Review: Steal the Show: From Speeches to Job Interviews to Deal-Closing Pitches, How to Guarantee a Standing Ovation for All the Performances in Your Life

Steal the Show: From Speeches to Job Interviews to Deal-Closing Pitches, How to Guarantee a Standing Ovation for All the Performances in Your Life by Michael Port
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have some speaking experience and I wanted to improve. I needed new ideas and some help with issues I found in my talks. The first part of the book was somewhat boring for me, but the rest was amazing. It is a really good book, with ideas that apply in a lot of circumstances. From speaking on the stage to thousand of peoples to speaking to your wife in private, there will be something for you in this book.
I listened to the audio version of the book, but the written one would probably be a better choice as there are a lot of things you will want to revisit from time to time, and searching audio books is just too difficult for me.

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Your Career - Five Years in The Making

About two years ago I've read a statement from Brian Tracy that seemed extremely bold at the time. He says that you can get from novice to world wide recognition in five years.

Of course this won't happen magically. You have to work for it. You have to learn and invest your time and effort into it.

I started my professional career as a software developer in mid 2009. Before that, I was a systems and network administrator and did only occasional software developer. By any standards I was a novice software developer. I knew the very basics. I wrote a few irrelevant applications. I always programmed alone. I never worked in a team. I never even bought and read a programming book. All I knew was what I learned during my university studies and whatever tutorials I read on the Internet.

It just happened that I got a software developer job at Syneto. They needed someone with strong networking skills. I was open to dive more into software development. I was the perfect match for their requirements at the time. I had no idea how much my life will change in the upcoming years.

Without entering into too many details, I have mention that Syneto went through a huge agile transformation in the two years after I arrived. We learned a lot both as a company and as a team. Throughout this period I learned a lot, read about ten programming books, and applied most of the knowledge on our storage project.

But what is doing good for if you don't share your experience with others? We've got gradually involved in the local agile community in my town, Timisoara. I delivered my first speech at the local community at about two and half years after I started my software development career.

Brian Tracy says you need two years to get local recognition, three-four years to get national recognition, five years to get global recognition.

By the time I had four years experience in software development, I held my first speech at a national software conference. In fact, the conference was international, but held in my country, Romania. I remember how proud I was to be speaking at a conference alongside legendary software developers like Michael Feathers.

In the very next year however, I made the huge leap to speak at the World's largest agile conference, Agile2015, in Washington DC, US. At the time when I spoke in Washington DC, I was hired at Syneto for 5 years, one month, and 3 days. It was only a 30 minutes speech, but nonetheless it was at the highest level, at greatest conference.

Today, I am preparing my second speech for the AgileAlliance organized conference. I will speak at Agile2016, in Atlanta, US. This time however, a full 75 minutes talk for a larger audience.

Check out my session and reserve a seat for July the 27th, Wednesday, at 2PM, in Atlanta, US.