Grant Vermeer's Naval Academy Story and Unlocking Speaking Success | Ep 402

You know, I always say that speaking of the fastest way to grow your business.

Well, today I'm pulling back the curd and giving you a front row seat to what it actually

looks like to work with me one on one.

I'm sitting down with a former client of mine, Grant Vermeer, who came to me when he was

asked to give a 20 minute speech that was two and a half weeks away.

He had something to say, but he had no clue where to start.

And maybe you will hear a little bit of yourself in this story.

The nerves, the pressure to sound polished, the fear of falling flat, not knowing

exactly what to put in your presentation or maybe trying to put too much in your

presentation. So in this conversation with Grant, we are going to dive into the

real coaching process, his aha moments, the tough love and the mindset shifts of

what happens after the speech that neither of us expected.

And if you've ever wondered, could I actually do this?

This episode is your answer because your audience is waiting in.

Yes, you have a story worth sharing.

Let's get on to the show. Grant, it has been too long.

Thank you for coming onto the show.

I have been dying to catch up with you and just to share you with my audience also.

So before we even get started, can you share with people who you are and what

you do and more and also like what your podcast is?

First of all, thank you so much for having me on.

This is so exciting for me.

I haven't chased the shiny objects in drum.

So I'm sorry, I've been apart from each other now for a couple of

months, as that was working on a project that I really love is for the

military community.

But yeah, my name is Grant.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and that make my way through the

neighborhood academy, which is a really formative experience for me on a

couple of different factors, just my own personal development.

It's also where I met my wife and you asked who I am.

Like, I'm a spouse.

I'm a military spouse.

I love my wife and I love supporting her career as a naval officer and as an

mediator.

And so I've had a fun time trying to build a business that it works with that.

That is sustainable at that.

And so for for me, that has been building a podcast all about the

Naval Academy community.

It's a community I care deeply about.

It's something that I have insight knowledge about and just have an

ability to provide a lot of perspective and context to help educate

family members, perspective, student, and everyone about the midshipment

experience in anapolis.

And that's been so fun.

And I do that really as a passion project.

And I'm sure we'll get into it more as a strategic piece of my overall

business because my actual four profit businesses in the real estate

world is that multiple years as a real estate agent.

Now I run a real estate consultation and referral business trying to make

sure people are getting connected.

So to really try and spot professionals across the country.

And so that's what I'm doing right now.

And I love it.

Thank you.

It's such a fascinating career path so far.

So so let's start with how did you get this first speaking event that

compelled you to reach out to me?

Yeah.

It's been, you know, sometimes I feel like this in poster syndrome like,

oh my gosh, I'm going to get this first event.

Then I realized that I've been building something for years.

But it's been a lot of hard work.

It's been a lot of hard work for me.

It's been all about building community.

And so one of the things that I've done with Academy Insider and that I've

really loved is this idea of being an educator, being a guide for the

moms and dad remit shipment for the parent, the family member of what I've

dubbed as like the support squads for mid shipment.

We're going through the Naval Academy experience.

And at the Naval Academy, there are groups known as parents clubs all

across the country that are kind of broken out regionally.

And as a result of the podcast is a result of years of sharing my story and

my experience and helping family members understand the mid shipment

experience and better be able to love and support their son or daughter,

whoever it is going through the Academy.

I had a terrorist club reach out to me last year about coming to speak at

what is known as the welcome aboard event.

So for all of the high school seniors that would be showing up to the Naval

Academy that following year for their plea beer, the freshman year, I was

asked to come and speak and provide a little bit of insight, wisdom,

guidance, and just general advice for the incoming class and incoming family.

And that's how I kind of landed my first speaking game.

Fantastic.

So when I love about that story is you were just doing what you do best.

And then somebody came along and said, Hey, can you come over here and

share some of this information?

I got the perfect audience.

Yes.

As exactly it, I really just thought I was a blogger at a storyteller,

just having fun, kind of reflecting on my experience, right?

I was the early in my journey.

I wouldn't have considered myself an entrepreneur.

I really just thought I was just like having fun, sharing stories in, you know,

again, a big thing for me, but really my identity that I really try and hold

is this idea of being a man for others, part of my Jesuit Catholic faith.

I pulled it really ear to me.

And so I was like, this is a perfect avenue to do something fun,

but that will get back to a community I really care about and hopefully help

a lot of families understand the journey.

And really for me, that's all it was at the start.

And then again, like you're saying, I had opportunities open up as a result

of everything that I was doing, kind of in that niche.

Yeah.

Beautiful opportunities.

Okay.

Before you reached out to me and they had already said, Hey, Grant, can you come

and speak?

What was your biggest fear?

My biggest fear was, so I, as you may be able to tell right now, as I'm

talking, I'm not a quiet person.

Was it like necessarily getting up in front of the stage?

Was it necessarily the piece that was most frightening to me?

Although I will say as much as I do, I think I have a kind of a boisterous

charismatic personality, getting them in front of on a stage still gives me

butterflies in the stomach, right?

It's not like it's not like it's just like, Oh, yeah, no, I love it.

No, it's it's scary.

It's for acting.

But I think for me, and it's part of my personality, my wife, it will

probably be the first one to tell you is I put a lot of pressure on myself,

right?

Like I, I, I want to be perfect in everything I do.

I want to present in a really professional, really polished way and

everything that I do.

And so for me, kind of my biggest fear going into this was, this is my

first event, like this is going to set the stage.

This is going to be the thing that will hopefully open up a new avenue for me.

I need to be great, right?

I need to be excellent.

And I need to provide a ton of value to this group that I'm going to, to talk to.

And so that was the biggest thing for me was I was like, all right, well,

how do I, how do I do this?

How do I do this in a way that really does achieve all of those things that

I want it to, to do?

And so for me, that was kind of the scariest piece was walking in and knowing

and I have no idea how I'm supposed to do this.

I just know that I need to do it.

And so that, that was what it was for me.

Okay.

So you reached out to me.

Why did you reach out to somebody who helped people write speeches?

Because you have an incredible presence because you, again, I've listened

to the podcast multiple times.

My dad has listened to the podcast multiple times.

And it was one I let right.

And you know, my dad and I were sitting, we're talking and we're, you know, we,

it's so impressive in what you do in terms of your branding and your reputation

building, right?

And it's something that I tried to hear it from my real estate business,

which is when someone says, oh, I, when it becomes relevant in their life to

want to buy or sell a home, I want their first thought to be, I need to reach out

to Grant, right?

And I think what you do so well was exactly this.

Like we, it was before we even needed to speech funny enough, like we follow

your podcast, we follow your presence on these different things.

And so as soon as writing a speech became relevant in our life,

developing a signature speech, we came relevant in our life.

It was like, we have to reach out to Lauren.

But definitely it was just, it was the first thought.

And that, that's kind of how it, it works for us because I think we kind of knew

maybe in my, I say we again, my dad's my biggest advocate supporter and almost

operations guy and this whole thing with my love.

And my dad has a job, you know, that work.

But he, I swear if he was born 30 years later, this idea of being

in a modern age entrepreneur for him would be like the dream, right?

And so he just, he loves getting to work on this stuff with me.

And so I think we knew, speaking was a possibility in the future.

And this idea of developing a signature speech and being a part of these events.

So again, you were on our radar more or less just from general things.

And then again, when it became relevant, it was automatic, easy to be like,

we got to reach out to Lori Ann and we got to make this happen.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

So one thing that I remember, so I remember my comment to you,

which was like, oh, when is this speaking event?

And you gave him and it was two and a half weeks later.

It's like, could you have waited any longer?

I, um, yeah, for being in the military,

punctuality, not my strong.

And you would think they would have fixed that in me.

But again, I think, you know, sometimes operating in these early realms

and these early stages, the Paris club didn't reach out to me until two

and a half weeks beforehand, right?

And so these are some of the things that are really interesting

because when you're trying to get your start, you know, people aren't booking you out

six months from an advanced to speak when you haven't spoke before, right?

And so I think that was a really interesting realization for me.

You know, again, little more tidbits about Grant from here.

Am I, am I off time from when I'm not busy enough already?

I move light as a college basketball referee, right?

And it's something that I, that I love doing.

And again, in order to convey, it's to go from division three basketball

to division two bad for up to division one basketball.

A lot of times you just have to get lucky and have an opportunity.

That pops up on very short notice, right?

You have someone who is injured or get sick and you get a call from someone that's like,

Hey, I know you don't normally work at this level, but we need you.

Can you get there today?

And you need to be prepared.

You need to be ready, right?

And so it was a very similar thing, which is again, unfortunately, I was like,

all right, this is a really short timeline, but I have an opportunity.

And so like, how am I going to be prepared and ready to go?

And again, I'm sorry to have put the time crunch on you,

but we need you to make it happen.

And I'm just so grateful to your support in doing it.

Yeah, you worked hard.

Like, I remember we had a sales call and I like, I hear the options.

And we'll have our follow up sales call.

You made a decision like that night.

And I said, okay, instead of a follow up sales call,

that will be your first call.

And we just went to work hard.

And normally it's 12 coaching sessions over the course of six months,

but I actually don't care when people how often they use them.

And so we used several of them weekly, if not twice a week, to get it done.

But you worked hard for those that two and a half weeks to really, really do an outstanding job.

Thank you.

Yeah, it was, like you're saying, it was twice a week there for a while to build the speech

and then practice it and give it a couple of times in front of you.

And you know, that that's always scary when you have a 15-minute speech

that you've had to write, memorize, and recite multiple times to get ready to go.

And it was certainly something.

Please stand.

You should have a good time.

And mom and dad were in the audience.

I loved that.

But what tell everybody what happened afterwards

when you stepped off the stage?

Yeah, I appreciate you asking.

You know, for someone who liked me, if he'd be back or wants to do a good job and provide value,

it was really special because the moment I walked off,

the organizer of the event came up to me and said,

that was the best speech that we've ever had at this event.

Can I book you right now for next year?

And that was really special.

And I did.

I went this past, this past May, and I gave this exact thing speech

to the North Texas Parents Club in Dallas, Texas.

And it was amazing, right?

And it led to another one.

I actually had multiple parents clubs reach out to me this past year to speak at their event.

Again, kind of how it worked is usually there

on the same day or within this band of three weekends.

So I can't be everywhere.

But I was able to two back-to-back weekends.

I spoke to the North Texas Parents Club again.

And also the Southern California Parents Club this year gave this speech twice.

And they went incredible.

And so I'm just so grateful that it's continued to give me an opportunity

and a stage and a presence to be able to impart a little bit of advice

to the incoming engagement and families.

Yeah, yeah.

And you just, I'm always a big fan of you just

and her know who's in the audience who can hire you for something else.

You know, they start following you and learning from you.

And it's like, you know what?

I bet he's got another speech.

But this also brings up a really important point of,

you know, last year we worked together on this one signature speech

for this particular 15, 20-minute talk.

And I'd ask to come back and I love how you said,

I gave the same talk because it's different people in the audience.

But it's amazing how you can use the same speech again and again and again.

And it must have been, I bet you it had to have gotten a little bit better,

especially when you're doing it two weekends in a row.

I think significantly better.

And I think what's really interesting to your point

is I was able to tailor it, right?

It provides a structure that I was able to make small adjustments

based on where I was going and what was happening in the world.

And I think this is really interesting, right?

I don't want to take up all your time and I'm so sorry about this.

But you know, it was really interesting because I had three main tenants of the speech,

which is the idea of the power limit shipment experience,

the adventurers of a junior officer and the power of the Naval Academy work.

When we were going through this period, the first weekend, even this past summer,

this first weekend, I gave this speech and I talked all about the adventures of a junior officer,

all the fun, the travel.

Again, you hear the phrase, join the Navy, see the world,

get in the go to all these new places, doing all this cool stuff, all this amazing thing.

It's exciting, it's fun.

I love talking about it because it was a fun part of my life.

In between the first weekend and the second weekend,

Israel launches missile strikes into Iran and Iran responds and launches missile strikes into

Israel. But this is happening the week between the two speeches.

I was supposed to be flying to Vietnam.

I was supposed to give this speech on Saturday afternoon and fly to Vietnam on Saturday evening

to go visit my wife on a port visit.

She's currently deployed on an aircraft carrier out in, again, now the Middle East,

but was in like the South China Sea in the Pacific area.

That's where she was at.

They're supposed to pull into Vietnam.

I was getting ready to fly out and visit my wife.

I was so excited.

On Friday, my wife calls me and says,

do not come to Vietnam.

We're not going to be there.

We're visit canceled, new tasking, all ahead flank as fast as you can get to the Middle East

to be off the coast of Iran.

In that moment, I was super scared.

When I was nervous, I knew my wife was nervous.

And I knew my in-laws were super nervous.

But the conversation that I had with my wife was that,

you know, who else is nervous?

Or sailors?

And, you know, who else is afraid?

The mom and dad of those sailors.

And it is my wife's responsibility and job as a naval officer to take care of them,

to love them and to lead them in combat.

And so, I went into that speech the next day on one day, notice,

and I changed the speech around the power of the legitimate experience and the

adventures of a junior officer to the power of the legitimate experience

to be ready for the responsibility of being a junior officer.

And that was a huge shift because I was able to come in and be responsible.

When it was no longer about the fun of world travel and all this stuff,

but it was about the fact that the legitimate experience,

the naval academy experience is brutally hard.

It is a grind.

Because when you get out there and that moment happens,

where you are sickly or stomach-scared because you know you're going towards war,

it is that way because you are going to have to handle your own emotion,

your own fear, and take on the burden of your sailors.

It is your responsibility to love them, to take care of them,

and to lead them.

And so, that was this incredible arc for me in this speaking journey as well,

because I was able to take something and make it a living document.

It wasn't just the same speech, it was able to be tailored based on world events

and what was going on personally in my life.

And they get really relevant and really resonate with this audience.

And so, for me, that was a really interesting kind of experience.

That is so beautiful to take your speech and really customize it not just for this audience,

but also for the state of the affairs, what actually is going on.

And also, like what was going on with you,

but I love the advice that you gave your wife that is just so beautiful.

And it's the power of being a really good speaker is to be able to change it on a dime,

to serve your audience.

Not to just give, but this is the speech that I'm supposed to give.

You know, a lot of times people can get blinders on.

And it's like, no, no, no, like we need something different.

But when we asked you, when we booked you to speak,

we didn't know we needed something different.

So, that just speaks like kudos to you to being,

that's acting like a professional speaker.

You appreciate that.

Thank you.

It's awesome. Make sure you get testimonials by the way.

Thanks.

Hey, the other thing, let's go back to like our work together.

What's it prize do about working with a speech coach?

The amount of refluxing, right?

I think what was actually really interesting,

I think I was expecting early on like,

you're just going to tell me what to do.

You're like, I'm here.

I'm paying for you.

Like, write the sucker for me.

You know, I think what I loved

and what was most interesting was it was very,

and you are, you are very intentional on how you are.

You are very real and authentic when you ask questions, you mean it, right?

And you can feel it.

And so for me, he was a really almost therapeutic reflexive,

reflective exercise working with you.

Did you ask a lot of really important questions?

Do you ask a lot of questions about me?

You asked a lot of questions about the path I wanted to make on the audience

and how that was going to drive the message of the speech.

And so there were a lot of cool things that I really enjoyed about the experience.

But I think what I loved most was that it forced me to be very honest with myself

and very reflective of what is the outcome, what is the goal?

And then how are we going to make that happen with your guidance?

And that was really fun because again,

I think I assume early on it's like,

oh, you're just going to like, I'm going to talk to you and you're going to

take a huge speech, right?

And it wasn't that way at all.

And I love that because again, I think that education, that experience,

is what allowed me to change it on a dime, right?

Because it provided the framework necessary for me to be speaking about the things

that I should be considering.

That's so funny.

I thought I was going to write your speech.

The very first person you ever asked me, I mean,

this is what brought me into the online world.

And to change from speaking about leadership to speaking about

basically communication is somebody sent me a text that said,

lorraine, do you write speeches for people?

You know, and the answer was no because then,

because then you have to memorize what I wrote.

But like every client that I work with,

nobody is cookie cutter because everybody's story is different.

Everybody's goals for speaking is so different.

So they thank you for sharing that for making me laugh.

But also like for understanding the process and having that sort of a framework

so that you're right, like you can write another speech.

You can just change it on a dime because you needed to.

That was fun.

And yeah, it can be very to use your word therapeutic.

Like you're learning a lot about yourself about like,

why do I want to speak?

What is my story pulling out the nuggets of your story

and for everybody, it's different?

Yeah, I'm a person.

Were there any funny moments of working together?

I mean, a ton.

I feel like we're just cracking up the whole time, always.

And you know, I feel like in retrospect,

again, when you're at the evil academy,

when you're going through it, it's not funny.

You know, it's, it doesn't feel funny at all.

But when you go back and you reflect on these things,

and like tell these stories to you,

and I'm like, I want to tell this story,

or I want to tell this story.

It's so ridiculous, it's hilarious.

Yeah, like I just love every good of it.

And so getting to work with you and share stories

and realize, you know, what stories work in a speech?

What stories have an air that will make an audience laugh,

that are fun, that will relieve some of the tension,

that aren't overly long, that, you know,

are able to take the planes.

And those were all like incredible things.

Yeah, I think what was most for me is,

I really remember literally breaking down and crying

on one of the calls with you.

And so it was less about even like the humor and funny

of our experience necessarily.

Although, again, I love working with you.

It's a very pleasant experience.

And I think we do.

We laugh and we have fun.

The power of your experience was the reflection.

Like there were times where, can you really made me think

and feel and be honest and reflective

as we were discovering things that were really important to me

that literally moved me to tears.

And so like those were the kind of experiences

that I will always remember.

Like it was a really powerful experience

to really work through and navigate how I really feel

about things and what is most important to me.

And, you know, what kind of things I want to share with the world.

Like what my, what my story is

and what I want to kind of express to other folks.

And that's that's honestly what I remember most

out of out of our time working together.

Yeah, we definitely had a really good time working together.

I enjoyed working with you and just I remember saying to you,

I wish I had joined the Naval Academy.

You just just the way that you were sharing like the even the hardness

how difficult it was but you still did it

and how it is shaped who you are today.

And that is what you were trying to share with that audience

that what you're about to do is so hard.

You know, I recently heard somebody talking

about the 75 hard bad that I don't want to call it

fitness 5 and then yeah, we'll call it a fat.

But he said you're not doing it for who you are today.

You're doing it for later.

The person you're going to become he said

so that when things do get difficult in your life

because he's like, it's not a it's not a diet.

It's not a fitness program.

It's like a personal development program.

He's like, that's real.

When you go through something hard,

you're going to be able to remember like I did that.

I'm a different person and I can do hard things.

And hearing you talk about like how gluing the Academy is

what prepares them for like what your wife is doing right now with them.

I love it. I'm going to I think I may submit

a request to the U.S. Congress to change the name of the school

from the U.S. Naval Academy to the 1,350 hard.

You know what I mean? Just like the four four full years.

Four full years of hard.

Yeah, I think it may work with with the young generation.

Get them in there.

In my yes, I want to ask you about the mindset shift

from the like I'm nervous about doing this.

I want to make sure that this is perfect.

I do a good job too.

I've got this.

I don't know that I had that feeling on the first one.

I think like I was in my hotel room the night before

looking at that sucker.

And I was like, yeah, I think we're going to maybe make this thing happen.

No, I think when I when I got up there

and I think again, the first time giving it,

it was actually when I got up on the stage

and I got ready to give my first like talk, right?

And it was the opening line that like made me feel when I said it,

I was like, I got this because I had said those words

and those numbers so many fricking times over the past

X number of days, right?

And I was nervous about the whole thing.

When you put in 15 minutes, but when you compress it down to like,

you know, 13,476 midshipment applied to the Naval Academy,

right? Like when I got to that boom, the first number,

I was like, okay, I got this because each piece of it just

flow, right? Like I knew when I was here was like, aren't I'm here?

Like this many people tried to academy.

This many people got in.

And this many people actually said yes, right?

You are a part of the elite of the elite.

That is 7.9% of people that ended up actually getting into the

Naval Academy. And once that happened, it was like,

I felt I was able to go because I knew I had the audience.

At that point, when you hear the audience go

in drop silent, you're like, all right, I got this,

right? Like I'm in control now.

And so for me, it was it was that way.

And again, I think that onto the, you know,

further on time getting it, I felt that level of confidence and

moving before like going into it because I knew it was going to go well.

But first time, it was really like a con the first

10 words that I was like, okay, I got it.

Right? I couldn't have. And so that's what it was.

And I remember, I don't remember exactly how you wanted to open the speech.

But I remember like how many people applied it? I remember asking you that.

How many people apply? How many people because

we the goals that you would set for in the foundation of our speech

together? You know, like here's here's what I want to get out of this.

But here's what I want the audience to get out of this.

And I was like, but in your audience, our parents and also students.

And we need to make them feel like, wow, that's what I'm a part of.

I'm a part of seven percent.

And you're right, the elite of the elite.

I wanted your parents to feel oh, so proud of their child.

And for that, like the student to be like, oh my god, like I had no idea.

I really feel like that line just grabbed your audience right from the beginning.

And knowing exactly what you're going to say, this is the reason why I tell people,

you want to memorize your opening and your closing.

You can, you know, you have, you had a short presentation,

so you really did have to write and memorize it in a way that sounded very conversational.

But in a typical 60-minute speech, I would tell people,

memorize the beginning, memorize the end, the stuff in the middle,

you can just have bullets if you want.

But that's why is so that you know exactly what you're going to say.

And that's when the butterflies just settle down. Bravo.

Thank you.

Thank you.

What would you say to somebody who's listening right now, who's thinking of like,

I was thinking of booking a call with Lauren and thinking of

of even adding speaking as their best form of marketing.

What would you say to, what's the advice you'd give to somebody?

Do it.

No, I just, I believe in the power of action.

Right, I believe in the power of momentum and moving, right?

And I think I just had a podcast interview the other day with a

Enable Academy grad in older kind.

Like he was, you know, he's, I think he was class of like 70 something.

I mean, he's 50 years out of the name.

I mean, he's at an entire career in the Navy.

Recourse is entire career in all this different stuff.

He made it very clear that closed mouths don't get fat.

Right? And again, it was, it was a lesson to take into a lot of

different things and commit into networking, into relationships,

into, you know, your professional career and all these things.

You have to ask for help.

And I think working with you is actually as funny as it may feel.

Like it's an ask for help.

It's an ask for guidance.

It's saying that I want to achieve something.

And I'm going to put the right people on my team in order to make it happen.

And so I think there's that first movement of just taking action.

And you know, I can, I work.

It's a, I mean, it's a military thing in me.

I work and phrase and little diddy, little thing that I can repeat over and over again.

And I close mouths don't get far off the motion creates a motion.

Right? And so this is the thing for me.

And motion creates momentum.

However, you want to talk to it.

But like taking that first step is what is going to move you in the right direction

and get you like pushing in the right direction,

going to give you optimism.

It's going to get you hope you're going to have your first breakthrough.

You're going to start to feel more confident.

Realize when you have a signature speech,

you now have LinkedIn content, you have Instagram content,

you now have an ability to go on a podcast and bring things up knowing

I have a structure of my thoughts that I want to do.

It's not just the speech.

If you were to look down my LinkedIn today,

after my post or just excerpts from the speech,

I just copy and paste them in there, didn't it?

Right? Like it's, it's incredible.

Like it just gives you a framework of what's important to you,

the impact you want to impart on a certain audience.

And then you have that for every single thing you do.

Sorry, I'd say working with Lauren, it's not just a speech.

It is an entire framework of your communication,

of your message, of your reputation,

that you want to have.

You can copy and paste into all these different things.

And the plus of a copy and paste,

more we're talking about like really a confidence

to be able to change it on a diet,

right?

And know how you want to do it,

because you have that.

And working with you is working with the best in the game.

It's working with an expert who's going to be able

to lead you and guide you on that experience.

Thank you so much for all of that.

What is there any other piece of advice that you want to give people

that are listening about speaking,

about sharing your story,

sharing your message?

And yeah, it's all about the impact you want to leave.

I just, I couldn't be more,

yeah, it is the thing.

I read a book recently.

I'm a, I'm a storyteller.

I'm sorry.

I read a book recently,

wealthy and well known.

It's an incredible book.

I heard the author talk on Pat Flynn's podcast.

They let me to read it right again.

Power up a podcast and be able to get on there and tell your story.

He has a really interesting quote.

He's like, I hate this term personal brand.

Right?

I just feel it feels a little trained.

Actually, if you have a little business,

I love this idea of reputation.

Because at the end of the day,

like when someone says the word Lori and or someone says the word grant,

the first thought that pops is someone into someone's head,

that is your reputation.

And the power of speaking,

the power of having a podcast,

the power of having a public presence

on cultural media and a really professional forum

is your ability to formalize

and digitize your reputation.

Because if you're able to go on to a podcast

and talk about the things that are really important to you,

you have the ability to make consistent posts

about the things that are important to you

and what is going to make an impact on your audience,

you have the ability to create your reputation

and to reinforce it constantly.

And so this is the power of everything.

When you're going into it,

again, it just goes back to it's not just a speech.

It's the ability to build your reputation day in and day out

where everyone knows that you are the person who does X

or you are the person who is Y.

Right?

Like, I just want at the end of everything that I do,

whether you can, again, as a guest on your podcast

or it's a actual speaking event or whatever it is.

Like, I want people to be like,

Oh, yeah, grants the real estate guide.

And great, great, just cares about the military community.

Yeah, right.

If those are the two things that people say

when they, like, my name get brought up,

like, and I'm doing my job right,

then that makes me happy.

And yeah, it's a long way to say,

I just, as you're thinking about going on this journey,

not just the speech working with Lori is not just creating speech.

It's this journey to building your reputation

in the public forum.

And I just think it's a really powerful thing that you can do.

And I'm just a big advocate for it and recommend it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Paula.

And that the great advice for people,

and I'm going to have to go check out that book.

So grant before we close,

can you just share with people where they can find you,

follow you and learn from you?

Yeah, LinkedIn.

I'm a LinkedIn junkie.

I'm a LinkedIn junkie.

Again, just grant from here on LinkedIn.

I would love if you followed me there,

connected, shot me a message.

It would be so much fun.

If you have any of these in the military,

the Naval Academy shoot a question.

It's what I do.

It's my passion project.

I post a lot about real estate.

And I post a lot about, you know,

the military community.

And so those are the things that I love doing.

You can also check out my nonprofit,

www.academyinthetter.com

or just go onto your main podcast,

streaming service that you like

and type an academy insider.

You know, again, it's been a long journey,

but we'll be the first podcast that pops up.

And you know, we'd love to have you put the list in there.

And that kind of stuff would make me really happy.

And you know, feel free to reach out at any time.

So how about that for transformation?

That is the power of one-on-one coaching.

It's not about perfection.

It's about clarity, confidence,

and show it up like the expert that you already are.

So if listening to this has made you think,

I want that kind of support.

Then let's talk.

Head on over to speakandstandout.com

forward slash speaker dash success.

And you can book your free speaker success call with me.

We'll look at where you are,

where you want to go, and how you can use speaking to get there.

Faster and with way less stress.

Remember, your story's unique.

Let's make it heard.

So till next week, be in demand.