Motivational Speaker is Back on the Road! Brad’s VLOG

Oh it’s good to be back.

I just came back from my second trip as a motivational speaker since the Covid crisis started. Oh it was fun to be back. In a particular order here are some random observations.

I started out as a motivational speaker for teachers and educators in Florida.  Educators, as we all know, I’ve been especially hard hit during the pandemic. They are exhausted, forced to go through constant change and uncertainty, or sometimes vilified by their communities, and sometimes I’ve been worried about their personal safety. All this while taking care of our future citizens.

In this case I spoke to school administrators only. They’re preparing for their teachers to come back to the buildings and are concerned because they know their teachers went through an extraordinarily difficult year. My job in this case was to stress the people side of school administration for educators. My job was to remind them that these teachers really needed social and emotional support from their leadership more than ever. And my job was to show the value and reasoning behind delivering awesome support in a way that is both useful and even fun. It was a great group. A great client. I was so flattered to be part of it.

Then I was back to the airport for a trip to Western Virginia.  My job was to be a healthcare motivational speaker for a community health center in rural Virginia near Roanoke. Just like my educators, these healthcare professionals were absolutely hammered during the past 16 months. Overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated doesn’t even start to cover what they went through. Many of them are recovering from types of personal trauma and are not anywhere close to normal yet. But they serve like heroes and underserved and very needy community. There is literally nobody else to take care of the people they deliver healthcare to. They are amazing people doing amazing work.

My job as a healthcare motivational speaker was to put some fuel back in their tank. My job was to remind them of the meaning and purpose of their amazing jobs in a way that help them get enough energy to continue doing this very difficult job as nurses, doctors, case managers, administration, dentists and the entire and crucial support staff. And my job is to make it fun and funny in a way that would make them want to listen to my message.

I was thrilled to be back on the road. I was thrilled to be in front of live audiences again. And I was exceptionally proud and flattered to serve two separate audiences who had especially difficult times during the pandemic. It felt good to deliver a message I know was needed.

It wasn’t all work! I had a day off in Roanoke Virginia and had a chance to stay in the famous hotel Roanoke, rent a bike and ride it on their famous Greenway, and generally have a chance to be still and do some thinking. It was a treat.

Finally a personal observation. I had totally forgotten how exhausting it is to travel to multiple dates in a short amount of time. It’s pretty tiring normally, but given that I’m out of practice after spending a year and a half in my jammies it seemed especially exhausting. I’m not complaining. I’m thrilled to be back. But I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you I was a little bit surprised how completely overwhelmed it felt to be traveling again.

As many of you know, if you travel a lot you develop a certain rhythm in order to handle the normal stresses of airports, cars, transfers and the like.  I just felt like I was out of practice. I was out of rhythm. It was a little bit more stressful because I was not used to it anymore. But dang! It was so fun to be back even with masks and chaos and more people in the airports than I remember pre-Covid.

It was a treat!   Thanks Manatee!  Thanks CHC!  It was an honor (and a blast!).