BEHIND THE MIKE

WPart 2 of 4

hen I mentor students of the art of professional speaking, early on in the process I hammer away at one major point—be different.

Being different can be as simple as being odd, exclusive, unique, distinctive, rare, exceptional, remarkable, outstanding… even perplexing. Why? The only way you can bloom is to become the special flower the audience selects.

I submit to you that the thousands of speeches I have been invited to deliver over the years was not because I was selected. Rather, others were eliminated. The same argument could be made for every speech contest I ever won. They were not selecting a winner; they were eliminating losers.

Conclusion? You have to find a way to be odd, to be different, to stand out. I studied everything others were doing and I sought to be different. The year I won the World Championship of Public Speaking for Toastmasters in 1978, I watched eight other speakers stand stationary behind the lectern. I immediately made a conscious decision to move around the stage.

There are multiple ways to be the “other” guy on the platform. Your story could be a unique, one-of-a-kind story. My good friend W. Mitchell, CSP, CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame, tells the story of the tragedy of his life, burning 90% of his body following a motorcycle accident and then paralyzing himself in a plane crash that put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. His message of hope is borne out of his unique story.

Another dear friend Jerry Coffey, CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame, was a prisoner of war who survived seven years in the “Hanoi Hilton” after being shot down during the Vietnam War. Both these men lived their unique stories and have made a handsome living on the platform for decades.

Since yours truly has not had those unique experiences, I had to find other ways to be odd, to be unique.

I was taking my kids through Disney World in the 70s and I noticed they were showing pictures of them as we exited the ride. I thought to myself, I could use that.

So I went to the folks behind the scenes at Disney and asked how they did it. His answer was “magnificently,” which was not exactly the answer I was looking for. I wanted to know how he did it. They were using video cameras and I asked if there was a technology I could use. He turned me on to Polaroid instant development slides.

He asked me why I wanted to know and I explained I had this vision of me taking pictures of my audience members during the cocktail party and then using them in my speech minutes later.

Typically I could shoot five rolls of film, develop it in 60 seconds and mount the photos into slides in two 80-count slide trays. At the end of my speech, I would say… “Now ladies and gentlemen… stop, look, listen and enjoy as I share this final gift of love from me to you.”

The pictures of my audience members would rapidly hit the silver screen. I utilized a dissolve unit to move from projector A to B. As the slides appeared, motivational music would play. Audience members were generally in tears at the conclusion of the five minute show which I called “Visual Extravaganza.”

For decades, I made a handsome living off this one unique aspect of professional speaking, all because I sought a way to be different. Today, any kid with a cell phone could do what I was doing back in the 70s but I was the first to do it, which made me unique, odd and different.

Did this mean I did not have to be a good speaker as well? Of course not. This was the icing on the cake, the thing that made me special among my competition.

(Next week: Part 3 of The Tricks of the Speaking Trade)

Michael Aun is a contributing author to the 26-Volume Series, “Build A Better You, Starting Now!” (Vol. 5)