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Hey Reader,

Public speaking always comes up as people’s number 1 fear and I kind of get it — after all, it’s a chance for humiliation and rejection in the most public way. And our lizard brains tell us very clearly that if that happens WE WILL DEFINITELY DIE.

Because back in the day when we lived in little groups and hunted and gathered, we probably WOULD die if we got ousted. Eaten by a sabre-toothed tiger or the enemies from over the hill or something.

So I understand.

BUT.

It’s also an instructive way to learn how to catch and keep someone’s attention REAL FAST.

A stand-up comedy stage is unforgiving.

Okay, in a regular small comedy night or open mic, people probably won’t throw things at you… but the deathly silence that happens after your joke didn’t land is almost as bad.

The audience won’t tolerate boredom so you better have something good right away.

Same on a conference stage, by the way.

We don’t get to stand up there and waste the audience’s time by giving them a boring biography of who we are. They don’t care. We’re not interesting to them yet. We have to EARN that.

Here’s an example: at Atomicon (which is a very cool event) they used to have people run up to the mic to ask a “quick question” of the keynote speaker on the stage, but they had to stop doing it which is a shame.

Why did they stop doing this, and instead get text message questions in advance?

Because the people who came up to ask questions were incapable of being brief. They thought the whole room wanted to know who they are, what they do, what they had for breakfast that day, and it took ages and — although Andrew and Pete would never say this because they’re nicer than me — it was BORING AS SHIT for the audience.

No, Chad. You have not earned the right to give us your backstory before you ask your question. Nobody cares. Sit down.

I was at an event earlier this year in which the keynote speaker was… well, not up the standards I’d expect were it my event. They gave a very self-indulgent talk about their backstory and it was a sharp contrast to every other speaker on that stage.

I’ve done stand-up comedy where I took waaaaay too long to get to the point of my first joke, and the rest of the set did not go well because I hadn’t earned their attention.

This is no different from writing words on a page, either

Whether it’s a book, a LinkedIn post, a TikTok, or an article, we have to earn the right to tell our stories and we have to do it fast.

It’s always been that way, even before our attention spans were destroyed by the techbros. Nobody’s got time for something that doesn’t interest them.

Ooh I have a fun story — Sarah Silva, my client and author of several excellent books, gave a talk a few years ago. She started it with a video of herself unicycling (BECAUSE SHE CAN UNICYCLE HOW COOL IS THAT?).

[Aside: I really wanted her to unicycle onto the stage but apparently insurance or health and safety or something.]

Anyway, she got such a round of applause for that video and her accompanying commentary, the organiser poked his head in because usually a round of applause only follows the entire talk.

THAT’S how to earn the audience’s attention.

Anyway, my Friday takeaway for you is this.

Every time you write something — a chapter, a post, an article — run it through the stand-up comedy test. Does it earn your reader’s attention right away? Or have you overexplained yourself to such a point the reader is already asleep?

No shame if you have. It’s called “clearing your throat” and we all do it. The secret is to delete it before anyone else sees it.

This is just one tiny aspect of what I help my clients to do when we’re working on their books.

I have 3 Book Breakthrough: Unlocked sessions available for August.

And one 3-month coaching slot in the Book Breakthrough Lab for the rest of the Summer.

If you’ve been sitting on your book for months, it’s time to stand up and get on with it.

If you’re done with simply talking about writing your book and ready to actually do it, reply to this email.

And now, time for the Friday gathering of goodies! Here’s what I’ve got for you…

This retelling of Genesis in a modern parenting style

I can just imagine God being too busy and stressed to parent his creations effectively and this New Yorker article made me smile. This, by the way, is an excellent creative exercise. Pick a well-known myth or story or song or literally anything, and give it a new angle. See what happens.

My wonderful VA’s cool content Power Up

Caroline is on fire at the moment — aside from making sure my biz runs smoothly (despite my best efforts to cause chaos), she recently published her first book AND she’s launched a new service which is ridiculously good value: the Content Power-Up. It’s for VAs and copywriters and it’s 60 minutes with her to create a whole content strategy.

This HR consultant moonlighting as a happy house DJ

Think all HR people are boring and corporate AF? Not true, as I’ve just discovered. Emma turns the typical messages she gets into happy hardcore house tunes. Could you do something like this? It’s got my brain whirrrrrrring…

Think you want to “go viral”? Think again…

We’re always chasing the vanity metrics (yes we are, and I’m no different). A regular reminder that eyeballs aren’t all that is a good thing — and so is an object lesson about what can go wrong. This writer posted a bunch of pics of herself on holiday, including one of her in a bikini, and Instagram showed it to the usual suspects: creepy middle-aged men. Her follower count jumped and so did the vile DMs she started getting. She’s on a mission to reset her followers with people who actually matter: those who are interested in her art and won’t send her threatening creepy messages.

As an aside: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH MEN?

(yeah yeah hashtag not all men sit down)

How to peel a banana by Bob Mortimer

I love Task Master and I also love Bob Mortimer so I really enjoyed his season. And during it, he created this absolute masterpiece of stop motion animation. So simple, yet so very cool. I keep wanting to learn how to do stop motion animation. Maybe that’ll be my December creative project.

What I’m reading

I’ve just finished Rejection Proof by Jia Jiang and very much enjoyed it! It’s given me a few things to try and a few ideas I might carry into my stand-up routine.

And I’ve just started Turn Back Time by Eleanor Tucker. It’s about a 47-year-old beauty journalist who is sick of writing pro-ageing content and decides to do a new nanotechnology treatment that promises to turn back ageing by 20 years. So far so silly, it’s very lighthearted, and I’ll let you know what I think!

What I’m writing

In the final stretches of my new welcome sequence for new subscribers. I dedicated my July to getting this lead magnet and sequence written and finished and I’m really proud of my progress (despite my uterus trying to kill me this week and nixing my productivity). August is all about the tech and launching my new course.

Oh, and I’m still making progress on my cosy fantasy novel. Not much, but progress is progress.

Word of the week

kludge (n.)

An unmaintainable solution. A bodge or MacGuyver fix using whatever’s to hand. One of the most famous examples is probably that of Apollo 13 where they had to kludge together a CO2 scrubber when their oxygen tank exploded.

The word first appeared — probably — in 1962 in Jackson W. Granholm’s “How to Design a Kludge” article in the American computer magazine Datamation.

Quote of the week

Have a beautiful weekend.

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

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