Podcast Transcript

Transcript by Nausheen Punjani

Nausheen: you are listening to Plantastic Events podcast episode number ten
 [Music]
Nausheen: hey everyone welcome to Plantastic Events I'm your host Nausheen Punjani, this is a weekly podcast dedicated to help you plan your events with ease be sure to subscribe at stoogeapp.com and stay up-to-date. That's stoogeapp.com plus you'll receive tons of resources, freebies, guides and show notes. Thank you for joining and now let's get into the show.
00:50 Nausheen: hey everyone I'm your host Nausheen Punjani and today our guest is Jim Cathcart he is an entrepreneur an award-winning motivational speaker and an author he is a TEDx presenter with over one and a quarter million views and his videos are on top 1% worldwide he was inducted into the sales and marketing Hall of Fame by top sales world magazine he is also an author of 18 books including the International bestsellers the Acorn principle which I just started reading by the way the self-motivation motivation handbook and relationship selling he has also delivered over 3100 professional speeches around the world he is I was just telling him he is a crazy busy man and I we are so very grateful to  have you on this episode I have watched a lot of it your videos online and I follow you on twitter asking for some advice from time to time thank you I wanted to know first of all how are you doing today and how was your trip to China I know you just are you still there are you back 
02:04 Jim: no I’m back doing great today I was in China for a lecture to her for 14 days took my wife with me this is my third three and a half almost fourth year in China doing lecture tours for world master speakers bureau out of Shanghai and I was addressing 2500 people for two hours a day two days in a row other groups I did about seven other presentations bless aside cruise from Shanghai to Nagasaki Japan and back and recorded 40 video lessons while on board the ship and other than that not much going on except that I just released two new books in Mandarin and English
03:01 Nausheen: but I'm sure it's very busy but it's also good work I think you do incredible work you help many people out there including myself I think just giving me the confidence to speak up and not be afraid
03:13 Jim: you know when I'm finished that's the pardon me for interrupting yeah that's the thing that keeps me going is knowing that what I'm doing is making life better for people and if it weren't it would be a hollow existence you know it's kind of like playing and singing to yourself yeah I've got an audience of one then I can grab my guitar and sing and play until the person goes away doesn't matter as long as somebody's getting value from what I'm doing I'll keep going and if nobody is then after a while it's just you know it's just an exercise in futility
3:56 Nausheen: exactly you should use your natural abilities you should use your skills that you have for the world up there you know share that and having that chance like what you've done it's just it's like phenomenal and we're very thankful for you to do that and to provide that with the world so thank you for that I wanted to ask you how did you start your career how  did you start it I guess the whole becoming a motivational speaker and just joining this whole process well
04:21 Jim: well I was a  government clerk 26 years old and it was a natural thing for me to do the truth but I was I didn't know what I was gonna do I was 26 years old living in Little Rock Arkansas and reporter listeners that aren't American that's a southern central part of the United States and I was working for five hundred and twenty five dollars a month which is not much money at all and newly married with a baby at home no college degree no money in the bank no academic achievements or athletic achievements behind me and I didn't know anybody that had any leverage and one day I was listening to the radio to show not unlike this podcast and I heard the voice of a man named Earl Nightingale he was on 900 radio stations back then and he was considered the Dean of personal motivation so every day he had a five-minute show that was inspirational and I listened to it that day and he said if you will spend an extra hour one hour every day studying your chosen field not just doing your work but studying the field that you want to pursue one hour a day if you do that for five years that's 1,250 hours and that will make you a national expert in that subject and I thought wow I could even I little simple me could do that and I thought what do I want to study well it wasn't urban renewal which was the agency I worked in and so I thought you know I want to do what he's doing but I'd never given a speech and I knew nothing about motivation so I just became a fanatical student and I mean that in the textbook dictionary sense fanatic fanatical student of personal development and Applied Psychology and for five years I spent every spare minute every weekend hour every hour I could carve out for myself studying self-development you know listening to audio recordings reading books going to meetings where people seemed to know what they were talking about interviewing people that seemed to have their act  together and within a year or two I was leading training sessions that other people had designed and then after doing 400 of those in two years for no pay after work 400 into it when I say fanatical I mean fanatical in two years in in the 1970s I did 400 seminars and workshops teaching other people's material for free to civic clubs and local groups and youth groups and after 400 of those things I really knew my stuff and I had a lot of confidence too and I started doing some of my own writing and started my own research ultimately bought a psychological research firm ever partnered with them and became part owner and then ever since then I've done as you said three thousand one hundred speeches around the world I've been a full-time speaker and author since 1976 and I've been president of the National Speakers Association and I've literally won every major award a professional speaker could get on the face of the earth 
8:03 Nausheen: you actually make me feel a lot better just recently good I mean I'm not even lying it means a lot because only recently did I tell myself you know what I'm frustrated with something that it was like an event related thing that we had to deal with and I was like we need to fix this we need to figure out how to work on this we made it into a business and I was like I turned around and I told my husband I was like I have I have no clue what I'm doing and he's like I don't either but you know what will learn will skill build will go through the whole process we'll figure out what we're gonna do how we're gonna make a change but we know that a change is needed that we're going to be we're going to get involved we're gonna try it doesn't matter how hard it a how hard it is or how long it takes we'll keep continuing and we'll keep pushing through and then when I started my first podcast I was like I don't  now the first thing about podcasting I don't even know how to interview people let alone standing behind her standing behind a mic
09:03 Jim: the beauty of what you're saying is that that leads to a comma and then the insertion of and therefore I will learn what I need to learn exactly well the skills I need to develop find the resources I need to find endure the pain discomfort and awkwardness and fear that's part of the process of growing to a bigger place than I have been in the past your statement is absolutely spot-on consistent with my attitude when I was 26 years old today I'm 71
09:42 Nausheen: Wow that is impressive I think your words of wisdom are actually helping me out here um and definitely the nervousness is still there I'm still thinking in my head you know what I don't know if this is gonna fail I don't make it work somehow
10:00 Jim: failures interesting because failure is the only way for something for an unsuccessful attempt to become a failure right because if you stop trying or correcting so if you stop trying or correcting that it's a failure if you keep correcting and learning and adjusting and trying again there wasn't a failure it was an unsuccessful attempt or a setback or a pause or something
10:22 Nausheen: you're so right because I mean you will hit obstacles and sometimes it'll fall but it's how you're gonna you know
10:29 Jim: one venture I was into I was betrayed by a colleague and I think you had mortgaged my home to be in this venture with the guy and one day found that he was getting everything and I was getting nothing and I'd lost about $300,000 and I just had to take my injuries and walk away and  start fresh and it took me a couple of years to rebound to the level of confidence I'd had before but I didn't go through depression where I you know looked for a bottle of alcohol or drug or place to hide I just I just didn't have the energy that I had had prior to that because of the numbness of that blow and I reek up exactly you know next that's the winners mantra kaboom smashed in the face you know kaboom broke a leg kaboom lost all your money what do you say you say next 
11:40 Nausheen: I like that I'm gonna use that if I fall if something happens it's okay what's gonna happen next 
11:42 Jim: one more thing it's also a very short word someone says but you don't know how to do that what you don't have any experience doing that but you don't seem big enough or smart enough or fast enough or cool enough to do that and you just look at them and smile and say yet 
11:57 Nausheen: yet I like that I'm gonna use that and the thing is no one is born with certain skills as well so okay not everyone is born with all kinds of skills and abilities it's how you change yourself over time right like you start to skill build not everyone is like a professional speaker it took time to get there but you know what I'm willing I'm willing to give it that time and I have patience and I'm willing to try and not willing to give up you know so if I just keep continuing keep skill building I know I'll make it there you know it's just time but I want to tell so let you know a lot of our listeners are event organizers we also have quite a few people that not only organized the event but also have to stand up and speak during large events they know many people have come up to me and said hey you know I host these large events but I hate I hate standing up in front of a large crowd and I'm able to that like resonates with me too because I have anxiety and you know in the same sense that they've told me that to their that they stand up there and they lose it they don't know how to react how to do anything but they're organizing this whole event and I know that you've recently published a book called you are the speaker
13:09 Jim: literally last week in Mandarin and English combined actually it's a two-volume book and that gives it an enough space to have both of the languages side by side and it's published in Shanghai it'll be published in two years in the United States but it's 53 lessons on how to be successful speaker and it's from my 31 year well actually 43 years of full-time professional speaking and training and by the way I'm a former meeting planner and I've been the chairman of a big multi-million dollar event with thousands and thousands of people in several days of timespan with hundreds of events involved lots and lots and lots of moving parts for the National Speakers Association I've been organizer of events for everything from three people to hundreds and thousands people as a matter of fact I was the event chair for the Boys and Girls Clubs in Thousand Oaks California back in 2005 the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library had acquired the plane that he used to fly on Air Force One yeah the entire Boeing 707 airplane and they brought it to Thousand Oaks and installed it at his library and then built a pavilion around it and turned it into a meeting space and in 2005 on October 25th I think it was we held the first public event ever held in that space Nancy Reagan his widow had held a reception for her close friend and sponsors and then we opened it up for the Boys and Girls Clubs event that I was chair up we had 409 people silent  auction a great big silent auction and then the live event and banquet and all that raised a quarter of a million dollars in one evening for the Boys and Girls Clubs so I know what your event planner colleagues and listeners are going through yeah I have not only been there I've been there in many forms and I published a program on  audio years ago called what to do when you are the meeting leader not meetings of all types it's not that yeah it's not on the market right now I'm gonna do it in print form okay this coming year but my when I started out I was awkward and embarrassingly bad at speaking to groups and I've learned through experience how to do it better had some wise and kind people say to me Jim you've never been told how to do this have you mean it shows yeah it shows let me give you some tips yes sir like I'm willing to learn yeah and my son is director of human resources for the Four Seasons Hotel near where I live and he has 600 employees and he probably gives I don't know seven or eight presentations a week and does not like to give presentations but he engages the audience he has a great time and people love it when he's running a meeting so you know it is a learning skill and you can get past your reluctance or awkwardness so you know things like you are the speaker which has 53 lessons they take the whole thing apart and show you what you can learn for example and you can learn what to think about while your introducer is telling the group who you are and you can learn what to say in your first couple of moments on stage you can learn whether to use notes how to use notes when to use notes you know there's so many little things you can learn
17:20 Nausheen: I’m just gonna give our listeners a quick
just a glimpse as to what I've seen from like even one of your videos if our listeners get a chance to see you know or like look you up one of the things that I noticed which was so interesting to me and just kind of almost jaw-droppingly cool believe that I thought it was really cool I saw you on stage and it's just the way that you captivated your audience it was like you immediately engaged with them you were able to get them that interaction I could see them cheering and like there was this like center stage type of environment what I don't even know how many people but it was just the way that you came up on stage and it was the way that you interacted with your audience then it was just like you could sense that like immediate feeling you know that there were no boundaries there was like you could feel your audiences just whatever is going on their existence how they're reacting you know I thought it was really cool I haven't seen anything like that
18:14 Jim: you can go to youtube Jim Cathcart or just go to Cathcart.com and see those videos free on my website yeah so please check them out they're really interesting to watch and just seeing how you go up on stage and how you're able to engage with everyone you know one of the things you know seeing one of the things I do to make that happen is before every speech in my head and heart I say Lord helped me be a value to these people yeah you know I just want to be about helping again not about me giving a speech you know because it's not about me it's not even about my material it's about what they can benefit from by listening to me and following my advice so when I get on stage the first thing I do is look them all in the eyes and say you know some kind of greeting good morning good afternoon and if they don't respond then I'll ask a question and raise my hand indicating basic raise theirs yeah and that typically gets a response from them and then I just launch into why my message today might be a value to them right I think that will help folks out too just to be able to better engage 
19:26 Nausheen: do you have any other tips on like how to improve engagement um especially if you're kind of new I like the idea that you said you know knowing that it's not about you it's about your audience being able to work with your audience in that sense I think that would cut down I know my anxiety  quite a bit I'm knowing that I don't have to be worried when I'm standing up there all I have to know is that can I share something valuable to all of them out there
19:49 Jim: well number one is to forget about getting an A don't try to don't try to come across with a good score forget about school forget about judgment forget about that whole mindset and just focus on how your message can help them so if I'm teaching a sales technique I might walk to the front of the room one of my heroes of the past a zig Zigler did I might walk to the front of the room look at him and say there's only five reasons why somebody won't buy from you today they don't need it they don't they're not interested in it they can't afford it they don't have the authority to buy it or they don't trust you now let's explore those that's what Zig did in 1977 and I still remember it to this day and it could still be applied today absolutely yeah think about that 1977 are you kidding me yeah that was before most of our listeners were born for you yeah I was born back at the beginning of recorded human history you know 1946 so when I was born you know they were still thinking about riding horses I know way before the internet and cell phones and email and most of the things were familiar with today and nobody had computers of course but the things that are relevant to me today are the same things that are relevant to Millennials and to kids today I mean I may not use snapchat very active in texting and you know using Instagram and Twitter yeah you can be active on social media  yeah it's a vehicle and you don't have people that say well you know I don't do yeah well you know I don't do telephone what I was just pointing out that it's only a tool right and don't do email you don't do Facebook you don't do snapchat or whatever you use it it's like a pencil I want to write and I choose not to do pencils or pens hello
22:22 Nausheen: it's a good point a good way to put it because I mean if in reality if you're going to stand up and speak or if you want to be a motivational speaker or if you just want be an influencer in the world expect to use some of these tools because it's hard now like I mean actually these tools have made it so much easier for you to interact with people from around the world I don't know how many people have already started interacting with just from the starting this podcast alone and I'll only launched it in January so the fact that I'm interacting with people all around the world to me is just fascinating because like back in the days this was not even a possibility 
22:56 Jim: you know you know you look at podcasts and webinars and all the only online things we do I remember setting goals to reduce the use of paper and go digital with more things and it was like three or four years before the technology caught up to where I could do that and then one day I had all my files six great big cabinets five drawer cabinets filled with 30 plus years of accumulated business records and archives I hid them all scanned and then shredded yeah it cost a few thousand dollars and it was an emotional moment running with the physical documents but put them all into a group of digital files and I found that the number of times I refer to those files is almost nothing so letting go was the challenge not being without because every day I'm creating something new or discovering something new or sharing something that's fairly recent but rarely is it something away from the past yeah and you know thinking about event planners I've had people say when it comes to presentations well I hate PowerPoint so really do you hate audio or do you hate video well no of course not those are just ways of exactly just like PowerPoint is just a way to communicate it's not instead of making sense it's not instead of having good delivery it's a tool to illustrate a point you know if the person says come here's you've got to see this look and they open up photos on there and they show you a picture of their kids that's PowerPoint yeah you're right you know same thing it's not it's not the name or the brand or their whatever keynote PowerPoint etc it's simply a tool that when used poorly sucks exactly
24:57 Nausheen: use correctly is really cool that's exactly what I was gonna point out it's gonna be like um you know we have these tools but are we actually using them effectively
25:13 Jim: right you enhance yourself
25:14 Nausheen: exactly shouldn't should not be the one that leads you shouldn't ultimately lead it's your tool it's the thing to help guide you know not to become the thing to be the ultimate
25:24 Jim: source if a friend of mine says Zachary
25:31
[Laughter]
25:34 Nausheen: but I also wanted to know I know you
wrote a book the Acorn principle and I've just recently started reading that and a quote caught my  attention I'm just gonna say this for our listeners the quote is the great achievers of our time are not typically people who are fantastically intelligent amazingly charming and cunningly manipulative most big successes are people who simply apply their natural talents and abilities in intelligent ways can you share a little bit about that quote and as well as just talk briefly about your book
26:10 Jim: you bet well the whole book was written as a guided tour of year so I spent nine years with a group of researchers psychological researchers and came up with what became the book the Acorn principle and the Acorn principle it relates to the metaphor of an acorn which is the seed of an oak tree but it's also one acorn is the beginning of a forest of a hundred thousand oak trees that's true it just takes time to get there so every person is the beginning of something and they're also the result of something so an acorn came from a tree and it's going to a tree or it's going to become squirrel food or something you know you're fertile but the Acorn holds within it not only one oak but a whole future of Oaks and the same things true for a person you are the seed of potential of millions of possibilities now what do you do with that well I believe if you and I machine if you and I were creating the world and we created human beings so we are the Creator right we are God and we're debating among ourselves in this case it's a dual God a partnership God to the second power so we are deciding how are we going to wire humans so that all the needs of Earth can be met well let's give them different sets of different mixes of talents you know all of them have some fundamental talents just to get through life but it's let's make some of them really brilliant with architecture and some of them really good with math and some of them really good with performance and some of them really good nurturers and healers and things and let's do that okay yeah but how are we going to get them to do that well item one make it pleasurable yeah when they do it an item to make it come easily to them come easily to them so how do you know what you're naturally good at well you start trying all the things that you could potentially be good or bad at and the ones that you do well and the ones that seem just almost like a no-brainer to you want to write that down because that's a path you can pursue where your maximum energy and strength and value is going to be applied to it with the minimum of effort and difficulty so I think we ought to spend a lifetime exploring what makes us who we are and figuring out how to design our life so we get to be our real self all day every day as long as we live so you start out at first you're limited by needing money and not have much power Authority so you take whatever job you can take and you make do but while you're there you need to be exploring what your potential is and what your interests and strengths and loves are and then start making life choices and career choices that get you to do more and more of what you're good at less and less of what you're not good at because they make tools and other people for what you're not good at it's like almost finding your way there's a pattern you know everyone has their path it's how you and their past pretty wide - yeah I  could be a professional performer yeah I could play in Saint play guitar and sing which I do as a part-time job but I could do that all day every day and make a career of it and love every minute yeah but I also love what I do is the speaker and that has some ancillary applications like coaching and consulting and such training you know those make sense too and I enjoy event planning yeah and that's also compatible with what I do but if building houses was my strength then I would be on the wrong path  right now
30:20 Nausheen: mm-hmm and almost what you enjoy doing as well because I think like you have your natural talent I realized that um you know I was working and working a nine-to-five job and I started almost coming to a point where I was like I don't like this I don't like this world I think there's something else out there for me you know I want to be able to use my natural talents I want to be able to find my path I want to be able to struggle I want to be able to find the path that is right for me you know and
30:44 Jim: like you said I want to be able to struggle that most people want to avoid that struggle and that's the difference between them and you yeah that's good I think if I didn't catch that and I think life's too long life's too short to spend much time working for jerks ya know if the person you're working for is an idiot you know an abrasive jerk then start planning your exit or something you know make a change because you can tolerate that for a while as coping strategy as a career step but if that becomes the reality you embrace then that's the way your life is going to be
31:25 Nausheen: I think you just read my life
31:33 Jim: I wrote down something that another person said one time that I thought pretty much sums it up he said my life philosophy from today forward it's in NMA no more assholes no more assholes exactly you know
31:49 Nausheen: I want to I'm not even lying when I say this I want to be able to like I was like I can't handle this anymore I try to be a nice person I try to do like I try to be a good like person out there you know give back however much I can but then when I have to work with people I don't want to work with why do I continue to move forward in that direction why do I let myself go there
32:08 Jim: you know yeah I said you know stopping it exactly if you really like chocolate don't buy 50 pounds of chocolate buy a chocolate piece exactly because chocolate is fun but it's not a good lifestyle you're absolutely right yeah Cheetos you know my wife and I like Cheetos a big Cheetos and that way it's used up and I've got to make a second bad decision if I want the next one
32:54 Nausheen: make sure you don't buy that second bag exactly I had to tell myself you know what I'm not gonna do this I want a career where I actually enjoy working with the people I work with you know I want to be able to if I start my own business I want to be able to say hey you know I want customers that love me back you know I want to be able to work with people who are like-minded I want to be able to have that opportunity to interact with people I've never met with before and would have never met if I didn't leave my job you know I
33:21 Jim: let me tell you a quick one because you and I are wired very similarly yeah when I was in
my 20s I was working as a bill collector I had to reap Zess cars and log trucks in the hills of northern Arkansas in the Ozark Mountains that's tough and I hated my job hated it but it paid well and I had a company car in an expense account and I was 20-something years old and I was able to have a pretty decent lifestyle on weekends but during the week I had to do all this calling on people that never wanted to see me literally nobody I called on ever wanted to see me yeah and after two years of that I went to my boss and I said I'm quitting and he said where are you going I said I don't know he said really you're gonna leave General Motors said you're gonna leave General Motors in and you've got nothing in mind and I said yeah do I want to do things that that involve people who want to see me not people who want to avoid me so I'm sorry but I'm done with the bill collector thing I think I'm gonna go part-time sell motorcycles while I figure out what I'm gonna do with my life then I went to work in nightclubs playing guitar and singing and of course everybody wanted to see me and it better I got the more people wanted to see me and then I got married and took a job selling mutual funds and life insurance and that was someone who'd see me some didn't and then I found my path a few years later into the field of training and development and I've been there ever since
35:04 Nausheen: see I think that's great like you then that ultimately builds your confidence too when you think about it I think yeah 
35:16 Jim: without pain and fear and difficulty there is no confidence built
35:17 Nausheen: exactly I like that and it makes so much more sense I think it's just things that you learn in life how you have to deal with all of the things you know they don't want to run into the same people that don't like seeing me you know or I don't want to interact that's so important to
35:36 Jim: you know go through those passages because if a parent says to of a child come here I want your muscles to be bigger so I'm gonna lift your waist
35:38 Nausheen: it teaches you
35:41 Jim: you don't want to do that I'm gonna lift your weights and your those are gonna get big nah don't think so I think maybe my muscles would know so removing difficulties is good if you're removing dangers and threats and things like that but if you're just removing the struggle you are harming
36:00 Nausheen: the person right you're absolutely right you have to deal with the struggles I think that ultimately also leads to the passion the fashion doesn't come unless you have you've experienced some sort of struggle with it you know like why we started our own business you know we were struggling we were saying that hey there's nothing out there like this we saw like my husband's sister was struggling with something and to watch her go through all of that and then be a part of that process I was like no way we're gonna have to make a change in this you're capable of making a change in this you know and we're gonna do it regardless of what we have to hit we'll deal with whatever comes our way and we'll make it work and it's right 
36:40 Jim: my sister she passed away a few years ago but she had a habit of feeding her weaknesses she would hang out with people that were enablers and so she had a friend who was just Negative Nancy you know I mean if you show her a sunrise she'd say yeah but you know now part of the day's going you give her a gift and she says probably going to break you know I'll just get it you know you know whatever but she always found the hole never found the doughnut and I told my sister I said don't bring her around here anymore she said what wait a minute she's my friend you know if you accept me you accept my friend I said no that's not how it works I accept you unconditionally for all of eternity you're my sister I love you but I don't have to have negative people in my life who every time they come in they bring a cloud into the house with them and so she's no longer welcome here and you're welcome here 24/7 I'll even give you a key
37:44 Nausheen: I think that's so true I'm actually in that process right now where I'm saying I'm trying to remove all the negative energy you know I don't need to surround myself with people who have a pessimistic view on life you know I cuz personally I don't need it myself you know I need to be able to you don't have to kick them out yeah I don't manage the amount of time you spend with exactly I'm living it you know I know to certain degree like I know like I saw their family or if they're close friends I'm not going to do that but um there's to some extent it's impacting me it's impacting my life you know the more positive influence I have around me the more positive I become you know and I think that that changes Who I am my inner you know like my almost like my inner self um and being able to change that is what drives me to improve myself it improves everything around me and I can see the change you know I want to become better I want to improve my life so on that note I wanted to ask you also like if you know especially for our listeners out there do you have any tips on improving confidence while you're speaking in front of the public cuz I know for me you know I was mentioning this earlier I have anxiety issues I'm working on that of course it's a personal thing but I now I'm like more open about it and will I'm not like in denial of it but when I stand up on stage I stop and I look at the audience and I don't know how to react and I get you know like the feeling my stomach sinking and like um just
39:24 Jim: one of the things yeah I've been there time and time again one of the things is ask or before you get up there have a couple of questions written down that you could ask if you lose your way yeah and make them questions that you would ask the audience about how your subject matters or is meaningful to them so let's say you're talking about the annual event and you want everybody to want to go sign up for the big annual event right and you've got your presentation put together and you're excited but you're scared and you get up there and you say good morning and nobody says anything and you get more nervous and you say I'm going to give you an overview of the annual event and think you're gonna get pretty excited about it and you start talking about the positive things about the annual event and you're not getting any feedback and you say you go to one of your questions and let's say it's this one how many of you have attended more than one of this organization's annual events and you raise your hand to indicate you want them to raise theirs yeah and then you say could I see your hands and so a few more of them raise their hands and then you ask by the way how many of you weren't gonna raise your hands no matter no matter what is and you raise your hand again and then you have a laugh with them and that takes the nervousness away a little bit and then you say yes let's go back to the annual event there are four major things that are going to take place one is a keynotes two is our breakout sessions three is our excursions because we're going to see the city and four is the workshops where you have special on you know one-to-one attention from the experts at the event I'm gonna walk you through each one of these and then you just start describing the event to the people and forget about you and forget about whether you're speaking or not just make sure they understand what the possibilities are so at the end they're saying hey where do I sign up yeah it's
41:39 Nausheen: almost like pacifying or like putting them at ease you know and putting yourself at ease at the same time yeah
41:44 Jim: keeping them you know so it helps to have your introducer if there is an introducer do the hardware work for you know like thanks everybody hey you know let's programs begun so thank you for holding it down and please turn off your cell phones yeah and you know then one of the things I like to avoid is the how to describe it to the illogic of saying before we begin I have a key announcement you if you say something you've begun so you can't do anything before you begin after you begin so it's a non sequitur and their brain doesn't make sense so a better way to say that is as we begin I have a few announcements ok I like that and then your that way it's not illogical that way it just makes sense as we begin here's some important things you need to know exits are here and here and those lead to the outside these other two exits lead to in our hallways so if we have to evacuate the room for some reason don't use these use those second please turn off your cell phones now and if your neighbor is texting nudge them let's practice that everybody okay prepare to nudge thank you all right now our first speaker is now seen she's going to be talking to you about our annual event let's welcome Nausheen yeah I was just making that up but that's a very realistic make up from 30 100 events that I've been the presenter at yeah
43:40 Nausheen: anything that also helps because many times folks zone out you know when they hear before we begin like oh it hasn't started yet get back to whatever you're doing you know so it reminds them and
43:51 Jim: has already started this is the starting point since we're starting might as well do these things in housekeeping the announcements or things related to cleaning so don't call them housekeeping you know if it's your on page 6 of your packet there's a blank do X and why that's not a housekeeping announcement that's a that's a technique you know and a tool yeah housekeeping announcements please pick up the trace below your chair throw it in the waste bins over on the right hand side of the room and dust on your way there I've seen that though like when they say housekeeping announcements or housekeeping rules it always gives me a little I
44:30 Nausheen: I don't know I always feel strange whenever I see that and it bores me immediately you know like time to go to bed
44:38 Jim: so if you want to lose your audience say before we begin I have a few housekeeping announcements which means disconnect look at your cell phone and ignore me lose focus entirely lose focus entirely and I'll have someone else try and get your attention back so I know in the process you shared some of the common problems that event organizers and speakers deal with do you have anything else on how they can even handle them better or any other problems
45:04 Nausheen: because I know you've hosted a crazy amount
45:07 Jim: of just events meeting room disasters I have known and it was how to handle problems like the room catches on fire or the building you're in and I've had that happen and I've had to evacuate 700 people on a snowy winter day from three levels below the street in a convention hotel in Washington DC twice in the same day I've also had a person with a medical emergency in the meeting when I was addressing 600 people at a banquet one time and I had to make sure that someone got there and took care of him the audience didn't completely lose focus as a result of that I've had people before me mention the death of the most beloved founder of the group and then introduce me Oh No yeah how do you follow that so you know and what I did was I got on stage and I said I am so sorry to hear the loss of your founder I said could I ask that all of us just take a moment that's a nice transition you know just yeah just have a moment of silence and think about him or her and send some good energy that way and then I pause with them respectfully and then I say thank you for that yeah so I've got a punctuation point thank you for that and then I step to a different spot on stage a foot or two away from where I was just to indicate further that there's a change taking place and I say now let me ask you a question and I go immediately into my presentation mode and forget about what we just did but if I didn't do what we just did they would still be carrying that feeling forward and they would lose that they'll be disconnected to you know I had an occasion in Michigan where I was addressing a large banquet of hundreds of people and a big drunken lumberjack looking guy stumbled into the river challenged all to a fight oh my god and you know when you think about it when a problem comes up in a meeting if you've got the microphone you're in charge yeah it doesn't matter whether you're the lowest person on the totem pole you're in charge everyone gets president and founder and primary stockholders in the room you're still in charge because you've got the mic you're the only one that can save lives why is that that's so true though because I know if I'm sitting in the audience I would look to the speaker and we're like what do we do now yeah and in this case I said I didn't know what to do but thank heavens I thought of the right thing and this guy's thumbing around and he's - he's yelling at everybody and he's big and so I looked at him and I thought about what I was gonna do and then finally I said sir and he looked around to see where the sound was coming from and it was coming through the loudspeakers and I said up here on stage and he looked at me across the room and squinted and I waved my hand and he said what and I said were you talking to me he said I'm talking to all of you and then he oh that is challenged again and I said ladies and gentlemen I need eight large volunteers would you please stand eight large volunteers would you please stand I said that three times yeah and two or three big guys stood up and I said all right we've got three I need five more four fives okay six I need two more thank you seven eight great gentlemen please stand and remain standing now would all eight of you face this gentleman and walk toward him and help him find the exit so he's got eight big men who just stood up in the room and they're headed toward him he's drunk he's not using logic he's reacting at the core of his brain cortex out of animal instinct what's he gonna do there's only one option run yeah so he stumbled his way out the door and they went out the door too and found a security guard who and
49:32 Nausheen: and it's so interesting because you know when people look to you for that answer and then they respond how you handle that situation let's say the situation is not even that big of a deal at the moment but oftentimes I see like you know when a famous celebrity or someone that's on stage it's how do they handle such a situation that's the social media buzz ya know like what about the actual situation why don't we talk about that why are we so involved in how did someone so handle the situation they might not be the expert in handling such situations but just what most people are
50:04 Jim: yeah most but that's the thing for the event planners is they need to remember
first off your introducers have almost no experience introducing speakers give them a script and it make it short right episodes why should this speaker be addressing this group at this time on this topic good morning ladies and gentlemen know she knows our speaker today she has five years of experience in this she is here today to teach us how to one two three and let's welcome her right done right and next thing is none of your presenters probably have skill or experience handling emergencies yeah so be prepared in the event of an emergency to step onto the stage take the microphone and give directions if you don't know that most of the exits go to an inner hallway instead of an outdoor exit then you're gonna guide people into a smoke-filled corridor which may be their doom yeah so check out your rooms in advance just like the fire department would if they were there and for listeners out there
51:18 we actually have an upcoming podcast and we have a law enforcement officer coming in and she's she's like I think over 15 15 years 15 years of experience so she's gonna talk about a little bit about this too it's just you know interesting though because you know ultimately it falls on the event organizer or the person who's standing up there you're absolutely right even though you know you may have a security guard or you may have security outside or inside it still falls on you people are looking to you for answers
51:50 Jim: mm-hmm got a resource for you oh yes please her name is Nancy height shoe she's in in saint louis and you can find her on the web nancy used to be a beat cop you know walking a beat and arrested a number of violent criminals over the years and then she started her own career teaching personal safety Oh a great thing for events and event planners huh so Nancy you know she can do a podcast or she could even be a speaker but she's a good resource on the subject of how do people keep themselves and the folks at their events safe what do you look for and what can you do that doesn't involve a bunch of money or expertise awesome 
52:39 Nausheen: we'll definitely reach out to her thank you for sharing that with us but you bet and I wanted to ask you a few additional questions I know you shared your recent recently published book that the title again is you are the speaker and you said it's in Mandarin and in English but it's going to be published a year from now in the States
53:01 Jim: most recent book is the self-motivation handbook okay and that's also in Mandarin right now but it's in English most of all and you can go to self-motivation handbook Cathcart.com to find out about that and read part of the book for free and such I've also got lots and lots of other  resources like the Acorn principle which is on Amazon and all the other places you know most of my books are on Amazon
53:28 Nausheen: awesome okay and I will share those links with our listeners as well on our site included do you have any other upcoming events that you would like to share with our listeners as well
53:45 Jim: I would like them to go with me to China to join there were 2,500 people in my audience this recent one and they were just screaming and cheering and it was like being a rock star I took seven hundred plus individual photographs with people oh my goodness the most common sound I heard in the whole time I was in China can I do picture
54:15 Nausheen: everybody wants a picture but it's exciting yeah, I mean that's fantastic 
54:20 Jim: They bought a couple thousand copies of my latest book so you know thank you lord thank your world yeah Thank You China
54:26 Nausheen: yeah that is so cool and knowing that you're going right back that's also very cool
54:27 Jim: yeah, I do most of my work in the United States of course so I'm constantly you know doing convention keynotes or consulting work personal coaching and that kind of thing and that's all Cathcart.com so it's easy to find me yeah actually it's easy to find me on all social media as you
54:49 Nausheen: you're pretty active so that helps and for our listeners too again I'll share those links with you on our site and as well as just anywhere else too through our resources page as well as on our site do you also have any resources I guess you shared some of them already but I just wanted to double-check with you if you have any additional resources you can share with our members related to any of the topics you talked about or anything that's coming up
55:14 Jim: I have audio CD actually is DVD excuse me DVDs and CDs combined in an album and it's called confident communication and it is the source from which I wrote the book you are the speaker it's 53 video short video lessons on how to be a good speaker followed by four audio CDs each of which has an extended lesson on leading meetings effectively leading board meetings planning retreats presentations conventions etc.
55:54 Nausheen: is that also available on your site
55:57 Jim: Yeah Cathcart.com just go to the shop or the store and look they're
55:57 Nausheen: awesome and again users he also has all of his books on Amazon you can also find it on Cathcart.com I wanted to just let you know it has been an absolute honor to have you on this podcast it really means a lot to us and just wanted to say thank you again so much for taking the time out - for doing this for us and it's just been fantastic to get to know you and learn a little bit just a glimpse on your own your life just to see how far you've made it and how you've had to overcome your challenges inspires the rest of us to be able to know that we can do it - you know that there is you
56:38 Jim: know that's you're absolutely correct and I don't mean that motivation is an observation of fact what you said to me in the early part of this podcast tells me you are the kind of person who will absolutely succeed regardless what the world hit you with and I congratulate you on that
57:00 Nausheen: and you if you would have seen our room my husband just patted me on the back he's like good job so it really does it does it does help and you know hopefully what time you know it's just a process there will be challenges there will be struggles 
57:28 Jim: I want watch the two of you succeed
57:28 Nausheen: oh thank you it really does and we would love to have you on again I know you do you have a lot a lot of background and I'm sure this was just not enough to cover everything but we would love to have you on again and we would love to share you know everything that you do with our listeners to inspire them along the way so again thank you so much and thank you listeners for joining as well
57:54 Nausheen: although the event industry includes a lot of stressful work and late meetings or late events just remember that every event you helped to bring to life creates memories of a lifetime for many people out there. Did you love this episode of Plantastic Events, we’d love for you to subscribe rate and leave a review on iTunes each week we'll give a shout out to the reviewer of the week also don't forget we have resources available at stoogeapp.com. thank you for listening and I hope you'll join us next time. Goodbye
58:32 Nausheen: produced by stooge app calm music by Justin Mahar