The Truth About Bouncing Back – Speaking Career Advice
This isn’t a blog post about how I figured it all out. It’s not a highlight reel of keynotes and standing ovations. This is about the messy middle. The years when it wasn’t working. The times I quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) wondered if the career I’d built as a speaker was slipping away. It is speaking career advice that I think people should know.
And it’s not just for speakers who’ve hit a wall. It’s not just for newcomers.
This is for anyone in the speaking business, because if you plan on sticking around for a while, you’re going to experience some version of a slowdown, a reset, or a reinvention. Maybe it’ll be sparked by a shift in your industry. Maybe your topic will lose traction. Maybe your life will take a sharp left turn and your business will take a backseat.
If that hasn’t happened to you yet, I’m genuinely thrilled for you.
But if it has (or when it does) I want you to know this: it doesn’t mean you’re done.
How It Fell Apart
The pandemic shut it all down. I had been a full-time speaker for over a decade, and in a matter of weeks, my calendar was cleared. Like many others, I tried to pivot to virtual. I made videos. I wrote blogs. I pushed myself to show up online. And some of it worked. I booked a few online gigs. But my income dropped to about a quarter of what it had been and it stayed there for a while.
During this time, I made the mistake of being honest about my struggle.
That sentence isn’t a joke. I was actually told by smart, well-meaning people, to stop publicly saying I was struggling and instead tell the world I had “pivoted” and was having my best year ever. Other speakers told me that I would ruin my future if I was known for having hard times in the business. And I was told that other people in our National Speakers Association family were talking about me and how I was failing and being too public about it. I was basically advised to lie or tweak the truth. This is not the speaker career advice I expected.
But I couldn’t do that. It felt fake. And frankly, I needed the people in my life to show up for the real me… not for the version of me I was pretending to be.
Finding My Way Back
In the middle of that tough season, I took a job working for a great headhunting firm. I loved the people and the work, but it was an eat-what-you-kill sales role… and I already had that in my speaking business. Then in 2022, I had the opportunity to become CEO of the Austin Technology Council. It came with a salary, benefits, and a chance to serve the Austin tech community. It hasn’t always been easy, but I’ve stayed, and I’ve continued to work on rebuilding my speaking business alongside it.
I kept blogging. I made niche SEO moves to target areas where I a unique niche in my speaking (like law firms). I reached out to past clients. I made referrals to other speakers, which doesn’t directly bring business, but builds goodwill and keeps me top of mind.
I went back to my original business plan: Speak 50 times a year… paid or unpaid. And every year, aim for fewer free gigs and a higher average fee.
That strategy worked in 2009. I decided it could work again.
Redefining What It Means to Be a Speaker
Being CEO of the Austin Technology Council gave me a platform and a lot of speaking opportunities. While I am not paid for the talks I do in my role with ATC, it gets me on stage and I love doing it. In 2024, I delivered 42 talks, panels, or stage appearances. More than half weren’t paid, but they were real. Real audiences. Real stages. Real impact. At the halfway mark in 2025 I have given nearly 30 talks to date (again, about 40% are paid for my business and the rest in my role with the association).
Recently, another speaker said something that stuck with me. They told me I wasn’t “really a speaker anymore” because I have a full-time job. And that’s when it hit me:
There’s a toxic fallacy in this business… that to be a “real speaker,” it has to be the only thing you do.
That’s nonsense.
The truth is, this job at ATC lets me serve a community I care about and speak regularly. That’s more stage time than many full-time speakers are getting and it’s helping me rebuild momentum in my own business. So I had to stop worrying about how others define this career, and start owning the way I want to build it.
Rebuilding for the Long Run
To bounce back, I had to get clear on who I am and who I want to serve. I let go of the fantasy that a bureau was going to “discover” me, or that my topic would suddenly become the hottest thing in town. I stopped chasing the dream of being a $25,000 per talk speaker or a Hall of Fame speaker… because those things never really mattered to me.
What matters?
- Speaking to audiences I care about.
- Making enough to support my family.
- Doing work I love.
My daughter once told me she only knows two people who truly love their jobs; me, when I’m speaking… and her husband. That hit me. I do love my job. And it reminded me: I’m not done. I just had to reset.
For Anyone in the Slow Season
If you’re in a valley season right now, I want you to hear this speaking career advice:
- You are not behind.
- You are not broken.
- You are one decision away from building something new.
Reinvention isn’t just for those who’ve “failed.” It’s part of the gig.
Success in this business requires tenacity, self-awareness, and relentless visibility.
You have to stay in the game.
You have to market yourself… even when no one’s asking.
You have to say yes to small stages when the big ones go silent.
And you have to define success for yourself… not based on someone else’s metrics.
While I wish the pandemic never happened and my business had continued along as it had been in 2019, it did happen. Looking back I have learned a lot about business, the speaking industry, and how full of shit some people are when they talk about their own success. LOL.
I am reinventing daily, and I will not stop. As I get older there will be other bumps in the road, but I am going to keep pushing ahead… and that is my speaking career advice to you… keep going. Stay calm and speak on stages.
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Thom Singer, CSP, is a professional keynote speaker and the CEO at the Austin Technology Council.