Hey Greenblasters!

Last Saturday, I went to an event called “Next Level Speakers Conference.”

It was fucking fascinating.

I want to tell you what I learned from it, and the best way for me to do that is to just tell you the story as I experienced it.

So settle in. This is a longer Greenblast than normal, but I hope you find it half as interesting reading about as I did being there.

The Story

I was invited to Next Level by a friend in the speaking industry (he’s a paid speaker and works with paid speakers).

He bought the fancy $1500 Diamond ticket (his offers are worth $8K, so if he meets just one client it’s well worth it) and brought me as his +1, which meant:

• front-row seats,

• a Q&A with the celebrity speakers (more about them below)

• and a photo opp:

When I arrived, like a celebrity myself, I was greeted with cheers and applause from the staff at registration as I stepped off the elevator .

I walked a “red carpet” (it was actually blue to match the Next Level Speakers company brand colour) while a lovely female volunteer who called herself Nick took videos and pictures of me, hyping me up. Later, she made sure I had a plate of food at lunch, bringing me some after the caterers had taken it away.

(Side note: this was a mostly black event, and like almost all mostly black events, the energy was way more fun and welcoming than mostly white events. If that makes you uncomfortable, and you’re white, then you need to get yourself to more mostly black events. They’re awesome.)

A DJ was spinning inside the main hall, and everybody danced their way to their seats, myself included.

The Speakers Take The Stage

The event began with Coach Crump, a brilliant speaker with super-chill energy. He taught us his coaching framework “C.O.A.C.H.” (It made me facepalm for not thinking of it myself: Commitment, Organization, Accountability, Capacity, and Habits. Genius.)

Then, we listened to an incredible Canadian guy named Orlando Bowen, a former CFL player who told us the story of when was beaten up by undercover cops the day he signed with the Hamilton Tigercats and thrown in jail for something he didn’t do. (He inspired me so much because I have a vaguely similar story. One day I’ll tell you guys about it.)

Then came the American heavy hitters:

• Jeremy Anderson,

• Jessica Lundy (my personal favourite)

• and Dr. Eric Thomas.

If you don’t know, they (especially Eric and Jeremy) are some of the highest-paid and well-recognized motivational speakers in the world, and I could see exactly why:

The energy, passion, stagecraft, humour, vulnerability, quotable moments, and crowd control were frankly the best I’ve ever seen and humbled the fuck out of me as a public speaker. There’s levels to this, and I realized I have a couple to climb before I’m there.

Some of my favourite quotes:

“SYSTEM stands for saving yourself stress, time, energy and money”

“If I say yes to everything, I’m really saying no to my daughter.”

“Give your audience what they want, not what you want to give them”

And perhaps my favourite:

“Broke people are always available” 🤣

My Mixed Reaction

From an attendee experience, they put on a great show, and it was a fantastic experience.

But there was an underlying ethos to the whole thing which I hear a lot from entrepreneurs, and which I always find so strange. I call it:

“Jesus wants you to be a millionaire.”

One one level, this makes sense to me:

A lot of the speakers told stories of poverty, drugs, gangs, and violence growing up.

To them, money is essential for leaving this behind, but without God and the church, the illegal options for fast money were too tempting. Plus, the church gave them a sense of community and family they might not have had at home.

“Jesus + entrepreneurship” is the formula they’ve found for success, and they want their audience, many of whom may have similar stories, to find the same path.

But for me, a white, middle-class Jew from Toronto whose parents are left-wing artists, this is a hard mindset to understand:

A) I don’t believe in God (this will probably surprise very few of you) and:

B) I’m uncomfortable with money as a moral compass point

Why I sometimes wish I was a religious entrepreneur

As you can imagine, being uncomfortable chasing money means I have less of it than I want.

And to be honest, that’s something I’m working on.

I don’t believe the message my parents gave me that “money doesn’t matter as long as you’re happy” is a helpful one in our current society, and I’m trying to view it differently as I grow up. I also know that growing up comfortable was a huge privilege, but did very little for my hunger to prioritize money, and now that I have a family, I feel like I’m playing catch up.

But another thing:

I don’t have the strong religious sense of purpose to my work that these speakers seemed to, and I think that explains some of the difference in work ethic, skill, and passion onstage.

I wish (God I wish) that I believed in God and money like that, in one big unifying idea that meant that every moment of my life was in service of some grand divine plan that ends in millions of dollars in this life, and heaven in the next.

I truly wish I did. I feel like things would be easier.

I’m constantly questioning my ethics, morals, and decisions, and stopping myself from doing things that might make me more successful. Some of that is good, but I’m sure some of it is me overthinking.

Why am I telling you this?

One thing the speakers did - and spoke a lot about - was “transparency.”

They told stories about the worst, best, and most intimate moments of their lives.

Stories about sex, violence, abuse, drugs, and death, but also love, big paydays, family, and religious belief.

It was beautiful.

So even though I might offend some of you by speaking so honestly about religion, I believe deeply in the principle of transparency, because I know how much it moves me as an audience member.

I really believe in what I’m saying here, and I’d rather be transparent with you then play it safe and hope to keep you as a subscriber.

That’s the lesson I want to leave you with today:

Be transparent when you speak and write.

Tell your stories, even the scary ones.

And have faith (yes, atheists can have faith too) that those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.

THAT IS IT for this week! I told you it was a long one, but I hope you liked it.

Please reply if you did (or especially if you didn’t) and share this newsletter with a friend if you loved it.

Greenblast… out 🚀

P.S. If you want a community of other people all working on improving their public speaking and storytelling skills together, consider joining my live Q&A on October 15th on Zoom, where I’ll be talking all about my new Speaking Heroes community.

Email me INTERESTED and I’ll put you on the invite list!