Yesterday I had four (!) speaker meetings with 4 fellow professional speakers. One with a speaker from Malaysia who drove to Singapore to met with me, one with a speaker from India who flew in to meet with me, one with a speaker from Germany who skyped in to meet with me – and in the evening at 8 to 10 pm – with Vicky Vaswani and Hitesh Ramchandani who came home to my house after the kids had gone to sleep to meet with me. I must have talked about speaking with speakers for 6+ hours. What an inspiring day that helped me expand my thinking about speaking.
How much time are you putting aside to learn from fellow speakers – and to teach fellow speakers?
“How do you go from being a speaker speaking in your home country to becoming a global speaker?”
That is one of the most common questions I get as a global speaker myself. The people asking are often very professional and successful authors.
I got that questions today again when I was speaking at an event in Pune, India where we were meeting to create Professional Speakers Association of India (See
The person asking was Mitesh Khatri, an expert on leadership and the law of attraction.
When I heard the question I gave a reply that, at first, might seem a bit provocative. I said: “The biggest mistake is to think in the way that makes you even ask that question.”
By that I meant that to be an international or global speaker the most important thing for a speaker to do is to stop thinking that speaking in another country is different. It’s not. At least not even close to as different than what people think.
Since I was in India I asked Mitesh Khatri a follow up question: “Do you think “How do I get to speak in the south of India? Of course you don’t.”
And then I added: “So why do you say: “How do I get to speak in Sri Lanka?” (Which is just a bit more south of the south of India.)
I could see how something clicked in Mitesh Khatri’s head.
And that is exactly what I wanted to happen.
If you think “speaking internationally” is vastly different from “speaking nationally” and that there are huge changes you need to do in order to break the speaking-outside-your-home-country-barrier then that fear is in itself will stop you from making it happen.
If someone asked you if you could speak in Mumbai, India on Sunday, in Singapore on Monday and in Munich, Germany on Tuesday, would you accept?
What if I added that the speech in Mumbai would end 8.00 PM (!) and for the speech in Munich you would have to be at the conference ballroom at 7.15 AM (!) for the sound check.
Would you do it?
Could you do it?
Is it even possible to do it?
I just did.
After speaking from 7-8 PM in central Mumbai I jumped into a taxi for the 90 minute taxi ride to the brand new Mumbai Airport.
Boarded a plane for Singapore that left 23.50 PM and landed in Singapore at 6.30 AM Monday.
Went home to my kids and played with them for a couple of hours and then went to sleep from 10 AM to 3.30 PM to make sure I would not have any jetlag to slow me down.
Went to a Parent-Teacher meeting for my oldest daughter at 4.30 – 5 PM
Then off to venue for my evening speech.
Arrive at venue 5.30 for sound check (thank goodness for the lack of traffic jams in Singapore).
Did my speech 6 PM to 7 PM.
Jump into taxi and arrive at Changi Airport at 8 PM
Check in and board plane that leaves at 9.20 PM
Sleep in the comfort of the Qatar Business class seats.
Arrive in Doha around midnight and fly onwards to Munich (this time in their brand new business class seats that are the best I have ever had (apart from Singapore airlines business class seats which are the best by a mile…). Slept like a baby.
Land in Munich at 6.30 AM.
Driver picks me up and takes me to hotel.
Shower and change to speaking suit.
Go down to ballroom and do sound check at 7.15 AM Tuesday.
Then attended the morning sessions of the conference and got up on stage to deliver my speech at 11 AM, less than 40 hours after standing on stage in Mumbai.
The lesson here is that it is quite possible to do speeches in different parts of the world even if the dates are close to each other.
Just make sure you sleep, nap and rest as much as you possible can so that you are not tired when it’s time to stand on the stage.
And make sure that all the clients involved are aware of, and comfortable with, your travel schedule.
Hopefully this post will inspire you to take on more international speaking assignments without feeling that you will have to put in a lot of “extra days” in order to get them done.
