The post Welcome to professional speaking appeared first on ProfessionalSpeaking.com.

But after short while in shock he stood up again, shock his tiny little body, and took to the skies again.

Over my 20+ years as a global professional speaker I have had an amazing ride, but a few times I have found myself on the floor after banging my head against a window I did not see.

The key to a long and successful speaking career is to be able to shrug off these negative things and get up into the air again.

The post When you fly straight into a window. (Professional Speaking. Episode 254.) appeared first on ProfessionalSpeaking.com.

Ten days ago I had the privilege of being the closing speaker at the Professional Speakers Summit – the first ever professional speakers summit in India. More than 150 speakers from all over India (and the world) met in Chennai to learn from each other.

As the closing keynote speaker I had to close the convention with a speech on how to become a global keynote speaker. But I also wanted to communicate a deeper message – a message of the value of putting into action the things the audience would have learnt at the convention.

So I decided to show – instead of just telling.

On the first day of the convention another speaker, the amazing professional photographer Amar Ramesh, had talked about the need for professional speakers to have a professional appearance such as hiring a stylist, having professional head-shots and a great showreel video.

Hearing him speak I went up to him and booked him right after his speech to do my 2019 headshot photos (Amar is one of the most respected portrait and wedding photographers in India and it seemed a great chance to have him take my new headshot pictures.) But I noticed very few other speakers went up and booked him.

So the second day of the conference at 8 am I had an idea:

I called Amar and asked him to bring his stylist to the convention.

At 9:00 the stylist came and took my measurements.

At 11:00 his hair stylist came and cut my hair.

At 3 pm I went to get the new Indian clothes fitted that the stylist had picked for me as they would fit to speak to an Indian audience.

At 5 pm I walked up on stage in a new outfit, with a new haircut and I told the audience: “The purpose of attending a speakers’ convention is not to just get inspiration and/or knowledge, but to turn that inspiration/knowledge to action, just like I took Amar’s advice about getting a stylist and one day later walked up here to you styled in a new outfit.”

The audience loved it.

Not only because I was standing in front of them in an Indian outfit, but because I “walked the talk”, I SHOWED in my actions the thing I was talking about. And I connected to the previous speakers from the convention by connecting to their messages in my speech. And finally they loved it because it showed that I had improvised and changed my speech based on what had happened during the conference – ie I had been paying attention.

If you are the closing speaker, make sure you are open to change your speech based on what happens before you speak.

The post How to end a conference as the closing keynote speaker. (ProfessionalSpeaking.com Episode 224.) appeared first on ProfessionalSpeaking.com.

I call it: The work ethic of a lion.

But first some background:

I am a global keynote speaker. In the first six months of 2018 I have been invited to speak in UK, France, Malta, Mauritius, India, UAE, Singapore, Malaysia, HK, Oman, Indonesia, Italy, China, Norway and New Zealand. That is 15 countries on 4 continents (Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania) in six months.

In the same time I have had a lot of time off. For example: A week in San Francisco to attend a friends wedding and visit family. A weekend in Wellington, New Zealand to visit a good friend – and almost 60 (!) days on my private island in Sweden spending time with my family. I am also on 50% paternity leave at the moment as my kids are young, which means I spend a lot of time at home with them, bringing them to school, playing with them and so on.

So how can I balance traveling the world to speak with so much time off? The answer is to think and work like a lion.

Now, when I say that I have come to understand that most people misunderstand what I mean. They think that I am somehow promoting a “alpha male” approach to work/life.

I am not.

Actually, you might almost say that I am promoting the opposite of an “alpha male” approach to work/life.

So first let’s get this “lion=alpha male” misunderstanding out of the way.

The reason for why so many people interpret “lion” to mean “alpha male” is most likely because the lion has been depicted as “king of the jungle” and “king of beasts” in society and because male lions have been popular symbol for royalty and stateliness.

But lion prides are not run by a Alpha male at all. Prides are run by a group – of females…

“In the typical African pride, the females form the core (…) The females in the pride are generally related to one another since they usually remain in the same pride for such a long time.  Due to this permanence, a lion pride can be said to be a matriarchal social structure.” (source.)

So now when we got that myth of the dominating Lion King out of the way let’s study how lions actually approach “work”.

Behaviour and ecology

Lions spend much of their time resting; they are inactive for about 20 hours per day. Although lions can be active at any time, their activity generally peaks after dusk with a period of socialising, grooming and defecating. Intermittent bursts of activity continue until dawn, when hunting most often takes place. They spend an average of two hours a day walking and 50 minutes eating.

(Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion)

Or in other words: They hardly work at all… and when they DO work, they do it in short, energetic bursts.

A lion can only keep its maximum speed of 60kph for more than a 100 – 200m. Lions rely on stalking their prey and seldom charge until they are within 30m, unless the prey is facing away and cannot see the charge.

And that is how I work too.

Not only in my actual work as a keynote speaker. (If a lion’s maximum speed is 60 kmh, my maximum length of being great on stage is 60 minutes… I do not do long one-day seminars or even half day seminars, I do short 40-60 minute keynote speeches.)

But I have the same approach to all work.

Short bursts of high energy, focused, and targeted “hunting” for speeches.

Today I have been following up on a speech in Peru, a speech in Vietnam, and a speech in Saudi Arabia.

The first email was 2 lines long. The second was 10 lines long and the third one was 3 lines long.

I also initiated a email to a website for event managers in a country suggesting they should write about me. (It looks like they will.) Length of that email? 3 lines.

I try to keep emails short and to the point.

Come to think of it I do almost everything short and to the point.

When I do get a speech I do not use contracts which reduces admin time, I invoice once a month to bundle up invoice work to one, short instance. I invoice once, not twice like most speakers who invoice 50% upon signing of contract. That reduces admin work around invoicing by half. And so on.

I am terrible at networking with people for the sake of networking. But if I do come across a person who is interested in – or could be of high interest for – a speech I make sure to connect right away.

Today is a perfect example of a “working day”. It’s a normal Wednesday and I started it at 9 am with 90 minutes of exercise. Then played with my kids until lunch (they invented a “children’s olympic that they wanted dad to be part of on their last day before school starts for them), then lunch before I went for a 90 minute massage. Did some shopping and back home at 5 pm. Checked emails for one hour. Then dinner with family and put kids to sleep. From 8-10 check some more emails and write this post.

Full disclosure: my inbox is a little bit too big at the moment after spending 24 hours traveling from Europe to Asia this week and I have about 50 emails to reply to, but I will get up to speed by tomorrow.

As you can tell, not much work.

I know speakers who wake up at 7 AM. Work all day according to a detailed schedule where they follow a process and build elaborate systems.

Nothing wrong with that, but I call them “bulls”. Just like a bull who spends all his day eating grass these people spend all day working on “work stuff”.

But I am not a bull, I am a lion.

If I am not out hunting I am resting.

You might want to say “that’s easy for you to say who has been doing this for 20 years”, but the fact is that I have always had this approach to speaking and work from the day I started speaking way back in 1995 as a 27-year old.

The thing to understand here is that WHEN I work I do it all in and full on.

Rules for working like a lion:

• Quality over quantity when it comes to choosing work tasks. (Prioritise like a lion)
• When you decide to do some work, make sure it’s crucial or impactful – or enjoyable. (Focus like a lion)
• When you do work, do what you have to do fast, fierce and committed . (Sprint like a lion)
• When not working, think about what you really should be working on when you do decide to work. (Stalk like a lion)
• After a work-sprint do not jump straight to the next task – take a long break (Rest like a lion)
• Help other speakers as much as you can, what goes around comes around. (collaborate like a lion, ie the opposite of the Alpha male trying to push everyone else away.)
• Prioritise life, not work. (Live like a lion)

Could I be a much more successful speaker if I dedicated myself to working long hours filled with dedicated work? Most likely, but just like a lion only hunts the food that it needs to eat, I also choose to only go after the work I need to do so that I can go back to my “den” and see my children grow up.

I yes, I am aware of the story about the “The Tortoise and the Hare”, and it’s important to understand that lions survive due to their ability to condense their hunting to a swift, determined and focused activity. They are lazy most of the time, but when they do hunt they hunt like, well, like lions.

And a lion that hunts in a half-inspired, half-motivated, jogging matter will die quickly.

So final rule:

When you do decide to work, be unforgiving in what you go after. (Hunt. Like a lion)

Done right it’s the perfect way to work.

And remember:

The bull keeps grinding away all day eating grass.

The lion rests all day. Then eats the bull.

The post The work ethic of a lion. (Hint: No, it’s not that Alpha male crap, that’s not lion, that’s bull…) appeared first on ProfessionalSpeaking.com.

But I think most people use it wrong.

The word “resolution” means: “a firm decision to do or not to do something.”

But many people seem to look at a a New Year Resolution more like a dream, almost a wish, something we hope will happen.

“I am going to loose 10 kg (I hope…)”
“I am going to (try to quite smoking, (again)…”
And so on.

But a resolution is not a vision to hope for – it’s a firm decision to do something.

And some also seem to think that a resolution limits our options because it somehow would hinder us from changing our mind in the future as some new opportunities might arise, or the world might change.

But to not take a decision, to always be standing in a crossroads keeping our “options open”, and being “flexible” means that we never start to walk down any path.
And that means we never get anywhere.

And to be clear, making a firm decision does NOT mean that you can not re-evaluate your decision later on. To me it just means that you make a decision that you really, strongly believe in.

There comes a time when we need to make a firm decision, choose a road and walk down it.

And when we do we usually feel much better.

You see the word “resolution comes from the Latin “resolvere” which means to “loosen” and to “release”.

If your New Year Resolution doesn’t make you feel a sense of “release”, is not making you excited, inspired and feel like a stone has been lifted from your shoulders then I think it is safe to say that your resolution was the wrong one.

My resolution as a professional speaker in 2017 is to dive deep into the world of online marketing.

I have made a firm decision to study it, learn it, understand – and, yes: master it.

Not because I feel that it is “trending”.
Not because everyone else seems to be doing it already.
Not even because I think that I need it for my business (If you follow this blog you know that I believe that as a speaker the only marketing you need is to make such great speech that at least two people come up to you after the speech and ask to book you for their conference…)

And not because it is a topic I am speaking on or thinking of speaking in (it is not)

No, but because I fell in love with Internet Marketing more than 20 years ago.

Internet Marketing was the first thing I was an expert on, the first thing I really knew as a professional – and the first thing I spoke on.

I wrote my first book – called “Internet and Marketing” way back in 1995 (Time flies!!) and because almost no-one in 1995 knew anything about the Internet I became, at the age of 27-years, an “expert”, which led to invitations to speak at conferences. And so my career as a professional speaker was born.

Over the years I got interested in other things and my love and interest for online marketing subsided, for some reason.

This year I have decided to revive that old love of mine.

And in deciding to do so I feel inspired, excited and full of energy.

Will it make me better as a speaker? I doubt it.

Will it help my speaking business? Probably.

But I am doing it because I want to do something outside my focus on my speaking and the topics I speak on that would add some inspiration to my day.

I guess you can say I have gone back to one of my old hobbies.

When I see the new year fireworks I see a symbol of the power of firm decisions: Someone made a firm decision to light the fuse of that small fire-rocket and the result is a beautiful, sparkling artwork in the sky.

What is your firm decision that you have taken for this year that will make you better as a speaker, better as a business person, better as a person – or just generally something that will inspire you more each day?

What fireworks are you setting of inside your mind this year?

The post A resolution: a firework in your mind. appeared first on ProfessionalSpeaking.com.

That is were the BIG conferences are, where the BIG audiences are, where the big money in speaking is.

And yes, that is true. The US is the place to be for being a speaker right now.

But if you are playing the long game, then Asia is the place to focus on as a speaker.

Asia has 60% of the worlds population.

Asia’s share of global GDP is already around 40% (USA’s share is well below 20%…)

And Asia is where the growth is happening.

Yet, very, very few professional speakers have chosen to focus on Asia.

And yes, it is true that the speaking and conference market in Asia has not been as developed as other industries, but it is quickly changing.

I moved to Asia more than 10 years ago, after having had 10 years of success as a speaker in Sweden/Scandinavia. I moved because I saw potential in the Asian speaking market.

When I arrived there were very few Asian Conferences since the people in the different Asian countries could not speak good enough English which meant there were really no reasons to have a conference since the delegates could not speak to each other. (I remember a conference I did in China in 2007 for a client who had invited their Asian clients where they had 20 (!) translators translating the sessions into different Asian languages.)

But the quality of english in Asia has drastically improved.

And now more and more Asian conferences are taking place with people flying in from all over Asia.

And these conferences are growing and growing every year.

I can see it on the size of the audiences – and on the size of the projector screens…

When arrived in Asia ten year ago you would be happy if you got a well lit screen. Over the years the quality of the screens (and everything else around the organisation of a conference) has improved and now I have seen some of the most professionally put together conference I have ever seen happen in Asia.

The conference I spoke at today is a perfect example of this trend. Today I was the (only) keynote speaker at the EY Asia/Pacific Tax Symposium.
968 delegates from 363 companies and 36 countries attended the conference at the gigantic Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre.
EY has organised this event for ten years, and this year was the largest so far.

And the computer screens were just gigantic!

I measured it and got it to be a total of 22 meter wide (and about 4-6 meters high). All high definition computer screens (not projectors).

If the quality of the conferences, the number of delegates, the budget for organising these conferences in Asia is increasing every year than where will the Asia speaking industry be in five years time? In then years time? It is just going to be huge.

And what speakers outside Asia do not understand is that Asian audiences do NOT want someone who just flew in from Europe or America to tell his (or hers) western examples and western stories!

They want someone who understands, knows and connects with Asia – and with the rest of the world. They want speakers who have a GLOBAL mindset (not a western – or an Asian – mindset.)

As a global speaker who comes from the West, has lived in Asia for over ten years – and who spoke in 24 different countries on 4 continents in just in the last 12 month alone, I have built an Asia based, global speaking business not around what the speaking world looks like today – but what it will look like tomorrow.

And many of my assignments this year have been Asian conferences or global conferences held in Asia (or Global conferences held elsewhere where they wanted a speaker who had knowledge of both east and west.)

As a matter of fact in 2016 I did 24 different global or international conferences like that. around the world.

I am amazed that not more speakers have built their long term strategy around where the growth of the business world – and speaking industry – is most likely to happen.

The focus of commerce, business and power is shifting to the East. So is the speaking industry.

If you want to be a global speaker you have to understand, know – and speak in – Asia.

The post The writing is on the big (projector) wall: The Market for Asian Conferences (and speakers) is booming. appeared first on ProfessionalSpeaking.com.

– to love attention and to get energy from big crowds of people
– to network before and after a speech
– to love to speak with/to other people
and so on.

Some of the best speakers in the world are extroverts.

But some of the best speakers are also introverts.

The fact is that introverts are in many ways better suited to be speakers. Here are some reasons:

– Introverts only speak when they have something to say.
As a keynote speaker you usually have 1 hour – or less – to get your message a cross. That means that you have quite a limited time frame to play with. As an introvert you will be more careful with the words that you use and thus might be better suited to write a speech that is concise and to the point.

– The speaking is the cherry on the cake – the bulk of the job is research – and research is lonely work.
With a few exceptions you need to have done your research to be able to be a good speaker. Having a book is a great way to get credibility as a speaker, but writing a book is, for the most part, a very lonely process. You sit, by yourself, in front of the laptop and write, write and write. All of that writing and researching is generally better suited for a person who is comfortable on his (or her) own.

I have spent 1000’s and 1000’s of hours reading, researching and writing the material that becomes my speeches. The fact that I like sitting by myself with my computer on some deserted beach, or on my island, is a plus.

– Introverts like to observe their surroundings

The job of a professional speaker is often that of a messenger, of informing an audience of something that they need to know. For a job like that it helps to have a personality which likes to observe.

I remember when I once attended a Tony Robbins training. There were 1000’s of people jumping up and down and totally getting drawn into the message that was being communicated on stage by Tony. I was in the far right hand corner observing the audience (I was there to see how Tony Robbins worked with a group.). I suddenly looked around where I was standing and all around me where perhaps 10 other professional speakers, all standing in the far, right hand corner so that they too could observe the audience…

So see what is happening in a room it sometimes helps to not be the center of attention.
The same is true for trying to understand what is happening in the world.

– The job of a professional speaker is 90% travel.
If you speak internationally or globally the job is actually more of “professional traveler” than “professional speaker”.

I am writing this at the airport of Kochi, in Kerala, India. I left 8 PM Monday and will be back home 8 AM Wednesday. That is 36 hours.
Out of those 36 hours I will speak 1,5 hour. Network with the client for 1.5 hours (inclusive of lunch). That means 3 out of 36 hours are “social”.

The rest is all “lonely work”.
– Time on flights: 10 hours.
– Time in taxis: 5 hours
– Time in airports 5 hours
– Sleeping at resort: 7 hours.
– emailing and writing at resort: 4
– Sitting in the back of the conference checking out the crowd: 2 hours.
= 33 hours (out of 36 hours) is “alone time”.
If you are not an introvert that might kill you.
If you are an introvert, you like it. It gives you – me – time to think, reflect and write.

– You have no colleagues.
Almost all speakers work for themselves. They might have an assistant, not uncommonly a virtual one, but the whole concept of “colleagues” is usually lost on a speaker.(The reason why speaker associations are so popular with speakers is that it’s a way to actually get some kind of “collegial feeling” in a profession that is mostly run by solopreneurs.) That means that people who “need” colleagues might not like the workday of a professional speaker.

Again, I am not saying that extroverts are not great speakers.

I am saying that to make professional speaking your profession (especially being a global speaker which involves a lot traveling by yourself) it might actually help if you are an introvert.

Take it from an introvert who has been speaking professionally for 20+ years: if you are an introvert and want to be a speaker: go for it.

(Picture from me working by myself for a few hours in a hammock at the resort in Kochi,  after delivering my speech, while waiting for my driver to arrive.)

The post Why Introverts make great speakers. appeared first on ProfessionalSpeaking.com.

Today I was the keynote speaker on the second day of the global customer conference for Qmatic (a company that offers solutions for better consumer experiences). 300+ delegates from 50 countries had flown in to Barcelona for a two day conference. Needless to say this is the most important conference of the year for the company.

Since I was speaking on Day 2 the conference delegates where already in a certain state of mind after spending Day 1 together. Unfortunately I had not been able to attend Day 1 (since I was speaking in Omaha, Nebraska on Tuesday so I spent Wednesday on planes). (And to be honest, it’s quite unusual for a speaker to “hang around” the day before his speech, since that would mean the client would have to pay for two days, and most would not like to do that.)

But with today’s way of organising conferences it is quite often still possible to get an idea of what the attendees got to listen to on Day 1. The solution is called video. Often the conference organisers will film the speakers in order to put together a conference movie to be uploaded to YouTube after the conference as documentation of what happened, and as marketing for next year’s conference. So if you ask the conference organisers (or the video guys) if you can get access to those movies when you arrive to quickly look through some of them they will most often let you watch them.

For the conference I spoke at today they had even uploaded 1 hour of it on YouTube so I could watch the keynotes from my hotel room in the morning of Day 2 (YouTube even have the handy feature of showing a video in 1.5X speed so that it goes faster to watch them).

And it was a good thing that I watched it.

Turns out that:

• One of the speakers had referenced me in his speech (Now I could re-reference that reference in my speech)
• One speaker had showed a robot on stage (Good for me to know since I was going to talk about how robot technology have developed over recent years.)
• One speaker had mentioned a new type of toilet (Good for me since I was going to talk about a urinal in my speech (don’t ask ;-).)
• A series of speakers had mentioned the words “innovation” and “creativity” in their speeches (Good for me to know since my topic for this speech was “business creativity” and I now could refer back to how the speakers on Day 1 had talked about how important innovation and creativity was.)
• And so on.

Because I could do so many references back to the first day the audiences got the feeling that I had been there Day 1 too. And my message became more credible since I could connect my message with the message from the first day.

So speaker hack of the day is: If you are speaking on Day 2 of a conference ask to see some video clips from Day 1 on the morning of Day 2. That makes it easier to “connect” with the audience since they get the feeling you were “with them” Day 1 too.

The post Connecting with the day before. appeared first on ProfessionalSpeaking.com.

As a speaker should you try to provok your audience? Can you, for example, provoke Americans about 9/11 in a speech?

I am guessing many people would say “No”.

Well, today I did. For an audience of American bankers (on Manhattan!) I provoked them about why it took the USA so long to rebuild the World Trade Center.

The ability to provoke is one of the most powerful – and therefor also one of the most dangerous – tools we have in our toolkits as speakers.

Some speakers look at “provokation” as a dirty word, as a way of giving rise to a negative or unwelcome emotion.

They look at it as something evoking a negative respons that we as speakers should not aim for.

I see it differently.

To me the ability to provoke is a beautiful thing.

For even if “provoke” mostly has a negative connotation is can also mean to “stimulate or incite (someone) to do or feel something.”

And to “Stimulate someone to feel something” is the essence of what we do as speakers.

To be able to use provokation as a tool we first have to understand how it works.

Push the audience to become a little bit provoked and you get them to feel something, which makes it easier for them to take in a new message.
Push them too far and you loose the audience as they turn on you.

I have illustrated the effect in this simple graph:

The trick is to stay on the right side of “The Line of Provokation.” – or I guess I should say “stay on the correct side”, as you should aim to stay on the LEFT side, not go to the RIGHT… ;-D

So how to you know where the line is?

You don’t, and that is what makes this technique so difficult to use.

You basically have to “feel” the audience to get a feeling of how far you can take them along the road of provokation.

But, you might ask yourself: Why use a technique that tricky to use and which risks having the audience turn on you?

Because when it works it’s so powerful.

And the real magic comes when you learn to balance just on the edge of the line of provokation.

When you push them and JUST as they are starting to turn on you, you pull back and create a “safer” environment only to go back to pushing again as the audiences starts to feel more comfortable.

It’s like dancing with tigers. One wrong move and you get cut badly.

So why do it: Because when it works, it creates one hell of an impact.

Lesson: Don’t cross the line of provokation – but stay as close to it as you can.

The post Dont’ cross the Line of Provokation! (but get as close as you dare…) appeared first on ProfessionalSpeaking.com.

When I open maps.google.com they show me a map of the USA…

Here is the funny thing. Google knows all of the facts above.

They know I am from Sweden, they know I live in Singapore, they know I last checked in from Brazil and that I am now checking in from Portugal. Heck, they even know that I am soon flying to Zurich (as their latest feature in Google Calendar is to automatically post flight information in your calendar that they have picked up from Gmail…)

And yet they show me a map of the country where their HQ is located.

Why?

When I recently was entering “United Square” in my Uber app the first suggestion the app suggests was “United States”…

United Square is a shopping centre in Singapore, I am based in Singapore and I was doing the search on the Uber app in Singapore. Yet somehow they think I want to take a taxi ride to the country of America?

Why?

Back to Google.

So which map SHOULD Google map be showing? (you could argue that they show the USA because they do not know what location I want them to show)

They could show:

– the location I am checking in from (to give me a sense of location)

– Show the location of my home (to give me a sense of roots)

– Show me the last location I looked at (to give me a sense of time)

– Show me the location they think I want to look at (based on previous searches) (to give a sense of foresight)

– Show a random place on earth (to give a sense of humanity)

Any of the above would be better than showing the home country of the HQ of their company (which is all about them – not me – and which is totally, and utterly irrelevant to me.)

Yes, these are small bugs in their systems.

But they show a fundamental flaw in how businesses might have mastered “going global”, but not “thinking global” – or more specifically not “thinking human”.

Business should be built around the user. Not the company.

Solutions should be build for humans – not nationalities.

Our visions should be limitless – not confined by borders.

(Suggestion: Submit your email address in the form to the right to get a convenient email summary in your inbox every time 10 new posts have been posted.)

Contact Fredrik by clicking on the email symbol below.

The post How borders limits borderless thinking appeared first on ProfessionalSpeaking.com.