World of Speakers E.44: Cameron Brown | Consciously creating how you feel on stage

CB: I'm doing awesomely Ryan, thanks for having me.

RF: Yeah, absolutely.

Where in the world are you? It's kind of like Carmen San Diego, but it's Cameron Brown Diego.

CB: I love that. I'm in Colorado at the moment.

I officially moved to the US after being in Europe for a period of time. It's great to be here now, I am absolutely loving it here.

RF: On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you like to travel?

CB: I'm definitely up about the 9 or 10 mark.

At the moment, I'm good just being in one location for a while after an insane travel period of 10 countries across 4 continents.

I definitely go in waves and I'm on a wave of being nice and settled in one location before ramping it back up.

I think in the next 12 months I'll still be in about four different countries, but that's definitely less than what it has been previously.

RF: Yeah, it's fun to talk with people who are doing a lot of traveling and speaking.

I do that as well and I did the calculations the other day. I was on a 3-day trip to go into town to speak for a 45-minute keynote and then travel back. It's like 36 hours.

You do the math: 1 divided by 36 hours and it ends up being something like 99.93% of the time is everything except for speaking.

I thought that was a kind of funny realization to where it's glorified to speak and travel around the world and you have to love the whole thing.

You can't just love being on stage because it's such a small fraction of the time. I know you experienced that as well, it's good.

CB: Absolutely.

RF: Before we dive too much into some of the tips and how you've had success getting stage time, I always like to ask people a story that is from their past, where if I was introducing you to somebody that had never met you before and you weren't there, I’d say like,

"Oh my gosh, you’ve got to meet this guy, Cameron. Oh, this one time he was..."

What's a fun story that helps to basically uncover who you are as opposed to just reading your accolades and bios and all that kind of stuff?

CB: Yeah. This is a good question.

A couple of years ago, I was going overseas for the first time and then I ended up running some events in the US.

I'm from Australia originally. I had no connections in the US at all prior to doing those events.

In the four months leading up to them, I built relationships through digital technology, specifically through social media, and then hosted peer network invite-only events.

On the way back on that first trip, I had this little feeling, this little nudge of a feeling, when I was flying in the air, of that there's just stuff sitting at home that was wasting away, and somebody else would be better off with it than I am.

I didn't do anything about it at that time, and it wasn't until I flew back over and ran the next series of events a few months later that there was even more of a nagging feeling, and it ended up leading to me selling everything that I owned.

I had no intention at the time of doing that, but I'm a big believer in being a living and breathing example of what I speak and coach on and I really wanted to demonstrate, not only that you don't need things to be happy, but also that you can utilize technology, like I had been doing, to speed up and magnify the impact that you make in the world.

To really demonstrate that, rather than just speaking on stage about it, I sold everything that I owned and then embarked on a global quest to inspire people and inspire change in people. What transpired then was 18 months of crazy adventure.

10 countries across four continents, meeting remarkable people and experiencing things that I would never even have dreamed of experiencing.

The beautiful things out of that came from speaking engagements across 4 continents, to more than a million people seeing the videos that I'd launched and released organically.

Along with a number of other great things that came out of that, including, like you mentioned, the closing talk at TEDx over in Italy, that was the first time I'd ever been to Europe.

It was kind of cool to be over there for the first time and delivering a closing talk and doing what I did on the stage there.

That's the story that I like to share because it really demonstrates that if you're challenging what's possible and continuing to challenge what's possible and not only challenging it in your mind but challenging it in action, then magic can happen pretty quickly.

Especially when you align yourself to why it is that you're here, and the outcomes that you're ideally wanting to achieve, and the impact you're wanting to make.

RF: I'm officially jealous, like it's official.

If there was a jealous meter, the jealous has gone over.

One thing you said at the very end caught my ear—it's, "Challenging in action, making things happen". I love that.

A story like that, you classically hear of the fable or fairytale where someone sells everything and then travels around the world, but that's reality for you, which is very cool.

And then you get to Europe and you literally get the red carpet experience, like off of the plane pretty much, right?

CB: It was a great experience.

I actually flew to Budapest for the month and I had rehearsal there for the month. We'll get into what I actually did for that talk, I'm sure.

I had a grand piano, it was a 150-year-old grand piano in the apartment that I was leasing there, rehearsing the talk and what I did on stage there.

It was funny, when I arrived there the person who I was leasing from for the month said that when she first purchased the piano she found the old money stuffed in the back of the piano.

Amazing, she said like it was such old money and you can just imagine who played that.

That piano made it through wars, WWI, WWII.

It's just amazing to think what stories that would have to tell in terms of things that had happened in the past.

It was pretty cool, even though it was totally out of tune. When I was rehearsing we had a recording of the song that was utilized in the talk.

It sounded so out of tune because of what I was playing and I had to go down to this music store and say, "Can I just play for a few minutes and test out a couple of digital pianos?”

I went down there and had my headphones in to make sure that it was good and it was like a massive relief just knowing that we didn't have to re-record anything else that had been done up until then because it was a massive project.

So, aside from being out of tune, it was pretty cool.

RF: Would you consider yourself a minimalist or an essentialist? Anything like that?

CB: Yeah, minimalist definitely.

Even though I'm based in the US now and will be for some time, I still only have one bag that goes on my backpack and then a medium-sized suitcase, that's everything that I own.

I may upgrade to a large suitcase, that's as far as I think I'll go at this stage.

I love that one of the most valuable things out of it, I found anyway, is that I don't have to think about some of the stuff that people have to think about in terms of purchasing different things.

I don't have to think about certain bills, like a car for example.

I have calculated and I know that there's a certain number that I've got in my mind that is much better off being able to either get an Uber or Lyft or some other rideshare or a public transport before going and getting your car, and I'm not even coming close yet to spending that amount per week.

It makes perfect sense.

Which means that I don't have to think about anything going wrong with it, I don't have to think about servicing, which means that I get more time to spend on the things that matter most which are, to me, making an impact and doing things that inspire people around the world.

RF: The way you were just describing that basically having nothing essentially in hand, nothing to worry about, the ability to focus on what matters which is making an impact, and honestly in my mind, you're describing a speaker.

I don't think I've really made that connection before, but if you think about it, when you're on stage, you really don't have anything—you don't have your car, you might have a grand piano, which is cool, that's a separate story.

There's something minimalistic and pure just about being on stage— it's you, it's your voice, it's people listening to you.

I'm just sort of thinking of how epic that really is and that maybe one of the appeals and the beauty of speaking is it's just there's no bells and whistles, it's not like they're CGI, you're not looking at some crazy digitally enhanced whatnot.

Do you see that connection?

Is that one of the things that lends your personality to being a professional speaker? That simplicity element of speaking?

CB: I definitely see the connection, and I see the connection when I'm feeling most aligned with why I'm here. Because when I'm feeling most aligned, I'm most present in the moment.

That happens on stage as well, if you're not present, if you're thinking about,

"Do they like me, don't they like me, have I said the right thing, have I said the wrong thing," and you've got this mental dialogue going on in the moment, you're not truly serving.

You're in your own world. You're in the past or in the future rather than right there in that moment. I think there's a component of that. I'd also say on stage, to me, it's like a performance.

Anyone can provide a talk in terms of video online, people can go and watch that video and if they're getting the same kind of experience in person as they are at home when they're watching it, there's not as much likelihood they're going to go out and see you speak, for example.

Whereas if you can provide an experience, then that's really what people are looking for and that comes back to when I realized when I was traveling the world, that life really is about experiences, not things.

We have the opportunity as professional speakers to provide an experience that they can't get anywhere else. To be able to provide an insight in a way that moves them or shakes them or has them change their perception about something in the world, about themselves, about others, about the planet.

I think that's a beautiful experience to be able to provide people and I definitely see similarities in how I choose to live life and the onstage component as well, and I love that.

RF: Alright, so I'm going to go one more step meta here you were talking and I was now envisioning people having mental baggage.

Like the size of the bag that they have on stage. If they're worried about what people are thinking, it's like a bigger bag versus getting rid of that.

Would you say that there are essential items, like maybe 3 essential items that you would keep with you?

You know the whole classic, you're on an island and you get to choose a book, and this, and that.

But when you're on stage, the mental baggage that you have, or what you are going to pack in your brain—what would be like three things that you would bring with you, or that you put in your brain bag before you speak?

CB: Great question.

First and foremost, I would keep the reference points for how things have gone really well and lock that in, so that when I'm under pressure, that's when absolutely it's game on.

Having the reference points from the past that help to support that, that's one.

The other is a meditation before I actually go on stage, that helps to calm thoughts and feelings.

The other would be an anchoring, a physical anchoring. I'm not sure if those tuning in know and understand about anchoring—

RF: It's on a sailboat, like when you have a sailboat you take an anchor and you throw it in the water?

CB: Exactly, that's exactly what it is.

RF: It comes back to like with psychology classical conditioning, Pavlov's dogs is a great example.

With the dogs that would come out, they would get fed food and that would ring a tuning fork at the same time and the dogs would salivate, they'd eat because they were hungry and they could see the food there.

They did that over and over and over again, until a point where they would ring the tuning fork and the dogs would salivate without the food even being there.

We can utilize these anchors, we have these anchors anyway in how we've been conditioned.

It just comes down to whether we are consciously utilizing them to experience the world as we want to or not want to.

For example, I have my thumb and my index finger on both sides and if I push them together really tightly, because I've done this over time and conditioned it, it is that my body just goes into a relaxation mode.

If I'm nervous, for example, and there's any form of anxiety or anything like that, then I'll push those together and I'm doing it right now and I feel it. I feel it going down.

RF: Me too.

Basically that's the bell, it's your fingers, you're finding maybe like you're in nature or you're like peaceful and you're like,

"I'm going to frame that, I'm an anchor, and I'm going to add a link of chain to this line and anchor."

CB: Exactly.

You do it over time, this takes time so you want to, for those tuning in, if you have nerves or you feel anxious, first of all, anxious feelings like nervousness and excitement—same kind of feeling.

If you're feeling nervous or feeling anxious, you just switch your focus to go,

"Maybe it's just that I'm really excited about adding value and being of service," and that can help just to switch that straight away.

But in terms of the anchoring, you want to when you are getting yourself into a really great space.

This is with, let's say, meditation, for example.

Or you're just going and having a bath or something that really relaxes you, you're out in nature.

When you are at that point already of feeling really really relaxed, that's when you set that trigger off.

You hit that and so it might be your thumb and index finger, I like that because no one can really know what I'm doing, because it can be nice and hidden if I need it to be.

Whereas if you've got like, if you're pressing your shoulder and you're going out on stage and you're just constantly pressing your shoulder, people are going to go, "What's wrong with this guy", right?!

That's not really going to work, just be conscious about where you are setting that anchor up in your body or on your body somewhere.

You do that over and over and over again, and then you want to test it out, so you test out the anchor in a moment where it's a little heightened in terms of the stress or nervousness.

Just press it and notice the relaxation starts to come down. It might be strong enough, you might need to continue doing it for a while.

You just repeat that over and over and over again until the point where it's really locked in and you can do that for happiness, you can do that for anything. It's a really powerful tool to use.

RF: I thought I was just on a podcast. I feel like I'm laying on the couch paying top dollar for psychoanalysis.

I love it. This is such cool stuff.

I'm a sailor, I just love anchoring, and you have that control over it, but the idea of practicing anchoring on your own body to associate it and trigger feelings that you want to tap into, that's brilliant. I dig it.

CB: Awesome man.

RF: That's your next TEDx Talk right there, how's that?

CB: Yeah, we can do that man. It's something that I've done with clients for many years now and it just works so well.

When you realize and understand that we are able to consciously create how we feel on stage, consciously create how we experience our world, we can go about actually consciously creating that versus being reactive to it and wondering, "Why am I feeling this way?"

So more conscious creation is definitely an empowering way to go.

RF: Let's roll with this, let's consciously create some more tips and tricks that are just going to continue to blow people's minds.

Ladies and gentlemen, when you hear this I want you to anchor it so that you are not only getting these tips, but you're anchoring, and then when you're preparing for a speech, you anchor and you pull back some of these tidbits that we're about to hear.

If you're working with somebody and you're trying to level up their speaking game, how do you even start to approach that and then what are some of the tactical tips and tricks that you could share with us that you're going to be doing with them?

CB: The ones I've mentioned straight away, definitely guys write those down, make sure that you're utilizing those.

So, we went through anchoring, we went through shifting from nervousness to excitement and noticing that that's actually similar energy.

Knowing that you can actually switch that at a moment's notice.

Another is, again, from a switch of focus point of view, usually when there are nerves kicking on, there is a focus on what you're not wanting to experience.

It is, "Oh no, what if I say something wrong? What if they don't like it? What if, what if, what if."

It ends up you are focusing on what you don't want. Where focus goes, energy flows, right?

What we want to do is, we want to switch that focus. So imagine flipping the focus over and like actually flicking a switch from right to left or left to right, however, you want to position it in your mind.

So we go, "Okay, I notice that I'm focusing on something that I don't want right now. What is it that I do want? I want to serve these people. I want to be of really great value. Okay, great. What's one thing that I can do on stage that would allow that to really, really drive home?"

And all of a sudden, you've just switched your focus.

And not only switched your focus from an emotional point of view, but you've also switched it from a physical point of view because you've got a specific action you are going to take as a result of that.

I'm very big on action, because thinking about it, that's not going to solve any of your problems.

Thinking about it and actually working out what you need to do next, and then actually doing something about it, that's a much, much better use of your time.

That's the next thing, switching your focus.

Next up, is the power of what I call "reference points".

This can be within your speaking business, it can also be across the board.

Just keep in mind these strategies are human behavioral strategies. They are high-performance strategies. So you can utilize these and implement them into many areas of your life.

But let's stay on topic in terms of speaking!

When it comes to reference points, often again, people will experience maybe thinking that people are going to judge them, or being a little terrified about what people are going to think, or what you’re going to say, or whether you might believe that you're going to screw things up on stage and just forget your words because you don't have slides, or you’re just talking to people and feeling really vulnerable at that moment.

Any of those things that come up, what often happens is, we have this, what I call a reference stack.

A reference stack is that it ends up being a stack of reference points and it can be either a positive reference stack or a negative reference stack.

But if you're experiencing those not so great experiences, or not so great emotions, and those thoughts about things going wrong, then there's a good chance you've got a reference stack that is negatively charged.

Usually what that will be, if you imagine where those actual reference points are in your mind, usually when I'm working with a client one-on-one and we're breaking through things that have been holding them back for many years, usually they're stacked right in front of them, front and center, and they can access them at any time of the day.

When they're asked to access any reference points that are positive about those situations, it's really, really challenging for them to answer that question.

They are so scattered around the place and this negatively-charged reference stack is so prominent that they can't really see past that.

It becomes more challenging to actually find those reference points, but when you do, and you're, again, consciously creating those reference points, then you're able to build those up from a positive standpoint.

That comes from practice, it comes from rehearsal, it comes from understanding that the speaking engagement maybe that you're about to do is nothing like you've done before.

I'll give a personal example.

This was in my childhood. I entered this talent contest. I still remember—this was back in my small hometown.

We parked the car down the main street and I had my music notebook with me with all the sheet music in there for the song that I was going to perform in this talent contest.

As I came out of the right back seat of the car, I thought, "You know what? I'm going to leave my sheet music here, and I'm going to do it without sheet music."

I went in and I bombed out. I stuffed up completely!

I would love to see if anyone's got a video—if anyone's tuning in and you just happened to be in this junior talent show in outback Australia, please contact me because I want to hear how much I stuffed up because I swear, the only person that actually enjoyed that was my grandfather who was almost completely deaf at the time.

That was a pretty big moment in my life, where even up until the last few years it has been me overcoming that reference point that was negatively charged.

It was, "This went wrong. When I'm on stage, I screw up."

That's like a belief that I had, especially when I'm on stage and I don't have prompts with me, then I stuff up.

That was something that I had to work through and overcome in terms of smashing that belief apart.

Now one of the ways to do that, yes, it's about creating positive reference points in a positive reference stack as I'm going about doing new engagements.

But the other part was that knowing and understanding that this situation, let's say the talk that I gave at TEDx where I was on stage and I had a grand piano and it was a major project associated with that, that was one massive moment in my life.

What I brought into the lead-up to that is that I have rehearsed much more than that earlier moment back when I was a child.

I have had much more experience.

I'm a more emotionally stable human being.

I know how to manage my emotions more effectively.

I have anchoring, like another example. I had all of these different examples to showcase that this experience is nothing like that experience that occurred in my youth.

Because what happens is we end up what's called deleting, distorting, and generalizing.

I think this is going to be important to go through.

At any single moment we have, depending on who's done the study, but it's somewhere around 1 to 2 million bits of information coming to us every single second, and we can process somewhere around 0.1% of that information that's coming to us.

What that means is that we have no idea what reality actually is.

So that's coming into us every single second, what we end up doing with that information is we delete, we distort, we generalize.

Based on the beliefs that we have about the world, and about our speaking career in this specific example, we delete out anything that is not in alignment with those beliefs.

It would be any time that I had—if we use my personal screw-up as an example—any time where things had gone well since then, in performances or speaking—I had deleted them out because I was only focusing on the times that I had screwed things up.

I would delete it out and keep anything that is going to stack on top of that negative reference stack that I have already.

I would then distort anything that is out of alignment with what I was experiencing.

Maybe I did a performance to a smaller group of people and it would be that distortion, it would be,

"Yeah, the only reason I was able to do that is because there was a smaller amount of people there".

I've just distorted, rather than taking that reference point and stacking that as a positive reference point.

I've distorted it into a negative reference point that allows me to believe what I currently believe about myself, which is an identity belief.

It's one of the strongest forms of beliefs in the world that we have, that we can either utilize to create the change we want in the world and change ourselves or keeps us really, really stuck.

So there are distortions and then there are generalizations.

What happens over time is that we go from that one moment of, "I screwed up at that talent contest," to, "I screw up every time I'm on stage".

Whenever you notice yourself, in your life, in your speaking business, wherever you notice this language, when you say it to yourself, "All the time, never, not at all, everyone, no one," any kind of absolutes, be very curious about what comes out of your mouth next.

Because those words will either be supporting your success or absolutely smashing it down to the detriment of your well-being.

Understand that generalizations can actually be a really, really good thing, but they can actually also destroy the things that you'll want to experience.

Another one could be,

"Every time I'm on stage people are judging me."

"Every time I'm on stage people really don't get what I'm talking about, they never seem to get what I'm talking about".

Hear the words: ‘never’, ‘all the time’, ‘everyone’.

Here's the thing, 0.1% to 0.01%, again, depending on who's done the studies, that is such a small percentage of what reality actually is.

If that's the case, you might as well make up stuff that is supportive of your success.

If we're going to be making up stuff, you might as well make up a positive reference stack rather than a negative reference stack.

Any time that you're on stage now, going forward, look for those positive reference points that you can lock in.

Look for the things and do it as soon as you possibly can.

There was a talk that I gave last year. About 700 people, grand piano on stage, like $100,000 piano, massive screen which showcased all of my footage from around the world, beautiful closing out of this event.

I smashed it that night. I just locked in those reference points straight after, as soon as I walked off stage and it was a language like,

"You absolutely nailed it. When you're under pressure, you can absolutely do this. Not only can you do this, you did do this, you smashed it, you absolutely killed it out there."

Use that kind of language straight away, as soon as you possibly can, and on a daily basis. Also at the end of the day, when you are reflecting on the day, I find works extremely well in terms of building those up.

That's what I'd suggest in terms of reference stacks.

I think they're probably the key ones.

Again, all of this is behavioral. As long as you are putting the time and the effort in, the energy in, which you should be, because if somebody is paying you to speak, or even if they're not paying you to speak but you've got an opportunity to speak to 100 or 200 or 500 or 1,000 or 10,000 people—you've got the opportunity and the potential to change those people's lives.

Don't take that lightly.

Focus on how you can make sure that you are very well rehearsed to give yourself the best chance of success out on stage and allow yourself the best chance of serving in the way that you know you're able to.

RF: Brilliant, I love that.

That is so insightful and simple and it's the kind of thing that you probably might not know is happening, but it's going to be a total game-changer for you.

It reminds me about confirmation bias, and that's something that I'm super passionate about because it has a lot of similar tones.

Where your brain, from an evolutionary standpoint, tries to reinforce the fact that the reality you create is correct, like your brain wants to be right.

If you think that you're going to be late, you are going to process and distort and eliminate information that doesn't support that thesis, right?

It really is mind over matter, but I like this idea of reference stacking and anchoring and it's on your speaker boat. Make sure you have the right tackle so that when you get up on stage, you're nice and secure and you can back that up consistently.

CB: Exactly.

RF: Very cool. Let's talk and transition into how to get up on that stage.

All this is great, but if you never get stage time, it doesn't work as well.

Or if you don't get yourself the opportunity to have those crushing moments then you can't stack up those positive reference points.

Everybody has their own theory, their own strategy and in a general sense, the vibe that I hear from all these speakers around the world is,

"It's not an easy thing. It takes time. There's an excess supply of speakers."

But what is it that has worked for you and how can other people emulate that, modifying it for their own success?

What is the advice you give to people for them to make it on the stage more often, to monetize their message? That end of the spectrum?

CB: There's a couple of things that come to mind.

The first—and this is what's been extremely valuable for me personally and it's been valuable for others as well—is find that unique angle that you have, and not just unique angle, but unique and valuable, because anyone can come up with a unique angle.

But if no one wants to listen to it, then you're not getting on stage, right?

If you haven't got something that is relevant, something that is of value to other people that they want to hear then, yeah, it's not going to cut it.

It's taken a long period of time for me to work out how I could utilize music.

As I'm talking about music, those of you tuning in think about the music as what your unique angle is to start thinking about, "What's my music. What's my song? What is that version of it for me?"

For me, it is music, I've been writing for 17/18 years now and I have music that's been heard by millions of people.

For the last number of years now it's been about,

"How can I bring that on stage in a way that's not seen as cheesy. In a way that's not seen as a gimmick but is perceived as a unique point of difference that is highly valuable."

That has taken time. That's one suggestion that I make is, be patient with this.

Don't let that stop you from trying things out, because it's in trying things out that you learn what works and what doesn't work.

There were a number of times where I'd have a digital piano on stage, for example, and while it was okay, to me it was kind of that cheesy factor.

I had seen other people utilize music in their talks and I had cringed at some of the talks that I watched, I was thinking,

"That's not classy to me. I want this to be classy. I want for this to feel like it's an exclusive experience they can't get anywhere else."

You won't see me on stage with a digital piano now, it's a grand piano, or it's nothing.

I've thought about this, I'd maybe have like an upright piano if it was like an outdoor performance and it was like this crazy weird looking piano or had some story attached to it, which again, would add that uniqueness to it while still being classy.

That might be a possibility, but knowing and understanding what will allow the message that I have to share with the world and utilizing that uniqueness to enhance that.

With that, I want to share another quick story about this.

Back in school, I learned music for five years and it was in grade 8, it would have been that I remember coming back from a music class, a piano class. I had the sheet music in my hands, and I went to put the sheet music in my bag and a guy next to me thought it was one song by this cool band at the time, but it was a song by another band that was not so cool.

It was the look on his face, it was hardly anything said at that moment, it was just a small exchange of conversation and I would almost guarantee he wouldn't even remember that, but for me, it was a moment of,

"What I'm doing is not cool."

It was a big part of it, I will say. I just didn't like learning sheet music. I preferred to learn by ear instead, so there was an experience of that in itself, but I stopped playing music and for the next two years, I stopped completely.

I look back, and I only realized reasonably recently that that directly correlated with two of the most challenging years of my life.

I was to the point of not wanting to be here on this planet anymore.

Looking back, it was a very challenging time in my life.

When I found that again, I remember walking past the piano one day and just looking to the right of me as I walked through and thought, "I'll give that another go".

I sat down, and I started writing my own music.

I never read sheet music again.

I just played by ear and played whatever flowed through me and there was, like I said, 17 or so years now of creating that and performing that.

Now building it into the talks has allowed me to look back at that moment and go, "Man, I'm glad that I found myself again."

Because, throughout that time, I bought into someone else's definition of what cool was, which meant that I was trying to fit into the external world rather than going,

"I am going to be my own person. I'm going to utilize what I have been put on this Earth to do and I'm going to let that shine."

The magic has happened as a result of that because now I look and go, "The very thing that was perceived as uncool by somebody back then is the very thing that is seen as freaking awesome by people right now."

That is just incredible.

It's taking a grand piano out into the wild and having a commercial drone videographer to bring a piano on stage and just having these crazy projects.

I love that.

The lesson in this is that there is possibly something that you are thinking about right now, wondering, "Maybe I can't do it. I don't think people will like that."

You're curious about how people might like that and how you might position it in a way that they would like that.

That's something that's really important to double-down on because if you can really understand what that is, that can allow you to bring a really cool, unique point of difference on stage.

It doesn't have to be music, just look at what that unique angle is for you.

That's what I would say first and foremost.

The next is just get out there and build relationships.

Three and half years ago I made a decision that while everybody else was focused on getting clients, getting gigs, all that kind of stuff, I was going to focus on relationships that would last me for the next 50 years.

For me, I'm in this for the long term, I don't plan on dying anytime soon.

I hope I'm going to be around for a good another 40, 50, 60, 70 years depending on what health stuff comes in over the years, maybe even longer!

I plan on doing this for that time.

At this stage, I don't see that changing. I can see any situation that would happen in the future unless I lost my physical voice and even then I'm like,

"How could I bring technology into it to show people and challenge people to what's possible"

The message would just continue on.

With that, it's important to understand if you are dedicated and committed to this craft, you should be putting strategies in place that are for the long term not just the short-term.

That's another big lesson that I learned, and it's three and half years into that and it's to me while the external world goes, "Holy crap, this is amazing what you're doing," to me internally, I'm going, "I'm just getting started."

Because some of the relationships are only just starting to form after two or three years. I know that some of those will take maybe five years, some of them might take seven or eight years. I'm totally cool with that.

As long as they're continuing to build and build momentum.

Now, the beautiful thing is there will be some opportunities that will come in the shorter term as well.

While I personally have a number of speakers bureaus now representing me across North America, I wouldn't wait for that to happen. If you're just getting started, like go out there and speak, find places to speak at, find places to really hone your craft.

Find that unique message as well.

And you will be building those relationships because if you can build the relationships with really good people and do it in a genuine way where you are giving freely without expectation, knowing you'll get taken care of in some way, shape or form.

So you believe, and know that you're worthy internally, unconsciously. That you don't need it to come from anywhere because you know that the universe is all connected, which science is proving now.

So then all of a sudden this beautiful energy about you is that:

"I'm able to talk to this person, add value to this person and I don't need anything from this person."

That's really attractive in a relationship because you're not trying to get something from it, you're not just giving to get, you're not just taking from the relationship.

You do that, opportunities come that other people wouldn't get, while others are having to apply for example, to a call for speakers, you've got a relationship with the event organizer.

Guess who they're going to come to first if they know that you're able to provide the solution to the theme or the talk that they're wanting to have provided.

They're coming to someone that they've got an actual relationship with first and foremost.

Building that is such a valuable way to go about it, to me anyway, and it's worked so well, and it continues to work really well and I'm super excited about continuing to build that in.

RF: You really do practice that, you don't just preach, you don't just help other people.

One thing that I really admire and respect about your relationship building is that in a digital age, you are having success with that.

When people talk, and I hear about relationships and some of the buzzwords about it and everybody hears that, but you've been using digital tools, digital technology. You seem to have a way to bridge the online and offline world where LinkedIn, for one example, you are literally connecting with hundreds of thousands of people, but not just on a surface level.

I experienced one of your Rock’n’Bowl events where you brought these people from all over and brought them to a bowling event.

It was one of the like most memorable nights I've had bowling, not that I've done a lot of bowling or anything.

Maybe you can share like a 3-minute crash course for people who understand the value of building relationships, but they just don't maybe know how to do it using digital technology.

I think that's such a strength of yours.

If you were to give a 3-minute mini-lesson, I think that's high value. What to do, or not to do, to build through LinkedIn or another digital platform.

CB: Totally.

LinkedIn is absolutely a remarkable tool. There's no other social platform right now that allows you to drill down to the types of people that you're wanting to connect with.

The first thing that I will say, because the majority of people just have no idea what they're doing on there, and it just blows me away, because at the end of the day, LinkedIn, and any other social platform, but let's talk about LinkedIn specifically here, is just a big networking room.

If you can just grasp hold of that, that it's not only a big networking room, but you can choose which networking room you go into. You can choose who's going to be in that networking room and you can choose what you're going to say to those people.

What often happens, I guarantee if anyone's on any kind of social media, you've had these types of connections where somebody reaches out and then they pitch something to you straight away.

Now, let's take that into a networking event format, like a physical networking event. "Hi, Ryan. My name's Cameron. Wanna buy my stuff?"

RF: "No, Cameron."

CB: You're running the hell away, right?

It's crazy, and I guarantee, every single person listening in to this would want to get out of that conversation immediately.

So don't do it online. Because it's exactly the same thing.

When you understand that, the other one is, "Hey Ryan, my name is Cameron..."

And it's just silent and you don't hear from them ever again.

Just imagine at a networking event and you're like we're face-to-face, I'm going, "Hi Ryan. I'm Cameron".

RF: “Hi, Cameron, I'm Ryan”.

CB: [silence]

It's just totally awkward silence!

Again, you want to go, "I don't know what's going on here, but I don't feel comfortable in this situation right now", right?

That's the first thing that I would suggest is, realize that it is just like a big networking room or a networking event.

If you can think about it from that point of view, you can start to think about what would actually be nice to do here: and it is to introduce yourself, be of value, be of service and have a real conversation.

That really leads it to the next part, which is that for me, it's about, I want to get people offline as soon as I possibly can.

I use LinkedIn and other social platforms to build relationships in a leveraged way.

There's no way in any capacity that I could have built the thousands and thousands of relationships offline, in the locations that I had, without thousands and thousands of dollars, thousands of hours of travel, tons of emissions from plane flights that I would have had to take just to meet the people, let alone actually then build an actual relationship with them.

All of that stuff can be done online first and foremost and then it becomes taking it offline, like the example of the bowling night that you came to. It can be in the form of a conversation on the phone.

It can be in the form of a video call. It can be if you're in person, My being here in Colorado now, I've got a lot of connections that I know already.

I've already met a lot of those people in person because I'm here in person.

Next week, I think I've got like three or four phone calls, I've only just started a new connection campaign to a number of c-level executives and successful founders of companies.

These people that have been in there for years and years and because there's a genuine reach out, a genuine wanting to build relationships, a genuine focus on relationships, the ability to actually take people offline increases.

I think this is a good final part to cover here— people's default position on social media right now, especially LinkedIn, is, "Dude, what are you going to sell me?"

Because that's been their experience and quite rightly so, and I love that because I know that when I'm able to show that I'm completely different, then they've just generalized and we go back to that term, they've just generalized everyone else as the sales-y type of person, and I am nothing like them.

RF: It allows you to stand out. You are the diamond in the rough.

CB: Exactly. It's like going into that networking event in person and everybody sucks at networking.

If you can just be remotely good at networking, you walk into that room, people are going to gravitate towards you, it's like,

"Finally, someone who's real. Someone who actually wants to be of value, someone who actually is valuable and wants to build a relationship versus just pitched me something or goes completely silent".

Maybe the final thing that I mention is that.

RF: I love it.

Well, I can't believe it's already been as long as it has been, but I can because there's so much info that we packed in here.

There's a lot of brain techniques and self-awareness, looking at situations in your life that could potentially be your unique factor that you just might have stopped because somebody else thought the music was uncool at the time.

This idea of leveraging online to get them offline and not worrying about being the best networker but being a good networker in a group of people who are terrible at networking.

Cameron, I love what you're doing, I'm appreciative and I very much value our relationship. I'm excited to see you continue to grow and travel around.

I'm expecting you at some point to have a private train full of grand pianos and you just roll into a station and you're like, “All right, which grand piano do I want for this one?”

But that is definitely unique, music is something that scares me, so maybe sometime you'll have to be on stage playing and maybe I'll do an interpretive dance and we can share the stage together.

CB: Interpretive dance— I am going to hold you to that.

Everybody on the call, hold Ryan to that, there is going to be some form of interpretive dance in the near future.

RF: Absolutely.

Well, hey, there's a lot of room for interpretation with all this stuff that you did.

Everybody out there who's listening, do your own interpretive dance, listen to this podcast again if it was just so amazing as I found it to be.

I love listening to my own podcast because my guests are amazing, another great example here. If you want to hear more amazing guests, just check out the World of Speakers.

You can find us on all the podcast platforms and subscribe, leave us a little bit of love notes so that I can use that for my stacking foundation that I'll carry around with me.

This was so much fun, Cameron.

Continue to basically change the world with a single bag as you travel around.

I'm going to hold a garage sale soon, I'm inspired. I'm going to hold a garage sale to get rid of some of the stuff.

CB: Garage sale with interpretive dance.

I think there is a winner.

RF: That is way better than just a regular, fluorescent sign, but doing an interpretive dance, it's all marketing, right?

In a world where everyone is decent at advertising garage sales, you have a chance to be a little bit better and stand out from the rest and the same thing goes for speaking.

CB: I loved it, Ryan, always a pleasure.

RF: All right, buddy.

Well, hey if somebody wants to contact you, where do they find you? I'm assuming LinkedIn?

CB: Yeah, LinkedIn.

Ask Cameron Brown is the thing but you just search Cameron Brown and you'll find me.

Any of the other social platforms is the handle is askcameronbrown.

The website is The Thriving Collective.

RF: Awesome, and I know we didn't get to dive into your TEDx Talk, but anybody who's listening, the next stop should be googling Cameron Brown TEDx.

It is epic, he literally brings 40 different people from around the world on the stage.

I'm going to leave it at that. Let's get out of here. We've got all kinds of world-changing things to do.

Thanks again Cameron, I appreciate your time.

CB: Stay dry man.

RF: All right. Adios.

A bit about World of Speakers

World of Speakers is a bi-weekly podcast that helps people find their own voice, and teaches them how to use their voice to develop a speaking business.

We cover topics like: what works versus what doesn't, ideas on how to give memorable presentations, speaking tips, and ideas on how to build a speaking business.

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