So we are to grow wise. We are to evolve. We are to become great. A great speaker is one who has lived life, made mistakes, learned lessons. And, hopefully, grown wise.

What about you? Where are you on this rocky and magnificent path to growing wise. To making the difference you yearn to make? Lets look at this fascinating business and at your role as an expert who speaks.

The speaking business is not so simple. You know this already. You are to master challenges and complexities. To touch lives. To affect the affairs of organizations. In short, to make a difference. A positive difference.

You do this through your attitudes and actions. Through your words and stories. And through your wisdom. You engage your understanding of the human condition. And of how organizations function.

So how do you get so smart? What do you do to grow wise? I dont know. Yet I can tell you a bit about my experience and how I harvested such wisdom as I may have.

I plunged into the world of work at 17. My college was the School of Hard Knocks. I watched. I listened. I reflected. And made a freight car load of mistakes.

And I asked, every time, What is the lesson in this? How am I to conduct myself to avoid such mistakes in the future? Not very complicated, huh?

This is the simple secret I want you to have. Make your mistakes. A mistake, after all, is only a missed take. Your life is your movie. Youre the producer, the director and the star. So you simply shoot the scene again.

Examine your options. Look at your choices. Consider your talents. Then pick a speaking specialty. Please dont be a generalist. Engage your personal past. Hook into your history. Use what you know.

Ask yourself what kind of people youd like to invite home to dinner. Theres your natural audience.

Are you a master in some field, a field you just love? Now you know what you can speak about with passion and authenticity. If you are not already a master in some field you love, then do this:

Select a specialty. Study that specialty. Get to know all there is to know about it. You can do it. Anyone can do it. Start to speak about your specialty for whoever will listen. Most of us started with service clubs. They hunger for free speakers. They eat them up. 52 a year.

As for platform skills, just be yourself. Tell yourself youre speaking with old friends. Youve been away. Doing life. Youve returned to share your adventures. See? Its not all that hard to get practice before groups. Join Toastmasters. Take the Dale Carnegie Course.

Its the old How do I get to Carnegie Hall story. You practice, practice and practice. In due course you wake up wise. Thats all there is to it.