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Like in any industry, myths tend to precede real knowledge and it’s time to debunk some of those false ways of thinking and false bits of information. Myths hurt any motivational speaking career because they often present themselves as barriers for a growing and thriving business.

People often ask me the same kinds of questions over and over - how to make more money with motivational speaking or how to get bookings for motivational speaking. What these people don’t realize is that the answers to all of these questions come when they deal with the three myths listed below.

The first most common myth that people in a motivational speaking career have is that money is bad. As a result, these people inherently pick low paying speaking engagements or worse yet work for free because it’s all they think they can attain. These are often the same people asking me how to get bookings for motivational speaking. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about the people who are using free speaking gigs as leverage to get their foot in the door or to build credibility and notoriety in their niche as an expert. I’m talking about the people who seem to think that money will eventually come despite not ever being paid a dime!

What I’ve learned is this. If I got serious about learning how to make money with public speaking, I would need to get “myself” out of the way. Once the old ways of thinking and doing are taken out of your public speaking career, you’ll find that there were people who were willing to pay you a ton of money just to speak. This is the revelation I came to and the revelation you need to receive today!

The second most common myth in motivational speaking I hear is that motivation is all you need. Wrong! I have an acronym that I teach people about that kind of thinking - MDPYM (Motivation doesn’t pay your mortgage). One of the things I learned early in my speaking career is that just because I was motivated didn’t mean I could pay my bills!

What I do now is teach these people to get rid of this way of thinking because it simply won’t do much for them. In fact now I teach people to get motivated by finding different ways to get people to give them money. By learning how to make money with public speaking they learn essentially to start the cycle of earning to help more and more people.

One must work harder in order to make more money is the last public speaking myth I hear most often. This kind of thinking is incorrect! The hardest workingman I knew in my life was my Dad who never made more than $29,000 annually. My Dad was the model hard worker, but he didn’t get the kind of pay that he deserved.

Then I learned about working smart, which again, is only half of the picture. The other half of the picture is working right. The truth is that it doesn’t matter how smart you work. If you’re not working right, you’re still off. In this motivational speaking industry, people often beat themselves silly trying to fulfill their egos instead of filling their pocketbook. I also often find people who don’t have a clue about the kinds of needs that their target niche market has and as a result, they don’t market themselves correctly in their niche.

Get your motivational speaking career off the ground by dealing with these three myths in your mind!

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