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Another time consuming part of this job is finding the lowest costs for clients and for myself when I’m booking gigs that require hotels, car rentals and flights. With so many discount travel web-sites and so many different trip reward STUFF out there, it can take countless hours trying to work out the best deal.

This morning/afternoon, I spent no less than 4 hours finalizing the details of my trip to Kansas in June. At the end of June, I will be speaking for the National Association of Student Councils’ National Conference at Kansas University. This will be the biggest opportunity of my career with countless levels to market, promote and connect with. With over 2,000 Student Council members from across all 50 States in attendance, this will be a great opportunity to see what all sorts of different people are doing in their regions. Getting the details right required a lot of work and precise timing.

This is another one of those time consumers I have written about in the past. It all comes with the job. The Motivational Speaker…running the business behind the scenes.

So it’s 2 am and I’m sitting here updating my Kentucky Schools List while listening to/watching Tom Hanks in the very powerful Castaway on TBS.

With very little dialogue in the movie, they certainly had a lot of time to come up with a great quote. The line he says to inspire me for the rest of the night…”And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?”

Spectacular advice for anyone. Have a great week and remember to keep breathing!

On Friday morning, I had the opportunity to speak at another Leadership Conference, the Central Ontario Leadership Seminar held in Mississauga, Ontario. It was a real honour for me to be there, because every year they only have 3 Speaker spots, but they opened up one additional spot this year specifically to fit me into their schedule. That’s a GREAT feeling to know that not only does an organization want you, but that they’re going to change their schedule specifically to make sure that they include you.

It was another great group and another great Conference. What impressed me the most was how the Conference seemed to include EVERYONE. There were no stragglers and everyone was cheering consistenly and LOUDLY every single time someone started a cheer. It was quite an impressive display.

One item I really liked that they used at the Conference was a session called, “Table Topics”. During this session each student within the group was randomly handed a piece of paper with a statement/question on it. They then had two minutes and two minutes exactly to talk about the topic.

Oral presentations and improvisation are two areas that I find are grossly underused in schools. It doesn’t matter what job a student is going to eventually find themselves in, they are going to need to know how to communicate and speak confidently with those around them. Students definitely seemed more confident after they were given their second topic and it would have only improved more had there been time for 3rd and 4th two minute discussions.

If practice makes perfect, than the more students practice their oral presentations, the closer to perfection they’ll be when it’s time for a big test.

As a Public Speaker, one of my most important jobs when I walk on stage is to read my audience and see what it’s going to take to win them over. There’s a HUGE difference between speaking for a fun-loving, already-converted Leadership Conference audience to speaking for a regular Public High School. Public High Schools can eat you alive if you don’t take the proper steps to control the audience.

Yesterday, my challenge before me was Clarkson Secondary School in Mississauga, Ontario. As the Staff Advisor was introducing the student that would introduce me, the crowd talked right over him and I instantly realized I was in for a challenge. Then the student introduced me and during her introduction the audience continued to talk over her. I knew that this was going to be a very large challenge to get up there and command the stage immediately.

While going through my first segment it took a quick stern comment with a big smile on my face and I knew I had them. Sure there were a couple of individual cat calls here and there, but it’s difficult to prevent if teachers aren’t willing to step up and control their own students. I’ve always said that staff members should never let a student do in an assembly what they wouldn’t let them do in their classroom.

For the rest of my time on stage I had an attentive, responsive audience with big smiles on their faces.

Public School audiences are certainly often the most difficult to deal with, but at the end of the day, they’re also the most rewarding and fulfilling.

I’m finally fully back on track and feeling like myself. I always know when I’m at my best, when I wake up, sit at the computer and don’t leave until dinner time. Is this healthy? ABSOLUTELY NOT! But I just love to grind away at work and plug away until it’s done.

Today from a little after 9 am (I had to update my Baseball Fantasy teams for the day) until 2:30 pm straight, I sat in my chair working on my contact lists. With the end of the school year around the corner, this is when I need to send out those E-Mails that Principals love so much, “soliciting” them to book me into their school. I still debate with myself whether or not I’m SPAM or just a casual E-Mailer. I feel as though one E-Mail a year a spammer it does not make! Of course, that could just be me justifying my own means.

After a 15 minute break for some toast, it was back to the grind, working on my Michigan and Massachusetts school lists. By 10 pm they were all completed and ready to be sent! A long day but with a sense of accomplishment at the end for sure!

My night wrapped up with another online telephone call to Singapore with the organization that will be setting up online speeches for me with schools in Singapore. I’m still in awe of thise great globalization that I am participating in. Tonight we were just working out the nitty-gritty of the contract that we will both be embarking on. How extraordinary that two people from literally half-way around the world are working on an initiative to better the lives of students that will be seeing me through a webcam.

It’s only midnight, but after 14 hours of work today it’s time for me to head to bed. Thanks to Toronto traffic, I need to be up at 6:30 am to make it to my speech in Mississauga for 9:30 am. Imagine…I’m 30 minutes away from my destination, but due to the traffic congestion in Toronto, I need to leave 2 hours early to make it there on time. I guess Globalization can’t solve ALL of our problems!

Well…apparently I have been a little lax at updating my Blog over the past couple of weeks so I do apologize to the “Motivate Yourself Blog Fans” out there.

Things have been very hectic here over the past couple of weeks as I was on the road for more speeches in Southwestern Ontario and Michigan. Besides the speeches, I have been buried under a pile of E-Mail as I attempt to play catch-up and plan for the end of June and for the fall.

Certainly, the highlight of the last couple of weeks was the MyLEAD Conference in Michigan (www.mylead.org). This was my second year in a row speaking for their organization and third time in the last five years. Last year I felt like I rushed my time at the Conference too much in order to squeeze in another great Conference in Eastern Ontario, the Eastern Ontario Leadership Seminars (www.eols.ca). I arrived in the early evening on the Friday last year, spoke on Saturday in the early A.M. and then high-tailed it on a 9 hour drive literally past my house and to Eastern Ontario to speak for EOLS on the Sunday morning. It was too much and I didn’t get to truly connect with the students.

So this year I decided to slow down my schedule and commit myself to all 3 days of the MyLEAD Conference and once again it was a GREAT experience! I think what I enjoy most about MyLEAD is actually the Staff. Oh sure, the Students are “STUPENDOUS” and a delight to work with on and off the stage. But when I deal with the Staff, I get a true sense that they are genuinely there to better the lives of the students. And I’ve dealt with Staff members before that run Conferences who I get the sense are there for themselves, their own agendas, to promote themselves/their business, etc.

At MyLEAD though? They function quite well as a team and at the end of the day, any differences are put aside for the betterment of students. They are professional and they are fun. The Conference runs smoothly and their end-goals are reached.

May has been a great month for me to participate in some very well-executed Conferences. I have seen first-hand the impact that Leadership Conferences have had on students. It’s my favourite time of year!

After my experience with the OSSSA last weekend (see my last post), I was curious to see what exactly was going to take place for the Lester B. Pearson School Board’s Annual Leadership Camp for the English students of Montreal, Quebec.

I arrived within a few minutes of the Student Leaders–called Animators and Planners–and a few Staff members arriving. With the campers/delegates arriving the next morning, I saw the Animators and Planners getting to work quickly. Posters were being made, schedules for meal cleanups designed, opening ceremonies choreography took place and all of this with a great sense of calm. There didn’t appear to be much rush or panic by anyone and sure enough within a few hours, almost all tasks for the weekend had been taken care of.

Never in my experience with Conferences had I seen such organization on such a grand scale. I, as I always do, asked what I could do to help and they said they’d let me know. I was never told what I could to help…basically because there was nothing I could do as it was all under control. Instead, I found a few students that had completed their tasks and we tossed a rugby ball around and discussed whether or not carotene was actually something that was real–it turns out, it IS!

Throughout the three day Conference, this was the same feeling I had at all times. Students ran everything, they knew what they were doing, they were having fun and doing their work and Staff were able to (for the most part) sit back, relax, tan and talk amongst themselves. This to me is EXACTLY how a Conference should run.

If we’re going to hold a “Student LEADership Conference”, then let the students LEAD. Staff were there if there was a concern and to provide an overall framework for the students, but it was always the students responsible for the Camp. Group sessions and workshops were run and led by students. There were only two Motivational Speakers, myself and another young, personable Speaker…guys that could relate to the students…and this left plenty of time for students to interact and learn from students.

For anyone running a Leadership Conference, I highly recommend looking at the model set out by the L.B.P.S.B. If you want students to learn, to have fun and to embrace their leadership potential, this is the way to do it. I hope I have the opportunity to work with these students and the School Board again. They are a model for Student LEADership everywhere.

Well I know I have more than a week of updates to get caught up on.

Let’s start from the illness…blood tests and a chest x-ray revealed nothing. I still feel fatigued and my throat is not 100% but it’s good to know that my old friend Mr. Mono hasn’t crept back into being an active player in my system. With three speeches and three workshops last week, my throat barely held up, but I made it through. Sometimes I felt like I was reliving puberty by the way my voice would crack up on stage, but it was definitely one of those things where I noticed it more than the crowd did.

OSSSA – What can I say about the Ontario Secondary School Students Association? As a former Conference Chair for the organization, I am quite saddened to see how far the once proud organization has fallen. The last Conference I helped plan was in 2000 and there were 350+ delegates there to go along with hundreds of Leadership Developers, Security and C-Com. This year’s Conference had about 150 delegates and an Executive that was practically begged to help put the Conference together.

Now, the important thing to realize is that the failures of OSSSA have nothing to do with the current Executive or even those from the past year or two. Just being able to put together a Conference at this point deserves incredible congratulations. The organization is struggling without adult representation on the Executive and even though I would have considered this sacreligious to even suggest when I was in High School, I think it may be time for some Staff support to step in and lend a hand.

I believe fully in the concept of student-run organizations. That students do the work by planning all facets of the event and at a Conference, that they are the ones responsible for everything from running sessions to cleaning up after a meal. HOWEVER, after my experiences with the OSSSA and even the York Region President’s Council (YRPC) over the past couple of years, I have become convinced that student-run organizations need some staff leadership at the top. Staff should never have to do any work, but they should be there to point out where there are faults, missteps and holes. It also helps to legitimize the organization as students are quite often not taken seriously by adult organizations/corporations.

It was great to be a part of the OSSSA Central Metro West 2007 Conference and I hope to be a part of the rebuilding process that has slowly but surely begun in York Region and Peel.