2020 has been one of the most challenging years any of us have faced in our lifetime. There is so much uncertainty in business and in life that it can strike down anyone’s confidence quite quickly. Today I’m going to share a simple exercise to help build your confidence in your speaking business.
We’ve talked about how important confidence is for a professional speaker previously on this blog. A few months ago, I attended a virtual workshop put on by Strategic Coach, Dan Sullivan, and we did a great exercise that I found particularly valuable. They asked us to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 (with one feeling hopeless and ten being super confident) how confident we felt both in that moment and at the beginning of COVID-19.
Personally, I love the idea of assigning a number to how I feel at any given time. And here’s the thing: I don’t always land at a 10. At the beginning of March, I started somewhere around 4.
But taking this account of how I was feeling allowed me to adjust my mindset, and over about a week, I was able to work my way to an 8.
Where are you on the scale of 1 to 10 right now? How confident are you feeling in your speaking business?
One of the things that we like to say inside The Wealthy Speaker School is that clarity equals confidence. Whenever we see a client who is unclear on the value that they bring to the table or how they are going to bring it (i.e., virtual), their confidence is typically low.
On the flip side, when I meet with my Inner Circle Mastermind speakers, who are a group of absolute rockstars, the confidence is typically oozing through the Zoom line. Not only are they clear on what they have to offer, but they’ve also adopted virtual very quickly and are killing it. More importantly, they are charging good fees for this work.
I have to repeat it: Confidence isn’t a part of the speaking business. It’s everything!
If you are struggling to build your confidence, do this exercise by asking yourself the following questions:
- On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your current level of confidence? (with 10 being kick-butt confident)
- What is the reason for your number?
- What is your most dominant thought about the current state of your speaking business? (ie: It’s not where I want it to be, I’m afraid for the future, I’m providing awesome value but not getting paid).
- If your thought is negative or steeped in fear, what would be a more helpful thought? (i.e., people need my expertise and the right clients will find me). Jot this down on a post-it note as a reminder to keep this thought front and center.
- What are the things that you have done in your past that give you confidence? (i.e., made it through your first year in business, wrote a book, survived an illness or divorce, etc.)
- If your confidence is low (lower than 8), what do you need to do to move it up the scale? (i.e., embrace virtual, get clear on my value proposition, stand tall in my value and fees).
Doing this exercise a couple of months ago was very helpful for me because it allowed me to see that my default number for confidence was not an eight. And so I know, when something catastrophic happens, I need to check in on my number and take steps to move towards a higher score very quickly.
How I do that is through mindset. I try to identify what thought is landing me at a four and change it to something that will be helpful. In early March, my thought was, “holy heck, my industry has been wiped out.” That was not a useful thought, and it didn’t breed confidence in myself or the situation.
As soon as I recognized this, I flipped my thought to, “people need me now more than ever.” That moved me almost immediately to an eight.
And when we are confident, what do we do? We take action. This is what I did, and the results brought in revenue of $50,000 in April.
How confident are you moving into the latter half of 2020? I hope this exercise will help you move up the scale.
See you soon, Wealthy Speaker!
