TJ WALKER - THE HABIT INFLUENCER - Personal Development | LIVE STREAM

16 May 2017 · 2 min

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2:27

This is a transcript excerpt from a TJ Walker live stream on personal development/public speaking. The speaker recounts Bill Clinton’s career as an example: he gave roughly 10,000 unpaid speeches before being paid, often speaks many times per day (sometimes 12), and now often speaks for free out of passion; historical parallels cited include Abraham Lincoln (12 speeches/day) and Martin Luther King Jr. (300 speeches/year). The excerpt emphasizes practice and volume as keys to speaking excellence.

Questions this video answers

$36,000 a year.

About 10,000 or so speeches.

90%.

Sometimes 12 times in a day.

About 300 times a year.

Chapters

I'm a pretty good public speaker. In fact, people pay me as much as half a million dollars per speech. But what they always forget is I had to give 10,000 or so speeches before I ever got paid a penny. I've been speaking my whole life. And you know what? I love public speaking. But I've been speaking as a candidate, as a public official, as an advocate for other candidates and causes my whole life. Never got a penny for it, other than my government salary, which as governor of Arkansas was $36,000 a year. Now I make a lot of money as a speaker. Truth be told, I'd speak for free because I love speaking. I have a passion for what I'm trying to accomplish in this world and mobilizing people to that. Here's something that most people don't know. 90% of the speeches I give today, now that I'm a private citizen, are for free. I don't charge. I speak because I want to speak. I speak because I have to speak. I speak because I believe in issues and people and causes. My name is Bill Clinton. Folks, there are many, many lessons people can learn from Bill Clinton as a public speaker. He is a virtuoso. I don't know of any fair minded person who wouldn't rate him as at least top five speakers in the world of the English speaking world for the last quarter century. His mastery of the spoken word and the presentation is truly extraordinary. But a part of it is simply the sheer volume of speeches. He speaks constantly. He speaks daily. Sometimes during campaign season, he might speak 12 times in a day. This of course is the hallmark of many true great speakers. Abraham Lincoln spoke 12 times a day. Martin Luther King Jr. Spoke 300 times a year. So you see this again and again. The people who are perceived as the best speakers are also the people who speak the best, the most. And most of the time they don't even get paid for it. Lessons for us all.