My first tour as a professional speaking began in 1957 when the Air Force assigned me as a Technical Instructor. For two years I  taught six hours daily, five days weekly in three week phases which means at twenty-on I had already logged more than 2,000 hours of professional speaking. I had not planned to be a professional speaker. It happened to me as it has for so many professional speakers I got to know during my thirteen years in NSA.

When someone asks me how to become a professional speaker, I say, "The same way you become a professional in any endeavor. It takes..."

Desire > Commitment > Competence > Participation > Persistence

The most successful professional speakers I know did so to communicate a level of expertise others wanted to hear. When I left the Air Force in 1960 I got an engineering degree and continued a career in computers and information networks in sales, product management and training until 1987 when an Internet bubble burst prompting layoffs where I had been for ten years. My next stop was developing and delivering technical seminars on communications networks, mainly the Internet which I did until retiring in 2001.

I never planned to be a professional speaker, it happened to me... twice... in 1957, then in 1987. The first because I had graduated top in my class in an Air Force tech school short on instructors, then when laid off and a buddy asked, "Have you ever thought about teaching seminars? You really know how to explain the technology, a skill I had developed during thirty years fully immersed in it.

While tins does not answer the question, "How can I become a professional speaker?", it is a strong clue. You need two qualities: excellent knowledge of something others want to know and an ability to create and deliver programs in orally they are willing to pay to attend.

 It's an unusual story, but not unique. If you are interested in other stories check the link below for a glimpse of how others became pros. Bill Gove, first president of NSA said, "Speaking is a performing art... Without an audience a speaker doesn't exist." Pros need audiences willing to pay.

How Top Pros I Know Did It | Building a Bit Library