699. From Green Sneakers and Green Dress Pants to Professional Speaker

Corey Poirier

“I went in for the first interview wearing a makeshift suit that I bought at Value Village. It was horrible. I had green sneakers that I tried to pass off as dress shoes because I could only find green dress pants. I came back for the second interview and I wore purple dress shoes and purple slacks. They still hired me.”

Corey Poirier is a multiple-time TEDx, MoMondays and PMx, speaker. He is also the host of the top-rated “Conversations with PASSION” Radio Show and founder of The Speaking Program. A columnist with Entrepreneur and Forbes magazine, he has also been featured in/on CBS, CTV, NBC, ABC, and is a Forbes Coaches Council member. He has also interviewed over 4,000 of the world’s top leaders. One of his most recent talks took him to New York City where he spoke to at-risk youth at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Boys & Girls Club.

How Did You Start Using Your Talents?

“My early career vision was unique for my background. The combined vision with several friends was that we were going to work on the oil rigs and make enough money in eight months to never have to work again in our lives. That’s what we thought at age 19 and 20. We were going to move back home and retire as millionaires.”

The Most Impactful Turning Point?

Corey spent about 10 years working his way up in management and marketing at Konica Minolta. “Ten years in that business is like a full career in any other business! I joke, that is when I finally retired, at 30 years old. For about four of those years, I had been speaking on the side, using vacation days, days off, evenings, weekends doing after-dinner talks. That became my first real entrepreneurial journey, launching a training and speaking business. And I still do that today.”

The Most Powerful Lessons Learned?

“We’re taught skills that would help you become a good teacher or if you go into a trade related to those skills, but we’re not taught life skills that would get you started realizing and finding your calling and realizing your potential earlier. We have to find it by happy accident. How great would it be if every school taught you how to find your purpose and passion? I would invest as a sponsor of a school to teach people about finding your calling.”

Steps to Success from Corey Poirier

1. Pay attention to the things that interested you as a child, and connect the dots between then and now, as Steve Jobs has described.

2. Start following your interests by doing a side hustle. Use your evenings, weekends and vacations to explore and test them out.

On His Bookshelf

The Book of WHY (and HOW), by Corey Poirier

The Book of Public Speaking: Learning to Speak for Purpose, Impact and Profit, by Corey Poirier

Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill

How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age, by Dale Carnegie

Success for Teens Book & Audio CD: Real Teens Talk About Using the Slight Edge®, by the Slight Edge Team and Success Books