Get Paid to Speak: Your Message Matters with Orly Amor | 009

Hello Today on Leading with Purpose, I'm excited to welcome my dear friend and powerhouse entrepreneur Orly Amor, the get paid to speak your message mentor. I don't know if she's ever said that, but that's what I consider her. Orly is a transformational leader who has dedicated her life to helping public speakers, authors, coaches and build thriving businesses by mastering the business side of speaking in her inspiring chapter in our most recent soulful leadership anthology, her chapter is when opportunity knocks Orly shares how saying yes to unexpected opportunities and trusting yourself to figure it out can transform your impact, your mission and your light. She's living proof that with a clear vision, bold action and a bit of crazy you can touch millions of lives and change the world. Hello Orly, welcome.

Thank you for having me. That was the cutest introduction I've ever seen.

Well, I am so happy to have you here. We've known each other for many years, but over the last couple years, we've really gotten to get close inside of metamin, but also getting to share your chapter and lots of different events. You're somebody who implements, takes big action. I'm curious you share that a clear mission to impact 200 million people shaped everything that followed. For you, how has holding that vision so boldly opened doors that you couldn't have predicted?

And that's exactly what it is. It's saying it right. Many, many people hear me saying 200 million. And they say orling, why not 2 million? Why nine 1 million? I mean, some people just want to touch a million businesses or 1000 businesses around the world and see. And you know, when people ask me that question, it is always amazing that they've read the book Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. And many people have read the book, but when I read it, read a book, I actually study it, or I read it many times over, I can literally almost recite, Think and Grow Rich. And the thing is that there's a story in there by Gandhi, who had, who had had 200 million people follow him harmoniously for the fight against violence and hunger in India. So when people realize that this can be done without the internet, can you think about with the internet, and now people are getting views and all kinds of followings on their on their social media that very much surpasses my 200 million,

Absolutely. And these are people sometimes with no mission and barely a message, right? And your whole idea is really helping people to bring out their message, and that anybody with a message, somebody will pay for that.

Well, when we think about impact, it doesn't have to be a change in anything. It could be just a smile. Your smile can change somebody's day. That's impact. You know, if you win something, somebody posts a beautiful quote or something that inspires you, that's impact. And we take it for granted, because it's so much of it. Everywhere we look, there's so much of everything.

Well you say a quote could change your life, so they'll jump right in. In your chapter in soulful leadership, you talk about saying yes to opportunities even before you have it all figured out, right? Can you share a specific moment when that mindset paid off in a big way. And where did that come from?

That quote, thank you so much for that question, because definitely I have two mantras that I live by. But the first one is by Sir Richard Bronson, and it says, he says, when an opportunity not say yes, figure it out later. And figuring it out is what we do in any business. Any entrepreneur knows what it's like to figure things out, because we wouldn't be entrepreneurs, or called entrepreneurs, if we didn't figure it out. Basically, what we are here to do is to solve a problem. My dedication to changing or the impacting to 100 million. I didn't know how I was going to do that. I had no clue, and I still don't, no, I'm just kidding. But the thing is that when I was in my pool, I had all my friends who were talking about not getting paid as speakers, and I said, Guys, what are you talking about? Minimum wage in public speaking, is 150k a year. And they said, What are you crazy? Some of us make 50, 6080, 100 that's pushing it. 150 you're out of your mind early. I said, Okay, you're doing you. I'll do me. And at the same time, I was not thinking. Oh, is there a problem out there? I just stopped, like my friends were lazy and complaining. That's That's it. But then a month later, I was speaking at the conference, and three speakers came up to me in the break room, and they said, Aren't you early or more? I said, yeah, do I know you sorry I don't remember, and that's in my chapter too. This story is my in my chapter, because we just started talking, and all of a sudden they said, We're just curious, how did you get this gig? So I said, Well, I don't know. I called, I told them what I speak about. They paid me, and I'm here. They all looked at me like, if I had three heads, you got paid. And I'm like, what? Uh, oops, right? And I realized right then and there that there is a problem. It's not just my friends who are lazy who are not getting paid. There's people who don't get paid because Mark, that's the time that I learned about paid to play, speak, to sell and speak for free. I had no idea. So you don't know what you don't know. It actually means something. I didn't know what I didn't know.

And we talked about the different areas of speaking. So just to kind of help clarify, I work with many speaking coaches who do different aspects. Some of them teach how to be a an effective communicator. Some people teach how to sell from stage. You teach something how to get paid to get on the stage.

Yeah, because I believe, well, first, I've always been paid, so I didn't know about that art of life. And what I do believe, though very strongly, is that we all paid to be where we are right now. We paid for it with money, time, education, blood, sweat, tears, aggravations, ups and downs, health, wise, whatever it was, we paid for it, and that's our intellectual property. And shouldn't we be paid for our intellectual property? Yet most people give it away for free or sell something that will enable the buyer to use the intellectual property, which is fine, I've just not been in that realm, and I don't know how to do it. So that's the only thing I know how to do.

Well, what you do know how to do is build a thriving organization, and you've built these and global networks by trusting intuition and momentum. What advice would you give to someone who feels called to do something bigger but is afraid to take that leap?

Well, there's one thing that you want to think about. We have what God gave us is choices. We have choices. So the choice is to regret or to do it, and no matter what, see it through until you cannot do it no more, because it's okay to do something that you're called to do. Start, start somewhere. Talk about it, let people know, but first have your own mindset in a good place to do it, because then what happens when there's bad days? Are you going to just quit? You don't quit something you're really called to do. Is it a colleague? Or is it not a colleague? Sit with yourself, meditate on it, write it down. But your intuition know this 100% right? All the time, your intuition will never fail you. It's the self. It's the s, big, S, E, L, F, it's your soul. It's telling you to do it. It wasn't just dropped in your head. It wasn't just dropped in your heart. It was it's a calling then that came from God, and God is not going to fail you, God is not going to just give you an idea and say, Oh, by the way, it was just an idea. Don't worry about it, right? No, it's like, it's not going to happen that way. So I believe that we should act on our calling. And many people think that, Oh, if I do this, somebody will steal the idea from me. And that's a bad mentality, because it's already coming from lack stealing an idea from you. It's not really what they did. They took the idea and they made it even better, maybe, but it doesn't matter. Didn't you take your idea of something that already exists and make it better? That's a calling, too. The goal here is to never quit. Never ever quit.

I love that. It's a beautiful kind of segue into going back to you talked about reaching 200 million people, and there's lots of different ways that you're doing that. One is you're helping entrepreneurs and get their message out and get paid to get their message out. But you also have a another big, beautiful mission that comes from your own personal experience about overcoming so no matter where somebody is at, they can help the people who've been where they are. Joanna, tell me a little bit about what I'm referring to.

Yeah, sure. Well, first I'd like to mention that impact. Like I said, it's multiple, right? It's all. The ways that you do it, one of the ways is through public speaking, yes, and helping others get out there and get their message out. One of the ways is that I volunteer at a soup kitchen sometimes, and I mean, like I feel like I'm impacting because I'm doing something that makes me feel good and also humbles me. I gotta tell you that it's very humbling to do some kind of act of service. And then there is the the nonprofit that I have. It's called You Are My light.org. You are my light. We are building healing centers for rescued victims of human trafficking, sex and labor slavery, so that we can give them back their God given right to life, freedom, education and autonomy and having that calling was weird. I can tell you that it was not a calling that I would say, Oh, I feel good. I'm going to do this. It's so cool. Not at all. It was a nightmare that I had by what I've learned already about the industry of trafficking was really horrifying. But then I had a nightmare where I saw this man take two little girls by the hand and just take them away and turn to me with his head, and he looked like the devil, like it was really scary. And I woke up in a in this dream, whatever it may have been, a vision, a dream, I will come yelling, screaming from the top of my lungs. Where are you taking them? I scared the heck out of my husband when sitting, you know, sleeping right next to me. But I can tell you this, that some visions, some callings, are not what you think they are you. You might have a vision for it, for it afterwards, it might come later. So don't be afraid of the things that you see that have messages in them. Write about them, journal about them. And the messaging and the actions that you need to take will come from that.

It's interesting that you again, you take these bold steps. Sometimes you don't know where they're going, and you yourself, call yourself a crazy person who succeeds. And I love that. How do you keep your energy high and your beliefs strong when things don't go as you planned?

That is amazing, an amazing question. First and foremost, God. First and foremost, I talk to God every single day. I read my Bible, every day, I do certain habits, every single day, my affirmations, my gratitude list. It just keeps me grounded that has nothing to do well, is it working or is it not working? I can't tell you, but it totally, totally keeps me grounded and keeps me on point, because I believe consistency is key on anything you do. The other part of it is my my personal story, if I may share it. It's only 13 seconds, but I was a beaten up child. I was molested four times before the age of 14. I was raped three times before the age of 22 twice, gang raped, nine months apart, left for dead. I was also married to a very abusive husband, both mentally and physically. And as a result of that, I gained a morbid amount of weight. I was 428 pounds At my heaviest, and I had four abortions. But to tell you that story and how I keep the energy and the passion and the, you know, my Energizer Bunny, uh, happiness kind of a thing is through passion, you gotta do things with passion. And for me, it's even simpler. Every day above ground is a good day. I almost lost my life twice. So for me, it's not a question of, Oh God, what is going to happen today? And, oh my god, I have not made a good day today, or I didn't make the money I wanted, or I didn't. No, I don't go through those questions. I literally just push them out because I know that I live in an illusion. More importantly is that you are living proof of who you are, meaning that means your thinking is who you are. And so if you want to change that, you got to change the thinking. And so find something that inspires you every day, that calls to you every day. I love meeting people every day. So when I get on my calendar, I'm thinking, Oh, cool. Look at that. Eight people today on my calendar, so excited and get excited about the little things. You don't have to win a million dollars in order to be excited. It doesn't have to be Christmas morning or your birthday to be excited.

I love that. And you also, again, talk to a wide range of speakers on all these different topics. And I'm curious, because, again, this podcast is called leading with purpose, and again, you help people to identify what their purpose is and get that out there, even if they're not clear on it yet. But what does that mean to you? What does leading with purpose mean to you?

I believe we all came here for. A reason we decided to come on this planet and to experience things, but we also came to learn and to expand. And so when we're expanding our knowledge, we're expanding this whole universe. And for me, it's what, what I'm leading with purpose with is whose life am I going to change today? What can I do today that's going to impact just one person? It's not about the whole world. It's one because it's a ripple effect. I'm sure you heard that a butterfly can Plaza tsunami, and I don't know exactly I thought the middle of that story, I just heard it the butterfly effect. Yes, yeah, it's the butterfly effect. I didn't even know about it. I don't even know what it is to begin with, but I'm thinking, You know what? That's pretty, pretty true. I agree with it. I don't even know what it is, but I believe that it can happen. And so leading with purpose is knowing living your joy. It's not just living it's not just paying your bills. It's not leading with purpose is doing what you're meant to do here with joy and happiness for every aspect of it, bad and good, and still staying the course.

I love that. I love that you brought joy into it. Because, again, you people can look at the background, the history, and even though the mission there's there's a lot of darkness there, but you're looking at the light and the joy Well, looking back what's been the most surprising or joyful part of your joint journey that you could have never anticipated when you first said yes to your mission,

How everything just the how everything evolved, is all I always tell people, everything I touch turns to gold. And I kept saying that, and then people started saying that, Oh my god, Orly, everything you touch turns to gold. And I never understood it. I was just saying it without any meaning. And one day, my girlfriend told me, you should start this membership thing, you know, for the health and wellness fear. And I said, What? What do you want me to start? And she said, Well, you should. And, okay, thank you. What do I do with that? And so I called it the health and wellness network of commerce. I started telling people about it. I did one networking event, one, just one. And I just told people to on Eventbrite, you know, I put it on there and and five people registered. And like, great, if we have eight to 12 people, I'll be very happy. And the day of the event, I only had those five people still registered. But there's people that came in through the door, and it was a staircase. So I'm looking up that because of that, it was a staircase, and they were coming down in droves. And I'm thinking, are you guys here for the birthday party that's upstairs? They're like, No, we're here for the the health and wellness mastermind. And I'm thinking, oh my god, right. And so I started changing the room and putting the chairs in different locations and stuff. And finally, there was a buzz in that room. And afterwards, so I'm not, I'm going to spare you the details, but afterwards, this one lady came up to me and said, Hey, can I start a group like this in Brooklyn? And I'm like, what up? Okay, let's talk about it. I don't know. I didn't even have it. I didn't even have the vision. And then another girl came up to me and said, Hey, can I start a group like this in Westchester? Long story short, in six months, we were in six countries and six states, six months, six months. And I was thinking, Oh, my God, which is happening. And then we, you know, and then I started really investing in it, because I didn't even have the platform and the app and everything that I had at the time. It was just weird. This thing took off, and by the end of that, because we closed it down, because we're renaming it and re rebranding the whole day, we were in six countries and 20 states. Amazing. Within a few years, just a few years, yeah, because that was 2015 so I would say 2020 because of the pandemic and everything. Yeah, incredible.

Again. I think that's a perfect sign of alignment. When you are in alignment, things can move unexpectedly fast.

You just have to believe in yourself. Nobody else will do it for you. You gotta have the leads in it. You gotta talk about it. Yeah, stay the course.

Well, speaking of talking about it, after this interview, we're gonna go do a separate interview on Facebook, live talking about your events that you're gonna do live in person, so we can see each other again in person. But you also do like events online that are regular events, and I'll put the links down below. Tell us a little bit about your PGA. And it's not about golf.

No, it's not. But isn't it funny that people remember it better because it's PGA, it's paid gig accelerator masterclass. And I do this every week because there's people that cannot afford my. Program, or don't want to start with the program, not knowing where they're at and so on. So I created a free webinar every single month, every single week. Sorry, it's on Wednesdays. So when you put the link, people have a choice from any Wednesday, either at noon or at 6pm Eastern time. Come and join the fun. I give a lot of gifts at the end of it, so you'll have fun. You'll learn about this industry. I'm sure there'll be a lot of takeaways. People sometimes come back two or three times in a row. I was just thinking that, yeah, and there's some people that came back seven times before hiring me. All good, all good. It's it's about giving it's about paying it forward. It's about just nurturing the idea within your head so that you know what you're getting into,

Absolutely. And just so people understand, what are they getting into? Like, I talk about getting paid to speak, and you talk about this all the time, but give people an idea, it seems so out of reach, or like, Who's going to pay me to talk about parenting or divorce, or all of these other things are so meaningful to us, but is there an audience that's going to pay us for it?

So I'll start with this. My tagline is, if you have a message, somebody's willing to pay for it, many people have a fear of public speaking, which is number one fear before death. We all know that. But if you don't have any passion in you for a message, somebody's willing to pay for it, and you're a good speaker too, don't let anybody tell you that you're not a good speaker. We all started somewhere. I'm still a speaker in the making, right? Because we all learn, and we're going to talk about amplify, and this is all about learning again and again and again. Nobody becomes great at it. Even the great always come off stage and say, Okay, what did I do good? Why did I not do good? The self critic comes out in all of us, even if we've been doing I've been doing it for 27 years, and I'm still learning so and I love feedback, so don't be afraid that somebody is willing to pay for your message and your talk.

I love that, and I also love that you practice what you preach. I was shocked to hear that you still have the consistency to do what you teach your students to do every work day consistently.

Well. The reason behind it is also, you know, there's three, four things that we can't teach anyone. I say about that about speakers, but it's really anyone you cannot teach personality, charisma, authenticity and integrity. What kind of a coach would I be if I don't do what I tell my clients to do? I still do it, because I walk my talk and I know what they're going to face every single day as the industry changes and evolves. So will I? So will they, and how will how well of a good leader would I be if I don't even know what's going on out there

As you were sharing that? And even the story before that reminded me, they made me think about doctors, and that when doctors get their license, that's when they begin to practice. That's not that now I'm a practicing doctor. They literally are practicing for the rest of their career, just like a speaker.

Yeah, like all these professions, have a continuing education. You have to as a lawyer. You have to go back into school every year. You gotta take certain points, certain you know, qualifications. You gotta know what's going on. Financial Planners go through it all the time. There's new products, new laws, new this, new that every single profession has it. So why not us? What makes us so great? It doesn't we have to be fungible enough to say, I don't know it all, and I need to continue learning.

One last question earlier, if somebody is just getting started in speaking, what is the first step? How does somebody boldly go where they've never gone before?

Decide, decide that this is what you want to do. Decide that you want to spread your message, however hard it's going to be. You know, when I'm on a diet to lose weight, it's hard, but the only thing I need to do is decide every day and make good choices every day for my body in order to lose the weight. It's not going to happen overnight, and neither public speaking. Public speaking takes a little bit of time. It's a relationship based business. You gotta build relationships with event planners, but don't lose faith, because there are 64,000 events a day in America alone that they speakers. There's no shortage of opportunities. It's $113.2 billion industry. There is no shortage of money. So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and do it and make all the mistakes. I love people who have never been speaking. You know why? Because they're completely clean cannabis. They don't even have bad habits. It so we don't have to make any bad habits. We can just set them on their way in the right way from day one. I love it.

Me too. So very much. Again, I'm gonna put the links down below for for the PGA, put the links in there for amplify as well. And if you're looking you can come check me out on Facebook. You'll see the old replay that we're doing live here shortly, or they any last words before we say goodbye. On leading with purpose,

God called us to make something out of our lives and leave a footprint on this earth. Make sure you know what your footprint is going to look like.

Beautiful. Thank you. Orly, I appreciate you being in my life and getting so many other people out there to get their message out in the world. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you all you.