420: Finding and Developing Your Big I.D.E.A. [Best Of]

Today’s episode it’s all about finding and developing your Big Idea for your thought leadership and public speaking.

Ideas are incredibly powerful; they can live on for years, centuries, even millennia. Ideas spark movements for political and social change. Ideas help us as humans understand ourselves, each other, and the world around us

Your idea doesn’t have to be something people have never heard of before; that’s unlikely as most things have been talked about before - and that’s ok!

As a speaker, you want to have something interesting and unique to talk about, you want to make a positive impact on your audience, and you want to develop your thought leadership

Perhaps you’re not sure what makes a good idea or which of your ideas is the best one. It all feels a bit messy and muddy.

That’s what I’m going to help you with in this episode! Think of me as your idea whisperer.

You’ll learn:

• What a Big Idea is

• Why too many speakers get stuck with superficial content

• How to identify your I.D.E.A. using this handy acronym I came up with

• Examples of Big Ideas from myself, from some of our clients, and from thought leaders you’ll recognize

• Specific questions you can ask yourself to get started developing your Big Idea

Get these questions and a lot more in our 24-page FREE guide and workbook on Developing Your Thought Leadership at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/guide/.

This episode originally aired as episode 354 on November 6, 2023.

Links:

Show notes at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/354/

Get our free Thought Leadership guide and workbook: https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/guide/

Discover your Speaker Archetype by taking our free quiz at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/quiz/

Enroll in our Thought Leader Academy: https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/academy/

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolcox

Related Podcast Episodes:

• Episode 352: 7 Things the Best Speakers Do: My Takeaways from TEDWomen
• Episode 343: Why YOU are the Messenger for Your Idea and Audience
• Episode 339: Using Public Speaking to Influence Social Change with Tanya Golash-Boza, PhD
• Episode 338: Escaping the Expert Trap: From Academic Presenter to Sought-After Speaker with Teri DeLucca
• Episode 319: The 3 Stages We Go Through as Women When We Use Our Voice

Become Bookable Live Online Workshop - April 15, 2026
If you want to speak more but you’re not sure where to start or your efforts haven’t produced the results you want, I’m hosting a live online workshop called “Become Bookable: How to Get Speaking Invitations” on Wednesday, April 15th.

A lot of brilliant women assume they just need to pitch themselves more. But the real reason speakers get invited isn’t because they pitch harder — it’s because they’re positioned as bookable.

In this 3-hour interactive workshop live on Zoom, I’ll show you how speakers actually get invited — and help you clarify the positioning that makes event organizers say yes.

As a podcast listener, use the coupon code “Podcast100” to save $100 on your registration.

Learn more and register at https://www.speakingyourbrand.com/bookable