This may be the most important question you ever answer as a professional speaker. The speaking business is going through a massive and necessary correction, and the people who will thrive and survive in the post recession era will be the thought leaders. Watch this short video I shot in London, England and I’ll look forward to your comments. Steve Siebold (2:59)
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Steve Siebold, CSP My name is Steve Siebold. I’m an author with 1.4 million books in print, and a professional speaker and consultant to Fortune 500 sales teams on how to increase sales and retention rates through mental toughness training. My corporate clients include Johnson & Johnson, Toyota, Harrah’s Entertainment, Procter & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline, Ingersoll Rand, etc.
good morning steve great job very well done confidence and ability = real
let me know if there is places available for the end of october in foert lauderdale
I am very interested
thanks
Karlo
Steve!
Nice hair! How did you get it to stand straight up during the entire video? I believe I’m a thought leader in health & fitness. I just haven’t found the key that unleashes people’s desire & motivates them to get moving… unless I chase them with a stick.
Thanks,
Jaroslav
It’s a skill! 🙂
You truly are an electrifying speaker my friend–as evidenced by the hair standing straight up! LOL! (Couldn’t resist that one!) 🙂
Seriously, if there is one term that drives me in this business to the point of passion it’s the term “thought leader.” I LOVE that term more than any I’ve heard you say. You’re dead on about the need for thought leader speakers instead of the assembly line stereotype of thought-follower speakers.
Our society is starving for true leadership. It’s hard to find. The tough thing about true leadership is that it’s a lonely, thankless position to be in if one is to be an effective leader because one has to “think outside the crowd.” I see that type of leader as one who is not afraid to take a stand, has a keen sense of right vs. wrong, and sees things through without excuse. It’s easy to say, but tough to do.
Since the workshop I found it easy to draft run-of-the-mill speeches, but daunting when it comes to drafting the kind of speech that does what you said–create new solutions to old ideas or problems. It takes more thought and effort and serious consideration to present solutions that are not just fast-food style delivery to appease the need of entertainment, but nutritional benefit to the leadership-oriented mind.
I love topics like these! Keep me signed up for Atlanta in January–the wife and I are coming!
Ken,
have you ever considered, how thought leaders get treated today? If you are not politically correct on any issue, you are fair game. How many thought leaders do we have out there, who much rather keep quiet, then risking public criticism of themselves and their family. And it is the later part, which is wrong. Attack the message, have it scrutinized, but don’t kill the messenger.
Look at Steve and how hostile he has been treated at times by his interviewers. He is the Mental Toughness guru and lives by it, but how many are really willing to stick their neck out. Unfortunately this is the intend of the thought police. Political correctness is used to control what you can and cannot say and thus takes our First Amendment rights away.
Listen to the stories Steve tells, about industry leaders having money and not knowing what to do. They are afraid to publicly push back against the flood of regulation coming from the current administration, as they worry about vengeance from that group.
So political correctness has forced our thought leaders into hiding and it is time we as people change the political climate back to more tolerant times.
Mike Jacobi
PS: Looking very much forward to meeting your wife and you in Atlanta
First, a response to Mann Adams: I’m like you in that I have a host of thoughts & ideas pop in my mind throughout the day while I’m running my business and elsewhere. Wanna know what I do? I have a clipboard on the seat in my SUV that has notepaper on it–while I’m driving listening to book CD’s between appointments all day an idea will pop up and I can scribble it down without taking my eyes off the road. I have files full of notes. Also, I keep a pencil and notepad on my nitestand because inspirations always strikes when I’m beginning to doze off to sleep. With a pencil, I can write upside down in bed without having to sit up and I can toss it back on the nitestand without turning on the light. Finally, if no paper is around and an idea strikes me, i write a small note on the palm of my hand. Ideas only last about 35 seconds, then they’re gone. That’s how I catch and preserve them–hope that helps.
Now to Jacobi: You’re right–good thought leaders are afraid to stick their necks out. Remember Ross Perot and what why he said he withdrew from the candidacy? Political correctness has gone so far it’s ridiculous–you could write a book about it.
I developed a hydrogen generator (I’m waaay into alternative energy) for one of my Chevy Suburbans and got it to run on part water–got 5 more miles to the gallon! When I went to have the emissions & registration done, I got turned into the police! A day or two later, a sergeant from the Utah Highway Patrol came to investigate me, and after showing him how it worked, he smiled, shook my hand, and congratulated me for such innovation and said he would go “straighten out” the guy who turned me in. Even innovation is attacked. Look what inventors went through in the past!
You’ve got a VERY good point, and that’s why part of my own platform will be the essential necessity of thought leadership being founded on FACT based origins to lessen the tendency of dispute and retribution. In my business, my primary responsibility is to keep insurance companies and moving companies out of court when they screw up. I’ve discovered a whole spectrum of perspective analysis that we use to negotiate with high level VIP’s to make sure things get back on track after something terrible goes wrong. It’s emotionally draining, but that’s all I do for a living. I’d rather speak about it rather than do it the older I get! I also worked for a mortuary when I was starting out in college–talk about perspective! I could tell you stories about dead bodies that would keep you on the edge of your seat–how I got myself into VERY embarrassing situations in a hurry and had to use extreme mental toughness to get out of it! LOL! See you in Atlanta! 🙂
Our country is filled with thought followers, that is why we are where we are today. Our old ways of thinking wil not work. We are going through a transition, not unlike the Great Depression. Prior to the depression we were farmers who barely communicated to anyone. After the depression we became manufacturers and we had to communicate a little more, usually technical communication. Today if you cannot communicate well enough to get your message into others heads, you are dead. In the past the haves vs the have- nots was all about money. Today it is about action. Those who can shift their thinking and immediately take action will be the haves; those who are quick with ideas but slow to take action will follow the haves. We are changing in business, health, and politics. Look ahead to see what it will really take to be a leader. If being a leader was easy, then everyone would do it. Be prepared to be attacked personally, because you are stretching the boundaries of people’s minds. Yahoo!!
I am quite definitely a thought leader. its a really exciting place to be. Its the only place to be. Lead and others will follow. Remember to speak from the heart backed up by supreme logic.
Hi Steve,
So true video. If you cut, copy, and paste old techniques you become part of the 99% and you will not stand out as the 1% who think and do something different.
Trevor
The great books and disciplines of the past are the foundation stones on which we build upon and we must never lose sight of that. After the strong foundations have been laid, the question of “are you a leader or a follower” is a very good one and Steve makes a valid point by asking it.
Most people are thought followers
Good question, Steve. Audiences are hungry for new material. By providing that, especially in the form of solutions to people’s problems, speakers position themselves as leaders.
It’s also good form. It gets back to the basic principle of public speaking: providing value. You tailor your presentation to the event, and not just rehash stuff you’ve delivered before (at least not word-for-word).