Category Archives: Life Lessons

Career Confessions of Gen Z: What Would ‘Siesta’ Look Like in America?

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One of the hardest things for me to get used to during my time abroad is the different schedule. The meals in Spain (and in many other countries) are later, generally, lunch is eaten around 2 and dinner is eaten around 9 or 10. These late eating times are killing me, and I am constantly hungry all morning and late afternoon.

Although I can’t stand the eating schedule, one of my favorite things about Spain so far is the siesta time. If you’ve never heard of it, there is a built-in time after lunch for everyone to rest or take a little nap before they head back to work or do their other afternoon activities. Everyone heads home from work or school, eats a huge meal, and then takes a quick, little nap.

A big cultural difference between Spain and America centers around the schedules and hours that people work. The average American from age 25-54 works about 40 hours a week, while the average Spaniard works about 38.5 hours a week. Although there isn’t a huge difference in this amount, the hours of the day worked is really different. In America, you hear about the “9-5” or as my Dad likes to tell me “now everyone works 8-5”. In Spain, people go to work around 9, come home from about 2-4:30/5 and return to work for another 2 or 3 hours.

In Spain, this break in the middle of the day allows families to spend quality time together in the middle of the day. There were many years of my life where my whole family would maybe have one meal together a week, and my parents made it a priority to eat together as much as possible. There are many important benefits of spending time together as a family, such as building self-esteem and relieving stress.

In a society where depression rates among teens are at an all-time high, I think that a schedule with built-in family time (and nap time!) is a pretty freaking great idea. Every year that I’ve gotten older, I see my family less and less and that sucks! People around my age in Spain get to see their entire family every day!

Now, we can blame my lack of family time on the fact that I live in a different city but I lived at home for the majority of my life and there were many days where I got to see my Dad for maybe 10 minutes. My Dad is pretty great and I want to see him for more than 10 minutes a day! (Editor/Dad note: FYI – I did not add this line!) 

I’m not saying that I think this type of schedule would work in America. This schedule works in Spain because of the culture here, and I don’t believe that this would work well in America, but we can learn a lesson here. In my opinion, sacrificing a little bit of work time to spend time with your family can have some really great benefits. And who doesn’t love a little afternoon nap?!

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

My Wife Approves of this Blog Post! (And we have a rule I can’t write about her!)

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Around Mother’s Day, the PR folks at Salary.com sent me an infographic. (Editor’s Note: please do not take this as an invitation to send me your infographic! I get at least one per day. I know it’s your job to push these onto people in hopes they’ll publish and you’ll get SEO, but most of them are awful. Yes, you’re is awful!) This salary.com piece caught my eye because it listed what a Stay-at-Home Mom should make for a salary!

So, what do you think that amount is!?

For 2018, salary.com figured a stay-at-home Mom should make a salary of $162,581!!!

That’s a nice salary! I will tell you my wife definitely makes that much! Because she takes home 100% of what I take home! 😉 BTW – Mom’s got a $5000 raise from 2017. Pretty nice!

Check out the infographic – it lists Mom’s salary from 2009 ($122,732) to present. I think Mom’s in 2009 were way overpaid by the way!

My wife and I have an agreement, a marriage contract, that I can’t write about her, which I break about 2-3 times per year. I try to break it in the best way possible that makes her look like the Hall of Fame wife and mom she is, and in return puts me in good graces! She says I should write a book on how to be a good husband because I’m 100% a great husband about 60% of the time.

So, I need to break down this $162,581. That’s a big number, but like most compensation figures, it’s just magically made up from bad data and we just end up paying the figure that we have to pay, if we want the talent. Yes, that was a shot a the compensation profession, err, arts, err, black magic…

My wife is worth $162,581 assuming I actually have that much to pay her. Otherwise, she’s probably worth more or less, based on the budget!

Here’s what I, and my 3 boys,  get for my $162,581:

  • Unlimited consultation with every decision and action we take.
  • Expert advice on everything, except technology and anything out of doors.
  • Someone who will fight to the death for your honor, will also putting you in your place.
  • A magical person who somehow gets out every stain.
  • A house so clean people think we must be selling it.
  • An endless supply of boxes on the front porch for places like Amazon, JCrew, Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, Target, etc.
  • Well prepared meals that are both tasty and nutritious, unless it’s been a hard day, then it’s probably pizza.
  • A full rundown and recap of what my family has been up to on social media all day.
  • A fully functioning teacher that knows something about everything. Plus, full editing capabilities on all papers.
  • Exercise coach and in-home Physical Therapist. Untrained Nurse Practitioner, but fully functioning.
  • Pet Therapist, dog walker, Vet assistant.
  • Neighborhood Uber driver and security guard.
  • Other wifely duties I’m contractually obligated not to discuss on this blog or any public forum.

I know I’m missing things. It would impossible to actually list out all of the duties of a stay-at-home mom, because they get asked to do everything!

If my wife goes away from 24 hours, our world falls apart and I quit the job of stay-at-home Dad before she gets far enough away from the house to hear me scream in terror! Stay-at-home moms are the real superheroes in the world.

I’ve been telling this to anyone who will listen for years now, the best hire you will ever make in your business, is to hire a woman who had to stay at home and raise kids for an extended period of time! They actually love coming to work, and they work! It’s like magic!

When a hiring manager tells me they don’t want to interview a woman because she has been at home for 5 years, I punch them in the face and fire them, because they’re an idiot! They have the potential to hire a unicorn! You don’t ever pass up hiring a unicorn!

 

Skilled Trades Aren’t Sexy to Gen Z and Millennials!

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Wow! Really!?

Here are some other things that might surprise you:

  • They also don’t hang out on Facebook
  • They like Smartphones and using Snapchat
  • You shouldn’t pee into the wind
  • They think you’re old!

No shit, Sherlock, that younger people don’t find the Skilled Trades sexy!

I’m old. I was listening to NPR on way to work the other day and this well-meaning Gen X dude gets on the radio and says, “the problem we have in skilled trades is that teens don’t find them sexy”.

I’m like, of course, they don’t find the skilled trades sexy. Most don’t even know what the heck ‘skilled trades’ means, and if you show them, they still won’t find them ‘sexy’! Okay, well not ‘sexy’, but they should see what a great, stable job the skilled trades can be.

Um, yeah, no, you understand how young people think, right!?

Stable. Good pay and benefits. Something you can do for forty years and get a good retirement and pension. Are all things that will get young people to run away from whatever it is you’re trying to fool them into doing!

So, how do I get young people interested in the Skilled Trades? 

I don’t!!!

I get 35-year-old people interested in skilled trades!

You know what’s great about 35-year-old people? They can start to see the end. Sure that end is 25+ years out, but they start thinking I need to get my life together and do something that is (wait for it!), stable! Something that pays well and has ‘solid’ benefits. Something I can retire doing!

I don’t need 18-25-year-olds to fill skilled trades jobs. Those kids suck at showing up to work and listening! You know who’s really good at showing up to work and listening? 35-year-olds!

If you go into any retail store, gas station, restaurant, etc. and you say, “Hey, I’ve got a job that I’ll train you to do and you can earn a great living and have great benefits until you retire, and you’ll always have a job”, you’ll be like the Pied Piper leading people to your jobs!

The entire way we (and by “we”, I mean you!) is that you go hire 35-year-old people who have shown you that they are willing to show up to work, do work when they show up, but maybe they actually want to add something to their life that gives them a little more stability.

That 18-25-year-old doesn’t want your boring, stable, well-paying job, in which they must dirty their hands. They still have aspirations someone is going to pay them six figures to do nothing and give them a VP title.

By 35 we’ve had that beaten out of us. We’ve been humping $40K jobs for 15 years and we’ve almost, but not quite, given up on hope. You Mrs. Skilled Trades Job Lady are that beacon of hope!!!

Teens won’t solve the skilled trades shortage in America. That is something that is a waste of time for us to try and solve. “So, you, um, want me to stick my hand in a toilet!? Yeah, isn’t there an app for that?”

The 35-year-old has stuck their hands in worst places than toilets and they’re ready to work their butts off for your great skilled trades job. All they need is some love, some training, and a chance.

Skilled Trades jobs aren’t sexy to young people, but you already know that…

Career Confessions of Gen Z: Is Humor Generational?

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Growing up, I had to deal with many instances of embarrassment. Not only was I a normal awkward pre-teen that had braces and didn’t know how to talk to people, I also had Tim Sackett as my father. As many of you know, my Dad has a very interesting sense of humor. My Mom likes to explain it like this: when you’re making a joke, there’s a line and if you cross that line, you enter a place where you can offend someone. My Father has no regard for this line whatsoever and is constantly crossing it. Many people (me included) think my Dad is hilarious, but I always was constantly worried that my Dad was going to embarrass me in some way or offend someone.

Recently, there seems to be a gap between certain generations and what they find funny. We are seeing more and more instances of people getting offended or feeling uncomfortable from a joke made by someone from a different generation. While this type of thing isn’t uncommon, it can be particularly tricky in an era where being more culturally aware or politically correct is more of a concern. There are two types of situations to watch out for when thinking about humor in a workplace: instances of potential insulting or instances of a lack of understanding.

When it comes to offensive jokes, the bottom line is just don’t be a dick. My best advice is to follow the age-old Golden Rule: if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. If you avoid making negative jokes about a certain group, then you most likely are avoiding any potential harm.

There is some gray area with this and I would say to avoid anything that might be slightly perceived as negative in situations where you are new or you might not know the receivers of your joke super well. In these instances, a good general guideline is to not say anything you wouldn’t want your Mom hearing you say. If you’re more comfortable with the people around, then go for it. Also, I am not a woman but I will do my best to speak for them, so please don’t say anything creepy. It’s just gross (I’m looking at you old men).

The other category of humor problems is a lack of understanding. In certain circumstances, there is an obvious age gap and this can lead to a difference in humor. One of my favorite recent examples of this is the obsession with Tide Pods. Personally, I hate Tide Pods because on multiple occasions, they have stained my clothes but that’s beside the point. Gen-Zer’s love to claim that Tide Pods looked good enough to eat and every parent in the world lost their mind. My generation thought that the countless memes about Tide Pods were hilarious, but Moms everywhere thought that the teens of the world were really stupid and wanted to eat laundry detergent.

While some idiot probably did try one, this wasn’t a generational movement to kill ourselves by ingesting harmful chemicals. In these cases, maybe just let it be. If you don’t understand something from a generation, then try to avoid making a joke about it. And if you really don’t understand something, just ask! For the most part, people are nice and more than willing to explain something.

Growing up with my Father, I have gained a pretty good tolerance for offensive jokes but my overall point is don’t be an asshole. My Dad may have made some pretty vulgar and raunchy things in the day, but he’s only done them with good intentions; he wasn’t actively trying to piss anyone off (Editor/Dad note: Yes I was!). If you approach your jokes in this same way, then you more than likely will be fine.

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Does This Sweater Make Me Look Fat?

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I’ve got a bit of a problem.

I love buying new clothes, jackets, and shoes. You see, I’m kind of built like a fire hydrant. Picture a fire hydrant in your mind right now. Not very sexy is it!

So, I compensate, not by eating a great diet and working out constantly! Hell, no! That’s really hard work. I compensate by buying more clothes that I think will make me look skinnier than I really am!

Do you do this?

We do this in HR and Talent Acquisition all the time!

Just replace ‘clothes’ with ‘technology’. Yeah, we suck at HR, so instead of going out and fixing our foundational issues, let’s go buy a new pretty technology to cover up all of this fat, err incompetence!

Yeah, baby, with this new shiny technology no one will ever suspect we really suck as bad as we do!

The new stuff we buy screws with our heads. Every new shirt and sports coat I buy, I look at myself, and go “oh yeah! you’re going to look so awesome when you wear this!” Then I get on stage and someone tags me in a picture and I want to starve myself for a year!

Buying new stuff to make us look better than we are is the biggest lie we tell ourselves, ever.

So, before you go buy that new technology to fix all of your problems of why you suck at HR or TA, you have to know one truth. That truth is technology doesn’t fix why you suck. If you suck, great technology will make you suck faster. Bad technology will still make you suck, you just won’t be as fast as sucking!

Just like clothes won’t make me skinnier, new technology won’t make your function perform better.

 

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Career Confessions from Gen Z: Generational Differences or Time in Life? You make the call!

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One topic that I’ve been hesitant to write about but I feel is necessary is the notion of Gen-Z as spoiled or “babied”. I think amongst the older generations, Gen-Z is often looked at as much more spoiled than the rest. Apparently, our parents do everything for us and we have it much easier off compared to the other generations.

The reality of this is that the world is a much different place than it was when Millenials or Gen-X or the Baby Boomers were young. We have so many more technological advances now that everyone is benefitting from, rather than just my generation specifically. You can’t get mad at young people for having it easier than you did just because these advances weren’t around when you were young. I get that you had to walk 14 miles to school every day, but it’s not fair to say that we’re “spoiled” because our parents drop us off on the way to work or because we can text our friends instead of paying 75 cents (or however much it was) on a pay phone to talk to them.(Editor/Dad: 25 cents Cam!)

Other than these technological advances, many people believe that Gen-Z isn’t able to do things for ourselves because people have done things for us our entire lives. While this may be true for some, the overwhelming majority are doing our laundry and helping clean the dishes. In the era of social media, this highly spoiled minority is publicized more than the others. The public has a fascination with wealth, seen in reality shows or the obsession with the Kardashian’s. Since these shows are so popular on TV, people come to believe that this is normal and align their beliefs with what they see.

Another reason for a lot of behaviors is just because we’re freaking teenagers. A large portion of Gen-Z are teenagers and all teens of every generation have had similar characteristics. You can’t blame our moodiness, dramatics, or aversion to authority on our generation, it’s our age. People like to forget their faults and think they were perfect angels when they were teens but you weren’t.

The fact of the matter is that many people are spoiled and babied. I’m not going to lie and say that I’m not spoiled. I am. My parents have provided a life for me that is beyond what I need and I’m forever grateful for that. But just since I was spoiled growing up (and still am) and my mom did a lot of things for me, doesn’t mean that I’m not capable to do good work and working hard. Just because I didn’t do my own laundry until I was 18 (I love you Mom), doesn’t mean that I can’t go kick some ass and do some great work.

What I’m trying to get across is the notion that stereotypes can be extremely harmful.

To write off an entire generation because of some incapable people is not only harmful to us but is harmful to the people that are refusing to work with some pretty smart and hardworking individuals. Try to make your judgments on a case-by-case basis. And remember we’re all just some people trying to live a fun and fulfilled life, just like y’all.

(Editor/Dad note: The opinions and statements made by this spoiled Gen Z person do not reflect the opinions of the owner of this highly engaging, entertaining, and thought-provoking blog. But, I do agree with him in that ‘time in life’ issues, are always time in life issues. Gen Z will have their hickeys as a generation, but they will also have things that make them great. Just like every generation before them!) 

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Working at Amazon Sucks Because They Make You Work!?!?

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So, if you didn’t see it last week, Business Insider decided to run a story about how awful it is to work at Amazon in one of their warehouses. Why is it awful to work one of those hourly paying jobs? They time your breaks, limit you screwing around talking to coworkers all day, and hold you accountable to work! The horror!!!

You didn’t take that job at Amazon to actually do work! How dare they!

From the article:

Amazon “pickers” move around the warehouse on a predetermined route to collect items for delivery, scanning each one with a handheld scanner, which times the length between scans, employees said.

They say pickers must hit a certain number of scans per hour, and if they miss their targets, a manager will show up to see what they’re doing.

Employees say that things like spending time talking to co-workers, going to get a drink, or even taking too long to find a package are billed as “time off task,” too much of which leads to penalty points for an employee. Get enough of those, and you’re fired.

That — combined with security cameras dotting Amazon’s warehouses, its airport-style security checks, and short breaks — makes employees feel like “robots,” they said. And it’s all in the service of getting those parcels out faster.

So, Amazon puts performance targets on hourly workers and has security cameras to make sure no one steals all of the stuff Amazon has in their warehouses. Yeah, that sounds awful!

Amazon also doesn’t allow hourly workers to bring their cell phones into the warehouse and they must lock them in lockers. They can access those on their 2 fifteen minute breaks, or their 30-minute lunch break. Amazon also has each employee go through a metal scanner when entering the warehouse. I think a lot of employees would love that level of security at their job!

So, I have a bit of a unique take on this because one summer when I was in college I worked as a picker for a grocery wholesaler in a warehouse environment!

One major complaint in this article is that the expectations are too high for Amazon warehouse workers. You can’t even go to the bathroom for fear of missing targets, and you get in trouble for talking to co-workers while you’re on the clock, if you miss those targets.

My first month as a Picker was awful! I never made ‘rate’ (met my targets) because I didn’t know how to do the job well. I was stressed out! By month 3 I made my targets easily, but it was about effort and knowing how to work most efficiently. The targets are based on how long would it take a normal performing employee to do certain tasks.

Let’s say a Picker gets an order and that order target is 30 minutes. The best Picker can probably do that order in 20 minutes. The extra 10 minutes they can bank towards their overall daily target. The worst worker might take 45 minutes to complete that order, so now they’re behind. So, you can see how someone who is on task and focused can actually give extra effort, make target easily and the day really isn’t so bad.

I can see how some of the things happened in the article because if the job is important to you, you’re going to do what it takes to keep that job. But, I’ll say, these are outlier behaviors and inappropriate and it sounds like Amazon terminated individuals doing this.

Amazon has made it crystal clear in everything they do when it comes to hiring. We only want to hire people who want to work hard and be successful. CRYSTAL CLEAR! Many people want to work at Amazon because they have really good pay and benefits. Unfortunately, most people can’t handle the expectations. That doesn’t make Amazon a bad place to work.

I’m not saying Amazon is the best place in the world to get a job. For some, it will be, for others it won’t be. Is Amazon a bad place to work? No. Is Amazon a hard place to work with high expectations around performance? Yes.

I think it’s a shame that Business Insider would actually write this garbage as an Amazon attack piece. They should be writing it from the take of why aren’t more employers trying to emulate what Amazon is doing!

Career Confessions from Gen Z: The Spiral of Silence is Strong With This One!

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A hot topic of discussion this week was Kayne West. It seems as if Kayne or other members of his family are always infiltrating our lives, but this news was bigger than most. Kayne sparked some controversy when he publicly announced his support for President Trump on Twitter. Many people had a hay-day, calling him out for his support, while others supported him for sharing his opinion regardless of its unpopularity.

His tweets and the following responses got me thinking about unpopular opinions. We all have them. For instance, I don’t like Mac n Cheese. You may not like Beyoncé, which is just wrong, but that’s beside the point. Everyone likes or dislikes something that is in opposition to the norm.

I want to clarify something about my definition of the word ‘unpopular’. The word is defined as “not liked or popular”. There are two sides to this definition. One side speaks to the majority opinion or whether something is liked or not liked by the majority. The ‘popular’ part is interesting because something that is popular may not be liked by the majority.

There is a common phenomenon called the “spiral of silence”, where people who hold unpopular opinions are a lot less likely to share these opinions because they fear social isolation. It makes sense; why would anyone want to share their feelings and then get hated on for them?

In a world where everyone is sharing everything at all times, it’s hard to conceal these opinions. Often when they are brought up, we find ourselves lying to others or staying quiet, but this isn’t always beneficial. While it may be okay to keep your opinions on Trump’s tax plan to yourself and save everyone from a heated argument, it may be helpful to share your feelings on a team decision even if it contradicts everyone else.

Although the concealing of unpopular opinions is done in all groups and at all ages, it is especially found amongst young people. Adolescents are inherently more insecure because duh and thus, they are much more unlikely to speak up and share their not popular feelings.

This serves as a love letter to my generation and a warning to my elders. To my fellow Gen-Zer’s, don’t be afraid to speak up and don’t be afraid to disagree with everyone else! To the millennials and Gen-Xer’s and whoever else is reading this, be on the lookout for your agreeing Gen-Z employees. Encourage them to speak their opinion in a comfortable scenario. And try to be sympathetic if you find them agreeing with the majority because we were all self-conscious young people once.

Also, I’d like to point out that I learned about the “spiral of silence” in one of my classes this semester and I’m out here applying it to real-world scenarios! (@my professors and @my parents).

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a GenZ? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Ugh! Being an Inclusive Employer is Hard!

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It seems like being an ‘inclusive’ employer would be super easy! You just accept everyone! Can’t we all just get along!?

The reality is, being an inclusive employer is hard, because being inclusive isn’t about accepting everyone. What!? Oh, great, Tim has finally lost his mind, buckle-up!

I wrote a post about Jeff Bezos’s annual letter and how he lays out a great framework for how organizations and leaders should management performance. Many people liked the post, but there was also a strong reaction from a lot of people who hate Amazon’s culture.

They hear and read media accounts of Amazon being a bad place to work. About Amazon’s hard-charging, work a ton of hours, you don’t have a great work-life balance, etc. Some people go to work for Amazon and tell themselves during the interview process that “yeah, I’ve heard the stories, but I’m different, I want this, I want to be a part of a giant brand like Amazon, I can handle it because it’s a great step in my career.”

That’s when they find out they actually lack self-insight and they should never listen to their inner-voice because it lies to them!

So, what does this have to do with ‘inclusion’?

If you truly believe in inclusion, you then believe that Amazon is a great place to work, for those who desire that type of culture. It might not be a culture you would ever choose to work. Amazon actually likes the people that self-select out! It makes their job easier because they don’t want you anyway!

If you stand up and shout Amazon is an awful employer, you don’t understand inclusion. No one forces you to got to work at Amazon, and Amazon does not hide who they are. In fact, Amazon might actually be the best company on the planet to show exactly who they are as an employer and what you’re signing up for if you decide to go to work there.

Amazon is giant and the vast majority of their employees love working for them. Those employees thrive in that environment. It’s what they were looking for. It’s how they are wired. If you put them into another what you might consider, ’employee-friendly’ environment, they would hate it and fail.

Inclusion is hard because it forces you to think in a way that theoretically every environment is potentially a good fit for the right person. We struggle because in our minds something that is opposite of what we want must be bad. Because it’s so hard for us to even consider someone else might actually love an environment we hate.

Being an ‘inclusive’ employer is about accepting all types of people (race, gender, religion, etc.), but it’s also about only accepting all of those people who actually fit the culture you have established. That’s the hard part! Amazon accepts everyone, but you better be ready to go a thousand miles an hour and never stop.

Being an inclusive employer is hard because if it’s done right, it’s not just about being an accepting employer of all, it’s about being accepting and then only picking those candidates who actually fit your culture. The outcome can be awesome. The work to get there can be overwhelming. And if done incorrectly you go from being inclusive to exclusive.

The Anatomy of the Perfect Keynote Speech

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I was recording a podcast last week with my friend and professional speaker, Jennifer McClure, last week for her new Impact Makers Podcast (check it out!). I won’t be for a while, but she has some great people she has already recorded including a brilliant session with William Tincup!

One of the secret ingredients to a well-produced podcast is that all the participants are somewhat ready for the conversation that is about to happen. So, Jen and I did some pre-gaming and post-gaming conversation that wasn’t recorded, and the topic of keynote speeches came up.

I was telling her that I had a new talk that I’m doing that is killing (speaker talk for doing well!) and I made a comment about it’s all just stories with bits of data thrown in to make the stories seem more important! (half joking) Jen commented saying, “That’s a blog post! The anatomy of a keynote!” So, here you go Jen!

Before I lay out the perfect keynote, you have to have some ingredients. Here’s the basic keynote ingredient list:

  1. A person who can speak. I would love to say an engaging person who can talk, but I’ve been to far too many conferences where this was a requirement to be a keynote!
  2. A book, working experience with a transcendent brand, or you’re famous. A book is always helpful, conference planners love to have keynotes with books. Books are like a driver’s license for a keynote speaker. But, you can also work Google or Facebook or Nike or just name a giant brand, and working for a brand like that takes the place of a book or your ability to speak.
  3. A price tag north of $20,000. You might be the most awesome speaker in the world, but if you tell them you’ll only charge $5,000, you’re out! Our conference deserves a much better keynote speaker than a $5,000 speaker, I mean we have a budget for $25K!
  4. It helps to be attractive, but the bigger the celebrity/brand the uglier you can be.
  5. Fashion that matches your speaking brand. If you’re a buttoned-up, semi-conservative speaker, you can’t get away with jeans and a hoodie on the keynote stage. If you cuss and drink a red bull and started a tech company and have a YouTube channel with 100K followers, you’ll look foolish wearing a suit and tie.

Okay, we have all the ingredients to a great keynote, what does the actual keynote look like? There are basically three types of keynotes:

Keynote #1 – I’m famous, you’re not! In America, especially, we are fascinated with ‘celebrity’. If you’re famous, you can keynote because somehow we believe you being famous gives you something important to say, even when it doesn’t.

The anatomy of Keynote #1:

– I’m famous!

– I have “being” famous stories!

– But I’m humble and I’m really just like you, but I’m famous!

– Here’s how you should live your life, because I’m famous!

Keynote #2 – I’m not famous, but I work(ed) for a famous brand/person. These keynotes can be fascinated because again we are all interested to know what the secret sauce is of other organizations, and our hope is this person will tell us.

The anatomy of Keynote #2 –

– I work for a famous brand, you don’t!

– Working for this famous brand is awesome! You should try it!

– Here’s what we do because we are a famous brand. You should try it!

– Here’s how you should live your life, because I work(ed) for a famous brand!

Keynote #3 – I’m a Professional Story Teller. A good portion of keynotes falls into this camp. Someone worked their butt off to learn how to be a professional speaker, paid their dues, probably wrote a book or two along the way, probably had a decent actual career to a point, people liked hearing them speak and they turned that into a full-time gig.

The anatomy of Keynote #3:

– Start with a story that will endear the audience to you, even if that story has nothing to do with you.

– Share some data or research, that might not even be yours, but the audience is like “Wow” that can’t be.

– Share another story (that isn’t even about you) that reinforces that data/research and ties to the concept of your new book that was written about other’s people research and stories.

– Another piece of research and data, that ties to the model you present in your book. Plus, acts as motivation for the audience to change something in their life.

– The final story, this is a big one (not yours, again), that you foreshadowed in the first story, and that will wrap up the entire keynote like a bow! This ending story is a crescendo of laughter, tears, and motivation to change your life in ways you didn’t dream of just sixty minutes before.

– Here’s how you should live your life, because I just entertained you for an hour and you have no idea why you want me to sign a book.

Okay, you guys know I love to joke and make fun of life. I get that it’s super hard and takes a ton of practice and talent to pull off a great keynote. I’ve seen keynotes that were brilliant and I know it’s a skill! I’ve also seen keynotes where the keynote speaker stole my time and the conference organizers money!

Great keynotes at any level start and end with great storytelling. The best tie those stories to an actual takeaway that will help you get better at something. That takeaway could be personal or professional, it doesn’t matter. The best keynotes also entertain you a bit. They are masters at almost instantly getting you to trust them and like them.

My least favorite keynotes are famous people. I’m not impressed by celebrity. The worst ones are the new Q&A’s with celebrities. It’s an insult to my intelligence that you’re getting paid $150K for an hour and you couldn’t even come prepared with an hour of material, instead, you just show up and we’ll ask pre-sent questions and listen to your lame answers.

My favorites are people you entertain me, teach me something, take me on a journey with them for an hour. It seems like the hour was over in twenty minutes. I want more. My all-time favorite is Malcolm Gladwell. He’s a masterful storyteller and I could sit and listen for hours.

Who is your favorite all-time keynote speaker and why? Hit me in the comments!