Adam Markel says becoming an influential speaker means practicing through early failure, shifting from ego to service, and accepting hard feedback. A mentor's critique once rattled him so badly he forgot his children's names, but it forced him to examine why he was speaking and ultimately made him vulnerable on stage.
Chapters
Unfortunately for you, you weren't born this awesome. It took work, it took struggle, it took pain, it took tears. It took a lot of pivots and a lot of resistance. And you are one of the most charismatic, actionable, vulnerable speakers that exists. But it takes a special type of person or a tool set that can be learned to tap into that. So how do you. Or how did you. Or how can anybody become that charismatic speaker, vulnerable, authentic, connected, share their message and pivot into any of that?
Yeah, the first answer is practice. I mean, you learn by doing. That's the way it is. And sometimes what we do at the beginning of anything, whether we're learning how to drive or learning how to walk, we fall down a lot. We make a lot of mistakes. We're really shitty at it. Right? We suck. And to be able to be great at anything, you have to be able to endure sucking at it for some time. And. And if that's going to. If that's going to wipe you out, like, I'll never forget that the guy that was my mentor, the one that I was modeling my speaking career after, looked at me one day and he asked me a question. He said to me, first of all, he was telling me I was boring, and I was putting him to sleep, and I sucked. And in the midst of that, that. That assault on my ego, he asked me to talk about my kids. And I'll never forget this, because it was wild. They were filming, and it was a small, little room, and he's just, like, berating me with. With insults. And he then stopped and asked me to talk about my family. And in that moment, I realized that I could barely remember the names. I could barely remember the names of my own children. I was so rattled, and I left that kind of situation that they was just sort of a pseudo audition, thinking that my pivot was over, thinking that what I wanted to do with the next stage of my life was never going to work out because I sucked. I was boring. And that was a low point. It was a moment where I had to ask myself, what am I doing this for? Am I doing this to feel better about myself? Am I doing this for my ego or something else? Or am I doing it because I'm called to do it? And the truth of the matter is, to answer your question, you want to be a great speaker. You want to be a great influence in the world. It can never be about you. It always has to be about them, about the people that you wish to serve, that community that you want to speak to. And then when it's not about you, all the little insecurities, all the little voice things that our minds tell us about, how we are not qualified and we're not an expert or we're not good enough or not worthy enough, those little voices disappear just because you're in full service from your heart. And when I got that, and I had to get that that day, because to get up the next morning and stay on my track, stay on my pivot, even though somebody was telling me I sucked, meant that there had to be a bigger purpose behind what I was doing. And that was a big moment. And I'd say that anybody that's interested in being a speaker or a facilitator or trainer, you're going to have to go through that time, that moment where you realize you're not very good at this thing and there's a lot of work still to do. And then you're going to take a deep breath and realize that there's a bigger purpose for what you're doing. And then you'll be open to the guidance. And then before you know it, you'll step on stage, you'll be talking in some group, and you realize that you're inspiring yourself with what you're saying. You know, the tears are well up in your eyes, and you go, wow, this is incredible. And that'll be a moment for you.
