one of these days you’re going to be out of your business you’re no longer going to be CEO you’re no longer to be an executive in the company what do you want to do with the last 40 Years of your life I tell you what I want to do I want to go around the world and be asked to share what I know I was scared shitless of speaking public speaking I really was it was not my forte today I get on with passion and excitement I actually enjoy that energy and I’m looking at this guy this old guy and I’m sitting there thinking it’s like how am I going to help him go around the world meet interesting people share what you have to but learn and grow and meet cool people for the rest of your [ __ ] life that’s what you’re building you’re building something that you’ll have available to you for the rest of your life Keith welcome back to moonshots and we’re back yeah so last time we spoke about writing a New York Times bestselling book and in particular WR writing a book and one of the things we
[00:01:01] talked about was people who write a book because they want to make money don’t realize you don’t make money on books you make money on speaking uh today I want to talk to you about something that you gifted me which was advice on how to build a speaking business a keynote speaking business platform speaking business which has been financially very meaningful to me it’s given me the cash flow to allow me to start my company compes putting me in front of audiences around the world and so we’re going to go deep into that anyone who’s listening who’s ever thought about being a speaker has watched people like Tony Robbins on stage and said wow he’s amazing how can I do that uh so dive into this dissect it and like we did with our how to write in New York Times bestselling book let’s give a 101 on the process yeah you in for that I’m I’m excited about it and I think it’s I think it’s meaningful um
[00:02:00] what I love about what we’re about to do is you know I’ve done a couple of things really well one of them is I published and another is I’ve built a very thriving speaking business and I love it when I get a chance to be the Usher of another person into that realm um there’s a lot of dark twists and turns and things that people don’t know and misconceptions so why don’t we why don’t we give people some light in this process in the same way that you gifted that knowledge and literally opened up your Ro decks and made introductions and and told me what does and does not work looking forward to gifting that information to everybody watching here done let’s do it so um you know I had just published my book abundance uh the future is better than you think and I had lunch with you and we had just met we had probably met at a conference you know speaking at
[00:03:00] Ted and what I when I people ask me about you besides being an extraordinary executive coach an extraordinary speaker an extraordinary thought leader you’re one of the most generous people I know and I love you for that truly and you literally took me under your arm and said I’m going to teach you everything I know about speaking and you opened up your your phone uh you made some introductions you gave me key advice and it was an inflection point for me financially but more than the financials it was building my brand in the world yeah because when you’re on stage and by the way people people treat you very differently if you’re giving them a free keynote versus a paid keynote very different we can talk about that so uh let’s dive in let’s open up in the question like well what was the takeaway that you I’m curious if you reflect on that what was the takeaway that you walked away from from that conversation
[00:04:00] that was the most impactful or the biggest aha I remember when I started doing my keynote speaking uh we had all these different agencies that wanted me to go exclusive with them right and one of them was don’t go exclusive with any agent agency yeah right you can have them all working on your behalf well let’s explain that to folks um okay look there are a few people who do well to have a uh an exclusive Bureau speakers Bureau and they are the people who are looking to maximize the per unit price and minimize their number of speaking days right so back in the day when Jack Welsh was a speaker Obama Hillary Clinton right and these people are being deluged with people and I would imagine you know people like Simon synic and and Adam Grant today uh Etc perhaps um that these individuals have more requests than they have time yeah and they are trying to get their price up as high as possible given a very limited number of days they days I’m available these days yeah I’m
[00:05:01] available 20 days although there’s you know 500 people trying to get me on you know and as a result I want to get the highest amount that’s a great use of a bureau of a single of a single Bureau where it’s all funneled they know the kinds of gigs you like and don’t like right and they know which days you’re available and what your minimum price is and because it’s scarcity scarcity drives up the price but let’s understand the business model of the bureau to to understand why I make that recommendation so what a Bure does is they’re working for the the person booking the engagements they’re they’re working for the booker so if you’re running a conference and you’re looking for a great keynote speaker on a particular subject yeah um they’ll you go to you go to a bureau so you’re running your sales force yeah and you’re running the big dream Force yeah you have a bureau or many bureaus perhaps even who are looking to fill the speaking slots and that Bureau is looking for long-term Revenue they’re going to work for Sal Force hopefully
[00:06:00] for 5 10 years running there there are a bureau there agents out there who have worked for this event for 5 to 10 years yeah right their job is to fill that so the fact that you happen to be exclusive to them they’ll put you in whatever they own or they contract with Once mhm right but now what you’re really trying to do is there’s eight other bureaus out there who are booking events for their clients that you want to get on their place and if you’re independent you have a higher likelihood of lobbying those other those other agencies and bureaus than if you’re wedded to just one yeah right and when it comes to the commission right with if you’re wedded just one a number of the speeches that will come into you that have nothing to do with the bureau nothing at all because they saw you speak they read your book they just call and it’s just you go to one Bureau 100%
[00:07:02] of those speeches will be will be covered their commission commissioned by that whereas there’s an entire SWA uh that you can get directly without paying the commission the commissions could be pretty daunting right yeah 20% is not unusual for it I’ve seen 25% I’ve seen 25 as well and sometimes even 30 but and by the way you can negotiate that at the end of the day so before we dive too much into the weeds here i’ I’d like to go back to the entrepreneurs watching and say why do you even start a speaking business all right what is it that is the benefit the why behind it and there are a few different reasons and letbe we can we can discuss that a little bit I think one of them is you want to get your message out you’ve written a book and you want to get your message out and you know being able to present with your emotion your energy and an updated story because a book is static once it’s published at least books in the past have been um being able to updated so
[00:08:00] when I gave my abundance speeches in 2012 they’re very different from giving that speech in 2023 because the data is so much more compelling so it’s getting the message out another reason well let’s go back and put the Hat on of the person we’re speaking to here an entrepreneur right well perhaps okay that’s one audience there’s an audience that says there’s a group of individuals who just dream of being a speaker sure right something and that’s what they want to do in fact that’s kind of where I was if you don’t mind me giving a little bit of backstory when I was a kid I wanted to be an actor that’s what I wanted to be um and it and I actually was when I was um uh 12 years old I went to a Summer Stock Equity Theater which is professional theater and my parents let me do this at 12 years of age I spent the entire summer my are 12 now I’m trying to think about what I would do probably not that right my my parents let me at 12 years
[00:09:01] of age live at a theater company for the entire Summer by myself I had my own apartment and I was uh was playing one of the kids in Sound of Music for the whole summer and it was Equity it was a professional theater company and what I noticed back then was that there were some amazing actors who were poor and I said to myself I can’t go into a profession where if I’m really good has nothing to do with my success right now what I didn’t know was that what I did know how to do which was to network and build relationships would have probably made me an awesome actor MH because these folks were really good and not capable of earning a great living was probably because they weren’t playing the game and building the relationships that building the brand yeah but at my point I was just saying I I can’t be an actor because I won’t be successful now if you think about what I was able to to do I wanted to be an actor what am I today I’m on stages all over the world sure right I’m in I’m in media all over the world and I’ve
[00:10:02] actually found a more fulfilling purpose Beyond being an actor in terms of why what my mission and my purpose is to transform the way we work give me the emotion you feel where you’re on stage that’s a great question like um you know what it’s different it it’s evolved back then when I was a kid an insecure kid who was poor going to Rich schools didn’t think I deserved to be anywhere I suspect what I was looking for was significance yeah is looking for selfworth today when I’m on stage I feel effusively generous yeah because what I do in this little trick and I’m sure you do the same thing before I go in stage I do my research I understand what I’m intended to do I I always ask myself the question and then I ask my client the question what would you like the audience to be doing differently 3 to four months after I’ve left because I was there the question I ask as well is what’s the emotional experience you want them to have at the end of this next
[00:11:00] hour and and you and I again my my whole brand is about doing and practices yeah you know you’re about inspiring and potential similar what Tony does mine’s about doing in practices I I’m very clear I say I want to make sure that by the time I’m walking off that stage I have set a momentum so that your audience a large portion of them will be doing something different quarter later right now I feel effusively so what I do is and you are authentic from the heart ton I do I I do a ton of research which a lot of speakers don’t do I’m constantly complimented by the amount of research I do and and I ask them can I speak to more of your people in advance of even showing up I do phone calls talking to leaders of the company what do they want me to do uh as a puppet of their Vision how do I be of service but then what I do is I show up you’re you’re the channel not the puppet well yeah yeah exactly thank you um then what I do is
[00:12:03] the night before when I land most speakers are like oh I’m just going to go straight to bed I go down to the bar because that’s where everybody is the night before the big speaking event and I just shoot this shed I’m like What’s really by they’re drunk so it’s like what’s what’s really going on here right tell me what’s really going on and I I tease them out and they give me so much great information then I show up the next day and I go in the breakfast and I walk around from table to table I sit down and say hey I’m your speaker today yes you need to tell me what to say I said I’m writing the talk and I have no idea what I’m doing oh my God I like tell me I’m like here’s my topic tell me what to say and I swear to God at least 25% of what I’m going to say on stage well modify is developed the night before in the morning ofing based on those conversations and it’s all intended and then what I do last thing I do right before I go on stage is I sit in the back of the room and I look at the people in the room and everyone’s quiet and everyone’s looking up at the stage
[00:13:00] on whoever they’re talking to and I I’m starting to get Tey and I imagine their life Wow and I ask myself how can I help him and I’m looking at this guy this old guy you know is like a middle-aged guy middle tier in the company and I’m sitting there think it’s like how am I going to help him how in a 3 months from now wow and then I look at the woman over there and the young kid young young you know woman executive and whatever it is I’m looking these people and I’m like how do I help them and now I’m [ __ ] ready now you’re on fire and and and and Buddy you’ve been on my stage at abundance 360 uh more and more every year and people love you I’ll just put a plug in here guys if you ever want an incredible keynote speaker Keith farazi is the best um uh and just you move the audience you bring an emotional connection uh in a way that’s extraordinary you know I’m super passion about longevity and health span and how
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[00:16:01] not one of these days you’re going to be out of your business you’re no longer going to be CEO you’re no longer to be an executive in the company and the question is what do you want to do what do you want to do with the last 40 Years of your life I’ll tell you what I want to do I want to go around the world and be asked to share what I know MH to teach and and I want to be paid well and I want to be able to pick the countries yeah that I want to visit by the way you’re in a if if you’re able to make it in the speaking business you will have opportunities around the globe around the globe and and what I want my leaders yourself to be able to do is to say okay we’re retired what the hell that is it’s nothing what that is is you and your spouse get it invited to go to Bhutan or to Egypt or to South Korea right wherever and you get to go around the world meet interesting people share what you have to but learn and grow and meet cool people for the rest of your [ __ ] [00:17:01] life and that’s what you’re building you’re building something that you’ll have available to you for the rest of your life the emotional experience I have when I’m on stage um and it can be an entire spectrum and I know if I’m not connecting with the audience it you I’m sure doesn’t happen it doesn’t happen often but there have been times and on the other end I know when I hate to use the term I have them in the palm of my hand I can feel they’re connected right and I’ve I’ve moved them from a state of fear and scarcity to abundance and optimism I mov them from uh in their mindsets that they have in their self-belief of what they can accomplish you know my MTP is to inspire and guide entrepreneurs create a hopeful compelling and abundant future and when I can do that I feel this incredible sense of fulfillment yeah
[00:18:01] right it’s it’s awesome uh you know one of the things that I do remember I used to when I started Singularity University one of the things that Singularity did was it made its faculty amazing keynote speakers because Executives would come to Singularity hear these faculty and then can you come and talk at my company yeah right and so we help these individuals become extraordinarily successful in their their speaking business outside of su and one thing I started doing was giving away all of my PowerPoint slides for free I would at the end of the deck I would say I didn’t use a QR code back then it was a website now it’s a QR code and say if you want these slides take them share them with your kids with your friends and you know and people say aren’t you afraid these people are going to like you know steal your content and give talks if they can give a talk better than me fantastic let them do it
[00:19:00] but it became a way because to get the slides they give me their emails maybe they’re watching this podcast your movement your community we talked about this and I have a connection with them and I can keep the conversation alive and I want if I am heartfelt about what I’m sharing on stage I want that information to go beyond the single individual to as many as possible well and let’s just talk about that once you’re done with your speaking engagement and you ask them if they would like the slides and they give you your email and you d uh create some form of a drip campaign of of generosity just keep giving to them always um if you’re on their what I always say is if you’re doorstep in a in a in a newsletter or something that just came in at the time when somebody says do you know a good speaker or do you know a good coach or do you know a good whatever then you’ll have a shot but it’s interesting you could have crushed it a year ago yeah but just the day before somebody asked
[00:20:01] do you know a good speaker some schlock walked across this guy’s path guess who’s going to get recommended the schlock yeah but if you’re if you don’t have an ongoing touch point with these people to build a relationship to build a relationship and stay on the radar screen yeah it’s really important you know a lot of people who wish to be a speaker um they watch Amazing speakers on the Ted stage or Tony or whomever and they say I could never do that I’m fearful I want to you know share something for me when I was in college in the early days I was scared shitless of speaking public speaking I really was it was not my forte I remember um I was running an organization called students for exploration and development of space seds which is still around now many many decades later that’s awesome and uh MIT has something called kresy Auditorium and it was a massive Auditorium I don’t
[00:21:00] know how many thousands of people holds and I was like my dream when I was there my first year was before the end I’m going to stand on that stage and give a speech and I had a chance to do that yeah uh and face down my fears today honestly there’s I there’s very little anxiety in speaking I get on with passion and excitement I actually when I have any kind of anxiety getting on the stage I actually enjoy that energy yeah cuz it’s like cuz a little bit of fear it’s like okay I got to change up my game it’s like and and we you and I will find stages where like I remember the first time I step on Tony Robins stage right or Radio City Musical right just to to speak at Radio City Musical or a Convention Center in Ukraine right um that’s that you know you get those moments you’re like holy [ __ ] I’m about to go in front of 10,000 50,000 people um but let’s spin back a second for me thank God my uh my parents were
[00:22:02] religious and I’m a spiritual individual myself a Christian um speaking in the youth group at church was my first experience with speaking I was um invited as the youth pastor because I was in the youth group and I was invited as a youth pastor on youth day to be on stage uh with the uh with the minister sharing the pulpit um I then became as I mentioned to you I wanted to be an actor yeah right so that was huge to be on stage and just learn how to project and just learn how to have an audience and to be able to replay with an audience um all of that and then then what I tell you is if you’re if any of you are thinking about this for your children think early let your kids encourage your kids to take acting classes yeah encourage your kids for me it was a thing called NFL National forensics League which is speech and debate in high school I that’s what got me to Yale I’ll tell you my very first speaking engagement ever I was uh I was
[00:23:01] 10 years old mhm and uh I sat my parents down in the living room yeah and I went and gave a presentation to them on the planets and afterward my dad came over and gave me five bucks paid speaking my first paid speaking Eng and it was like maybe that was the one that influenced it all the way but um it was amazing so so but the the point of look there are many of you didn’t have that like the two of us did where I had a lot of early training being on stage the national forensics League I had Lincoln Douglas debate I just every Saturday I was going to different schools and I was learning how to speak extemporaneous debate is an amazing yeah exemp is fantastic they you pull a topic out of the hat and then you’re given but if you don’t have any of that or you didn’t have that background but I would recommend for your kids you do then Toast Masters um my dad told me early on on that he had done Toast Masters and my father was a
[00:24:00] steel worker which I love about Toast Masters you know people who want to be professional speakers but people who just want I don’t know why my dad did it but my dad as a was a steel worker and toast do tell them more what is Toast Masters so Toast Masters is a club you join the club and once a week you go and everybody takes turns getting up and giving little speeches or different types of speeches um I was actually blessed my dad told me about Toast Masters and toast ERS honored me as their golden gavel top speaker in the world amazing yeah I recently accepted that award and past speaker past Award winners were DEA chober Tony Robbins you you should actually be up on that for sure but um but it was amazing my father you know had told me about this when I was a kid beautiful I remember I was crying on stage when I received the award because I only wished my dad had been in the front row he had passed could you imagine my dad in the front row listening to his son received that but but but I’m saying it’s about practice right it is about practice now
[00:25:00] there’s different forms of speaking I don’t know about you but when when cameras in media started to happen um one of the biggest screw-ups I’ve ever done in my life was my second book I got on the The Good Morning America and I hope it’s not out there anywhere but I choked on live television oh my God and I was I am I was petrified of cameras being on stage had a forgiveness about it and it was long for I could be on stage for an hour musing and talking and engaging with people but when you put me in front of a little camera I got terrified I started sweating profusely you’re doing pretty good right now by the way you know I practiced it was fun my my ex partner who you know very well s um God bless him oh I I feel so bad but because I was so terrified he and I had a thing this is back in the day when we didn’t have iPhones we had flip cameras yes and so he would just walk around with me and he would periodically pause hijack me and
[00:26:00] say flip camera you like and he asked me a question and it would give me the practice to get comfortable with that medium and we did it all the time and I would get so upset and I would get so angry and I’d be so terrified it took me years to be able to be in front of a camera yeah so this was as an adult my point is if you’re terrified of speaking in whatever medium [ __ ] practice yeah it is about practice you know it’s interesting I uh I started putting myself into situations where I was speaking you know I had started um after well in the middle of medical school and after medical school I was running International Space University uh with two dear friends and there was the opening ceremonies and the closing ceremonies and in between so I was giving speeches all the time and I’ll never forget an experience I had which taught me an amazing lesson I was in too France at the closing ceremonies and uh here we are with our
[00:27:00] 120 graduates and 500 you know parents and friends there and I get up on stage to try and give a you know inspiring closing talk and I had a speech right there in front of me and and I started reading it and I started like just choking because you know it’s like trying to make eye contact and reading it and like uh uh and it was and I L Lally put it down and spoke from my heart and something flipped and I’ve never ever ever had a teleprompter or speech so my experience I’m curious if it’s yours is I would make sure I had like five to 10 maximum bullets like these are the things I want to hit on let’s do that let’s get into the structure and I would um that would allow me to pick a subject and a lot of times you
[00:28:01] know my my dear friend and writing partner stepen Coller talks about being in flow yeah and when you’re on stage in an audience and you’re in flow and you’re speaking from the heart authentically it’s a people know it and you know it yeah so I’ll tell you my my what I do is number one is um at the beginning of a speech you should very quickly get into a personal story yes stories are critically important the biggest uh mistake I’ve made is when I was trying to give too much information and I felt that this audience didn’t want to hear my stories they wanted the information because I was intimidated maybe they were scientists or they were very senior Executives but the reality is that if you don’t if you don’t capture their heart with authenticity through a powerful story at the beginning you’ve lost them yeah so that’s number one is to start with some form of a story the next thing I always do is there’s I always think of my talks as three sections I don’t know what they are but there’s three big sections like in a
[00:29:01] movie in my talk yeah yeah and if I lost my notes all I would have to have is three sections to memorize right because I could flow through three things yeah and then within each the sections I’ll have three or four bullet points right that’s your point of 10 things y now what I will do if I’m giving a talk that I’ve never given before I will write out in two pages what I want us to share then I’ll turn it in to three sections with bullet points and between the time that I finalize what I think I’m going to say and the talk I will take what used to be called recipe cards M remember those little papers um I’ll take a recipe card and I will write and rewrite my bullet points over and over again without looking at the last version so I’ll take a set of bullet points and I’ll I I’ll write them and then I’ll I’ll say right put it away let me do it again and each
[00:30:01] time it’ll get smaller and smaller the number of bullet points that I need to remember get smaller and smaller until I’ve really mastered the content and I don’t need anything on the stage any longer I I agree a th% on grabbing them one an opening story it’s beautiful right um the thing that I’ve done recently that works really well for me as well is I have a PowerPoint deck sure and the PowerPoint deck is mostly all image yeah pictures and a title across the top which is your bullet points it’s your guidance and and so as I’m going through the deck I use it as a reminder I’m going to tell some stories around this or some stories around this people are there to be entertained first and foremost and if you can educate them on top of the entertainment that’s fantastic if you just educate them without the entertainment they don’t they don’t get it I appreciate it and um
[00:31:01] I feel like the that regimentation and the idea that you’re just going through reminders and nodes is important um let’s talk a little bit about over uh rehearsing talks and things uh there’s an there’s an association I don’t want to I don’t want to embarrass them in my um my belief of what they do there’s an association of speakers that um has a very strong belief on how speech should be done huh okay and it’s a very prominent group out there I’m going to start guessing right and um and they literally all they literally have the professionalism down to a science you open your first remark here and then you take two steps to the right and you have your next remark and then and it’s this crazy meticulous formula of giving a talk which I might imagine for somebody who isn’t organically good at this might
[00:32:01] be a really nice way to start but when I watch them I have lost a Humanity uhhuh yes and what I love about both you and I on stage and certainly Tony you know is what comes out is is the raw nature of our passion and the message and the and the other you know there’s also a very famous place to give talks that have they squeeze you into a box on how to give a talk there 20 minutes um and and the way you know like I remember I was talking to Reed Hoffman um both he and I got coaching to do a talk a come on we know we Ted talk right and we got our coaching to give a TED talk and we both swore that it it felt like we were having the life drained out of us because it was so meticulous and how to it’s gotten worse all that was like was like oh my God and and I and I look at it and I’m like it was it was excellent but the the a pluses that I
[00:33:02] could have given if it if I didn’t feel as regimented but on the other hand if you think about the average person that gets up to give a TED Talk yeah they need that right you know the way I got pretty good decent at speaking was modeling others so I would watch Tony right Tony’s a friend we built companies Together written a book together and so forth and I would you know in the early days watch him on stage and I would watch him not for the content but the delivery his hand motions huge hands uh his voice inflections and then I went on YouTube and on uh ted.com and started saying okay which talks really stop me and like amazing speakers and then why do I think they’re amazing what are they what are they doing and so I began emulating that and one of the you know some of the Lessons Learned just for for folks listening here is I don’t ever get behind a Podium first and foremost never
[00:34:00] right I’m in front I’m bare naked second thing is I go to 11 what do I mean by that right you if you think about it’s when you’re speaking at a level of energy that you think is high energy yeah it’s not that high in the audience right and so I need to go higher it’s I add one thing I go to 11 and I go to two yes 100% right 100% the ability to go from there to then pause yes and just land an emotional point and Sil Reflection Point and silence silence is a huge exclamation point yeah and Tony what I love about you know sometimes I find myself after I’ve done like sometimes when you when I’m doing Tony events they happen to be like three in a row yeah and for the next month I find myself using tonyisms like in the middle of the thing I’m like say yes say yes exactly say yes say yes it’s like and so to have that so I find myself going into those things the the thing about
[00:35:00] um emulation is so important I want to I want to tip my hat to a beautiful man his name is len slesinger he was a professor at Harvard Business School I was a um a second year he was one of the most meaningful people in my life academically um I was a student of his but I became a mentee of his he was studying my subject that I was really interested in which was total quality control and management but he was doing it in retail and Prof and I was had him come from manufacturing um what he would do he was one of the best speakers and he was one of the best um Professor lecturers he was energizing he was always sweating and he was just he was [ __ ] amazing but I got to the point where he said to me one day he said Keith would I can’t go to the National Retail Federation to give this talk would you give it for me but I had watched him so many times that I literally would sit back and I would scribe his talk and I gave his talk
[00:36:00] literally gave his talk not just his inflections his manners I gave his talk and I learned how to give his talk and then I earned the right to change it for myself MH right and so that was the best way for me it was total mimicry y but then I adapted it for myself and I learned my own style ke held on to some of his so and I I suggest I’ve got an amazing man Works in our company who his name is ronin and he wants to be better and better at his speaking he’s doing the same thing for me and I love it he’s giving my talks as him but then he’s modifying yeah and I’m doing that with one of my Strike Force members Yanni you know just putting him on stage more and more to give them the experience let’s put a let’s put a a nail or a stake in the heart of fear one second so the answer to fear it’s natural yeah uh is practice it is practice it is practice it is practice and it is um allowing yourself it’s what I want to say is
[00:37:02] allow the emotion to come out fully it’s hand motions it’s volume it’s it’s you know being being confident in yourself people love that confidence and they love the empathy that you have for them in this subject uh at the end of the day uh I I remember my first Ted Talk actually my first Ted Talk my second Ted talk when I gave the abundance talk and and um I went and was giving it at uh the home of Lyn and Norman Lear and she invited me to come and present it just after abundance had come out and I gave it I gave what I was working on for Ted and then uh common friend Eric hbur pulled me aside and goes I think I can make it better for you and we spent the better part of a week re-engineering the talk and me giving it over and over and over again and it was phenomenally better and kudos to Eric who is a brilliant creative
[00:38:01] himself yeah he is uh and it when I got on stage and I gave that talk I was um I felt on fire and I was like on a mission to change the people’s mindset there but I was so confident what I was saying because you iterated iterated I had it allowed me that’s what I was saying earlier I literally you know I remember my TED Talk and getting ready for it and just that over and over over and over again and I and I think that until you just get such comfort that you can do it in your sleep yeah um I think that’s critical you know the thinking about speaking um I did want to make sure that we also punctuated the mediums and I do think that one of the things I learned is there was a little bit of a difference between being on this media yeah and being on stage and between a small stage and a big stage I agree like between like you’re talking about being 11 and being big I used to do that on
[00:39:00] television and it looked weird yeah that’s true it doesn’t work for television so I think it’s important to understand your medium um most of the time what we’re talking about look crazy you do you look you look [ __ ] crazy I actually remember the very first time I I did a CNN CNBC uh show with myself and Rich Dad Poor Dad and a bunch there were four of us this guy’s on speed and swear to God it looked like I’ve never done cocaine in my life but I look like I just over toast on cocaine at the end I watched myself I was like oh that was so embarrassing right so you do have to recogn how came from nerves well yes and it was a medium I was used to like and again I was used to being on stage and as an actor and I was big and and T wants an intimate setting yeah and and yeah it’s it’s it’s different so I think people have to be conscious and let me say one other thing you and I are giving a disproportionate tilt to Charisma and energy Etc but let me let me suggest
[00:40:02] don’t let that intimidate you if that’s not who you are and and maybe I’m going to take a very antithetical approach to what we just said there are comedians who are totally different styles and land the joke beautifully yep there are some comedians that are deadpan and do a beautiful job of it there are some now you don’t want to bore people but it I think that all of you could find a way to be a good speaker and honor you mhm you’ve got to command you’ve got to modulate I think even if you’re not going to 11 to2 if you go to your volume goes to 8 to 4 that’s still going to be important yeah and by the way you might be a scientist or a technologist talking about a really important subject you know some kind of a breakthrough you had Bill Gates doesn’t do what you and I do people listen to him but he is Bill Gates yeah but so if you’ve got really very important and meaningful information to deliver um I think you
[00:41:03] don’t have to be the like you said the charismatic uh presenter on stage but you still need to get a connection with the audience yes anecdotes stories opening up with story open I still see dry professors that use humor beautifully Reagan used to do it right he was just such a beautiful oror and he would tell jokes and it worked right so I just want to make sure that we’re not intimidating an entire population that don’t think that they can be usy everybody Peter Dand is here uh I’ve been asked over and over again what do I do for my own health well I put it down in this book called Peter’s longevity practices uh it’s very readable in just an hour in the book I cover longevity diet exercise sleep my annual found upload meds and supplements longevity mindset it’s literally consumable in just an hour’s time hopefully to incentivize you to make a difference in your life to intercept the technolog is
[00:42:00] coming our way if you want this it’s free just check out the link below and download it right now now you may be an entrepreneur who’s got a company of 10 people or a company of a 100 people and being able to stand up in front of that company and give a heartfelt compelling like uh you know drive and purpose and to ignite that company through a difficult time or a a Sprint you need to do is equally important we are emotional beings and we have this emotional connection let’s talk about how we turn this into a business because you and I have and again you gave me in tremendous uh gift of insight so if someone’s written a book and that’s but that’s so important the day I started getting paid for speaking was the day I wrote a book yes really getting paid for speaking and it’s interesting because if you are a public speaker and you haven’t written a
[00:43:01] book you’re probably going to get uh a 10 to 20% of the revenue that you would get than if you wrote a book yeah a book A book in this matter is a representation that you have a concise body of knowledge right it’s exactly it and it’s your it’s your credential it’s your card if you don’t have a book the likelihood someone’s going to well got to remember who’s Hing it’s it’s I and I I apologize for this it’s a um it’s a clip a clipboard lady or clipboard guy I always it’s like there’s somebody five layers down in the organization checking boxes who’s checking boxes and is working with the bureau to figure out what slate to give the CEO for the event of course it could come down from the CEO but a lot of the times it’s a risk adverse individual looking to qualify who who’s supposed to be on this stage at this point in time and so not having
[00:44:00] a book is almost a disqualified now you could have a very successful company or you could have a very successful life experience that the world knows about it’s a brand it’s a youand if you don’t have a brand you need a book maybe that’s that’s the mantre you don’t have a brand you need a book and by the way when you’re being introduced uh and someone says so and so is the author of so and so book they don’t need to mention how many copies were sold or anything and we we we talked about it in our other podcast they will say that it is a bestselling book even though it’s the bestselling in Joe’s book list so you no matter what you’ll be a bestselling author and you’ll be able to have credential people want to you know they want to put you on stage if they feel like you’ve got a credential and and a yeah so that’s so important the book start the book starts your speaking career it really it was the case for me it was I think it’s the case for so many and I don’t know many examples that can do it without and again uh you know this podcasters again you have a brand if you’ve got a major podcast that has a
[00:45:01] great following again it’s because you have the brand it’s like having your own TV show and there are a few podcasters I know who haven’t gone on and written the book right um you know the old saying you don’t make money on on Book Sales you make money on speeches is very true so so now we’re into the business now we’re into the business so can can I talk about the first thing that needs to happen which is what is your topic and you know I I want to use you and me as an example here okay you have found a topic now look you didn’t you weren’t searching for a topic to get a good speaking business therefore you picked abundance yeah that’s not happen that way but let’s just talk about cuz my top my topic early on for a good part of my life was space guess guess what kind of a speaking business you would have with a space topic zipo I don’t know but guess we’re kind of a paid speaking business you’d have with space Zippo that’s for sure so you know JPL would hire you to speak but um an MIT would hire you speak coffee right so but let’s
[00:46:01] let’s let’s dissect a bit your abundance topic which I think is really important interesting and I was kind of shocked that it became a successful uh viable business topic yeah well I I think that’s just because of the purity of your intent of the message you weren’t engineering it for that but as I you know as I looked at somebody who I helped to craft their speaking business and then all of a sudden I saw your speaking fee be double mind sorry I was like what no what is about that so I started dissecting and I was like what is it about Peter’s speaking business that has taken wind and it’s and here’s my analysis and you can the first thing is if you look at who’s putting you on stage there’s there’s a CEO putting you on stage saying I want you to kick the butt of my people to be deeply curious inspired to be over the edge in terms of what could be next not sitting on our Laurels but
[00:47:02] going big and going next because every CEO wants that yeah the other thing you do is you bring a very positive message when you leave the stage people have walked in saying the world is [ __ ] and I you know and it’s falling apart and they leave saying oh my God the world is abundant it’s amazing right so you’ve done two extraordinary things and it’s not a surprise it’s not how you engineer it but it’s not a surprise yeah that you’ve created that now um why do I say that because when you’re thinking about the business if you’re literally creating a speaking business for the sake of a business then you need to ask yourself is that message going to resonate with which audiences so this is I’m a former marketer yeah so I would first ask the question which audiences are hiring so who hires speakers um sales organizations hire them for their big sales offsites every year yeah um leadership offsites which is the big company meeting with the top 100,000
[00:48:02] people or whatever it isomer engagement right um and then external Customer Events big like the big event where you bring all of your customers together like sales forcement and then associations which are hiring it for their members and that’s either a personal message like you’re going to get a sports hero that everyone’s interested in but you could find something that that general consumers would be interested in so you really just think about who are the people hiring speaking and ask you what gift are you giving that that organization by virtue of you walking on stage and that’s an important alignment um where where I have gone with my talks is I call my talks challenge talks because again my brand is is partially to inspire I go on stage and I say to an audience and this is what I have sold my speech to where do you want your people’s behavior to change over the next um 6 to n months in order to meet your strategy you know
[00:49:00] Peter’s the guy that will help your strategy and Technology get on path I’m the guy that comes behind and says where are the behaviors of your people and I believe that anybody in that room could be the Tipping Point of the transformation of the company that’s why I wrote leading without Authority I’m trying to say that everybody in the room you could take the manifestation of the strategy the company and you could go out and build the relationships the vision to make it happen and your career would be on fire fire right and by the way you are a leader of a team that is yet to know that they’re following you that team is the people inside of the organization that are going to follow you and your vision on how to meet the strategy of the company so that idea I call it a challenge talk and it crushes it out there yeah because you know while you come on one day we’ve done this actually where you’ve spoken then I spoken you come on one day and you get the organization to see where its strategy and its technology needs to be I come in and I see you know where is the how can an individual ignite
[00:50:02] transformation by changing their behavior and managing teams differently you know tactically uh let’s let’s say you’ve written your book or you’ve had this life experience or you had something that creates a brand that makes gives you a message that is super credible and people want to hear right one of the things that you taught me was you said listen um you introduced me to Leading authorities one of the speaking agencies that still to this day we have a great relationship with and you said go to their office in Washington DC MH and meet with their team and give your talk there I also said buy them lunch yeah I’m sure if I did you show up offer to buy them lunch you because there’s a lot of people that want to get on their radar say Hey listen I’d love to buy you all lunch and all I want you to do is listen to 20 minutes of what I have to share yeah I mean how how many agencies are out there I think there’s you know first of all there’s hundreds yes um
[00:51:00] because as it as the as that that world is grown any individual can be an agency but I know let’s call it 12 to 15 yeah important agencies and I’m not suggesting by the way that the biggest agencies and the most important Washington speakers Bureau is not an agency that you Harry Winston is the one in New York but some of the biggest ones aren’t necessarily where you’re going to give me will be the agencies that typically have the you know uh bar Obamas the Clint yeah exactly the ex uh political um but there are agencies that have either sub specialization or subsp specializations and going and building a relationship there that’s it because at the end of the day when the uh agent part of that agency is on the phone with a a large marketing event or membership event they say hey let me let me point you at this individual check out this website and let me know cuz I’ve heard them speak and they’re amazing y right now let’s talk about how to do that now this is where my Never Eat Alone hat
[00:52:01] comes on yeah um you’re not building a relationship with a bureau you’re building a relationship with three agents yes and the way you do that is you start to connect by doing that first you know Outreach you get their email you follow up you ask them questions about it you ask them questions about your talk so they’ve just heard you give your your your teaser and then you start a relation ship hey um what advice do you have what do you think about the messaging where do you think that that messaging is going to play well and by the way do you have anybody that you’re thinking about that you think would be great for that then you the first time they they put you up for a potential talk whether you got it or not I want you to send them flowers an Amazon card that’s what I that’s do just say thank you thank you so much I I didn’t get the talk yeah send them cash right um I and by the way this is they’re paid by their
[00:53:00] bosses this is direct to them the individual right here I just want to thank you um and remember their birthdays and find out I mean I I used to have all the stuff that you teach it’s everything it’s all of the relationship component I had a um uh Idol woman who ran my speaking business for a while Jordan and Jordan was a great leverage for me with those bureaus and she richly got to know those folks she was sending birthday presents that were so intimate like she would send a a baseball card to somebody that she had researched that person’s hero was that individual and they were a baseball fan and a a framed you know baseball card was sent to them that kind of intimacy now you and I have gotten to the stage where we’re probably not doing those tactics anymore but in the beginning it matters right and so Jordan for you Connie still Wars my speaking business and that is important that if you’re not
[00:54:00] going to hire 12 people to if you’re not going to go with an agency to have a right hand whether that’s your administrative assisten maybe we can talk about that a little bit what is the role of your admin or yourself if you got the time Connie who runs my speaking business he used to be my admin she used to be my executive assistant and as my speaking business started growing um at one point I got her a second ea uh Esther and I said Connie would you just go and run the speaking business alone and and I sent her to a negotiation school and uh and she has and she’s done extraordinarily well for me and for herself and then Esther became my EA and I’m my chief of staff but this person isn’t they could easily just be a Booker a transactional logistics person they But Connie is a relationship person she develops relationships with the agents as well right and uh and she’s my first line of defense as well now I get a lot of inbound emails people who are members
[00:55:02] of my communities or my organizations or donors and Peter can you speak mostly for free well the requests come in for free I mean everybody is asking and I get hundreds of requests a year and my way of looking at it is if I do something I’m trading Against Time with my my 12-year-old boys yeah or or trading against my companies and so the answer is no unless they meet a threshold and that threshold is either it’s extraordinarly meaningful for me or in my companies or it’s going to I’m going to take a certain number of paid gigs per year and it’s going to be one of the paid gigs so Connie goes in and will say I just got a request from a very high level politician uh to come and speak at an event and I’m not going to say listen here’s my speaking rate um and uh um you know but Connie can go in very respectfully and say you know so
[00:56:00] and so here’s Peter’s speaking rates and uh he could be free on that day uh is that an option and going through that but it gives me it gives me a separation in that but I want to I want to level down for the viewing audience for a second um but I hope they’ll get there yeah but I also want them I want to give them the opportunity if you’re an entrepreneur in the healthcare space um and you’re building a business that sells into Hospital Systems um there’s a lot of really cool places that you could be developing a speaking business now here’s the thing if the association of Hospital administrators um if you went to them normally and said I would like to speak on your stage and you have a business that sells into Hospital administrators they’ll say yes and and you can pay $200,000 for a sponsorship right ex but if you write a book and and you and you write some
[00:57:03] articles and develop a sense of thought leadership and you have a a $30,000 you know uh speaking fee associated with your name you could probably get on that stage at a minimum for free yes and that’s okay yeah no listen there’s no there’s no yeah being being on a stage in which uh it’s great for your comp or your organization but that little strategy is important I want for people to understand you went from when spor being a sponsor when I was a Del as Chief marketing officer every time I wanted to show up and speak people wanted me to pay them and and it wasn’t long after that when I wrote a book that I started getting paid yes and so it’s a really important flip to be able to have and they’re not obiously by the way if you haven’t watched Keith and I talking about how to write a New York Times bestselling book go watch that podcast next because the two are intimately connected if you have please leave comments we’d love to know what you
[00:58:01] thought was it useful for you on how to write a book or is this podcast useful for you love to know everybody I want to take a short break from our episode to talk about a company that’s very important to me and could actually save your life or the life of someone that you love company is called Fountain life and it’s a company I started years ago with Tony Robbins and a group of very talented Physicians you know most of us don’t actually know what’s going on inside our body we’re all optimists until that day when you have a pain in your side you go to the physician or the emergency room and they say listen I’m sorry to tell you this but you have this stage three or four going on and you know it didn’t start that morning it probably was a problem that’s been going on for some time but because we never look we don’t find out so what we built at Fountain life was the world’s most Advanced Diagnostic Center centers we have four across the us today and we’re building 20 around the world these centers give you a full body MRI a brain
[00:59:03] a brain vasculature an AI enabled coronary CT looking for soft plaque a dexa scan a Grail blood cancer test a full executive blood workup it’s the most advanced workup you’ll ever receive 150 GB of data that then go to our AIS and our physicians to find any disease at the very beginning when it’s solvable you’re going to find out eventually you might as well find out when you can take action Fountain life also has an entire side of Therapeutics we look around the world for the most Advanced Therapeutics that can add 10 20 healthy years to your life and we provide them to you at our centers so if this is of interest to you please go and check it out go to Fountain life.com back/ Peter when Tony and I wrote Our New York Times bestseller life force we had 30,000 people reached out to us for Fountain life memberships if you go
[01:00:00] to Fountain life.com back/ Peter we’ll put you to the top of the list really it’s something that is um for me one of the most important things I offer my entire family the CEOs of my companies my friends it’s a chance to really add decades onto our healthy lifespans go to fountainlife decomp it’s one of the most important things I can offer you as one of my listeners all right let’s go back to our episode um it’s one of the things that for me is important is this work life integration because uh a speaking business can uh can be a bit addictive right if you got start getting paid to go and speak and if you’re flying around the world and it can take you away from the normal course of your business and so there’s got to be a balance uh a lot of times if you get a speaking engagement um they’ll pay for your travel uh I’m always asking to have a second person go with me yeah
[01:01:01] right so I don’t go to any of these events on my own uh I’ll bring one of my Strike Force members Yanni because a lot of times a lot of the business opportunities are occurring just before just after and having someone there and in bulk and you keep TR you get you get off stage and you’re mob right and so being able to like say yes and talk diani and you know basically it helps a lot yeah can I on this simple little thing called travel expenses what I found and I think you might have found the same thing is it’s actually more efficient to have a standardized speaking I’m standardized travel um expense that you it’s a buyout it’s like look you know my speaking fee is 50k and my domestic travel is 3,750 bucks whatever it is yeah um and you you might say and a private jet whatever wherever your level is that you can ask for it I’ll never forget I was trying to get a
[01:02:01] particular well-known Tech entrepreneur to come and speak this was years ago and he came back and he said my fee is 100k and a private jet and I was like WTF holy [ __ ] really like who is this person yeah it’s actually funny I did something recently I was helping a friend of mine who’s a CEO trying to get some pretty prominent people to come and speak at his event but it was a small event it was only 30 chro yeah and these people wanted a lot of money and I said I have an idea let’s ask people who live in this B was in Santa Barbara I said let’s ask people who live in San Francisco major people who live in San Francisco let’s not pay them let’s send a helicopter for them and it was amazing we got them to say yes yeah the idea that they were getting a helicopter sent to bring them down to the event back a vvp experience but we didn’t have to to pay them so we ended up as a lot cheaper but this idea of travel buyout is is something people should know it
[01:03:00] became easier than just tracking all the expenses it was a chunk of change that you got you have an international travel buyout number you have a domestic travel buyout number So Co hits yeah and uh we’re not traveling any place and and our speaking fees for about a month or two went to zero yes they did and people were like 5,000 bucks you can come and speak at our event virtually and isn’t it interesting it went back up that our virtual talks are now getting paid what our old speaking fees used to well I’m not sure it’s gotten up to the full one but you know a virtual talk for an at a third the price for an hour you know you’re in you’re in your pajamas and slippers and giving your keynote at least under here you are right yeah at least in half of it uh and that’s amazing and so the ability uh and I actually enjoy it it can be as interactive um and I can deliver real value yeah uh what else is do people need to know about uh setting your rates so I mean listen in the very beginning
[01:04:01] maybe when your books just come out uh you might be doing a number of talks for free right Ted’s never going to pay you if you can get on the Ted stage it’s we’ll we’ll talk about a little bit more but otherwise you know my speaking fees early on were probably 10 20K and that was amazing found money and that’s still I think significant that amount of money if you get to be a $155,000 speaker that’s sort of the First Rate yeah I think the first when you’re a real speaker you’re getting paid 15K um the next level is 30 I find and I think the next level goes to 50 to 60 50 let’s say and then you’re up to 75 and then you’re at 100 which is a very rarified group of individuals but if you really think about those I think those demarcations are about right and the people that I know um what what becomes important is to ask yourself you always want to use the price to set your days right so you know at 15 you could
[01:05:02] probably be speaking all the time if you really going to hustle you’re going to do all the stuff of marketing we were talking about get your butt out there um work the bureaus you can speak a lot at 15K and one engagement can lead to three to you know you have an expon engagement particularly if it’s associations if you go and work at you speak at an association you’ve got a th people in the audience each of whom could go back and say we should hire that person versus speaking at just one company but the the 15K uh what I did was I was finding myself speaking too much MH and and I had to up at to 30 this was back in the mid uh mid mid 2000s I had to up at the 30 to keep my days down yeah my ultimate business was the same I meet with Connie once a year we set our our pricing and I I ask her not to tell me about the gigs that come in too low so I’m Noto you and I both would be like
[01:06:00] well at 60 can I rationalize that 60k cuz 60k a person salary for a year yeah it’s crazy exactly it’s a house when I grew up yeah so um the reality is you need to titr trate that and especially if you have a family or you’re an entrepreneur running a company balancing that is really important but if you’re at the beginning of your career and you’ve done something extraordinary being on the road and being able to share your message and get paid for it is is amazing amazing you know the problem is I’ll get you know I’ll come into Las Vegas for an association meeting and I’ll arrive at midnight I’ll have this incredible Suite my talk is at 8:00 in the morning and then I’ll leave and it’s like what a waste a waste of the Glamour and the glitz I agree you know one of the things also is at this point in our lives we get to Cherry Pig pick what to speak for you should care about who you’re speaking for yeah um
[01:07:00] and I found myself in a few times where I’m like how did I end up speaking to this audience I have no connection to them and yes it’s a great payday but I should have said no MH right so I think that being authentic and being able to really feel in your heart that you’re going to help these individuals uh is super important what other lessons can we teach her you know I I was I wanted to think a little bit about um free talks because in one regard it’s easy to say you shouldn’t do them um but let’s talk about where I have found free talks have really had a return on investment please no question a TED Talk yeah it has the massive return investment you want you want to talk about TED one second first um sure but I want to come back to other free talks and how one thinks about those but yeah let’s talk about TED so Ted it’s still the it’s still the shining star Hill it’s amazing uh Ted stands for technology entertainment and design right and it is I I don’t even
[01:08:02] think they claim that anymore it’s like it’s just Ted I mean what Chris has done yeah Chris Anderson the Chris Anderson you and I know each other from Ted before Chris took it over Y and um that man and his team that that has created the the TED Talks the media business outside of a single conference that by the way is a great example of abundance by giving away your product for free you exponential well they did they did it more than one way right so ted.com is where you can go and watch all the talks and people you know people say well why would you want to go and pay $10,000 or 15,000 or 30,000 if you’re a patron and go to Ted if you watch it talks for free one month later you’re going to see them for free and and of course that’s not why you’re there you’re there to meet everybody else and to experience it live the I’m here right now because of Ted you and I are together because of Ted
[01:09:01] some of my best dearest friends and my richest relationships I have in my life was because of the TED membership and the Ted community and I am so grateful for that organization and the community that’s created um getting on that stage I I hope you know it’s there has become a a better mechanism than back in the day and back in the day I think it was you know pixie dust and and and who and knew and and how your name or book or topic came across the right person at the right time which couldn’t be engineered it could be a bit but it was very difficult to but now they’ve got an entire feeder system called the tedex program yeah and it actually does work I me you can you can be no one and give a local Ted X talk and have that rise up through the ranks through the likes of the system and the next thing you know you’re on the main so selem and I talk about tedex in our uh EXO 2.0 book right as a an incredible
[01:10:00] exponential organizations how do you go from this once a year event which Ted used to be for how many people 1500 people in the audience there to all of a sudden reaching hundreds of thousands uh millions of individuals through tedex talks around the world right as their podcasting series Etc so I I would just say it you and I both are super fans y we both have so much uh um to respect the quality of what they’ve done um and I would say the way to go about all of you should be worried about your Ted Talk 100% that’s it it’s as important as a book yeah and and your your book How would you present your book in 20 minutes or less or 18 minutes what is it is it 18 minutes well changes I mean my my TED Talk was 12 minutes back of the day okay um um but I think if you can’t convey your your your purpose your mission your MTP your
[01:11:02] essence of what you’re in in that well those the Franklin sorry I I I wish if I had more time this letter would have been shorter yes um so start to work your Ted Talk even though you don’t have a place to give it yet yeah then or throw a tedex conference you can apply say then get involved in the tedex community and the modern day Tech version of Toast Masters in one sense it is you know at at a hyper up level so that’s one now the other thing about free talks is I’ll tell you this is my alumni University speaking at the reunion has sometimes been the best feeder for my um for my speaking engagements interesting because what you know particularly with my Elma moer at business school I was able to give talks to my classmates who were like wow that was a great talk and you’re dealing with an entire group of individuals that are running businesses right your stages
[01:12:00] right isn’t I’m sure an immensely uh Rich opportunity for a bunch of entrepreneurs to see somebody speak on stage and say wow I should have them come in so there are places if as I was mentioning earlier associations if the organization if the Forum is a group where the audience are buyers of speaking engagements then it’s it could worth doing free talks yeah and so that’s what I want people to consider or if you care deeply about of course the audience the audience and the topic yeah right so I am I am whenever I can deliver to entrepreneurs and graduate students and so forth I mean the challenge is I think people don’t realize uh there’s a lot going on in our lives so being able to pick up you have it’s trade you’re always trading time right the one thing we all have in common is 24 hours in a day 7 days in a week 365 in a year and it’s how you use your time which is everything it’s our most precious resource right now I’ve gotten to the stage where I could probably only do one or two talks a year
[01:13:04] that are purely you know generous and grus um without an without a mo motive for doing it which is well this is an audience that could be more speaking engagements or more team coaching or such Etc but I do think it’s important I just I my what I say to my team is this is our channel strategy yes and and my team is responsible for identifying who are the associations that you should speak in front of for your channel strategy now this is where book helps because if you’ve written a book and if you haven’t seen it we’ve got a really great podcast about booking um about writing books about writing books yeah if you write a book it is all of a sudden a permission to speak and so if you think about what free talks you should be given where writing a book for the next next six months it’s very funny because if I reached out to Salesforce and said you
[01:14:00] know in dreamforce next year I’ve got a message I really think would be great okay that’s interesting um here put we’ll put you on the list Y no urgency but if I reached out to Salesforce and said I’ve got a book coming out the month the dream force is out or the month after and I could tease out my message which is about to be anywhere else on your stage and I’d be happy to sign books all of a sudden there’s urgency about having me as a speaker yeah so I know of a guy um who is just a brilliant speaker I don’t know if he would want me to say his name or not because his strategy is so beautiful he writes a book a year MH just for his speaking business and it he does it just as a machine and every year he writes a book he publishes it he markets it and that’s his next and as a result unlike guys like you and me who I suspect the the off the the the amount of time that
[01:15:01] we get invited back to the same state one year after another is almost never yeah it’s at best friends like you know a360 he gets invited back to the same stage he’s got a different message every year sure sure sure because he’s engineered his books around his speaking engagement in that way you know other platform stages are YPO chapters yeah um and EO chapters and if you here so again EO YPO but the the actual chapters don’t have a lot of money for speaking engagements right 5K 10K they have an education budget and sometimes they’ll group three or four chapters together right and create an event right but then the members you have to ask yourself at YPO certainly the membership has the ability potentially to do speaking engagement 50k 15K but as you go down to EO or vistage or other organizations they may not have you’ve got to ask yourself is the audience used to paying my speaking fee right um now one of the
[01:16:04] other things that I’ve I’ve done it’s interesting you people think of speakers and they think of themselves as hiring speakers and not hiring speakers it’s what’s the difference between helping them facilitate or helping them in a leadership off versus a speaking engagement I’ve been able to open up the number of engagements I know I still get paid 50k right I still do the same prep but I’ve now sold myself not as are you hiring a speaker but when are you giving your next leadership offsite I’d like to present some of my research yes you know it’s a it’s a Nuance but this idea of selling yourself as a speaker you’ve actually by the way you’ve usurped the bureaus you’ve usurped the clipboard people and you’ve gone straight to a leader who might think you know what I don’t normally have an outside speaker at my team meeting but this topic would
[01:17:02] be interesting sure I’ll free up 15 20 30 whatever it is for my team M so you can actually create a speaker slot that didn’t exist before by virtue of going direct shall we summarize yeah so inspiring thinking you do this one first okay I’ll go first so speak has a lot of extraordinary benefits for you uh personally I mean if you’re an entrepreneur and a leader it’s a chance for you to become a thought leader on stages around the world uh you can make a great living at it uh it’s a way to present your company your ideas um and so there’s a lot of elements of being call it a platform or a keynote speaker um fear often stops people and there’s one solution to fear and that is practice practice practice and speak about something that comes from the heart all right if you’re speaking with
[01:18:00] your mind in your brain you’re going to get caught up if you’re speaking from the heart for me a lot of my successes were emulating uh great speakers on stage who I watched and and I’m studying you when you’re on my abundance 360 stage or Tony’s on my stage or vice versa it’s like huh fascinating the way they did that how they paused even a second ler longer than I would have paused or their their volume or their you know their motions and their hand motions and it becomes like um incredibly it it it shocks oh another thing that I do I love doing when I’m on stage is Breaking the Barrier I will jump off the stage and walk into the audience yeah right it changes the entire Dynamic the camera people hate that I well I go and check with them first I said I may jump off the stage and they say well stay away from that speaker and that speaker going get the feedback but that’s fine and so uh and you’re looking to build a relationship
[01:19:00] uh rather than just you know hit and run can you give your slides away to that audience uh and can you in fact keep a relationship going with that audience but it’s there to serve um you know those are my thoughts off the bat I yeah well look as a as a good summary I’m I’m not going to be redundant you’ve said so many good things in your summary I stole some of yours that’s okay it’s a good summary that’s what we’re here for the Inspire inspiring summary where I want to go with it is maybe just a little different um and maybe this is just because the way I think about it I think about my speaking business really as a lifestyle for my future interesting Yeah the more that I invest in my brand today I mean the $2 million that I invested um around some research that I did during the pandemic actually ended up being $5 million the end of it what you know what I was thinking about I busted my ass
[01:20:00] during that that two to threee period doing research about the future of work I invested my own money and other brands money what I was thinking about was this is going to give me the permission when I’m 75 to 80 years old to go around the world and step on stage and my brand Legacy will still be there and I’ll be ready reant and I’ll be my partner and I will be able to travel and have a beautiful life because I will have built a brand and be meaningful to people and it’s the way I want to live my life F and so that’s what I was thinking about I was thinking about what I what I consider the Nirvana of my retirement and I think that’s what I what I would encourage any of you if you could start to build your brand and start to get permission to speak in people’s stages and and and in their uh companies it could be a beautiful way to live your life and that’s that’s that would be my
[01:21:00] wrap-up statement you know I think a few points you made as well remember to tell stories yeah open with a story a personal anote authenticity um variability you know of your voice level um from and and the last thing is relationships what kept coming up throughout this for the both of us is people uh whether it’s bureaus it’s about relationship ship it’s about agents it’s not about bureaus yeah it’s about individuals it’s Sally from XYZ speakers Bureau who has gone out on a limb and said Peter would be the right person and then was rewarded for it both by your success but also by the flowers and the Gratitude to build that relationship is important and and also I’ll give you one last one is um don’t be afraid to ask my old man used to say don’t ever be afraid to ask the worst anybody could ever say is no if you’ve got a buddy that you know is a big wig in a in a company just say to them hey um who runs your the events that you do
[01:22:02] I would love someday to get a chance to bring my message to your organization what’s wrong with that I mean that kind of just putting yourself out there and asking um is a great way to to get your speaking business maybe even just started you know what we didn’t talk about by the way I know this is the wrapup but what we didn’t talk about is your speaker real important idea and if you’ve never done any speaking before asking friends to be able to be to get on the stage in front of you their you their company but with a video camera yeah so that you could get it videoed and you can get two or three of them videoed and put it together in a real it establishes you yeah at the at the beginning of your career when people don’t know you you don’t have reputation you don’t have a bunch of you need the real yeah you need something to demonstrate what’s your style Your Capacity capabilities and so forth so Keith farazi folks who want to hire you to go speak yeah frozy Greenlight uh fry
[01:23:02] greenlight.com 2 RS 2zs yeah indeed awesome and they can follow you on Which social media linkedin’s probably best amazing thank you for this gift uh thank you for the gift you gave me a decade ago that launched me I’ll never forget where we you know that lunch sitting outside and you were so generous in teaching me these ropes that we’ve now conveyed on um it changed my life uh it and it truly uh uh was a rising tide I hope it is for many others yeah good pay forward thank you [Music] cheers