EP211: Michael J. Gelb - What You Need To Know About Public Speaking

Michael Gelb: If you think of yourself as a professional communicator, you're going to have more of those value moments and better relationships. If you remember that you're in the relationship business first and the bookkeeping business second, you're going to have more of those value moments. You're listening to The Successful Bookkeeper with your host, Michael Palmer. Listen each week as inspiring guests share their secrets of success to help you increase your confidence, work smarter, and build a business you love. This episode of The Successful Bookkeeper is brought to you by purebookkeeping.com, the proven system to grow your bookkeeping business. Welcome back. To the Successful Bookkeeper Podcast. I am your host, Michael Palmer, and today's show is going to be a fantastic one. Our guest is an author and speaker who helps businesses become more creative and successful. Michael Gelb, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much, great to be with you. It's great to have you, and I'm excited about this episode in terms of your experience and background in helping businesses become more creative and successful. I mean, this is the Successful Bookkeeper Podcast, so it sounds like a perfect fit. But before we get into all of that, Michael, please tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey leading up to what you do today. Wow. We could spend the whole time because it's been a long time I've been doing this. It's amazing how it happens like that. Well, I love a good story. So, well, the truth is when I started, I was utterly clueless about business. I was totally idealistic. I wanted to change the world by teaching people how to think more creatively and communicate more effectively. Those always seemed to me to be the most important things that anyone could learn. And at first, I really thought that maybe I could teach those things to the government. Oh dear.

I'm not kidding. I actually moved to Washington, DC. In 1982 with the idealistic notion of teaching politicians and people involved in government and administration how to think more creatively and communicate more effectively. But I was shocked to discover that they were not interested at all in thinking. They were interested in the communication side, but only to have more power and influence without necessarily thinking about the consequences. So I was Not well received by government and politicians. However, fortunately, businesses were really interested in what I was teaching. And I