Do You Just Get On Stage And Speak Or Do You Transform?

Deliver your presentation with verve and clarity.

Know your message will cross divides and impact the hearts of your listeners.

Does every public speaker accomplish this? 

Or does it take a deeper level of communication to truly transform your audiences?

In my experience, it is the transformative speakers, not just any public speaker, who become masters of the stage and build lucrative income streams. 

Powerhouses like Les Brown, Iyanla Vanzant, and Brene Brown don’t just speak into a mic. They deliver messages that enlarge their audience's perspective and catalyze positive evolution. 

Yes, these masters of spoken word have years of experience behind their legendary status.

But…

It’s not just experience that makes them sought after, it's the process that they catalyze within each audience member.

Speak From the Heart and Ignite Change

One of my favorite speakers Les Brown is able to reach the hearts of his audience every time he speaks. He consistently delivers transformation through words and that's why he is so successful and beloved. 

Even when I’m watching speeches he did more than twenty years ago I know every time I listen to his words I will laugh, cry, and leave empowered to change my life or career.

The real flex as a speaker is changing human lives.

So how can you shift from mere public speaking to truly transformative speaking? 

Speak from the heart!

Designing the logical structure of a presentation that takes the audience on a journey is crucial for you to connect with audiences, but what I often find missing from speakers' signature program is the emotional element.

Only when emotion and connection are incorporated into your message can you offer transformation. Most people are not willing to make changes in their life unless their emotions are involved in the decision.

Keep in mind when you’re designing your next keynote or course that when you are moved by the topic your audience is moved too. Therefore it’s imperative to build a signature program that means a lot to you emotionally. If your heart’s involved it’s easier for strangers to react in an emotive way when they hear you speak.

You Want A Standing Ovation? Get Vulnerable Up There!

As speakers, we want to share our vulnerabilities.

I know it might seem like we want to appear flawless up there, but what actually endears you to your audience and touches their hearts is showing how human you are. 

By taking shame away from sharing what makes us being human we become approachable and audiences recognize themselves in us.

Deep down we all want to be seen, heard, and valued. 

When I wrote my very first keynote years ago it was one of the most difficult presentations I’ve ever had to write or speak about.

Why?

Because I was sharing a very personal account of what led me to entrepreneurship. And that story was a journey through some very dark moments in my life. 

I had never shared the details publicly about what happened when burnout syndrome devastated my life. How it felt to see my terrified daughter staring down at me laid out on the ground in despair because of my choice to stay in a toxic environment or how the tremendous loss of my mother smashed me into an emotional spiral that made me lose my grip on who I was.

These were brutal topics for me to explore and expose to an audience.

But I embraced the vulnerability and used these experiences as valuable lessons for my listeners to understand the futility of life so that they could build their own legacies.

I created a keynote that went beyond my personal experience of burnout, how I erected boundaries to protect my well-being, and ultimately changed my life. I shared my journey and positioned it in a way that evoked emotion in the audience and invited them to make a similar journey in their own lives.

What was the result?

A standing ovation that shook the room and my heart with thunderbolts of applause.

Why? 

Because I found a way to share my story not only in a logical form but also in an emotive form that allowed me to connect and deeply engage with my audience.

And that’s what it's all about if you want to move beyond public speaking into the realm of the transformative.  

More Vulnerability Doesn’t Mean Better 

How can you share your vulnerability wisely?

There is so much to choose from when we are sharing a personal story and building a keynote. 

At times it's easy to overshare which can detract from the impact of your message.

When I’m coaching speaking clients on their storytelling and presentation creation I often see stories that go overboard in detail or lack a clear ending that seals their message in the audience's mind.

Telling all the details of your story isn’t necessary to get the point across. 

Vulnerability doesn’t equal better speaking if you overshare tragic details that may not be relevant to delivering your message.

You need to share vulnerability but share it wisely.  

You can do this by remembering that although you are sharing intimate parts of your life with your audience they only need to know enough to be able to connect the dots of your presentation, build a genuine human connection, and feel palpable emotions.

Whether I’m speaking on trauma, HIV, or diversity in the workplace I make sure to share the exact parts of the story that allow audience members to connect their own humanity within it and make positive changes in their own personal & professional life.

Find Your Transformational Doorway

If you want to elevate your speaking and start transforming audiences or you’ve been speaking for a while and you’re not reaching audiences the way you desire, sign up for my Legacy Speaker™: On-Demand Workshop. It gives you all the necessary elements to create your signature program, pitch your services, and monetize your expertise so that you can start impacting lives through the power of your voice.