Remember the other week when I told you that you shouldn’t try to mimic your favorite speakers on stage? Well, that really wasn’t the best advice I’ve ever given.
Now, I still stand 100% by that comment- you shouldn’t try to sound exactly like Rune Evensen, Dani Johnson or Tony Robbins…even though they are each incredibly successful speakers in their own rights. We would all be lucky to have the amount of success that these people have had, but we still can’t copy their on-stage personas and expect to be successful.
Why?
Have you ever watched the comedy series Seinfeld? If so, then you inevitably remember Kramer, who was played by actor Michael Richards. At one point in the 1980’s, Kramer was one of the most recognizable celebrities in Hollywood because he was so likably unique. In fact, he was so popular that other sitcoms tried to add in over the top, Kramer-like characters…but they all failed. Because there’s only enough room for one Kramer on television, and only one actor out there that could pull off that level of insanity to such a tee.
The exact same thing can be said about your speaking career- you can’t be the next Rune Everson. But you can certainly learn from some of the things that he does well and incorporate it into your own personal style…which is why we study other professional speakers.
In fact, you can learn just as much as a bad performance than you can from a good one, just by paying attention to where that person lost the crowd and thinking about what they could have done differently to achieve better results. So study the masters…and study the amateurs…and find your unique stage presence somewhere in-between.