The business of speaking

Happy Birthday from Professional Speaking (Professional Speaking 279)

By Fredrik Haren

In April 2015, I launched ProfessionalSpeaking.com as a vehicle to share – for free – my knowledge around all the aspects of professional speaking.

Since then the site has grown to over 270 blog posts, and the community has expanded more than 22,000 people on Facebook alone.

Thank you for your support!

I love the process of sitting down every week to share with you what I have learnt about the amazing world of speaking.

To get to spread your message to the world is a gift more valuable and rewarding than almost anything else.

Today though, to celebrate the birthday of ProfessionalSpeaking.com, I have a quick question for you. I would love to hear:

What do you like about Professional Speaking?

What would you love to learn next?

What would you like to get more of? What would you like less of?

Let me know by hitting “reply” on this email.

It would be the best gift I could think of receiving.

Thanks,

Fredrik Haren

p.s. what can I help with next?

What are some topics or areas related to professional speaking – whether it be delivering a great keynote speech, booking more gigs or finding your inner theme – that you’d like me to write about next?
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How to become better as a speaker

Speakers: Stalk yourselves. (About repeatedly rewatching ourselves speak) (Professional Speaking. Episode 278)

By Fredrik Haren

“Watch yourself speak.” That is one of the most common advice out there for becoming a better speaker if you ask experienced speakers.

And it is probably the advice that beginner speakers ignore the most. They know they should be watching themselves speak. But they don’t.

But you should.

And not only film yourself once and watch it once.

But film yourself often. And watch yourself often.

After 25 years of speaking and more than 2000 speeches delivered, I still do.

But here is the “expert tip”: Watch the SAME speech over and over again.

Because every time you do you will see different aspects. (Just like watching a movie over and over again. Every time you rewatch a movie you notice new things.)

And when you have watched the same speech 10, 15, 20 times then you start to notice small subtle things that you do that you would never notice would you always insist on only watching each speech once or twice.

I have just spent last week re-watching a video of myself speak 4 more times. A speech that I have most likely already seen 50 times – at least.

And yet, every time I watched it this week I found new things to improve – or new things that I notice that I do well.

Because watching yourself speak is not ONLY about identifying things you could do better – which can be difficult for your ego. (And which is the reason that so many beginner speakers “cheat” on watching themselves – they are afraid to hurt that ego…)

But watching yourself over and over is also about identifying what you are doing WELL – and if you look at it that way it becomes easier to “convince yourself” to sit down and watch a speech of yourself speaking over and over again.

So now go and find that speech of yours and watch it again. And again. And again.

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Life of a professional speaker

Find out what kind of speaker you are at the core. (Professional Speaking Episode 277)

By Fredrik Haren

Magic Johnson once said: “When you face a crisis, you know who your true friends are.” I would like to re-write the quote to say: “When you face a crisis, you get to know who your true self is.”

Let me explain.

The global professional speaker market was one of the first industries to be hit by the Corona crisis. Travel bans and restrictions for large gatherings of people did not help. Conferences have been canceled left, right and center and the whole MICE industry (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events) is now one of the most hit industries that have come to more or less a complete stop. The professional speaking industry is at the center of this.

For 20+ years speaking at big conferences has been my, and many of my peers, main source of income (supplemented by a much smaller percentage of book sales). So when speaking bookings went down to zero, what did speakers do?

The answer is that they did different things!

– Some started selling like never before

– Some pivoted to produce online courses

– Some went into book writing mode.

– Some did nothing and just went on a vacation to wait it out

– Some did other things

My point is that what you decided to do INSTEAD is crucial. It will give you an indication of who you are beneath the “speaker identity”.

If you went into selling mode, you are a salesperson.

If you went into producing online courses you are a teacher

If you went into book writing mode you are an author

If you did nothing you are – at your core – a speaker (If you went into “wait it out mode” to get back to speaking later.) If you went into “vacation mode” because you wanted to enjoy some free time, you are – at your core – a speaker because you enjoy the freedom it gives you to take time off…

I went into research mode.

There have been a few times in my 20+ years as a professional speaker that I have done more interviews than I have done in the last month.

I always do interviews, but now that I have had more time I have done more interviews.

I define myself as “The Creativity Explorer” – as in someone who goes to explore human creativity – and doing research and interviews to better understand human creativity is a big part of exploring creativity.

My speaking is just a venue to tell the stories of all I have learned from interviewing people.

During the last few weeks I have learned that interviewing people actually give me AS MUCH satisfaction as standing on the stage speaking.

Yes, I miss the energy that I get from speaking from the stage. But I am as motivated today as I was, say 6 months ago – pre-Corona. I wake up every morning saying “What can I learn about creativity today? Whom will I interview? What will they teach me? How can I get those lessons out? How can I share the insights that I learned in the best way?

At my core I am a researcher. An interviewer. An explorer. The Creativity Explorer.

And yes, when the world goes back to holding conferences again I can not WAIT to go back up on that stage and share my message about the power and potential of human creativity – and I will have a lot of new, fresh content to share. But at the moment I am very much in “interview to learn more mode”.

Who are you as a speaker when you do not get to speak? The answer to that question should be easy to dig into in times like this.

And that insight should be strong and very valuable to find out for a speaker.

Who are you underneath that speaker identity?

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