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Speaker asks the big question — Why?

Motivational guest leaves Ponoka audience with a few secrets that can lead to success
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Corey Poirier provides the crowd gathered at the Kinsmen Community Centre Sept. 19 for the keynote speech at the monthly Ponoka and District Chamber of Commerce with small tidbit about how he got started as a speaker. Photo by Jordie Dwyer

From working stand-up in places some people may hesitate to venture, to speaking in front of hundreds of business and influential leaders, Corey Poirier’s journey may help others find success and happiness.

Poirier — known as ‘The Speaker Guy’ — was in town Sept. 19 at the Kinsmen Community Centre as the guest speaker at a Ponoka and District Chamber of Commerce hosted event, with a focus on explaining the secrets he has found from talking to a number of well-known business, sports and community leaders.

“Going back through my research, I found the most common feature — found in the highest percentage of those I interviewed — was they had the answer to why,” he said.

“Why is the need to discover that passion, purpose, vision, call or whatever you name it? Whether you start there or at the other end, find that why. It might be a paid gig or not, and even at the end of day it may not click. It’s what will improve your life and make it easier.”

Poirier added his speaking engagements are about knowing what he’s learned, how he’s grown and sharing that expertise and experience through exercises — including one that is designed to help people find their why. He is also set to release a book about the topic, The Book of Why later this year, because of all the reactions he has gotten through his numerous speaking engagements.

“I give them a pen and paper and ask them to come up with a list of what they would do if money was no issue. It could be what they loved to do as a kid, what people may have talked them out of doing,” he explained.

“That helps them build their ‘potential’ and then we get that down to eight priorities, those things they would hate to have to stop doing. It makes doing those top ones more likely and easier to go out and give it a try. It’s simply a matter of taking that next step.”

And, if that next step seems to be too large a leap for some people, Poirier suggests chopping that into a series of smaller steps.

“Go research, talk to others in that field and reward yourself after you complete each step as that will provide you with motivation and hope to continue. In that way, the big final step may not seem all that hard to take,” he stated.

The ultimate goal, through his talks, is to do for others what he’s been able to learn in the past 15 years since turning toward motivational speaking — to help people recognize and learn what to do different and use that to improve and enhance their lives.

“I began doing stand up comedy in 1996 and moved to change things up after seeing a Tony Robbins infomercial. I naturally assumed he got paid from selling his product, but found out a big part of the money he made was for simply speaking,” Poirier said.

Something that made it easier was Poirier had his own business publication, along with working a ‘corporate sales job,’ so he began pulling double duty, interviewing people such as Arlene Dickinson of Dragon’s Den fame for both the publication and his move into speaking.

More information about Poirier and his upcoming book can be found by going to www.coreypoirier.com.