You're Not Alone! Building Connection as a Speaker

In this episode of the Profitable Speaking Podcast, I look into the often-overlooked aspect of the speaking profession: loneliness. Discover why successful speakers don't go it alone and how you can avoid burnout and missed opportunities by surrounding yourself with the right people. 

Learn about joining speaking organisations, building mastermind groups, and collaborating with others to sustain your growth and mental well-being. Tune in for practical tips on maintaining connections and growing your speaking business while managing the solitary nature of the profession.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Profitable Speaking Podcast where we help you build a profitable six figure business from the stage. Here's your host, Mr. Web Marketing, Brad Hauck. Welcome to the Profitable Speaking Podcast. Don't try and make it alone. Going alone sounds noble, but in the speaking world, it's a fast track to burnout and missed opportunities. In this episode, I'm talking about why the most successful speakers surround themselves with the right people. Life on the road can be a lonely journey, but it doesn't have to be. This is how you grow faster, speak more often, and stay sharp. Let's talk about how not to go it alone. Well, we all know that being a speaker can be lonely, but yeah, realistically it doesn't have to be. It is kind of a solitary life in a lot of cases because you're spending a lot of time alone on the road, you run into different people, but essentially you're turning up at places and you're the speaker. So you're kind of separated from the regulars that are there or you're catching planes or taxis or Ubers or whatever. But you're often on your own as you move around. And it really can be hard. Many speakers work in isolation, especially when they're starting out. And that creates blind spots, missed chances, and an unnecessary struggle when you travel. Being alone is probably one of the hardest things. And this is where I find a lot of speakers really suffer. It's great to be with your family, but having to leave them and then go away and come back, it disrupts your whole life. Then there's the time in hotel rooms. And if you're like me, I actually find it hard to work when I'm in hotel rooms. I can't focus. It's like my mind turns off and I'm on holiday mode the minute I turn up in a hotel. So, you know, you've got to then look at, okay, well, if I'm not going to get any work done here, well, I've got to get work done when I get home. So it puts more pressure on getting home and getting things done. So there's so much more involved to travel than what most people think. You think, you know, you rock up to the airport, you jump on a plane, it's all glorious. You're in business class. Well, you know, I reckon 90% of speakers go economy class. Heck, I do. And I'm six foot four. And so for me it's quite a tight fit. Now I found the airlines that I actually do fit in, so I generally fly Virgin within Australia. Course and you know, you get to know the best seats to sit in, for example, when you're booking your seat. But traveling alone is boring. I'm lucky in some ways. I'm an only child, so I'm used to being on my own. I don't mind my own company. But for other people can be extremely difficult. It doesn't have to be lonely. One of the great things about being to be a speaker is people get to know you and you get to know other speakers. So there's always that chance. You can run into a friend at the airport, which I often do, and you have a chance to have a cup of coffee and catch up and have a chat often. Also, you're at home alone, you work online only, or you work in a home office. You're sitting there by yourself. You're in your office, you've got all your little tools and tricks and things and all the bits beside you that remind you of the different things in your life that you like to collect. But realistically, you know, you're here alone and it's your world, and if you're speaking online, it's the same thing. You're here, they're there, and you know, you're isolated again, you can't feel the crowd, you can't do all those things. So it can be very, very lonely. And I think there's lots of things we can do to help that. One more thing I'd like to mention, sorry about being alone, is that we often work with global teams, which means that if we do have staff, they're generally not in our offices. They could be all around the world. So again, while you have a team of people around you, unlike a regular business where the staff are right there in the room, you often won't have that because that's just not the way most speaking businesses develop. Some bigger speaking businesses, definitely, but most people are generally on their own, in my experience, and talking to them, and then their staff are outsourced. So you can do a whole range of things to help improve this. The first is get out and join some clubs, go to a gym, go networking, whatever. There's a pile of things that you can do to get you out into public. Now, if you're like me, you don't mind a bit of public, but you don't like a lot. So for me, it's about getting out, getting my connection with people, feeling, you know, that live feeling in the room. And sometimes it's from the speaking, sometimes it's just from general business stuff or as I said, like, I'm a volunteer firefighter, so I go down the fire station, I catch up with people there, and that helps break that loneliness down. It's something that anyone can do. And of course, you know, I have no doubt that you have things that you do, but don't let yourself get too isolated. I know during COVID we all got very isolated and I think there's a real drag on of that effect I still feel talking to people and looking at people. There's been a very long lasting effect of that isolation. I think people are still isolated. It's like we never got back together and connected again. So please don't sit there and suffer in silence. Speaking is part of your life. It's not all of your life. If it's all of your life, you need to really look at your life because a life is made up of different parts. You know, you've got relationships, you've got spirituality. If you're into those sorts of things, you've got volunteering, you've got sport and fitness and health. There's so many parts that make up a life. So if you are completely focused on your speaking business, yeah, I understand you're growing your business, but don't let it become everything, because if it becomes everything, you'll lose other things. And some of those other things you can't afford to lose because, well, it affects your mental health and it will eventually crash down on your business as well. One of the things that I did very early on to help deal with loneliness was to join a speaking organization. So whether it's psa, nsa, Virtual Speakers Association International, or another local group, these organizations give you access to events and mentors and speaking directories that can drive real growth in your business. They give you a place to go where you can hang out with people that are like you. And for me, this became really, really important. I joined Professional speakers Australia in 2009 and I've been a member ever since. And I love it. There's times when I don't necessarily agree with where the organization's going, but to me, this is about the people in the organization. And so I like to spend time with those people. And they've become my friends. And one of the reasons for that is they are going on the same sort of journey as I'm going. They understand what it's like to be stuck in an airport by yourself. They understand what it means to be sitting in a hotel room by yourself and getting on stage and being in front of large crowds of people and Funnily enough, as I've said in previous episodes, most speakers seem to be introverts. So it's a very weird sort of world. But I've made some of my best mates in these speaking organizations and they are across the globe. So while I see certain people here in Australia, I also see people in Singapore I consider to be friends. I see people in New Zealand, throughout Asia, into America, Canada, Germany, all sorts of places in Europe. And they're my friends, too. They're my friends in that moment. And we connect online from time to time. You know, you wouldn't say they necessarily your best friends, but the funny thing is being a speaker, once you make a connection with someone, when you run into them again, it's that, you know, old friends sort of connection thing where it's like, oh, how you been? What have you been doing? And it's really nice to catch up with them and hear about their families and their travels and their business and what they're doing. And you might not see them again for a couple more years, but it's like no times past. So that's been such an important part of my speaking journey. The other side to it is that they're there to answer questions. Most speakers help other speakers. There is no direct competition in speaking. Yes, there are some people who get more gigs than other people, and that's just the nature of any business. Some people are better or they get better known, or they're better connected, whatever it is, they might be more famous. It doesn't matter. In the end, 99% of the speakers that I've come across are just like one me and you can relate to each other and you have a great time together. And when they turn off the stage personality, they're really wonderful people and all they want to do is help. And that's exactly what I do. That's why I do this podcast, is I want to help people. I want to help other speakers. I want to be the best speaker in the world, that's for sure. But I know that I've got something to give within my area of expertise and they have stuff to give in their area of expertise and we help each other out. So there's that sharing aspect that's such a big part of it. Now. I spend a lot of my time answering people's questions about digital marketing because using AI and digital marketing is my area. That's what I know best out of everything. Yeah, I know a lot about firefighting and leadership, too. Absolutely. But I've been digital marketing since 1996. So I'm more than happy to spend an hour talking to someone about building funnels and building products and things like that, because that's what I do. I help speakers build products, build extra income streams, and I help other people do it as well. So for me, that's a great, fun thing to do, and it's a way of giving back and building those organizations and those friendships. So the last thing I'd say about that is that being in a speaking organization gives you a feeling of belonging. It's somewhere that you're like all the other people. Even though you're doing your own individual things, you share a common bond. I'll often hear the term tribe used. I'm not really one of those people that loves that word, but look, it describes it. They're our tribe, they're our people. And so I highly recommend you join a speaking organization. Another thing you do is find or build a mastermind group. I've talked about this previously, but mastermind groups are really, really good. They give you specific. Helps you get opinions from other real people rather than just talking to an AI like I often do. You can help others too, by giving your 2 cents worth to help them grow. And it gives you regular accountability in your business. So you get together with people regularly, you share your growth, and you get to be accountable. So you've got someone to step up to. Because often, you know, because we're on our own, we're not accountable to anyone. And quite frankly, I can't even be accountable to myself. So having an external force there really helps me move forward. Because otherwise you kind of get in this loop of just doing stuff and you really don't know whether you're really moving forward. Whereas if you can take a project to them, get some feedback, and then come back and report on the growth or whatever's happened that month, that can be a really important step for every speaker. And again, you're not alone. You feel like you belong to that group. So you start to get these little subgroups that are even tighter than, say, a bigger speaking organization, but they don't necessarily need to be speaking again. It could be local business mastermind groups, and you're taking your expertise in your business area to that rather than as a speaker. Another thing is to learn to collaborate and don't compete. You're not fighting for scraps. There's power in collaboration, joint events, cross promotions, podcasts, guest spots, and referral networks. Not many speakers go back to the same gig year after year, and you would have heard me say this before. So there's never that sort of thing that, you know, once you've got the job with that organization, they're going to book you every year. They've heard you speak, they're probably going to get someone else in the next year, or if you do it twice the third year. So there's an opportunity for you to share, you know, people, you know, that might be really good fit for that organization or for, you know, someone else who's already there to share you. So remember, you're not always competing with other people just because you're a speaker. You are so different, and that really opens up the opportunities. For example, I do the Experts Journey podcast with Dixie Carlton, and we have that podcast and that's all about, you know, growing your business using books and speaking and all these different topics. So helping Experts grow, that's something I do as a joint venture. I do multiple things like that. And it's a lot of fun and it's a great opportunity just to keep connect with other people, but also create new content. You can also build events together. You know, podcast is a type of event, I think, realistically. But, you know, doing small workshops where you get two or three speakers together, you know, across a joint topic, you promote it to the people you know, and you get up and take your turn, you get half an hour each or whatever it is, that can be a lot of fun and it can actually be a profitable business if you want it to be. That said, you know, events obviously are much smaller these days than they used to be, but I really enjoy doing those joint venture events that we put on ourselves. It's really good fun to get up in front of a group of people to be with your friends and to present across a topic and, you know, help people grow their businesses. And honestly, it's more fun when you're a member of a team speaking on your own. Yep, you're out there, you know, you're the person. You know, everybody's, oh, you're the speaker. You're, you know, thank you. That was very interesting. And you get all that kudos that you love, but sometimes it's really nice just to be with friends, like a team, because I don't often get to play in a team these days. Yeah, I do down the fire station, but I don't. In business, I don't have a team in that sense. So belonging to a small team can be a lot of fun. And it's not often an opportunity that many speakers take up. We're always looking for that next opportunity to speak and we forget that, you know, spending time with others in our own profession and building our own events can be really, really fun and can turn into quite a considerable amount of business if done right. I've often said that, you know, I speak for free. In fact, the first episode of this podcast was, you know, building a Speaking Business, Speaking for free. And I reckon I've probably done 99% of my speaking for free, paid my own way, got up on stage, done my own presentation, and then made my money out of people hiring me in the case of businesses or coaching or programs. So if you take that philosophy, it's easy to get together with a group of people because it's not like you're expecting to be paid $10,000 to be there. You're just there. Everything else is a bonus. You can produce content off the back of it. If you record it. You can do all sorts of things, get testimonials. There's so much to be gained by collaborating with other people and doing things together. Well, lastly, I'd like to talk about asking for help and offering help. This is a big one for me. Relationships work best when they go birthwise. Relationships work best when they go both ways. So if you ask, be ready to give. That builds real trust and long term connections. We ask for help, we give help, we work together. So when you're feeling alone, reach out. Please don't sit there behind your computer on your own. I'm always here. Send me a DM through Facebook messenger or through WhatsApp or something. And if I'm awake, I'm more than happy to have a little chat. Sometimes I'm busy, sometimes I'm on a fire, sometimes I'm on stage, let's face it. But I will come back to you. I'll write something. Don't sit there and suffer in silence. We all go through times in our speaking business where we're suffering. We're just not making headways. I know, I've been going through this in past years myself where you feel like you're just spinning your wheels and you're not going anywhere. It's very frustrating. And the worst thing you can do is sit there in your own head and worry about it. Reach out. If you're a member of an organization, reach out to someone who's a friend and say, hey, let's have a coffee, have a chat, ask how they're going. When you know they're often going through things. It's a really great time to share and to, you know, connect. And then talk about your problems because most people have got a solution or they can see a solution for you, or at least point you in the right direction. And never forget that, like any other person, go and talk to a psychologist if you're really, really feeling it, because you've got to have someone to talk to. Don't just sit there and suffer. Speaking can be very hard on you, and you can go through times where it's very, very lean and you're not making any money because your business is changing or the market's changing or you're changing. They're all big things that happen to speakers on an ongoing basis. I mean, we start out young and we end up old and we suddenly realize, well, maybe we're not as relevant as we used to be, or maybe, you know, the content has changed or the topics change and I don't fit anymore. All these things happen to you as you evolve as a speaker. Don't suffer in silence. It's really, really important that you understand it can happen and that you need to connect with people and make sure you've got someone to talk to. And it's not always your family or your friends. It might need to be someone who actually understands what it means to be a speaker. So don't buy into the myth. You've got to figure it all out by yourself. Speaking is a team sport, and those who win the game are those that surround themselves with people who challenge, support and open doors for them. Dear folks, if this episode has given you something to think about, please share it with a fellow speaker or expert and subscribe. And like, if you're serious about growing your income and impact, please check out my latest books, AI Powered Profits and Micro Course Profits. They're both available through Amazon Books. I look forward to talking to you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to the Profitable Speaking Podcast. If you've enjoyed today's podcast, please help a friend and share it with them until next time. We hope you have a fun and profitable week.