I’ve just spent the week in freezing Melbourne working with Australia’s keynote speaker of the year, Dr Jason Fox. (No, I’m not at the NFL, though I’ll be tuning into it today.)
It was an incredible trip. I caught up with my publishing team from Wiley IRL for the first time, and had a lovely meal and chats with fellow consultants and Substackers Andrew Hollo Andrew Hollo and Brendon Baker Brendon Baker.
I wanted to give you a behind-the-scenes look at what Jason and I explored as we crafted my new Work Fame keynote.
(If you want the unedited post-session debrief, listen to our 17min podcast, it’s good!).
Why did I seek out help on my keynote?
I wanted to make the book really come to life. The thing with a keynote is, you can’t just get up there and rehash the book.
A lot of the time, I help other people with their presentations, but it’s very hard to do this for yourself. I wanted to understand how Jason’s maps his presentations, how he uses language and humour, and all of the things. Basically, if you want to be the best - work with the best.
He immediately dispelled this myth up front - Leanne, don’t start your speech with a story.
Thank goodness! This is advice I heard all the time and I was putting so much pressure on myself to ‘find the right story’, But we decided to kick it off in a more real way and respond to things like, what I’ve been hearing at the conference so far, what conversations have I had with guests, what did the previous speaker say, etc?
He also asked me about my stage introduction, and how we could weave some elements of that into my opening… Clever!
In an AI world, be less performative
We threw out the performative sides of a speech. What we didn’t want was, “Leanne’s on stage, it’s like a video, let’s hit Play now.”
There was a moment when that was a thing (in Jason’s words, we’ve been led to believe this given the nature of TED Talks). But in the world of AI, what’s really going to stand out is being someone who can be in the moment, who can connect with what’s going on in the room, and who is just real and honest.
I love that Jason’s approach means I’m not going on stage to preach and pretend I do things 100% right all the time.
For example, in my book, I talk about two different types of morning walks. I won’t spill the details, but there’s a walk you can do that’s very good for building your Work Fame, and I’ll admit that 90% of the time I don’t do that walk.
However, it’s in the moments where I really want to work on connecting with others that I’ll switch into that mode. I encourage people at the conference to switch into that mode too, because it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity given the people they can meet.
There are 2-3 key elements of this keynote I’ve crafted that I need to rehearse and get clear in my mind.
However, his advice is not to “rehearse the whole thing” - because I’ve written the book and have depth/understanding of every concept, I can speak to it at a certain level that’s natural and not over-polished.
(Speaking of disrupting the way things are done, my fav question from Jason was, “How can we harvest the pain in your life for a commercial outcome?” (i.e. the bread and butter of the modern-motivational speaker).
I laughed. Hilarious.
We didn’t do that, but we did map the emotional arc of the speech. It’s not all HAPPY HAPPY, there’s contrast in energy.
A keynote isn’t just a collection of good ideas.
You are taking a group of people somewhere. Some will be sceptical, some will already agree with you, some are tapping out just thinking about morning tea (we’ve all been there!).
So we mapped the emotional and energetic arc of the keynote. Where do I need to disarm people? Where do I need to challenge them? Where do I need to slow down? Where do I need to lift the energy?
That was a new way for me to think about keynote design.
One thing I have to do early in the piece is define Work Fame and share why it isn’t just a nice-to-have but it’s essential in 2026 and beyond.
I get the allergic reaction to fame. If it feels uncomfortable or self-centred, I understand. But it’s not about you; it’s about how you show up in the world, and how people know you for the ideas and contributions you make. We mapped out ways to capture the skeptics very early on. Cool!
The flexible format
The more freedom I want on stage, the more structure I need underneath it. Jason calls it “structureless structure”.
I know where we’re going, the big ideas, and moments that need to land. But I don’t need to know every sentence I’ll say at 10:17am on a Tuesday in front of 600 people. Thank goodness.
We’ve built in time for improv, we designed it so I don’t really need slides (just a couple of placeholders). I can run it as a 45-minute keynote, extend it to 60 minutes, or turn it into a 90-minute workshop.
There are moments of audience participation throughout, so it’s very much an interactive keynote. It’s real, it connects with people in the room, and it encourages them to connect with each other.
My job now is to bed down these ideas, practise a few things, and get it out into the world.
Want to see the keynote in action?
If you’re interested in booking a Work Fame keynote or workshop for your conference, hit reply.
Jason was very complimentary about the concept, in our podcast together he shared,
“ We have been working on the Work Fame keynote, which I’m just so in love with… What’s being crafted here, a keynote inspired by the book Work Fame, is going to be such a gift to events, to event organisers, and to industries and professions. What you’re bringing to this, Leanne, is so enlivening. It’s something that immediately has a positive impact in the room.”
I feel so lucky to have had this time together!
And if you're a speaker who wants this kind of help yourself, Jason will be offering it to others. He's building a speaker program to do for other speakers what he did for me - sign up for his brilliant museletter, so you get the dets when it’s ready foxwizard.com.
See you next week,
🌴
Leanne “Less Performative” Hughes
p.s. I’m jumping on a live-stream with Alan Weiss today, talking about finding your competitive edge in a world of AI. Bring your coffee/martini, join us live or watch the replay here.
p.p.s. There’s only 20 days left to have your name featured on the Wall of Work Fame.