Last Updated on 2 years by Greg Noland
What do you listen to when you are in the gym? Adele? Manic Street Preachers? Whatever takes your biscuit I suppose. But I use my time in the gym to plough through marketing and business books. But also, especially on leg day (you need any help you can get with heavy squats), I listen to motivational speakers, and there is no one better than Leslie Calvin Brown.
I am so glad I found Les Brown. In my opinion Les is one of the best motivational speakers around. Furthermore, Les is probably one of the most respected speakers in his field with a genuine power for stimulating human potential.
I have decided to use some quotes from Les and also his Ten Rules for Success to help motivate you to supreme greatness over the next ten days.
I know his teachings will inspire YOU to much higher levels of personal achievement.
But first, let me give you some background into who Les Brown is.
Who is Leslie Calvin Brown?
Les Brown is a man who has defied all odds. His story is a true tale of a man who refused to be beaten down. Les and his twin brother Wesley were born in an abandoned building in Miami. Their birth mother, married at the time to a soldier stationed overseas, had become pregnant by another man and went to Miami secretly to give birth to her sons. Three weeks later, she gave them up for adoption. The twins were thankfully adopted when they were six weeks old by Mrs. Mamie Brown, a single school cafeteria worker.
Les Brown School Days
In school, he was once told he was “mentally retarded”. And later he told his speech and drama instructor, LeRoy Washington at Booker T. Washington High School in Miami, that he couldn’t perform a task because he was mentally retarded.
To which his teacher responded, “Do Not Ever Say That Again! Some-one’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality.” Those words liberated the young Brown from his debilitating label.
“The limitations you have, and the negative things that you internalize are given to you by the world,” he wrote later of his realization.
“The things that empower you-the possibilities-come from within.” Therefore Les attributes his success in school to his mother and LeRoy Washington who both helped him to realize his full potential.
Les is a mighty determined character who used the help of a few people who believed in him to rocket himself to the very top of his game.
Award Winning Speaker
In 1989, Les received the National Speakers Association’s highest honour, The Council of Peers Award of Excellence. He was also chosen as one of America’s Top Five Speakers for 1992 by Toastmasters international.
In 1990, Les recorded his first in a series of speech presentations entitled “You Deserve”.
I would say Les Brown is first and foremost an exceptional motivation speaker and he’s been on the circuit since 1993. But he’s also been a politician, businessman and a radio talk show host.
He was married to Gladys Knight, from Gladys Knight and the Pips for a short period.
I’m pretty sure after just listening to one of his speeches you will be gripped by his passion for helping people. He is amazingly passionate, engaging, and at times very funny.
Les Brown Catchphrases
“It’s possible” is probably one of his best known catchphrases which has been the foundation for all his motivation seminars. But he has so many fantastic phrases which have inspired countless people over the last three decades. Check out some of them HERE.
The Les Brown life story is not really a ‘rags to riches’ story in my opinion but more of a story of harnessing the power within that anyone can harness greatness if they decide they want to.
Fortune 500 Companies Love Les Brown
Les Brown is a keynote speaker at many fortune 500 companies who need their employees to be inspired to greatness which I am sure he is well paid for. Les helps their employees to find their hidden potential and to tap into it. For three decades he has not only studied the science of achievement, he’s mastered it by interviewing hundreds of successful business leaders and collaborating with them in the boardroom translating theory into bottom-line results.
-Life has no limitations, except the ones you make. – Les Brown
Change Your Life NOW!!! Are you ready to do it…or are you just thinking about it? What’s holding you back? Join me over the next 10 days to explore the Les Brown Ten Rules for Success and make massive progress in your life and business.
