Ep. 135 Breaking The Unwritten Rules with Michael Aun

Hey there, Mark Brown. When.

When.

When you say the only one in the world, we are saying the only one in the world who's a hall of fame CSP and a world champion. The only one in the world. We're sitting down today with a legend, and I have a trivia question that I think a lot of toastmasters don't know, but he has risen to the top of both organizations. He's ultimate pro. Classy. Classy guy. Tells it like it is. Mark.

I cannot wait to have a nice, pleasant and educational conversation with Mr. Michael on. Let's go to our promo.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the unforgettable presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown.

Your life tells a story, and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time.

Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation, Ahas? Let's dive right in.

Welcome Michael on. The legend. The legend. Thanks for joining us.

Come on now. You guys overcooking the grits here now?

Yeah, but they're good grits. They're worth cooking, dude.

Yeah, well, that's good. Slow cooking good. That's right.

It's our opinion, Vinnie. Let's say it's our opinion. So we're thrilled to have you. I have to dive right in because there's one thing that I heard the legend of Michael on and tell me if it's true. And a lot of people who are toastmast and NSAers listening to this, but a lot of toastmasters don't know. You broke the barrier of you were the first one to come out from behind the lectern. True or not true?

I can only tell you what Terry McCann told me. He was, at the time the executive director of Toastmasters International. He was also the one who sort of coordinated the process of me writing a book for them at a later point. So Terry told me that I was the first one in his memory that had done that. I didn't know the difference, to be honest with you. I just did it. You know, I watched a bunch of other speakers, and I realized because I happened to have been in the ninth position that day, I said I got to do something different. And it just popped into my mind to move. And I requested a lavalier mike, and the rest is history. So I have no way of proven.

Now, Michael, you said you requested a lavalier. Are you saying you're the first one to have done that, too?

I don't know that. But I needed to be able to move. I could not take the handheld mic from the podium. So before we started, I went to Terry McCann. I said, is it possible that I can have a lavalier? Which, by the way, leads to another interesting problem, that another person who tried to do the same thing later on, she was. How can I say this diplomatically? The lavalier got caught in the wrong spot, and it muffled her ability to be heard. And I had given. Unfortunately, I had given her that recommendation. Consider using a lavalier. In those days, I imagine there probably were wireless microphones. I'm sure there probably were. I don't remember buying my own until like a year or so later. And then I always took it with me. So in those days, you did a lot of things differently than you do today. But it was something I had to try because we had to find a way to differentiate. You know, our friend Joel Weldon, you both know very well.

Yeah.

Made said observation, found out what everybody else is doing, then don't do it. I had to find a way to differentiate because as the last speaker, that's the good news, because you're the most recent thing in their minds. But as the last speaker, they've already heard all these others. One of the things I've learned over the years is that judges typically aren't looking for the winner. They're trying to eliminate the losers. And I mean no disrespect when I say that, and I learned that from Nito Cobain, because Nito told me one time, maybe might not want to send out those demo tapes because they're not looking for the winner. They want to scratch you off the list. They want to do diligence. Nito's a wise guy in so many ways.

They don't get too much wiser.

Now, Darren, real quickly, just for clarification, we have so many different people who watch and listen to our podcast, Michael. And you keep saying in those days, in those days, and I'm sure it'll be in the notes, but you happen.

To be even born. You weren't even born.

You were so kind, Michael. Thank you very, very much. I appreciate that. But you said those days you happened to compete in the Toastmasters International World Championships twice, I believe. Right.

And the year you won, in 1977 and 78.

So now recording this 45 years after your first finals appearance, and I have it on very good authority, many of our listeners weren't even Considered to be born back in 1977, but I hold that year for my own personal reason to be a very special year. Not about me today. But you mentioned in those days you had the foresight to think I need to purchase for myself a tool that will help me to speak, speak well and to have the ability to move around. You wanna move around, you're flexible, you wanna communicate with your audience. So you said you bought your own device a couple of years later. And I know Darren has a question, but here's my very quick direct question. You made that back in the late 1970s. What was the thinking behind that decision to buy a wireless microphone back then?

Well, one of the programs that I was involved with, I think Mike Frank booked me in with Danny Cox and we were doing something at a theater there in Ohio and I wanted to start out in the audience. It was a sales and man S and M meeting, or so I can't recall the exact meeting, but I wanted to sit in the audience and rise from the audience and then go up onto the platform. And the opening line that I wanted to use and did use was I'm out here amongst you because I am one of you. I have never ever considered myself to be a full time speaker. I'm a businessman who happens to speak. That's why I use it in that vernacular.

I will have one follow up to that real quickly. Michael, you said I am a not a speaker. I'm a businessman who wants to speak. And I'm sure you find this interesting because for the longest while, the National Speakers association, we called ourselves speakers. But some years ago it was like a mandate. We are now considering ourselves and we believe we are, we know we are experts who speak. But 40 plus years ago you had that vision of how to define yourself. It took NSA 35, 40 years to catch up with you. And again, everything you've done so far speaks visionary, speaks foresight. Looking ahead. Could you quickly just tell our listeners very quickly in your opinion the value of thinking ahead? 5, 10, were you thinking 40 years ahead or you just thought, how can I be different? What was the thought behind that as well? I'm a businessman who speaks.

A lot of it came out of real life experience. I was taking my kids through Disney one time and I noticed that at the conclusion of the ride they were showing my little twin sons who were born. In fact they were born one week before I won the world championship of public speaking. That's dates them. Yeah, and me. And they were born one week. And in fact my wife didn't go. I was even considering not attending because she had just given birth to twin boys on my behalf. I mean, I had social responsibilities, but I did go. But I learned something by years later, by taking my kids through Disney, they were using their pictures. And so I said, I got to think ahead. There's got to be ways I can incorporate this. So I went to the guy at Disney. I said, how did you do that? I never will forget his answer. He said magnificently. I said, that's the answer I was looking for. I want to know how you did it. I had this vision in my mind at that time of what if I went around and took pictures of the people that I'm about to speak, to develop them, and then use them in my speech? And the guy said to me, you can't do that. You just did it. Why can't I? He said, well, you have to have video and all that. No, no, it's got to be a simpler way. And he introduced me to a concept called instant development 35. This is before Zoom, before everything we know today, WebEx teams. You know, before any of that stuff, I was taking pictures of people in the audience, developing the film, manually cutting the film into 35 millimeter slides, and then packing them into two slide decks. Because I would typically take 160 photos or more, put them in two slide decks, and use a dissolve unit to go from deck A to deck B. Now all of this I'm setting as a backdrop for things I saw in the future that now any kid with a camera can go around and do what I was doing then. But this was before cameras. It was. It was, if you had a camera would be the size of this shift row behind me. You didn't have a camera that you could use. But I saw in my mind's eye what I wanted to end up doing. I wanted to have what I ended up doing. Terming and trademarking as a visual extravaganza. Now, that would require a lot of things. It would require things like a wireless microphone. It would require me to humble myself, to get out amongst the audience and to work a room before they even knew who I was. And then when they were serving the salad and getting ready for the meal or whatever, I would develop this film, pack these trays, and go onto the stage and thus the visual extravaganza. So that's sort of how I got into speaking. Now, I didn't use any of that to compete. I don't want to confuse that issue here. That was not part of Toastmasters in those days. In fact, one of the judges came up to me after I did win. If I was a judge today, I would have scratched you. He pounded on my chest. I said, wow, I'm glad you weren't judging. He says, you're supposed to. To stand behind that lectern. You're not supposed to move. I said, oh, I didn't know that. Well, there was no rule.

Yeah, yeah.

So I broke. I broke a rule that did not exist.

You're breaking the unwritten rules. Okay, wow, I'm sorry. I mean, you lose your thoughts. I just kept going. Go ahead.

I just wanted to, you know, because people are curious when people have been doing this for years. How did you actually get started? What's the story of Michael Ahn coming into becoming a speaker, whether it was Toastmasters or nsa?

Well, actually, a client of mine, he had purchased a sizable insurance policy for me. I was in the insurance business in those days. We had a restaurant. In those days. I had a real estate company. So we had several different businesses that I was involved with, and I was running these different businesses. And my client comes to me one day. He says, I'd like you to go to this Toastmasters meeting with me. I didn't know what Toastmasters was. I figured there's a bunch of old guys sitting around toasting one. And I. So I show up at this meeting and I look for every excuse. He says, I could shop my insurance. I said, well, when do we meet? I got my invitation to this meeting. Now I show up and he's doing his icebreaker. 29 and a half minutes later, he finished the icebreaker. Now, I didn't know what an icebreaker was. I didn't know what the rules were. So they. They lamb blasted this guy. They built him a new one, okay? And they were being kind. They knew the rules. I didn't know the rules. Me, like a fool, the big mouth fool that I am, I stood up and defended him. I said, it was a terrific speech. It was in depth. It went, it went. I couldn't think anything good to say, so I just said it went. And then I learned that he should have stopped in four to seven minutes. I said, oh, my God, what have I done? I screwed this up now. So I learned about Toastmasters kind of the hard way. And I've been a member since. In fact, I'm probably the only guy that's ever competed. And they'll probably disqualify me again. I never went to minimum number speeches again. And I hate to use that term in those days. But back then, everybody in our club competed in the speech contest. I just joined. I didn't think maybe there was a rule that you had to have four or six speeches under your belt or something like that. I didn't know they said compete. I competed every time I got done.

I had enough. But why did you stay, Michael? Why did you stay? I mean, you went to, hey, it's a sale. I got a sale coming with this guy. But you stayed. Why?

Well, I learned that this was bigger than about me. This whole process was about getting better. I was lecturing at Mass in those days. I was doing a lot of extracurricular speaking. I was about to run for political office, which I did in 1980. And so I was looking ahead to the other things that I wanted to do in my life. And I said, I got to prepare for some of those things better. I got to be better at what I do. I can't just show up and wing it. And I found a foundation in Toastmasters that gave me that. I still attend almost every week. I can't be that at all meetings because I do conduct some. Some WebEx seminars on Fridays for a client that I still work with. I try to make every meeting that I can and meet every week with them. So I learned a lot. Continue to learn a lot.

And how did you come to know the National Speakers Association?

Well, that day, I was on the platform first. The first year I went through was in Toronto, Ontario, and that's the year I got disqualified because I went eight seconds over my time limit. I had a standing ovation in the middle of the speech that lasted, you guessed it, eight seconds. How. How dumb can one person be that he knew the rules? And so this is where you let your. Your ego overcome you, and you pay a definite price for it. I did not. I didn't account for that. And at the end of the contest, they. And again, keep using those words. In those days, back then, when you were disqualified, you were disqualified, as I recall, if you had unoriginal material or had used previous speeches or if you under overtime. Maybe the same rules still exist.

Yeah.

Don't know. But I was overtime. And they were obligated to tell me not only that I was overtime, but how much. And I lived with it. So that happened in Toronto, came back a year later, and I wanted in Vancouver. I'm fond of telling people, you got to go through Toronto to get to Vancouver.

Nice.

You have to experience setback in order to have a comeback. I mean, that's part of the process. And so many people want to skip that process and think that they can end up on top. It doesn't work like that. It just doesn't work like that. So I learned more, by the way, from Toronto than I did Vancouver. But when you asked the question in Vancouver, sitting on the front row that day was a gentleman by the name of Cavett Robert, who was the 1942, if I'm not mistaken, winner of the Toastmasters International Speech Contest. And before I could get off the stage, Cabot was tackling me 100 miles an hour. You need to be in Phoenix next week. You're going to speak to the National Speakers association next week. Look, I'm a redneck from down south myself, but I had trouble understanding. He was talking so fast. I said, slow down. Who are you? What do you want here? And it was Cavin Robert. He was asking me to speak at nsa, like, the following week. Wow.

Wow.

That was how I got introduced to nsa. It would literally happen that quick. Wow.

And for those of you listening who don't know, Cavett Robert was the founder of the National Speakers Association.

Wow.

I did not know that.

Wow. He tackled you. Yes. And it was. I verified it was 42. That's correct. 1942. And he is the creator of the. I mean, the founder of nsa. And he tackled you. Next week. So please continue quickly, Michael. So you're being told to come and speak to the NSA a week later, and you have no clue what's going on, but you said yes because.

Well, for a couple of reasons. One, I was inspired by the fact that one person from Toastmasters that made a mark, that truly made a mark for Toastmasters was someone named H.M. blanchard. Now, some of the people out there listening won't know who H.M. blanchard was. She joined Toastmasters before they admitted men. Yes.

Yes.

This was back before they admitted men. So she joined AS H. Blanchard and later became the first president of Toastmasters International. The first female president of Toastmasters, Helen Blanchard. I was inspired by Helen. And I learned. I learned about speaking from Toastmasters. I learned about the business Speaking Speakers Association. One is entirely about building the business. The other is, I think, focus more on building your ability to speak. But I always maintain my businesses and other things that I did, really, for a couple of reasons. There was a great baseball pitcher years ago. His name was Dizzy Dean.

Busy Dean.

Yeah, Busy Dean. He had a colloquialism that he used. He said, when you done done it, it ain't bragging. And I was learning from the people who were hiring me. They weren't hiring me because I won a world championship. They weren't hiring me because of some awards that I had received. They were hiring me because I was doing the very things that I was talking about. I was managing a company. I was building a sales force. I was running businesses. I was writing every week. I was doing the things that they were looking for, for their people. And if you're looking to advance yourself simply on. On the laurels of awards, there's plenty of people out of there out there with lots of stuff hanging on the wall. They can go in any direction. Now, Michael Path first.

Thank you. May I paraphrase your quote and watch Darren's response to this? You said people don't hire you because you want a trophy. That's a big pet peeve of Darren. He'll tell you, you want a trophy, go buy one.

And he says, that's true. The year after I won, the year after I won in 78 again, our good friend Terry McCann found out that my office building had burned down, and the trophy managed to survive. But instead of it looking like Cabot, you know the Cabot, it had kind of a droopy hand to sort of looked like. It looked like it was drunk or something. And I sent Terry McCann a picture of her, and I showed up. I had to speak that next year for the convention. Terry, I'm the only guy that's ever gotten two trophies. I got one that burned and one that's still there. So you know where they all are? In a warehouse somewhere. I don't have a place to put them. My wife says, you're not bringing that stuff here. I don't know. You find your way.

And, Michael, one of the things we try to focus on is how to be unique, unforgettable. So you have seen so many speakers. So two questions. First question is just what are some of the common mistakes that you see other speakers making?

Well, there's a lot of different things, but I think they don't. They've not truly mastered the craft of speaking yet. They joined the wrong organization when they joined nsa. They should have joined Toastmasters because they never learned about the art of speaking. And that's. That's critical because you can put, as the old saying goes, lipstick on a pig, you still got a pig. Period.

Preach it, brother.

I don't care how. Yeah, you, you, you. That's the way it is. So. And a major issue that I've always had problems with with Toastmasters now is they've done a terrific job over the years of teaching people how to say nothing. Well, let me repeat that. They've done a terrific job of teaching people how to say nothing. Well, and I take umbrage with that. I wish we could somehow include content, or at least the quality of content in our evaluations. And that's where I part company with some of the evaluations that go on. Because, unfortunately, I think people are looking not so much for help. They're looking for you to sit there and applaud them. Well, you want a friend? Buy a dog. He'll sit there. He'll do all the applauding you want to do. You don't need a dog. You need somebody who's gonna help you get better at what you do. And that's why I hate doing evaluations. Cause they're not looking for an evaluation. They're looking for affirmation. And I will. I have. I don't. I don't. That's why I don't coach. I don't do what you guys do. And part company. A part company with Toastmasters on that. Because I think at some point, what you say is as important as how you say it. And that, to me, is critical. And that's why your background, who you are, and how you got here is critical to the process.

Well, no, I'm going to jump on this real quick, and I'm going to be the contrarian here. I'm going to put Alan Weiss in terms of the ovations. I've noticed, though, at the National Speakers association, everybody gets a standing ovation. What are your thoughts on that? Darren's holding his head. For those who can't see this, he's holding his head in his hands. Oh, my gosh. What are your thoughts on that? Michael, since you're a straight shooter, just.

Hit me with that.

What do you think?

Well, it says more about the audience than it does the speaker. It does. It says more about the audience than it does the speaker. I think some of the best feedback you'll ever get is dead silence. I've never had that. But I think that I've seen speakers that have made profound points and nothing followed but dead silence. And it took a moment for me to realize that that is a form of an ovation. That's in a form of affirmation. There's. I mean, look at. If you go to church, the priest doesn't get a standing oval. Every now and then, he throws a plug in for the Green Bay packers and he gets the fact of the matter is he. There's no applause. There's no applause at a eulogy. I've done dozens of those over the years. It is what it is. There are appropriate points for that, but the ovation says more about the audience than it does the speaker.

Except, Darren, when somebody's doing a reading, right, for a scripture and you applaud.

Give her a hand. Give her a hand. Let's not talk about my mistakes again. What is appropriate, though? That is the question. When is something appropriate? If we are driven only by applause, then we'll get driven out of this business real quickly. And if you were in it for the long haul, I think you have to. Your roots need to be sound and ground, grounded in reality. And as Dizzy Dean again said, when you're done, done, it ain't bragging. It's okay to refer to those things that are part of your life. I use stories about my children to make the points that I want to make. I use stories now about my grandchildren. And those are the things that are important to me in my life, and I'll always find a way to incorporate them in with it.

Love those mistakes. Thanks for taking us to church. PASTOR ON Love that.

Love that. Yes.

What do you think are some of the essentials or thought process to be unforgettable? So we talked about the mistakes. What do you think the things that people need in order to be unforgettable?

I think we first and foremost need to be a master storyteller. Our ability to communicate, if they didn't need the storytelling concepts that fit into what we do that funneled down to where we want our audience to eventually be, then you could mail them a white paper, for Pete's sake. They don't need you there. Our job is to turn these word pictures into stories. And. And as the great Bill Gove said years ago, a Golden Gavel winner and a friend of all of ours in nsa, he used what he called the vignette method of building a speech. And that is, he would build a small, encapsulated story on top of another story, on top of another story until it took him where he wanted to go. Many times, tying those stories to an acronym, say, like team or like whatever you might be speaking on in that particular venue that you're speaking. But he always found ways to put the hooks in there, and he used the hook of the story to make his point. And that's why I think being a good storyteller is absolutely critical to your success, whether it's a platform of 20,000 or two people. You got to be a good storyteller. I teach, I taught my salespeople in the insurance business. Over the year I actually moved from South Carolina, where I originally lived, to Florida because I got tired of going there. It seemed like there weren't many speeches being held in, you know, Lexington, South Carolina. So every week I was finding myself on an airplane in Florida. I went home one day and told my wife to speak, said we're moving. I said, we're moving to Florida. I said, I'm tired of going there. Well, I had an insurance practice and you know, you just don't up and move your practice like that. I had to build a new insurance business in Florida. So at one time we had 22 offices here in Florida and we built a very successful practice. And which brings me to another point that I think speakers need to pay attention to. And this is about the speaking side of the business. Nobody's going to take care of your retirement. But you hear me on this, people, I had people, good friends of mine over the years tell me, why don't you just quit all this other stuff and concentrate on speaking? All that other stuff is the reason why I speak. I don't have the right to go on a platform and tell somebody how to sell something if I haven't taught or sold something myself. What gives you the right? Nobody has that right. So you earn that privilege by what you do and you bring those experiences into your world. Then you got something that you can build on. And so being able to tell those stories are critical to your success. But you gotta have good facts and they gotta be contemporary. They gotta be things that people can relate to. And I find that family is the easiest way to do that. Your family will keep you humble. Trust me, honest, they'll keep you humble. Your kids will tell you things that your worst critics won't say to you.

That's true, that's true.

Wow, Loving this Mark. I think we need an alleluia, an amen after that.

Well, hold your second question, Darren. I want to follow up really quickly because Michael, you were so passionate. Those who are listening to audio, you can't see Michael on's passion when he.

Says what gives you the right?

So Michael, I would venture to say in the last 45 plus years there have been individuals who say, Michael, I want to do what you do. I want to be a speaker. And they're all googly eyed and excited. What do you tell that eager young person, the emerging speaker who says, oh, csp, cpae, World champion. Oh, great guru, teach me.

First of all, the first word out of my mouth is usually, no, I don't do that. There are people like you guys that do that. Okay, God bless you. You have my blessings. Go forth. I don't do that. But some people don't take no for an answer either. I've learned that the hard way. The first thing I require anybody to do before I work with them or help them, you have to join Toastmasters. That's the first thing you've got to do. And if you're not willing to do that, if you're not willing to make that investment, I'm not willing to take any of my time or any make any effort to do anything. I don't do coaching and I don't. I just. I've done what we refer to in my world as mentoring because I've been a part of the MDRT Million Dollar Roundtable Mentoring program where I've mentored other salespeople. I've mentored other managers through gamma, the General Agents and Managers association at the LAMP conferences. These are all acronyms and terms in the insurance industry. And I do work in that industry. But I give back freely because I get more out of giving than I do receiving any kind of compensation. You know, it's about accountability. And most people don't want to accept that issue is being accountable for who they are and what they say. So that's the problem we have in this country today. It's a blame game. Everybody wants to blame this administration or that administration or this guy caused this or that guy. Come on, take ownership of the stuff of Pete Sakes. I just don't understand where our political leaders are coming from. That's why we have the divides that we have in this country. Got to start accepting accountability of them. It starts with us, you and me and the people around us.

Well, thankfully I have Darren Lacroix to hold me accountable, even though I was coaching him 21 years ago. But you said something else. You said you get more out of giving because you were mentoring and you're giving and you're sharing and we talk about the pursuit of excellence being unforgettable. And I don't recall asking any other person this, Michael, but how do you see a servant attitude, a giving attitude, as being helpful for someone being unforgettable as a presenter?

Well, that's what got me into using photography in my presentations early on because it was about the audience, it was not about me. And I would. I would take these pictures of people and they wouldn't know who I. They just call me some obnoxious guy running around here with a town taking pictures of people. And they didn't know who I was. And then moments later, I'm standing on the platform giving the speech. And then at the end of my speech, I would say, now, ladies and gentlemen, stop, look, listen and enjoy as I share this final gift of love from me to you. And the lights go down. And early in those days, I would have Barbra Streisand singing the Way We Were. Now, I was in violation of the law right there and didn't even know it. And a buddy of mine. Buddy of mine, Al McCrea from the National Speakers association came up to me one day. And you all know Al. Yep. Yes. It didn't happen exactly like this, but I've reframed it because it sounds better the way I'm going to tell it. Al said to me, has the lawsuit arrived yet? And I'm thinking to myself, to which of the many lawsuits do you prefer? He says, well, the one. The one from Barbra Streisand for using her music. I said, no, Barbara hasn't called yet. Tell me more. I knew he was driving at something. He says, you know, you're using music without her permission. I need her permission. I said, turn on the radio. And I knew this. You know how I knew it? Owned a restaurant. I knew about bmi. I knew about the laws regarding this because we. We had a judicial box in the restaurant. We had live music that was used there. I knew that. And we paid fees for that. I just didn't apply it to the world that we were in. I said. So I went down. I said, how am I going to solve this problem? This is. Well, you could get Barbara's permission. Well, I was about to do a speech out in San Francisco, I think it was, and I called Tony Bennett's office. I said, I'd like to have permission and, like, know what the fee would be using. I Left My Heart in San Francisco. And the guy said, 750. Well, back in those days, my speaking fee was about 750s. So I said, no. I said, I don't want to buy it. I want to rent it. He said, 750,000. Okay. I got a new problem here. Oh, wow. I ain't gonna use that song. So I went back to Al. I said, okay, that's not gonna work that light. He says, well, you could have the meeting planner license the meeting. I said, well, that's adding cost to them so that I can add something to my. I said, it's not entirely fair. He said, or. Or you could have your own music written. I said, where in the am I going to get that done? Al said, I thought you'd never ask me. I'm not the brightest light on the string. All right, I get that. It took me a while to figure out, but I had Al write me some. He wrote me a song titled the Winner Is yous Melanie Tunney. It was a Nashville voice, and we paid Melanie Tunney to play and to sing that song. And I use it to close all my presentations all week. Those years back in the 35 millimeter slide days, when I was going using double and triple dissolved units because I had so many pictures going through so many trays. Now, today, you don't have that problem with, you know, with the technology that we have today. But back in those days, I had a lot of work to do before I actually got to the speech. And so I was looking for ways to give something back in addition. And I found something that nobody else was doing. Yeah, Disney was doing it, but in their way. But I literally stole the idea from them. And I said, this is something I can work with. I'm going to figure it out. And I did. And I must have taught 100 speakers how to do that. And every single one of them to the last one told me, that's too much work. I ain't going through all of that to give a speech. Wow. So I had pretty much that arena to myself. I would have people that would hire me to literally come in and take pictures and produce the visual extravaganza and not say a word to them. That happened hundreds of times in my career. So I'd spend the whole week in Hawaii taking pictures of people, and I would create these visual extravaganzas, and we would open the next day's program with the pictures from the previous day. And that led me to Microsoft Publisher. Well, if it will fit into a slide, it'll fit into a newsletter. So I'd take those same pictures, and I would take Microsoft Publisher. And it used to be something else. It was a bear to use back in those days. I can't even remember the technology, but I would create a newsletter, which we would slide under the door that night. So they got up the next day. There were the pictures of them playing golf the day before. There were the pictures of them in the. The meetings. So I took it to a new level. I created Visual Newspaper. I took it to still another level where we would Roast people. You know, you always go to these meetings and the outgoing meeting person. So we use visual roast. And how would I do it? I would get people to do stupid things. I would get a couple of guys who, with all due respect to the, to the heads of hair here. I would get the two bald headed guys in the room. I would have them sit side by side. Now you get in the picture. It's like a Dolly Parton look alike contest here. And I would have, I would have the best looking woman I could find in the room bend over to kiss these guys on the top of the head. Okay? Now if, if, if, if I was lucky enough to have a bald headed ex CEO who was going out that we were gonna roast, all the better. Or if they had a head full of hair, didn't make any difference, I'd have them do something silly like there'd be a plant over in the corner. I'd say, let's, let's pretend this is my plant, this light here, that plant over in the corner. And I would say to them, here's what I want you to do. Go to the corner. They stand like that in front of the lamp. Don't do anything. Just stand like that. Click and take the picture. Now you and I know what I was setting up. There was a laughing moment, but we're having a laughing moment. I guess you could say it was in a crusty sort of backdoor sort of way, but it was a roast. It was a roast. And so we would create things like that. Take that and run with it in directions. And I thought to myself, well, I learned from so many different people over the years. I would literally steal their concepts, but I never tried to steal their idea. I'll give you an example. The great Dennis Waitley, cpae. I worked with him and he was a speaker at the Million Dollar Roundtable, which I was a member of and attended for many, many years. And he started out his presentation one time with a poem. And I don't even know what the poem said, but I do remember the last couple of lines. And he said, there's no other place I'd rather be than right here with you at mdrt. I said, I should have thought of that. I was so angry that I hadn't thought of that before. So I went back to my buddy Al McCree. I said, I don't want to steal his idea. I can write a poem, but I want to steal the concept. So Al, as Al would do, he, he says, well, Mike, you got to be creative first. Of all you. I said, I want music. Secondly, I want to sing. Thirdly, I want people from the audience to come up with the stage and join me. So he. He wrote me an introduction that is a generic singing introduction I can use anywhere in any city, anywhere, to any audience anywhere in the world. And here it is. I think here it is. I remember was to the tune of I've been working on the railroad. I would like to give a welcome here to all of you in beautiful Minneapolis where the skies are always were supposed to be blue. Fill in the blank. Here IBM is assembled to meet. And here IBM here at&t here, Verizon here, whoever. Doesn't make any difference. Here they are assembled to meet and to network. Hoping that the opening speaker. Hoping that the closing speaker. Hoping that the luncheon speaker. Fill in the blank. Won't sound like a jerk. And they fill in the last word. Now, I would get people to come out of the audience. I would give them little kazoos that had my 800 number on them, by the way, always marketing. And I had to have them to sing. I've been working on the Railroad. Now why do we use I've been working on the railroad. First of all, it is what is. Is in what is known as the.

Eminent domain public domain, right?

Library music. Basically, you can. You can use it without fear of getting sued, right?

Public domain.

So I went with. I've been working on the railroad. Because it's been around forever and forever. And unlike Happy Birthday, nobody owned it. What I could tell and still hasn't. And so I would bring people out of the audience and it didn't. No matter. It made no difference whether they knew how to use a kazoo or not. I'd have to explain to some of them, put the big end in your mouth, not the other end, that people would blow it and nothing but air. That made it even better. The more they screwed it up, the better it was. And I immediately had the audience in my hand.

That's awesome. That's connection.

All I want out of life. Hear me on this. All I want out of life is an unfair advantage. I'm looking for that constantly. And I will steal it. I will beg, borrow and pilfer it. I'll get it in any way I can. And I'll legitimately try to pay homage to the person that gave it to me, as I just did with Al McCree, as I just did with Dennis Waitley. As I just. I will give them credit the first time around. And the second time, as I'LL say, someone's once said, and the third time, you know how that goes as a hoax. You know, we. We take ownership of it, but what we do is we create it in our own vernacular, in our own way. We.

We say adapt and model. You take the idea and adapt and model it to your situation.

Boom.

So, Michael, I want to honor your time. Mark, if you want to put the keepers together, that would be awesome. So, last question, Michael, as we wrap this up, if someone wants to reach out to you and connect with you, where would they go? How would they find?

MICHAEL ON well, just go to online.com a u n l I n e dot com. There are thousands of articles that I've written over the years. There, there are videos. There's different stuff there. I'm basically retired. And that was a point I wanted to make earlier when I said something about don't expect anybody to take care of your retirement but you.

You.

I've seen too many people, some who I've co authored books with that are searching for employment right now because they didn't prepare for their retirement, and nobody's going to take care of you. But you. And I had all these other business interests for a reason. I was building tensions so that I could have the luxury of spending time, as I did yesterday, with my grandchildren.

Nice.

And never having to worry about that. So I think that's important for business people to be accountable in that regard. Nobody's going to take care of you but you. Yep.

All right, Mark, what do we got for keepers here, man?

I got a lot. Well, I want to blow through some of these. Find a way to differentiate yourself. Right. We are business people who speak, not just speakers. Always be creative and always think ahead. Break unwritten rules and learn the art of speaking. And then the business of speaking, you can't just show up and wing it. Right. You have to experience setback to have a comeback.

And what you say is even more.

Important than how you say it. Remember, if we are driven by applause, I'll say it again. If we are driven by applause, we'll be driven out of this business. Be a master storyteller. Make your stories relatable and tell family stories. Remember, be creative, because it's always about your audience. And if you're MICHAEL ON Give them a visual extravaganza.

Nice.

MICHAEL ON thank you for giving back to us and helping our audience. You are a legend. We are fans of yours. Thanks for. For finally getting Toastmasters to get out from behind the lectern. I love that. Love that. Thank you for joining us. Check out onlineaunline.com Mark Brown take us home.

Michael Again, a true pleasure and I will always remember one thing you told us. You said, think ahead, friends. If we think ahead, if we are creative, I guarantee you will be unforgettable. See you next week.

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