First published 8 August 2022 on Your Best Year Starts Here with Nigel Risner.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Nigel had promised the week before that he wanted to talk about quitting, and made a point of saying he didn't mean the podcast. Plenty of motivational speakers (him included, he admits) tell people to find the thing they love and never give up. His view now is that sometimes you should give up. If something keeps not working, it might just not be right for you.
He started small. During the heat wave he got hold of an air conditioning fan, the sort with a hose that goes out of the window, and could not get the hose to work. Cue the voice in his head telling him he must be stupid. Phoebe teaching Joey French in Friends got a mention somewhere in there too.
Then the big one. Nigel doesn't like after-dinner speaking. He can do it, but it's not even on his website, and on air he declared he's never doing another one. Not even for charity. His reason made sense to me. Someone in that audience might be weighing him up for a corporate event, and after dinner he reckons he's a 7 out of 10 at best. He'd rather pass it to a mate who's great at it, like Neil Mullarkey, who does a spoof motivational speaker with a lollipop for a mic. Nigel also said the S word three times in about a minute and apologised.
My first response was to challenge you lot to book him for one anyway, just to see if he means it. He admitted part of his brain was already thinking it might be fun. I like the after-lunch slot myself, the graveyard slot. I did one the week before, walked on, asked how awake everybody was and got crickets. So I spent the first five minutes of my 45 waking the room up. After dinner I'm less keen, mostly because of the drunk hecklers, so I only really do those for charity.
Nigel's other declaration was cutting the time he spends on stuff he doesn't enjoy, like his VAT, from about 15% to 10% in 2023 and 5% after that. I finished on some people interviewed during the heat wave who'd been working from home since Covid and were going back to the office. For the air conditioning.
My notes from this one
- Never giving up isn't always right. If something keeps not working, it might not be right for you.
- Hand the jobs you're bad at to someone who's good at them. The client gets the better deal.
- Favours and charity gigs still get judged. Only do the ones you can do well.
- Know roughly how much of your week goes on stuff you don't enjoy. Nigel's at 15% and wants it at 5%.
If they watch me do after dinner, I'm at best a 7 out of 10, and I don't wanna be judged on that.
Nigel Risner
Your job as a speaker is to manage the energy in the room.
Neil Martin
