I want to tell you a story I shared recently on Facebook Live about how we get inside our own heads .. about the power of beliefs and how they are formed. I think it's so applicable to speaking, and to every area of our life.
I was speaking in Iceland a number of years ago, and someone fell asleep in the audience while I was speaking! (I know, right?)
I want you to take a moment to consider the layers of meaning we assign to a situation like this.
“When I was speaking, someone fell asleep”
Now this was true, as far as I can tell. She was slumped over, leaning on the person next to her, looked like she was drooling a little. She was out. She was asleep. So I feel comfortable stating the above as a fact. This is true.
But we don’t stop there, do we? When we observe things in the world, we apply meaning all the time. So, we don’t just say “When I was speaking, someone fell asleep” - we assign or infer more meaning. We might say to ourselves:
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It's been a wonderful and crazy week here in Orlando for the John Maxwell Team event. I've been honored to serve 3000+ members for these past 4 days.
I wondered what story I could share with you this week and I decided I would pinch my lovely wife Susan's thoughts she shared on her blog yesterday (you can read the entire post here). See what you think ..
The speaker training "stage time" experience here at the International Maxwell Certification is... nuts. Observing the whole process from start to finish, you see the hard work - the blood, sweat and tears that go into creating a truly memorable speech for the audience. The disappointment if not selected, sometimes the anger - normally borne out of some shame or fear around not being chosen... You see the elation of those that worked so hard, perhaps not being selected 1, 2 or 3 times and when it's finally their moment - they completely nail their presentation... so much so, it seems almost "effortless".
One of the...