Ignite The Hunger In You: How To Develop Your Greatness And Ignite Humanity With Les Brown!

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys, and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest. Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually helping you discover and then live your why. So if you're a regular listener, you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys, and then we bring on somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. But this week we are going to do something totally different, something that we have never done before. And so usually what we do is we reveal our guests why before the interview, and then you get to hear their stories about how their why has played out in their life. Today, we are going to do the reverse. And the reason we are doing that is because so many of you already know our guest. You have heard him for many, many years. You've experienced his Twitter presence and his talks. And so I will be interviewing him and I want you to listen and try to figure out what his why is from the stories that he tells. And then we will reveal his why in the upcoming weeks online to see how you did so listen and try to decipher his why. So we have a very special guest for you today. I have been looking forward to interviewing this guest for many, many years. I've been trying to get him on the podcast and things just didn't work out at certain times. But for a man who needs little to no introduction as one of the world's most renowned motivational speakers and one of the most highly sought after resources in business and professional circles for Fortune 500 CEOs, small business owners, nonprofits, and community leaders looking to expand opportunity, his charisma, warmth and humor have transformed ordinary people into extraordinary achievers. By using his own life and his in depth study of others challenges to build an understanding of what works, what doesn't work and why. He never tires from energizing people to meet the challenges of the world around them. He has a way of turning what he touches into gold. And he is here today to talk about his new book that he co wrote with JB Owens called Ignite the Hunger in youn how to develop your Greatness and Ignite humanity. Les Brown, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and spend some time with you. And I want to congratulate you on the work that you're doing helping people to discover their why and just giving enlightenment on what can help to sustain people in very challenging times. Nietzsche said, if you know the wife and living, you can endure almost anyhow. And as we are going through this pandemic and we felt that it was about to be something of the past and now there's a new one out there. And so people need something that can sustain them. And their why will be their rod and staff to comfort them, to give them the wherewithal, the perseverance, the courage to keep moving forward and do the things that they're called to do. So what you're doing, the work that you have, I believe is a calling and it's needed now more than ever before in this place where we are.

Oh, thank you, Les. I appreciate that. And so for those I know there are very few listeners that probably don't know you or your story, but for those that don't, could you take us back in your life to, you know, where you were born, what it was like when you grew up, and then how you transitioned from where you were to where you are now, speaking all over the world to millions of people. Kind of take us through the quick version of Les Brown's life.

Well, that's possible. Yes, it is possible. I'll give you the Reader's Digest. Virtually. I was born in a poor section of Miami, Florida called Liberty City with a twin brother. And we were born in an abandoned building on a floor. And we were taken in as foster kids by Mamie Brown. I feel like Abraham Lincoln, who said, all that I am and all that ever hope to be, I owe to my mother. I say constantly that God took me out of my biological mother's womb and placed me in the heart of my adopted mother. And I just a few weeks ago, saw a picture of my birth mother and father and connected with my birth family that I had no idea I'm in Atlanta, and they live in Gainesville, Georgia. And so here I am an hour away. I always felt a connection with Atlanta. And so, in fact, I know the moment that my birth mother, Dorothy Rucker, came to see me.

I remember I was on a book tour, and this lady was watching me very intensely. She and a guy. And then she came forward and said, hold your hand out, son. And I held my hand out, and she put a picture in and closed my hand and walked away. And I just put the picture in my pocket and. And then something said, take it out. And I looked at it. It was a picture of my brother and I. And I said, hey, lady. Hey, where'd you get this from? And she just turned around and she waved, and she kept walking. And that was just a brief moment. And then here we are. My son did a search and went on to find them and locate them. My birth family. And it has been a process.

Here I am. I'm 77, and I'm now just discovering my roots.

Yes, indeed. So that's it. And what has got me here.

I always say, now I got a new narrative.

My birth mother gave me life. My adopted mother taught me how to live life. When I was in the fifth grade, I was labeled educable, mentally retarded, and put back from the fifth grade to the fourth grade and failed again when I was in the eighth grade. But I had a high school teacher like you my junior year, very much like your personality. A kind of person who always look for the good and looking for bringing out the best in people. That's who you are, and that's how you show up. And he said, young man, go to the board and work this problem out for me. I said, sir, I can't do that. He said, why not? I said, I'm not one of your students. He said, do what I'm asking you to do anyhow. I said, I can't do that, sir. And he said, why not? I said, I'm not one of your students. And the other students started laughing, saying, he's Leslie. He's got a twin brother, Wesley. Wesley is smart. He's dt. And he asked, what's dt? He's the dumb twin. And I said, I am, sir. As they were laughing at me. He came from behind his desk and he looked at me. He said, don't you ever say that again. Someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality. Do you hear me? And I said, yes, sir. The program that you host, it does something for people, how people Live their lives as a result of the story they believe about themselves. And what you do in promoting people, discovering their why you distract, dispute and inspire. You distract them from their current self explanatory style, as psychologists would call. And through your guests, through your conversations, you dismantle their current belief system on how they see themselves and how they're showing up in life. And you give them the courage to ignite a spirit of becoming an active force in their lives, to take their lives in another direction, living a life that has meaning and purpose, a life that will outlive them. So thank you for how you show up.

I love that. Thank you. And when you. So when you were in high school, you had a label. How did you remove that label from yourself? How long did that take? What was that like for you?

It's an ongoing process. Even now, I don't think that you just have a moment and you're able to disrupt the things that you have embraced about yourself. As you are aware, we learn from conversations, from observation, and from the experiences and the circumstances that we have now. Mind you, I'm 77. So when I was coming alone, I came along during a time when they had signs on Miami Beach. Jews, Dogs and Coloreds not allowed. There are places on Miami beach where I couldn't go, that a dog could go. That's a culture, a dominant culture that's designed to destroy a person's sense of self. So that's an ongoing process. And so what I learned from going to work with my mother, and she worked for wealthy families on Miami Beach. What you listen to, you turn into. And she worked for this wealthy family, the sidursky family. And Mr. Sidursky, I had to clean his office and he listened to motivational messages on a regular basis. And Zig Ziglar, if you give enough people what they want, they will give you what you want. Earl Nightingale, you don't get in life what you want. You get in life what you are. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, you have something special. Don't allow negative thoughts to dominate your life. You must think positively. Well, by listening to those messages on a regular basis, unbeknownst to me, it was interrupting my vision of myself. It gave me a vision of myself beyond my mental conditioning and my circumstances. And it created a hunger for more, a hunger to live a greater life outside of what society said that was available to me.

I love that. As you speak around the world and you meet people that have transformed their life, what part does personal growth play in the changes that you've seen in people around the world.

Personal growth is everything.

You know, there's a quote that Bishop T.D. jake says, Lord, don't let my talents take me where my character can't keep me. Self awareness, knowing who you are, being willing to work on yourself continuously because that discovery process, it empowers you. Because life is full of disruptions and things are going to happen that you never saw coming as what happened with the pandemic. We never saw this coming. And so to be able to define yourself and don't allow the disruptions of life, the things that happen to you, to disrupt how you feel about yourself and how you see life, it is something that Elsie Robinson said. He said, things may happen around you and things may happen to you, but the only things that really count are the things that happen in you. And so being anchored in a mindset of mental resolve that this will not define me. It will refine me, but it's not going to define me.

I'm looking at this from the perspective of not why did this happen to me, but from the perspective of what do I do with this? Now the power's in my hands. How am I going to handle this? And so the self awareness and the ongoing process of working on yourself is meaningful. Abraham Lincoln said, if I had six hours to chop a tree down, I'll spend four hours sharpening my axe. And that's what people have to do now. The divorce rate is up 40%. The suicide rate has increased dramatically. Violence, unexplained violence taking place all over the country. Millions of people have been told, hey, you don't have to come to work. You can do it from home. Then say, okay, it's safe now. You can come to work. And people say, wait, I don't know if I want to do that anymore. Because they had time to rethink their lives. And so now we're going through a place where people are reflecting and making decisions. We make decisions and our decisions make us. That's different than what we have been able to see in the past. We have a culture that train people, educate people to be employees. But now there are people saying, I want to be my own boss. I want to control my own destiny. I want to live life on my terms. So this place where we are right now is very special.

It's a good way to put it.

So, okay, now let's keep going. You were now a young boy and you had learned about personal growth. And then how did that translate into the changes that you made in your life and how did that take place?

Well, what it cost me to do is to really continue to pursue listening to messages that would empower me, that would inspire me, that expanded my vision of what's possible in my life in spite of the culture, in spite of being in a culture that demonizes you and work to destroy your sense of self and dismiss you. It helped to fortify my drive and my hunger to want to live a larger life beyond my mental conditioning and the circumstances where I found myself. And so.

That process, and I'm still engaged in it, I believe you're never too old to learn, and you're never too young to teach. And so I'm always learning. I'm always studying. I said, I left on my telephone message the other day people who called me, and there are people who call to hear what the message will be today. And the message is that most people have dreams and goals that die between two thieves. Regret of the past and fear of the future.

You have a gift. Don't let the regrets of the past, the mistakes that you've made in the past, the things that you've gone through, and the fear of failure, the fear of what's going on now to rob you of why you are here and the work that you are supposed to do.

Wow. So now you're. How did you get from the high. What were you like in high school? And then where did that take you in your life to get into speaking was how you've been speaking for how many years? How many?

52 years before you were born.

I saw Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And Abbott and Malcolm X and Billy Graham speaking to people in a big stadium. And I was fascinated with their oratorical skills. And the high school teacher, Mr. Leroy Washington, he was a speech and drama teacher, and he was just awesome. You. You have something special. You have greatness in you. You have the ability to do more than you can ever begin to imagine. You can make your school proud. Booker T. Washington High School. Not the largest, but the best. You can make your family proud. And I remember following him after school after he gave a speech. And I said, Mr. Washington? He said, yes. I said, I heard your speech today. He said, aren't you in the 11th grade? I said, yes, sir. That was for the seniors. I said, I know, but I heard your voice, and I just felt like you were talking to me. And I came and I stood in the back and I listened. And you said that we have something special, that we have greatness in us. I said, do I have greatness in me? He said, yes. I said, then how do you explain the fact that I have to go to summer school every year? That I've been labeled educable, mentally retarded, that my twin brother, he gets A's and B's. I've never gotten that he's been on the honor roll. That has never happened for me. And he said, Mr. Brown, your grades don't determine who you are. It just means that you have to work harder. And then he turned to walk away. I said, sir, I want to make my mother proud. I want to buy my mother a home. You said, if just one person heard you today that you're being brought here from Stuart, Florida to Miami in Liberty City, that you're being brought here would not have been in vain. He said, yes. I said, sir.

I'm the one. Sir, I'm the one. I heard you.

I'm going to use what you said today. I'm the one. He said, it's possible. Young man. He turned to walk away. I said, don't forget me. My name is Leslie Brown. I'm Miss Mamie's boy. One day you're going to hear my name. I'm the one. You touched me today when you spoke, you spoke to my heart.

And that journey, that transformative experience.

That created an opening in my mind that it was possible, that I didn't have to die on the streets of Liberty City and Overtown in a violent, drug infested poverty area. That I can see the world before I leave the world. That I can make some choices that will liberate me to become a person of substance and live a life of impact, Live a life that counted.

You've spoke. Do you have any idea how many speeches, presentations you have given? You have any idea?

No. I gave a speech in the Georgia Dome that a lot of people love. It's called it's not over till you win in the Georgia Dome, which no longer exists, but it was before 80,000 people. And I don't even remember giving a speech because I was so afraid. I went to the bathroom about six or seven times to come. Get me out of bed, man. Come on. I said, have you looked out there?

No, I don't. I've been doing it for so long and, you know, I enjoy doing it virtually. Now we're going from brick and mortar to click in order. Now I'm training people how to take their story and their knowledge and their skills and how to train others and do it virtually in front of the computer, just like how we're speaking Right now. And I do miss speaking on stage, but not that much. I enjoy speaking in front of the computer because I know how to connect with people, period. In front of them or in front of the computer. And that's what I now specialize in. And I don't have to get on a airplane and fly from city to city or country to country and be able to create an experience. Oliver Winder Holmes said that once a woman, a man's mind has been expanded with an idea, concept, or experience, it could never be satisfied to going back to where it was.

So how did you learn? I mean, I've listened to many, many of your speeches and worked out many times listening to you. And I am enthralled with the way you tell stories and the way that you speak. And how did you learn to do that? When did you learn to do that? And what is it you're actually doing so that I know what it is?

Well, let me just say how I learned. I had a coach, Mike Williams. He wrote a book called the Road to your best stuff, the Road to your Best Stuff. And he has an addition to that, the Road to your best stuff 2.0. I saw him speak, and I admired his style of speaking and how he had the audience on the edge of their seats and how he would have them laughing and then the next one would crying. And so I went to him and I said, can you teach me how to do that? He said, I could teach you how to do better than that. And so that's how I got here. And he's still my coach to this day. But the other thing is.

That when you love something, when you see it as your calling, a job is what you get paid for. A calling is what you're made for. I was talking to a young man yesterday, and I said, what do you do? And he told me that he was in it. And I asked him, I said, what are you living to do? And he thought for a moment. He said, I love to help people. I said, do you find yourself doing that and what you are now doing? He said, not to the extent that I want. I said, well, then, man, you ought to create that for yourself before you leave here. We don't know how much time we have left. He said, well, I got to pay the bills. I said, well, figure out how you can pay the bills and how you can build a life that's you. Life is short and unpredictable. If there's anything we learn from. From this pandemic, people rethinking their lives, life is fragile. Over 700,000 people are out of here. And you owe it to yourself and your family to do something that you. To do something that you love so much that you do it for nothing, but you do it so well that people will pay you to do it. I said, that's how I got into this. I volunteered. I gave free speeches for a long period of time to learn how to do what I'm doing now. I invested in myself. Warren Buffett said, the most important investment you can make is in yourself. Here's the guy who has billions of dollars in real estate and in the stock market, but he said, in yourself. And then he said, the most important tool that you need. If you're going to build a business or be a voice of influence or make impact on the planet, you got to be a communicator. He said, if you can't communicate, he said that it's like being in a dark room with a beautiful woman and wink, nothing happens.

And so Steve Jobs said, the storyteller is the most powerful person in the world. It sets the agenda. The storyteller creates the vision. Vision and determine how people see themselves and create the thirst for what it is that you want to do. So when I came into the industry, everybody, for the most part, they were giving information from Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. And I believe that if information could change people, everybody would be skinny, rich, and happy. And studies indicate that when you give information that impact two areas of the brain, but when you provide a story, and I use stories that impact five areas of the brain, that expands a person's vision of themselves, that touch their heart, we emotional people. And that ignite the courage in them to do something different with their lives.

Yeah, it's funny. I was going to ask you this question. I was going to. I was going to ask you, do you consider yourself a speaker, a motivator, or a storyteller or all those, what would you. How would you define if you could. What you do?

I aspire to inspire until I expire.

I told my kids that. They told y' all I died. Tell them, don't embalm me for three days and then sneak down to the morgue and put a microphone in my hand. If I don't grab it and say, you gotta be hungry, and say, dad's gone now.

Oh, man, I don't know. I just. I'm just Mrs. Mamie Brown's baby boy. But I got a new narrative. I sing this song. I've got two mothers and I'm not ashamed. I've got two mothers and I love them just the same. Oh, you can't handle the voice. You want to put a ring on it?

I love it.

So what's the secret to telling a good story? Because that is your specialty for sure. I listen to you waiting for the story and then I've even heard this story before and I still enjoy the story more the second or third or fourth or fifth time. How do you do that?

You experience the story continuously. Ladies and gentlemen, I was on a program. The gentleman who has committed his life to help people to change their lives. His name is Gary. And his name in itself, it really conjures some thoughts about this thing called life. Number one, you got to have a goal centered life. People who aim at nothing in life end up hitting nothing dead on the head. And so he has a goal of helping people to discover their why, that when, when the tough times come and they're going to come, that their why, their reason for being will be their rod and staff to comfort them. And the A in his name is for accountability partners that you got to have some people around you that's going in your direction, people that have goals and dreams that they're working on that will hold you accountable. People who have accountability partners have a 40% greater chance of reaching their goals than people who don't. The next thing is about his name is the R stands for relationships. You don't want to do this thing called life by yourself.

The Academy Award winner Sidney Poitier said, when you go for a walk with someone, something happens. Either you adjust to their pace or they adjust to your pace. Whose pace have you adjusted to? Look at the relationships in your life and as Jim Rowan said, and ask yourself the question, what am I becoming because of this relationship? Am I growing? Am I becoming a better person, a better father? Am I growing mentally and spiritually and financially? What kind of impact? There's some people if you never saw again, it would be too soon. And the Y in his name stands for yes. That most people, 85% of people who look at their goals and dreams that will allow them to live a different kind of life, they say no to themselves because they've been conditioned to suffer from possibility blindness. But Gary, the reason that he, he does this program is to inspire you to say yes to, to encourage you to believe in the possibilities that you can do it, to know that you will have to fail your way through success. But you have it within you. Say yes to your dream, yes to your life, yes to A brighter future called a Gary Factor. He's a bad boy. Up in here. Up in here.

You're hired.

Just follow me around.

So take us through what. I know you used my name, but take us through what you did there so that we can understand the process, how you did that. What was that? I know you used my name, but what was. What were you thinking about as you were.

Off the cuff?

Gary. The speakers speak. And when you get coaching on how to do anything, it creates and develop your intuitive skill and your gift that's lying dormant within you and that it takes you to a place in yourself that most people who won't put in the time, the focus and the effort, they will never discover that part of themselves, it's just lying there dormant. I've got three brothers. They don't live like I live. Why? Because they haven't put in the focus, the time and the effort to develop this part of themselves. I was shocked to find out that my birth mother was the motivational speaker and my grandmother, Beulah Rucker, they have the Beulah Rucker Museum in Gainesville, Georgia. She was a motivational speaker. But I didn't know them. But because I put in the time I was willing to invest in myself because I saw something that caught my eye. Just like this program that you are now doing. You could have done a lot of programs, but there was something about this, about knowing your why. When I think about Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, and he talked about the Jews that survived the inexpressible cruelties of slavery. Either they had some loved one that they were determined to see, or they had some cause that they believe in or some spiritual commitment that that level of reason that fortified their resolve to survive. And so when we find something that resonates with who we are.

Something that you love, it's just you. I say when I think about speaking, I have the can helps it.

I can't help it. I talk in my sleep.

That you do this program, you have a lot of other choices, but it's you. And most people die an unlived life. Most people die at age 25, don't get buried in jail. They're 65. They are living a misplaced life, a life that's not them. Just to pay the bills, just to survive. What it takes to survive and what it takes to thrive are two different things. And so you have said. You know what?

I'm getting out of line. I'm not following the followers. I want to do something different with My life. I want my life to count. I want to make an impact. I believe what Horace Mann said. We should be ashamed to die until we've made some major contribution to humankind. And I'm going to have a program that will allow me to make a major contribution. And so you have studied. You're willing to learn. If you're not willing to learn, no one can help you. But if you're willing to learn, no one can stop you.

Yeah, I'm with you. I did thousands and thousands of why discoveries for free before I started to see what I see now.

And so you can see things that other people can't see?

Yep. Yes.

Let's take a quick break from the interview for a special gift for all of you that tuned in to hear from Les Brown for the next week only, go to yinstitute.com for.

And you can discover your why for free. Just go to yinstitute.com less and it is free right now. Let's get back to the show.

So when you talk about connecting, you said I can connect to people whether it's on stage, whether it's on the phone, or whether it's on Zoom online. How do you connect to people? What is that secret you have? Because I feel it. I don't know what it is, but I feel it. So how do you do that?

Know what it is? I speak from my heart. Stories touch the heart information. It fills the brains. When you have a hard centered message, people experience that you create an experience.

Words spoken from the heart enter the heart. Oliver Wendell Holmes said that once a man or woman's mind has been expanded with an idea, concept or experience, it could never be satisfied to going back to where it was. So when you tell a story about something that touched your heart, something that you experience or something that you saw or something that you heard. And ladies and gentlemen, you know, I heard a young man say, we on the elevator and he looked at a lady that was being wheeled in a wheelchair. And he said to her, happy Thanksgiving. He didn't know her, he didn't know me. He was pushing a wheelchair to a gate. And that to me, that touched me. What a random act of kindness. He could have just stood there silently like the rest of us, but he said, have a nice Thanksgiving. And she smiled. I'm reminded of a man who jumped off the San Francisco bridge, but he survived. And they asked him, why did you want to kill yourself? He said, I didn't want to kill myself, but I was going through so much pain in life. I Went out for a walk, and I said, if anybody looks at me and say something kind or smile, I won't kill myself. And no one did. And he said, in moment, I let go. I knew I had made a mistake. Had that gentleman who stood by me had seen that young guy that day, he'd have seen a smile and say, man, it's really good to see you. And when he asked the lady how her Thanksgiving was going to be, I chimed in too. And so we have to create not just viruses of fear, but viruses of love, peace, and harmony, where we recognize our humanity and our connectedness and being willing to reach out and touch somebody's hand, make the world a better place. If you can. Oh, you can handle the voice. Oh, behave.

That's a whole other ticket.

So, Les, tell us about. And I've heard you say that many times, but tell us about the being hungry. Gotta be hungry. I've heard you say it, so I know your book's about that.

Well, and Ignite the Hunger is about people who've gone through things. People have had major setbacks, people who've been abused, people have been denied. People have been stepped on and. And treated unfairly. It's about the power of the human spirit that something happens, a defining moment that they came to know that what they were going through that they would get through in each chapter, each author, that when people read the book, it's not just a read, it's an experience. And people say, whoa. And it's needed now more than ever before because people are going through a tough time. As I speak to you now, I have a son who has bipolar schizophrenia. And he's out of control. He hasn't taken this medication. That's a challenging experience.

And so.

You realize that some things you can control, some things you can't control. And there's some people, even your grown children, that you have to love from a distance. I just received the first Cancer Center's award of Excellence of Perseverance. And so here I received that award and says, if Life says, okay, Mr. Perseverance, here's something that you can't control, how you gonna handle this? You motivate people around the world, but you can't control. You can't make your son take his medication, how are you gonna handle this? Has it been challenging? Yes.

Absolutely. I don't care how old your children become. They're still your children.

And so you have to learn how to handle that, how to process that, how to discipline and manage your thinking around that. Shakespeare said nothing Is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so. But I had to put myself back as an observer. I don't get to weigh in on telling a grown person, you need to do this. If they choose not to do it, there's nothing I can do about that.

But what I can do so that I don't deplete the white blood cells that are available to protect my immune system and to continue to beat fourth stage cancer, what I can do is find a sense of peace within.

And say, lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can. I can change how I respond to this, and the wisdom to know the difference as opposed to being stressed out of my mind. That does not serve me and that does not help him.

And so that creates a hunger in you.

Yes. Yes. Because we are going to experience challenges in life. My favorite book says, think it not strange that you have faced the fiery furnaces of this world. You will not. You might. You will have tribulations. Forrest Gump had a point. Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. And so what we know is that we have built in power, authority, and dominion to handle whatever life throws at us. I have an affirmation that I read every morning. Lord, whatever I face today, together you and I can handle it. All things work together for good, for those who love God and for those who are called according to his purpose. Didn't say all things will be good or all things will feel good.

But it will work together for good. And I just say, lord, help me to hold on so I can find the good. I feel like Brother Teresa who said, lord, I know you know how much I can bear. I just wish you to have so much confidence in me.

So, Les, what is next for you? You've got your book coming out. You're probably. You're working with people to help them tell their stories online and in person. You're a very young. You know, for those of you that can't see less and you're just listening, he looks about 45 years old. So there's 77. I'm not sure if I'm buying that. You've got a lot left to give. What's next for you?

Coaching people, teaching them what I've learned. Being on the planet for 77 years, I feel like I served at the Lord's supper.

I used to think people in their 40s were old. And I woke up one morning and said, I'm 77 who does this.

But is I like for people to reach out to me that coachmelesbrown.com and also to go to hungryforgreatness.org hungry for greatness. Teaching people how to live a life of meaning and significance. Live a life that your life is a gift and how to develop that gift. We have talents, abilities and skills in us and ideas in us to help people to rob the cemetery of their gifts, to live full and to die empty. That's what I want to do. And I don't want to work with everybody. Just a few people. They say I have the Midas touch because I don't touch everything.

So now it's about working with people who want to invest in themselves, who want to bring out the greatness in them in 2022 and people who have a story that they want to tell you. Maya Angelou said that there's nothing as painful as an untold story buried in your soul. And so to help people to tell that story, because that story that you're sitting on, somebody is waiting on and help them to get it out and be able to make an impact, to be a voice of influence or to, to promote their business or to help them to live a life that they can feel proud of. That's, that's, that's what I'm about. And that's, that's where my focus is, and that keeps me.

So when you were talking about telling a story, you said, you've got to have a, you know, speak from the heart. And so how do you teach people to speak from the heart? What does that, what does that mean?

I want to ask you a question.

When you were coming up.

There'S somebody that you saw.

When you're around five or six, I want you to go back there.

That you admire, that you want to be like. They made you feel safe, they made you feel good about yourself. Who is that person?

God, it have to be my dad.

What's your father's name?

Robert or Bob?

What's the first quality that you like about Bob that you admired about him?

I would say determination or I would say determination. You know what? Let me. I'm going to say resolve.

Resolve. Give me an example. Give me an example.

What he wanted to do, he would stick with it and stick with it until he accomplished it.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Gary.

We're living in a time where lives have been disrupted. I want to share with you my hero, Bob.

And Bob to me stands for believe in yourself, Open to the Possibilities and be bold about life. My father, he's a man that had deep resolve, that, is there something that he wanted to do? He set out to do it.

And when I think about me, I realize how much he influenced me. I remember as a kid, as I watched him, he was my hero. Oh, we had Batman and Superman and everybody else but my hero. Oh, his name is Bob. He's a man's man. And I want to be like him.

So that's something from your heart. That's not something you read and think and grow rich. When you talk about Bob.

You went to your heart. You got still. You had to think, who is that person? And Bob is that person that's special to you. And so when you tell a story from your heart about Bob, there are other things that you learn from him. People can tell if it's just from your head. They can tell if it's some script that you have memorized and you're coming in to do an information dump. They can tell if this is a person that means something to you than the story that you're sharing. They can tell. They can feel it. People will feel your energy. As I teach people to speak, I love that you have a hard sentence, something that's in your heart.

I wonder if, you know, when I think about myself when I speak at events, and.

There'S a bit of fear in speaking from the heart.

Because what happens when. If.

It gets too emotional, it gets uncomfortable, it gets to where you almost feel like you're going to have tears, something like that. And it's a fear to go there.

Well, you pull yourself back because the microphone and the stage is not a place for therapy. Okay? So, you know, I made the mistake of doing that, and I learned. So. And you always want to know where you can go with a story.

And it's not about you, it's about the audience. The audience are asking three questions.

When you give a speech, Gary, who are you? Gary. What do you have for me, Gary? And why should I care? Gary? And so when you give a speech from that place. So, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sharing with you about my father, Bob, his resolve. And you know what? I know that in order for us to make it in and out of the pandemic, it requires a level of mental resolve. It requires a level of faith. Faith not tested, can't be trusted. And what I know, that you must believe in yourself. And my father was an example of that. And here's what I know, that as you look at yourself and look at that man in the mirror or that woman in the mirror. When you get up in the morning, I want you to know you've got greatness looking back at you. I want you to know that when you believe in yourself, when you're open to the possibilities, when you believe and have the faith that I'm going to make it, no matter what I'm saying to you, life is on your side. I'm saying to you, angels are activated and say, we got to go down there and help. This one here, they got that energy of Bob. This one here won't stop.

So you. I noticed that you definitely add a lot of humor when you speak.

Yes, because when people laugh, that shuts the mind down. So I use laughter human. I teach my speakers how to use laughter. So that when people laugh, their mind close down, but the heart opens up, and then you come back with a powerful statement and you get in the heart. They can't get you out then. And so now you can work it. You can work it. But humor is very important. It's a lubricant that allows you to handle this thing called life. It's. It's medicine for the soul.

Man.

I don't. I don't want to let you go. I'm going to try to keep you here as long as I can.

You got to put a ring on it. I'm sorry. Hey, I've got.

So this. This crossed my mind when you were. When you were talking earlier, and I would love to know what this felt like. You've spoke at many different size events from right now to 80,000 people. What was that like? And how was it different to speak in front of 80,000 people?

Or was it any different?

It was very different. It was frightening. But you allow your fear to drive you, and it's very important to have somebody around you who believes in you until your belief kicks in. And I was frightened up to the moment they handed me the microphone, and my mentor, Mike Williams, said, brownie, you got this? I said, I do, Mike. Everything that you've gone through has prepared you for this. Brownie, make your mother proud.

She will get a chance to see this. Make her proud today.

Thank you, Mike. Thank you.

Give me the microphone, sir. Thank you. So it's very important.

To have people around you.

That will believe in you until your belief kicks in. And fortunately for me, Mike Williams, he spoke to me, and I believed him. And I went out there, and if people watch that Les Brown speaking in the Georgia Dome and say, whoa, he's Mamie Brown's, boy.

He'S kind of good. Up in here. Up in here. But I don't remember giving this speech, and I've only watched about five or ten minutes of it because I'm very critical of myself. But people say that it's been viewed by millions of people around the world and that it has changed their lives.

When you are getting ready to go on stage.

When you're getting ready to speak to an audience.

How do you prepare yourself?

I have a needs assessment that I sent out to clients that separate me from other speakers. I train speakers, and I say to them, don't let what you want to say get in the way and what your audience needs to hear. And so I asked them a series of questions. Who have you had in the past, what worked, what did not work? What's the unspoken conversation? What is it that you want me to provide so that when they leave here, it will make you look good, they'll feel better about themselves, and they'll be motivated and inspired to take their performance to the next level. So I conduct.

Communications intelligence, asking them questions, and then I incorporate that in the experience that I create on the stage. Having in there the things that they told me that they want and the reason that they bought me in, so that it's not just a presentation to entertain them, but to empower them and to impact their bottom line, to increase their sales, to cause them to say to themselves, I can do more, Simba, you're more than that which you have become, and they know that to be so.

I hear you say this word a lot, and it's making me think. You talk a lot about the experience. It's not the presentation, it's not the story, it's the experience. Yes, that. Tell us what that means to you.

You don't want to be just a presenter because it goes in one ear and out of the other. You want to experience what you're saying to them. And each time you tell the story, you want to tell it with the same passion, power, and energy like you, that gets fresh, like you telling it for the first time. There are people who've heard me tell the story about how I became a disc jockey, and they brought me in and say, don't forget to tell the story, how you became the disc jockey. Why? Because they love that story. And it took them to a place in themselves that they could not go by themselves. And they want to hear that story again. And so I tell that story each time like I'm telling it for the first time. I'm experiencing the rejection I'm experiencing walking back and forth, looking at Rock and Roger, who was drinking, who could not complete his show, saying, drink, Rock, drink. You know, and so I go there. And the power of telling the story and experiencing the story. You cause the audience to take imaginative leaps. They come into the story. You created an opening so that your story becomes their story. And you take them on the journey to another place within themselves that they have not figured out how to get there. And the story provides the key to unlock and release what Elizabeth Browning would say. The imprisoned splendor.

I love this. I love this. And I encourage people to study. I study and read constantly, even now.

Have you got time to tell us that story?

No, I can't go there. I can't go there. Come on, let us see it on the. Let them go to the web. You know what I'll do? I'll send them.

I'm going to send them the story because I have to get into that. Okay. Yeah, I've heard it many times. And I love it.

And I love it.

And I can have it. Reach out to me, say coachmelesbrown.com and I'll send them the. A motivational message that will have the story and they can see it in action and love it. Okay.

I love this because you have shared with us, really, what is happening behind the scenes of what we are experiencing up front, which is super helpful for those of us that are wanting to make a bigger impact, are wanting to connect at a deeper. At a heartfelt level. I mean, it sounds good to say those things, but until we know what it is, how to do it, and then see an example of it, it's just another thing that we're trying to do that we don't know how to do.

You're absolutely right.

And caring about the audience, who you are behind the words, are far more important.

In the words that you speak. Zig Ziglar said for years, if you give enough people what they want, they will give you what you want. And that to me meant if you give people your best.

If you give from your heart, if you hold yourself to a higher standard, if you create an unforgettable experience.

And have people know that you care about them, that you're not treating them like a transaction, that you care about them. Maya Angelou said, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. They'll give you what you want, they'll give you referrals, they'll give you business. You will have an incredible time in E commerce, in this time where we've gone, as I said earlier, from brick and mortar to click and order.

I love that.

So, Les, if there's somebody that's listening and they want to connect with you, they want coaching from you, they want more. Les.

How what's the best way for them to connect with you and to buy your book? Let's how can they do that?

They can get the book on Amazon. That's number one. And they can also, if they want one on one coaching, they can go to coachmelesbrown.com coachvillesbrown.com and our training program, we have hungryforgreatness.org hungryforgreatness.org they go there. And what we do, we have an ongoing process, a holistic approach of helping people to get out of their head and get into their greatness. I love it.

Les, I have been looking forward to this for a long time and I'm so glad this finally came about because I wanted to connect and I know so many of your stories, but I look forward to listening to them every single time. So thank you so much for being here. It's been a pleasure having you on.

Thank you for having me. I still feel a special connection with you. You're my brother from another mother. Thank you. Love that. Thanks, Les. You're a virtual hug right now.

Bye for now.

So it's time for our last segment, and that is the guess their why. And I want to pick somebody that everybody's familiar with from the Olympics and that would be Simone Biles. And so if you remember, she kind of lost her confidence and she did the.

She did her routine and lost confidence in the middle of the air and came down luckily on her feet. And from then on, she decided she could not participate in the Olympics because something wasn't right in her head. And so what do you think Simone Biles why is I'll tell you what I think it is. I think her why is trust to create relationships based upon trust, to be the trusted source, to be the one that others can count on. Because once she lost trust in herself, see, people with the why of trust educate themselves or develop themselves to extremely high levels quite often so that they can be the trusted source, so they can be the expert, so they can be the one. And so in her case, she lost trust in herself that she could actually find herself in the middle of the air and come home and come down safely. So I believe that her why is to create relationships based upon trust. And so what do you think her why is? Let us know in the notes below or wherever you have listened to this. If you have an opportunity, let us know what you think her why is and I want to thank you for listening. This has been an awesome episode. I loved having Les Brown here today. He is one of my idols as far as a speaker. So so if you have not yet discovered your why, we have a special right now for those of you that listened to Les Brown's episode go to yinstitute.com les le s and you can take the why discovery for free. You can discover your why for free in this episode only. So if you love the beyond you'd why Podcast. Please don't forget to subscribe below and leave us a review and a rating on whatever platform you are using to listen to our podcast. Thank you so much and I will see you and be with you next week.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez and I'll see you on the next episode.