In my book, The Encore Effect, I teach how to be the kind of salesperson, leader, employee, entrepreneur or vendor that people want more of. An encore performer isn’t replaceable or interchangeable.
And one way to achieve that is to be larger than life in the best possible way.
We often use the phrase “larger than life” to describe someone who has a big or bold personality—someone who lives large. Occasionally we use it to suggest that someone is overdoing it, or is a caricature of normal.
My friend Charlie “Tremendous” Jones was someone who was larger than life. Charlie started in the insurance business and became a sought after speaker and successful author who influenced many. He was loud and loving, boisterous and caring, all at the same time. When people first meet Charlie, I think most of them probably wondered, “Is this guy for real?” (I did.) Trust me—Charlie was the real deal and totally authentic. He subscribed to Herb Kelleher’s philosophy of “be yourself”—and his “self” was Tremendous.
Charlie was a big man in size and in spirit. He loved people and he believed that—as his nickname of many years suggested—life is tremendous. Charlie Jones was one of the most remarkable people I had the pleasure to call friend.
Larger than life people like that often have something important to teach us. They demonstrate that life can be larger than we typically experience it. Their personalities and behaviors jar us out of ordinary thinking and show us that, if we choose, we can be bigger, better, and bolder than we’ve been. These larger-than-life people can snap us out of our plain-vanilla existence and invite us to live on a higher plane.
I challenge you to evaluate how you perform—on all the stages of your life—and ask yourself, “Can I make my performance bigger, better and bolder? Can I make it larger than life? Can I make the important performances of my life remarkable?”
I’m not calling you to be an actor—to be someone you’re not. I’m calling you to walk out on every stage to which you are called and give your audience what only you can. Nobody can do what you do when you do it remarkably! Your performance may cause people to feel good today, laugh tomorrow, think deeply the next day, and act differently for the rest of their life.
If that happens, they’ll call you back for more. And you’ll experience the Encore Effect.
Mark Sanborn is a bestselling author and acclaimed leadership keynote speaker. You can connect with him at www.marksanborn.com
