Moore Style - Nail Your Next Speech! TEDx Host Reveals What 99% Of Speakers Get Wrong

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

Have you ever wondered what sets great speakers apart—those who command a room, captivate an audience and leave a lasting impact? In this week’s episode, I sit down with my speaking coach, Brandon Gaydorus, to uncover the secrets of powerful public speaking.Brandon shares his journey from struggling with confidence to becoming a sought-after speaker and coach. We explore the importance of finding your unique style and why mastering your presence on and off the stage is crucial. Brandon breaks down how he built his confidence and why getting around “plus ones”—people who elevate you—is a game-changer. So, whether you’re looking to boost confidence or land your first paid speaking gig, this conversation is for you. Hit play already! And if you’re ready to refine your image and presence for the stage, reach out at CelesteMoore.Com. I’d love to help you elevate your personal brand. “The more you can produce with your business, the more attractive a speaker you will be.” ~ Brandon GaydorusIn this Episode:- Meet Brandon Gaydorus- Brandon's journey to public speaking- Understanding the importance of plus ones- Image and presentation tips- Practical advice for getting paid to speakAbout Brandon Gaydorus:Brandon Gaydorus is a TEDx host, five-time author, and founder of Warm Heart Life, dedicated to helping professionals master public speaking. Once a struggling speaker in college, he discovered his passion for storytelling and transformed his skills through relentless practice and speaker training.Now a sought-after public speaking coach, Brandon has led 20+ speaker schools, teaching confidence, storytelling, and audience engagement. He champions the power of presence, personal style, and surrounding yourself with "plus ones"—people who inspire growth. His mission is to help others refine their voice, land paid speaking gigs, and create real impact.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brandongaydorus/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-gaydorus-26289a84  Connect with me here:🌐Website - https://celestemoore.com/👤Facebook - https://facebook.com/profile.php?id=100078179075595📷 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/celestemooreimage/TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@celestemooreimage▶️YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@celestemooreimage

I never thought in a million years I would be doing comedy, teaching people public speaking, more or less being able to travel the country, teaching these speaker schools. I thought I was good until I saw great. It was then when I understood what achieving my dreams would take. The person who I think is the greatest is trying to get greater. In general, I just think when you get around plus ones, your life is better and it will continue to get better. I have one goal the rest of my life, and that's to grow together with like-minded people.

Too many people want the end results, but too many people are not thinking about the most important thing, which is what do I got to do to get better? You're listening to More Style, a podcast to help you transform your image and transform your influence. Hi, my name is Celeste Moore. I'm a certified image consultant, and I help entrepreneurs, C-suites, master and discover their own unique style so that they can command any room that they walk in. Today, I have the honor to have my speaking coach, Mr. Brandon Godoris, with us today.

He is a five-time author. He founded Warm Heart Life in 2019. He does speaker schools. He is a host of TEDx. So please welcome Brandon. Thank you, Brandon. Well, thank you so much for having me. It's really inspiring to be here in Miami with you talking about different things from speaking to image. And I'm excited to see where the conversation goes today. Yeah, definitely. I just kind of want to tell everybody how I met Brandon because this is kind of the world of entrepreneurship.

We actually met through a friend at an event this just past May through a photographer friend who she does a lot of stuff for your events, Beth Brown. And she was like, you've got to meet this guy. You know, she talked about Carl and then she talked about you. And then we just jumped on a quick 15-minute coffee chat that you have with a lot of people. little did I know that I truly needed your help because I was preparing for my first big keynote speak speaking event in Vegas and the coach that was originally hired to help me just wasn't helping me and I'm so grateful that I was able to really start working with you because if not

that speech would have not happened the way it did so I'm grateful for that but all in all um, you know, I went to your first speaking school. So let's start with kind of how you got into being a public speaker and coach in that matter. Yeah. So when, when I was younger, I was not good at speaking. I was very monotone. I didn't have a lot of tonality and I never thought in a million years I'd be doing comedy, teaching people public speaking. more or less being able to travel the country teaching these speaker schools. But I got to give my freshman in college speech coach a lot of credit. So when I was a freshman at Methodist University,

we had to take this communications class. And I was getting C's and D's and really struggling. And I was an A and B student. So it was very frustrating to not understand how to do better in this class. So I asked my teacher, I said, what the heck do I got to do to get a better grade? And she said, Brandon, if I were you, I'd talk about something you're passionate about. So I was like, what the heck am I passionate about? And I said, you know what?

I'm passionate about my childhood crush, Shania Twain. And so I did a speech on Shania Twain. and not only did I get an A but I'm up there I'm singing her songs you're still the one that I want and people are laughing the teacher the teacher was laughing and not only did I get an A on that assignment but what ended up happening is over a decade later there's still multiple people from that class that remember that speech so now I'm thinking okay if I start talking about stuff I'm passionate about maybe there's a chance that I can keep doing this public speaking thing and maybe the thing that people made fun of me for maybe I can actually inspire people and so I would always

look for opportunities to speak because I didn't really know how to speak outside of class so I played golf there was about 200 golfers in our program and we would have these tournaments every year and before the tournament we'd get together at someone's apartment we'd have mimosas and we'd just get fired up to be able to play a group golf tournament because golf is an individual sport so anytime you got the the boys together it felt very exciting and so I would stand up on the kitchen countertop and I would give them pep talks before the round and what that did is it helped me start to build confidence spreading a message to people. And I would sit in bed at night visualizing the three points that I wanted to get across. At one time, my buddy, I think this was

our senior year, my buddy recorded me giving this speech. And what I know now, it amazes me how similar the way I thought back then relates to developing a keynote speech. And I would think about the three points I would think about how to get people involved like we had this bar sponsor us called the dog pound and I remember after every point I would be like let me get a hoo-hoo and then they would go hoo-hoo and so I was learning crowd engagement without any real structure and then when I was 23 fresh out of college I was in personal training and I was in Greenwich, Connecticut, a very high end, very wealthy town. And the main trainer there was getting paid $275 an hour. And this is close to 10 years ago. So $275 an hour for a trainer back

then was a lot, a lot of money. And I said, what the heck are you doing? And she said, well, I hired this business coach. And then I took this speaker school. And in this speaker school, she had started to explain how she started to learn not only how to get paid to speak but how to get engagements all around the world like she was getting paid to go outside of the U.S. to go speak wow and so I said maybe I should take this speaker school and then when you're fresh out of college anything over a thousand bucks you're kind of like oh you know this is a big investment and so a couple years later i was like you know what i want to give this a shot and i took that speaker school and i it's funny because walking in here i got asked about toast

masters like what do you think about toast masters and i have nothing against toast masters i i did it when i was younger and then when i took a speaker school from someone who made a living speaking i saw a whole different lens of where you could go and because i saw a guy i mean my mentor had a $3 million contract with Reeboks. Wow. And he was filming content with them. And then he said something that they wanted him to take back. And he said, I'm not taking back my word. I meant what I said. And he dropped the $3 million contract. And that's how good he was. He knew that he had a message to spread. And he knew he wasn't going to let anyone else affect the message and the impact that he wanted to spread and so i saw a guy who had spoke around the world

for 40 years like you name it australia brazil and this guy had been everywhere and so i was like this is probably the most valuable thing i've ever invested in in my life if if i apply what was taught on a consistent basis if i don't is going to be like every other workshop every other conference, every other seminar where it goes in through one ear and then it goes out through the other. So I said, I said, what can I do? I'm 25 years old. Nobody's going to hire me right now. I just embarrassed myself for three days in this speaker school. Like if, if you've ever been through a speaker training and you can relate, you get up there, you get feedback in front of everybody. Your mind is going a million miles per second thinking about what to say,

how to say it what other people are thinking and it's it's very embarrassing and then you you think you're a good speaker going in and then going out you're like holy crap I have so much to work on so I was like how can I start working on this stuff and so at the time I was too embarrassed to post on my personal page so I created a bucket list page called warm heart life and I said I am going to make four posts a week and I want them to be mostly videos. And because they were mostly videos, I was able to get a lot of practice speaking. And then that led to mentoring high school and college students. And then that led to having a conference. And then that led to eventually having a speaker school where I collaborated with a guy who guest spoke at my

first conference and now over three years later we just finished our 20th one teaching together in Miami Florida congratulations thank you and we were lucky enough to have you there and it's just very inspiring I told everyone last night I said teaching these speaker schools has given me a sense of gratitude and fulfillment that I don't think would have ever been possible in life unless i did these and and to see people grow to see people form this sense of community and to see people get around other like-minded people it's very very inspiring and i'm very grateful to have met you through this process as well god same i really feel blessed and honored because the only reason why i took that speaking engagement was to see if i could do it because

i'm terrified like carl was saying last night 80 percent or more of people individuals are terrified of public speaking or it's the number one fear is public speaking most people would rather die than speak in front of people insane so i said yeah which is like it's terrifying and for me i want to push myself every year to do something that scares the shit out of me and so but I wouldn't have delivered my speech the same if I didn't go by the formula that you taught me I mean you taught me how to bring comedy into it you taught me how to bring emotion into it because we all have stories but you have to do it in a way that's relatable to the crowd and so I continue to learn through your speaker schools I continue to learn from our experience with

one-on-one and it's brought me so much value even for podcasting, even for, um, speaking on videos. I was never comfortable with that. So there's so many instances where this has helped me grow as an individual and as an entrepreneur. Um, so whatever you're doing is so valuable. And I think if anyone listening here is in the speaking world or wants to become a speaker, you really, um, there's very few people that I've met that actually have provided me as much value as, as this man here and his partner, Carl Michelle. So, um, yeah, it's, you know, we all do it. And I think that's one thing that you really die, you know,

when you drive home, it's like, it's not just if you want to speak on stage cause we're on a zoom call with clients. We are in front of audiences and stages all the time. So yeah, yeah, what you guys bring is just, yeah. And I think, well, thank you for that. And I wrote this poem once my, my mentor, he used to challenge me to write poetry. He always challenged me to write, but as I got a couple of books out, he started teaching me poetry. And he said, one of the coolest things about poetry is the greatest poets. They write words that last forever and so I wrote a lot of bad poems but the one poem that I think will stick with me the rest

of my life is it's very short it's called becoming great and it's I thought I was good until I saw great it was then when I understood what achieving my dreams would take and what that is about is you could think you're really good at something for example speaking I get so many people who say hey I'm a great speaker. I'm really good at speaking. How do I get paid? And Steve Martin said he had a comedian that was on the rise come up to him one time and said, hey, Steve, what do I got to do to get an agent? And Steve's thinking, why is this guy asking me, what do I got to do to get an agent? Why isn't he asking me, what do I got to do to get better? Wow. And that's the thing. Most people aren't focused on getting better. And when I saw greatness, I saw how much better I can

get and a lot of people are content with where they're at because they're not seeing the greats like when I see you I automatically want to elevate my style my image my look my presence why because you are the greatest in the world at image consulting and it inspires me and there's and there's probably someone who you're thinking right now that you're thinking they're the greatest in the world and I'm like okay that's incredible the person who I think is the greatest is trying to get greater and so when you get around people whether it's a podcast studio like this when you get in this atmosphere all of a sudden you feel like you are welcomed you feel like you are taken care of I've done a lot of podcasts and you don't feel this way when you

walk in here and so one thing that i wish more people understood is the potential that they could have with their health wealth and relationships if they got around plus ones like people over complicate math so much one plus one equals two one minus one equals zero one plus one plus one equals three one minus one minus one equals minus one if we can continue to get around people who add value to our lives, we will have better health. We will have better wealth. We will have better relationships. Think about this. You go out to dinner with someone and they're complaining about their boss. How annoying is that versus the person you go out to dinner with and they're talking about a collaboration that they want to have with you?

Hey, you know, I'm looking to open this thing in Austin. I think you'd be a great fit. how much more fun are those conversations so much more fun than than with the with the health it's like okay you go out the night before and you know you had a little bit of fun are you going to be the person who looks over at your friend and say hey let's go for a walk today let's film content today or are you going to be the person that's like you're on vacation why don't you just chill out and do nothing we went out last night and it's just like which one is going to be better for your health. And it's the same thing with business. It's like, I don't want to go out to dinner with someone who's just complaining about how much money they don't have. I want to go out

to dinner with someone who's talking about how they want to have a plane and what they're doing to be able to get that plane. So in general, I just think when you get around plus ones, your life is better and it will continue to get better. And that I have one goal the rest of my life. And that's to grow together with like-minded people. And what happens is a lot of people talk about cutting people out of their life. I don't cut people out of my life. I try and get around more plus ones and a minus one can't handle the positivity. And so what happens is the minus ones, they just start to trickle away because you get around so many plus ones, those minus ones, they can't handle it. And some of them, they start chasing and they start coming towards you

and you welcome them but some of them they just can't handle it and you don't even have to cut them out of your life all all i think you need to do is continue to get around the plus ones yeah i had a buddy this was the first conference i had this was a buddy from elementary school we used to do these one mile runs in in elementary school they would time you it was part of the fitness assessment or whatever and so i'm a competitive guy so i would always try and run pretty fast one time my my buddy who was very athletic he was always he was always better at talking to the girls he was always better at baseball basketball bowling you name it but at running I had a little bit of an edge on him so I'm running I'm running I'm running and he grabs

onto my my shirt and he tries to pull me back and I I went like this with my hand I said get off of me and this is like little Brandon this is like fourth grade Brandon and and I just start sprinting ahead of him and I and I beat him at that race that day I totally forgot about this moment at my first conference he told me about how that pushed him to become a better athlete that pushed him to become a better man that pushed him to become a better barber which is what he does now and I just I had the total chills because little Brandon knew that if he wanted others to grow with him he was going to have to run he wasn't going to have to walk and wait for others he was going to have to run and others would follow and that was one of the most full circle

stories I've ever heard in my life and I still get the chills just talking about that right now thinking about that but I really believe in that concept and when I get around you I feel that way so I'm really grateful to be on this podcast today and to be able to have this conversation with you thank you for sharing that story that's really it's very insightful and I've never heard that one before so yeah i i 100 agree with everything that you've said today and i do love that you bring up your mentor a lot because i want everyone to kind of listen to you all know what i do you all know that i'm passionate about elevating your style is elevating your life you know that image is currency and if you don't well you heard it again image is currency and your mentor really

drove in the fact that you need to show up in a certain way and especially for people that want to get on stage can you please share with us today like some of the points that you drive home to your audience and things that you learn from your mentor yeah when I took the the speaker school from from him his name's Thomas Plummer I was surprised that a lot of what he was talking about had nothing to do with putting together a speech or what you were saying a good part of it was but he was talking a lot about how you walk into a room not not just the way you dress but just the way you walk in general he was talking about how you hold yourself at dinner and it was it was really interesting because I had kind of learned a little bit of this stuff in college because I

went to school to be a golf pro so you learn this stuff a little bit but it amazed me when he started talking about colors and I was like what and and he started talking about how he doesn't like when people wear uh white black or gray on stage and I'm thinking that's every shirt that I have and he started talking about how like when you go darker on the bottom brighter on the top it makes your face pop and I was just like interesting and then I would I would see that I would see someone wearing like red pants and then a black shirt and then you're looking at their pants the entire time and so I was not an expert at this at all but that started to open my eyes to kind of try and figure out like hey what colors work better on me what colors don't I had no idea

there was professionals out there like you that actually do this and I think that's why I've always been so aligned with you is because my mentor planted that seed and I would always look for different things so I would look for speakers who had similar skin tone as me and I would see what they were wearing that I thought looked good and what I thought didn't and then I started noticing like purple and red were better colors on me than gray and and black as far as on the top and so then he started talking about how when you're on camera or when you're on stage trying to eliminate stripes or patterns because it could be distracting to the eyes and then I would see speakers get up on stage with polka dot shirts and and my eyes would be like you know going

everywhere and then I would see striped shirts on camera and you would see the little like lines that are wavy line things and so I started to pick up on a lot of these things because he planted the seed and then to hear the stuff that I've learned from you just hearing you talk about how you look at color it's been fascinating and so I shared this story with you but but I had an ex-girlfriend of mine that I am still friends with and we were out to dinner like six of us and she said she said this a little while back she said Brandon there's something different about you but she's like I don't want it to like sound uh flirty or anything but there's there's something I've noticed about you that has been different and I haven't been able to figure it out and at that dinner she

figured it out because I had posted a testimonial about you and what you do and she said Brandon you have been wearing different colors and I feel like that has allowed me to look at you in a totally different way and I don't know why like she it was just like she's just like I don't know why but when I saw that you had been talking to an image consultant getting advice from her she's like that was it and I and I was wearing a greenish color that day and she's like and this is a perfect example like this color is so much better on you than what you used to wear it's a good compliment yeah so I got a kick out of that so especially as an ex to know like like there's something that you look better when we were together or something that's like okay

yeah that's the top of it so that was that came out of nowhere and i wasn't expecting that but that's awesome yeah see color does it's so important because each color sends a message and it's so powerful it happens in seconds it's the first thing that we notice and um you do like you either wear color to make you feel a certain way but you don't realize that you're influencing your audience, whoever sees you. So yeah, that's really cool. Um, I can see green greens, multiple greens being a good color for you. Um, what would you say to, to the audience here? People that maybe are interested in, you touched on it just for a minute. Um, a lot of people come to me just because I'm starting to speak like, how do I get paid? How do I get paid?

And I know this is probably something, like you said, you get asked all the time. What are your, let's see top couple recommendations that you would you would say to them well it kind of depends on what someone's situation is but if we're just talking about in general how do you get paid your best chance is to go to your warmest lead okay so when I wanted my first speaking engagement I didn't have any social proof or any of me speaking anything of me speaking and so I went to a former mentor of mine at college and I asked him if I could speak in front of 50 people or more because that was my goal back then. And he really believed in what I did while I was at school because I had started my own fitness program at school and he believed in me. And so not only did

I get to speak to the students down at my former university, but I gave a keynote to Honor Society induction ceremony later that night. I spoke to the SGA on leadership and I got to do a hands-on and a classroom session for the talk that I wanted to give. So my best advice is to go to your warmest lead. If you want any chance of getting paid, that's how you start. The second thing I would tell you is to understand that the more you can produce with your business, the more attractable of a speaker that you will be so if you're not producing with your business do not expect to get paid point point simple that's how it works now are there some exceptions absolutely but when you grow a business it is an inspiring thing and your goal as a speaker

is to be an inspiring figure both outside of the stage and on the stage so if if you're not doing that, it's going to be hard to be able to get speaking engagements. Now, with that said, the quickest way to get paid is through actually hosting an event with your business. So for example, you could have a $25 event. You could have a $25 event and you could get eight people and you could have it at your house and all of a sudden you get 200 bucks for getting eight people at your house and what do you maybe you buy 20 worth of snacks or you tell other people to bring a dish and then all of a sudden you're getting 200 bucks and you're probably in the beginning phases of your speaking so you're probably only going to want to talk for 15 minutes

and so now you get 200 bucks for 15 minutes but most people don't think like that they're like oh I got to rent out the venue. I got to do this. I got to do that. And it's just like now they're going to lose money. But it's like you can get paid right away by hosting an event that doesn't cost you a lot of money. And quite frankly, it doesn't cost you a lot of time. Yeah. So my buddy Rob collaborated with this company Hammer and Nails. It was a hundred dollar event and it was limited to six people wow and the reason it was limited to six people was because hammer and nails is a grooming service so we were getting a treatment we had no idea what we were getting we walk into this place and he goes surprise you guys are all getting a pedicure so

I get my first pedicure which by the way I will definitely plan on getting another one it was phenomenal and we're sitting there we're chilling out we're relaxing and I'm I'm a very on-the-go person so anytime I get to do self-care stuff I'm just like I feel like it's almost better than sleeping you know so I'm just sitting there and and Rob gave a 30 minute-ish speech on self-care so he collaborated with a venue he sold a hundred dollar ticket for the event and he didn't have to get that many people there. And of course, many of us posted about that event. Nice. So I think people overcomplicate events. But my second piece of advice is to have an event. If you have a business, people need something to look forward to. And events are great ways to do that. So

then my third point would be to actually go to events. When you can go to events and attend events, you're able to see other speakers who are getting paid. And then you're able to take notes on what they're saying. Maybe you're even able to talk to them at the cocktail hour after to see what certifications they have, to see what it took to get them on that stage. And that gives you the feedback that I feel like you need. I meet so many speakers who say they want to get paid to speak and they don't attend events. I have no sympathy for those people. I'm like, good luck getting paid if you're not going to go to events and see what other paid speakers are doing to be able to get on those stages. So my first speaking engagement that I felt like I made it, I had went

to Orlando, Florida, and I lived in North Carolina and Greenwich, Connecticut. I went to Orlando, Florida for eight years in a row to attend this event. On the ninth year, I got to speak on that stage. Wow. And what was crazy was not speaking on that stage. What was crazy is that a month prior to that, I had got voted top 50 in America as a golf fitness trainer, which was what I did in my previous career. So all of a sudden, because I would go to stages like that, eventually, not only did I get to speak on that but I was recognized as top 50 in America at what I did and I was the youngest person on that list because I thought like Steve Martin what do I got to do to get better too many people want the end results but too many people are not thinking about the

most important thing which is what do I got to do to get better and if you can do that you're eventually going to get paid yeah wow such great great advice so many good gems i really appreciate you coming on the show today and not only sharing what you've learned but you know things that you continue you continue to do for you know your students if you will your um mentees so i really appreciate that um thank you so much for being here yeah and thank you it's very refreshing to see people taking podcasts seriously like you do this layout here is incredible and it represents your brand very nicely and i have so much respect for all the little details that you put into everything you do from your podcast to your consulting to your speaking and

I can't wait to see where you go from here. Thank you. I really appreciate that. So, perfect.