There's a class you've been thinking about offering for
some time now. But, you're not quite ready. A little more
research, a little more thinking, and you're sure you'll
finally be ready.
But, despite your passion, it's flat. Even practicing it in
front of a friend or colleague, it still feels flat. Oh no!
When will you ever be ready to offer this to people?
There is a missing ingredient, and Moses knew what it was.
You need manna from heaven. Allow me a short biblical
story. You see, when the Israelites followed Moses out of
Egypt, they wandered in the desert for 40 years. And, every
evening, manna came from heaven to feed them.
There's a funny thing about manna, though. If you collected
more than you needed, it spoiled, because it was only good
for one day. You were forced to trust that more was coming
tomorrow.
You have to be where the help is needed. When you stand in
the facilitator/teacher position, it's like being a spark
plug. You are a conductor, as it were, of Source. Simply
standing in that role means that your being becomes part of
the pathway Source travels to reach the students in need.
There is no amount of pre-event preparation that will
provide that feeling of being 'plugged-in' for you. You
have to trust that the manna is coming.
The scariest exercise ever. When I was faculty at the
University for Spiritual Healing and Sufism in the Teacher
Internship Program, we gave the students a scary exercise.
Stand up in front of the group, and teach from the heart,
without any preparation. Without an agenda, without knowing
what you were going to say. Just sense into what is needed,
what is flowing through, and let it come out your mouth.
The result? Well, if fear overcame the student, the flow
was blocked, and the effect was often stilted. However, if
the student overcame the fear, and allowed him or herself
to connect, what came out was stunning. Stunning.
It reminded me of my friend Alison Luterman, a poet who
taught poetry in the schools. The older kids often had a
lot of self-consciousness in their writing. But the young
ones? You could hold their poetry up to Rumi or Hafiz, and
the power was stunning.
The best speaker got a D-. I used this approach when I gave
a talk at the National Speakers Association national
conference. Afterwards, one of the members told me what he
told an NSA board member: "In terms of all the things
professional speakers are 'supposed' to do to give a good
presentation, I give Mark a D minus. But, I found him to be
the best speaker of the entire week, including those giving
the key notes, because he connected to us."
You don't need to be perfect. In fact, you can be very
imperfect. And yet, the manna from heaven always comes. It
always comes. Repeat this to yourself: 'Manna from Heaven
always comes.'
Heaven delivers the manna to the hungry. The only way to
see if it shows up is to show up there yourself, in front
of the people who need it.
Is it really as simple as that? Well, yes and no. There are
a few things that can help the process. Keep reading.
Keys to Finding the Manna.
• It does help to prepare.
How much preparation? I plan a fair amount, but I don't
fret over exact wording. I also make sure that I'm limiting
how much I'm trying to say. A little bit goes a long way.
The trick is I don't look for whether or not I'm 'ready.' I
look for whether I have bullet points on the pieces I want
to convey. If I feel like I know the material to the point
that if someone asked a question, I could answer it, then
that counts for me as 'enough.'
• Take time to connect in every moment.
In radio, the ultimate sin is 'dead air' when no one is
saying anything. This does not apply in teaching. If you
don't know what to say next, pause, connect in your heart,
connect to the audience, and wait to see what comes out.
This is the most nerve-wracking part: waiting to see if the
manna comes. However, I urge you to try it. If you just
wait with your heart open, you'll be surprised to find that
something does come out of you. It may be nothing you
planned for, but it will be good, I promise you.
When I say 'wait' I mean feel free to pause, take a deep
breath, look into the eyes of people in the audience, and
wonder in your heart, 'What's needed next?' And see what
comes.
• Receive from the audience.
They want you to succeed. They do. They've invested their
time and energy to show up, they really want you to do
well. That's some good juju to receive from their hearts.
Just recently during a talk I gave, I looked around the
room and noticed several people smiling and beaming at me.
I took a pause just to soak that up and smile back. Others
were staring intently. I might have interpreted that as
they were upset, but I know from experience that usually
people with that kind of an expression are really engaged.
I took a moment to connect with their eyes and to soak that
up, too.
Whatever new class, offer, presentation that is facing you,
forget about being 'ready' for it. Prepare yourself, and
then step into the spark plug position with your heart
open. And watch as the manna from heaven comes through you
to those who need it.
----------------------------------------------------
Mark Silver is the author of Unveiling the Heart of Your
Business: How Money, Marketing and Sales can Deepen Your
Heart, Heal the World, and Still Add to Your Bottom Line.
He has helped hundreds of small business owners around the
globe succeed in business without lousing their hearts. Get
three free chapters of the book online:
http://www.heartofbusiness.com
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