I mentioned last week that I’ve been in a program to learn how to build a keynote speaking part of my business. I finish the program in November, but I got an invitation to keynote next week, at the Keller Williams Young Professionals Advance event!

I’ve had two coaches weigh in on my talk-in-progress, and my third and final coaching call in preparation for this talk is tomorrow. So far, I’ve had some useful take-aways:

I’ve been public speaking at workshops for so long that my natural style is to speak at the strategic and tactical levels. It’s taking a lot of focus to stay broad and big-picture.
Stories bring a significant amount of value to keynotes. I’ve pressured myself to populate my talk with specific (and true, obviously) stories that are profound and meaningful, but you can also tell compelling stories about culture and society and ideas themselves.
I’ve never had to be so purposeful about humor. I think I’m pretty good at finding humor in the moment, rather spontaneously. But maybe only 5% of a keynote is spontaneous. You have to know you are hitting all your points in a specific time frame, so there isn’t a lot of riffing to be done. This is also strange and new and terrifying!

What is life, if not embracing the strange and new and terrifying?

I’m including a picture from the Pop Cats Austin show last weekend. I was so lucky my friend Lisa Teichner invited me! We had a great time.

Antoinette poses on the floor at the Pop Cats Austin show with a basket of fake catnip.