Investing In Yourself

Hi all!

As most of you know, I conduct a lot of speaker training. Much of it is free (including this blog and my Blog Talk Radio show, Use Your Words), but I’m developing some more teleseminars, conferences, and products.

Can you do me a quick favour? I want to make sure I’m concentrating my efforts on the areas that really interest YOU. So I’ve put together a VERY QUICK survey where you can tell me what you’d like to see. And did I mention it’s VERY QUICK?

Can you take a minute and fill it out? Everyone who does is entered in a contest to win one of my teleseminars for free!

Click Here to take survey!

Thank you so much!

Taking Yourself Seriously

Do you feel called to speak?

Do you feel that God has given you gifts, talents, and a message to share?

If so, that’s wonderful! But here’s a problem that many women in ministry have. They feel called, but they’re also a little embarrassed about it. Who am I to say that I have something special to share? Is it arrogant to think that I’m called to be a speaker? What about my “real” job, or my duties as a wife and a mom? I can’t let speaking interfere in the slightest bit with that, so speaking will always get last place.

I certainly struggle with these things. Finding a balance between my ministry at home and my ministry as I speak is a challenge, because home is my top priority. But I fear that often we diminish our calling too much out of embarrassment, shame, fear, or confusion.

If God is calling you to speak, then embrace it. Recognize it. Or, if you’re honestly not sure (and it’s okay not to be sure!), then pray about it, and decide that you will dedicate a certain amount of time exploring it. If God doesn’t want you to speak, ask Him to close the doors.

When I read Scripture, I see that God steers people that are moving far more often than He steers people that are standing still. Remember Paul, when he was called to go minister in Macedonia? He had prayed, and was heading in the wrong direction when God called him elsewhere. But at least he was heading somewhere! He wasn’t sitting there until revelation struck. Sometimes we do need to wait on God, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you don’t sense God telling you to wait, then maybe it’s time to explore the opportunities to speak, praying that if this is not where God wants you, that He will shut the door.

And remember: if God has called you to something, there doesn’t need to be any fear! He is the One who will help you and equip you.

That being said, I do believe there’s also a point to giving a year for training and building your skills (and quite often it takes more than that!). If you’re interested in how to treat yourself seriously, next week’s Blog Talk Radio show has to do with exactly that: how to treat your speaking like a business, and learn good business principles that will help you grow. It’s totally free to listen, and if you head over here now, you can set a reminder to notify you when it’s about to start. We’ll be going live Tuesday at noon EST!

Of course, there often is a tension between speaking as a business and speaking as a ministry. When we’re scared or a little ashamed that people will think we’re arrogant, we may focus solely on the ministry side, and ignore the business side. But there’s a problem with that: if God truly has called you to speak, you need to appear professional, and that includes treating it like a business. I don’t mean that you have to make buckets of money–not by a longshot! And I don’t mean that you have to be concerned primarily about fees. But what is important about a business?

First, a business invests in itself, and you should, too. A business stays current and tries to cater to the market (in other words, give talks that people can relate to and that touch people’s hearts where they’re at). A business gives off a professional air, one with authority, that will help people to be more open to listening to you. A business invests the time it takes to do things well. A business works on growing itself.

Do you want to do these things? Or do you want to figure out how to make some fees from speaking, because from a practical standpoint you do need to make some money at this?

Then come and listen! If you can’t make it, you can listen after the fact. And don’t forget my inexpensive resources to help you launch your speaking ministry!

As a writer, I’ve travelled to Christian bookstores across North America. I’ve seen a wide range of them: some huge, some small. Some stuffed with “junk”, some with only bestsellers visible. Some have fancy cafes, and some have no room to walk.

What I’ve noticed is that size doesn’t matter. What makes a good bookstore, and one that I enjoy being in, is the attitude of the owners. Some owners firmly believe that the bookstore is “simply a ministry”. And you can tell that’s what they think. They don’t necessarily invest in a comfortable store. They seem to feel intrinsically that the store will lose money, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the other hand, the stores where owners do focus on customer service and making a profit often tend to be the ones that are most fun to be in. They’re innovative. They’re doing a lot to attract customers. They have interesting stock. Their salespeople are knowledgeable.

Now, which is more of a ministry? The one that sees itself as solely a ministry, and is always on the brink of folding, or the one that is trying to turn a profit by attracting customers? I know the analogy isn’t perfect, but I don’t agree with all that goes into marketing Christian books and products today. But I do think that the general statement is still true: if we want to have the most impact, we need to take ourselves seriously. If we don’t, our ministry won’t expand.

So take yourself seriously. Invest in your speaking. And then see where God leads you!

How to Sound More Confident When Speaking–And Feel More Confident, Too!

When you’re starting your ministry, you naturally feel a little apprehensive. What you don’t want is for that apprehension to be felt by the audience.

Do you remember what the people said of Jesus? He spoke as one with authority, and not as one of the teachers of the Law. So how do we sound like we have authority? How do we make sure we don’t sound scared, or intimidated?

One of the most common ways that people sound like beginners is in the use of “filler words”. I have another post here on that very subject–your Ummms, and You knows–whatever you say when you don’t know what else to say.

But I want to expand on this a little bit further. I’ve been listening to recordings of other speakers, and to some of my old recordings, and I’ve watched others speak recently, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a common mistake that many of us make, and it’s this:

We put needless words at the beginning of sentences.

These may not always be Ummms. More often they’re simply EXTRA words, and maybe even DIFFERENT words each sentence, but they make us sound a little intimidated. For instance, can you tell the difference between this:

So, I’m very glad to be here today! Well, I’m excited about what God has in store for us! So, why don’t you turn with me to Philippians 3? Okay, do you see how in that passage Paul says we are to “forget what lies behind”? And what do you think “forgetting” means?

And this:

I’m very glad to join you today, and I’m excited about what Do has in store for us! Turn with me to Philippians 3. In that passage, Paul says we are to “forget what lies behind”. How strange! What do you think “forgetting” means?

Virtually the same words, but a slightly different twist. And the main thing is that there are no extra words at the beginning of sentences.

In common speech we often throw in these extra words. They connect our thoughts, and they sound right. But they don’t sound right when you’re at the podium.

When I used to lead worship in church, the pastor came up to me one day and told me that I was saying, “Okay” too much. I’d say, “turn with me to page 273, okay?”. I didn’t realize it. I didn’t mean it. But the pastor told me that by saying “Okay”, it sounded like I was giving the congregation the choice to refrain from turning to page 273. I was asking them a question.

You don’t want to throw in the word “okay” because it sounds like you’re asking for their agreement. It makes you sound unsure of yourself. And if you’re always throwing in “and” and “well” and “so” at the beginning of sentences, too, you don’t sound very powerful. You sound like you’re worried.

Here, then, is a tip on how to stop this. Generally, we breathe between sentences. When you breathe, pause for a split second and think, “what is the next word out of my mouth going to be?” When you start thinking like this, chances are you will use a powerful word. When you just open your mouth, chances are a filler word will come out while you collect your thoughts. It is better to speak more slowly, and take more care, and start your sentences well, then to speak more informally and throw in a lot of “wells” and “okays”. Do you see what I mean?

Try it yourself. Take the opening to one of your talks, and say it to yourself while you’re lying in a bubble bath or looking at yourself in the mirror. Practice thinking of the next word each time you take a breath. And you’ll likely find that fewer of those filler words come out of your mouth! Besides, the more we breathe and think, the more we’ll put ourselves at ease. And that will go a long way towards feeling more comfortable, and more authoritative, up on stage, too!

Great news! Every Tuesday at noon EST I have a FREE radio show on Blog Talk Radio just for Christian writers and speakers, called “Use Your Words”. Come on over and sign up for it! You can listen later, or download to iTunes!

And don’t forget my speaker training, available here.

New Blog Talk Radio Show: Use Your Words!

Great news!

If you’re learning to be a Christian woman speaker, or you’re trying to grow your ministry, I have an amazing new fun resource for you.

Every Tuesday, at noon EST, I’ll be hosting the Blog Talk Radio show “Use Your Words”, just for female Christian speakers & writers! We’ll talk about the things that matter most, and best of all, you can participate LIVE in the chat box, and prompt me for specific questions you want answered, or you can phone in and actually be on the air if you want some live help! And it’s all free!

Today, for instance, I’m going to talk about how to tell your story. How do you figure out what story to tell? How long should it be? Should you write it or speak it? How do you find groups that want to hear it? And how do you get it on paper?

It will be a great show, and all you have to do is go here. You can listen live, or you can listen later in the day. You’ll even be able to download it from iTunes!

But please come and listen live and participate in the chat box. I want to know what YOU want to know, to make sure that everything I say is relevant and helpful! You can also go to the Blog Talk Radio show site and ask to be notified of all future shows, and set up a reminder on your computer.

Hope to see you there!

The Need for Excellence

I had such a wonderful time talking to a bunch of you in our teleseminar last week: Crafting a Life-Changing Signature Talk. We talked about what went into an effective talk, how to keep Jesus the focus, and how to choose and use anecdotes well. And I gave you a step-by-step approach for planning a talk, together with a handout where you just fill in the details! It couldn’t be easier. And it’s not too late! Just head on over to my website to see how you can still listen to it! Beth Jones said,

Sheila, this was so awesome. Very very helpful – gave me some great tips – what is effective, what NOT to do – loved what you said about making it all about Christ —- and about the anecdotes!!!

I LOVED it and hope you do more of these!

But I don’t want it to end there. I want to carry on with some of the things that were mentioned. So, because I like speaking, let me introduce this talk personally. Just watch this video. It’s 30 seconds long, and shares one of my best tips:

Okay. Got it? We need to get good.

It’s that simple. I think so often we worry about how to get the speaking engagements, and what promotional materials to buy, and what to wear, and how to do my make-up that we forget about perfecting the skill.

And learning to speak well isn’t easy, because it’s hard just to practice. I’ve been trying to work out more lately, and that’s easy to measure the progress. I can stand on a scale. I can measure my waistline. I can do it everyday, and my Wii Fit will even tell me what I’m doing wrong!

But it’s very hard to practice speaking. Sure, you can speak into a mirror, but it isn’t the same thing as speaking to a group.

So how do you get good? Yes, you practice into a mirror. Yes, you talk to yourself in the shower. But more importantly, you take whatever engagements you can get at the beginning, even if they’re small, because it gives you a chance to learn how to make eye contact, how to connect with your audience, how to slow down so you don’t talk too fast, how to cure yourself of your “ummms” and “you knows”, and all of these things that we really can only learn in front of an audience.

You can also join something like Toastmasters, where you do get practice in front of an audience. I know several people who have done that, and it’s proven invaluable.

But we do need practice. Think about it this way: before Paul launched his ministry full throttle, he spent 14 years in Arabia. That’s right: 14 years. He’s converted, he gives his life over to Christ, and then he leaves. He spends 14 years in study. He could have gone on a whole other missionary journey! But he didn’t. He knew he needed that time to work some things out and to practice.

And we need that, too. God may be calling you into speaking, but that doesn’t mean He’s calling you into huge engagements right off the bat. He may, of course. But if you’re only getting small engagements, or only getting online conferences, that’s fine! Don’t even think of it as an “only”. Think of it as training. We all need these small engagements. I had tons of them my first two years! And I’ll tell you: I was a much better speaker at the end of it than I was at the beginning.

So if you’re frustrated that your ministry isn’t growing, take heart. We all need those beginning years. When I first started out I was speaking with Stonecroft Ministries’ Christian Women’s Clubs. I did a ton of them, but I had never recorded them (I wish there was something like my e-course back then because then I would have known to do this!). Then one day a big church called and wanted to book me, but they needed a recording first. I didn’t have one.

So I called together ten of my friends and promised a pizza lunch if they would come to the church and listen to me talk for an hour. They did, and one of the women even introduced me in a really professional way! The recording is one I still sell today, and it was instrumental in getting me other engagements. But I practiced in front of ten women, and those ten women ended up really appreciating it!

Nothing is too small when you’re starting out. It’s just training, and a chance to get good. And remember that while you’re getting good, you’re still ministering. You’re speaking to people’s hearts, and that’s a privilege, even if there are just 10 women there. To make these engagements count, then, here are a few quick tips:

1. Look Professional and treat it professionally. Then people will think of you as a professional, and they’ll be more likely to recommend you.
2. Record your talk so you can use it as clips online, or as a sample, or to sell.
3. Collect email addresses and start a newsletter so people know how to find you if they ever want to recommend you.

Don’t despair! You’re in training! And as you get more polished, and more effective, the speaking invitations will come!

Sign up here to keep informed about any upcoming teleseminars or speaker training.

Why We Need to Be Real

Tomorrow night I’ll be hosting our teleseminar, Crafting a Life Changing Signature Talk!

For all of you who are wanting to grow your speaking ministry, listen in to learn how to use anecdotes, how to open a talk, how to close for maximum impact, and how to share your story. And we’ll spend a lot of time considering how to handle Scripture with integrity and accessibility!

But one of the main things that I’ll be stressing is how to tell your own story. What should you include, and what should you leave out? Should you mention your failures?

I believe you should. Often we’re reticent to do so because we don’t want to look like we don’t have it altogether. But within reason, it’s important to share our struggles so that we can also share God’s grace.

Here’s a quick video where I try to bring this concept home:

Will you join me tomorrow? I’d love to help you craft your talk, so that more of us can get out there and effectively spread the message that God has for this world!

Workshop Leaders vs. Inspirational Speakers

I’ve had a number of emails lately from people who teach–they teach at homeschooling conferences, or financial conferences, or Work at Home Mom conferences. They lead workshops where they teach a specific skill.

There’s nothing wrong with workshop leading. I lead a number of workshops, too, at homeschooling conferences, or even at women’s retreats when people want to learn something. That is a special category of speaking, and it’s a blessing in and of itself.

However, if you really want to become known as a “speaker”, what you need is a talk that is mostly inspirational in nature, and can be given to a fairly wide audience. The audience may be confined to seniors, or just stay at home moms, or something like that, but within whatever niche you fit, you should be able to talk to everyone generally.

So for instance, if you’re accustomed to giving workshops at homeschooling conferences, then homeschoolers are your natural niche. The next thing would be to develop an inspirational talk to give to homeschooling parents, that doesn’t teach a specific skill, but instead leads them closer to God in their calling as homeschoolers. Or perhaps you want to develop a talk that speaks to parents.

Not everyone needs to be a speaker, of course! Some are happy in their roles as teachers, and that’s fine. But if you do want to start getting bigger speaking engagements, then it’s important to develop a talk that can reach a wider audience, and that can be given as a “keynote” address or a stand-alone address at a variety of functions. This signature talk should tell people your journey that God has brought you on, focus on maybe one or two Scriptures, and have a specific message that you can encourage people with at the end—along with an action step that they can take to put it into practice.

If you’re interested in developing such a talk, I think my teleseminar this Tuesday, October 13, on “Crafting a Life-Changing Signature Talk”, can help! You can find more information about that here.

But if you want to focus mostly on expanding your teaching ministry through more conferences, then I think what you need to focus on is recording yourself giving your workshop, and getting that recording out to more conference organizers.

Workshop leading is a skill in and of itself. You have to keep people’s attention while you’re trying to cram as much information into a session as possible! In some ways it’s harder than keynote speaking, but it also pays far less, and you usually have a smaller crowd. But it is a calling, in and of itself. So ask yourself: am I primarily a workshop leader, or do I feel called to also do some inspirational speaking? If you do feel a nudge to do more, then join me on Tuesday! And keep checking back here for more information.

Crafting Your Signature Talk

I think everyone should have a signature talk.

Quite frequently I’m asked to speak, and people give me a topic.

But more often, they just ask me to speak. And in that case, what do you talk about?

I think we all need signature talks: talks that define us, that encapsulate the unique story that God has been weaving into our lives. My signature talk and your signature talk will not look the same, because we all have a different journey with God. But when we tell our stories, people hear our hearts. And when they hear our hearts, they’re more likely to open up their own to listen to Jesus.

That’s why we can’t use someone else’s talk. We may use other people’s anecdotes as illustrations, but the talk has to come from our hearts.

Just because it has to have our unique content, though, doesn’t mean that there isn’t a “formula”, or a “sequence”, that works well for most talks. I believe there is. In all my talks, I open in a similar way (though the stories, of course, will differ). I handle Scripture in a certain way. I use illustrations and statistics at key points. I use humour, and I get serious. But if you do it in a specific way, then you engage people. You build during the talk. You take them with you to that end point where they are willing to listen to Jesus.

I’m not saying that it’s formulaic; I think people would listen to two of my talks and think them quite different, even though the skeleton and the methods that I use are the same. It’s just that once you learn the structure to an effective talk, creating other talks is quite easy. You just need to ask God for the focus and content!

I want to help you figure out that structure, and show you what works. We’ve talked a lot on this blog about the mistakes that people often make by trying to “teach” and “preach“, or trying to sound like an expert when what people really want is to be able to relate to you. Now we’re going to put it all together and show you how to form this into a signature talk.

Will you join me? Next Tuesday, October 13, at 9 pm EST, I’ll be hosting a teleseminar, LIVE, to help you develop a life-changing signature talk. I would love to have you there!

Click here for more information!

The Difference Between Teaching and Speaking

In this blog I try to give my best thoughts on what goes into making an effective talk and an effective, Spirit-filled ministry.

It’s too bad there’s not more training available, but I’m trying to offer some the best I can, so that together we can reach the world for God!

One of the themes that I speak on frequently at this blog is that teaching and speaking are not the same thing. This doesn’t mean that we don’t teach during our talks; it just means that the goal needs to be different. We speak to change lives; we don’t speak to impart knowledge. Now imparting knowledge might be part of what leads them to change; but if you’re not working towards a change, then you’re not really having an impact.

Many preachers understand this, but what they frequently do is to tag an “application” onto the end of what is otherwise a teaching sermon. I don’t think that’s a good solution. I think everything in the talk has to lead people to a point where they’re willing to surrender something new to God, or to take one more step of faith. Some of those things will be teaching points; others will be anecdotes, laughter, tears, or whatever. I’m not saying we should be shallow; not by any means. We have to root everything we say in Scripture. But let’s remember what we’re aiming for. When we can remember that, we’re much more effective.

I’ve written about this a lot, but today I thought I’d let you hear me say it. Here’s another in our continuing series of Speakers’ Tips that I’ll be putting up.

I hope that encourages you!

What If I Don’t Want to Tell My Story?

I’ve been talking a lot on this blog about the importance of telling your story. But what if your story is painful, and you really don’t want to go into all that?

In 2006, my book How Big Is Your Umbrella was published. In that book, I talk about the things that we yell at God when life stinks, and what God whispers back. And I explore my journey in losing my son.

It wasn’t a fun book to write. I was a mess for several months, and it was hard on my family. It was as if I was reliving Christopher’s death all over again. And then the radio interviews started.

I wasn’t in a strong emotional place simply because of going through the process of writing the book. I really didn’t want to have to take time out of my day, when I was doing well, and do all these interviews where I would have to relive it once again. And when I spoke to different groups, I dreaded having to do it, too.

But then I realized something, and this may sound harsh, so bear with me.

It’s not about me.

At one point I was complaining to a rather in-your-face Christian radio host about my reticence to do these interviews, and he laughed right at me and said, “get over yourself, Princess.” I was downright mad. This was my son we were talking about! But he went on to say, “If you want to have a ministry and if you want to impact people, you talk. If you don’t want to impact people, don’t. But don’t do all this squishy stuff.”

Now obviously the guy had an excess of testosterone, but the more I thought and prayed about it, the more he had a point. And so I have talked about Christopher as much as I can. Everytime I speak, in fact, I tell the story of getting the phone call from the doctor to say that there was something wrong with his heart. I talk about what it was like to realize I was going to have to watch my only son die. I talk about the morning that I handed my son to the anesthetist before surgery, thinking I wouldn’t see him again. And I mention that the last words he ever heard from me on this side of heaven were, “Mommy loves you, sweetheart.”

Is it easy? Nope. But I also cannot begin to tell you all the blessings I get from telling that, over and over again. So let me try to address some issues we have with sharing our hurts, in no particular order.

1. I’m too emotional and I might cry.

Good for you! People like it when you cry. It sounds terrible, but people like authenticity. When they see that you are really touched, that you have really walked the walk, they believe you. You have credibility. They’re willing to listen. And it’s catharctic for them, too!

2. I don’t want to relive it.

I know you don’t. But it gets easier. Sometimes I tell the stories and I cry; sometimes I don’t. But whether or not I do, the audience does. Because the audience needs to hear it. And inevitably there is someone in the audience who has gone through something similar who is really ministered to by us opening up.

3. It helps us minister.

Paul wrote that we are to comfort others with the comfort that we ourselves received. Part of that comfort is telling our story. We don’t tell it to glorify all the ugly stuff that is happened in our lives. We do it to point people to God. We say, “here is what I have been through, and here is what God has done for me.” And it brings something beautiful out of something really ugly in our lives. Without this chance to turn it to good, this terrible thing is just a burden. But when we can turn it around and use it to help others, it becomes a blessing.

I am so humbled to see how my son’s death has led to so many opportunities to talk and pray with people that I would not have had otherwise. Of course it’s hard; but many people’s lives are hard. And I believe that my point in being on this earth is to point people to Jesus, especially in the midst of their hardest pain. To do that, I have to touch their pain, and I can’t touch theirs without touching mine. When I touch mine, they’re willing to open up, too. When I keep mine hidden, they keep theirs clamped up, not only from others, but also from God.

Perhaps you say, but I have so much to talk about; why do I have to mention this? Can’t I leave it out? Yes, you could. But usually it is through our deepest pain that God has touched us most. When we leave that out, we leave out the deepest parts of God’s blessing. And it shows in our testimony. Something sounds hollow.

4. It heals us.

It used to be hard to tell my story. Now I almost relish it. The more I tell it, the more I see what God has done because I have been willing to open up. And each time I do, it’s like He’s smiling at me, and saying, “See? I trusted you with this awful thing, but now it is being used for good.” And it’s as if my identity is no longer as much the grieving mother as it is the comforter. Does that make sense?

5. It points people to God.

And now the final point. Many times people are unwilling to tell their stories because they’re intensely personal. Mine was about grief. Everybody can go through grief. It doesn’t reflect badly on you as a person. No one pictures me in indecent situations. But what if your story is of a different nature? What if it’s about abuse? Or what if it’s about a very lurid lifestyle you used to live?

You need to take that up with God, but let me give you some final thoughts. Everything can be used to point people to God, and when we are willing to be vulnerable, and to say, “me being honest, and telling you how I overcame this big hurt in order to inspire you, is more important to me than my dignity or my reputation”, that is gold. People really respect that, if it is done in the right spirit.

I have heard people give their stories who spend too long telling about all the sin in their lives, or go into too much detail about things that are best left to the imagination. We don’t want to glorify the gross stuff. We just need to tell enough of it that people get the picture, and then point people to the healer. In a secular setting you won’t be able to do that explicitly, but perhaps there it’s even more important, because in a secular setting people lack the path to true healing. So what you can do there is to talk about the things you went through, and then end with something like this: it made me realize I needed to figure out the purpose of my life; it made me realize I couldn’t deal with this on my own; it made me realize I needed spiritual help to forgive.

The funny thing is that the more we’re willing to open up in a secular setting, the more God-stuff we can get away with, because we’ve been honest. It opens doors.

When you do start speaking about your hurts, it will be difficult. You will cry. You will be moody for a time because you have reopened old wounds. But the more you do it, the more those wounds will heal. The more you will see how God can use ugliness for blessing. And the more you can see how far you have already come.

It’s hard to be vulnerable, but remember: it’s not about you. We are on this earth to point people to Jesus. If we can use our deepest pain (in an appropriate way) to do this, it’s an honour. Yes, it hurts. But He has trusted you with it. Now, what will you do with it?

I’ll have another post up soon about what to do when we have a story we haven’t shared with all our loved ones, or how to handle age appropriateness.

I also have a teleseminar coming up in September called How to Craft a Life Changing Talk, which will take you step by step through how to create a talk that tells our story, points people to God, and inspires change. Sign up here to be given more information about that!