The road to public speaking success is direct.

You’re either an overnight success or you’re not.

At least that’s what some people would have you believe.

They would have you believe that lucky people have a great speaking or presentation idea and smoothly transition this idea into a successful TED talk or keynote speech.

Unfortunately this is not the case. The road to speaking success is indirect, round-about, and frustrating. As a result many people never succeed because they give up before they reach their destination.

The above is summed up beautifully in the following image:

All of those overnight successes that you hear about online actually happen over weeks, months, and years. Setback after setback until eventually the successful speaker reaches their goal, gets the timing just right, and engages their audience.

When a child is learning to walk, the child suffers many failures and setbacks before reaching their goal. The child falls down an uncountable number of times but eventually succeeds. It’s a rare adult that would suffer that many business setbacks and still continue on towards their goal.

When I first started out with public speaking I messed up and embarrassed myself countless times before I finally delivered an engaging talk.  I could easily have thrown in the towel early on. There were times I did give up for a week or so, but I tried again and again. I adjusted slightly again and again. Eventually, I found what worked and I built on it.

The point is, if you want to have success in any area of your life you must accept that you will have setbacks, that everything won’t go to plan.

The 3 Secrets to Superhero Standard Presentations

1. Try
2. Reflect on the successes and failures of your attempt
3. Adjust and try again

It won’t be smooth sailing, despite how much planning you do.

If you keep trying, stay focused on your goals, and learn from the setbacks, you will achieve success.

Reaching success, especially with speaking, means taking a winding, bumpy road. It means sometimes taking the wrong turn. If it was a direct, bump-less road then success would be easy and everyone would get exactly what they wanted.

Persist when the road gets bumpy and you will succeed!