Imagine you are getting ready to speak in front of 1500 of your peers; professional speakers who can be your warmest audience, but also the most critical. They examine your work like no other audience, knowing when a story or idea lands, or when it fails miserably. They can be your biggest cheerleaders or your harshest critics. So, how do you pull it all together and walk onto the stage with confidence?
Nobody is harder on yourself than you. So, to find success, you need to learn how to ensure that every time you walk on the stage, regardless of who is in the audience, you do it with absolute confidence. Today, I am offering three simple keys that can help.
How Kindra Hall Took the Main Stage at NSA Influence 2017 with Absolute Confidence
My client, Kindra Hall, whom you have read about before on this blog, found herself facing the largest audience of her peers last Monday at the NSA Influence17 convention. The general sessions were all high caliber, and she knew she had her work cut out for her, taking the stage near the end of the conference.
When Kindra started to question herself, “do I have the right message for this audience?,” I quickly reminded her that for the past three years, she has been blowing audiences away with her storytelling message and that she had exactly what this group needed to hear. “You’ve got this,” I said.
Kindra shared with me the process she went through the night before she took the stage.
“I was more than a little nervous. The night before the presentation, as I was washing my face before bed, I looked in the mirror and thought, Why am I doing this?! It was a hypothetical question, but it turned out to be helpful. I needed to remember why I even share this message.”
I think that every speaker has moments of self-doubt. My busiest, most successful speakers, sometimes have to gather their confidence up off the floor and get back on the proverbial horse.
What got Kindra through this high-intensity moment was reminding herself of the following:
1. Why She Was There
2. To Be Herself
Those are two straightforward messages, but so powerful during a time of self-doubt.
So last Monday morning, around 9 am, Kindra took the stage before more than a thousand speaking professionals, and maybe I am being biased here, but she absolutely nailed it! Her content was stellar, exactly what we needed to hear. Her delivery was flawless. Her jokes landed, and her style was conversational.
Kindra shares, “Right before they called me out I reminded myself just to be me. It turns out, that is the best person to be when you are on stage.”
“Right before they called me out I reminded myself just to be me. It turns out, that is the best person to be when you are on stage.”
– Kindra Hall
Honestly, if Kindra’s fear had been running the show with some negative message in her ear about her not being worthy, the results would have been vastly different.
So the next time you have a moment of self-doubt, I want you to remember these three things.
- You’ve got this.
- You are there for a reason.
- Be yourself.
See you soon Wealthy Speakers.