Speaking in Tampa on October 5th

On Sunday, October 5th, I’ll be speaking in Tampa, Florida at Hay House’s I Can Do It! conference. This will be the same presentation I did in June at their Las Vegas conference, with improvements based on audience feedback.

ICDI is a very popular self-help conference with thousands of attendees. I’ve been attending ICDI Vegas since 2004, and it’s been an amazing experience every time.

The 7 Keys to Genuine Growth

My 90-minute presentation will be on Sunday, October 5th from 11:00am to 12:30pm and is titled Personal Development for Smart People: The 7 Keys to Genuine Growth.

Erin and I will be attending the whole conference, so please do say hi if you see us there. Erin’s twin sister will be there as well — her first time at ICDI.

If you want to get a detailed insider’s perspective on the conference, feel free to read the reviews of ICDI Las Vegas 2008, ICDI 2007, and ICDI 2006.

Books Available

Even though Personal Development for Smart People won’t be officially released until October 15th, I’m told that the book will be available for sale at the Tampa conference (Oct 3-5).

After my workshop I’ll be doing a book signing — my first ever. 🙂

I’ll also hang out after the session to answer any questions people have and just to say hi.

Hay House Radio Show Taping

I’ll be participating in another Hay House Radio show with author Eldon Taylor during the Tampa conference. This show taping will be on Saturday, October 4th, 2:30 – 3:30pm. There will be seating available if you want to watch us live.

How This Came to Be

If you’re curious to know, here’s the story of how I ended up speaking at this conference. In 2006 a producer from Hay House Radio stumbled upon my review of the 2006 ICDI conference. From there she started reading some of my other online articles and liked what she saw. We had a friendly email exchange about it. Eventually this led to a meeting with Reid Tracy (President of Hay House) at ICDI Las Vegas in 2007. That meeting led to a book deal, and the book deal ultimately led to my speaking at ICDI as a new Hay House author.

So all of this basically happened as a result of blogging. I never had to get a literary agent or submit proposals to lots of publishers. I never had a manuscript or book proposal get rejected. Disgusting, isn’t it?

Apparently one way to secure a book deal with a major publisher is to write and give away about 20 books worth of free content first — in order to polish your ideas, hone your craft, build a platform, and prove that you can deliver value that helps people. That may sound like too much effort… unless of course you genuinely love what you do and would do it for free anyway.