All right, well, I'm just introducing Joel, so I am so excited to be here for this breakout session. I've learned so much from Joel since I hired him as my speaking coach. And Joel is an avid water sports enthusiast, so much so that he often finds himself on Lake Powell instead of attending Influence. But today, he's with us to share his wisdom. As a founding member of NSA going back to 1974, he's been an active member for 51 years. Yes, his two daughters work with him in his ultimate speaking system coaching business. And at age 83, he still works full time with no thought of ever retiring. Plus, he's still an avid water skier, specializing in sky skiing and wakesurfing.

It is with my great pleasure that I introduce my friend, Joel.

Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

What?

Give me the mic.

I spent all day writing this.

Unfortunately, what you just heard, what was just read, is what many speakers use for an introduction, right? And you know what? That had nothing to do with you. It was completely irrelevant to you and what you care about. So we're going to redo this introduction of your speaker today, and you're going to see how you can make this so that it sets your opening up even better and it helps you connect with your audience. So let's redo this. You're here because you're a member of NSA or a potential member, and you speak in front of audiences. The question is, if you were standing on this stage instead of me, what would you want your audience to know before you said your first words? That's the purpose of this breakout session. Because what you just heard was a bio about Joel Weldon. And frankly, no one cares.

That's right. You don't care about anything you just heard. All you care about is that you're investing an hour in this breakout session to learn how you can set yourself up even better by having a great introduction. And can Joel help you do that? That's what this session is about. When you create a four step introduction, you'll find you immediately have a greater connection with your audience. And the only thought going through their mind is they cannot wait to hear what you're going to say because it's so important to them. This is something that Joel Weldon has specialized in for over 50 years as a founding member of MSA and a former chair of the National Convention many decades ago, in introductions have played an important part in every speaker's career. Just in the last 10 years alone, Joel has written over 600 introductions for speakers.

Most of them are his clients. These follow a four step process which you will learn in this session. The title of this breakout session is you, introduction is not your bio. How you can connect with your audience before you even take the stage. Please help me welcome Joel Weldon, CPAE and my dad, Joel Weldon.

Thank you. Well, Jenny and I are going to be doing this together. And welcome. You're here because you saw something in the program that said that this was about introductions, which means that you've used introductions and you're going to keep using them. And one of the things you need to think of in this session, you're going to know a lot about introductions. You're going to know the four steps that Jenny mentioned. You're going to see some examples of how that works because we're going to have participation in here. I'm going to be talking for a little bit in the beginning and then we're going to open it up for you to get involved in this as well so you can have a chance to answer questions at any time.