3 tips on how to become a REAL public speaker that can inspire others

These are my 3 tips on how to become an AUTHENTIC public speaker that can serve those who inspire others. The inspiration came from a question that was asked on my email list. This is the email that I send to my email list the next week:

In today’s email I’ll be talking about a question Alfred asked me.:

“Hey man! How´s it going? I was just wondering if your still going to Vegas for the meetup? I´m going, and I see you´re doing your fair share of speaking engagements. I´d like to ask you a few questions about how to get started on that if you don´t mind. Peace and love, muchacho! “

-Alfred in Norway

Thanks Alfred for letting me answer in this week’s email.

I highly suggest that you, yes you, not Alfred, read this entire email if you’re interested in becoming a public speaker. It has some very important information on how to actually start inspiring people and not screwing them up, which I’ve seen many bad speakers do (and I also worked with TEDx, and I can tell you that even those speakers are not immune to the message in this email).

The knowledge that I’m giving you here comes from all the Train the Trainers- conferences that I’ve been at, organized myself and trained at.

Anyways, back to the questions:

– I was just wondering if you’re still going to Vegas for the meetup?
Yes, I’ll be in Vegas! If you are there, you can join the meetup as well.

Some of you emailed and asked me if this was a formal Why not 3- event.
It’s not, it’s just a casual meetup for drinks if you’re in town. I’m there because I’ll be joining the Freedom Business Awards. However, I’m very open to answering all of your questions over some drinks.

The official Why Not 3- events will be launching this summer, so keep an eye out for those.

– I´d like to ask you a few questions about how to get started on that (public speaking) if you don´t mind.

I definitely don’t mind! I heard some of you don’t reply, because you think I don’t answer back.

I didn’t start Why Not 3 just for the sake of starting a business.
I have enough businesses that are already running very well.

Why Not 3 is here to help YOU.

So please take the time and reply to my email if you feel like you have a question because it can help us evolve the content and make me think deeper about the experience and research I have done over the past decade.

Now to the important stuff, which is the public speaking and how to start doing it professionally. First, I need to emphasize that I can talk for hours about this, which means that if I see you in Vegas we can discuss it more in depth, however here are three things to get you started:

1) Know your public speaking topic really, really well.
The best public speakers are those that have dedicated time and effort to their subject.
I had several bosses throughout my career who had to convince me to become a trainer and teach other people what I knew. I always said no, because I believed in my core that I had to know my subject like the best before I had the nerve to share what I knew in front of audiences.
The way I was eventually convinced is that I had gotten so far ahead of everyone, that people needed someone to help them become better. The other public speakers were giving bad advice, without them even knowing. Just because they lacked the experience and the pattern recognition that goes along with it. After many discussions with one of the managers, I finally gave in and started public speaking, funnily enough still thinking that I was not good enough.

However, this meant that I had even more pressure to do proper research before talking about a subject. Also very important is that the manager had convinced me to train people, so that those people didn’t have to go through the same mistakes that I did.

Which is what I’m doing now in Why Not 3 with you.  Which means I only talk about sh*t I know and I only give examples that I have used in my life before.

This advice is especially important, when you’re doing public speaking gigs about sensitive subjects. You need to know them like the best and from YOUR experience, not someone else’s (unless their story explains it better for people, like in the last email with Victor Frankl). Which takes us to #2.

2) There is no shortcut for public speaking

To become the best there is no shortcut. When you’re talking in front of an audience they will smell, see, feel and hear if you have the experience or NOT. 

I always told people I trained that the only difference between me and you is the amount of experiences I pushed myself to have. Instead of going to sell on eBay and maybe get 1 or 2 sales every day, I would go on the streets and sell door to door (and sell on eBay as well).

Why? Because I wanted to learn by mastering the worst possible thing I could do. This then gave me exposure to thousands of people and closing over 207 sales in 2-3 months, smashing the Belgian record for the company I was working for at the time (that was representing multinationals). Which brings us to #3.

3) Find a TOPIC that impacts you and others

If you want to be a professional public speaker and you want to get paid for it you need to find a topic that people will pay for. The way you do that is to look into the market and see whether you would have competitors and how much these people charge. The goal is to find a topic that either brings people more happiness or a topic that can save them money by coming to your event and hearing you speak ( for instance by reigniting their passion for a specific job that can then make them more productive, or giving some easy tools to implement that can start saving or making more money).

Once you have combined these three things go out to your local events and start small (PATIENCE IS KEY!). If your message is strong you will start to create demand and once you have demand just limit the amount of seats at your event and price to what you think the market will pay for it. Once you are validated as a public speaker after a couple of public speaking gigs, don’t be afraid to just go big right away.

Who knows if you implement these steps and you are patient enough then one-day public speaking will become your job. Oh, and don’t forget to record your videos in high quality. I use my other team at Lightning Video Editors for that, but you can do it yourself by renting a professional conference camcorder (SONY FS5 / FS7) for 100 USD/day.

However!!

And this is a big one, when you joined Why not 3 you might have seen that WE inspire those who can inspire OTHERS to become the BEST they can be.

I have a very short fuse for the people that spread false knowledge or people that don’t do their research properly.

Some of you on this email list have attended a train the trainers-conference where I have trained you to become a public speaker. What I have told them and what I will tell you is the following:

Never forget that you are there in a leadership capacity, which means your words have more power than you think. Don’t waste people’s time or money.

The reason I say this is because I lost a LOT of time and money in the beginning of my career listening to these so-called experts, only to realize years later how stuck these people were themselves.

In short: Never forget and be careful. If you have a gift to inspire those that inspire others, then it’s your duty to go and serve them. Help them get to the next step, so that you can make an impact on someones world, by making them a happier and more fulfilled person.
Cheers,

Lova
Founder of Why not 3

P.S.: If you’re interested in more of these stories then you can pre-order your own copy of the
Official Why Not 3? Work. Life. Balance -Book here:

https://whynot3.com/why-not3-official-book/

This is where I share personal stories that only a select few people know and I also give more not-so-obvious tools that I have experimented with and tested on myself. Tools that can help you balance your life, so that you can become more balanced, more productive, and happier.