211. Unlocking the Secrets of Captivating Keynote Speaking

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Now open in Gilroy. I don't do it to do it.

I do it because I want that audience to have so much fun and to learn and to laugh and to cry and to feel connected. Not just to me, but to the other people in the audience, to the event, to the moment.
I want them hugging each other between sessions and talking about things and questioning things and wanting to dig deeper into topics. I want them to be so freaking

jacked that Daniel's coming onto the stage. Daniel could come out and rip a fart and they're

going to start clapping, right? And the whole idea, and this goes for everything in my life,

and this is why people know I wear everything on my sleeve. I can't help that.
It's who I am.

In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show.

Today, I am sharing with you a conversation that I had had with Daniel Sung a few months ago. Daniel has become a near and dear friend to me, and he asked that I come on his show, The Buttoned Up Podcast, to talk about my experience as a keynote speaker.
And I will tell you that this is the first time I've ever gone this deep into my thoughts, feelings, preparation, how I approach speaking to an audience, what it means to me, what I'm trying to deliver, my mindset, how I, you know, my physical health, my mental health, my energy,

my focus, how all these things play a role in what I view as a performance. It's not a gig.
It's not a presentation. I really view being a keynote speaker and really anytime you're in front of an audience of any sort, be it as a coach for a little league team or you're talking to your team that you have at your office or your work, or you're speaking to a group of people who've attended an event like I do most of the time, then viewing it as a performance brings a different type of energy focus and approach

and this has worked incredibly well for me and as I continue to refine and hone my own skills as a keynote speaker I thought it would be fun to share this because I go fairly deep and it's fairly dynamic conversation and I think you're going to get a lot out of it, especially if you are looking to add public

speaking to your repertoire of skills. So I was very pleased that Daniel allowed me to repost this to you guys.
I highly encourage you to subscribe to his podcast, the buttoned up podcast. There'll be links in the show notes.
He has a wonderful podcast and Daniel's approach is so much different than mine, much more measured, much more thought out. I tend to be scattered, as you all know, and high energy and kind of out over my skis most of the time.
And I embrace that as who I am. And I love the fact that Daniel comes at just about everything in life from a slightly different approach, Though he is scared of nothing, as an absolute just gangster when it comes to creating content, helping people, delivering value.
And in a trip to Utah, out of 12 guys, Daniel and I were the only ones to hit a thousand yard target when we were shooting guns. So we have that kindred relationship in being able to shoot large guns at large distances.
So with that, I want to get on to Daniel. One quick note, guys, I have probably the biggest content project I've ever put together.
It is really the download of my brain as it relates to growth. And it's going to be called the Insurance Growth Masterclass.
If growth is something that you are interested in, if you've ever wanted to get a full download of everything I've learned over 18 plus years in the insurance industry, I want you to go to masterclass.insure. That's masterclass.insure.
Go to masterclass.insure today and just put your name and email in and you'll start getting information as we get closer to dropping this content project. I think this is going to be, I'm very proud of what it's becoming and I wanted to share kind of the unadulterated full throttle or unthrottled version of I know, what I've learned in my 18 plus years in the insurance industry for a long time.
And, you know, based on the fact that Rogue no longer exists and I'm now moving into more speaking, consulting, coaching type work, which if you have any questions around that, you can always just email me, ryan at findingpeak.com. And just check it out, masterclass.insure.
That's masterclass.insure. Check it out today, sign up, get on the list.
And as that project gets closer to launch, you'll be getting notifications and have an opportunity to engage in it if it's something that you wanna do. So So with that, I want to give a huge shout out to Daniel Sung.
I highly encourage you to subscribe to his podcast, The Buttoned Up Podcast, if you're not already. And just appreciate him for letting me share this with you.
Here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Daniel Sung, and I am honored to be your host of The Buttoned Up Podcast.
Really excited today because I have one of my dear friends on the show. He is the founder and president of Road Risk, a first-of-its-kind human-optimized digital insurance agency creating sustainability for small businesses through insurance and the risk management.
As a creator, strategist, and speaker, Ryan Hebb's organizations create meaningful and sustainable long-term growth. His keynote presentations and customized workshops concentrate on implementing leadership, marketing, and sales initiatives within growth-focused organizations.
Oh, and abundance-minded organizations. Yeah, that's a big part of it.
Mr. Ryan Hanley.
Daniel, it is such a pleasure to be on the show, man. You said it and it's completely mutual.
I feel like the last six months, year, maybe a little bit longer, our relationship has started to really kind of grow deeper and grow roots. And you have become one of my absolute favorite people.

And I'm so happy that we have had the chance to spend a lot of time in real life and really get

to know each other on a deeper level and your wife. And it's been such a pleasure, man.
So I'm

so happy to be here. Well, that's a true.
Likewise. Folks, you always have to excuse me here.
I'm a little bit under the weather last couple of weeks and I'm not sick, but I just had this darn throat or this cough. So you'll have to excuse me here.
But Ryan, I wanted to bring you on specifically on the show here because there are so many things that you and I could talk about and that you do speak about, you know, on stage and, you know, traveling the country and the world. But you just came back from the Insurance Soup Conference.
Yes. And you were asked to emcee the event.
Yes, sir. Now, I can't tell you how many people were texting me throughout the couple of days saying what an incredible job you did.
And I think you were fired up because you probably felt the energy, like it was the

right moment for you, you know, for those couple of days. But one of the biggest fears that people have is public speaking.
And you and I go to a lot of these events. I see you a couple of times a year and I see you on stage and you are different than any other person that I see within the insurance space.
And what I mean by that is, you know, a lot of people are just uncomfortable and you see it. And it's not that they have a bad presentation, but they're just, they just haven't done it as much.
So they stand there behind the podium or they'll kind of, you know, they want to, they notice that they're being a little stiff. So to loosen up, they'll walk three feet to the left, three feet to the right, but you can just tell.
You, however, not only do you work the stage, you come down the stairs, you go into the audience, walk in the aisles of the audience,

you spin around, hand gestures, tonality, rhythm, the way you dress. I notice it all.

And what I notice more, I watch the audience watch you. And you just see it in their eyes like, wow, this guy's a pro.

Like he knows what he's doing and he knows what he's talking about.

Now, I can guarantee you that you weren't always like this, but give us a little feedback on what it took to get to that point.

Yeah.

Yes.

So one, thank you. That's maybe one of the nicest things that anyone's ever said.
I want to be clear. Being in front of audiences is my favorite work thing in my life.
If someone were to ask me, like, you could do anything, you could do anything for work. And while, you know, as a kid, I may have said, be a baseball player.

And maybe if I could have been a professional baseball player, I would choose that. But let's talking in real life today.
It's that is where I'm the happiest, you know, outside of like being with my kids. So take that part out of it.
That's my place. Like when Michael and Taylor asked me to emcee Insurance Soup, they kept saying, we didn't know that you would be like this.
And I said, dude, this is what I do. This is like breathing to me, like being there, putting on an experience for that audience.
So I'm going to get to your question in a second, but just to give context, like I don't do it to do it. I do it because I want that audience to have so much fun and to learn and to laugh and to cry and to, and to, and to feel connected, not, not just to me, but to the other people in the audience, to the event, to the moment.
I want them hugging each other between sessions and talking about things and questioning things and wanting to dig deeper into topics. And especially when I MC, which I haven't had a chance to do too much because of COVID and stuff lately, but I used to do a lot more, especially back in the Agency Nation days, because a big part of that particular, a lot of people come in, they just, now up, Daniel's young, you know what I mean? Here you go.
And it's like, no. It's like, you got to prime that pump.
I want them to be so freaking jacked that Daniel's coming onto the stage. Daniel could come out and Daniel could come out and rip a fart and they're going to start clapping,

right? Like that's your job. And it's to create an experience.

Like to start elevate 2018,

which is probably the biggest MCing event that I ever did.

There was 825 people in that audience. I kicked off that.

And this is actually on YouTube if you want to see it,

but I kicked off that event and this is actually on youtube if you want to see it but i kicked off that uh event with a a 12 minute talk which i titled uh give a shit and and the whole idea and this goes for everything in my life and this is why people know i wear everything on my sleep i can't help that it's who i am right if i'm if i for the care about, it is so obvious. And the things that I don't is also obvious.
But creating experiences for people is just so meaningful to me. And I take it so seriously.
And I think about the engagement and the eyes and the way they're positioned in the room, how the sound, the sound, the way people are sitting. If they're in circular tables, are they in classroom rows? Do they have benches in front where they can write? Are they spaced out? Are we missing the first four rows because everyone's sitting in back and is hungover? What time of day? When is last time they ate? How much have they had to drink that day? These are all, what was the presentation before? What was after? So I'm going to get to your question right now and I apologize, but I just wanted to give context to the fact that what I'm about to share with people, this is my most passionate work thing.
This is it for me. All the other things that I do in life are the pay the bills because of what I want to do full time at some point in my life is this thing.
This is what I love more than anything. So, okay.
So all that being said, how did I get there? One, I have never ever in my life and I'd hate leaning on like natural abilities, but for whatever, there are a lot of things I'm not good at. I have never been afraid of being in front of people ever.
It has never bothered me. Maybe it's because I was, I don't know.
I have no idea why. My mom said that from the earliest ages, I just, I don't care what people think about me.
I care that they have a good time. I care that I add value to them.
That's not what I mean. I don't mean like, I'm going to say whatever I want and screw you.
No. You know what I mean? Like, that's not what I mean.
I mean that I am not, the reason

people get uncomfortable is because instead of thinking about the value they want to add,

they're thinking about what people are thinking when they look at them. Well, what if I do this?

What if I say this? What if I don't? No. If you're going to be good on stage, you got to fully commit.

Commit to the fact you're going to mess up, right? And we can get into the nuances of speaking and

Thank you. What if I don't know you if you're going to be good on stage, you got to fully commit, commit to the fact you're going to mess up.

Right. And we can get into the nuances of speaking and how we can do that.
But so from very early age, it never bothered me. I've been the captain of every sports team I've ever played for.
I've been in leadership positions in college, in high school. I'm just this is

it's just

I am okay

being out in front

because leadership positions in college, in high school. I've just, this is, it's just, I am okay being out in front because I have zero fear of failure.
I mean, I've been fired from one of those four jobs that I worked at or, or asked to leave, I guess, you know, one or the other. And not, and I don't, I don't wear that as a badge of honor.
I'm just saying like, I, failure does not bother me. So when I'm in front of an audience, I'm not thinking, oh my God, what if I move this way? Or what if I stumble over a word? Or what if I don't say something or my timing is off? I'm watching the audience and engaging with them.
It's like a dance. You know what I mean? I'm dancing with

them. That's the way I think about it.
I am watching them and it's why when I do presentations,

I don't do 80 slide presentations. Stromso did an 80 slide presentation.
He's great at it.

His style, what he does, it's awesome. It's tons of value, right? And it's slide, slide, slide,

slide, point, point, point, tactic, tactic, tactic, ID, ID, ID. It's awesome.
That is his style. My style is I want no more than a dozen slides max.
That's even a lot. And I'm just flowing with you.
If I start down a topic and I can tell Daniel by your eyes that maybe that's not something this audience is really grabbing onto. Well, let's dig into it.
Let's hit it from a different angle. They're not picking up on this idea.
Some audiences will pick up on a topic like this and we'll just skip right off it and keep going because they already got that thing, right? I think that's also being comfortable on stage, right? You're able to kind of take a breath and just being able to read the room a little bit let me, let me ask you this because you are one of the ones that puts out more video content than anybody I know. Yeah.
Would you say that that's a great on-ramp to getting comfortable speaking on stages, maybe working on some videos? Yeah. I think that, so, so you have to be feeling I read ferociously and I listen to podcasts and I talk to people like if I'm in a room with you and you're talking about your business, I am listening to every word that you say and I'm taking it in and I'm creating derivative ideas that that fit my life in my world or how I can understand what you're saying, right? And I'm constantly listening, constantly taking things in.
So when I'm on stage, I may have a goal, right? So basically how I view it is I have a starting point and I have an ending point. And I have no clue how we're going to get there.
I have ideas, right? I've run the race before, but there's like 17 bazillion different paths that I can take to get here. I know I want to get here.
I want you to understand X concept at the end of this and believe X thing. And at Insurance Soup, it was the idea that I wanted them to take away this concept of the one thing.
It's Gary Keller's book. I highly recommend everyone read it.
But it's this idea of the one thing. And just, I read this book a couple weeks ago.
And I just wanted, like when I was thinking about insurance soup and what I wanted the narrative to be, I thought to myself, this is what I want. I want them to take one thing away, one powerful concept.
And I just wanted to hit it from every angle. So that was the narrative.
I didn't know what I was going to say when I went out. Like sometimes right before I would go out, I'd be taking some notes on my phone just to like lock in some ideas in my head.
And then I just go out and talk. But it's because I'm constantly filling my brain with ideas and then practicing those ideas on social media.
So like Instagram is basically practice for my speaking, right? It's I'm going to say something a certain way and see how it responds. This one didn't do that well.
No one really commented or liked it. They didn't like, doesn't mean the idea was bad.
It just means it wasn passed. What's up, guys? Sorry to take you away from the episode.

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listening as much as I do creating the show for you. All right, I'm out of here.
Peace. Let's

get back to the episode. Package properly.
Okay, let's wait a week. I'm going to repackage that

idea this way. Let's see how it goes.
Oh, wow. Okay, let's wait a week.
I'm going to repackage that idea this way.

Let's see how it goes.

Oh, wow.

That hit a nerve.

People really like that.

Let's take note of that and let's start to dial in because packaging that idea this way

works really well.

I, you know, I think, you know, so I've done north of, I lost count at 350 speaking events.

That's over how many years?

How many years?

My very first one was 2009.

I spoke at the National Young Agents Conference for the Big Eye in San Francisco.

That was my first real speaking.

I did a couple of local ones, but my first real speaking event was that event in 2009.

That's 14 years ago.

I'd say probably 80% of those are paid speaking gigs. And, you know, I do free events every once in a while, like Insurance Soup was free.
But I really love Michael and Taylor and I wanted to be in front of their audience. And I thought it was a tremendous opportunity to meet a bunch of new people.
And I really like that group. So that was a solid value proposition for me.
Yeah. I have a question here.
So I notice people have a certain type of style when they speak. And I'm talking about their dress code.
Yep. You're – or I'm more like you where, you know, if I'm on stage, I don't know, call it old school, call it, you know, traditional, you know, I'm going to be suited up.
It's just who I am and how I'm comfortable with. Now, some people out there in t-shirts, hats, jeans, which is totally great.
And I think the venue or the event has something to do with that. I always notice you are in a dress shirt, a blazer.
I mean, you're just, you're looking the part. Why do you do that? Because I want people to know that I'm serious.
I think that, look, if you want to go the Mark Zuckerberg hoodie thing, I think that's cool. But unless you're Mark Zuckerberg, people aren't going to take you seriously.
You come out in a ratty polo and jeans that don't fit and work boots, right? Because this is who you are. Sure.
But people don't take you as seriously, right? I take this work very, very seriously. When I'm out there, this is what I do.
It's what I love. And I want you to know, hey, I'm serious about what I'm doing right now.
This isn't me showing up. I've thought about it.
I've prepped for it. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not hungover.
Maybe depending on airplanes and travel, sometimes you have to rock and roll unlimited sleep. But outside of that, I'm ready to go.
I was up. I'm prepared.
I'm ready to kill. I'm here to help you, whatever, you know, I'm here to bring max value to you.
And I think that when you show up, you know, unless you're specifically told by the event organizers to not do that, which I've never had happen ever. I think a speaker should always be the best dressed person in the audience.
I agree. I think it shows, to me, it shows a lack of commitment and seriousness when you, you know, I'm going to be casual.
Okay. But I feel like you're not taking it seriously.
Like, why should I listen to you? If you can't make the effort to look sharp, then why should I make the effort to give you my max attention? Anytime I have spoken, up until literally the last second until I get announced or come up on stage, I'm fighting these anxiety attacks that happen within myself. My heart starts beating faster.
I start doubting. I'm totally mic'd up, but I almost want to just take off the mic and just run to my room.
I've had those moments and I continue to have those moments. And even I just, I was with you last week at Mick and Marcy's wedding.
Something so casual and so just non-threatening like that. Mick asked me to kind of lead the ceremony and I was getting stressed out.
Dude, you crushed. You crushed.
Well, thank you. But I was really getting stressed out.
And I was practicing the intro because I didn't want to ruin it for them. But what's your advice for somebody?

Because as good as you are, and as much as you love presenting and speaking and being up there on stage, I guarantee you, even Ryan Hanley gets nervous. How do you overcome that? If you don't get anxiety before you speak, then you're doing something wrong.
It means that you're not pushing hard enough.

If you show up and it's just like, you know, whatever, you're not pushing hard enough. You're not trying to be the best that you can be.
Like, I want to hit every line, every joke. I want to hit every moment.
I want every eye in that room on me at all times. I want them to stop eating.
I don't want them drinking water. I don't want them looking at their phone.
I want them on me because for 45 to 90 minutes, I'm there working. And that to me is anxiety.
It creates anxiety because the other thing too, is I have the propensity to say stupid shit. So I also have to, you know, cause I have a crass sense of humor.
I am a conservative and have no problem saying jokes against liberals. I, you know, I have like these things that sometimes, so I have to like know my audience.
There are audiences where like that doesn't go over very well. Like I made a sex joke in Nebraska one time and it went over very poorly.
Now, the reason I did it is because I use sex jokes as a way to capture people's attention when I'm speaking post-lunch. So after lunch is one of the toughest, after lunch and the closing keynote, or in my opinion, are the two toughest times to speak because people just got food.
They're talking about whatever, their weekend, their golf, and now they're supposed to lock back in on you. So a lot of times post-lunch, which is where I was at this point, and nothing, I love the people in Nebraska.
There isn't anything against them. Because, you know, they're a little more conservative.
And I'm post-lunch and I come on and I can tell I don't have them, right? I can tell they're not back yet. They haven't re-acclimated to being in the auditorium.
This is pre-joke or post-joke? This is pre-joke. So I'm scanning, I'm watching.
So before the thing, I will like glad hand, glad hand, glad hand. In about five to 10 minutes before I go on stage, I kind of start to separate myself.
And what I'm doing is watching the audience. What is glad hand? What is that? Like shaking hands.
Oh, gotcha. Bro hugging.
How are you doing? Great to see you kind of stuff. Around five to 10 minutes before the presentation, I will separate myself from that and just watch the audience.
I'm just watching them. I'm watching them sit.
How do they interact with each other? Are they comfortable? How much attention do I naturally have? Who are the people that are going to be troublemakers? Like, I don't mean troublemakers in a bad way, but people who may be talking or doing other things. Like, I want to know the scope of the audience before I go live.

So,

so I'm watching that.

So I'm watching and I can just tell right away.

I'm like,

I,

this is going to be work.

Like they're,

they're,

they're not locked in and that's not a knock on them.

They just,

you know, that happens.

They're coming right off a lunch,

right back into another thing,

into another session after,

you know,

a three session morning.

So like I was the fourth session of the day.

So I get out there and to be honest,

I'm not even going to try to say what I said because I can't exactly remember, but I have this, sometimes I say this thing where like I'll, I'll, a pretty standard line is I'll be like, whatever I'm talking about, it's like sex. I can love it.
Right. Like something like that.
Right. So you, wait, you said you F and love it.
Yeah. Yeah.
You said the word. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because I because, you know, so sex saying the word sex and F bombs tend to snap people's attention back. Oh, yeah.
I'm doing it to be shot. Got their attention.
That's for sure. Yes.
Got their attention. Not necessarily in a good way.
Yeah. The few younger kids who are in this audience, they thought it was funny and I had them, but some of the, some of the stagio white guys in back were not, they were not impressed with that language.
And I got a couple of head shakes and a couple, did anybody walk up and leave? No, no, no, no one, no one got up and left, but I could tell, well, one, I had their attention, but they did not appreciate it. So, um, so then the next couple of jokes that I had, uh, didn't necessarily hit as good.
Like again, it was very age specific, you know, and I didn't know your audience there, buddy. Yeah.
Yeah. That was when I learned don't swear and use sex jokes in the Midwest.
They do not appreciate that kind of stuff, which again, it's fine. Now I know I mean, this was probably four or five years ago, but that was a good lesson.
But yeah, so I have little things that I'll do to kind of capture their attention. Like if I see someone's not really paying attention, I'll work my way over to them in the audience and I'll use them as an example or I'll touch them on the shoulder as I'm talking, or I'll get right up next to them and kind of look and speak directly to them.
Well, and also, Ryan, I also noticed just the fact that you're walking by them, you don't have to engage with them, touch them, or look at, just the fact that you're walking by them kind of wakes them up a little bit. Yeah.
You know, they're feeling the energy around them. So that 100% works.
Yes. Yeah.
So it's, you know, and I learned that trick from Marcus Sheridan, who's a good buddy of mine. He wrote, They Ask You Answer.
He's been to a lot of insurance conference, insurance events. He's a tremendous, tremendous speaker.
And that's one of the things that I picked up from him. I kind of made it my own but he's really big on names I don't do the names thing that's his thing I don't do the names thing he will, part of his contract will be that everyone has to wear a name tag everybody in the audience has to wear a name tag and before he goes live he will literally write people's names down and hand them stickers for them to put on so that he knows their names and he'll call them by name as he's working the audience.
I don't do that. That's his thing.
I think that's very cool. I don't- Now, Ryan, why? You got to share with the audience because this is gold right here.
Why does he do that? Because it makes one, So there's a couple reasons. One, it makes it a wholly unique experience.
In that event, it was Tammy. Tammy's going to have a specific thing.
He's going to ask her a question. Tammy's going to give him a response.
He can now engage with Tammy directly. And it makes it a unique experience to everybody who knows Tammy wants to know what Tammy's going to say.
Everyone who doesn't know Tammy wants to know who Tammy is and what Tammy's going to say. Yeah.
It also, and this is a key for, for anyone out there who's listening, who's a young speaker. You need to build breaks into your presentation.
Okay. Some people use silence.
Some people use a video. Some people may use a complicated chart that people have to take a second.
Some people use surveys. Marcus, for his, you know, sometimes he'll use this interaction with Tammy as a way to let his brain reset and kind of, it's almost like a subheading in a blog, right? This is a, we're kind of changing topics or redirecting or giving himself a chance.
I have a slide. I purchased this.
So a slide that I've used for years, that is exactly what this is for me, is it's just a big ass bare face. And anyone who's ever seen me speak has probably seen the big ass bare face slide.
It is meaningless. It's literally a meaningless slide.
And I put it right around where I know I'm going to start to run out of gas for a second or need a quick break. And what I'll do is I'll click to the bare face and everyone will kind of chuckle because it's just a stock photo of a big ass like close up on a bare face.
And I'll just kind of click it and I'll be silent. And people are like, what the heck is that? Like people, people don't know what it is.
And then I'll kind of, and again, I've done this so many times. I'll kind of turn, I'll look at it and I'll go, that's just a bad-ass bear face.
And everyone will laugh, right? And what I'm doing is letting my brain kind of cool down, right? I'm letting my thoughts kind of of collect during this moment and I'll and I'll work kind of slow through this section for a second um and I'm also letting my audience catch back up a little bit because because I tend to work fast through certain sections and um and I'll and I'll I have I'll be like you know what and this is true I'll be like you know I paid three dollars and 25 cents for this photo and everyone will kind of at that. And I'm like, and I'll just kind of stare at it for a second.
And then depending on how the audience is engaging, I'll say, man, I just, I would never want to be this close to a bear. And everyone will kind of chuckle at that.
And, and then, and I'll click the side and bam, off to the races. And that whole section might take 90 seconds, maybe two minutes.

But what it allows the audience to do is settle for a second. It allows my brain to cool down for a second.
And it gives us this transition point from one topic to another topic that has a little bit of humor and is a little off color. It's kind of like if you're at a really expensive restaurant and they give you the sherbet or whatever they give you to kind of cleanse your palate before you get to the steak.
You know what I mean? You're at a really good steakhouse. They let you cleanse your...
That's kind of what it is. I'm kind of cleansing the audience's palate for a second before we move on to something, you know, not necessarily like a completely different topic, but before we start building again, I want everyone to be able to go.
Yeah. It's a transition transition.
Yes. And, um, and I just picked that up like a while ago.
Um, and I don't, to be honest with you, I've been doing that slide for so long. I don't even know where it came from at this point.
Um, but I do know I paid $3 and 25 cents for it on some stock photography website. How important is tonality?

Oh, it's everything.

So when you speak, again, and I don't want anyone thinking,

I'm a fucking master.

I'm not.

My goal in the next five years is to be a consistent five-figure speaker.

And I've been there a couple times, but it's not consistent. We'll get there.
That being said, when you're on stage, you have a couple options. You can stand there and just deliver a message.
That's fine. People will tell you you did a good job, especially if you have some insights that aren't are, you know, deeper, helpful.
And that's great. And there's nothing wrong with that.
To me, it's not a presentation. It's a performance.
So when I think about what I'm doing, I'm performing. This is this is like a comedy routine.
It's a it's a one man show. It's a, uh, it's, it, it, this, I want performing.
This is, this is like a comedy routine. It's a, it's a one man show.
It's a, it's, it, it, this, I want people to, to be up and down and laugh and maybe get a little introspective. And, and I want them to know that, you know, they're not alone if they're scared or, or, you know, I, I want them to work through a series of emotions and ideas and come out the other end with a core idea and a core tactic or strategy to take away, right? That's really my goal is whatever that end goal is, I want to get there.
Okay. So when I think about it, I'm not just thinking about what I'm saying.
In fact, I'm rarely thinking about what I'm saying because, and again, this goes back to reading, prepping, preparing, right? Like I don't go into a presentation. Like even when I started, I've done a bunch of presentations recently with no slides.
And a lot of people will say, well, geez, how much did you prepare for that? A fuck ton. Because to do a presentation with no slides means you have to hold the audience for 45 to 90 minutes with zero visual backup.
Yeah, right. I'm a no slides guy myself, man.
I like to have my little notes with me, but I like to just flow and just go with it. Yeah, I'm 100% with you.
But to get there, you have to have read, researched, prepped, prepared, outlined, thought through, examples, life experiences. Like there are – like people will be like, oh, man.
Like I had a buddy locally here and he was busting my chops. He's like, the first time I ever made five figures in a gig, I made – I booked a $12,000 gig.
So excited for it. It was amazing.
And he goes, geez, $12,000 for one hour must be nice. And I'm like, you don't understand.
I probably put 12,000 hours worth of work to get to the point where I could make 12 grand in one hour speaking. Now, it's not one hour because you have to travel there and all this.
It's not like you're... Yes, you're on stage for maybe an hour, but it's not an hour's worth of work.
That being said, what most people and most speakers who are struggling to get ahead don't realize is that it's all the work before you get on stage that matters. This is like being a professional athlete, right? Like, you know, um, take, uh, like, uh, who's, um, who's a great, um, geez why is no one coming to my great baseball player right now Ronald Cunho Jr.
right so anyone's listening knows Ronald Cunho Jr. from the Braves the guy went first guy and how many years ago 40 70 no one ever thought it would be done right absolute monster do you think Ronald Cunho Jr.
just showed up one day and was able to hit 40 home runs and steal 70 bases? No, since the kid was five, he's been fielding ground balls, doing sprints, agility drills, hitting balls off a tee, hitting soft toss, hitting in games, working on his swing, doing dry swings over and over and over. And in sports, everybody's like, well, yeah, of course.
Or take Michael Jordan, right? I'm going going through tim grover's uh tim grover has an awesome series out right now called breakthrough um it's paid but it's phenomenal tim grover trained michael jordan and kobe bryant if you listen or you read his books relentless and winning paradiso talks about these books all the time they're phenomenal um kobe bryant on the court was what we saw but kobe bryant was only kobe bryant on the court was what we saw, but Kobe Bryant was only Kobe Bryant on the court because of who he was before he got on the court. And that 100% translates to public speaking.
That is absolutely, you are as good as your preparation because what's going to happen is the sound's going to go out. What do you do then? What do you do if you do have visuals and you go blue smoke on the computer and back and all of a sudden you have no visuals? What happens when you get an audience member who's hung over and decides that today he's going to be an asshole and he's going to yell out things in the middle of your presentation? What happens when the ringleader of some young agent's event who's like years old, decides to sit in the middle of the room and tell you that everything you're saying doesn't apply to him and his community.
Right. How are you going to work that? How are you going to work when only half the audience shows up? How are you going to work when double the audience shows up? How are you going to work when the event organizer is having a bad day and is screwing around and everything's late and now all of a sudden you're supposed to have an hour and you have 37 minutes? What are you going to do then? You're going to be a pro and crush it for 37 minutes? You're going to bitch, you're going to complain.
What are you going to do? To me, you are only as good as your preparation. And you were asking me before we went live about finding peak, this kind of side hustle hobby thing that I'm kind of creating on the side, which, you know, a lot of people have hobbies.
This is my hobby. I love creating, right? It helps me in my job, but I love creating.
The reason is because to me, the ideas of discipline, purpose, intention, focus, meaning things are preparation. And you can only be at your best if you're prepared.
You can only be at your best. In the moment, you can't be thinking, what do I say next? When someone has to turn around, I know a speaker is either young or doesn't actually care.
It might mean young in the business, not necessarily young in age. When they turn around, look at their slide and it's unintentional.
If it's part of the performance, that's different, but it's rarely part of the performance. It's, oh, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to say next.
What slide am I on? You haven't prepared. You don't deserve to get paid.
You haven't prepared for this event if you're doing that. You need to be prepared.
So in the moment, you're not thinking about what you're saying. I'm watching the eyes.
I'm watching body language. I'm listening to the feedback.
How loud do they laugh? Do they clap? Has anyone gotten up and gone to the bathroom? Has someone looked at their cell phone, right? I'm scanning to see, is the event organizer in back know, when you're doing a good job, you know what happens? The person who hired you comes into the room and stands in the back and watches you. That's how you know you're doing well because that event organizer has a shit ton of stuff to do.
And if they've stopped that stuff to come watch you work, you're either doing really bad or really well. And you usually know which one of those things is.
So like, these are the things that you're not saying, you're not thinking, what do I say next? The words are just coming out of your mouth because you have prepped and it's just who you are. It's just flowing from you.
The next level, the level that gets you paid, that gets you on bigger stages, that gets you in front of a more dynamic and demanding audiences is when you are in the moment and reacting to the stimuli as they come to you and the materials just flowing out of you as a natural recourse of what you're experiencing. And like you said, all that just takes practice and being on stage multiple times, right? I'm getting comfortable with it.
A couple of rapid fire questions here and give me 10 second answers. Yes.
Favorite topic to speak on? Favorite topic is probably leadership and growth. Most requested topic is sales and marketing.
How has speaking affected your personal life? It's probably the reason that I got divorced.

We won't go into that.

There's a lot of people right now sitting back at home wishing that they can go up there on stage and feel comfortable as you.

Give us something.

Give us one piece of advice right now that would help us button up our performance or help us button up our comfort level. Yeah, you're going to have to get rid of your ego.
That's a big one. That's a big one.
Because we're all worried about what are other people thinking of us. Yeah.
Right? Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.
No, because you're going to suck. You're going to do things that are wrong.
You're going to misstep. You're going to miss topics.
You're going to miss words. You're going to say something you don't mean.
If you think of it as like a performance, then it's OK. Right.
If you think of it as a presentation, you feel I'm selling these people. Think of it as a performance.
You're going to mess up. I mess up all the time.
You know what I do? Sometimes I go, ah, you know what? I didn't mean that. Right in the middle of the presentation.
I didn't, that's not exactly, let me reframe that. I said this, but let me reframe that idea.
I'll say that right in the middle of the presentation. Because to me, and we saw this, Daniel, in real time in Utah at the Lions Not Sheep event with Jordan Peterson.
To me, the way Jordan Peterson presents where the dude just walks out on stage, kind of scans the audience. He's got his hand on his face.
He's looking at everybody. And then he just starts talking.
And you can almost feel in the way he's got these very unique hand movements, which are intoxicating to me me, you know, and they like really draw you in because it's almost as if he's reaching out and grabbing these ideas and pulling them into his brain in real time as he's thinking through these things. And you can tell that maybe some stimuli in the last three days, even if I've heard him talk about this topic before, something he read, something he saw, something he experienced, slightly changed the way he approaches it today.
And that to me is a real performance, right? Yes, you need to be able to repackage your ideas and do it over and over again because that's how you get better. But it doesn't mean you always have to deliver it exactly the same way.
And that's where people get messed up. They're like, well, last time I said it, bup, bup, bup.
This time I said it, you know, this way I screwed up. You didn't screw up.
That's the way you felt it needed to be delivered today. Right.
And maybe it doesn't work. Okay.
You just learned one way not to deliver that message. So when you can give up that ego part and you can just understand, look, I could do this 10,000 times and still make mistakes.
It frees you to be able to experience the moment with the audience versus feeling that you need to be perfect, which will never happen. That's right.
That's right. You know, Ryan, I, this was, I was excited to have you speak on this topic because as much, obviously you have the Ryan Hanley podcast, you, you're, you've been in the industry for so long.
You've been on several other podcasts, shows, YouTube channel, everything else. And, and I asked you, Hey, have you ever spoken about this topic? And you said, no.
So I'm very excited to have you come on and talk about this. And, really do believe there's somebody right now, right now in their car listening to this or at work or at home or in the gym listening to this podcast right now.
And they hear your passion, they feel your passion. And there's something that you said today on this show, because I've always said there's going to be that one moment that one person says that one thing that changes their life forever.
And I think this is going to be the show for a lot of people. So I want to just thank you for your friendship, brother.
I want to thank you for just being who you are. But what's a way for venues or events or anybody to reach out to you for any speaking engagements or questions? Yeah, yeah.
So you can go to my website, ryanhandley.com. You can email me at ryan at findingpeak.com.
You can go to findingpeak.com. I have a newsletter, podcast, whatever.
Check all that stuff out. And my full-time job and where I put all the ideas that I talk about into actual practice is roguerisk.com.
You can go check out the insurance agency there as well. So any of those places, you can get a hold of me, all the socials.
You know, I'm fairly active because, as I said, I use social media as practice for testing ideas, concepts, thoughts, ways of delivering messages that ultimately come through in the speaking gigs. So just appreciate the hell out of you, man.
I think that your way, I admire your calm and collected demeanor and the way that you are able to navigate things, difficult situations, difficult conversations with an emotional consistency that feels impossible to me.

But it's just so much fun.

I appreciate the opportunity.

And as always, I wish you nothing but the best, brother.

I love you, brother.

Bye.

Thank you.

Go into Shaboom! Thank you. I'm sorry.
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