Find Your Communication Role Models

Who are your communication idols? You need to have role models. Talk to any great author, any prize winning novelist, and they can tell you, well, here are my top 10 favorite novelists. Here are the people I read. Here are the people I find inspiration from. If you want to be a great communicator, you need to have role models. Not because you're going to imitate everything they do, but because you will get inspiration from them and you will learn from them. Quite often there are certain things we think are really important about communication. But when we look at communicators we admire the most, they're not doing it. Some people erroneously believe they need a bigger vocabulary to be a great communicator. And yet they tell me they love Bill Clinton as a speaker. And I tell them, look at his best speeches that you love and admire. He's not using big words. That's not his secret. Sometimes people tell me they want to come across more professional. They want to stop moving their hands. And I say, well, look at Oprah Winfrey. You tell me you love her. When she's speaking, her hands move, her body moves. So find your role models. Watch them regularly. Find them on YouTube to look at some of their best speeches. Stay immersed in the world of great communication. I appreciate you watching and listening to this podcast. That's great. I'm hoping I'm one of your role models, but don't limit it to me. Find people in your industry. Find people in the entertainment world, perhaps movie stars. You might have loved Charlton Heston and his role as a spokesperson for various public policy issues. You might love George Clooney or Angelina Jolie for their activism. Find your role models. Study them. Figure out what about it you like in that they're doing and see if you can do some of it yourself.