So how have your New Year resolutions been unfolding? Change is tough, as is forming new habits by adding in new concepts and at the same time removing old negative habits. Resolve requires consistency, patience, perseverance and application – all of which need extra energy on top of what we are already doing. As presenters we have time, talent and treasure at our disposal to take ourselves up a few rungs on the ladder to success every year, if we can break out of the pull of gravitational forces holding us to where we have always felt comfortable.
Time is Life. We know that and what we decide to do with it becomes the summation of our lives. In all facets and periods of our lives, the ability to be persuasive is the big divide. We either live our lives according to someone else’s plan or we decide our own way forward. To be able to achieve that we need the cooperation of others. Once upon a time, perhaps and it is a big perhaps, we could do it all ourselves. That is a distant memory in today’s highly complex, global and interlocking world. Being persuasive brings people with us and we can meet the goals we have set. The issue is if we are not persuasive, then they may not choose to follow us, but seek someone else who is more persuasive.
The beauty of being a presenter is that we are sharply focused on one of the most important business and life skills. Those like the old me, who will run a mile if asked to present or speak in public are really missing out. The fear of embarrassment and possible humiliation overrides the ability to plumb the benefits of having this facility.
The talent lies within us and the trick is to unleash that talent. It is not an inborn talent. We learn how to become a more convincing, persuasive speaker over time. The biggest obstacle is lack of knowledge of what to do in order to master the art of public speaking. Those in denial do not sign up for classes, coached by professionals. They don’t purchase the videos, audio sets and books written by experts on the subject. They don’t listen to the free podcasts available. They don’t tap into the vast experience of others and so short circuit the learning process.
Talent comes from nurture and we have to invest the time to nurture our abilities. Content marketing has become one of the greatest educational breakthroughs in human history. Putting out great content for free has never been done before on this global scale. The intellectual property was proprietary and if you wanted to gain access then you had to pay for it. The idea of giving away your Intellectual Property for free sounded like nonsense. Yet today what do we see? A vast array, in fact an overwhelming array of insight, information, data and analysis sitting out in the public domain at no charge. If you want to do something there is probably a YouTube video on how to do it. How good is that!
We must invest our time though in a calculated manner, because we are all drinking from the firehose, given that the free content volume is immense. Educating ourselves in a considered way will help to sort through which content is the most valuable. Of course, the only valuable knowledge is applied knowledge. We need to be taking what we are learning and then adopting the better ways of doing things and making them our new default positions, our new habits.
Not everything we need is free and some investment of our treasure is needed. The content marketing logic is that you get to taste the quality and if you think this is what you need, you purchase more of this content. Do you have an ongoing education budget allocation for polishing your persuasion skills? Where is the best allocation of treasure to gain the most powerful outcomes? How much do you need to be spending every year to become an outstanding professional? There is an old observation about do rich people have libraries because they are rich or did they become rich, because they have libraries? I firmly believe education, however humble or basic, is critical to personal growth. The more money we can pour into our education, the more successful we will become. It can’t be an intellectual curiosity in business, it needs to be applied.
We have time, talent and treasure to help us become better presenters, more powerful persuaders and boost our personal and professional brands. No matter if your New Year resolutions went off the rails already, time to regroup and reset for the coming year. It is never too late to start again. The second time for us will bring more context and perspective to where we need to apply ourselves for greater success.