The keynote that turns “someday I'll write a book” into a standing ovation.

• A test for what a machine can’t fake — and the sinking feeling that most of what they post would flunk it.
• The difference between information and judgment. One of them is free now. They’ve probably been selling the wrong one.
• 3 things AI can’t make up: the failure, the exception, and the call they made with half the facts.
• One rule for using AI without getting eaten by it: it can take dictation. It can’t be the source.
• 2 or 3 stories they’ve never told because they figured nobody cared. They’ll write those down.

Best for mainstages, leadership summits, association annuals — and any programme with an AI slot it hasn’t filled with anything good. Note taking: heavy. Tell people to bring a pen.

• Why being good at something makes you terrible at valuing it. The actual reason, not the poster version.
• 3 questions that dig it out: what do people keep asking them, what do they keep correcting, and what took them years that now takes 10 seconds.
• The backwards test — if it feels too obvious to say out loud, that’s the tell.
• 2 or 3 things they know that people would pay for and have never once said out loud.
• A verdict — and they reach it themselves. Most people haven’t got one idea, they’ve got 4 and no way to rank them. They leave knowing which one’s worth it, and whether it’s a book, a keynote, a framework, or honestly just a good article. Finding out your idea is a chapter saves you a year.

Best for executive peer groups, professional-services firms, associations, thought-leadership summits. Note taking: heavy. Those 3 questions get copied down word for word, every time.

The line between an idea and its expression, drawn on stage, with the uncomfortable realisation that the thing on their slide sits on the wrong side of it.

Which country’s rules they are actually operating under. Canada, the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand give 4 different answers on AI-generated work, and most of the room has never checked which one applies to them.

One decision about their own material: publish it, licence it, or keep handing it out. They will know which one by the end.

• Where the book already is — the talks, the emails, the voice notes, the answer they give every week.
• Why “I’m not a writer” is the wrong sentence, and what the job actually is.
• A way to catch it that doesn’t involve sitting down to write. This is what unsticks the people who’ve failed 3 times.
• The permission thing, said out loud. It’s not the calendar. It has never been the calendar.
• A verdict, and a personal one. Do they want to spend a year with this book, or do they just like who they’d be at the end of it? Different problems. Only one gets fixed by writing.

Best for author summits, writer communities, publishing events, conferences with a creative track. Note taking: heavy, and it gets emotional. Leave a gap after — there’ll be a queue.

• Why “publish and hope” doesn’t work. Not morally — mechanically. Being good isn’t nearly enough.
• What has to be true before the release date, almost none of which can be started the week before.
• Events and rooms as distribution — the moves that stack instead of spike and die.
• What a launch team actually is. Smaller than they think.
• A real first 90 days — and whether what they’ve got planned is a plan or a wish.

Best for author summits, publishing events, writer communities, self-publishing conferences.

• How the lists actually work. Curated, not counted. Which sales count double, which don’t count at all.
• Why a fast week beats a big year, and what that does to the order you do things in.
• What bulk buying does, what it doesn’t, and exactly how people get burned trying.
• Why nobody’s ever done it alone — and when the coalition gets built. Earlier than they think.
• Whether they should even be chasing a list. For a lot of books, no. Coming from someone with 4, that lands.

Best for speaker summits, author-driven events, publishing conferences. Room note: give it a Q&A. They’ll have questions.