Important Lessons from the National Speakers Association

Important lessons from the National Speakers Association.

I have just returned from the annual convention of the National Speakers Association. Those four days to me are magic because I not only meet my dear friends in the speaking profession but also some of the best speakers in the world.

I was very happy that Frances Rios, President of Frances Rios Communications attended for the third time in a row. She has a lot of catching up to me, I have attended 20 years in a row, but someday she will.

This is an important lesson, having attended 20 years in a row means that I have invested more than $60,000 these 20 years in order to learn new information, re learn lessons that we may have forgotten, and network with people that are in the business and that if they see you consistently, they will assume that you are dependable and they will refer business to you.

In the old days, someone went to school, graduated, got married, found a job, worked 30 or 40 years and retired. 

Now, learning or education is a lifelong process, it ends the day you die.  Very rarely do you go to work for a company and retire many years later from the same company after they give you a party and a gold plated watch. Now you change jobs and often careers several times.  Two thirds of all the people over 65 born in the history of mankind are alive today.

Close to 10,000 people turn 65 every single day in the United States so you can imagine how that change in our society will affect everything from retirement homes, to medical care, housing etc.

In the conference I met the author who wrote the Age Wave, Ken Dychtwaldt. He gave a fascinating speech about all the repercussions of the longevity wave.

I had always defined success as the difference between where you are in life and where you could be.

 In other words, fulfilling your potential.

I love Winston Churchill’s definition of success: Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm and Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts

He, on the other hand, defined success as “different things at different ages” and that makes a lot of sense, think about it.  Success to a toddler is crying and getting mom to feed him or her. Success to a student might be to graduate with a high point average. Success to a 70 year old might be to be able to cure every disease that can present itself.

For all the wonderful English teachers that read this column, an interesting question to pose your students is “what is success for you” or an even better question, “What represents the ideal plan for the next stage of your life”.

Ken told us a story about victims of the Berkeley Oakland Hills fire that had to leave everything behind except what they could fit in the car.  Do you know what they fit in the car?:  Photos of loved ones, movies, DVD’s, albums, in other words things that had meaning for them and nothing to do with material things. So, why this urge to acquire all the material things that you will leave behind?

Another fascinating speaker was Kyle Maynard. He was born a congenital amputee, his arms ending at his elbows and his legs at his knees. He is four feet tall.  But that didn’t stop Kyle from becoming a champion, on the wrestling mat and in his life.  He has learned to live a full and active life. Besides dealing with everyday challenges, he is an excellent student, has impeccable handwriting, and can type fifty words per minute with no fingers. . Through hard work, the support of his family and a coach who designed new wrestling moves like the “jawbreaker” and “buzz saw”, he became one of the top high school wrestlers in Georgia. The fact that he lost the first 35 matches, didn’t derail him from his dream. In 2005, he broke the world record in the modified bench press by lifting 360 pounds, three times his body weight. I am sure that his book “No Excuses” will sell every well.

A competitor to the core, Kyle was determined to succeed as an athlete

Watching him start his speech, standing in front of 1,500 people, with no arms and legs and that aura of self- confidence was an experience in itself.

How many people are afraid of public speaking? How many don’t even dare to speak to a small group, let alone a large audience?  And this man has no problem in doing this.

His book No Excuses which he signed and gave to me I really want to read as soon as I can.

My last comment about the convention has to do with Les Brown, the best African American speaker in the world. He started speaking about motivation and the struggles he has had in life and then started inviting different people that work with him to get up in the stage and talk. That is something that isn’t done in that stage and as a result, some people stood up and left.

It is fascinating to see how anyone’s perception can change when you find out the story behind the story. The reason that Les was inviting some of his students to speak was that the prostate cancer he had some years ago, came back and he now has it in other parts of his body. This means that his chances of surviving this horrible enemy are very slim. He wants to continue leaving a legacy and in order to do it, he is teaching his students to do what he does very well.

Once people found out, immediately they understood why he had behaved the way he had and people stopped criticizing him.  

All in all, the National Speakers Association convention was a success. I also want to announce that Francis Rios and myself will solicit permission from NSA to open a chapter in PR. We need a minimum of 11 speakers to join and 7 will be in the board of directors.