Thom Singer, Certified Speaking Professional and author of 12 books about business, joins Neva Lee Recla to talk about cool entrepreneur kids. Thom has been featured as an Icon of Influence at Steve Olsher’s New Media Summit and is the host of the Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do Podcast. So listen in and learn as he and Neva discuss what it takes to successfully write 12 books and how entrepreneur kids can do the same.

I’m amazing, how are you?

I am amazing. I’m amazing-er.

So I’m amazing-er-er.

Yes, you are.

All right. So, what are your superpowers?

I tend to like people who other people don’t.

You know, I knew you were going to ask that question and I thought about it, and I think my real super power has to be in the fact that I always find the good in other people. I tend to like people who other people don’t. I belong to an organization and I’m friends with a couple people, and someone’s like, “How can you stand that person?”

I always just see the best in people. I always give people the benefit of the doubt, and I just like being around people.

That’s cool. I was thinking about when you interviewed me today, about when you did my demon voice impression, when you said, “Yeah, you can ask me any questions but do not ask me what I want to be when I grow up!” It was a very good demon impression.

You were very scary. “Do not ask me what I want to be when I grow up.”

Yes.

I won’t ask you that today, either. You scared me.

All right. So, how did you author 12 books? That’s a huge amount of books.

You know, it started off that I wanted to be a professional speaker and I wanted to write a book, because it seemed like a lot of people who got asked to come speak at corporate events had written books.

So, I sat down and I wrote one, and it took me almost a year. It was a lot of work. At the same time, I started a blog, and so I started writing every single day. After several years, what happened was, I took a bunch of blog posts and I was able to repurpose a lot of them. So, a lot of my books are stuff that I would write on my blog, and then I would un-blog them and make them more book-like.

That’s cool.

Yeah, because I was writing every day, I was able to repurpose a lot of content for the future books.

Yeah, I was thinking, it’s already hard. I’m already writing my book. It’s already hard writing just one. 12 is, whew!

Well, the other thing I did is I took my original book, which was called Some Assembly Required: How to Make, Grow, and Keep Your Business Relationships, and I gave it to a woman, and she rewrote it as Some Assembly Required: A Networking Guide for Women. Then I gave it to a realtor, and he rewrote it as Some Assembly Required: A Networking Guide for Real Estate. I gave one to an education expert, and we did Some Assembly Required: A Networking Guide for Graduates.

So, I also got some help, I had a couple of co-writers on some of those books.

That’s really cool. So, you kind of answered this question, but could you talk a little bit more on how you knew you wanted to start speaking?

I worked for a law firm as their marketing director, and part of my job was to train the lawyers on how to do more marketing, and how to do more sales. So, I would have these classes in the conference room, and I always thought, the lawyers are going to hate this. Every time I would do it, they would say, “That was the best class I’ve ever been to.”

So, I started realizing I was good at it, and the more I did it, I found it wasn’t really a job. It wasn’t work, to stand up in front of a group and tell stories. Even to do the research to be able to write the content, I liked it so mush, it was never like working.

Yeah. So actually, I’m in love with speaking as well, if no one knew that.

But I really enjoy talking to the audience. When I first spoke, I said it was like I was walking home, so it was really cool because people were actually listening to me.

And I want to introduce you guys to someone. This is Hamlet. He goes on stage with me.

Nice.

He is a substitute for Hamlet the pig. And so I actually get Hamlet the pig.

Yeah, so you can’t actually bring the live pig on the stage.

So, you’re a podcaster. When did you start podcasting and how did you know you liked it?

I started my podcast almost four years ago. It’s called Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do. I started it because I was kind of in a rut with my own business. I’d been working for myself for about five years at that time.

Wow.

Someone told me, if you’re stuck in a rut, go interview 50 smart people. You’ll have to learn something. You’ll get some piece of information. There’s no way you could talk to 50 really smart people and not come out with some inspiration on the other side.

I decided I was going to do 50 interviews, and that was just going to be for six months. That’s how I started it, but after I did 50 interviews, I didn’t want to stop. Now, I’ve interviewed over 300 people. I’m at 364 episodes as of today, most of those being interviews. I learn so much from everyone I have on the show.

Wow. I applaud you for that. Yeah, I’ve been doing my podcast for only a year, not four.

So, I think we actually need to take a quick break, but where can people go to find out more about you?

You can find out everything you want about me, you can find my podcast, you can find out about my books, everything is at ThomSinger.com.

Awesome. So, definitely go check him out because he’s amazing.

We’ve been talking with Thom Singer about cool entrepreneur kids. We’ll be right back.

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