Speak From Your Heart To Capture Their Heart

Tonight I am delivering another presentation on the Ripple concept and actually facilitating a modified version of my 8 Minute Ripple Connection Event. I am very excited to have the opportunity to speak to the Austin chapter of the International Special Events Society (ISES) and give my take on a better way to network. In fact, if successful, I hope to leave this particular audience with a deeper more meaningful appreciation of my tag line - Stop Networking. Start Connecting.

I was walking with my oldest son Zachary recently who, by the way, thinks that any day I am going to become super rich and famous and be known all over the world because I speak and write book(s). Anyway during our little walk to the park he asked me how I can find the "courage" (I was impressed with his word selection) to get up and speak in front of so many people "all the time." He said he would be scared to do it. Though I appreciated his perception that I was speaking all the time (I am not...wish I was doing more actually), I stopped and tried to imagine things from his nine year old little shoes. Here's his dad that seems to be gone a lot speaking, traveling, selling books, doing something that for a nine year must be pretty cool but frightening at the same time.

I smiled and revealed to him that I do get scared almost every single time I get in front of an audience. He seemed to really like that...like somehow it made me more like him - which is truer than one could imagine. I told him that I am passionate about helping people understand and maybe (hopefully) learn something from my message. Though I am always "scared" each time I get the opportunity to present somewhere, I try and always remain true to the message in my heart and speak from there.

"You mean you just speak from your heart?" (I wish I had a picture to adequately show his little face of amazement at that moment.)

"Yes I do. And when people do that you capture a lot of hearts a long the way."

"You know dad maybe that's why people like you. And when they like you you realize there's nothing to be scared about. Right?"

"Right."

With that he gave me a huge hug as if to tell me he understood and he was off. At that point in the conversation the jungle gym seemed to be calling his name. Serious talk time was over and now he needed to go play and terrorize his little brother Josh.

It wasn't until hours later that I realized Zach was trying to get to know more about me. It wasn't necessarily just a father son kind of exchange but he was doing exactly what he sees me doing with others. He was finding his way to find a connection point with me. My fear and his perceived fear of getting up and speaking, whether in front of a conference or the kids in his third grade class sort of seemed the same. He seemed to like that.

Now I may never be rich nor famous outside of the minds of my two little boys but that's okay by me. I do what I do because I love it and hopefully I inspire some folks along the way. At the bare minimum, I just hope that I keep inspiring two little boys to reach for their dreams because no matter how far out of reach they might seem, they are definitely never out of reach. The life I lead is proof of that!

Ripple On!!!