The Power Of Perseverance With Marques Ogden And Being A Successful Woman Speaker With Glenna Salsbury

At no other time in history has the majority of the workforce been forced to work remotely from home as we are struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic. Far from being deprived of audiences, some of the best speakers in the country are making innovative solutions to keep in touch with their listeners. Dr. Diane Hamilton sits down with Marques Ogden—a keynote speaker, business coach, and corporate consultant who also happens to be a former professional NFL player—to talk about how he is coping with the current crisis. Highlighting the power of perseverance, Marques shares the four things you need to keep in mind to have this championship mindset to rise to unprecedented situations. He also talks about the future of virtual work, the power of diversity, the state of the gig economy, and the ways we can remain ethical in our work and help build trust in this time of uncertainty.

Another great guest sharing how she is handling the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is Glenna Salsbury. Glenna is an exemplary speaker who won a host of prestigious honors and awards, including the highest award given to professional speakers, the Cavett Award. In this episode, Glenna shares her success story of being one of the few women speakers in the Hall of Fame. She talks about the struggles women face in the business and the power of storytelling to entertain and to teach. Giving encouragement and advice, Glenna then imparts a message to those who are grappling to make sense of this challenging time.

I’m glad you joined us because we have Marques Ogden and Glenna Salsbury here. You might remember Marques as an NFL football player, but he’s also an executive coach and a keynote speaker. Speaking of speakers, we have a Hall of Fame speaker, Glenna Salsbury here. We’re going to learn some great tips from two of the best speakers out there and it’ll be quite a learning experience because we’re learning about how speakers are doing it in this crisis situation.

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The Power Of Perseverance With Marques Ogden

I am here with Marques Ogden, who is a keynote speaker, business coach and corporate consultant. He has a unique approach to elevating your success to the next level. He was an offensive lineman for the Jacksonville Jaguars, Baltimore Ravens, Buffalo Bills and Tennessee Titans. His brother’s a Hall of Fame offensive tackle, Jonathan Ogden. He’s taken his life experience and created his organization, where he helps brands become successful in various elements of the business. It’s nice to have you here, Marques.

Thanks, Diane. How are you doing?

I am doing okay, considering it’s a crazy time, but I get to talk to interesting people every day and you’re right there on the top of the list. I’m curious how an NFL football player gets into keynote speaking and business coaching. I want a little backstory on you.

After my NFL career, I ended up struggling with the transition for about six months. I got hooked on alcohol, pain killers and everything bad, unfortunately. I was feeling sorry for myself. I finally got my act together and I built a construction business in downtown Baltimore. The company had massive success in the early stages. We became an eight-figure business in about a little under four-year period, which was phenomenal. Unfortunately, as the company is having some great success, I became arrogant and egotistical. I’ve stopped listening to people, my trusted advisors and my team leaders.

As a result of that, I ended up having to file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy back in 2013. I moved from Baltimore to Raleigh and I was working a couple of jobs. I was at Merrill Lynch for a short time and I got let go, it’s all my fault. I got a job to handle construction business and I thought how fun was that. The company truck falls and fired me five days later because the company shut its doors to the sale division. I ended up then having to coach kids football because that’s what I knew. I did that for a while. After that, a lot of my kids were getting into the season and I ended up not having as many clients.

I took a job working the night shift as a custodian in downtown Raleigh for $8.25 an hour. I then had a pivotal breakthrough moment where I said, “If I don’t stop blaming everybody but myself for my problems, I’m going to always be sitting right here, always blaming other people for my failures.” I said, “No more.” That’s when I said, “I’m going to become a keynote speaker, I’m going to turn my life around and I’m going to start helping people. They don’t make the same mistake I did.” Lo and behold, several years, here we are.

I’ve had other football players, basketball players and some athletes on the show who have gone into speaking. I can see it’s a natural transition because you had to learn teamwork and some of the things that we can all learn from. Your story touches on perseverance and it’s interesting because I’m giving a talk with a bunch of people about perseverance with the COVID-19 situation. You have had a lot of experience in the power of perseverance. For people who are reading, who maybe can’t work. You and I talked a little. My husband’s a plastic surgeon. He can’t work. A lot of small businesses can’t work. What do you help them with to understand the power of perseverance?

I tell them that there are four things to try to do and/or keep in mind around having a championship mindset to persevere and do anything. Number one is aggressively resolve problems. People in the market nowadays have issues and concerns. You can’t even go and do the work you’re used to at a brick and mortar store potentially. How can you use your mind to help people that maybe can’t go to work or might still be busy and they’re struggling in their time? How can you help them aggressively resolve problems? Number two, innovate and adapt. It is critical. I’m having to adapt to working at home and being a little bit more creative because I can’t go to the gym or I can’t do what I’m used to doing.

Do not consider yourself a failure because you’re not. No one predicted any of this to happen at this magnitude. Click To Tweet

How can you innovate and adapt to the environment that you are in? The third is always to be humble in times of success or times of struggle. Your humility is a big resemblance of your character. The way your character and the way you conduct yourself is going to be a major factor in people wanting to engage with any type of conversation or potential business opportunities. Fourth is good and effective communication. Be that person who can speak to and have a conversation with that they know that if they are struggling, you have the good communication skills to help them as they are trying to push through or do adverse times in the wrong light.

You had mentioned some adverse times that you’ve gone through. I noticed that you do some talks where you talk about transition after going bankrupt. Some people are worried about going bankrupt. What should they be thinking about in case they have to go bankrupt in terms of psychologically how to get through it?

They’re going to have to understand that everyone has a struggle pivoting moment or some type of deal that they had to go through. What I’ll say is focus on your strength. That’s what I had to do. When I had to rebuild my life, I had to sit down and figure out, “Marques, what are you good?” That’s when I realized I was good at talking with people. I was good at helping people through situations and sharing experiences. That’s how I came to build the ability to help people through tough times. This is where I’m all about helping individuals with my story. This is why I tell people all the time that we have to set the bar. If you have to go through the bankruptcy and all the types of stuff that I’m hoping no one does, but if you do, it’s not the end-all.

It’s not because you’re a bad business person who made a bad business deal. No one could control what is happening around our globe. The Olympic is postponed. Vegas is shut down. This has never happened ever. This will go down as one of the most global epidemics. If you’re shutting down Las Vegas, you know something is seriously wrong. What I would tell people is if you have to do this, do what you have to do. Make the necessary step but don’t get down on yourself. Find things that you’re strong at and pivot. Maybe you’ll do some consulting for a while with businesses that were able to make it through but are struggling because their sales team is not as effective as it used to be.

It depends upon what industry you’re in. The key here is, don’t panic. Don’t look at this as a failure. I had a massive business failure. I trusted a client that I shouldn’t have. I got over-extended. That’s what happened. If you had to file bankruptcy because of what’s happening, don’t look at yourself as a failure because you’re not. It was just the wrong timing. No one could predict that this will ever happen, especially at this magnitude. If people are going through this, understand that they have strengths, this is not the end and pivot. Start looking at the other strengths that you have to help get yourself back on your feet.

You talked about many things there that are important. We never would think that Las Vegas would close and I would have never thought doctor’s offices would close. You’d never think of the things that are impacted. We hope that we will have the foresight and be proactive to change, but some things you can’t predict. A lot of people are working virtually because of the situation and there are a lot of things we can learn. Even though we put the word failure on things, I wouldn’t consider any of this a failure because no one could have predicted this. We’re learning some hard lessons and it’s going to change maybe how we do things. What do you think about virtual work in the future? Do you think we’ll see more of it because of this?

Yes, we will. We’ll see a lot more virtual work. We’ll see a lot more people who are doing things remotely. We’ll see a lot more conferences, especially for about the first 12 to 18 months, where we’re able to lift everything. It’s got to be heavy virtual conferences because people are not going to be in the big rush to get back around people. They’re talking about all these deaths that could come up in two weeks. Once that goes away, it’s still embedded in people’s minds and not go, “It’s lifted. Let’s go back to parks and go back to walks and dinners.” It’s not going to be that way. What I’m trying to do and what I’m trying to tell potential clients I’m speaking to is this is the time we have to build our online presence. If we have an online presence and we can build on that, once the world gets back to normalcy, we’ll be in a better position.

As everybody’s going through these same issues, we’re all at a disadvantage. I know you give a lot of keynotes and workshops about diversity and inclusion. How do you think these impacts what we’re going to talk about in terms of diversity and inclusion now that we’ve all been humbled in the same boat?

TTL 696 | Power Of Perseverance — Power Of Perseverance: In these times, people need to remember that this is not the end and that they have the strength to pull themselves up again when this is all over.

I’m hoping that people will understand the power of diversity. Some people I’m talking to are losing much of their business market share. I have a good friend of mine said, “Marques, I’ve lost 75% of my client base.” He’s in one industry. I’m signing up a guy that I spoke that is in the title business for real estate. I signed up a young lady who’s in mortgages. Another young lady wants to do virtual health and wellness business. I have a guy that’s a financial planner that wants to get into speaking. I have a guy who’s a financial planner that wants to get more business around having access to athletes. I have real estate clients. I have people who are real estate investors that might be able to become clients. I’m hoping people see that diversity is truly one of the most important things in business and inclusion is about creating a safe environment for people. You have to do it not just in the office, but from the four walls of your home.

How are you engaging people through Zoom calls, interactions or meetings? I had an email from a client who says, “Marques, we have a group we’re working with. It’s large we might have to divvy up and do the third group.” The groups are large and they were not anticipating having this many people in their group. It’s a group problem to have because it’s salespeople that want that inclusion. They want to be part of that diversification strategy to grow their businesses and help them to help that client be better. It’s about inclusion and I might have to have an extra hour call a month with my client to help them through their issues. What am I going to do? That’s the way you have to do things. If you can’t be inclusive or have a strong diversity foundation, your company could be in big trouble once everything gets back to normal around our globe for sure.

A lot of people had eggs all in one basket or they were narrow-focused in different things. We started to see a lot of people with the gig economy doing certain things thinking that this is going to be the solution. How has the gig economy impacted by these? People who may want to work for Uber or something now that nobody’s going anywhere.

It’s going to slam. I have a coaching client who specializes in speaking to gig economy audiences. This one, especially if you’re in a certain industry, is catastrophic because those are the first people that can get let go. When that happens, it affects the economy. I saw something that said, they’re expecting about 42 million people, when this is over, will be at the unemployment line. It could be as high as 32%. You’re talking about one out of every three people you see could have no job. I might have to go on around them. I’m like, “Is that what the Great Depression was?” Because the great depression was a killer for our country. What’s this going to do? Many small businesses that help our economy is shut down and they’re not opening back up until the earliest mid-May. Where are we? I saw up in Canada, they’re not allowing public gatherings until June 30th.

They’re going to probably keep extending the date and it’s hard to know what to plan. It’s a time when people get desperate though and that’s what I worry about a little bit. I know you give talks on character ethics versus personality ethics. I’m curious how you differentiate those. Are we going to see people doing unethical things because they’re desperate?

Unfortunately, we are. Character ethics is when you’re driven by helping people. You’re humble, kind, and generous. When you have personality ethics, you’re angry, vengeful, deceitful and you’re out for yourself. I remember because I had personality ethics. When I had my construction business near the end, all I cared about was power. I didn’t care about the company. I didn’t care about my people. All I care about is money. What happens? I lost my business. I’ll talk to this young lady and I gave her a large discount. She’s got a little bit of savings. She lost her job and waiting for employment. She has a great business strategy. I couldn’t charge her the normal price that I charge people because of the time we’re in. You have to learn to adjust and do things from a character perspective. Do it the right way. You don’t have to take advantage of people to make a living, be fair. People who are doing that and showing high character are going to shine through even in a brighter light because a lot comes out. They’re going to be on the personality side. You have to be driven by the desire to help others succeed. That is the number one biggest thing that has to happen in our environment.

As we’re talking about all this, you’re talking about a lot of things like servant leadership, supporting other people and a lot of things in the courses I teach. I’m thinking about how we can build trust in this time. A lot of loans are out there, forgivable or otherwise, to keep employees in certain jobs. A lot of leaders do have employees that they’re able to maintain. How can we help build trust and the people that we have because everybody’s worried?

The way you could build trust is three major pillars. Number one is competency. Showing people no matter what the environment is, that you can do your job at the highest ethical and excellence of standards. The second one is reliability. Getting the job done in the timeframe that it needs to be done to show people that you are dependable and reliable. Not just getting your job done but in the timeframe that is necessary by the job requirements. The third is to have your clients or have your team’s best interest. If you can do those three things, competency, reliability and have your team’s best interest, there’s no way you won’t build trust between you and your staff.

When undergoing a struggle or ordeal, focus on your strength. Click To Tweet

You touched on something important that we always said in sales is, you want to underpromise and overdeliver. I see a lot of people do the opposite and then people become frustrated. That’s where you lose trust. There’s much that we can learn from many other things that you talk about. I’ve seen a lot of your workshops. They are interesting because you talk about diversity, inclusion, perseverance, resiliency and success. A lot of it is about ambition, drive and hard work. I assume that that’s going to continue to be your focus. I’m curious, have you thought of doing a TEDx Talk or something like that to showcase a lot of this?

I’m looking into doing that as we speak. I’m trying to help people on a larger scale with a TEDx Talk to share more. We’re doing some free webinars that are on my website, which www.MarquesOgden.com around things of success, ambition, drive, hard work, laying the foundation, all these types of things to help people help themselves to become more successful in their everyday lives.

I know you talk about psychological safety as well. How has this whole situation impacted our psychological safety?

For some people, it does well. In others, I believe because they’re not in the office or they can’t see other people, they are getting anxious or nervous, “Is someone on my team taking advantage or trying to do something behind my back?” This is where the leaders of these organizations had to do a fantastic job of setting time in your schedule to connect with your team. You have to spend time putting yourself in a position of helping your team and making sure they had the resources that they need. These are the times where great leadership is born. Innovate it and create it, but it’s a lot of hard work. You have to set time to be sure your team knows that they can count on you in anything that they need to be done.

You probably learned a lot of that in football. What other things have you learned from football that you think have been helpful with what you’re doing?

It’s teamwork, leadership, time management and professionalism. All of these had played a major part in my life to who I am. A lot of that I learned from football, especially in the National Football League.

I would imagine the collaboration would be right up there as well.

Collaboration and teamwork are huge because in football you can’t do everything by yourself. It’s not possible. It’s all about putting yourself in a position where you’re surrounding yourself with people who you know will have your back to help you get a task or goal accomplished.

I’m focused on building curiosity in people. Anytime that we can spend time questioning what we’ve done and what’s working, what’s not working is always important. I hope a lot of people do that. They could take advantage of some great information that’s out there on the internet and listen to people like you who give amazing talks and webinars. All the things that you’re probably still doing and virtually. If they wanted to find out more, can you give your website and any other way they could reach you through social media?

It’s www.MarquesOgden.com. If you find me on LinkedIn, Marques Ogden, Facebook, Marques Ogden. Instagram @MarquesOgden and Twitter @Marques_Ogden.

Marques, this was fun to have you on the show. Thank you much. You have many important lessons that I hope people take some time to check out your work.

Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it and I hope you have a fantastic day.

Thank you.

Being A Successful Woman Speaker With Glenna Salsbury

I am here with Glenna Salsbury, who is listed in Who’s Who in American Women and was the former President of the National Speakers Association. She has won about every Hall of Fame speaker award you can think of from the CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame. She’s got the highest award given to professional speakers, the Cavett Award. You’ve seen her on Good Morning America. She’s got New York Times bestseller. She was married to Jim Salsbury, a former Detroit Lion and Green Bay Packer. I can’t even tell you how much of an honor it is to have you on the show, Glenna, welcome.

It’s my joy, Diane. It’s always great to spend time with people you enjoy and share topics that we’re both interested in.

A speaker’s greatest mistake is when they try to be somebody else. Click To Tweet

I know you talk about a lot of things leadership based and I know your speaking has gotten much attention. I am fascinated by the fact that there aren’t more Hall of Fame women speakers and how you got to reach that level of success? Can you give a little backstory on your success?

It’s one of those things where I’ll tell you when it started. I was seventeen years old, a junior in high school and I was writing a paper for my English class on My Most Unforgettable Character. My dad was the person I chose to write about. I was interviewing him and I said to him, “Dad, what’s your purpose in life?” He said, “My purpose in life is to make other people glad they saw me.” That has driven my life. At the point that I felt called to be a professional speaker, I had been doing training in the world of real estate for a few years. My heart longed to share truths that I felt had changed my life. When I did my first public seminar where I sold tickets for people to come and I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. I asked myself this question and it’s a good question for all of us, no matter if you’re going to be a speaker, a president of a company, a member of the team, a wife or a mother. Here is the question, “What are the values in my life that caused me to have a meaningful, purposeful and happy life? What is it that drives me?” Out of that, I created the truths that I shared that night on the platform and I never did any marketing after that.

Is it just the honesty of what you came up with?

I didn’t know it at the time, but in reflection, I realized that it was because I was simply being authentically who I am.

That’s hard for a lot of people. Getting up on stage can be intimidating sometimes for some. How could that come out in you so naturally then?

That was one of the things I discovered. Where leaders and speakers make their greatest mistake is, we try to be somebody else. We try to be important. I often say to leaders, in particular CEOs, whoever’s in charge of a team even. The greatest pitfall of every individual, but in leadership and speakers, is striving to look successful and an attempt to be important or powerful. The danger of that is it’s not who you are. You’re trying to make up for what you think is the weakness.

When trying to speak in front of a group, a lot of it is entertainment in some respects. I’ve had some people say, “It’s more important how you make them feel, you’re funny and you’re this or that.” It’s like golf, you trying to get your hand this way, you’re going to stand that way and you forget all.

That’s a problem in golf.

You never hit it. How do you avoid that? If you can be your authentic self, that’s important. I understand what you’re saying, but a reason for me when I see many Hall of Fame men speakers is, they get away with humor. I don’t know if women could get away with that sometimes. They can say funny things. If I said that, I don’t know if it’d be taken the same way. Do you think there’s a double standard sometimes?

I do believe there is, but it’s not to our detriment as women. I believe that we have unique corners on storytelling if we use it properly. Often people say, “Don’t talk about yourself. Don’t say I and I.” That’s not true. If the story that you’re going to share has an application that’s instantly understood by your audience, storytelling is a form of entertainment, but it’s really a form of teaching. One of my themes in life has been to leave a lasting legacy. If I’m on the platform, you will leave a legacy wherever you are, but the question is what kind will it be? One of the greatest things that we can give people is our vulnerability to laugh at ourselves. Sometimes the humor that men use isn’t necessarily self-deprecating. Whereas women can be self-deprecating if you do it in a way that allows us to laugh together about ourselves. It becomes heartwarming instead of cynical or harsh.

When I speak to salespeople, I love to tell a sales story where I humiliated myself. It was mortifying and they all laugh because it’s bad that you can’t believe this happened. I’m laughing at it and I’m mortified at the same time and you could do some of that. You have to know how much you can do of that. Can’t you do too much?

I don’t think so. The difference is the variety. If you’re using a variety of stories with a variety of interesting applications, then there’s experiential. For instance, I sometimes talk about a trip we made. It’s gorilla trekking in Rwanda. I talk about the fact that one of the things that the guide told us was that if we ran into the gorillas, we needed to look down, lower our eyes, sink to the ground and eat grass. I said, “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Detroit Lion sit down and eat grass.” I had a guy in the audience come up to me and say, “I’m an old Green Bay Packer. I’ve seen a lot of Detroit Lion eats grass.” I could tell the story, but it wasn’t specifically about me. It gave us common ground and that’s the point. You can’t do too much of it if it’s got variety and memorable takeaways.

Anytime you’re laughing, it’s great. When you’re talking about this, it brings to mind Erma Bombeck and how great she was who was from Phoenix here as well. You’re from Scottsdale. I’m near Scottsdale. We have had some big names here and you mentioned, real estate, we’ve got Tom Hopkins here. It’s something that when I talked to all of you about what you’ve done, you all have a different take on what makes you successful. I’m speaking with Zig Ziglar’s son. There are many great speakers from the day. I’m curious if there’s anyone of them who influenced your style?

Yes, two of them. One of them was Jim Rohn. Not everybody remembers Jim Rohn. He passed away a few years ago. He was one of the first professional speakers because professional speaking didn’t occur until the late ’50s and early ’60s. Jim Rohn could stand with his elbow on the lectern and never move. He wasn’t trying to entertain you with his great dramatic moments. He stood and spoke the truth. You knew it was the truth because it resonated in your spirit. When I saw him speak, which was 1977 or so, I said, “That’s what I want to do.” It was transformational and then a person who’s still doing marvelously well and speaking is, Joel Weldon. He lives here in Scottsdale and he is fantastic.

One of the greatest gifts he ever gave me when I first began in 1980, 1981, Joel heard me speak and he said, “You are amazing on the platform, but I have one question for you. That is, so what?” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “You have all these great stories, but you’re not applying them to the audience. You’re sharing interesting things and people are entertained by them, but they don’t know how to do anything with that’s practical.” Every time after that, I would think about what I was going to prepare to speak on whatever group it was. I would say to myself, “What good will this do to anybody in the audience? What value does this have?” Joel impacted my life with two words, “So what.”

I make that mistake as well. You tend to forget to bring it back. I was thinking of a talk that I’m going to be giving. I was wondering some of your insight for some of these people because you dealt with focusing on leadership, making them more successful and a lot of your topics are based on that. We have many people who are small businesses who are freaked out because they can’t work and they’re looking for some motivation to feel like that they can get past this. Is there a time that you’re speaking in that realm and what kind of “so what” message are you giving?

You can’t do anything about the world, but you can do a lot about your own world. Click To Tweet

The number one message that I’m giving is the message that I’ve given right along but you apply it differently when you’re in the deep water that we’re in. I start with the question, what’s the greatest need of every human being other than food and water? The answer to that is love. That’s the greatest need everybody has. The reality is we get caught up in ourselves and our concerns and how am I going to get a job again? How am I going to get my business started again? You have to start somewhere to change your focus. I always start with faith. I would say to people, “I don’t know where you are with your faith, but I’m going to suggest you need to start by recognizing you’re not in charge. You can’t do anything about the world, but you can do a lot about your world.” You start with, what’s my attitude? I start with the simple thing of formula that I used over and over. It changes your life every time. That’s, I x V = R, Imagination mixed with Vividness equals Reality. We know this is true and we’ve heard it but we don’t practice it. To practice it, you have to get out a pen and paper. If you’re creative, get beautiful colored pens and big paper.

Imagine what you want the future to look like. There’s a great Psalm. Psalm 37:4 says that “God has given us the desires of our heart.” It doesn’t mean it gives us everything we want. It means that my deepest wants are God-given. If I can identify what is it I want? For instance, what I want is to change people’s lives from a faith standpoint. To ask yourself, “What do I want?” You have to start one step back before you get to that. That is, what’s my purpose in life? Why am I on the planet? My dad said, “My purpose is to make other people glad they saw me.” My purpose when I get my purpose statement is to ignite the spark of faith and love in the lives of all who know me, family first.

It’s interesting as I think what mine has been. It has always been on developing curiosity in people. I’m always interested in what it is that makes people feel impassioned by what they do. For me, I would love to have people explore more things and get outside of status quo thinking and feel more about the world and what’s going on. I could see a lot of what you’re talking about ties into that. I know a lot of people are stressed out that they can’t do their jobs. They can’t do certain things, especially speakers. I’m in a couple of big groups on Facebook and different things where they all share their ideas and they’re all trying to stay upbeat and positive because that’s what speakers do. How can you be a speaker if you can’t travel? What advice do you give to people who that is their main business?

To circle back to my imagination and how would I want it to look in the future because I have to look to the future, not in this situation. If I can get clear about that and then the vision is to picture that even if you have to cut out pictures that remind you of an auditorium full of people and you on the platform. If that’s what your goal is to return to speaking as a success story in the future. What we think about is what we moved toward. We know that’s psychologically true. To start there, I need to change my focus. I need to ask myself, what contribution can I make in the lives of other people?

Of course, we’re using Facebook for that. We’re using a lot of the go viral things. The effect that we have with Zoom and Google Duo and Vimeo. We can do those things and attempt to stay in touch with people. Being in touch and brainstorming in groups, it’s important to get wisdom from what other people are doing because they are amazingly creative in ways to reach out and use what we have. Another thing that we forget is we’re probably cooped up with family. What are you doing with them? This is a great opportunity to practice what you preach.

If you are believing that there is a reason to be positive, are you doing that in this situation that you’re in? Have you been grateful? Have you started with the simple fact that we all know gratitude? I can see, I can walk, and I’ve got a roof over my head, I’ve got great kids. Start making the list because it comes right down to I’ve got flowers blooming in my yard. If you’re not focused on what you’re grateful for, you aren’t living what you’ve said other people can do. Mostly as speakers, we’re talking to people who would like to be more successful than they are. I need to become more successful as a human being living under my roof with those that I claimed that I love.

It’s a time to reflect on many things that we can do to make every aspect of our lives better. It’ll be interesting to see the overall impact this has on how much virtual work people do and how much we connect from a distance. Do you think it’ll impact speakers? A lot of speakers don’t love the travel part, but they love to speak. Do you think we’re seeing more virtual speaking engagement?

I do. There are some people do better virtually than they do face-to-face. My reason for that is there are a lot of people who are facilitators, not speakers. The facilitators who try to be speakers are not nearly as successful as people who are called to be speakers. I don’t think you can be a speaker successfully unless you’re called.

What’s a facilitator in your mind? Is it somebody that can deliver information but doesn’t necessarily motivate?

They know how to drive information out of others and wrap it up in a package that’s understood and fed back and then do it again and again. That way, they’re using other people’s wisdom, but they have the capacity to formulate that wisdom into takeaways. The virtual world is a great place to do that. It’s critical for me to look people in the eye, so virtual is tough for me.

Everybody’s got their different things that work well with them. It was Verne Harnish I spoke to one time about what was the most intimidating talk he had to give. He said the hardest one for him was to get to speak at NSA because you’re around all these people who know how a good speaker should speak. You were the President of NSA for a while. Do you agree that it’s a hard group because of that?

That’s your toughest audience ever.

Is it self-imposed that it’s the hardest or what?

No, speakers are about the most critical people you can stand in front of. On my website, on the homepage, I have a full-blown presentation that I gave as the opening speaker for our 2011 Convention. I talked about the essence of presence and what it takes to be a successful speaker. It was the opening session. It was a huge event for a lot of different reasons for things that were going on in the NSA at the time. It was the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced and that includes being one of the first women’s speakers IBM ever used. Some of those audiences were certainly intimidating in the days when there were few women on the platform. Standing there, I had been President for several years and I’d been in front of the audience over and over again. For me, to have to stand there for 45 minutes and deliver information that was going to be new to them, that’s tough. Most speakers know and they know most everything.

It’s always harder to speak to your peers though. Anybody who knows what you’re supposed to know, you always feel like you got to ramp it up a little bit more. I feel that sense of pain, but I’ve had some of the best speakers on this show who have been fun. Willie Jolley sings to me, which was fun. You are much fun from every aspect of how you communicate with one another and all these forums I’m in with you all. I was looking forward to having you on because you represent what many women can aspire to be. We haven’t had as many people in the Hall of Fame, like what you’ve been able to achieve. I hope that changes. If somebody is reading this that she wants to make it be in your footsteps, what advice would you give her?

I’ll tell you what advice is the most meaningful I ever found myself. In my first year at NSA, I’ve felt completely overwhelmed because there were all these famous speakers like Zig Ziglar. I was intimidated, but I noticed that there were a lot of first-timers like myself who are intimidated. I made it my business to meet them in the bathroom or wherever I was in the hall. I stop, interview them, ask them about themselves, where they’re from, what they want to speak about and made connections. If you were to ask those who know me well, they would say the one thing they remember about me is that I always stopped, looked people in the eye and loved on them no matter where I was.

You can't read a book and then replicate what the book said from the platform and be successful. Click To Tweet

No matter what the situation was in order to make them feel loved and appreciated because I know how important that is. For those who want to be great on the platform as women, it’s important not to use men as your role model. It’s not because you can’t learn from them, but because our style is uniquely our own. To recognize, you bring everything to the platform that’s important to you. As long as you’re clear about that and that you’re talking about what is your truth and not somebody else’s truth. You can’t read a book and then replicate what the book said from the platform and be successful.

If you can identify as a female, what makes you tick that keeps you in a happy life. At the point, I’ve done a lot of coaching in many years of professional speakers. One of the women that I happened to be spending time with. I asked her, “What are the values in your life that give you a meaningful and joyful life?” She said, “My life isn’t meaningful or joyful right now.” I said, “You don’t want to be a speaker. You can’t be what you aren’t. Until you can get clear about what’s needing to be fixed in your life, you can’t come to the platform with something you read in a book.” People feel the difference. They don’t know what it is, but they feel the disconnect. The best advice to be a successful female speaker is to remain authentically congruent with who you are and love people. It’s easy to love people. You display your enthusiasm for them. You’re interested in them. You ask questions and you listen to the answer. As you said and something I agree with, you use curiosity. Be interested and be interesting.

It’s words to live by. This is great, Glenna. This has been much fun to talk to you. I know that everybody admires your work, including me. Everything that you’ve done is wonderful and a lot of people would like to know how they can contact you. I know you speak and you have your books, The Art of Fresh Start. You’ve been featured in Chicken Soup For The Soul. There are many things they could find out about you. Where’s the best place to look?

The best place to look is on my website and it’s GlennaSalsbury.com. All my contact information is there. My email is easy to remember. It’s ISpeak4U@Me.com.

This has been wonderful, Glenna. Thank you much. I enjoyed this.

It’s my joy, Diane. Thank you for the privilege of sharing.

You’re welcome.

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I’d like to thank Marques and Glenna for being my guest. We get many great guests on this show. If you’ve missed any past episodes, please go to DrDianeHamilton.com. It’s everything you want to know about curiosity. Everything’s there. If you want to be an affiliate, you can sign up to be an affiliate to give the Curiosity Code Index. If you have any questions, please contact me through my site or social media sites. We’d love to hear from you and I hope you enjoyed the show as much as I did. I hope you join us for the next episode.

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About Marques Ogden

Marques Ogden is a keynote speaker, business coach, and corporate consultant with a unique approach to elevating your success to the next level. Marques was an offensive lineman for the Jacksonville Jaguars, Baltimore Ravens, Buffalo Bills, and Tennessee Titans. His brother is Hall of Fame offensive tackle Johnathan Ogden. He has taken his life experience and created his organization where he helps brands become successful in various elements of business.

About Glenna Salsbury

Glenna Salsbury is listed in Who’s Who in American Women and was the 1997-98 President of the National Speaker’s Association. In 1985, Glenna earned the coveted CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) designation given by NSA. In 1990 she received the CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame Award – one of only a handful of women in the world to hold this honor. In 2005 Glenna received the highest award given to professional speakers, the Cavett Award.

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