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“I have a clear sense of the situation.”
The audience was leaning in, enraptured.
Marcus was one of three experts on a cyber-security panel, a media interview with a live audience and televised across the world.
Marcus was speaking, interchangeably looking directly at his audience and into the camera, eye contact strong, executive presence and confidence strong, command undeniable.
The media interviewers became increasingly deferential to Marcus, growing respect in their eyes and in their tone. He was an unknown when they started and now they were treating Marcus as an expert, a respected thought leader. And so was the audience.
The other two experts paled by comparison. One was nervous. The other monotonous, boring the audience with incomprehensible corporate buzzwords.
Marcus stands out in any crowd. I started coaching Marcus about two years ago. He was invisible to the world back then. At first he was awkward. He got over that. As his public speaking competence grew, he was asked to present more frequently. His speaking engagements achieved greater visibility, attracting larger audiences, reaching greater significance and wider impact. Audiences now say Marcus is “inspiring”.
His most recent live audience before this televised one was 25,000. They loved him.
When you see Marcus now, you would say he’s a natural.
You would be correct. He is completely natural.
A truly competent speaker IS completely natural.
That doesn’t mean they start out that way. Marcus certainly didn’t.
This is the challenge for aspiring communicators. To develop the skills to be natural at something that at first feels completely unnatural: communicating successfully to a bigger world outside your comfort zone.
There’s nothing more exhilarating than developing the ability to communicate successfully to more and more people. The joy you feel as you’re speaking and getting that indescribable energy back from the audience doesn’t have a name, but it lifts you up higher than you can imagine until you experience it.
Marcus started as someone who was really good one-on-one. Give him one person, he did really well. He was also good in small groups of 10 people or under.
As we worked together this number expanded.
Marcus is not done. He’s young. He has big goals and a lot of future ahead of him. He’s simply in a new league, playing a much bigger game. So this isn’t the end of personal growth for him, it’s a new level, a higher launching pad toward his next goal.
Marcus is continuing his personal and professional development with gusto, working just as aggressively during our coaching sessions today as two years ago, and even more so as the highs from increasingly successful communication becomes its own reward.
I’m writing this to you because you may have heard that you have to be a natural to be any good at public speaking. I am here to tell you being a natural at public speaking is something you can become.
It’s irrelevant whether it’s natural or unnatural at first for you. If it’s unnatural, I completely understand. It is for just about everyone. You will become natural as you learn the right principles and do the work to make it happen.
There is a “natural” born communicator in everyone. The world can see that’s true for Marcus. And it can become true for you too.
The journey begins with a decision to start. It develops with the commitment to practice. Eventually, YOU will be the “natural” who communicates successfully with more people than ever before. You’ll be the “natural” who makes the audience lean in and look to for answers.
Be the cause!
Ingrid