During this show, America’s #1 business coach and the former U.S. SBA Entrepreneur of the Year sits down with best-selling author and former pastor of the Higher Dimensions mega church, Carlton Pearson to discuss how to become the best presenter, speaker and communicator possible. Since changing his religious views, Carlton Pearson has been labeled as a heretic by the evangelical church and he was featured on ABC News during a story called “Nobody Goes to Hell: Minister Labeled a Heretic.” He’s written a best-selling book and has been featured on the ABC News Dateline program titled, “To Hell and Back.” Carlton’s life is now being turned into a major motion called Come Sunday. The picture will feature the academy award nominated actor from 12 Years a Slave, Chiwetel Ejiofor who will play Pearson, Martin Sheen who will play the part of Oral Roberts, Danny Glover and a cast of familiar A-list actors.
You have just begun the thrivetime show business coach radio show where we talk about how to grow your business and take your financial freedom and turn it into a reality take your dreams for financial freedom and time freedom and to turn that into a reality.
So many people out there according to Forbes, Eight out of 10 entrepreneurs fail when they go out there and take the risk to start their own business. The numbers too high. Eight out of ten entrepreneurs fail. Yet also according to Forbes 57 percent of you want to start a successful company at some point that’s what you want to do according to Forbes You have an entrepreneurial aspiration. And so the Thrive time show if you’re tuning in for the first time is designed to provide you business school without the B.S. And every once in a while we start to get the same question over and over and over from the Thrive nation. And we want to make sure that we always insert the answers to the questions that you’re asking into our daily conversations. And so today it’s the culmination of many questions that you’ve been asking. It’s the culmination of the interrogation that many of you been asking. Hey I want to become a public speaker. How do I do it how do I become a more effective speaker. How do I improve my presenting skills. How do I improve my communication skills. And there’s all sorts of stats and research out there that will show you that effective communicators make make more money make more money. Just think about this. Who is the most successful woman in the world. Think about it think about it. Many of you maybe just thought of Oprah or Sarah Blakely or somebody who’s a good communicator if you said who’s the most successful man in the world.
Many of you just thought about Barack Obama or Donald Trump or Steve Jobs as an effective communicator. And so you have to learn to become an effective communicator. In fact Warren Buffett Warren Buffett the billionaire tycoon Warren Buffett the investing mogul. He said that that the training he received at the Dale Carnegie Institute on how to become an effective speaker was by far the most valuable training the most valuable practical training he’s ever received in his entire life and he actually has the certificate that he received as a result of completing the courses at the Dale Carnegie Institute up on his walls and he does not have his college degree up. That’s how passionate he is about the importance of learning to become an effective communicator and so on today’s show. I brought on Carlton Pearson who is a guy who’s given over five thousand sermons. And obviously I mean people go to Carlton Pearson. You mean the guy who’s switched charges and is no longer up Christian. Yes that Carlton Pearson the one who went from being a Christian to a universalist. But we’re not talking about religion today and we’re not talking about politics. We’re allowing Carlton Pearson to educate us about how to become the most effective communicator that we could possibly be. And specifically we’re diving in deep right now into learning how to get the most out of the tools that you have. Learning how to learning how to work with what you have learning how to make the most resourceful you really want to know what you’re working with. And so without further ado we hop back into my conversation with Brother Carlton Pearson.
Talk to me about how you deliver a joke properly to an audience how you don’t deliver a joke.
Well I didn’t tell a lot of jokes but I did tell a lot of humorous story. There you go. Yeah mine mine. There was usually something I experience or came. The timing was right. The tone was right in the tools right. But laughter the script says do with good like a medicine. So laughter literally scientifically does release endorphins in the body which is the chemical in chemistry that causes healing or restoration. So you’re always bringing healing and restoration to people at whatever means is necessary healer almost always works. When I was speaking in the south there were a lot of times I spoke in the south in the 70s when black speakers were not welcomed or at least they weren’t wanted. They were welcome to use in order. They were not the choice. So they didn’t put my I would not allow them to put my picture in the paper on anything that suggested I was black they just know I was coming from you or or I a student in Carlton sounds like a very it can be neutral it could be I could be African-American or Caucasian.
Yeah it beats Hussein. Hussein Obama voters they didn’t know. So when I when I walk in step up on that stage in living color sometimes there was a gasp. Even people who had asked Can I speak a can of Coke swilling stayed on house until I got there. So what I would do every place I would break the tension with humor a racial joke that was self-deprecating to me. And and before they knew what could make a judgment. They were laughing.
Do you recall any of the jokes that you would say or any kind of self-deprecation joke that you used back in the day? I could recall any of those I put you on the spot. But can you recall any of those.
One of the ones I often tell this is my friend Randy and I the we’re all action singers were dumb. He would always make fun of my lips my big lips. And I mean they walk up to me and say hey person are those your liver you’re wearing a turtleneck. Just one that only you could tell that joke. Yeah I can get by because it’s about me. And they would go on. And one time I said you know Randy I’ve had me tell you something. When God made the black man when he got to his lips a new sense of creative ingenuity and architectural design came over him and he began to need those lips and fluffed those lips and pull them out and spread them out and make them pretty and make them elegant. And when he made the white man he just took a razor blade and spit his face and said No.
No I want to. I want to ask is now with jokes. There are people who are. Who are they. That’s their move. That’s their super. They have this ability to deliver a joke and we all know somebody who every time they deliver a joke everyone goes oh that was very funny to talk to me about maybe why you didn’t use jokes what kind of people should be using jokes I mean how do you deliver a joke you have delivered some jokes in the past.
What is the deal Speaker how do you go out there and deliver a joke well you have to first fill the room. No. I already know I am a joke by being there because I’m black. In that setting now that’s in another setting it’s a totally different thing in the south. When I had to break the tension I’d say aha here’s Carlton Pearson in living color. I didn’t know I was going to be on it. And then everybody would start laughing because you could tell that most of them didn’t know that I was going to be black or that I’d have an integrated team and that I would be the leader. That happened to be in South Africa I was the first African-American first man of color to ever lead an integrated team while during apartheid debate. It took me five years to get in the country because they were not comfortable with that. They said you could be colored will elevate you to from black to color and you’d have to live on one floor of the hotel by yourself. None of the other no white people could be that we know that. So it seems reasonable Yeah. Unbelieve fine if I had to pay for all those extra rooms if you can you can cover them. But it was it was a tense time. And I knew how to walk delicately. You have to respect the tone of the room the tune or the room when you have to understand the frequency and tune in you know you have to tweak.
You may not remember but the old days when we had radios transistors you had to kind of tune it because it was it was a lot of stuff I didn’t have to do that yeah.
Well the rooms have static. Audiences have static. You’ve got to find the right frequency first in yourself the right frequency in you is what you think about most frequently that is the frequency to which you are tuned because what you think about you bring about. So when you go in properly today then you can properly to and told the audience so that you make music together.
So so if you’re if you’re kind of mastering comedy and you’re going to weave comedy humor into your talk with a joke you really don’t want to deliver a joke unless the whole audience can relate to it or say oh that’s so true or so you really I mean jokes you don’t deliver a joke unless you know the audience is going to relate to it. Is that correct.
Absolutely. It bombs every time if you don’t do that it’s inappropriate timing placing in tact.
Now stories like how do you decide what stories you’re going to tell with an audience and what stories you’re not going to tell what tips do you have for the speaker out there who’s trying to they’re struggling with you know when to weave in stories into their presentation.
Well people prefer stories than than teaching they if you’re going to do a presentation to an audience in a preaching session they like things to which they can relate. They may not be able to relate to the principles that you share with a story that demonstrates everything is about demonstration. It’s never just presentation it’s demonstration. You have to demonstrate on that stage both verbally substantively and physically. That’s the best speaker some are. Are there monotone but they’ve got rich things to say so you tolerate the monotone because you like what they’re saying some don’t say anything but they’ve got great charisma and you don’t remember a lot that they say you’re not actually taking notes you just like the energy and they’re making you feel. Sunstone up there like a zombie they never move from the spot or the podium. And so when you become stiff they become stiff when you start moving. They move.
Now the next element of humor is shock. You know there’s there’s comedians who just curse and and the shock of them cursing or the irreverence for things and it’s kind of the lowest in my opinion cheapest form of humor where you can just get up there and shock people. But it works so consistently that if you can do it with an element of class or you know how to shock and say people say things that people say I can’t believe they just said that it seems to captivate an audience and it can make the audience laugh. Talk to me about when you know to use shock and when using shock is appropriate.
Most the professional way. Reason for shock is to wake up something that’s dead or dying. Shock Treatment is is is is a sudden upsetting or surprising event or experience in the person their mind or their emotions or if they’re dead. And you do the shock treatment to bring them back alive. It’s not important or necessary to use shock unless you’re dealing with death or dying or you’ve lost the attention of the people and they are they are fading away and you know now in church you can start music a song. I love you I love you I love you today. Well slowly you start passionately slowly waking them up not alarming them.
The word alarm means a call to arms so people get very defensive when you alarm them but you can alert them and that’s what the objective is never an the crowd but always alert them wake them up gently. If it takes a shock there’s the potency of the shock determine sometimes the shock hurts and you leave the wake but they’re crippled. Their lungs are sore their chest is sore. They’re ribcage is sore. So you have to be tactful tasteful and timing those are the three T’s I always use tact taste and timing. And then of course you get that tuning as well.
What’s that song. Yes. You used to sing. Yes Lord. What was that song.
That’s a song but it’s also a sigh and it’s almost a cry. You know you’re triggering emotion and commotion and de-evolution all at the same time.
So you were intentional. So when you’re doing a sermon and all of us you see that the audience is maybe drifting need to come alive. Sometimes you would use music as a way to engage yet reconnect them. Now did your organist did you communicate with your pianist your organist did you say hey when I sing you to do something. It’s just it’s you it’s happened so common they just pick up on it.
I would say I always said to my musicians you have to read me. You have to deserted me and if you don’t I’ll fire you. Well well you have to feel me on that stage. You create the wave. I will serve and all of my musicians without me telling them know when to do something make a certain Twista chord. It’ll cue me and cue the audience. It’s subtle. Never say never draw attention away from me. What I’m saying enhance what I’m saying.
And our focus is always on the crowd. To get a response out of it. It worked. Every time I remember telling Helen she was my first one here and she just got it. I said No you may not know what I’m saying right now and if you don’t you’re probably not going to last with me.
You’ve got to discern what’s happened we come back more from Brother Carlton Pearson as he teaches us specifically how to improve our speaking skills he’s going to talk to you about stage presence and how to really use the tools that you have in to become the most effective speaker that you can possibly be. It’s the thrivetime show on your radio. My name is Clay Clark America’s most humble business coach. Stay tuned. Go grab some Oklahoma joes.
Welcome back to the Lifetime show. My name is Clay Clark the former U.S. SBA Entrepreneur of the year sent here to help you make any financial issues that you have. Disappear. Now typically I’m joined here with Dr. Robert Zoellner but he is out today expanding his vast entrepreneurial empire all across this great planet. And so I am joined today with none other than Carlton Pearson. Now Carlton Pearson if you don’t know Carlton Pearson you don’t know who he is. He is a man who delivered over 5000 sermons started a mega-church called higher dimensions. He was the right hand man of Oral Roberts the man who was the lead one of the leading televangelists in the country. He helped introduce T.D. Jakes on to the national stage. He’s a bestselling author and then he switched it all in actually switched faiths. It was like he just switched faiths. And today he’s no longer a Christian he’s a Universalist and so he’s very controversial. He’s been featured on a lot of national media publications as a as a famous heretic. But his life is being made into a movie right now where Martin Sheen is going to be playing the part of Oral Roberts in this major motion picture and Carlton Pearson himself will be played by an actor by the name of Chiwetel Ejiofor. And that is easy for me to say but this is the main actor from the movie 12 Years a Slave. He was actually nominated for an Academy Award in that movie and Danny Glover Danny Glover. He’s going to be on the Come Sunday movie.
And so we invited Carlton Pearson inside the box that rocks here today to teach us what he knows about public speaking. Now because of the timing and the schedules and everything we ended up having to interview it in some way to have to play I’m going to play the interview here for you. And we’re rejoining back into the conversation where he’s talking about getting his as a minister being up on stage and trying to get the musicians on the same page as he was while speaking that he has to go on and talk to you about more how to get the most out of the God given tools and talents that you have so you can be the very best speaker that you can possibly be.
And all of my musicians without me telling them know when to do something make a certain twist chord. It’ll cue me and cue the audience. It’s subtle. Never say never draw attention away from me or what I’m saying. Enhance what I’m saying.
And our focus is always on the crowd to get a response out of them. And it worked. Every time I remember telling Helen she was my first one here and she just got it. I said No you may not know what I’m saying right now and if you don’t you’re probably not going to last with me. You’ve got to discern what’s happening on this stage. I’m preaching to a minister I’m never just preaching. I am stirring.
I’m serving or meeting the needs of the people. The Greek word for therapy is there upon their appeal. The root of that is theropod which means custodian or janitor. We’re doing custodial work. And so you got to help me with the things it takes to do to attend to the menial needs of the crowd. Now I did have those kinds of conversations. And then we’d of course pray about all that and fast and we were a powerful team.
But we discussed the service I’d make them every night you could listen to the service. When I first started preaching I every night I’d fall asleep on the sermon I preached I’d make my sound man give me the cassette and I would study judge and discern each evening including the music how the thing went that I may do you listen to your own talks.
Those days I had to come up with a formula that worked not just a form but a formula. And so I would listen and be very very objective and very constructive.
Now you invited you started did you start Azusa. OK. So you started as is everybody who doesn’t know what that is. Can you explain what zoos started out as what it became.
Well there’s the Azusa conference which is based on the Azusa revival in 1986 to 1989 without succession three years was a great revival held and conducted by a one eyed self-educated son of former slaves named William Seymour who had heard the Baptism of the Holy Ghost teaching from a man named Charles Parham a white Cukor sympathizer.
Wow. Who was later arrested for molesting boys. But he taught that message and because Seymore was black he couldn’t sit in the class with the rest of the students. He had to sit outside. They opened the window and let him hear it. That was down in Texas just south of Texas. We’re going to do a Broadway. They’ve asked me to do a Broadway write a Broadway play you need help me with that we’re going to write a Broadway play. Bam. Mark St. Germain who did the Cosby Show and mother they called me and said the actors up here many of them were preachers kids. What’s your story. Want to. And I said well I’ve already signed the rights of that and I will. Can you do. What do you have any IT. I said well let’s do this. He says there is their music in black music and scandal. I said yes. I they realize much. I said no more studying. But anyway that revival that turned that was the beginning of the century. I wasn’t trying to compete with it. I was trying to complete it because it ended in disaster. No money. The man died. We can find his grave this penniless The Soul is this is the whole story. But we want to complete what and bring the dignified elegant integration of people. If you look at the old footage of the conferences no conference in this country had so much integration and certainly not one that was founded by a man of color. We did it 15 years straight.
Maximum crowd in the center until the fire men turned us shut us down was twelve thousand eight.
Now did you. What did T.D. Jakes speak at that event. Yes. And what was your relationship with T.D. Jakes. How did you meet the man? How did you… what was your kind of relationship at that time?
Well I didn’t know him the year before he spoke. Sarah Jordan Powell brought him to my dressing room at the close of the conference the last night. He was the last person that they brought into my dressing area and we spoke for a few minutes she said this is Thomas Dexter Jakes. He is a powerful preacher pastor I want you to hear him. I want to give you a tape of him preaching a woman out loser and you’ll hear about him and they knew he was tired and ready to go home because I had met hundreds and I said well I put my hand on his throat and I said I can tell you a good preacher you are what you are a great preacher because I hear the raspiness and I feel the energy and yet he’s real bashful inside and know laughed.
It was the small T.D. Jakes or was he always a big man at that time.
He was bigger then than he is now. Well he had sat in the blue section up in the nose bleed section the night before couldn’t find it. So he called Sarah Jordan whom he had seen at a conference in Pittsburgh the week before said I’m in town. Can you get me a seat down on the floor. And she said Just come with us. They walked in and they had seats for Sarah and John every night because they were really like holes. They didn’t have a seat for him on the a thousand seats just for preachers on the floor. And he said well that’s all right I’ll go back. No no you’re I guess you’re going to sit right here. And she and impose upon the people to put him there. And he sat through the whole service fascinated looking at the stage in the car and everything. And then they brought him back. And I I didn’t even hear the sermon but I felt led to invite him to my workers conference the following October. That was in April when I met him the following October. I have leaders come in about 6 8 603 to 600 will come in and I brought him in as a speaker. That was my first time hearing he preached a sermon titled behind closed doors. I hadn’t spoken to my baby sister in six months or something like that. She was living with me I had just wasted so much money credit card rent bills and wonder what she and I was matter.
She dropped out of college twice or you are getting back and she draws that again. So but I love her and she is my son. So anyway he preached that sermon he had lit that house. I never heard a man articulate a scripture without notes or outline when we come back.
Brother Carlton Pearson is going to be teaching us some more about how to become an effective speaker and tell us more stories about the legendary T.D. Jakes
Yes you can then go back to the time show on your radio. My name is Clay Clark the former SBA Entrepreneur of the year and business coach sent here to teach you how to build a successful business.
And on this show one of the things that we pride ourselves in doing Dr. Zoellner and myself we pride ourselves on answering the mailbag questions that you e-mail us to info at Thrive15.com. And over the last couple months we’ve had a massive amount of people who have been e-mailing us questions about how they can become a more effective speaker how they can improve their speaking skills their presentation skills how they can learn to become a better and more powerful public presenter. And so I was reaching out to my two my friends and some of my network here and I was able to get Brother Carlton Pearson on today’s radio show and so I interviewed him a while back and so we’re going to be rejoining the interview here in just a moment. And he’s sharing with us how to get the most out of the tools that you have how to really know what you’re working with as a speaker. We all have different gifts and talents.
It’s very important to be self-aware of those talents and then to begin to use those talents to become the best of a speaker you could possibly be. He’s also sharing with us that the tapestry of his career.
And one thing that’s interesting is that Oral Roberts the the famous televangelist who started Oral Roberts University was personally mentored by Napoleon Hill Napoleon Hill’s the best selling author that I named my son after.
Well Oral Roberts was mentored by Napoleon Hill and Napoleon Hill was mentored by Andrew Carnegie.
Right. So you kind of see the island that lineage from Carnegie to Napoleon Hill from napoleon hill to Carlton pearson to Oral Roberts and then from Oral Roberts to Carlton Pearson because Oral Roberts meant toward Carlton Pearson directly. And so during today’s show as he shares with you about how he became a speaker who gave over 5000 sermons he became a bestselling author how he grew a mega church. Now I know that religiously most of you don’t agree with him. I know politically most of you don’t agree with him but I want to hear him share his heart about how he became the speaker that he was known known to be his skills how you could improve your speaking skills and a little bit about his history because he got a chance to see and in Mentor T.D. Jakes a lot of people don’t know this but he actually introduced T.D. Jakes on to the national television scene. You know and kind of helped helped him get more famous faster. And anyway we’re going to rejoin the conversation. And this is Carlton Pearson talking about his first interaction with connecting with T.D. Jakes.
He preached that sermon he paid lit that house of I never heard a man articulate a scripture without notes or outline. He would read the scripture and say Be seated close the Bible and just walk across the stage. He had a big old button he was pulling the back of his jacket over his butt so it wouldn’t be seen. He does that to this day as a nervous thing. He does walk that and told that story and perform that story and gave the examples and just killed it. I had never seen anybody like that when he made the altar appeal. My sister was the first one to come. She stood there for quite a little while by herself.
How much interaction did you have with him in the years after that because he’s obviously you know one of the dogs if you look at top speakers if you say Who are some of the top speakers of our you know present day he’s on that list. How much interaction did you guys have during that that window of time of those years.
Well the I took that message of him preaching that service and put it on my TV show. I put him and the other two speakers seven minutes apiece and Paul Crouch who owns the network or owned it at the time he’s was las was was walking through his living room and the TV network was on and that seven minute part came. And he was he’s preaching behind closed doors. So that just T.D. Jakes his message about telling is that we don’t need Superman we need Clark Kent we need somebody that will open and show you where they’re bleeding where they’re hurting show you their scars. So that made Paul feel cold about writing the books. He called me the next day and he said Who in the world was that man you had on your program and I said Which one. He said there was a fat black man. That’s a T.D. Jakes. He says Yes I am crazy. I said I said Would you like the master. He said Yes I said I’ll give it to you if you’ll air it on the network. The whole sermon and he did and he did and he did. He must have earned it 60 times. Wow the phone lines are ringing off the hook. The people are going nuts. And I invited him to my next conference which I have every year in April so I met him in April having preached in October and brought him back in April and that’s when our relationship we were texting each other I was going down to his house hanging out at his service.
He would come preach for me and I took him to Los Angeles. I took him to the Shrine Auditorium I took him to Atlanta to the park’s place and I said you need to be on television I’ll have my man edit habitue I don’t have equipment on him. He had 300 people in West Palm in West Virginia. Wow. And so I said well I’ll do it for you. I said don’t take a booking where there’s television unless they promised to give you the master of you preaching. And that was on his contract. So we got him out there on television and the rest is history.
Now I want to ask you this this next move as it relates to humor is physical comedy. I have watched you do that onstage from afar. Talk to me about the magic of physical comedy and how did you use it. How should I use it if I’m a speaker How should people use physical comedy.
Nothing is more intimate between human beings and physical touch. The manipulation of the body were muscular we have skin and flesh and the contact sports are physical. Look at the crowds that are there sweating and moving in. And so when you do that you you you freeze the audience. When you when you when you physical eyes if you will the message you’re demonstrating again it’s like an actor. So there’s humor in there vocality isn’t there there’s physicality all of that works together. A person who who stays still and doesn’t use his or her body makes the crowd use theirs. So they they come in stiff and they leave stiff if you undress and then start moving on I mean physically undress but emotionally undress. Expose yourself behind closed doors open up that message with just let the people feel your pain see your pain and how you healed. They get healed. Adding the physical part to it makes the package complete.
Now with physical comedy are there any guidelines maybe some guidelines I could jot down you know where to draw the line.
Don’t don’t take the dignity out of it and insult the crowd because it becomes offensive. And it’s not a diss it’s not an addition it’s a distraction and just fill the crown. It’s always important to fill the crown when you’re a secular comedian you can get by with everything OK. Any words doing.
Jamie Foxx pointed that out in one of his podcasts. He said that a lot of his political opinions cannot be shared unless he’s doing his stand up comedy is on that point that anything goes.
Yeah. And it always feeling where you’re talking. This is interesting. I’ve spoken in a lot of nursing homes I’ve spoken to a lot of maximum security prisons as well as the largest physical church in the country is for prices in the dome there in Los Angeles but I’ve also spoken to stadiums and I’ve done political sessions I’ve done an all white service is non pinacle. So every setting has its own thermometer. You want to decide what temperatures in the house get. So if it’s if it’s too hot you know to cool down is too cool you turn it up.
It’s because every audience has its own personality. I mean it seems like it has its own temperature and some personality seems like it’s they they almost have their own spirit to them you know.
That’s true. And you become a makeup artist or cosmetologists and you can change the face of the house.
When we come back more from Carlton Pearson as he teaches us about public speaking and how to become the most powerful presenter that you can possibly be. It’s the Thrivetime business coach show on 1170.
All right we’ll come back to the Thrive time show on your radio for those of you tuning in for the first time this is business school without the b.s. when we provide you mentorship so you can learn from mentors business mentors business coaches you can learn from a business coach as opposed to learning from mistakes. And typically Dr. Z and I we do the show together. However today he’s out expanding his vast entrepreneurial empire. And so I am holding down the fort and I was able to round up one of my rowdy friends Mr. Carlton Pearson and he is teaching us today everything that you need to know about becoming an effective presenter. And specifically before we went to the break he was talking about how you have to be able to adjust the emotional state and the energy of every audience because there’s no good there’s no bad crowd. They’re just bad speakers. I remember when he told me that you know the first time that hit clay there’s no bad crowd there’s no bad audience there’s just bad presenters. And once you see that once you learn that once you know that to become your truth once you accept that and you realize that you need to become a better PRESENTER You don’t need to run around the country looking for better and more receptive crowds. You can begin mastery you can begin working on becoming the best speaker that you can possibly be. So Carlton Pearson is teaching us today how you can become the best speaker that you can possibly be using your God given talents.
So more from Carlton Pearson we’re hopping back into the conversation because every audience has its own personality. I mean these things like it has its own temperature and own personality seems like it’s its they they almost have their own spirit to them you know.
That’s true. And you become a makeup artist or cosmetologists and you can change the face of the house or you can be a cosmetic surgeon and change the physicality of the room. You’re doing all that. That’s what that’s the part of it that’s scientific. If the place is really cold and nonphysical and stiff and hasn’t bent a lot or haven’t moved a lot there’s a lot of sore joints and there’s insomnia. They can’t sleep. They’re nervous. You know the energy is tense. They’re bored. You don’t know who you’re following Sometimes you’re following another speaker that has the house really really high and you kind of bring it down a little bit. Our house has a really really low and you raise it up sometimes there’s music in between or no music in the dream to go for one speaker or another or you the afternoon speaker and they’ve just come from lunch. Everybody’s going to be sleep in 10 minutes so they usually put their liveliest speakers on after lunch because everybody tends to go to sleep especially if they’ve been in seminars all day all those things had to be taken into consideration it’s never just an isolated event. That’s the same it’s always personalized every time.
Now with humor you know one of the elements of humor is randomness. This ability to take two things that are dissimilar and relate them to each other for some reason the human mind finds that to be funny. You did a fabulous job doing that during your career as a minister and now as a speaker. I remember one time you gave a sermon we were talking about all the different soap operas that were popular and you were weaving in like the guiding light and you’re weaving in what days of our lives and all living and all of the different soap operas and you were somehow weaving it into the talk and because you know at church you don’t expect the minister to be referencing pop culture soap operas the way you had tied it all together just just worked always be spontaneous because then you go with the tide and the flow and make you current fluid and or in in the current in the flow of the energy in the room you created or you redirect it.
But that’s part of what you do now. So you have to know when to inject humor like I started with that when I just said that so many folks looking for the young and restless and you ain’t even young you just restless. And then the next thought came. So you you go to the guiding light. Whatever the name just started coming apart right. And then I remembered them. But the spontaneity of the first presentation of that is another one would come in my mind.
You are on fire you couldn’t stop it you just kept firing it was like one after the other like a roll.
Yeah. It was so is so much fun to do that because when you come up with that last one they are just on the floor. They’ve just been so entertained and opened up and then you can go anywhere you want after that.
Well you know the final element of humor that I wanted to touch on is self deprecation which you did hit on earlier and for me in my career that’s always been a big win there because I really have no discernible talents. But I’ve been able to have a lot of success in business. Can you talk to me about why it’s so important that every speaker weaves in some aspect of self-deprecation.
The first reason is you. You’ve got to stay on the level of the people even though you’re usually elevated and lit and all eyes are on you. You must give them the impression that your eyes are on them. I often say I know you all came because you heard I was coming but I came because I heard you were coming I would not have come if I had.
They didn’t tell me you are going to be here. So right away I shifted it to them. It made them feel good and honored. And then I stay on that level and still at the same time elevate their consciousness as I’m rising. So we’re always on the state the same level and they what I’m saying becomes relevant to them because they can relate to it. If you make it so high that only you’re the winner and you’re the smart person you will the books and you try to are you made of money. They can never do that. Oh my God. But when you self-deprecate and use humor you come back down. And like I said I feel like that oh my god I relate to that I’m having the same problem with my wife. My kids drive me nuts. I like my boss. So you tell stories that you know they’re experiencing. You may not be experiencing it at that time but you did yesterday or yester year paying bills being under pressure having conflict resolution or problems with the staff personnel issues. If you’re talking to business if you’re talking to families or church time then you’d also like praying. Are you that mad at the little stories that you know everybody at some point experiences and the reason you know it is because you do. And we we all are very much in the journal 99. You know ninety nine point ninety nine percent the same.
The next element is charisma. Now charisma I mean the books have been written about it. Many books more books can be written about it. But if you had to sum up what is charisma and how you know if you have charisma as a speaker you get to know what you’re working with here.
Talk to me about charisma and how you know if you have it will charisma is the Greek word for gift cards is the word for Grace gracious giftedness. There’s nothing more powerful in the universe that can flow to a person than gracious giftedness. Whether that’s a medical doctor or a dentist or a golfer a politician when you have the gift and you have grace with it it heals totally. It’s a complete package.
How would you suggest that somebody develops charisma if they’re lacking in that area.
The word charisma means gifted.
So it’s a gift it’s given to you so you don’t believe you can develop it either you have it or you don’t know you’re born with talent that you can develop that your personal devotion is very important because if you don’t go within you’ll go without.
That’s the spiritual aspect of getting on the stage if you’re going to demand an audience for 45 minutes or an hour and a half or whatever. You owe it to them to connect with them spiritually. If you don’t they will not remember the experience. It’ll be a waste of both your time you may get paid but you have hurt the people.
Now as far as on this topic of knowing what you’re working with if you have musical skills how should you weave in your musical skills into your presentations. The
word music comes from the word muse which means to think to amuse is the opposite to stop thinking you have to know how to work both of them. You may not be musical but you can be amusing. You can make them think new. The science of the musings. Then you can make them stop thinking and you want to hit the notes but also teach them how to live between the notes. That’s the these these spaceless ageless timeless important and the best speakers know how to do that. If they don’t know that they’re doing it now.
What if my if my knowing what I’m working with what if I know that I’m an expert where they have some fame. Ok so I’m now I’m qualified to be on the stage because either A I’m famous or B I am an expert of a given field whether it be search engine optimization or expert on marriage or an expert on whatever the topic may be. How should I use fame and my expert status to benefit the audience.
Well fame sometimes comes from infamy. It just means having attention so it takes tension to create tension which creates tension take the tension and tension that you have and help create or reproduce in the people intention make them deliberate so that they don’t live by chance but by choice.
If I’m new to speaking or I’m somebody’s been speaking for a while but I’m struggling to figure out what I’m working with I’m struggling to audit my own skills and be self-aware and know what I am working with what skills that I have or what Aeros I have in my repertoire. What advice would you have for someone who is struggling to find their voice as a speaker struggling to find what they’re working with Thrive nation when we get back.
Brother Carlton Pearson is going to answer that question in many many more as we talk about how to become a powerful presenter. If you want to attend the world’s best business workshop and I know you do go to thrivetimeshow .com and get your tickets and we come back more from Carlton Pearson how to become a powerful presenter