We were going through some photos here at the office and found this fun photo of Brad with General Byers at a military conference in St. Louis.

What I love about this photo is that it proves that some of the most powerful people in the military are able to have — and demonstrate a sense of humor. Thanks General Byers. It was a total honor to work with your team.

Brad with General Byers

Looking for a motivational speaker or military speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Here’s another photo from the vaults!   We just found this picture of me with Chief Master Sgt. Rod McKinley.   It was a total pleasure speaking at the US Air Force Sergent’s Association, and an absolute honor for me to get a photo with such a distinguished man.  Thanks!

Looking for a motivational speaker or military speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Ok, the wait is over.   Here’s the latest motivational speaker preview video baked fresh just for you.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UjkzBPFVIs

Let me know if you like it by leaving a comment below.

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event?   <a href=”http://www.bradmontgomery.com/contact”>Contact me here</a>.

Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Funny Motivational Speaker, Keynote Speaker, New Video Owner!

PS.  Check out other videos of my keynote and motivational breakout sessions.

==

Same for http://www.funnymotivationalspeakers.com

====

As a motivational speaker one of the most requested marketing tools is our preview videos.  Well…. wait for it….here is our newest version of the preview.

It was filmed live over 4 or more keynotes and we think it’s pretty spiffy.   What do you think?  Leave a comment and let us know.

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event?   <a href=”http://http://www.funnymotivationalspeakers.com/contact”>Contact me here</a>.

Cheers!

Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Business Speaker, Owner of a New Video

Just now back from Lowell, Massachusetts where I worked for Enterprise Bank. They have a yearly wellness day where they get their staff together, them the latest news about the bank and then they bring in a motivational speaker. Yippee! That’s me.

It was fun an funny. It was great to see the group laugh as we poked fun at everything from their founder to their recent (and impressive) awards to the way the stage was decorated.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDeRefC5cgo

But most of all we delivered a motivational message of appreciation and the joy to be found in delivering an outstanding customer experience.

Financial banking speaker? You betcha!

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Financial & Banking Speaker, Motivational Speaker, Fan of Enterprise Bank

Now, for those of you who prefer to read about motivational speakers as opposed to see the video, here is the transcript:

Speaker: It turned out to be great. Employees loved it. I suggest you look him up and take him up on speaking at your next event. Thank you.

Brad: What? What? Did I miss something? What did I miss? So here’s the deal. We’re going to talk today about connecting fun and **** with excellence and what I love about them is you already get that. Enterprise, you guys are experts at this. You know, fun place to work, whatever.

Jamie: Hi, I’m Jamie Gabriel. I work for Enterprise Bank. I’m the Senior Human Resources Manager and I just had the pleasure of working with Brad Montgomery on a all-employee meeting session. Brad was lively and engaging and of course, as you would have expected, humorous. His presentation was filled with excellent stories that people could take back and apply within their own life and he also brought in some of our own business challenges that we wanted to consider and he had some humor to those as well.

Next speaker: Well, we have two sessions that Brad’s speaking at. The morning session’s already happened, got a lot of great feedback. People loved it, lots of laughs and we are looking forward to his afternoon performance.

Next speaker: Yes, actually, I would say Brad’s experience as a certified speaking professional, you can tell that he’s taken the time to get to know the company and you don’t always get that with other speakers. So I think this is probably one of the best ones we’ve had so far.

I recently got back from Scott Air Force Base in Missouri.  I was totally pleased to learn that the commander was interested in creating greater resiliency for his Airmen.   So my job was to do just that…but in a very funny way of course.   We had a blast… Thanks Scott!  Thanks Col. Hornachek!

Brad with Colonel Hornachek

Looking for a motivational speaker or military speaker for your event? Contact me here.

I was recently in Illinois speaking at a teacher in service.  I LOVE speaking for educators!   And happily, this group was pleased to see me too.   How do YOU know if your motivational speaker is any good? There are several ways to guarantee success but one way is to hear from former clients. Check out this video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXgmkaq5xM4

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event?   <a href=”http://www.bradmontgomery.com/contact”>Contact me here</a>.

Brad Montgomery
Speaker for Educators, Motivational Speaker, Fan of School District In Services

For those of you who prefer to read, here is the transcript:

Brad:    Hey it’s Brad Montgomery from BradMontgomery.com.  I just worked in McHenry, Illinois as an Education

Colorado Speaker

Speaker; total blast.  They had me do three different sessions; it was sort of like a teacher in service, but they had everybody there, classified and non-classified staff.  It was a blast and the cool thing it went well, so let’s listen to see what my client Fred had to say about it.

Fred:    Hey I’m Fred Laudadio, and I am the Director of Learning and Technology for McHenry school district 15.  We used Brad Montgomery for our opening day, and our school district is eight schools; 5,000 students and about 500 staff members.  So, Brad did an excellent job.  He made people laugh until they cried and people just truly enjoyed his humor and his magic.  In making the decision to choose Brad, it really came down to who would be the best fit for our school district and truly somebody with a  vision, but also that uses humor that is important to a lot of people.  And we took a risk, because in previous years, the speakers we were able to go watch personally before we chose them and with Brad he was actually across the country, I believe in Mexico with his family at the time, and so we did a lot of work over the phone and we also called a couple of other school districts that he presented at.  And to no regret, Brad was phenomenal and I would recommend to anyone for educational presentation or any business presentation.  So thank you very much.

Brad:    No, thank you.  You said something that you’re already getting feedback, electronic feedback, personal feedback, can you speak to that?

Fred:    Yes, it’s only been about a half an hour since Brad spoke and we’ve gotten e-mails from teachers, we’ve had administrators already approach us, we’ve had even our Superintendent say to previous years’ speakers, we honestly don’t know how you can match one speaker from one year to the next, and you know, Brad has met the challenge to the tenth degree.  So everyone was very pleased and feedback is coming in via e-mail and even face-to-face from a lot of people.  So, whoo hoo.

Brad:      And one more thing, you took advantage and I thought were smart, to have me do multiple sessions.  Tell them what we did and how did it work.

Fred:    Sure.  This is our big opening day and so what we do is we meet with all of the certified staff, teachers, secretaries, any classification meets and so that is a huge presentation.  And so that is what we did first today and that was about an hour and fifteen minutes long and Brad completely nailed it which was fantastic.  Then, we met and we did something different this year and that was because Brad was flexible and agreed to that, was we took our administrative staff and we brought them into the learning center, and we have about 35 to 40 of them on our team, and Brad gave them a message personalized just for them and tailored to what we as leaders need to do as an inspiration for the people that work underneath us and that’s at all levels, from both a central office level and a school level.  And lastly we met with the food service team for the school district.  A team that not necessarily has ever gotten somebody to come and speak to them and motivate them; a particular team that has a lot of turnover and a group that needs motivation.  And so Brad came in and was able to speak with them and gave them a message that they were able to walk away with and even just five minutes ago we’ve had three or four food service people come up and thank him for the message that he gave them.  So three completely different crowds and three very inspired groups of people.

Brad:      Thanks.

Fred:      You’re welcome.

Brad:      **** as that, but one of the things that I wanted you to notice from Fred is that if you’re booking an education speaker, you might want to think about using me, taking advantage of me in a good way, the same way Fred did.  So, he had me do a key note speech for all of his educators, for classified and non-classified staff.  And then we followed that with that deal for the leaders, and that was a really cool moment where we took the administrators, put them in a small group, and then we shaped the message and kind of reminded them specifically as leaders how does this message apply to you.  How can you use levity and lightheartedness and happiness and joy to make sure that your job as an administrator is, you know, that you’re running at full speed.

And finally, how cool was it that he separated the nutrition folks, you know, they were lunch ladies.  They were surprised, totally surprised to have a speaker come in for them, and it was also fun, because they were really quiet, but in the end it was clear that that was a great investment of time and fun.

So, if you’re looking for a speaker to come speak to your school district, or your schools, if you’re looking for an educator speaker that’s funny and can still make it relevant, I’d love to be your to be your guy.  Come visit at BradMontgomery.com.  Thanks.

Yup. And I have proof. Check out these two photos taken about 2 minutes apart at a recent event at Lockheed in Washington DC.

Brad talking about leadership

And then later….

Brad Makes Them Laugh

Looking for a funny business speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Business Speaker, Humorist

I love being a motivational speaker. But honestly, there are some jobs that are more fun than others. And for me, that often means military audiences. (Hey corporate and association pals… I love you too! But you got to admit it: the military is special.)  If you’re looking for a military speaker you want to make sure they are good; check out this video from an Air Force event I did….

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk0RijT_lNA

Looking for a motivational speaker or military speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Brad Montgomery
Military Speaker, Motivational Speaker, Fan of the Air Force

For those of you who prefer to read, here is the transcript:

Speaker: And in all of the years that we have done this, this was the absolute top event and over the top, hit the message right on.

Brad: The point is that tiny, tiny changes when added together can make a huge difference.

Speaker: I wasn’t quite sure going in. We had a couple of questions; was it the right speaker? Was it the right message? I have no doubts today. If you’re out there, you know, Sergeant Snuffy, Airman, Colonel, Mister looking at an event, Brad was the guy. He was a great guy for our event. Everybody left from the top to the bottom knowing it was one message. For our group, two at the same time, you know in the military we’re an industry. Time is important. Saving money is important and what we do every day, and we can either enjoy it, or we can make our lives miserable and regret all the cuts that’s coming down the line, and he just picked everybody up and gave us a new focus where we can look at life a little bit differently and go out and do our jobs, so hey, book Brad Montgomery

We’re pretty proud of this latest video. If you’re looking for a motivational speaker how in the heck do you know if they are any good? It’s not brain surgery… and it probably starts with the video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UjkzBPFVIs

1) Check out their video. Watch it closely. Is there enough there for you to REALLY get the feel of that speaker?
2) Check out the references. See videos of them. Contact them. Any speaker can find a handful of happy clients; you want to make sure your speaker has a LONG list of raving fans.
3) Talk to your speaker; make sure you feel like you can work with them and that the “get” what you are trying to accomplish.

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Like the video? Please click through to see it on Youtube and “like” it there and subscribe to the channel!

Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Keynote Speaker, Owner of a Brand New Preview Video

I love being a motivational speaker;  but being a motivational speaker for the Air Force is very, VERY cool.    I recently spoke at Scott Air Force Base in Missouri.  Their commander wanted a funny speaker to speak on resilience and attitude.  I was thrilled to be invited.

Check out this phone video I took:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=skVMUTPxurM

Thanks Scott AFB!

Looking for a motivational speaker or military speaker for your event?   <a href=”http://www.bradmontgomery.com/contact”>Contact me here</a>.

Brad Montgomery
Military Speaker, Motivational Speaker, Scott AFB Fan

For those of you who prefer to read, here is the transcript:

Brad Montgomery from BradMontgomery.com and I’m at Scott Air Force Base and I’m about to go in that theatre, it’s theatre, it doesn’t look like a theatre, but it’s a theatre and there’s going to be a whole bunch of airmen in there; there’s going to be some Marines, National Guard; there might be Navy, might be Coast Guard; everyone is here at Scott.  And my job is go and motivate these guys that have been busting their hump, they’re working hard, and happily their Commander really thinks it’s important for them to work on resilience and making sure that the rest of their life is in line with their mission.  So wish me luck.

A blast!  We just left the base.  Oh man, two programs we did, two key notes for these military audiences.  Really love being a motivational speaker.  My corporate clients, I love you; association clients I love you too; government clients, I love you, but okay, forgive me.  There’s something really cool about being a military speaker, because this is a group that just works so hard and some of them are just back from deployment, they’re preparing for deployment.  They have these super, incredible, important, detail rich jobs and then to stand in front of them and to be able to celebrate their success, to talk about resiliency, to motivate them, to appreciate them, and just to be a part of that for just a little bit is just a cool job.  So, Scott Air Force Base you rock.  Thanks for making me a part of your team if it was only just for the day and cheers to you.

Like you, I’m always looking for ways to make me happy. Some of us find happiness in service, in the bottom of a bourbon bottle, exercising, etc. But we all know you cannot buy happiness…right? Wrong. Check out this video where I was able to buy a GREAT mood for $2.50:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqP5gowAeX0

As a motivational speaker I often speak on contacting happiness to bottom line success.

Turns out that all we really need is a light heart and a trip to 7-11.

Looking for a motivational speaker or happiness speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Happiness Speaker, Buying Happiness one Cup At A Time

For those of you who prefer to read, here is the transcript:

Brad Montgomery from BradMontgomery.com with a message for you about what are you going to do today to make your day better. So, I did something really cool that I sort of did by accident. I used to do it pretty frequently and I kind of forgot about it, but the bottom line is I bought two people a cup of coffee, which doesn’t sound that fun, but it was. So, I’m on my way to a job and I stopped by 711 for a cup of coffee, because I have high standards, and I’m pouring my coffee and there’s these two Mexicans come in and they’re getting coffee. And I talked to them in English, but they’re speaking Spanish to each other and if you don’t know this, I lived in Mexico last year, so I have this really deep bond with just all things Mexican, because when we were in Mexico, I’m telling you countless Mexicans went way out of their way to be generous to me and to my kids, my wife, and to my family. So, I’m thinking of that and I’m kind of too shy to speak Spanish to them and whatever.

So then I get up there and I greet them, you know, in English, and I get up there to pay for my coffee and I just figured, oh I want to pay for those guys. There’s two guys over there getting coffee, when they get up here make it free and don’t tell them who did it, just tell them that somebody bought their coffee and to have a good day. And I’m wondering if they speak English, because they clearly, you know they were speaking Spanish to each other. Anyway, so I taught her how to say have a good day” in case they didn’t know and I felt great about it and the cashier got a big grin on her face, because I think she felt like oh, cool I’m going to be part of something fun. And I walk out of the door yelling to myself that was fun, and when I turn back the cahier still had a big grin on her face.

So, sometime after I left those guys walked up and got a free cup of coffee and guess what, it made me feel good. Hopefully, it made their day good, but mostly it made me feel great and it was kind of a great way to pay it forward, and it only cost me like $2.50 or something ridiculous.

So, what am I saying? I’m saying take responsibility for making your day good. Find stuff to physically do to make you day good and I was reminded today that one good idea is to buy some stranger a cup of coffee. Alright, Brad Montgomery, BradMontgomery.com, if you’re looking for a speaker, a motivational speaker, or a presenter to speech a key note or seminar for you or your organization about levity and lightheartedness and how to bring that into the workplace, I’d love to be your guy, and I’ll even buy you a cup of coffee. Have a great day.

Years ago I used to do a ton of elementary school assemblies. I was in my 20′s, and I combined being a magician with a literacy message to create my version of the Magic of Books.

As most of you know, not I’m primarily a motivational speaker for adults. But there are exceptions: check out this video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PZGnAMH36A

Thanks kids. You absolutely made my day.

Looking for a motivational speaker or

Pick a speaker that will guarantee a return on your investment

For those of you who prefer to read, here is the transcript:

Hey it’s Brad Montgomery from BradMontgomery.com. I just finished doing the Rolling Creek Elementary School (it was a school assembly) in Elizabeth, Colorado. I’ve got to say, I don’t do that many, I used to do a zillion assemblies, hundreds a year, but now I do like maybe one every other month and I’ve got to say if I had more time, I’d do more, because oh they’re fun. I forgot how much fun those kids are. You know, I do way more magic for the kids then I do at my adult motivational programs, and the kids they just have this energy and this crazy buzz about them that is irresistible and honestly even the bad kids, the kids that are just borderline misbehaving, have such a great energy. They’re not misbehaving because they are bad kids, they’re just misbehaving because they’re excited and they’re jazzed and they’re laughing and whatever, and so that’s really cool.

So, the other thing that I thought was interesting is when I was doing this before, when I was doing it for a living, you know when I was doing hundreds a year, I was younger. I didn’t have kids. I didn’t know as much as I know now and now here I am with three kids. My youngest is in her last year of elementary school. I was a foster dad last year. I just feel like I totally get kids in a different way. I just cherish them and I don’t know, I just have a much greater sense of their deep need to be pushed to do amazing things, and it’s just special to be a part of it.

So, maybe that sounds cheesy, but I don’t care, because it’s true. I love all of my audiences. Honestly, I love my job, but there’s some audiences that are really cool and there was something really cool today about working for little kids who just haven’t had enough access to adults coming in and looking them in the eye and saying hey, this stuff is important, reading is important, you’re important. If you want to have as much power as you have potential for, if you want to be as good as you can be, it’s going to take reading, so get out there and start. It was cool and then, you know we did like a million magic tricks and I made them laugh and I clowned and it was whatever. It was a good day. The magic of books; that was fun.

Thanks very much Rolling Creek Elementary School, I was glad to be part of your team. If you’re looking for an elementary school assembly, this is a literacy assembly, I don’t do very many of them; I don’t have time on the calendar, but if you’re in Colorado definitely give us a call, we’ll see if we can make it work and yeah, thanks. Have a great day.

I’ve got myself all dressed up purdy for Halloween. But I’ve also got a pretty cool point about using levity and humor for a tool. Check out the video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUGA--V3NR0

What’s my point?   What are you gonna DO today to create levity, lightheartedness and joy?  For yourself? For your family?  For your organization?  Your team?   All of the attitude adjustments in the world are great, but without action you have nothing.

So get out there…and act happy.   Your people need you.  And it will help you to get what you want.

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Keynote Speaker, Halloween Fan

For those of you who prefer to read, here is a transcript of the video:

Hey, it’s Brad Montgomery from BradMontgomery.com. Happy Halloween! All right, so I love Halloween for a lot of reasons, but one of them is I get to dress up like a complete idiot and it’s okay. Check out the cool shoes!

All right, so what is my point and what does this have to do with you? The reason I like Halloween, besides the Snickers, is you get to dress up you get to have fun. You’re not only allowed to have fun, you’re encouraged to be a little bit goofy, and when I am speaking to my audiences, one of the messages that we give them, whether we’re talking to managers or to leaders or to entire organizations, we’re saying, ìIf you want to have a better workplace culture, if you want to bring levity and lightheartedness and humor to work, part of it yeah, is mindset, part of it is sort of a mental game, but in the end, it comes down to action. What are you going to do? What are you going to do to create joy and levity and fun in your life?î

So Halloween is perfect. You can act crazy and get away with it. Now, if you don’t feel like acting like a complete dork on Halloween, I don’t really care, but the point remains, and Halloween, I think, emphasizes that we’re allowed to do something, we’re encouraged to do something and if you really want to succeed to make your work culture fun, your family fun, any organization you’re part of fun, it’s going to require action on your part.

All right, Happy Halloween. Trick or treat. My name is Brad Montgomery. There’s more on BradMontgomery.com. Woo-hoo!

Win a free subscription to my Hooked on Humor audio series simply by posting a caption to the photo below:

Caption Contest — Win a Prize!

Win a copy of Hooked on Humor simply by posting a funny caption.
Winning is easy peasy:
1. Post a caption (and read the others) here on my blog. (Scroll Down!)
2. We’ll have two winners. The author of the funniest caption, and another winner chosen randomly from all entrants. (So if your idea isn’t that funny, post one anyway. Who knows?!)
3. There’s no third one. See? It’s easy.

So what are you waiting for. Scroll down and leave a funny caption to the photo as a comment below.
Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Inspirational Speaker, Gaga Fan

A while back (ok, a LONG while back…Hey! I’ve been busy!) I had a caption contest. It was simple, just write the funniest caption to this photo and win a copy of my audio subscription series Hooked on Humor.

Write a caption: Win a prize.

We had a TON of submissions. The runners up were:

“OK, girly girl. I can take a hint. We’re so over!” — Tom Simms

“Why not? The line is shorter than the one for wedding cake.” — John Kinde

And the winner is:

“Come on you guys…I’ve got the engine running!” — Tom Purcell

Congrats Tom!

Read the rest of the entries here at my Caption Contest 2.  (And add more captions!  Who knows?!)

Yours,

Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Caption Contest Designer, Friend of the Queen

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

I was recently in Austin Texas — I was hired to be a motivational speaker and emcee for the University of Texas Health System Benefits and Human Resources meeting.

The audience was fun, the audience was amazing, the people were fabulous…. but I’m about to show you is a video of the Congress Street bridge bat colony.

Some of you might know that Austin, Texas has a huge colony of bats….one of the largest in the region.

I’ve been trying to see the bats for years. I’ve been to Austin for years. Each time I’m hired to speak in Texas I do my best to see the bats…. each time I’ve failed.

What’s being a motivational speaker got to seeing a gazillion bats? No clue. But darn, it was fun!

For those of you who prefer to read, here is the transcript:

This is Brad Montgomery. I’m about to go out and check out the bats. So I’ve worked in Austin maybe five or six times and have had the chance to go out and look for the bats, I guess a couple times I didn’t have a chance to go. But today I’m going. Wish me luck. I’m going to see the bats, I swear.

Oh my gosh, this is crazy. And it’s so cool.

Brad Montgomery from bradmontgomery.com. I’m in Austin, Texas. I’m a motivational speaker and emcee for University of Texas Health Systems HR Benefits Group. I saw the bats. Oh, I’m so glad. I finally saw the bats. I’m over at this bridge, Congress Street. I’ve been here four times with its bat season. Four times in Austin, Texas to see the bats and four times they say, “Oh yeah, they didn’t come out tonight. They usually do, but today we didn’t.” But today, tonight, I saw the bats. Millions, I don’t even know how many bats their are. So cool. And they swirl up and and look like a bat black cloud. It’s very impressive to see them come out of the bridge, but then it’s almost even more impressive to see them up in the air where they swirl like a huge flock of birds, except you realize, no they’re bats and they’re all coming out at exactly the same moment and you hear this little bat squeak. I can’t even make the sound, but it’s really cool. Alright, Brad Montgomery from Texas. I saw the bats! What a good day.

Brad Montgomery
Texas Motivational Speaker, Emcee, and Fan of the Bats!

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Related Posts:
Texas Motivational Speaker

Many of you know that I lived for a year in Mexico.  There are a million things I love about this country, but the most thirst quenching thing on that list is a delicious beer drink called a Michelada.  My pal Oscar taught me the real deal recipe, and now we’re teaching you.

There are many michelada recipes on the web teaching people how to make micheladas. And I’m here to tell you that all of these recipes are WRONG. So I’m going to teach you the right way to make a genuine Mexican Michelada.  (Mi amigo Oscar, un Mexicano verdad, me lo enseno.)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpfZ1T4S0vg

For those of you who don’t like videos, or simply found it confusing, read the michelada recipe here:

How to Make Michelada:

Michelada Ingredients:

Lots of Limes

Don't Skip Tajin!

Salsa Inglesa
Jugo Maggi
Pacifico or Corona (Doesn’t matter which one)
Tajin (A mixture of salt, lime flavoring and chile powder)
Clamato (optional)
Hot Sauce.   (Also optional.)   Use Valentino brand…not the American Tobasco.  They taste different.   I like a couple of drops.  My pal Oscar doesn’t like any.)
Beer.   Oscar thinks you should use Pacifico or Corona.  But we’ve made them with a darker Negro Modelo and they are pretty tasty with that too.

Note: Where in the heck do you buy Tajin, Salsa Inglesa and Jugo Maggi? Well, as I write this I’m living in Mexico and they are as easy to find as catsup.  But my guess is that no matter where you live, you’re not that far away from a Mexican grocery store or tienda.   Go track one down and buy this stuff.  You’ll be glad you did.  Seriusly, I cannot imagine a michelada without the tajin.  The lime juice and the Jugo Maggi and the Salsa Inglesa are pretty important.   But the Tajin — or some substitute brand — is crucial.

Tajin is simply the most common brand of the dried chili, dehydrated lime and salt mixture.  There are many other brands;  I’ve tried 3 or 4..they are all good.

Michelada Recipe.

First, cut a lime and rub it around the rim of your glass.  Then pour a bunch of Tajin (the chili / salt / dehydrated lime mixture) on a small plate.  Invert your glass and rub the wet rim in the tajin, making it stick.  (This is like salting a margarita glass, only substituting Tajin.)

Add the juice of 2 or three small limes, or perhaps 1 larger lime.  Add more juice than you think.  Now add some more.

Add a couple of shakes of Jugo Maggi.  And a couple of Shakes of Salsa Inglesia.

Salsa Inglesa

This is a “to taste” sort of thing.  I like to add extra Maggi.  But it’s up to you.

If you like, add some Clamato.  Just about 1/3 of a cup.  But again it’s a to taste thing.  If you like more, go for it.  Less?  Fine!  Not at all…. sure, no problem.

(I’ve seen the difference of “chelada” and “michelada” described as with or without the Clamato.  My my pal Oscar, who was born in and lived in Mexico City for 20+ years thinks they are both micheladas.  So who am I to doubt him?)

Add ice.  A bunch of ice.

Fill your glass up with beer.

Add a couple of pinches of Tajin.

Stir it up.  Drink it up.

Repeat as needed.

Finally:  Don’t be an idiot.  Don’t drink and drive.  Don’t over do it. And don’t….please don’t…. fail to get the right ingredients.  You need the Jugo Maggi, the Salsa Inglesa, and especially the Tajin!  It’s worth the trip.  It will make your michelada genuine.  And most important, it’ll make it tasty!

Cheers!  Salud!

See the how to make a michelada recipe video on YouTube
Read a post about how to make a michelada on my other blog.

Leave comments with questions or results.

Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Friend of Oscar Montes de Oca, Lover of Micheladas

Texas Motivational Speaker Goes Batty?

I was recently speaking in Texas and got a chance to see the famous bats in Austin.  Check out this short video I put together for you:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9iHKTyyLvw

My client was the University of Texas Health Care System.   Happy day… I am going back next month to work for them again.  Think I’ll get to see the bats?

Looking for a motivational speaker — with or without bats — for your event? Contact me here.

Brad Montgomery
Texas Speaker, Health Care Speaker, Fan of Bats

Related Links:

Texas Speaker info on Brad’s other work in Texas.
Texas Speaker See this video on YouTube
Health Care Speaker More info on Brad’s work in Health Care

For those of you who prefer to read instead of watch YouTube, here is the transcript:

All right, so it’s Brad Montgomery.  How is this for a day in the life of a motivational speaker?  I’m in Austin, Texas, its 8:30; right there in that bridge, 1.5 million bats.  Bats.  How cool is that, bats are about to fly out.  I don’t know, any second.

But, here’s the day I had.  So I started out, I left my house at 1:00 p.m., (its 8:30).  I just got here, gave the bellman a dollar.  I’m here working for the University of Texas Healthcare Medical System, and I’m late.  I was supposed to be at their big bash, cocktail party tonight, but I missed that because of Frontier Airlines. Pretty typical though, because I think so many people think motivational speakers speak.  What I think we do is travel a lot, and then we speak.

So I’m here now.  Good news, I get to see the bats.  Bad news, I’m here late, but, I get to see bats.  More later.

The bats?   yeah, there’s no bats.  Okay, I’m in the Hyatt now which is pretty groovy.  Let me tell you what happened with the bats, nothing, zilch, 1.5 million bats, I saw four.  I saw four.  Total bust.  So, I was out there for an hour and a half, supposed to be a million and a half bats, a mile long trail of mammals with wings.  What I saw was a million and a half mosquitoes, my legs.  I’m just telling you, I’m going to be scratching tonight.

But, all right, being a motivational speaker is cool.  Being in Austin, Texas is cool.  The bats were a total bust, I’m so bummed.  But, good news, keynote speech in the morning.  So, get a good night’s rest.  It’s kind of hot.  I just came up in the elevator right over there, with a whole bunch of conventioneers.  These are the HR folks from the University of Texas, and they’ve got these little blinky things on, and I think maybe they might have had an adult beverage and they didn’t see the bats.  Oh, I think they were drinking something.  But it’s kind of funny because I was asking about stuff and then they said, well who are you?  And I told them I was their speaker.  They said, “good, don’t remember us.”

I’ll see you tomorrow.

In Wyoming recently, motivational speaker Brad Montgomery had a group of Construction Engineers lined up at the door waiting to hear him speak.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0MjjFsGLDc

Here’s a transcript of Brad’s video of his conversation with Jim and Russ at the Wyoming Dept of Transportation Construction Meeting.

Jim:     Doing this he is going to leave the best impression I’ve ever had out of all eight years; he is top notch.

Brad:    Hey this is Brad Montgomery from Brad Montgomery.com.  I’m on the way home, just having worked for the Wyoming Department of Transportation.  They asked me to be a motivational speaker; do some breakout sessions.  It was a blast.  It went really well and let’s see what they have to say.  Glad you’re here.

Jim:     Hi, my name is Jim Messing. I’m with the Wyoming Department of Transportation.  We are finishing up our 2011 Engineers Construction meeting and we’ve had Brad Montgomery as our main speaker and out of eight years of doing this he is going to leave the best impression I’ve ever had out of all eight years.  He is top notch.  If you ever have a chance to watch him, do it.

Brad:     Awesome, can you tell them a little bit about what we did yesterday and today?

Jim:     He did a two hour presentation, opened it up, kind of loosen everybody up, then he did a couple of one hour sessions with us and how to take laughter into your workplace, your family life and everything like that.  And everyone came out laughing.  We had people lined up at the doors waiting to get in to his session.

Brad:     Thanks.

Jim:     You’re welcome.

Russ:     I’m Russ Howe with the Wyoming DOT Construction Staff.  I’m a staff technician.  Just had the opportunity to see Brad Montgomery do three presentations or performances, whichever you prefer, for our 2011 Engineers Conference and boy if you need a good guy I’d definitely get him.  Very, very enjoyable.  Very pertinent things to say; made us laugh.  Made us feel good.

Brad:     How did it go compared to other years?

Russ:     I’ve only actually been to one other one and we had another guy similar to Brad and he was good but I have to say I really enjoyed Brad more.

If you want to get your staff lined up out the door to hear a keynote speaker at your next event, contact me here.

Win a free subscription to my Hooked on Humor audio series simply by posting a caption to the photo below:

Caption Contest — Win a Prize!

Win a copy of Hooked on Humor simply by posting a funny caption.
Winning is easy peasy:
1. Post a caption (and read the others) here on my blog. (Scroll Down!)
2. We’ll have two winners. The author of the funniest caption, and another winner chosen radomly from all entrants. (So if your idea isn’t that funny, post one anyway. Who knows?!)
3. There’s no third one. See? It’s easy.

Write a caption: Win a prize.

So what are you waiting for. Scroll down and leave a funny caption to the photo as a comment below.
Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Humorist, Wedding Crasher

Meeting Planners Have a Lot at Risk and Speakers Need to Understand It

I recently was a motivational speaker for a audience of 500 Foster Case Workers in Austin, Texas and my client came up to me afterwards and told me that one of his many jobs was to manage risk and now that the program was over he was able to be honest with me.  I started to get a little lump in my throat, but happily, this is when my client put on a huge smile and told me “Brad, it went great!”, so I was happy and I was relived but this is where the lesson started.

My client told me what I already know but is an excellent reminder for me and anybody who is either booking a motivational speaker or plans to be a motivational speaker.  He told me how important this event was to him.  He told me that he was bringing in 500 people away from their jobs for a 2 ½ hour event plus their travel time, so for many of them, this was going to be most of their day and that the opportunity cost was outrageously expensive.  He also told me that he was already thinking ahead towards next year’s event and that he worked hard to fill that room with 500 people who were very busy already and if this event was a turkey, he would have a next to impossible time getting equal numbers, much less greater numbers, next year.

So, what’s the point?  The point is that as meeting planners and as speakers and as general members of the meeting and convention industry, we need to understand that when we’re negotiating motivational speaker’s fees, it’s more than the money.

Pick a speaker that will guarantee a return on your investment

My client invested quite a bit of money in me.  He’s brought me in for one event and we’re duplicating the event next week in a different city in Texas.  So, his investment is pretty great, but he is looking at the big picture.  He sees that his investment in the speaker really is just a tiny piece in the puzzle and that when you add it up to all of the other things he needs to accomplish, he’s putting way more on the line.  He is risking way more on the line than just the investment in his professional speaking.  By the way, his attitude reflected this.  Some of my clients are freaking out about expenses and this and that and technology this or whatever, not this man.  He understood those tiny investments were absolute drops in the bucket.

So, next time you are looking to hire a motivational speaker and are interested about how to save money on speaker’s fees, I want you to remember all of the other things you’re investing into your meeting or conference.  It’s a huge opportunity cost for all of your people, huge meal cost for all of your people (in this case, my client bought a fancy lunch at the Austin Texas Omni Hotel, lunch for 500 people, I have no idea what the bill is but it was huge) but also the opportunity cost and the investment of momentum.

Next time you’re thinking about booking a speaker I want you to think about how much it will cost you to get the next level down speaker and how much you would save and then compare that savings to the cost of not having an absolute perfect conference.  Speaker’s fees generally reflect the level of guarantee you can expect.

So, can you save my money by booking a cheaper speaker?  Yes.  Can sometimes entry level speakers do a great job?  Yes.  Have you invested enough in your particular convention or meeting that you cannot afford anything but the very best?  If that’s the case, give us a call.  If you’re interested in booking a motivational speaker who has a high level of guarantee of success…my programs are fully guaranteed…I hope you’ll contact me here.

~Brad Montgomery~
Motivational Speaker, Texas Speaker, Guaranteed Professional Speaker

I was recently in Detroit at 5 AM and had a remarkable interaction with a woman at Starbucks. She should be the motivational speaker…not me. Check out this video I recorded with my phone — which is code for, “calm down, I know the quality isn’t that great!”

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Inspirational Speaker, Fan of Detroit!

For people who prefer to read, here is the transcript:

Howdy. I’m Brad Montgomery. BradMontgomery.com. I’m still in the Detroit airport. I wanted to put up one more video for you because I was struck yesterday with another person that really has figured out humor in the workplace. She works at Starbucks. She works in the airport. She works at Dallas-Ft. Worth. Alright, so you know how it is, you go to, we’ve all been to somewhere and boughten a drink. It’s no big deal. It is a big deal with this woman because she just made, she just owned this whole concourse. She owned the concourse. She was like the queen of Dallas-Ft. Worth airport. She was like holding forth at Starbucks and she was calling everybody up, “Hey how are you doing? Get up here! How are you? What are you doing? Where are you going?” Just a super unbelievably friendly woman. So as is my habit, I asked her, “What’s the deal? You know, how do you do this? How do you stay happy when it seems like people around you are not so happy with their job?” And she said, “Oh it’s up to me, baby. But really what makes me happy is making you happy.” It’s so simple, but it’s so cool. So social psychologists are going to call this flow, motivational speakers are going to call this motivation, customer service experts are going to call this, you know like “she’s in the zone, she’s doing her thing.” But I think what really struck me is that she knows what keeps her happy and she knows that when she invests in other people, the payback is twofold. Not only are her customers happy, I was thrilled. She called me baby. I loved it. “Okay, here’s your coffee, baby”. I loved it. Not only did she make her customers happy, but I’m in the airport, can you hear me talking? Not only did she keep her customers happy, but she keeps herself happy. By delivering service, she feels served. It’s just so, it’s such a basic truth, but it’s so easy to forget. So here is my challenge to you. What are you doing today to help others? And if you’re thinking you are having a crappy day, maybe the way out of your crappy day is to deliver excellent service to your teammate, to your managers, to the people who you’re managing, to your customers, to the people you are trying to sell. How can you make it better for them? And I think that what this woman at Starbucks is going to teach us is that by doing that, it will make it better for you. Happiness at work equals excellence at work. It’s so cool. Serve others, you become happy. Love it! Alright, Brad Montgomery. BradMontgomery.com. Thanks for being here.

boring memo

Admit it:  your memos are boring.  And because they can barely stay away through an entire memo, you aren’t getting your message across.   They aren’t listening.

I have a million ideas about adding levity and humor to your workplace communications, but very few of them are as easy as this one:  Baby Mail.   Got something important to say?  Want them to actually listen?   Try communicating it with BabyMail.  I love this communication tool for a bunch of reasons.

• They will actually listen to it.  Carefully.
• They will end up sharing it w/ their teammates and talking about it.   (Do they do this with YOUR memos.)
• It demonstrates that you have a personality and sense of humor — even if you don’t.
• It forces you to communicate your message in 20 seconds.  Come on…you can do it.  That’s all they have time for anyway.

Here’s a sample:

Brad On Baby Mail

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event — and don’t feel like hiring a baby would be appropriate? Contact me here.

Brad Montgomery

Motivational Speaker, Funny Humorist, Humor in the Workplace Keynotes, Fan of Baby Mail

One more from the military speaker photo vault!  I was working with Armed Forces Communication Association  and spoke to a wonderful mix of military, civilian and retired military.  But one of my favorite parts was AFTER the event when i was talking to Both Brigadier General Dwyer Dennis and Col. Greg Petriquin.   They both have wonderful senses of humor, and spoke to me about how they carefully (and thoughtfully) use humor and levity as part of their leadership style.  I was impressed with how much they had thought about it… But of course all leaders know about the power of humor.

It was an honor, gentlemen. Thanks so much.

Col. Petrequin proceeded to explain how when he was posted in Guam he had some fun Dress Mess shirts made…. And then he showed me.  As you can see, when he’s ready to be formal, he’s just another sharp military leader.  But if he takes off his jacket, he revealed some crazy loud party pattern sleeves.

It’s a total pattern:  people with the most stressful jobs are run by people with the best senses of humor.  Emergency room nurses, firemen, policemen, and military people have tough jobs…they NEED to understand how to blow off steam in a safe and effective way.  And big shocker… The Colonel has a terrific understanding about how to have fun in a way that is totally consistent with his job.

Ok….I’m off my soapbox now.  Thanks so much guys.  It was fun.  It was educational.  And it was an absolute honor.

Looking for a motivational speaker or military speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Military Speaker, Motivational Speaker and Fan of Fun Leaders!

Brad recently spoke with the leadership team of a large hospital in Tyler, Texas.   Mary Mother of Francis Hospital asked Brad to make them laugh— but more importantly — teach a seminar about how levity, lightheartedness and even humor can have a positive impact on health care and on leadership.

Check out this testimonial video from Brad’s meeting planner:

Looking for a motivational health care speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Thanks!
Brad Montgomery
Health Care Speaker, Funny Guy, Fan of Tyler Texas

Prefer to see the Testimonials on YouTube?
Health Care Speaker video testimonial
Health Care Speaker from the University of Texas Health System
Another Health Care Speaker video testimonial from the University of Texas Health System
Texas Health Care Speaker Testimonial from Mary Mother of Francis Hospital

South Carolina Rural Health Care Association Video Testimonial
One more Testimonial From the Rural Health Care Association
Brad spoke recently to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.  See the video of Brad as a Hospice Health care speaker here.
YouTube Testimonial from Kaiser Permanente Palliative Care
Hospice Speaker testimonial from Haven Hospice in Florida
Hospice and Health Care speaker for Kaiser Blog

Technorati Tags: health care speaker, health care speakers, funny Del.icio.us Tags: health care speaker, health care speakers, funny

In less than one minute I will show you what you’ve never seen from another pro speaker.

I can’ think of another speaker would expose themselves like this video exposes me.   Would you show the world your mistakes?

What do you think?  Leave a comment below.

Looking for a motivational speaker — who can actually complete a sentence? —  for your event? Contact me here.

Cheers,

Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Comedian, Flubber-Upper

Looking for a magician speaker or a magician motivational speaker? Pick me baby!

Seriously, we’ve got some news. We have started editing several preview videos of my latest stuff… everything from team building to networking to… of course my work as a motivational speaker.

This first video focuses on one of my niches, as a Magician Speaker.

Related Links:

Brad’s Magician Speaker Keynote: Ordinary Magic

Related Links:
Magician Speaker on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1MAak5Vh4w
Ordinary Magic: One of Brad’s popular magician speaker keynotes. http://www.bradmontgomery.com/motivational-speaking-topics/ordinary-magic/
Article about why use a magician speaker.  http://www.bradmontgomery.com/magician-2/magician-speaker
Presto Chango: Brad’s magician speaker keynote where he talks about a magician’s guide to laughing at change. http://www.bradmontgomery.com/motivational-speaking-topics/change-management/
An audio CD of Brad’s Magician Speaker program http://www.bradmontgomery.com/ordinary-magic/
Related Links:
Magician Speaker on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1MAak5Vh4w
Ordinary Magic: One of Brad’s popular magician speaker keynotes. http://www.bradmontgomery.com/motivational-speaking-topics/ordinary-magic/
Article about why use a magician speaker.  http://www.bradmontgomery.com/general/magician-speaker/
Presto Chango: Brad’s magician speaker keynote where he talks about a magician’s guide to laughing at change. http://www.bradmontgomery.com/motivational-speaking-topics/change-management/
An audio CD of Brad’s Magician Speaker program http://www.bradmontgomery.com/ordinary-magic/

I love being a motivational speaker, but one thing that I don’t love is that it is often a singular lonely job. Yes, we get to know our audiences. And yes, we often become close with the meeting planners.

But we rarely get to work with other speakers — people who KNOW what it’s like to be on stage regularly. People who know the joys and pains of earning a living “performing.”

I recently was shared the platform — just for a few minutes — with fellow Colorado speaker Steve Spangler. He was doing his boot camp for teachers and invited me to come on stage to do a bit of comedy with squeakers. I taught how to use a tiny squeaker hidden in your hand to get some laughs at work and generally boost your fun-o-meter.****

I was only on the platform for a short time, but it was really fun because Steve and I got to vamp off each other. I teased him. He teased me. Together we worked through the squeakers. The audience was very kind, and that was nice. But having a chance to be on stage with somebody I like and trust — and somebody who is very funny as well was a treat.

My point? I’m not sure I have one. But darn! It’s fun working with other funny speakers. Thanks Steve!

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Brad Montgomery

Colorado Speaker, Fan of Steve and Earl (read on), Secretly Eager to Be in a Comedy Team.

**** Both Steve and I learned about the squeakers from the master, Dr. Earl Reum who I’m pretty sure is the first one to figure out that these squeakers can be VERY funny. Earl is a hero to all Colorado speakers and magicians, all of the in-the-know Colorado speakers and to student council, educational and corporate groups across the country. Thanks Earl for sharing your secrets!

Technorati Tags: Colorado speaker, Colorado speakers, Steve Spangler Del.icio.us Tags: Colorado speaker, Colorado speakers, Steve Spangler

How to hold your squeaker

I was recently a motivational speaker in Oklahoma laughing and playing with some good folks for American Olean. (They make tile…lot’s of it. Trust me, you’ve seen their work.) (They had a very cool event for some of their top folks and wanted to end the day with a very funny motivational speaker. Aw shucks!) I spoke at the end of a long day of learning…. my job was to pick up the energy in the room, send them out with more energy than they came in with, and to give them some nuggets to keep tile fun. (Yes, that’s the first time I’ve ever typed that.)

Here’s a surprise follow up video, complete with instructions about how to use a hand squeaker. (American Olean sent all these good people squeakers…now let’s get you up to speed on how to use it right!)

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

More instructions about how to use your hand squeaker here.

Shop for hand squeakers.

Check out my motivational speaker home.

Ok, not exactly.   I’m pretty sure that’s not what the study meant.  Read on…

Happiness at work is a great idea:   it is related to greater employee engagement and — in the end — an increase in productivity.  Besides, who really wants to hate work?

But researchers at Columbia University have linked happiness to health.  To avoid heart attacks, we should add happiness to the list that includes limiting out intake of cigarette smoke and cheeseburgers.

I’m not a doctor, but I’m guessing that this study doesn’t mean we can eat more junk food if we are happy.  But it does lend a bit of power to the notion that investing thought and energy in creating joy and happiness for ourselves and our work environments makes a ton of sense.  How many total miserable jerks out there that exercise regularly and shop in the health food stores, but would never consider trying to make themselves — and their families and workmates — happier?  Ironic.

Here’s an excerpt from the Associated Press:

After a decade, they examined the 145 people who developed a heart problem and found happier people were less likely to have had one.
The study was published online Thursday in the European Heart Journal.
“If you aren’t naturally a happy person, just try acting like one,” said Dr. Karina Davidson of Columbia University Medical Center, the paper’s lead author. “It could help your heart.”

Yeah sure, this stuff is common sense.  But seeing that science proves what we sense (whether you’re Spiderman or a Jedi) to be true is cool.

So…. Pick Happy.   You’ll work better.  And you’ll live longer.   And you can eat more cheeseburgers.   (Ok, not the last one.)

Want to be happier at work?  Want your work culture to foster more levity and more joy? Contact me here about being your motivational speaker or to work with your organization.

Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Comedian, Pretty Darned Happy Guy

Well, I’ve moved my family down to Mexico for a year.  A working sabbatical.   Only with more beer. Here’s the first of many videos about the journey. : )

We’ve been down here a month….not yet in a routine yet, but getting there.

Hey clients!  Don’t freak out… I’m still working!   I’ve already flown to the States twice (and am in fact writing this post from North Carolina.)  Oddly — and wonderfully — it’s as cheap or cheaper to fly from here as it is from Colorado.    So…don’t fret… I’ll be there. : )

Why the trip? Why Mexico? Why the whole family? I’m currently living in Mexico.

Mexican School Shoes

We’re in search of adventure, perspective, and language skills. I speak to my audiences so often as a motivational speaker I thought it was about time that I put myself through some drastic change myself. We found plenty: new culture, new language, new school, new house. New everything. Lot’s of change

We’re all learning Spanish. The kids are learning faster than we are, which is sort of funny.

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

For you non-video types, here is the transcript of the video:
Brad Montgomery from BradMontgomery.com with episode 1 of Brad and Kim take their family to Mexico.

So we’re on the way to Mexico and we’re at the coolest place, which I think, I hope, is a metaphor for the whole trip. So Kim and I were lost, we missed our exit, we were tense, and then suddenly we’re lost and we’re looking for a place to pee and guess what we found? We found this place out; we’re in a place called Santa Rosa. Since we’re studying Spanish, we call it Santa Rosa, New Mexico, and we found this cool little lake. So we jumped out, we all put our suits on, we jumped in the water, we’re swimming, we’re laughing, we’re playing, everyone feels good again. We got some exercise, it’s all happy.

What’s the point? I think that the point is is that by taking the risks and giving ourselves a chance to get lost we ended up finding something that we never would have expected to find. I doubt we could find it again. Yet, it’s totally, wildly cool.

So, that’s going to be, I hope, the metaphor for us. What other risks can we take? Getting lost probably will work out great. Good day, so it works out great.

What are you doing to get lost and take some risks on purpose? Take care, see you next time.

Technorati Tags: Motivational speaker, motivational speakers, funny, humorist, humorists, Brad Montgomery Del.icio.us Tags: Motivational speaker, motivational speakers, funny, humorist, humorists, Brad Montgomery

Let’s face it:  corporate meeting and convention audiences are filled with multi-taskers.  A short time go, our greatest distraction as meeting planners and speakers was USATODAY.   Now it’s the fact that there is free wireless in every ballroom, smart phones, and USATODAY.

That’s why this short email from Re/Max international made my day.  (I worked for them at their Colorado headquarters recently.)  It is absolutely current, and made me feel like a million bucks.  Aw Shucks Re/Max!

Brad, One of our executives came up to me yesterday afternoon and said – “Ya know, I judge speakers by the amount of times I look at my iPhone while they’re talking.  I did not look once – thanks for bringing Brad in, he was a great speaker and the timing was perfect – really enjoyed it”.

We’ve had lots of positive comments and in my HR meeting today with other HR Executives I will gladly tout you and your message.   Thank you so much!!

P.L

Senior Vice President, Human Resources

RE/MAX International, Inc.

Denver, Colorado

Aw Shucks, Re/Max   It was my absolute total pleasure.  Thanks for taking the time to make me feel great.

Looking for a funny motivational speaker to do your keynote speech? Looking for something different? Real Estate your biz or not, I’dI bet you want to create lasting change.  Want to make them laugh while they learn?  If you’re in Colorado or across the globe,  Contact me here.

Brad Montgomery
Real Estate Speaker, iPhone User, Fan of Re-Max

Technorati Tags: real estate speaker, colorado motivational speaker, testimonials, re/max Del.icio.us Tags: real estate speaker, colorado motivational speaker, testimonials, re/max

How To be A Motivational Speaker | Find your Niche Can Make You Rich

A How-To video series about how to be a motivational speaker.   In this very informal video in which Brad Montgomery — a funny motivational speaker — Brad asks fellow motivational speaker and Colorado speaker Elaine Dumler for a killer tip for folks on their way to being a paid professional speaker.    She offers up some excellent advice about being yourself on the platform — something that is very hard to do, but is crucial for your success as a speaker.

Check out the video:

Interested in learning how to use humor in your presentation? Check out Brad’s Got Mirth: Milking Your Presentation for all the Humor It’s Worth.

Learn more about how to be a motivational speaker with my how-to audio here.

Related:
Blog Posts:
How to Be a Motivational Speaker (Part 1) | Get a Mentor
How To Be A Motivational Speaker (2) Choose the Right Topic
How To Be Speaker (3) Format of a Keynote. A Template!
Adding Humor (1) The Act Out
Adding Humor (2): Give the Audience a Voice
Adding Humor (3) What to Do When Your Humor Bombs
Part 7: How to Be a Motivational Speaker — Find A Niche to Make you Rich
Part 8: Be a Professional Speaker — Be Authentic On the Platform

On YouTube
Part 1. Find a Speaker Mentor
Part 2. Choose a Correct Motivational Topic (on YouTube)
How to be a Motivational Speaker (3) on YouTube
Adding Humor (1) The Act Out (On YouTube)
Adding Humor (2): Give the Audience a Voice (on YouTube)
Adding Humor (3) What to Do When Your Humor Bombs (YouTube)
Part 7: How To be a Speaker — Find a Niche
Part 8: How to be a Motivational Speaker — Be Authentic on the Platform

More interested in reading than going to YouTube?   We’ve got your back!  Check out this transcription….

How to be a Motivational Speaker – Part 8 (Elaine Dumler on Authenticity)

Brad Montgomery:         Hi, this is Brad Montgomery from bradmontgomery.com with the continuing series on how to be a motivational speaker.  As I said before, I don’t know – I don’t have all the expertise, but I know people who do and we’re looking at ****my pal, Elaine Dumler.  Elaine Dumler is a college speaker who speaks nationally to everybody, but specializes in military audiences and today she’s going to tell us at least one tip about how to be a motivational speaker.  Go Elaine!

Elaine Dumler:         I think the best thing that you have to always remember to do when you’re speaking, especially if you’re working to motivate other people, is you’ve got to be real.  I think a lot of times we see speakers on the platform who are not the same person as they are maybe off having a beer, a cup of coffee or something.  You have to be who you are.  You want that type of connection and rapport that comes from just being your true self on the platform and letting you come out in everything that you do.  I think that’s what makes you someone that someone wants to listen to.  And if you’re going to add humor, and kind of make it funny, or you know, work kind of natural humor into it, it has to come from who you are.  And if it doesn’t come from your heart, then I don’t know where it’s coming from.

Brad Montgomery:         I think – thank you, Elaine – being you is important.  That’s why when I’m a motivational speaker, I always strive to be Elaine Dumler.  All right.  More tips on how to be a motivational speaker.  Stay tuned.  Thanks, Elaine.

Technorati Tags: Elaine Dumler, Military speaker, How to be a motivational speaker, colorado speaker, colorado speakers, presentation tips Del.icio.us Tags: Elaine Dumler, Military speaker, How to be a motivational speaker, colorado speaker, colorado speakers, presentation tips

I just got back from Texas where I was the motivational speaker for a group of social workers for the Child Protection Services.  These are the good people who look out for kids who need it most:  kids in physical danger.  They oversee way too many cases of abused and neglected kids, and do their best to get them into safe situations.

This group was especially fun for me because right now I’m a foster parent.  I’m one of the families these people — ok, actually their peers in Colorado — work with on a day to day basis.

Check out this video I made about them:

My familiarity — in such an intimate way — with foster care made this event special for two reasons.  First, the audience knew I wasn’t bluffing when I said, “I understand.”   Audiences crave authenticity in their motivational speakers, and because I have two foster kids myself, it was easy for me to be direct and honest.   Second, because of my familiarity with “The System” it made for some REALLY funny jokes.  I could joke in VERY specific ways about their jobs, their stresses, and their joys.

Thanks Texas Foster Care System (Children and Family Services!)  It was my absolute pleasure.

Mobile Post: Posted on-the-go by Brad Montgomery from his iPhone.

==

For those who prefer to read, here is a transcript of the video:

This is Brad Montgomery from BradMontgomery.com.  What a really cool afternoon we had.  So I’m still in Texas, but today we worked for Child Protective Service of Texas.

This is a government agency entrusted with dealing with kids who need help, kiddos in foster care and protecting kids who are in danger. I love doing this for a million reasons, but one of the things I love most is, some of you might know, I’m a foster dad right now.  We’ve got two little foster girls and it’s a lot of work.

One of the things we’ve learned is the social workers involved, the peers of the people I just spoke with, are really, really hardworking people working in a system that doesn’t get enough support, is under-funded, is under-trained, and if it wasn’t for these people, these kids would be suffering.  So it was my delight, I was totally flattered to deliver not just a motivational speech, which we did, and not just an inspirational speech, which we did, but also a message of appreciation because these social workers work hard and rarely get a thank you.  So we made them laugh and we made them laugh hard and we did all the things we were supposed to do as a motivational speaker, but the best part for me was as a foster dad, is to be able to look them in the eye and say it and mean it; thanks for all you do for foster children as Child Protection Service social workers.

So we were in Wichita Falls, Texas for about 160 people, absolute total blast.  Folks, keep up the good work, you’re doing amazing things.  It’s a pleasure to be your motivational speaker, and keep your eyes out for those kiddos; they need your help and you’re making a difference.  Thanks!

Technorati Tags: social worker speaker, foster care, foster children, protective services, protective services speaker, Texas speaker, government speaker Del.icio.us Tags: social worker speaker, foster care, foster children, protective services, protective services speaker, Texas speaker, government speaker

If I were trying to pick one motivational speaker among many, I’d want to know:
1. Are they really funny? (Or do they just say they are?)

2. Will my group or organization feel like he “gets” us? Or is he just presenting the same old crap to my audience he delivered last month at the Rotary Club?

3. And finally, I would want to make sure he can provide a LONG list of recent and very happy clients. Seriously…they gotta be recent, they have to be real, and they need to rave.

And frankly, it’s kinda cool — though not a deal breaker — if your potential motivational speaker has spoken groups you’ve actually heard of.

Well…lucky me, because here is a video taken of the Boeing meeting planner in St. Louis Missouri where I recently presented a keynote. (It was 2 hours….so it was sort of a keynote speech on steroids.) It went well, the group was fabulous, and here’s VK with her words right after the speech.

Do you need a motivational speaker? Whether or not you create Space Shuttles, Space Stations or fighter jets, I’d love to help your team get to be where they need to be, and to energize your meeting. Contact me here.

Thanks!
Brad Montgomery
Missouri Motivational Speaker, Humor in the Workplace Expert, Fan of Boeing

For you readers, here’s a transcription of the video:
He far exceeded our expectations. It was funny and he was able to give us tips that we can use every day and we would definitely like to have him back.

He talked with me about our day to day job and what we do and he was able to use that and be relevant within his presentation and really talk about things that related with the audience and what they would need for their jobs and things they can relate to. And compared to other presenters, he did an awesome job at bringing humor in and really keeping it relevant. People enjoyed it but they did walk away with some really great information and tips that they can use.

Technorati Tags: missouri motivational speaker, missouri, st. louis speaker, boeing, funny

Hey Boeing!   It was a total blast to be part of your event in St. Louis.   As a surprise to you, (How Cool is That!?) here’s a brief follow-up video to remind you of some of the fun stuff we covered when we were together on Last Tuesday.

Here’s an ethical bribe:   leave a comment (scroll down and leave it below) and tell us what YOU are doing or thinking differently based on our time together and I’ll send you a gift.  No silly….not a crystal bowl.  But it’s fun.  It’s free.  And it’s my treat.

Here’s a very casual (which translates to “I made it with my phone!”)  video I created in the St. Louis airport just for you.  Thanks again… and don’t forget to comment.  Cheers and thanks.

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Thanks Boeing.  It was my distinct pleasure!

Have a great day….. and don’t forget the bribe:   leave a comment below about what you learned and are doing differently and I’ll send you a treat!

Technorati Tags: missouri motivational speaker, missouri, st. louis speaker, boeing, funny

For those of you who prefer to read, here is a transcription:
Hi friends it’s Brad Montgomery from Bradmontgomery.com.  I put together a special video just for you because I wanted to thank you for all of your time and attention today.  But also to remind you of what we covered today because I know since then you’ve had some difficult times, you’ve had like what, 10,000 emails, all kinds of emergencies, let’s see if we can’t remind you how to connect happiness to your bottom line.  Because remember the concept was that if we enjoy our time at the link we are going to be better and more productive and more efficient, more effective at Boeing.  So how do we do that? You know how.  Remember all that fun we had this morning?  The laughing and the joking and the carrying on, that feeling is to go, you’re job is to bring it back home and especially bring it back to Boeing because it will make it you better and because you know how.

Here’s the 3 points we covered this morning.  First, I want you to find happiness. Find things that remind you that life is good. I mean how cool is it to work for Boeing?  You’re involved with the space shuttle. You know, you see planes landing every single day that you guys have a piece of supporting. How cool is that?  How cool is it that you just finished up a really cool administrative admin week, how cool is that?  How cool is it that you’re getting a reminder video from a guy, Brad Montgomery that you’ve already forgotten about?  How cool is that?  I’m at the airport in St. Louis getting ready to take off to go home and it’s going to be a Boeing plane. Woo Hoo! How cool is that!? So the first step is a gratitude piece, find things that remind you that life is good.

The second step is a choice. I want you to choose happy, think happy.  Remember that if you want to enjoy your life at home and especially your life at work, part of the equation is deciding that you want to enjoy your time at Boeing. So either that has to be a conscious decision, do you want to have a good time or not? I’m thinking you do. I want to make sure you make that conscious decision.

Now finally, there’s an active piece. You’ve got to be physically active in doing something that creates levity, light-heartedness, joy, humor, fun at work. So I don’t know what this means for you. Maybe it means you really do put a magnet in your coffee cup and drive around St. Louis or maybe it just means you make a point to bring some humor to work. You play at work, you put a clown nose on, I don’t care, do something. Whatever it is, do something.

Finally, I just wanted to remind you how much I appreciated being part of it. It was very cool to be in the Boeing building with you guys in St. Louis.  It was very fun to be your motivational speaker, but the coolest part was watching your faces start from kind of serious and busy and over-worked and end where you ended just feelings to go.  You people deserve it, you’ve been working hard.  Life has not been easy lately and I know you guys work hard at Boeing, you deserve to really enjoy it. So find happy, choose happy, act happy.

There’s more stuff at Bradmontgomery.com including a bribe.  All right, so here’s the bribe, if you leave a comment, there’s a button, I don’t know where the buttons are.  Look down, there’s a button and leave a comment and tell me what specific thing are you doing or thinking differently based on our time together.  If you tell me what you’re doing or thinking differently, what I’ll do is I’ll send you a gift.  No, it’s not a Ford Explorer. No, it’s not a space shuttle.  But it’s cool and it’s my treat and all you have to do is leave a comment and tell me what you’re doing differently based on our time together.

All right, thank you so much, if you have any questions or comments let me know. You can contact me through the website right here Bradmontgomery.com and really thank you so much, just an absolute pleasure to be part of it.  Have a great day Boeing.  Thanks Admins.

How To be A Motivational Speaker | Reach Your Niche Get Rich

A How-To video series about how to be a motivational speaker.   In this very informal video in which Brad Montgomery — a funny motivational speaker — Brad asks his pal and fellow motivational speaker and Colorado speaker Fred Berns for a killer tip for folks on their way to being a paid professional speaker.    He has some great advice about getting deep with one industry.

Check out the video:

Thanks Fred baby!

Interested in learning how to use humor in your presentation? Check out Brad’s Got Mirth: Milking Your Presentation for all the Humor It’s Worth.

Learn more about how to be a motivational speaker with my how-to audio here.

Related:
Blog Posts:
How to Be a Motivational Speaker (Part 1) | Get a Mentor
How To Be A Motivational Speaker (2) Choose the Right Topic
How To Be Speaker (3) Format of a Keynote. A Template!
Adding Humor (1) The Act Out
Adding Humor (2): Give the Audience a Voice
Adding Humor (3) What to Do When Your Humor Bombs
Part 7:  How to Be a Motivational Speaker — Find A Niche to Make you Rich
Part 8:  Be a Professional Speaker — Be Authentic On the Platform

More interested in reading the transcription than seeing the video.  No problem baby!  We have your back.  Here it is:

How to be a motivational Speaker.  Fred Berns on Niches

Brad Montgomery:         Hi, this is Brad Montgomery from bradmontgomery.com with the continuing series about how to be a motivational speaker.  So, I know you want to be a motivational speaker.  You don’t know how.  You want tips.  Well, I don’t have them all, but I’ve got friends who have them all.  We’re here with Fred Berns, one of the top speakers in Colorado.  He speaks on a million things, including sales.  Fred, can you give the listeners what’s it going to take to be a motivational speaker?

Fred Berns:         Well, I think to be a successful motivational speaker, it’s very important to have a specific niche.  I think a niche can make you rich.  And if you can zero in on a certain type of group, a different kind – a certain type of industry, I think you become viewed as an instant expert a lot more quickly.  You can sell books and products a lot more successfully.  You can be booked more often with, for larger amounts of money if you become the number one name in a specific industry.  So, I think the key here, Brad, is to niche because it can make you rich.

Brad Montgomery:                  Rock on!

On YouTube
Part 1. Find a Speaker Mentor
Part 2. Choose a Correct Motivational Topic (on YouTube)
How to be a Motivational Speaker (3) on YouTube
Adding Humor (1) The Act Out (On YouTube)
Adding Humor (2): Give the Audience a Voice (on YouTube)
Adding Humor (3) What to Do When Your Humor Bombs (YouTube)
Part 7: How To be a Speaker — Find a Niche
Part 8: How to be a Motivational Speaker — Be Authentic on the Platform

Here’s a really cool testimonial from my peeps at the Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance.   It feels nice to speak for a client and know their happy afterwards.  Thanks for taking the time, Kenneth!

Here’s what he said.

I’m Ken McCardle and I’m the Vice President Information Technology for Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance.  And we’re right here in beautiful Savannah Georgia at the Hyatt.  And we just got done hearing Brad Montgomery speak.  And Brad, you are a great investment for our people here.  The economy on the downturn and the way it is, it helped uplift the spirits of our people with a tailored presentation.  It picked us a little bit and some of the challenges we have in the workplace.  But it helped us take these challenges and we’ve taken back with people who better uplifted spirits now.  And can meet the challenges of the workplace with a better attitude.  That reflects in productivity.

Well, one of the missions of this particular conference is for our people to have a chance to socialize with each other, to get to know their peers from the other states that they don’t get a chance to see everyday but they talk with them.  And so it was a great opportunity for them to laugh with their peers to build that rapport.

We’re an insurance company too, much like AIG.  And with the issues of AIG you know we’re looking for productivity.  And productivity is a lot better when you have people who are smiling, has a ‘can do’ attitude.

Yes, you might be shopping multiple people but we had a referencing from our sales organization to use Brad Montgomery.  And of course sales people are very outgoing people.  So when we look at people like IT, accounting, human resources, and lawyers, you really need someone who can pick up the spirits of these people.

Aw Shucks Kenneth.  It was my total pleasure.

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Brad Montgomery
Insurance Speaker, Georgia Speaker, Fan of Farm Bureau!

My kiddo’s third grade teacher rocks.   Check out the spelling test that she gave her class yesterday.  (Imagine taking this test…slowly… one word at a time.)

1.   There
2.   Is
3.   Really
4.   No
5.   Test
6.   Today
7.   April
8.   Fools
9.   Ha
10. Ha
11.  Ha
12.  Ha

She  had the kids giggling at #5.   What a great teacher!

What I love is that this awesome teacher definitely had as much fun as her kids did.   She took the lead in CREATING fun and joy in her work day.   She had fun… and because her kids had fun she is a better teacher.

My point:  having fun at work makes you better at work.  Just ask my kid’s teacher.

Do you need a funny speaker for your meeting (and want to skip the spelling test?)   Contact me here!

Brad Montgomery
Humor at Work Expert, Meeting Energizer, Fan of Funny Teachers

PS.   She also gave them a Word Search in which none of words to be found were actually in the letter grid.  Brilliant!

This is the nicest note I’ve got in a long time:

Based on your seminar when I start thinking what’s next,  I now say “How cool is that?”.    Something new is cool.

Knowing in 2 months I will no longer have a job was stressful but now I am trying to think of it as another way to Pick Happy and Act Happy instead of sad. Someone actually said to me I seem happy instead of stressed out like I was. It’s the Brad effect!!!!!

Your seminar was the best thing at the worst time. You wanted us to tell you one thing we did differently based on the time we were together, I think this is a good one.
— Grace (name witheld.)  Manager Medical Management   Unicare Insurance

It’s weird.  My wife and I have had such a tough time with foster kids (hang with me — I know it seems unrelated.)  We had two very cute, very troubled girls for a month.  It was a ton of work, a ton of pain, and some VERY occasional joy.   And then they were suddenly snatched back  into The System.  Back to their family;   to a place that makes us worry about them.  It stunned us.  We felt like we had so much more love to give and so much more to teach.  But they were gone.   How could we effect any change in just a month?

And then, that very same day, I got this letter from Grace.  It absolutely made my day.

Thanks for restoring just a tiny bit of faith, Grace.   I’m thrilled you’re on the right track.  As for me?  You absolutely made my day.   I’m calling it the Grace Effect.

Thanks Peeps!

— Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Health Care Speaker, Fan of Grace!

Ok. That’s not funny. Yes it is. Well… it depends.

Humor is relative. (No, I don’t mean your relative is funny. I mean that what is funny to some people in some circumstances isn’t funny to others, and that’s OK.)

I recently spoke in Colorado for the Kaiser Permanente Palliative Care department. We had nurses, doctors, administrators, chaplains, and hospice partners… the whole team gathered for a day of celebration and a much needed dose of perspective—through humor.

This is hard-working team of health care professional who are constantly dealing with a difficult heavy job. And, judging by the laughter and volume from this particular group they really needed a break.

So we laughed. We joked about everything from what was served for lunch, to the party going on upstairs, to the fact that they had an off-site on a Saturday. But we also joked about the difficult and serious parts of their jobs. We even joked about death, hospice, and used a bit of black humor. (Maybe not black, but certainly very dark brown.)

In my job as a comedian motivational speaker, I’ve found that the groups with the most grizzly occupations are the quickest ones to joke about stuff that makes most of us blanch. Cops, firemen, ER nurses, — and hospice and palliative care folks not only joke about stuff that many people would find “crosses the line” of good taste, they HAVE to joke about it. It helps keep them healthy.

Humor helps with stress. And folks super stressful jobs will often turn to gallows humor to help them stay sane.

So, after agreeing that the jokes would “stay in the room,” we went for it. And the laughter followed.

Often people complain about humor that is “in bad taste” without understanding that often that humor is “in good health.” I once worked for a bunch of intensive care nurses who finally put up a plaque outside of the ICU that said something like, ‘If you see us laughing please know that this is not evidence that we are taking the care of your loved ones less seriously. It’s our way of dealing with the stress that is inherent with this job. And in the end, our laughter helps us provide the care that your family deserves.” Brilliant. Beautiful.

Back to Kaiser: I was impressed with how quickly this group was to laugh. But as I lead them through some exercises to help them connect humor and levity to increasing their ability to provide care and to serve their folks — and how keeping themselves sane in the end serves their patients, I was amazed at how quickly they got to the point.

In other words, this audience didn’t just run through the humor in the workplace exercises and try to move on. They lingered. They enjoyed. And they went deep. I think I might have learned as much as they did. Scratch that…. I definitely learned from them.

Thanks Kaiser Palliative Care. It was my absolute pleasure.

Are you looking for a health care motivational speaker, or palliative care / hospice speaker? I’d love to be your speaker. Go to the contact page now.

Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Palliative Care Speaker, Hospice Speaker, and Fan if Kaiser Palliative Health

Related:
Hospice video on YouTube
Kaiser Health Care Speaker video on Youtube
Sex, Beer and Death : A blog being a speaker for another Hospice organization
Funny Health Care Speaker home on my main website.

Technorati Tags: Hospice speaker, palliative care speaker, palliative, funny, motivational speaker, Kaiser, Kaiser Permanente, Colorado Speaker Del.icio.us Tags: Hospice speaker, palliative care speaker, palliative, funny, motivational speaker, Kaiser, Kaiser Permanente, Colorado Speaker

What to Do When Your Humor Fails
Here is Part 6 of the continuing series about how to be a motivational speaker. In this video, Brad Montgomery discusses adding humor to your presentation. (And if you want to be a paid professional speaker, you’ll need to be funny — if you want to get hired.)

This video covers the sticky topic of what to do when your humor fails.

Interested in learning how to use humor in your presentation? Check out Brad’s Got Mirth: Milking Your Presentation for all the Humor It’s Worth.

Learn more about how to be a motivational speaker with my how-to audio here.

Related:
Blog Posts:
How to Be a Motivational Speaker (Part 1) | Get a Mentor
How To Be A Motivational Speaker (2) Choose the Right Topic
How To Be Speaker (3) Format of a Keynote. A Template!
Adding Humor (1) The Act Out
Adding Humor (2): Give the Audience a Voice
Adding Humor (3) What to Do When Your Humor Bombs

For those of you who prefer to read (as opposed to see the tips on the video,) here ya go:

What To Do When Your Humor Bombs

All right.  I want you to watch these series of jokes that bombed for me at the Mayo Clinic.  But then watch what I do about it.  So, check it out.

It’s just cool to be at the world-famous Mayo Clinic and its sister organization, the Mustard Infirmary.  I’m staying at the Relish Inn.  So, I have a condiment theme here in Rochester.  I bank at the First Bank of Ketchup.  Okay, condiment humor, not big in Rochester.  We can see that.  Did you see what the building next door, right next to the main Mayo building, the little deli?  They’re going to call it Mayo on the Side.  Free condiment jokes.  Yeah!  I mean, how cool is it you guys work for the Mayo Clinic?  It was so much fun for me when, you know, where you going this time, Brad?  I’m going to the Mayo Clinic.  Oh, I’m sorry.  No, I’m healthy!  I’m healthy!  We’re going to laugh.  A little mayo on the side.  Four condiment jokes.

I didn’t totally bomb those jokes, but clearly they didn’t go as well as I had hoped and I used a couple of techniques that you can use as well.  First, whether you’re telling stories or relating an anecdote or telling jokes, when things aren’t going as well as you hoped or horrible, let the audience know that you’ve noticed.  Acknowledge it.  There’s nothing weirder than watching a speaker that acts like everything’s going great when it’s clear to the audience that things aren’t going great.  So, don’t do that.  It’s too weird.  But the second part is equally important which is that it’s your responsibility to take care of the audience.  It’s your responsibility to let them know that you’re fine.  So, when things don’t go well, they start to worry about us and they start to fret for us and get stressed and you got to let them know that you’re fine.  So, you notice, I did just that.  First, I acknowledged the condiment jokes failed, or at least weren’t doing that great.  I even started counting the goofy, failed condiment jokes.  But, more important than that, with my body language and with my words, I let them know, hey, don’t worry about me, I’m having a good time still.  You’re going to have a good time still.  We’ve got lots of program left and things are great.  So, the audience will admire you and love you for trying humor, even if it doesn’t go as well as you had hoped.

Just remember the two rules.  One, acknowledge it, let them know.  And second, take responsibility to bring them with you and let them know that you’re totally fine.

On YouTube
Part 1. Find a Speaker Mentor
Part 2. Choose a Correct Motivational Topic (on YouTube)
How to be a Motivational Speaker (3) on YouTube
Adding Humor (1) The Act Out (On YouTube)
Adding Humor (2): Give the Audience a Voice (on YouTube)
Adding Humor (3) What to Do When Your Humor Bombs (YouTube)

My kids and wife wanted to go skiing. I didn’t.  I’ve been on the road traveling as a motivational speaker to Florida and Pennsylvania, I wanted to sit home, eat Cheetos, watch the Olympics and veg out.   But I’m glad I went skiing…my family was right.  Doing ANYTHING beats doing nothing nearly all of the time.

(Besides, there was powder.  Lots of powder. : )

Check out my video message from ski slopes at Copper Mountain, Colorado:

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Mobile Post: Posted on-the-go by Brad Montgomery from his iPhone.

For those of you who prefer to read, here is the transcription:

Hey, this is Brad Montgomery from bradmontgomery.com.

I got a message for you related to skiing. So, I’m in Colorado. I’m at Copper
Mountain. We’re at 12,000 feet. I just skied down that cliff. Check that out.
Okay, I didn’t ski down it well, but I did ski down the cliff and I had a good time.

Here’s my point. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to come today at all. If it
was my choice after being on the road in Florida and Pennsylvania, as a
motivational speaker, I was pooped and I really would have preferred to stay home
and watch the Olympics, drink hot chocolate, and, you know, read a cheap novel or
something. But because of my wife and because of my kids, we came up skiing
and Iím so glad I did.

So, here comes the message. I tell my audiences all the time this. What are you
going to do to create joy and happiness in your life starting today? What are you
going to do? And my choice was to do nothing and that was a mistake. I got here
and I had a good time and it’s awesome.

So, what are you going to do? Are you sitting around reading a book? Are you
watching the Olympics right now? Are you doing something that could be more
productive, that could be more fun? I’m pretty sure the answer’s probably yes. If
youíre like me, get going.

So, have fun. Make life fun. That means you got to actually do something to get
involved. If you like skiing, go for it. If you donít like skiing, find what you want
to do, have fun.

Looking for a motivational speaker?I’d  love to be your guy. Right now, I’m
going down there. Take care.

Technorati Tags: Colorado Speaker, Colorado Motivational Speaker, Copper Mountain, Funny, skiing, skis, ski resort Del.icio.us Tags: Colorado Speaker, Colorado Motivational Speaker, Copper Mountain, Funny, skiing, skis, ski resort

How To be A Motivational Speaker | Humor Tips — Give the Audience a Voice

A How-To video series about how to be a motivational speaker. In this very informal video in which Brad Montgomery — a funny motivational speaker — Brad explains the simple technique of Giving the Audience a Voice. It’s a guaranteed humor technique that’s easy to implement.

For those of you checking out hot comedians, Jim Gaffigan is awesome. Check out this funny guy. One of the many techniques he uses is to give the audience a voice. In fact, he opens his album BEYOND THE PALE with a high voice with which he simply gives the audience a voice. He talks about what they must think of his skin, his clothes, etc. Funny opening, and all he does is to say what (he imagines) the audience is thinking. What a crack up. Check him out. Not sure what I’m talking about…..Check out the tips how-to video:

Interested in learning how to use humor in your presentation? Check out Brad’s Got Mirth: Milking Your Presentation for all the Humor It’s Worth.

Learn more about how to be a motivational speaker with my how-to audio here.

Related:
Blog Posts:
How to Be a Motivational Speaker (Part 1) | Get a Mentor
How To Be A Motivational Speaker (2) Choose the Right Topic
How To Be Speaker (3) Format of a Keynote. A Template!
Adding Humor (1) The Act Out
Adding Humor (2): Give the Audience a Voice
Adding Humor (3) What to Do When Your Humor Bombs

For Those of you more interested in reading that looking at the speaker video, here is the transcription about how to be a motivational speaker:

Give the Audience a Voice

One of the techniques that you can use in humor is to take advantage of this rule. If you say what the audience is thinking, they will laugh. So, watch how we set up this joke about parking and then see how I follow up by giving the audience a voice. Now, the one thing you need to know to understand these jokes is just that parking at the Mayo Clinic comes at a premium and pretty much, you got to have a lot of seniority to get a parking place. All right. So, watch what we do after the joke.

I love the parking. So, how many of you had to park like 80 miles away today? Raise your hand if you have parking privileges. Okay, now everyone else, if you had your hand up, notice how everyone else is glaring at you. I hate them. I hate them. Man, if you think you can get a job here today, you got to park in Iowa. Some of you are going, I live in Iowa. Shut up. Shut up. Stop with the Iowa thing.

Did you see how he did that? Did you see how I gave a voice to the audience? If you can voice what the audience is thinking, you will get the laugh. So, how did I do that? The first time I did that was we imagined what the people who don’t have parking spaces think about the people who do have parking spaces. And I just said it. You know, I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. And I even did a little act-out where I had that glowering thing. All right. So, that was just giving them a voice and I got credit for knowing what they were thinking. Then I did it again later on when I talked about the people who drive in from Iowa. I just, you know, I said the joke and then I voiced what they were thinking, which is, shut up, I’m from Iowa, shut up.

You can use this technique, too. Imagine or find out what your audience is thinking and then give them a voice, either literally by making up a funny voice and saying it as though you were them, just like I did, or a little safer way to do it would be to back up a little bit and just say, you know, I can imagine what you’re thinking. What you’re probably thinking is. You know what? There’s a video with two Brads, with two pictures of Brad. What, is that crazy? See what I did? I just gave you a voice. Give the audience a voice. Let them understand that you know what they’re thinking and you will get the laugh.

On YouTube
Part 1. Find a Speaker Mentor
Part 2. Choose a Correct Motivational Topic (on YouTube)
How to be a Motivational Speaker (3) on YouTube
Adding Humor (1) The Act Out (On YouTube)
Adding Humor (2): Give the Audience a Voice (on YouTube)
Adding Humor (3) What to Do When Your Humor Bombs (YouTube)

Hey Re/Max! Thanks so much for inviting me to work with you last week.  We had a great time here in Denver. Here’s a quick
reminder video I created just for you.

Today can be a great day at work — for you and the people you’re leading.  But the only way to guarantee that it is great, is to make it so.   What are YOU going to do to make your leadership style, your management techniques, and your time at Re/Max fun, meaningful, and successful.

Are YOU looking for a motivational speaker who can fire up your group?  Whether or not you are from Colorado, we should talk? Contact me here.

Mobile Post: Posted on-the-go by Brad Montgomery from his iPhone.

Re/Max….what did YOU get out of our time together?  Leave a comment below and I’ll send you something for free.  (Nope…not an Escalade…but’s it’s cool.  And it’s free, so what do you have to lose?  : )

Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Colorado Motivational Speaker, Humor at Work Expert, Fan of Re/Max!

Be A Motivational Speaker!

How to be funny on the platform:   a specific technique

Here is Part 6 of the continuing series about how to be a motivational speaker. In this video, Brad Montgomery discusses adding humor to your presentation. (And if you want to be a paid professional speaker, you’ll need to be funny — if you want to get hired.)

No, you don’t HAVE to be funny or to use humor if you want to be a motivational speaker.  But boring speakers never get hired back.   You MUST have some sort of humor, lightheartedness, or levity in your program.  You don’t have to be a stand-up comedian, but you definitely want to invest some time and energy in learning how to work the crowd their happy place.

But adding humor isn’t easy.   Yet there ARE some specific ideas that are easy to learn and easy to implement.

This video covers the specific topic of the Act Out.   Check out the video:

Interested in learning how to use humor in your presentation? Check out Brad’s Got Mirth: Milking Your Presentation for all the Humor It’s Worth.

Learn more about how to be a motivational speaker with my how-to audio here.

Related:

Blog Posts:

How to Be a Motivational Speaker (Part 1) | Get a Mentor

How To Be A Motivational Speaker (2) Choose the Right Topic

How To Be Speaker (3) Format of a Keynote. A Template!

Adding Humor (1) The Act Out

Adding Humor (2): Give the Audience a Voice

Adding Humor (3) What to Do When Your Humor Bombs

For Those Of You Who Prefer to Read, here is the transcription:

What To Do When Your Humor Bombs

All right.  I want you to watch these series of jokes that bombed for me at the Mayo Clinic.  But then watch what I do about it.  So, check it out.

It’s just cool to be at the world-famous Mayo Clinic and its sister organization, the Mustard Infirmary.  I’m staying at the Relish Inn.  So, I have a condiment theme here in Rochester.  I bank at the First Bank of Ketchup.  Okay, condiment humor, not big in Rochester.  We can see that.  Did you see what the building next door, right next to the main Mayo building, the little deli?  They’re going to call it Mayo on the Side.  Free condiment jokes.  Yeah!  I mean, how cool is it you guys work for the Mayo Clinic?  It was so much fun for me when, you know, where you going this time, Brad?  I’m going to the Mayo Clinic.  Oh, I’m sorry.  No, I’m healthy!  I’m healthy!  We’re going to laugh.  A little mayo on the side.  Four condiment jokes.

I didn’t totally bomb those jokes, but clearly they didn’t go as well as I had hoped and I used a couple of techniques that you can use as well.  First, whether you’re telling stories or relating an anecdote or telling jokes, when things aren’t going as well as you hoped or horrible, let the audience know that you’ve noticed.  Acknowledge it.  There’s nothing weirder than watching a speaker that acts like everything’s going great when it’s clear to the audience that things aren’t going great.  So, don’t do that.  It’s too weird.  But the second part is equally important which is that it’s your responsibility to take care of the audience.  It’s your responsibility to let them know that you’re fine.  So, when things don’t go well, they start to worry about us and they start to fret for us and get stressed and you got to let them know that you’re fine.  So, you notice, I did just that.  First, I acknowledged the condiment jokes failed, or at least weren’t doing that great.  I even started counting the goofy, failed condiment jokes.  But, more important than that, with my body language and with my words, I let them know, hey, don’t worry about me, I’m having a good time still.  You’re going to have a good time still.  We’ve got lots of program left and things are great.  So, the audience will admire you and love you for trying humor, even if it doesn’t go as well as you had hoped.

Just remember the two rules.  One, acknowledge it, let them know.  And second, take responsibility to bring them with you and let them know that you’re totally fine.

Technorati Tags: How to be a professional speaker, how to be a motivational speaker, be a motivational speaker, speaker tips, how to be funny, how to be a comedian Del.icio.us Tags: How to be a professional speaker, how to be a motivational speaker, be a motivational speaker, speaker tips, how to be funny, how to be a comedian

On YouTube
Part 1. Find a Speaker Mentor
Part 2. Choose a Correct Motivational Topic (on YouTube)
How to be a Motivational Speaker (3) on YouTube
Adding Humor (1) The Act Out (On YouTube)
Adding Humor (2): Give the Audience a Voice (on YouTube)
Adding Humor (3) What to Do When Your Humor Bombs (YouTube)

I took this photo while going through Denver International Airport.  Got this shot off before a TSA guy “asked” me to knock that off.  (I wanted to get one from a different angle, but couldn’t get the guy to let me.  (I did make the TSA guy laugh…but I couldn’t get him to “look the other way.”   Goodie…. chalk one up for safety!)

Leave caption below and I’ll send the funniest caption author  a copy of my book, Humor Us:  America’s Funniest Humorists on the Power of Laughter.

Enter your caption below in the comments field.  The winner get’s a copy of a book.  (No, it’s not as good as a Toyota, but it’s way easier to send.)   good luck peeps!

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

How To be A Motivational Speaker | Template for a Keynote Speech

A How-To video series about how to be a motivational speaker.   In this very informal video in which Brad Montgomery — a funny motivational speaker — Brad explains the simple format (or template) for creating a motivational keynote speech.      Interested in exactly how you can create your own speech?  No sweat…here are the details.

Interested in learning how to use humor in your presentation?   Check out Brad’s Got Mirth:  Milking Your Presentation for all the Humor It’s Worth.

Learn more about how to be a motivational speaker with my how-to audio here.

Related:
Blog Posts:
How to Be a Motivational Speaker (Part 1)  | Get a Mentor
How To Be A Motivational Speaker (2) Choose the Right Topic
How To Be Speaker (3) Format of a Keynote.  A Template!
Adding Humor (1)   The Act Out
Adding Humor (2):   Give the Audience a Voice
Adding Humor (3) What to Do When Your Humor Bombs

On YouTube
Part 1. Find a Speaker Mentor
Part 2. Choose a Correct Motivational Topic (on YouTube)
How to be a Motivational Speaker (3) on YouTube
Adding Humor (1)   The Act Out (On YouTube)
Adding Humor (2):   Give the Audience a Voice (on YouTube)
Adding Humor (3) What to Do When Your Humor Bombs (YouTube)

For those of you who prefer to read the text of the video, here it is:

Template for keynote motivational speech.

How to Be a Speaker:  FORMAT OF A KEYNOTE
This is Brad Montgomery from Brad Montgomery.com with a continuing series in how to be a motivational speaker and how to be a paid professional speaker.  All right so one of the things we never talked about is exactly what is a motivational speech?  I know, you got some ideas about what you’re going to do and what you’re going to talk about and I know you have some ideas about your message for when you become a motivational speaker but you’re still struggling with how does it work, what’s the form, what’s the format, how do you put together a motivational speech.  Well good news – I’m about to tell you.

All right so it’s really not as hard as you think because there’s a formula.  Now you’ll notice that almost every good motivational speaker follows the formula and deviates from it but at least let me give you the formula because you’ll be shocked how easy it is.  First, you’ve got to have an opening so the opening’s going to be: My name is.  Here’s what we’re going to talk about.  Here’s my background is and here’s what you are going to get out today’s program.  So you’re just going to tell them what to expect.  So I’m a funny motivational speaker and I talk to businesses about lightening up so I start, as you might guess, with some jokes and I tell them today we’re going to talk about lightening it up and how that’s going to be related to your business.  Get it?  That’s the intro – that’s it.  That’s all the intro is.  Now the intro can be very short or you know like even a minute or two or it can be as long as you know five or ten sometimes fifteen minutes.  Because I’m funny I use a lot of humor but I think if you’re a high content motivational speaker you’re going to cut right to it.  So for example you might say, I’ve had an incredible car accident and I learned a lot from it and in today’s program we’re going to go through my story and how the lessons I learned relate to you.  All right so there’s the introduction.

Then you’re basically going to have three points – three points and each point is going to be supported by at least one story.  So let’s say for example your motivational speech is to be in you know you want to inspire people somehow.  All right so then I’m assuming that you have three techniques to inspire people.  So let’s say your techniques are to you know have good relationships and lead others in inspiration and to always nurture yourself – take care of yourself.  All right so those are the three points.  Write them down; bam, bam, bam.

So the first one is, my first point of the day is blah, blah, blah, blah.  Get it?  You tell them what your point is but they don’t care what your point is unless you have a story.  So if your first point is nurturing relationships that’s where you’re going to want to launch into one of your stories about how you nurture relationships or how you learned from this or how something happened to you that is relevant to them.  The main part of the story is to hold their interest, to teach the lesson and then really to let them learn from it.  How can we learn from your experience without having to go through the pain and trouble that you’ve done.  So for example let’s say you’ve climbed Mt. Everest and you want to talk about you know all the fabulous thing you learned about Mt. Everest.  What I really want out of that as an audience member is how can I learn all the things you know without having to climb Mt. Everest.  So you’re telling us the story of Mt. Everest and then you’re giving us the first point.  Got it?  So, now we’ve got the introduction, first point and the story to support that point.  Then you lead right into the second point and the transition can be as simple as that brings us to our second point.  The second point is you need to nurture relationships – I can’t remember what the three points are – but you know the second point is you’ve got to eat a lot of pineapple.  You see it doesn’t really matter what the point is and then you’ve got to support that.  So, how are you going to support that?  With another story so that’s when you need to launch in to another personal story, something that really happened to you and then relate what you learned out of that story and how we can apply those lessons to our lives.  Do you get the running theme?  Because if you’re a motivational speaker it really isn’t about you and how fabulous you are and how fabulous your stories are or how funny you are; what really is important is how you can get some information and inspiration into us as the audience.

All right and then the third point repeat as needed.  That leads us to our third point or our third point is to be a leader of inspiration and you know being a leader of inspiration is important because blah, blah, blah, blah and here comes the story to support that point.  Got it?  So now you’ve just told the introduction, you’ve had three points each one supported by at least one story – by the way if you know you want to do two short stories, go for it; three really short stories, go for it; whatever it doesn’t matter – and then finally is the conclusion and the conclusion really needs to be a summary of what you’ve just done but then most importantly you really need to make sure the audience understands that it’s about them.  So even though all the stories are about you and your own life experience the message is about them.  So in the conclusion you need to really make sure that they walk out of there knowing that I want to be like that speaker I just heard or at least I want to apply the lessons that that speaker taught because it makes sense to me because after hearing those stories and hearing all the reasons behind it and hearing the original thought there’s no way in the world I can’t you know, I can’t leave as a better person after hearing that speaker.  Got it?

So the main format is introduction, point supported by a story, second point supported by a story, third point supported by a story, and then a conclusion which all along you’re going to be talking about your audience but especially at the conclusion you’re going to make sure that the speech is not about you it’s about them.

All right so becoming a motivational speaker is a blast of it’s fun and it’s not as hard as you think.  My name’s Brad Montgomery from Brad Montgomery.com; really happy to be part of it.  If you like this video click over here or okay – I’m not really sure where the links are but there’s a couple of links.  I’ve got a couple programs out about how to be a motivational speaker and another program about how to be a funny speaker and trust me being a motivational speaker is cool but being a funny motivational speaker means you get hired.  So adding humor is really crucial no matter what your topic is.  Thanks for your time.  Look for more videos from me soon.  Glad to be aboard.  Cheers.

Technorati Tags: How To Be A Motivational Speaker, Be a Speaker, Be a Comedian Del.icio.us Tags: How To Be A Motivational Speaker, Be a Speaker, Be a Comedian

<a href=”http://www.bradlaughs.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Got_mirth_case_art.jpg”><img class=”size-full wp-image-2246  alignleft” title=”How To Be a Comedian” src=”http://www.bradlaughs.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Got_mirth_case_art.jpg” alt=”How to be a Comedian” width=”126″ height=”120″ /></a>

Interested in learning how to use humor in your presentation?   Check out Brad’s <a href=”http://www.humorjumpstart.com/got-mirth-info.html”>Got Mirth:  Milking Your Presentation for all the Humor It’s Worth</a>.

Learn more about <strong><a href=”http://www.bradmontgomery.com/how-to-be-a-motivational-speaker”>how to be a motivational speaker</a></strong> with my how-to <a href=”http://www.bradmontgomery.com/how-to-be-a-motivational-speaker/”>audio here</a>.<a href=”http://www.bradmontgomery.com/how-to-be-a-motivational-speaker/”><img class=”size-full wp-image-2203 alignright” title=”How to Be A Motivational Speaker” src=”http://www.bradlaughs.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/be-a-speaker-labelweb.jpg” alt=”be-a-speaker-labelweb” width=”136″ height=”136″ /></a>

<strong>Related</strong>:<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12gz0Sso29Q”>

</a>Blog Posts:

<a href=”http://www.bradlaughs.com/2009/11/20/how-to-be-a-motivational-speaker-2/”>How to Be a Motivational Speaker (Part 1)  | Get a Mentor</a>

<a href=”http://www.bradlaughs.com/2009/12/15/how-to-be-a-motivational-speaker-3/”>How To Be A Motivational Speaker (2) </a>Choose the Right Topic

<a href=”http://www.bradlaughs.com/2010/01/12/be-a-motivational-speaker/”>How To Be Speaker (3)</a> Format of a Keynote.  A Template!

<a href=”http://www.bradlaughs.com/2009/11/20/how-to-be-a-motivational-speaker-2/”>Adding Humor (1)   The Act Out</a>

<a href=”http://www.bradlaughs.com/2010/01/15/how-to-be-a-mo…onal-speaker-5/”>Adding Humor</a> (2):   Give the Audience a Voice

<a href=”http://www.bradlaughs.com/2010/01/15/how-to-be-a-motivational-speaker-part-6″>Adding Humor</a> (3) What to Do When Your Humor Bombs

Part 7:  <a href=”http://www.bradlaughs.com/2010/01/16/how-to-be-a-motivational-speaker-7/”>How to Be a Motivational Speaker — Find A Niche to Make you Rich</a>

Part 8: <a href=”http://www.bradlaughs.com/2010/01/16/how-to-be-a-motivational-speaker-8/”> Be a Professional Speaker — Be Authentic On the Platform</a>

<em>On YouTube</em>

Part 1. <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6kYnZagTp0″>Find a Speaker Mentor</a>

Part 2. <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGVc35ej6SY”>Choose a Correct Motivational Topic </a>(on YouTube)<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12gz0Sso29Q”>

How to be a Motivational Speaker</a> (3) on YouTube

<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12gz0Sso29Q”>Adding Humor</a> (1)   The Act Out (On YouTube)

<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snvaHeXZa5M”>Adding Humor</a> (2):   Give the Audience a Voice (on YouTube)

<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK_gvdJz0kY”>Adding Humor</a> (3) What to Do When Your Humor Bombs (YouTube)

Part 7:  <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjJEDSUjSf0″>How To be a Speaker</a> — Find a Niche

Part 8:  <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvSplClTa_Q”>How to be a Motivational Speaker — Be Authentic on the Platform</a>

How to Be a Motivational Speaker Article

Okay Peeps!   You asked for it, you got it!  Here’s my latest ‘Brad Spouts Off’ episode direct from the Center for Humor in the Workplace Case Studies.  (Ok, you caught me… we filmed it in my office.)

Are you eager for a better workplace vibe, (oooh!   what a fancy business buzzword!) more freedom to have fun, and an escape from a lousy toxic work environment?  Are you waiting for “THEM” to enable you to to make that happen?   Can’t wait until they finally fix it so that you can start working as hard as you should be?   Can’t wait for them to change that one thing so that work can be fun — and productive — again?

Well then, lucky you, because this video is just for you.

Think I’m wrong?  I dare ya….leave a comment below! (Heck, leave one even if you agree.)

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

See the video on YouTube

For you non-video folks, here’s the text of the video in my post here.

Hey, this is Brad Montgomery from BradMontgomery.com with the message of the day.  Here it comes.  You are they.

Let me explain.  All right, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone into organizations and I hear from the top line leaders, to all the support staff, everybody says we can’t do that until they make it possible.  So, it’s either we can’t be more productive, we can’t have more fun, we can’t fix this toxic work culture.  I can’t have any fun in life until they fix it.  Well, this is a problem, isn’t it?  I swear, I’ve met people that are so upset; they’re willing to be miserable.  They’re willing to say, I’m going to be miserable until retirement, because they’re not going to allow me to do what I want to do.  Well, can you hear how ridiculous that is, how stupid you sound?

Listen, if you want to make a difference, here’s what you need to remember.  You are the they.  So, yes, yes, there are sometimes at work and in life, there are some impediments to letting us get as much joy, and as much fun as we deserve.  Yes, I understand that.  Sometimes your manager stinks, sometimes your boss stinks, sometimes your staff stinks, sometimes whatever, it’s there.

On the other hand, what are you going to do about it?  Are you going to sit around and say, well, it stinks; it’s not going to get fixed until they fix it.  Or, are you going to be the person who says, lets lead the way.  Are you going to be the leader?  Somebody in every single positive work culture is the leader in levity, lightheartedness, joy and even humor.  Somebody’s always that person who has more energy than everyone else.  Why shouldn’t that be you?  Why not?  Are you really going to wait and be miserable until retirement, or are you going to start being the guy who says, I’m going to lead the way.

So, if you want to have a little bit more fun at work, and you should, if you want to have a little bit more fun with your family, and you should, well then it’s going to start with you; you are the they.  Now the cool thing about this is we know this.  We know that in this toxic environment, if there ever was a time that we deserved to lighten up and enjoy ourselves, it’s now.

But the cool thing is that, also, this concept of bringing levity and lightheartedness and joy to work makes us better at work; it makes us more productive.  It increases the quality of our work product, and if there ever was an economic environment when we need it, not just good, not just great, but outstanding, it is now.  And I’m here to tell you, levity and humor and joy will help you get to outstanding.  All right, how’s it going to happen?  It’s going to happen with not they, it’s going to happen with you.

My name is Brad Montgomery.  If you want some specifics about how to do it, there’s, shoot, click the buttons, see the buttons.  I don’t know where the buttons are, but there’s buttons all over the site.  Give us a call.  We’d love to help you and your organization.  Make it a great day, and I mean you make it a great day because it’s going to help you get what you want at home and at work.

Here’s the video on YouTube