From Magician to Speaker - Part Three
by Quentin Reynolds

You are an expert who speaks. That is how you position yourself as a speaker. Someone who has expertise and is sharing this with an audience.

Now you might be saying to yourself, "That's alright for you Quentin, but I'm not an expert on anything much."

Don't worry! That's the obstacle you're going to solve right now. Here's the deal...

Get out a sheet of paper and write down everything you're interested in...hobbies, skills, talents. Then think back to your childhood and list all your interests from back then. If you have old photographs, scrapbooks or journals, go back through those. Forgotten interests will come to
mind.

Ask your friends and family what they think you are good at. What do they think your skills and talents are? What would they list as your strengths?

List these as well. Make sure you've listed everything you do or like doing even if you think you haven't any great talent for it.

What are your hot buttons? What gets you going? What really irritates you? Have you a cause you would like to champion?

Look through your list.

Are any themes showing?

You're looking for a topic which is both interesting to you AND both interesting and useful for your audience. You might be passionate about a rare species of butterfly and you might be
able to turn your knowledge into an entertaining and informative forty-five minutes but it isn't a topic that a booker is likely to find useful.

My main topic is 'Intuition', and the theme is 'Learning to Trust Yourself'. One of the biggest problems companies have is getting someone to take the responsibility to make a decision.  People are terrified to make a decision lest it turn out to be a bad one and tend to leave the decision to others.

So my topic is interesting and useful. I teach people how to take the time to listen to themselves -something very few people do but everyone agrees they should.

Let's recap. Your topic is something you are really interested in - even better - passionate about and it's something that is useful or could be shown to be useful to a booker.

Next time I'll show you how to be an expert on your subject even if you think you're not.

© Quentin Reynolds. Quentin Reynolds works as both magician and speaker.
You can read about one of his programs at http://www.PsychicGameShow.com

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