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The best advice came from the legendary actor the late Sir John Mills, who I sat next to backstage at a lecture we were doing together. He told me he considered the key to public speaking to be this: “Be sincere, be brief, be seated.”
Inspired words. And it changed the way I spoke publicly from then on. Keep it short. Keep it from the heart.
Men tend to think that they have to be funny, witty, or incisive onstage. You don’t. You just have to be honest. If you can be intimate and give the inside story--emotions, doubts, struggles, fears, the lot--then people will respond.
I went on to give thanks all around the world to some of the biggest corporations in business--and I always tried to live by that. Make it personal, and people will stand beside you.
As I started to do bigger and bigger events for companies, I wrongly assumed that I should, in turn, start to look much smarter and speak more “corporately.” I was dead wrong--and I learned that fast. When we pretend, people get bored.
But stay yourself, talk intimately, and keep the message simple, and it doesn’t matter what the hell you wear.
It does, though, take courage, in front of five thousand people, to open yourself up and say you really struggle with self-doubt. Especially when you are meant to be there as a motivational speaker.
But if you keep it real, then you give people something real to take away.
“If he can, then so can I” is always going to be a powerful message. For kids, for businessmen--and for aspiring adventurers.
I really am pretty average. I promise you. Ask Shara…ask Hugo.
I am ordinary, but I am determined.
I did, though--as the corporation started to pay me more--begin to doubt whether I was really worth the money. It all seemed kind of weird to me. I mean, was my talk a hundred times better now than the one I gave in the Drakensberg Mountains?
No.
But on the other hand, if you can help people feel stronger and more capable because of what you tell them, then it becomes worthwhile for companies in ways that are impossible to quantify.
If that wasn’t true, then I wouldn’t get asked to speak so often, still to this day.
And the story of Everest--a mountain, like life, and like business--is always going to work as a metaphor. You have got to work together, work hard, and go the extra mile. Look after each other, be ambitious, and take calculated, well-timed risks.
Give your heart to the goal, and it will repay you.
Now, are we talking business or climbing?
That’s what I mean.
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