Succeeding as an Introverted Public Speaker

Matthew Pollard: Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Introverts Edge podcast. And I have to admit, I am ecstatic to introduce my next guest. I interviewed him on summit that we recently did and he was just phenomenal. Sharing his experience in speaking in so many leadership, focuses as well. And I wanted to get him on because he’s an introvert.

You’re going to find it hard to believe, but we’re definitely going to get into his personal story. But he is a Neven award winner, which is actually one of that. Well, is the highest award as a speaker. You can get in Australia. He has had 387 clients in 41 countries, and he’s spoken in front of 1.7 million people.

But what I think is pretty impressive about Keith, because a lot of people speak at events all the time now, surely not as many people, not as many clients and not as many countries as is case. But the thing that I think that’s most impressive about Keith, is the fact that he’s able to have clients keep coming back for him.

I mean, 96% of his clients have hired him a second time, 64% have actually hired, and six times or more and 31% of his clients. And this is an almost impossible to believe statistic. But the truth is, once you hear from, you’ll understand why 31% of his clients have actually hired him over and over again over a decade.

So one of the things that I know that the introverts listening to this episode are going to always be thinking is, I don’t know if I can be a successful speaker, and gosh, I have me once. They’re not going to have that introvert back twice. I want you to know that’s not true, and there’s no better person to share that than Keith.

So Keith, welcome to the show, mate. I’m ecstatic to have you with us.

Keith Abraham: Thanks, Matthew. I really appreciate the opportunity to connect with you and my fellow introverts, by the way, as well. So, it’s great to be on the edge.

Matthew Pollard: Well, look, I will say that. I mean, you’ve got a really impressive story, and a lot of people say you is literally the person that teaches speaking in Australia to other professional speakers. The the truth is, though, that most people are going to find, I’m always talking about how people project extroversion on anyone that’s successful and someone that’s got, I mean, you only have to read your bio for about five seconds to go, okay, this guy’s in a league of his own.

Clearly, he must have had a natural gift. So I want to I want to really go back to kind of the younger years of case. When did when did you start to realize that you were an introvert yourself, or did you always kind of know and, and kind of where was the point where you sort of started to take charge and decide that you wanted to be a professional speaker?

Public Speaking for Introverts? Yes!

Keith Abraham: Yeah, yeah. Good question. Like, I really I, I, you know, I grew up in a family with, a brother and two sisters, the four of us in a family. But there was a big gap between myself and my brother. And so I was sort of like a lonely, a lonely or only child. And you know what?

I was okay with that. I was okay with doing my own thing. So. Not that I realized that then, but it was probably when I first went to, a leadership program that you had to stand up and present something, and I was exceptionally nervous and actually didn’t want to do it. And then I sort of came.

I thought it was it was funny. It was something I didn’t want to do, but when I did it, I enjoyed it. And then when I was asked to do it again, I didn’t want to do it. But when I did it on it and it is it was this internal conflict which was really about probably me coming, starting to come out of my being an extrovert.

And I the more I stood up and shared on that stage, not professionally or anything like that. I was 24 and, you know, 24 years of age and really had no drive and desire to do too much at all with my life. But it was it was that experience that I went, if I can do something a little bit different here, maybe I can, maybe I can just regardless whether I’m introvert or an extrovert, I can actually start taking control of of really what my destiny is and actually started to find a passion and a purpose about my life.

Matthew Pollard: Well, I appreciate you sharing that, Keith. And I think one of the things that comes up a lot for, well, I find this all the time. Introverts say I want to start a business, or I want to be a professional speaker and it’s not that I don’t. I don’t believe introverts can do it. As a matter of fact, I believe introverts make the best salespeople, the best network is the best public speakers.

And I mean, you don’t have to look far to see $1 billion business that was founded by an introvert. But the thing that I find is that the people that found those, the people that started those, or the people that endeavored into those careers and became successful, you can tell the pain for them was worth the gain. And for a lot of the people that I speak to, that unsuccessful, they you can always tell that there’s just something the fire in their belly isn’t there to go and make it happen.

And don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of introverts that don’t know they can succeed in those fields, but I’m talking about the people that are starting up their own businesses anyway, or they going into those careers, but they’re just accepting subpar performance. And I know that you’re very big on connecting with passion and what really sets you a line.

Goal Setting Tips for Introverts

So I, I know you talk about, you know, a lot about, you know, the hell over the why would you. Yeah. Would you mind parting that with the audience about why that school.

Keith Abraham: Yeah. Love to can, you know, so he’s my belief. You know, a lot of people talk about start with y. And it’s, to be honest, it’s too hard, you know, to find your why. You got to go and sit. Sit in the middle of a rainforest on a rock for two weeks to work out what your Y is.

And of course, some people use that then as a bit of an excuse. Oh, I don’t know what y y is. You know, and so so here’s what I said to people. Should I start with y start with how you see me. And this is based on nine years of research that we’ve done where we go as an adult, you can experience 135 different emotions.

64 of them are positive. The risks, the negative of those 64, they break down into what we call and determined to be, goal drivers. They’re the reason that somebody will become will get out of their comfort zone. That will face their fear. They the they’re the reason why somebody will go, will become committed, compelled and connected to a goal or to a purpose.

And so one of the things we say to people is you start with how you want to feel first. So if you’re a introvert, you’re an extrovert, you know, if you want to build a business and you want to become a speaker, if you want to become a leader in your organization, ask the question first, how do you want to feel?

And there are eight drivers. You know, people want to feel successful. People want to feel, purposeful. People want to feel inspired. People want to feel happy. People want to feel organized. People want to feel respected. People want to feel confident. People want to feel relaxed. And each of those eight have, a reason behind them.

The people who, want to feel successful are about building a legacy. The people who put the purpose, purpose. Sorry. Successful is about momentum. The people who are around purposeful, legacy. And there’s a, you know, there’s a whole, area of body of work that we’ve done around this, including building a diagnostic tool that actually measures, what is driving people and so when you start with that, then you can sense.

So let’s say you want to feel confident in the role that you’re in so that you can progress through your career and become a leader. You go, okay, so I want to feel confident. So so now, Matthew, you ask the question, what goal do you need to achieve in the next three months, six months, 12 months? What gold is specifically need to achieve for you to feel confident not knowing what gold you need to achieve to increase your bank balance?

What goal do you need to achieve for you to feel confident? And you write that down. Specifically, what? And then the the next question you ask then is you then ask the why question. But it’s not like what’s my why? It’s why is that so important to you? And unless you can come up with five reasons why, any excuse will do to hot, to cold, to many to few to little, too much, too hard, too easy.

I’m an extrovert, Keith. I’m not, you know, I’m sorry. I’m an introvert, Keith, I need to recharge. I’m not an extrovert. Any excuse will do. And then what? Circles all of that? And we were talking about this before we jumped on air. Is the reason why I’ve achieved everything in my speaking business. The reason why you’ve achieved everything in your speaking business, the reason why we’ve changed everything in my personal life, the reason why you’ve achieved everything in your personal life is because we have always been humble enough, and this is the quality of an introvert.

We’ve always been humble enough to seek out who’s who can help me. What book do I need to read? Who do I need to talk to? Who could be a good mentor for me? Who is someone I need to listen to on a podcast? So we have sought out who’s that have helped us on that journey.

And so when people put that into a package and I know I’ve spent a little bit of detail on this, but but in essence, we’ve spent about four minutes and people go, oh, that makes sense. I can do that.

Matthew Pollard: Yeah, that’s really interesting. And I, I will say that I see a lot of people that, you know, one of the jokes I make all the time is I get people to set goals and I’m like, the goals are really a means to an end. I need you to write why the goals are so important. And I really struggle to answer that.

But I’m like, you got to understand people inherit their goals from their mother, their father, drunk roommate, their head. In college, they hear these things and they run off to him and they don’t really think them through. And if they come back and decide what’s really important to them, then the next thing you have is very practical and logical answers, which again, aren’t going to sit the fire in the belly the way it should.

So I start asking questions about what change do you want to see in the world? Or what group of people need you help most? And then all of a sudden they start to think externally, and then you start asking them to set goals associated with that. And they’re like, well, but then I don’t have these skill sets or I can’t do these things, or I have these imposter syndrome.

It sounds like that would fit directly into what you’re highlighting. Okay. So what would you need to feel like this? What would you need to feel like this? And then you can set really micro goals. And what I love about what you’ve highlighted is micro goal setting, because I think people set these really outlandish goals and they’re so used to not hitting them, so they just keep setting outlandish goals and then never hitting them.

What you’re highlighting is set these really micro goals about hitting this target to hit feel confident, hit this target to feel like you’re excited about something. And I think that’s that’s a really powerful technique to to to utilize what one of the things I know, gosh, I wish I could go deeper into this and I would love for you at the end if you’ve got this diagnostic tool case, if perhaps you’d be open to it, to sharing it with, the people in the in the audience, I, I really wanted to spend a little bit of my time, though, going into you as a professional speaker because I know for me and people, people

have heard my story, and I know that every introvert has their own story for how they get up on the stage and how they feel comfortable and what rule sets make them feel comfortable. And I really like because especially with the number of times you’ve been welcomed back, that doesn’t come with being without being authentic on stage. And a lot of people do show up, but they show up in authentically because they feel like they need to behave like an extrovert.

So I’m really interested in some of the lessons you learned as you gravitated onto the stage as, as an introvert, and how you navigated doing it while still staying true to yourself without that big introverted protection. God coming up.

Public Speaking Tips for Introverts to Overcome Nervousness

Keith Abraham: Yeah, great question. The for me it’s always been about preparation, you know, so I, I just make sure that I’m really prepared and I’m organized. And the second thing is, is that I spend the time and I connect with the key people in the organization, and I start conversations not as a not as an extrovert, not not as an introvert, just as a person.

Because at the end of the day, like you do, you ask good quality questions. And the one great trait of introverts is that we have very good listeners, you know, we become good listeners because when we’re not seeking the attention. So we’re not seeking to be the center of attention. What was we’re great observers, we’re great listeners.

And so when you start to me, I now, I think after doing this for 28 years, the ability for me to to listen to a client and sort of go, I know exactly what they need. I know exactly what the, the challenges or what the opportunity is and to be able to share that back to them. And they go, yeah, that’s exactly it.

Because at the end of the day, people buy people. People, you know, the people who keep on using me, people that I’ve built a relationship with. And so, you know, it is a, it is a great skill for, for any professional speaker. It’s always about, you know, yes. Be great on stage and have wonderful content.

But be, as you said before, be the real authentic you. What people get on stage is what they get off stage. There is no difference. And in this world now, I just think the value that people are looking for is authenticity. They don’t want someone who is incongruent and, and the more authentic you are, the more valuable you are, and in essence, the more consistent you are as well.

With, with clients and with audiences and the better you connect.

Matthew Pollard: You know, I think that’s a powerful thing to say because, and let me frame it this way, I’m sure that the amount of effort that you have to put into doing that now, because of the number of events that you’ve spoken at, it takes a lot less time. I know for myself, when I speak at a group of technology people or in the hospitality industry or in finance, I’ve spoken at so many of those events.

I’m looking for the subtle differences, the culture, things like that. But I don’t have to research the entire marketplace and understand it. But I feel like a lot of emerging speakers, especially, they kind of start from a place of, well, one day I’m going to be doing 200 events of that a year. So I can’t be doing all this crazy research for me.

I find that if I’m in a new industry, I’m doing obsessive amounts of research, understanding the background. So when I do my meeting a month before, I’m asking detailed questions so I understand it. It’s all getting on stage unless I know why they need me there and exactly how to fix their problem. And I feel that allows me to show up authentically.

And I feel like what you’re highlighting is that for the people that are listening, what you just basically said is they shouldn’t show up on they can’t show up on stage authentically unless they’ve done their homework.

Keith Abraham: Correct. What will the real key here is that the more research I do, the better I understand the client, the better understand the client, the more trust rapport, and credibility and likability that I can create with that audience. Because nobody wants to hear a speaker that that, you know, that talks about work and your customers, you know, really important.

And it’s a financial planning group or a well that don’t have customers. They have clients. And it’s those little subtleties that that you pick up and even the language, you know, like, I’ve done a lot of work in the car industry and I’ve done, you know, work 24 years, straight with Toyota and Lexus globally and, and so I know that industry really well.

And when you turn up and you start sharing your ideas and insights with them and, and all of a sudden you start talking to people at the back of the room and they go, well, how long you been working for Lexus for? Well, I don’t actually work for Lexus. I have my own business. Jesus. And like us, you know, like,

And that is the compliment and and the reason why, you know, the real measure of any great professional speaker is just two things. It’s not about standing ovations. It’s not about, oh, well, you know, I spoke to 10,000 people or, you know, they flew me to Cancun to speak at this, the international sales conference. It’s not that. I mean, that’s lovely, but that feeds the ego.

If you truly are coming from your heart, it’s about does the client return and do they recommend if my client keeps on coming back and using me, I am of value. And if they recommend me to other people, I am trusted. And so and by the way, one of the byproducts of that, sustainability in the industry and profitability in your business.

Matthew Pollard: Yeah. I think that’s important. And I think a lot of people that that hear about the speaking business, they think I write a speech and I deliver that speech and I talk, I talk at people. What I’m hearing from everything you’re saying is you consult beforehand. You research so that when you’re up on stage, even if you’re speaking to people, you’re almost meeting them where they are by using the language they understand and speaking about the problems as they understand them.

And because of that, they’re like, well, why wouldn’t I hire this person back? And why wouldn’t I introduce them? Because 99% of the speakers don’t do that.

Keith Abraham: Well. Well, the old story, isn’t it. You got to meet people where they’re at so you can take them on a journey with you. You know, if you’re a speaker and you stand on stage and you start, you know, talking to them about what they should do, what they shouldn’t do and do this and do that, and you haven’t truly connected with them.

You haven’t really identified and, and recognized what’s happening in their business at the moment. Then, you know, the, the reliability factor is, is very low. And people go, yeah, you know, I’ve had a good message, but, you know, it was okay, but I don’t want to want that. I don’t want people to say, well, that was so impactful.

Now, I don’t think I’m saying anything different than anybody else that talks about my area of expertise around how to achieve your goals. You know, faster, easier, sooner, better. But but the difference is, is that when you truly understand where the people and where the client is, that as a business where the the people in the audience are right, then you can take them on a journey with you and and of course, when you do that, all of a sudden people go, that was so good.

We’ve got to have people back. Share one story with you when I start started doing some work with, Toyota and, I must have done, you know, 5 or 6 conferences with them. I’ve, you know, about, four years. And, I was talking to the CEO of Toyota and, I said, I said, I am exceptionally grateful for the opportunity to be invited back.

I said, can I ask you one question? I said, I notice that you use lots of professional speakers and they are all very good speakers, by the way, all very good speakers. And, but I, I never see you invite them back like you have with me. You know, you know, why is that? And they said, Keith, you took the time to read the Toyota, why you took the time to understand their business and we like you.

We trust you, and you’re a safe pair of hands. We know exactly what we’re going to get. So we’re happy to use you over and over and over and over again. Because, you just took the time and you feel like us and and I think when you start to, when they feel that, bond and trust that you feel like them, they’re always going to look to you to to recognize you and to invite you back again.

Matthew Pollard: Yeah. I think it’s really important because, I mean, for a lot of people, they spend forever trying to get a presentation, trying to get that speech, and then they don’t do the research to keep the speech like the easiest client to get is the one that already knows you in your head. If you don’t show up, well.

Keith Abraham: It’s the same in every it’s the same in every business method. You know, most people operate on the three F principle. You know, we find them, we flog them, we forget them. And you know, I’ve built my whole business around making sure stay in touch with people and being top of mind, continue to add value. And when you does that take time, energy and effort?

Yes, but it’s a hell of a lot less time, energy and effort than going for another client regardless of the industry you’re in.

Matthew Pollard
Yeah, no, I’m definitely on board with that. And I think that a lot of people you’re 100% right. They’re like, well, I just need to get 60 clients and you don’t. If you’ve got 20 clients that hire you multiple times, and then you build on that because they send you referrals and you know, you can have a really profitable business even on 20 keynotes.

And I think for a lot of the, the people that, the listening that organize events, I think that the advice you hearing from this is if you have a speaker that if you’re interviewing for speakers or you’re trying to select the speaker for your event, or maybe you’re on a board or a committee that is part of that, ask them the type of research that they’re going to make.

Take, sorry, that they’re going to go through before they even decide. So decide on the topic that they’re going to talk about from stage, or how are they going to customize their presentation. And if you get a blank face, which sadly, I’m going to say is going to happen, more and more frequently than they expect, run for the Hills, because the people that you know, and I’m not saying it’s got anything to do with how much a speaker charges, because there are people that charge $3,000 and $100,000 that do no research, and there are speakers that charge three and 100 that do a ton of research.

It really comes down to the the moral fiber and the qualities of the person about delivering that long term impact and seeing them as that that long term speaker, which clearly case you’ve, you’ve shown a thousand times already in your statistics. Definitely show definitely show that as well. I know we’re running out of time, so I need to get to the question that I did pre warn you about, in advance.

Just so you know, you had some introverted time to reflect, but I want to really understand because and for those people listening to this episode or the first ever introvert episode, introverted episode, I get sick and tired of people constantly calling introversion and negative, especially because I believe it’s a huge advantage in so many ways. As long as we lean into our strengths.

The problem is everyone keeps talking about what we don’t have, which I don’t actually think is accurate. But truthfully, I feel like we need to focus on some of these amazing skills that we have. So I’d love to ask you what you consider your introvert edge.

Keith Abraham: Yeah. Not my edge is. As an introvert, I love time and space by myself. And here’s the reason why. It gives me the opportunity to do deep thinking. It gives me the opportunity to create content, and it gives me the opportunity to plan and prepare for what’s next, my next goal, my next client. And I’m okay with, time and space by myself.

Every book that I’ve written, I’ve now written six books, every book that I’ve written or packed up my bongos. And I’ve gone somewhere by myself in my own space without anybody around me to write the book. Why? Because that’s my genius zone. That’s my zone that I go on just sitting with my own thoughts on not and and I’m okay with it.

With where extroverts, they got to have stimulation and for us, the ability to do deep thinking, which a lot of people don’t do when you don’t do the when you don’t have the time and space, you can’t do the deep thinking, which means you can’t think big. And if you can’t think big, you can’t dream big.

And if you can’t dream big, you can’t do big things.

Introversion, Introverts and Public Speaking: Dream Big!

Matthew Pollard: Yeah I look I think that’s, I think that’s really powerful. And I think that a lot of the people that are listening see the time that they need to take by themselves as a negative thing because they’re not running as fast as everybody else and they’re not doing as much. And now I’m going to call it instant gratification world.

We somehow fall into the trap of believing that that’s important, and where I’m always focused on strategy before tactics. So you take a small step back, slow down completely stop, and then catapult forward. And I agree with you. That’s a huge positive that introvert by nature had the ability to do that. Extroverts have to really force themselves to stop and really struggle with.

So I think that’s a really powerful edge case. I, I know when it where we’re at time. So I really want to I want to go back to the, the diagnostic that you spoke about. And I really, you know, of course, I’d love for people that is hearing about you for the first time and your content.

I’d love for you to suggest where they can find out more about you. And I would also love it if there is a simple way for them to find the data from the diagnostic or the diagnostic itself, where would they where would they go for that?

Keith Abraham: Yeah. So the diagnostic, sits on a website called my go driver.com. That’s my goal driver.com. You can go there. You can do a free version, which is a six page version. It gives you, 12 insights. You’ll understand what your driver is. You’ll understand what you need to stop doing. You understand what you need to stop, start doing.

You’ll understand the roadblocks and the fees that are slowing you down. So it gives you those insights. If you want to do the paid version, you can do that. And that’s, 28 page report 135 accelerators and 24, performance accelerators that you can, that you can do to move yourself faster, easier and better and sooner towards your goals.

A lot of people say, oh, is it a personality profile? No, no it’s emotionally based and it’s and they’re, prescriptive in there. That will help you move from where you are to where you want to be. And if people want to check out, my website, that’s Keith Abraham, dot com and it h ivr I hcm.com.

Matthew Pollard: That’s perfect. Well I appreciate you sharing that Keith. And everything that you’ve shared in today’s episode and our personal night. It was it was great to interview another fellow Aussie and even willing enough, which I never do, to do the interview off site. So, I was excited about doing this one, so I’m glad we got a chance, to do that.

So thank you so much for sharing and for everyone that’s listening. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you got value out of this episode. I know I did, I always do when I’m listening to Keith, and I look forward to seeing you in the next one. Cheers!

Keith Abraham: Thank you