Public Speaking Super Powers Podcast: Season 4, Episode 6

Length: 9 minutes, 12 seconds

If you want to be a successful speaker, you need to learn how to tap into your personal power. In today’s episode, I talk about personal power – what it is and how you can tap into yours.

Podcast TranscriptAccording to Robert Firestone Ph.D., "Personal power is based on strength, confidence, and competence that individuals gradually acquire in the course of their development. It is self-assertion, and a natural, healthy striving for love, satisfaction, and meaning in one's interpersonal world."

And Adam Sicinski says that personal power is, "a kind of mental toughness that we bring to every situation. It’s the ability to take decisive and deliberate action toward a desired goal, or down an optimal path that helps you accomplish that goal."

Speakers who have high levels of personal power are more successful because they are confident, speak up and step up, and resourcefully pursue their goals. Wouldn’t you like to have all that?

Of course, you do! Here are 5 habits that people with high levels of personal power do that you can emulate, as well.

Habit #1: They don’t play the blame gamePeople with personal power take responsibility for their actions, decisions, emotions, and thought processes. They don’t blame these things on others or play the victim.

Does this mean that things outside of their control don’t happen to them? Of course not!

But the way they approach these whims of fate is different than the approach of those with low personal power.

For example, two people get a flat tire. The person with low personal power may get upset and blame the road, bad luck, or even God for the flat. They tell a story about the experience with them playing the role of the victim of happenstance.

Although a person with high personal power may also get upset -- flat tires are rarely convenient events – they do not see themselves as a victim of the event. For this person, the flat tire is neutral – annoying, possibly even inconvenient, but not a personal attack. It simply happened. They deal with it and move on.

So how can you practice this habit? Understand that you are not a victim. When less-than-ideal things happen – like flat tires and PowerPoint slides that don’t work and shoes that break while you’re on stage – deal with it and move on.

Habit #2: They forgive easilyThis habit may not seem to affect your speaking directly, but because it is closely related to Habit #1, it is worth mentioning.

Those who have high levels of personal power know that forgiveness is not for the person who hurt them, but for themselves. When you harbor hatred and hold on to grudges, you hurt no one but yourself.

Forgiveness is empowering. It allows you to move on from the transgression and grow. You don’t have to forget the transgression when you forgive, but letting it go will give you the power and the freedom to move past it.

Now I understand from personal experience this can be easier said than done. But if you make an effort to forgive, little by little you will get there.

People who easily forgive have lighter spiritual loads to carry, and so they can spend more time living in the present and being present for their audiences.

Before I move on to the next habit, here is a quick commercial break.

Looking for a "public speaking course in a book"?Well look no further than the award-winning book Public Speaking Super Powers!

This bestselling book covers everything you'd learn in a public speaking class, and probably a bit more. Drawing from extensive research and interviews with more than 85 business and professional speakers, this book will show you how to:

Overcome speaking anxietyDevelop the presentation skills you need to be a success on the stage, such as storytelling and humorMaster speaking techniques like a superhero speaker,