People Follow People. Sam Cawthorn
I had just come through my busiest month ever, which included 56 flights, both domestic and international. By then we had three young kids and I wasn't at home much at all. I had to make a decision. Should I continue as a solopreneur on the professional speaking circuit, or should I look at actually running a business and teaching other people what I did in order for them to grow their profiles and influence in their industry?
Around this time, Google asked me to put on a workshop at their headquarters in Sydney. They wanted me to teach some of their leaders how to present and share stories. I asked them, ‘Can we use your largest room and invite some of the public along to the seminar?’ They said, ‘Yeah, that would be fine.’
So they booked their biggest room, which sat 300 people, and I advertised it out there in the marketplace and more than 300 people signed up, including just a handful from Google. It was a sold-out event. I realised then that there was a huge demand out there for training in how to build a business profile, how to commercialise your voice and how to be an influencer.
That was the motivation I needed to set up Speakers Institute to teach others the skills behind becoming a successful speaker and a thought leader. Since then I've drawn on the wisdom of the best influencer trainers in the world, including body-language experts, publishers, media personalities, PR consultants, speaker bureaus and agents, as well as some of the best professional speaker trainers on the planet. I soaked up their knowledge in their areas of expertise, and in this way we built the Speakers Institute curriculum from the ground up.
As we developed, we became a premier training organisation, teaching our clients how to build their profiles in the new profile economy. Over the past five years, we've seen a really interesting transition as people previously influenced for the most part by governments, organisations, brands, products and logos have increasingly come to be influenced by people, individual human beings.
Learning to lead through life
Thinking about my life from my early childhood years on, I can see that I learned about leadership from many different sources and situations. It's probably the same for everyone. Think about the people who have been your mentors. Equally, there were probably people whose actions and conduct showed you how not to lead. We can learn from them too.
My leadership style is based primarily on encouragement. At Speakers Institute, we aim to encourage and empower people, and it all starts with the language we use. For example, when our opinion is sought, we start by offering positive reinforcement before putting forward our suggestions. We might advise, ‘Be faithful with the small’, or ‘The best is yet to come’, or ‘It's time to shine.’
We truly believe in people, and we show this in both our words and our actions. This applies to everyone we come into contact with, especially our colleagues. We start every team meeting by acknowledging one another. We then talk about any incompletes and discuss ways to set them right, so we can all move on.
We lead and manage by taking into account the three greatest human fears: the fear of not being loved, the fear of not being good enough and the fear of not belonging. We find ways to overcome those fears so that we and the people around us can flourish.
Leading through growth
Thinking about how Speakers Institute has grown into a global company puts a big smile on my face. It makes me feel very content and fulfilled. I have a healthy work–life balance. I know a lot of people in a similar position to my own feel differently. Perhaps they feel guilty for not being there for their family because they're so busy building their business or travelling for work. I feel none of that, because I know I'm a good father and a loving husband. My wife and children are amazing, and that certainly helps me. I'm content with every aspect of my life, from my health and relationships through to my finances and the success of our business, and that gives me a deep sense of fulfilment.
So I'm certainly content, but I'm not satisfied.
Deep in my core, I know there's more — more opportunities to seize, more people to reach, more money to be made, more influence to wield, more lives that can be transformed, more to give. So no, I'm not satisfied, because I know there is so much more I can do as a leader.
This is a great motivator for all of us, in both our personal and professional life. Ask yourself, ‘Am I content but not satisfied? Am I ready to do more, achieve more, have a positive impact on more people?’
I'm content but at the same time I'm hungry for more, because I have so much more to do.
Checking in with your mentors
For a leader or manager, it's a healthy practice to check in regularly with your mentors and with the people around you whom you respect. Be open to what they have to offer; it may not always be praise, but it's always certainly worth considering.
Kate, my life partner, is my anchor. She keeps me accountable and soon lets me know when my words and actions are misaligned in some way. And I have my oldest brother to confide in; I can talk to him when I feel really vulnerable, and share my highs and lows. I also have a pastor who helps me to realign when things feel a little out of control.
Professionally, I have my advisers on the Speakers Institute board as well as our leadership team. So I have a great range of people in my corner, people I can trust completely who will actively listen to me when I feel vulnerable or when things aren't going well.
My father was my first mentor and my benchmark. He would always help me to see what I should do, and I found his passing in 2017 incredibly difficult, to say the least. But I believe he's still there, and I carry with me what he taught me. His influence comes into my life every day.
Look to others when you need them
There came a time in my business when I realised that I wasn't learning from my failures as much as I should. That had a lot to do with my own arrogance and ego.
They say you can learn the easy way, the hard way or the tragic way. Learning the easy way, you learn from other people's mistakes. Learning the hard way, you learn from your own mistakes. But make sure you never choose the tragic way, which is when you don't learn from either. This is where I found myself when I started out in business as a speaker: I was failing but I wasn't necessarily learning from my mistakes; instead, I found myself failing again and again. That was when I realised how much I need people in my corner to keep me accountable.
I had to wake up to myself and say, ‘Wait a second, I need people who are going to be there for me, to tell me the things I may not want to hear, but that I need to hear.’ When I came to this recognition, I started to draw on my humility in order to become the person I knew I should be.
Finding that humility was not easy. I was a successful performer by that time, speaking to huge audiences around the world. I'd be a fool to imagine that I would remain unaffected by the ego and arrogance that so often follows success, unless I was aware of them and did something about them.
Never forget: confidence is a great asset, but arrogance can pull you down.
Yet there I was. Stepping off the stage after my speaking engagements, I would find people lining up to tell me how good I was, to get a photo with me, to ask for my autograph, to tell me that I'd changed their life, that I'd inspired them. Hearing that day in, day out, month in, month out, year in, year out — of course it affected me.
This is an issue for many people in positions of influence and leadership. You can be put on a pedestal. On social media people tell you ‘you're amazing, awesome, inspiring’. Blah, blah, blah. Then you get one comment that says, ‘You're ugly.’
That one comment breaks through, leaving you feeling stressed or anxious, and if such comments gain momentum you may find yourself descending into depression. All because one hurtful comment from one