In this episode I am talking about how I began speaking.

[00:00:14] Hello and welcome to the Travelling Introvert. Today we are going to talk about public speaking. I have had a couple of questions come in about how I sort of got started speaking and it was an accident. I think I basically started off doing workshops for General Assembly and they tended to keep theirs because they sort of ran coworking spaces. I started off there. I didn't see it as public speaking for me it was more like teaching because it was a case of going in and talking about a particular topic that I knew and enjoyed talking about. This sort of expand into oh I'm traveling to these countries maybe I can speak at their coworking spaces because in most places around the world there are coworking spaces. And so I started doing that I started reaching out and saying hey I'd love to talk about this. At your coworking space, thanks. Sometimes I get a response and sometimes I wouldn't. And that was fine. And the places that I did get a response was one of two things that happens is one they're like well do you have an audience. It brings bring people to our coworking space or we have an audience. We will open up and people from our coworking space will come. I did not have an audience so I would only go coworking spaces that had audiences or could promote on my behalf and promote it on your behalf is actually a really good thing just because they already have an ecosystem there. [00:01:44][90.0]

[00:01:44] They are very appealing to, well depending what you want to talk about they are applealing to sort of entrepreneurs and small businesses. And not only that they have a built in community and so they have a built in network ready. They probably have a newsletter they have a bulletin board they have all these things locally that you just won't have if you're travelling. If you have a audience however the other way of doing it is just finding a space on maybe breathe.com or that there's a couple of places depending where you are in the world where you can type in looking for an event space and I don't mean sort of like a huge event space like a meeting room and you can hire a room from anywhere from I guess 25 bucks an hour U.S. dollars an hour. You know a couple hundred depending on where you are and what you're doing and it depending on how many people you need it for. And so if you have an audience you could say hey I am going to be in this city for this event. Come on down and it's a great thing because people who've been following you and interacting with you online get to meet you in person and it's a wonderful thing to do and you get to meet people and hear their stories and be like oh I'm so glad this has happened. [00:02:52][67.6]

[00:02:53] And so that's a wonderful thing but if you do not have an audience yet going to coworking spaces and asking if you can talk to their 10 people their five people. In Australia I know lunch and learns are very popular and you will not get paid but you know the exposure theory but you do get me some really interesting people so be careful of your mindset going in if you are looking to get paid every single time. That's great. Will it happen. That is up to you because you get to choose what you do or where you speak. [00:03:20][27.0]

[00:03:21] And after that the next things that really sort of step you up on the speaking thing is you'll find a lot of people will attend conferences to find speakers of the conferences to then invite them to other conferences. So if you do go to a conference and you do want to speak look around for those people who run other conferences or have attended other conferences I can tell you because there are so many conferences going around in the world that it's really hard to keep track of them all and sort of know when the dates are to submit a proposal and all of those things. [00:03:53][32.1]

[00:03:53] The last thing that really gets you up the list as far as speaking is concerned is to write a book or to have a book written. This gives you something to talk about and to sell and is a great way to create yourself your brand and so on and so forth a sidestep to that is going on people's podcasts going and being interviewed about whatever it is that you do or that you are passionate about. Is a great way to sort of do public speaking without the public and it is a great thing for sort of getting your confidence and feeling like you're talking to a friend it puts you in a very relaxed state. [00:04:26][32.7]

[00:04:27] So these are things that you can do to get yourself sort of on the speaking circuit so to speak and to get yourself more comfortable with public speaking. And a lot of people recommend Toastmasters personally not my thing. But I do understand that for some people that is a great resource. [00:04:43][16.5]

[00:04:44] So thank you very much for listening. Look forward to traveling with you soon. [00:04:44][0.0]

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