The Audience Jaimey Walking Bear

My guest for Episode 207 is Adrion Porter, who stopped by for a special Generation X-themed episode of The Audience. 
Adrion is seasoned speaker, mid-career mentor, workplace consultant, employer brand strategist, podcaster, and the host of GEN X AMPLIFIED — the premier podcast dedicated to elevating the voices of the powerful generation between the Boomers and Millennials.
Adrion thrives on helping create a world where all of us, no matter what age, are inspired and empowered to turn up the volume on our best selves. That’s why he has made it his life’s work to help individuals at mid-career and 40+, thrive at work and in life.
This pair of grey-bearded Gen Xers had a good time chatting about all kinds of things about our ‘Forgotten Generation’ — including mindset hacks and tips for Gen Xers in the middle of a life or career transition, and advice for fellow Gen Xers who are eyeballing the leap into speaking as your calling.

Hope you enjoy!

(P.S. If you listen closely, you can hear our 3 yo, grey-chinned German Shepherd, Hugo, in the background. High fives and hugs to our boy for the guest appearance. :-) )

My guest for Episode 206 is Melanie Deziel, making a repeat visit to The Audience to drop all kinds of advice and tips about getting paid to speak
Melanie is the founder of StoryFuel, which teaches marketers, publishers, creators and companies of all sizes how to tell better brand stories. She is also the author of The Content Fuel Framework: How to Generate Unlimited Story Ideas — which released February 24, 2020.
She is a keynote speaker, award-winning branded content creator, and lifelong storyteller, on a mission to share the power of compelling and credible content with others. 

In the episode, we talked about the most common questions that I get from so many speakers when it comes to getting paid to speak, including: 
How to know when you’re ready to ask for a speaking feeStrategies for sleuthing whether an event is paying speakersTips for setting your speaking fee and how to know when your fee is priced “just right”Valuable types of non-monetary “payments” when you’re just starting outTons of discussion about Melanie’s new book and how authors can leverage their book(s) when negotiating speaking fees

My guest for Episode 206 is Neen James. Neen is an international keynote speaker and author of the books Folding Time and Attention Pays™. 
Neen has been named one of the Top 30 Leadership Speakers by Global Guru several years in a row because of her work with companies including Viacom, Comcast, and Abbot Pharmaceuticals among others. Neen’s quick-witted boundless energy offers powerful strategies to pay attention to what matters so you can get more done and create more significant moments at work, and home. Neen engages, educates, entertains, and delivers real-world solutions that apply in your organization, home, and community. 
Some of the awesome topics Neen and I discussed from Attention Pays and her genius zone included:
Our attention deficit problem as a societyThe Myth of Multi-TaskingHow to protect yourself against information overloadTime blocking and task automation tips to save timeWork-Life Integration vs. BalanceHow she applies these core ideas as a speaker

My guest for this episode is Josh Windmiller, musician and event producer. Josh is an amazing and electric performing artist who has worked in many parts of the music industry, both onstage and off. His band, The Crux, is known for their theatrical shows. 
Josh (among many other things) is the Founder and Director of the Railroad Square Music Festival in Santa Rosa, CA, and has also been the Music Director for Petaluma, CA’s Rivertown Revival festival for more than a decade. He starting a new theater (The Lost Church), also in his hometown of Santa Rosa, California.
I’ve known Josh for over 10 years, since the first time seeing The Crux perform, and am always captivated by his performances. In prepping for the episode, I learned a bunch about his background in theatre and education AND discovered that he’s such a student of the performer-audience dynamic. We had a chance to discuss that, how he triggers and experiences Flow, how he removes the traditional “4th Wall” between him and an audience, and a bunch more. And we did our level best to relate his practices and performance experiences back around to be accessible and relevant to public speakers.
I had such a good time doing this episode and hope you enjoy all of it. :-)

My guest for Episode 204 of The Audience is Denise R. Jacobs, an expert on creativity and how to banish your Inner Critic. Denise is a Speaker + Author + Creativity Evangelist who speaks at conferences and consults with companies worldwide. As the Founder + CEO of The Creative Dose, she promotes techniques to unlock creativity and help people become engaged contributors, synergistic collaborators, and authentic leaders. 
She is the author of the best selling Banish Your Inner Critic, the premier handbook on silencing fears to unleash creativity. She’s a web + tech industry veteran and expert on design and web standards. She is also the Head Instigator of The Creativity (R)Evolution, and the founder of Rawk The Web.
I had a great time discussing Denise's best practices for silencing the inner critic — and especially relating that back to aspiring and seasoned public speakers alike. Denise’s systems outlined in Banish Your Inner Critic are accessible, easy to follow, and effective. As a Flow geek, I loved that Denise name-checks Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (who originally recognized and coined the term Flow as a psychological state of peak productivity) in her book, and loved the bonus opportunity to talk Flow states with her in the episode. Enjoy!

My guest for Episode 202 is Gini Dietrich. Gini is the founder, CEO, and author of Spin Sucks — an outstanding professional development hub and blog for marketers, PR professionals, and a variety of other communicators, She is the host of the Spin Sucks podcast, and author of a bestselling book by the same name. She also has built, run, and grown her own successful agency — Arment-Dietrich — for the past 14 years. Gini is co-author of Marketing in the Round, co-host of Inside PR, and co-host of The Agency Leadership podcast. 

Gini has a wide variety of expertise that we could have focused on, but I looped her in to talk about building trust with an audience — a core foundational ingredient that every speaker should be striving for with every speaking engagement. The idea for this particular topic came from an article that Gini had previously posted to Spin Sucks — THE DECAY OF TRUST IN TODAY’S SOCIETY. 

We talked about Gini's 'mantra of trust' she uses to evaluate whether she can trust a piece of information, a news story. something on social media, etc — and how she applies that to her speaking practice. And we got to chat a teeny bit about the two-toed sloths that sometimes visit the property that my wife Ixchel and I live on in Nicaragua. Not related to building trust with an audience. Just because sloths are neat. :-)

Hope you enjoy it!