July 29, 2025 • 30 mins
Keynote Speaker
What do you do when you literally lose your voice—and your career along with it? For Jennifer Brown, it was the surprising beginning of a brand new job as a keynote speaker and one of today’s leading voices in diversity, equity, and inclusion.
In this episode, Jennifer shares powerful career insights about reinvention, and what it really takes to thrive as a Keynote speaker. From building your personal brand to crafting the story only you can tell, she’s got practical tips and real talk about stepping into your purpose—and getting paid for it.
If you’ve ever wondered how to turn your lived experience into something meaningful and profitable, this conversation is your sign to go for it.
Jennifer Brown website - jenniferbrownspeaks.com
Jennifer's books - https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jennifer-Brown/author/B01MSOZWO6?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1&qid=1752212498&sr=8-1&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
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Music credit: Kate Pierson & Monica Nation
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
mirav (00:03):
I do a lot of polling in my talks and so I actually get
people on their phones, theygrab a QR code from my slides
and then they anonymously answersome questions and then I show
the answers on the screen.
jennifer (00:16):
Hi, welcome back to how Much Can I Make.
I'm Ravel Zeri and I'm on amission to find out what people
actually do for a living and howthey turn the passion into a
career.
Today's guest is the powerhouse, jennifer Brown.
She is a keynote speaker,leadership consultant, author
and all around an inspiringwoman.
And her job, you'd ask Helpingorganizations become more
(00:39):
inclusive, more thoughtful and,frankly, more human.
So if you ever thought ofpublic speaking, consulting or
using your voice to make animpact, this one is for you.
So now let's dive right in.
Jen, thanks a lot for doing it.
I really appreciate it.
Let's start by first of all tellus what is a keynote speaker
(01:03):
and what do they do?
mirav (01:04):
It is a real profession.
They shop themselves around assomeone who can be an opening
speaker for an event or agathering, or a closing keynote
or a lunchtime speaker.
As long as people are gatheringfor big meetings, there's
usually a need for an externalexpert of some kind or a
(01:24):
motivational speaker to come inand kind of kick things off,
give people an inspirationalmessage, teach them something.
So keynote speakers they're indemand because there's a wow
factor, I think, when it youknow you can't be a prophet.
In your own land we often saythat.
So companies look outside, theylook to authors, they look to
professors to kind of get thatwow factor and they're willing
(01:47):
to pay for that external personto come in.
jennifer (01:50):
So is there like an agency?
mirav (01:52):
that yeah, there are agencies.
They're called speaker bureaus.
Bureaus will get requests foryou, Like you might be listed on
bureau websites and I am on abunch of them and you'll be
there with your expertise andyour rates and then they will
field inquiries and then they'lltee you up for a conversation
to meet the client and you go ona call and you see if there's a
fit.
jennifer (02:12):
Okay, let's back up a little bit.
First, I want to know how didyou get into the field?
mirav (02:18):
I started Jennifer Brown Consulting over 20 years ago and
I was very, I think,unexperienced.
I wouldn't have called myselfan expert in what was then
diversity, not inclusion, notequity, not DEI.
It was early days, so I builtthe company, but I was mainly
marketing and selling the work,and then I would bring in other
(02:38):
people to deliver the work.
So we would do trainings forall kinds of different companies
, ones you would recognize.
All about diversity.
jennifer (02:45):
Yes, exactly yes.
mirav (02:46):
I was not the person that started the company, because I
was an expert.
This just wasn't my scenario.
But over time I sat in the backof the room and I took notes
and I listened to other peopleand I really studied and
apprenticed myself, Even thoughI owned the company and I had
the clients.
I would bring these otherpeople in because they knew the
field.
Other speakers yes.
Other trainers.
(03:07):
We were very much a trainingcompany.
Okay, so I watched all of thisand I learned and I picked it up
and I studied and about 15years in to the company, my team
said you must have a book, youmust have a keynote and you must
have a podcast.
Wow, and I was intimidated bythe idea.
But I think something in meknew it was time to move to the
(03:28):
front of the stage.
So I started writing books andI started to speak.
I wouldn't say I was a keynotespeaker just because I snapped
my fingers and it happenedovernight.
I did what everybody elsestruggles to do, which is people
wanted me to speak because theyregarded my work as valuable
and they said, oh, why doesn'tJennifer come in and speak?
But he didn't have a talk.
I did not have like a writtentalk with slides which is what
(03:51):
you need.
So you had to build that.
Yeah, I had to build it and Iwas so unsure about what to
include, because sometimes youhave 15 minutes, sometimes you
have 90 minutes on stage, so nowwe call it a slinky speech.
So you have to put somethingdown and commit to it and you
have to say this is my talk.
(04:12):
So did you have long version andshort version.
I did and I put a bunch of likeit's almost a kitchen sink kind
of thing, like I put in a lotof different things that I
thought would be interesting tothe audience, things that I
cared about, whether it was dataor statistics or somebody's
model that I really liked, allon the topic of leadership and
inclusion.
And then I kind of strung ittogether and I said, instead of
(04:36):
saying no, I don't have a talk,I started to say yes, and
initially it was for free, andthen it was for $2,000 and then
it was for $5,000.
And you know, you progress andyou having books helped and kind
of boosted up my fee and alsodelivering it a bunch of times.
It just gets in your body sothat at some point you don't
even need anything, you don'tneed a script, you don't even
(04:58):
need your slides, you, you'rejust very present to it because
you've done it so many times andyou know the twists and turns
and like the narrative that youwant to take an audience on.
jennifer (05:05):
Didn't you have a TED talk also?
I?
mirav (05:07):
did.
Yeah, how did this come about?
That was 10 years ago.
That was before I had any booksor what I'm describing.
Somebody was in one of mytraining classrooms and I was
teaching Storytelling 101 and Idemonstrated by telling my story
, which we'll get into, andsomebody said you know, I
organized the local TEDx hereand that story belongs on the
stage.
(05:28):
Like we, we really need thatstory here and I'm the curator.
I know the curators.
So they introduced me in and Iwas very intimidated and I
almost said no, oh, my God, yeah.
And because I didn't have thetalk, because, right, all these
excuses that we have impostersyndrome and everything.
And I forced myself to say yes.
And then I spent the nextseveral months locked in my
(05:50):
bedroom with post-its all aroundthe room, trying to figure out
the structure of the talk,trying to rehearse it and get it
in the right order, and even so, I had to go on stage and I had
a little iPad because I was soworried about losing my place,
but it was for a thousand people, wow.
But I'll tell you somethinginteresting when I wanted to say
(06:11):
no and then I forced myself tosay yes, subsequently, after the
whole thing was done, I askedthe organizers, why were there
not more women on the stage andmore people of color and more
diversity?
And they said you know, wereached out to a lot of female
speakers but nobody got back tous, or people said no, and all
the men we reached out to saidyes, that's interesting, isn't
that interesting?
So I remember that, that Isuspected that to be true.
(06:35):
But to hear it lit even more ofa fire under me to say I must
speak, did it boost your fearafter TED Talk?
Yeah, so yes, and it didn't goviral.
I mean, you can watch it, it'syou just do my name and TEDx
Like I don't, I don't have likehundreds of thousands of views.
I think more than anything, yes, it legitimizes you.
It legitimized me at an earlystage when I didn't have books,
(06:58):
which I think that's the otherthing that legitimizes you is
books, like several books.
It sort of establishes anexpertise for you.
What was the first book youwrote First?
One was called Inclusion.
jennifer (07:09):
And how long did it take you to write it?
I would say six months or so.
So the book helped.
The TED Talks helped.
What else is essential forkeynote speaker to do in order
to boost their image?
mirav (07:23):
Well, it depends.
So I and this is part of myorigin story the performance,
the craft of performance, likehow do you handle yourself on
stage?
Do you, do you own the stage,do you feel really comfortable
there?
That can be an area you need toinvest in.
You know whether that stagefright, or how you speak, or
just everything around the craft.
And then the message is thecontent, which is equally hard.
(07:46):
Sometimes people are wonderfulon stage but they don't know
what to say.
Or sometimes they have a reallyimportant message but it's not.
They don't come across with.
The Keynote speakers have tohave a gravitas that holds the
audience.
jennifer (07:57):
Right, so you talk about stage and performance.
Now I know you were an operasinger.
mirav (08:01):
Yeah, I was.
jennifer (08:02):
So tell me a little bit about how that career worked
and how does it help you now asa keynote speaker.
mirav (08:08):
It means so much.
I was an opera singer, got mymaster's at Manhattan School of
Music, so I came to New YorkCity not knowing anybody and did
the whole.
I have a dream thing and I gotmy equity card and pivoted from
classical voice to music theater.
So I was kind of going hard inthat direction.
I dance, I'm a singer whodances, so there could have been
(08:28):
a lot of work for me.
But I injured my voice and itkept happening.
Yeah, and I had to get vocalsurgery twice.
And I mean I don't know reallyhow common this is.
Julie Andrews is one of themost famous.
Adele also had surgery.
You know you can come back fromit.
But after twice of goingthrough this I've, I just could
(08:49):
tell that my voice was a littlebit less resilient and I just
saw the future and the writingon the wall and so I quit, I
fired my agent, I said I'mleaving, I gave up singing and I
I was sort of free floating fora while and then somebody said
why don't you become a trainer,a leadership trainer?
And I didn't know what thatfield was.
Just out of the blue.
They were performers too.
(09:10):
There's a lot of performers inthe keynote speaking world.
jennifer (09:13):
Oh really.
mirav (09:13):
Yes, there's a lot of performers that are facilitators
, who spend their time liketeaching adults effectively,
like talking about leadership incompanies, working with
executive teams, which is whatI've done for years and years,
and it is similar.
It's there's stagecraft,there's presence, there's the
confidence to walk into a roomfull of strangers and lead them
(09:35):
through a whole curriculum.
jennifer (09:37):
And you had that from your opera days.
mirav (09:39):
I did, and I had the comfort on stage and the
improvisational ability when Ididn't know something or I had
to pivot or I was in anunfamiliar scenario or someone
was challenging me.
I mean, I've dealt withhecklers in my corporate
classrooms doubters, naysayers.
I walk in the room and somebodysays we're going to, we're
going to learn from this persontoday, you have to be pretty
(10:00):
tough and the toughness comesfrom the auditions, like over
and over and over again, I hadto audition.
It doesn't matter if you'rehaving a bad day.
Good day, you're not feelingwell, the show goes on, and the
stamina of that I have relied onright after George Floyd was
murdered in 2020.
And my keynote speaking reallybecame like a full time job.
I probably gave 200 talks in aspace of two years Wow, yeah.
(10:23):
So there's a lot of stamina andpresence and you have to be
fully in the moment, I think, torespond to the audience, to
make the points.
You need to teach to anticipatewho this audience is and what
they care about.
I think it just came frompractice and the hours and hours
of singing, auditioning,learning things quickly,
(10:44):
responding in the moment,improvising when things don't go
well All of that is the life ofa performer.
You really were a fantasticsinger.
Sometimes I actually playmyself singing with orchestra as
I walk up on stage.
That's a good idea, yeah.
And then I say the voice thatyou just heard was mine, and the
(11:07):
audience is so kind ofdiscombobulated, which is
exactly where I want them,because I think if I just walk
on stage as me, I think we allpeople's biases just you know
they just appear and then you're, then you spend all your time
challenging those anddismantling those instead of
getting to the thing that youreally want to speak on, you
know.
So I try to like beat theaudience to it, cause I know I
(11:29):
just I can read their mind bythis point.
Like I just I just feel like I.
jennifer (11:34):
Wow, you get the sense of the audience they're
listening, they're not listening, they're into it.
mirav (11:38):
Yeah, their body language , their eye contact, um,
sometimes I can see their facesand sometimes I can't, depending
on the lighting and the stage.
And with, if it's like 800people.
I mean, there are people way inthe back and as a singer, you
remember, I want to reach thatperson in the very back, that
person that's hiding.
I want to move them, I want tothem to feel this and be feel
(11:59):
included in this.
So I think, to the performeryou asked sort of how are these
related?
The ability to project yourenergy a long way, and it's
energetic, I don't know if I candescribe how it's done, but to
enable as many people aspossible in a room to feel
connected to you and to trustyou and be listening to you and
be intrigued by you.
(12:19):
If you can do that, then thelearning can happen.
jennifer (12:24):
If you can do that, then the learning can happen.
So you said somebody told youyou should be in leadership
position.
How did you pick diversity fromthat?
How did it come from that toyou becoming an expert on DAI?
mirav (12:32):
Yeah, so so I tell this story, I say I lost my voice
right as a singer, only torealize that I needed to use my
voice in a different way andthat was very, a very profound a
redirection in my life that Ithink was absolutely intended by
the universe.
It's like we're going to takeyour voice away literally,
(12:53):
because this isn't what you'reintended to do.
We get to redirections likethat in our lives.
I think sometimes we listen tothem and sometimes we don't.
jennifer (12:59):
You got to listen to the whispers of the universe.
mirav (13:02):
I always say I lost my voice, but actually being in the
LGBTQ in the workplace, beingout as a performer.
So how I got into DEI, as itwould come to be known, was
originally when I first got mysecond master's in
organizational change andleadership.
My first ever gigs were helpingLGBTQ people in corporations
(13:26):
like use their voice.
So I would come in and doseminars on how can we not just
use our voices and tell ourstories, but how can we
influence our employers to bebetter and more inclusive of us.
So we would do programs andeducation and I would do
strategy sessions for the gayemployees of Merrill Lynch or
Deloitte.
jennifer (13:46):
So it sounds like you need to be really passionate
about the subject you're talkingabout.
mirav (13:51):
For me.
I don't think I could doanything I'm not deeply invested
in and interested in.
So in your company there wereother speakers, Other trainers,
yep Trainers and speakers, andalso designers, project managers
.
I mean, we became so big in2020, I almost had 20 people on
my team.
My job was to increase ourvisibility, to go to the
(14:14):
conferences and open the doors,to raise awareness about this
amazing team that I had.
jennifer (14:19):
When you said you had trainers who did they train?
mirav (14:21):
What did they train?
Corporate leaders and managers.
jennifer (14:24):
About dealing with DAI .
mirav (14:25):
Uh-huh, yeah, and leadership in general, yeah, and
companies used to pay quite alot for this.
jennifer (14:31):
How much would they pay?
mirav (14:33):
Gosh over 20 years.
Maybe these things used to costa company $5,000 a day or
$10,000 a day and out of thatmoney then you sort of back into
the costs of delivering that.
So a delivery person gosh, whenI first started I was making
$600 a day and the company thatwas booking me they were
(14:53):
charging $3,000 or $4,000 a day,wow, so they would make all the
difference.
Oh my God.
But you know what that'soverhead.
So what they have to do forthat is they have to design the
program.
jennifer (15:03):
I didn't design it.
mirav (15:04):
They had to sell the work , they had to follow up and
manage the client and sell morework, and all I had to do in the
early days was show up.
I was the talent and, as aperformer, this is like a great
fit for me.
I was like this is easy, Icould do this, all I mean.
I was on my feet eight hoursrunning around a classroom and
that was tough on my body.
And I was on flights at.
You know, afterwards I woulddeliver an eight hour program
(15:27):
three days in a row and then flythat night to another city and
then deliver something next day.
jennifer (15:36):
And how do you know when you go to speak to
corporate world that you werereaching?
mirav (15:38):
the people.
What kind of?
jennifer (15:38):
questions.
You wanted them to ask you andyou didn't get or did get.
mirav (15:42):
Well, this is true for keynote speaking too.
Companies are always trying tosolve a problem.
So when you do prep calls andyou go into a design process and
I do this actually ahead ofkeynotes too I ask the client
okay, so tell me about theaudience?
What level are they?
Where are they coming from inthe world?
Sometimes you have globalaudiences, so those have very
different understanding oflanguage and terminology and
(16:05):
acronyms and cultural norms.
Executive audiences are reallydifferent than middle management
.
And then there's individualcontributors who don't manage
people.
I always want to know what arepeople not doing?
What do they not know?
That they need to know.
Where do you want them toadjust their behavior?
A manager will say to me that'shiring me.
I want them to be morevisionary.
I want them to be.
(16:26):
I want them to sell their work.
I want them to be bettermarketers of what they do.
I want them to be more peoplepeople, you know, because
they're very technical.
For a keynote it might be hey,jennifer, we've been through a
lot of like, really difficultlayoffs recently and people are
feeling very discouraged and wewant to bring you in to
re-inspire.
jennifer (16:46):
So you adjust your speech at that time too.
So you adjust it for everycompany a little bit, a little
bit.
mirav (16:51):
Yeah, I don't change the fundamentals because that would
just be too much work, but I dovery much in what comes out of
my mouth, um, totally customizeit for the company, the industry
.
I try to use their language.
I try to pick up on how do theydescribe things in their
culture.
I think my goal always is tohave it feel seamless so that
people don't say who is thisperson?
(17:13):
She's clearly not from ourworld and I'm not going to
listen to her and that was why Iactually didn't come out.
Coming out is hard and risky inthose scenarios because I don't
want to lose my audience and,depending on where I'm speaking
in the world, it can be, it canfeel very vulnerable to do that
and I do it every time.
You know, I'm in Italy,somewhere, like doing a speech,
you know, for fashion executivesand it's Italy, you know, and
(17:36):
fashion doesn't mean.
Maybe what fashion means in NewYork, like this, is sheep
farmers who were making cashmereor like whatever, and I'm
telling them my you know mycoming out story from the stage
and they're probably a littleshocked.
A because like I look the way Ido and there's still so many
biases about what a gay womanlooks like, so I'm challenging
them on that.
It's an interesting moment.
jennifer (17:56):
You said before that sometimes you had to memorize
your speech.
Did you ever bomb?
Did you ever like say oh my God, I forgot the lines.
Where do I go from there?
What do you do in this case?
mirav (18:09):
Yeah, yeah, I mean occasionally it's funny, the
older you get, you're like youlose your place.
Or if you're giving a lot oftalks, I'd be like did I already
say that, or was that yesterday, or was that last week?
And I do have my kind of talktrack and my favorite things to
say too.
I mean repetition is is isimportant actually, and I think
(18:29):
when you're a speaker, you youdevelop your favorite things.
So you know it's okay to repeatyourself.
But yeah, I am, I have lost myplace occasionally.
I think just being real with anaudience and saying my goodness
, I just lost my train ofthought, I'm going to move on
and come back to this.
So there's ways to finesse it.
When you lose your place, it'sa great opportunity to be
(18:50):
present and say I don't know torespond to something that's come
up.
I do a lot of polling in mytalks and so I actually get
people are on their phones, theygrab a QR code from my slides
and then they anonymously answersome questions and then I show
the answers on the screen.
So I don't know.
I know it so well now that Ikind of know what I'm going to
(19:10):
get, honestly, but their sharing, their anonymous sharing, is
always incredibly moving, reallyhonest, really vulnerable.
I'm struggling with mentalhealth and nobody knows I just
lost my partner or I lost achild to suicide and I'm
grieving.
I have a chronic illness and Idon't want to talk about it
because people are going tounderestimate what I'm capable
(19:32):
of.
I'm still in the closet Veryeye-opening for leadership at
companies to say, oh, mygoodness, like these people are
in this room right now.
These are our people and this ishow they're feeling.
I guess I'm tuning in, tryingto tune into something as deep
as I can while I'm there andit's not just what we call like
edutainment.
And then I turn around and Isend the data to the people who
(19:55):
hired me and I say what are yougoing to do with this?
And you know they can hire usif they want to take it and say
you know what?
We're just realizing?
We don't.
We have a real problem.
Wow, like that was reallyeyeopening and I felt really
emotional and I realized ourstrategy doesn't address this,
this and this.
Or we haven't done this in awhile or we haven't invested in
this.
And it makes me smarter in themoment and more able to
(20:17):
customize, but it also givesthem true data right from the
employees.
jennifer (20:23):
What advice would you give somebody who wants to
become a keynote speaker?
It sounds great to go and speakand get $1,000, $2,000, $5,000.
What advice would you givesomebody who want to do that?
mirav (20:35):
That is a lot of the work I do now.
Your personal story, workingout your personal story, is
really important.
It's much better if you andmost of us do, have this hero's
journey.
It's either a moment or a phase, or a total challenge or an aha
, wake up.
Whatever it is right, or youhit rock bottom or you suffer a
tremendous loss or change.
(20:56):
Obviously, you know, coming outstories are incredible.
You know they are sort ofready-made, I think, for the
stage, but we all have a closet.
We all have a way in which Ithink we can remember when we
woke up and really kind of cameto be passionate about something
Like you cannot get on a stageand not commit to the excitement
(21:17):
of your own journey and sort ofthe revelations of life and
adulthood and your ownresilience, Like, say, you're a
cancer survivor, like whateverthat changed you, things change
us and those are beautiful onthe stage.
And then I'd say your expertise.
So you need to have anexpertise that is about
something really timely, reallyurgent.
(21:38):
Ideally you have books, a bookin the works as well, so that
when you get hired you can alsosay, well, you might only be
able to pay me X, but will youbuy 300 books.
jennifer (21:48):
You know and I can come and sign one for everybody.
mirav (21:51):
Additional income it is actually they will pay for those
.
Sometimes those come from adifferent budget too, so they
may not be able to pay much forthe speaker fee, but they might,
you know.
So that's how you kind of getaround it a little bit.
That your expertise, ideally,you've been writing about like
an advice book, like a book thatis a leadership book.
If you want to be a leadershipkeynoter and you, you have to
(22:11):
leave people with some somethingtangible.
I take folks on a journeythrough my slinky speech.
It's the personal stories first, the losses, the heartbreak,
the aha moments, therealizations, the lessons to get
them to win them over to meright, and then I give them some
data about the problem that I'mthere to talk about.
And that's how you kind of whetpeople's appetite.
(22:32):
And it can't be just theproblem I care about, it has to
be the problem your audiencecares about.
jennifer (22:36):
Did you have to go to anywhere to study how to build
your story?
Like everything has to have astory.
Did you go somewhere to learnthat?
mirav (22:45):
There are.
I have a couple of friends, andif anybody's interested in
listening to this, you know,reach out to me.
I have my go-to folks who runprograms that are specific to
digging up the story you thoughtyou never had, or that you're
thinking is not important orit's not interesting to people
or it's irrelevant.
We have such interesting thingsin our lives that we kind of
the little seedling of it, wekill it before we give it a
(23:08):
chance to really bloom.
And you know, my opera singingstory was one that I was scared
to tell on stage and then comingout was scary too, and part of
my sphere was nobody's going tocare.
Why would they care about this,really, truly.
That was why I almost said no,and so I almost did that to
myself.
And I know now that when I tellthe story about losing my voice,
(23:31):
people in the audienceinterpret it as a metaphor.
It's not that they were operasingers, it's not that they can
literally relate, it's that theyare like, wow, she came back
from losing her voice, she foundit to use a different way and
she made lemonade out of lemons.
And then they think tothemselves where am I not using
my voice?
Where am I taking my voice forgranted?
Where am I selling myself short?
(23:53):
Where am I not really livingout loud and shining a light for
others to find themselves inthe darkness?
Because that's what stories do?
They illuminate the way forothers to kind of find
themselves.
Part of your speaking isinspirational, I think.
Yes, I think it is.
It has to be.
jennifer (24:08):
It has to be.
mirav (24:09):
It can't just be informational.
I think it has to be verypersonal also.
But if you in the bestleadership books, for example,
will have memoir kind of wovenin and I think the best talks
have a lot of personal stuffwoven in Because at every point
(24:29):
it's like teach, share, digestand let them, let them react.
And so the the structure that Ifollow is the personal story,
the little bit of data.
Ask the audience to react witha poll, build on what they react
with, add a little bit moreinformation, tell another story,
let them react again.
There's something called adultlearning theory that I studied
in my master's and it said that90% of the knowledge you need as
(24:50):
a, as a facilitator of learning, 90% lives in the audience.
They've got.
They've got what they need.
It's not like teaching childrenand they have to relate what
you're saying to their, theirlived experience and their
knowledge.
So it's this dance withaudiences to bring them to a
place, and the craft of it isusing in a variety for all kinds
of learners, like visual andauditory and kinesthetic
(25:13):
learners.
I mean, there's so much to playwith to kind of include people,
even neurodiverse people, inyour audience, and there's
actually way more neurodiversefolks than we all realize.
Neurodiverse, yeah, meaningfolks who are maybe dyslexic or
maybe on the spectrum.
Oh really, yeah, so I identifyas neurotypical.
There's a spectrum of so manydifferent identities.
(25:33):
Traditionally it's been theautism spectrum and it's also
been around dyslexia, stuttering, as a neurodiversity, so any
sort of processing different,that's different than the norm.
And the norm we refer to asneurotypical, which means that
the systems and the educationand schooling was built for my
kind of brain.
jennifer (25:54):
So now, with this administration, dei is really in
a war with you in a way.
What do you do?
mirav (26:00):
in this environment.
We think we're looking at aparticular time now where it's
very vicious.
But two and a half years ago, Ihad given a keynote for John
Deere and John Deere hadpublicized this on Twitter X,
whatever it was.
Look at our great keynotespeaker Jennifer's coming in to
talk to us about inclusiveworkplaces and my picture was
there.
And in 2023, this guy namedRobbie Starbuck, he had half a
(26:23):
million followers and he startedto come after companies.
John Deere, harley Davidson,you might remember these early
days.
I think what was happening nowin hindsight is he was kicking
the tires to see how far will weeventually be able to go in
forcing companies like literallyforcing them to get rid of
their programs, and he retweetedthe picture of me and the John
(26:45):
Deere we're so excited to haveJennifer and did this made this
horrible comment to his half amillion followers of look who
John Deere has brought in tospeak to them she's a groomer of
children.
How do we feel about that?
Like asking his followers to, Idon't know, dox me, come after
me.
I don't know.
Like, what is that aninvitation to do?
(27:05):
I wasn't the only one.
I think a lot of us that arereally were really prominent
voices were targeted by him, butit was to me in hindsight again
it was.
It was a trial period.
I knew that it would get worse.
I think I knew that because Iwas like where's this going,
where's it coming from?
Who's funding this guy?
He's like a 30 something yearold who was getting John Deere
and Harley Davidson to changetheir strategies.
(27:25):
Like I was like why, what isgoing on right now?
So, yes, the work has beenharder to come by now and, it's
funny, my clients, though, stillthey're staying the course.
If they don't receive federalfunding and federal dollars, it
is harder for thisadministration to come after
them.
Do you have a talk that youremember that was your most
successful, most inspiring toyou Well, I know the ones that
(27:49):
aren't which is you know that itfeels like just it's drudgery,
right.
It's like you walk in andpeople just are, their arms are
folded and it's you know it'sit's you perceive that they're
just not receiving anything thatyou're giving.
I think the best audiences forme are coaches.
I got a standing ovation, whichis unusual for an association
(28:14):
of coaches at.
Harvard, it was in Boston andthey were like going through all
kinds of emotions during mytalk I could see them like
crying and just feeling so seenand because, think about it
they're the helping professions.
They need to learn from me.
They need to learn fromeveryone about how can I show up
better for my clients who aregoing through all kinds of
challenges.
So there is a perfect fit forthat audience with me because at
(28:35):
the end of the day, I'm I'mcoaching the coach like I'm, I'm
a resource for them and thatthey were so appreciative that I
just filled their cup in thatway from an expertise
perspective.
But you know, then I've gotsenior executive audiences that
are very or in other countrieswhere it just I'm like I don't
even know if people areunderstanding what I'm talking
about.
You know, I've had simultaneoustranslation.
(28:55):
I mean, I've had people in youknow who speak Japanese and
Chinese, like listening to mytalk in a, in a headpiece, and
thinking to myself and trying toadjust the, the American
framework.
Because we've Americanframework, because America has
run the conversation on DEIglobally for a long time.
We were ahead of everybody.
So Europe looked to us and Asialooked to us.
(29:16):
For what are you doing and howcan we get that and how can we
build that?
Now the tables have turned andEurope is sprinting ahead of us.
jennifer (29:24):
And the people at Harvard that you gave the
lecture to were you gave themthe same lecture that you.
It was, yeah, wow, interesting,but I think.
mirav (29:32):
I relate to them Like I am them, you know.
So I think that whatever I didwas very confessional, very
honest, and really I get theirworld because I've been a coach
for so long and so the way Icould speak to them, they must
have recognized a kindred spiritand I just kept it very real.
I think they also appreciatethe bravery of being out on
(29:53):
stage.
I take it for granted, marav,that like this is just so
comfortable for me now, but it'ssuch a big deal for people that
I get up on stage and I shareand I tell about my life and I
reflect on it openly.
That always hits people andthey will come up and say thank
you for being so brave.
This is a very importantreminder for me that this story
(30:14):
really matters.
And back to storytelling A, wehave to tell our story,
encourage it, do not diminish it.
Let it give it sunshine andoxygen and don't assume that
somebody doesn't need very muchto see you and hear you that day
, like that's.
That's the big takeaway.
I think about this and I haveto tell myself too, because I
can skip over it and get on toother things, but I think that
(30:36):
deepens the trust between me,the audience that I'm willing to
bring them into my world.
jennifer (30:41):
Wow, all right, and on that note, thank you so much.
Thank you for your thoughtfulquestions.
I had no idea that keynotespeaker is an actual job, in a
way.
mirav (30:56):
Yeah, it's a fun.
It's a fun work when you canget it.
It's it's highly remunerated.
When you get to a certain leveland it's over so fast, you
literally are on stage and offand you're on a plane and you're
like what just happened.
It's a little strange, it's alittle disembodied, and yet that
moment is exhilarating in a waythat is probably a very like
rare thing to feel, and I wouldlove more people and more
diverse voices to know what thatfeels like, to get their story
(31:18):
in lights, to move the audience.
And I am so invested in raisingthat next generation of voices
up that don't look like me,they're going to rattle the cage
.
jennifer (31:28):
All right.
Thank you so much for sharingyour story and experience.
It's just fantastic.
mirav (31:34):
Thank you, Rob.
Thanks for doing what you'redoing and being such a good
friend.
jennifer (31:40):
That's a wrap for today.
If you have a comment orquestion or would like us to
cover a certain job, please letus know.
Visit our website athowmuchcanimakeinfo.
We would love to hear from you.
And, on your way out, don'tforget to subscribe and share
this episode with anyone who iscurious about their next job.
See you next time.
I do a lot of polling in my talks and so I actually get
people on their phones, theygrab a QR code from my slides
and then they anonymously answersome questions and then I show
the answers on the screen.
jennifer (00:16):
Hi, welcome back to how Much Can I Make.
I'm Ravel Zeri and I'm on amission to find out what people
actually do for a living and howthey turn the passion into a
career.
Today's guest is the powerhouse, jennifer Brown.
She is a keynote speaker,leadership consultant, author
and all around an inspiringwoman.
And her job, you'd ask Helpingorganizations become more
(00:39):
inclusive, more thoughtful and,frankly, more human.
So if you ever thought ofpublic speaking, consulting or
using your voice to make animpact, this one is for you.
So now let's dive right in.
Jen, thanks a lot for doing it.
I really appreciate it.
Let's start by first of all tellus what is a keynote speaker
(01:03):
and what do they do?
mirav (01:04):
It is a real profession.
They shop themselves around assomeone who can be an opening
speaker for an event or agathering, or a closing keynote
or a lunchtime speaker.
As long as people are gatheringfor big meetings, there's
usually a need for an externalexpert of some kind or a
(01:24):
motivational speaker to come inand kind of kick things off,
give people an inspirationalmessage, teach them something.
So keynote speakers they're indemand because there's a wow
factor, I think, when it youknow you can't be a prophet.
In your own land we often saythat.
So companies look outside, theylook to authors, they look to
professors to kind of get thatwow factor and they're willing
(01:47):
to pay for that external personto come in.
jennifer (01:50):
So is there like an agency?
mirav (01:52):
that yeah, there are agencies.
They're called speaker bureaus.
Bureaus will get requests foryou, Like you might be listed on
bureau websites and I am on abunch of them and you'll be
there with your expertise andyour rates and then they will
field inquiries and then they'lltee you up for a conversation
to meet the client and you go ona call and you see if there's a
fit.
jennifer (02:12):
Okay, let's back up a little bit.
First, I want to know how didyou get into the field?
mirav (02:18):
I started Jennifer Brown Consulting over 20 years ago and
I was very, I think,unexperienced.
I wouldn't have called myselfan expert in what was then
diversity, not inclusion, notequity, not DEI.
It was early days, so I builtthe company, but I was mainly
marketing and selling the work,and then I would bring in other
(02:38):
people to deliver the work.
So we would do trainings forall kinds of different companies
, ones you would recognize.
All about diversity.
jennifer (02:45):
Yes, exactly yes.
mirav (02:46):
I was not the person that started the company, because I
was an expert.
This just wasn't my scenario.
But over time I sat in the backof the room and I took notes
and I listened to other peopleand I really studied and
apprenticed myself, Even thoughI owned the company and I had
the clients.
I would bring these otherpeople in because they knew the
field.
Other speakers yes.
Other trainers.
(03:07):
We were very much a trainingcompany.
Okay, so I watched all of thisand I learned and I picked it up
and I studied and about 15years in to the company, my team
said you must have a book, youmust have a keynote and you must
have a podcast.
Wow, and I was intimidated bythe idea.
But I think something in meknew it was time to move to the
(03:28):
front of the stage.
So I started writing books andI started to speak.
I wouldn't say I was a keynotespeaker just because I snapped
my fingers and it happenedovernight.
I did what everybody elsestruggles to do, which is people
wanted me to speak because theyregarded my work as valuable
and they said, oh, why doesn'tJennifer come in and speak?
But he didn't have a talk.
I did not have like a writtentalk with slides which is what
(03:51):
you need.
So you had to build that.
Yeah, I had to build it and Iwas so unsure about what to
include, because sometimes youhave 15 minutes, sometimes you
have 90 minutes on stage, so nowwe call it a slinky speech.
So you have to put somethingdown and commit to it and you
have to say this is my talk.
(04:12):
So did you have long version andshort version.
I did and I put a bunch of likeit's almost a kitchen sink kind
of thing, like I put in a lotof different things that I
thought would be interesting tothe audience, things that I
cared about, whether it was dataor statistics or somebody's
model that I really liked, allon the topic of leadership and
inclusion.
And then I kind of strung ittogether and I said, instead of
(04:36):
saying no, I don't have a talk,I started to say yes, and
initially it was for free, andthen it was for $2,000 and then
it was for $5,000.
And you know, you progress andyou having books helped and kind
of boosted up my fee and alsodelivering it a bunch of times.
It just gets in your body sothat at some point you don't
even need anything, you don'tneed a script, you don't even
(04:58):
need your slides, you, you'rejust very present to it because
you've done it so many times andyou know the twists and turns
and like the narrative that youwant to take an audience on.
jennifer (05:05):
Didn't you have a TED talk also?
I?
mirav (05:07):
did.
Yeah, how did this come about?
That was 10 years ago.
That was before I had any booksor what I'm describing.
Somebody was in one of mytraining classrooms and I was
teaching Storytelling 101 and Idemonstrated by telling my story
, which we'll get into, andsomebody said you know, I
organized the local TEDx hereand that story belongs on the
stage.
(05:28):
Like we, we really need thatstory here and I'm the curator.
I know the curators.
So they introduced me in and Iwas very intimidated and I
almost said no, oh, my God, yeah.
And because I didn't have thetalk, because, right, all these
excuses that we have impostersyndrome and everything.
And I forced myself to say yes.
And then I spent the nextseveral months locked in my
(05:50):
bedroom with post-its all aroundthe room, trying to figure out
the structure of the talk,trying to rehearse it and get it
in the right order, and even so, I had to go on stage and I had
a little iPad because I was soworried about losing my place,
but it was for a thousand people, wow.
But I'll tell you somethinginteresting when I wanted to say
(06:11):
no and then I forced myself tosay yes, subsequently, after the
whole thing was done, I askedthe organizers, why were there
not more women on the stage andmore people of color and more
diversity?
And they said you know, wereached out to a lot of female
speakers but nobody got back tous, or people said no, and all
the men we reached out to saidyes, that's interesting, isn't
that interesting?
So I remember that, that Isuspected that to be true.
(06:35):
But to hear it lit even more ofa fire under me to say I must
speak, did it boost your fearafter TED Talk?
Yeah, so yes, and it didn't goviral.
I mean, you can watch it, it'syou just do my name and TEDx
Like I don't, I don't have likehundreds of thousands of views.
I think more than anything, yes, it legitimizes you.
It legitimized me at an earlystage when I didn't have books,
(06:58):
which I think that's the otherthing that legitimizes you is
books, like several books.
It sort of establishes anexpertise for you.
What was the first book youwrote First?
One was called Inclusion.
jennifer (07:09):
And how long did it take you to write it?
I would say six months or so.
So the book helped.
The TED Talks helped.
What else is essential forkeynote speaker to do in order
to boost their image?
mirav (07:23):
Well, it depends.
So I and this is part of myorigin story the performance,
the craft of performance, likehow do you handle yourself on
stage?
Do you, do you own the stage,do you feel really comfortable
there?
That can be an area you need toinvest in.
You know whether that stagefright, or how you speak, or
just everything around the craft.
And then the message is thecontent, which is equally hard.
(07:46):
Sometimes people are wonderfulon stage but they don't know
what to say.
Or sometimes they have a reallyimportant message but it's not.
They don't come across with.
The Keynote speakers have tohave a gravitas that holds the
audience.
jennifer (07:57):
Right, so you talk about stage and performance.
Now I know you were an operasinger.
mirav (08:01):
Yeah, I was.
jennifer (08:02):
So tell me a little bit about how that career worked
and how does it help you now asa keynote speaker.
mirav (08:08):
It means so much.
I was an opera singer, got mymaster's at Manhattan School of
Music, so I came to New YorkCity not knowing anybody and did
the whole.
I have a dream thing and I gotmy equity card and pivoted from
classical voice to music theater.
So I was kind of going hard inthat direction.
I dance, I'm a singer whodances, so there could have been
(08:28):
a lot of work for me.
But I injured my voice and itkept happening.
Yeah, and I had to get vocalsurgery twice.
And I mean I don't know reallyhow common this is.
Julie Andrews is one of themost famous.
Adele also had surgery.
You know you can come back fromit.
But after twice of goingthrough this I've, I just could
(08:49):
tell that my voice was a littlebit less resilient and I just
saw the future and the writingon the wall and so I quit, I
fired my agent, I said I'mleaving, I gave up singing and I
I was sort of free floating fora while and then somebody said
why don't you become a trainer,a leadership trainer?
And I didn't know what thatfield was.
Just out of the blue.
They were performers too.
(09:10):
There's a lot of performers inthe keynote speaking world.
jennifer (09:13):
Oh really.
mirav (09:13):
Yes, there's a lot of performers that are facilitators
, who spend their time liketeaching adults effectively,
like talking about leadership incompanies, working with
executive teams, which is whatI've done for years and years,
and it is similar.
It's there's stagecraft,there's presence, there's the
confidence to walk into a roomfull of strangers and lead them
(09:35):
through a whole curriculum.
jennifer (09:37):
And you had that from your opera days.
mirav (09:39):
I did, and I had the comfort on stage and the
improvisational ability when Ididn't know something or I had
to pivot or I was in anunfamiliar scenario or someone
was challenging me.
I mean, I've dealt withhecklers in my corporate
classrooms doubters, naysayers.
I walk in the room and somebodysays we're going to, we're
going to learn from this persontoday, you have to be pretty
(10:00):
tough and the toughness comesfrom the auditions, like over
and over and over again, I hadto audition.
It doesn't matter if you'rehaving a bad day.
Good day, you're not feelingwell, the show goes on, and the
stamina of that I have relied onright after George Floyd was
murdered in 2020.
And my keynote speaking reallybecame like a full time job.
I probably gave 200 talks in aspace of two years Wow, yeah.
(10:23):
So there's a lot of stamina andpresence and you have to be
fully in the moment, I think, torespond to the audience, to
make the points.
You need to teach to anticipatewho this audience is and what
they care about.
I think it just came frompractice and the hours and hours
of singing, auditioning,learning things quickly,
(10:44):
responding in the moment,improvising when things don't go
well All of that is the life ofa performer.
You really were a fantasticsinger.
Sometimes I actually playmyself singing with orchestra as
I walk up on stage.
That's a good idea, yeah.
And then I say the voice thatyou just heard was mine, and the
(11:07):
audience is so kind ofdiscombobulated, which is
exactly where I want them,because I think if I just walk
on stage as me, I think we allpeople's biases just you know
they just appear and then you're, then you spend all your time
challenging those anddismantling those instead of
getting to the thing that youreally want to speak on, you
know.
So I try to like beat theaudience to it, cause I know I
(11:29):
just I can read their mind bythis point.
Like I just I just feel like I.
jennifer (11:34):
Wow, you get the sense of the audience they're
listening, they're not listening, they're into it.
mirav (11:38):
Yeah, their body language , their eye contact, um,
sometimes I can see their facesand sometimes I can't, depending
on the lighting and the stage.
And with, if it's like 800people.
I mean, there are people way inthe back and as a singer, you
remember, I want to reach thatperson in the very back, that
person that's hiding.
I want to move them, I want tothem to feel this and be feel
(11:59):
included in this.
So I think, to the performeryou asked sort of how are these
related?
The ability to project yourenergy a long way, and it's
energetic, I don't know if I candescribe how it's done, but to
enable as many people aspossible in a room to feel
connected to you and to trustyou and be listening to you and
be intrigued by you.
(12:19):
If you can do that, then thelearning can happen.
jennifer (12:24):
If you can do that, then the learning can happen.
So you said somebody told youyou should be in leadership
position.
How did you pick diversity fromthat?
How did it come from that toyou becoming an expert on DAI?
mirav (12:32):
Yeah, so so I tell this story, I say I lost my voice
right as a singer, only torealize that I needed to use my
voice in a different way andthat was very, a very profound a
redirection in my life that Ithink was absolutely intended by
the universe.
It's like we're going to takeyour voice away literally,
(12:53):
because this isn't what you'reintended to do.
We get to redirections likethat in our lives.
I think sometimes we listen tothem and sometimes we don't.
jennifer (12:59):
You got to listen to the whispers of the universe.
mirav (13:02):
I always say I lost my voice, but actually being in the
LGBTQ in the workplace, beingout as a performer.
So how I got into DEI, as itwould come to be known, was
originally when I first got mysecond master's in
organizational change andleadership.
My first ever gigs were helpingLGBTQ people in corporations
(13:26):
like use their voice.
So I would come in and doseminars on how can we not just
use our voices and tell ourstories, but how can we
influence our employers to bebetter and more inclusive of us.
So we would do programs andeducation and I would do
strategy sessions for the gayemployees of Merrill Lynch or
Deloitte.
jennifer (13:46):
So it sounds like you need to be really passionate
about the subject you're talkingabout.
mirav (13:51):
For me.
I don't think I could doanything I'm not deeply invested
in and interested in.
So in your company there wereother speakers, Other trainers,
yep Trainers and speakers, andalso designers, project managers
.
I mean, we became so big in2020, I almost had 20 people on
my team.
My job was to increase ourvisibility, to go to the
(14:14):
conferences and open the doors,to raise awareness about this
amazing team that I had.
jennifer (14:19):
When you said you had trainers who did they train?
mirav (14:21):
What did they train?
Corporate leaders and managers.
jennifer (14:24):
About dealing with DAI .
mirav (14:25):
Uh-huh, yeah, and leadership in general, yeah, and
companies used to pay quite alot for this.
jennifer (14:31):
How much would they pay?
mirav (14:33):
Gosh over 20 years.
Maybe these things used to costa company $5,000 a day or
$10,000 a day and out of thatmoney then you sort of back into
the costs of delivering that.
So a delivery person gosh, whenI first started I was making
$600 a day and the company thatwas booking me they were
(14:53):
charging $3,000 or $4,000 a day,wow, so they would make all the
difference.
Oh my God.
But you know what that'soverhead.
So what they have to do forthat is they have to design the
program.
jennifer (15:03):
I didn't design it.
mirav (15:04):
They had to sell the work , they had to follow up and
manage the client and sell morework, and all I had to do in the
early days was show up.
I was the talent and, as aperformer, this is like a great
fit for me.
I was like this is easy, Icould do this, all I mean.
I was on my feet eight hoursrunning around a classroom and
that was tough on my body.
And I was on flights at.
You know, afterwards I woulddeliver an eight hour program
(15:27):
three days in a row and then flythat night to another city and
then deliver something next day.
jennifer (15:36):
And how do you know when you go to speak to
corporate world that you werereaching?
mirav (15:38):
the people.
What kind of?
jennifer (15:38):
questions.
You wanted them to ask you andyou didn't get or did get.
mirav (15:42):
Well, this is true for keynote speaking too.
Companies are always trying tosolve a problem.
So when you do prep calls andyou go into a design process and
I do this actually ahead ofkeynotes too I ask the client
okay, so tell me about theaudience?
What level are they?
Where are they coming from inthe world?
Sometimes you have globalaudiences, so those have very
different understanding oflanguage and terminology and
(16:05):
acronyms and cultural norms.
Executive audiences are reallydifferent than middle management
.
And then there's individualcontributors who don't manage
people.
I always want to know what arepeople not doing?
What do they not know?
That they need to know.
Where do you want them toadjust their behavior?
A manager will say to me that'shiring me.
I want them to be morevisionary.
I want them to be.
(16:26):
I want them to sell their work.
I want them to be bettermarketers of what they do.
I want them to be more peoplepeople, you know, because
they're very technical.
For a keynote it might be hey,jennifer, we've been through a
lot of like, really difficultlayoffs recently and people are
feeling very discouraged and wewant to bring you in to
re-inspire.
jennifer (16:46):
So you adjust your speech at that time too.
So you adjust it for everycompany a little bit, a little
bit.
mirav (16:51):
Yeah, I don't change the fundamentals because that would
just be too much work, but I dovery much in what comes out of
my mouth, um, totally customizeit for the company, the industry
.
I try to use their language.
I try to pick up on how do theydescribe things in their
culture.
I think my goal always is tohave it feel seamless so that
people don't say who is thisperson?
(17:13):
She's clearly not from ourworld and I'm not going to
listen to her and that was why Iactually didn't come out.
Coming out is hard and risky inthose scenarios because I don't
want to lose my audience and,depending on where I'm speaking
in the world, it can be, it canfeel very vulnerable to do that
and I do it every time.
You know, I'm in Italy,somewhere, like doing a speech,
you know, for fashion executivesand it's Italy, you know, and
(17:36):
fashion doesn't mean.
Maybe what fashion means in NewYork, like this, is sheep
farmers who were making cashmereor like whatever, and I'm
telling them my you know mycoming out story from the stage
and they're probably a littleshocked.
A because like I look the way Ido and there's still so many
biases about what a gay womanlooks like, so I'm challenging
them on that.
It's an interesting moment.
jennifer (17:56):
You said before that sometimes you had to memorize
your speech.
Did you ever bomb?
Did you ever like say oh my God, I forgot the lines.
Where do I go from there?
What do you do in this case?
mirav (18:09):
Yeah, yeah, I mean occasionally it's funny, the
older you get, you're like youlose your place.
Or if you're giving a lot oftalks, I'd be like did I already
say that, or was that yesterday, or was that last week?
And I do have my kind of talktrack and my favorite things to
say too.
I mean repetition is is isimportant actually, and I think
(18:29):
when you're a speaker, you youdevelop your favorite things.
So you know it's okay to repeatyourself.
But yeah, I am, I have lost myplace occasionally.
I think just being real with anaudience and saying my goodness
, I just lost my train ofthought, I'm going to move on
and come back to this.
So there's ways to finesse it.
When you lose your place, it'sa great opportunity to be
(18:50):
present and say I don't know torespond to something that's come
up.
I do a lot of polling in mytalks and so I actually get
people are on their phones, theygrab a QR code from my slides
and then they anonymously answersome questions and then I show
the answers on the screen.
So I don't know.
I know it so well now that Ikind of know what I'm going to
(19:10):
get, honestly, but their sharing, their anonymous sharing, is
always incredibly moving, reallyhonest, really vulnerable.
I'm struggling with mentalhealth and nobody knows I just
lost my partner or I lost achild to suicide and I'm
grieving.
I have a chronic illness and Idon't want to talk about it
because people are going tounderestimate what I'm capable
(19:32):
of.
I'm still in the closet Veryeye-opening for leadership at
companies to say, oh, mygoodness, like these people are
in this room right now.
These are our people and this ishow they're feeling.
I guess I'm tuning in, tryingto tune into something as deep
as I can while I'm there andit's not just what we call like
edutainment.
And then I turn around and Isend the data to the people who
(19:55):
hired me and I say what are yougoing to do with this?
And you know they can hire usif they want to take it and say
you know what?
We're just realizing?
We don't.
We have a real problem.
Wow, like that was reallyeyeopening and I felt really
emotional and I realized ourstrategy doesn't address this,
this and this.
Or we haven't done this in awhile or we haven't invested in
this.
And it makes me smarter in themoment and more able to
(20:17):
customize, but it also givesthem true data right from the
employees.
jennifer (20:23):
What advice would you give somebody who wants to
become a keynote speaker?
It sounds great to go and speakand get $1,000, $2,000, $5,000.
What advice would you givesomebody who want to do that?
mirav (20:35):
That is a lot of the work I do now.
Your personal story, workingout your personal story, is
really important.
It's much better if you andmost of us do, have this hero's
journey.
It's either a moment or a phase, or a total challenge or an aha
, wake up.
Whatever it is right, or youhit rock bottom or you suffer a
tremendous loss or change.
(20:56):
Obviously, you know, coming outstories are incredible.
You know they are sort ofready-made, I think, for the
stage, but we all have a closet.
We all have a way in which Ithink we can remember when we
woke up and really kind of cameto be passionate about something
Like you cannot get on a stageand not commit to the excitement
(21:17):
of your own journey and sort ofthe revelations of life and
adulthood and your ownresilience, Like, say, you're a
cancer survivor, like whateverthat changed you, things change
us and those are beautiful onthe stage.
And then I'd say your expertise.
So you need to have anexpertise that is about
something really timely, reallyurgent.
(21:38):
Ideally you have books, a bookin the works as well, so that
when you get hired you can alsosay, well, you might only be
able to pay me X, but will youbuy 300 books.
jennifer (21:48):
You know and I can come and sign one for everybody.
mirav (21:51):
Additional income it is actually they will pay for those
.
Sometimes those come from adifferent budget too, so they
may not be able to pay much forthe speaker fee, but they might,
you know.
So that's how you kind of getaround it a little bit.
That your expertise, ideally,you've been writing about like
an advice book, like a book thatis a leadership book.
If you want to be a leadershipkeynoter and you, you have to
(22:11):
leave people with some somethingtangible.
I take folks on a journeythrough my slinky speech.
It's the personal stories first, the losses, the heartbreak,
the aha moments, therealizations, the lessons to get
them to win them over to meright, and then I give them some
data about the problem that I'mthere to talk about.
And that's how you kind of whetpeople's appetite.
(22:32):
And it can't be just theproblem I care about, it has to
be the problem your audiencecares about.
jennifer (22:36):
Did you have to go to anywhere to study how to build
your story?
Like everything has to have astory.
Did you go somewhere to learnthat?
mirav (22:45):
There are.
I have a couple of friends, andif anybody's interested in
listening to this, you know,reach out to me.
I have my go-to folks who runprograms that are specific to
digging up the story you thoughtyou never had, or that you're
thinking is not important orit's not interesting to people
or it's irrelevant.
We have such interesting thingsin our lives that we kind of
the little seedling of it, wekill it before we give it a
(23:08):
chance to really bloom.
And you know, my opera singingstory was one that I was scared
to tell on stage and then comingout was scary too, and part of
my sphere was nobody's going tocare.
Why would they care about this,really, truly.
That was why I almost said no,and so I almost did that to
myself.
And I know now that when I tellthe story about losing my voice,
(23:31):
people in the audienceinterpret it as a metaphor.
It's not that they were operasingers, it's not that they can
literally relate, it's that theyare like, wow, she came back
from losing her voice, she foundit to use a different way and
she made lemonade out of lemons.
And then they think tothemselves where am I not using
my voice?
Where am I taking my voice forgranted?
Where am I selling myself short?
(23:53):
Where am I not really livingout loud and shining a light for
others to find themselves inthe darkness?
Because that's what stories do?
They illuminate the way forothers to kind of find
themselves.
Part of your speaking isinspirational, I think.
Yes, I think it is.
It has to be.
jennifer (24:08):
It has to be.
mirav (24:09):
It can't just be informational.
I think it has to be verypersonal also.
But if you in the bestleadership books, for example,
will have memoir kind of wovenin and I think the best talks
have a lot of personal stuffwoven in Because at every point
(24:29):
it's like teach, share, digestand let them, let them react.
And so the the structure that Ifollow is the personal story,
the little bit of data.
Ask the audience to react witha poll, build on what they react
with, add a little bit moreinformation, tell another story,
let them react again.
There's something called adultlearning theory that I studied
in my master's and it said that90% of the knowledge you need as
(24:50):
a, as a facilitator of learning, 90% lives in the audience.
They've got.
They've got what they need.
It's not like teaching childrenand they have to relate what
you're saying to their, theirlived experience and their
knowledge.
So it's this dance withaudiences to bring them to a
place, and the craft of it isusing in a variety for all kinds
of learners, like visual andauditory and kinesthetic
(25:13):
learners.
I mean, there's so much to playwith to kind of include people,
even neurodiverse people, inyour audience, and there's
actually way more neurodiversefolks than we all realize.
Neurodiverse, yeah, meaningfolks who are maybe dyslexic or
maybe on the spectrum.
Oh really, yeah, so I identifyas neurotypical.
There's a spectrum of so manydifferent identities.
(25:33):
Traditionally it's been theautism spectrum and it's also
been around dyslexia, stuttering, as a neurodiversity, so any
sort of processing different,that's different than the norm.
And the norm we refer to asneurotypical, which means that
the systems and the educationand schooling was built for my
kind of brain.
jennifer (25:54):
So now, with this administration, dei is really in
a war with you in a way.
What do you do?
mirav (26:00):
in this environment.
We think we're looking at aparticular time now where it's
very vicious.
But two and a half years ago, Ihad given a keynote for John
Deere and John Deere hadpublicized this on Twitter X,
whatever it was.
Look at our great keynotespeaker Jennifer's coming in to
talk to us about inclusiveworkplaces and my picture was
there.
And in 2023, this guy namedRobbie Starbuck, he had half a
(26:23):
million followers and he startedto come after companies.
John Deere, harley Davidson,you might remember these early
days.
I think what was happening nowin hindsight is he was kicking
the tires to see how far will weeventually be able to go in
forcing companies like literallyforcing them to get rid of
their programs, and he retweetedthe picture of me and the John
(26:45):
Deere we're so excited to haveJennifer and did this made this
horrible comment to his half amillion followers of look who
John Deere has brought in tospeak to them she's a groomer of
children.
How do we feel about that?
Like asking his followers to, Idon't know, dox me, come after
me.
I don't know.
Like, what is that aninvitation to do?
(27:05):
I wasn't the only one.
I think a lot of us that arereally were really prominent
voices were targeted by him, butit was to me in hindsight again
it was.
It was a trial period.
I knew that it would get worse.
I think I knew that because Iwas like where's this going,
where's it coming from?
Who's funding this guy?
He's like a 30 something yearold who was getting John Deere
and Harley Davidson to changetheir strategies.
(27:25):
Like I was like why, what isgoing on right now?
So, yes, the work has beenharder to come by now and, it's
funny, my clients, though, stillthey're staying the course.
If they don't receive federalfunding and federal dollars, it
is harder for thisadministration to come after
them.
Do you have a talk that youremember that was your most
successful, most inspiring toyou Well, I know the ones that
(27:49):
aren't which is you know that itfeels like just it's drudgery,
right.
It's like you walk in andpeople just are, their arms are
folded and it's you know it'sit's you perceive that they're
just not receiving anything thatyou're giving.
I think the best audiences forme are coaches.
I got a standing ovation, whichis unusual for an association
(28:14):
of coaches at.
Harvard, it was in Boston andthey were like going through all
kinds of emotions during mytalk I could see them like
crying and just feeling so seenand because, think about it
they're the helping professions.
They need to learn from me.
They need to learn fromeveryone about how can I show up
better for my clients who aregoing through all kinds of
challenges.
So there is a perfect fit forthat audience with me because at
(28:35):
the end of the day, I'm I'mcoaching the coach like I'm, I'm
a resource for them and thatthey were so appreciative that I
just filled their cup in thatway from an expertise
perspective.
But you know, then I've gotsenior executive audiences that
are very or in other countrieswhere it just I'm like I don't
even know if people areunderstanding what I'm talking
about.
You know, I've had simultaneoustranslation.
(28:55):
I mean, I've had people in youknow who speak Japanese and
Chinese, like listening to mytalk in a, in a headpiece, and
thinking to myself and trying toadjust the, the American
framework.
Because we've Americanframework, because America has
run the conversation on DEIglobally for a long time.
We were ahead of everybody.
So Europe looked to us and Asialooked to us.
(29:16):
For what are you doing and howcan we get that and how can we
build that?
Now the tables have turned andEurope is sprinting ahead of us.
jennifer (29:24):
And the people at Harvard that you gave the
lecture to were you gave themthe same lecture that you.
It was, yeah, wow, interesting,but I think.
mirav (29:32):
I relate to them Like I am them, you know.
So I think that whatever I didwas very confessional, very
honest, and really I get theirworld because I've been a coach
for so long and so the way Icould speak to them, they must
have recognized a kindred spiritand I just kept it very real.
I think they also appreciatethe bravery of being out on
(29:53):
stage.
I take it for granted, marav,that like this is just so
comfortable for me now, but it'ssuch a big deal for people that
I get up on stage and I shareand I tell about my life and I
reflect on it openly.
That always hits people andthey will come up and say thank
you for being so brave.
This is a very importantreminder for me that this story
(30:14):
really matters.
And back to storytelling A, wehave to tell our story,
encourage it, do not diminish it.
Let it give it sunshine andoxygen and don't assume that
somebody doesn't need very muchto see you and hear you that day
, like that's.
That's the big takeaway.
I think about this and I haveto tell myself too, because I
can skip over it and get on toother things, but I think that
(30:36):
deepens the trust between me,the audience that I'm willing to
bring them into my world.
jennifer (30:41):
Wow, all right, and on that note, thank you so much.
Thank you for your thoughtfulquestions.
I had no idea that keynotespeaker is an actual job, in a
way.
mirav (30:56):
Yeah, it's a fun.
It's a fun work when you canget it.
It's it's highly remunerated.
When you get to a certain leveland it's over so fast, you
literally are on stage and offand you're on a plane and you're
like what just happened.
It's a little strange, it's alittle disembodied, and yet that
moment is exhilarating in a waythat is probably a very like
rare thing to feel, and I wouldlove more people and more
diverse voices to know what thatfeels like, to get their story
(31:18):
in lights, to move the audience.
And I am so invested in raisingthat next generation of voices
up that don't look like me,they're going to rattle the cage
.
jennifer (31:28):
All right.
Thank you so much for sharingyour story and experience.
It's just fantastic.
mirav (31:34):
Thank you, Rob.
Thanks for doing what you'redoing and being such a good
friend.
jennifer (31:40):
That's a wrap for today.
If you have a comment orquestion or would like us to
cover a certain job, please letus know.
Visit our website athowmuchcanimakeinfo.
We would love to hear from you.
And, on your way out, don'tforget to subscribe and share
this episode with anyone who iscurious about their next job.
See you next time.
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