SpeakHQ Blog

When Is Something Worth Teaching?

By Berkun | January 4, 2014

This month I’m posting every day, picking the top voted reader question and answering it. With 37 votes, submitted by Andrew Holloway, is: When do you know that you have something worth saying or teaching? I often find myself caught between two competing thoughts: that I don’t know enough to help anyone, and that I should help…

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How To Write A Good Bio

By Berkun | January 23, 2013

Many good people write bad bios for themselves. Anyone asking you for a bio, or reading it, wants you to sound awesome, but what they need and what your ego wants to say are often different things. With these five simple rules you can write a good bio for yourself in less time, with less…

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On Writing vs. Speaking

By Berkun | March 18, 2012

Paul Graham wrote recently on his perspectives on the written vs. spoken word. Graham admits he’s more confident as a writer than a speaker. This biases his comparisons and his essay. He’d have benefited from talking to people who he thinks are both good speakers and good thinkers (and perhaps good writers) as they’d have…

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Is speaking easier than writing? Some advice

By Berkun | January 25, 2012

I get many emails asking about writing, in response to the popular posts I’ve written about writing. Recently Shawnee M. Deck wrote in asking about writing ones life story. I was immediately appalled by my lack of ability to put down on paper the words that seem to make everyone laugh whenever I tell my stories. This…

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Next book is first draft complete!

By Berkun | June 4, 2009

The first draft of my next book, about an insider’s view of public speaking, is done! Yay for me. If you haven’t checked out speakerconfessions.com, you should. There’s some good material there and it gives a flavor for the questions I’m asking and answering in the book. Spread the word if you can. I’ll be…

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Telling stories about telling stories

By Berkun | February 18, 2009

Krishna makes an interesting point on his thought clusters blog about professions that involve getting paid for talking about the profession itself. Historically most professions made this impossible. You can’t make a building about making a building, or prepare a meal that’s about preparing a meal. It’d be a real stretch if you tried (“The…

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My next book… details inside

By Berkun | February 16, 2009

For the last few months I’ve been working on the next book. In fact, since the last book, I started working on at least two different books, each of which fell over, exploded into flames, and disappeared from the universe from their sheer badness, before I worked my way into this one, which I’m happy…

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Lessons learned: radio interview

By Berkun | May 26, 2005

Ok – here’s my notes from my first radio interview experience. I was on air for about 15 minutes on the 5/22/2005 Business of Success radio show. Calm down. If you listen carefully to people that speak well on air, they speak slooowly. They hit all the syllables. And more importantly, they sound calm or…

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