Scary Things and Stage Time: A Speaker's Guide to Growth

John: 00:00:00

Have you ever come across that famous quote to do something

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every day that scares you?

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Usually attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt?

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Are we doing the scary things

for us in business as professional

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speakers, communicators, coaches,

whatever we may be doing,

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are we facing up to the

elements of what we need to do

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professionally that scare us?

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That's what I wanna talk about in this

shorter episode of Present influence the

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show for professional communicators who

want to inspire, impact and influence.

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My name's John Ball.

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I am your guide on this journey to

mastery level communication skills.

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I've been thinking about.

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Scary things a lot.

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Not anything to do with Halloween or

ghosts but the things that scare us in

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life and business, this followed from

a conversation I had with Judy Carter,

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a few episodes back, episode 1 9 8,

if you want to go and check that out.

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Highly recommend it.

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And Judy was talking about how even now

with all of her experience as a speaker,

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with all of her experience in standup

comedy, she still goes and does open

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mic nights to scare herself a little,

to feel alive and to get that rush

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of energy and ideas and inspiration.

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And I thought about how long I've been

putting off doing things like an open mic

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night because it is fricking scary and it.

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And it is something I thought

maybe someday I'll do it, or I'll

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do a course first and then it will

lead up to something like that.

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But I've known for several months that

there is a new open mic Comedy Night

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here in the city where I live in English.

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'cause I don't think I'm quite

ready to do it in Spanish just yet.

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I decided to see if I could

put myself in the running to

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get into that open mic night.

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Now, I must admit, when I reached

out to the organizer, I was hoping

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that the next event would be full

and I'd have a month or so to plan in

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advance before the next one happens.

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That's not the case.

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This week I'm gonna be doing my first

open mic comedy, and I'm not scared.

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I'm quite excited about it,

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I have been thinking a lot about stage

time and how important it is to get

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regular stage time because I lost a

lot of my practice stage time when

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my local Toastmasters group moved

their meetings to a night when I run a

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group call and I'm not able to attend.

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That screwed me over a for having regular

practice sessions with that organization.

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But I still want to keep

my hand in when I'm not.

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Being paid to present.

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So, I put myself in for a recent

storytelling event that I did

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on Sunday that was a lot of fun.

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I spent time with a friend of mine.

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We both participated, we

both presented stories.

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There probably about five or

six storytellers altogether, and

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it was a lot of fun and I felt

very proud of what I'd done.

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I saw lots of room for improvement,

which is really the whole point of

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doing this because it's only when we

get ourselves in front of live audiences

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doing the scary thing that we're

going to be able to start to improve.

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Otherwise, we're just playing

the game in our head and we are

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not really out there delivering.

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So I think it is a great idea to get

yourself on a stage as often as you

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can, doing the elements that perhaps

you are a little bit more scared of,

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so if you do have some fear around

professional storytelling, get

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yourself along to a storytelling event.

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Or maybe you have some fear around getting

onto stages generally, and you've been

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in the safety of virtual presentations

where it's felt a lot easier to do that.

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And doing in-person presentations might

be feeling a little bit scary for you.

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That's why I think things like

Toastmasters, organizations and

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public speaking clubs can be very

useful for you to go and practice.

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Where there's sometimes an issue

for professional speakers in those

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organizations is that unless you are

in a club that has a lot of other

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professional or advanced speakers, you

may not receive the kind of feedback

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that you really need to develop and grow.

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Because the common feedback in

those groups is more about your

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vocal variety, which is important.

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How many ums and ahs you've done in

a presentation, whether you are on

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time or not, whether it's engaging, so

you're not really going to get advanced

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level feedback on things like your

blocking on the stage or your energy

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things that are probably gonna be

useful for you to be focusing on.

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Now.

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I think there are perhaps ways around

that where you can ask people to be

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specific and tell them up front, frame it.

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This is the kind of feedback

that I'm looking for.

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But in general, I think you're far

better off getting onto stages where

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you are going to get feedback for live

performances where there's skin in

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the game and stakes at play for you.

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So even if the stakes are just an

audience clap or whether they laugh

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in the right places that's fine

and definitely better to be more

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relaxed and comfortable doing those.

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I'm thinking for myself that the elements

of storytelling and the standup comedy

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stuff, . These are all things that I

can bring into more of my professional

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speaking work that are gonna make me

more comfortable, more engaging, more

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entertaining and a better performer

on the stage, we shouldn't lose sight.

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That in professional speaking,

the entertainment factor

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is incredibly important.

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In fact, I just recorded a podcast

episode with a professional entertainer

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who's starting to move into doing

some paid speaking work and we talked

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about a lot of the similarities and

differences there as well, but I

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think it is easier for someone to move

into professional speaking from those

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entertainment areas where you are more

comfortable with stages with audiences,

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and you know how to get the energy

going in a room, you know how to

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interact with the audience as well.

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So it is a good transition to be able

to make, even with Judy Carter, when she

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was on the show not that long ago, one

of the things she talked about was it

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was a great transition for her to move

from comedy clubs to corporate gigs.

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The only real thing she had to change was

to make sure it was clean, that you had to

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deliver clean material, and I think that's

great advice for corporate speakers.

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Always better to work clean when you can.

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Sometimes maybe a curses word is gonna

slip out somewhere and that's cool.

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I don't think anyone's

gonna have too much issue.

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And depending on the environment you

may need to apologize for it as well.

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I don't think we should ever just go

to the point of assuming that this

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is who I am, this is how I talk,

and that's just what you're gonna

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have to deal with, if it's gonna be

cutting you off from the possibility

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of doing certain kinds of gigs.

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More than anything, you want to be

booked and you want to be respected,

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and you want to be seen as an authority.

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So letting things that could actually

affect your public image, get a little bit

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out of hand just for the sake of, I want

to do it this way, could work against you.

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So I think it's great

advice to work clean.

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I like one of the things Judy says

in her book, the New Comedy Bible,

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about write your material with

all the foul language you want and

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then edit it out to perform it.

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That can be a great way to make sure

you still have your voice there.

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But when you actually deliver

this and you're being paid to

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deliver it, you clean things up

for the audiences that you go to.

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I wasn't planning for this to turn into

a lecture on swearing, talking about

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doing the scary things, I really just

wanna talk about doing those scary things

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because it's easy to start

finding reasons not to do them.

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And there's all sorts of things,

whether you are a professional speaker

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a coach, a consultant, if you have

your own business, there's all sorts

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of things you may not be wanting to do.

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Even if you are working for another

organization, there may be elements

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of your job that are available

to you that seem a bit scary.

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This is really about pushing yourself

to challenge yourself in positive ways.

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I don't suggest doing scary things just

for the sake of doing scary things.

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But I do feel that if you are challenging

yourself in the right ways, where we

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start to come up against ourselves

and it feels scary, there should also

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be a bit of excitement there as well,

because you're pushing yourself to do the

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things that you really want to be doing.

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I think another part of this is

building up consistency I will

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say, this is my word for 2025.

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I'm very focused on developing consistency

because I think when you are consistent

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in certain kinds of actions, they will

inevitably lead you to the results.

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Where a lot of people tend to go wrong

is doing a lot of big action out front

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the magic happens when you push yourself

to do the scary things to the point

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where you start to get good at them and

you stay consistent with them as well.

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I was a bit scared sometimes of going

to the gym or going to the swimming

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pool because, I'm not the slimmest

person and sometimes when you're

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a bit overweight, you have fear of

being judged by people, especially

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when you're in a pair of swim shorts.

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So it is not my favorite thing to be

walking around in swim shorts and sandals.

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Where I can be seen, but if I want

to get the kind of results that I'm

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aiming to get, I have to show up.

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I have to show up and swim every day.

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I have to maybe mix in some other things

as well, focus on my diet a bit more

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and get consistent with those because

one day without eating a chocolate

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bar is not gonna get you a six pack.

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I am gonna bring you some of the footage

of the story slam that I was involved in.

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Gonna be doing another one

towards the end of this month.

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I'm doing some coaching and work

shopping with the organization

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that's putting those on.

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So I'm excited.

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There's stuff to learn and new

people to network and connect with.

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And this is another thing that I

found with putting yourself out

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there more for these kinds of things

of you meet new people, you find.

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New opportunities, even just now.

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I was interviewing a podcast guest just

before coming to record this and he

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was recommending a podcast guest to me.

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And as he starts telling me about

this person, I think, oh, I know

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exactly who you're talking about.

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And I would love to have them on the show.

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Someone who I'm in their network.

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So we'll see if we can make that happen.

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'cause it is someone I've got on my

guest wishlist, so I'm potentially

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very excited that I'm gonna get a

personal introduction and hopefully

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bring them onto the show for you.

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But I will be bringing you a guest this

Friday and next week hopefully I'll be

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able to bring you some footage of my story

slam and of my standup comedy experience,

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even if I bomb, even if I completely bomb,

I'm gonna present the whole thing to you

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so you can see it and you can enjoy me

bombing, or you can enjoy me maybe getting

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a few laughs or maybe I actually end

up delivering a funny five minute set.

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Either way, I'm looking forward to

the experience because I'm gonna grow

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and develop from it, and I'm not gonna

have that if I don't put myself out

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there and just do the scary thing.

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My guest on Friday is

going to be Greg Bennick.

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Greg is an amazing speaker and

he has years of experience.

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He's been training TEDx speakers.

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He started on the stage

himself when he was very young.

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He has a big theater and performance

background, which is just elements that

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I think are so important to discuss

on this show because I do feel like

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the entertainment edutainment even

we often call it, that these elements

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are critical to being an excellent

and engaging speaker and to helping

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you get the kinds of figures you hope

to get as a professional speaker.

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So that's gonna be Friday's episode.

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Please make sure you're

subscribed to the show for that.

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If you haven't already checked out

my 200th episode with Chris Marr,

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where we talked about how to be

more authoritative on the stage.

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That was a great episode and

really enjoyed Chris as a guest and

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his book Become an Authoritative

Coach is really good.

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I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

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Definitely all good stuff.

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There's no filler content

in there, no fluff.

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It's all good, meaty content in there,

so I highly recommend that as well.

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And make sure you've listened

to the episode with Judy

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Carter from a few weeks ago.

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Just so many amazing guests at

the moment, and I'm very excited

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for the guests I have lined up.

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I'm not gonna give too

much away right now.

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But I'm gonna call this

an episode for right now.

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Thank you for joining me.

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If you're not already subscribed

to the show, please do that.

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If you'd like to get in touch,

then please feel free to email

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me, john@presentinfluence.com

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or reach out on LinkedIn.

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It's a great place to connect with me.

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You can also go to present influence.com,

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and there's a contact form on the

website if you prefer to do that.

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if you haven't already taken my

speaker Strengths Archetype assessment,

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that is free and available to you

at the Present Influence website.

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So go take the quiz and find out your

speaker strengths lots of good information

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in there, and some recommendations for

places that you might want to focus on

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for shoring up your speaking skills.

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That's it for today.

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Wherever you're going, whatever you're

doing, have an amazing rest of your day.

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We'll see you again very soon.