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I recently did some work with a wonderful government audience in California. They had me do my all day happiness at work seminar called Laugh-O-Nomics™. We did everything from motivation, to collaboration, to team building and facilitation. I was there a full day, but it felt like about 90 minutes … It was fun.
Check out this testimonial.
Looking for a happiness motivational speaker for your event? Contact me here.
Yours,
Brad Montgomery
Team Building Speaker, Humorist, Seminar Leader
For you folks who prefer to read, here’s the transcript to the video:
Sandia National Labs Testimonials
So to anybody that might be looking for a motivational speaker to come out to your event we would highly recommend Brad. He did a fantastic job and I feel like we all left with the feeling that happiness is an attitude and that you choose happiness and I would highly recommend him for any job that you might have.
Brad is a Funny Motivational Speaker
Brad was not only funny and entertaining, he had strong motivational skills. He made sure to speak to people asking what they wanted, what their organization was about, what was important to them. He also turned around and was very interactive with the crowd. Was he dirty? No, he really tried to stay away from that even though he wanted to. He wanted to ****. No, kidding, kidding. He actually paid strong attention to what we needed as an organization.
I think he really helped us understand that we have the choice of whether we want to be happy or not and we need to really focus on taking that happiness with us at home and at work and that it’s possible to actually enjoy your job and be happy at work.
So, it was an event that we were hosting to hopefully boost the morale and reinvigorate our group of professionals to get them re-motivated and enthusiastic about their jobs. There was a lot of laughter, everybody was having a good time; got a lot of positive feedback. People seemed to be really enjoying themselves and also had them thinking and so Brad, one of the things that Brad helped with was we had to create the balloon animals, where the, or the balloon statue, where we all had to interact with each other and work together to create something within a matter of a few minutes and it worked out really well. As a team, it promoted teamwork and there was a lot of laughter. Everybody was having a good time. It was really engaging. I think that was one of the best parts about it, other than the things we will take home with us.
I was a motivational speaker at an Air Force event a while back. If anybody deserves a visit from a humorist, it had to be that group. Check out this very cool, very makes-me-feel-awesome letter from one of the folks in the audience:
Brad,
I am sure that you dont remember me but we met two years ago at the Air Force Sergeants Association conference in Orlando, Florida. Since your presentation I have been looking for that “little bit of magic” in everday life.
I was asked tonight about my thoughts about deployment and what others might be thinking or feeling about the location that they are in and the location that we are in (thank God we are in a less dangerous location).
I thought about the little bit of magic that you talked about when you gave your motivational presentation. If I can get that person to say “How cool is that” where we are then I am doing ok.
I have longed to get a “squeeker” out of a childs toy and have fun with the people that I am deployed with.
I know that this is lame and I dont blame you if you dont want to answer…..do you have any little tidbits of wisdom that I can use on my folks to get them to smile. I have been working with them for about 2 months now (give or take a week), and I think they might be getting a little tired of my bad jokes (but I still get a sad smile and a head shake so I am not giving up).
I dont care if they think “Hey the Shirt (slang for 1st Sergeant) is goofy”…… I live for Goofy.
You may never know (althought I hope you do) how much of a difference you have made on the many lives that you touched that August day in 2007. I can not say THANK YOU enough.
Please keep up the good work and thank you again for your support of our fighting men and women. I am just a crusty old reservist that has more grey hair than sense but if I can help make a person smile then I can retire a happy man.
YOU ROCK!!!!!!!!
Tony
Tony… you made my day. And … it’s you who rock. (Ok..we both rock.) I’m absolutely floored. Thanks so very much for taking the time and trouble to reach out to me. I work for hundreds of audiences a year, and in this goofy motivational speaker job, you just never know if anybody is really listening. So hearing from you was like a tonic. And now I don’t even need the gin.
I think that Tony is asking the right question: how can I make this job more bearable and fun for my team? The answers aren’t always obvious, even to me — and I think about this stuff a bunch. But the very fact that Tony is thinking about it makes him a better manager, a better leader, and a better friend. He’s the kind of guy we’d all like to work for… the kind of leader who is trying to make things better for the rest of us.
Hey Military audiences! (And corporate groups… I’m not picky.) If YOU need a motivational speaker or humorist or keynote speaker or…. if you need a laugh and a solid connection to what you are trying to accomplish at work… I hope you’ll pick me. Contact me here. Visit my main site here.
Brad Montgomery
Air Force Speaker, Fan of the Military, Squeaker!
PS. I sent Tony and his guys a whole pile of stuff. (And a regrettably short letter about humor in the mitary… something I honestly don’t know enough about.) Guess what was in the box? : )
If you think levity and lightheartedness are important to corporate America, join the crowd. In particular, join the folks at Microsoft Finance North America. 
I worked with this group recently in Seattle, Washington and, like most of my favorite clients, I learned at least as much from them as they learned from me.
(Read the related blog entry about my trip to Microsoft)
I was totally impressed with this organization. (If you read my blog you know that I rarely say that.)
Why?
• I was impressed with the transparency of the organization. I was impressed how everything was “on the table” …. I heard candid discussions on the recent (and odd) TV commercials, the aborted attempt to buy Yahoo, the fact that Vista’s popularity is lower than they’d like. Contrast this openness with many of my other (unnamed!) clients who spend more time instructing me about what I cannot talk about than what their folks need to hear. [For example, I once worked for a client who had JUST gone through a huge set of layoffs.
They forbade me to discuss the layoffs … as though their folks might forget that 50% of their friends were no longer there and they themselves were worried about their job security. Oye!]
• I was impressed by the people. They are good people who love their families, work exceptionally hard, and are very loyal to each other and their company.
• This group was fun loving. They like each other, and it showed. They were easy to make laugh. Ready with fun anecdotes and conversation. They were a far cry from what any of us might expect from folks who work in the high tech industry for a finance department
. Many times I’ve worked at corporate meetings where people are forced to socialize with each other. It’s clear that they don’t want to be socializing… but they have to be there so they are. Not so at Microsoft. Their obvious enjoyment in each other was fun to watch.
• They were eager to ramp up the fun. They were ready to share best humor practices with each other and with me. I often have to work hard to break the ice with a new corporate group. Not this one: MFNA was ready to laugh from minute one.
• During my program, I joked about clown noses, and taught a few funny ways to use them at work to handle stress. We arranged to make sure everybody had a nose to take with them. As you can see from these photos, they didn’t go to waste.
Near the end of our time together we split into groups and brainstormed ideas about safe
ways to create more levity and humor at Microsoft. [We spend so much of our time at work, it makes sense to create fun. How can we do it?] We heard a bunch of great ideas…but check out one group’s very specific ideas about how to increase the levity at the office.
1. Friday Jokes
2. Laugh at every meeting
3. Happy Button
4. Monday stories of weekend adventures
5. Share embarrassing stories
6. Dance in the focus rooms
7. Dance every time you hear or see a “GO DO”
8. Baby picture ID badges
9. Word Bingo _ Drowning the puppies – (who ever imagined we would here these words together!)
10. Hawaiian shirt day
11. Match the story to the person
12. e-flowers/emoticons
But what was my favorite part? It came 10 days after I left Seattle when I heard that CFO John Rex bought a Nerf Gun to attack his team. (And, as a follow up, his awesome assistant, Amelia, bought guns for the rest of the team so they could create a defensive strategy.) ”Hey everybody! Let’s buy Nerf Guns!”
Humor, levity and lightheartedness help us with morale, creativity, energy, communication, and — in the end — productivity. It was unbelievably cool to share this message with Microsoft Finance. But it was even cooler to see that they “got it.”
Thanks So Much, MFNA!
Brad Montgomery
Microsoft Fan, Washington Motivational Speaker, Nerf Enthusiast
PS. Microsoft gets so much bad press. I suppose it is impossible not to have some detractors if you’re that big, and that omni-present. [After all, how many companies have actually changed the entire world besides Microsoft?] It’s impressive. When you’re there in person, working with the individuals who make up a part of this massive organization, it’s hard not to leave impressed.
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