Have you ever broken into a cold sweat at the thought of standing in front of a roomful of people? That's where we find John in our latest episode, thrust onto the stage of public speaking by his manager. As we accompany him on his journey, I'll share with you why so many of us share this fear and how conquering it is a pivotal rung on the career ladder. It's not just about the boardroom; life demands we stand and deliver at every twist and turn, from our very first playground debates to the deeply personal pitches of our love lives. I'll let you in on my own struggles and victories in the realm of communication, revealing how they've shaped not only my career path but the intricate dance of my personal relationships, too.
Then, we'll get into the nuts and bolts of crafting presentations that resonate and persuade, as I recount my experiences from leading workshops to hosting the enriching dialogues of the 'Living Your Success' podcast. I'll share how spreading these insights through newsletters has become a passion and how these lessons are detailed further in my book 'Slaying Your Dragons: Living the Life You Always Wanted.' By the end of our time together, I hope you'll feel the clock ticking, not as a countdown to fear, but as a countdown to your next opportunity to shine and share the best version of yourself with the world.
Have you ever broken into a cold sweat at the thought of standing in front of a roomful of people? That's where we find John in our latest episode, thrust onto the stage of public speaking by his manager. As we accompany him on his journey, I'll share with you why so many of us share this fear and how conquering it is a pivotal rung on the career ladder. It's not just about the boardroom; life demands we stand and deliver at every twist and turn, from our very first playground debates to the deeply personal pitches of our love lives. I'll let you in on my own struggles and victories in the realm of communication, revealing how they've shaped not only my career path but the intricate dance of my personal relationships, too.
Then, we'll get into the nuts and bolts of crafting presentations that resonate and persuade, as I recount my experiences from leading workshops to hosting the enriching dialogues of the 'Living Your Success' podcast. I'll share how spreading these insights through newsletters has become a passion and how these lessons are detailed further in my book 'Slaying Your Dragons: Living the Life You Always Wanted.' By the end of our time together, I hope you'll feel the clock ticking, not as a countdown to fear, but as a countdown to your next opportunity to shine and share the best version of yourself with the world.
Hello there, this is living. Your success 24, seven with yours truly, michael Cain. Okay, in the house, in the house, in the house. Okay, let's just get into it. What's on my mind, michael Cain? What's on my mind? What's on your mind? Well, I was thinking about interactions between people, human beings. I was thinking about what's one of the things that people fear the most. They dread it. What's one of the in a top, I would say in a top three. It was in a lot of surveys. It's actually the number one thing that most people fear. That's what we're going to talk about today. You say, oh, is it taxes and taxes? That's up there. Is it health? Yeah, that's up there. To the word about money, yeah, that's up there. Relationships that that's up there. But it's about talking in public, speaking in public.
Speaker 1:
Many people, most arguably, are terrified to speak in public in front of a group. Let's say you work, you have a job, and your boss comes to you one day and says hey, let's just say call you John. Hey, john, need to do a presentation for group on Wednesday and it's Monday, right, really, need you to step up and do this? And you say, also, you use Mary and Larry, and Susie and Lisa. You've been using them for the last two or three years. They're exceptional presenters, speakers, persuaders. Just keep using them. I'm fine, it says. Now it's your turn. Up a bat. You allowed your colleagues to you know over. Volunteer. That's a word or a phrase. And it's your turn. My goal is to develop your skills, develop your ability to speak in public and to speak the vision of our organization. This is only a stepping stone, john, because I'm going to have you do presentation to some of our biggest clients. So, starting with that big count, we just closed and next month you're going to do a presentation for them. So this will help get you some practice. Call it a warm up back for yourself.
Speaker 1:
And now John is like seeing Cross-Eyed he's probably triple vision now and hot potating and sweating coming out of his forehead. It's about to pass out. Now, boss didn't give him a choice. Notice he didn't ask. He was telling this is what you're going to do, john, just using the name John. So excuse me, if your name is John, just using John, couldn't make it totally. Say John Smith, okay.
Speaker 1:
John reluctantly says well, oh, okay, boss, all right, okay, but what if I can't do it? Well, you're going to be fine. In fact, I have a book right here for you and it's a website to a videos that's a companion to the book, where people role-play and you can see and practice your presenting. And I'll be giving you the material for the presentation. I'll send it to you, email it to you, but first I want you to take two or three hours you need four, the whole morning, that's fine to watch the videos and catch up, look at, read the book and watch the video series and then practice. And you can practice in front of me, let's say, tomorrow morning at nine o'clock in my office. Okay, so here you go, you'll get the material and it's not that complicated. You can do this job, but I can't. Yes, you can, you will do it. I have utmost of confidence in you.
Speaker 1:
And so, john, I don't know if you know it or not, but notice, you're in the same position, kind of stagnating, and some of your peers have moved on. And promotion opportunities, except you know why? One of the reasons why Because they do presentations well. They're able to convince, persuade, get buy-in for our projects and other divisions, customers, outside customers, et cetera. And so do you desire to promote one day? Well, yes, but not now. You know, john, the answer. You do want to. I know you have the potential. You're smart, very smart person, highly intelligent and people like you. Those are good traits for you to move up in our organization. But your biggest hurdle to moving up is your ability to do presentations. So, enough said, I'll see you tomorrow at nine. Here's the information, here's the material, and you will get to check your inbox in 30 minutes.
Speaker 1:
So now let's come back to this podcast. Now, because I did role play with myself, played the boss and John at the same time. The sound from there may not be exactly how I played it out, but have you been avoiding? You rather quit the job versus going for it and guess what? You've been doing presentations all your life. Did you know that? Did you know that You've been doing presentations in various categories in your whole entire life? This is, I'm asking you, that John's boss is asking them to do a formal presentation, the point of certain point of view, which John has been doing all his life. And you too, all of my listeners, you have all been engaged in presentations most of your adult life and your child life, and you're younger, since you're young, I also Michael Cain.
Speaker 1:
Well, let me tell you, have you ever, when you were a kid, talked to your friends? They didn't want to do something? They said, hey, let's go play basketball or baseball or something. They said, no, no, john, no, we don't want to do that, but you end up playing baseball or basketball, whatever sport of choice, or video games, arcade. You know why they did it Because of you, because you went that extra step and you persisted and you persuaded them. You did a presentation. Did you not know that? Maybe you didn't know. You did a presentation at 12 years old, 14 years old, did you not? Everybody's case is the same, or situation, or what. Did some of you go to your prom in high school? Did you ask someone in high school to go to the prom with you or to go to a grad night with you? Hang out with you at grad night or your graduation high school? You did a presentation. Do any of you have children, whatever ages?
Speaker 1:
Although you have the power of veto and power to punish, did you not articulate first, you need to do your homework. You need to eat your real food and vegetables before you get to eat that chocolate chip cookie, before you eat that dessert. Can't you eat your dessert first. Well, okay, mom, dad, presentation presentation post office what a private 40 male cost. What if I ship it overnight? What if I just did that?
Speaker 1:
Then you're talking, having a conversation, some kind of persuasion or informative interaction going on presentation have any of you been in a choir, at school or church or wherever you go, or just in general, and they said, hey, we need you to sing solo on that or back up to that. You're reluctant, but you want to do a particular role? I think I convinced the music teacher the chorus teacher could be an instrument too. You want to play lead or something. And you got to do it because you opened up and you gave all the reasons why you should. Hey, I've been here, I've been coming to every practice, I've been showing my improvement. Have anyone ever been engaged in those conversations? How about? Or any of you? Or have you been dating someone when you go along with it and were proactive in seeking out that significant other on your desirable qualities? Presentation I think you get where I'm going now.
Speaker 1:
Life is a series of presentations. You can quote me. There used to be a program with that life as a series of presentations. Years ago I went through it and it's so true you didn't think you dismissed it and say, well, any of you acted Like. When I was in school, I took a speech class and the professor was a professional actor and for the final exam and semi-final we had to go up in front of the entire student body and do an act. He didn't care what it was, mine was, and I was terrified. We were all terrified, except for there's always one or two that are natural at it. They already probably been doing it for years and comfortable getting in front of people.
Speaker 1:
But I took a couple of speech classes actually in high school, even though I don't know what I was thinking, but it was an elective and I said, oh, this should be easy. What can they ask us to Speak, which you thought you know? It's one thing getting up in front of the other terrified classmates in your class doing it, but for some reason I didn't really have a total problem doing that, getting in front of 30 people, even though I was nervous like everyone else. I had to go to the restroom a couple of times and, shaking, even in front of 30 classmates, went up there for the grade. You had to do it, otherwise you fail. I survived.
Speaker 1:
I pretended to be a British, something I can't even remember now. I remember I was British, I had to pretend to fake a British accent. But my other speech class and I thought I said, oh, I actually enjoy it. In fact this other professor had us go in front of the entire student body, so instead of 30 people with the hundreds of people on a stage in auditorium, and now that was like you know, do I break my leg? So I can say I broke it for real or something, or laryngitis or so anyway. And I said, well, if any of these other kids going to do it, I'm going to do it, I'm not going to look out.
Speaker 1:
So I did this series of routine to be different races. I showed the caricatures of various ethnicities and I didn't know what they're going to think of it. I'd say, oh, that's over the top. Whatever, they enjoyed it. They all were laughing. I was a hit. So I guess you can call that one of my first professional debuts, not even professional amateur, because it was high school. And so I said, wait, wait a second. They were receptive to me and they thought it was funny.
Speaker 1:
It's one thing to think you're funny one-on-one with people or your pals. Another thing to get up in front of highly critical colleagues in high school, which a lot of them are A-holes. A lot of them may not like you because you're not in a higher echelon of plicks caste system, if you will, so you don't know how that's going to go. So very nervous, very nervous, and my colleagues were nervous too. So we're just shaking in our boots, but we did it and I have to remind you know what this is catharsis. This is reminding myself of the things I did that I wish I could duplicate now so that I'm working on developing myself where I can overcome that fear. Have you heard that word? Fear over come.
Speaker 1:
But while you're overcome now, I did not overcome fear and my colleagues, my classmates in high school, did not overcome their fear at that moment. We did it despite the fear. We were shaking and scared, as you know what, but we did it. We had a vested interest, didn't want to fail the class, but it was like you see, other people say I'm just as smart as these other folks. They don't have anything. Of course, people might be brilliant at geometry and you may suck at geometry. We all have our thing, some expert in English language, some in foreign language, or chemistry, history, going on and on sports. Everyone has their talents. So we all have something, and that taught me that and I lost my way with that when I graduated high school. I lost my way. So I'm here to tell you, young folks, you have something special. This is part of the message about speaking in public, overcoming fear. You have something special, special to offer. The world is my point, whatever that may be. But you have to articulate. You want to start your business. You got to give in some employees to work for you. You're gonna have to give in customers to buy from you.
Speaker 1:
Life is a series of presentations. So you already been on the stage before many times, hundreds, thousands times. You already been there, done that. You just need to extend yourself to different avenues, different directions, different environments. But you have presented. You have kids. You presented. You have a significant other oh, not just dating. What about marriage? You convince somebody that you're sorry, but it's worth marrying, not talking about mistakes or should have or shouldn't have. The fact is, if you got married, you convince somebody to take a chance on you and they you. There's two sides of that presentation A presenter, a sender and a receiver. So you're engaged in presentations on both sides of the fence every single day.
Speaker 1:
Now I've done presentations like I said, it was comedic, it was nice school. I've done in private and groups. I've done presentations one-on-one in groups of 30, 40, even 900 people Presentation. Now I just got invited to a presentation next month. I don't know how many people are going to be there. It would probably be at least at minimum 20, it'd be 100 people, somewhere between 20 and 100. I'm going to do a presentation, got invited and I'm going to do it. I'm no longer terrified of doing it anymore, so that's a help, because I've done it so many times no longer.
Speaker 1:
But I still get nervous. Everyone gets nervous. Still going to be a little nervous, okay, an anxious a bit. Want to do well, want to throw that. You know. The vision, the vision, the vision, the vision that I have for the presentation, that inspire, to get people to buy into my message. So I have to use some humility, use some humor, matter of fact, plaintient, salient facts, all of that in the presentation and the technical aspects. I don't mess up, you know. So with equipment. I'm a month out, so I'm starting to now I practice on my wife earlier, my opening, so I'm pretty much going to have the opening down and know how to pronounce people's names I don't do that for Paul, paul, paul, and and start developing the topic. The topic is leadership, by the way, and we're working on it and I'll be ready when it's time to deliver. I'll deliver because I'm going to practice 100 times between now and in the next month and so I want to give my best.
Speaker 1:
People are taking their precious time out so you can do presentations. So you actually tell your boss don't wait, be proactive. Say hey, boss, you need me to speak to people, present our case, look for customers and, beyond that, sales part of things, because salespeople are presenters. A lot of them are very natural, so you can do this too. Nobody's better than you. You're not better than anybody else. We all have our issues. So I encourage you.
Speaker 1:
There's a lot of books on how to do presentations, head talks and stuff like that, formal presentations and presenting in a seminar format or workshop format, which I've done. All of that Not to brag, but just saying as a matter of fact. I have the credentials for that. You're just not listening to someone that hasn't done it. I walk to talk, talk, to walk, and my goal is to do a handful of presentations each year. Probably in the next two years, I want to at least do three or four every month, two or three, two or three every month, as opposed to every four or five months.
Speaker 1:
So, and I also present in writing with the newsletters, and I encourage you I'm going to stop here and say I encourage you to sign up for this podcast Living your Success, livingyoursuccesscom. You can sign up, you can hear, rather, you can sign up on Spotify and iHeart and Amazon and various other platforms Amazon Music, apple, so big one, a elephant in a room, please sign up on through Apple, iheart and Spotify. Hit those notifications so you know. When you sign up, you can receive a notification that there's a new podcast, and so I send them through Twitter and Facebook as well. So I have different platforms and areas where someone can listen to this podcast and forward and share it to people. It's in the topic, it's in the title of the podcast Living your Success.
Speaker 1:
So we talk about different components of what does that mean? Means different things to people, but people that are achievers, people that want to move up, listen to the podcast, ok, so, anyway, what else, what else? So I highly encourage you to you don't want to buy a book through Amazon or Barnes Noble. You can go to your local library. They may have. They usually will have something on giving speeches or speaking in public, and so if I communicate verbally, as well as newsletters, and have a book called Explain your Dragons Living Life, you always want it. Encourage you to buy it. On amazoncom. We have the ebook version and the paperback version. They're both affordably priced. Courage. You Obviously have a self-interest here to buy the book and give it as a gift too. So, anyway, it's definitely been a pleasure in what Presenting to you and I thank you for giving me the opportunity to express myself to you and give me your precious time, because life is precious, my friends, don't forget about we're only here on a finite basis in this realm of existence.
Speaker 1:
So whatever you're going to do, start doing it, or you have that opportunity. So I encourage you to do your thing, do what you want to do. That was a song, probably showing my age, but anyway, this is Michael Cain Living your Success 24-7. Talk to you later, my friends. Adios.
