-: My name is Justin Graves and
I'm the founder and owner of He's On Wheels.
Which is a motivational speaking endeavor and blog, online.
It talks about disability advocacy, civic engagement,
community service, and the motto for the blog is
life is all about what you've done for other people.
More often than not, if I get a request I send them
a form that I have on my website.
It's just on my blog and it's a speaking request form and
it has some very pointed questions.
Some simple things like, what kind
of A/V equipment will their be and what will the
crowd size be, but also much deeper things like
what is your organizations mission and
what do you want to achieve by having me come in?
That way I can have some actual learning objectives and
outcomes for them that are associated
with what they want to achieve.
The idea that they can leave that room and
they feel empowered to conquer that next challenge.
Because through my presentations, I tell a lot of
personal narratives and stories of
instances where I was met with a hardship and
this is the mindset that I had to overcome that hardship.
Whether it was becoming paralyzed at the age of three.
Whether it's getting fired from a job.
I want them to understand that,
hey, even if I have something that is perceived as
an almost impossible challenge,
now I feel inspired to say, "Well, hey, if that guy can
do it, then I most certainly can do it."
That's something that I want everyone to feel.
Whether they've been around me
for five minutes or for five hours.
For me, preparing for a talk always begins
with pretty much writing like an essay.
'Cause I wrote a ton of papers in graduate school and
I think of it very much so the same way.
I've got an opening statement, I'm gonna tell you,
"Hey, here's what I'm gonna talk to you about today."
Kind of give that thesis and then break it down bullet-point
by bullet-point by bullet-point and then wrap it up.
Not only wrapping it up with, "Hey, this is what I hope you
got out of today's presentation,"
but also, here's a call to action.
Then, the second part, which is probably the most
important to me is creating the visuals
that are associated with the talk.
Because I always really like to have some kind of visual
whether it's a PowerPoint or a keynote slide or an image.
Almost never with words.
I don't do a lot of words, but a lot of pictures or videos
that complement what I'm actually saying.
Because that I way I think it helps people process better
and it also helps them commit it to memory.
Then I practice it.
Just like you're preparing for a
presentation at work or a class project.
You run through it, make sure it makes sense,
make sure that it has a good flow.
Usually from there I'm pretty confident and ready to go.