Barriers to success for public speakers (DON’T GIVE UP)

Are you one of those people who has a dream of being a very successful speaker? One of those speakers who is booked on lots of stages, making great money, impacting people's lives, really living on purpose and on mission, and sharing their message with the world? Has it not happened for you yet? In this video and blog post I'm going to share with you what I believe are the 3 biggest reasons holding so many people back from living their lives as a successful speaker and how you can not let that happen to you. 

This is a really important topic and it's something that comes up all the time, particularly when I'm working with new clients. They say, “Oh my goodness, I want to be a great speaker, but I haven't been able to do that” and there's usually a list of reasons, but today I want to focus on the 3 main reasons that I see people really not becoming the successful speakers that they want to be.

They quit before it's too soon. Some people think that they’re going to be an overnight success. They start working and then they realize success is not showing up, it's not manifested and so they quit. That takes a lot of people out right off the bat. You cannot give up just because the going gets rough. This takes time. Like anything, this takes time. So it's important for you to stay committed, stay focused, and be consistent with your goals. You cannot give up and you cannot quit. 

They don't know what to do or what not to do. And I always say, you can't really get this wrong if you are being consistent, but if it's continually bad execution, the results aren't going to be good. There are certain things that you need to be doing as a speaker to get yourself booked consistently. So if you've got bad execution going on, that's entirely different than throwing a lot of stuff up against the wall. It means that whatever it is that you're throwing up against the wall is not sticking. So we need to change that. 

I also see that some people just have no execution. It's like you're not even trying. I am a huge believer in the law of attraction and manifesting your greatest desires. I also understand that it takes work and it takes committed work and you have to always be willing to execute. So no execution also leads to no results, right? Sometimes people just simply understand what strategy is going to work best for them. 

Now, speakers come in all shapes and sizes, right? There are certain speakers who get paid to speak because they're what we call a keynote speaker or a motivational or inspirational speaker. Then there are other speakers who are there to promote their platform. They're looking primarily for clients, for customers, and so typically they're there to sell something or teach people something. But usually without a good strategy plan, most speakers don't know what they are and what they should be developing.

But now I want to do a deep dive into what I see are the three biggest, most common reasons why people do not become successful speakers. 

You don't know your 'why.'

I can remember years ago when I was first in network marketing, one of the biggest things that I taught so much of my team was that they had to be crystal clear about their why.

Whenever you are going for something, if you don't know the why behind it, if the why doesn't make you cry, then it's not significant enough. Why do you want to be a speaker? What about it is so important for you? 

I chose to make a shift to becoming a speaker. I could have maintained a life of being on TV and having a great career as a television news anchor and a TV host. But when I shifted and decided that the message and the mission that I now have to give to the world is so important because it's about the people sitting in the seats and how I can impact their lives or being in service to them. 

What is your why and what's so important that you would move mountains for? It’s the reason that you get up in the morning and you do what you do.  When you're committed to achieving your why, everything will shift. You will find a way and might be more inclined to take more inspired action. You will be able to make so many additional decisions that are in service to you and your why, when you know what it is. So you've got to get clear on your why. 

You're not hungry enough.

You don't want it bad enough. “I am going to do this because I got to eat” type of hunger. And so if you are in a place where you’re saying, “Maybe I'll do this, maybe I'll consider doing what it takes to be a speaker.” You're not hungry enough. It has to be so important to you achieving this goal and this result because you're that hungry for it. So ask yourself this question. How hungry am I? How much do I really want this? What am I willing to do? What am I willing to overcome? What am I willing to change? What am I willing to learn? What am I willing to give up and what am I willing to give in order to make this dream of becoming a successful speaker come true?

How hungry are you? 

Afraid to invest.

They're afraid to spend money, time, and resources in order to make their dream come true. I can guarantee you this - If you are afraid to invest in what it is that you want to do, why would anybody ever invest their time or their money to come and watch you speak or buy your programs you share from the stage? If you’re afraid to invest in yourself and invest in your future, what are you putting out into the universe? What are you creating in terms of the ripple effect? You're automatically setting up resistance from flow simply by you making a decision not to invest. You'll never become successful that way. You have to invest in yourself. You have to spend money in order to make money. 

To summarize, these three things are the top reasons why so many people are not being successful as a speaker. In a nutshell, you've got to have a big why. You’ve got to be hungry. And the third and most important thing is that if you don't know the way, if you can't figure it out, if you're spending so much time, money, and energy throwing stuff up against the wall with no execution or bad execution, then you need to invest in the right places to get the right support that you need in order to make this dream come true.