TAKE THE TUBE
Equally important, Vaden’s work led to a
connection with NSA member Eric Chester,
CSP, CPAE, who spoke at a national event
for Southwestern. “Eric was the person
who said, ‘Rory, you have a story to tell.
You don’t have to wait till you’re 50, you
can start now, and I’ll mentor you if you
promise to take my advice,’” he says. “And
then he added, ‘What I want you to do is
go speak 1,000 times, and then come back
and we’ll talk again.’”
With that lofty mark in mind, Vaden
joined several Toastmasters clubs, and
started cold-calling high schools, churches,
Lions Clubs, Rotary Clubs, and cham-
bers of commerce with an offer to speak
for free. Then he set his sights on the
World Championship of Public Speaking.
“I thought maybe if I won that, it would
give me the credibility to do this,” Vaden
says. He notched a top 10 showing his first
year, and came in a somewhat agonizing
second place the second year.
In the process, Vaden’s success germinated a conversation among a group
of several top producers within his
Southwestern network to create a professional sales and speaking company. The
foursome, including two of his business
partners and his later-to-become wife,
Amanda, tore up a San Jose phonebook
and started cold-calling for free one-hour
sales workshops, which culminated in a
high-dollar conference at the end of three
months. Repeating the same formula in
different cities over the past five years, the
Southwestern Consulting company has
grown to 45 employees and five divisions,
including London and Germany.
relentlessly contacting agents and endlessly revising proposals, he secured a
publisher in early 2011.
The theme of the book, which hit
the market in February, revolves around
the seven most common misconceptions
people have about self-discipline. “Take
the Stairs really comes down to this fact:
What’s most painful in the short term
pays off exponentially in the long run,” he
says. “It’s not just a brand, speech or book
title, it’s really my philosophy. It’s about
understanding the way your mind works,
and how the most successful people in the
world make decisions based on a different
set of criteria from everyone else.”
To illustrate what he calls the Paradox
Principle of Sacrifice in the book, Vaden
cites the example of a destitute person
who might borrow or steal money to
buy a cup of coffee, while a middle-class
person might only buy it if he thinks he
has the money. Meanwhile, a wealthy
person will consider how the $5 might be
better used, whether invested in his busi-
ness or in a stock investment—for a much
larger payoff over the long haul.
In a social media-saturated
world, Vaden believes one
tool is essential for speak-
ers: You Tube. “It gives
people a chance to see our craft,” he
says. “If I’m on the phone with someone,
I can just direct them to RoryOn You Tube.
com. It’s not just me telling you what
I do, I’m showing what I do. It’s a lot
better than the old days, when you’d
have to create a VHS tape and send it by
carrier pigeon across the country.”
A SPEAKER’S EYE VIEW
The inherent application of Take the
Stairs for professional speakers is clear.
“It’s easy to see the glamour and glitz of
onstage performing, and to ignore the
extraordinary self discipline it takes offstage,” Vaden says.
At the same time, Vaden is quick to
point out that his message isn’t about
making life as hard as possible. “I don’t
see anything wrong with life’s little con-
veniences,” he says. “The problem with
convenience is, if you’re not careful,
it quickly becomes an entitlement that
things shouldn’t have to be so hard—
and entitlement is a disease that destroys
our ability to reach our dreams.”
As a speaker, Vaden believes that
people inherently know what they
should be doing. “I don’t think it’s my
NEXT STEPS
Established as a speaker, and well past
his original goal of 1,000 presentations,
Vaden took his usual course of action—
taking the most impossible goal he could
think of, and running at it at full speed.
This time, the goal was to write a New
York Times best-seller. After two years of
THE ANATOMY OF A BOOK TOUR
When Vaden’s team at Southwestern
Consulting launched the Take the Stairs
theme, they brainstormed a world tour
in which they’d climb the stairs of the
10 tallest buildings in the world to
raise money for youth character education programs. After receiving a book
advance for Take the Stairs from Penguin
in January 2011, it was time for Vaden
and his team to strategize making it a
New York Times best-seller.
“You hear all sorts of advice that book
tours are dead,” Vaden says, “But for me,
the best way to sell books is when people
see me speak live and they run to the back
of the room.” On February 20, 2012, he
launched a 20-day tour covering 20 dif-
ferent states to deliver his message. The
presentations are free, in order to encour-
age parents to bring their children, with a
suggested $10 dollar donation that’s con-
tributed 100% back to a local school.
“Once again, it fits the theme that we’re
doing something that no one else wants
to do,” Vaden says. “Our team spent six
months planning it, and now we’re hitting
the road, promoting the free events and
raising money for schools.”
