The average best-selling author spends 12-24 months writing their books, yet there’s a bunch of people promising new speakers they can do it in 30 days. These are the same people claiming the speaking business is easy and you can throw a speech together overnight and you don’t even have to be a good speaker...
Seems like a pretty easy question to answer, but speakers have different beliefs about this. We get this question at every session of the Bill Gove Speech Workshop, and we give the workshop philosophy to the participants. Bill Gove, the father of professional speaking, felt very strongly about this. Listen to this 2-minute audio post...
I interviewed a senior executive last weekend in Atlanta at the Siebold Success Network meeting for almost 2 hours onstage, and the audience of speakers was shocked at what she had to say. This executive hires some of the biggest speakers in the business, and she told the truth about what it takes to get...
In mental toughness training, I speak to Fortune 500 sales teams about critical thinking to increase sales. For all of you who have the dream of being a fee paid professional speaker, I have a critical thinking question for you. I ask this question completely out of love. After all, I dreamed the same dream...
There’s a group of people in the speaking industry telling emerging speakers how easy it is to become a successful professional speaker. Back in 1996, the year I started my full time speakering career, I heard the same thing. It turns out the people perpetuating this lie are profiting from it. Chances are they’re trying...
The personal development/self-help industry is once again being accosted by the national press in the United States. The catalyst seem to be the Sweat Lodge tragedy that occurred at the James Arthur Ray event in Arizona earlier this month. (more comments on that at www.mentaltoughnessblog.com) My question for speakers is; are you delivering a message...
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In the last 13 years as a professional speaker, I’ve probably reached a couple million people with the mental toughness message. Last week, through the power of television, more than 10 million people, most of whom probably never heard of me before, saw me on NBC, FOX, and NBC/Australia. I’m in the beginning of a...