tasks, the things they do on a regular basis? This way, I can rely on examples and stories that will match their reality.

It doesn't matter how smart you are, and how many PhDs you have. If people don't understand your language because it's too complicated, then they won't be able to relate. Us speakers, we need to make it simple enough for people to understand what we're talking about.

This has twofold. First, make it short. Make every single part of your speech belongs there, because there might be a lot of things that aren't really necessary and it could be much shorter. And the second thing is, if you are very charismatic, if you bring great stories and if you master your craft, people will stay on the edge of their seats and they will not want you to finish. They will not want it to be over, because you will be so entertaining and so interesting.

Everybody gets nervous or excited. I like to give it a different meaning. The heart beating, the dry mouth and the sweaty palms are normal responses, and it's okay for them to happen. We can use them to our advantage to be able to perform better. So whenever my heart is beating, I know that I'm pumping energy and that means that I'm going to knock it out of the park, for example.

I thought maybe one day I would get to the point where I don't get nervous anymore, but it's been 15 years and I still get these responses every single time I hear my intro song and I'm about to step on stage. If you get nervous before hosting a meeting or doing something like that, it's perfectly normal because it does happen to professional speakers as well.

This is my favorite one. People will forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. It's all about the stories. It's about the emotion. It's about bringing meaning to what you say and making them feel, making them interact, making them be part of the speech that you're giving.

Thank you so much for honoring the speakers' profession and allowing me to do this today. For Professional Speakers Celebration Day, let's all get together and show the world that speakers are a vibrant community of talented individuals. We are working hard to master our craft. Thank you so much for reposting, for sharing and for celebrating all the speakers in your life.

I WASN'T ALWAYS CONFIDENT ABOUT MY SPEAKING BUSINESS.

In my case, it was not only for me to be able to speak in public, the biggest piece for me was to unlock my limiting belief that I could actually build a business around it, get paid to speak, increase my fee to what I am really worth and have confidence in the impact I have on the organization's bottom line and  ultimately on the respective lives of the people in the audience. I worked on myself to disconnect limiting beliefs about money, about my own self-worth, about my business skills as an entrepreneur. I used my proven 3-step system to reprogram the six layers of my brain in order to unlock what was holding me back. 

Download YOUR copy of the Confidence Guide for FREE to discover 15 Keys to Find Confidence and Unlock your Full Potential.

The Guide includes:

• The List of the 15 Keys to Confidence.
• Questions for You to Assess Your Current Situation.
• Questions for You to Take Action.

Check out some of my previous blog posts...