It's one of the weirdest conversations I've had as a speaker, and I've had it more than a few times.
Someone comes over after a talk, or meets me properly for the first time afterwards. We chat for a few minutes. And then they say it.
"Wow. You're just like you are on stage."
Why is that a surprise?
I take it as a compliment. But I don't really get why it would be a surprise.
In fact, one of my rules is that I won't say anything on stage, or on video, that I wouldn't be prepared to say off stage. If I wouldn't say it to you over a cup of tea, it doesn't go in the talk.
I might amplify my energy a bit, so that it fills a room. A big room needs a bit more volume than a kitchen table, and the people at the back deserve to feel included too. But other than turning the dial up, I'm just me. Same stories, same opinions, same sense of humour.
The sad part
It actually makes me a bit sad when people are surprised by that.
I can only assume that some other speakers have been very different once their mic was off. That the person on stage was a character, and the person you met afterwards was someone else entirely.
And when that happens, the audience feels it. Maybe not at the time, but later. They start to wonder which parts of the talk were real. The story that moved them. The advice they wrote down. If the person is different, was any of it true?
When the two don't match
This goes well beyond speaking. It applies to every business owner with a website, a social media profile or a sales pitch.
The gap between how you show up in public and who you are in private is where trust lives or dies. When the two match, people relax. They know what they're getting. When they don't, people sense it, even if they can't put their finger on why.
I see it with brands too. The polished advert promises one thing and the phone call to customer services delivers another. The website sounds friendly, and the invoice email sounds like a solicitor's letter. Every mismatch costs a little bit of trust.
I wrote about my own version of this in Why I stopped wearing a suit on stage. For years I dressed like the stage expected rather than like me, and I only showed up properly once the two matched.
Here's a rule you can borrow. Before you post it, say it or put it on a slide, ask yourself whether you'd say the same thing to someone's face, in the same words, at a normal volume.
If the answer's yes, you're good. If it's no, either change the words or change your mind.
One more thing worth trying: ask someone who knows you well to read your website or your LinkedIn profile, and tell you honestly whether it sounds like you. If they say it sounds like somebody else, you've just found your next job. I'd love to hear what they say.
