Dear Lloyd,I came across your organization for speaking professionals. As someone whose job is to present, can you give me an idea of how you came up with this?JeromeDear Jerome,I wanted to serve my peers, but alone, I could not do much. But serving the industry on my own as an individual is impossible. I wanted to start an organization that will represent a new breed of professional speakers, a loving, sharing, caring community of speaking professionals who will build and nurture the industry not only for the talent of this generation but for many more to come.This led me to ponder on these. 'I realized I had to pay a heavy price. How do I influence my other peers in the industry? How do I put competitors under one roof and tell them to work together? Why will they believe me? Why would they even consider the idea?'These reflections went further as I thought of other speakers out there going through the same predicament. I asked myself: How many speakers are there navigating on their own? Groping through the dark with no clear pathways, perhaps even unintentionally hurting or even 'killing' each other's speaking practice?'The coffee shop incident was a nightmare that turned out to be my compass. It pushed me to work harder on my dream. In a way, it became a fire that ignited my desire to carry on. I thought I'd never want to see an aspiring speaker get their dream crumpled by the veterans in the industry. They must be given a chance to make their dream real.At some point, it also made me wonder how it was possible that a speaker could stand on stage, where people paid to hear him speak but sadly did not walk his talk. None of it matters, though.The journey was far from over. From someone who was bullied and set aside by the same people that I admired and tried to take inspiration from, I beat myself up even harder to fight for an inclusive speaking market. 'No single speaker or private company can own an industry,' I told myself.The dream of formalizing an industry by establishing a community of speaking professionals took shape.* * *The Public Speaking Institute runs public speaking training courses in 2023. The Certified Public Speaker (CPS) is a six-session program every first two weeks of each month, Monday, Thursday and Saturday, from 8:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. via Zoom, and the Public Speaking Fellow (PSF) certification program every two months with face-to-face sessions. If you want to improve your communication skills, please go to www.publicspeaking.ph. We'll be happy to assist you.Sgt. Lloyd A. Luna, PAFR, is the first registered speaking professional in the Philippines. He is an international leadership speaker, an author, a master communicator, and the founder of The Luna Group. Visit his website, www.lloydluna.com, or email him at lloyd@lloydluna.com.
