I started my career as a writer as a speaker…

In other words, the first thing I wrote back in the Fall of 1984 was a kind of “State of the Service Industry” presentation for the Equipment & Tool Institute. Having a “hands-on” person come to speak to them about the industry and the important role the right equipment can play had become a tradition. As it turned out, the person originally chosen decided not to take advantage of the opportunity and I was the second choice, or maybe the third: whatever the number, I was the backup technician who said, Yes.

There are a couple of things worthy of mention here. First, I was a very angry, frustrated and disillusioned 38-year-old technician with two small children, a house, a dog, a fairly new family owned and operated automotive repair business and a bone to pick with the ‘greater’ automotive service industry for all the inequities and injustice I felt I was being forced to endure.

Second, I had absolutely no idea what was expected of me. No one established any ground rules: things I could or should write about, and the things I shouldn’t. No one indicated there were any industry taboos – things that were just not discussed in polite society or public gatherings. No one even told me how long the speech should run other than to say I was scheduled for the hour before lunch.

Now, Me: unsupervised and uncensored, can be a very dangerous thing!

Left to my own devices, with little or no understanding of what was expected of me and less supervision, resulted in a presentation that filled the fifty-five minutes allotted with an itemized laundry list of just about anything and everything that was wrong with my industry: everything you just weren’t supposed to talk about and it caught everyone in the room off guard!

Their reaction was terrifying! There wasn’t sound to be heard in a room filled with hundreds of automotive industry executives. There wasn’t a cough. There wasn’t a sneeze. It was a silence lasted what felt like an eternity… And, I just stood there not knowing what to do until someone finally just stood up and started clapping.

Within a few seconds the entire room was standing and clapping, and I still didn’t know what to do.

When I returned to the shop following the presentation one of the first customers to ask how everything went was a clinical psychologist. When I told her about the standing ovation she just smiled and said, “Ah, hahhh! A Maslow moment… Your life will never be the same!”

I had no idea what she was talking about. I asked what she meant by all that, and she proceeded to explain a little about Abraham Maslow, the concept of self-actualization and the “Hierarchy of Human Needs.” Frankly, I still didn’t know what she was talking about until she said that the standing ovation was a “Maslow Moment,” and that I would be chasing it: trying to recreate it, for the rest of my life.

I told her that just wasn’t me, and that while I really enjoyed the moment for what it was: I really couldn’t see myself “chasing” it.

Cut to 2010, about two hours ago, and a presentation I just finished delivering in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, to a couple of hundred shop owners for a large warehouse distributor. Those shop owners were with me. You could feel it in the room! They understood what I was trying to tell them and they ‘got it!’ You could tell from their answers… You could tell from their questions… You could tell they understood by their body language… After more than twenty-five years, you can just tell!

No one stood: no one had to! That wasn’t why I got on an airplane and flew cross country. I’m not even sure whether or not there was any applause: but, there didn’t have to be! I wasn’t there for the applause. I was there to help other people who do what I do benefit from the mistakes I’ve made and the lessons I’ve learned… And, everything suggested that they heard every word of what I had to say.

It was powerful! It was incredible! It was moving!

Perhaps, it was a kind of “mini-Maslow!” But, if it was, it was one of the best possible kinds of Maslow experiences anyone could possibly have because I wasn’t chasing it, and it didn’t just change my life… It changed a bunch of other lives as well, and it just doesn’t get any better than that!

Tags: communication, insight, keynote, life, management, seminars

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 12:09 am and is filed under Automotive Aftermarket, Speaking & Presentation work, Training & Education, life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.