During the baseball banquet of my senior year in high school, I was given the duty of presenting our appreciation gifts to the coaches. I was chosen because I was our co-captain and starting catcher, not because I was a strong public speaker. In fact, I had never spoken in public before. Today, I’m paid to speak in front of audiences of hundreds of strangers … and I’m pretty good. That night, though, I had no idea what I was doing. However, something happened during my five minute presentation that forever changed my ability to speak in public and altered the course of my career.
At the beginning of that baseball season, our coaches required everyone to wear protective athletic cups. As a catcher, I always wore a cup, but this new policy was going to be a heck of a change for many of the other players on our team. It was sort of a big deal for a week or so, and then it died down… until our banquet four months later.
In preparing my presentation, I wanted to open with a story to get everyone laughing, and I came up with an amazing idea. I attached half a peanut shell to a rubber band and gave it to the coaches in a gift-wrapped box. At the beginning of my speech, I told the “required cup” story with the audience of parents, teachers, girlfriends, and anyone else that attended. I then shared with the audience that we thought it would be a good idea for the coaches to wear cups next year. In fact, we thought it was such a good idea that we bought them custom-fitted cups. At about that exact time, the three coaches had opened their boxes and were holding up the peanut shells with the rubber bands. And that’s when it happened. That’s when my speaking career took off. That’s when I heard it…
The audience starting laughing hysterically. The coaches were laughing, too. I had no idea what I was doing, but I didn’t realize my ignorance. All I knew was that I was hilarious and motivational and inspiring. I had this group in my palm. After the laughter subsided, I cruised through the serious part of my speech with a confident and conversational tone that impacted everyone in the audience. It was awesome, and I couldn’t wait to speak again.
That night I gained confidence that I was a strong public speaker. Reflecting on that evening, I realize now that parents will laugh at anything. Even back then, in the late 1980s (although we generation x’ers act like nothing was ever given to us). As long as a teenager doesn’t throw up on themselves, parents will appear to be inspired. I didn’t realize that. I just knew that I was good … g – o – o – o – d – and that’s half the battle. However false my confidence was, I had confidence that I was a good speaker. I then took a couple speaking classes in college, spoke heavily in my fraternity and other campus organizations, joined an advance Toastmasters club when I moved to Orlando, and have continued honing my craft virtually every week since then.
Think about this story for a minute. What if those parents didn’t laugh? What if they judged me by my raw, below average speaking abilities and somewhat inappropriate joke? What if they acted indifferent instead of engaged? This might sound a bit extreme, but if that happened, I don’t think speaking would be part of my business today. Seriously, their feedback made that much of an impression on me.
What kind of impression are you leaving on people? Someone told my mom that she couldn’t do math when she was in grade school, and she still believes that at 82. My mom thinks analytically about everything. She can solve puzzles with the best of them. She is a math person, but never even made it to algebra because someone put a label on a little girl. A group of parents and coaches put a label on me almost 30 years ago that I was a good public speaker, and because of that I’m enjoying a career that I love.
What labels are you making today? Think about this as you pass by dozens of opportunities to make those positive impacts and change lives. Extreme? Maybe, but I don’t think so.
