Magic Mirror On The Wall

Magic mirror on the world, who is the fairest one of all?

This is the quote made famous by the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Even though it was produced by Walt Disney in the year 1937, it is actually a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm.

In the story, Snow White is a princess living with her stepmother, a wicked Queen, who is now in charge of their kingdom after the passing of Snow White’s father. Every day, she will ask the Magic Mirror who is the fairest in the land. The Magic Mirror will always reply that she is the fairest of them all.

When I was a young boy, I used to watch this animated movie over and over again. During my childhood days, cartoons are limited unlike the selection kids have today. All we had were Walt Disney’s cartoons. Having said that, I learnt a lot from Snow White compared to Ben 10.

The reason I write about Snow White today is because of one word and that word is ....... obsession.

In that movie, the wicked Queen is obsessed about her looks and being the fairest in the land to the extent that when the Magic Mirror suddenly revealed that Snow White is the new candidate for the fairest in the land, she wanted Snow White to be killed.

Obsession is a double edged sword.

It can provide an individual with drive and a high level of determination. Yet, it can also make an individual gullible towards the blind spots surrounding him or her.

In the public speaking arena, I have seen many forms of obsessions.

Some speakers are obsessed with how they look on stage. They pay so much attention to their physical appearance that they forgot the main reason why they were on stage in the first place.

Some speakers are obsessed with the perfect speech! These group of “speakers” never made it to the stage because they are forever waiting and re-writing their speech to make it “perfect” before they will ever deliver it on stage.

Some are obsessed about what their audience will think about them.

The lists go on and on.

Personally, I never like to use the word obsession because of its extreme tone.

In the book, Fooled by Randomness, the author Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote of a Yiddish saying that says, “If I am going to be forced to eat pork, it better be of the best kind.”

Therefore, if forced to choose one form of obsession when it comes to public speaking, I will choose to be obsessed about delivering the highest value to my audience. As speakers, whenever we are on stage, it is never about us. It is always about the audience. Without the audience, there is no need for a speaker. In other words, I am obsessed with being “audience-centric”.

What are you obsessed about?

Speak to Inspire and Be Inspired,
Bernard Yong