My Biggest Speaking Engagement Ever

This past week, I had an incredible experience speaking in Elko, Nevada at Great Basin College (GBC). While this audience was only 150 people, it was my most meaningful as:

1. People came from hours away to listen to my talk. Normally, I'm part of a conference where there are multiple speakers.
   
2. It was my longest speaking engagement ever, lasting 3.5 hours.
   
3. It was different than any other audience I've spoken with. Elko and its surrounding areas are extremely rural. Its economy is very much based on gold mining and gambling and this is where many of the youth go on to work.
   
4. The audience was split between people in high school and older people in their forties and fifties.
   
5. The day-long event was intended to launch GBC's entrepreneurship center.

I must admit that I got quite nervous before-hand. It started on Monday evening (Valentine's Day) when Sheena and I were at the Opera. I begged Sheena to leave early because I was too distracted. On Tuesday, I spent a lot of time preparing, but I was afraid that there would be a large culture disconnect or that I wouldn't meet people's expectations. One thing that actually helped me besides meditating, was remembering a story that Anthony Robbins told in his book about the beginning of his speaking career. He was flying in on a helicopter to the arena where he would be speaking later in the day. From the helicopter, he could see thousands of people filing in, all having come to see him speak! That was when he realized the importance and excitement of what he was doing. After this memory, I felt similar, and I knew that this will only be the beginning for me and that I was exactly the right person to give the speech!

Below is the introduction of my speech:

Preface: Each student is given a red pill and a blue pill. After an introduction by one of the faculty members, a 3.5 minute clip of the Matrix is shown where NEO must choose whether he wants to take the blue pill and go back to life as normal or take the red pill and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Enter Me:
You have two pills in your hand. A red pill and a blue pill. If you take the blue one, you will go on with life as usual. During the next few hours you?ll see my mouth moving and my body making gestures, and by tomorrow you?ll have forgotten I was here.

If you take the red pill, I will show you a world you never dreamed was possible, a world in which people?s dreams become a reality. However, I can only show you the door, it is you who must walk through it.

Take a moment to make your choice. [PAUSE]

As we all know, America gained its freedom in 1776. The declaration of independence boldly stated:

"We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

When America was formed, the large majority of people were entrepreneurs, being either farmers or merchants. This all changed sometime in the 19th century, during the industrial revolution, as a country of entrepreneurs started to become employees. We don?t know exactly when it happened, but today most people do not exercise their rights from the declaration of independence. 71% of workers are self-described slackers (Gallup) and many do not enjoy their jobs. Furthermore, by the time people are old enough to retire, 36% are dead and 54% are dead broke!

Now, let me introduce to another world, a world that I?m on a mission to help people discover. It is a world that is hidden from you, yet you take part of it everyday, but do not realize it. Let?s start with this room. This room is filled with success stories. Everything from the chairs you?re sitting in, the clothes you?re wearing, to this computer and software are all here, in large part because of the hard-work and creativity of entrepreneurs, people who started and run their own businesses.

As you know, today I will be talking about starting and running your own business (also known as entrepreneurship). Just like the ?real world? in The Matrix, it is hard to explain the power of entrepreneurship without actually experiencing it, but today I will try my best by describing what entrepreneurship is and by talking about my story and what I?ve learned.

In the end, everything went extremely well and I gained an appreciation of the central, rural part of the the USA. Before, my main conception between the coasts and mid-America was blue states and red states. Now, I appreciate and respect the different culture. The people that I interacted with had an incredible amount of pride and were extremely kind.

Two of the most fulfilling moments were when somebody came up to me afterwards and said, "I've heard many business speakers before, but you are the most genuine, I've ever heard." Another person shared (in front of everyone) that the session had made a big difference in her life and that she had not been living up to her potential, but that now she would be focused on her dreams. Without sounding too cliche, comments like these are what it's all about for me.