Judy Carter's Speaking Career in a Box

In an attempt to weather-proof my exercise routine, I've taken to doing 30 minutes on the exercise bike every morning, working under the theory that if you exercise first thing in the morning, nothing worse can happen to you for the rest of the day. This has given me a chance to watch a bunch of DVDs that I've been meaning to get around to forever. One of these is "Judy Carter's Speaking Career in a Box", which I found sometime after reading Judy's Comedy Bible. I was intrigued by it, because Judy is a really good teacher, and a speaking career is something I kind of fell into, just like she did, coming from a comedy path. I mean, I don't technically have a speaking career, per se, that is, it isn't my full time job. But, yeesh, I do a lot of it. Anyway, this set of DVDs is pretty solid. She walks you through the path from having no talk to getting a full-time speaking career going, with lots of real-world advice, like booking your gig before you write your talk -- it's the only way you'll get it done! It's a few years out of date now -- TEDx is not mentioned, neither is youtube, but all the principles are sound, and I definitely picked up a few things I can use. Most of all, it was really interesting to see how she broke down the formula for what makes a great talk -- and she's totally right -- we all do the same thing, and follow the same patterns, because they work.