Today we're tackling the challenge many speakers face. That voice inside your head that says, You're not good enough. Welcome back to the Profitable Speaking Podcast. In a market full of speakers, it's easy to compare yourself, feel envy, and start doubting your place on stage. But the truth is, confidence doesn't come from copying others. It comes from owning your story, your style, and your unique value. It comes from thinking about who you are and believing in yourself. In this episode, I'm going to talk about how to quiet your inner critic, turn comparison into fuel to drive you, and stand out by being unapologetically yourself. Before we get subscribed, please make sure you hit the subscribe so that you never miss an episode and share this with a friend who's building their speaking career as well. So the first thing I want to talk about is the comparison trap. Social media highlights only wins. So when you're watching social media, all you see is other speakers showing their fantastic successes. But it never ever shows you the real struggles behind what they do on a day-to-day basis when they're not on stage, let alone what happens behind the scenes when they arrive at events or when they get off stage. I've known many speakers who throw up before they go on stage every time, even after 20 years of speaking. Now, personally, that doesn't happen to me, but it happens to them. So just because they look really great on stage and in their social media profile and everything does not mean that they're not going through a lot of things inside their head. You can't compare your skill level to someone you see on stage or in social media. Yes, it's fair to say, oh, I like what they're doing and how great they are at it, but you have to realize that you're ignoring years of practice that they have may have put into that. And even the hours and hours and hours of practice they may have put in just before that one speech that you're seeing. Your inner critic will grow louder when you measure yourself against the wrong standard. So don't compare yourself to other speakers. Compare what you're doing, compare how you're doing it, but don't compare yourself to them. You're unique. You're different. You're never going to be like them. I found this out myself. Throughout my life as a speaker, I've worked with some amazing speakers. And I always look at them and think, oh, I wish I could be more like them. But I can't. I can inherit some of the skills and I can practice those, but I can't be them. They are them. They've got their own stories, their own mannerisms, all sorts of things that I will never have because I'm not them. And that's the way it is. Second thing is reframing the market. Often we look at the market and we see that there's lots of people talking about what we talk about, are in business doing what we do. But a crowded market actually shows that there's demand and opportunity there for someone else to step in, especially if you're different. Leadership, for example, is a topic, you know, it's been around for a long time, and there's lots of people who talk about leadership, but they all talk about it in different ways. I talk about it from the perspective of a firefighter and leadership. Other people talk about it from a military perspective or from a business perspective. But understand that your perspective is what makes a difference and why people might want to hire you. They might have a group of people that they bring in a leadership speaker for every year. And the topic's always the same. Become a better leader. But how you deliver that, the stories you tell may just be the ones that reach certain people in that room. So a crowded market always shows that there's place for more. And if you look in the business world, there is thousands of businesses that are duplicative. For example, carpet cleaners. How many carpet cleaners can you find when you search online? Lots, I bet. And yet every day, someone will go out and buy the equipment to start cleaning carpets. Because there's always room for more. A crowded market is a sign of opportunity. Remember, audiences also resonate with different voices. So there's room for all styles. Your style might not resonate with a corporate audience, and yet it may resonate with small business or women or men or children or whatever. It depends on your audience. You must understand that even though you are different and you are talking about the same topic in inverted comments, your audience may be different because of the way that you resonate with them. When you're looking at the opportunities in the market, instead of scarcity, think abundance. There's more events, more niches, and more openings all the time, and especially with the world online opening up. You don't have to be a speaker on stage. Take my word for it. I love being on stage, but I also love being on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram and all those places where I can reach audiences that I would never reach from a stage because they wouldn't come to a conference, or they could be in another country entirely from me. So remember, don't think scarcity. It's all about abundance. The trick is finding your audience, resonating with them, and building your audience for what it is that you talk about. Make sure that you own your story. Personal experiences create emotional connections that facts can't. When we tell stories, we connect with our audience. I found this very hard to do, and I've mentioned this previously in the podcast. When I talk about technology, trying to tell stories is really hard. When I talk about leadership, it's easy because there's lots of stories. Sometimes we can have these mental blanks, but the fact of the matter is there's always a way to build a story into something. And those stories are no one else's stories. I've been to fires, for example, as a firefighter, and what I saw standing next to someone else was entirely different to what they saw because of how they perceived the situation compared to how I perceive the situation. So even if you're speaking at the same conference as someone who's telling the same story as you, they will tell it differently. So remember your personal experience is what creates emotion and makes those connections. It also makes the lessons memorable and relatable because the way you tell the story might stick in people's heads. So don't let the critic inside you tell you that your stories aren't good enough or that you're not going to be able to connect with this audience. It's not true. Keep that inner critic at bay by telling your stories your way and make them relatable. Remember, no one else has experienced what you've experienced the way you've experienced it. And that makes you very unique. Often my inner critic certainly rears its head when it comes to envy. I really do. But that's not fair. They've worked hard to get where they are. So turn your envy into insights. Study what those successful speakers are doing, their topics, their delivery, their marketing, all those sorts of things. You can learn from that. Don't just get envious and go, oh, I hate them because they're so much better than me. Study them, learn from them. This is the only way that you can get power back off that situation. Envy will override you and will then cause anxiety and depression and all sorts of other things. So being envious while it is an emotion we all have is not a good one to be sitting in. Use your envy as a signal for areas that you'd like to grow in. More often than not, the reason you're envious is because you're lacking in that area. For example, you might see someone's show reel and you think, oh, I wish my showreel looked like that. In your own words, you're saying your showreel could be better. So maybe shoot a new one or get it recut by a professional editor. There's so many things you can do. Look at what they're doing and let their wins prove what's possible for you. Because if they can do it, you can do it. Might not do it in the same way, you might not do it in front of the same audience, but it can be done. One of the things I am very envious of is when I see some of the American speakers who get up there and they have the massive video presentations before they walk on stage. And it really sets them up. And I would love that. And I can get that done easily enough. But the problem is that the generally the audiences that I speak in front of half the time don't even have a video projector, let alone have a huge stage like I might get if I was overseas. So while it'd be really amazing and I think it's incredible and all those sorts of things, it's probably not all that useful to me. So think about it, look at their wins, and think about how you might be able to do it and how the possibilities it might open. You need to be continuously building your confidence. It's so true. Daily reflection on what you're doing resets your mindset. Now, some people journal, some people use affirmations, some people use meditation. It's up to you what you do. I can't journal or anything like that. My ADHD takes control and I last about three days. But you might be really good at journaling, in which case it's great. I still think the best thing that I ever did was to try and list five things I want to do tomorrow before I go to bed at night. Then they're done when I get up the next morning. Now, remembering to do those five things as well, that's a whole nother issue for me. But when I do that, I find that that works. It gives me a bit of time of reflection. I write my five things down, and the next morning when I get up, I just open my book and off I go, or open my app and I'm ready to go. Rehearsal also reduces nerves, and that will build your confidence. Make sure you rehearse properly, make sure you rehearse over and over. Don't just shortcut. I've done it. And the speech is never as good as if I rehearsed it. Because when you rehearse it, you lock the elements into your head and you get a bit of a pattern, and you know when the next slide comes up what that means, and so on and so forth. Remember, confidence compounds. Each small success will strengthen your belief in yourself and it will shut that inner critic down. You'll get to the stage where you are like myself and many other speakers, where if I was asked to speak tomorrow, I would happily stand on a stage. In fact, if you asked me to speak in 10 minutes, I would happily stand on a stage and speak for 45 minutes for you. I love being up there because my confidence is at a level where I am comfortable in my own knowledge and my own ability as a speaker. Now, it might not be as fancy as if I'd really practiced, but I could do it. Originality through authenticity. Oh, this is a great one. Speaking in your own voice creates trust and credibility. People are looking to hear from you. You're the person in front of the room, you're the person on stage, you're the person on YouTube. They're looking to you. So use your own voice. Speak your own way. This podcast is an example of me just being me and speaking to you through these headphones. Or however you're listening to me. It's my way of talking. I'm not the greatest orator in the world. I'm not the most amazing speaker in the world. But I'm honest and I'm truthful, and this is what you get when you get me. So hopefully you're enjoying it. Remember, audiences prefer real connection over a polished imitation of yourself. You can get super slick in your presentation, but it's not the same as being you. Audiences will be able to tell that because one, they might have met you before you've gone on stage, or two, they're going to meet you when you come off stage. And I've seen this many times with some amazing speakers on stage. They come off stage and they are not the same person. And I've told this story many times that I have had a speaker who I had great respect for, thought was an amazing speaker, but didn't personally know them. I had the opportunity to speak on the same stage as them. And afterwards, I got off stage and went into the green room, and they were not that person they were on stage. In fact, they were a very nasty person, and they weren't someone that I wanted anything to do with ever again. And I will never listen to their content again, which is really sad because their content was good. Problem was it was fake. It was horrible. It was just an imitation of a real person. Remember, trends fade. So your values and your personality will endure in the market, even when you're changing topics and talking about different things to different mixed audiences. It's those things that'll shine through. Now the last thing I want to cover was serving versus competing. And this is a big one as a speaker. I know as a member of Professional Speakers Australia and the Virtual Speakers Association International that serving people is a big part of what we do. We're there to help each other and we're there to help our audiences succeed. We're not there to show how good we are. That is not the reason you're on stage. You've been brought in to help the audience get better at something. And you need to keep that at the forefront of your mind because if you're not doing that, you're failing. A bit like a teacher. A teacher is in front of a class to teach something. If you teach a concept and then when you go to the test, the whole class fails, then it's not the class that failed. It is you as the teacher that failed. It's your teaching that needs to improve. It's not the children or the students in the class. It's the same when you're on stage. Okay. You need to look at serving. So shift your focus from things like how do I win this gig to how can I help this audience? So when you write your proposals, when you're talking to the people in charge of the conference, that you're talking about how you can help the audience. What do they need? What do you want me to say? How do they, you know, where their problems lie, and all those sorts of things. So change your focus away from yourself to your audience. Your service mindset will help you build long-term relationships and it will get you those referrals. When you work well with speaker bookers and organizations, they'll book you again and they'll refer you on to their friends. And the people in the room will mention you to the other people when they're looking for a speaker. Your fulfillment as a speaker will grow when impact matters more than comparison. Your impact is the most important thing that you can offer your audience, that you can change their thinking, that you can change their life in just some small way. I often say if I go to a conference and I get one zinger out of the whole conference, it could be well and truly worthwhile the money I paid to go. So that one thing that you say that could impact that one person in the audience could change their business forever. It could be worth millions of dollars to them. So you need to keep working on your inner confidence. It's so important. But believing in yourself is a major part of being a speaker. And with practice and getting up there and thinking about your audience and getting out and having a go, you're going to find your ways to silence your inner critic. Thanks for listening to the Profitable Speaking Podcast. If today helped you in any way, please hit subscribe and share it with a fellow speaker and leave a quick review. It really helps me reach more people. And don't forget to grab a copy of my new book, Microcourse Profits, on Amazon. It shows you how to turn your expertise as a speaker into a microcourses that you can quickly sell and set yourself up as an authority fast. You need multiple streams of income, and microcourses are the way to go. I'll see you in the next episode.