Next level communicators are more excited about what they are talking about than talking.
Next level communicators are more excited about what they are talking about than talking.
I just got back from a preaching conference, where the presenter right before me is a legend in the church world. Almost fifty years ago he started a church, and experienced great success as thousands eventually joined. A major part of what God used to grow the church was his ability as a next level communicator. Given all this, you can imagine my surprise when he spent his whole session with us talking about how we make too big of a deal out of public speaking, and how he has never cared for his role as a communicator. Did I mention this was a preaching conference? If you’ve heard him speak you would definitely say he overstated his point about not being that great of a public speaker, but on the other hand I wouldn’t use words like, “dynamic,” to describe him. So why did thousands of people jam into his church on weekends to hear him? What makes him a next level, transformational communicator is you always got the sense that he cared far more about what he was talking about than the fact he was talking. Boy, did I need this reminder.
As communicators we are delivering a message in the hopes of persuading our audience. We want to move people in a certain direction, and the art of communication is how we do that. But when we become more obsessed with communicating, than what we are communicating about, we will dilute the power of our message. For example, if you are a Christian and you are looking to point people to Christ in your message, the best way to do that is for people to see you really love Jesus. If you are in tech, making a presentation about the usefulness of artificial intelligence, the best way to persuade people is for them to feel you are all in on AI. If you are in sales, and want your audience to invest in your product, then the crowd must sense from you how this product has transformed your life. Never forget, moved people move people.
Love the art of communicating, just love it less than what you are talking about.
So how do we keep what we are talking about above talking? I have found these things to be helpful:
Engage your message by way of life. If Jesus is the core of what you are talking about, then he must be the core of how we live. Lose that and you lose transformational effectiveness as a communicator. The same is true across the board. If your message is justice oriented, then you need to be all in on justice not just on the stage, but off the stage. If your message is about the power of forgiveness, then this must be a theme of your life. Sure, you can fake it for a while, but our audience is far more perceptive than we think. As the saying goes, “real recognizes real”.
Say, “no”. Sometimes the best thing we can do as communicators is to turn down speaking engagements because what we are being asked to speak on is just not in our hearts.
Write fresh messages. I do a bit of conference speaking, and sometimes a message resonates so much with an audience, I will repeat it over and over again. If I’m not careful I can drift into autopilot as I’m speaking and come across as very mechanical. So to keep my own soul from getting stale, I need to go through the exercise of writing fresh messages around the same theme. When I do this, it’s amazing how much more engaged my heart is with the talk, and I guarantee you the audience feels that.
Be honest. Authenticity is some of our best currency as communicators. Being honest about failures, real about where you missed it, will establish a connection with an audience and better position you to move them, than feigning expertise. When Korie and I speak together on marriage, we are always quick to point out where we missed it, and afterwards we hear more about how those moments resonated with our audience than when we got it right. When we are honest about our own misses it keeps the focus on the message, and not on how good we are.
