Are you speaking from the scar or the wound?

“And then I climbed Everest in my underpants and because I’ve done that you can do it too. Here are my five lessons from having a cold cock”.

We see a lot of keynote speakers with hugely impressive stories.

Descriptions of feats which they achieved against all odds and the lessons they’ve learnt.

A lot of those stories come with quite deep trauma.

Things that are shared to create an emotional response. To spark something in the listener so that they feel motivated or inspired to make changes in their life.

And that is fine as long as those stories are shared from the scar rather than the wound.

The distinction is important.

When you are developing your speaking material, invariably you will come across stories from your past that you are yet to process.

This is why we have therapy.

To work through the things we have experienced and assimilate them into our being.

The therapy should not occur on stage.

I have seen loads of speakers over the years talk about something quite heavy when they are just not ready.

The work to be able to carry that story, share that story, and keep the audience safe just hasn’t been done.

It’s like dumping your trauma on the audience.

That leads to a exquisite amount of disconnection.

I don’t believe it’s deliberate.

I reckon it’s part of that process of stumbling upon your life’s purpose, putting it in a story and the naivety and the inexperience, which come when there is no clear guidance.

The chances are they might have seen somebody else do it on stage and went “ooh we’ll have a go at that too.”

When I’m working with speakers I often talk about them opening up Pandora’s box on stage.

Their version of the box often contains personal experiences they’ve had during their life, which I want to talk more about.

They need to be ready to open up Pandora’s box on stage, show the audience what’s in it, close it and have everyone go away feeling safe.

If they can’t do that they are still speaking from the wound.

That leads the audience dysregulated and triggered, with nowhere to go.

I ask a range of questions to make sure that these Pandora’s box-style stories earn their place:

Does it earn its place?

Does it have a lesson that you can share?

How will your audience respond or react to it?

When you first start to share your stories, I can guarantee that you are going to get it wrong.

You’ll think that you’re speaking from the scar but actually you’ll discover that it’s almost healed but you’re just picking the scab on the one edge.

This isn’t failure. It’s just how you find the edges, the tension, and the bits of the comfort zone that you just don’t want to push against.

When you are starting to put together your speaking deliveries, ask yourself “am I speaking from the scar rather than the wound?”

And if you need some help navigating that, drop me a message.