In this episode, Mike and AJ share their vast knowledge about developing, writing and performing keynotes based on teaching points from books they’ve written. Mike deep dives into the multiple performances he’s given over the years, how he gauges what worked with an audience and what didn’t, and how he hones his performance. AJ shares her experience as the Speech Writing Mastery Coach for HEROIC, a premiere speakers training facility. If becoming a speaker is in your plans as an author, you won’t want to miss this!
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The Referrable Speaker, by Michael Port
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Episode 58: “Turning Your Book into a Keynote”
Mike Michalowicz: Welcome back to the Don’t Write That Book podcast, where you can
learn how to write your bestseller and own your authorship. Follow along with us as we give
you an insider's view of the book industry. Now, here are your hosts, myself, Mike
Michalowicz and AJ Harper. I do have a surprise question for you.
So what's one thing minus the house on Madeline Island that you have purchased as a result
of your business as a. author? Transcribed That you have the greatest affinity toward.
AJ Harper: Greatest affinity?
Mike Michalowicz: Just appreciation, love, maybe it's an acknowledgment of your
AJ Harper: Hmm. That's hard.
Mike Michalowicz: Especially when you drop it like that, you know, no preparation.
AJ Harper: No, I'm not really a thing person. You know, I don't really do that. I bought
myself a nice bag once.
AJ Harper: Oh, nice. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: But I'm, you know, I'll drive that to the ground.
Mike Michalowicz: I think that's cool too.
AJ Harper: Yeah. I'm just not interested in a lot of things. Yeah. I don't, I don't know.
I, I think, um, you know what I like the most? I like that I can go into the Apple store and get
the tools I need without
Mike Michalowicz: Hesitation? No, like, can I afford this?
AJ Harper: I, I, I felt really good buying my last computer saying, This is what I do for
work. I'm getting the thing I need. And that was how, but—
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, something's coming back to me. Tell me this is right. Or maybe
I'm, I'm blending other stories. Was there a time you had such a decrepit Mac? I'm thinking
like 10 years ago that like one key would actually not do capitalized or ..?
AJ Harper: Yes, there were several keys missing and I was still using it.
Mike Michalowicz: I remember that time.
AJ Harper: I probably wrote one of your books on it.
Mike Michalowicz: You probably did. I, I remember that.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Like you couldn't capitalize something. Oh my gosh.
AJ Harper: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was true.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. Well, that was my opening question for our show.
AJ Harper: Yeah, what about you?
Mike Michalowicz: So, apparently I am into things. And the thing I got was I bought a
plunge. Cold plunge last night.
AJ Harper: Last night.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. And that's what triggered this thought. ‘Cause I,
AJ Harper: Oh, you mean like stuff. Okay. I thought it had to be very specifically. This is a
sign that I am making money from my business.
Mike Michalowicz: Well, maybe, maybe that's how you define it.
AJ Harper: Well, I want to hear about your cold plunge. And then I have changed my
answer.
Mike Michalowicz: I, um, I have a sauna at home, a small one, you know, so effectively one
person, Krista and I can both squeeze in there.
AJ Harper: Oh God. Yeah. Claustrophobic.
Mike Michalowicz: I love it. I love the extreme temperature and you feel your heart rate
really get up there. It's like running. Yeah, I'm very oriented toward these kind of health
things. And so the cold plunge, you know, in, in Nordic tradition, you saw it and you jump
into the ice water lake.
Um, so in the New Jersey tradition, you get a plunge just inside your house and, you know,
AJ Harper: yeah,
Mike Michalowicz: so that, that's what I got. And I've done it before. Uh, they're remarkable.
For me in how invigorating it is. It's intense is But I come out of it. Like I just had a scrape
run or something like that. There's—
AJ Harper: You've joined the cold plunge
Mike Michalowicz: Well, yeah, I guess I've joined I haven't done it in my house yet, but I'm
about to buy into it. Yeah, cool. I don't know if it's healthy. Honestly, I think the science is
out but I mean, still being determined.
AJ Harper: I mean, look, people swear by it.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, and it's been done for traditional, for a long time. I don't think it
can be negative for you, bad for you.
AJ Harper: So I will say that the thing that I spent money on that I normally, I'm like a, can I
find it at a garage sale kind of person, but I had a table made.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh my gosh.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: For a kitchen table or?
AJ Harper: Yes. Well, it's technically, it's in my studio right now. It's spalted maple. It's
made by this master craftsman and it was not cheap.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: And normally under no circumstances would I ever do that.
Mike Michalowicz: I love that.
AJ Harper: But I just have had this vision for so long and I wanted a table where all of these
great minds would sit.
Mike Michalowicz: I love that vision. I love that. Well, You're welcome. Have you had the
great mindset? Have you had it?
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: It's already started
Mike Michalowicz: the, um, I think the point here is I think we have to acknowledge our
wins and successes and that's, I think a challenge for many people. And I remember my, my
biggest win was when with Profit First, the very first ever profit distribution, which was 8.
I, I went to Starbucks and I'm not even a Starbucks guy, but I'm like, you know, load me up.
And the big joke is at Starbucks,
AJ Harper: Extra shot, extra shot.
Mike Michalowicz: You know, like for 8, it's a small coffee. That's it. But it was the most
delicious coffee of my life because there was no credit card. There was no expensing to the
company.
It just, I could do it with free will and no emotional weight.
AJ Harper: Oh, I love that.
Mike Michalowicz: I think every author, regardless of what your financial status is, is that
this, this freedom you can achieve, um, needs to be acknowledged. And even if it's eight
dollars, it, the fact there's no burden beyond that, I think, is really important.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. You're listening to Don’t Write That Book podcast. This episode,
we're going to talk about turning your book into a keynote. This is something I've been
looking forward to. I'm joining the studio with AJ Harper. That's the voice. You hear a little
raspy because you had a long night last night, but it's kind of de raspifying.
AJ Harper: Is it?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: I hope it doesn't sound terrible.
Mike Michalowicz: This morning there was rasp and you're pointing it out in our
prerecorded, like that's raspy. And I'm like, when did you start smoking again? I was going to
ask you. Did you ever smoke? That's the question for today.
AJ Harper: Okay, alright, I will say I did, but I was the smoker that smokers hated. Because
I would leave them everywhere. I didn't, I just wasn't serious. I, I got lucky genetically, I
guess that I never became addicted. So I legit was, you know, people say I'm a social smoker.
I really was. I was just doing it when I was hanging with friends.
Mike Michalowicz: Do one drag, throw it down.
AJ Harper: Like we were writing and drinking black coffee and it seemed very serious.
Mike Michalowicz: It seems cool. Yeah.
AJ Harper: Yeah. But, uh, I would leave them places. I, for, I would forget to smoke. So it
wasn't, it wasn't, it was no problem when I was trying to get pregnant for me to say this. I'm
done. I don't think we need these anymore since I never remembered to buy, to do this.
Mike Michalowicz: The forget to smoke smoker.
AJ Harper: Yeah, which is the opposite of, you know, my mom's a smoker and she quit
when she finally couldn't breathe anymore. I hit her smokes. I tried everything I could do to
get her to quit.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh.
AJ Harper: She would not quit. So I thank goodness, thank, thank, thankfully, thank
goodness, I did not inherit that. Oh, thank God. Because it was no problem for me. Thank.
God. And I was even smoking like, just, you know, menthols. The good tasty ones. Just what
was pretty.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: You know, there was nothing serious about it.
Mike Michalowicz: So, today we're going to talk about, uh, creating, uh, turning your book
into a keynote. And, um, I, I don't know necessarily if it goes in that order.
Your keynote can become a book also, I think.
AJ Harper: Yeah, I think keynote writing, a keynote is a great testing ground for your book.
Mike Michalowicz: It's the ultimate testing ground, in my opinion. Because you see the
audience's reaction when you deliver a keynote. There's a group in Somerset, there's a
Somerset Chamber of Commerce in New Jersey. It's about 35 minutes south of here. The
president of the group, whatever, uh, as of 15 years ago, invited me down. They said. Here's
the rules. If you have a new concept you want to test out, we will be your testing group,
present it to us first. And in exchange, my ask was, I want criticism. Like, what works, what
doesn't work?
And I'll, I'll give you my newest, brand newest stuff before it goes into writing. So you get
cutting edge research, I get critical feedback. I've presented. almost on every book. I, it
stopped cause she's no longer president. She retired around, get different. I think that's the last
one I presented. Um, but All In, I didn't present to them.
Um, and the new book we're working on, I'm not going to present to them unless they invite
me back down, but I am presenting it. As you know, I took a one and another group is
presenting it was so interesting about a keynote. So this I remember, um, Oh, let me Fix This
Next presenting. It wasn't actually them.
The first presentation I did with a group called the wizards is hosted by Robin Robbins. And I
said, I like to get in front of the group and present these concepts. Now it wasn't like a
polished keynote or anything, not yet by presented on Robin Robbins. the core concepts. And
one of the ideas was I got these hundred questions or whatever.
AJ Harper: No, we worked these questions out.
Mike Michalowicz: It wasn't a hundred questions.
AJ Harper: We were on retreat and it took us two days to master these questions. And then
they practically threw tomatoes at you.
Mike Michalowicz: They threw tomatoes at me. And it was the best thing we could have
ever done because without Keynotes allow you to test your concept out there in the wild and
get this feedback.
And sometimes it's people commenting, but their feedback was they just walked out of the
room. This is a waste of time. I'm like, here's the questions you got to ask. We can pinpoint
what your business needs from you right now. Here's what we're going to do. Start filling this
form out and people are like,
AJ Harper: Let's go eat. They were actually pretty hostile to you.
Mike Michalowicz: They were hostile to me.
AJ Harper: What it, it revealed a lot.
Mike Michalowicz: Exactly. On the flip side, I've had, uh, with keynotes, I found what lands
with an audience and we've translated it into the book. So, probably first, um, I'm just trying
to think of what lands that was new.
Um, I was going to say the piggy bank story, but I think we did that in the book first and then
I was just delivering it, but it was, there was no question that the keynote, that was such an
effective part of the book that that became the most important part of the keynote.
AJ Harper: Yeah. I mean, I would just like to add, you know, I, um, I maybe listeners don't
know that I also work on keynotes, and I'm a partner and head writing coach at Heroic, which
is founded by Michael and Amy Port, and I think, and this is based on 20 years of experience,
the best speaker training company in the world, frankly.
Mike Michalowicz: I concur
AJ Harper: And I teach speech writing mastery for Heroic. So What I think it's not just what
lands with the audience. It's also the work you do to Write the keynote which clarifies and
codifies your intellectual property that you then put into the book So I think Writing a
keynote first can be really helpful in getting the clarity you need for the book, but it also
works the other way.
So you've done all that work on the book, then the keynote can kind of come together based
on that clarity and codification that you've already done.
Mike Michalowicz: A keynote, in my opinion, needs to move an audience. I call it the from
two, where are they, where are they coming from right now? Where are you moving them to?
And you have generally 45 minutes an hour to do it. That's a traditional keynote length. So
it's a short period of time. And at the end of the keynote in the space that we are is they, the
audience, do you want to walk away around away with the profound idea? Um, it may be an
actionable item, an emotional state too.
And you gotta get that all nailed down for me. Keynoting. Um, on first, for example, it's
really around the 50th presentation that finals like, okay, I got this stuff working, um, in the
keynote itself. It's a, so the, the ultimate question is the chicken or the egg here is the keynote.
Does it come first and the book gets developed from it, or does the book come first and
you've got the keynote from it?
And my experience is the two run in parallel. The. Profit First presentation, what I was doing
when we were writing the first version of Profit First, but the second version, the revised and
expanded version of Profit First was modified and enhanced in part because the keynotes I've
been delivering and what I discovered there, but the keynote was also being modified and
changed based upon what we were writing.
AJ Harper: Yeah, you can do them in tandem. I think it's hard sometimes for people who are
not, um, on, you know, a speaker on the circuit or a career author to pull something like that
off. I will just want to manage expectations.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, that's true.
AJ Harper: I think sometimes you have to do those things one at a time. Because it's new for
a lot of people.
Mike Michalowicz: I think it'd be a mistake not seeking out to speak on it because speaking
is different than a book It is a really short time frame. I think I’ve shared this before Who I
study the most are comedians because comedians don't use powerpoints. They have to engage
an audience for an hour straight Uh, they hang on every single word.
It's just got a flow. There's got to be an arc and so forth um So even if you're not On the
circuit? I wasn't on the circuit. I sought out speaking opportunities and there are countless
ones. Your local chamber of commerce or Rotary, you can do Toastmasters. You can go to
your local colleges, colleges, Juco's, you know, junior colleges.
They have clubs and you can go and present. They need these topics. You can go to your
local college or high school. I've presented the Boonton high school down here. I presented to
third grade. That was the hardest presentation of my life.
AJ Harper: Third grade?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Why were you presenting to third grade?
Mike Michalowicz: Money bunnies.
AJ Harper: Aww.
Mike Michalowicz: So I went there to teach money bunnies.
AJ Harper: Mike's children's book, Money Bunnies.
Mike Michalowicz: My money bunnies.
AJ Harper: My money bunnies.
Mike Michalowicz: They were the hardest and best audience I've ever had.
AJ Harper: They're tough, man.
Mike Michalowicz: They're tough. Um, one kid's picking his nose and I'm like, he's, he's
gonna flick a boogie at me here. Another one, uh, is, is just twirling her hair. Another kid
couldn't stop telling their stories
AJ Harper: While you were talking.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. I'm like, does anyone have a bunny? He's like, I got seven
bunnies. I was like, okay. Oh my, that's amazing. Thank you. I got to tell you more about my
bunnies. And like, this is a really tough audience. But then I also learned what engaged them
was, was talking about making something in the creation of something.
So whatever it. Whatever. It, it, it. It. It's a great learning experience. And the best part of a
keynote is observing people's response behavior. You just feel the energy you can feel in the
audience, what's working and what's not working. And then you start converting it. But let's,
let's ask the ultimate question.
I think for many of our listeners, the book's going to come first and then the keynote is going
to come after. Do you have some techniques when you're working with the folks at heroic
public speaking to extract, maybe they haven't, don't have a book, but you extract from there.
Knowledge set to assemble a keynote.
Is there a structure you go through?
AJ Harper: Well, yeah. Heroic has a, um, a structure they call the foundational five. And,
um, it's, they're, some of the elements in there are similar to what I talk about in book
fundamentals in terms of audience, core message, and promise, and they have other
components in their foundational five as well, and they're the building blocks for building a
keynote.
But I think the thing you need to understand is, you know, authors will say to me in, in, when
I'm teaching at Heroic, how do I turn my book into a keynote? And I know right away this is,
this is a red flag question, because they're thinking of the whole book. And it's not the whole
book. Like, how on earth am I going to fit?
It's like, how am I going to fit all this stuff into this 45 minutes? That's not what you're doing.
Yeah. Because a keynote, and I learned this from Michael Port, a keynote is the visionary
piece, it's the shift in perspective. It's your thinking of everything you put in that book, and all
the how to, and all the, all the different teaching points.
No, it's that main core message. That's that main perspective shift. So for Profit First, it's the
flip on the equation that we take our Profit First instead of last. And that's the main takeaway,
right? So then the whole keynote is built around making a case for that takeaway so that by
the end of the speech.
They've adopted, which is Michael Port's term, they've adopted that core message. And that's
not the whole book. If you wanted, you could still do other pieces of the book, but that would
be a different speech, or maybe an additional breakout session, something like that. So right
away, if you're thinking, how do I fit my book into a speech, that's the wrong question.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, that's really interesting.
AJ Harper: Yeah,
Mike Michalowicz: I, uh, invite people. If you want to see the Profit First speech, you can go
on YouTube and type in Profit First keynote or Profit First mic and just pull up the videos
and you'll see it. I'll share a little bullet points of how I do the Profit First speech. I'm curious.
This is the keynote that lands.
AJ Harper: Yeah, we should tell people I don't help you with this.
Mike Michalowicz: You do not help me with this.
AJ Harper: Isn't that interesting?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, that is interesting
AJ Harper: Because I help hundreds of people every year, work on their, this stuff. And I
also, the only ghosting I still do is I will do maybe one or two keynotes a year for some
heroic VIPs.
Mike Michalowicz: Interesting. Who?
AJ Harper: I cannot name.
Mike Michalowicz: Interesting.
AJ Harper: Yeah. You know why I do it? Because I had to work with Michael Port in the,
um, at their, at their headquarters. And it is the closest I can get to being back in a playwriting
workshop.
Mike Michalowicz: It looks like one.
AJ Harper: I'm a masterful director. And then now we know each other so well, then we just
have this connection. And so I get to rewrite on the spot in rehearsal and it's, you know, I'm
writing a script.
Mike Michalowicz: I'm not, I can see my mind.
AJ Harper: So that's the only reason I do it. The only reason I do it is because it's just such a
gas.
Mike Michalowicz: I've not been to their new facility.
AJ Harper: Oh my gosh, forget it.
Mike Michalowicz: But I've been to the old one, which was amazing.
AJ Harper: You know me and I don't want to ghost, but I will always say yes to him on this
stuff because—
Mike Michalowicz: maybe you guys should write a play together.
AJ Harper: Who, Michael and I?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, because he's a thespian. And so is, so is Amy.
AJ Harper: Yes, that's the fun. That's why Heroic is the best place to go because they have
sound theatrical, they're building everything on their theater experience, and they’re masters
at it. And so it's not clouded by all this self from the stage and yeah. Yeah, that's they're in a
totally different league So anyway, I but it's odd that I do that but I have never once and I've
never even seen you do a keynote hour
Mike Michalowicz: Really?
AJ Harper: We talked about this last time. I've never seen, I've only ever seen you do like a
warmup thing at profit con.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean,
AJ Harper: I've, I know the videos are out there, but I confess I haven't watched them.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, that's so funny.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: That's right. We did talk about it. We've never celebrated a book like we
said we would.
AJ Harper: And now it's like can't.
Mike Michalowicz: We don't celebrate none.
AJ Harper: We were going to have a steak dinner. We've been trying to do it for 14 years
and now I feel like we'll jinx everything if we go.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. I know. It's all over if we do.
AJ Harper: We're not allowed it.
Mike Michalowicz: No eating.
AJ Harper: What was gonna be with our wives I know and so we can't ever have them in the
same space
Mike Michalowicz: No, it's true. We've had some good meals together to be honest
AJ Harper: We've had great meals, but we can't do the like let's celebrate now this book.
We're not it's never happening.
Mike Michalowicz: Never.
AJ Harper: No,
Mike Michalowicz: Let me let me go through the presentation. We can kind of deconstruct.
Yeah, I want to hear this so proper first What I found lands is all open with a profound
controversial statement.
So I'll come on stage and say, Hey, I have an obligation or a job here. This is not the words I
use, but within 24 hours today, your business will be permanently profitable. And I say,
before you get into it with me here, um, I know that sounds absurd, but that's my goal. And
https: otter. ai I'll write the formula on the board.
I'll say there's a foundational formula for profit sales minus expense equals profit. I'll put it up
there and I'll say, I got a question for you guys. Is there whatever in this audience been lied to
by someone that cares for you or loves you? Like really cares for you. Um, but they tell you
something that's total bullshit.
I'm like, just by a show of hands, right? So all the hands go up and I said, honestly, have you
ever lied to someone that you love and care for? Cause you think it's in their best interest.
And they say, yeah, I say, well, that's what this formula is. People think it's in our best
interest.
It's a lie.
AJ Harper: Nice. I like that.
Mike Michalowicz: That's the open. Right. Okay. And people are like, this is a lie. Right. So
I want to stage it. And then I go into more storytelling. I, I, I, I, I go to these little vignettes,
because you have to connect with someone, to simply say this is a lie, and here's the formula
that works, it's too much of a bridge. So then I'll say, I think I've discovered ground zero of
lying to someone that you love.
And it's the tooth fairy. So I go to this story of like your mother tells you, don't trust
strangers, but there's one stranger who'll get into bed with you, and that's the one to trust.
Right, so it's a funny moment, it's a joke. And then I go, there's certain people that just the
way they think will guide us to what we need.
They tell us something that's not true. And I said, let me tell you why this formula is not true.
And then I go into my own experience. I use what I call the Phoenix effect is the hero's
journey where then I show my collapse. I thought this formula was right, but it was wrong.
AJ Harper: Right.
Mike Michalowicz: And I thought it was even, so I doubled down on it being right. And it
got even worse and I lost everything.
AJ Harper: Piggy bank moment.
Mike Michalowicz: I hit rock bottom.
AJ Harper: Got it.
Mike Michalowicz: And then I say, here's the new formula.
AJ Harper: Yes. Nice.
Mike Michalowicz: That's the first 10 minutes of the presentation.
AJ Harper: Good. Yeah. That's good. It's a good setup. By the way, can I interject?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Do you also talk about how we're not supposed to talk to strangers, but we have
to sit on Santa's lap and Santa's not real?
Mike Michalowicz: No, I don't do that one. That's a good one too.
AJ Harper: Yeah. There's also That's a good one. There's also Easter bunny who sneaks into
your house
Mike Michalowicz: Puts eggs everywhere.
AJ Harper: And leaves you candy.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: So I'm just saying you could probably even make that go, because the three big
lies were told.
Mike Michalowicz: I like that, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Santa. I should do that, yeah.
AJ Harper: Okay, just saying, because we have to sit on the lap. That's gross.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, of Herve the Perve.
AJ Harper: That's right. And then tell them some secret. And then tell a stranger a secret!
That you aren't telling your parents?
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, yeah. Tell me something you don't.
AJ Harper: That's so good,
Mike Michalowicz: AJ.
AJ Harper: What's wrong with this situation?
Mike Michalowicz: That's so good.
AJ Harper: Okay. See? So maybe
Mike Michalowicz: we're working on the speech here. Maybe I do the, because it gets
people when I say, here's how I end the tooth fairy joke. I'll say, Your mother says strangers
are danger, but there's a woman who'll crawl into bed with you, take a body part from you,
and then leave you hush money not to talk about it.
AJ Harper: That's great.
Mike Michalowicz: And then I can say, but that's not the worst of it. That's not the worst.
There's this creepy dude, Herb the Perv, you gotta sit on his lap and whisper speakers to him,
but you don't even tell your parents.
AJ Harper: Yes, that you are not allowed to tell your parents. Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: And he tells you, yeah,
AJ Harper: and he tells you if you've been naughty, that's even better. Okay. Just saying. I
hope, I hope you use it.
Mike Michalowicz: I'm going to use it. That's a good first 10. I like that. That's, um, that's a
very solid first 10 and a tip with the keynote is I'm going to use that now. I'll use it next week.
I'm doing a keynote on Profit First. Usually five to 10 percent of my speech. I'll try things out
that are new.
A, it keeps it fresh for me. I've presented private first hundreds of times now, maybe a
thousand times through keynotes virtual over the last 10 years. At a certain point. It's so rote
like I almost remove myself from it. I'm just watching myself present it So I try out new
things because it's just entertaining.
So it's just fun for Santa Claus.
AJ Harper: And by the way, we're not making light of Anybody anybody's real situation? Of
course not. Yeah, of course not. It is kind of ridiculous though.
Mike Michalowicz: All those things then once I do that then I go into the foundational
principles, which are the four principles Small plates, uh, remove temptation and so forth.
AJ Harper: So the framework, the frame, know the psychology behind it,
Mike Michalowicz: the psychology, but then the framework. So I'll say it's the psychology
of small plates. I'll tell a story around, uh, I was like 300 years ago. This is true. George
Washington and the founding fathers, Adolf Hitler. Plates that are the size of, and I make a
hand gesture like I'm making now, that looks like a coffee saucer size.
I was like, that was a dining plate. And it really was. And over the last 300 years, plates have
doubled in size. So I explain is humanity hasn't changed. The containers changed. And as
plates have doubled in size, portions double in size, consumption double size and societally
our waistlines doubled in size.
So I say the solution. It's get smaller containers and people are like, oh my god, that's crazy.
That can't work. And then I proved to him it works with toothpaste when you have less
toothpaste available, you consume less toothpaste. The one that I tested out
AJ Harper: using a lot of, um, now using analogies, um, interesting historical references.
Mike Michalowicz: Yep. Relatable analogies. I want the, it. Person to say, Oh, I already do
this. And then they can say, then it translates. If they can't see it in themselves, them
translating it to themselves is very difficult. The one that's landing, I started about two years
ago. I'll say, Hey, is anyone have teenage boys? And some hands go up and I pointed those
people like, I'm sorry.
So it's a full gag right there. And I say, the reason I'm sorry is because they're not teenage
boys. They're creatures. I said, the food consumption is ridiculous. So we go through a box of
Cheerios at our house every hour. And so then we're like, What I told him is, and I, you
know, I reenact a kid waking up at the ass crack of two in the afternoon, and so forth.
My sons will come up and I told him, and this is true how I reduced the bowls. We got
smaller bowls in our house and the servings, they would, while they would follow the same
behavior of overflowing the bowl with Cheerios, because the over months I got the bowls
smaller and smaller, they didn't notice the portions became smaller and I said, now a box of
Cheerios last three days, which is a miracle when you have teenage boys.
Container dictates consumption and some people start landing with this. I said, Oh yeah. And
I said, if we set containers of cash for your business, it'll control your consumption and they
lay out income profit. Explain this.
AJ Harper: So you're talking about what I call the progression of understanding. It's the flow
of information.
It's let me make sure you get this part. And then now that you get that, Let's make sure you
get this part. And now you get that. So you're very careful about the progression of
understanding.
Mike Michalowicz: Totally. And, and I like to lean into humor because I think when we can
laugh, it breaks a barrier.
AJ Harper: Yes.
Mike Michalowicz: It informs connection.
AJ Harper: Yes.
Mike Michalowicz: I also do, I always, we do in my books, we do on stage always humble
myself. Yes. And the reason I think that's so important is that yeah. You are literally on stage.
You're literally standing above people looking down. It is a pedestal of sorts and their shame
on stages. They, most stages should be designed like auditoriums, um, or amplifiers where
people look down at you.
Most stages in the modern or have been reversed. And I think that's a, that's a shame. So you
have to break that barrier of being seen as being on a pedestal as unapproachable. And so you
have to make yourself really approachable. So I'll explain how I screwed up financially, how
I blew all my money, how I saw one container, like, Oh my God, I can spend because I have
a thousand dollar deposit.
I have a thousand dollars and how it burned me and burned myself. I then talk about
removing temptation. That's the second.
AJ Harper: Yes. You go through the whole form. You go through the framework in an
overview, but you don't go into detailed how to, which I think is important for listeners to
understand that keynotes do not include very detailed how to,
Mike Michalowicz: it's not there's actionable items, uh, but it's not detailed how to, and then
go into the removed temptation.
And I go through the other ruining principles, one thing, and gosh, if you're going to get
value of the show as an actionable item, this is the one have a worksheet. For your audience
to fill in the blanks, people will take notes and if they take notes, they'll keep it. But most
people will listen. and not take notes.
And if they're shifted, they will forget about it. They'll remember how they felt, but they'll not
remember what to do. So here's a way to force or hand. Everyone does this on taking notes
and ensuring that they take those notes with them. Don't give them the notes. That's a throw
away. Give them a fill in the blank notes.
I have a one sheeter and on there, I'll say, Oh, the answer to number one is so and so. And in
my keynote covers it. And they just insert the words people walk because it's their own
handwriting of fill in the blanks. Walk out of the event with those notes.
AJ Harper: Cool.
Mike Michalowicz: I learned that, I think I shared before from Jack Daley.
You did?
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: So I do that for every show at the very end after I outline the entire
process. I then said, when I started off, I said I'd make you permanently profitable within
hours by tomorrow. I just showed you the entire Profit First system in one hour, and honestly,
I need two days to teach it or give you a book in order to, for you to understand this.
This is like running a marathon on day one, when you've never even run in your life. Here's
how you get started to say, and I lower the bar. I share a story. And this is another technique I
pull from Dan Heath and Chip Heath's book called Decisive, in this case, by reference other
experts throughout my presentation, other books.
And I'll say they've discovered and document in their research that most of us believe success
happens by raising the bar, but their research identified success happens the most when you
lower the bar. So I got to set a lower bar and then I share the two steps to get started. Call
your bank, whatever bank you work with today, go with them if you like them and set up one
account called profit.
I said, step two, allocate 1 percent of any deposit that comes in. A thousand dollars comes in,
put 10 in the profit account. That's it. Because if you can run your business off a thousand
dollars, you can run your business off of 990. But what's profound is for the first time ever in
your business, you may have a cash profit sitting, waiting for you within 24 hours of today.
AJ Harper: Nice.
Mike Michalowicz: That's basically how it events. I have a closing, uh, that's how it
concludes, but I have a closing like big.
AJ Harper: Punch, punch crescendo.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Crescendo is I'll tell you the crescendo moment. So everyone's
like, oh my god, this works Go do it. My closing line is I do have one final thing because I
reference research throughout I said i've been doing the research around small business and
there is a saying that small business is the backbone of the economy and i'm here to say i've
done the research and I As difficult as to say, this is small businesses, not the backbone of the
economy, small business is the economy emphasize on is.
And then I explained how the data points that every business exists today started off small.
And has grown to its size or stay that size. And I said, without you, without you being
profitable, we are in deep doo doo. You have to be profitable. This is more than just for you.
It's for your family, for your community, for our globe.
Go be profitable.
AJ Harper: Yeah. So you're calling on them to a higher purpose.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. It's like a call to greatness.
AJ Harper: Yes, it is.
Mike Michalowicz: But it's done in, you know, two minutes.
AJ Harper: That's right.
Mike Michalowicz: As opposed to a chapter.
AJ Harper: Yeah, you just bring it home.
Mike Michalowicz: Any other feedback?
AJ Harper: I like it. I think you did great. Thank you. Yeah. No, that's a solid keynote.
And that comes from years of doing it.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. And learning on the fly. And seeing what lands and what doesn't
land.
AJ Harper: Yeah, but I think you still need those strong building blocks. You have to know
your audience and what are their pain points. And the problem is they see it and the problem
is you see it. And if you don't have that understanding, it's really hard to land a keynote.
You can't, you can do all sorts of bits. You can do all sorts of funny things, like you can do
the Tooth Fairy and Santa, you can do the toothpaste thing, but it's not gonna work if you
haven't made a connection with them first.
Mike Michalowicz: For sure, it won't work.
AJ Harper: And that, I think, is challenging for folks sometimes to think about that, but if
you've already done the work on your book and you have written a book that's for the reader,
it's much easier for you to translate that knowledge of your reader to audiences.
Mike Michalowicz: For sure, for sure. The, this is a huge takeaway. I'm so fortunate now, I
would say when I present 20 to 30 percent of the audience has read Profit First and is familiar
with my work now. It was not that way even a couple years ago. Those people come up to me
and said, thank God you did this, this keynote.
I've read Profit First, I didn't realize it gets started so easily. So it's interesting, they work in
concert. Profit First in part is a recipe, but it's for cooking the entire meal, and I see a keynote,
it's just the dash of salt. And some people have come to me and said, I understand I get
started now, and I didn't really get it when I read the book, which is interesting.
AJ Harper: I think it's just people learn differently. They do. Yeah, they get turned on in
different ways.
Mike Michalowicz: They work in concert.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: Another takeaway I've discovered is. I was afraid that if the same
audience saw me do the proper first speech a second time, that they would be like exhausted,
tired of it.
AJ Harper: They love it more. No, because it's, it's like, um, it's like if you go to a concert,
you want to hear your favorite songs.
Mike Michalowicz: Play Hotel California, baby. That's it. That's why I came. Um, so keep
doing that same presentation over and over. And there is a couple folks. who will come to my
events. He said, I saw you print it on prop versus my seventh time.
I'm like, Oh, show me your tickets. So I got, um, I did have one person. So be prepared for
this. There's a really good line I have about. The mismanagement of money and how it can
change how it changed my personality. As someone yelled out the answer, uh, to the, so I do
a pause. I asked the audience because no one is supposed to know the answer.
I said in the webs or dictionary, what's the word for this? And now you want silence. That's
what you get 99. 9 percent of the time. I had one person yell out the answer. So be prepared
for that.
AJ Harper: So you could just say, and if you already know the answer, cause you saw my
last show. That's one technique.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
If you already know the answer, hold your, yeah. Hold the breath. No, but what I do is I
prepare for someone to answer it. And then I have a whole different way to take the speech.
That's what a magician does.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay. So if someone shouts it out, I'm like, are you serious? Why would
you say that? Like, and then I spin it.
Another little technique I learned in speaking and it works in books is engage individuals in
the audience. So I had one woman who, Laughed so hard. She spit. So I started referring to
spitter. So I'm going on stage my hey spitter Any other feedback on this one? And like the
audience was loving that too.
And what I found is in a book when you can speak to a person where they feel like they're the
individual being spoken to. There's this extraordinary connection. So use that in, in your
keynotes too. How long does it take to write a keynote? It takes me about two days of straight
working time. So 16 hours.
And I know this because I work with John Bates. I have two people that have guided me,
Michael Port and Amy Port. I've gone to their training. It is extraordinary. I have an
individual coach who actually flies out to my events, sits in the audience. Um, some,
sometimes he even texts me while I'm speaking, um, and gives me critical feedback.
His name is John Bates. He is world class. If you want an individual Coach, I think it's called
executive keynote speaker, but type in John Bates or you can email us at the DWTB podcast.
I can introduce you. You fly out. He's in Salt Lake city, flat Salt Lake city. You go to his
studio and you do the hardest keynote of your life, which is just a John staring at you and
disappointment.
And then he writes down stuff. And then just like AJ, you grab sticky notes and you start
sliding around. He's like, do it again. And again and again, we wrote the get different speech.
AJ Harper: In 16 hours, this is not typical.
Mike Michalowicz: Y'all know what I'm saying? That's how I do it.
AJ Harper: I know. I'm just want everybody to know.
Mike Michalowicz: It's not typical.
AJ Harper: No, because the average person, I don't want them to feel when they're 16 hours
are up and they don't have a keynote.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh,no.
AJ Harper: You know, it takes a minute.
Mike Michalowicz: It takes a minute.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: That's 16 hours of straight work.
AJ Harper: Plus you also are used to doing them now, so you, you, you can move.
Mike Michalowicz: I know the arc.
AJ Harper: You know the arc, you know what needs to happen, you understand the
foundational components, and so that you can shorthand a bunch of that stuff.
Mike Michalowicz: Then, yeah, so. That's this writing the first speech, then it's delivering to
a live audience and there's something different when you deliver to a live audience.
You see what lands, what doesn't land, you see where people get confused or not. Sometimes
hands go up. Usually it's just hands, look, faces go down when they don't connect. The great
indicator, thank God for phones, is watch your audience. If they're on the phone, they're,
they're out, they're done. And can you keep an audience of A dozen hundred thousand.
I don't know how many people are in your audience fully engaged. It's the people in the back
and the sides. The person that's sitting in the very front, they're obliged to listen to you. They
can't get on their phone, but the people to the sides, are they going? And if they're hopping on
their phones, that's the second of disconnection.
And you got to fix your speech around that spot. So I look for people. Going on their phones
and it's painful when it happens, but I also know mental note, fix the speech here. Another
little hack I have with that worksheet, my speech, I've memorized. I use mnemonic
techniques. I can do a whole section.
Maybe we can do a show about how to memorize speaking. So I use mnemonic, uh, cascades,
but so I don't use any notes. Uh, I don't use power points, Michael port. I think it was Michael
port. I want to attribute to him. Uh, He said, Mike, tell me some of the greatest speeches of all
time. I'm like, you know, Martin Luther King, uh, Kennedy.
He's like, tell me about the PowerPoints that Abe Lincoln used.
AJ Harper: Mike. Oh my gosh, jerk. He's right.
Mike Michalowicz: But he's totally right.
AJ Harper: And also, what if your tech fails?
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, and it fails all the time. And it will fail.
AJ Harper: all the time.
Mike Michalowicz: Asking speakers be flummoxed as a result.
AJ Harper: Yeah, that's because they're using the slides as prompts.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, it's a crutch. It's a crutch. And, um, the tech will fail. And also,
every time you show text up there, people have to take their head off of you and read. If it's a
picture, it puts their head up there. I'm not saying, I haven't seen people executing that
exquisitely. Like Joey Coleman. Joey Coleman. But It's another component.
So I'm like, never, I'll do pictures by painting on people's minds. I'll set, I'll explain
something in such detail that I feel like—
AJ Harper: I want to slow clap right now.
Mike Michalowicz: Thank you.
AJ Harper: Yeah, that is good. I am very happy to hear that. I can't believe, I'm still stuck on
the fact that I haven't seen one. Oh, well, I'm now being, you are now, listen to me.
You are describing your keynote to me on the podcast.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: You just walked me through it.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: This is all I've got.
Mike Michalowicz: We've been working together for 15 years.
AJ Harper: I don't know.
Mike Michalowicz: All right.
AJ Harper: Well, listen, I will watch one. But you need to tell me which one you want me to
watch first.
Mike Michalowicz: You should say, cause it's our class.
AJ Harper: I mean, like, is there a recent, is there a version that you love?
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, just go on YouTube.
AJ Harper: You're fine with whatever?
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. There's like six or seven up there.
AJ Harper: Okay.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, the, Oh, that's another pro tip. Every time you do a keynote, Put on
YouTube and every time you do the same keynote also put on YouTube prop first or things
are six or seven iterations up there When I speak to an audience, I ask are you gonna record?
This is a great I said do we have permission to have that and broadcast it and at first I was
like Why would people want to see the same speech? They're slightly different and the cons
people aren't like saying, you know When I go on YouTube, I don't say proper first speech by
Mike Enlist and I watch every single one.
I just pick the one that resonates with me. So there's different thumbnails I come up and some
land with an audience and other ones land with another audience Michael Port, So a lot of
Port shout outs.
AJ Harper: As there shouldn't there should be.
Mike Michalowicz: Heroic public speaking join that class said once on stage he goes, uh, I
Go do you ever sell from the stage?
And he goes, no foot to the audience. He goes, I have reverence for the stage. I was like, Oh,
that's, that's the word. He goes, I've been hired to deliver a performance. I've not been hired to
sell my goods. And I'm like, okay, this is a one person play that you're putting up there. It's
not a speech. Um, I just let, there's no lectern.
I actually asked him to take it off stage if there is one, I set up like a comedy show. There's
one stool with my water sitting on top of it. And I use, I do use whiteboards because you can
do some fun, some funny graphic stuff. The All In speech is so funny and engaging and
educational because of these flip charts.
I do the three figures.
AJ Harper: Three figures from Russia
Mike Michalowicz: I draw it.
AJ Harper: Oh wait, that's the one I want to see now. You do the inter, you do your own
version of the art in the Russian Museum.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, I just delivered that. Yeah, yeah. And I have like, like, uh, uh,
Alexander Vasilyev. I stand in front of it.
AJ Harper: With a sharpie.
Mike Michalowicz: With a sharpie. And, and show how he got bored and drew eyes on it.
AJ Harper: Alright, I'm going to watch that one.
Mike Michalowicz: And then I end with this macabre joke, which lands, I go,
AJ Harper: Oh, and I'm scared. I'm scared. Wait,
Mike Michalowicz: I'll tell you what the joke is. So basically what it points is that when
people are forced to comply, they will seek to defy.
That's the lesson. So when you tell people, this is everything you need to do, they're going to
get elbow room back at you. And that's why he draws this. He's bored. And he's just told,
don't even take bathroom breaks. I then say in Russian tradition, or I said, no,
AJ Harper: I'm genuinely scared.
Mike Michalowicz: I say, no, I say out of, um, pure coincidence, he fell out of a 13-storey
window to his death. And I say, I say, first of all, that's a joke. And I said, that was really, I
go, it was really dark, but I said, I'm a Russian heritage, so I'm allowed to say it. I said, he
didn't fall out a window. He was poisoned to death.
People lose their mind on that. He was poisoned to death. They lose their mind. Watch it on
the video. I deliver it much better than that. It's all about inflection. It's all about inflection.
AJ Harper: Oh my god. Okay.
Mike Michalowicz: You'll see. In dark situations, sometimes you need a comic relief that's
also, in this case, dark, but funny, because it's like, wow. This guy is forced to work 12-hour
shifts, or whatever it was.
Don't go to the bathroom. You were not allowed to leave your station. And then it gives the
juxtaposition to the Baltimore Museum of Art, where people are not told what to do. They're
asked what to do. And they say most, I do the ML versus GL. Most leaders tell you what to
do. Great leaders ask what you should be doing.
So that's, that's it. I appreciate your disappointment in my Russian.
AJ Harper: No, I mean, this is something we have in common actually is Russian heritage,
which we, I don't think we've ever discussed.
Mike Michalowicz: I didn't know that. Yeah, my family's originally from Poland, took over
by Russia, but L'viv area.
AJ Harper: My family likes to say we're not Russian. We were Germans living in Russia.
For how long? Like, how many? Oh, you know, a couple hundred years. I'm like, yes,
Russian. That's not German living in Russia. That's Russian.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh my God. So check that. That speech will be going on YouTube in
the next month or so. It was my best All In speech, which is probably my 40th presentation of
it.
I didn't hit that 50 threshold yet. It's still improving and improving.
AJ Harper: Okay. I, I think it's, you said something earlier that I think is important to point
out. You said there's something about being in front of an audience. Well that something is,
this is an art form that is not about the page, it's about the stage.
So therefore, a speech is only a smidge done once you have it written down.
Mike Michalowicz: That's right.
AJ Harper: The only way you know if it works is when you start a rehearsal process. There's
a very powerful process that Michael and Amy Port teach in the second part of Grad. So I
teach speech writing mastery and then there's stage performance mastery and they teach this
process.
But through the rehearsal process or getting on your feet. That's where you really refine it and
make it better. And then getting in front of an audience. But I think where people get tripped
up is they try to make it perfect on the page. And it's just, you just need a working document
that you can get on your feet with.
Mike Michalowicz: 100 percent agree.
AJ Harper: You are going to change it so much when you hear it, see it, get feedback. So I
think people get tripped up and they get stuck on that.
Mike Michalowicz: For sure.
AJ Harper: Yeah. And expect that perfection before they get on their feet. But it's the on the
feet part that makes it work.
Mike Michalowicz: You have to do it.
AJ Harper: It's not that kind of art form and people get stuck on that part.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. It comedians. That's why I studied them so closely. Don't deliver
that Netflix special as their first pass. That's like pass 100. They try out in the small rooms. I
see what lands what's doesn't obviously Russian jokes don't land with you, but the majority
audience that did and. It, it, it builds the story in the right arc.
AJ Harper: I, I, Let it land, I just, sometimes I'm just like, I, I'm scared what's gonna come
out of your mouth. It's not that I, I mean, I'm genuinely thinking, are we gonna have to cut
this? Just a little bit.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, yeah.
AJ Harper: But that's, what you're really talking about is the playwriting process. Which is
why I love, again, circling back, which is why I will work on a script with Michael Port.
Mike Michalowicz: Mm hmm.
AJ Harper: Because playwrights, we write, then we do cold readings, then we do more
readings, then we do workshop with a dramaturg, which is like an editor, and also a director.
And there's a whole process before it ever goes into production.
Mike Michalowicz: Interesting.
AJ Harper: And that involves, it's a collaboration with multiple people to get that ready to
go.
Mike Michalowicz: After I'm done with the speech, uh, and I walk off stage, I'll go through
the back and I will start taking notes of what Landon did and just making some notes. So then
when I'm back in the hotel room, I modify the script. So the All In script has been modified
over time. It's, it's dynamic. The Profit First speech, I'm going to add this concept of Santa
Claus now, which now I'm like my Russian joke.
You're, you have heard of the perv Santa Claus.
AJ Harper: You are the one calling him Herb the perv. You're the one who said you got
naughty secrets. I just said he was creepy. I didn't say Herb the perv.
Mike Michalowicz: Um, Oh, one more tip for your speech. So with the worksheets, you can.
Here's a cheat. Write your speech outline on the worksheet because you have a worksheet
you showed to the audience.
We're going to fill in the blanks and along the side on the column, I have all of my bullets of
what I'm speaking about when it's a new speech.
AJ Harper: It's like it's like writing it on your hand.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. It's like writing on your hand. Yeah. Why is he looking at his
hand all the time? Um, do you think keynotes? In absence of someone like yourself or is it
better to be a collaborative thing?
Or do you have a...
AJ Harper: I mean, I think give it a shot, man, you can do it. You're probably going to need
some help. At some point in this journey,
Mike Michalowicz: do you think authors should, uh, shirk is a responsibility to do a
keynote? Can you skip out and say, it's not,
AJ Harper: I mean, I don't have one.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: I've actually mapped out a whole keynote.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Tell me about it real quick.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: It's, um, about selling books.
Mike Michalowicz: Okay.
AJ Harper: I just, you know, I don't, I don't know. I just don't feel compelled to go. I know I
could sell more books and spread the word, but I don't feel compelled to go do that.
Mike Michalowicz: I don't think you have to do it.
AJ Harper: I mean, I teach, and I'll do, um, events, and if Michael and Amy say, because I
promised myself when I started working with Heroic, which I want to say is almost nine
years now, if you can believe it.
Unbelievable. It's been that long since that perennial bestseller retreat, because it was,
because you know how—
Mike Michalowicz: But that's where you guys connected.
AJ Harper: No, you know what happened?
Mike Michalowicz: No.
AJ Harper: So, well, yes, but I barely spoke, I mean, I talked to Michael, he was a
gentleman as always, but you guys had me in these laser sessions.
And it was like, I was working around the clock. Well, I was, you remember at the first house
in Maryland, there was a dining room and that's where I was sitting and you would rotate
authors to come talk to me and sitting next to me or like down at the end of the table was one
of the heroic people with her headphones on.
And she's like, do you mind if I work here? And I said, no. Well, she had been listening. She
wasn't really listening into headphones. She was listening to me.
Mike Michalowicz: Oh, she was just... Oh so smart.
AJ Harper: And then she told them, hey, you should really talk to her about
Mike Michalowicz: She was scouting you.
AJ Harper: I guess, I don't know. So then I went to a One of their live events, which they
they don't do or haven't done they have an event called core at their facility But they used to
do HPS live, which I think maybe you've been to?
Mike Michalowicz: Mm hmm,
AJ Harper: and they said come down and see it and I went down there and you know the
mood I was in then I hate everyone.
I'm retiring. Don't talk to me.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah,
AJ Harper: so that's the mood I had when I was going down.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah
AJ Harper: And, um, I was blown away because I realized that we have the same
philosophy. It's like, wait a minute. This is totally in alignment.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah.
AJ Harper: Anyway. Um. That's been about eight or nine years since I was let...Someone
was eavesdropping on my laser
Mike Michalowicz: I gotta do something with Michael again, you know, we're in touch
periodically But it's type thing like if I pick up the phones like I do let's grab some dinner or
just start bullshitting right away
AJ Harper: He’s just up the road.
Mike Michalowicz: No, I know but I haven't seen him in person for about two years now.
AJ Harper: Oh,
Mike Michalowicz: I just got it Maybe maybe during a break. We'll We'll do a quick
FaceTime with him. Um, we got to start wrapping things up. We
AJ Harper: do. We're getting too verbose.
Mike Michalowicz: A couple other things, other speeches you can give. So we talked about
the colleges.
I'm a big fan of that. TEDx, the hack to getting a TEDx speech is find out who the organizer
is. There's a special word they use. Do you know it?
AJ Harper: I know a lot about TEDx's.
Mike Michalowicz: The person that, is it called curator that runs the TEDx event? What's
that? The head person called?
AJ Harper: Well, they don't always have the same name, but the point is, um, but let's not
get into TED's. Let's just stick with keynotes. We can do a whole thing on TED's. We can do
a whole thing on TED's, but I do want to say there that keynotes are different, but you can
also do from your book is the point.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah,
AJ Harper: You could have a TED and that would be the core message focus. Much like the
keynote, a breakout session would be and this is something again that Michael taught me
Breakout session would be the how to version.
And the workshop would be if you were actually doing the work together , you can do all
those things from a book You can do so many things from a book and I also tell students in
speech writing mastery You could take a major teaching point. That's not core message and
build a whole speech around that.
Mike Michalowicz: Mm hmm
AJ Harper: It doesn't have to just be the main core message. It could, maybe you've got
some other big shift in perspective. Think about All In. One of our goals with All In was we
didn't just want the entire book to be, the core message to be disruptive. We wanted a
disruptive core message, Individual chapters as well.
You could technically do a different speech on every single chapter in All In.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah,
AJ Harper: If you would not want to do that because you have enough speeches. But let's
say All In was your main deal and it wasn't that you had this whole catalog of books and that
was gonna be ymain book, you could technically do that.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah with speeches I do retire speeches too. I, I, the max I can do is
four. ‘Cause it's like four different Broadway shows, Broadway. That's a little bit, that's a
little excessive. Four Broadway shows.
AJ Harper: Is that maybe, Oh, it's like your secret aspiration.
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, apparently. So, I'm available. I got the core four.
So, the number one popular speech is Prophecy. That's my equivalent of Hotel California. All
In. Clockwork Pumpkin Plan. That's the four I'm doing. Fix This Next. I get requested for
that. So what I'll do, I call it now best of I'll blend it, but I don't have a standalone keynote I
do for Fix This Next necessarily anymore.
Um, the other interesting thing too, is if your speech title may not want, you may not want it
to be your book title So Profit First is the Profit First speech Clockwork is not the Clockwork
speech. It's an uh, I think it's an efficient organization or a business that runs on its own
AJ Harper: It's a basically derived from the subtitle.
Mike Michalowicz: Subtitle, yeah. And so just make a note of that.
AJ Harper: I just want to point out something You didn't talk about the keynote for our our
book that failed. Did you even do one ?
Mike Michalowicz: for Surge?
AJ Harper: Yeah You
Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, I did search. I did a search keynote.
AJ Harper: How many times?
Mike Michalowicz: Four. No, I mean, no, probably 15 or 20, but they were rehearsal,
rehearsal.
And then, you know, it requested maybe zero times. Like someone going, Hey, give me the
search speech. So yeah, that burned out very quickly.
All right.
What was nice is we had the acronym S U R G E. I know you love it. Well, it's easy to
memorize for speech. Yeah. That's to mnemonic. All right. Next week, we're going to go for
it.
Are you cool? I'm going to go for it because listen, I was looking for the notes on this. I can't
find them. I couldn't find them. And the more time it goes by, I'm going to forget what
happened. Here's what's going to happen next week on next episode. I want to argue this may
be the most, and I mean this emphatically, may be the most important episode you ever hear
because it's the most important presentation I ever heard.
It is about your safety. So On a very, very real note, as you grow in popularity, um, some
people can get weird about it. Some people can feel threatened about it. Um, and sadly,
there's, there is this rise of hate in our society that, you know, it's I think we're very attuned
to, and there was an author who presented to a group.
I'll give the full context on our next week's episode, who shared what he's done to protect his
family and himself. And you as an author, have to know this as an individual. There's certain
things you can do to further the safety of yourself. That's what we're gonna talk about next
week. Do we have a title for that episode?
Don't like, don't Get Hurt.
AJ Harper: Um, I think it was, it's, it's not right there. Important strategies. Important
strategies. For author safety.
Mike Michalowicz: Author safety. That's what it's going to be about. Talk about. It's
AJ Harper: kind of a boring title, but.
Mike Michalowicz: But it's good. That's one of the tips. Be as boring as possible. No one
will, no one will bother you.
But
AJ Harper: that's true.
Mike Michalowicz: There is truth to that.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: You've Podcast two weeks in a row where we've done our episodes.
Don’t Write That Book. What'd I just say? Don't write that podcast.
AJ Harper: Yeah.
Mike Michalowicz: I'm going too fast. Don’t Write That Book podcast. com two hour
episodes in a row. You can tell I've been having way too much coffee.
We would love to get your feedback on this episode, uh, and your thoughts. So email us at
hello at DWTB podcast. com. Check out. What AJ's doing, she's has a meetup happening on
Madeline Island coming down the pike, but you can still sign up for that or is that all sold
out?
AJ Harper: Um, we're about halfway sold out for the editing retreats for next year.
Speaker 3: My God.
AJ Harper: But if you go to AJ Harper. com, you can find out, we have them one in June,
July, August, and October.
Mike Michalowicz: For sake of all that's goodness, do that. And I got a big announcement.
We have our first author in our imprint. Yes, we have an imprint. I'll share more about that on
next week's episode. But as a reminder.
Whatever you do, Don’t Write That Book. Write the greatest book you can.