Learn More About Public Speaking
As a local and national fitness expert myself, one of the best things
I've ever done is public speaking. Now, a lot of people are scared of
public speaking, but I believe a big part of this is having the wrong
mindset towards public speaking. Now for me, there's two core things
that have to happen with public speaking for you to have the confidence
to stand in front of other people and deliver a talk.
1. Be Confident in Yourself
you have to be confident in yourself and you have to understand the
whatever you do, you're going to get judged. Being judged is something
that is a natural human behavior. We judge people every second of the
day, all of the time. So in short, you have to get over that. If I walk
down the street, people will look at me and judge me, "Oh he's got big
this or small that, or he's got a beak nose or whatever." That's just
going to happen, that's natural human behavior.
Speaker 1:
So if you stand in front of an audience, they will judge you. They're making judgements on you and your behavior, so you literally have to block that out of your mind, because it's going to happen. You cannot change how people think, and that's why I say you have to be comfortable in yourself. If you're confident as a person, if you're willing to stand there and say, "I am who I am, I love myself and I feel strong in myself and I value myself and I feel that I can bring value to the world," then that is one of the key first steps to stand in front of a group of people and delivering a public talk.
Speaker 1:
So if you stand in front of an audience, they will judge you. They're making judgements on you and your behavior, so you literally have to block that out of your mind, because it's going to happen. You cannot change how people think, and that's why I say you have to be comfortable in yourself. If you're confident as a person, if you're willing to stand there and say, "I am who I am, I love myself and I feel strong in myself and I value myself and I feel that I can bring value to the world," then that is one of the key first steps to stand in front of a group of people and delivering a public talk.
2. Knowing Your Abilities
The second key thing is, is knowing you have the ability to help the people in front of you. One big fear that a lot of people have is imposter syndrome and what will often happen is a personal trainer will look at someone like myself or another industry expert that they learned from that's in theory above them and they compare themself to them.
So they might say, "Oh well, Ben does a lot of this public speaking." Ben Cooper, he does all the nutrition stuff, but I'm not as clever as him, I don't know as much as him, so I shouldn't really be doing that. I need to be as clever as Ben before I can do this, but you don't. So for me to do a talk with you and the audience, I might need to be more intelligent or more aware or have something to share for me to put myself in front of you and talk, but for you to help the everyday Joe or a triathlete trying to improve their performance, all you have to do is have knowledge and awareness to help that person.
So they might say, "Oh well, Ben does a lot of this public speaking." Ben Cooper, he does all the nutrition stuff, but I'm not as clever as him, I don't know as much as him, so I shouldn't really be doing that. I need to be as clever as Ben before I can do this, but you don't. So for me to do a talk with you and the audience, I might need to be more intelligent or more aware or have something to share for me to put myself in front of you and talk, but for you to help the everyday Joe or a triathlete trying to improve their performance, all you have to do is have knowledge and awareness to help that person.
3. You Don't Need to Be An Expert
When you're public speaking, you don't have to be this hardcore expert
if you're just trying to help everyday people. Think of the things that
most people struggle with when it comes to health and fitness, most
people don't get to bed on time and get good quality sleep, most people
don't eat well and really understand food. Most people don't really have
a good, consistent fitness regime, most people aren't hydrated enough,
most people don't know how to be creative and create tasty meals in the
kitchen. So if you look at that, they're actually really simple, common
problems that are fixable by pretty much any personal trainer. You as a
personal trainer right now watching this video, you have all the
knowledge to help the everyday person improve their health and
performance. So you shouldn't have imposter syndrome, you're not
standing in front of an audience of Ben Coopers. You're not there to
impress me or show me that you know your stuff.
You're probably there to show the every day guy and girl, that's struggling with their health and fitness, how to live a better healthier life.
You're probably there to show the every day guy and girl, that's struggling with their health and fitness, how to live a better healthier life.
4. How to Get Started
When you're public speaking, you don't have to be this hardcore expert if you're just trying to help everyday people. Think of the things that most people struggle with when it comes to health and fitness, most people don't get to bed on time and get good quality sleep, most people don't eat well and really understand food. Most people don't really have a good, consistent fitness regime, most people aren't hydrated enough, most people don't know how to be creative and create tasty meals in the kitchen.
So if you look at that, they're actually really simple, common problems that are fixable by pretty much any personal trainer. You as a personal trainer right now watching this video, you have all the knowledge to help the everyday person improve their health and performance. So you shouldn't have imposter syndrome, you're not standing in front of an audience of Ben Coombers. You're not there to impress me or show me that you know your stuff.
You're probably there to show the every day guy and girl, that's struggling with their health and fitness, how to live a better healthier life. The reason I bring this up is public speaking is an amazing way to build your brand locally and nationally. Think if over the next three months you committed to doing a talk in a local environment every week, that's 12 public talks and let's say each of those talks, you've got 25 people to come to that talk.
So let's say you were going to do a 45 minute health and performance seminar with a 15 minute Q and A and you went to local sports teams, you went to local business owners, you went and spoke to cafe and restaurant owners. You went and spoke to like local charity groups, you went and maybe sport spoke to like local business groups like breakfast meetings, women's institute get togethers, which are quite popular.
You went and found these groups of people and said, "Hey I've got a great talk. Is free, it's only 45 minutes with a 15 minute Q and A. It's all on health performance and wellbeing. Would you mind if I came and did a talk with you?" So that's 12 times 25 people, how much of a positive impact do you think that would have on your business? It doesn't need to be complicated, you could go in with literally a whiteboard and just have eight key topics on it and just go through them.
Go through them, sleep, nutrition, lifestyle, training, hydration, supplements, mindset. You could just have it written on a board and talk about it. The reality is if I said, "Tell me about how to build a good exercise plan." You could probably spit ball for five, 10 minutes on doing that.
So the chances are you could do it really simply with a whiteboard, or you can have a really simple presentation if it would make you feel more confident, or it might be that you have a leaflet and the leaflet forms the basis of your presentations. So you give the leaflet to everyone in the audience and you say, "Hey, look on your leaflet point, number one." And you start talking about it and maybe they fill in the leaflet as they go, it's a bit of an interactive seminar. Public speaking, please trust me, is incredible for your business. You don't have to be this standout, stellar public performer to do it. I started out just in everyday local gyms with a group of 15, 20, 25 people in front of me and I just spoke from the heart. I spoke passionately, I tried to help, I tried to educate. I was humble, I was compassionate.
I didn't stand there and try and say that I knew it all and I was some kind of expert because I'm not, but what I did do is to stand up in front of people. Turn up and be willing to help and educate and it absolutely blew up my business. It will be nerve wrecking the first time you do it, there's no way around that. The first time you write your article the first time you do a personal training session. The first time you do anything, you're nervous, you want to improve.
Public speaking is just the same, I wish more personal trainers did it because it's an amazing way to build a business and it doesn't have to be scary. Just you, 20 people in a room and you're just helping them through everyday health and fitness problems and standing there compassionately saying, "Hey, I'm here to help. Let's chat, let's move you forward from today and at the end of this, if I can help you, then I'm a local personal trainer and feel free to get in touch." And that's sometimes all it needs to be.
So have a little think about that, I absolutely love public speaking, I didn't always love it. I found it nerve wrecking like everyone else, but over time and with practice, I saw the massive impact it had on my business and now I love doing it, because I love seeing how excited people get and how much change and momentum I can give people as a result of me standing in front of someone and just giving them a bit of advice for 45 to 60 minutes. So if you've ever had an inkling for public speaking, please go and do it. Be confident in yourself, be confident that you can help the person in front of you go and make those connections to do the talks.
So if you look at that, they're actually really simple, common problems that are fixable by pretty much any personal trainer. You as a personal trainer right now watching this video, you have all the knowledge to help the everyday person improve their health and performance. So you shouldn't have imposter syndrome, you're not standing in front of an audience of Ben Coombers. You're not there to impress me or show me that you know your stuff.
You're probably there to show the every day guy and girl, that's struggling with their health and fitness, how to live a better healthier life. The reason I bring this up is public speaking is an amazing way to build your brand locally and nationally. Think if over the next three months you committed to doing a talk in a local environment every week, that's 12 public talks and let's say each of those talks, you've got 25 people to come to that talk.
So let's say you were going to do a 45 minute health and performance seminar with a 15 minute Q and A and you went to local sports teams, you went to local business owners, you went and spoke to cafe and restaurant owners. You went and spoke to like local charity groups, you went and maybe sport spoke to like local business groups like breakfast meetings, women's institute get togethers, which are quite popular.
You went and found these groups of people and said, "Hey I've got a great talk. Is free, it's only 45 minutes with a 15 minute Q and A. It's all on health performance and wellbeing. Would you mind if I came and did a talk with you?" So that's 12 times 25 people, how much of a positive impact do you think that would have on your business? It doesn't need to be complicated, you could go in with literally a whiteboard and just have eight key topics on it and just go through them.
Go through them, sleep, nutrition, lifestyle, training, hydration, supplements, mindset. You could just have it written on a board and talk about it. The reality is if I said, "Tell me about how to build a good exercise plan." You could probably spit ball for five, 10 minutes on doing that.
So the chances are you could do it really simply with a whiteboard, or you can have a really simple presentation if it would make you feel more confident, or it might be that you have a leaflet and the leaflet forms the basis of your presentations. So you give the leaflet to everyone in the audience and you say, "Hey, look on your leaflet point, number one." And you start talking about it and maybe they fill in the leaflet as they go, it's a bit of an interactive seminar. Public speaking, please trust me, is incredible for your business. You don't have to be this standout, stellar public performer to do it. I started out just in everyday local gyms with a group of 15, 20, 25 people in front of me and I just spoke from the heart. I spoke passionately, I tried to help, I tried to educate. I was humble, I was compassionate.
I didn't stand there and try and say that I knew it all and I was some kind of expert because I'm not, but what I did do is to stand up in front of people. Turn up and be willing to help and educate and it absolutely blew up my business. It will be nerve wrecking the first time you do it, there's no way around that. The first time you write your article the first time you do a personal training session. The first time you do anything, you're nervous, you want to improve.
Public speaking is just the same, I wish more personal trainers did it because it's an amazing way to build a business and it doesn't have to be scary. Just you, 20 people in a room and you're just helping them through everyday health and fitness problems and standing there compassionately saying, "Hey, I'm here to help. Let's chat, let's move you forward from today and at the end of this, if I can help you, then I'm a local personal trainer and feel free to get in touch." And that's sometimes all it needs to be.
So have a little think about that, I absolutely love public speaking, I didn't always love it. I found it nerve wrecking like everyone else, but over time and with practice, I saw the massive impact it had on my business and now I love doing it, because I love seeing how excited people get and how much change and momentum I can give people as a result of me standing in front of someone and just giving them a bit of advice for 45 to 60 minutes. So if you've ever had an inkling for public speaking, please go and do it. Be confident in yourself, be confident that you can help the person in front of you go and make those connections to do the talks.
