Ep. 9 The Story Behind Jason Hewlett's Promise

All right, Mark. Hey. I don't know who is more pumped to have our super unbelievable, promise filled, legendary leader guest on Today with us. Mark, how you feeling about this?

I am rarely at a loss for words, Darren, but our guest today has surprised me, has shocked me, has thrilled me, has brought me to tears at different points in my life, and I can't wait to unleash this powerhouse on our friends today.

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.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the one, the only, Jason Hewlett.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Wonderful to be here with you today. I appreciate you having me, my friend. That's not my real voice. How you doing.

Jason? Welcome, welcome, welcome. And I have seen you, I have heard you. I've been amazed by you. You epitomize what we stand for. That's delivering unforgettable presentations in the nsa, the national speakers. You have done it all. You're certified, speaking, professional CSP like us. You're cpae. You are hall of fame, and you not only own it, you live it. And beyond all of this, friends, Jason's a pretty cool, nice, okay guy as well. And I'm curious, off the bat, Jason Hewlett, you're known for being the man who is entertaining. You're a singer. You're a performer. You can bring corporate, stuffy CEOs and execs on stage to dance with you, and you do the absolute best Jurassic Park T. Rex impersonation on the planet. And I'm curious about one thing. How in the world did you even get started doing all of this, Jason?

Well, thank you. First of all, you guys give me way too much credit, too many accolades. The truth is, I am just lucky to make a living doing this. I found out when I was a kid that I could impersonate voices, do funny faces, and make it so that people were laughing a lot. And my first job where I actually got paid consistently was in 2001. I got a job at the Las Vegas Legends in Concert, which is a group of impersonators. So if you think of guys that look, sound, and act like Elvis Presley, that's where they want to work is because it's the best of the best. And I got to be. For the Legends in concert, your listeners will be wondering, who could he have been? Well, I was two characters. I would come on stage first as Ricky Martin, the bun bun shaker upside inside out, living la vida loca. You know, remember that song? And I would have to look like him, sing like him, dance like him, wear the same clothes as him. And women were throwing room keys at me on stage. Now I would come back to the stage four acts later, after my peers who were doing anywhere from the four tops to Madonna, Tina Turner to Elvis, I would come back on stage completely transformed as Elton John. And I would do the 70s version of Elton and then transform in front of their very eyes to the 90s version of Elton John. And so people were floored when they would find out that I was Ricky Martin and Elton John. Because if you think about it, they look nothing alike, they sound nothing alike, they move nothing alike. And I realized very early on that I had the gift of being able to imitate, mimic and impersonate a lot of people. So after I worked with Legends for about a year and a half, then I thought, there's way more I can do. So I started to create a one man show. And I left the Legends, put together my one man act of 100 musical impressions or more. And I did comedy music impressions, knockout show for years. That's what I did for a long time. And that's what eventually led me into becoming the speaker that I am. And we'll talk more about how that happened if you'd like.

Yeah, how did that transition happen? How did you go from performer, stage performer to oh, here's he's got something to say. Let's hear what he thinks.

That was an interesting one because I'm doing a Christmas party holiday show for a corporate event in my home state. And the client came up after and said, that was so entertaining. But we noticed, first of all, you did nothing inappropriate. It was all family friendly and G rated. Congratulations. We were laughing for an hour. I said, oh good, that's my mission, is to make sure that it's always clean. And then they said, but you know, while you were talking, I was inspired by your leadership message. I said, really? I said, that's where I've been wanting to go with this for a long time. They said, what if we had you back and come and train our leaders how to be better leaders, how to find their voice, how to discover their signature moves. So the next thing I know, I'm writing a book called Signature Moves. I'm doing this leadership clock. And you guys, I wish I could say it happened overnight. This has been over a decade in the making.

We're already jealous of you, so thank.

God it didn't happen overnight.

Right now, I'm sorry, our guest has to go.

A lot of people say, where did he come from? We thought he was the entertainer. Now he thinks he's the speaker guy. No, this has been a decade in the making, or more. It's only been in the last three years that I committed my website fully to being the keynote presenter through mixes the show material, the best of it, with the best of a powerful leadership message.

And you see, Jason, that's part of what makes you so unforgettable. You're able to combine the entertainment value, the singing, the dancing you get, as I said earlier, you get corporate CEOs, executives to come on the stage with you when they're dancing. I mean, who does that? And that's pretty unforgettable because now you've given them the material, you've given them the information, but you've also given them the Jason Hewlett experience. And that's really pretty cool. And you said something earlier. You said you're commended for delivering a G rated family friendly program. Why was that so significant? At a time were you the only guy doing that?

What happened in 2004, after my career had been on its way for three years? I'm sitting across the table from a casino owner in Las Vegas, a billionaire. And he and his team are offering my wife and I, before we had children, the opportunity to be produced and managed and have my own show. And I was so excited to have my dream come true. But then I realized as I'm reading the contract, we're having a conversation. The production would include changing everything that I had stood for as a clean, G rated, family friendly act. They said, all you have to do is just do what you do with your voice and your talent and just perform what we tell you. We'll mentor you, we'll manage you. We'll figure it out for you. Just do what we say. And this was right when Las Vegas went from 1990s, let's be family friendly attempt to now 2003, they went into the what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas slogan. And so they wanted me to fit into their mold. But I had a promise that I had made many years earlier that I said, I'll always do it family friendly. And we could not Compromise. So I left that on the table and I said, I'm out of here. And I turned my back on that opportunity, which I don't know very many people have ever done anything like that or been willing to. And so within my show that I was doing the next few years as a corporate one man show after dinner entertainer, I would stand up and I would, I would literally infuse this message because I think the greatest shows that we've ever seen are obviously entertaining, they're emotional, they're inspiring. But there's always a message that comes with a great entertainer. They share their philosophy or they challenge you to do something. And at the very end of every show I would say we all have a gift. We all have something that makes us unique. I call it our signature moves. And then I would close with all of my comedy of my face and my things that I can do that nobody else can do. And I said, are you sharing your gift with the world that only you can do? And for some reason the leader of that organization thought that's a message we need to have infused in our leaders lives. And you guys, that was the beginning of me saying this is something I could create and still do a show as a speaker. How cool is that?

And the fact that it would be clean, which is in line with your self promise, that's beautiful. It's beautiful for corporate and it's rare because it's rare that people who are at your performance level and for everyone who's listening. Jason is not your average performer.

No, no, no.

Are you at nsa? Like my mind is blown. I noticed you're growing the beard back. That's amazing. The way you did Elton. I was just blown away. So when Mark said Jason agreed to do the podcast, I was like, really?

That's so cool.

And partially for our listeners and partially because selfishly I want to know, I want to learn from you as to how do you take your stories. And I know one of your things is that you just mentioned is your signature move and that's one of the things that you speak about. How do you teach people that to find? Well, first let's why the signature move? Why is that important? Then we'll talk about how to find that.

Oh, cool. Yeah. Well, thank you first of all for the compliments about the national speakers performance. That was quite fun. And to shave the beard in order to commit to the Elton John bit, that was a fun way to show that we can all make a promise to our client to deliver something extraordinary and memorable and unforgettable and that's what we tried to do with that. But when it comes to understanding your signature moves and why it's important, I'd like you to think about the greatest performers you've ever seen. I mean, whether it's somebody that stands up on a stage and does their hit songs or doesn't, you're disappointed if they don't sing those hits. They've broken a promise to you as a performer. You came to hear them sing those songs or do that dance move or even wear that outfit and look that way. And so what are the signature moves that you're known for? That's what I speak about. And I say to a leader, I say, we're all performers. We're all based on performance. If we don't believe it, well, look at your paycheck and then look at your performance evaluations. And in actuality, a lot of leaders cannot tell you what their signature moves are. They cannot identify what it is that makes them unique and effective as the leader that they have become. And so that's what's fun about me standing up on a stage and saying, here are some performers whose signature moves you're familiar with. And they'll start with the Bee Gees, and they'll turn on the music, and they're moving their fingers up in the air, and I'm doing this voice, and they're laughing. And I said, you guys knew the signature moves of the VGs. You expected when you heard that music to point your finger in the air. You expected me to hit that. That's their signature move. You have the same type of things as a leader. And then I say, there's a process to discovering this, because it's very hard to point it out for ourselves. So let's talk about the process. It's very simple. Identify, clarify, magnify. That's the whole message. I said, if you can figure out through identifying your gifts and then clarifying it with others, what they deem your signature moves to be, once you've identified it and clarified it, now you magnify that to your world. You own it. You leverage that which makes you who you are. That's your promise to deliver to the world, and that's the message. Wow. Wow.

Real quickly, I know that we heard you, but I'm hoping our listeners heard you. We all have a signature move, and if we understand that our signature moves make us who we are, that's what helps us to become unforgettable. Way back to episode two, Darren, we had Mike Rayburn on. And Jason, you know Mike really well, and the hologram, and he was using what was his signature move. He found his gift, his talent, and he is using that now to transform people all over the world as you are. And I think a theme is developing here, Darren, is emerging that for us to be unforgettable, one of the keys is to identify our signature move, find out who we are, and give that to the world. You want to be unforgettable friends for being who you are, not always being what somebody else thinks you should be, or being somebody else who you like. Find your voice and reveal that to the world, and you, too, can be unforgettable. Thanks so much for that pearl of wisdom. It's a nugget. It's a keeper right there from Jason Hewlett.

And I think it's also that for speakers, if they don't have a performance background or something, that does not stand out in other arts, let's say your signature story. So we've got that story that we're known for, and I love it. I call it, like the elbow factor. When I went to watch my comedy mentor and I bring other people to see him, it would. I know the routine was coming. I would like elbow. I'm like, you're going to love this. You're going to love this. And even though I heard it 100 times before, I wanted to hear it again. Jason, when you take the stage, I don't care if you did everything the same way. I would be like, the guys got it. Like, I love it every time. And going back to your identify, clarify and magnify. Clarifying. We've got to ask those people around us, those people who know us, because sometimes we're unaware. We're oblivious to what really makes us stand out. And what I really love, Jason, is the magnify. Because once you find it, you can't hide it. You can't just use it. You've got to blow it up. You've got to use it as a differentiator. So, for example, Mark, when we talked in the past about my championship speech, and when Dave Fitzgerald said, darren, stop trying to find that story that launches your career and instead take that story you already have and make it so good someone will pay to hear them. And that just wasn't on my radar screen, I just thought, here's a story. I tweak it a little, but I didn't realize here's a story. All right, Go deeper. Get a coach, get some advice. Find a way to make it Unforgettable.

And, Jason, when you say Magnify, that to me, I'm hearing, dude, put the work in. Do what you have to do to make sure what you deliver is so good, the audience walks away with value. Was that one of the first thoughts in your mind when the idea of Magnify came to you? How did you arrive at the decision to make sure the audience gets the Magnify piece of your message?

Yeah, that's very cool, and thank you, guys, for all that you're saying about it. The Magnify comes from this place of what is our promise to our audience every time we take that stage? How much work have we put in? Do we actually own and leverage that which makes us unique? You see, a lot of speakers are just like performers are just like athletes or just like anyone, even a child to a parent. I mean, I can watch a kid on my street out front walking down the sidewalk, and I can say, I know who his parents are because of the way he walks or the way he talks or the way he looks. And so in what way are we, as speakers, also imitating others just naturally that we are inspired by? I know as a child, I used to listen to Zig Ziglar, and then I would listen to Les Brown, and then I would read Napoleon Hill and Ogman Dino. Now this stuff starts to become the way that I deliver my speaking. Anyway. Martin Luther King. How can I have that pentameter as I speak? There's a rhythm to it. There's a poetry. There's a beauty in it. And I begin to imitate that myself. And then I hear music that I connect with. Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Matt King, Cole, you name it. These started to help me realize everyone has their voice. Now, how can I understand my voice? The better I became at imitating others? Well, really, the more magnificent it became to realize that I could be swallowed up in the ability to imitate everyone else and never discover me. Or can it help drive me to realize how I can add to what I've learned and create my own signature voice, stories, moves, what, Whatever you want to call it. I refer to it as the signature move. But, yeah, it is in your storytelling. It's in your ability to perform, to. To give everything to your audience. And this is hours upon hours. Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours has nothing on this. I mean, hey, thank him for creating that concept, but that's just your foot in the door. I mean, this is 30, 40,000 hours worth of living, breathing, dreaming, pushing, trying, experimenting, failing on stage often in order to push so far that you go, oh, I guess that story didn't work. How can I tweak it? Because I'm smart enough. I recorded my performance every single time I'm on stage. And so how do we continually self identify, apply to our ability? Magnifying is all of those things. And our promise is to make sure to magnify that to. The three elements which I call the promise elements are the audience, the family, and the one. So we all have an audience. That's our client. If we're a speaker, it's the actual people in front of us. If we're a speaker as well, we're also on social media or on marketing. That's our audience. Are we congruent on and off stage? And then the next, the next element is our family. Family is the people you work with or the people at home. It's kind of a twofold. And then the final promise is the one. The one is yourself. What's your promise to you? And that's where magnify really comes in. A lot of people hide who they really are in order to conform to what society or the client thinks they need from them. Truth is, if we're true to ourselves, if we're honest with ourselves, we're sharing and magnifying our promise in a way that people go, wow, I need to commit to my promise as well. Wow.

Now I have two questions. I know Darren's also got questions, but I got to ask two real quick. You mentioned the influence of Les Brown, who we both know personally. Zig Ziglar, the late, great Zig Ziglar and so on all had influence on you. But did you have any personal mentors, those who spoke into your life, offered you guidance and wisdom to help you to become the man who has kept these promises and was made these great unforgettable presentations. Who were your personal mentors? Jason?

Oh, that's very kind of you to ask. I was born of goodly parents. My mother, my father. Spiritual people saw things in me that even the teachers at school were watching and going, this kid is failing classes. We need to hold him back. Parents who said, hey, we'll stay after class and help him out. My dad who handed me the books, Power of positive thinking. Greatest salesman in the world as a man thinketh. He said, figure out these books by people like Stephen Covey or Napoleon Hill and you will succeed. And so first it began with good parents. And I'm so grateful for that eventually became good teachers. That clarified for me What I had already identified. And so they clarified, you're a good singer, you're a performer, you're a great speaker. And then eventually became coaches, people that became my mentors in my life. Coach Tony Engel, who's now a speaker and someone I'm mentoring back after he helped me identify and clarify my talents. How does this go full circle? It's incredible. He's now a retired national championship winning basketball coach who once recruited me, and I'm now teaching him more about the business because he's one of the best I've ever heard. Chris Paulus, he's almost 90 years old. You've never heard of him, but he's my Yoda. He's never charged me a penny to coach and mentor me. All he asked, when I say, how can I repay you? He says, just pay it forward, do it for someone else. These are the people that have changed and inspired my life, man.

I'm not sure what else to say here. I know Darren's got a question for you. I'm just drinking that in because you said you were mentored by someone who you also mentor. And unbeknownst to many people, Darren and I have a similar relationship because 18 years ago, I was Darren's coach when he was competing in the Toastmaster speech contest, which he eventually won, and he'd been doing his keynotes on the side as well as doing other business things. And over the last 18 years, he's mentoring me on the business side. And this podcast was his baby that I felt so privileged to be a part of. So we understand that relationship, and we hope our listeners get the fact that you can be mentored by someone else. But with your skill set, with your expertise, with your voice, with your signature moves, you can then turn around and help them also to improve an area of their lives. And I thank you also for putting family first with your parents, your mom and dad. That is so powerful and so special, and you have kept so many great promises. I know Darren has a question for you, so I'll let Darren go ahead. I've got one more to ask before we're done. Go ahead, Darren.

Oh, my gosh. Before we're done. You think I'm, like, loving this.

I'm stunned.

And I want everyone to hear. This is something that I teach, but I want you to hear that Jason is at a whole nother level from me, but he said he records himself every time. And I know you guys who've heard from me before, you know, that's how I went from Nothing to at least being able to hold my own on stage. And it's painful to listen to those recordings. Jason, what would you recommend in terms of A, do you think every single person, if they're serious, they need to record? And then B, what's advice when you're actually listening to that painful voice of your own?

Well, first of all, good job for you guys mentoring each other. My friend Dave Crenshaw, I think he got this term from his friend David Rendall, who called it friend touring. So you guys have been friend tours. I love that terminology. But when it comes to recording, yeah, if you're serious about anything, whether it's becoming an athlete that's better at their performance or even on a sales call, you're being recorded. And the people that make any kind of improvement record their golf swing and watch it. They record their free throw and see why it won't go in. If you have a coach, that's what they make you do. If you're really into this business and want to make it, you must record yourself. Not only for the practice of going back and listening, but what if you say something in a way you've never said it and it gets such a response that you go back in your thought process during the debrief with yourself on the airplane and you go, dang, I said that story a different way. It got such a bit of response. I wish I had recorded that. That's how I fell into recording everything. And then the other reason is, what if you wanted to have it transcribed? Maybe it becomes your book or your training. There are all kinds of reasons to do it while you're listening to it. However, there has to be a fine balance between the critic in yourself and hating everything you say, as well as the self confidence or cockiness in yourself to say, I'm the best. This is delicious. Every part of it cannot be changed. And so you need to find a fine balance between what is actually delivering goodness and authenticity and impact for this audience versus just, do I look good? Do I sound good? Am I doing this for me? That's where I have transformed my speaking, as it will be called, not just entertaining. My speaking went from, I need a laugh every minute because that's what I was used to as an entertainer doing after dinner shows. It went from I need to laugh every minute as a speaker to now saying, I think when I'm listening to myself, they're actually thinking and they're listening and they're responding with head nods or they're responding with writing notes Down. It's okay if there's silence in the audience. That took me quite a while to accept, because going from entertainer who needs applause, laughs, cheers, high fives, to speaker, who is now creating a pensive, pondering, philosophical moment for a person in the rhythm and even the hypnosis of a really well delivered speech, you need to get them into that pattern so they can accept it in their own mind, chew on it and receive it. And so that's why recording and listening, I do all of them. I record it on my phone, I record it on a video camera. That's a real pain in my side. Every time I have to set that thing up and take it down, it takes up most of my carry on. I don't pack anything more than a carry on. But I'm so committed to this practice that it's really worked for me. And hey, also, it's nice to have in case I want to make a new promotional video or I want to make a new speech and I throw in a new story. And then I say, well, yeah, I have this new thing for an old client. And they go, well, what's your new thing? I say, well, here's a snippet from a gig I did the other day with my own camera. And they're like, oh, you already have delivered it. Okay, thank you. You're hired.

I know you probably didn't experience this at the beginning of your career, but at the beginning of my career, when I recorded it, I had a lot of contemplative silence in my doing stand up comedy. And then the actual one time they did laugh, I was like, yes, okay, now what did I say? But it gave me something to build on, even though it was. Yeah, even though my favorite punchline was hearing the ceiling fan. Anyway, this thing about me, Jason, last week we had an episode. So we're on episode nine. Last week on eight, we talked about clarifying your message. And I know taking that leap from entertainment over to. You mentioned that somebody started seeing the leadership lesson that you almost had integral in. Was it your choice or did you just discover it as you went along? How do you recommend people clarify their message?

Oh, that's cool. Yeah, I teach this to a lot of speakers and I just say, what is the message you would give to somebody on your deathbed? I mean, that's pretty much it. I just say the last thing you would share is the first thing you should create. And so when. When we're talking, like as a kid, I remember talking about the importance of discovering a gift I would teach people how to do it. I've been doing this my whole life. It's intrinsically in me. Obviously, it goes back to the parable of the talents, to Matthew 25 and the fact that some are given five, some two, some one. Are we doubling them or are we slothful servant hiding it and burying it away? And so that just became my message. And eventually I figured out the wording in a corporate setting ought not to be parable of the talents. Right? Yeah, Right. And so now how can we still teach truth and eternal principles that can change people's lives, that speak to their heart and their mind, that can actually get them to shift their thinking? Jesus. No better teacher. Okay, that's his material. What's mine? Signature move. We all have signature moves. We can identify, clarify, and magnify them. That's the parable of the talent. And then the promise is simply that, you know, God has made promises to us throughout all of history. And so what are our promises back? Our promises are to those people we serve, our audience, the people we love, our family and to ourselves, and ultimately to God himself. That's where I'm coming from.

Jason, real quick, you mentioned the promises to people you love and serve. And I know in your life you had a very special promise moment, and we know you're the promise guy. It went pretty viral. A post you wrote went viral four years ago. Can you tell us how that promise has impacted people globally and what it was?

Yeah, so In December of 2015, I was racing to the airport, and I was at Target, which is a store in the United States. And I just went there alone because I'm a man and I can do those things by myself. And I went to Target, grabbing some manly things, you know, beard oils, sardines, those types of things. And as I'm racing to the quickest checkout line that I could find, there were only two people in the line, brunette and a blonde. And I stopped, and I looked up, and the blonde, I went, whoa, that is as beautiful as a woman as I've ever seen. And then I realized it was my wife. Now, I stopped because I thought I didn't know she was there. We came different cars, different time, everything. And I was on my way out of town. I tried to get her attention through a text. She didn't look at it. She was too busy dealing with her coupons and trying to get her deals. So then I just sat back and I looked at her, and I thought, man, I am so blessed. Like, how close did I come to her not even noticing me in real life. How close did I come to not winning her heart? I would give anything for her to have her, to be with her. And that's when I wrote this post that resolved in this concept of we need to see those that we see every day with fresh eyes to realize the light they are in our lives. And I started the post in a clickbait way that I didn't even realize was clickbait. I just wrote, honestly, I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I think I cheated on my wife today with my wife. And the world goes bonkers when they read this headline. Women are reading it thinking, jason Hewlett, this nice entertainer guy we've seen, is cheated on his wife, and he's admitting it. And it turns into this love story about admiring the person that we see every day. It became the promised message in real time, and it went like wildfire around the world. And I believe it's because people thought originally, this guy's cheated on his wife, he's admitting it. And then, oh, my goodness, what a sweet declaration of love to the world of the promise of a man to his wife.

If people wanted to see that or read that, where would they go and what would they type in?

Yeah, they could just go to my Facebook page, Jason Hewlett, Facebook. And it's the top pinned post. It actually goes semi viral twice a year because it pops up in people's feeds, and people keep sharing it, like, oh, my gosh, have you read this? And people are like, yes, I see that. I've shared it. I called into the View and told them about it. You know, so that's where you go. Or you could just type in the Google search. I'm sure, you know, man cheats on wife, world goes bonkers. I don't know.

Jason, when you're on stage, you tell us one story that I love. And I love how it just points out we all have different gifts and we gotta find them, and we can't be comparing our gifts to other gifts. But if you compare your gift to Jason's gift, it's probably more suitable for speaking or whatever in leadership. So would you just bring us to that story now? It's horrible. We cannot see your face when you tell that story. But it's definitely. You can check out on JasonHuelett.com and go down, scroll down and check out your signature moves. You gotta see the video and hear the story. But, Jason, tell us the story of your dentist and how you discovered your gift.

Yeah, so I tell this story that as a kid, I got on the school bus, five years old. My mom got me all ready, and I go to school, get on the school bus. And this kid looks at me and goes, your mouth is huge. And I was like, you're right. And I went, ah. And I opened my mouth real wide, and he goes, sit with us all the way to school. I became the kid with the big mouse. First day of school, kindergarten. By the end of the school day, my mom said, how was school? I said, I don't like school. They said, I'm ugly and I have a big mouth. And she looked at me like any mom would. And she was like, honey, you're not ugly, but you have a big mouth. That's just how you came to this earth. So you have to accept it. I didn't want to. She said, well, what do you do when people say, show me your big mouth? I said, I go, ah. And I open up. She goes, don't do that. Just smile. So my mom taught me early on that if I smile and the light that I shine, the light I receive, the next thing I knew, I had a lot of friends because I'm smiling at everyone with this big, giant mouth. And it wasn't until the dentist that I realized it was okay to have the mouth that I didn't like about myself, because the dentist had opened wide, and I went, ah. And he goes, oh, my gosh, I can use both hands, you know, I'm like, nah. And as he's working on me, he made me feel okay that I had what I have, which is, yes, a fairly big mouth. And he said, it's cool that I can actually see everything in there, and I can. I can work on you so easy. He was the first person outside of my family that actually made me feel okay about my big mouth. And that's when I realized I could do the sounds of the dentist's office. You know, while he was working, he didn't know if the tools were on or off. So all the tools were near my mouth or in them. I was doing the sounds, so he didn't know what was happening. I'm just like. And he's like, is this thing out? And I'm like, oh, God, suck up my tongue. He's like, whoa, man, don't do that. And then he laughed about it. And he said, you're a funny kid. And I was like, well, thanks. And then he pulled the tool out of my mouth. If your listeners go to my YouTube or just jasonhulet.com. you can watch this routine. But as he pulled the tool out of my mouth, my lips stayed like that. And it was like the Elvis lip curl. And he goes, how do you do that? I said, I don't know. And he said, stop. So I did. And he said, do it again. And I could. And he looked at me, and with my lips. And he goes, that's your gift. I said, this is my gift. He said, that's your gift. So that's what I tell people as I share this story in the audience. I say, hey, look, this is my gift while I'm doing this ugly thing with my lip. And I say, you have talents I don't have, and I have talents you don't want, and so share what you've got. And so then I had a dentist who then says to me, look, if you can do that with your face, you should be able to do the other side. And I could go back and forth with my lips, top lip, bottom lip, all around my face. This took me years to figure out, but I realized that I could move my nose, I could move my eyebrows, and that became my signature move. Now I share that with the audience, and they're laughing hysterically because they're looking at me going, here's a guy that looked pretty respectable for the last hour of this presentation, and now he's doing all these faces, and we're all laughing hysterically. Now, Mark and Darren, what's fascinating about this story to me is that so many people probably can do something like that, but they stopped doing it at some point in their youth because someone said it was ugly or someone said, don't do that. And I question the audience, and I say, what if someone would have told me to stop because they did. A lot of girls said, that's ugly. But then they laughed. And so because they laughed, I leaned into the laughter rather than hide from the ugly. And I said, it's worth giving them this gift. And so I'm sharing it with the world. What are you hiding or what are you sharing? What have you identified and eventually clarified that you should be magnified? And what is your promise to share that gift with the world? And this is a very interesting way of illustrating to everyone in the audience that they have incredible talents, gifts, skills, strengths that maybe they're not using in their work, maybe they're not utilizing in their personal relationships that they can engage at a very high level and keep a promise to their audience, to their family, or to themselves by utilizing it. And it's obviously my Signature moves have become faces and voices and a velociraptor, Jurassic park, stuff that all makes people laugh with the intention of teaching the promise and why we should share that which makes us extraordinarily uniquely who we are.

Jason, I sit here transfixed because everything you've told me, it makes me feel like what I have to offer is valid and value should be valued. But I must ask you a very practical question. You touched on, briefly the dinosaur, and you're known as Daddy Dinosaur. You tell a very funny story of putting the kids to bed and you do the world's best, in my opinion, impersonation of a Jurassic park velociraptor. First of all, how in the world did that become part of your repertoire?

Oh, easy. I went to Jurassic park in high school and I sat there watching it. And right when that raptor came on the scene, I was sitting with a friend of mine and we looked at each other and we both did the face like, you know, it's like the big smile with the eyes wide open. It's like Jack Nicholson and the Shining.

Yes.

And then we put our little claw hands up and stuck our tongue out and went. And we added a bunch of sounds that they actually don't do in the movie. We just combined other dinosaur sounds. And then I figured out I could do the loud screech. Next thing I know, my friend and I are running around our school. His name is Ryan Kelly. And we would run around the school as raptors jumping classroom desks in math. We went to a private school, so my parents wasted a lot of money. But I'm just saying, making everyone laugh, it was a pretty epic thing. So what's funny is the things that we do our entire life, even if we discover as a child, eventually, if we're lucky enough, become that thing that is our differentiating factor, our signature move that we're known for forever. And when I've done my act or my speech or anything, and people have seen me before or have hired me, they are always disappointed if I don't do my signature moves. It's my signature song. It's my classic hits. If I don't do it, I'm cheating the audience.

Well, here's the practical question for all of us as speakers, no matter what we do. It could be a lawyer, pastor, a presenter, a singer, performer. I really want to know how in the round world you maintain the quality of your voice when you are singing naturally. You're doing impersonations, a velociraptor, you Bring all of these, and you have several engagements every year. How do you maintain your pipes, brother? What do you do? What's your secret?

Okay, well, I used to do 200 events a year. And eventually I realized I was wearing my voice out. I actually had doctor's orders to stop. And so then I went through every impression because I used to do a show that would be the Bee Gees, Journey, Guns N Roses, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong, Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, Gnarles Barkley. I mean, you go through all of these voices, and I had to determine which ones were actually shredding my vocal cords. And so at some point, you need to determine how you're speaking, if you're screaming, if you're whispering, if you're hurting your voice. And I took all those out. So you will not hear me do Metallica anymore. You won't hear certain pieces that I love doing. So my routine is this. I'm very careful with what I eat, with what I drink. We all have two sphincters in our body. One is famous, one is unknown, but there is a sphincter in our throat. And if we are not careful with that sphincter, you will have acid popping up onto your vocal cords at all hours of the night. So what do you eat? Do you eat a lot of acidic fruits? Do you eat a lot of strawberries and oranges? Do you. Do you eat a lot of chocolate? That loosens the sphincter in your throat. What kind of warm ups are you doing? Are you drinking too much caffeine? Are you drinking alcohol? Or are you filling your body with what it needs? Water, healthy things, that sort of thing. Are you sleeping enough? This is how I maintain my voice. I've somehow skirted the miracle of losing it after abusing it for so long. But just with these practices that are all preventative, it's very hard to save it once you've created what's called a nodule on your vocal cords, which will ruin your vocal cords. And people's voices have changed. Elton John had nodules on his vocal cords in the 80s. So he went from Goodbye, Norma Jean, though I never knew you at all, to having vocal cord surgery. And then it's, Goodbye, Norma Jean or the one ever new who at all. You had to change it all up. Right? So you don't want to get to that point.

Thank you so much, Jason. I realize that we do need to care for ourselves. And some individuals, they use herbal throat sprays and slippery elm and other products of that nature. Do you use those at all or.

I use some things. The best products I've found, I drink colloidal silver. I drink cayenne pepper mixed with lemon and water. If you do that, you will never be sick. I am never sick. I found a product that's called nitric oxide, that rushes the blood into your vocal cords and into your blood vessels. The best nitric oxide product I found is called Cardio Miracle. So there are these certain products that I take that are all preventative, that make it so that I constantly have the correct blood flow. And it's the same thing a bodybuilder would use. Once they tear the muscle, how can they fill it back up with blood and. And make sure that it's going to be safe? So those are all preventative measures I use. I also eat a lot of zinc tablets. Those have saved me. And sure, I'll do that. Tuxedo bottle spray for the vocal singer and all that. I'll do that. But I mostly prefer these natural remedies.

And that's nitric oxide, not nitrous oxide.

That's the doctor, that's the dentist. Yeah. It's a Nobel prize winning product from the late 90s that they discovered it can help with heart disease and diabetes and sends blood right to your throat, right to the right spot to heal your voice. Pretty cool.

Thanks.

Jason delivers a masterful keynote that stirs the soul and pushes the listener to be a better leader. Dude, thank you so much for being with us. It's truly been a pleasure and an honor to know some of the story behind how unforgettable you are. When you're on stage, you just wish you the best. If you want to know more about Jason or booking Jason, go check out YouTube. Go to Jason Hewlett. H e W L e t t.com Jason, anything else they should do if they want to contact you or where else could they find more of your wisdom and talents?

Well, it's very nice that you guys would have me. I'm honored to be a part of it. I admire both of you so much for the good you do, the good you are on stage and especially off. What's nice is to know friends like you that are congruent in both worlds and you keep the promise on both on and off stage. I love that you have this audience. And so what I've had for so many years now is so many speakers coming to me saying, hey, teach me your ways. Teach me how to make a career of this. Teach me this and that. And I know, a lot of programs are out there. I also had to put one together because I was getting so bombarded with requests to mentor and coach, do coffee with people, which I just don't have the time. So eventually I put together an online training course. It's a very simple 60 page course with some videos that powerful the different modules as to how to make a career of this. And so we can share that if you want with your listeners. It's jhetraining.com which is like Jason Hewlett Entertainment. Jhetraining.com and that's just called how to make a career from the Stage. You know, a little bit of the process we've talked about here, how to figure out your message, who's your audience? What's your mission behind doing this crazy career which we call speaking full time. I'm coming out with a book. It's taken me a long time to finally sit down and write it, but I spent three days in my motorhome up in the mountains of Utah and I wrote the 50,000 word document and it's now being published. It's called the Promise to the one. That's the first in the series that will be. It'll be coming out at the beginning of 2020. I hope that everyone will be looking forward for that because I am.

Jason, you are a gift to the world and love that. You keep your promise off stage and you help people discover their signature moves. Mark, did we keep track of any keepers?

Darren, Keepers. Get this one. The last thing you should share is the first thing you should create. Imagine yourself on your deathbed. What's the last thing you would share with the world? That struck me. And I know, Jason, you didn't magnify this point, but you told this multimillion dollar producer casino owner, I'll always do it family friendly. And you were modest in not sharing what you left on the table in terms of dollars and cents. But the idea that your integrity always holds fast struck me. Keeper number three for me was when I asked about your mentors. You put your family first, your mom and dad. So you made it very clear to us the line of success and in terms of who you respect the most and who you look to the most. And you've kept that promise from day one. Putting family first, having faith in God, loving the people you love and also loving on your audience. So I want to thank you for sharing such great wisdom with us today. I can't thank you enough for just being who you are and for the influence you have on me and upon our listeners. You truly are unforgettable.

I admire your work ethic and thanks again for being with us on Unforgettable Presentations.

Thank you guys.

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