When You Feel Like Quitting Speaking, Read This

You're sitting at your desk on a Tuesday afternoon. The inbox is quiet. The last three proposals you sent out got no response. The event you spoke at last month felt flat. And the voice in your head is getting louder: maybe this isn't for you. Maybe it's time to get a real job. Maybe God's moved on from this calling and you're the last one to know.

If you've been there, you're not unusual. You're a speaker.

Every single person who has built a career on stage has had that moment. The moment where the calling feels more like a burden than a gift. Where the gap between where you are and where you want to be feels impossible to close. Where quitting doesn't sound like failure. It sounds like relief.

Before you make any decisions from that place, read the rest of this post.

The Wall Is Part of the Process

Nobody talks about this part of the speaking journey. The social media version shows packed rooms, standing ovations, and airport selfies. But behind every successful speaker is a season - usually more than one - where they nearly walked away.

Brendon Burchard has been open about the early years of his speaking career. Before he became one of the top-paid speakers in the world, he spent years getting small bookings, hearing no, and wondering if he was wasting his time. He's said in interviews that the difference between speakers who make it and speakers who don't isn't talent. It's endurance. The willingness to keep showing up when the results haven't arrived yet.

Grant Baldwin echoes this in his own work. He describes the "messy middle" - the phase between starting and succeeding where most speakers quit. Not because they weren't good enough. But because they couldn't tolerate the uncertainty long enough for the momentum to build.

The wall is real. But the wall is not a stop sign. It's a filter. And the speakers who push through it are the ones who end up with the careers, the platforms, and the impact they dreamed about.

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will harvest if we do not give up."

Galatians 6:9 (NIV)

At the proper time. Not on your timeline. Not on the timeline you pitched to your spouse when you said you were going to build a speaking business. God's timeline. And the instruction is painfully simple: do not give up.

Five Things to Do Before You Quit

1. Separate the calling from the results. Your calling to speak didn't come from a booking confirmation. It came from somewhere deeper. If God put a message in your heart and a fire in your bones, that doesn't expire because the phone isn't ringing. Results fluctuate. Calling doesn't. Before you walk away from speaking, make sure you're walking away from the work, not just the frustration of a slow season.

2. Audit your effort honestly. Sometimes the reason bookings aren't coming isn't the market. It's us. Are you actively marketing yourself? Is your speaker one-sheet current and professional? Have you followed up with every lead? Are you creating content that positions you as an expert? It's easy to confuse "this isn't working" with "I haven't done the work yet." Be honest with yourself. If there are gaps in your business effort, fill them before you conclude the business is broken.

3. Talk to someone who's been there. Isolation makes everything worse. When you're struggling alone, the voice that says "quit" gets louder because there's no competing voice. Pick up the phone. Call another speaker. Call a mentor. Call someone in your community and tell them the truth. "I'm in a hard season. I'm thinking about stopping." You'll be surprised how many people say "I've been there too." And that alone can keep you going.

4. Go back to your best moment on stage. Think about the talk that changed someone's life. The one where a stranger approached you afterwards with tears in their eyes and said "I needed to hear that today." You have that moment. Every speaker does. Go back to it. Sit in it. Let it remind you why you started. That moment happened because you were obedient to the calling. Another moment like it is waiting on the other side of this season - but only if you stay.

5. Invest in your craft. One of the best things you can do in a slow season is get better. Take a course. Read a book on speaking. Work on a new talk. Attend a conference. Join a speaker community. Use the downtime to sharpen your skills so that when the next opportunity comes, you're ready to deliver at a level you couldn't have reached before. Michael Port writes about this in "Steal the Show" - he argues that the speakers who use slow seasons to prepare are the ones who explode when the opportunities return.

What God Might Be Doing in the Waiting

Here's something most business advice won't tell you. Sometimes the slow season isn't a problem to be solved. It's a season to be stewarded.

Maybe God is deepening your message. Maybe the struggle you're going through right now is the very thing that will give your next talk the depth it's been missing. Maybe He's building your character before He builds your platform. Because a bigger platform without deeper character is dangerous. And He loves you too much to give you influence you're not ready for.

That's hard to hear when you're in it. But looking back, most speakers will tell you that their hardest seasons produced their most powerful content. The talk that moves people to tears isn't the one you wrote on a good day. It's the one that was forged in a season where you weren't sure you'd make it.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

James 1:2-4 (NIV)

Perseverance is doing its work. Even when it doesn't feel like it. Especially when it doesn't feel like it.

Try This Today

Write down three reasons you started speaking. Not business reasons. Heart reasons. The reason behind the reason. The moment God made it clear that your voice was supposed to be used for something bigger than yourself. Put that list somewhere you'll see it every morning. On your bathroom mirror. On your desk. On your phone lock screen. Those reasons haven't changed. The season has changed. But the calling hasn't.

You Don't Have to Endure This Alone

NCAPS was built for moments like this. Not just for the wins. For the hard seasons too. A community of Christian speakers who understand the weight of the calling and won't let you walk away from it without a fight. Monthly networking, honest conversations, and people who will speak life into your business and your faith when you need it most. If you're in a tough season and you need people in your corner, come be part of NCAPS.