Learning. Legacy. Life skills.

Say yes. Figure it out. Pass it on.

A head full of ideas. A habit of making them real.

I've built businesses, written books, designed learning and stood on a TEDx stage. I get excited by what something could become, a business, a half-formed idea, a room full of people. Then I get stuck into figuring out how.

Bring me into your business and we'll work on what's possible and what's getting in the way. Put me on stage and I'll get people thinking, laughing and seeing something they want to go and do.

Put my brain to work → Get me on stage

Professional uncle. Amateur Batman.

Jump straight to what you need
Speaking Facilitation MC & hosting Jam sessions Coach-sulting Uncle Steve Legacy
Say hello Steve Corney standing with his arms open, in a plaid shirt, cap and sneakers.
Rooms I've stood in front of
197
Gingerbread houses built and sold. The first business.
14,597
Scoops of ice cream served behind the counter.
137+
Business ideas on the list right now, and counting.
250+
Experts whose knowledge became something sellable.
5,500+
Minutes of learning built and shipped.
Work with me

Your challenge. My brain. Let's jam.

You've got something worth working on. Maybe it's an idea you can't leave alone. Maybe people aren't buying, the training isn't working, or you're doing something the hard way because nobody's shown you another one.

I'm a learning designer by trade. A lot of my work comes down to understanding what's in one person's head, what another person needs, and how to get the two to meet.

Getting an idea into the worldPositioning, educational marketing, offers and go-to-market.
Making your expertise useful to other peopleCourse, product, book, talk, onboarding, service.
Finding what's getting in the wayThe leaky journey, the training that changed nothing.
Making technology earn its placeUseful AI, workflows and small tools that fit how you work.
Let's talk → All the ways in

It starts with a conversation. A quick chat or a few lines, whichever is easier.

Steve leaning on a desk, mid-idea.
Live workshop · Learn Awesome

Escape the Clock

Every dollar you earn is tied to the clock. Your eLearn won't be.

If companies already pay you to solve a problem in the room, they'll pay to license that same thinking as an eLearn. It's high margin, it works while you don't, and it starts with a gig you already deliver. I run a live workshop on how to build one and sell it to the clients you've already got.

Save a seat ↗ Or bring it to a jam →
The jam · my favourite thing I do

One hour. Anything goes. Nothing gets lost.

A jam is a high-intensity sprint on your problem or your ambition. Anything goes: wild ideas, half-formed ones, the thing you've been too polite to say out loud. But I'm steering the whole time, so it never drifts.

Of everything I do, this is the best use of my brain. You get the facilitation, the pace, new ideas and better versions of the ones you walked in with. And because it's all recorded, you can chase every tangent without losing the good bits.

How a jam works → Let's talk
How it runs
  1. Bring the problem or the ambition. Ten minutes of honest questions gets us to the real thing.
  2. Sprint. Fast, loud and wide open. I push, I challenge, I bring ideas you wouldn't have got to on your own.
  3. Everything's recorded. AI turns the whole whirlwind into notes, so the best ideas don't vanish when the call ends.
  4. Walk out with the practical bit. Things to implement and apply, plus the confidence that someone actually gets where you're at.

I'm not billing you by the hour, so there's no reason to stretch anything out.

Speaking & events

Put me in a room full of people.

I bring stories from businesses I've run, things I've built, mistakes I've made and people I've lost. There's humour, there's practical work, and sometimes there's a reason to go home and have a conversation you've been putting off.

Steve on the TEDx stage. TEDx · Legacy in Bytes
Steve mid-keynote in front of an audience. Keynote
Steve hosting National Finance Brokers Day. MC · NFBD
Steve on a wide conference stage. The speaker reel
A workshop room mid-session. In the room · workshop
Steve at a lectern, headset on. Hosting
01

Speaking

Ideas and stories that give people something to think about, and something to do with it. Business, learning, useful AI, backing yourself and legacy.

Explore the talks → 02

Facilitation & workshops

A room working on something together. We surface the thinking, tackle the decisions and leave with a plan, a skill or something we've built.

Bring me into the room → 03

MC & hosting

A warm welcome, good questions and someone paying attention to the whole day. I connect the sessions, look after the speakers and keep the audience with us.

Get me to host →
My story

There's a reason I work this way.

Dad died when I was twelve and left thirteen minutes and twenty seconds of his voice on a cassette. I've spent every year since figuring things out without the one person I'd have turned to for help.

At seventeen I was selling gingerbread houses out of the school kitchen. At twenty-one I nearly drowned, and someone pulled me out, so I became a lifeguard and spent eight years pulling other people out.

Thirteen minutes and twenty seconds of Dad’s voice. Not one second of video of Mum. So my TEDx talk on legacy runs exactly 13:20, long enough for you to feel how little that is, and go and press record while you still can.

Watch the TEDx → Read my story
Steve sitting back, mid-conversation.
01 · From the start

Say yes. Figure it out.

Take the thing you're not ready for, then go home and work out how. It built every business I've run.

02 · Then it narrowed

Rock or suck.

Two settings, and one move: if I wasn't good at something that mattered, grind it into a rock. Carry all of it myself. It nearly cooked me.

03 · After Mum died, 2015

Do.

The third option was sitting in the middle the whole time. Get good enough to be dangerous. Good enough that nobody takes you for a ride. Then hand the rest to AI, or pay someone who rocks at your suck, and spend your time on your rocks.

That's Rock. Do. Suck. It isn't a framework I designed. It's a debrief.

Someone else's Rock saved my life.

Remembering that changes how you think about needing other people.
Author

I wrote the books I needed and couldn't find.

Every one came from somebody asking me the same question until I got sick of answering it one at a time. The digital copies are free.

The Enough Bucket Unsellable Space Creator Proactive Retention Nutritional Empowerment
Take the free ebooks →
Pass it on

I've been figuring things out my whole life. Mostly because I had to.

I said yes to a pile of things I had no business saying yes to, then went home and worked out how. A gym. Two ice cream shops. An agency. The books. A TEDx. None of it came with instructions, and all of it took longer than it needed to.

Losing both my parents early is why I'm not precious about any of it. What I know is worth nothing sitting in my head, and I've had it proven to me twice that you don't get to choose how long you've got.

So I pass it on. Not to do it for you, and not to take the figuring out away, because that's the part that sticks. To speed run it.

What took me years shouldn't take you years.

Steve Corney.

"It has made me realise there are hundreds of untold stories I would love to capture from my family. Your insights are a gift to me and many others."

TEDx audience · YouTube comment
Steve, hand up, at a school desk.
Uncle Steve

Press Start Together

Build a retro video game with a kid who matters to you. Meet them on the device they already love and spend some proper time in their world.

Meet Uncle Steve →
The cassette player holding Steve's father's recording.
Legacy

Press record

You've got stories someone you love would want to keep. I help people start recording them, and speak about why we keep assuming there'll be time later.

Start with your story →
Steve building something at his desk.
The Lab

Wouldn't it be cool if...

That's usually how it starts. Then I try it, build it and share what I learn. Inside the Lab is The Business Kitchen, my team-up with Inventient: tested AI recipes for business owners. Cook your own tech, no guru required.

Have a look around → Step into the Kitchen ↗
What the room says

Three words audiences keep using, word for word.

Engaging.Energetic.Informative.

Ninety-nine written comments across five stages and two online channels. Two people wrote exactly those three words, in that order, at events seven months apart. Not one comment was negative about the delivery.

"Legendary! Lit me up and opened my eyes to a new way."

TraceyKeynote attendee

"Never did I imagine that a talk could bring tears to my eyes. Steve has stirred a behaviour change in me and I have started to record my legacy."

UtkarshTEDx audience

"It was so informative, and your enthusiasm is infectious!"

TiffanyInstructional designer

"Steve is one of the best I have seen."

KylaCSIRO

"Energetic, relevant and no 'rabbit hole' talk as a time filler."

StephanieNestlé

"Punchy and lively. Things actually useful for us, BAU and projects."

KatyNobleOak
Audiences have included people from
WestpacKPMGNestléAstraZenecaKomatsu Flight CentreMirvacM&C SaatchiTBWA Transport for NSWUniversity of SydneyUNSWand many more
See all the feedback →
Let's talk

Got something in mind?

A challenge, an idea, a room full of people. Tell me what you're thinking. I read every one myself and I get back to you quickly.

Put my brain to work Get me on stage

Or just email hello@stevecorney.com