I had the pleasure of watching a good friend give an after dinner speech a couple of weeks ago.
He absolutely smashed it, as I expected he would. He’s annoyingly talented like that.
But! What I didn’t realise, until he confessed afterwards, was that it was the first after-dinner speech he had ever done.
Why had it gone so well, I asked?
But I think I knew the answer even as I raised the question, and so his response came as no surprise.
It’s now 10 years since I taught my first proper course.
By which I mean not just a one off talk, but a series of lectures on a theme, which just happened to be crime writing at the wonderful Swanwick Writers‘ Summer School.
The publicity picture is from that very time.
Happy memories, not least due to the presence of more hair.
The reason I knew what my friend was going to say about why his talk had been such a success was that I had adopted exactly the same strategy for my series of lectures.
The event was in August, I was invited in January, and when did I start preparing and practising?
January. Almost the moment I accepted the invitation. Eight months in advance.
Yes, you did read that right.
- Eight months
And what was the result?
I'm happy to say that the course went brilliantly.
I was invited back, and I’ve been going every year since, having an incredible time, not to mention meeting and making some wonderful friends who will stay with me for life.
But that’s not the end of it. Nowhere close.
It gave me the bug for teaching, which then took me to so many places, including:
On a cruise down to the equator, talking to writing groups across Europe, teaching at a range of universities, organisations and businesses in the UK, and then finally in government, and here at the University of Cambridge.
All because that first event went beautifully, and all because of the point of this blog...
Something I've mentioned before but is worth repeating, repeating again, and keeping on repeating...
The golden secret of success is the very same reason my friend’s talk went so well.
If you want it in terms of some well-known, yet still wise quotations:
- If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail
- Preparation and practice prevents poor performance
- The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary
Preparation and practice. More preparation and practice. Then yet more preparation and practice.
As has been proven time and again, it's the golden secret to success in just about everything we do.