Episode summary: Once a professional actor, Michael Port now runs a business called Heroic Public Speaking, which provides intensive public speaking training programs to help entrepreneurs and business leaders take their careers to the next level. He’s also a highly in-demand public speaker and New York Times bestselling author who’s been called an “uncommonly honest author” by the Boston Globe.

In this episode of Making It, Michael says that if you really do care about making it, it’s crucial to take the pressure off yourself. You are going to make mistakes along the way, and that’s just part of being an entrepreneur. He also shares insights from his own entrepreneurial journey and emphasizes the importance of being able to work hard, resisting the urge to seek approval, and embracing a performer’s mindset that helps us keep going even when we experience obstacles along the way. 

“I was proud not because of the standing ovation. But because I put in the work required to do the job at the level that I wanted to do. For me, that's when everything changed.” – Michael Port

Guest Bio:

Michael Port has written eight books, including Book Yourself Solid and Steal the Show, the latter which—according to the former president of Starbucks—“might be the most unique and practical book ever written on the topic of public speaking.”

He’s been called an “uncommonly honest author” by the Boston Globe, a “marketing guru” by The Wall Street Journal, a “sales guru” by the Financial Times, “a public speaking phenom” by Jonathan Fields and “the best public speaking coach in the world” by Lewis Howes. The founder of MastermindTalks, Jayson Gaignard, declared, “Michael Port is the best speaker I’ve ever seen.”

His books have been on the bestseller lists of the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Publisher’s Weekly and have been selected by Amazon and 800-CEO-READ as “best books of the year.”

He was once a professional actor, having received his MFA from NYU’s Graduate Acting Program, guest starring on shows like Sex & The City and Law & Order, and in films like The Pelican Brief and Down to Earth. These days, Michael can be seen on MSNBC, CNBC, and PBS as an on-air expert in communication and business development and as the host of the most popular podcast on public speaking and performance, Steal the Show with Michael Port.

Resources or websites mentioned in this episode:

• Mirasee
• Heroicpublicspeaking.com 

Credits:

• Guest – Michael Port
• Associate producer – Danny Bermant
• Producer – Cynthia Lamb
• Executive producer – Danny Iny
• Assembled by – Geoff Govertsen
• Audio Post Supervisor: Evan Miles, Christopher Martin
• Audio Post Production by Post Office Sound
• Music soundscape: Chad Michael Snavely 

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Music and SFX credits: 

1. Track Title: Sweet Loving Waltz

Artist Name(s): Sounds Like Sander

Writer Name: S.L.J. Kalmeijer

Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

2. Track Title: The Sunniest Kids

Artist Name(s): Rhythm Scott

Writer Name: Scott Roush

Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

3. Track Title: Dancing at Ocean Crest

Artist Name(s): Cody Martin

Writer Name: Cody Kurtz Martin

Publisher Name: BOSS SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTIONS

4. Track Title: Porkbelly

Artist Name(s): Adrian Crutchfield

Writer Name: Adrian Crutchfield

Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

5. Track Title: Tundra

Artist Name(s): Gold Coast

Writer Name: Andrew Dean Piland

Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

• Episode transcript: Embrace the Performer’s Mindset (Michael Port)

[00:00:06]: I'm Michel Port and you're listening to Making It. I run a business called heroic public speaking. We are the Hogwarts for public speakers. But instead of witchcraft, our students, you'd stagecraft to morph into performers who can change the way people think feel, and act not just from the stage but in all aspects of their life. 

You would think that when you hit the New York Times list or the Wall Street Journal, best seller list or the USA Today, a list or the amazon list, whatever list you're trying to get on, you would think you would feel like you made it. And for me it never has. Those moments have always come and gone. Is just another item to check off the list. Now, I'm not saying of course I didn't appreciate getting there, but I had to work pretty hard to get there. I think that if you really do care about making it take the pressure off yourself so that you're not focusing on getting approval, you don't have to fix yourself, decouple the feedback that you get on, the work that you do from who you are as a person and instead just keep focusing on making the work better. If you're trying to get approval through the work you do, you know, you create this dynamic where the only thing that matters is the end goal of the approval and often the work feels like a struggle. But if you're focusing on trying to produce results, maybe you can also make the work worth doing.  

     If you really do want to make it, you're gonna probably have to work harder than you've imagined, maybe harder than you've worked before. You're going to need to do things that you don't know how to do right now and you're going to get a lot of people telling, you know, or they don't like something that you did, they want you to do it differently. The more responsibility you have in life, the more you need to be able to handle it. And that means you've got to handle a lot of what might be difficult or challenging things at the same time. I remember I was testing for a film called Kiss the Girls. It was a big film with Morgan Freeman and I was testing for the role-playing opposite him. It was about like most movies in the 90s, apparently, it was about a cop who was also a serial killer and they were trying to find who the serial killer was. So apparently I can play very easily either a serial killer or a cop. What one or 2? I have the look for both of them And I was up testing means you're pretty far down the line and this would have been a huge role. I was just coming out of grad school and obviously, I didn't get it because if you've seen that film, you would know I wasn't in it, but I remember going into it thinking, well, you know, if I really want to play this kind of role, do I'm gonna get typecast is...