7 reasons you should NOT improve your communication skills

Looking for a reason to skip out on developing your public speaking and presentation skills?

Look no further; here are seven of the best:

1. Your stakeholders are amateur archaeologists; your convoluted presentations and wordy slides afford them the opportunity to dig through your material to find your core message. They love that!  
2. You’ve hit the earnings ceiling. I mean, what would you even do with more disposable income? Buy a gold-plated yacht for your cat?
3. Humanity has already solved all the big issues; your groundbreaking medical discovery or genius solution to homelessness is just overkill at this point. Save it for your diary.
4. You’d rather kickstart your business with your own cash, contacts, and brainpower. Because nothing says ‘cool’ like doing it solo and then humblebragging about it to everyone. Angel investors and VCs, keep your wisdom and money to yourselves, please.
5. You only use words out loud when nobody else is in the room—virtually or IRL. And your dog always understands you perfectly.
6. You can’t stand all those self-absorbed people who are obsessed with ‘continuous improvement’ and are always asking for ‘feedback.’ Why would you want to know you’ve got spinach in your teeth? The vanity! 
7. How could you even improve your communication skills? You ARE the gold standard of public speaking. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Socrates would sign up for your masterclass!

Sarcasm aside, these are the actual or implied reasons people don’t develop their communication skills through coaching and workshops. (Yes, it makes me wince; sarcasm is my coping mechanism.)

The people who do make the effort to improve do so because:

1. They value the audience enough to create an optimal experience for them and ensure they can quickly understand (and therefore act upon) the message.
2. They know good communication skills are directly tied to increased earnings and promotions.
3. They believe their ideas, insights, and inventions don’t have value until they’re in the hands of the people who need them most.
4. They know their ideas will be bettered by inviting others to improve upon them and ready them for the world through funding and network effects.
5. They use words. Out loud. When other humans are in the (physical or virtual) room. And they want those humans to understand and benefit from the words they speak.
6. They recognize that seeing ourselves through the eyes of another is the fastest path to improvement (and they want to know when they’ve got food on their face).
7. Though they might already be “pretty good” at public speaking and presenting (the way most people who don’t want coaching describe themselves), they know there’s always room to improve. It’s no surprise that my clients who come in with the highest baseline public speaking skills are the ones who are the most eager for feedback. And they’re the ones who get exponentially better. (The ones who think they’re already “pretty good” never improve as much as they could.)

I’ve personally trained people from five of the Fortune 100 companies. In the span of merely four weeks, I have worked with (or will be working with) aerospace engineers, cardiac researchers, entrepreneurs creating solutions to generate prosperity in their home countries in the developing world, and people designing the very devices you’re using to read this post. Without exception, each one of them is at the top of their professional game and still sought to improve their communication skills—with an attitude of humility and a desire to learn. 

If you’re not sure whether your communication skills could benefit from some additional training or support, ask your dog. 

If he doesn’t answer, perhaps this will help.