One of my goals is to be a speaker on leadership and this is something that I have been working on. I have even given several speeches on leadership in India, UK, and most recently in Morocco.
I spent time creating my presentation, crafting the messages I wanted to use, I also spent time rehearsing, because I wanted to make sure that I got it absolutely right on the day.
As someone who is often used to giving presentations in his day job, I have had lots of practise creating presentations, and always looked to use the ratio of of 60:1.
What do I mean by this, basically 1 hour of preparation for each minute of speaking, so if I plan to speak for 20 minutes then I need to plan for 20 hours worth of preparation.
Whilst this is fine for speaking at work or to small groups, I now realise that this is nowhere near good enough if you want to be a professional speaker.
They say it takes 3000 hours of practise to be world class at anything, so by using that method, if you want to be a world class speaker, then you need to be spending closer to 3000 hours practising rather than just 1 hour for each minute.
With dreams, if they are big enough or ambitious enough, then we need to really put the work in to achieve them.
If we want it badly enough then we will see this as the only way forward, spending just 1% of the effort needed to achieve a goal is never going to be enough to get even close.
I see this with my son Daniel, who is planning to be a musician, he spend every spare minute practising his guitar, because he knows this is the only way to succeed.
He wants it badly enough to put in the hard work, so that in time playing will be second nature to him and he can look to try and move towards world class.
For all of us, to achieve our dreams, we need to put in the effort, spend the hours practising, learning our trade, improving our skills.
Otherwise we are just paying lip service, ours is not a dream, ours is just a wish that we hope that will one true without having to do that hard work required – and lets be honest thats never going to happen.
So if you want it badly enough, then get up and put in the effort needed, its the only way!
Gordon Tredgold
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