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me about your vision. Absolutely. And just as some background, I have five companies.

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There is a through line through all of them. The first company and the how I make a living as I

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run a PR and marketing firm. The night job for many years was a an event called Mass Innovation Nights,

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which helps startups get visibility through social media. And then you know, you've got the day job,

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the night job and the dream job is Innovation Women, which is an online speaker platform that

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is designed to help women get more visibility through public speaking. So the vision is a world

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in which we have an equal opportunity for visibility through public speaking, because

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two thirds of all conference speakers are men, and it leaves women out of a lot of

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career and business opportunities. Where did this vision come from?

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My vision came from years of experience. So my background is pretty heavily tech.

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I've worked with a number of enterprise software firms, I, I headed up global PR at Cognos and PTC.

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And during that time frame, I spent a lot of time in rooms where I was either the only woman or

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among a very small number of women. And when I went to conferences and events in particular,

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I saw speaking slates and panels full of what I call the male pale and stale. So the same four

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old white guys over and over again. And to be fair, I have nothing against old white guys,

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I happen to be married to one. But at the same time, I realized that it was leaving women out

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of so many opportunities. So, you know, I understand the power of public speaking, I understand

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the power of visibility. And for me, this was a thing that I could do to help people get more

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visible is help educate them about the power of public speaking. Thanks for sharing that.

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So women, I'm assuming who wants to be in this position, so help them get there with

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through your programs, coaching, teaching, etc. Correct? Yeah. And that's actually kind of an

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interesting side journey or side quest is thinking about how a lot of people look at public speaking

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as a fear. I think there is data out there or maybe it's a myth, which says that public speaking

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is one of the biggest fears that people have. I've even heard people say that there are more

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people scared of public speaking than death. In other words, they would rather die than be on

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the stage. And I think all of the conversations around fear and public speaking, basically puts

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the two together so much that we're not addressing the fear, we're helping fuel the fear and create

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the fear in people who might not have thought to be scared or fearful about public speaking. So,

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you know, I think we need to kind of move past the fear and look at the benefits and the power

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of public speaking. You surely do. I myself know a few people, male and female, who are probably

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afraid or terrified of public speaking. Some people are like, if you put them on the stage,

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they would freak out. And I bet they could benefit from a lot of not feeling the fear, but feeling

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fear, but feeling the journey per se, which you mentioned. Yeah. And I think a lot of people

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think of themselves as introverts. And the opposite of an introvert is obviously an extrovert.

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And when people are extroverted, they are told their whole lives that, oh, you must be great

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at public speaking. You're such an extrovert. And in reality, introverts can be amazing speakers.

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I happen to be an introvert. And an introverted person often has skills that make them really well

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suited to public speaking. Often they're good communicators. They might be fantastic researchers

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and writers. And they are also, let's just say a little bit more likely to prepare for public

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speaking. Whereas an extrovert who has been told their whole life that, oh, you must be great at

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public speaking, they are so much more likely to wing it. And let's face it, winging it and public

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speaking, not good bedmates. So, Bobby, what would you, do you have something to say?

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I was just going to say, I spend a lot of time thinking about public speaking.

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I can tell. I can tell. So what would you say is your why or what you do?

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My why is probably the thousands of women that we work with on the Innovation Women platform.

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We actually do something we call Speaker Friend Fridays. And we have a Zoom call every Friday

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morning, quarter of nine Eastern. And anybody can come. And when people come, often I think they

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expect a hard sell. They expect people to be kind of jumping on them and like, oh, you have to be

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paying us lots of money to unveil the secrets of public speaking. And I think they have been

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conditioned a little bit to expect that because there is a lot of predatory stuff out there about

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public speaking. People are like, pay us lots of money and you're going to learn the secrets of

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public speaking. Make a seven figure income from public speaking. And the reality is like, nobody

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is just going to jump up on stage and people are going to pay you lots of money to be a speaker.

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You have to build a career. You have to build a business around public speaking. This stuff takes

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time. And whenever I get pitched on the people who are selling this stuff around public speaking,

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I always think to myself, if the people you're selling to had a couple of friends who are

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also interested in public speaking and who are on the public speaking journey, you could travel

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together and you can learn together and you can help support each other. So that's one of the

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reasons we call that session speaker friends is we know that the most successful speakers are often

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ones who have speaker friends and they can help each other. So we're really trying to help people

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get comfortable with the idea about public speaking, say yes if they're invited, and also

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learn and grow as speakers and business people. A lot of people use public speaking to support a

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business or to help build a business. And I don't think they think about it this way, but they're

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actually building another business on top of that business. So all of a sudden, if you're doing

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public speaking to support your day job, you are building two businesses at the same time.

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And that's a lot. So you need to give yourself a break.

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Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.

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This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite

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people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and attention.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.