Posts

motivational speaker

In health care (or any industry) make sure your speaker “gets” your audience

What is a Health Care Speaker?

 

Selected Posts from Brad’s Past

We found a few posts, videos and stories from Brad’s past, and thought it would be fun to re-publish them here.  So pour yourself a cup of coffee, put on some classic rock, and check out this classic blog post from a decade (ish) ago.  

 

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Motivational Speaker, Humorist, Seminar Leader

For you folks who prefer to read, here’s the transcript to the video:

Hey, it’s Brad Montgomery from bradmontgomery.com with a little note to you about what is a health care speaker. I don’t know. Yeah, I do. Here’s the main point behind some of these niched phrases like health care speaker. The deal is, in the end, your audience knows if their speaker doesn’t get them. Your audience knows if there’s a huge disconnect and you can feel it.

We’ve all, I’m sure you’ve seen it too, you’ve been at a conference and there’s that speaker up there who’s just talking, bringing their speech kind of right out of a box and putting it on stage and saying, here it is, just delivering it rote. Sometimes they’ll customize it by dropping in the name of the client or a product that you’re working on or something like that.

Yeah, that’s not it. What your audience craves is a speaker that understands their needs, their joys, their sorrows, what makes them tick, what makes them stress, what they love, what makes them get up and want to go to work, the kinds of stuff they share with their workmates, the kinds of stuff they tell their spouse when they get home. Those are the kinds of things that they’re thinking about all the time and they pretty much demand in this completely overloaded media world that their speaker understands that.

So I’m a health care speaker and what that means to me is I’ve just worked so much for health care clients, I’ve worked a ton in hospice. I’ve worked a ton for different hospitals, health care associations, nurses associations, doctors associations, continuing medical education, continuing nursing education, all of that stuff.

I’ve just done it a bunch and because of that, there’s a snowball effect where at the beginning, there was a lot of research going on and now there’s still a lot of research because I do that for all my clients, but the starting place is different because I understand. Like when I’m in front of a bunch of nurses or a bunch of doctors or a bunch of health care administrators, I already know a whole bunch of what they’re dealing with. So when we talk about health care speaker, I think in this case it just means a speaker of any type, motivational speaker or inspirational speaker or even business speaker, but one of those things who gets your audience, who has experience in your industry and can deliver a guaranteed killer motivational speech.

A Motivational Speaker That Truly Understands Health Care Audience

Alright, that’s it. Health care speaker, whatever. I don’t know what the word really means, but in the end, make sure you’re booking a speaker that gets your audience. If you are a health care audience, if you got a hospital, if you’re an association, if you’ve got some sort of a health care organization and you’re looking for a speaker that’s energetic and fun and funny and who truly understands your audience and has enough testimonials to back up that, enough experience to guarantee that they’ll rock your audience, kapow, booyah, I’d love to be your guy.

Brad Montgomery, bradmontgomery.com and funnymotivationalspeakers.com.

Looking for a health care speaker? Heck yeah, would love to talk to you.

/1 Comment/in /by

There are a few organizations that are close to my heart.  Diabetes because my daughter is a Type 1 Diabetic  Alzheimer’s because it took my mom when she was young.  And hospice because both my grandmother and my mom saw the amazing benefit and power of hospice.  (As did my family…hospice helps the survivors too.)

I recently got to speak at a health care conference for hospice and palative care folks in my home town of Denver, Colorado.  It was a hoot.  They gave so much to me and my family a short time ago, and it was a TOTALY honor to give just a teensy bit back to them.

I loved them.   Happily the feeling was (at least sort of) mutual.  Check out this nice letter.

Brad Montgomery
Brad Montgomery Productions
Dear Brad,
WOW!
As a seasoned meeting professional, I have never participated In a keynote presentation quite like yours.

It was truly spectacular! The Colorado Center for Hospice & Palliative Care Fall Conference was brought to a close with your uplifting, funny, lively, engaging presentation and we are so grateful to you for that!
On behalf of the Education Committee and the Board of Directors, we want to thank you for your gift of the closing keynote presentation for our conference. It was truly special and greatly appreciated by all.
You made it crystal clear that happiness and laughter have a place in the working world of hospice and palliative care. If we can’t share it with those around us and those we work with, we are doing a disservice to all. You spoke of giving back to the hospice community and I can confirm that you have done that and so much more…
Kindest regards,
K. Smith
Colorado Center for Hospice & Palliative

Looking for a health care speaker who knows how to connect to your audience?  Who is funny? Not just sort of funny but REALLY funny?  Who can help your people be their best?

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

/0 Comments/in /by

If I were booking a health care motivational speaker, I’d want to know if they can actually do what they say.  Wouldn’t you?

I’m just back from Tyler, Texas where I was charged with being a motivational speaker for Trinity Mother Francis Hospital and their leadership team;  Directors, Managers, & C-Level Administrators.  It was an amazing off site event.  We laughed, we cried, — ok, we didn’t really cry — and best of all, we learned.

Part of my job was to motivate these leaders to go back and in turn motivate their teams to excel at customer service.  This hospital is amazing, but recently had a key score regarding customer service drop a tiny bit.  They of course wanted to get those numbers back up…. and this is where I came in.

Check out the video here:

Thanks Tyler!   You rock Mary Mother Francis!

Are you looking for a health care speaker? A customer service speaker? Contact me here.

Mobile Post: Posted on-the-go by Brad Montgomery from his iPhone.

+++

Ok, for those of you who prefer to read, here’s the transcript of the health care speaker testimonial video.

Hi, I’m Tricia Cline with Trinity Mother Francis Hospitals and Clinics in Tyler, Texas.  We had an event today; we were looking for the right speaker to deliver the right message for the right inspiration for what we need for healthcare change.

We all know in healthcare everyday it’s a different world.  We’re stressing over what the changes are going to be and how we’re going to be still delivering great patient care.  Brad Montgomery is your man.

He is the one who can bring it together for you with fun, laughter and interaction of your staff.  So if you’re looking for the right message, the right person, the right man, he is your deliverer.  Thanks.

Another thing I would like to add about Brad Montgomery:  we had major concerns about how we were going to deliver the message, how we’re going to feel it in our heart, and Brad brought us together as a group and as a team.  That as a team, and as a group, and as a family of healthcare providers, we can deliver the very best to our patients, our customers, their family members and then to our group and our society here in Tyler, Texas.  And he can do the very same thing to deliver that message for you wherever you are.

Looking for a motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Check out this amazing letter from a group of health care professionals at Paoli Hospital in Pennsylvania.

My job was to motivate a bunch of nurses to lead their nursing teams, especially when it comes to excellence in end of life care, palliative care and hospice care.

I’ve been a hospice and palliative speaker many times in the past, so this was a comfort zone.  Plus I love speaking for hospital and health care groups.

But this group was special:  they had been through three days of training;  three days of speakers.  And my job was to spend the afternoon with them and tie up all of their learning into one big, funny, motivational package.  It was a blast.  Thanks Paoli!

Ok, here’s the letter about my work in Pennsylvania:

Hi Brad,

Just wanted to say “THANKS”….you were great, and got awesome feedback.  I asked class participants to rate each speaker on a scale of 1 (bad) to 5 (best).  Pretty much everyone gave you all 5’s, except for a few that gave you 10’s!  How cool is that!!

You really helped the class get excited about taking their new knowledge back to their colleagues.  One nurse from one of our local nursing homes, told me that she was so excited about going back to educate her colleagues & she felt it was the best conference she had ever been to!

You should feel good about yourself because you were definitely part motivating this group of nurses, and as a result many people with very serious illness will benefit; and have an easier time at one of the most difficult times of their lives.  I realy appreciated that you took time to make it so relevant to our group.

I am attaching the group picture (the nurses from Oman sent it to me…..they loved the class….it was really fun to see them loosen up….although I can’t imaging what they think of us here in the US now!)

Thanks again!

Cynthia

PS:  Next year I’ll look for the scratch & sniff hospital-smells stickers, instead of the Fruit smells.
Thought you’d want to know….Clostridium difficile, often called “C. diff,” is a bacterium that can cause symptoms ranging from diarrhea to life-threatening inflammation of the colon. Illness from C. diff most commonly affects older adults in hospitals or in long term care facilities and typically occurs after use of antibiotic medications.
Smells like…..MOLDY…like stale bread…tinged with a little skunk…and allowed to ferment to give it that special smelled ya don’t want to get to know ya effect.

PPS:  I’m copying my boss on this, she’s really going to think I’m nuts now!

PPPS

Here are a few more comments from you “evaluations”….don’t get too big of a head now…..

Amazing speaker, great humor.  EXCELLENT!  Best speaker that I have ever heard.  Loved him!  Phenomenal speaker!  HAPPY, HAPPY!   Great speaker…I really enjoyed him!  Excellent…Fun!  I LOVED it!   Fantastic, entertaining & informative!  Great fun!  Excellent…the Best!  Excellent job!  Funny, hilarious!  Main Line Health should have him come for all the employees!  Excellent presenter! Please have him come once a year…he was wonderful!  AWESOME!!!  Fantastic…great take-away message!   FUN!  Best I have ever heard! Hilarious!  Really got us motivated.  Awesome speaker!  Taught a lot of good skills such as listening and team work.  That was COOL!  GREAT!  What an amazing speaker….Brad was the perfect way to conclude this training….thank you!

Looking for a health care speaker for your event? Contact me here.

/0 Comments/in , /by

Brad recently spoke with the leadership team of a large hospital in Tyler, Texas.   Mary Mother of Francis Hospital asked Brad to make them laugh— but more importantly — teach a seminar about how levity, lightheartedness and even humor can have a positive impact on health care and on leadership.

Check out this testimonial video from Brad’s meeting planner:

Looking for a motivational health care speaker for your event? Contact me here.

Thanks!
Brad Montgomery
Health Care Speaker, Funny Guy, Fan of Tyler Texas

Prefer to see the Testimonials on YouTube?
Health Care Speaker video testimonial
Health Care Speaker from the University of Texas Health System
Another Health Care Speaker video testimonial from the University of Texas Health System
Texas Health Care Speaker Testimonial from Mary Mother of Francis Hospital

South Carolina Rural Health Care Association Video Testimonial
One more Testimonial From the Rural Health Care Association
Brad spoke recently to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.  See the video of Brad as a Hospice Health care speaker here.
YouTube Testimonial from Kaiser Permanente Palliative Care
Hospice Speaker testimonial from Haven Hospice in Florida
Hospice and Health Care speaker for Kaiser Blog

Technorati Tags: health care speaker, health care speakers, funny Del.icio.us Tags: health care speaker, health care speakers, funny

/1 Comment/in , /by

palliativeOk. That’s not funny. Yes it is. Well… it depends.

Humor is relative. (No, I don’t mean your relative is funny. I mean that what is funny to some people in some circumstances isn’t funny to others, and that’s OK.)

I recently spoke in Colorado for the Kaiser Permanente Palliative Care department. We had nurses, doctors, administrators, chaplains, and hospice partners… the whole team gathered for a day of celebration and a much needed dose of perspective—through humor.

This is hard-working team of health care professional who are constantly dealing with a difficult heavy job. And, judging by the laughter and volume from this particular group they really needed a break.

So we laughed. We joked about everything from what was served for lunch, to the party going on upstairs, to the fact that they had an off-site on a Saturday. But we also joked about the difficult and serious parts of their jobs. We even joked about death, hospice, and used a bit of black humor. (Maybe not black, but certainly kpvery dark brown.)

In my job as a comedian motivational speaker, I’ve found that the groups with the most grizzly occupations are the quickest ones to joke about stuff that makes most of us blanch. Cops, firemen, ER nurses, — and hospice and palliative care folks not only joke about stuff that many people would find “crosses the line” of good taste, they HAVE to joke about it. It helps keep them healthy.

Humor helps with stress. And folks super stressful jobs will often turn to gallows humor to help them stay sane.

So, after agreeing that the jokes would “stay in the room,” we went for it. And the laughter followed.

Often people complain about humor that is “in bad taste” without understanding that often that humor is “in good health.” I once worked for a bunch of intensive care nurses who finally put up a plaque outside of the ICU that said something like, ‘If you see us laughing please know that this is not evidence that we are taking the care of your loved ones less seriously. It’s our way of dealing with the stress that is inherent with this job. And in the end, our laughter helps us provide the care that your family deserves.” Brilliant. Beautiful.

Back to Kaiser: I was impressed with how quickly this group was to laugh. But as I lead them through some exercises to help them connect humor and levity to increasing their ability to provide care and to serve their folks — and how keeping themselves sane in the end serves their patients, I was amazed at how quickly they got to the point.

In other words, this audience didn’t just run through the humor in the workplace exercises and try to move on. They lingered. They enjoyed. And they went deep. I think I might have learned as much as they did. Scratch that…. I definitely learned from them.

Thanks Kaiser Palliative Care. It was my absolute pleasure.

Are you looking for a health care motivational speaker, or palliative care / hospice speaker? I’d love to be your speaker. Go to the contact page now.

Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Palliative Care Speaker, Hospice Speaker, and Fan if Kaiser Palliative Health

Related:
Hospice video on YouTube
Kaiser Health Care Speaker video on Youtube
Sex, Beer and Death : A blog being a speaker for another Hospice organization
Funny Health Care Speaker home on my main website.

Technorati Tags: Hospice speaker, palliative care speaker, palliative, funny, motivational speaker, Kaiser, Kaiser Permanente, Colorado Speaker Del.icio.us Tags: Hospice speaker, palliative care speaker, palliative, funny, motivational speaker, Kaiser, Kaiser Permanente, Colorado Speaker

/0 Comments/in , , /by
diabetesmagnifyer

Diabetes Speaker

I was flattered to speak at a diabetes forum in Canon City, Colorado recently.  I love my job as a speaker.  And I love being a Colorado Speaker because I live here.  (Yay, no airplanes today!)

But this one was personal:  my daughter has Type 1 Diabetes.  This is a big deal, requires constant vigilance, and is a huge part of our family’s life.  I don’t have diabetes myself, but because of my daughter our family has become experts in the management and lifestyle that is diabetes.

So speaking to a bunch of diabetics was very cool — and very personal.  I spend some time researching every audience.  But when it is as part of my life as diabetes, it’s easy to share my passion.

But what was fun for me was that I have almost no wisdom when it comes to staying upbeat in spite of the disease.  Or, more accurately, all of the wisdom I do have comes from my 12 year old diabetic.  I’m fabulously proud of her and her ability to adapt to this disease.  She is a rock star.  Sure, she is well aware that she has a health issue that makes her unique from her friends.  But here ability to shrug it off and just deal with it — without complaining….. much — is astounding to her mom and I.

When I asked her what I should tell this group of people dealing with diabetes, and what she would recommend they do to stay upbeat in spite of it all she blew me away.  She said, “Tell them that you pretty much have diabetes whether or not you like it.  And the only thing you CAN do about it is to take care of yourself.”   Such simplicity.  Such wisdom.  It ticked me off that she could be so articulate at 1/4 my age.

I was to speak to a bunch of folks are facing major life style changes.  They are going to have to give up (or severely limit) some of their favorite foods and find a way to like foods they’ve never met.  They are going to have to change the way they live — and I was tasked with helping them to make this transition with humor and grace.

So I took my daughter’s message… along with my own funny stories and humor … to this forum sponsored by St. stthomasmooreThomas Moore Hospital. And it went well.   The message was right on.  I only wish I could take credit for it.

Thanks Canon City!  And thanks Claire.  It was a blast.

Are you looking for a health care speaker for your organization?   Whether or not you need a diabetes speaker, I’d love to be your guy.  Go to the Contact Page now.

Brad Montgomery
Proud Father of a Diabetic, Diabetes Speaker, New Fan of St. Thomas Moore

Related:

Info about how this Health Care Speaker can help your group
See a video of Brad as a health care speaker here (from YouTube)
An article about being a diabetes speaker with my daughter
Another diabetes  article

Screen shot 2009-11-17 at 11.31.14 AMTechnorati Tags: Del.icio.us Tags:

/0 Comments/in , , /by

My most recent client was Craneware. Craneware is a:

…leading supplier of business intelligence and revenue cycle software that provides clients with chargemaster management software and products designed to optimize legitimate reimbursements and assist in managing the revenue cycle through better information, workflow, pricing strategy, capture of lost revenue and best practice modeling.

I barely know what this means, and this is after 3 conference calls, some study and spending a day with them. (Ok, so I’m teasing….they sell software solutions to hospitals and medical providers.)

Imagine this for a tough audience:    A group that as been HAMMERED with content and powerpoint for two days.  They know they will be working into the night — if you count the teamwork exercise and the company dinner.      Then imagine that they know there is a speaker at 2 pm  (nap time!) but they haven’t been told that the speaker will be fun, professional, or (gasp!) funny.   All they know is that they have to show up.  

Tough crowd.  But seeing them start at a DEAD stop and then move forward until — at the end of the keynote — that room was buzzing with energy and laughter was worth the trip to Arizona. (Ok, the check was nice too.) But we had a great time in Phoenix, Arizona.

 

Thanks Craneware.  If you’re looking for a motivational business speaker to pick up your troops at any time of the day…. even nap time…. I’d love to be your guy.

Brad

/0 Comments/in , , /by