As the some of you may or may not know, a couple weeks ago I started my journey as a public speaker. My first production was a fireside chat with music professional Edwin Cox. Subsequently, this took weeks of preparation. My team drove and flew in from different coasts of the United States to help support me. Regardless, it was a success and here are three things I learnt about putting this together:
1. Communication is key.
The production of our seminar was good, truthfully, it wasn’t great. The team slipped in many ways but at the end of the day I am one hundred percent responsible. There was a miscommunication about the type of audio and light equipment we needed. Unnecessary time and money was spent trying to solve a problem that eventually wasn’t fixed. I realized no matter what things will can always go wrong behind the scenes. However, this taught me that communicaton and following up is a vital necessity to pull off any desired result.
2. Create value beyond for your team beyond work.
My team finished the project unexpectedly full of enthusiasm. I put them in a position to network and meet some big players in the industry. My video guy even said that he was inspired by what I did. By no means I am a big shot, however, he saw that with whatever little resources I had, I accomplished what I set out to do. Furthermore, he realized that he was not doing enough with his own projects and that he needed to do more. In that moment I realized that my responsibility is more than just facilitator. As a leader, my team looked up to me for guidance and self-esteem. It’s a huge responsibility.
3. Big dreams and aspirations come with big consequences.
I sacrificed a lot to achieve this. At times I worried. Many nights I didn’t even know where I would find the resources to pull this off. However, I did it. It was expensive. It took a lot of time and was daunting. Retrospectively, I was proud of myself because ninety-nine percent of people who dream of doing something similar wouldn’t have even taken action of doing something like this. However, I hope by people seeing me implement my dreams they will be inspired to take action toward theirs.
