076: How to Become a TEDx Speaker, Creating Your Big Talk and High Speaker Fees (w/ Tricia Brouk)
Summary: Tricia Brouk is a performance expert, TEDx organizer, writer, director, choreographer, podcast host, and producer of theatre, TV and film. She hosts The Big Talk, a podcast series on iTunes and currently directs and dramaturges Big Talks and Keynotes. She is the current organizer of TEDxLincolnSquare - Risk Takers and Change Makers. <br> <br> She has produced, directed or choreographed several award-winning theatre and TV/Film productions. Through her company, The Big Talk, she helps people identify, craft and deliver a life-changing Big Talk or Keynote. <br> <br> Period in full time business and business background <br> <br> She has owned a company for over 26 years. She moved to New York City from Missouri to pursue a dance career and had no interest in being a starving artist. She started Brouk Moves, an elite in-home personal training company where she hired people to work for her so that she could still make money even when she was on the road. The company has been going strong, has 15 trainers, 25 clients and recently started a personal chef service. The business has enabled her to pursue a creative life outside of business and also given her the opportunity to create a new business, The Big Talk. <br> <br> Brouk Moves has been her primary income for the last 26 years and has enabled her to pay all her bills, avoid the life of a starving artist and produce theatre. Her team works on the business full time so she can have time to pursue other things. <br> <br> Starving artists <br> <br> She says she sees this a lot in the industry and she has observed that artists feel unworthy of making money, because when they make money they then feel that they are selling out, and that they are not truly artists. <br> <br> She says artists deserve to be paid for what they are worth, to have money and create art simultaneously. <br> <br> Tip: You are not giving up your artist soul by taking a big fat pay check <br> <br> First gig <br> <br> In her first big European tour, she got a weekly pay check to do what she loves including touring, dancing, and being a full time artist. That was while Brouk Moves was still bringing in money because her team was doing all the work. That when she knew she could make a living as an artist in the long term while also making a living as a business woman. <br> <br> Tip: Once you pursue and achieve what your goal is, do not let go of that business! Do not think that you have to choose. You can maintain them both equally <br> <br> Getting into entrepreneurship <br> <br> She decided early on that she would live the way she wanted without being poor or waiting for gigs to find her. She is proactive, mindful and kind in the way she runs her business. Her trainers take time off whenever they want and the rest sub for them. <br> <br> Tip 1: Stop waiting for that big artist contract, start creating your art, start creating your business, because if you wait for someone else to do it for you, you will spend your entire life waiting. <br> <br> Tip 2: Get busy, create art no matter where it is, no matter what it is. Keep your artist muscle flexing and find a way to make money on your own terms <br> <br> The first months in the fitness business <br> <br> She started by working very hard and personally training all the clients she had. She used to wake up at 4.30am and would do the client training while also dancing and performing. Once she realised that she could hire a team to take on some of the work, she created a system where she could always be involved but didn’t need to be there. That enabled her to reduce her commutes, and her time was spent doing other things. When she hired other people, she had to trust them, let go, and make sure that she put systems in place to ensure the business would run efficiently. <br> <br> Tip 1: If you are starting up, you have to dig in,
