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NB: This newsletter is published every Monday. Point your browser to www.tayosolagbade.com/sdnuggets to read at least ONE new post added to my SD Nuggets blog on a different category from Tuesday till Saturday (sometimes even Sundays)

in line with this publishing schedule

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1 of 2: PUBLIC SPEAKING –Successful Speakers are Voracious Readers

“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” ― Harry S. Truman

Here’s my adaptation, of the above quote, based on what I see in the socio-cultural environments I operate in:

“Not all speakers can be successful leaders, because NOT all speakers have a healthy reading habit!” – Tayo K. Solagbade

Aspiring Leaders Who Have NO TIME to Read Cannot Succeed as Leaders (3 Real Life Examples)

An expert-speaker once told me he did not read much because he was too busy. But after watching him for 6 months as we interacted on a project, I discovered he did not read because he was too lazy, restless and distracted by trivial issues. Not because he had no time or was too busy as he claimed!

A few years ago I was at an event in a Victoria Island-Lagos restaurant, hosted by Chimamanda Adichie, in which a young man asked her how he could improve his writing.

When she asked him how often he read, he replied that he did not have time to read!

You can guess how that exchange ended…

One more anecdote to drive my point home…

There’s a certain popular Beninese personality I’ve been quietly working with, here in Cotonou, to develop and implement a marketing strategy for a new range of solutions we plan to offer, using various audio visual resources he’s created over the years.

Last week, I asked him what he thought of the idea of my ghost-wring a book in his name, to be offered for sale to his fans and followers.

His reply, after a short pause, was that he’d learnt from years of serving local audiences his content, that majority of them had an aversion for reading and preferred watching videos and listening to audios.

That made us settle on using videos and audios to be put online and on DVDs off the web!

The above examples point to the fact that we have a society in which people are largely uninterested in reading – especially Self-Help literature!

Yet MANY of these same people with poor reading habits often aspire – and daily go out of their way – to become “speakers”!

That’s why we have so many “motivational speakers” who sound like duplicate versions of one another. Or worse, who simply ramble senselessly in delivering messages that make little sense to equally clueless audience members, with similar poor reading and thinking habits like the speaker’s!

They want to lead others, but are not prepared to equip themselves with the information and education to lead effectively!

How can you can make any lasting impact on those you address in your talks or lectures, when your fail to read to improve yourself?.

I often see such “speakers” (many having NO personal achievements of any sort to boast about) with bestsellers on success and achievement by established expert-authors, like Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, John Maxwell, Anthony Robbins, Bill Gates, Robert Kiyosaki and Napoleon Hill.

But on conversing with them, it often becomes painfully obvious they’ve not gone beyond the first chapter i.e. if at all they actually ever sat down long enough to read even that!

Yet, the truth is that even Albert Einstein, genius that he was, READ to improve himself – and voraciously too

So did/do the authors mentioned above, as well as many other successful people in various fields – including fashion design, and sports (Ask Michael Jordan)!

Now, let me point out here that when I say “successful” people in this article, I mean those who achieved expert competence in their chosen fields, and got recognized for it, BUT rather than stop there, went further to INFLUENCE others to excel, by becoming leaders of thought.

Einstein, Edison, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Robert Kiyosaki, and many others are examples of leaders of this kind.

So is Burt Dubin, veteran mentor to international speakers, and an author of his own books (e.g. Bust Loose) – who incidentally began reading powerful self-help books before he was in his teens.

In no time, the impact of the ideas he got exposed to became apparent in the exceptional performances he began demonstrating from an early age in and out of paid employment.

Burt is now 91 years old, but continues to read and write with the same passion that he’s always had.

How do I know this you ask?

It’s because I’ve interacted with him closely for over 4 years now, since we teamed up to sell his mentoring solutions to experts in Africa.

One example: Last Thursday, I sent Burt a 12 item questionnaire for my CEO Interview Series, and by Saturday afternoon, he’d sent me the FULLY answered questionnaire neatly typed in MS Word with over 1,500 words!

That says a lot doesn’t it – and it’s the reason why he’s excelled in various fields for over half a century.

Burt remains as mentally agile as ever, and his wisdom from a well developed reading habit spanning over a half century, constantly comes to the fore as we correspond: a most enriching experience, for me!

[NB: If you ever read where I wrote that he was 83, forgive me – Burt has since corrected me in an email he sent last week]

Regular and diligent reading of useful written material (not gossip news etc) will over time build up your store of knowledge and information, including your reserve

There is a saying that you cannot give what you don’t have.

If you go around trying to share with others without maintaining a healthy reading habit, you’ll get to a point that you DRY UP, begin to sound stale, and your audiences will feel you have nothing new to offer, anytime they listen to you after the first time.

Think about the great speakers you know for a minute. Do you ever get the impression that they have no new ideas to share? Or that they’re boring to listen to? Very unlikely!

In as much as they may not be perfect, most of them nurse the smart habit of constantly replenishing what they know about their areas of expertise, by reading as much and as wide as possible. And they say so!

Today’s technology enables us access useful reading resources of the best and highest quality much more easily. It therefore makes one wonder why fewer and fewer people pick interest in reading.

I believe this has happened because of the failure of the conventional schooling systems in our societies.

Due to its emphasis on right and wrong answers, as well as rote learning/memorization, most people leave school without a LOVE for reading/studying – with the possible exception of sports, politics, romance, gossip etc.

The irony is that they also go into the world assuming that the little they see and hear as they move around, and also via TV and Radio, as well as on DVDs and other media, will be enough to learn what they need to know.

What they fail to realize is that doing those things cannot replace the need for reading.

My experience based tips on “What to Read”, as well as “How and When to Read”…

Now that I’ve established the important need for an expert-who-speaks to read in order to replenish him/herself, what follows below are some tips you can use to get into the habit as a way of life (which is what it should be).

What to Read:

Read anything and everything that can help you become better at what you do, and that will boost your ability to deliver memorable value adding speeches to your target audience.

How and When to Read:

Read online as well as offline.

Seize every opportunity to read anything you identify to be relevant to your needs.

Ideally seek your ideal time and place to do your reading.

However, my experience has taught me that expedience should be my operative word.

In other words sometimes it can be hard to find the perfect time to read, and yet something worth reading may come my way.

What I do is to do it right there and then or if that not possible, and I cannot take what is to be read with me to read later, I use whatever means possible to make a copy.

This has seen me writing out a page or 2 from a magazine.

When there was no time for that I’ve often taken high resolution photos of newspaper and magazine pages.

While reading online for instance I typically download pages to read offline later, or I copy and paste text from the web pages into a notepad file I then save to my smart phone’s memory card, so I can later read it on the device when I find a window of free time.

In truth there is no ceremony for me about when and where I read.

I read in snatches (e.g. quotes, self help tips etc) posted on any media, like walls, on TV, on people’s shirts.

And I also read lengthy texts as contained in both digital and print books anywhere and anytime I am able.

Basically, once I set my mind on reading something, no matter how voluminous, or complex, I routinely seize any opportunities I get to progress it, until it’s done. That’s how I get though work-related reading for my client projects, to ensure I deliver as promised.

What Mental Attitude Should Guide Your Reading? (OR What Should be Your Reason for Reading?)

No matter how much work or life experiences you have, you need to read what competent others have written, to gain better insights needed to improve yourself towards impacting others as a speaker.

My reading is never an ego trip. I recommend you ensure that yours never is as well.

For instance, I don’t buy a bestseller so people can see me carrying it around and “think” I am familiar with the “popular” book and author (e.g. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki).

Instead I internalize everything I read, subjecting it to Critical Thinking Analysis, so as to come up with my own insights, even if that means I end up not agreeing with the author in some areas.

Then I take the outcome of my reading and begin to apply it in my personal and work life – including when speaking to individual or group audiences – to influence them in my capacity as an competent expert in my field(s) of specialization.

Example: By applying the ideas from reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, and several other Kiyosaki books I’ve developed my own range of passive income generating information products, which I sell(click here to see one). Then while speaking to others, I talk about it, and some hire me to develop such products for them too. See how I’m putting what I read to productive use?

If you do your reading diligently along the lines described above, your audiences are likely to find listening to your speeches repeatedly informative, educative, entertaining, and most importantly empowering!

Final Words: Speakers who excel are those who devote quality time to Self-Improvement via reading, and who engage in critical thinking based on what they read, to extract insights they can use.

In a recent phone conversation with Efe Ohwofasa, the UK based Nigerian born Speaker, Business Growth Coach and Marketing Consultant, he let on that one habit he constantly nurtures is his self-help reading.

To excel as an expert in your field, and especially as one who speaks as a thought-leader, you MUST adopt reading and critical thinking as described here as a regular habit!

Related Article

Why Leaders Must be Readers [Forbes.com]

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This newsletter (which I use to promote Burt Dubin’s Speaker Mentoring Products/Services) serves

experts-who-speak. Starting – Monday 13th April 2015 – it MORPHED in name and content served, to a 2 part Speaking/Web Marketing IDEAS newsletter, to better serve them.

You just read the “Public Speaking IDEAS” part above. What follows below is the “Web Marketing IDEAS” part.

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Burt Dubin works with people who want to be speakers, and with speakers who want to be masters. Click here to visit his website NOW and submit a contact form message telling him what challenges you’re facing, and how

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Burt Dubin’s monthly Speaking Biz Strategies Letter

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2 of 2: WEB MARKETING: To Achieve Sustainable Success, Closely Monitor News About Current Affairs and

Politics! [FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD]

“If you want to achieve sustainable success in business (especially in a volatile market place like Nigeria), it’s in your best interest to develop interest in

current affairs and politics, because those are the two key ingredients that really keep this country from having a stable sociopolitical climate.
And for as long as that stable sociopolitical climate does not exist, every person running a business will probably have to sleep with one eye open.” – Tayo K.

Solagbade

It’s FREE for all my Web Marketing/farm business clients, and ALL members of my Inner Circle as well as for ALL subscribers to THIS newsletter.

If you are not yet ANY of the above, just send me a message here to let me know.

If you want me to send you the full MP3 recording, just say so in your message.

NB: If you’re already a client or subscriber, email me via tayo at tksola dot com and let me know you want it

Alternatively, click here to request the FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD.

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Question: But who is Burt Dubin, and why do I (Tayo K. Solagbade) think you should you learn from

him?

Answer: Burt is a 3 decade veteran in the professional speaking business. After achieving top level cross continental success as an

expert-speaker, he has established a reputation for mentoring some of the highest paid speakers in the world. He owns SpeakingBizSuccess.com, SpeakingSuccess.com and BurtDubin.com.

Burt helps those he mentors (experts-who-speak) to Position, Package, Promote, and Present* themselves successfully to clients (*He calls

them the 4Ps). That’s why it’s no surprise that on Burt’s website, considerable space capital is devoted to useful business marketing articles as well as products.

It might also interest you to know that MANY years back, Burt established himself as one of the best marketing minds in the world. To really put this FACT in

proper perspective, I’ll provide more specific details in form of an example.

A few years ago, Burt contributed an article to a powerful publication titled “The Most Effective Articles Ever – By The World’s Top Marketers“. That 574 page ebook features timeless marketing advice from 71 of the world’s top marketers – including Jack

Trout, Joe Vitale, Yanik Silver…and Burt Dubin.

That’s ample proof that (in addition to Public Speaking), Burt would be a great resource to learn business marketing from!

Full Disclosure: I represent Burt as Sole Agent for his products/services, which means if YOU buy from him, I get paid.

But that’s NOT the main reason I represent and recommend him. I have benefited in many ways by learning from Burt. Through his writing, his audio recordings,

and from directly relating with him.

Before we teamed up in 2011, I’d been studying his work and adapting it to succeed in my work from way back in 2002. It does not matter what part of the world

you’re in. If you know how to adapt them to suit your peculiar local needs, Burt’s ideas and strategies WILL work for you. I am living proof of it!

That’s why I never tire of CONFIDENTLY recommending him to others.

If you need help putting the ideas shared above to use, let me know HERE.

Click here to tell me which of Burt’s speaker mentoring products or services you are interested

in.

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Learn about Burt Dubin’s speaker mentoring products (books, audios etc) below…

If you need help purchasing ANY of Burt’s products (like “Presentation

Magic”), call me on +229-66-122-136 (in Benin Republic, my base) or +234-803-302-1263 (in Nigeria)  or email tayo@tksola.com

Have a great week :-))

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NEW: KUKURU DANGER™: 5 True Stories

About the Adventures – & Misadventures! – of a School Age Child Trying to Find Purpose in Life

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“(Tayo Solagbade) is amazing and I think he is going to produce some impressive results online…” – click here to read full comment by Patrick Meninga (US based 6 figure income blogger who gained fame for building a $2,000 per month adsense website and selling it for $200,000).

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“Tayo, I honestly believe you are one of those who will succeed at anything he does. Your commitment and effort has been outstanding….Thanks for all your hard

work since I’ve been here – you will be sorely missed. I don’t need to wish you good luck, you have the ability to make your own luck. – Andy”(R. Jones)*

*Operations Manager, Guinness Nigeria Plc Benin Brewery, December 2001 (Handwritten comments in farewell/xmas cards sent to Tayo Solagbade following his resignation to

start his own business).

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