Tuning Into Your Rock Star Frequency with G Wright

Tim: 0:38

Welcome to Speaking with Confidence, the podcast dedicated to helping you unlock the power of effective public speaking. I’m Tim Newman, a recovering college professor turned communication coach. I’m thrilled to help you become a powerful communicator. I want to thank each and every one of you for your support. It truly means the world to me. Communicator, I want to thank each and every one of you for your support. It truly means the world to me. Please visit timnewmanspeakscom to get your free ebook the top 21 challenges for public speakers and how to overcome them. Today’s guest is Greg Wright, but we’ll just call him G. G is a dynamic public speaking coach with over 25 years in the music industry. As a driving force behind Rockstar Speakers, coaching Gee shows coaches, visionaries and thought leaders how to tune into your Rockstar frequency and become a Rockstar on stage, podcast and on camera. Gee, welcome to the show bud.

G: 1:29

Thanks, tim, this is great. I’m excited, I am too.

Tim: 1:33

You know, we spoke a couple weeks ago and you were telling all kinds of stories and I love it. I love listening to stories from professionals who have such passion for their careers and the things that they do. And that really resonated with me because everybody knows rock stars, right, everybody wants to be a rock star, everybody wants to, wants to live the rock star life and the glam life and all those types of things. And you actually did it, yeah, but you started your career at 16, which to me, again, I love that. You know you started early. You started at 16 as a radio DJ. Yes, talk about that and how that boosted, you know, your confidence with some of the other things that were going on in your life at the time.

G: 2:28

Yeah. So ever since I was five years old I wanted to be a radio DJ. I had my Mickey Mouse record player and I played my mom’s Barry Manilow and Beatles records, probably scratched a few Right. And then at 16, I heard on the local top 40 station saying hey, do you sound good on radio? Do your friends say you sound good on radio? Come out and audition. And it was just a part-time summer gig and, um, I auditioned. There was about 20 or 30 other people. I got the gig at 16. I was one of the youngest at the time, one of the youngest in school and always got picked on and nicknames and was always picked on by people. But something happened when I got that radio gig because, well, I became an instant local celebrity overnight.

G: 3:28

My first gig was dressing up as Elvis in the summer parade. And that’s when I realized, Tim, the power of your voice and the power of the microphone. You know I’m, I’m sitting in the back of this, uh, this, uh, cadillac, right, and I’m, I’m in a whole Elvis get up and everything. And you know they’re like let’s go live to Elvis in the parade. So you know, first time on radio, live, whatever you say is live, right, there’s no retake and I go well and really apologize in advance for the bad Elvis impersonation.

G: 4:02

But I was like I thank you very much, I’m happy to be here, I would love a jelly donut. And instantly people are running out of Dunkin Donuts with boxes of jelly donuts and I’m like I mean, I’m a 16 year old kid and I’m like this is cool. If I want something, I ask for it on radio and you know I did that with pizza when I was there and stuff. But to move forward, so at 16, I thought I was going to go down that road of following in my hero Casey Kasem and Rick Dees and Shadow Stevens, and then it was.

Tim: 4:33

So let’s put that in in context, because you know, I know casey casey, I know rick dees and if you, if you look at today, um you, at 16, were like an influencer today right, long before cell phones.

G: 4:50

Yes, long before cell phones.

Tim: 4:52

Cell phones, I mean, and that’s how radio DJs were looked at, that’s how television news was looked at. They were the people that everybody wanted to be like, everybody gravitated to, especially when you did a live hit, just like you were just talking about, right, if you were in the radio business and you were doing a live hit somewhere, I mean it didn’t really matter where it was at a restaurant, at a parade, at a ball game, I mean, people would flock there.

G: 5:22

Yes, Became a celebrity. Everybody thought I was in college. They couldn’t believe I was 16 at the time, People calling up hey.

Tim: 5:30

And so you know, keep going with your story, because I mean, I love this, but I wanted to make sure that we put it in perspective for our audience to understand because, you know, let’s just say, somebody who’s listening here is 20 years old. Okay, yeah, they hear DJs now, but a DJ today, a DJ today, is not a DJ back when we grew up a dj back when we grew up.

G: 6:00

It was, I mean, we’re talking before cell phones, before the internet was really. I mean, aol was the first. I don’t even know if aol was around back then. Um, there was something about the power of just having your voice on radio and people. I think a lot of it has to do with there was only so many ways you could get information. You could hear music on radio, you could see the news on TV or read it in a newspaper and and whoever was presenting that people, they became the personality and like, like you said, radio DJs back then. I mean back to dick clark oh yeah, bandstand, like he introduced new artists that are now like some of our favorite artists and that’s what the power of the radio dj had back in the day of going and saying, hey, I, I just heard this band last night. They’re really cool guys. Here’s their music, check it out if you like it, call me, tell me what you think. And they really were. That’s interesting. You say they really were the influencers, powerful influencers at the time, because people be like, wow, if this artist is on radio, they must be something really special. Because it was.

G: 7:10

It was so selective, you know, and I was working in top 40 radio. I was playing madonna’s records when they first came out and I was, you know, playing david bowie records and and saying david bowie on air and in my, my pd’s like no, it’s bowie. And I’m like, oh okay, you know what I mean. Like it was just fun. It was like having a radio show was really. It was a lot of fun and it gave me a lot of confidence. I mean after that I didn’t care what people thought about what I said, you know. I mean like I didn’t. The bullying stopped everything because I was on radio. It was so cool.

Tim: 7:47

And and that kind of leads into the next piece of the story, which you know, stones man, big stones, which you know, stones man, big stones, and I’m not talking about the rolling stones, you know, because tell the story about the whitney houston, oh yeah, and, and how that really changed the changed everything that was a second change of trajectory in your career.

G: 8:13

Yeah, so from 16 on 16 to 18, when I was in high school I was going to I was a radio DJ and I was going to go to college to become a radio DJ and my PD is like no, just work here for five years and you’ll have more experience on on on air experience. But I got an opportunity to go out mixing sound for a uso type group that was touring the us going to veterans hospitals and it was kind of likea it was a uso type production. It was like up with people. Do you remember up with yeah, I do, it was something like that.

G: 8:47

It was you know, four guys, four girls singing with wireless mics, doing dancing and stuff for for our hospitalized veterans. And we went on tour and I got to see all 48 of the 50 states, everywhere but Alaska and Hawaii, and I was like, okay, but my plan was I’ll go do this tour, I’ll see what it’s like and then I’ll come back and I’ll go work at the radio and I’ll go be like you know, casey Kasem. But when we were out in Oklahoma or Kansas or Texas I don’t know where it was I ended up sneaking into a Whitney Houston concert because we were walking home from having dinner and we saw one night only Whitney Houston and I told the group that I was with. I said, ok, I’ll see you in there, I’ll be at the front of house at the soundboard and I’ll wave to you and I’m like 18 years old, tim, and I’m like I don’t know how I’m going. You in there, I’ll be at the front of house at the soundboard and I’ll wave to you and I’m like 18 years old, tim, and I’m like I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I have no idea, I just know.

G: 9:45

And I teach this with my coaching, manifestation, visualization. First you have to see where you want to go and then take action. So I come around the corner and I see this really big security guy standing at the backstage and I’m like, ok, if I can get past him, I can get in the venue. I’m one step closer. So, as I mentioned, to you off, and I talked my way in and then I met the tour manager. Um knocked on the door and I said I’m not here to meet Whitney, sir, I’m here to meet you. He’s like, well, that’s good kid, because you’re probably not going to meet Whitney. And then he takes me to catering. I meet the front of house guy.

G: 10:27

And it was just taking that one step, that one action manifested into the sound guy going. The front house guy going hey, where’s your seat? Why don’t you watch the show with me at front of house? So, and that when I heard Whitney’s vocals, he put the headphones on me and I heard Whitney’s vocals in the headphones. That was that next fork in the road. That was like, ok, I love radio, this is fun, but my God, I want to go on tour with these bands. And then that set up a 25 year journey of going out and touring with the biggest artists arenas, stadiums, you name it. And I never got to meet Whitney, but I did get to work with her hero, queen of Soul, aretha Franklin, so that was kind of cool too, you know.

Tim: 11:14

And many other artists throughout my career. Yeah, that’s just amazing and kind of a little sidetrack here. So this is during the analog times. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, there was no digital back then, what was it like to transition from analog to digital? What was the learning curve there? Because to transition from analog to digital, what? What was the learning curve there?

G: 11:39

Because I mean, what, what I mean? I remember those those days and the setups 52 channel gamble.

Tim: 11:42

Oh my God. Yeah, I have no idea what they do to get to the top of the console, yeah. And now we’ve got digital and so for people like me, I mean, I’ve got, I’ve got a mixing board sitting right next to me. I still don’t know everything that it does, but I can use it and I can make things sound good and bad and those types of things. So what was it like for somebody like you to go from analog to digital? What was that learning?

G: 12:04

curve At that Whitney show. When the lights went down, I mean I saw he had two different sound boards connected together and all I saw was all these lights lighting up in a rack of gear compressors, eq gates, all that just lighting up and it was just. It was really intimidating because it was different than radio Right Radio. We had a board, but it was mainly the music comes in, the vocal comes in, some commercials come in and you turn up the volume and you turn it on and off. This was like really intimidating at first. So he says well, if you want to do this as a career, you need education. So I went to a university called Full Sail down in Orlando and I learned how, how, what all that meant. And then my very first gig out of there was working at Dollywood mixing 14 singers and dancers. So what I loved about analog was one is warmer than digital in my opinion, and people can disagree about that. But this 52 channel soundboard, that looked intimidating. If you understood what one channel did, you understood what all the channels did.

Tim: 13:09

Okay.

G: 13:09

So it was a process, right. And then when you understand sound and you know how you want that kick drum to sound, how you want that guitar to, you know how you want that kick drum to sound, how you want that guitar to sound, how you want that vocal to sound, then you just use the tools that are on the board. You know, now they got plugins, we got you know like all this. You know everything that auto-tune, yeah, plug-in we didn’t have that back then. We we had compression, eq, reverb and delay and maybe a little bit of pitch, so it was analog. I found you really had to know what you were doing. You couldn’t hide behind uh, plugins and already pre-made settings. Everything you did you manually had to turn. But also I found that it really let you really enjoy the music and not get caught up on all the digital aspect of it, the flying faders having a scene where everything changes, like if you wanted the guitar to come up, you physically pushed the guitar up and if you didn’t like the sound of it, you could immediately go and go oh, that’s too bright, let me take that down and you’ll appreciate this. Having a board. Let me take that down and you’ll appreciate this having a board.

G: 14:14

I was working at Dollywood and we had a lot of older people. The majority of the audience seven shows a day was older people. So I had a fake EQ a spare EQ, really, but I had a fake EQ that had all the letters and numbers of where people were seated. So every day people would come up to me and go is it going to be loud? If it’s too loud, I can’t handle it and I go.

G: 14:36

Where are you sitting, sir? I’m over there and I go to the EQ, which you know from the sound. I’m not doing anything to the sound, but I pull it down just a notch and go. Okay, I turned that down for you, sir, and they would walk up to me at the end of the show. I mixed it to the same Everything was set, and they’d be like that was the best sounding show. Thank you for turning that down the vocal. I could hear everything. It was great. And so that really is what led me to the tour managing, because tour managing was more of the psychology, of how to deal with artists and egos and attitudes than the actual sound part. You know what I mean.

Tim: 15:12

It’s about that. I mean, what you just talked about is about relationships you know yeah. It’s all about relationships. It’s about that connection right.

G: 15:19

Yeah.

Tim: 15:19

I mean that that that old guy who’s me now, I mean felt, listened to, right, I mean felt heard and respected and yeah.

Tim: 15:32

And that’s that’s that’s part of what we do. I’s that’s to me that’s a big part of what we do is we, as we connect with people, we, we, you know we, we build relationships, we build connection, um, and it doesn’t take a whole lot, but we have to be mindful of that and we have to be actively doing that and, and I think with all the toys that we have now the AI, the, you know everything on the phone 15 seconds and stuff I think in business we might be losing some of that.

G: 16:04

What was back in the day, before all that? It was a handshake. You hopped on a plane, you flew somewhere, you met with somebody. It was a handshake. It was understood like yeah, you’re paying for this service or this, this product, but I’m going to take care of you. It was a a one-on-one relationship and business professionalism and I think we may be losing with all the automation and that’s kind of how I felt about analog versus digital I thought I thought we lost some of the quality of the show with all the automation doing everything for us.

Tim: 16:37

Yeah, I, I agree with you on that. Um, now, my, my ear is not nearly as good as obviously it’s not nearly as good as yours, right? I mean because you it’s. It just isn’t because you. You, I mean you’ve trained it, you’ve, you’ve been in’ve been in there and you can tell the difference. You can tell little subtle differences where me, you know I may not, but you know exactly what, what we’re looking for, and you can hone in and you can really kind of target that.

G: 17:09

Yeah, that was through repetition too. The more shows I talk about this with public speaking, going on camera, going on a podcast, the more shows you do, the better you get at it. The same thing with mixing or performing or, you know, open heart surgery.

Tim: 17:23

I mean the more, the more you do.

G: 17:25

you’re going to get better at it. You’re going to figure out well, that worked, that didn’t work. You know no offense, you know what I’m saying. Like exactly it’s, it’s and it becomes a muscle and that’s how. That’s how sound is is now Like I watched the Grammy performance and I know everything that’s going on. I know who’s singing, who’s not singing, I know what I. I don’t know the notes they’re playing, I don’t know the chords they’re playing, but I know the feeling that they’re putting into it like right, you know, and I get that with people on stage as well right.

Tim: 17:55

So let’s get back to talking about, you know, the whole idea of manifestation and, yes, and and mindset. Because, yes, you know, I think that’s to me that’s one of the biggest issues that we have in in terms of of communication is we don’t come at it from a relationship mindset. We come at it from a negative mindset, from a scared or a not one to mess up mind. So, you know, I don’t know the word I’m specifically looking for, but we don’t come at it from a positive perspective. And what could go right? We’re always looking at what could go wrong.

G: 18:37

Right, because I think we’ve been programmed. I talk about this in my time machine exercise. I think what happens is we go into our subconscious exercise. I think what happens is we go into our subconscious, into the time machine, back to a moment that happened in the past. If it’s a fear of public speaking, it was a moment that maybe in the fifth grade, given a book report, somebody laughed at you. Or maybe in the corporate world, you had to get up in front of your boss and all your coworkers and present a PowerPoint. Somebody wasn’t paying attention or made a joke or something, and what we do is we bring that into the present. So if we can do that, we can go into the future, visualize exactly what we want.

G: 19:17

See, this is what your favorite rock stars and pop stars do. They visualize the successful show long before there’s a crowd to perform to. We do this in pre-production rehearsals over weeks and months of going over the show over and over and there’s no crowd there. There’s not one fan in the room in the soundstage when we’re doing that. But it’s that repetition and that visualization what I talk about as the rock star frequency. When you’re presenting at the rock star frequency, you don’t care what they think, and it’s that confidence that allows the audience to really connect and go wow, that was incredible.

Tim: 19:55

So it’s kind of a reverse psychology, you know. Yeah, but it’s so to me, it’s so intuitive, right? Yeah, yeah, again, I come from the sport background, background and yes, yes, I want to talk more about that I love, I love.

G: 20:09

I want to hear stories of that, but see that’s the thing.

Tim: 20:12

You know. Rock stars want to be athletes. Athletes want to be rock stars, absolutely. But I want to make it real clear I was never an athlete, ever truly an athlete. I’m just the, the guy on the sides helping go through. But you know, no team or individual athlete goes into any competition without practicing right. So how much practice goes into? Let’s just say you’re going, you’re going on a worldwide tour. How much practice do bands and rock stars go through? I mean to, to put that on to.

G: 20:45

To put it into perspective the bigger the tour, the smaller the rehearsal space starts. We go to bigger ones, but the first thing if a band is learning brand new songs, we rent a very tiny space where it’s just literally the band there, maybe a little PA, some in-ears and that’s it. It’s a very small room, there’s no crowd, there’s nothing. Because the first step is they need to learn the music and they need to learn how they click with the music. Before we involve production, before we bring in sound and lights and moving stages and dancers and video walls and all that, it starts with the core that they know the music, they love the music, they’re in the pocket with each other. Then it moves up to as the tour gets bigger and bigger. You go to bigger rooms and you have. Then you bring in sound and lighting and video and some of them are like you, uh, really, really big tours. They’ll just run an arena for a week or a couple months, especially if you’re flying in everything. But I think, regardless of the size of the production, how big the artist is and that’s what I love about working with these artists is that even if it’s a big production, there’s always that moment in the show where you feel like they’re singing to you in a club. You feel like they’re singing right to you, even if you’re in a stadium and can’t even see anything but a video wall, and that is strategic.

G: 22:09

This is rehearsed over and over again, and where they really get their rehearsal is by doing shows. They do a show and they try the set list and they go nah, that one didn’t work. Let’s try moving this song. Or you know, we tried it on the first show the sound. No, that video doesn’t work. Let’s try it. This song. Or you know, we tried it on the first show the sound. No, that video doesn’t work. Let’s try it, you know. So it’s just like I said repetition, right. Or you do anything, just like with the athletes, right? You know, tom Brady throws a pass and it gets intercepted. He doesn’t quit, he doesn’t say that’s it, he just goes. Well, that didn’t work. Let’s go to a different play.

Tim: 22:48

You know, and and again, let’s. We can correlate this to a number of different industries, right, like, yes, take comedians, for example, when, when they’re creating new material, yes, they go out and they do private shows where they take all the electronics right and so nobody can record it and they practice their delivery, they practice the joke and there’s somebody taking notes, right, and they use a set list.

G: 23:08

Yep, and they go. Well, that joke went over here, but it didn’t go here. Let’s try this. You’re always there’s no set. This is how it’s done. I’m going on stage and this is my set and this is what I say and that’s it, period. It’s you. You have to really read the audience, just like the athletes on the field have to read the opponents and go.

Tim: 23:27

Well, let’s try something different and see how that goes and so in communication, we have to do the exact same thing. Yeah, we have to prepare, we have to, we have to practice, we have to know the material, we have to rehearse, we have to read the room. Yep, we have to to to do all those things. So this is when we talk about communication, this’t and I keep saying it’s not rocket science, until I actually talk to a rocket scientist who talks about communication. Nice, that was a fascinating conversation, by the way. But understand communication is it takes work, it’s’s nothing worth doing, and doing well comes easy, it takes work and it takes practice. So how do you, in what you do, work with practice? You know getting that rock star frequency. You know working on the mindset. What are some of the techniques that you use?

G: 24:27

The first thing we have to do anyone who’s going to go on on stage and when I say stage I mean even going on video on social media, going on a podcast or going on an actual stage you’ve got to remove the fear, the self-doubt and the imposter syndrome. It has to go away. You have to present to where you don’t care what the audience thinks and you’re connecting with your subconscious. So the first part, the first week of the five-week program, is all about removing these blocks. Because you can have the best script in the world, you can have everything memorized, you can have the best audience, but if you don’t believe 100% that you deserve to be on that stage, there’s a reason why they’re paying to see you Right, Because even if they’re just watching your video, they’re paying with time. They’re a client in my mind. And then once we get the self-doubt gone, then we got to replace it with confidence, and confidence just comes in if there’s a reason why you started your business, there’s a reason why you have this passion to do this in your, in this industry. We’ve got to uncover what that is, bring that out and then, when you talk about it, you’re going to light up and the audience is going to light up, like when I talk about music.

G: 25:42

It was my life for so long, I love sports. I’d love to hear stories about sports and I light up whenever, like when I talk about music. It was my life for so long, I love sports. I’d love to hear stories about sports, and I light up whenever you go. Oh yeah, I’ve been to like so many Super Bowls and I’m like, oh my God, I want that life right.

G: 25:55

Well, this same thing when you’re presenting your message. If you’re talking about how passionate you are about the business you started and the challenges you overcame, your audience is going to go I want that, I want to work with that person because they get me. I say this to the clients how does she know me so well? That’s the message that your audience is giving back to you and that creates that connection, the rock star frequency of where they feel like they know you, they want to work with you. And it’s that reason why we have favorite rock stars and pop stars that we think we know but we don’t really know them exactly. We know what we see of them. You know what I mean.

Tim: 26:36

Right, and and let’s, let’s let’s just take I want to come back to the empire syndrome here in a second, but let’s take that piece and a step further. And now, full disclosure I, I’m not a taylor swift fan, I don’t. I don’t dislike her, don’t hate her and she’s just, it’s just not my thing, right, and okay, everybody has their own thing.

G: 26:58

Everybody who’s your favorite rock star?

Tim: 27:00

you say oh, oh, like, right, like, right, like right now I’m stuck on Toby Keith kick. I know he’s passed, but I love his music, I love his sound.

G: 27:13

Yeah, okay, toby Keith, yeah.

Tim: 27:15

Yeah, you know I like that sound. I’m going back to some of my roots here.

Tim: 27:23

I love ACDC, I love Van Halen, I love the Scorpions there you go I’ve actually, you know, I’ve got grandkids and um we, when I’m with them, my, my granddaughter and oldest grandson, um, every time they see me, they want to hear thunderstruck, right, and and money talks. That’s those. So they, as soon as they see me, can we? Can we play Thunderstruck? Can we play money talks? Of course we can, you know, but but those are the, those are the. You know things that that I, that I go back to, and again, everybody has their own thing, right, so. But if you look at the Swifties, I mean the, the Right, so, but if you look at the Swifties, I mean the, the, the passion that they have and the how quickly they came up to me was it wasn’t an accident To me, it was.

G: 28:18

It was very deliberate, right, very, very, very smart. She started. She started performing as a teenager doing state fairs. So this wasn’t, this didn’t happen overnight. We always say in the music business it probably in the same as sports it takes 10 years to create an overnight success. And that’s real 10 years of doing the same thing every day. Jerry Seinfeld said comedians, it takes 30 years to create an overnight success. So think about that.

Tim: 28:43

It’s crazy, but the passion that the Swifties have for her and that following because they they feel that every single song that she sings, everything that comes out of her mouth, is resonates with those fans at an entirely different.

G: 29:03

that’s what I talk about with the rock star frequency she is presenting at a different when she walks out on stage or any artist that’s presenting like that, they do not put the success of their show in the hands of their fans. They may say that, oh, we love the fans, this is the best show, you guys are the best city we’ve ever had. They may say that, but they know when they go on stage they’re going to have a kick-ass show, right? If they don’t, they don’t walk out on stage. It’s a mindset, and because they’re presenting at such this high frequency, the audience then has to work.

G: 29:34

Believe it or not, I know people, it goes against what everyone’s saying, but I believe the audience has to work to match that. And then that’s what they do. They bring it up, bring the audience up to that level. We use sound, we use lighting, video, stage movement, dressing. You know dancers, whatever it is but the core that I see most people connect with is when they go out with an acoustic guitar or they’re sitting behind a piano and they just sing from their heart. That’s what makes people cry, that shows, and that’s what I’m talking about.

Tim: 30:03

Yes, and now I don’t go to as many concerts as I used to yeah but, but you know, those are things that you saw a lot of. You know, I think I’m a drum guy. Oh yeah, oh, I love it so when?

Tim: 30:19

so when I go to concerts or I’m watching, I’m watching the drummer, I think, because the guitar guy’s great, love it. Vocalist is great, love it. The bass player is great, love it. Keyboard is great, but to me it’s the drums. To me, it’s the drums that I mean. You feel it, you, you feel it in your chest, you feel it, yes, and um, you could be in the upper rafters and you can feel it. Right, yes, and I love the drums, and so you know that that’s kind of what I focus on. And when we talk about solos or the acoustic guitar or the the, you know the uh guitars, eddie van halen, or you know the oh my god eddie.

Tim: 30:59

Oh, you know what I’m talking about, right yeah again, you think he’s free-formative, but he’s practiced that. The the drummer’s practicing it. It’s not, but we think it’s in the audience. We’re meant to think that he is truly free forming. That he’s. He’s in the flow, he’s. The next note is just coming to him and he’s right. That’s not how it works and that’s not how that’s not how communication works.

G: 31:22

Right, there’s a balance, though they may be playing the notes, communication works. Right, there’s a balance, though they may be playing the notes, but when he gets that feeling, when a musician gets that feeling, they may be playing the notes, but the audience feels the notes Like that’s. They’re not reading. Sheet music is what I’m trying to say. That’s how it kind of they’re not going like oh, I missed a note. They just get into that feeling. Sometimes the guitar solo goes on for five minutes and they just go off.

G: 31:47

And, like you were saying about the drums, I feel the drums and bass are the foundation of the mix. If you took the kick drum and the bass out of the mix, the audience doesn’t know what happened. It’s the foundation, and that in public speaking, that’s, I believe, that’s your why, that’s the foundation of why you’re speaking in the first place. So you’ve got to have a very firm foundation. If you take the drums and bass out of the mix, you’ve got guitar and keyboards. You lose that momentum from the crowd and drummers run the band. Believe it or not, they keep the band on time. I love when we didn’t have click track. Oh my God, now everyone’s on click track and everything’s dialed into their ears Back love when we didn’t have click track. Oh my God, now everyone’s on click track and everything’s dialed into their ears. Back then they didn’t have click track. The drummer just counted off and away we go, and if it was too fast or too slow, no one in the audience cared. You know, that’s awesome, yeah.

Tim: 32:42

And you know I’m I’m a guy that likes I yeah, and you know I’m a guy that likes to have fun. I don’t take myself very seriously. I take what I do seriously. I like to have fun and I know I’m going to get some hate from this from some of my listeners. One of my favorite movies is the Rocker.

G: 32:59

It’s a what I’m sorry it’s called the Rocker with Rainn Wilson.

Tim: 33:02

The Rocker? Yeah, he plays a drummer um it it’s.

G: 33:06

I gotta write that down. I’m gonna look that up. The rocker okay, yep, okay, I’m gonna look that up.

Tim: 33:13

Yeah, it’s got christina applegate in it rain wilson um, it’s, it’s funny, it’s uh anyway, but it’s about. It’s about a, about a drummer who got kicked out of a band, wasted his whole life worried because he got kicked out of a band and started a new band.

Tim: 33:31

Anyway but it’s funny and I love it. But let’s get back to imposter syndrome, because, gee, I could go down this track, go down this hole, and we’d get way off track. But when you talk about imposter syndrome, um, and the things that that we clog our mind with right with, with the fear of speaking, the, the fear of talking to people getting on stage, whatever it is, you know there’s to me there are so many things that go into that and we need really need to hone in on whoever it is that we’re working with individually and figure out what that is right, you know, um, when you get hired for a job and I say this a lot they don’t hire you to make fun of you, right? They hired you because you’ve got knowledge, skills and abilities and they want you to come in and add value to the organization. So when they, when you’re in a team meeting and you’re asked to give a report on whatever project you’re doing, they didn’t call you up, they didn’t hire you.

Tim: 34:28

It was some grand, elaborate plan to bring you into a team meeting and make fun of you. It just doesn’t happen. They want you to add value and the reality is, I don’t think that that the majority of people are are caring about what you’re wearing, what you look like. Anyway, they’re worried about they’re worried about other people worrying about them. You just share your share, your knowledge, yeah.

G: 34:56

I think it’s the most ironic thing is if, if you’re given a presentation or you’re going on video or on a podcast and someone’s making a comment about it or laughing at you or whatever, that, to me, is their biggest insecurity. They’re the one that’s insecure, that can’t do what you’re doing. That’s why they feel that need to put somebody down, because 90 percent of the people in the room will not get up in front of the audience and present like you are the real professionals. I said this off camera to you. I think the ego to talent ratio the higher the ego, the lower the talent. The higher the talent, the lower the ego. The people that are professional, that understand that you standing up there and presenting in front of this audience is probably the most nerve wracking, Probably the most like. I mean, there’s so much going on, but it also shows that you have confidence and you are taking action. Those are the people that are not going to laugh at you, that are not going to put you down. It’s the ones that are too insecure to get up there in the first place.

G: 36:01

Yes, With bands they get a bad review and I’m like this music critic is pissed off. He can’t be a guitar player in a band. That’s why he’s putting down every band. Forget it. Your fans love you. Go out there, Kick ass on stage. Forget about what the music critic said. That’s one person’s opinion. Be you, you know, and be you, yeah, exactly yeah.

Tim: 36:29

So we need to help people get over that and I think the quicker that we get over that, help them get over that, the quicker we’re going to see improvements, the quicker we’re going to see success. And I go back to the whole idea that it’s not overnight and it takes work. I don’t care who you are.

G: 36:52

It takes work.

Tim: 36:53

It takes work, it takes refinement and it’s never going to be perfect. No, that’s the point, right? It never is.

G: 36:59

It never is In sports they never have to be perfect. No, that’s the point, right, it never is. It never is. In sports, they never have a perfect game, never. I’m sure there’s something one person on the team wants to do different. Even if they had a 50 to 0 game, they’re like well, I screwed that up.

Tim: 37:15

Take bowling as an example. Bowling, oh my God, yes, where you can bowl a perfect game, oh okay, yes, but that doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean you were perfect. Right, that means your score was perfect, but that doesn’t mean that you were perfect. That doesn’t mean your delivery was perfect. That doesn’t mean your technique was perfect, so let it go.

G: 37:40

Take away the this perception of perfection, Cause it doesn’t exist. Go on stage, go on, go bowling, go on the football field or baseball diamond, have fun, have a blast doing what you do and you love what you do. And so what? If you strike out? Then you, you learn something from it. You try again, Exactly yeah, and you have to do it over and over again, Repetition Always. And they spend more time practicing off the field than people ever see. And that’s the same thing, I think, with public speaking More people that make it look natural like, oh wow, that person just is talking from their heart. Yes, they are, but they spend a lot of time off stage, just like your favorite rock stars, pop stars. They spend more time in rehearsal than they ever do on stage.

Tim: 38:25

Absolutely yeah.

G: 38:26

So that’s the key.

Tim: 38:29

Yeah, if you could, if you could give advice, and what are two pieces of advice that you would give to somebody that they could put into action today to be better?

G: 38:44

my first one and it’ll sound kind of general and people, okay, but you really have to stop caring what anybody thinks. If you’re doing what you love, you’re talking about your story, you’re sharing what you. This is, this is who you are and you’re not putting other people down, you’re not doing anything to cause harm to anybody else. Like you know, I don’t not fan of that. I’m saying then, you know, you just got to stop caring what people think. And number two is you’ve got to get to the root of why you’re presenting to people in the first place. Why, what’s the root of it?

G: 39:19

Oh, I get paid to go on stage. No, we get paid to perform front. No, that’s not the why. What’s the why? Because 25 years ago, when I was sitting there and watching this person perform, I had this moment. You know, whatever the story, mine is the Whitney story. The Whitney story is my why. I decided that this is what I’m going to do with my life and and nobody was going to say no, no one was going to stop me. So if the two is, you know, forget about what people think and really embrace your why and and share that story and don’t be afraid of what people say or think. That’s awesome.

Tim: 39:54

Awesome advice, and I do think that we can start there. How much better we can be right.

G: 40:05

We have to support each other and stop putting each other down too. I think that’s a generational thing. I don’t think the bullying back when I was growing up was one or two people, but now, with the technology, the bullying goes globally and is inundated 24-7. I think we need to do something to stop this. Start helping people, you know. Encourage people.

Tim: 40:24

Yeah, because I know that it’s hard and you know, I’m the person that I’ve never really cared. Yeah, I just I’ve never really cared about what other people say or think about me. Now let me qualify Outside of my inner circle, right?

G: 40:39

Right Outside of my circle, right, right Outside of my.

Tim: 40:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean because those people are going to be truthful and honest with you. They’re going to tell you. When you’re good, they’re going to tell you.

Tim: 40:48

when you’re bad, they’re going to tell you when you’re being a jerk or whatever it is, and you should listen to your inner circle. Yes, but I don’t really care, because you know I’m just going to be me and just because you may not know me, you don’t understand why I’m doing what I’m doing. I’m not going to change the way I do things based on that To please you. Exactly, exactly, and just drive on and go on from there. All right, I got a question for you because I’m hoping you’re going to have a good answer for me on this one. Okay, so, um, what I try and teach people is you know when you’re, when you’re getting ready to go up. You know, for whatever it is, whatever meeting, job interview, on the stage what have you just like? In baseball, you got to have walk-ups on and I’ve got three. I’ve got three of them, depending on what I’m doing.

G: 41:39

Yes.

Tim: 41:40

They are in no particular order. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this band. It’s called Gunner and the Grizzly Boys. Gunner and the Grizzly Boys Okay, they’re out of Michigan. Okay, oh man, they’re great, they’re country rock and the song is Standard American Okay. The other one is I know you’ve heard of them Low Cash. I Love this Life. And the third one, I know you’ve heard of this guy. It’s Colt Ford and Crank it Up.

Tim: 42:08

Oh yeah, all of them are powerful, get them going. And whether I’m going out on stage and I request this playing, or I have it playing in my head and 99% of the time it’s in my head getting myself ready to go, yep, ready to to come out and me yes, deliver that, deliver it with enthusiasm, deliver it with, with, whatever. What about you? Do you have?

G: 42:35

Yes, I have a song in my head all the time. That’s like it’s annoying. I have a soundtrack going. That’s why, when I talk in certain um verses and choruses and things, but the song that always pumps me up and is my walkout song and what I do uh, even a public speaking event based around this song is oh yeah, oh yeah, queen Queen, we will rock you. Or ACDC you know what I mean Tears for Fears, I mean just, you know any, but Queen, queen does it. I do that in my head every time before I go on camera, right, and that is like I’ve got that in the background and it sets the tone. Yes, because that’s the message we will rock you, I’m going to rock you. Right, that’s, that’s how, yeah.

Tim: 43:25

And it’s, and it goes back to one of the very first thing we talk about is mindset.

G: 43:29

Yes, it puts you immediately into that Talk about with. When you’re in that mindset, nothing can take you out of it.

Tim: 43:36

Well, this has been great no-transcript.

G: 43:55

Awesome. I’ve got the five-week Rockstar Speakers Program. I only work with five people at a time, so it’s one-on-one coaching. It’s very hands-on. It’s very much like you’re just going to get to the root of it and you’re going to feel like a rock star every time you go on stage, on camera or on a podcast, like today. Yeah.

Tim: 44:14

That’s awesome and I’ll make sure I put all those links in the show notes for everybody. But, but, gee, thank you so much for for sharing with us, speaking with confidence community today. It’s been awesome. You know, I love your message, I love your background, it’s, it’s, it’s one of those things that that that touches me. I mean, you know what I’m talking about there. It’s yeah, yeah, I know, I know we’re on the same frequency. That’s one of the things I love about podcasting is the people that that you’re meeting and the connections that you’re building. And when I talk about, you know, uh, building relationships. This is part of it because you know, without this, you and I probably would have never met Right, and now that we did me cause this is this is one of the best conversations.

Tim: 45:19

This is so much fun and so it comes from stepping outside the comfort zone, reaching out and just doing the thing. Come on, guys, just do it Right. Just do it, we will rock you All. Right, g, you take care of yourself again. Thanks so much, and we’ll talk to you soon. Absolutely Thanks, tim, ciao.

G: 45:38

Thanks so much and we’ll talk to you soon?

Tim: 45:40

Absolutely. Thanks, tim. Ciao, be sure to visit speakingwithconfidencepodcastcom to download your free e-book Top 21 Challenges for Public Speakers and learn how to overcome them. You can also register for the Form of Public Speaking course. While you’re there, always remember that your voice has the power to change the world. We’ll talk to you next time, take care.