THE STRANGEST SECRET is a speech. A speech the great Earl Nightingale delivers thousands of times. I buy the record. Audio cassettes are not yet invented. Eager to learn and grow, I invest my $10.

On this recording I hear words that change my life. The architect of the universe didnt build a stairway leading nowhere. This is a new thought. You mean we came from somewhere and were going somewhere... Hey, that concepts a keeper.

Then theres more to life than what we can see and hear and smell and touch and taste. Theres something more!

Fast forward 20 years. Im a speaker now. A sweating, suffering, struggling, ingenue speaker. Wondering if Ill ever get it together. Knowing deep inside that speaking isnt just about speaking.

Its about touching lives. Influencing the affairs of organizations. And peoples hopes. And peoples self-sense. And their belief in themselves. And their sense of what they may be. What they may become. Wow!

Let me share insights I harvest since becoming a speaker. People are more interested in getting to know us than in getting to know our information. This is normal. Audience members most want to know what were about as distinct from what our information is about.

They want to be touched by our essence. They want our spirit to touch their spirit. They hunger for connection with something or someone they can believe in. This is the most important subliminal message they get from us.

Its not what were saying. Its who were being. They yearn for us to be real. For us to be authentic. Im told that Nido says these words: Be who you is, because if you aint who you is, you is who you aint.

Years ago, Coca-Cola uses this catch-phrase: Its the real thing. Be sure you are the real thing. Because if you are not, believe me, theyll know.

So, knowing we came from somewhere and we're going somewhere, isnt it axiomatic that were accountable for our presence here. For our influence, for our impact on other lives. Get this: People listen right through our words. They listen between the lines for what the deeper meaning is for them.

They tune in to our spirit. Thats what you do when you listen to or read someones words. Youre doing it right now. So, let your authentic spirit shine through. Be a model of what Jean Houston calls, The Possible Human. Gandhi says it another way: Be the change you want to see in the world.

Its easy. Its simply an allowing process. When you stand before your audiences psychologically unclothed, tall and proud of who you are and what you stand for, you give them a priceless gift, a gift of your essence, a gift from your spirit direct to their spirit.