Life After Being an Athlete and Public Speaking with Darryll Stinson | POP 607

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A photo of Darryll Stinson is captured. Darryll Stinson is a former Division 1 athlete who battled multiple personal and professional challenges in his youth (including violence, drug addiction, and attempted suicide) and transformed himself into a successful business and leadership coach, two-time TEDx speaker, and best-selling author he is today. Darryll Stinson is featured on Practice of the Practice, a therapist podcast.

Why is it important to separate your identity and self-worth from your job? What does it take to become a renowned speaker? How can you contribute to making a real impact in the world?

In this podcast episode, Joe Sanok speaks with Daryll Stinson about life After Being an Athlete and Public Speaking

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Meet Darryll Stinson

A Photo of Daryll Stinson is captured. He is a former Division 1 athlete, founder of Division 1 Athletes, motivational speaker and leadership coach. Daryll is featured on the Practice of the Practice, a therapist podcast

Darryll Stinson is a former Division 1 athlete who battled multiple personal and professional challenges in his youth (including violence, drug addiction, and attempted suicide) and transformed himself into a successful business and leadership coach, two-time TEDx speaker, and best-selling author he is today. Darryll founded Second Chance Athletes, a holistic athletic transition company, in 2017 to give athletes a second chance to succeed in life without the demands of sports.

He speaks professionally all over the U.S. (and beyond) and has been featured on FOX, ABC, NCAA, and some of the top podcasts in the world. Darryll has mentored and taught entrepreneurs, business and religious leaders, athletes, youth groups, and many more how to curate their individual leadership style, find their authentic voice, and develop a foundation of solid mental health habits to overcome adversity and live a life of productivity, passion, and purpose.

When he is not working, Darryll enjoys rapping, reading, sports, and spending time with his brilliant wife and three amazing daughters. #girldad

If you’re eager to elevate your business to the next level, we have a treat for you — Darryll is giving away his Mental Health and Motivation for Entrepreneurs Audio Bundle to members of our audience for FREE! To claim yours, just email him at [email protected] with the subject line “AUDIO BUNDLE”.

BONUS CONTEST!! Darryll will also be choosing three audience members to win a strategy session with him! (No extra steps needed — everyone who claims the audio bundle giveaway will be automatically entered in the bonus contest.) Good luck!

Visit his website and subscribe to the Second Chance Athletes YouTube channel.

Connect on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn

In This Podcast

  • Why you should separate your job from your identity
  • Becoming a speaker
  • Darryll’s advice to private practitioners

Why you should separate your job from your identity

When you cannot separate who you are from what you do, you make poor decisions, because you are always going to sacrifice yourself on the altar of the success that you want in life because you esteem your job higher than you esteem yourself. (Darryll Stinson)

It is dangerous for you to equate who you are and your value as a person to the job that you do, because it can lead to self-destructive behavior.

When you reach a point in life where a change in work is necessary, whether, for your health, personal growth, or financial stability, you need to be able to be flexible.

Recognize when it is time for a change to let things go, and when to move on for your own sake, because you are not doing yourself favors by making your worth as a person quantifiable.

Because my activity was attached to my identity, and I had no separation between who I was and what I did, I came back after back surgery within three to six months … I played after an injury where I wasn’t fully healed, and I put my body through two years of drug addiction, pain, torment, all because I could not let go of sports because it felt like I was letting go of me. (Darryll Stinson)

Becoming a speaker

If you want to get into the speaking industry:

  • You have to do it for others for impact, not to be impressive.
  • You have to have your standout story because it helps you to become one of one instead of one of many.
  • Determine your business model.

Use what I call the mountaintop method: if you were on a mountaintop and you had the ability to shout a message to the entire world … and they only gave you five minutes to speak, what would you say? (Darryll Stinson)

Do you want to be:

  • A coach that speaks
  • A speaker that coaches
  • An employee that speaks

Darryll’s advice to private practitioners

The world is at its best when you are at your best. If there is unfulfillment in your life in any area, decide to change and choose happiness, because when you bring your best at your best, that is when the world shifts.

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Books mentioned in this episode:

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Meet Joe Sanok

A photo of Joe Sanok is displayed. Joe, private practice consultant, offers helpful advice for group practice owners to grow their private practice. His therapist podcast, Practice of the Practice, offers this advice.

Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners that are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.

Thanks For Listening!

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Podcast Transcription

[JOE SANOK]
This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 607.
[JOE]
Well I’m Joe Sanok, your host. I hope you are doing amazing today. I am just having an awesome day. I have been doing so many podcast interviews all around Thursday is the New Friday. My book that’s coming out October 5th through Harper Collins and we have over 200 podcast interviews scheduled between August and September. So I’m going full tilt right now and then I’m going to take a little break after Killin’It Camp in late October, early November, but it’s a good time to be thinking big. It’s a good time to be evaluating kind of how we’re living life, what we’re doing.

Today I am so excited about my guest, Darryll Stinson. Darryll is a former division one athlete who battled multiple personal and professional challenges in his youth, including violence, drug addiction, attempted suicide and transformed himself into a successful business and leadership coach. He’s a two time TEDx speaker and bestselling author. Darryll also founded Second Chance Athletes, a holistic athletic transition company in 2017 to give athletes a second chance to succeed in life without the demands of sports. Darryll, welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast. I am so glad you’re here.
[DARRYLL STINSON]
Let’s do it my man. I am on 10 and I know we’re getting ready to create some magic. So thank you for tuning in everybody and let’s get after it.
[JOE]
I just was on your show and chatting with you there and kind of learning more about your story. And we talked about my book and it’s so fun when I can do these podcast swap because I feel like I have a different rapport with people than if it’s just some random person that I just met. So hearing your story kind of through that show, I would love for you to just start with kind of athletics and what ended up happening with the team that you were on.
[DARRYLL]
So I think for me, I’ll tell you my journey, but it’s important for people to understand why athletics mattered so much to me. So I come from a low income community and sports was the way that I was going to get my family out of poverty. It also was the source of my identity, which is where the real danger came in. So when I was a young kid in the third grade, my mother noticed that I was a very smart kid and so she put me in accelerated learning classes. What that meant being from Jackson, Michigan is that I was one of two black students in an all white class. There wasn’t anything wrong with this. It was actually a good thing because they, I stood out, they loved me, I was one of the smartest kids in the class. They cheated off my test. They laughed at my jokes. They nicknamed me goon, because I was like this big, tall, goofy, goony looking guy and I thought that since they liked me, everyone must like me. I must be like a popular kid in school. And one day I’m walking back to my classroom from a bathroom break and I’ve got one of those dirty wooden passes. Do you remember those things?
[JOE]
Oh yes. Every teacher had like a different bathroom pass. Some of them had like fabric ones, which now I’m like, that is disgusting or they had like wooden spoons or yes, the bathroom pass.
[DARRYLL]
It was so unsanitary. So I got this, that bathroom, that big wooden pass in my hand and I’m walking. I see these group of black students kind of circled together. They must be supposed to be doing a classroom assignment or something, but they’re like clowning and like making a bunch of jokes. So I’m like, man, I want to get in on the joke. So I walk over to the group and I’m like, “Hey, y’all, what’s so funny? Nobody answered. And I’m like the tallest kid in this school. So I’m like, I know they see me. I know they heard me. So I spoke up, I was like, Hey, what are y’all over there laughing about?” Before I could even finish my sentence, one of the kids turned towards me and said, You was funny, white boy.”

They erupted and laughter and I walked away feeling ashamed, rejected and I didn’t understand. I was in third grade dude. So I started asking my friends like, “Hey, why didn’t they call me a white boy when I’m clearly black?” That’s when I learned that I was known in our school as the black kid that “talks and acts white.” So what this did was it was the first time that I felt that who I was authentically wasn’t enough to be liked or loved by other people. Okay. So you fast forward and now I start to change things about myself to fit in with other communities. And I had a cousin whose mother got killed in broad daylight. She was my aunt, her name’s Stephanie and it forced him to come move in with me and he was already established within the black community.

He was respected, he was getting in fights, he was selling drugs. He was already doing this stuff by the time we got in into seventh grade. So when his mother passed in seventh grade he moved in with me. He brought this whole circle of friends that would make fun of the way that I dressed, would talk about how I spoke proper and I still started to conform even more and change who I was authentically to fit in with this community. I started skipping school, I changed the way that I dressed, the way that I laughed. I changed the music I listened to. I started trying to have sex with girls all in the seventh grade and my grades dropped and it was terrible..

It worked. They embraced me. I got street creed. They called me a different type of goon, because then I was like tough street guy goon. What elevated that was sports because I noticed that sports brought both my worlds together and it solved the racial divide that I was feeling on the inside. So rather than choosing between, do I hang out at the bonfire or do I go to the basement party that the black people are having I was like, I’ll go wherever I want because I’m a star athlete now. So I was like, man, I’m putting all this stake in to being an athlete. It wasn’t just my dream. It was my identity. And there’s a lot of people who tie their identity to their activity. I always tell people when you cannot separate who you are from what you do, you make poor decisions because you always are going to sacrifice yourself on the altar of your success that you want in life because you esteem your job higher than you steam yourself.

That’s all the stake that I put into being an athlete. So fast forward, I get a full ride scholarship to Central Michigan University, my coach tells me that I can choose when I want to go, I can leave early if I wanted to. He told that to me, Antonio Brown and then I finally made this decision that I was going to play. I was going to leave early. In my mind I made this decision and not even at the end of my freshman year, I had to have emergency back surgery because my left leg was going to go for paralyzed and my dream should have been over but because my activity was attached to my identity and I had no separation between who I was and what I did. I came back after a back surgery within three to six months and I earned a starting position and I played after an injury where I wasn’t fully here and I put my body through two years of drug addiction, pain, torment, all because I could not let go of sports because it felt like I was letting go of me. Does that make sense?
[JOE]
Oh man. For your back, did that decision to keep playing have long-term effects for you? The reason I ask is I had a really bad snowboarding accident when I was 19 and had to have back surgery when I was 20. I mean still the doctors say my back is like 10 years ahead of where I am right now. Do you have long-term effects from that decision to keep playing and not letting it heal?
[DARRYLL]
Yes, it’s definitely better than when I was playing. But I certainly have long-term effects. At one point I was a bit hunched over and I was never going to be able to stand completely straight up again. I am able to do that, but technically, clinically I’m not supposed to do anything but swim. I can’t swim. There’s a funny story about like how bad of a swimmer I am and I’ll tell you that if you pay me enough money
[JOE]
I don’t want to pay you. I just want to hear the story about how bad of a swimmer you are because I’m a terrible swimmer too.
[DARRYLL]
Okay. All right. I’ll send you the cash app. No, check this out. So I was, my dad’s trying to get me to swim. My dad, he’s very militant. He was an elite athlete as well. He got injured so he didn’t play pro as he should have. He went to be a drill Sergeant at a bootcamp. So he’s very militant and driven and he’s like, “You can figure out anything.” So he puts me in like these classes. First he tried to take me to the park, hold me up so I can float. My body cannot float. I don’t know. My wife said —
[JOE]
Me either.
[DARRYLL]
You can’t even, thank you.
[JOE]
No, no. So seriously I had a swim instructor. So when I turned 40, I wanted to do a sprint try in Kalamazoo and because I was such a bad swimmer I’m like, if I can swim a quarter mile, that will be just a huge feat. So I got this swimming instructor at the YMCA, I’m doing all these things. She’s just like, “Why is this not clicking?” She’s like, “Just float for me.” And I float and she’s like, “No, no, no float.” So she’s like holding me and then I take a deep breath and my resting float is two inches under the water. She’s just like, “I’ve never seen this before. I have never seen someone that can’t float as much as you.” So you and I, we have, I mean, that’s what it is.
[DARRYLL]
You are the first person to say that. I just want to hug you. I wish I could hug you right now but I would definitely make sure my wife hears this episode because she was like, “No, there’s got to be a way.” So I’m like, “No, you don’t understand. My dad tried when I smoked weed, I got high and tried to float and I dropped. It doesn’t work.” So my dad is like, “Okay, I’ll put him in one of the top swimming classes.” So it just happens to be at the YMCA. So, “He’ll learn there.” So he puts me in this class at this time. I want to say I was like 12, 13. Okay, this is super embarrassing. So I’m 12, 13 years old, keep in mind, I’m six, five now. So I was always the tallest kid. I make jokes every time we take group pictures, I said, “No one knows I have a lower body. All they see is neck down.” So anyways my dad puts me in these class, so I’m 12, 13 year old, I’m probably like almost like five, eight and I’m in a class where it’s all like five-year-olds and lower.
[JOE]
Let’s blow bubbles in the water.
[DARRYLL]
Exactly. So at the end of the class, I think it was like six weeks, at the end of the six weeks they tested you on what they taught you. So you got to do all tread water and swim front roll, back roll, all the things that they taught you throughout the six weeks and they give you a ranking. So I go over to and they put it on a piece of paper and you go see like, kind of like if you made the team type thing. I go look at the paper and it was like, “Hey, you’re a minnow.” I’m like, “Sweet.” I’m fast and swift but minnow is good. And just as soon as I’m like basking in this glory, this little, like five-year-old kid with goggles on runs to mommy, “He goes, mommy, mommy, mommy, I’m a shark.”

I was like, “Hold on. Shark? Shark kind of sounds a little bit better than a minnow.” And then another kid was like, “Yes, mommy, mommy, mommy. I’m a a stingray I’m a stingray.” I’m like, “Stringray and sharks?” So I go and I look at the chart. Shark is top, minnow is the worst. Like, the satisfactory grade they could give. So I got to outperform all these kids. That’s how bad it is. So like, will I drown if I’m like in the middle of the ocean? No, not if there’s a nearby boat. I can physically, because in shape, will power my way on top of the water to safety. But for whatever reason, the swimming thing just never worked out for me.
[JOE]
Oh, thank you for sharing that story without me having to exchange money. That’s awesome.
[DARRYLL]
By the way, I can say the most like poetic quote or give you the most insightful fact of research that I know. And all everyone’s going to remember is this mental story. So thank you for that.
[JOE]
If nothing else, this is entertaining and I think that that’s when people tune in and they listen to the deeper content too.
[DARRYLL]
That’s true.
[JOE]
So to take me back to, so you have the back surgery, you’re doing the two years and the identity as a football player starts to shift for you.
[DARRYLL]
Yes, it didn’t until I hit rock bottom. So I came back after the back surgery. I’m starting but I’m addicted to my opioid pills. I had to pay for my medical cost out of my own pocket because the organization couldn’t because that would’ve made them liable for my injury and I signed a liability waiver. My personal insurance wouldn’t because it was an HMO and it only selected certain doctors in Mount Pleasants in the middle of nowhere. So I would’ve had to drive 45 minutes to an hour just to see a doctor. So I paid for it out of the pocket where I’m from the street. So I sold drugs to cover the cost of my healthcare expenses and for these two years while I’m starting and also being a drug dealer and also being a student, my life was like a mess.

It all blurred together. And even though like I’m having success as an athlete on the field and making some plays and we’re winning some games I got this secret life of a drug dealer and I’m basically like almost failing in classes because I’m addicted to opioids. So it just got bad to the point where I was taking so many opioids, that every time I made contact on the field, my nose would bleed and the coaches finally found out it wasn’t allergies. They said, “Man, we don’t know what you’re doing, bro, but we can’t let this happen.” They kicked me off the team and that’s when I had to face it, man, that I had to figure out what to do with my life.

I wasn’t fulfilled by anything like I was by sports. I wasn’t good at anything else, but sports. So I thought, and I confided in my girlfriend. Because, as an athlete, as a man and I think our society in general, weakness is not embraced. Vulnerability is not embraced. I can’t come out saying, “Hey, I’m depressed,” because then people freak out and then it’s, so I didn’t know how to communicate my emotions. I just was used to bottling, you know, as an athlete, they teach, you don’t even show weakness. So I’m not telling people that I’m having these thoughts about not wanting to be on the planet anymore. I’m only telling my girlfriend and she, we had dated for four and a half years and was supposed to get married. I mean, we did all the cute stuff that everyone’s supposed to do, like wrote my last name next to her first name in cursive and carved our initials and trees and all this stuff. When I was going through it one time I called her and long story short, found out she got engaged to another man because I was no longer going to the NFL.

Oh wow.

Which validated this insecurity that number one, without sports, I didn’t matter. I didn’t have purpose beyond sports. And number two, who I was authentically wasn’t enough to be liked or loved by other people. So in other words, when you remove sports and then you got authentic Darryll, I’m not enough to be loved. I’m enough to be left and you go marry somebody else. So it was real frustrating. So I imploded man. I started mixing my opioids with my alcohol. I started just living wild. I tried to OD on pills a couple of times and my last attempt was in a vehicle. That’s a whole story in itself, but I end up in a psychiatric care facility in Detroit and I had a life changing experience there, man.

I found my faith, I got hope, I did some inner healing and I left like Clark Ken turned to Superman on a mission to find out what I was supposed to do with my life. And I spent four to five years studying every major world religion, reading Victor Frankels’ man search for meanings, Simon Sinek’s book Why, Rick Warren’s purpose-driven life. And I’m going to leadership excursions, and I’m doing all this zen stuff, trying to figure out what my purpose is and what I’m going to do in life while kind of avoiding this, like nudge internally I have to be a public speaker. Because it needs to be something else other than speaking, because I hated the way that I looked. I hated the way that I sound because I still had all those insecurities as a kid of being the black kid that “talks and acts white” and all that changing I did to fit in with other people. I lost sight of me. So that took some years to figure out man and it was tough but I learned how to prioritize myself. I learned how to communicate more vulnerably. I started stepping up more powerfully on stages and watching my story make an impact in the lives of other people. And I have been successful at doing so.
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[JOE]
So tell me about how you made that shift into public speaking. I know a lot of the therapists that are listening, coaches, counselors, psychologists have immense skills. they’re great at what they do. They may have PhDs and they’re mostly serving individual clients or they may have a small group practice. What can they take away from this to help them make that shift into public speaking, into finding speaking gigs both online or in-person? Take us through kind of the business of becoming a public speaker and how that worked for you, how it works with people that you train.
[DARRYLL]
This is a phenomenal question, man. And like chime in and ask more because I will talk about this till like it’s nine o’clock tonight. But the first thing that I have to address is my insecurity about speaking. I told you how much I hated my voice and stuff. I used to, when there was ice breakers when you go around the room and say, “Hey, what’s your name, where you’re from and your favorite spirit animal?” I would leave the room, fake like I had to go to the bathroom so that they could skip me. That’s where I started. That’s how terrible I was. I have ADHD. So I didn’t know how to put two train of thoughts together so I would lose that a little bit. So one of the things that started to change is that there was just this internal feeling that this is what I’m supposed to share.

I had just come off a suicide attempt. I didn’t talk about it. People knew it happened. Like they knew Darryll just was front and center as an athlete and then all of a sudden he just disappears and is like in the cave. What happened to this guy? He’s talking about faith now. Because I wasn’t verbal about any of this stuff, but I knew it would be helpful to people who were making poor decisions like I used to, it would be helpful for people who would have mental health challenges. So for sake of them, I made the decisions to endure the pain of learning, the art skill and business of public speaking. And I make that distinction because I know a lot of executives and I know a lot of entrepreneurs who are kind of in that same boat is like financially, you might not think that it makes sense.

You’re worried about being vulnerable in front of people because you don’t want to lose credibility or lose your brand equity that you have now. So you just kind of avoid speaking and it’s like, but if I were to ask you the question, do you think that there’s people in the world who need to hear your story and benefit from it, whether it’s a overcoming a traumatic event story or it’s just an expertise that you have? And people say, “Yes, I think that expertise, that story would be helpful.” But you know that, but is what I wanted to eliminate from the rest of the answer. So do it because it can make an impact, not because you think it’s the most convenient thing in the world.

And that’s not to guilt you into it. I hope that inspires you, that if you can help another person do it just by sharing your story. So I started to micro step into it, speaking at free engagements, talking to teams, which is a good way for people to start. Micro test this out, go to a group of your colleagues and coworkers, go to a Kiwanis club, go to a local high school, offer to speak for free and just see if it resonates, see if you enjoy it and just do it because you want to make an impact. So I started to do that and then I was working a job and one of my interns had graduated and her aunt was hosting a conference and she wanted somebody to come train on marketing. And in 2013, that’s when I got my first paid gig. It was 500 bucks.

I was doing a marketing consulting gig at a casino bonus conference room. It was like 30 people there and I didn’t know, this is a really cool story, I didn’t know that the 30 people there, they were all heads of organizations and departments for organizations like Blue Cross Blue Shield, Henry Ford’s Health Systems and some of the larger healthcare organizations within our region. So after I did a good job they all wanted to hire me, which is a whole nother deal. So then it’s like, “Well, how much do I charge?” People wonder about that. So you charge whatever doesn’t make people scared. So if they say yes, like too quickly, you know you charge too less. They need to like really pause and be like, “Okay, I’m going to make that investment.”

So the cool thing about that though is I found a really good niche. I was a marketing consultant within the healthcare industry and one of the conferences I got to speak at was Henry Ford Health Systems, which I got admitted into the Henry Ford Psychiatric Care Facility in Detroit. So before all of their high level, it was about 140 people in the room, here I am training them on how to grow their business using marketing when I was in their psychiatric care unit three years prior. It was such a full circle moment that I thought you can’t make it up. So I tell people when they want to get into the speaking industry, you have to do it for others, for impact, not to be impressive. Number two, you have to have your standout story and it helps you to be one of one, instead of trying to become one of many, which was what a lot of speakers do.

And I can walk you through just a simple framework to how you can start to develop that. And then once you get your signature story and you’re saying yes, because you want to make an impact, it’s just a matter of determining what type of business model you want. Do you want to be a coach that speaks, do you want to be a speaker that coach, do you want to be an employee that speaks? Once you map that out, you kind of reverse engineer it and make sure that you make the right decisions to fit the lifestyle that you want as a speaker.
[JOE]
I love that idea of being one of one instead of one of many. Drill into that a little bit for us.
[DARRYLL]
So in every speaking industry everybody’s trying to impress. It’s really hard. So even for me in the mental health space, which is what I do a lot of talks about, mental health and high performance, in the high performance side, everybody’s trying to outdo Tony Robbins. In the mental health side, everybody’s trying to like outdo Brené Brown, and outdo, and we’re missing it. We’re competing rather than completing. So from the front, and that’s one of the reasons too, so yes, I was insecure about my ability to speak. One of the reasons why I wasn’t like hardcore, I’m going to be a public speaker, I’m like, I want to be on every stage was because I didn’t want to get in front of people and just repeat all of Tony Robbins and Les Browns and TD Jake’s quotes, who were the people I primarily watched.

I wanted to make sure I was adding value and I was doing something that only Darryll could do. So I had to figure out what that was. So I started with analyzing the speaking industry and I looked at all the top speakers and I came up with this standout speaker roadmap whereas every top speaker has these principles in their own way. And then one of those pieces was a signature standout story. I looked at it and then I said, whoa, not only do they of it, but it’s the same framework and I interpret it differently. So people are looking at it and they’re like, “Oh, it’s a hero’s journey.” I’m like, not all of these are hero’s journey when you really dissect it. I mean, yes, but, but there’s something even more simpler and I think more impactful. It’s this. And I think it was that combined with what I’ve seen in the business model then I’m like, “This is why they’ve rocket shipped as a speaker. And I start looking at other speakers. I’m like, “This is what’s missing. This is why they’re not.”

So finding that for me was so important because it validated my need to be heard. And I think a way that a person comes to that is you can use what I call the mountaintop method. If you were on a mountaintop and you had the ability to shout a message to the entire world, kind of like the sermon on the Mount and they only gave you five minutes to speak, what would you say? When people think about it from that level of seriousness and intensity and stakes, and I make them say it, that you cannot go to the drawing board for this. You have to speak your true. And they start to say it. What you notice is completely different than what they would’ve said had I been like, can you give a five-minute presentation in front of the world? Because they go and they prep and then they go try to be Tony Robbins Jr. or Lisa Niels Jr. or Mel Robbins Jr. And it’s like, no, be you please. Because there’s people that Joe can connect with that Darryll will never be able to connect with. And when we all step up and be the help that we wish we could have and be the help that we wish we had, that is where our society starts to shift
[JOE]
Man, Darryll, so many great tips. I think you’re right. You could keep talking till nine tonight. I have no doubt that there’s tons of content. I want to know what are some practical, either books or tools or ways, because like, for me, there’ve been a handful of books that have been super helpful with my public speaking. So Talk Like Ted is one of them, Storyteller’s Secret, How to Steal the Show or Steal the Show, Michael Port. What books or resources or trainings for you helped you not just build confidence, but like the craft of public speaking?
[DARRYLL]
So I was a teaching assistant for public speaking and I had my professor that I worked with, his name is Adam Anne Lamont . He is such an awesome communicator and he was so free as a speaker. I don’t know how much material he has online, but just following the guy and watching him innovate was huge for me because he could do green screens and use props and do all these things that there was no way I would figure out how to do it. I learned a lot from the books you mentioned Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamont is a writing book, but it’s good for any type of communication. So I highly suggest Bird by Bird.
[JOE]
What’s the main premise of the book?
[DARRYLL]
It’s all writing techniques. So it’s like being tighter. A lot of times we use words and we make sentences that are over complicated and the book helps you do it shorter. My degree is in PR so I read it when I had to write like tight articles and press releases and stuff like that. So it just helps you with seeing redundancies in your world and actually using grammar correctly and things like that. So Bird by Bird helps you become a better writer and overall better communicator. Made to Stick by the Heaths, that’s a great book. Everyone loves that, but those are a lot of good principles in it as it relates. The main one that I’m forgetting of right now, oh God, it’s like, I want to run to the other room and go get it, because it’s like literally nice and I’m blanking on the name. I want to say it’s called like resonate, but it is an old G book. I have to send you the link, but everybody —
[JOE]
Yes, send me the link and we’ll put in the show notes.
[DARRYLL]
Yes. We’ll use the show notes. TD Jakes just came out with a book called Don’t Drop the Mic that’s been helpful. But courses have been by far the best and high ticket coaching experience. So I’ve been coached by Lisa Nichols, Eric Thomas, Les Brown, Rodger Loves, my voice coach right now. Pete Vargas taught me a lot about the business side of the industry. Grant Baldwin, the same, taught me a lot about the business side of the industry. So I learned way more from those coaching and community and courses experience than I did the books.
[JOE]
What do you think about speaker bureaus compared to having an agent or finding it yourself?
[DARRYLL]
Yes, speaker bureaus, I always say like if you have some existing business and you don’t like managing the backend, that’s a great time to work with a speaking bureau. There’s this false belief that speaking bureaus are just going to like attract to you a bunch of gigs, typically you just live on a page, is no different than having a LinkedIn account. Can somebody search you and see that you’re a speaker and then hire you from there? Like, yes, but you’re in a sea full of many people and you don’t have an actual relationship. So they’re going to maybe pick the person who has the lowest fee or the person whose picture they like the best, like whatever or whose message is wrote. So you got to have some traction in your business to work with bureaus.

Or if you’re a celebrity, it’s great because then they’ll go chase down more business for you. But a lot of bureaus is a mutual relationship. I love agents. I have one and I pay a rate unless she makes a commission. Some people, I know a lot of people actually that just do an agent and they eat their own pay, which is of course supposed to incentivize them to sell. But I like giving a base no matter what plus an incentive. So that is an option. And then obviously you can pitch yourself and find those opportunities yourself, but you got to get out there and you got to start speaking. There’s only so much like studying and looking at it. You know, one of the things Les Brown taught me, he said, “Darryll, speakers speak and so I can teach …”
[JOE]
So it’s true. It’s like writers write, podcasters podcasts, like just go do the work.
[DARRYLL]
Exactly. So as a speaker speaks, so I tell everybody, get out there, start speaking. It’s going to lead to more speaking. Just continue to say yes, since they open to the abundance.
[JOE]
Well, Darryll the last question I always ask people is if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want ’em to know?
[DARRYLL]
The world is at its best when you are at your best. If there’s unfulfillment in your life right now in any area, make the decision to change, make the decision to choose happiness. And when you choose happiness and you change what you need to change to do what you feel is most helpful and beneficial and fulfilling to do that is how the world shifts and becomes a more enjoyable place to live. So that’s what I will say.
[JOE]
Man, the world is at its best. When you are at your best. Darryll Stinson, if people want to connect with you, they want to learn more from you about public speaking and other things you’re doing what’s the best way for them to connect with your work?
[DARRYLL]
Just everywhere. Hit me up on Instagram at Stinson Speaks or shoot me an email, [email protected]. I’d love to connect.
[JOE]
Oh, so awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the Practice of the Practice podcast.
[DARRYLL]
Love it, man. Thanks for having me.
[JOE]
So go take some action. Speakers speak, podcasters podcast, writers write. If you want to do these things that go beyond your private practice, it’s so exciting to look at things that can take you beyond your private practice. There’s nothing wrong with the work that you’re doing clinically, but the skillset that you have just goes so far beyond the one-on-one work that you’re doing. So take what Darryll is talking about here and add it as something. It’s really exciting we have a whole track at Killin’It Camp this year that’s on multiple streams of income. So things that are outside of your typical, and we also have a track that’s Pillars of Practice and another one on growing your practice. So we have about a hundred people right now that are coming to Killin’It Camp.

We’re watching COVID and the variance carefully and keeping people up to date. So who knows how thing have shifted by the time this goes live. We’ll definitely be emailing you and letting you know that if anything has shifted. But that’s going to be starting on October 14th, out in Estes Park, Colorado. All those details are over killingitcamp.com.

And today has been sponsored by Gusto. Gusto is the payroll solution that I use. I use it to pay the employees, I use it to pay myself, it takes out the taxes and it takes out the worry. When my accountant or my bookkeeper need details, it’s so much easier because I use Gusto. So go over to gusto.com/joe, and you can get three months totally for free. They’ve been an amazing sponsor over the years. I think they’ve been with us three or four years now. So make sure you go check them out over at gusto.com/joe.

And again, thank you so much for letting me into your ears and into your brain. This has been an amazing show with Darryll Stinson today. And don’t forget tomorrow we have our ask Joe show. So every single Wednesday, you can submit your questions over at practiceofthepractice.com/askjoe. I’m answering those. So we’re now doing three shows a week, two interviews, and then the Ask Joe show. So make sure you sign up for that and let us know what questions you have about private practice.

Again, thanks for letting me into your ears and into your brain. Have an amazing day. I’ll talk to you soon.

Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. We really like it. And this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.