How to generate conference talk ideas
Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of here's an idea worth playing with with myself, Rob Lambert. Now, we're entering into a new season of this podcast, and thank you so much to everybody who's listened to the cast and downloaded it. I'm actually really, really, really pleasantly surprised and amazed that there's so many people that are interested in this. Now, as we enter into season three, I thought I'd do a little bit of housekeeping.
Rob:Now, many of you may have found your way to this podcast through my management consultancy company called Cultivated Management. Now, as I transition into 2025, and I'm recording this in June, so I'm a little bit late to be doing that transition, I'm moving everything, creative wise, communication wise, including this podcast under the new brand, which has always been my publishing arm called Creative Soul Projects. Now, today's topic is all about idea generation for conference talks. It's actually a free chapter that's available on creativesoulprojects.com and in there are loads of different things that we're going to talk about in this podcast about coming up with ideas for conference talks. It's a free chapter from my book Zero to Keynote, and of course, you can find that also at creativesoulprojects.com.
Rob:Now don't fear, I'm still contributing content to Cultivative Management. It is still my business. That is how I make the bulk of my income through consulting and coaching. But what I was finding was a lot of the content that I wanted to put out on this podcast had absolutely nothing at all to do with management. In fact, the stuff that I did put out about management just bombed and nobody listened to it.
Rob:Clearly, nobody's interested. I don't blame you because it's super dull and very boring. However, the content about communication, about creativity, about learning, they're the ones that did really well. They're also the ones that I really enjoy talking about, but they don't fit nicely under that cultivated management banner. Hence, from this point forward, for season three and beyond, everything that I share here on this here's an idea with playing with podcast is gonna be connected to creative soul projects.
Rob:Now you can go and find out more. It's a newsletter you can subscribe. There's links to all of my books and my content included in the online communications workshop, and that's at creativesoulprojects.com. Now, with that out of the way, with the housekeeping done, let's jump into today's topic, which is coming up with conference talk ideas. Now, if you head to creativesoulprojects.com, you will find that there's a free download, a PDF guide with all of what we're gonna cover here today, probably in a little bit more detail than we'll cover in this podcast, but that's yours, it's free and obviously, like I say, it's a free chapter from the book.
Rob:Now, when I speak to people about presenting at conferences, obviously, one of the main concerns that people have is this fear of public speaking, which is very, very natural. I for one, six, seven, eight years ago, probably longer actually, I couldn't stand up and talk to anyone. I would avoid any interview for a job that had to do a presentation. I just couldn't do it. I crumbled into a hot mess.
Rob:Now I cover that in the book, and we're not gonna talk about that necessarily today. We're going to talk about the I guess, blocker that people face is, I've got nothing to talk about. Why would anyone wanna listen to me? You know, what have I got to add to conferences, to events, to local communities that somebody isn't already talking about? And that's gonna be the topic of today's podcast, coming up with ideas for talks.
Rob:So let's jump into these ideas. There are 13 in total, and I'm gonna go through them fairly briskly because the idea behind here's an idea we're playing with is sort of short, sharp, consumable podcasts that you can listen to without, you know, consuming too much of your time. Let's put it that way. So there's gonna be 13 of these particular ideas, and I'm gonna go through each one fairly rapidly, like I say, but there is a free PDF that you can download from creativesoulprojects.com. So the thing to make clear before we jump into the 13 is that nobody has your experience.
Rob:They don't have your tone of voice. They don't have your life experiences. They don't have your view and vision and the way that you see the world. And therefore, there's always a space for your voice, for your story, for your interests to be shared at a conference or a local community event or a little meetup group or whatever. You know, just because somebody might be talking about the same topic that interests you, they're not going be talking about it in the same way that you are.
Rob:So that's the advice I always give people. And in the book, I talk through, you know, once you've overcome the hurdle of wanting to speak at a conference or an event, then, you know, putting your flavor on things is really, really important. There'll be somebody who's interested in hearing your perspective, your point of view, your tone of voice, the way that you've seen things, which will be different to how other people have. There's also this idea called the curse of knowledge, which is that we assume that people know what we know, and there'll be people way ahead of us in terms of the topic or their career or whatever it is that you're talking about that are experts or, you know, know so much more than we do, but there's equally people who are on that same journey that we've been on. And so I think there's a piece here where we shouldn't be overcome with this curse of knowledge and assume that everybody knows more than we do.
Rob:That's not true at all. And there'll always be somebody that wants to hear your perspective, your journey, where you are and what you understand. Even if there are people who are way ahead of you in terms of that topic knowledge or depth or career or whatever it is. I think it's really important that people understand that there is a space for your voice and there will be people that resonate with it, that want to hear you. Especially when you start adding some of the more sort of advanced bits of talking at conferences, which is all in the book about adding your own unique tone of voice, the way that you carry yourself, the way that you present, the way that you structure your presentation.
Rob:These are all going to be different. They're all going be different. And I think that's wonderful. And that's exactly why I love conferences, because you hear so many different stories from people on different journeys and different paths and in different seasons of life. And I think that's really important.
Rob:So one of the elements, before we jump into 13, is to build a hopper of ideas. Now this is really important. You know, some people call this a commonplace book, and I've done a podcast on that before. For other people, it's just a repository, you know, Apple Notes, seven o Notebook, whatever it is, a hopper of ideas. Because often we see something or we get an idea or we get some inspiration, and that isn't going to be the complete idea.
Rob:It could be that we take that along with five other things that we've observed or we've captured or have interested us, And we mash them together to come up with something wholly unique that nobody else has done before. Or we get a seed of a story. We see somebody at work that does something that's really interesting or funny or, you know, quite shocking or whatever. And that could be a minor story and a bigger part of your presentation, of your talk. And that's why I'm keen on this idea of a hopper.
Rob:And every time you get any inspiration at all, whether it's artwork that moves your music or song lyrics or you see somebody do something or you've come up with an idea for a talk, just pop it in the hopper and keep feeding it. And then keep reviewing that hopper and mashing together those ideas and seeing if you can pull threads together and, you know, are there any patterns that make sense? That's a really important concept. So with that said, let's jump into the different ideas. Now idea number one is called challenge, brain dump and time.
Rob:It's a bit of a weird title. But our subconscious brains work in a remarkable way, and I'm sure you've had this. You're wrangling through a problem or you've got some challenge that you're facing. And then you go off and do something else, like go for a walk or go and cook tea or go and have a shower, and you get that moment. The moment where you get an answer to the thing that you set your brain as a challenge.
Rob:That's our subconscious brain slowly behind the scenes working out the challenges that we give it. Now we can use this to our advantage when we're coming up with conference talks or ideas for anything, books, podcasts, YouTube videos, you name it. And this is the idea behind give your brain a challenge. So write down what it is you'd like to talk about. Or even you could just write down, come up with a great idea for a talk.
Rob:Put that down on paper, then go off and do something else. And then give your brain time, and there'll be ideas that start to come The real trick with this is making sure you have a notepad or pen or Apple notes available when you get that moment. This works really, really well. And in the Zero to Keynote workshop, which accompanies the book, which I run for corporations and events and sometimes for the general public, we do this one at the beginning of the session. We ask everybody in the room to write down a challenge that they're facing.
Rob:Something that they could imagine sharing with an audience at a conference. And they write that down at the beginning of the day, and then we crack on with the rest of the workshop. And I guarantee, by the end of the day, everybody has something coming back from their subconscious brain with an idea or a thread or in some cases a complete talk almost that comes back to them as they get distracted off doing other things. So that's the one. Write down a challenge, let your subconscious brain do the work and give it some time.
Rob:Idea generation number two is all about observations. Now, we can learn a huge amount, and we can get super inspired, and sometimes a little demotivated, by observing the world around us. Now, I often find that people are a wonderful source of ideas and inspirations or maybe even just a small story to include in a bigger presentation. When people fail, when they interact, when they show good or bad behaviors, when they do things, when they go their everyday lives, there are things that we can see and spot that are rich sources of insights. We've just got to learn to pay attention.
Rob:That's all it comes down to. And capture that stuff into your bucket, into your hopper of ideas. You know, funny stories, sad stories, moments that make you go, wow, that's incredible for good or bad reasons. Capture that. Keep a note of it.
Rob:It could become a seed for a talk or at least a story that you can weave into a bigger presentation. Idea generation number three is our experience. We often negate our experience because of this curse of knowledge. We assume that people are further ahead than we are, that nobody would wanna know about our journey. But our experience is vastly important because we see that through our own lens, our own upbringing, through our own biases.
Rob:And that's interesting to hear. People wanna hear what it looks like. You know, what does your daily life look like? At work, what do you experience? And why do you feel the way that you do about it?
Rob:In your personal life, what hobbies or interests are you up to? Know, what experience do you have that you could share with the community at a conference, at work? You know, these are all brilliant, brilliant ideas for a talk. And I always say that an experienced talk is probably one of the easiest talks to do because you're not espousing a big theory, you're not coming up with a sort of prediction of the future. You're talking about your experience as you saw it, as you felt it, as you think about it.
Rob:And that's a really wonderful way of coming up with conference talks. You know, did something go really well at work? Did something not go so well at work? Is there a hobby that you're interested in? Did, you know, publishing things on a blog suddenly open up a whole new community to you?
Rob:These are experiences that people would love to hear. You know, we don't hear enough, particularly about some of the challenges that people face. We just don't hear that at conferences. And I think really, really solid experience report is not only quite a straightforward talk to prepare, but it's actually really insightful. People want to resonate.
Rob:They want to connect with someone human that's experiencing something. So capture what it is, even if it's a little notebook that you capture your day as you go through it or observations that you've seen and how that makes you feel. Then turn that into something that you can share as an experience for others to resonate with. So idea generation number four is a little bit work specific, this one. And this is industry trends.
Rob:Now, most of us are working in some form of industry. We might be a solopreneur, an entrepreneur, or we might be an employee or a manager or a leader, whatever. But we're usually working in some form of industry. Now, what I find fascinating, a lot of conferences that are based around industries is everybody's saying the same thing. You know, there's these industry trends, there's these new ideas, there's this sort of, you know, what's cool and hot at the moment?
Rob:What's everybody jumping into? What's everybody doing? Now, what I find really fascinating at conferences, the talks that resonate the most and generally tend to, you know, as long as they're well delivered, tend to score quite high on the engagement numbers at conferences. Are the talks where people look at the industry trends and then talk about why they're doing something different. You know, the masses aren't always right.
Rob:Sometimes they are, but sometimes they're not. But even if you are talking about something that everybody's doing, again, nobody's gonna have your unique flavor. You know, your company will be different, you're different, the people you work with are different, the customers are different. So what are you doing around industry trends that's either completely different and everyone's gonna be like, wow, what's this person doing, going off and doing something over here that's so sort of left field and a bit wild? Or are you doing what the masses are doing, but you're doing something different, or you've got an experience to share?
Rob:Industry trends, always quite straightforward ways to get onto a conference, and I will be doing a podcast in the future about how to actually get your conference submission accepted. It's a really, really in-depth guide. Obviously, the podcast, I won't talk too much in detail, but there'll be a really, really comprehensive PDF guide for you. Again, it's in the Zero to Keynote book, And this stuff, people have been using it for years with great success. So that was idea generation four.
Rob:Industry trends. What are you doing with them and, you know, what flavor can you add to that? Or why are you ignoring them? Because that's a really fascinating talk. When everyone's going one way and you're going the other, really interesting.
Rob:Now idea generation number five is all about change. So what's changing, you know, in you, in your world, in your work, in your you know, the way you use technology, the way that you interact with people at work, the way that your company is structured. You know, there's all sorts of ideas here around change. Now, the general idea here is that people embrace change as long as they don't have to change. So when I talk about change, what I normally do is talk about how people are changing, because that's the fascinating piece.
Rob:You know, we can restructure an industry, we can restructure the way we build or do something using tools. We can even follow industry trends and all that kind of stuff that we've talked about. But usually, with change, people have to change, and that's incredibly hard for most of us to do. If it wasn't hard to do, we'd have high performing companies full of people who are super fit and healthy and don't have any bad habits, you know. So change is a fascinating subject.
Rob:What's changing and why? What does that mean to you? How have you changed? Did you embrace it? Did you resist it?
Rob:Was it easy? Was it hard? These are all really fascinating parts of a talk that people will resonate with because people will be going through change or will want to change. They might wanna become a better leader, designer, marketer, whatever your field of industry is. They might want to learn how to do painting better if you're doing a sort of community group.
Rob:There's tons of reasons why people want to change. And people are always fascinated to hear about how other people have changed and what that journey might look like. In a sense, is there a way that they could shortcut their journey to get to where you are and change without having to go through some of the drama that maybe you did. Okay. Idea generation six, we're nearly halfway there.
Rob:Random words. Now this is a fascinating part of the Zero to Keynote workshop. I absolutely love this section of it because what we do, just after we've got everybody to write down their challenge as we talked about in one of the previous idea generations, is we then ask each person in the group, and there's usually a limit to about 20 people so that we can get lots of practice time in. And what we do is we ask each person to write down two completely random words, Totally random words. And then we go and stick them all on the wall in random orders, you know, they're all over the place.
Rob:No grouping, nothing at all. Just a series of random words. Generally, somewhere up to about 40 random words on the wall. And then we have silence and we just have a bit of pondering where we just look at these random words. And then I ask people to come up with talk ideas.
Rob:Ideas for presentations. And without fail, people will come up with a huge collection of ideas. Now some of them might not be very good, I get that. And there's always a part where we're coming up with ideas where we have to validate them and sort of fine tune them and sort of refine them a little bit. But here in a sense is what we're trying to do is lateral thinking.
Rob:We're trying to think sideways here rather than convergent thinking which is thinking narrow. So this idea with lots of random words is you can just look at these words and see if you can piece a few together to make an idea. It could be a little story of a bigger presentation. It could be a presentation in itself. When I run this in the workshop, there is absolutely always at least five or six really solid talk ideas.
Rob:I often use this technique to come up with some of my own as well. Maybe not necessarily random words, but words within the industry that I work in that I can look at and go, actually, they make sense if I pair these two together with these three over here. That's actually a really interesting topic. What can I what can I talk about around that? And then you can start to get the seed of an idea here.
Rob:Now there's loads of different word generation tools online. You could do that. You could just randomly flick through a dictionary, which is what I sometimes do. Of course, if you're in a group setting, just getting people to put random words on there. Now I will say this is actually a really, really good way of generating solutions to problems at work as well.
Rob:Random words are actual visuals. And I've got an article coming up on two Creative Soul Projects soon about how to use visuals to stimulate ideas. They work really well because it helps you sort of almost move away from your constrained thinking to think about these different words and what they mean to you and how you interpret them. And therefore, that can trigger a whole series of thoughts about things that are logically connected or just come out of nowhere. This is a really good way of generating ideas.
Rob:So random words, choose five, ten, 15 random words for yourself, put them down on a sheet of paper or on the table, and then just see if you can combine them together to come up with a talk. Works a treat. Now idea generation number seven is all about thinking about the future. Now these talks are hard to do and I cover why in the Zero to Keynote book. But essentially when you're talking about the future, the chances are you're going to be wrong.
Rob:Okay? The idea with the future is there's not one single future. There are many potential futures. You could do a talk that talks about all of these many potential futures for your industry, for your job, for technology, for the ways of life or whatever it is that's interesting to you. But the chances are that's going be a very broad talk and probably difficult to pull together.
Rob:If you're going to pick a potential future, then you need to be careful because you will be wrong. And those sorts of talks where somebody has a completely different idea about the future can actually generate heated questions and answers and all sorts. And I cover how to deal with all that stuff in the book. But essentially talking about the future is always fraught because there's a high probability you're going be wrong. But they are really, really exciting and interesting talks.
Rob:Now you imagine every industry or every community or every hobby group, if nobody talked about what the future looked like, there'd be nobody pushing boundaries. There'd be no new things. There'd be no innovation. Creativity would be stifled massively if we're not thinking about the edges and boundaries of the topic that's interesting to us. So these kind of talks are always great.
Rob:They're really good. They really get you thinking. If it's presented well, they can really get you thinking about the future of whatever the topic is. The people that present these are sort of pushing the boundaries. They're getting you to think, almost like an artist.
Rob:They're getting to paint picture of something and then share it with you and then get you to think about how and what that means for you. And that's a really powerful engaging technique. Future talks are brilliant, but they're all mostly wrong. And so with that comes a few challenges, but it's a great way to come up with ideas. You know, five years from now, what's your industry gonna look like?
Rob:Ten years from now, what technology might affect your hobby or your creative pursuit that you're doing? Really, really powerful way to come up with ideas. Now I must apologize, my voice is a little bit croaky this week. I am recovering from sort of a cold flu type thing. Just did a wonderful little family city break in Budapest the other week.
Rob:On the CreateSoul Projects website, there is actually a Budapest travel guide and some photos from there, so feel free to check that out. But the whole family came back feeling a little bit rough. We obviously did the test, but no, that was all negative. Just some sort of cold. Anyway, let's crack on.
Rob:Idea generation number eight, we're talking about alternatives. So with this, essentially, it's a little bit similar to a futures thinking. But what you're thinking about is the alternatives. Okay, so every industry, hobby, niche, topic has people who are extremely dogmatic about certain approaches, certain methodologies, certain ways of doing things. You know, it's kind of this is the only way to do something.
Rob:If you're not doing this, you're not doing things correctly. But what I like to think about is what is the alternative to this? You know, what are actually people in other industries doing that is getting great results that you could apply to your industry or your hobby or your sort of creative pursuit? There's a huge amount of fodder here for ideas, you know. Are other people in the industry doing something different and getting the same results?
Rob:The chances are that is a yes. There's always multiple ways to do something. You know, what can we pull or weave in from different industries? You know, what are the companies doing or are the people doing? Is somebody else doing some artwork in a completely different way and getting great results?
Rob:Well, what can we learn from this? And I think what people really need often at a conference is just a different voice. Somebody who's just going to stand there and say, You know, you're all doing this. A little bit like the industry trends one, but in a sense you're thinking about the alternatives. What are the alternatives to what we're doing?
Rob:And at conferences, in the industry conferences, you hear a lot of people talking about the problems and challenges that the industry face. Well, that's great. Well, what could we do differently? What is another industry doing that's had similar problems? And they've resolved them.
Rob:Alternatives work really well and I will say that, especially in the world of work, if you look at the alternatives other people are doing, you often make the business better if you can implement them. You know, the masses aren't always right. Like I say, head to creativesoulprojects.com and you will find a PDF guide and also links to the Zero to Keynote book. It's available in The UK imprinted. It's a beautiful printed little book, and that's available UK only at the moment.
Rob:But there is a PDF digital version that is available globally. I couldn't get the word available out there. So idea generation number nine is all about experiments. Now experiments are how we move forward. They're how we solve problems.
Rob:They're how we come up with creative ideas. I often say that kind of almost all of life, certainly if you're pushing yourself, is an experiment. There's a chance that what you're doing won't work, and that's interesting. It's really, really interesting to hear this at a conference. And especially if it doesn't work as well.
Rob:I mean, you know, one thing that we shy away from often, maybe it's personal dignity, maybe it's brand, I don't know what it is, but there's a lot of people that shy away from sharing how they failed at something. But those talks always do really, really well. I did this, I tried this, it was an experiment, and it didn't work. And here's what I'd do differently next time. They really resonate with audiences that are either running similar experiments or interested in running an experiment to solve the same problem or come up with the same idea.
Rob:And so they really resonate with people. You know, what did you learn? How did you run the experiment? What were the results? And certainly in work, you know, the creative soul projects were sort of created because I don't think there's enough creativity in work.
Rob:And certainly leaders and managers inhibit that, there's a risk aversion. But if you did run an experiment in work, how did you convince people to let you run it? You know, what were the things that you said, the outcomes that you anticipated, the way that you pitched it, how did you communicate that? You know, these are really interesting things that people would be interested in hearing about at a conference. So idea generation number 10 is all about being positive.
Rob:So what I say about this is essentially things don't always go to plan. You know, things happen to us, life is a roller coaster. There's good times, there's bad times, there's in between times. And one of the most powerful talks that I really like to actually rely on for my own keynotes is turning something negative into something positive. Now it's very hard to do and of course not all negative things are equal.
Rob:You know, ill health is really bad, but you know, a failed experiment where you didn't quite create the artwork you wanted, that's not so bad in the grand scheme of things. And so, it's not easy, but there are always things that happen to us. Experiments that we run or we lose our job, or our family is ill, or we, you know, whatever. There's series of life events in both work and life that happen to us. And it's finding that silver lining and turning it into something positive.
Rob:Now the reason that these talks work is because there's a very human element to this. There's something that's happened to somebody that could equally happen to anyone in the audience at all. And then there's a positive side to it. There's learning from it. Maybe there's a rising of the phoenix and you lose your job but that spurs you on to create your own company and you're now thriving and doing really well.
Rob:You know, maybe the ill health gave you time to focus on what's important and now, you know, family and various other ideas like that. They're interesting for people to listen to because there's a connection, there's an emotional element to it. Motion and emotion come from the same place. So when we feel something, we move, and that's what people want at a conference. They wanna feel something.
Rob:It could be excitement, it could be anger, it could be joy, could be fear, it could be any of these things. And when we feel something, we move. And that emotion emotion comes through massively when we take something negative and we turn it into something positive. But what can we find that silver lining? How can we turn something negative into something positive and then share that so that other people can be inspired, motivated, or even learn from that themselves?
Rob:Idea generation number 11, and this is one that I've used a number of times in my own keynotes, is to begin again. We often have this sort of level that we get to in our careers, in our hobbies, in our skills, in our behaviors. And we don't always remember the path that took us to that. We talk as an expert in something from the stage, and we fail to realize that the journey that got us there started at the beginning. You know, we weren't an expert when we were born.
Rob:We've had to go on that journey. So what was that journey? If we can try and get back to the beginning again, can we try and deconstruct that? Was there certain decisions that you made or different opportunities that you took advantage of or, you know, a bit of blind look that came your way? You know, was it deep study and practice or was it working with cool people that you learn from?
Rob:There's a huge journey that we go on to get good at what it is that we do. And I think we often neglect that beginner's journey. Now another way to do this is to actually pick something that you're not an expert at and learn it. Go back to the beginning again. You know, embrace that sort of learning from knowing nothing.
Rob:And then share that story. You know, how did you do that? What skills did you develop? What resources did you use? What were the challenges?
Rob:Did you feel like giving up in the middle when you couldn't quite grasp the thing that you're trying to learn? Everybody who's on a creative journey is in this learning cycle. We weren't born great artists. We weren't born great musicians. We've had to go on that journey.
Rob:And that journey is really interesting. People are on that journey at various different stages. And I think learning from people who are on that, who've reflected and understood some of the things that got them there, I think that's really powerful. This is idea generation number twelve, thirteen, 11. You know, you're still with me.
Rob:If you're listening this far, then I appreciate that. This is the final idea generation, and this is what do the experts discount. This is a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant way to come up with ideas. Is whenever you get an expert in your industry, in your hobby, in your niche, in your community, and they discount stuff or they discount other people's ideas or they downplay the importance of something that you think is important, Why do they do that? And what is it they're discounting?
Rob:Because in the seeds of that, in that discounted thing, you know, whether it be a way of working or a new tool or a new approach or a new customer market segment, whatever, there are seeds of opportunity. Because the experts are not always correct. This was brought home to me when I did a talk very, very early on in my speaking career at a technology conference. And I talked about how we were doing sort of cloud based software, and we were doing all these different techniques and approaches and ideas. And the experts in the room, of which there were quite a few, self professed experts, let's put them that way, said, You can't do that.
Rob:That's disrespectful to the industry. You can't do that because it's never going to work. You can't do that because customers won't accept it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And in the book, I explain this in a bit more detail, how they were actually quite aggressive and rude and I ended up blocking them on LinkedIn.
Rob:Anyway, four years later, we'd done what I said we were gonna do at that conference. And I turned up to the conference and there were the experts, again in the audience, but this time, obviously humbled because we had actually succeeded. They discounted us and what we were doing and said that can't be done, that's not what we do, we're the experts. But actually in discounting it, they'd actually fired, they'd sort of fueled my fire to say hang on, we can do this, I believe in what we're doing and we did it and we explained to them how we'd done it and it wasn't very amicable in the end as you can imagine. But anyway, the experts aren't always right.
Rob:So what they discount can actually be a real fodder for a, not only things you should do in your life or your creative pursuit or work, but also really, really good seeds for a decent talk. Why are the experts discounting it? Do you have a different view? Do you have data that suggests that they're wrong? That's the idea behind this one is to see what is it they're discounting and why?
Rob:And actually, are they correct? Do I believe something different? Why do I believe something different? Really, really great idea for a talk. So there you go.
Rob:They're the, twelve, eleven, 10 ideas for coming up with ideas for a conference talk. Now, when I say conference talk, could be an event, it could be a community meetup, it could be a hobby niche group, whatever. There's ideas there for you to play with that could help you generate either a storyline or an entire presentation in itself, or even just a little anecdote to throw in there. Get that hopper filled, you know, observe, study, look at the experts, you know, all the stuff we've talked about. Put it in that hopper, review the hopper often, and mash those ideas together, and you'll generate ideas.
Rob:And let your subconscious brain help you in this process. It's exceptionally good at working through challenges and obstacles whilst we just get on with life and cook tea or go for a walk or read a book. So there you go. If you're interested in learning more about conference presenting, it's a wonderful, wonderful career thing to do. It's also brilliant at building your self confidence, learning how to articulate and communicate.
Rob:It really, really is, think, the most joyful thing I've ever done. It's probably the number one thing that has brought me the most joy and the most benefit in my career. And if you're interested in that, then obviously go to creative soul projects, and that's soul, s o u l, as in our personal soul, creativesoulprojects.com, and you will find a link to the Zero to Keynote book, which is available along with other books and the communications workshop. And of course, you can download this as a PDF on the website. Of course, if you're interested, then subscribe to the newsletter.
Rob:That's hoping to come out at least twice a week. There's some really cool stuff coming. I am looking forward to it. I'm really fired up about this project. I hope you stick with me.
Rob:Of course, subscribe to the podcast. With that, you take care of yourself and I look forward to speaking to you in the next episode. Bye bye.
