Building a great keynote can feel like trying to organize a junk drawer while people are watching. You've got ideas, stories, experience, maybe even a few great slides but if there's no structure, the audience can feel it fast.

In this episode of How'd They Do That?, Skot Waldron talks with Michael Hidalgo about a simple, practical framework for building talks that people actually remember. Michael brings 25+ years of speaking experience and breaks down how story structure, screenwriting, and the idea of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation can help coaches, consultants, founders, and creators craft more compelling keynotes.

You'll learn how to find the "inciting incident" in your message, why one clear sentence can save your entire talk, and how to stop piling on good content that doesn't serve the main point. It's practical, experience-driven, and surprisingly freeing like your keynote finally got a GPS.

Timestamps:
00:00:00 – Cold Start & Intro
00:03:16 – Why Keynoting Matters for Coaches
00:05:02 – The Story Structure Behind Great Talks
00:08:32 – The Mosquito Hook Example
00:12:17 – What Cars Teaches Speakers
00:14:01 – How to Hook an Audience
00:17:19 – The Simple Talk Template
00:20:08 – Why Speakers Lose the Room
00:25:54 – Michael's Advice for Coaches and Consultants

Links:

Guest: Michael Hidalgo
Website: michael-hidalgo.com