One of my favourite questions is “How much better can I make this?” whatever “this” is. Whether it’s a public engagement, an event, a speech or a project team, realizing the potential of any opportunity is one of my passions and areas of professional expertise.
So “How much better can I make this?” is a question that I also need to apply to me. How much better can I get at consulting, facilitating and professional speaking?
I’ve been delivering speeches and presentations since I was a kid. It has always been a significant part of the work I do and I am grateful for the positive responses that I receive at the end of a speech.
But there is always room for improvement, for learning from another’s experience and for exploring our potential to the point where we dare to suck.
“Daring to suck” is a term that life coach Keri-Anne Livingstone has embraced for 2013. She’s also happens to be my cousin, so who else would I select for an opportunity to dare to suck?
Last week Keri-Anne and I attended the always-awesome Hugh Culver’s “Advanced Speakers Academy”. We joined 11 other people who are all at various stages of their speaking careers and together we dared to suck.
Over two intense days, Hugh shared great strategies for improving both our presentation and business skills as professional speakers. But best of all, he pushed us to further uncover our potential as storytellers.
We focused much time on our storytelling skills. And people dug deep. I watched every participant push themselves, try something new, bring forward an emotional story, pinpoint the lesson from that story and share it with passion and impact. And we had to do it in under three minutes.
It was a challenging process as each of us worked to pare down our words, refine the story and then bring it on home with an insightful and inspiring message. As professional speakers, that’s what we’re supposed to do. But it’s not as easy as it may look. Because even professionals get nervous and shy and second-guess the value of what we are saying.
Keri-Anne was one of the first people to share a story. She had less experience in the room than most. She spoke about daring to suck and knocked it out of the park. She inspired the rest of us to dare to suck and to push ourselves further, resulting in huge improvements over two days.
In daring to suck, we explored and discovered more of our potential and left with greater skills and confidence as the reward.
Embracing and exploring our potential is a life-long endeavour. Each time I push myself to explore my potential more deeply, I am always surprised and delighted at what I discover. It makes me braver and more open and excited about reaching my next level of potential. And that is worth daring to suck.
So go on, dare to suck and discover the fabulousness of your potential.
~ Maureen Douglas, CPF-IAF
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