SL029: How To Launch Your Speaking Career Using Online Interviews

Aug 29, 2019

In today's episode of The Speakers Life I talk with Moustafa Hamwi, speaker on passionpreneurship.

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Resources Mentioned:

Freeing yourself of location and time
Buying a one-way ticket to India
Seeking your purpose as a speaker
Living a life to die for
Launching an online talk show
Marie Forleo
Dr Marshall Goldsmith
Doing 30 interviews in one day
Co-authoring a book with Brian Tracey
Speaker coaching in a taxi to Abu Dhabi
You can’t have a party on your own
Collaboration
Co-opetition
Creating a culture of service
Book: Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Getting Things Done by David Allen
Tools: Omnifocus, Outlook, Calendly, Active Collab
https://moustafa.com/

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Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/sl029-how-to-launch-your-speaking-career-using-online-interviews/

Hey, there is James Taylor and I'm delighted today to be joined by Moustafa Hamwi. Moustafa Hamwi is considered as one of the world's top experts on the use of passion to spark creativity entice innovation and awaken the entrepreneurial spirit of a true leader. He has been ranked as one of the top 100 leaders of the future by the world's number one executive coach, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, as well as that he received the nickname as Mr. Passion by the great Tony Busan, who's inventor of mind mapping. It's my great pleasure to have Mr. Phone join us today. So welcome, Moustafa. James, and Hello, all the passionate listeners speakers out there. So share with everyone what's happening in your world today. Where are you in the world today? I am in Uzbekistan, in Tashkent, that's in the Central Asian Central Asian country. And currently doing some work with the government here on acceleration startup acceleration. Part of it is speaking part of it is coaching part of is actually me accelerating my own startup. And we're very close to closing a funding round on a on an epic startup. Amazing. So you've lived in different parts of the world, you were in Dubai, no for a long time as well, you know, as it is Pakistan, as a speaker who could pretty much live anywhere you wanted to why did you choose as Pakistan to use as your as your home base?

Well, I mean, it has two sides with first side of it is my wife is was Vic, so that was a no brainer. He just come here, it's easy. But also what I realized for a global lifestyle, and and I talked about this in my book, Lyft, passionately, my upcoming book, you really need to know what's really important for you. So it's easy to say no to what's not important for you. And this way, your dollar gives you a lot more mileage also. So I know what I care for, I know what I don't care about, and everything else in between doesn't really matter. It's all customizable. So being somewhere where you're running expenses are very low. Where you You are not having to pay so much as the main major cities, I realized a big advantage because when I need to go somewhere, I get on a plane and go otherwise, most of my expenses are taken care of a lot lower costs. So that gives you options is that get a sense of freedom. You've seen you talk about passion. And I know a lot of something that that ties a lot of entrepreneurs and speakers is this sense of freedom having this kind of personal freedom is autonomy over how they spend their days and their lives. Well, if you want to be free, you have to free yourself from two things location and time. So as long as you can choose your location and time, the amount of money you need is not a lot. It's just about being smart on how to manage your dollars, which means what an entrepreneur that money goes into business. And then slowly, all personal expenses are becoming business expenses, and kind of you have a merge lifestyle. Of course, that's not for everybody. This is for somebody who truly knows their passion and really wants to live a what I call a lifetime die for you really well, because you got to really know what's important and what's not. That applies for personal life that applies to business. But when you apply to both, and you have clear decision making criteria, even yes or no or negotiations for business deal totally different.

Now something we share, we actually share a number of things in common. The first is we both kind of came from the world events, live events. For me it was working with music industry and different password. I know you worked a lot in terms of nightclubs events in Dubai and and didn't pass to the Middle East. And then we made a both made transitions in our careers in terms of being speakers and we both did it pretty fast in terms of getting that first stage up. And something that you did very early on I know that can really help you get known in your field and amongst other speakers and experts was you interviewed 160 leaders, top leaders. First of all, tell me about that, that transition and making that decision to going through something as intense as interviewing all these top leaders. So let me rewind a little bit. I mean, you said I used to run one of the biggest event agencies in Dubai around up until about the crisis 2008 to 2010 and did some consulting and then bought a one way ticket to India on my soul search journey. Meta Swami did the whole kind of a you know, Eat Pray Love monk Who Sold His Ferrari journey without getting into the details. But that journey basically made me come back and seek purpose and seek something more meaningful in my life. Because in my previous life, it was all about the business. And it's great. And you know, events are great, but there's an emptiness at the end of every event. I finished the event and I feel really empty. I'm like all the fun and happiness is gone. And I realized what was missing for me is the impact that the events were leaving. I was in entertainment, I was product launches. I was doing nightlife events, and I was missing purpose. And when I came back, I did one talk called Cavalli to Minnelli about my journey of buying one way ticket leaving on my lifestyle going to India and coming back. And few months later, and that talk was just like one of those TEDx type events. And a few months later, random guy sees me in a hotel walks up to me goes, Hey, you're that speaker guy? I said, Yeah, he goes, you did your talk about India. I said, Yeah, he goes, You changed my life. And I was like, wow, that's what I want to be doing.

And and from there on, I'm like, okay, I cancelled all the contracts that I had with me. I'm like, this is what I'm going to be doing full time I start speaking about passion about my journey, I realized companies didn't want to pay me to come and talk about how I bought a one way ticket to India. should have thought about that before I quit. Again, product market fit you you quickly found out that the thing you initially went out with it didn't fit wasn't as good for the market. So then you can have figured out what was good what the market like I mean, listen. Yeah. But here's the thing is I was driven by passion. Eventually I became Mr. Passion. So yeah, on a short term, on a short term, it was not a very good decision. But what it taught me is I was sink or swim situation. So I really had to figure out a solution. So it was a double or nothing, I was either either going to get screwed, go back to what I was doing, which I was not willing to do. I bought a one way ticket to India, I do skydiving for fun. So when you jump out of planes for fun, you pretty much got a couple of screw loose screws loose in your head, and you can really make some crazy decisions sometimes. So I decided I'm like, Listen, I'm I'm in it to win it. I'm not quitting on this, even if it costs me What's the worst that gonna happen? I'm going to die. Guess what I want. I want this is where the whole kind of my motto of life to die for came up where I'm like, Listen, I was fed up with my life one way ticket to India, I don't want to end up in the same situation again, I really want my life to be worth dying for. And if it's going to mean I'm going to die, not succeeding in this, I'm still not quitting on it. This was pretty much my goal. And I had to figure out what the heck am I missing? I'm working hard. My story is genuine. I know I'm here to serve people. I was driven by a guy who said you changed my life when I was a successful business died before but I'm unable to get this business off the ground. What am I doing wrong? And and then within a span of it. So there's a lot that contributed to that. And the first thing is I basically launched an online talk show, because when I started my speaking career, I was just emceeing for for as an opener it was it was a coincidence with with our friend Gautam Galanti right selection, and he had Marshall Goldsmith coming into the event.

He was speaking at an event and the MC full class minutes. And he calls me and I said, Okay, you know what, I would love to do it. You know, he goes, Well, listen, we you know, this is pretty much type of the kind of brat co branding work or barter work. So if you want to do it, we're not paying because really an MC is not necessary. For us. It's a luxury event is already a free event. So we really don't accumulate costs and it doesn't need a professional MC. I said, So who's speaking he goes Marshall Goldsmith. I'm like, okay, but I have one condition. You give me five minutes to speak my own speech. So I'm not just the mouthpiece was saying welcome. Hello, everybody. I just want to add value for five minutes. You give me five minutes on the clock. It says fine. Five minutes is ok. I prepared for a full week for those five minutes. Like I've been a full week in not exaggeration as a for a full week. Well, I didn't have much to do remember at the beginning, I was struggling getting jobs also because my story wasn't resonating. And I wasn't really an MC. So I'm not. I'm not an MC, but I'm not a father speaker. And I'm like, boom, this happens. So this was I'm gonna blow this out of the house. There's nothing gonna stop me. One week of preparation, I made an opening that when Dr. Marshall Goldsmith came in, it was like probably the best best intro opening that ever happened in the room. And it was an instant kind of clicked phenomenal. We clicked and we flowed. He was I love the guy. I admire him. He's just a phenomenal thought leader. And that was my break into the speaking because what happened is people were like, Oh, we like this guy. So then then got done with call me the next time and he says, Listen, dude, people like you. Do you want to do this next event? Who's speaking? Oh, Ron Kaufman. Oh, next event who's speaking and with every event, my condition became I want 10 minutes. I want 15 minutes. So you see, I'm I gave my credibility because remember, you're talking to one of the top, you know, Speaker bureaus around represent the listener.

So they've got to be really protective of their brands. So So I did all what I could do to make sure every time I'm getting more mileage with the audience and with the Bureau and with the speakers. So on the next but something was still not kicking in because only the people would see me in the room would figure out like, Okay, this guy's great. But I'm not getting that big media exposure around that you post on social media. This, I'm like, you know what, I'm a media guy. Originally, I'm a PR guy and events guy, I want to meet the idea. I'm like, you know what, I was looking ready for your Lewis house, all of them have, you know, interview shows, and so on. But actually Murray folio particularly, I like to be on camera. I know how to handle camera. And I'm like, I was standing there defense. I'm like, I've got Dr. Marshall. I can see camera guys in the back of the room that are already part of the whole Barker of the of the event. So it's kind of everybody's chipped in into the part of the event. I'm like Dr. Marshall, do you mind if I interview you on my show? He's like, Yeah, sure. What are we talking about? I said, passion. It was literally like this because I had transitioned from talking about purpose by buying my one way ticket to India, because that was too heavy for corporates, and I realized fashion is a little bit sexier. People like that a little bit more. So I started speaking about passion. And I'm like, Okay, well, passion is purpose for me. So that's part of my whole definition of fashion. Fashion is purpose so fine. You want to you want to call it passion, let's call it passion, but its purpose for me. And the interview was very unprepared. If you go do it now and watch it with this brief you would see it was literally Hey guys, I'm excited here to have we have Dr. Marshall Goldsmith number of goals number one executive coach and I just rolled on with it literally five minutes on the camera woman that was my first and I'm like, you know what I love this speakers are here. Everybody wants to transit Dubai, it's giving me a flow to put myself out there. And I insisted on my interviews being face to face. Because unlike the podcast, everybody's doing podcast, but not everybody's getting face time with these people. So this is going to be my unique point which is going to put me a notch everybody else was doing podcasts. I'm great on camera, they're loving it, boom, you know, immediate niche area. And then I started getting better and better at it to an extent where I started even traveling around the world to film and interview some of those and that I did to the APS SS Asia professional speaker summit. I flew there and I managed to figure out a way and I to eat interview 30 people in one go in one day.

That's heavy duty. Someone is this done those types of things before 30 in one day isn't pretty intense experience if you're the if you're the host you're doing it doing the interviewing, here's the thing I thought I want to challenge myself I'm like maybe I got lucky I had too much coffee that they they were great speakers. And, and and the APS serve me in another way because I delivered the talk there. And and the speakers loved it. And a few of those speakers were on the committee that was running the global speakers summit next year in Oakland. So I get invited to deliver a talk over there also, for two reasons. One of them when I was at the APSS people are like, how long have you been speaking for him? You know, we've got Marshall Goldsmith, calling you world's number of you know, top hundred coaches and Mr. And Tony was on calling. I mean, a lot of those happened during my interviews, you know, my interviews gave me access to become close friends. And I'm NT of Marshall Goldsmith. I co authored the book with Brian Tracy, I got nicknamed mr. cash by Professor Tony bizarre, you know, the amount of of what I got out of those interviews, because I was truly passionate about them. It was not just another interview, I was coughing cash out of my pocket to travel and meet people face to face. So I end up on the global speaker summit. I'm like, I want to see if I can do that again. Can I hit my number again, I did. Again, I did 32 interviews in Australia, not to the global speaker summit. But at the Australia speaker summit. I did 32 interviews, again, which some of them became even my business partners and affiliates. And it was just a system. And this was my event site because I learned that one day as an event, from the minute to the registration, you know how you automate a lot of what we did? Well, I took that to the next level because there's physical interaction. reminders, SMS is guidance and the hotel directional signage is waiting area outside the room, having to having two computers with two chips, while the camera guy finishes with one interview me disconnects it so he doesn't run out of battery and other chips. So I basically spent a little bit more the needed on some costs, but that gave me 200% mileage. So I just know I do this, I can like go for a year worth of interview in 48 hours.

And anyone watching or listening to this just now the point we want to get across is imagine if you did want to start with it in your area near you. In every area of topic. There's usually a couple of big conferences a year. What if you did a deal with that conference? And listen, I will be the messenger, I'll be Yeah, I'll be the consultant as part of this. And I'm going to do all these interviews and we'll give you you can do low bashing, even getting space. And we'll give a little bit of content that you can use for social media. And then we take the main the main content, and we can use that as well. So just really quick. And I guess this goes to your entrepreneurial nature. You're very kind of entrepreneurial thing that and I'll give you I'll give the folks are watching this. Another little hint into was DARPA's entrepreneurial nature. I was speaking in Dubai recently. And I was actually one night I was in Dubai one day, Dubai next day, I was in Abu Dhabi. And and you came along, we got a chance to meet and you're obviously your speakers, you remember as well above our speakers, you trade. And we were we were talking about Dubai, but you know, it's like events, they're really busy and like how can we how can we spend some proper time together and focus time together? I knew quickly I said, let's let's share cars together, head back to Abu Dhabi, which is about you know, 75 minutes drive or something. And so basically, together, we talked, we brainstorm for that 75 minutes, I think that's, that's that mindset of being open to being creative, to be innovative, to be open to trying different things and being can improvise ation, I think you're you're someone is very good at that. But something also I've noticed that you're quite different from a lot of other speakers out there. Most of the speakers out there are lone Wolf's me, you might call them. But you've always been pretty good at building teams around what you do to kind of support you and one of those is, yo yo yo speaking you have another part of your business as well, which is all around the publishing side. So describe to people you know that that publishing piece, what that's about and how that can support what you do and how you build a team around that.

So we basically I mean, first or to your point about collaboration, I one thing I learned from being in the nightlife, you cannot have a party on your own. You know, it is unfortunate a lot of a lot of the speaking industry is changing. But there is a lot of it, as you said that everybody is in that lone wolf space, and they feel lonelier and lonelier. And they don't like it, but they don't know the solution. And the solution is just understand that the pie is big enough for everybody. The business is evolving. You don't know who's going to help you. And I like to call that competition. You know, yeah, we kind of compete, but it's a sport at the end of the day. I don't hate the person who's racing with me in the race. He's got a you know, good luck to the best Professor may the best women If not, it's a sport, you know, I win some you win some, there's enough for everybody. And we grow an industry, that's always been my thinking. And I come from that space. So in the in the journey of getting myself acknowledged, yes, the interviews are great for me. And the more I did, the better I did. And by the way, another use of all of this interviews is now we have a system where we distill those into books. So my upcoming book live passionately, is pretty much a distillation of those hundred and 60 interviews. Some people I actually interviewed twice, once one was about like Dr. Marshall I interviewed twice, one was about passion. The second interview, I actually did a spin off version, which I haven't released to the market yet, but 30 episodes around the world the secrets of the world's most passionate speakers, because I want to know how fashion contributes to making you a better speaker. So it's just that, you know, I already have in the pipeline. So many books out of these interviews, so much social media content, so much like it's been almost a year, I haven't added new content, because I have so much content that I can recycle and cut and chop and play. And with. It's an asset base, and I made some amazing contacts. So I'm like, one thing is missing. A lot of people have I mean, I have a differentiating factor on the video and the personal and the quality and all of this. But here's the thing. Still, everybody's got online content. Everybody's got videos, everyone's got podcast. So you you would it gives me an aha, when somebody sees this, these numbers and they see me next to them. But until they do your drowned in the crowd of internet of everybody interviewing everybody to be everybody, I'm like, I need something else to step up my game. So in one year, I became one of the acknowledged as one of the top hundred coaches in the world. Second year, I speak at the global speakers summit as always great. But there's something else that needs to set me apart. Because as you said, I got in there, I found the industry, not generally but you know, some people, some people not necessarily collaborative. And I'm like, Well, I'm used to working with people. So I don't know what to do, I need to stand out a little bit from the rest. And I realized all those major speakers were authors.

And I had seen that Brian Tracy co authored books. So when I interviewed him, I'm like, perfect opportunity. I'm like, Brian, I love you know, I'm a fan of yours. We've been working, I've done a couple of times with him when he came with became very close friends. And I said, How can I co authored a book with you? And then he offered me a solution. So we worked on that collaborative book. And then I became an author. And that immediately took me from just a speaker, because yes, there CSP and all of that. But until you do it, anybody can call themselves a speaker. And I'm like, how can I take that a level up. And the book made me an author, and an author really requires you to produce a book, it's not as simple as calling yourself a speaker, although not all speakers are made equal. But an author gave me that step up above the rest of the speakers that were around. So it made it easier for a client to say, you know, what, if they haven't seen me live before, they would say, well, this guy's an author, he's a, I always say author equals authority. So then a lot of people started coming to me and saying, What's the for? How did you do your book, you know, and then we came up with ways of helping people. And next thing I found myself is producing those books for a lot of the speakers and experts and entrepreneurs that I worked around. And we have multiple solutions, where one of them we could take the interviews, if we structured and coach on how to run these interviews, pre planned, all of those get converted and become a book. And other solution that I collaborate with, with with another partner of mine who I met on one of my interviews where we do a recording system. So as a speaker can come to us give us a we work with them on creating a template, and a blueprint of the book. And then all they do is just record it using their iPhone. And guess what all we need is about five hours, that's not too much for a speaker, five hours of speaking would give you a 200 page book, if done in structured well. And this is something that we've mastered now by producing a lot of books using that analogy, and we do it turnkey. I'm like listen, if somebody is wanting to nickel and dime, they're not my client, I don't want to deal with them, I came up with a mentality of Listen, just put money in invest, if it's an investment, spending a few hundred dollars, or $1,000 more is not going to break the bank. You make money by being on stage, you make money by being an entrepreneur.

So really don't haggle. Let us do our job. So I can pay everybody very well around me in the teams that I'm dealing with. So they can give you an internet service. You come to us, you work with us on an idea. Six months later, you have a book printed and delivered to your doorstep wherever you are in the world. And we set up an author page for you. And we set up videos and we do the whole shebang. So thank you solution. So this is really the two things that differentiate us is the fact that we can take your words and convert them into a book in a systemized process. And we do it very cost efficiently, very fast and end to end. So you don't have to worry about the little details. I think something else that you pointed out there. I mean, I love the idea of this competition. And I am a huge believer in that as well. Not just in the speaking but from other business I've been involved in as well. I'm a big there's, there's, there's more than enough business out there followers. And it's about how we build a UC boat, you know, increases the size of the pie. But in doing that you also wreck it you're recognizing who your kind of ideal customers were you said, I want to be what we saw in this nickel and dimed. I remember talking to you before, obviously, there's there's lots of solutions out there for people go to work with a publisher to publish whatever it is, yeah, I mean, there's all there's services out there. But you've picked up something which I think is is definitely strong in the in the Middle East, like places like UAE, and also in number of other countries as well. And when you're working with more C suite people as well, they want a service, they don't want to be going in there setting up their Amazon KDP accounts or you know, all these kind of things that you have to do. They just say, I just want to hire the best, I want to be able to work with that. So you've identified your, your place in the market, your ideal type of customer there as well.

And yeah, there's other people out there that let the competition have have them I that's not the customer that I'm I'm trying to go for as well. I'm just pulling back a little bit to your your speaking side, though. So you've been building all these things, the video side during that branding that way, you've been, obviously, publishing pieces, going back to the actual the core of the speaker and getting up onto those stages can tell us about a time when you, you you out there, you're giving a speech, you're working on something, and you put everything into it, for some reason didn't work out like you'd hoped. And more importantly, what was the lesson you took from that experience. So you're talking about every single event know you're living in a dream world of everything goes according to plan. But I've been doing events in different angles, whether on stage or off stage for about 20 years, another single time it goes according to plan. I mean, it goes perfect to plan and something else goes wrong somewhere else, you know, some odd guy opens the door and walks through halfway through the presentations. There it is, is something that's the fun. But I had I had a couple of of good learnings to say on my journey being being a perfectionist, and being so passionate and wanting to always stand out. And what I do, I kind of complicated my life a little bit with the quality of the presentations that I deliver from a fact that they're a little bit more complex that require everything to be theatrically organized. So everything has to be exactly where it's meant to be because I put so much energy and passion to it. And it's more like kind of a show on fire I'm putting it in. So I need a pretty much full production team for something like this. And this is something at this scale, when you go up is what Tony Robbins does. He's got a he's got a front of house team, you know, maybe 2030 people in the back room. It's a rock rock concert type of production.

So because of that my presentation runs in an order where I speak in a certain way. So I need my computer in a certain position and I need certain connections. So yeah, talk about being a prima donna in a way. But that definitely makes a huge impact on my business. And at the beginning, I first year, always still but first year, I had almost zero error margin on everything had to be perfect to the point. And guess where the biggest mess up always happens is not relating to you relating somebody else. So you know, somebody from the technical team thought they knew better. Although I asked for something, they provide something else and, and I have a they're like, oh, I'll give me your presentation. I'm like I'm running on a keynote on a Mac, you're running off a PC on PowerPoint, you're talking to me about two days worth of work of redoing a full presentation to give it to you with the animations and everything. It's not going to happen now. I lost my temper and kind of a bit, you know, started kind of yelling at the AV guys and everything. Because it was a big project for me. And they kind of screwed up royally because I was going to go on stage and be below average to see my presentation is not functioning, the the transitions, the fonts, the colors, everything was out. And I had spent a lot of time and money on this. So in a way, that was not really good because it also caused a bit of tension and friction around and of course, the client came and interviewed and he was apologizing. But it brought a lot of unnecessary tension and friction. So I kept on trying to develop a detailed technical writer, then I realized the guys never read it, then I started adding up on the bottom you have to sign I want to know who's the actual person and get their number. So I can call them in on that density or myself. But the end of the day, I'm like, well still messed up. So eventually I'm like, you know what, I started transforming a lot of the things that I started carrying my own stuff, you don't have an HDMI cable, I have a 10 meter HDMI cable wherever I go, you don't have clicker, I have four or five clickers, I have all the adapters, I have all the card readers, I pretty much carry a very heavy bag when I go but I'm like at the expense of losing the energy and the flow. And I made it now something that's a KPI for me that the experience for everybody involved in the event is great. So so and that that became apparent on when a few clients recently the Pfizer didn't invent for Pfizer and buckle in as our vision. And they send me an email. And that was for me like, yes, it took me a couple of years. I'm like, what, what is it that you enjoyed, he says, we got amazing feedback from everybody that was available not only about your talk, the experience of your you being with us in the event from beginning to end, you You came before you stayed after for lunch, you talk to people, the whole experience. And that was a big aha, because you know, evolving from being just about the speaking were fine.

I mastered my craft of, you know, putting myself as one of the top in the world in what I do and what I deliver. But then I started moving horizontally as a business and saying, What's my customer experience? And this is something I've benefited when I interviewed Ron Kaufman, you see the value of these interviews is not only about media, when you're doing it with old heart, you're learning you're sitting with the world's best of the best looking them in the eye and asking straight questions. Those hundred and 60 interviews made me a different person. And I evolved from being just a speaker just thinking of myself as a business. And I'm like, what's my customer experience from the beginning? They want to book me to the, to the minute they finished everything. And yes, sometimes the technicals are not going to go perfect, but I've made up for it in so many ways, my speaking is already above average, I'm happy there, let's not complicate it and use the energy in other areas. And essentially, I mean, that that you're absolutely like creating that entire experience. So when the teams after the event when they all do their debriefs as well, and so you know, the speakers Mustapha, yeah, fantastic, you know, really delivered, and also great, because he came in before, and he was speaking to the sponsors, and all that kind of that actually all adds up to a huge amount. And I think when it comes to technology, I'm the same as you I'm, I'm a bit of a perfectionist and a lot of things. And so I carry my pad with me, my bag goes with me all the speaking gigs, even though it adds all the weight to the luggage we carry. And I 100, I had to kind of make a decision because I was getting more and more levels of complexity in the types of presentations I wanted to give, and you get certain places I'm in Saudi Arabia speaking recently. And it just that AV team just going to happen. No, it would affect so I've actually moved completely back the other way. And simple, you know, very simple fonts as well, because that's, you know, especially if you're moving back and forth between Macs and things, I can get screwed up sometimes. And I've actually been going a little bit more more minimalist and then trying to then in terms of presentation, the visual presentation is more minimalist. So I can then amp up the actual me the me bit on stage and interaction with the audience. And so yeah, so it's a it's funny, that blend about what's right for you, because sometimes you can go to those events. I spoke at one last week. And abt were awesome.

Like, they were just component like, everything was like we knew it before we needed it. But then that's
no. But remember, early on I, I didn't know what I didn't know. And the only but I was playing was as a speaker. So really, my goal, you know, I had a certain goal. I'm like, I am going to be one of the best in what I do. Not only because I'm you know, I believe I'm a good natural born speaker, but also their skill you see in passion mastery I talked about you know, there's there's talent, there's knowledge and their skill. A lot of people depend on talent and talents is not not enough. Talent can make you hustle, but you don't play top. You don't play top sports. And you know what I learned this, I did an interview with Tasha Denver's she's a two time Olympian, US Olympian team. So on one of my interviews, she said, she said, she said, you know, in Olympics, everybody's good. You know, it's like, Who do you think you are, you're competing for a split second. So really, it's a it's about a lot more than just how good of a runner you are, there's so many other things around it. And, and being a great international speaker is a lot more than just being a great speaker. It's how you I've seen it, you know, I this is why I love we flipped. Well, it's like, the system ization and how you conduct business as a business not just as a speaker, and funny coming from an events guy and a serial entrepreneur. But at that time, I wanted to build my skill set as the talent as the speaker, and I got it to somewhere my learning is to the other speakers is that try to look at what else represents you as a business person. And what other touch points because it's not only about speaking, it is about you delivering an experience end to end with your speaking because you're brought in to be an inspire a trigger, a provocative thought leader. So really, it's not just about what you say, or how you say it. And it's not just about what happens on stage. What are you giving away, for example, I started throwing in a lot of freebies, online courses, book stuff. So really think about how do you engage to develop fans while you're speaking not just while you're on stage.

So a couple of final questions for me. First of all, what if you do recommend one book, your author yourself, but not one of your books, a book that could help any speakers watching this on your developing their craft on the business or mindset? What would that one book be? Very good question. Well, aside from my books, obviously. But if you see, I believe that the Bible of personal development for me is Think and Grow Rich, you can you can never, you know, you can never go wrong with that. It's you study it, you read it, you think about it, because everything that's there makes you a better leader in your own life in every aspect. And when you're at that level, the same thing, when you go to a level where you're playing International, it's not how good of a speaker you are, when you go to a global speakers summit, and you're mingling with all the great speakers, you think, okay, I'm better than this. And this, but this is better than me and this guy that this and this guy did that. So really, you have to find the totality of you are and be so congruent as an inspirational figure, not as an inspirational speaker. Because it's not just about delivering the message, it's about your energy, when you come into the room, what energy do you bring in when you arrive? I'm like, I'm buzzing all the time with this passion that what I'm coming in is the fashion not because of a video or not because of I made it my niche. I'm living it with everything that I'm doing. And I'm so passionate about. So if somebody wants to make themselves Mr. or Mrs. Organization, they very freakin organized in every aspect from the minute you touch every email with them up until after that. And this is where the biggest gap, I believe happens. And this is not going to come from reading a single book about skill set. This is going to come from reading things that create you as a greater person. There's a lot of books that I can recommend. But I'd say anything that you feel enhances you. Productivity wise, I would definitely suggest getting things done by David Allen because you cannot run a successful business. If you don't know how to manage your time solo printers and entrepreneurs or speaker printers, small organizations efficiency is a make or break deal for you.

And am I getting things done? When it comes to tools? Are there any tools that you use apps online tools? Do you find very useful for the work? You do? Yeah, I do. I mean, basically, in conjunction with getting things done, by the way, because these tools mean nothing's like a knife if I give you a knife, but you don't know how to fight with a knife. So so the tools that I use is I use only focus as a to do list system and I use Outlook for my emails and folders. Whichever calendar whether Microsoft Outlook or icon, I can leave this is mainly how I manage everything and it has to sit somewhere. It's the way that I make these things work together is where the magic is the connections as well as the way when we set up a system with everything gallantly Of course you can go wrong, you know, Kalonji? absolutely lovely, how much time without what other recommend is active cola. Yeah, active cola was a very simple was base camp is very similar to base camp, depending, but use one of them. One thing a lot of speakers don't do is actually they don't build it as a project business. And at the end of the day, this business model is pure time. And the more time you waste per project, the more messy things happen, your business falling apart. That's great. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for coming on today on to the show. If people want to connect with you learn more about you as a speaker, but also maybe learn about the publishing side, the passion printing and publishing and maybe working together on a book. where's the best place to go to find out about all of that, so everything they can divert to everything by coming to my website, monster for.com. That's mousdafa.com talk about personal branding.

I went for my name.com that was a that was a six month negotiation. So what's the dot com and then from there, they can either go to the services and look up for fashion printer publishing or just go to fashion printer publishing.com and they will learn more about the books but if they want just email me fellow speakers, I'll take care of you personally. So email me directly. My email is Mr. Mr. Father's concerts drop me a line and I would love to support anybody that comes speakers, you will make sure they get a phenomenal deal on the on their publishing packages. Number one, because they came through you for sure not and fellow speaker you members, but also because of the competition concept that I say, you know, you need more you need bigger, bigger, bigger, more professional speakers that have the business card that that that make themselves stand out from the rest of the speakers is the same as a CSP. You know, CSP stands out from other speakers and an author would stand out from other speakers. So I want to create more of those. Welcome, Stephen, thank you so much for making that offer to everyone that's watching just now. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I wish you all the success. We are speaking I'm looking forward to it will be sharing a stage I'm sure at some point in the future somewhere in the world. And have a wonderful, wonderful week. Thank you very much. The thanks to you and to all speakers, you fellow members.

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