Conor writes about Intentional Leadership and Building Self Belief in those around you
Got a speech to give? What should I say?
That is a terrible place to start.
What’s the most important question you can ask yourself before preparing a speech?
It was fun to make this short “elevator pitch” video with the production team at @iesebschool only 7 floors to make my point!
I have this blog. It has been going for over 10 years. Above all other benefits, writing blog posts helps me clarify what I think.
I published my first post on 25th January 2009. It was a paragraph from a book I was reading that I thought was valuable advice. I have written ideas on something 1-2 times every week since January 2009. There are 1,025 posts (not including this one).
I also have a youtube channel that today has a much wider audience than my blog, but it is the blog that has helped me get clarity and sharpen my ideas. Writing is the power tool in clarifying your ideas.
Pick one of these and start writing. I use wordpress. I used to use Blogger (a google product).
Keep it simple, start writing. Get your thoughts down.
In 2009, I decided to take writing seriously. Stephen King says “A writer is a producer of words.” If you produce words, you’re a writer. If you don’t produce words, you are not a writer.
Every day my coach would ask me “how many words did you produce today?” It was brutal. There is no denial. There were days when the answer was 20… or less. I started to become highly aware of self sabotage.
The world will put countless obstacles in your path but none will be as big as your own self-sabotage.
If you liked this post, you will also like 6 Reasons we Give Up on Goals and The Greatest Coaching Question of All Time.
I’ve just returned from a few days in Athens, visiting with my daughter. She became a big fan of greek myths and legends from her reading of the Percy Jackson series of books.
As we walked around the Acropolis area, the Parthenon and the ancient Agora of Athens, I reflected upon the elements of civilisation that we still owe to the Ancient Athenians. So much of our politics, our sense of right and wrong, our organising principles of social life come from this small city state that had its peak 2,500 years ago, between 480BC and 320BC.
This video comes from the Acropolis and from the Agora of Ancient Athens.
So much history in this place. Many later cultures copied rather than innovated from the Greek culture. Rome copied the culture, but improved on the military and civil organisation.
Earlier in the week we did a day trip up to the ruins of Delphi. Check out the video I made when visiting the location of the ancient Oracle of Delphi.
I am in Athens this week with my daughter. On Friday we drove to Delphi to visit the ancient ruins. For over one thousand years, during the time of the Greek city states, Delphi was the center of the Greek world.
Delphi became famous far and wide between 700BC and 400AD for the Oracle. The Oracle would answer your question. You could bring only one question to ask, and the Oracle would reply. The responses were cryptic. Kings and Emperors came to ask how they would fare in battles.
As we travelled to Delphi, we reflected on what one single question we would bring to be answered.
What would be the question you would bring? If you could get clarity around one single question about your life, what would that question be?
This is a summary of the article on the HBR blog: “If You Want to Use Your Phone Less, First Figure Out Why” by Marcello Russo, Ariane Ollier-Malaterre, Gabriele Morandin
Many of us would like to spend less time attached to our phones. But to make a real change, you need to understand why you want to use your phone less. You’ll have a better chance of succeeding if you identify exactly what is motivating you.
Here are 4 common reasons people want to unplug and the most effective tip for each:
Barcelona-based philosopher Eduardo Punset developed a formula for happiness. I forget much of the details, but I always remember his description of “Search” as a fundamental part of the state of being happy. The video below shares a story that Eduard used to demonstrate the importance of the search (it is about his little dog).
This video comes from Manhattan with the help of my daughter. We’re here this week for some classes at IESE NYC and a bit of New York tourism and adventure.
What are you Searching for? I forget that a life without a search is not an easy life, it is an angst-ridden, empty, frustrated life.
I need to get better at designing good summers.
What are your tips?
“Your ability to communicate with others will account for fully 85% of your success in your business and in your life.”
Brian Tracy
Imagine being paid well to travel the world and share your message with people that want to hear you speak?
If something in that question resonates, this post might be helpful.
Today, over 50% of my income comes from delivering keynote speeches and workshops to industry conferences and corporate leadership teams. It has taken over 16 years from my earliest free speeches towards a career where I can live from speaking. I have delivered over 2,500 hours of keynotes and workshops to over 50,000 participants.
In terms of quality, my recent 100 hours of speaking are astronomically better than those first 100 hours… but everyone has to begin. How do you begin?
Step 1:
Your fees depend more on you being (and perceived) as an expert than on how well you actually speak.
Maybe you can be paid well even if you don’t master anything, but if you are not on the path to mastery… I personally would rather you stayed home. If you are planning on being paid to speak, make a deep and lasting commitment towards true mastery.
There are 3 types of Expert speaker.
A well paid speaker needs to be seen as a thought leader. The classic path is to write and publish a book, but in today’s world there are new paths: build a large youtube, instagram, or blog following. Pick one and start producing thought. I suggest that you use your blog not for sharing expert articles, but sharing your learning journey. When you write expert articles, it is much more valuable to submit them to highly credible sites (depends on your segment, but for me this would be HBR, Forbes, Inc, FT, Big Think).
Are you on a path towards being a true expert? Have you chosen whether you are a results expert, a research expert or a role model? Good… now we move to step 2.
Step 2.
and lots…
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
Albert Einstein
This blog is full of material about speaking well so I will not repeat. Some good articles on speaking well:
Learn directly from expert speakers. Rather than paying for a course on public speaking, pay to go and see well paid expert speakers deliver their keynotes. I learn more watching how a great speaker plans, prepares, delivers, follows up than by reading books or courses on speaking. In february I asked Luis Soares Costa to run a retreat for Vistage. I watched how he interviewed me, how he clarified what we needed and what we could do… I travelled with him the day before and watched how he prepared the room and himself for the 2 day retreat. I learnt more watching what he did and how he did it than by asking him for tips.
Here are 5 ideas for those who wish to make speaking a profession:
Step 3.
…with the people that matter.
Be very careful who you take feedback and praise from. Only other speakers and people who pay for speakers count. Do not rely on friends, toastmaster club mates, family. They will tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear.
The best speaker referrals are other great expert speakers. When a conference has success with a speaker, they will ask that speaker to come back. They will also ask that speaker for recommendations. When another speaker gives your name as a referral, this is the most powerful marketing. I get more opportunities from other professional speakers than from any other source. Build a good reputation with this group.
A blog is interesting, but it is not a path to expert credibility. Articles on Forbes, HBR, Inc are more valuable than articles posted on your own blog.
Testimonials from conference organisers, other professional speakers and people who have paid you are the most valuable resource for credibility.
Put some of your speaking on YouTube. It is such a powerful tool to share your message, and in a format that people can see your quality.
It is not enough to be an expert, you must become known as the expert. Some people become “The” expert – their name is so closely linked to a category that an event is not “The” event if they are not speaking. Jim Collins has built that level of personal brand in the business leadership category. Marshall Goldsmith in the business coaching category, Tony Robbins in the personal development category. They can multiply their fees by 100 because their name alone sells half the tickets.
My good friend Raul Aguirre’s TEDx talk (The Hidden Secret of Success) is about how to create a unique category for yourself. It is hard to be the best business school professor in the world, but I can combine 3 categories: Great business school professor (IESE) who also has a massive following on YouTube and also is the expert on the role and challenges facing CEOs (Vistage). When I put IESE + YouTube + Vistage together, nobody else can compete.
There are many experts sitting in bars sharing their wisdom for free with people who don’t want to hear. It is not enough to be an expert, and it is not enough to be known as an expert – you must become a professional. Professionals know the value of their time.
It took me several years to be comfortable with the following actions, but you must if you are to have the resources to be able to really make an impact with your message.
There are 4 things that can differentiate the wealthy expert speaker from the non-wealthy expert speaker:
These 4 actions were inspired by a video from Brandon Burchard. Brandon advises others on how to become well-paid experts.
Are you a paid speaker? What other tips would you give to someone thinking about this path? I plan to update this resource a few times with more materials and tips over the coming months.
Most people who get paid have a job. A job is where someone pays you to do something that they don’t want to do. A career is where someone pays you because you are awesome at something valuable.
In order to build a career you need a couple of things:
I share a story from Neil Gaiman… it is worth your 19 minutes to watch his full commencement address below ;-). I also make reference to the book “So Good they Can’t Ignore You” by Cal Newport.
Neil Gaiman’s commencement address: “Make Good Art”
Here’s a short summary from OpenCulture: 10 Essential Tips for Working in the Arts
And you? Career or Job? If you liked reading this, you will also like The Career Advice you probably didn’t Get and Career Advice from LinkedIn’s founder Reid Hoffman.
NPR have a wonderful speech database with over 350 great commencement speeches on their resource The Best Commencement Speeches, Ever
Excluding prepositions and other super-common words, the most frequent words appearing in this database of Great Commencement Speeches were:
Source: The Top Words of Wisdom for Graduates on NPR, (accessed 7 May 2019)
