me about your vision. Absolutely. And just as some background, I have five companies.
There is a through line through all of them. The first company and the how I make a living as I
run a PR and marketing firm. The night job for many years was a an event called Mass Innovation Nights,
which helps startups get visibility through social media. And then you know, you've got the day job,
the night job and the dream job is Innovation Women, which is an online speaker platform that
is designed to help women get more visibility through public speaking. So the vision is a world
in which we have an equal opportunity for visibility through public speaking, because
two thirds of all conference speakers are men, and it leaves women out of a lot of
career and business opportunities. Where did this vision come from?
My vision came from years of experience. So my background is pretty heavily tech.
I've worked with a number of enterprise software firms, I, I headed up global PR at Cognos and PTC.
And during that time frame, I spent a lot of time in rooms where I was either the only woman or
among a very small number of women. And when I went to conferences and events in particular,
I saw speaking slates and panels full of what I call the male pale and stale. So the same four
old white guys over and over again. And to be fair, I have nothing against old white guys,
I happen to be married to one. But at the same time, I realized that it was leaving women out
of so many opportunities. So, you know, I understand the power of public speaking, I understand
the power of visibility. And for me, this was a thing that I could do to help people get more
visible is help educate them about the power of public speaking. Thanks for sharing that.
So women, I'm assuming who wants to be in this position, so help them get there with
through your programs, coaching, teaching, etc. Correct? Yeah. And that's actually kind of an
interesting side journey or side quest is thinking about how a lot of people look at public speaking
as a fear. I think there is data out there or maybe it's a myth, which says that public speaking
is one of the biggest fears that people have. I've even heard people say that there are more
people scared of public speaking than death. In other words, they would rather die than be on
the stage. And I think all of the conversations around fear and public speaking, basically puts
the two together so much that we're not addressing the fear, we're helping fuel the fear and create
the fear in people who might not have thought to be scared or fearful about public speaking. So,
you know, I think we need to kind of move past the fear and look at the benefits and the power
of public speaking. You surely do. I myself know a few people, male and female, who are probably
afraid or terrified of public speaking. Some people are like, if you put them on the stage,
they would freak out. And I bet they could benefit from a lot of not feeling the fear, but feeling
fear, but feeling the journey per se, which you mentioned. Yeah. And I think a lot of people
think of themselves as introverts. And the opposite of an introvert is obviously an extrovert.
And when people are extroverted, they are told their whole lives that, oh, you must be great
at public speaking. You're such an extrovert. And in reality, introverts can be amazing speakers.
I happen to be an introvert. And an introverted person often has skills that make them really well
suited to public speaking. Often they're good communicators. They might be fantastic researchers
and writers. And they are also, let's just say a little bit more likely to prepare for public
speaking. Whereas an extrovert who has been told their whole life that, oh, you must be great at
public speaking, they are so much more likely to wing it. And let's face it, winging it and public
speaking, not good bedmates. So, Bobby, what would you, do you have something to say?
I was just going to say, I spend a lot of time thinking about public speaking.
I can tell. I can tell. So what would you say is your why or what you do?
My why is probably the thousands of women that we work with on the Innovation Women platform.
We actually do something we call Speaker Friend Fridays. And we have a Zoom call every Friday
morning, quarter of nine Eastern. And anybody can come. And when people come, often I think they
expect a hard sell. They expect people to be kind of jumping on them and like, oh, you have to be
paying us lots of money to unveil the secrets of public speaking. And I think they have been
conditioned a little bit to expect that because there is a lot of predatory stuff out there about
public speaking. People are like, pay us lots of money and you're going to learn the secrets of
public speaking. Make a seven figure income from public speaking. And the reality is like, nobody
is just going to jump up on stage and people are going to pay you lots of money to be a speaker.
You have to build a career. You have to build a business around public speaking. This stuff takes
time. And whenever I get pitched on the people who are selling this stuff around public speaking,
I always think to myself, if the people you're selling to had a couple of friends who are
also interested in public speaking and who are on the public speaking journey, you could travel
together and you can learn together and you can help support each other. So that's one of the
reasons we call that session speaker friends is we know that the most successful speakers are often
ones who have speaker friends and they can help each other. So we're really trying to help people
get comfortable with the idea about public speaking, say yes if they're invited, and also
learn and grow as speakers and business people. A lot of people use public speaking to support a
business or to help build a business. And I don't think they think about it this way, but they're
actually building another business on top of that business. So all of a sudden, if you're doing
public speaking to support your day job, you are building two businesses at the same time.
And that's a lot. So you need to give yourself a break.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite
people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.