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Have you ever watched a presentation, and noticed that something just didn’t seem authentic? Ever received feedback from someone that sounded good, made logical sense, but just felt awkward when you delivered it?

I’ve known many people over the years who have been coached or taken to heart coaching advice from unqualified coaches. People mean well when they give you “here’s what you should do” feedback. (That’s what I called Type 2 feedback in my last article). What they’re really saying to you is, “Here’s what I would do, if I were doing that presentation.”

That doesn’t mean you should do it!

I’ve seen people who were coached by award-winning speakers, and it was very obvious who coached them. Why? Because that coach put their “style” on the person they were trying to help.

I just spent the weekend coaching along side Patricia Fripp. During our Get Coached to Speak Champ Camps, we work with speakers to help them discover their own personal stories and speaking styles. A very common question heard by our Coachees is, “How would you say that?” We make a lot of suggestions, but we always emphasize to the speakers the importance of putting those ideas into their own words.

There are many qualified coaches who have never won the World Championship of Public Speaking – and similarly, there are some winners who, though they may be great speakers, are not experienced as coaches. It’s just not where they choose to spend there time, energy, and effort.

In other words, it’s one skill to speak – and it’s yet another to coach.

What is “authentic” feedback? It’s not truth from the person giving the feedback. Rather, it’s feedback that should be incorporated into the speech because it is “authentic” to the presenter.

The challenge for people being coached is to differentiate between:

1)  “I’m uncomfortable because I’m making a change to my presentation.”

2)  “I’m uncomfortable because delivering these words, or delivering them in this manner, are not true to who I am or what I believe.”

Sometimes we can only discover this after giving the speech several times in front of a live
audience (or even one-on-one).

The more we deliver a speech to a live audience, the more we internalize it. Throughout this process, we’ll experience feelings of “that’s a perfect fit” or “that just doesn’t feel right.”

We need to pay attention to these feelings. Trust your feelings. There’s a reason for them.

In researching quotes related to this topic, I laughed out loud when I came across
this one:

“Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages
to pick himself up, walk over or around it, and carry on.”
~ Winston Churchill

Taking to heart the wrong feedback can actually make a good speech a bad one. On my blog, Simon Bucknall, an award-winning speaker from the UK, posted this truth. I loved it!

He said,

“When I went to the World Championship of Public Speaking finals in Phoenix in 2007,
I made the mistake of incorporating some strongly-held ‘coaching’ feedback from a
less-experienced speaker. In hindsight, watching the video, it wrecked the speech
because at key moments during the speech, I ceased to be ‘me‘.”

Thanks for your honesty Simon… You rock! That’s a lesson to all of us.

If we can’t connect to our own truths, why should people in our audience allow us to connect to them? They won’t. Trust me.

Be authentic. Accept improvement feedback only if it is congruous with who you are and your own beliefs.

Stage time,

Darren LaCroix
2001 World Champion of Public Speaking

P.S. HUMOR-tunity! This is HUGE! Wish you had someone who would give you some punch lines? I had dinner with Judy Carter, the woman who wrote Stand-up Comedy, the Book, that literally opened my eyes to the fact that humor can be learned. She has a passion for doing one-on-one humor coaching… she absolutely LOVES it! (I think she should charge more!) Want Judy’s help? Email her at judy@judycarter.com.

P.P.S. FIRST TIME EVER, Video Posted! My winning speech given one year later at the NSA Convention. Before this opportunity, I got feedback from speech coaches on how to make the winning speech even better. Can you see what those changes were? Click here to watch the video, then post your comments!

P.P.P.S. Please join me, Ed Tate, and Craig Valentine on August 15 – 17 (Sun – Tues) in Palm Desert, CA (after the TM Convention) for the Get Paid to Speak Champ Camp. (Only offered once per year! Walk away with your own co-authored CD with the Champs!)