I feel like i don’t write enough about “speaking”, as in “giving talks”, seeing as it’s one of the things I do most often nowadays. It’s increasingly the way that people know and discover me, as in: more and more people tell me they know me because they watched one of my talks and: less and less people tell me they know me from my youtube videos or other things like that.
I guess i’ve been going through this gradual shift towards getting some of my income through speaking now too. It’s a tiny amount right now, but it’s something!
I have many many many many thoughts and feelings about all aspects of the above. I think i have many many strong opinions about what it means (or what it should mean) to be a speaker, and also how to do it all (or how you should do it). The topic area for this goes much wider than just “giving a talk” on the day itself: It also means all the preparation work / the stuff that happens way before the talk / before you even get booked or start planning. It also means the narrative(s) that you can tell through a series of multiple talks: A collection of “works” made up of a portfolio talks and a “work” you create of yourself / you turn into by doing talks. Even things like … choosing which events to say yes or no to. And then there’s the business side and my (emerging) thoughts on that: the service to provide as a keynote speaker. and then of course, I’ve developed many many thoughts on event organisation from speaking at so many different ones, and hosting a bunch myself. and naturally, many of these themes have overlap with other things I do, such as the concept of treating a talk portfolio as a saga. but then also, many of these themes feel completely unique to being a speaker…
With all of these things to talk about with talks, it’s hard to know what to talk about. Everything feels too connected to do in isolation.
Sometimes I feel like a talk about talks would be good, but then no one would want to hear about that really. and it would also be quite dry.
and then there’s the aspect that i only really feel like I’m only really just beginning on my journey / understanding into speakerdom. there’s still so much i don’t understand. but that’s also why i feel compelled to write about it:
i want to work it out with you.
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