Success is subjective. It looks different for everybody. It feels different to everybody. There are people who want to be millionaires, drive multiple cars and have the fanciest house. At one point in time, that’s how I thought of success. Anything short of that picture just wouldn’t cut it. There are others who simply want to be happy. Their happiness doesn’t equate to the material things, but it does mean being in a place where they are comfortable and can do what they want. Both positions are one and the same, but the break down looks different. As a Public Speaker, what does success look like to you? You work hard to prepare a great talk and you are ready to present it. But have you thought about what success would look like after you leave the stage? Have you thought about what you want the outcome for you and your audience to be? I’ll go ahead and state the obvious, it can look different for each speaker.

Anytime I want to accomplish something, I visualize it.. over and over again. In an almost obsessive manner, I play the steps that I need to take in my mind over and over again until I make it happen. Personally, I visualize my success on the stage in multiple ways. First, I visualize me making an impact on individuals in the crowd, not the crowd as a whole. I learned early on that the goal shouldn’t be to please everyone, because that’s impossible. There will always be people who don’t agree with you or find something that you could have said or done better. But each time I take the stage, I have the opportunity to impact, at the minimum, one life. If I can make that impact on one person, then that’s good enough for me. Now my impact is usually bigger, but there may be some days when my audience is tougher than usual. But that’s ok, because I’ve already visualized what success looks like for me in this setting.

Maybe you’re promoting your business. Success may be getting a certain number of referrals and clients after your talk. If you are selling a product, then success may be you selling 100 of the product after your talk. If you are a woman talking about the signs of breast cancer, then you may gauge your success by getting a certain amount of women to sign up for a mammogram. As you see, depending on the scenario, your success can look different. But no matter what, it only helps you if you take some time to visualize exactly what you want your success to look like. Just think, if you don’t visualize your success, you might well be shooting in the dark. You would have no real gauge on if you met your goal or not.

Visualizing your success is the easiest way to boost your confidence. It’s similar to being your own hype-man or hype-woman. Yes, you may have the support of people who care about you and want to see you succeed, but at the end of the day you have to believe in yourself the most! Simply imagining how you want your audience to react to your words can go a long way with how you go about shaping your talk. Do you expect them to implement your message into their own lives? Do you want them to spread the word with other colleagues? If so, you can even write it down. Many people use vision boards to store the goals, but you can also use vision boards to store your success in pictures… words.. or whatever communication you choose. You can hang the vision board in your office or living room and let that be a constant reminder of what you are aiming for when you are on the stage.

At the end of the day, preparing to speak is a tedious process. Most of your time may be spent writing words, preparing a presentation and practicing. But please take some time to visualize a successful outcome. In the midst of preparing your next talk, take a few seconds and visualize the final moments as you deliver your last words. Think of your movement and how you take a few seconds longer that normal to take a look into a crowd. Now it’s all over and you are receiving a standing ovation. I’d say that’s the proper way to vision yourself going out!

Make your next presentation, your best presentation!

Sincerely,

Julian A. Leonard
(Founder of The JLeonard Group LLC)

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