December 2007

What Do You Title Yourself?

In my last post I asked for your help in choosing a title for the new book, and the results are in:

With 60% of the vote, Greater Than Yourself was the hands-down winner for the main title. As far as the subtitle goes, well, let's just say that's still unclear. (My old friend, Sam Nitzberg, contributed my favorite write-in, But I Still Have You Beat, which is hilarious and therefore not an option). I still have to work it out with the publisher, but I've made an executive decision to stop worrying about it for now. It'll all be a moot point unless I finish writing all that stuff that comes after.

Thanks to everyone who helped out--I appreciate it very much.

And with all this thinking about titles, I've been revisiting what I title myself.

You know what I mean, right?

I'm really not sure what to say when--on an airplane, for example--someone asks me what I do for work. What am I? Keynote speaker? Leadership speaker? Motivational speaker? Author? Business author? Speaker author motivational keynoter person?

"I'm a speaker and a writer," I usually say. To some that probably sounds romantic, but to me it just seems bland. Vanilla.

It used to be faddish to come up with a really snappy title for yourself--one that describes the uniqueness of your work. My title at the Tom Peters Company was "Vice President and Official Mouthpiece."

And I've known more than one receptionist who titled herself "Director of First Impressions."

Is it still cool to do that snappy title thing, or has it gotten to be a little too precious?

I'm not sure.

So maybe you can help me out again. But this time, let's talk about you:

How do you answer the what-do-you-do question?

What do you title yourself?

Posted by steve at 12.19.2007 | Comments (15)

Birth Of A Title

I'm coming into the home stretch (okay, it's a long home stretch) on the new book, and the pressure's on to finalize the title. The working version has been Greater Than Yourself, but we're also playing with several variations on the theme, as well as opening it up to a start-from-scratch-anything-goes approach.

I'd love to get your help on this. Please take a couple of minutes and fill out this survey at Zoomerang.

Just a couple of clicks and you'll be done--and you can rest easy in your bed tonight knowing that you've helped this author and a major New York publisher make a decision that could change the very course of human existence.

Or whatever you have to tell yourself to feel good about it.

In any event, I'd greatly appreciate your help and creative input. (In case you missed it the first time around, please click here to take the survey).

Posted by steve at 12.05.2007 | Comments (3)