Leang Chung: Of all the different career advice you've ever received, which one has been the most impactful or the most meaningful for you?
Gigi Rosenberg The best career advice I ever received? It's two things. One is: to keep moving, keep going to the next thing and even if it doesn't make sense, Like you can't see how it's going to fit in the whole picture. that's okay. Just keep going. The second thing: At certain times in my life—when I was making something—having people say, “you know what? It doesn't need to be perfect.” I found that incredibly freeing and it helped me keep moving. So it was really those two pieces of information.
In my public speaking coaching, I'm not going for perfection.
I'm just going for the tiniest little step you can take—the next little thing you can grow into—and try that. We're not trying to make you change your DNA. We’re trying to take the skills and the natural talents you already have, and try the next thing. This makes it much easier to learn and grow. You're not trying to be a totally different person.
You're just trying to be a little bit better the next time and a little bit better the next time.
Leang Chung: Do you feel as though you found your career or did your career find you?
Gigi Rosenberg: My path to my career was so circuitous, but one thing I remembered recently is that once, I actually met a public speaking coach. And I thought, “oh my gosh, what's she doing? That's what I want to do.” I was super excited. And I shared that with a much older male colleague at work: “I'm so excited about this. I want to do this.” And he totally “poo-poo-ed” the idea, saying, “Oh, it's really competitive. You don't want to go into that.”
It took me about 20 years to find public speaking coaching again so I guess it found me or I found it once.
But when I look back on my life I realize that everything I did was adding up to being a public speaking coach and I'm just so glad that I found it again—after being diverted from the path.
Then my husband, who's a scientist—he's a physicist—needed help preparing a talk and he showed it to me and I was like, “Wow that's really bad but I'm gonna help you.” I did and then organically, all my endeavors started adding up and I thought, “Wow I guess this is a public speaking coach,” but I had to find it again.