Erin Asks Dr. G

This past Wednesday, October 28. ELE CEO, Erin Leonard was joined by Deborah Gilboa, MD. (a.k.a Ask Dr. G) for a live streamed conversation about her rising success as a speaker, the recent industry switch to virtual events, and our November 18th event “From Breakout Speaker To Breakout Star”. If you have any interest in speaking for the media, we encourage you to check out the Instagram Live, but just in case you don’t have a social media presence, we have taken some of the most important moments from our interview for you to read here! If you would like to hear the full conversation where Dr. G also discusses some helpful resources for speakers, you can watch a replay here! 

If you end up loving Dr. G as much as we do, make sure to join us on November 18, 2020 6pm ET/ 3pm PT for our event “From Breakout Speaker To Breakout Star” where Dr. G will dive into professional speaking development, how to successfully book media appearances, and how to leverage media exposure to grow your speaking career.

Instagram Live Highlights

Erin: “How did you pivot from being an expert doctor to a keynote speaker? How did you get that interest, inspiration, and make it happen?”

Dr. G: “So actually my first career was in Theatre. So I knew I enjoyed being in that entertainment space of using people’s laughter and attention in a brief period of time to change how they see something. Then I went to medical school and I discovered that very few of the doctors I was encountering could speak in an engaging way in front of a group of people. Whenever someone needed to speak about something, I always had my hand up. So much so, that in my small group, whenever we had to present, I was always the one to do it. So that idea of using my comfort and my enjoyment of speaking to large groups to spread whatever health message or whatever other message I wanted to spread, that never left me. When you open a new doctor’s office, it’s not like you have a big ‘coming soon’ event or a big social media splash, you just have to wait until people hear about you so, they sent me out to do speaking engagements, and that was my first experience speaking in the community as a physician. And then I discovered what I wanted to talk about.”

E: “How long have you been speaking?”

Dr. G: “I am 9 years into the 10 years that I think it takes to be an overnight sensation. So one more year to go!”

E: “So I’ve heard you speak! We actually met because I booked you as a speaker, several years ago for an afterschool association convention, which was incredible. You actually were a breakout speaker [for the convention’s event] the year prior”

Dr. G: “Yes, the year prior... I had the last session on the last half-day of a conference... in Disney World!

So this is good for aspiring speakers to know, I went down there, on my own dime… The thing that annoyed me most was, speakers even had to pay for their own parking for that gig! Not only was I the last speaker on the last half-day of the conference, I was after the closing keynote! [You could come to my session] or you could take your family who has been waiting for three days in a hotel room to see Mickey! There were probably a couple thousand attendees for that event, I maybe had 60 people in the room and I was thrilled.

Here’s something to look for when you’re speaking at conferences, see if they survey their attendees. Ask ahead of time. If they survey their attendees, not in general but about each session, then you will get feedback. If you get feedback then you have an opportunity to prove your worth. Because 90% of attendees thought it was the best session they went to.”

E: “We ended up booking you as a keynote the next year because when we received that feedback from attendees, in both of the surveys we provided, attendees were saying that we needed you as the keynote the next year! Your keynote was incredible, you were in front of the full audience, travel was covered, and we paid you!”

Dr. G: “Yes, I got paid my ‘happy price’ and I got paid for my travel. That idea of getting paid your ‘happy price’ is not a million dollars. If you’re trying to figure out how to price something, your ‘happy price’ is the price at which you would be happy for another person who could hire you to know what you were paid. So sometimes we speak for less than we wish we are making but there’s a good reason. And there are good reasons, but it’s not your ‘happy price’ unless you are thrilled, to tell the truth [about the amount you were paid].”

E: “So what are you speaking about now?”

Dr. G: “I am speaking about resilience. I have a TED Talk coming up and what I’m focusing on is we have this idea in our society where we have a fixed mindset about resilience. We have this idea that you are either sensitive or strong, and you just are where you are. It’s ridiculous! We absolutely can learn to be more resilient. All the research shows that resilience has about 8 skills inherent in it, and about 8 attributes. Attributes are a little more fixed… Even those attributes like optimism and humor, we can have a growth mindset about. But the skills are skills! You can be shown how to do it, you can refine it, you can make it yours. So I’m spending a lot of time with businesses, leaders, entrepreneurs, educators, and coaches on what are those skills. How do we learn them and how do we teach them.”

E: “What are some of the factors that make you want to speak at an event?”

Dr. G: “If you are just starting out, I want you to consider: there are good reasons to do a gig that are not about the paycheck. The paycheck is one of them. Another one is, does this opportunity put you in front of decision-makers who could hire you? Another one is, does this opportunity look so good on your CV that just the fact that you did it, a TED Talk is a great example, TED Talks don’t pay anything, but then you get to say ‘go online and watch my TED Talk’ or ‘when I gave my TED Talk’ and that has a lot of credibility.” 

E: “Are you liking virtual events”

Dr. G: “Sometimes, yeah, but I don’t want to give up the in-person events because you miss the before and after opportunities. However, there are ways I can connect with a virtual audience in ways you can’t in-person. When you’re on zoom, there’s no one in the front row or the back row, everybody gets to be in the front row, everyone gets a more direct and intimate connection if they want it. So there are some major advantages but I want both and I think speakers need to keep in mind that from now on, everything will be both.”

E: “ELE is ready for this, we’ve been pushing this as an industry standard for some time and are really looking forward to it happening.”

Dr. G: “There’s really an opportunity to address equity issues when you don’t require travel, and to be able to leave your home, and your family and whatever your responsibilities are there and that makes a really big difference.”

E: “Have you changed the way you are speaking for a virtual audience?”

Dr. G: “In some ways there is less pressure on me. It’s not the conference saying ‘we are going to put a thousand people into a theater and you just need to hold them for 75 minutes.’ Now I have a thousand people in a virtual environment, we can play music, I can give them polls. In-person, I can’t make them get up or go into groups. In Zoom, I don't have any of that hassle. It’s so much richer in some ways”

E: “What do you say to people who want to pay you less because you’re speaking at a virtual event.”

Dr. G: “First [as a speaker] you have to decide if this is about ongoing relationships or income. If it’s about ongoing relationships, you have to have a price you won’t go below but you have to show some goodwill. Almost like sportsmanship. This attitude of ‘you had a hard week, why should I suffer?’ won't get you far in relationship building. Here’s the good news for speakers, for 2021 events in a lot of contracts there will be a virtual plan and an in-person plan, the price won’t change. The price is the price.”

E: “So we are doing our own virtual event on November 18 at 6pm ET on Zoom. Let’s talk more about that, what are you planning to share? What is the purpose of the event?”

Dr. G: “What we really want to talk about is media exposure. I have been doing a lot of television appearances for the past 5 years, and I did not get there by hiring a publicist. So we’re going to talk a lot about what you can do and why you would want to. You don’t get paid for that media, and as a publicist once told me ‘be careful of people who just offer you exposure, you can die from exposure’ and that is absolutely true. So it’s really important to consider if getting media exposure will be valuable to you. So we are going to talk about how you can leverage it to get paid more for the events you do and get in front of audiences you wouldn’t otherwise get in front of. And how to do it very well!”

Many thanks to Dr. G for this great interview. Make sure to join us again on November 18, 2020 6pm ET/ 3pm PT for our event “From Breakout Speaker To Breakout Star” to hear more.