One of the things I enjoy most and feel most passionately about is my work as a motivational speaker, seminar leader / chair / host and media speaker. For me it’s a key part of my work as a coach to help people to follow their heart, discover their true self and to flourish in their life, career, relationships and business.  Last week was an example of that it began with a high level address to an audience of 200 managers and staff as a motivational speaker for a major company organised the Speakers Corner – and it ended with me running a small customer service excellence training workshop for 4 staff in an IT company. Then yesterday I was delivering my regular ‘Life Coach’ slot on Colourful Radio. 

For me all of these things are equally important. They are all part of the same thing. Every talk, every seminar, every media appearance is about inviting us to step, stand back, appreciate life and ourselves and to see how we can be true to who we are, fulfil our potential as a manager, team member, leader…whatever it may be. And for me this is all part of us realising that we are interconnected, inter-related and interdependent. My work is actually about helping people arrive at more peace and fulfilment within and in the world around us. It is about being more conscious, kind, caring, compassionate. To me it makes no different if I am coaching a high achiever, delivering a keynote speech at a major conference or exhibition, speaking on a TV or radio show – or as I will be later this week – coaching someone for the start of a new job. It is all part of the same thing. 

What makes speaking special is that you have an opportunity to connect with people who may have just happened to have attended that conference, who may have just switched on that channel on TV, radio or online. You have an opportunity to speak to someone you may never have met before and may never again. You have an opportunity to share and help them discover and utilise something within them that they can bring to life and use for the rest of their life. 

People talk about winning over hearts and minds all the time. But the heart is not something that can be won over with the mind. And the mind will only stay sure about something if the heart is brought along with it. I often say that to motivate people you have to understand what it is that truly motivates them. For me that is the role of an inspirational speaker or motivational speaker. And of course inspiration and motivation is only part of it. It is then about really bringing to the light someone’s skills, talents, passions and possibilities and then the journey that will help bring that to fruition. Sometimes coaching, training and development is part of that. Sometimes there will be other types of engagement, mentoring and development that is part of that journey. But for me as a speaker it’s about inviting people, to stop, step back, appreciate life, appreciate their magic and to use that magic in the world so that we all benefit from them being in it. When you do this you can not only help individuals but you can really help to enable teams, departments, organisations and groups. Through this you can develop and encourage the kind of compassionate leadership which we need to see in all areas of life politics, media, sport, entertainment – you name it. It is this higher consciousness, heart-centred consciousness, collaborative consciousness that will help us to meet the challenges that we face individually, in our communities, in our societies and indeed globally.

Above is my new 3 minute ‘Rasheed Ogunlaru – Inspirational speaker’ video that give you a flavour of my work, approach and style. Many thanks to the talented Marcin Steciuk