The Ugly Start: Why Momentum Beats Perfection with Chris Jackson
About this episode
Chris Jackson discusses the importance of momentum over perfection in building a speaking career.
"It's never gonna be right. It's gonna be good enough to get started. You have enough to get started — just get started." Welcome back to The Speaker Lab Podcast! In this Alumni Spotlight episode, host Dan Irvin sits down with Chris Jackson — a speaker and consultant building his business from the foundation up, getting ready to land his first paid gig in this chapter of his career. And the message he's building on is one every listener needs to feel, not just nod along to: momentum, breaking the inertia of the start, and getting comfortable with an ugly start. Chris's favorite analogy says it all — spaceships burn most of their fuel breaking gravity, not cruising through space. He and Dan unpack how perfectionism keeps speakers grounded, how the Speaker Bureau intake (plus some smart AI brainstorming) finally gave Chris clarity on his niche — helping high-performing dentists shift from clinician to CEO — and the proposal he sat on for weeks despite knowing every single decision maker by name. He just wouldn't pick up the phone. If you've ever been the dog sitting on the nail, this one's for you. Then there's the story that gave both of them goosebumps: 19-year-old Chris bombing…
Topics covered
- momentum
- perfectionism
- public speaking
- business development
- personal growth
More episodes of The Speaker Lab Podcast
- The Question That Flips the Switch on Fear with Jennifer Ryan
- Value Over Volume: Why the Best Speakers Lead by Giving with Michael Hidalgo
- How to Turn Free Talks Into Paid Speaking Gigs with Dr. David Chastain
- Why People Buy — and How Speakers Get It Backwards — with Kevin Sidebottom
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Speaker Lab Podcast podcast page.