Scott EmpringhamAI Marketing Strategist | Helping CEOs Scale with AI

From Stage Fright to Spotlight: Coach Jimmy's Unlikely Start in Public Speaking!

9 Jul 2024 · 1 min

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YouTube video (Scott Empringham) featuring Coach Jimmy recounting his early public-speaking experience beginning in first grade in West Texas. He describes being cast in a school Christmas play and performing the solo "Too Fat for the Chimney" while feeling insecure and wearing a onesie costume made by his grandmother. The clip frames this origin story as the start of his speaking/coaching journey and mentions a childhood friend, Justin Martin, who was given a competing role. (Created July 9, 2024; last edited Dec 13, 2025.)

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Jimmy, how did you get involved in speaking and coaching, and how did it evolve for you to become a part of Global Speakers? It's always funny when somebody asks me this question when I give my keynote talk. I realized this whole thing started in first grade, and it was. I tell this story about being a little fat kid in West Texas in the first grade. And my elementary school was doing a Christmas play, and I was. Back then, we're talking, you know, early 80s, so there was no childhood obesity epidemic. I was the fat kid in my class, and we were doing the musical number called Too Fat for the Chimney, where Santa Claus couldn't get down the chimney because he had gotten too fat for the chimney. And so I thought, you know, little insecure, coming from a broken home, fat Jimmy. I thought I had my shot. I'm like, it's Santa. He's too fat. I'm the fat kid in class. Like, game on. And they gave the role to my best buddy, Justin Martin. Skinniest kid in class, popular kid in class. They wrap a bunch of pillows around him, and they put him and all my other friends upstage, literally doing like a step routine, aerobics routine with my buddy Justin. They put little fat, insecure Jimmy. My granny made me this onesie feedy pajamas outfit with, like, the drop bottom and the stupid stocking cap. And they pushed me to the edge of the stage in front of all the faculty, all the parents and everybody to sing the solo Too Fat for the Chimney.