This plog post is about setting new goals. About upgrading your goals and how that sets you alive.

The text is about this goal I just set. The message is about you upgrading yours.

Two of the strongest passions in my life are speaking and travelling.

One of my strongest beliefs is that we have start to thinking more in the context of humanity. (I call that “humanityism”)

Passion and believes is what move us forward, what gives us energy and meaning.

If we set goals that are based on taking us to the next level of where our passion and believes are leading up we will feel we live more.

In my late teens I would travel to far away places, like Hawaii, South Korea and Thailand and the love of seeing the world was born.
22 years ago I became a professional speaker and found a profession that I feel I was made to practise.
12 years ago I moved from Sweden to China and begun to seriously speak internationally.
10 years ago I become a global speaker and the last years I have been speaking in 20-35 countries per year.

Lately that has been my life. And I love it.

One year ago I added a project that I call “The Human Island” to my life. It’s a project where I am going to visit 100 islands in 25 countries in 100 months or less. It has no commercial purpose or anything like that. It’s just something I created to add a layer of depth to my life. (Islands are another passion of mine.)

Two weeks ago I realised that it was time to raise the bar a little bit more again.

I decided that I want to have spoken in 100 countries when I am 50 years old.

Today I am 48 years old and I have been invited to speak in 64 countries.

Why this new goal?

Partly there is a logical reason: I know that I got a more global – a more human – mindset when I went from having spoken in 50 countries compared to how I saw the world when I had spoken in 5. So I am guessing – and hoping – that I will get an even higher sense of understanding of humanity as a whole if I travel to more than 50% of all the worlds countries.

Partly its psychological: 100 is a round and symbolic number.

But the main reason is unexplainable. (I think all the best reasons for why you want to do anything are unexplainable)  I can not fully explain to anyone else why I feel that I “have to” reach the goal of speaking in 100 countries when I am 50. As for myself I do not need an explanation.

Today I have 36 countries left before I reach 100.

I sat down and picked out the 36 countries I really would like to add to the 64 I already have under my belt.
These 36 countries (for various reasons) are:

Argentina
Bhutan
Botswana
Brunei Darussalam
Costa Rica
Cuba
Cyprus
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)
Dominican Republic
Equatorial Guinea
Fiji
Greece
Haiti
Ireland
Israel
Jamaica
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kuwait
Lebanon
Lesotho
Madagascar
Mongolia
Morocco
Nepal
New Zealand
Oman
Papua New Guinea
Qatar
Rwanda
Seychelles
Timor-Leste
Albania
Algeria

This list doesn’t mean I have to add these 36 countries to make it 100 – but by making this selection I am making my goal clearer. I can go out and try to get speaking engagements in these countries.

I have done a selection.
The lion has selected its pray.

And here is the funny thing:

Just by making this decision I feel happier, more energised, more focused and more “on purpose”.

The powerful feeling I got from just up-grading my goals (not reaching them, not even getting a single country closer to achieving them yet) – just by writing down this up-graded goal of mine around traveling the world to speak – made me write this blog post.

What are your passions?
What are your values?
What are your goals?
Now how could you up-grade those goals to take them – and your life – to the next level?

When we as professional speakers attend a conference we are spoiled with often getting a chance to speak from the stage, and we not used to paying to attend a conference – hell, we are PAID to attend conferences …

So why on Earth would professional speakers choose to attend a conference where they do not get to speak and even have to pay to attend?

Because attending a conference can be one of the most effective ways to learn something and improve your profession.

People of all professions know this and the whole conference industry (and professional speaking industry) is based on the premise that learning, live and in person, from experts together with a group with likeminded people is extremely powerful.

So what kind of conferences does professional speakers attend? Well, Professional Speakers Conventions, of course!

This blog post is different from the normal posts that I do. Today I will promote something: The Asia Professional Speakers Convention which happens in Singapore 5 -6 May 2017.

(full disclosure, I am a member of, and sit on the EXCO of, Asia Professional Speakers Sinagapore (asiaspeakers.org) who organise this convention, but I have no financial interests at all in this conference (If anything I will volunteer my time for it.) and APSS is a not-for profit organisation for professional speakers.

I am sharing this with you because I think that readers of this blog might be interested in attending the conference.

If you are interested in professional speaking and live within travel distance from Singapore I highly recommend that you invest in a chance to network with over 100 professional speakers from all over the world while you listen to and learn from more than 20 great speakers.

The amount of knowledge and inspiration that you get during these intense two days is most likely the best return on investment you can do as a person interested in taking your professional speaking career to the next level. I say that as a person who have attended numerous of these events in the past – and who signed up for this years convention the minute the registration opened.

The theme for this years convention is “Worldclass” and you get to listen to subjects like:

“How to grow your speaking business” with Meridith Elliott Powell (USA),
“Secrets of Million Dollar Speakers” with Scott Friedman (USA),
“Don’t just be a speaker, be a STAR” with Dr Boy Abunda (Philippines),
“World Class Speaking Secrets – A Speaker Bureau Perspective” with Gautam Ganglini (UAE)
and many many more!
Find out more about the convention at: http://asiaprofessionalspeakersconvention.com/

I hope to see you there, and if you come, please let me know (email me at [email protected]) and we can catch up during the convention!

Sign up before 1 April go enjoy a early bird discount.

What kind of speakers gets booked for big, internal keynote speeches?

It’s not the best speakers. (you can be a great speaker but still not get invited to give keynotes)
It’s not the most famous speakers (famous speakers get invited to client events to draw a crowd, but the same thing that makes them a draw at a client event (they are famous) might stop them from getting the internal event (their fame has made them too expensive for internal events.)

My initial question is actually a trick question.

Because a client will not pick a speaker for their internal event – they will pick a theme.

And when they have a theme they will pick a speech which is on that same theme.

Not only when they have found a speech that matches the theme of the conference will they decide if the speaker delivering that speech is the one they want to book.

Today I was the keynote speaker at the AsiaPac-Business Development conference for EY. EY is one of the largest companies in the world, Asia is one of the most important markets for any global company, and the Business Development Managers are the ones responsible for selling some of the key projects that make this big, big company successful.

There were some very smart and experienced people in the room.

The managers had decided that two of the keywords at this conference was “disruption” and “innovation”.

I speak on both of those topics.

That is why I got this job.

Yes, the client had heard me speak before.
Yes, I have done a lot of work for this client before.
No, they would not have booked me did they not think my speech was good enough for this group.

BUT – and this is key – they would not have booked my speech, no matter how good they think I was if the topics I speak on was not the topics that they wanted their managers to hear.

My main topics are “Change, Business Creativity and Global Mindset” – the good thing with themes like “change” and “business creativity” is that those are themes that never go out of style – I have literally been speaking on those topics for more than 20 years and they have ALWAYS been in demand. (In good times everyone needs to innovative, in bad times everyone needs to change.)

What are the topics you are speaking on?

Are your topics in line with the themes that companies are picking for their conferences?

Is there any way you could tweak your speech or the topic that you speak on to make it more relevant to the topics companies are holding conferences around at the moment?