Mic Drop

Striking a Chord (ft. Chris Barton)

Episode Summary

How do you innovate a product when the product is you? That’s just one of the questions we explore on today’s episode of Mic Drop, with help from an incredible guest, speaker, innovator, and human being. In today’s exciting conversation with Chris Barton, we explore how overnight success hardly ever happens overnight, how to apply innovative thinking to your story, your brand, and even your social interactions, and why thinking of yourself as a product isn’t as scary as it sounds — and could even supercharge your speaking career.

Episode Notes

Striking a Chord (ft. Chris Barton)

Listen-in with the founder of the world’s most innovative listening app

OPENING QUOTE:

“There's so many unique ways of doing things, and the key thing is to question the assumptions. Don't assume that what holds true for one other speaker, holds true for you.”

-Chris Barton

GUEST BIO:

If you’ve ever heard music playing and wondered, “Hey, what song is this?” You have Chris Barton to thank for the answer. Chris is the founder and former CEO of Shazam, the music identification app that went from “impossible” according to MIT professors, to “ahead of its time,” in a world with no apps or app stores, to becoming the 6th largest acquisition by Apple in the history of the company in 2018.

Chris is also a founding member of Google’s Android Partnerships team, holds 12 patents, and founded Guard, a system that uses AI to prevent drowning in swimming pools. Of course, Chris is also an incredible (and incredibly successful) keynote speaker on how to rethink obstacles and take inspired action.

Links:

CORE TOPICS + DETAILS:

[5:50] - Being Ahead of Your Time Means Lots of Waiting

How innovation can feel frustrating

You probably first heard of the song-identifying app Shazam some time in the last several years. It seems like sometime around the mid-2010s, Shazam was everywhere, leading up to its being acquired by Apple in one of the company’s biggest acquisitions of all time.

But Shazam was actually launched in 2002, spent six years barely escaping bankruptcy, and only survived thanks to Apple’s App Store finally launching in 2008. Shazam was ahead of its time. And while that concept conjures images of billionaire innovators beating the market and blowing minds, the truth is that it often means a lot of waiting for the world to catch up. If you’re ahead of the curve in your arena, it may feel a lot like you’ve missed the train. In reality, the train just has to catch up to you.

[20:35] - Start with First Principles

Make a habit of ignoring what’s expected

Chris often turns to the scientific and philosophical concept of first principles: beginning any train of thought with no assumptions. It’s a matter of breaking down everything into the most basic truths, which then leads you to question the things that are assumed to be truths but may not be.

For example, there was an assumption that you have to recognize what’s playing on the radio in order to tell people what song they’re hearing. That was an assumption which Shazam turned on its head.

Where can you challenge assumptions in your own life and career? What do people currently “know” that just ain’t so?

[22:17] - Innovate Everything

From your story to your conversations

Chris shares a compelling story about how he landed a great apartment in an “impossible” market. By determining that landlords were always the first people to know when an apartment was becoming available, he bypassed the gatekeepers and found out about new opportunities first.

Chris advocates for applying this principle across your life and career. He builds on his “first principles” idea to show that every aspect of what you do is an opportunity to innovate. Every process, every convention, was at one point a crazy new idea. How might a crazy new idea change your life?

[27:55] - You’re a Product, and That’s Okay

Being objective can transform your career for the better

As keynote speakers, we tend not to like thinking of ourselves as products. It feels like an oversimplification, a cold and calculated idea. But Chris argues that when you think of yourself and your message as your product, you free yourself from the self-consciousness that comes with self-assessment. You can take on feedback, criticism, and opportunities for improvement without personal feelings getting in the way. You can make your product — your keynote and the way you deliver it — the best possible product it can be.

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ABOUT MIC DROP:

Hear from the world’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing tipping point moments, strategies, and approaches that led to their speaking career success. Throughout each episode, host Josh Linkner, #1 Innovation keynote speaker in the world, deconstructs guests’ Mic Drop moments and provides tactical tools and takeaways that can be applied to any speaking business, no matter it’s starting point. You'll enjoy hearing from some of the top keynote speakers in the industry including: Ryan Estis, Alison Levine, Peter Sheahan, Seth Mattison, Cassandra Worthy, and many more. Mic Drop is sponsored by ImpactEleven.

Learn more at: MicDropPodcast.com

ABOUT THE HOST:

Josh Linkner is a Creative Troublemaker. He believes passionately that all human beings have incredible creative capacity, and he’s on a mission to unlock inventive thinking and creative problem solving to help leaders, individuals, and communities soar.

Josh has been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which sold for a combined value of over $200 million and is the author of four books including the New York Times Bestsellers, Disciplined Dreaming and The Road to Reinvention. He has invested in and/or mentored over 100 startups and is the Founding Partner of Detroit Venture Partners.

Today, Josh serves as Chairman and Co-founder of Platypus Labs, an innovation research, training, and consulting firm. He has twice been named the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and is the recipient of the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award.

Josh is also a passionate Detroiter, the father of four, is a professional-level jazz guitarist, and has a slightly odd obsession with greasy pizza.

Learn more about Josh: JoshLinkner.com

Episode Transcription

Chris Barton:

There's so many unique ways of doing things, and the key thing is to question the assumptions. Don't assume that what holds true for one other speaker, holds true for you.

Josh Linkner:

Hey, Mic Drop enthusiast, Josh Linkner here. Delighted to be bringing you season two of Mic Drop. I love our conversations with speakers and industry leaders alike, so we can unpack the industry and we can all perform better. Let's get after it and get better together.

Maria Cairo:

Mic Drop is brought to you by ImpactEleven, the most diverse and inclusive community built for training and developing professional speakers to get on bigger stages at higher fees with greater impact, faster. They're not just elevating an industry that we all know and love, they work with thousands of speakers to launch and scale their speaking businesses. Accelerating time to success, earning tens of millions in speaking fees, landing bureau representation, securing book deals, and rising to the top of the field. To learn more about the ImpactEleven community, schedule a free strategy session today by visiting impacteleven.com/connect. That's impacteleven.com/connect.

Josh Linkner:

Here's a tricky problem. How do you innovate a product when the product is you? That's just one of the questions that we explore on today's episode of Mic Drop with help from an incredible guest, speaker, innovator, and all around human being. If you've ever heard music playing and wondered, "Hey, what song is this?" You have Chris Barton. To thank for the answer. Chris is the founder and former CEO of Shazam, the music identification app that went from impossible to becoming the sixth-largest acquisition by Apple in the history of that company up in 2018. Chris is also a founding member of Google's Android partnership team.

He holds 12 patents and he founded Guard, a system that uses AI to prevent drowning in swimming pools. Of course, as you might imagine, Chris is also an incredible and incredibly successful keynote speaker on how to rethink obstacles and take inspired action. In today's conversation with Chris, we explore how overnight success hardly happens overnight. How to apply innovative thinking to your story, your brand, and even social interactions, how to make a habit of ignoring the status quo and instead, exploring a first principles approach. And why thinking of yourself as a product isn't as scary as it sounds, and it could in fact, supercharge your speaking career. Chris Barton, welcome to Mic Drop.

Chris Barton:

Thanks. Thanks for having me, Josh.

Josh Linkner:

I've been so looking forward to our conversation, number one, because we're friends and I'm a big fan of yours personally and professionally. And number two, I know you have so much insight to share. Before we get into Shazam and all the cool things you've done, take us back a little bit. Maybe just share a little bit about your background before you became this universally known, amazing entrepreneur.

Chris Barton:

Okay, let's see. Well, I always like to say that I grew up with only one relative in America, and that was my sister because my parents came from Europe. My mom's French and my dad's British. And my whole life, I feel like I almost had this sort of European upbringing within America and had never gone to a baseball game or a basketball game because my dad would show me rugby instead on TV. And also had a unique upbringing because they were both professors when I was a young child, so they're both PhDs in physics, and so that was a little bit of an abnormal upbringing. They would have every summer off because there's no work during the summers when you're a professor, and so we'd get to go spend that time in Europe, which was also fantastic.

As a child, I was struggling academically and I have dyslexia, so I was really having a hard time in school. I was put in the bottom half of the class when I was 10 years old, and I ended up working around it, finding my own ways to work around it. I did get into UC Berkeley, but I almost failed out of UC Berkeley as well. I got a 1.7 GPA my first semester there. And it turns out when that happens, what they do is they send a letter directly to your parents and it says you'll be kicked out if you don't improve your grades. So yeah, when I was at UC Berkeley, I'd actually choose all my courses and my majors by what had the smallest reading list, and then that was my way of making it through. And then prior to Shazam, my career was basically about six years of management consulting or strategy consulting. So basically working with a company called L.E.K, that had spun out of Bain Consulting. And it was basically focused on advising CEOs of a Fortune 100 companies on strategy for their company.

Josh Linkner:

Just a side note, we won't belabor the point. But I have such a concern about education in general and what it measures and how it treats students. And knowing you for now quite some time, you're one of the smartest people I know. You're quick-witted, you're super intelligent, and the fact that you got a 1.7 is an indication of the failing school system, not a failing student. So I'll just point that out. But I'm not going to spend as much time today on Shazam. I think that's been covered a lot, and we all are obsessed, and I certainly use the tool still today. But maybe just give us a really short version of how this idea blossomed into this movement, which blossomed into a gigantic exit to Apple.

Chris Barton:

Yeah, okay. So basically I'll give you the super short version is that I was an MBA student, so I went back to Berkeley again. They were willing to take me back after the 1.7 GPA. So years later, I went back, did my MBA. And while I was doing my MBA, I decided I wanted to start a company. And so I went through this process of trying to figure out what it would be. And I came up with the idea for Shazam. And what's really interesting is this is the year 2000 or 1999 actually is when I came up with it. So phones were very archaic, that you could really just make phone calls and send text messages. And so I was in this process of thinking, well, there's got to be something else we can do with these phones. And that led to the idea of Shazam.

Basically every phone has a microphone and music is audible, and the aha moment was thinking, wow, what if that sound in the air could just be captured by the microphone and could identify the song? No one had ever done that. All the companies that had been trying things, had been building from existing technologies that monitored thousands of radio stations. So you would find out what's playing on the radio by typing in a radio station number. There were startups and even Sony Corporation that was doing that. And so the aha moment of Shazam was not, hey, what's that song? The aha moment was like, what could leapfrog you if you built this radio recognition service? And it was like, oh my gosh, what if you could do it with the sound of the microphone? And the two big things obviously are that you don't have to type the radio station number in.

But more importantly, it works everywhere, not just with the radio, bars, clubs, cafes, movie theaters, TV, movie, whatever. So that was the inception. It turned out to be a gargantuan effort to invent it, and that's part of the whole story that I talk about. But we invented the technology and launched a service. And it was a very long road. We launched in 2002 and then almost went bankrupt for six consecutive years until the App Store came out in 2008. So we were way ahead of our times. Basically, we invented an app eight years before apps existed. So when apps finally came out, that's when we took off. And then eventually it was the fairytale story with Apple acquiring us in 2018, 18 years after starting the company, as their sixth-largest acquisition of all time.

Josh Linkner:

It's just amazing, and I know people who are listening will probably going to want to get more depth than we can cover on that today. But I really want to focus on what you've done since then. And you have this exit, you're this really well-known entrepreneur. And by the way, I really appreciate as well-known and successful as you are, your deep sense of humility and gratitude and kindness, which often gets lost when people achieve such remarkable outcomes as you have. So you exit Apple, you could do anything you want. You got the world by the tail and you want to pursue professional speaking. Before we get into what you've done and how you've done it, maybe start with why. Why were you called to the platform? Why did you want to speak and share the ideas and wisdom that you have?

Chris Barton:

Yeah, so I fell into speaking as an accident. And I guess in a way, as you know, when you're in it, you're living it and breathing it and you know the world and all the speakers know each other and so on. But when you're outside of it, I didn't even know it existed, literally didn't even know it existed. I knew Tony Robbins was a speaker, and that was about it. And so it started by being invited to some conferences. And what happened is I was invited and then we're talking, well, 10, 12 years ago, but I was invited to go give a speech at a tech entrepreneur type conference with hundreds and hundreds of people in the audience and thousands of attendees. And I thought, oh wow, a free flight to Helsinki, okay, sign me up. And then I got another one, Munich, another one, Berlin, another one, Santiago, Chile, where I got to hang out with the founder of Pixar and LinkedIn.

And so I thought, wow, this is great. I found a hack. Everyone else is collecting frequent flyer miles for free flights, and all I do is get on stage, give a 45-minute keynote, and boom, I'm on a flight to some exotic location. And so that's how I fell into speaking. I realized at that time that the Shazam story, because it was so difficult and so challenging, and frankly very, very, very hard to get it all the way through, it makes for a great story, it has the natural story arc in it. And it has so many big jaw dropping components to it that is just delightful to listen to for the audience. So I'd give these keynote notes and the audiences would just be loving it because they're all typically entrepreneurs and they're so inspired by what we had achieved. So I really enjoyed it.

I thought, wow, this is great. I'm inspiring all these people and all these entrepreneurs that are trying to overcome their own own issues and their own problems and their own obstacles and so on. It feels so good to be able to share that inspiration and you could feel it afterwards, after the speech. I absolutely loved that. And so I just kept continuing to do it. And then one day a bureau spotted me, Ken Sterling from BigSpeak specifically, a great guy. And he saw a video of one of my talks. He approached me and said, "Did you know there's professional keynote speaking?" And so that's how I fell into it. I absolutely love the career of Keynote speaking, but it was really only about a year ago, a little over a year ago when Ken connected me to you, Josh, and then I really, really learned about how you can take it even deeper and get even more professional and have bigger impact and more presence and so on, and really up your game in speaking. And that's what I've been doing over the last year and ever since becoming part of ImpactEleven.

Josh Linkner:

It's such a cool story and it is kind of neat that you stumbled into it. One of the many things I love about it is that there's no one right way. Some people start in academia, they write a book, the book takes off, they become a speaker. Other people were touched by a speaker in their teens and they always wanted to be a keynote speaker. Other people were an entrepreneurial. So I love the fact that there's multiple routes to this beautiful place, where you get to share insights and wisdom, share ideas or share aha moments and make the world a better place with the spoken word.

Which frankly, the spoken word has been the influencer of change since the beginning of time. What are some of the parallels? I was thinking about this with you. You mentioned the first six years you went bankrupt almost every year. I know from listening to your story on the Tony Robbins podcast, which you were on recently in many other cases, the difficulty, you took on something that was very difficult. You had the tenacity to figure it out. There were ups and downs, peaks and valleys. What are some of the parallels that you experienced when building Shazam that you're now experiencing and can learn from, extract as you're building a keynote speaking practice?

Chris Barton:

Oh, I love that because I was just mentioning this to someone the other day. I think of your speech, so your sort of what you put together to have this impact as being kind of like your own product, and Shazam is its own product as well. So Shazam is a product where a user is able to identify a song, and my product is my speech. And in a very similar sense, you can constantly make that product better. There's actually never an end game. You are always making it a little better. So in the case of Shazam, we were improving the algorithm to make it more resilient and noise and making it more scalable, so we could handle floods of identifications coming in during the Super Bowl. And we were adding more music and getting more obscure music, so that we'd have that song that was released on Grey's Anatomy, but nowhere else, and not even record stores had it.

So we were constantly doing things to just make Shazam better and better and better and better and faster and more efficient and more delightful and better features and so on. And I think of the speech as being so similar. I'm constantly thinking, in fact, just this morning I thought, you know what? I need one more. I realize now, after giving this keynote in different forms, obviously customized every time, but giving this keynote, I realize as I tell this story that I'm missing a slide. I realize there's this one really important message that just deserves its own slide, and I've never given it its own slide. And that happened this morning, and so now I'm embarking on creating that slide. So I think of the keynote in that way. It's like there's just a million things you can be doing to improve that product. And it could be your stagecraft, it could be the story, it could be analogies, it could be the presentation slides, it could be the experience.

It could be interactions with the audience. It could be the way you tell the story. Sometimes just reformatting the way you tell the story and trying to put yourself in the audience's shoes, making it more personal, more conversational. There's just infinite things and you can learn from other speakers. And actually, what I find is that when I watch another speaker or watch another amazing speech anywhere on the internet, there'll be one takeaway from me. I'm like, "Oh, wow, that's really interesting." And they're very different than me, very different content, very different style. But there's one thing they did, and that's very inspirational. And I often think, sometimes it'll inspire me to do something different actually. I won't think, I want to do that. But it will make me think, you know what? That makes me think I should do this, and then I'll add one more iteration of improvement to my speech. So that's the similarity really, is that constant improvement.

Josh Linkner:

I love it. And in addition, if you think about being a speaker, you're a performing artist. You're making artistic choices, you're finding your own voice and expressing ideas that artists can embrace. They say the best authors are the best readers, the best musicians are those that consume music and love music and listen to other people's music. And I think the same is true with speakers. It's not a copying. You're not saying, oh, that's a good bit I'm going to borrow from this other speaker. But you notice something about the way they're delivering or you might notice something that you don't like that you're going to do the opposite of.

But it's the notion of consuming content and studying it and learning and always adding those little nuances to find your own voice and elevate your own performance. Back to early days at Shazam, I know you had a lot of setbacks and it was really difficult. I'm sure you were discouraged and you had to exhibit really Herculean persistence and tenacity. How have some of those lessons played out as you've launched and scaled the speaking practice? Which for you has gone great. I know we will talk about that in a minute. But of course, it never goes as fast as we would want, and there's always deals that we lose and there's setbacks. And what can we learn from the persistence that you exhibited early on at Shazam as many of us are working to scale our speaking practices?

Chris Barton:

Yeah, I think one of the most important characteristics of any person who's persistent, an entrepreneur, a keynote speaker, is recognizing that you're not going to get immediate gratification. You're not going to get immediate payback. So you have to be willing to be persistent and just know that it's the kind of accumulation of all these things that you're doing that will eventually, in the longterm, lead a payoff. And so I think it's recognizing that and taking that to heart is something that in speaking, I absolutely buy into and it is the type of persistence I apply. So I'll think, oh, I need to phrase things differently on my website, or I want to make this a little bit easier on my website, or I form relationships in the industry with bureaus and so on and so on. And all these things, they require time and effort and it's all part of the game. But there's not any immediate gratification.

It's not like you get to know a bureau and that's it, boom. There's instantly a flood of speeches coming in from that bureau. And it's not the case that you adjust something on your website and you get a flood of inquiries coming in. And so it's really, you're just making all these improvements and then you're just knowing that the cumulation of all of them over time will start to build this sort of momentum. And it can take time. That's the key thing, it's the patience. So there's actually one thing I talk about in my keynote. I love this mathematical truth, which is that if you do 1% more effort every day, 365 days a year, if you mathematically accumulate that 1% more every day mathematically ends up to 38. Where if you do 99% every day, it ends up as 0.03. So look at that. The difference between 0.03 and 38 mathematically is tremendous, and that just shows the difference of 1% more every day versus 1% less every day over a 365-day period.

So I know that's quite a little bit of a complex mathematical concept. But basically it really conveys this idea of the persistence of just putting in more and more effort and not necessarily seeing it immediately, but in the long term, you start to see those results. And I definitely am starting to see that now with the speaking. It's just, it's amazing. I saw probably one of the most delightful things I've seen to date just the other day. I gave a keynote and literally within 12 hours of giving the keynote, the bureau that had arranged that keynote, put three more holds on, just like that, boom. And it was just like, wow, that is so amazing. That's the feeling you're getting. And that's the results of all that cumulation of just delivering amazing experiences and really delighting people. And that it gets back right, because bureaus want to please clients. And so if you deliver something great, then they know you're great and they're going to want to add you to more clients. So yeah, that would be my summary.

Maria Cairo:

Becoming a keynote speaker is an amazing profession. The top performers earn millions while driving massive impact for audiences around the world. But the quest to speaking glory can be a slow route with many obstacles that can knock even the best speakers out of the game. If you're serious about growing your speaking business, the season pros at ImpactEleven can help, from crafting your ideal positioning to optimizing your marketing effectiveness, to perfecting your expertise and stage skills. As the only speaker training and development community run by current high level speakers at the top of the field, they'll boost your probability of success and help you get there faster. That's why nearly every major speaker bureau endorses and actively participates in ImpactEleven. The ImpactEleven community provides you unparalleled access to the people, relationships, coaching and accountability that compresses your time to success. To learn more about the ImpactEleven community, schedule a free strategy session today by visiting impacteleven.com/connect. That's impacteleven.com/connect.

Josh Linkner:

It's such a perfect message because you're exactly right, there is a delayed gratification factor here. And it's not the one giant thing you do one day, it's the consistency and it's the constant, those little improvements. And you have to have faith, I guess, that they will eventually pay off. But anyone who's seen a payoff in the speaking industry anyway, is a direct result of those little incremental steps forward, which makes it, to me, feel very accessible. In other words, you don't have to be this gifted orator or this brilliant brainiac or whatever. It's that consistency, those little baby steps. And over time, they really add up. Another thing that you talk about in your keynote, and you and I have chatted about this, is the notion of first principles. Can you tease that out? Tell us what that is and perhaps how that might apply to keynote speakers?

Chris Barton:

Yeah, I think first principles is something that you can apply it to so many things. So the best way to think of it is, so first principles is the fundamental way of thinking that's used by philosophers and scientists. And it essentially is what you're doing is that you're making sure that when you start your thinking, that try not to make any assumptions, you don't make any assumptions, because we actually do make assumptions when we think. And it is the way that our brains are wired to think, because what we do is... I'll give the example of Shazam. So in the case of Shazam, there was radio recognition technology already out there. So all the companies were saying, "Well, I assume you need to recognize what's playing on the radio in order to tell people what song they're hearing." And that's an assumption. And with first principles, what you do is you question all the assumptions and then you break down to only the basic truths.

So just the raw ingredients basically, no assumptions. And from there, you then build up all the possibilities and you can come up with these breakthrough ideas. So Elon Musk obviously has a lot of negativity in the press, but there's another great example of him with SpaceX where it used to be so expensive to send spaceships up into space, and he's just said, "Well, why is it so expensive? When really, if you look at the raw materials of these things, it should be a tiny fraction of the cost." And again, that was the first principles, just looking at the basic truth, the cost of the raw materials as a way of starting with the possibilities. So that's first principles, and it can be used by anyone, anywhere. It is not only for entrepreneurs trying to invent some new game-changing technology. I'll give you one other example I just love to give because this is something that anyone could relate to. I lived in San Francisco years ago, and it was incredibly difficult to get an apartment.

An apartment would listed, you'd show up, and there'd be like 30 other people there, all trying to get the same apartment. And you had no chance of getting it. So I applied first principles thinking. I thought, well, how am I going to get an apartment? And I thought, how am I going to beat these crowds? And so what I did, I ended up just instead of waiting for these listings to come out, I would basically go and walk the neighborhood of where I wanted to live, which was Russian Hill. And then I would go to the buildings that I thought were the buildings I liked the most, and then I'd go up to the little buzzers and I would start buzzing random buzzers of random apartments in the building and then start speaking, through the intercom, to whoever was in the apartment that I could not see. And I would just say, "Look, I love your building. It's a beautiful building. I would love to live here. Can I have the name and phone number of your landlord?" And people were delighted, they were complimented.

And so they said, "Sure, here's the name and number of my landlord." Before you know it, I had a list of the names and numbers of a bunch of landlords that owned the specific buildings in this specific neighborhood that I wanted to live in. And I could just hit the phones, call them and say, "Do you know about an apartment opening up?" And then I'd find out 30 days before anyone else did, because they hadn't even cleaned the place, let alone list it. And so basically, what were the basic truths? Well, the basic truths were that landlords are the first people to know when an apartment's going to become available 30 days before it ever gets listed. And who knows the name and number of a landlord? The person living in the building knows it. And that's another basic truth. And so building on those basic truths, I was able to come up with this innovative way of getting an apartment, which got me a great apartment in an impossible market. And it's just an example of how you could use in it in daily life, in your own life.

You can use this first principles thinking, or what I call it, build from basic truths. But speakers could use it, entrepreneurs can use it, people can use it in their personal life. You could literally use it, just the key thing as a speaker is to question all the assumptions. In fact, I met with this one really successful speaker, I think was on your podcast, Josh, and he actually has built his entire business amazingly, without bureaus, which I think is incredible because almost I love my relationships with bureaus, and I know most speakers I know do. But whatever he's done, he's gone a different way. And I think he's probably from first principles thinking, he has a whole different model that's more oriented around developing workshops and content and so on, I believe, for the audiences. But anyway, there's so many unique ways of doing things, and the key thing is to question the assumptions. Don't assume that what holds true for one other speaker, holds true for you.

Josh Linkner:

Such great advice. Well, over the last year, you said you've been taking this more seriously and you've had this incredible ascent. I know that you are now managed by Tony D'Emilio, who is known as the godfather of the speaking industry. He's a brilliant, thoughtful person whom I have deep love and respect. Can you walk us through that? Because I think a lot of speakers are trying to figure out, once you get a little momentum, do you stay independent? Do you go with an exclusive bureau relationship? Do you get managed by a third party? There's different models, no right or wrong. To your point, each person can make their own choice. But you chose to go the managed speaker route. Can you unpack what that model is and why you chose to go after it? What was your decision process like in pursuing that new model?

Chris Barton:

Yeah. Well, I would say many of these things, and again, I think so many of these things happen through serendipity. And that's another beautiful thing about the path of keynote speakers, I believe, is that it's just unexpected things that happen by putting yourself out there. So I was putting myself out there. I was actually not even planning to hire a manager. It was not in my plan, I wasn't evaluating managers. I was at a conference just networking with people in the speaking industry and many, many bureaus and so on. And then I started to learn, I met several managers as part of that networking. And then I became intrigued and I kept hearing wonderful things about Tony because Tony has been around, as you said, for a long time and very respected and worked at Washington Speaker Bureau.

And he's booked some of the biggest speakers of all time, with President Clinton and Colin Powell and so on. So basically, I just thought, I think if there was one rule of thumb that I found works really well in my life, I love to surround myself with other amazing people. When I joined Google, the best thing about joining Google and spending eight years there was just being surrounded by a bunch of really amazing people. And same thing when I did my master's degree at Cambridge in England and surrounded myself with a bunch of brilliant academics and so on. So I love to put myself in an environment where I'm just around amazing people. And then you just get benefit through unexpected things, essentially.

You learn things, you take different directions, make different decisions, new doors are opened and so on. In fact, I'm actually signed on board now with a literary agent to write a book, and that's a result that I wasn't even planning. And it came because after I signed up with Tony, next thing I know, he connected me with a literary agent. So as I said, it was unexpected, it felt natural, and it just fell within this principle I have of just trying to surround myself with amazing people. And Tony's just the best, he's fantastic. And I was going to say, and his whole team, by the way, it's not just Tony. He has a team of about eight people, and they're all fantastic.

Josh Linkner:

And I think, again, it's not for everybody, but I think it's a wonderful accelerant. And I think you made an outstanding choice. He's among the best of the best. And the nice thing is that through his context, he can be an accelerant for your growth in the industry, and I'm really happy for you. And he, of course, has a great roster. When you think about your speaking business going forward, you're writing a book you mentioned, help us understand what does the next 24 months look like for Chris as you continue to scale the mountain in the speaking world?

Chris Barton:

Yeah, I'm going to say one of the things, I've attended two bootcamps at ImpactEleven, and there's certain things that you take back with you, and one of them is that I love that we're learning all these things. We're learning, oh, what can you do with marketing? What can you do with relationships, with bureaus and so on? But the single biggest, most important thing, and it's hammered in, is just your speech and how you're delivering. And so I really focus on that. Again, I compare it to the entrepreneur, the most important thing is your product. Shazam has to be an amazing app that's just delightful for people. And if you don't have that, you have nothing. And so I really emphasize just having amazing experiences in my speech. And one thing I always do is after every speech, I love to get feedback.

I'll just go and just ask people, anyone I interact with in the audience, because sometimes people will come up and say, "Can we do a selfie?" And I almost trade a selfie for a piece of feedback. "Tell me something that you liked and tell me something that could be improved on the speech." And you just keep learning things, and I just keep making it better and better and better. And then you can feel the impact, you can feel how the audience is appreciating it more. So that's my number one focus, is the product. The product is the speech, it's me, it's the delivery, it's the experience and the impact. And I really focus on that. That's my number one thing. I think that's what leads to the natural organic growth in word of mouth and so on. Then the book, I realized, I think that's going to be a really interesting thing. I know that everyone says that books are highly complimentary to speaking.

One thing I learned that's really interesting is that it's a two-way feedback loop. So books can accelerate speaking, but speaking also accelerates book sales. So you're getting a double whammy benefit. And I've also realized that the book really, really will get you to dive deep and really think through those kind of what are those thoughts that you have as a thought leader? What are the stories? And what's really insightful about them? How are you going to bring them to life in a very artful way? And I am just so excited about doing that. So I'd say once you take on a project like that, it's big.

But those are my two biggest focus areas, are quality of speaking and the experience and the impact for the audiences, and then the quality of this book, which I want to be amazing. And frankly, because I'm a one-man show, of course I have Tony backing me up with his team, but I don't have any more than that. That means that I'm probably not doing as much as I feel like I could be doing and all the other things. So I don't write articles for Forbes and I don't post on LinkedIn very often, and I'm just not so good at all the social networking type things. I remember, in fact, I think one of the interviews that you did was with Alison, oh my gosh-

Josh Linkner:

Levine.

Chris Barton:

I forgot her last name. Levine, yeah, Alison Levine, yeah. And I found her very inspirational because I think she's kind of like me, where she focuses more on just the speech and not a lot of the other things. So yeah, that's my plan.

Josh Linkner:

I love it. I think you were looking at that book project exactly right. The other neat thing about it, by the way, is that in addition to all the things you said, it sharpens your content. It makes you go deeper into your body of work, revenue, all that. But it's also expanding the amount of people that you touch. Not everyone can come to a speech of yours, but almost everyone can have access to a book that you publish. And so you're expanding, you're touching the world more broadly, and you're also building kind a fan base. They don't have to be a fan, like a social media fan, but now they're a fan of you.

And the next time, you become more well known, your platform expands, and it all works in a virtuous cycle to continue to expand your speaking practice. I'm really glad you're doing that, man. That's terrific. One of the things I also admire about you, besides your brilliant insights and the great success that you've had is the way you show up for your son, Jude. I know you are a dad that is deeply committed to him and your family. And you texted me recently that you got to bring him along to a trip to Europe, and he got a little stage time. Can you give us a little, bring us up to speed on that?

Chris Barton:

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So Jude, so I have him full-time. I'm a full-time single dad with Jude, just the two of us. And I just love to take this opportunity of keynote speaking and help transform his life and his own experiences as he grows up. He's now 14 and he's like a late developer 14, you'd think he'd be 12 or something. He's a cute little kid. And I thought, how amazing would it be when you're just 14 years old, to suddenly have the experience of standing on a stage in front of 2,000 people and actually say something? And he's a little aspiring entrepreneur, so we negotiated a deal where he got some financial commitment towards his gaming PC in return for making this commitment of getting on stage with me. And so I brought him to one of my keynotes. And also, by the way, this keynote was in Barcelona, Spain.

So there was also the additional benefit of being able to bring him on a nice cultural trip to Spain. We went to both Madrid and Barcelona, and he got to miss a week of school, which of course he loved. And so I took him to Spain, and then at the keynote, which was just such a fun keynote, I basically had worked in this one slide for him that was about 10 minutes in. He came on stage and he delivered his four lines, and he got such an incredible applause. And I told everyone that was his first time ever on stage. And then he got another big applause. And yeah, he did really well. I'm so proud of him. And it was just amazing to watch him just standing up there. And you can imagine the jitters, even adults get jitters in front of audiences. But he did very, very well. So it was a great experience.

Josh Linkner:

I'm so glad you shared that. And I was smiling ear to ear when you sent me this because it's very hard sometimes, we're giving a speech somewhere or we're in an airport and we're away from our family, and that is a reality of speaking. But I love the way that in this case, you really integrated the two and made it a net positive for him, not a detractor. And it's a beautiful sentiment in the way you and Jude interact and the commitment that you have to him. And actually, as we wrap up our conversation here today, Chris, I'm very grateful for our friendship and your contribution today. When you think of Jude, what do you want him to know about the work that you're doing as a professional keynote speaker? How do you want him to think about this next chapter in your career? I think it's really instructive for all of us as you think about the impact that you can make through other people's eyes.

Chris Barton:

Yeah, let me answer this with this one funny thing, Josh, which is that when a child thinks they like what their parent is doing in their career, then they might say, I want to do the same thing. So they might say, oh, if their mom or dad is a doctor, they might say, "I want to be a doctor when I grow up." So Jude knows I'm an entrepreneur. And what he said the other day in front of someone, it was so funny. He said, "I want to be an entrepreneur when I grow up and a keynote speaker." And I loved it. And I thought, how many kids say they want to be a keynote speaker when they grow up? Now that's pretty rare. But yeah, so I think that what he sees in what I'm doing is how much I enjoy it and how I feel like I really enjoy having the impact and feeling like you're actually touching people's lives.

Look, it reminds me of when I was an undergrad at Berkeley, I used to volunteer and do tutoring for other students. And it was so rewarding to have impact on someone's life as a student and be able to help them along in their academics. And keynote speaking is like that at scale. You get up in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and I just love that so much. I think Jude sees the same thing, and I think he witnesses it secondhand. He sees how hard I work on it and always trying to improve it and chip away at all the different things, the website, the content, you name it. And I think that main takeaway is just like you get out of it what you put into it. And that's really what he sees.

Josh Linkner:

What a beautiful way to end our conversation. And you are continuing to pour a lot of energy and passion and commitment into the craft. And there's no question in my mind that you'll continue your ascent and continue to win in a big way in the professional speaking industry. Thanks again, buddy. I appreciate spending time with you and look forward to seeing you in person soon.

Chris Barton:

Thanks for having me, Josh.

Josh Linkner:

What a great conversation. How can you listen to Chris and not want to do the impossible? Here are just a few of the ideas that really resonated with me from our discussion. Number one, I loved hearing the way that Shazam didn't just start at zero. It started below zero. It required a technology that didn't exist in a category of digital products that didn't exist, in a format best suited for smartphones, which didn't exist. But Chris chased it anyway. A great encouragement for us all, especially in those dark days when things truly seem impossible. Number two, I'm also obsessed with Chris's obsession, his commitment to always improving his keynote message, his audience interactions, and even his individual keynote slides. If you can get that much passion around adjusting words on a slide, you're going to go pretty far in this business or frankly, in any business.

Number three, I really love that Chris has stayed restless, even after all his success. He moves from passion to passion, finding problems without solutions, and buckling down to find out what those solutions could be. It's so easy for us to get into the habit of chasing trends or doing what we're told is doable. After speaking with Chris, I'm going to focus my efforts on what should be done, not just what the world says can be done. I know Chris will continue to reach the top in the speaking industry, and frankly, whatever else he pursues. And just like Chris, may your next breakthrough leave reverberations heard around the world.

Thanks so much for joining me on another episode of Mic Drop. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. If you love the show, please share it with your friends and don't forget to give us a five star review. For show transcripts and show notes, visit micdroppodcast.com. I'm your host, Josh Linkner. Thanks so much for listening, and here's to your next Mic Drop moment.