32 – Vacation Any Time: Tom interviews John Drebinger

Episode 032 – John Drebinger
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:27] Hey everybody it's Episode 32 of screw the commute podcast. Tom Antion here got a great guest that's going to tell you how not to be afraid of certain things and I'm not even going to tell you what he's going to tell you to be afraid of. Now if you missed Episode 31 you made a mistake. That's where I did my little spiel on how you joint venture with guys like me what to say what not to say. I put a lot of people on the map. I'm not trying to solicit you to put you on the map but if there's somebody that could put you on the map you want to know what to say to them what not to say and how to do it. So I covered that in Episode 31. Now our sponsor let me ask you something. Did you ever wonder how tens of thousands of people like me sit home earn legitimate money and don't have to listen to a boss or get up and fight traffic every day. I just made up these figures. But in the time you've spent commuting to a job you could've raise three families become a professional figure skater and walk the Appalachian Trail 7 times if you want to learn how guys like me have time to think up stupid statistics I just made up. It's because we have online businesses. You'll learn how to have an online business or get a high paying job at the only licensed dedicated distance learning school in the country probably the world. Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia. Check it out at IMTCVA.org and we'll have that in the show notes.

[00:02:07] All right let's get to the main event John Drebinger is a certified speaking professional who has spoken to over 400 major clients on safety over 28 years. His best selling books have sold 80,000 copies which is forty five thousand more copies than any other book in the field of safety. His new online course helps people eliminate their fear of speaking in public. John are you ready to screw. The commute.

[00:02:40] There you go. All right. Hey John thanks for being here. Tell everybody what you do.

[00:02:46] Well I've been for the past 28 years a motivational speaker in the field of safety industrial safety workplace safety and I started out as a professional magician and somebody asked me to come to a safety meeting and use safety as the magic word when I did that. I all of a sudden gave them more than they wanted. I used stuff I learned from trade shows and other fields and I gave them I actually wrote routines that taught their concepts. And so once I did that I started going all over the country speaking to people and making it fun and it wasn't a boring safety meeting because I am a professional magician.

[00:03:26] Wow I didn't know that. That takes a lot of practice to really do good stuff there's a lot of easy stuff that every trainer uses but to really do professional level stuff take a lot of practice.

[00:03:36] I did magic professionally full time for a period about nine years after I worked for the Boy Scouts as an executive. From 1976 to 82 and then my wife gave me the opportunity to go out and try magic as a full time profession and took off like crazy. And then the speaking came from that.

[00:03:57] You said your wife gave you the permission.

[00:04:00] When our first child was born she got a great offer from the company she was working with to come back. They really wanted her to come back and so she said OK you stay home take care of the kid and I'll go to the office every day and you can get started doing that we set a two year goal that we'd match my salary that I used to work for with the Boy Scouts and we hit it in one year and then once I got into professional speaking. At one point when our son was born she was able to quit work and stay at home here and enjoy our two acre parcel of land in California and do gardening. So she's had a great time with that.

[00:04:40] Well that's interesting the way that you got out of your dreaded JOB because a lot of people don't have a wife that's going to let them do it. Right. But do you remember that moment when the time came that you're getting out of going to the job every day.

[00:04:58] Oh absolutely. It was neat from the standpoint the time became totally mine that I can decide what I do when I do it. And you mentioned in the introduction. Family and so forth one of the huge advantages I have is I now have two grandchildren that live about 20 minutes north of me just south of Sacramento California. And if all of a sudden something comes up and they've got something at school or a program at church that I can go see I just drop everything and head out there or I can go and see a baseball game in the afternoon or a soccer game that they're playing in and I don't have to ask anybody else and I don't have to second guess that. If we plan a trip the other advantage. of Course I do a lot of flying. I don't commute to and from the job but I do have the privilege of flying around the world. And I save up all my miles from that to take them will be going to Disney World later this fall it's the secret to them so we won't let them listen to the podcast. But I'll be able to fly. I've done this before we just fly the whole family the two grandkids my daughter and her husband and my wife and I and off we go and don't pay a dime.

[00:06:11] Now you've been screwing the commute for a long long time but I'm sure you remember what it was like to go to work every day. And what would you tell people that are out there now thinking wow taking the kids here and there and doing all this stuff any time I want. What would you tell them if they're thinking about making that transition.

[00:06:31] Well it's a fabulous lifestyle of course for some people you think well you don't have the security of a regular paycheck or a job where you're going to and from an office. But in any economy there isn't any real security in any job anyway. That went out a long time ago because those days are gone. Somewhere back in the 50s or 60s but the fact is that you control what you do. You can pick the things you enjoy doing. I mean I've been in the safety field for years I'm sure there are other fields where I could probably hit a higher income but I absolutely love teaching. I teach communication skills to safety professionals and I know they're better what they do. I just got back from the American Society of Safety Professionals conference in San Antonio and I had people stopping me on the street saying that when they got my book 10 years ago it changed their life that they literally changed their entire career and safety because of what I taught them. And so that's really profound when you realize you've had that kind of impact on people's lives.

[00:07:38] That's really really rewarding. Now you have a course we're going to talk about it more in-depth but you have a course on overcoming the fear of public speaking but it seems like the work you're doing and a lot of people say they feel like they're going to die up there. But the stuff you did in the communication field in the safety field they could die if communication isn't part of it.

[00:08:04] There's no question about that. And the biggest problem in the field the safety was everything was so boring that the audience wasn't listening. I was at one presentation I got done with my talk. There were 350 people there. I was taking notes frantically. The next person because it was early in my career I was learning and I went out to use the restroom and half of the 350 people were in the hallway and I said Guys this is really good stuff and they said Yeah but we can't stay awake and they were right. I mean it was terrible. And so I know you do speaking teaching people speaking and it's not something people learn in school it's not something that the courses cover. I mean I was a speech major in college and a lot of the techniques and things about speaking. They don't teach. They talk about theory a lot of the concepts but they don't get into a lot of the how tos that make things effective.

[00:08:56] Yeah and it's interesting is that they were going to sleep because my system's called the wake 'em up system. It is based on attention gaming devices one of which would be magic but there's all kinds of them. I was dealing with mostly professional speakers so I didn't get in too much on overcoming the fear of speaking. But that's wow. People they just start trembling a lot of them sweating and get sick to their stomach over time. So you've got some help for them right.

[00:09:24] Right. And there's one speaker I helped actually it's a professional you would know him he's given me permission tell a story not with his name. But he came to me several years ago and he would never eat breakfast or lunch or dinner with the client before his presentation. And it was because he was always in the bathroom throwing up before he went to speak.

[00:09:46] There's been a lot of big name people I mean Johnny Carson and Laurence Olivier were deathly afraid of appearing in public and they still did it.

[00:09:57] Yeah and they dealt with dealing with the fear when I started researching helping people overcome a fear of speaking. I found a huge number of the suggestions are how to deal with it how to cope with it instead of just outright eliminating it. And I had learned techniques that help people just blow it out of there and they're not afraid of things people will tell you to speak more often which of course you and I know is outstanding to do as a speaker. The more you speak the better you get. But if you're frightened of speaking you're not going to look for opportunities to go out and speak. You're too scared to do that. So you're not going to get better. So I deal with it and say let's get rid of the fear first then do all the stuff for you. Speak more often and get better and improve your skills because now you're not miserable doing it. You're enjoying it.

[00:10:47] So give them a couple tips here on what they can do if they are in that boat. They know they should increase their skills. It's going to help them in their job. It's going to help give them a chance to go out on their own faster. So what are some things they can do to start improving that.

[00:11:03] Well there are a huge number of things that you know fear of speaking holds people back in their career their social life. I've talked to people at church that there was one group trying to get more people in Bible study. So the problem you have is you have people read from the Bible at your session and half of these people are scared of actually 75 percent of people are afraid of speaking in public. They don't want to come to your class because they know you're going to say hey Bob read such and such to us and they're just shaking and nervous. So I've actually taught people to teach bible studies always get permission before you have somebody read and make the group know you'll never call on them impromptu because you'll see people coming but people are afraid of being if they start they get nervous and it builds on itself. They start feeling themselves shaking. They'll look down and actually see their hand shaking which then makes them more nervous. They start breathing heavy you know faster and it builds one of the things I teach people and they share it with the conference I was just speaking to they had me do what they call a flash session.

[00:12:04] And I told a story about a past president of the American Society of Safety Professionals and I was a good friend. His standing next to him when he is about to get up and give his speech accepting being the new president of the association to an audience of about 3000 and he said I love this but I hate speaking in front of people. And I said well what do you feel like when you do and he says well I'm all you know I'm breathing fast and I'm trembling a little bit my heart's racing I'm sweating. I said that's interesting because I had heard a story from one of my mentors who talked about two performers and one of them a female performer who they asked her what does it feel like right before you go on and you know sing. And she said oh my heart's racing I'm breathing fast I'm perspiring. It's absolute sheer terror. And that's the meaning she gave it. And then they interviewed Bruce Springsteen and they said to him hey what's it like for you when you go on right beforehand. He says all my heart's racing I'm breathing fast I'm just trembling with excitement it's pure exhilaration. I love it.

[00:13:08] In fact all I can think of is I'm hoping that clown that's up there right now gets off the stage to stop introducing me. Get off the stage so I can do what I love doing. And it's both exact same physiological responses with the different meaning to it. The one person attributes it as excitement. The other person attributes that to fear so one of the first things I do with people is we change the name of it instead of saying somebody is afraid of speaking I say How about if we deal with the fact that you have a discomfort speaking because that myth that's out there on the Internet where people say people are more afraid of speaking in public than dying really true.

[00:13:49] That's bad research. I mean because if I took somebody put them in front of an audience of 2000 people and had a gun and said OK get up there and speak or I'll shoot you they're going to get up and give a speech they'll be miserable but they'll do it. And a dear friend of mine at Virginia Tech's behavioral psychologist who says yeah that's not a consequence that they're seeing happening right away. So they don't they can think of speaking oh my gosh that could happen to my job tomorrow. So they're more afraid of that because it's more real to them.

[00:14:20] Right. And so can you change this. Help them change their attitude.

[00:14:24] Yeah there's several different techniques in the session I did just last week. I taught one session because we only had the 15 minutes the course I do it's an online course that we've set up and it's basically an hour and five minutes taking them through a process of about eight different steps. And when I've worked with people individually I'll usually use one two or three different ones. The guy that I was talking to and told that story too and changing the meaning of his physiology just before he goes on his fear went away there and it's never come back and it was just one technique talking to him a certain way that worked in that case. But when I work with the person individually I'll do two or three in the case of the online course we just use all eight techniques that I've used with different people just to make sure we blow it away completely.

[00:15:13] Oh anything funny happen while you're doing this.

[00:15:16] Tell you some funny things about my my speaking and the magic the in doing the work with the fear of speaking I guess to me the funniest thing is that people go from the state where they've been nervous and not enjoying something that I love and I know you love the opportunity to be in front of people and sharing with them how they can succeed and how their lives are going to be better in my case how they can get home safely without you know their kids waiting for them one day when they don't come home.

[00:15:44] And and I enjoy that and it's fun. And so to me it's always kind of it seems funny that wow these people this is this is hard for them or they're suffering. And they can go instantly from the one state of suffering and being in pain to Hey enjoying it.

[00:16:01] What about the stuff that happened because you've done lots and lots of speeches.

[00:16:07] Yeah. In using the presentations I do magic in the presentation every time as I transition from being a magician I'm a member of the Magic Castle in Hollywood California. The Academy of Magical Arts Hollywood magic castle and I learned there they have lectures every other weekend when I first joined and I lived in Southern California I'd go every other weekend and just sit and listen and learn. But one of the things I learned from the guys there was how to steal watches. And that's one of my signature effects whenever possible I will take somebody's watch from the audience during my presentation in safety I use as an illustration to talk about distractions. But one of the funny things one of most things that's fascinating to me about it is I've actually had people look at me take the watch off the wrist and put it in my pocket and I'm a certified hypnotherapist also.

[00:16:59] And when I learned hypnosis I know why magic works unconsciously they're seeing me put it in my pocket but their conscious mind has no clue. Later on they'll go like oh wait a minute I remember that.

[00:17:14] I never believed this until a guy that was really good at it I said do it to me. And I knew he was going to do it and he still did it. And then I became a believer.

[00:17:28] I've had people walk up to me and say John I want you to take my watch and I said while I can't do it because you're thinking of it right now I said let me do another trick for you. And then I go in and take the watch off. As soon as I tell him I can't do it they relax. They don't think I'm going to and then boom it's gone but. I was working in a restaurant one time and this one lady I the people would come and do magic and their tables while people were waiting. And so I do magic is one table take this lady's watch I put in my pocket in the way I would do as I finished my routine at the table and they'd say hey we want to thank you for coming to the restaurant tonight. I have a special gift for you from the management. How would you like this nice watch. And I held the watch up for the lady and she's just stunned and she looks at her friends and her family is with her at the table and she looks at them and she says You guys don't understand. That's a 600 dollar watch. I don't understand how the restaurant can afford to give away a six hundred dollar watch because I have one just like it her husband starts nudging her. She looks down at her wrist and goes Oh my gosh. It was just incredibly shocked. And of course the other one I loved about that is being a magician when I was working restaurants in a lot of times there's people with different egos and the purpose of magic is to entertain people not to fool people.

[00:18:49] That's a side thing that goes along but you don't care about that. You want people to be entertained. And occasionally what I do magic at a bar people would bring their friends in and you'd get one of these guys with a big ego that you know has to know how everything's done and everything else. And the trick I would be doing involves a little sponge balls that I make go from one place to another. That was my distraction and this one guy. Every time it would happen every time when the guy started telling everybody at the bar I know what he's doing and I've done it at parties and people's houses they'll start announcing I know exactly what he's doing. He's taking two ball squeezing together putting in my other hand. Meanwhile my hands already taken his watch off it's in my pocket. And so then I make a little ceremony. Ladies and gentlemen let me get your attention since Bob here has figured out my trick. I always have a tradition of giving somebody that figures out the magic a present. And I said Bob since you figured it out here's this nice watch which of course he has no clue. The whole room falls apart and it's fabulous. And there hasn't been a guy showing off like that I haven't already had his watch in my pocket. When he starts telling everybody he knows how the trick's done.

[00:19:58] So the great great thing now. Well hey John what do you like best about working for yourself and what's the worst part about.

[00:20:06] Well the best part is the freedom to be able to do what I want when I want to do it and be able to have something comes up I can do that. I do enjoy working a lot. I think an important thing in life is having a purpose in what you do. You know sadly we've lost a lot of people recently in the news that have ended their life. And I think part is because they don't have a purpose in what they're accomplishing or they don't feel a sense of purpose and that I have a purpose. When I sit here in the office and my office is my home I'm looking out at my pool. This beautiful garden my wife has built normally have a fountain running I turned it off for the podcast here. But it's just so amazing to be able to do all that and when I want to and I do I tend to like working later in the day. I will start late in the day and last night I was busy until about 1:00 in the morning. But I was just having a ball doing what I was doing writing and I was doing some website stuff and some design for a friend. And it's a lot of fun. The variety is incredible too it's not the same thing day in and day out it's not growing every audience I have is unique and interesting. The other part that I absolutely love in my field is the places it's allowed me to go and do I'm an absolute space nut. I follow the space program since I was a little kid and because of what I do and speaking and as my own person I've spoken at NASA many many times. But they've allowed me. I've been on board all three of the space shuttles they just retired. I've got pictures of me sitting in the cockpit. I even on occasion NASA people wonder how I did this my son when he was 10 years old.

[00:21:46] I've got a picture of him sitting on board the Space Shuttle Atlantis in the commander's seat. And I've flown the simulator at the Johnson Space Center has now been disassembled since they're not flying the shuttle anymore but I've flown that enough times where I could actually land it without hurting it. It's a full motion simulator. They strap you in on your back tilt you upside back on your back and off they go and they do a launch and return to launch site abort and you have to land it. And it's a kick so and we go down to see launches in fact the end of this month I'm going down to see Delta Heavy launch that they're doing for the satellite they're sending out to go study the sun it's going to actually go into orbit around the sun at about 3 million miles from the sun and that's launching on the thirty first of July and I'll be down there watching it from as close as any human being gets my badge allows me to get as close as you can safely be there and the shockwave is a kick. So some pretty cool things and I've been able to interview people. I mean the people I've been able to interview and talk to and meet are just incredible. Four years ago we were invited to the Apollo 1 memorial where they celebrate the astronauts that were lost on January 27 1967. Gus Grissom Roger Chaffee and Ed White and I went to that as a guest of the Air Force that evening. Somebody said hey I'm coming to dinner. Grissom's put on a dinner every year at the hotel. I thought to be in a room with 50 people. I spent four hours across the table from Betty Grissom Gus Grissom's wife and her son Mark and a cousin named Steve. And I just sat there just listening to stories. And ever since then I've been a guest of the family at that event and done stuff for him up in Indiana where they've had a fundraiser for the boyhood home.

[00:23:35] That's the other thing and I know you do fundraising for different things I've seen it when you have some of the e-mails and the opportunity to use what you do in your profession and choosing those organizations that you want to benefit with that you don't have to charge them. I'm not somebody that's a consultant being you know some big corporation charging my money off to some deal. I'm saying hey could you use some help on this. And I can give that to them.

[00:24:03] Well speaking really I know people that so many people are afraid of it but it just gives you so many life experiences helping people travel and all these wonderful things from it so it's worth overcoming the fear of it. Now the closest I ever got to the space program. I took One of those fake pictures down in Houston. Me and some kind of spacesuit. And then I hung the picture up outside the meeting room that said Houston, the speaker has landed.

[00:24:35] There you go. Pretty good line now. If I can ever get Orlando when I'm down there I have the deputy commander at Cape Canaveral is actually we do stuff for him and so he badges us in for the whole year and he's taken me places that people don't even know exist at the space center. We drive the backwoods and behind the weeds and everything else and can see the original stains on the cement from the first launch at Cape Canaveral.

[00:25:05] I know a guy that was in the control room right during what was that movie they had with Tom Hanks Apollo 13. Yep Apollo 13 he was in the control room. I know the guy. Would you like to talk to him someday.

[00:25:26] I've been in that control room in fact when we go to Johnson Space Center was one of the places I would go I'd speak there in the mornings three days in a row and then I'd go visit people the rest of the time. And I've sat in that control room pulled the drawers open and looked at the old launch reports and everything and sat at the chair where the guy you're talking about would have been sitting during that whole thing it's just an amazing place to sit there and be where all of this history occurred.

[00:25:54] All right so we jack them up on all the greatest stuff about being in business for yourself. But it's not always bright and shiny so what's the worst thing.

[00:26:04] The tough thing is you are dealing with a regular paycheck. I think my wife has more difficulty with that than than I do. It's one of those things where it can fluctuate depending on the market if the market does something interesting it can get interesting in the field. Speaking a few years ago a lot of meetings disappeared. I was fortunate because people were still having safety meetings but a lot of other stuff I do.

[00:26:30] The other thing it allows you to diversify a lot of the stuff I've learned from you I developed and now learned from actually from your neck market training course from that I'm now designing websites. I'm about halfway through.

[00:26:49] It's outstanding. Of course I have a belief that God takes care of the details when I need them. Every time I've needed something it's the next course I'm working on so I can probably look at the rest of the course and tell you how the business is going to be going in the next few months. It seems to track that way. But it's fabulous stuff by the way. But the difficulties of it are you are the one responsible. You're the one that's gonna make it happen or not happen in your business. And if you're not able to handle that. I don't have stress in my life I tend to avoid stress. I get to airports early and I don't let things stress me out. So I kind of always look to the positive side of things. But you do need to be aware there are times where you go hey there's nobody else doing this but me.

[00:27:41] I particularly like that. Some people that's scary especially if they're coming out of the corporate world where they snap their fingers and get them coffee or if they have trouble with the computer they call I.T.

[00:27:56] I love that stuff too. To me it's exhilarating it's fine and I love learning. One of the things that's fabulous I hired a young man headed to my office from my Boy Scout Troop scoutmaster and he was one of the older kids and I hired him to do some stuff in the office and he taught me how to solve 90 percent of the problems I have. I can be working on a video editor or a sound editor on the computer here. And I go shoot. How do we do that. And it's late at night there's nobody support I can call or something so I just type into Google How do I and I type out as clearly as I can. What I want to accomplish and son of a gun there's some guy on YouTube that's figured it out.

[00:28:38] I started out with Ilya in 1997 that was my first geek and I'm still to this day using stuff that he taught me on automation and just all kinds of stuff. Tell them about the product you have.

[00:28:52] One of things we talked about before we got on the call was one of the key things that I've realized is you need to find a mentor or mentors and some whom you're going to pay for. But a lot of people and this is one of the things I taught people in the National Speakers Association was actually a class I taught several years of the convention was don't just ask how do I become successful on the Internet or how to become successful as a speaker but ask somebody that really knows a question a single focused question. And I made it a habit and I had my marketing person do this where we would call once a week another certified speaking professional before I was one and asked them a simple focused question of how do we do this thing.

[00:29:40] And then I actually sent Diane to three or four speakers offices were I flew her around the country to go sit with Larry Wingets assistant she met with him she went up to Minneapolis to meet with Harvey Mackay and his assistant and the guy said Yeah he says you know I'll spend the morning with you. We're just going to have to pick up Harvey at the airport and then she got to listen to his advice and you know all of that was free except for flying people around. And if you know something that you want to actually ask somebody they then know you're serious and that you've done some homework ahead of time.

[00:30:16] Also one of my rules is if somebody has written a book read it first because there's nothing worse than somebody asking a question you've already given the answer to and they haven't taken the time to read your book. And it's kind of like hey clown Do that first. I'll help focus it for you. Tony Robbins I had the privilege doing magic for him back in 1997 95 thereabouts and I would do magic for people waiting for the big events. And as a result I got to go to all the other seminars for free. So that saved me a lot of money. And I also had access to him privately. And it was where I developed using some of the magic to help teach it. It creates a certain situation where people are looking for an answer. But the key thing there was I wasn't wasting somebody's time with the ridiculous questions I'd have a focus question. And then he'd tell me read this book and he had stuff he read and that's the other thing I look for I asked mentors what books have you read that helped you do what it is I'm trying to learn. And you read those books you'd get some of the foundation of their material that's even more powerful

[00:31:26] Sure is. So tell him about your product for overcoming the fear of public speaking.

[00:31:31] What I what I developed a year ago I was at a conference and a guy came up to me from Australia and said You did a session on overcoming fear of speaking and I use the techniques you taught me and I haven't been afraid of speaking in front of people since them and I looked at my associate and said you know we ought to make that a product. It's like wait a minute we're missing the boat here. And so we went ahead and wrote the materials for this.

[00:31:57] I did further research beyond what I had already been doing with people to make sure I was hitting everything right. We went ahead and put the course together it's basically it's not like a regular online course because it's one of these things where I want you to sit down for the whole hour and listen and do the exercises and then be done with it it's not the type thing you listen to 10 minutes then turn it back on later. And we cover that in the instructions but it just simply is they go through these eight different steps that I take people through. And when they're done usually when they're done with the third step they're usually pretty much done with the fear of it. But once again I like wiping things out and it allows them to enjoy speaking then they can get better at it or they can use it in whatever capacity they want to. So I built that over the course of the year and then at the end I've got a good friend who's a behavioral psychologist at Virginia Tech sent him the script for the course. He then spent the weekend going through it and highlighting stuff the best news was he said everything you're teaching people is all research based. You're using you know you're not necessarily using the psychological term behind it but it's all valid in how people's minds work. And then we actually shot the video for it on his porch in Virginia. He's over by Blacksburg and shot it on his porch one day with a green screen behind us and behind me. And then we put in speaking situations I've been the kind of the what we splice into the video but it's fun it's real easy to do. And they can just access it on any device their computer or my handheld device or a tablet.

[00:33:37] The Web site endpublicspeakinganxiety.com. OK we'll have that in the show notes.

[00:33:48] And then there's also my main site is drebinger.com. And there's always a link to it on there if you look for the fear of speaking on the little widget on the side. There'll be a link to the place. So and it's really a lot of fun and it's one of those things where it's simple for people to do and it's not complicated. And instead of having to struggle through it I mean I read Warren Buffett there are all these other people that are top business people. And each and every one of them most of what they write about is how they've learned to cope with it. They still don't enjoy it. It's like wow what a shame.

[00:34:28] Yeah there's so much joy out there if you could just learn to open your eyes and appreciate it. We've got to take a message from a sponsor so when we come back we're going to ask you what's a typical day look like for you and how you stay motivated. We'll be right back.

[00:34:42] Today, almost two billion of you will go online retrieving over 100 billion searches for information, goods and services, and 6 million of you will view a page on the internet before this commercial is over. The world has changed and so is the way we do business. At the Internet Marketing Training Center, you can study online at your pace to fit your schedule, and you can graduate with the skills and knowledge to compete in the global marketplace or start your own home based business. Call us today or go online at IMTCVA.org. Because, it's about time. Yours.

[00:35:13] All right. We're back with the superduper John Drebinger John what's a typical day look like for you.

[00:35:20] When I'm home and not traveling in a speaking situation. I'm home today. It's on a Monday so I'll come out to my office and work on whatever project I like setting up ahead of time when I know I'm going to spend the day working. I like the day before or the last time I was doing something to have in mind what I'm going to do next so that I don't end up in the office spending three four or five hours of doing stuff that's not significant or important. And so I will plan ahead to go do that. Head out to my little at home office I have here and to tell you how much I like flying inside the office. I have two first class seats actually from an airplane sitting.

[00:36:02] Yeah they're getting smaller nowadays.

[00:36:06] Oh yeah yeah. No. They're the full sized ones. So I work a lot of times I'll work on the website. I'll play with stuff I'm writing I'll work on a newsletter I publish a newsletter every week in the field the safety and communications and that's on drebinger.com and you can have it on your site and that's a weekly newsletter I put out and so I'll work on writing on that. I have requests from clients that will want articles for their newsletters and stuff so there's trade publications that I'll write for when they've got a request for something my presentations are customized for the clients. But there are basically about four or five different presentations I do so I have to work a lot of times on writing a presentation and a lot of times I actually do that in the field that was at the safety convention this last week and on Monday I had an outline for my presentation on Wednesday that I was going to do.

[00:37:11] And by Wednesday I had rewritten the whole thing because I had gotten some ideas listening to other people and they thought you know I need to address this issue because nobody else is. And so I read in my PowerPoint slides and all that good stuff and had some good that's the other thing we're working on creative stuff.

[00:37:29] We've made use of things from Fiverr in different places I've got a guy that did a Clint Eastwood impersonation telling you you should wear your seatbelt. So we've got that on our site we did a April Fools staircase fall protection video that we actually created in the house from stuff I've learned from you and the affiliates you've worked with. And we did a short I think is about three minute video if we're going to redo it and probably make it one one and a half minutes. But it's a safety announcement announcing that. Now any staircase with more than three stairs you have to wear a full fall protection harness and we let our client they take that and they show it to people saying hey guess we got to do now and people are going on like Are you kidding and at the end that says no not April Fools but you really do fall protection in a staircase. It's called the handrail. Use it. So that's I think that's the other thing I love. I love having fun with stuff so as things start happening here that's the other advantage of working with yourself is you can make the choices to change different things or go on a different direction immediately. You don't have to sell everybody else on the idea.

[00:38:44] So I guess all this stuff is what helps you stay motivated. Any particular tricks you have that keep your motivated.

[00:38:50] For me, and I teach this to other safety professionals I really I know for a fact the work I do and what I've taught people is save lives. I've actually had people come and tell me something they did after I taught them something and that saved somebody's life. And so I know that happens. But I from the years of my work with the Boy Scouts I always think in terms of some kid at home waiting for mom or dad to get home. And I know how important mom or dad being there are. And I always imagine myself if I really want to get pumped up I'll sit there and say I need to do a good job today because that kid's counting on me getting the message through to the person that they're you know that they're counting and getting home or I've got to help that safety professional become better at communicating.

[00:39:41] So they get their people home safely every day. And so that's one of my strongest motivators. I love that kind of stuff and of course I love being you know doing everything I do better I get at it the the more I'm out on the road I'm having a good time.

[00:39:54] So you have any parting thoughts for our screwballs out there who want to have a life like yours.

[00:40:00] Well obviously they've already bumped into you and your podcast. One of the things I would tell you is when somebody tells you to do something give it a try. Remember Dennis Whately was speaking at a boyscout conference once and he said do something with what he called open minded skepticism open minded enough to try it and skeptical enough that if it doesn't work for you try something else.

[00:40:22] One of the things I would tell people that are listen to you Tom you have some of the best concepts and ideas and insights and connections to people that know what to do and how to do it. And anybody that doesn't fully utilize the stuff that you provide for them the different webcasts and webinars and the materials you have. You're out of your mind. If you're not making use of that and that internet marketing course is absolutely fabulous. And even though as a speaker some of it is not what I do. All the skills that are part of it allow me to be better as a speaker and serving my clients.

[00:41:01] Yeah. A lot of the techniques are the same no matter which way you point them right. So yeah. What was that term open minded skepticism.

[00:41:10] Open minded skepticism so that you're willing to try something out and see how that works.

[00:41:17] Great advice from a great guy. How do people reach you if they want to ask questions or ask you about your course.

[00:41:24] The easiest way to reach me is through our website. It's endpublicspeakinganxiety.com my email is John@drebinger.com. And I'm always open to talking to people and helping them out with what they need help with.

[00:41:46] You're awesome John. It's so so great to know you. I want to thank you for coming on today and for everybody. This was Episode 32 Jon Drebinger. Make sure you check the show notes check out all the offerings he has. If you're thinking about speaking or apprehensive his course can get you past that and let you enjoy all the great things he's talked about all the things you've heard me talk about are out there waiting for you.

[00:42:16] So this is Episode 32 of screw the commute podcast. We'll see you on next episode. Catch ya later.

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