Jim Knight is a renowned keynote speaker, author, podcast host, and CEO featured in Forbes Magazine, Inc. Magazine, Fast Company, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fox Small Business News. He is here today to talk about how he left a 21-year career at Hard Rock Café in his 40s to become his own boss and highly-paid keynote speaker. In today’s episode, we talk about: Keynote Speaking Changing careers Personal development Hard Rock Café Entrepreneurship How to Raise Your Speaking Rates Why do some people take the career change leap and others do not A full transcript is available at www.iamthisage.com
Jim Knight is a renowned keynote speaker, author, podcast host, and CEO featured in Forbes Magazine, Inc. Magazine, Fast Company, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Fox Small Business News. He is here today to talk about how he left a 21-year career at Hard Rock Café in his 40s to become his own boss and highly-paid keynote speaker.
In today’s episode, we talk about:
Keynote Speaking
Changing careers
Personal development
Hard Rock Café
Entrepreneurship
How to Raise Your Speaking Rates
Why do some people take the career change leap and others do not
Management training
Jim’s contact information:
Molly’s contact information:
A full transcript is available at www.iamthisage.com
are you someone who has been working in the same job or industry your entire adult career and now you're desiring something different? What if I told you, you can do anything you want and you don't have to 📍 start from scratch? Would you believe me? Welcome to I Am This Age, the podcast proving you're never too old.
It's never too late. So go do that thing you're always talking about. I'm Molly Sider, a certified professional life coach, speaker, storyteller, and your host. My guest today is Jim Knight. He is a renowned keynote speaker, author, podcast host, CEO, and training and development expert. And he has been featured in Forbes 📍 magazine, Inc magazine, fast company, entrepreneur magazine, and Fox small business news. He is here today to talk about how he left a 21 year career at the Hard Rock Cafe in his 40s to become his own boss.
And since he's a big time speaker and making those big time keynote bucks, and I'm a speaker 📍 novice, of course we talked about that too. This is a quick episode because we had some technical difficulties, but Jim's a hoot, and if you want to check out his rock and roll hair, go to my Instagram page, at MollyAtThisAge, and while you're at it, why don't you give me a follow?
One more thing, if you are someone in midlife thinking about making a change and wanting some guidance, or if 📍 you're just like, I feel icky or bored or silently sad because I know I have more to contribute, get in touch with me.
Don't miss an opportunity to work one on one with me. Click the link in the show notes and we can set up a time to talk. And as always, the first session is free. Okay, buckle up and hold on to your hats because Jim's gonna blow you 📍 away.
yeah, we're talking about PNLs and financials, right? Listen,
absolutely. Yes.
How's it going gang? My name is Jim Knight. I am going to be 56 this November, so I'm 55 right now. I am a keynote speaker, an author, and a podcaster. That's basically what I've been doing for the last 11 years or so.
Okay, so we're going to get into it because we've got a lot to cover, and I don't want to keep you here all day. Um, we're both very busy, important people.
Extremely, extremely. And there's probably a couple of other people out there
Maybe. I don't know. We're pretty much the busiest and most important.
Yes.
Okay, here's the gist. Jim was a middle school teacher and would work summers at the Hard Rock Cafe, which he loved so much that he eventually left his teaching job to go full time at Hard Rock. He traveled all over the world opening new Hard Rock restaurants and eventually landed a job in training and development in the corporate offices, but he was really teaching managers about personal development.
I became a licensed facilitator for Stephen Covey. So he does the seven habits of highly effective people, which is still probably the biggest, most well known.
You know, sort of professional personal development course. It's out there, at least in corporate America. And and we hard brought guys the heck out of it. We would shoot our own videos and we did our own things.
All of the examples were in the hard rock orbit. And then at that point, I also started opening it up to the public and started charging people to go through that program, but be around a bunch of hard rockers, which. You know, if people aren't used to that, they've never been in a hard rock. They wouldn't know, but most of those people are some pretty, I would say unique characters, but tattoos and body piercings and Mohawks and colored hair.
And those are the managers. Those are the leaders. So
Basically you.
will have an experience. Yes. I don't, I don't have as many body piercings and, uh, and colored hair yet. but we're on our way.
Yeah. Um, there's still time. Okay. That's so interesting to me. Was that like, was that normal in corporate America? And how much of that was hard rock and how much of that was you that like getting into this personal development and, and being certified as a facilitator through Stephen Covey? Like,
Yeah. You know, the first question is, I think it's common probably now. I think the really innovative ones thought I need to do something to keep all of my team members engaged. They're getting paid. Well, they have great benefits. They're in constant, a rock and roll environment. They can look however they want to. For me, I was traveling the world, but yet we still need more.
Everybody wants to grow. Everybody wants to feel fulfilled. And so. You know, I think the company had to do something. Um, but the second part to your question is I didn't bring that. I think I've always developed myself, uh, you know, in lieu of leadership, you gotta do some self leadership. And I like to read and go to conferences and now it's podcasts.
There's a litany you could do, but back then you almost had to. joined some sort of an organization. And if it was internal, it was even better.
I was probably one of about. 10, 15 people that became licensed to do this stuff. But then over time, as those people left the company, as our CEO changed, I may have been one of the only two or three people that were left. And then as part of our corporate university, I carved out a specific conference just for that.
We really got people to be so engaged that they either stuck around forever. Or I'll tell you this Molly, there were people. Were leaving the company right after that and putting in their exit interviews. The reason I'm leaving is because of what I just learned from Jim Knight.
So , it wasn't exactly a good thing on my resume inside the company. My c e o at that time was not really happy, but I think people were really discovering themselves and neither getting out of a bad job, a bad position, bad relationship, you know, whatever it is. And that was probably some of the most worthwhile fulfilling work I've ever done in the, in the company.
And since then, to be honest with you,
That's so cool. I love that Hard Rock invested so heavily in that.
I have never worked in corporate America, but I would not have guessed that mental health and personal development work would be something a corporation would be willing to invest in, but I love hearing it. Anyway, this is one of many moments that the recording froze, so if this conversation feels disjointed, it's because it is, but like in life, we picked ourselves back up and we laughed it off.
And I could have tried to hide it from you, but But real life isn't perfect, so why should these episodes be? This has been a real lesson for me in letting go. And my challenge to you, dear listener, is can you tell what other times we cut and dubbed over?
And, can you forgive me and let it go too?
Hi guys. I'm 55. Jesus Christ.
At least you have a sense of humor about it.
In the game. We know we get it. We get it.
Welcome to podcasting, everybody. Cut out. We're back in. This is going to work this time. I'm really sorry. This is what I was going to say real fast, is that I think it's so interesting that you're like, oh, a lot of people actually left and you felt bad and, maybe your bosses were not happy with you, which of course makes sense for the bottom line. Not great. And also, isn't that what makes a great manager is like teaching and encouraging and pushing them off into whatever the thing is that they need to do next.
I mean, that's. Yeah.
Yeah. It's the old adage. I mean, people will say, what if you develop them and give them all this stuff and then they leave? Well, the flip side is what if you don't and they stay and they become disgruntled, they become upset, they become bummed because they're not growing, they're not developing.
I would rather spend the time and energy and, uh, and hopefully they flourish and they took over my job one day, which is what someone did.
eventually, Jim got so good at facilitating this personal development program that he ended up leaving the hard rock to pursue doing this full time, which, as anyone in midlife who has been working at the same job or industry for most of their adult life knows, is a really hard and scary thing to do.
I just wanted a lot more impact and influence in the world. I think. In a lot of ways I've done everything that I wanted to do. I was there Molly 21 years.
So when you get to being with a company two decades and all of my people were probably promotable, I was probably standing in their way in a lot of ways. Um, I really felt like I could start going vertical and even I was fairly well known in the restaurant and maybe some hospitality meaning hotel, some retail, but I wanted to get into some of the brands and industries that I talk in front of now, real estate.
healthcare, banking, insurance, funeral directors. Like I would have never had that opportunity being at hard rock. So for me it was about having a louder voice in the world and see if I could make a positive difference out there.
Geez, if there's an opportunity window and I can share some of this with somebody whether I'm licensed or not now to do it These are just great smart principles
clearly Jim was cued up to start speaking on his own, but how did he get the confidence to take the leap?
You Know, my background again was in music and education. So like you said, I mean, I, in high school I was in chorus cause I was too short to really play football, but it gave me a full ride to college. I went on full music performance and education degree. So now I'm performing.
I'm in front of other people. I'm directing choirs. Now I'm in community theaters. I'm in. shows. A lot of those were musicals. So now there's a performance art to it. Then you start teaching school for six years. So now I'm in front of students and I, and starting as a substitute teacher, I actually looked at the teacher's notes and taught what they were teaching.
And so most substitute teachers don't do that stuff. So now all of a sudden you've got that sort of mentality when you get to hard rock and you become a trainer and you're opening up properties in Paris and you get to work in London and Nashville and Mexico city and Madrid. All of a sudden I'm teaching other people.
So the teaching, the educator, the performance art, all of that stuff, I still pull the levers of music, hospitality, and education in what I do today. So Those really were the validations. I mean, the one thing I will tell people, if they ever wanted to be a professional speaker, no matter what I say, no matter how many classes you take, nobody gets better unless you actually practice.
Well, I was just lucky enough that I had a couple of decades of real honest goodness practice. Before I jumped off the deep end.
Most of my clients are in midlife seeking some sort of change in their lives, and these changes can range from small adjustments to major transformations, but it can feel really daunting and scary to think about starting over. But if you take a moment to reflect on your life experiences, you'll realize that everything you have learned along the way has prepared you for this.
moment. You are not starting from scratch. Rather, you are starting from where you are now, which is a place full of knowledge and experiences that has brought you here. And you will carry all of your past experiences with you into this next phase of your life. Even if it's completely different from what you've ever done before.
Remember, you could not have arrived at this point without first going through all the things that you have. And through these experiences, you have gained knowledge. You've recognized your strengths and your weaknesses and your non negotiables, and you've discovered your passions. And from here, you can envision what you want in your future.
And it might take some time, years even, to build up the courage to do the next thing, and that is okay. Jim was facilitating these personal growth workshops for 10 years at Hard Rock before he left.
Why do you think it took you 10 years to leave?
Well, I wasn't really looking to lead the brand. Uh, you know, my very first time that somebody asked me to do something,
I was in charge of training and somebody called and said, Hey, listen, uh, my company is in town. We have a conference. I've only got a hundred people in the room. Can you send somebody over to talk about the company? Like it was, it was almost like a mini orientation. And, um, I, I like talking about that stuff and hard rock has one of the most unique stories in the history of stories.
Maybe the Bible is first, but right behind that, the hard rock story is a crazy. Unknown story that somebody needs to write a book about it at some point. And I said, I'm not going to send anybody over, I'll come and do it.
Somebody came up afterwards and said, Hey, can we come do that exact same thing for my company? And how much do you charge? And that was the epiphany. That's the moment, the age that things really changed for me. I was like, Oh. I can make a living doing this. So,
And sometimes the next opportunity just falls in your lap. So pay attention. And even if it's not the whole thing at once, it's often the stepping stone you need.
you know, what happens is you do a speaking engagement and you wind up getting one or two spinoffs from it. And that's really what I did. So for 10 years I'd probably worked my way up that I was doing about a gig a month. So I was probably doing 11 or 12 a month. I was charging people. But I never took the money.
I gave it all to hard rocks. Now I'm a training and development guy, but I'm a revenue generating department, which doesn't happen in any training. We spend money. We don't make money. So my boss loved it because I was funding stuff and I was able to bring some other people on board with that dough. It basically just fed the beast in me and I had fun doing it. It was a little bit of a hobby. But I was doing about one a month when I got to my next to last year.
That's when I decided on my exit strategy. I'm not even trying. Stuff's falling in my lap. What if I actually put my focus on it and started marketing myself and put real collateral together. That's when I decided in, in 2012 to make that leap. So the 10 years was just because it was a side hustle and it was fun.
And like I said, it just fed me. But now, I'm able to get out there into the world and been lucky enough to be on a couple lists and a best selling author and it's, it's the dream job. It's all the stuff that came before set me up to do exactly what I'm doing now. It was honestly the perfect set list.
Yeah, I love that. I think, well, so as you already, as you already know, I just mentioned that I'm like sort of working to become a speaker, which is funny because I can barely get the sentence out of my mouth. Um,
Nah
you charge a lot speaker right now, right?
I do. Yeah. I think when I first started off, uh, you know, it was probably in fact, that very first gig that someone said, how much do you charge? I think I threw out, you know, 500 and he was like, that's it again, another epiphany, another light bulb. I was like, Ooh, okay. I probably should charge more and he'll pay for travel and whatever.
Um, when I finally left hard rock I was probably at 1, 500 if I remember speaking engagement, which is extremely low if that's what you do for a living. And in fact, I wasn't sure I was going to make it. So I started a consulting company, which I was making a ton of money doing that. But my love wasn't into it.
And by the second year, my speaking had really increased in the number. So every year I just started to increase my fees. I was at 5, 000, 7, 500. I was probably at a 10 to 12 K an engagement for a long, long time, especially when I was. Exclusive with the Speaker Bureau. So there are companies that have agents working.
There are Speaker Bureau is what they're called, and they, they basically work on your behalf and look for stuff to come through. But the Creme de la Creme, which is, which is where I am now, I have a speaker agent, I'm part of a very small boutique agency. Uh, she's got 10 speakers in her stable and she hunts for me all day long.
And our starting price is usually around 20 K. So that, that's what I do as a keynote speaker. We don't always get that, but then there's always other things that you can look at from other people that might need to go with me. It might be books that are included. Sometimes it's a little bit more because they want a keynote and a, and a workshop the next day.
Maybe I'm locked in if I'm on a cruise or, or whatever it is. But, you know, I'm, I'm happy to say and, and not afraid to say that I'm a $20,000 speaker. And so you better make sure you bring the thunder. 'cause if you're not you get beaten over the head quite a bit.
And, and I've tried to do that before.
If I went back five, six years ago, I tried to get to that level. And I think the market stomped on me and said, you're not ready yet. So I dropped my fees back down and started working on just getting better and better. And so, you know, hopefully the, the edutainment that I now bring to the party, I think is really what's helped my ratings and my reviews and being on a couple of lists and being a little bit more well known.
And, and my agent Michelle Joyce is phenomenal. She's, she's a rockstar.
Wait, I, can we just like touch on that one point a little bit more when you tried to like level up to this 20, 000 level and, you were knocked back down a few points? Like what did that do to you? Did that, were you just like, I'm going to work even harder or like, sure, they're right. I need to work on this.
Or were you like, what did it do to your confidence?
Yeah, you know, I took a little bit of a hit. Um, you know, and it's funny because that when I was with the bureau, you know, and again, the only reason I would raise my rates every year is because we would, you know, if you said I want to do 40 or 50 engagements a year, and that's what I want to aspire to.
And you wind up doing 50 or 60. You're like, okay, I probably could raise my rate and do fewer engagements. And so that's sort of the name of the game. You know, you don't really want to do 150, 200 gigs a year. Cause then you're always on the road unless you're single or you don't care about a relationship or your family goes with you on every trip.
That's not healthy at all. So you sort of have to figure out what is, what is my worth? And so, like I said, I think I'd gotten up to about 15, maybe 17, five. And I, I was keep hitting those numbers every single year and, the market wasn't stopping. So I said, let's raise it. And, uh, the bureau said, okay, let's do it.
And it immediately dropped. It probably dropped. I lost about two thirds of the number of gigs. I think I went down to about 20, maybe 15, maybe not even that. And it's instead of trying to hit the home run, I just made the decision. Let's just go back to hitting singles and doubles. Let me just go out there and get my sea legs, make sure I just get even better from a delivery standpoint.
Uh, let me put together better collateral, whether it's video or high definition photos or virtual or whatever it is. So, you know, I was able to climb back up to where now I feel absolutely that that I'm able to hang with other people that are. Not just my peers, but people that I look at and go, wow, that is a 20 or 30, 000 speaker.
I'd love to be able to do that. So I now I'm doing fewer engagements. I'm probably only doing, you know, 30, 35, sometimes 40 engagements a year, but I'm getting my fee integrity is a lot higher. So I'm pretty happy about that right now. But if I was to raise my rates, there's no doubt the number of fees would go down.
There's something even about that number. That throws event planners. It throws companies off. They get a little bit squeamish, you know? So your website, your video, your stuff better to look like a 30, 000 speaker. If you're going to consider it.
Yeah.
But it hurt, you know, a little bit. And I'll say this, not only did COVID really smack all of us because we all had to convert to being virtual and I was doing a lot of free stuff, just keep my sea legs and to keep myself out there, but before a while, when we were having the me too movement, the time's up movement.
Women's empowerment right now is D. E. And I, there's so much stuff that people that are in that space and, and probably should be in that space. There's some of those that would not make any sense at all for me to even try and get into that. So you kind of have to go, I get it. That's what people want right now.
At least that's one keynotes. Maybe I can fill the role of the second one, or maybe I'm going to have less this year, but culture service leadership. Employee engagement, building teams. That's never gonna go away right now. There might be just a different priority, and I'm okay with that. I got a lot of friends in those areas.
Jim has written a series of books called Cultures That Rock, Service That Rocks, and he's writing the third one called Engagement That Rocks, all covering leadership and authenticity within business cultures and brands.
So thanks for asking about it, but I still have this third one to do. And then that's, that's probably it. I don't know that I've got another route, another one in me, but we'll see. We'll see what
to, get to work, Jim. Go write that book. No, but first, let's finish this.
I'll start at three o'clock today.
So you kind of touched on this before, but I love this idea of like reapplying your experience, your life experience, um, in a way that better aligns with your desires and values now at this age, that like sort of everything we do leads us to this moment that we're in. And I think A lot of people can get caught in this sort of cycle of thinking like they've wasted so much time, they wish they could have made a move sooner or they're trying to make a move, but sometimes it's hard when you're kind of beating yourself up for not moving yet, you know, like that uh, what's analysis paralysis kind of thing.
And, um, While I'm very much like, yes, life is short, do the thing already. It's in my tagline. There's also a lot of value in waiting until you're ready and remembering that every everyone's journey is unique to them. what did you learn in the 10 years that took you to leave hard rock and what would you do differently if you could?
Well, I think from a practical standpoint, there are so many people out there that They feel trapped and a lot of it might have to deal with the paycheck, maybe their education. Maybe this is the only skill that they have. I am only different in the sense, uh, well, I grew up very poor in a lot of ways.
I'm just, I grew up in the sense that I'm a risk taker. You know, this is how, if I've ever invested in anything, I've 401k, which, Hard rock convinced me to do it. I'm so thankful after 21 years, that thing turned out to be a nice, pretty penny for me. You know, I I'm a risk taker. I will always be aggressive in a lot of ways.
Now, you know, I'm divorced now, but if I was to ever get married again, or if I had somebody else's life, Depending on me, I would probably be a little bit more conservative in that. I think, you know, I was lucky because I work for a brand. That I was madly in love with the company that I worked for was unbelievable. I mean, for, for so many reasons, I can talk about the benefits and allowing you to look a certain way.
The, the philanthropic things that they did changed me. I mean, the reason that I even give right now to. Whether it's a pediatric cancer organization or no kid hungry, which focuses on childhood hunger. Like these are things I learned from the company. So the values that I am now, some of these I really got from the company,
I lead a charmed life, Molly, I'm not going to lie.
Uh, I'm an entrepreneur. I invest in a lot of different businesses. I love it. But for people that are listening in your audience right now, I do think if they find an opportunity, if they can start their own company, even it might not be a hundred percent the way they want to, but getting your your feet wet and jumping off the deep end, you learn.
A lot about yourself. So I would always encourage it. I just know it's really tough for some people. They're just, they're never going to do that. They're so stuck on the money and the benefits and the security and everything that comes with it. But man, would I love to see more people starting businesses and being successful?
I think that'd be fantastic.
So the episode before this one, I interviewed Brant Menswar about his experience living after his son passed away. If you haven't heard it yet, go back and listen to it. Anyway, Brant and Jim are co hosts of the podcast called Thoughts That Rock, which I was a guest on and it's awesome because it's literally three thoughts about whatever the topic is.
And so
it's inspiring and educational and it gets right to the point and they're hilarious together. Anyway, now is the time I ask Jim to reintroduce himself without using descriptions like speaker, entrepreneur, et cetera, because we are not our successes or failures, our titles, our hobbies, et cetera.
And when we can let go of identifying ourselves based on those things, is when we can finally live in true authenticity. So here's what he said.
I think I'm positive, authentic. Uh, hungry. I'm giving. Sometimes I'm unpredictable.
Where can people find you?
You can find me at knightspeaker. com. That starts with my last name, knight, K N I G H T, speaker. com. And there you'll find all of my speaking information. There's video clips there. You can order and see my books, my training programs.
And of course our podcast thoughts that rock really all roads lead through nightspeaker. com.
Thanks so much, Jim. I always love talking to you.
It was absolutely 📍 my pleasure. I was looking forward to it. Thank you so much, Molly.
Jim's fun. I like Jim. All of his links and mine will be found in the show notes. Please do us a favor and share this episode or another one you love with someone you think might need to hear it too. The more we grow, the more we can help you grow, and it only takes a minute. Thank you to Dan Devon for the music, David Harper for the artwork.
I Am This Age is produced by Jellyfish 📍 Industries. I'm Molly Sider. Catch you all next time.