How Anyone Can Become a Great Public Speaker w/ Keith Ferrazzi | EP #65

In this episode, Peter and Keith discuss the art and business of public speaking. Keith Ferrazzi, a renowned executive coach and speaker, shares his insights on building a successful speaking career. 15:33 | Transforming Lives Through Speaking 31:11 | Get Good at Speaking Quickly 1:00:26 | Making Money With Speaking Engagements Keith Ferrazzi is an American author, entrepreneur, and recognized global thought leader in the relational and collaborative sciences. He is the founder and CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight, a Los Angeles-based research and consulting firm. He has written several New York Times bestselling books, including “Never Eat Alone” and “Who’s Got Your Back?”. Ferrazzi has introduced a new transformational operating system he calls co-elevation that leads to exponential change and value Check out Keith’s latest book, Competing in the New World of Work _____________ I only endorse products and services I personally use. To see what they are, please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: Experience the future of sleep with Eight Sleep. Visit https://www.eightsleep.com/moonshots/ to save $150 on the Pod Cover. _____________ I send weekly emails with the latest insights and trends on today’s and tomorrow’s exponential technologies. Stay ahead of the curve, and sign up now: Tech Blog Get my new Longevity Practices book for free: https://www.diamandis.com/longevity My new book with Salim Ismail, Exponential Organizations 2.0: The New Playbook for 10x Growth and Impact, is now available on Amazon: https://bit.ly/3P3j54J _____________ Connect With Peter: Twitter Instagram Youtube Moonshots Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:26Speaker 01

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• 0:35Speaker 02

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• 0:56Speaker 03

  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'll tell you what I want to do. I want to go around the world and be asked to share what I know.

• 1:16Peter Diamandis?

  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.

• 1:26Speaker 03

  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 do, but learn and grow and meet cool people for the rest of your fucking life. That's what you're building. You're building something that you'll have available to you for the rest of your life.

• 1:47Peter Diamandis?

  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, writing a book. And one of the things we 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. 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 companies, putting me in front of audiences around the world. And so, we're going to go deep into that.

• 2:32Peter Diamandis?

  Anyone who's listening, who's ever thought about being a speaker, has watched people like Tony Robbins onstage and said, "Wow, he's amazing. How can I do that?" So, dive into this, dissect it, and like we did with our "How to Write" and "New York Times Bestselling Book", let's give a 101 on the process.

• 2:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:52Peter Diamandis?

  You in for that?

• 2:53Speaker 03

  I'm excited about it, and I think it's meaningful. 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've 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. There's a lot of dark twists and turns and things that people don't know and misconceptions. So, why don't we give people some light in this process?

• 3:22Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, in the same way that you gifted that knowledge and literally opened up your rolodex and made introductions and told me what does and does not work. Looking forward to gifting that information to everybody watching here.

• 3:36Speaker 03

  Done. Let's do it.

• 3:38Peter Diamandis?

  You know, I had just published my book, Abundance, "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, both speaking at TED. And when 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.

• 4:23Peter Diamandis?

  And it was an inflection point for me financially, but more than the financials, it was building my brand in the world.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:32Peter Diamandis?

  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.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 4:41Peter Diamandis?

  Very different, we can talk about that. So, uh, let's dive in, let's open up in the question, like.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  Well, what was the takeaway that you, I'm curious, if you reflect on that.

• 4:52Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 4:52Speaker 03

  What was the takeaway that you walked away from, from that conversation that was the most impactful, the biggest aha?

• 4:59Peter Diamandis?

  I remember when I started doing my keynote speaking, uh, we had all these different agencies that wanted me to go exclusive with them.

• 5:05Speaker 03

  Right.

• 5:06Peter Diamandis?

  And one of them was, don't go exclusive with any agent, agency.

• 5:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:09Peter Diamandis?

  Right? You can have them all working on your behalf.

• 5:12Speaker 03

  Well, and let's explain that to folks.

• 5:14Peter Diamandis?

  Okay.

• 5:15Speaker 03

  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.

• 5:29Peter Diamandis?

  Right.

• 5:30Speaker 03

  So back in the day when Jack Welsh was a speaker.

• 5:33Peter Diamandis?

  Or Hillary Clinton.

• 5:34Speaker 03

  Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, right? And these people are being deluged with people, and I would imagine, you know, people like Simon Sinek and, and Adam Grant today, uh, et cetera, perhaps, um, that these individuals have more requests than they have time.

• 5:48Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  And they are trying to get their price up as high as possible, given a very limited number of days.

• 5:55Peter Diamandis?

  And they.

• 5:55Speaker 03

  Twenty days.

• 5:56Peter Diamandis?

  I'm available these days.

• 5:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm available twenty days.

• 5:59Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Although there's, you know, five hundred 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.

• 6:07Peter Diamandis?

  Of a single, of a single bureau, where it's all funneled, they know the kinds of gigs you like and don't like.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 6:13Peter Diamandis?

  And they know which days you're available and what your minimum price is, and because it's scarcity, scarcity drives up the price.

• 6:19Speaker 03

  But let's understand the business model of the bureau to, to understand why I would make that recommendation. So what a bureau does is they're working for. The the person booking the engagements, they're they're working for the booker.

• 6:32Peter Diamandis?

  So if you're running a conference and you're looking for a great keynote speaker on a particular subject.

• 6:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:38Peter Diamandis?

  Um.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  You go to you go to a bureau, so you're running your sales force.

• 6:41Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  And you're running the big dream force.

• 6:44Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  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 Salesforce, hopefully for five, 10 years. Running there there are bureau, there are agents out there who have worked for this event for five to 10 years.

• 7:03Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 7:04Speaker 03

  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.

• 7:16Peter Diamandis?

  Mm hmm.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  Right.

• 7:17Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 7:17Speaker 03

  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.

• 7:38Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 7:39Speaker 03

  Right. And when it comes to the commission, right with if you're wedded to just one. A number of the speeches that will come into you that have nothing to do with the bureau, nothing at all.

• 7:51Peter Diamandis?

  They saw you speak, they read your book, they just call and it's just.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  You go to one bureau, 100% of those speeches will be will be covered.

• 8:00Peter Diamandis?

  Commissioned.

• 8:01Speaker 03

  Commissioned.

• 8:01Peter Diamandis?

  Commissioned by that.

• 8:02Speaker 03

  Right. Whereas there's an entire swath uh that you can get directly without paying the commission. The commissions can be pretty daunting, right?

• 8:10Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, 20% is not unusual for it. I've seen 25%.

• 8:13Speaker 03

  I've seen 25 as well and sometimes even 30.

• 8:16Peter Diamandis?

  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'd I'd like to go back to the entrepreneurs watching and say, why do you even? Start a speaking business, right? What is it that is the benefit, the why behind it? And there are a few different reasons and let me 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 update it. So when I gave my abundance speeches

• 8:59Peter Diamandis?

  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?

• 9:08Speaker 03

  Well, let's go back and put the hat on of the person we're speaking to here.

• 9:12Peter Diamandis?

  An entrepreneur.

• 9:13Speaker 03

  Right. Well, perhaps.

• 9:15Peter Diamandis?

  Okay.

• 9:15Speaker 03

  That's one audience. There's an audience that says there's a group of individuals who just dream of being a speaker.

• 9:22Peter Diamandis?

  Sure.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  Right. 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.

• 9:34Speaker 03

  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. My parents let me do this at 12 years of age. I spent the entire summer.

• 9:50Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, my boys are 12 now. I'm trying to think about what I would do. Probably not that.

• 9:55Speaker 03

  Right. My, my parents let me at 12 years of age, live at a theater company for the entire summer by myself. I had my own apartment and I was, uh, I 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.

• 10:16Peter Diamandis?

  Hmm.

• 10:17Speaker 03

  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.

• 10:24Peter Diamandis?

  Right.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  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.

• 10:32Peter Diamandis?

  Hmm.

• 10:33Speaker 03

  Because these folks who were really good and not capable of earning a great living was probably because they weren't playing the game and building the relationships.

• 10:40Peter Diamandis?

  Building the brand.

• 10:41Speaker 03

  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.

• 10:53Peter Diamandis?

  Sure.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  Right? I'm in, I'm in media all over the world and I've 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.

• 11:05Peter Diamandis?

  So give me, give me the emotion you feel where you're on stage.

• 11:09Speaker 03

  That's a great question. Um, you know what? It's different. 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. I was looking for self-worth. Today, when I'm on stage, I feel effusively generous.

• 11:31Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 11:32Speaker 03

  Because what I do, and this little trick, and I'm sure you do the same thing. Before I go onstage, I do my research. I understand what I'm intended to do. I always ask myself the question, and then I ask my client the question. What would you like the audience to be doing differently three to four months after I've left, because I was there?

• 11:51Peter Diamandis?

  The question I ask as well is, what's the emotional experience you want them to have at the end of this next hour?

• 11:57Speaker 03

  And you and I, again, my, my whole brand is about doing and practices.

• 12:02Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 12:03Speaker 03

  You know, you're about inspiring and potential, similar to what Tony does. Mine's about doing and 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.

• 12:20Peter Diamandis?

  Right.

• 12:20Speaker 03

  Quarter later, right?

• 12:21Peter Diamandis?

  Change.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  Now, I feel effusively generous. So what I do is I-

• 12:26Peter Diamandis?

  And you are.

• 12:28Speaker 03

  But exactly.

• 12:29Peter Diamandis?

  It's authentic from the heart.

• 12:30Speaker 03

  Ton. I do, I do a ton of research, which a lot of speakers don't do.

• 12:33Peter Diamandis?

  Yes.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  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 as a puppet of their vision? How do I be of service? But then what I do is I show up-

• 12:53Peter Diamandis?

  You're the channel, not the puppet.

• 12:54Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, exactly. Thank you. Um, then what I do is, the night before when I land, most speakers are like, oh, I'm just gonna 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 the shit. I'm like, what's really... By the way, 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.

• 13:26Peter Diamandis?

  Yes.

• 13:27Speaker 03

  You need to tell me what to say. I said, I'm writing the talk and I have no idea what I'm doing.

• 13:31Peter Diamandis?

  Oh my god.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  I was like, tell me, I was like, here's my topic, tell me what to say. And I swear to God, at least 25% of what I'm gonna say on stage.

• 13:39Peter Diamandis?

  Will modify.

• 13:40Speaker 03

  Is developed the night before in the morning of.

• 13:42Peter Diamandis?

  Amazing.

• 13:43Speaker 03

  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 on whoever they're talking to. And I am starting to get teary eyed. And I imagine their life.

• 14:02Peter Diamandis?

  Wow.

• 14:03Speaker 03

  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 thinking, it's like, how am I gonna help him? How in a three months from now?

• 14:18Peter Diamandis?

  Wow.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  And then I look at the woman over there and the young kid, and the young, young, you know, the woman executive, whatever it is, I'm looking at these people and I'm like, how do I help them? And now I'm fucking ready.

• 14:30Peter Diamandis?

  Now you're in fire. And, and, and Buddy, you've been on my stage at a button 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 Farazzi is the best. Um, uh, and just you move the audience, you bring an emotional connection, uh, in a way that's extraordinary.

• 14:53Speaker 03

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• 16:10Peter Diamandis?

  sleep like never before? Visit www.eightsleep.com, that's E-I-G-H-T-S-L-E-E-P.com/monshots, and you'll save 150 bucks on the Pod Cover by Eight Sleep. I hope you do it. It's transformed my sleep and will for you as well. Now, back to the episode. So, going back to the why, right? So, one is, you can make a living. You know, it's good money. Yeah. You can promote your brand and your personal vision. And the other one is, you can start investing in your future. Every one of you is running a company today, or, you know, running a company today, having a team. One of these

• 16:55Peter Diamandis?

  days, you're 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 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. 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, if you're in a, if you're able to make it in the speaking business, you will have Opportunities around the globe.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  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 invited to go to Bhutan, or to Egypt, or to

• 17:47Peter Diamandis?

  Seoul, South Korea.

• 17:48Speaker 03

  Right, wherever.

• 17:48Peter Diamandis?

  Dubai.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  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 fucking life.

• 17:58Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 17:58Speaker 03

  And that's what you're building. You're building something that you'll have available to you for the rest of your life.

• 18:05Peter Diamandis?

  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

• 18:16Speaker 03

  Which I'm sure doesn't happen very often.

• 18:17Peter Diamandis?

  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 on the palm of my hand, I can feel You just feel They're, they're connected, right? And I've, I've moved them from a state of fear and scarcity to abundance and optimism. I've moved 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.

• 18:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:57Peter Diamandis?

  Right? It's, it's awesome. Uh, you know, one of the things that I do, uh, remember I used to, uh, 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, here are these faculty, and then, can you come and talk at my company?

• 19:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:19Peter Diamandis?

  Right? And so we helped these individuals become extraordinarily successful in their, in their speaking business outside of SU.

• 19:27Peter Diamandis?

  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 with your kids, with your friends. And, you know, and people say, aren't you afraid these people are gonna like, you know, steal your content and give talks? If they can give a talk better than me, fantastic, let them do it. But it became a way because to get the slides, it'd give me their emails, maybe they're watching this podcast as a result of that.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Movement, your community, we talked about this.

• 20:05Peter Diamandis?

  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.

• 20:19Speaker 03

  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 create some form of a drip campaign of generosity, just keep giving to them.

• 20:33Peter Diamandis?

  Always give.

• 20:33Speaker 03

  If you're on their, what I always say is if you're on their doorstep 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.

• 20:54Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  But just the day before, somebody asked, do you know a good speaker? Some schlock walked across this guy's path. Guess who's gonna get recommended? The schlock.

• 21:04Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 21:05Speaker 03

  But if you're, if you don't have an ongoing touch point with these people.

• 21:08Peter Diamandis?

  To build a relationship.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  To build a relationship and stay on the radar screen.

• 21:11Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 21:11Speaker 03

  It's really important.

• 21:12Peter Diamandis?

  You know, a lot of people who wish to be a speaker, they watch amazing speakers on the TED stage or Tony or whomever, and they say, I could never do that. I'm fearful. I wanna, 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 I was running an organization called Students for Exploration and Development in the Space, SEDS, which is still around now. Many years, many decades later.

• 21:49Speaker 03

  That's awesome.

• 21:49Peter Diamandis?

  And MIT has something called the Cresco Auditorium. And it was a massive auditorium, I don't know how many thousands of people it 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.

• 22:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:08Peter Diamandis?

  And face down my fears. Today, honestly, there's, 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.

• 22:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:24Peter Diamandis?

  Cause it's like, cause a little bit of fear is like, okay, I gotta change up my game. It's like.

• 22:28Speaker 03

  And then we, you and I will find stages where, like, I remember the first time I stepped on Tony Robbins stage.

• 22:34Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  Right? Or Radio City Music Hall, right? To, to, to speak at Radio City Music Hall.

• 22:39Peter Diamandis?

  Amazing.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  Or a convention center in Ukraine.

• 22:42Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Um, that's, that, you know, you get those moments where you're like, holy shit, I'm about to go in front of 10,000, 50,000 people, whatever it is. Um, but let's spin back a second. For me, thank God, my, uh, my parents were religious and I'm a spiritual individual myself, Christian. Um, speaking in the youth group.

• 23:05Peter Diamandis?

  Ah.

• 23:05Speaker 03

  At church was my first experience with speaking. I was invited as the youth pastor, cause 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.

• 23:23Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, sure.

• 23:24Speaker 03

  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.

• 23:42Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 23:43Speaker 03

  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.

• 23:51Peter Diamandis?

  I'll, I'll tell you my very first speaking engagement ever. I was, uh.

• 23:57Peter Diamandis?

  I was ten years old. And I sat my parents down in the living room. And I went and gave a presentation to them on the planets. And afterwards, my dad came over and gave me five bucks.

• 24:12Speaker 03

  Paid speaking.

• 24:13Peter Diamandis?

  My first paid speaking.

• 24:14Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:15Peter Diamandis?

  And it was like, maybe that was the one that influenced it all the way, but it was amazing.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  So, so, but the, the point of, look, there are many of you who 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 lead in Douglas debate. I just, every Saturday, I was going to different schools and I was learning how to speak.

• 24:36Peter Diamandis?

  But debate is an amazing.

• 24:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. And X temp is fantastic. You pull a topic out of the hat.

• 24:42Peter Diamandis?

  Nice.

• 24:43Speaker 03

  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 Toastmasters. Um, my dad told me early on that he had done Toastmasters. My father was a steel worker, which I love about Toastmasters. 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 it was a steel worker.

• 25:07Peter Diamandis?

  So do tell more, what is Toastmasters?

• 25:09Speaker 03

  So Toastmasters 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. I was actually blessed, my dad told me about Toastmasters and Toastmasters honored me as their golden gavel top speaker in the world.

• 25:28Peter Diamandis?

  Amazing.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, I recently accepted that award and past speaker, past award winners were Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins.

• 25:35Peter Diamandis?

  Amazing.

• 25:35Speaker 03

  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.

• 25:41Peter Diamandis?

  Beautiful close.

• 25:42Speaker 03

  And 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.

• 25:48Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  Could you imagine my dad in the front row, listening to somebody see that? But, but, but I'm saying it's about practice, right?

• 25:55Peter Diamandis?

  It is about practice.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  Now, there's different forms of speaking. I don't know about you, but when, when cameras and 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.

• 26:09Peter Diamandis?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:10Speaker 03

  And I hope it's not out there anywhere, but I choked on live television.

• 26:14Peter Diamandis?

  Oh, my god.

• 26:15Speaker 03

  And I was, I am, I was petrified of cameras.

• 26:19Peter Diamandis?

  Hmm.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  Being on stage had a forgiveness about it and it was long form. 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.

• 26:35Peter Diamandis?

  You're doing pretty good right now, by the way.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  You know, I practiced, it was funny. My, my ex partner, who you know very well, Stan, 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.

• 26:51Peter Diamandis?

  Yes.

• 26:51Speaker 03

  And so he would just walk around with me and he would periodically pause, hijack me and say, flip camera, you're like, and he asked me a question.

• 26:59Peter Diamandis?

  Hmm.

• 26:59Speaker 03

  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.

• 27:11Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  So this was as an adult. My point is, if you're terrified of speaking in whatever medium, fucking practice.

• 27:19Peter Diamandis?

  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 Toulouse, France at the closing ceremonies. And here we are with our 120 graduates and 500, you know, parents and friends there.

• 28:01Peter Diamandis?

  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.

• 28:11Speaker 03

  That's the worst.

• 28:11Peter Diamandis?

  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 not.

• 28:21Speaker 03

  It's not us, yeah.

• 28:22Peter Diamandis?

  And I literally 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.

• 28:47Speaker 03

  Let's do that. Let's get into the structure.

• 28:49Peter Diamandis?

  And I would, um, that would allow me to pick a subject. And a lot of times, you know, my, my dear friend and writing partner, Stephen Kotler, talks about being in flow.

• 29:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:02Peter Diamandis?

  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.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  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.

• 29:21Peter Diamandis?

  Yes. Stories are critically important.

• 29:22Speaker 03

  The biggest 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.

• 29:45Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  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.

• 29:56Peter Diamandis?

  Like in a movie.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  In my talk, yeah. And if I lost my notes, all I would have to have is three sections to memorize, right? Cause I could flow through three things.

• 30:08Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 30:08Speaker 03

  And then within each of the sections, I'll have three or four bullet points, right? That's your point of 10 things.

• 30:14Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  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 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 gonna say and the talk, I will take what used to be called recipe cards. 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 making it the last version. So I'll take a set of bullet points and I'll, I'll, I'll write them and then I'll, I'll, I'll say, I put it away, let me do it again.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  And each time it'll get smaller and smaller. The number of bullet points that I need to remember gets smaller and smaller. Until I've really mastered the content and I don't need anything on the stage anymore.

• 31:09Peter Diamandis?

  I, I agree a thousand percent on grabbing them in the opening story. It's beautiful, right? The thing that I've done recently that works really well for me as well is I have a PowerPoint deck.

• 31:22Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 31:23Peter Diamandis?

  And the PowerPoint deck is mostly all image.

• 31:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, pictures.

• 31:28Peter Diamandis?

  And a title across the top.

• 31:31Speaker 03

  Which is your bullet points, it's your guidance.

• 31:33Peter Diamandis?

  And, and so as I'm going through the deck, I use it as a reminder of, I'm gonna 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 entertainment, they don't, they don't get it.

• 31:54Speaker 03

  I appreciate it. And, um, I feel like the, that regimentation and the idea that you're just going through reminders and nodes is important. Let's talk a little bit about over rehearsing talks and things. 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 has a very strong belief on how a speech should be done.

• 32:24Peter Diamandis?

  Huh, okay.

• 32:25Speaker 03

  And it's a very prominent group out there.

• 32:27Peter Diamandis?

  I'm gonna start guessing.

• 32:28Speaker 03

  Right. And, um, and they literally, oh, 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

• 32:49Peter Diamandis?

  Wow.

• 32:49Speaker 03

  formula of giving a talk, which I might imagine for somebody who isn't organically good at this, might be a really nice way to start, but when I watch them, I have lost the humanity.

• 33:03Peter Diamandis?

  Uh huh, yes.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  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.

• 33:24Peter Diamandis?

  Twenty minutes.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  Um, and, and the way, you know, like I remember I was talking to Reid Hoffman. Um, both he and I got coaching to do a talk. A TED, like come on, we're no, we're a TED talk, right?

• 33:37Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 33:37Speaker 03

  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 out of

• 33:47Peter Diamandis?

  It's gotten worse in, in recent years.

• 33:48Speaker 03

  All of that was like, it was like, oh my God, you know, and I, and I look at it and I'm like, it was, it was excellent. But the, the A pluses that I could have given if, 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.

• 34:04Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 34:05Speaker 03

  They need that, right?

• 34:06Peter Diamandis?

  You know, and 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 Ted.com and started saying, okay, which talks really stopped 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.

• 34:48Peter Diamandis?

  And one of the, you know, some of the lessons learned is for, for folks listening here is I don't ever get behind a podium.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  Never.

• 34:55Peter Diamandis?

  First and foremost, never, 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, uh, it's when you're speaking at a level of energy that you think is high energy.

• 35:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:11Peter Diamandis?

  It's not that high in the audience.

• 35:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 35:13Peter Diamandis?

  And so I need to go higher.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  But I have one thing, I go to 11 and I go to two.

• 35:19Peter Diamandis?

  Yes, a hundred percent.

• 35:20Speaker 03

  Right?

• 35:21Peter Diamandis?

  A hundred percent.

• 35:22Speaker 03

  The ability to go from there to then pause.

• 35:24Peter Diamandis?

  Yes.

• 35:25Speaker 03

  And just land an emotional point.

• 35:27Peter Diamandis?

  Yes, and silence.

• 35:28Speaker 03

  Inflection point and silence.

• 35:30Peter Diamandis?

  Silence is a huge exclamation point.

• 35:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. And Tony, what I love about, you know, sometimes I find myself after I've done, like sometimes when you're, when I'm doing Tony events, they happen to be like three in a row.

• 35:39Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 35:40Speaker 03

  And for the next month, I find myself using Tonyisms, like in the middle of the thing, I'm like, say yes.

• 35:46Peter Diamandis?

  Say yes.

• 35:47Speaker 03

  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, um, emulation is so important. I want to, I want to tip my hat to a beautiful man. His name is Len Slessinger. 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 I was, had to come from manufacturing. Um, what he would do, he was one of the best speakers and he was one of the best

• 36:31Speaker 03

  um professor lecturers. He was energized and he was always sweating and he was just, he was fucking amazing. But I got to the point where he said to me one day, he said, Keith, uh, would, I can't go to the National Retail Federation to give this talk. Would you give it for me?

• 36:47Peter Diamandis?

  Hmm.

• 36:48Speaker 03

  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, 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.

• 37:07Peter Diamandis?

  Hmm.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  Right? And so that was the best way for me. It was total mimicry.

• 37:13Peter Diamandis?

  Yep.

• 37:13Speaker 03

  But then I adapted it for myself and I learned my own style, held on to some of his. So I, I suggest, I've got an amazing man that works in our company who, his name is Ronan. And he wants to be better and better at his speaking. He's doing the same thing for me and I love it.

• 37:30Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 37:30Speaker 03

  Giving my talks as him, but then he's modifying.

• 37:34Peter Diamandis?

  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 him the experience. Let's put it, let's put a nail or a stake in the heart of fear one second. So the answer to fear, it's natural.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:48Peter Diamandis?

  Uh, is practice. It is practice, is practice, is practice. And it is um allowing yourself, it's, what I want to say is allow the emotion to come out fully. It's hand motions, it's a 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'll, I'll remember my first TED Talk, actually my first TED Talk, my second TED Talk, when I gave the abundance talk. And um, I went and was giving it at the home of Lyndon Norman Lear.

• 38:31Peter Diamandis?

  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 a common friend Eric Hirschberg pulled me aside and he goes, I think I could 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 himself.

• 38:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, he is.

• 38:58Peter Diamandis?

  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.

• 39:13Speaker 03

  Cause you had iterated and iterated.

• 39:14Peter Diamandis?

  I had, it allowed me.

• 39:15Speaker 03

  And 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 and over again. And I, and I think that until you just get such comfort, that you can do it in your sleep.

• 39:30Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 39:30Speaker 03

  Um, I think that's critical. You know, the, thinking about speaking, um, I did wanna 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.

• 39:47Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 39:47Speaker 03

  And being on stage.

• 39:49Peter Diamandis?

  And between a small stage and a big stage.

• 39:51Speaker 03

  I agree. And it's like you're talking about being 11 and being big.

• 39:55Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  I used to do that on television and it looked weird.

• 39:58Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, that's true. It doesn't work for television.

• 40:00Speaker 03

  So I think it's important to understand your medium. Um, most of the time what we're talking about.

• 40:04Peter Diamandis?

  You just look crazy.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  You do. You look, you look fucking 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.

• 40:19Peter Diamandis?

  This guy's on speed.

• 40:20Speaker 03

  And swear to God, it looked like, I've never done cocaine in my life, but I looked like I had just overdosed on cocaine. At the end of the day, I watched myself. I was like, oh, that was so embarrassing. Right? So you do have to recognize.

• 40:33Peter Diamandis?

  It probably came from nerves.

• 40:34Speaker 03

  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.

• 40:42Peter Diamandis?

  And TV wants an intimate setting.

• 40:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, and, you know, it's, it's, it's different. So I think people have to be conscious. And let me say another thing. You and I are giving a disproportionate tilt to charisma and energy, et cetera. But let me, let me suggest, 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.

• 41:12Peter Diamandis?

  Yep.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  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 I think that all of you could find a way to be a good speaker and honor you.

• 41:25Peter Diamandis?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:25Speaker 03

  You've got to command, you've got to modulate. I think even if you're not going to 11 to 2, if you go to, your volume goes to 8 to 4, that's still going to be important.

• 41:38Peter Diamandis?

  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've had.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  Bill Gates doesn't do what you and I do.

• 41:48Peter Diamandis?

  No.

• 41:48Speaker 03

  And people listen to him, but he is the.

• 41:50Peter Diamandis?

  Well, yeah, but so if you've got really very important and meaningful information to deliver, I think you don't have to be the, like you said, the charismatic presenter on stage, but you still need to get a connection with the audience.

• 42:06Speaker 03

  Yes, anecdotes, stories.

• 42:08Peter Diamandis?

  Opening up with story.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  Humor. I still see dry professors that use humor beautifully.

• 42:15Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 03

  Reagan used to do it, right? He was just such a beautiful orator 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 us.

• 42:28Peter Diamandis?

  Hey everybody, Peter Diamandis here. 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. 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 technologies 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 100 people, and being able to stand up.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  In front of that company and give a heartfelt compelling like, you know, drive and purpose and to ignite that company through a difficult time or a sprint you need to do is equally important. We are emotional beings. 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 a tremendous 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.

• 43:50Peter Diamandis?

  Yes.

• 43:51Speaker 03

  Really getting paid for speaking. And it's interesting because if you are a public speaker and you haven't written a book, you're probably going to get a 10 to 20% of the revenue that you would get than if you wrote a book.

• 44:05Peter Diamandis?

  A book, a book in this matter is a representation that you have a concise body of knowledge.

• 44:13Speaker 03

  Right. That'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 gonna, well, gotta remember who's hiring. It's, it's, and I apologize for this. It's a, it's a clipboard lady or clipboard guy. I always, it's like there's somebody five layers down in the organization.

• 44:35Peter Diamandis?

  Checking boxes.

• 44:35Speaker 03

  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's supposed to be on this stage at this point in time. And so not having a book is almost a disqualification.

• 44:59Peter Diamandis?

  Now, you could have a very successful company or you could have a very successful life experience that the world knows about.

• 45:07Speaker 03

  It's a brand.

• 45:07Peter Diamandis?

  It's a, you've got a brand.

• 45:08Speaker 03

  If you don't have a brand, you need a book. Maybe that's, that's the mantra. You don't have a brand, you need a book.

• 45:12Peter Diamandis?

  And by the way, when you're being introduced 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.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  And 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, they want to put you on stage if they feel like you've got a credential.

• 45:40Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 45:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. So that's so important. The book starts, the book starts your speaking career.

• 45:44Peter Diamandis?

  It was the case for me.

• 45:46Speaker 03

  It was, I think it's the case for so many, and I don't know many examples.

• 45:49Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 45:50Speaker 03

  They can do it without.

• 45:50Peter Diamandis?

  And again, uh, you know, this adage.

• 45:52Speaker 03

  Podcasters. Again, you have a brand.

• 45:55Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 45:55Speaker 03

  If you've got a major podcast that has a great following, again, it's because you have the brand.

• 46:00Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 46:00Speaker 03

  It's like having your own TV show.

• 46:01Peter Diamandis?

  And there were a few podcasters I know who haven't gone on and written a book.

• 46:05Speaker 03

  Right.

• 46:05Peter Diamandis?

  Um, you know, the old saying, you don't make money on, on book sales. You make money on speeches is very true. So.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  It's an hour into the business.

• 46:15Peter Diamandis?

  An hour into the business. So.

• 46:17Speaker 03

  Can, can I talk about the first thing that needs to happen?

• 46:19Peter Diamandis?

  Sure.

• 46:20Speaker 03

  What is your topic? And you know, I, I want to use you and me as an example here.

• 46:24Peter Diamandis?

  Okay.

• 46:25Speaker 03

  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.

• 46:34Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 46:35Speaker 03

  That's not how it works.

• 46:35Peter Diamandis?

  Happened that way.

• 46:36Speaker 03

  But let's just talk about.

• 46:37Peter Diamandis?

  Cause my top, my topic early on for a good part of my life was space.

• 46:41Speaker 03

  Guess, guess what kind of a speaking business you would have with a space?

• 46:44Peter Diamandis?

  Zippo.

• 46:45Speaker 03

  I don't know, but guess what kind of a paid speaking business you would have with space?

• 46:48Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 46:49Speaker 03

  Zippo, that's for sure.

• 46:50Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 46:50Speaker 03

  So, you know, JPL would hire you to speak, but, um, and MIT would hire you to speak.

• 46:54Peter Diamandis?

  Free coffee.

• 46:55Speaker 03

  Right. So, but let's, let's, let's dissect a bit your abundance topic, which I think is really important.

• 47:01Peter Diamandis?

  It, interesting. And I was kind of shocked that it became a successful, uh, viable business topic.

• 47:09Speaker 03

  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 mine. 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,

• 47:51Speaker 03

  inspired to be over the edge in terms of what could be next. Not sitting on our laurels, but going big and going next. Cause every CEO wants that.

• 48:01Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 48:01Speaker 03

  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 shit. And I, you know, and it's falling apart and they leave saying, oh my God, the world is abundant.

• 48:15Peter Diamandis?

  It's amazing, right?

• 48:16Speaker 03

  So you've done two extraordinary things and it's not a surprise. It's not how you engineered it, but it's not a surprise.

• 48:23Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  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.

• 48:42Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 48:42Speaker 03

  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.

• 48:52Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 48:52Speaker 03

  Um, leadership offsites, which is the big company meeting with the top hundred thousand people or whatever it is.

• 48:59Peter Diamandis?

  Customer engagement.

• 49:00Speaker 03

  Right? Um, and then external customer events, big, like the big event where you bring all of your customers together.

• 49:06Peter Diamandis?

  Like sales force.

• 49:07Speaker 03

  And, 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. Cause 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

• 49:53Speaker 03

  um six to nine months in order to meet your strategy? You know, Peter's the guy that'll 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 of the company and you could go out and build the relationships and the vision to make it happen and your career would be on fire, right? And by the way, you are a leader of a team that has 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.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  So that idea, I call it a challenge talk. And it crushes it out there.

• 50:41Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 50:41Speaker 03

  Because, you know, you come on one day, and we've done this actually, where you've spoken, then I've 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 transformation by changing their behavior and managing teams differently?

• 51:03Peter Diamandis?

  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 and meet with their team and give your talk there.

• 51:35Speaker 03

  I also said, buy them lunch.

• 51:37Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, I'm not sure if I did.

• 51:39Speaker 03

  Then you show up, offer to buy them lunch. You know, 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.

• 51:50Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, I mean, how many agencies are out there?

• 51:53Speaker 03

  I think there's, you know, first of all, there's hundreds.

• 51:55Peter Diamandis?

  Yes.

• 51:55Speaker 03

  Um, because as it, as the, as that, that world has grown. Any individual can be an agency, but I, let's call it 12 to 15

• 52:04Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 52:05Speaker 03

  Important agencies. And I'm not suggesting, by the way, that the biggest agencies are the most important. Washington Speakers Bureau is not an agency that you should be.

• 52:14Peter Diamandis?

  Harry Winston is that the other one?

• 52:16Speaker 03

  That's one in New York, yeah. But some of the biggest ones aren't necessarily where you're going to get make attendance.

• 52:20Peter Diamandis?

  Those, those will be the agencies that typically have the, you know.

• 52:24Speaker 03

  Barack Obama's, the Clinton.

• 52:25Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, exactly. The ex-politicos.

• 52:29Peter Diamandis?

  But there are agencies that have either specializations or subspecializations and going and building a relationship there.

• 52:36Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 52:37Peter Diamandis?

  Because at the end of the day, when the 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 because I've heard them speak and they're amazing.

• 52:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:53Peter Diamandis?

  Right?

• 52:53Speaker 03

  Now, let's talk about how to do that. Now, this is where my never eat alone hat comes on.

• 52:57Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 52:58Speaker 03

  You're not building a relationship with a bureau. You're building a relationship with three agents.

• 53:03Peter Diamandis?

  Yes.

• 53:04Speaker 03

  And the way you do that is you start to connect by doing that first 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 teaser. And then you start a relationship. Hey, what advice do you have? What did 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.

• 53:46Peter Diamandis?

  That's what I, that's what I used to do.

• 53:47Speaker 03

  Just say thank you. Thank you so much. I didn't get the talk. Yeah, send them cash, right? And by the way, this is, they're paid by their bosses. This is direct to them, the individual. Right? Here, I just want to thank you.

• 54:03Speaker 03

  And remember their birthdays and find out, I mean, I, I used to have-

• 54:06Peter Diamandis?

  It's all the stuff that you teach.

• 54:08Speaker 03

  It's everything. It's all of the relationship component. I had a, um, uh, I had a 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 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.

• 54:49Peter Diamandis?

  But in the beginning, it matters, right? And so Jordan, for you, Connie still runs my speaking business.

• 54:54Speaker 03

  And that is important that if you're not 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 assistant, maybe we can talk about that a little bit. What is the role of your admin or yourself?

• 55:08Peter Diamandis?

  Well, Connie, who runs my speaking business, 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 now my chief of staff.

• 55:37Speaker 03

  But this person isn't, they could easily just be a booker, a transactional logistics person.

• 55:42Peter Diamandis?

  But Connie is a relationship person, right? 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 of my communities or my organizations or donors and Peter, can you speak?

• 56:02Speaker 03

  Mostly for free.

• 56:04Peter Diamandis?

  Uh, 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.

• 56:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:20Peter Diamandis?

  Or, or trading against my companies. And so the answer is no, unless they meet a threshold. And that threshold is either it's extraordinarily meaningful for me or my companies, or it's gonna, I'm gonna take a certain number of paid gigs per year and it's gonna be one of the paid gigs. So Connie goes in and will say, I just got a request from a very high level politician to come and speak at an event. And I'm not going to say, listen, here's my speaking rate. Um, and, uh, you know, but Connie can go in very respectfully and say, you know, so and so, here's Peter's speaking rates and, uh, he could be free on

• 57:01Peter Diamandis?

  that day. Uh, is that an option and going through that? But it gives me, it gives me a separation.

• 57:08Speaker 03

  But I wanna, I wanna level down for the viewing audience for a second.

• 57:13Peter Diamandis?

  But I hope he'll get there.

• 57:15Speaker 03

  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 you can pay us $200,000 for a sponsorship. Right?

• 57:54Peter Diamandis?

  Exactly.

• 57:54Speaker 03

  If you write a book and, and you, and you write some articles and develop a sense of thought leadership and you have a, a $30,000, you know, a speaking fee associated with your name, you could probably get on that stage at a minimum for free.

• 58:12Peter Diamandis?

  Yes.

• 58:13Speaker 03

  And that's okay.

• 58:14Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah. No, listen, there's no, there's no question.

• 58:15Speaker 03

  So I want to talk about.

• 58:16Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah. Being, being on a stage in which, uh, it's great for your company or your organization.

• 58:22Speaker 03

  That little strategy is important. I want for people to understand.

• 58:25Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 58:25Speaker 03

  You went from.

• 58:26Peter Diamandis?

  Being a sponsor.

• 58:27Speaker 03

  Being a sponsor. When I was at Deloitte as chief marketing officer, every time I wanted to show up and speak, people wanted me to pay them. And it wasn't long after that when I wrote a book that I started getting paid.

• 58:40Peter Diamandis?

  Yes.

• 58:41Speaker 03

  And so it's a really important flip to be able to have and they're not.

• 58:45Peter Diamandis?

  And 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 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.

• 59:25Peter Diamandis?

  Until that day where you have a pain in your side, you go to the physician in 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 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, a brain vasculature, an AI-enabled coronary CT looking for soft plaque, a DEXA scan, a GRAAL blood cancer test, a full executive blood workup.

• 1:00:09Peter Diamandis?

  It's the most advanced workup you'll ever receive. 150 gigabytes 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. Might as well find out when you can take action. Fountain Life also has an entire side of the 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 fountainlife.com backslash Peter. When Tony and I wrote our New York Times bestseller,

• 1:00:50Peter Diamandis?

  Life Force, we had 30,000 people reached out to us for Fountain Life memberships. If you go to fountainlife.com backslash Peter, we'll put you to the top of the list. Really, it's something that is, 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 on to our healthy lifespans. Go to fountainlife.com backslash Peter. It's one of the most important things I can offer to you as one of my listeners. All right, let's go back to our episode. It's, one of the things that for me is important is this work-life integration because a speaking

• 1:01:33Peter Diamandis?

  business can, can be a bit addictive, right? If you start getting paid to go and speak and 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. A lot of times, if you get a speaking engagement, they'll pay for your travel. I'm always asking to have a second person go with me, right? So I don't go to any of these events on my own. 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-

• 1:02:11Speaker 03

  And in bulk, and you can't keep track-

• 1:02:13Peter Diamandis?

  You get off, you get offstage and you're a mob, right? And so being able to like, say yes and talk to Yanni and, you know, basically helps a lot.

• 1:02:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. Can I, on this simple little thing called travel expenses, what I've found, and I think you might have found the same thing, is it's actually more efficient to have a standardized speaking, standardized travel expense-

• 1:02:38Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:39Speaker 03

  That you say-

• 1:02:39Peter Diamandis?

  A buyout.

• 1:02:40Speaker 03

  It's a buyout. It's like, you know, my speaking fee is 50K and my domestic travel is 3,750 bucks, whatever it is.

• 1:02:50Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:50Speaker 03

  And you, you might say, and a private jet, whatever, wherever your level is that you can ask for it.

• 1:02:55Peter Diamandis?

  I'll never forget, I was trying to get a particular well-known tech entrepreneur to come and speak. This was years ago. And he came back and he said, my fee is a hundred K and a private jet. And I was like, WTF? Holy shit. Really? Like, who is this person?

• 1:03:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's actually funny. I did something recently. I was helping a friend of mine as 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 thirty CHROs.

• 1:03:23Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:23Speaker 03

  And these people wanted a lot of money. And I said, I have an idea. Let's ask people who live in this, that 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.

• 1:03:43Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:43Speaker 03

  The idea that they were getting a helicopter sent to bring them down to the event and back.

• 1:03:48Peter Diamandis?

  A VVIP experience.

• 1:03:49Speaker 03

  But we didn't have to pay them. So we ended up as a lot cheaper.

• 1:03:53Speaker 03

  So this idea of travel buyout is is something people should know. It 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.

• 1:04:06Peter Diamandis?

  So COVID hits.

• 1:04:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:08Peter Diamandis?

  And we're not traveling anyplace.

• 1:04:10Speaker 03

  And and our speaking fees for about a month or two went to zero.

• 1:04:13Peter Diamandis?

  Yes, they did.

• 1:04:14Speaker 03

  And people were like, five thousand 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 be.

• 1:04:25Peter Diamandis?

  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

• 1:04:33Speaker 03

  You're in your living, you're in your

• 1:04:34Peter Diamandis?

  You're in your pajamas and slippers and giving your keynote.

• 1:04:37Speaker 03

  Under here you are.

• 1:04:37Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, at least in half of it. And that's amazing. And so the ability, and I actually enjoy it. It can be as interactive. And I can deliver real value.

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:50Peter Diamandis?

  What else do people need to know about setting your rates? So I mean, listen, in the very beginning, maybe when your books just come out, 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, let's talk about a little bit more. But otherwise, you know, my speaking fees early on were probably ten, twenty K. And that was amazing found money.

• 1:05:14Speaker 03

  And that's still, I think.

• 1:05:15Peter Diamandis?

  Significant.

• 1:05:16Speaker 03

  That amount of money, if you get to be a fifteen thousand dollar speaker, that's sort of the first rate.

• 1:05:21Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:22Speaker 03

  I think the first, when you're a real speaker, you're getting paid fifteen K. Um, the next level is thirty, I find.

• 1:05:29Peter Diamandis?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:29Speaker 03

  And I think the next level goes to fifty to sixty, fifty, let's say. And then you're up to seventy five. And then you're at a hundred, which is a very rarefied group of individuals. But if you really think about those, I think those demarcations are about right to 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 fifteen, you could probably be speaking all the time. If you were 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 could speak a lot at fifteen K.

• 1:06:09Peter Diamandis?

  And one engagement can lead to three, to, you know, you have an exponential growth.

• 1:06:14Speaker 03

  Particularly if it's associations, you go and work at it, you know, speak at an association. You've got a thousand people in the audience, each of whom could go back and say, we should hire that person.

• 1:06:23Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:23Speaker 03

  Versus speaking at just one company. But the, the fifteen K, um, what I did was I was finding myself speaking too much.

• 1:06:31Peter Diamandis?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:06:31Speaker 03

  And, and I had to up at the thirty, this was back in the mid, uh, mid, mid two thousands, I had to up at the thirty to keep my days down.

• 1:06:41Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:42Speaker 03

  My ultimate business was the same.

• 1:06:44Peter Diamandis?

  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.

• 1:06:53Speaker 03

  You and I, you and I both would be like, well, it's sixty.

• 1:06:57Peter Diamandis?

  Can I rationalize that?

• 1:06:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's sixty K, cause sixty K.

• 1:07:00Peter Diamandis?

  I mean, that's a person's salary for a year.

• 1:07:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:02Peter Diamandis?

  It's crazy.

• 1:07:03Speaker 03

  Exactly. It's a house when I go.

• 1:07:04Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah. So the reality is you need to titrate 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 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 eight o'clock in the morning and then I'll leave and it's like, what a waste.

• 1:07:40Speaker 03

  What a waste of glamour and the glitz. I agree.

• 1:07:43Peter Diamandis?

  You know, one of the things also is at this point in our lives, we get to cherry pick what to speak for. You should care about who you're speaking for.

• 1:07:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:56Peter Diamandis?

  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.

• 1:08:08Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:09Peter Diamandis?

  Right? So I think that being authentic and being able to really feel in your heart that you're going to help these individuals is super important. What other lessons can we teach here?

• 1:08:19Speaker 03

  You know, I was, I wanted to think a little bit about free talks. Because in one regard, it's easy to say you shouldn't do them. But let's talk about where I have found free talks have really had a return on investment.

• 1:08:36Peter Diamandis?

  Please.

• 1:08:36Speaker 03

  No question. A TED Talk.

• 1:08:38Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:38Speaker 03

  It has the massive return on investment.

• 1:08:40Peter Diamandis?

  You want to talk about TED one second first?

• 1:08:42Speaker 03

  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.

• 1:08:48Peter Diamandis?

  So TED.

• 1:08:48Speaker 03

  It's still the, it's still the shining star on the hill.

• 1:08:51Peter Diamandis?

  It's amazing. TED stands for Technology Entertainment and Design. Right, and it is

• 1:08:58Speaker 03

  I don't even think they claim that anymore.

• 1:09:00Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:01Speaker 03

  It's like, it's just TED. I mean, what Chris has done.

• 1:09:04Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, Chris Anderson, the

• 1:09:05Speaker 03

  Chris Anderson, you and I know each other from TED before Chris took it over.

• 1:09:09Peter Diamandis?

  Yep.

• 1:09:09Speaker 03

  And that man and his team that has created 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 exponentialized.

• 1:09:28Peter Diamandis?

  Well, 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 the talks for free.

• 1:09:45Speaker 03

  One month later, you're gonna see them for free.

• 1:09:47Peter Diamandis?

  And, and of course, that's not why you're there. You're there to meet everybody else and to experience it live.

• 1:09:51Speaker 03

  The, I'm here right now because of TED. You and I are together because of TED.

• 1:09:56Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:57Speaker 03

  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. Getting on that stage, I, I hope, you know, it's, there's become a better mechanism than back in the day. And back in the day, I think it was, you know, pixie dust and, and, and

• 1:10:20Peter Diamandis?

  Who, who knew and, and how your name or a book or topic came across the right person at the right time?

• 1:10:27Speaker 03

  Which couldn't be engineered, could be a bit, but it was very difficult to. But now they've got an entire feeder system called the TEDx program.

• 1:10:34Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:34Speaker 03

  And it actually does work. I mean, you can, you can be no one and give a local TEDx 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 TED.

• 1:10:50Peter Diamandis?

  So Salim and I talk about TEDx in our EXO 2.0 book, right? As an incredible exponential organization. How do you go from this once a year event, which TED used to be for how many people? 1,500 people in the audience there to all of a sudden reaching hundreds of thousands, millions of individuals through TEDx Talks around the world, right?

• 1:11:13Speaker 03

  And they have their podcasting series, et cetera. So I would just say, you and I both are super fans.

• 1:11:20Peter Diamandis?

  Yep.

• 1:11:20Speaker 03

  We both have so much. Um, to

• 1:11:23Peter Diamandis?

  Respect the quality of what they've done.

• 1:11:26Speaker 03

  Sure. Um, and I would say the way to go about all of you should be worried about your TED Talk. Hundred percent. That's it. It's as important as a book.

• 1:11:36Peter Diamandis?

  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?

• 1:11:44Speaker 03

  Well, I think it changes. I mean, my, my TED Talk was 12 minutes back in the day.

• 1:11:48Peter Diamandis?

  Okay. Um, but I think if you can't convey your, your, your purpose, your mission, your MTP, your essence of what you're in, in that

• 1:12:00Speaker 03

  Well, there's the best Franklin. Sorry. I, I, I wish if I had more time, this letter would have been shorter.

• 1:12:05Peter Diamandis?

  Yes.

• 1:12:05Speaker 03

  Um, so start to work your TED Talk, even though you don't have a place to give it yet.

• 1:12:11Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:12Speaker 03

  Then

• 1:12:13Peter Diamandis?

  Or throw a TEDx conference. You're gonna buy

• 1:12:16Speaker 03

  Then get involved in the TEDx community.

• 1:12:19Peter Diamandis?

  Um, it's sort of the modern day tech version of Toastmasters in one sense.

• 1:12:22Speaker 03

  It is, you know, at a, at a hyperdive level. So that's one. Now, the other thing about free talks is I'll tell you the, the, this is my alumni university.

• 1:12:32Peter Diamandis?

  Hmm.

• 1:12:33Speaker 03

  Speaking at the reunion has sometimes been the best feeder for my, um, for my speaking engagements.

• 1:12:41Peter Diamandis?

  Interesting.

• 1:12:42Speaker 03

  Cause what, you know, particularly with my alma mater 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.

• 1:12:54Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:55Speaker 03

  Your stages, right? Isn't it, 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 be worth doing free talks.

• 1:13:20Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:21Speaker 03

  And so that's what I want people to consider.

• 1:13:22Peter Diamandis?

  Or if you care deeply about

• 1:13:25Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 1:13:26Peter Diamandis?

  The audience.

• 1:13:26Speaker 03

  The audience and the topic.

• 1:13:27Peter Diamandis?

  Right. Your alma mater. 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, seven 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.

• 1:13:54Speaker 03

  I've gotten to the stage where I could probably only do one or two talks a year that are purely, you know, generous and gratis without, without a motive for doing it, which is, well, this is an audience that could be more speaking engagements or more team coaching or such, et cetera. But I do think it's important. I just, I might, what I say to my team is this is our channel strategy.

• 1:14:19Peter Diamandis?

  Yes.

• 1:14:19Speaker 03

  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.

• 1:14:35Peter Diamandis?

  About writing book.

• 1:14:36Speaker 03

  About writing books.

• 1:14:37Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:37Speaker 03

  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 six months, it's very funny because if I reached out to Salesforce and said, you know, in Dreamforce next year, I've got a message I really think would be great. Okay, that's interesting. Um, here you put, we'll put you on the list.

• 1:15:04Peter Diamandis?

  Yep.

• 1:15:04Speaker 03

  No urgency. But if I reached out to Salesforce and said, I've got a book coming out the month the Dreamforce is out or the month after, and I could tease out my message, which is about to be published before 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.

• 1:15:28Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:29Speaker 03

  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.

• 1:15:40Speaker 03

  Just for his speaking business. And 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 amount of time that we get invited back to the same stage one year after another is almost never.

• 1:16:01Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah, it's at best.

• 1:16:02Speaker 03

  Unless it's like friends, like, you know, eighty three, sixty, etc. He gets invited back to the same stage. He's got a different message every year.

• 1:16:09Peter Diamandis?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 1:16:10Speaker 03

  Because he's engineered his books around his speaking engagement in that way.

• 1:16:14Peter Diamandis?

  You know, other platform stages are YPO chapters.

• 1:16:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:18Peter Diamandis?

  Um, and EO chapters and.

• 1:16:20Speaker 03

  If you, uh, here, so again, EO, YPO, but the, the actual chapters don't have a lot of money for speaking engagements, right? Maybe five K, ten K.

• 1:16:32Peter Diamandis?

  They have an education budget and sometimes they'll group three or four chapters together.

• 1:16:36Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:16:36Peter Diamandis?

  And create an event.

• 1:16:37Speaker 03

  Right. But then the members, you have to ask yourself at YPO, certainly the membership has the ability potentially to do speaking engagements.

• 1:16:45Peter Diamandis?

  Sure.

• 1:16:46Speaker 03

  Fifty K, fifteen K. 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?

• 1:16:56Peter Diamandis?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:16:57Speaker 03

  Right? Um, now, one of the other things that I've, I've done, it's interesting. You, people think of speakers and they think of themselves as hiring speakers or not hiring speakers. It's what's the difference between helping them facilitate or helping them in a leadership offsite?

• 1:17:20Peter Diamandis?

  Hmm.

• 1:17:20Speaker 03

  Versus a speaking engagement? I've been able to open up the number of engagements. I know I still get paid fifty K.

• 1:17:27Peter Diamandis?

  Right.

• 1:17:28Speaker 03

  I still do the same crap, 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.

• 1:17:38Peter Diamandis?

  Yes.

• 1:17:39Speaker 03

  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, I don't normally have an outside speaker.

• 1:17:54Peter Diamandis?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:55Speaker 03

  At my team meeting, but this topic would be interesting. Sure, I'll free up fifteen, twenty, thirty, whatever it is, for my team.

• 1:18:04Peter Diamandis?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:18:05Speaker 03

  So you can actually create a speaker slot that didn't exist before.

• 1:18:09Peter Diamandis?

  By virtue of going direct. Shall we summarize? Yeah. So inspiring. Yeah. Thinking, you do this one first. Okay, I'll go first. So, speaking has a lot of extraordinary benefits for you 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. You can make a great living at it. It's a way to present your company, your ideas. And so, there's a lot of elements of being, call it a platform or keynote speaker.

• 1:18:44Peter Diamandis?

  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. Right? If you're speaking with your mind and your brain, you're going to get caught up. If you're speaking from the heart.

• 1:19:03Peter Diamandis?

  For me, a lot of my successes were emulating great speakers on stage who I watched. 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 longer than I would have paused, or their volume, or their, you know, their motions and their hand motions, and it becomes like incredibly, 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 will, I go and check on them first.

• 1:19:45Peter Diamandis?

  I said, I may jump off the stage, and they say, well, stay away from that speaker, and that speaker's going to get the feedback, but that's fine. And so, and you're looking to build a relationship rather than just, you know, hit and run. Can you give your slides away to that audience? And can you, in fact, keep a relationship going with that audience? But it's there to serve.

• 1:20:11Peter Diamandis?

  You know, those are my thoughts off the bat.

• 1:20:14Speaker 03

  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.

• 1:20:20Peter Diamandis?

  I stole some of yours.

• 1:20:21Speaker 03

  It'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. 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.

• 1:20:41Peter Diamandis?

  Interesting, yeah.

• 1:20:41Speaker 03

  The more that I invest in my brand today, I mean, the $2 million that I invested around some research that I did during the pandemic, actually ended up being $5 million.

• 1:20:52Peter Diamandis?

  Wow.

• 1:20:53Speaker 03

  At the end of it. What, you know what I was thinking about? I busted my ass during that, that two to three year 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 relevant. 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.

• 1:21:30Peter Diamandis?

  Fascinating.

• 1:21:31Speaker 03

  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 companies, it could be a beautiful way to live your life. And that's, that's, that would be my wrap up statement.

• 1:21:57Peter Diamandis?

  You know, I think a few points you made as well. Remember to tell stories.

• 1:22:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:22:01Peter Diamandis?

  Open with a story, a personal anecdote.

• 1:22:04Speaker 03

  Authenticity, variability.

• 1:22:07Peter Diamandis?

  Of your voice level from.

• 1:22:09Speaker 03

  And, and the last thing is relationships. What kept coming up throughout this for the both of us is.

• 1:22:14Peter Diamandis?

  Yes.

• 1:22:15Speaker 03

  People, whether it's bureaus, it's about relationships. It's about agents. It's not about bureaus.

• 1:22:21Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:21Speaker 03

  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, 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 yours, the events that you do? I would love someday to get a chance to bring my message to your organization.

• 1:23:03Speaker 03

  What's wrong with that? I mean, that kind of just putting yourself out there and asking uh, is a great way to, to get your speaking business, maybe even just started. You know what we didn't talk about?

• 1:23:14Peter Diamandis?

  What's that?

• 1:23:14Speaker 03

  By the way, I know this is the wrap up, but what we didn't talk about is your speaker reel. 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 there, you their company, but with a video camera?

• 1:23:31Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:32Speaker 03

  So that you could get it videoed and you could get two or three of them videoed and put it together in a reel. It establishes you.

• 1:23:39Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah. At the, at the beginning of your career, when people don't know you, you don't have a reputation, you don't have a bunch of.

• 1:23:45Speaker 03

  You need the reel.

• 1:23:45Peter Diamandis?

  Yeah. You need something to demonstrate what's your style, your capacity, capabilities and so forth. So Keith Ferrazzi, folks who want to hire you to go speak.

• 1:23:56Speaker 03

  Yeah. Ferrazzi Greenlight.

• 1:23:58Peter Diamandis?

  FarazziGreenlight.com, two R's, two Z's.

• 1:24:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, indeed.

• 1:24:02Peter Diamandis?

  Awesome. And they can follow you on which social media?

• 1:24:04Speaker 03

  LinkedIn's probably best.

• 1:24:06Peter Diamandis?

  Amazing. Thank you for this gift. Uh, thank you for the gift you gave me a decade ago. That launched, 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.

• 1:24:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. Good pay it forward.

• 1:24:31Peter Diamandis?

  Thank you.

• 1:24:42Speaker 05

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