Ep. 42 | How To Bounce Forward and Master Influence for the Future with Sam Cawthorn

In this powerful episode, Sam Cawthorn shares how he overcame a massive crisis to then become one of the highest-paid keynote speakers and successful Speaking Business Entrepreneur in the world.

Sam will share the highs and lows and the secrets for anyone at all to overcome any tough time to become a leader worth following.

• The 3 steps for anyone to overcome challenges
• The blueprint to becoming an influencer worth following
• The future of personal development and how anyone can launch themselves in this Profile Economy

Resources:

• speakersinstitute.com
• sarahcordiner.com/starterkit

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

The most important thing is stay focused on one thing. Do it really well and go deep with it. You know, as entrepreneurs, as coaches, as thought leaders, the reality is this. We come up with 65,000 ideas every single day. We don’t have an ideas problem. We have a focus [music] issue.

Hello? Hello. We alive. Welcome to the super, super duper special presentation live stream podcast, wherever you’re listening to us on. I’m so excited to be here. My name is Sarah Cordiner and I have an amazing guest here today. Mr. Sam Cawthorn, CEO of Speakers Institute, one of the highest paid world renowned speakers in the world. And one of my personal coaches. Back in 2014, I was just moving through the transition period of, um, being a very successful consultant, but completely in the corporate space and serving government contracts.

And I sort of had something missing, there was something missing for me. I really loved what I did. I loved the work that I was doing, but I kind of had this sense of unfulfillment. When you’re working with the corporates and the government agencies, in general, and I know, I know this is a bit of a stereotype. For me I found there wasn’t a lot of personal fulfillment. You didn’t get to actually see and witness the results. That you were giving people, you didn’t get to witness the changes in people’s lives that you were making. And so for me, there was always this kind of itching that what’s next. There’s something more, there’s something else I need to do to reach and help more people. I feel like I need to make more of an impact and I’m just not getting it, doing things the way I’m doing them right now.

And I was scrolling through Facebook and appeared Mr. Sam Cawthorn, who literally teaches people how to become professional speakers. How to turn their voice, their message, their story, their expertise, to something they’ve been through in their lives, their profession into something that the public world will fall in love with. Into something that we can turn into a profitable business. Whether it’s just speaking, professional speaking, or like me, Sam actually helped me turn what I did for a living into something that I could take to the public as a service-based business, as a story that people could connect to and as, books and speeches and everything else. That since 2014, my life has been completely transformed by. So, Sam, welcome. And thank you so much for your time.

You are absolutely welcome. And look, that was a beautiful thing to say, Sarah, and again, congratulations for everything that you’ve done. I’m super proud of you. And ultimately, you know, here you are now, I’m, I’m actually learning from you. So I think when the, when the teacher becomes the student, I think it’s an awesome thing.

It’s amazing. And that this is a really cool point. I want, I want to touch on. There is when I met Sam back in 2014, I was making this transition to the public space. Like many people that I’m working with today, they’re starting off with nothing. I literally had no website. There was no SarahCordiner.Com. I had no Facebook page. I had zero followers. I had no idea how I was going to go from these corporate office buildings, out into the world. And you know, it’s not been that many years. It only took about 18 months later, before with the confidence that Sam, you gave me to just go out and share my message. To just go out and give it freely without worrying about how I’m going to sound or how I’m going to just literally the confidence to springboard out there. You know, I’ve gone on now, right now, speaking to over 85,000 students in 168 countries. I’ve published 12 books, you know. I have a waiting list that goes months in advance, and this will happen because you just gave me the courage and the systems and the structure, to get it out there. So what I’m excited about today is your presentation, because today you’re going to be sort of covering some of those elements. We’re going to be talking about “How to Master Influence For the Future”. And in particular, we’re going to hear a little bit about your story, Sam, how you actually turned what other people would see as well. It was quite literally a life-threatening catastrophe. The one of the worst things that could possibly happen and you yourself have turned trauma, um, and you know, the lowest of the low place, you could be into something where you are now literally going around the world and changing people’s lives all over the world. So look, tell us, tell us your story. Tell us how you got here. Influencing thousands of people all over the world. Um, and what message do you have for Course Creators, Coaches, Consultants, Experts, people who also want to try and make an influence and an impact on other people.

Hi, thank you so much again, Sarah.

And that, that was a beautiful intro. However, how I see it is this. I think everyone has the confidence within everyone has the courage within. And sometimes we just need a coach and a mentor to actually take the breaks off. And so that was all my role in, in your journey, just in. You’ve always had it within. And I think that then goes to show that I also truly believe that everyone has a story and everyone has a message. And my journey goes that, you know, I was kicked out of school. You know, I was hanging around with the wrong type of people that influenced me in a very toxic way. And I grew up down in Tasmania, the little Island on the mainland Australia. Mum is Indian, father Scottish, but I always knew deep down that there was something, more, something big in my life.

And ultimately, you know, uh, I like everyone. I then got a standard nine to five job. I was working for someone else’s dream. And it wasn’t until such time as I had a major crisis, a major accident. And for me, it was a car accident. Uh, you know, I was driving along. I was going around, uh, I was going around a hundred kilometers an hour around 60 miles an hour, and it was my fault. I fell asleep behind the wheel at about three o’clock in the afternoon. I veered over the other side of the road and the police said it was a 206 kilometer about a kilometer, about 130 mile an hour head on collision with a semi-trailer truck. Uh, my arm was ripped off, so I, yes, I actually do live with a disability. I’ve only got one arm and I got one good leg. Uh, but, but, uh, during my accident, um, even though it was my fault, I was actually pronounced dead at the scene. My heart stopped for about three and a half minutes. Um, obviously resuscitated, cause I’m talking to you right now, but I was on life support for a week, in hospital for five months and then in a wheelchair for an entire year. Doctor said I’ll never be able to walk ever again, but you know, it’s a good feeling when you prove the doctors wrong.

But, um, but my, that was actually where my story started. My story started that instead of me going back to that same job back to that same career pathway, something had changed, right? Not only physically, but also emotionally, mentally, even spiritually. I was no longer focused to be the person that I used to be. So a local youth group asked me to share my story. I went and shared my story. Then a school then asked me to share my story and I went and shared my story. Then another school and another school. Here all of a sudden now, I was like speaking in five, six schools every single week. So I thought to myself, I might as well now charge, right? So here I’m charging 500 bucks for a school to just share my story. That’s it. And, and the thing about this, I don’t think my story is like an amazing, awesome story about winning an Olympic gold medal or climbing Mount Everest, or having a shark attack, right?

Yeah! You came back to life for goodness sake. You’re pretty impressive!

That’s the thing all I’ve had is just a car accident. But the thing about it is this, I learned how to share my story in a really powerful way to make it relevant to the listener. And let me tell you something that we already know, you know. Um, our stories are our number one trump card. You know, whatever skill set that you have, whatever area of expertise that you’ve got, I can probably find better online right now for free. You know, our greatest trump card isn’t necessarily our skillset or our area of expertise. It’s our story. It’s our experiences. Cause no one on the planet has our story. No one has our experiences. And so that was my journey. Then sharing my story. And then I suppose the rest is history. I’ve then learned how to share my story well. I’ve now spoken in over 40 countries. I’ve, you know, I’ve spoken on many stages of over 20,000 people. Shared the stage with President Bill Clinton, Dalai Lama, Richard Branson, Michelle Obama, Simon Sinek, even Michael Jordan. Uh, but just simply I’ll learn how to share my story and made it relevant for the listener that people wanted to hear, wanted to listen. And that they’re inspired by.

Pretty impressive. I mean, from, from a guy here in Tazzy, driving too fast to sharing stages with presidents and the biggest celebrities in the world. Yeah. I think the real message here is it doesn’t matter where you start. It doesn’t matter where you begin. We all have the power within us to do that simply by speaking up. I mean, that’s the key here? Isn’t it.

Yeah, look without a doubt. Everyone has a voice. You know, this year I believe is our most powerful instrument. And the thing about it is that yes, there are so many voices out there. There are so many experts out there. So then the key thing is this, how can we make our voice heard? How can we stand out from the marketplace? What do we need to do to basically win people’s attention? Because that’s what we’re seeing right now. There’s so much noise in our marketplaces in our workplace, but what are we doing to win the attention of other people? Whether it’s one-to-one one to many. And that’s, you know what I believe I’ve, I’ve actually learnt. And now I’m obviously talking and helping other people do it as well.

It’s fantastic. Now, obviously I’ve been the benefit of being one of your students and also, you know, since then the years have gone by, and we’ve been working together to help other people go out there to the world. You know, for someone who’s starting out as a lot of people listening today who are established coaches, consultants, experts in their field of expertise… Some people are just starting the journey, but for most people listening, they are in that position now of, you know, how do I get my voice out there? You know, I’ve got this story in here, I’ve got this knowledge in here. I’ve got this fire in here and this passion to go and help people. Where do I even begin? Yeah.

And look, it is a really good question. However, one thing I truly believe is this. When we are faithful with the small, the big will come. You know, a lot of the time we want the big opportunities. Now we want the big stages, we want the big influence. We want the a hundred million followers. We want the big money right now, but the reality is this. You’ve got to start. And how I see starting is the simplicity of you learning things in your experiences that you’ve had. And for you to share that with as on many platforms as possible. You know, things that are working really well right now, you know, the 10 tips to help you to, or the five secret ingredients or the seven secrets or the, or the nine principles, or like, by the way we learn in odd numbers rather than even numbers. That’s a whole nother conversation. Yeah.

Nice good tip.

But it’s, but it’s all about how the little that we know, and I believe everyone knows something. You know, when someone comes up to you and says,, “Wow! You make that look so easy.” You know, when someone comes up, you know, whenever you do something and you’re just getting flow and all of a sudden, you know, you’ve just lost four hours and you think, where did that time go? This is all part of our natural genius. This is all part of what we do. And ultimately there are people out there right now that are crying out for that information that, you know. They’re people out there that haven’t overcome the things that you’ve overcome. So by being faithful with the small is this, Is just, it’s just sharing the little that you have on as many platforms as you can, whether it’s through written, whether it’s verbal, a podcast or whether it’s video and make it valuable to them. And how I see it is this and catch this. Value is not value unless it addresses the pain point or problem of your target listener. So the reality is we need to, first of all, find out what is, what are the pain points and problems of our target listeners and how can we actually help them with that pain point and problem?

Cause here’s another one. My income is directly associated with how much value I gift humanity. So, if I want to make more money, I need to gift more value. And what is value? Value is helping people with their pain points and problems. So for me, be faithful with the small. Serving where you can. Contributing. And how I see it, give away your best content. But all, always only teach them what to do. And then say, if you want to learn how to do it, take out your wallet and buy my product.

Love it. And I love that you’re talking about this bit Sam because and, you know, obviously I worked with people creating courses and that’s what I predominantly specialize in. And a lot of people struggle with that initial topic. And I certainly know having been your student was learning to be a professional speaker. It’s like what, one of the many things that I can possibly talk about, do I pick first? How do I pick that topic? How do I choose that thing that I will become known as in the industry for when we have so many life experiences.

Now not everybody has been resurrected from the dead in a car crash or has been through some horrific experience. So one of the questions that definitely come, come my way. Is how do we sort of sift through our lifeline, if you like the timeline of our life and look at, um, you know, maybe there’s some kind of turning point that we had or some kind of tipping point that we had, or a moment when our perspective, our viewpoint, our feelings, our emotions, the way we saw the world changed, you know. Do we look at what was something terrible that happened to us, that we overcame and therefore we’ve learned lessons about resilience? Or do we look at things that we’ve achieved and successes that we’ve had in our lives and then teach people how to get the success that we’ve had? I mean, what’s the kind of the overarching set of steps that you would take somebody through when they’re going, what is my topic? What things shall I start investigating to find out what it is?

That’s a great question. I love this conversation. Hey, um, uh, so there’s a few, there’s a few layers to this. I’m going to give people three core things to get a pen and paper out and write this down. Cause it’s a really, really helpful. But just before we do that, number one thing is this. Is that the most important thing is stay focused on one thing. Do it really well and go deep with it. You know, as entrepreneurs, as coaches, as thought leaders, the reality is this, we come up with, we come up with 65,000 ideas every single day. We don’t have an ideas problem. We have a focus issue. Focusing on one thing, doing it really well and going deep with it. Innovate down, not across don’t come up with more topics or more key threads or more messages. No. Come up with one message, then innovate down, give us the five ways, give them the seven steps. Give them the formula. Give us your cycle, give us your teachable frameworks and the like.

So then, then the ultimate then question here is how can we come up with that one key thread? That one terminology that has cut through. I believe this, I believe we need to have one disruptive idea that is four words or less. I’ll say that again. I think we need to have one disruptive idea. Just one that is four words or less, and this is how you’re going to get cut through. This is how you’re going to penetrate the market and ultimately be heard in your marketplace.

So I’m now going to give you three ways to, in order for you to find the right terminology. The right terminology, because ultimately, yes, you need to draw it out from you and do everything that Sarah just mentioned. Look specifically at your skillset, look at your story. Look at the key thread. Look at that. Look at something that is congruent with who you are, yeah? But then it’s about wrapping it in the right wrapping paper. Because in all reality, everything inside is exactly the same as everyone else, you know. If you want resilient messages or buy one book and you’ve got majority of the message. Which then means we need a rapid in the right wrapping paper. We need to have one disruptive idea. We need to zag when everyone else is zigging. Yeah. We need to Zig when everyone else is zagging. Let me give you an idea.

So here are three ways. First one is this, write this down. Yep. Disrupt a common phrase. Disrupt a common phrase. So let’s say hypothetically, if you’re in, you know, creating wealth and making money, you know, uh, you know, there’s a lady out there, you know, how we’ve all been taught you know, this is how to make money quick. You know, um, make money fast, et cetera. Her message get this is this, make money slow. Getting rich slow instead of get rich fast, get rich quick, get rich, slow love. Here’s my one, you know, when, whenever we have a crisis, whenever we have adversity, we’re told we have to bounce back from this, but let’s disrupt a common phrase, bounce back. I wrote a book called balance. Yeah, disrupt the common phrase. So, um, there’s a lady out there and her name is Carrie and she worked in communication. You know, when we’re told, when we’re young kids, you know, don’t talk to strangers, do not. She disrupt the common phrase. She’s zag when everyone zigged, so her common phrase, so her disrupting of a common phrase was this. Do talk to strangers. Yeah. So the first one is this disrupt the common phrase. What is a common phrase in your space and disrupt that. Zag when everyone else is zigging. That’s the first way.

Second way is this, are you ready? This is a good one. Have a standout word. Yeah. Have a stand out word. What’s the number one TED Talk on the planet right now? I think it’s in the top three. It’s by Sir Ken Robinson. And this is what it is called. Schools kill creativity. Now imagine the talk was called “Schools don’t encourage creativity.” Do you think that would have been, do you think that would have had penetration in the marketplace? No chance at all. Schools Kill Creativity. Let me give you a number one book I’ve read in the last few years. Get this, The Subtle Art of not Giving a F***. Now think about it. Imagine if the book was called “The Subtle Art of Not Really Caring About What People Think of You.” No chance at all that that would have had penetration in the marketplace, yeah? So have a stand out word. Have a word that makes me have a double-take. Whoa, Whoa. Yeah. So have a word that has that standout effect within your title, within your key thread. Yeah.

The first one disrupt the common phrase. Second one have a standout word. I like the third runner. and this Sarah I had to give to you, it is make up a core word. Make it up. Make up a core word. There’s a, there’s a guy out there and he talks about, and, um, and he talks about our digital minds and analog hearts. And you know, when everyone’s zigging and when everyone’s saying, you know, digital technology, this, he actually said, wait a sec, we will also still have these analog hearts. Most of our Ritz watches are analog. They’re are dial. So, so we said, okay, what if I make up a word? And it’s called Digilogue blurring the lines between our digital minds and analog hearts. Beautiful. He made up word. There’s another lady out there. Uh, and she made up a word, having fun at work. Yeah. You know how we need to have fun at work. So now it’s no longer work with having fun at work. She decided she decided to make up a core word. She blurred the lines between fun and work and it’s called FURK Let’s go and do some FURKing. I think it’s so funny. There’s a, there’s a, you know, we’ve all heard of that book called Freakonomics. That’s a made up word Freakonomics. My, one of my books is actually called, um, is in and around, you know, how we’ve all been taught we have to be storytellers. Tell a story. I believe we need to be more Story Showers. You know, it’s a more about showing a story. So again, make up a cool word.

So here are three really, really cool ways to create this one disruptive idea where you zag when everyone else is zigging. Where you can stand out from the noise. Where you can be heard. And you can wrap it in the right wrapping paper. So it stands out from everyone else. You know, disrupt the common phrase. Make up a core word or sorry, disrupt a common phrase, have a standout word and, or make up a core word. Three really, really cool things. Now again, my encouragement is have at four words or less. Yeah, because yeah, once it’s longer than four words, then it won’t stand out, yeah? Because as we know, our attention spans are shorter than anything all the time in history. Get these Randstad did a study around 30 years ago and what they showed that the average human being attention span was anywhere between 30 to 35 seconds. They did another study. And that was only seven, eight years ago that showed that the average human being attention span was anywhere between seven to nine seconds, you know, shorter than the goldfish.

Do you know what the average human being attention span is today? It is three seconds. It’s three… Get this social media are now giving analytics to digital marketers for anyone at all that has viewed your post three seconds or longer. Do you know why? Do you know why this is why scroll, scroll, scroll. Do you know, the average human being scrolls three miles a day. Scroll doing right now to win the attention of your avatar of your ideal customer and client. You have a one disruptive ID that is forwards or less than how have that’ll have cut through and ultimately you will be heard.

Boom. I love it. Well, if that isn’t a way to get you kickstarted, I have no idea what. And then I remember you teaching that to me years ago, so, and I kind of thought, well, you know, what, what am I going to be? Um, you know, educator, it’s not very exciting. Um, so I came up with, I help people, you know, profitably educate their markets. So I put together education and, uh, you know, entrepreneurship and made Edupreneur

By the way, I love it. I love it. I talk about that all the time. I love recording.

No back then sounds so I did a Google search because I was like, I wonder if anyone’s using this word yet. And I did a Google search, nothing. I went onto LinkedIn, nothing. I changed my job title on LinkedIn to Edupreneur. And I was like massive piece of paper up on my wall, a butcher’s paper. And I said, my goal is, and it was 2015 then. My goal is to make 10,000 people call themselves edupreneurs by 2020. That was my goal that I had. That was my five-year plan. By 2017 only two years later, I had over 12,000 people calling themselves edupreneurs on LinkedIn who had been through my courses and I published a book called Edupreneur. And it’s now a thing. Like you type in edupreneur on LinkedIn or Google. It is like, everyone’s an edupreneur. It’s a work. So I, it works.

I love it. It’s fantastic. Congratulations.

I love this is so good. Right? Well, this is cool. So we’ve got some ideas now for picking a topic and coming up with this thing, that’s going to make us see and kind of stand out from people. Now let’s pretend we’ve kind of, we’ve got there and by the way, anyone listening, this does not happen first time. Right? You kind of come up with a sort of idea. And from my experience and a lot of other people I’ve known through going through Sam’s programs, you kind of play with it. You go out there with it, you test it, people ask you questions, you change it again. You’d change it completely. It’s not something you just wake up on the toilet one day and know what it is, right. It doesn’t just fall out of your back. Um, you’ve got to play with it. Like, let’s say you get to the point where you sort of know what your idea is. You think you’ve come up with your amazing word and your amazing standout phrase.

The next bit is the actual getting it out there. What advice can you give to these coaches, consultants, experts, course creators. They’ve got their idea. And they want to come across in a way that, you know, crosses the line between unprofessional people. A lot of people in the, in this space, they want to be seen as the professionals that they are. They also want to come across friendly and approachable and likable. And all of a sudden you go, Oh my gosh, I have to know my stuff. So that I tick the professional box. I also have to have everybody like me. Oh my God. What if people hate me? And all of a sudden this imposter syndrome comes up. This absolutely freak out. Am I going to get trolled? Am I going to be criticized? Who am I like to teach this? It’s that sort of stepping over the line of, I really want to do this, but Oh, what if I drown? What if I fall? What advice can you give people that are in that stage right now? They really want to leap, but they’re so afraid of falling.

You know, a lot of the time we all think that we actually need more confidence. If only I had more confidence, I can, you know, I just need more confidence so I can, or the like. I believe this, I don’t believe that we need more confidence. I believe our confidence will show up. When we show up, I believe we just need an inkling of bravery or an inkling of courage. And all of a sudden our confidence is there. Which then begs the question. What then should we crave? What is that thing that we need to ensure that we do come across?

And I believe it’s this. It is everything right now is to do with certainty. And one of the main reasons is it’s in the market place. In our workplaces right now is more uncertain than any other time in history. What we’ve experienced over the last 12 months with the pandemic is that our business leaders, our leaders, our thought leaders, our C suite executives. That bottom line is, is that they are all craving, they’re craving certainty on where the future is going. Or certainty of what’s going on right now. So what they need from us, right? What the, what the marketplace, what the workplace needs from us. They need certainty. Now certainty has a language and I believe a lot is to do with our body language, the methodology and how we say what we know. Yeah. And so ultimately there’s a few little tips and tricks, which we can share in a moment in and around how to come across with more certainty.

But it’s also not only just the content, what we say, it’s the methodology, how we say it. And the more certain we come across, even though deep down within, we might even sometimes feel a little bit uncertain. But I’m sure, you know, um, for those people that are listening you, uh, I can, I can see that Sarah has this attractiveness about her. That we are attracted to her because of her certainty. Certainty is attractive. And so I don’t think we need more confidence. We need more certainty. And the more that we come across with more certainty, the more that we will draw in as many people as possible to follow us as well.

I really like that differentiation there because a lot of people wrongly assume that confidence is boldness. People think that to be confident, you have to be loud and brash and look at Barry and shouting and everything. Um, and I, I liked by using the word certainty, you know, you can be very, very calm, very quiet, very introverted. But still be very, very certain about the message you have. The instructions that you’re giving and the direction that you’re leading your people in. And I think that’s can be really comforting to people that are like, but I’m not an extrovert confident person. I will actually, you know, being certain, I really, really like that. We can still be extremely clear on the direction we’re heading that will give people the confidence to follow us as certain leaders. That’s beautiful. I really like that. I really hope that people can, if you, I mean, if those of you listening, if that is a thing for you, we’d love, I’d love to hear your, your comments on that.

Well, that’s incredible. So, and I also really love the word you said there where, you know, we don’t have to be necessarily confident to start. All we need is a tiny little inkling of courage and that’s cool because, you know, we don’t feel confident all of the time and have be a confident person, have a competent character. We just have to go. But this very second for this little tiny minute, I’m going to have a tiny bit of courage.

Yeah. And, and I do love that, you know, certainty is attractive and the more that we can learn the language of certainty, the more that our courage and our confidence will just show up. So, yeah, I love that.

Brilliant. All right. So we’ve got this, this idea that we’re going with, we feel like we’re, we’re, we’re confident with the direction we’re going in. We are going to promise ourselves we’re going to have an inkling of courage and we’re going to start going out there with certainty. So like we said before, you’ve mentioned already in here and like a lot of the people that you and I deal with, whether you’re helping people come up with those keynotes and that influence message that they’re going to have with their own helping people create courses.

You know, one of the next things that people go is. Well, there’s so many other people who are teaching the same thing as me. There are so many other people creating courses that at the same as my topic. There are so many people creating speeches that are the same as my speech and all that kind of stuff. So you talked about the methodology, the how of the delivery. And this is, you know, you, you talk a lot about charisma. Uh, you talk a lot about how, how is it that, you know, I can have somebody next to me who could copy my speech, script word for word. Who could take my slides, who could wear my knickers and we could go out and stand out there and present the same stuff together at the same time. One of us might be really successful and one of us might not be successful at all. And our stuff is identical. How did this happen? And can you tell us why there really isn’t any competition.

It’s very, very true. It’s very rare that, you know, a lot of people would even come to me and say, “Hey Sam, who are your competitors?” And I’m thinking, no one. No no one in the world I’m competing with, uh, outside of just my own self.

You know, I do believed that there is a difference between being credible and approachable. Yeah. Um, and I think it’s really important for us to all understand how to become, how to com approachable. And approachability is very different today than what it used to be 20 years ago. 20 years ago, what we wanted in our speakers, our influencer, the people in self-help, personal development. What do we want? We want one of those people to say, “Hey, look at me. I’m successful. Hoorah! You can be successful too.” But nowadays, I believe that, you know, more and more, you know, human beings have got this, you know, in a way and excuse the pun, bullshit meters. Where we’re basically we can spot a fraud a mile away. And, and so I believe that authenticity trumps everything. And the more that we’re authentic, the more that we’re vulnerable, the more that we can then become that approachable person. And then we can then build credible in order for them to take out their wallet.

So get this, the word vulnerability comes from the Latin word ‘vulnerabilis’. Which means an open wound. And I believe one of the greatest ways to really build that rapport, to get people to like you is, is ultimately by you literally saying, “Hey guys, I’ve failed. I’ve actually failed time and time again, but I’ve learned how to navigate that failure. Let me share with you.” And so the more that we are obviously opening that wound, showing our scars and saying, Hey guys, you know, I’m just like you. And, and ultimately the more that we do that, the more that you can be relatable. And when you are relatable, people lean in, you’re more approachable and ultimately then you can then build the credible from that moment as well.

So, so, so in most cases, there’s two main forms of communication. One is our content, what we say. And then the other is our methodology, how we say it, you know, and yeah. So I can give you a specific formulas in and around. This is what we teach our TED talkers. This is what we teach highly paid speaking professional speakers. And this is the methodology. This is what we do with our fingers, with our wrists, with our elbow. This is what we do with our shoulders, with our head. This is how often we blink. This is when we use our facial muscles. This is what we do with our hand, eye coordination and so on and so forth.

But ultimately with all of that, authenticity trumps everything. And people can spot a fraud, a mile away. There’s a sixth sense that we all feel. And ultimately, I believe this, and you can write this down if you like, this is a really, really powerful sentence. Tell you what… Write this down. It says, ” I am in the business of emotion.” So guys, ultimately with the rise of AI machine learning, data intelligence, and the like… They, they will always trump human beings now on, you know, here’s the data, here’s the research, here’s the case study. Here’s the information. Yeah. Which then means we will forget what you said, but we’ll never forget how you made us feel.

So, if we’re in the business of emotion, we must learn how to evoke emotion into the listener. Because, because that is actually how people will find it hard to forget. Why? Cause the greatest sin of communication is being easily forgettable. Yeah. We know this. You’ve just communicated for me. And five minutes later, I’ve forgotten what you said. Now you’ve wasted my time and your own time. So ultimately what we need to learn is how can we be in the business of emotion? How can we learn how do we evoke emotion into the listener, with a leaning in there in anticipation what you’re going to say. And ultimately they find it really hard to forget. Because every human being, we have a sixth sense. And if you feel something, then the listener will feel something. And it’s absolutely still congruent where, whether it’s in the camera or whether you’re physically in a room with me.

I really, really liked that. And, and touching on that sort of that credibility element, working with a lot of people that are creating courses, they sort of go again, this one’s supposed to come in and who am I to do this? Um, for me, I feel like that there are those two, there are two sort of parts to credibility. One is that, you know, am I qualified? Do I have any training? You know? Um, why should you trust me in terms of this particular topic? Right? There’s the practical credibility. Have you got training? Have you got bragging rights in terms of your quolls? How many years have you been in your industry? Four. Have you written any books? Have you been published anywhere? Right? That’s the practical side of credibility. And if you’ve got that, you know, brag about it. That’s brag status and that’s absolutely going to add to you to your tick boxes. Right.

But you know, like you said Sam, I’m really enjoying how I’ve certainly seen in the last 10 years. This, this change in the credibility. The thing that makes people ultimately sign up to your thing. To your message, to your course, to your coaching, to whatever it is that you’re offering. And then recommend other people to do the same comes down to that credibility of are they real? And are they like me too? And I think that’s where that feeling comes in. And what I’ve seen, I’ve seen this massively, um, even not, not change, but in hearts over the COVID period. With us all having to continue our professional activities from home working environment. Yeah. Something that three years ago would have been completely unprofessional. That would have been considered credibility killing, is now ironically, what is making some people even more successful. The people that are okay to share themselves and be authentic and show that that side. There are people here who when you rock up with your imperfect look and you haven’t done any video editing and the dog comes in and barks or, or your child runs in naked, Sam, we may have had a live conference that way. Thousands of people attending from all over the world. And my child literally ran in naked and the nanny couldn’t get her out. It was so funny.

But you know, that was just a beautiful, authentic realness about the situation. And we were even more, you became likable at that moment, Sarah. So it was beautiful.

And this isn’t, isn’t it? You know, I think that the way the place that we’re in, in the world right now is actually lending itself to the favourability of increasing authenticity. And increasing that credibility that makes people go, Oh my goodness, you’re not some big celebrity with a huge fancy studio and an endless marketing budget. You’re a mum just like me. Or a person, just like me. Doing your best with cats and builders and been men and all these things that make us real. That is what ultimately people buy people. Right. Um, and this is, I think people correct people follow people and this, and I think this is making this whole journey of becoming an influencer or becoming a leader in an industry, or just sharing our story in a way that’s going to touch people’s hearts. It’s now becoming so much more attainable to everybody because it’s going to become more and more and more expected that we are raw real and unedited. Um, if we, if we want to be someone that’s going to be sellable or likable, so this is awesome. Isn’t it so good.

Um, now, like we’re, we’re approaching, um, sort of the coming to the end of this presentation. So, and if you guys on the live on the chats, please, if you have any questions for myself or Sam, please pop them down in the comments below. And we’d love to go through and answer any questions you have about becoming an influencer, sharing your story, sharing your message with the world.

Now with the story elements, Sam, this for me was the bit that I really struggled the most with when I was going from becoming a trainer, an educator. Uh, moving into becoming a storyteller and a presenter. Because actually really different things. And I remember coming into your training a little bit cocky, actually, I have to admit, because I was sort of like, I’m a qualified teacher trainer. I’ve been teaching people how to teach for years. I literally, you know, consult AXS this, the companies, fortune 500 companies, how to run their training teams and I train their trainers. Right. So I was like, what’s this going to be a breeze? Right. Well, I’ll tell you what, the day that we had to get up and tell a story and like that Ted talk story style, I completely and utterly froze. I could not even remember my name, let alone put one word in front of the other. And I’ve got the video recording that you gave me still to this day where you can physically see my legs shaking because it’s a completely different skillset.

So I genuinely now, you know, know that, um, you know, these things aren’t skills that come naturally to anyone. No matter how experienced you are talking in front of other people. It is only something that you can learn and anyone can learn it. But for people who are, who are more sort of focused on their teaching training instruction, that kind of person experts, coaches, consultants, that are used to just sort of being an imparter of information, right. That’s a lot, a lot of experts, coaches, consultants in that space. Can you give us some tips while we’re waiting for questions to come in on? How can we move into more of a story shower? How can we do that?

Yep. I look uh, ultimately I truly believe that yes, we can inform all we like, you know. And we can make, and that way it’s more logical for the listener. Yeah. And ultimately, you know, we are led through logic, which is really important. But I’m sure everyone has actually had that, had that experience when you know, you’re not just your gut isn’t connected. You’re not feeling it. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say my wife and I, we go shopping, let’s say for a washing machine. Yeah. We go to the shop and there’s a beautiful washing machine. And sales person comes up and gives us all the features, all these benefit for the washing machine. I’m thinking. Yep, totally. Yep. That’s it let’s buy the washing machine. Now my wife, right. She looks at me and she goes, Sam, I’m not feeling it.

Do you think we’re going to buy that washing machine? There’s no. Which then means, you know, that time where, you know, sometimes you think, Hey, it makes logical sense. It makes sense. I should be buying, but you don’t. Because you’re not feeling it, it doesn’t come from within which then begs the question. Yes, we are in the business of emotion. We must learn how to evoke emotion the listener. So what we do. Yeah. We, we, um, we address the problem. We give the idea. We give them evidence to back it up. Then we have to then share a metaphor of why they need to buy like an experience. There was this one time when I was experienced the pain, just like you, there was this one time when, when you know, we’re working with someone that had the problem, you know, so, so share with us a journey or a narrative. Yeah. In order for you to evoke emotion and ultimately get them across the line. Now, my encouragement to you would, would be always share a story from your own experience. You know, I experienced this, you know, I was, or whatever it might be that way, then you be, you’re becoming more likable, more approachable.

Thus also you can get them across the line, but our story is our number one Trump card. No one on the planet has our story and we must incorporate story with every single pitch. With every presentation. We must incorporate more narrative when it does come to influencing someone as well. And the more that we, I think you need to do both, you need the logic, but you also, you need the emotion. You need the evidence, but also you need the metaphor. And if we do both logic and evidence, great, you’ve informed us now. It makes sense. But just because it makes sense if our gut isn’t connected, you’re not going to get us across the line. So then that story is the n is your greatest Trump card on the planet. And no one on the planet has your story. Learn to share your story in a really powerful way. And shares the highs and lows.

We’ve all got a hero’s journey within us. We’ve got those times when we wanted to give up. We’ve had those times when we’ve hit rock bottom. We’ve had those times where there’s, there’s been a sense of injustice in our life or when we’ve wanted to let go, or when we’ve had a crisis or an adversity or a tough time. Share with us that because there’s not a single human being on the planet that I’ve ever met, that hasn’t had a really tough time in their life.

That’s it. That’s so good. And I, this is, I think another big change that I’ve seen happen over the last sort of particularly the last five years being online is like you’ve mentioned before. Um, the most successful people are those ones that were sort of, you know, Oh, I’ve got a seven-figure business. I’ve got this, I’ve got that follow me. And I’ll show you how. That kind of style of marketing isn’t working anymore. Um, and that you say the story thing where you’re kind of like, Hey, I’m normal, I’m a normal guy with, uh, you know, with ear holes and a butthole, just like you. And here’s how I’ve got to where I’m at. Here’s my method that I’ve used to achieve a certain result. Here’s my strategy that I have implemented that’s worked for me and my clients. You know, we don’t have to be a PhD professor. We don’t have to be qualified. We don’t have to have been, you know, published in journals or anything like that. What we all people want from us is, “Hey! You are really like me. That means that I can probably get to where you’ve got.” And you’re going, “Hey, here’s how I did it. I, you know, this is my strategy that I use.” To all of a sudden that imposter syndrome goes away and it makes it much easier and far less overwhelming for us to go out there and put together our special model for our system, for our recipe, for.

Boom you and your story, like you say, is exactly what qualifies you to go out there and share what you know, and how you’ve done it because you are here. You’ve done it and now you’re here. So we need to do

My encouragement to all listeners out there is this. Be very wise who you lend your focus to. Who you lend your ear to. Cause there’s a lot of people out there that want to give you advice. There’s a lot of people out there that want to, you know, help you on this or the like, but have they got the fruit in their life? And that’s why, you know, whenever we have anyone at all that says, “Hey look, um, uh, you know, I want to do an e-learning course.

I want to launch my own course August to Sarah. Right? Because why she’s had the fruit. She’s been there. She’s done that. She’s walked in the shoes of, of that. So I want to learn the easy way.” You guys heard you learned the easy way, the hard way or the tragic way. Yeah. Yeah. You learn the easy way you learn from other people’s mistakes. Yeah, learn from it. Learn from Sarah’s mistakes. Seriously. Yeah. So you learn from other people’s mistakes or you learn the hard way, learn from your own mistakes, but it will take you three times longer. But don’t ever go tragic. And what is tragic not learning from either.

Oh, something half done is better than nothing done at all. That’s for sure. And, uh, you know, I always say to my students, when they come in with their first courses, I’m like, guys, you have to get version one out there. Version one might not be perfect, but don’t delay version one because you can’t get to version two just do it. Right.

Um, I’ve got a question for you from Vicky and her question. I’ll pop up on the screen below. Do you both have daily habits? Or are you more spontaneous in the week? Sam, I’m gonna let you take that one.

Look, look, obviously with, with a schedule of a professional speaker. Uh, you know, my, my record today is 56 flights in one month. Yes. You heard me, right? You’re that? Close to two. Two a day. And, and so these aren’t just domestic, these are international. So certainly over the last 12 months, I’ve had more of a routine. I’m now going to the gym for the first time, you know, in 20 years. But I’ve been a professional speaker now for 16 years. And so ultimately, um, navigating different time zones every single week. I navigate different areas. Uh, so I don’t necessarily have a habit that I do every morning. You know, when I get out of bed or every evening before I get into bed.

However, some of my habits would include more mindset stuff. So mindset stuff in and around the moment that I feel sorry for myself. Or I feel sad for myself. Instantly disrupt that. And it might be at a millisecond. I’ll just suddenly disrupt them. Think, wait a sec, I’m alive today for a reason, a purpose. I’m so grateful that I can still breathe. You know, the moment that I might have an inkling towards, you know, feelings, um, you know, whatever, I think just disrupt that. So obviously being a student of personal development, I need to practice what I preach. And so everything that I do and everything that I communicate to other people to preach to them, I live and breathe that stuff. But in and around individual daily habits, it’s more of a mindset that I’m always very consciously aware of, you know, being light to the world, bringing hope to the world. I don’t get involved in negative conversations. I don’t get involved in bad gossiping. I don’t get involved in, you know, feeling sorry for myself. So if anything, they would be my daily habits.

Love it. Yeah. And look for me. Um, it’s something and tablets can take a long time to develop. Habits can take a long time to form and bad ones can take a long time to get out of, and good ones can take a long time to get into. So for me, what I decided to do instead of focusing on the habit side is to focus on systems. I believe if you create a system, then it doesn’t matter whether you’ve given yourself time or not to create a habit. System is something that cannot be ignored. It gets implemented, whether you’re sick, whether it rains, whether it’s sunny, whether you’re happy, whether you’re sad, whatever happens. A system happens. So for me I basically spent a number of years putting together instructions for every single thing I do in my business. Absolutely. Every single thing, write down for a whole week. Every button you click, every task you do and everything you’re spending your time on and sit and write a bunch of instructions for them.

And it will be really interesting because you’re going to see what you’re wasting your time on. B, whether that stuff’s actually really important, but you could be giving it to somebody else. Um, and, and sort of see whether you can actually now create a repeat copy-paste that somebody else can follow. And those instructions are there. So if that person’s sick, somebody else can jump on in and you start basically creating a repeatable and completely and utterly dependable set of results that will always come no matter whether you’re feeling up to implementing that habit or not. So that’s a really important part of my business, which has massively led you. My business is literally I have myself, one full-time Australian employee, and a couple of virtual assistants. And I have 85,000 students. On on that, that lean because I’ve created these systems that run and the systems manage the staff and the automations manage the people. Um, and that’s really been a huge part of my scalability in my particular business. Vicky, that’s a wicked question.

Uh, we do have another one, Sam. Um, do you have any advice for writers? I’m a writer, not a talker. I’m worried that my course might not be successful because it’s written rather than in videos. How do I come across as likable and approachable? If I don’t have videos?

Yeah, really good question. But nowadays you can, you can quite easily put together a video, uh, with your written content. Yeah. So you can actually get some really, really good cutaway stock video footage, because ultimately, you know, there are a lot of people out there that are visual learners. And visual, uh, you know, uh, watchers. And so even though I like I’m a little bit the opposite to you. Um, I’m more of a speaker, not a writer. But the reality is there’s a lot of people out there that are more kinesthetic, auditory, digital, and the like. And so ultimately that’s why I’ve written now 11 books, including, you know, four New York Times bestsellers.

So ultimately, um, Uh, always look for ways how you can serve your avatar, where they’re at. And that way you always need to cater for different type of learning styles. Yeah. So even though I’m not a writer, I’m going to go, I’m going to outsource a writer to write my books for me. Seriously. I get a ghostwriter to write my books. Yeah. Even though that you might not be a video person, you can outsource someone else, either that either you do the voiceover, maybe someone else could either do the voiceover with some really good stock footage. And then you can just caption all these videos. Now, all of a sudden, you’ve got your e-learning course in video format as well.

However, like, like everything for me. Um, and, and even write this one down, yeah… The essence of influence is seeing through the lens of the listener. And so what that then means is if you want to track your listeners, then you have to serve them where they’re at. And some of them require videos. Some of them require something different other than just ink on paper or ink on a screen. So ultimately the essence, if you want to influence people, the essence of influence is seen through the lens of the listener. If you’re listeners want some videos, you’ve got to serve them. And just find a way to make it happen. That’s my best advice.

Yeah, love that’s how that’s really good. And that my advice it’d be very, very similar to that as well. Um, in that you can, there are people out there whose literally their full-time job is to be professional voiceover artists. So you can go onto upwork.com. You can go onto any of these outsourcing websites and find people who would take your written content and who will do the commentary for you, make incredible videos. Um, and do the voice-over. And you can have a little photograph and your website URL at the bottom of that video so obviously you are credited as the producer of that particular content. Um, you, but what I always also really encourage people to do is that you are going out into the business of being a leader.

If you’re going out to be an influencer. And that is going to require courage. It’s going to require you to push through things that are going to be uncomfortable. You’re going to have to go out of your comfort zone to do this, and if we’re going to make a difference, we’re going to make an impact and we’re going to need, we’re going to have to do and face things that are confronting. I mean, after all, that’s exactly what we’re encouraging other people to do ourselves. And you know what, the first time you get in front of a camera, it is going to be terrifying. None of us fall out of a womb, knowing how to speak to the barrel of a lens. It only comes with practice. And I guarantee you, there is not a single accomplished online presenter or anyone out there that’s successful that wasn’t absolutely freaking terrified the first few hundred times that they did it.

It’s very, and it only comes with practice and I would encourage you to do it. I’d encourage you to go outside of your comfort zone. Visual videos is the most highest engaging format of learning and connection in today’s world, but face-to-face. And therefore you are going to massively project and enhance and speed up the influence and the impact that you have. If you get brave to go on camera. But of course, if that’s just not for you, go and get yourself a voiceover artists, get them to put some B roll together so that you at least have the visual video elements. Um, and that’s another way of reaching people with your content. Awesome question. I love it.

What else have we got? Um, we have got a great answers mindset systems. Thank you all so much. Um, wow. What other questions could we possibly ask? We’ve had so much value from today. That is brilliant. Okay. Well look, um, Sam. If you can leave people who are ready to go out and change the world, ready to go out and make a difference to people with their own stories. With their own things that they’ve learned and want to pass into others? What’s kind of like a final tip or motivational pep talk you can give us all today?

So, so how I see it is this things don’t always go according to plan, you know, you might have had one of the toughest years of your entire life over the last 12 months, or maybe you’ve actually needed to make one of the most toughest decisions in your life. Or maybe right now you feel really motivated, really passionate about the next 10 years. Why? Because the next 10 years need to be the greatest 10 years of your life. But my encouragement too, as you do go along this journey, always realize it is our decision, not our condition that determines who we are. We might be in conditions right now. I’ve got no finances. I haven’t got the personnel. I can’t do this. It’s too hard. I don’t know how to do it, whatever condition that you’re in. Like for me, it’s more physical, you know? Living with a disability. But it’s not about the condition.

It’s about the decisions that we make each day. The word decision comes from the Latin word, ‘desere’. You know, incision. Get this decision means to cut. Yeah. And the word, decide. You know, the word side, suicide, pesticide… The word side means to kill. So get this, the word decision means to cut off and kill. And I believe the world lacks the leaders that make decisions. So my encouragement too, is this make a decision right now that this is going to be my next chapter. Make a decision right now of new possibilities for your future. Cause I get it. We all have conditions in our life. But it’s not about the condition. It’s about the decision that we make towards what’s possible for our future. So, uh, yeah, that’s it. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. I’m sooo excited. I’m feeling pumped now and I can’t already get out and do stuff. Sam, this has been absolutely amazing. And now listen, guys. Sam Cawthorn is just incredible at helping people find their message, find their voice, construct into a story and provide you with the skills and the techniques to actually tell that not only eloquently and with emotion, but in a way that literally can transform people’s lives. Enable them to take action and change who they are and how they’re experiencing and living their lives. I know that because I’ve been one of his students. So if you are looking to learn how to become a professional speaker of your own, um, I’d go out there and share your message with the world. You can follow Sam, and we’re going to put his link down below just now. Go to speakersinstitute.com speakersinstitute.com.

Sam and his amazing team there. He brings on experts all over the world, in everything, from story writing to body language, so that you can use those skills on the stage and turn the stage, whether it’s through the camera or on a physical stage, to, into a way that literally allows people to experience and feel the message that you have to give in a way that literally can change our lives forever.

So speakersinstitute.com is where to go. If you want to connect with Sam, find out more about the programs that he has to offer. Love his work. Sam, thank you so much for coming today. And anyone who’s looking to create an online course. If you have a message already and you know what your topic is. Then why not turn it into an online course? You know, get it out there. Allow people from all over the world to be able to be changed by your content forever. I have a completely free of charge starter kit. The Free Course Creation Starter Kit can be found at sarahcordiner.com/starterkit. From Sam and I thank you all.

Good luck. Go and change lives. The [music] only way it’s going to happen is if you take a big deep breath, find that inkling of courage and start today.