Professionalism & Mastery

For almost two decades, Martial Arts was the centre of my world. At 16 years old, in my first full-time job, an older guy (at least 25!) invited me to come along to the Marist Kyokushin Karate Club. I was instantly hooked. As a disaffected teenager (I left home at 17), the Karate club was a lifeline. It was my surrogate family, my friends and my focus.

By the time I was thirty, my Karate ‘career’ had shaped my life in many ways. I had started teaching parts of classes young and was teaching full classes to people much older than me by the time I was twenty. At twenty-four, I took over the Dojo and taught at least two 2-hour sessions a week, each one unique, for several years.

I learned most of my communication skills, confidence, and focus in the Dojo.

The Path to Mastery

More importantly, I learned the path to mastery was through breaking things down and drilling the components over and over then putting them together and drilling again and again until they become fluid, smooth and instinctive.

My tournament fighting career spanned a decade from 1986 to 1996. You don’t have time to stop and think when you are fighting. You react and let your intention guide your reactions. The key is to have more options than the other person. So, the more different things you have drilled, the more options you have and the more likely you are to win the fight.

This path to mastery of breaking down into components, drilling the components, then reassembling the whole and drilling it again is what I instinctively brought to my coaching of speakers for TEDxRuakura.

Using my framework, speakers would collect and select ‘chunks’ of their proposed talk. A chunk might be an anecdote, an explanation of an aspect of their topic, or a concept. Any self-contained short element of your talk is a chunk.

Once the talk is structured from all of the chunks they have assembled (which is a process in itself), I would have the speakers practice or drill individual chunks until they are comfortable, confident and effective at each of them. Then, I would have them drill 2-3 chunks strung together until they were comfortable. Building it until they could recite the entire talk comfortably, confidently and effectively.

By the end of this process, most, if not all, of the speakers were thoroughly sick of their talk. As were their families, I am sure! However, every one of our speakers who took on this challenge and diligently followed the process thanked me and my team.

Because on the day, they didn’t have to stop and think. Their talk flowed naturally. They could respond to the room, ad-lib, and return to the point because they knew their material well.

Professionalism

An amateur dabbles—a professional commits.

A professional consistently challenges themselves to perform better. They will use their time, creativity and resources to achieve the highest level they can in whatever service they are engaged in.

Last week, I spent time on a multi-day masterclass with Felippe Nardi, who runs a community called Inside the Show. This community of professionals uses their combined creativity, skills, experience and technological expertise to raise the bar on what is possible in virtual presentations.

An interesting observation from an interview with an expert in online presentations:

“This community is unique because of its roots. It was founded by magicians who needed to perform during the pandemic and, therefore, had to adapt to the virtual format.
While this is true for many of us at that time, the difference is that magicians take preparation and practice to a whole other level. And this shows up in their virtual presentations and performances.
This core principle is now part of the community so that no matter whether you are a magician or not, the expectation is that you will practice and prepare thoroughly, and therefore, community members doing any sort of presentation are far more advanced than the average presenter.”

In addition to that illuminating experience, I had time while travelling last week to read more of The Referable Speaker by Andrew Davis and Michael Port. This again highlighted the difference in attitude and results of the professional versus the amateur speaker.

What Does Your Next Year Look Like?

With this in mind, I am considering what I need to do next year to improve my game.

The first thing to do to function at a professional level is to set some standards. What are you no longer willing to accept from yourself? What actions and behaviours do you want to adopt to consistently meet your new level of professionalism?

I suggest looking for the low-hanging fruit when you have answered those questions. What can I improve today that will have the biggest impact on my audience? And when you know what that thing is, make a plan to accomplish it.

You should know by now what I recommend as part of that plan. Break it down. Drill the components. Build the components back, drilling each step of the way until it feels natural and effortless.

The Pathway to Mastery is simple, but it is not easy. This is why you need a coach, accountability partner or community. I am not trying to be self-serving here. Having that support is a critical part of taking the actions that you need to take, but is easy to put off.

This is my challenge to you to kick off your new year in an impactful way.

• Set a higher standard for yourself.

• Make a plan to raise the bar on one aspect of your business or life

• Give yourself the gift of a coach or community to help you meet that standard.

See you in the new year!

Unpacking Wisdom is a weekly section where I dive into a famous (or not so famous) quote and explore how this can apply to the Compelling Communicator.

Whenever you are looking to share a message with an audience, it is worth giving this quote some consideration. Often, we think that sharing standard information is boring, and we don’t want to bore our audience. And this is not wrong.

But I think there is a deeper element at play that is worth keeping in mind. Our natural resentment towards being confined or contained. If you tell me I have to do something a specific way, I will almost automatically take a position against it. It is a knee-jerk reaction, and I know I am not the only one to have that reaction.

Therefore, when you are presenting an idea, and in particular a process or procedure, you must explain why this is a good idea rather than telling them what to do. In fact, if you can manage it, one of the best ways is to present the data to bring your audience to the point where they make the decision to implement the process, and they feel it is their idea rather than your idea.

It helps if you can frame this as ‘freeing’ them from the current process or procedure.

What I am up to this week…

Professionally:

It is the last working week of 2023, and I have some serious deadlines to meet by Friday 22nd December. So I will be flat out.

Recreationally:

Next week I will be taking a break (no newsletter), and will be planning my goals for 2024.

What I am reading:

I love The Referable Speaker by Andrew Davis and Michael Port.

What I am watching:

Last night, several of us had a movie night with my filmmaking friend and collaborator, Adam. We watched some eclectic films, which I thoroughly enjoyed. They won’t be for everyone. Definitely not kid-friendly!

• Tigers are not afraid (Spanish with subtitles)

• Sisu (don’t watch the trailer it gives too much away)

• Glorious