Cavett Robert Live – Ep.  8  A History of Professional Speaking
Channel: NSA Arizona
Date: 23/01/2016

Cavett Robert (1907-1997) had many professions throughout his life. He taught school in a one-room schoolhouse. He was a gas line installer. He was a lawyer. Evan a judge.

Arizona Edison Power Company hired him to travel to small towns and speak to churches, Lions Clubs, chambers of commerce and Toastmasters.

As a member of Toastmasters, he won the International Speaking Contest and the Golden Gavel Award from Toastmasters International.

For 25 years, he was a professional speaker: before professional speaking was a profession.

In 1966, he decided speaking was a profession that needed more members. Instead of worrying that he would create competition, he contacted the few working professional speakers—only 3% of organizations hired professional speakers—and advised them, “Don't worry about how we divide up the pie, there is enough for everybody. Let's just build a bigger pie!”

Robert tirelessly encouraged people with potential—and some on one else thought had potential—to join this new speaking industry. This encouragement led to the creation of the National Speaker’s Association (NSA), and the speaker industry we have today.

As part of establishing NSA, Robert set some firm guidelines for how a professional speaker should behave, including the following.

Demonstrating high ethical standards
Focusing on giving back
Providing genuine support to speaking colleagues
Taking time to connect, help, mentor or refer business to other members without any expectation of reciprocation
Robert himself once explained, “A desire to help others is our most noble attribute; it gives immortal “momentum to life and is our only certain path to heaven.”

To remind and maintain those standards, yesterday was NSA’s 4th Annual Spirit of NSA Day. Although the official day was November 14, NSA's behavioral standards are good ones that all professional speakers, and those who wish to become professional speakers would be wise to follow.

As is the legacy of Cavett Robert, without whom, professional speaking would likely not exist.

http://nsa-arizona.org/
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NSA-Arizona, The Voice of Professional Speakers in Arizona, offers its members and its partners the experience of a rich, year-round training program designed to develop powerful, focused, expert speakers who deliver to their niche audiences the best contemporary solutions on a variety of interesting topics, and at a price point for every program budget.

NSA-Arizona is an award-winning chapter of the National Speakers Association, with Council of Peers Award for Excellence (CPAE) to nearly a dozen of our current members. Another dozen of our members have earned the coveted Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation. Five of our members are Past National Presidents of NSA. Ours is a sharing chapter with an impressive history because our 160 members learn from the best.

Our Legacy Statement NSA-Arizona members share a heritage: Ours was the home chapter for the greatest speaking professional in the world–Cavett Robert (1907-1997)–Founder and Leader of the 3800-member strong National Speakers Association, the respected national organization of expert professionals who deliver messages to order.

Our Lasting Legacy from Cavett is our commitment to become more involved with other professional speakers, so we also can be “Great Encouragers”–just like Cavett. Our members revel in Cavett’s stunning innovation in our business — “Share what works – Make the pie bigger!” Our chapter is a sharing chapter–just like Cavett.

A kind thank you to Primeau TV for providing the download button on their Vimeo channel and making it possible to show this video here. #NationalSpeakersAssociation #NSAArizona #NSAArizona