Speaker Focus Anthony Bennett

Anthony Bennett is an inspirational speaker who talks on his near-death experience and how through a positive mindset and saying yes to opportunities you can achieve anything if you put your mind to it.

I was first introduced to Anthony Bennett back in 2019, and can honestly say he is an absolute gentleman and always a real pleasure to work with. He had very kindly taken the time to answer some of our questions for our Speaker Focus series.

Hello Sir and thanks for taking the time to chat to us. Firstly congratulations on getting over 850 google reviews average 5 stars. Incredible. Considering your biggest fear was speaker do you still pinch yourself this is something you do?

Thank you! It really is the strangest thing. Growing up I never really thought I was smart, or good at anything, I was more of a creative and loved my imagination. I would sometimes fast forward time in my head to picture myself as an adult and what I would see myself doing for a career. Always imagined being a camera man/or editor or something media related, in a behind the scenes kind of role. If you would have told younger me that future adult me would be standing on stages around the world giving hope and inspiration to people, I really don’t think I would have believed the answer to be true.

Do you still get nervous going on stage?

When I first started speaking, nearly 20 years ago now, I would get nervous 3 weeks before an event. Sweaty palms, sinking feeling, thinking of all that could go wrong. The more I spoke at events, the more that ‘butterfly feeling’ would come, nearer to the time of the event. Then it got to just as the host was announcing me to the stage. But I don’t really think of it as being nervous anymore. I now experience it as ‘my turbo is kicking in’ to give me all the adrenaline and energy I need to do a brilliant job on the stage. So now, I look forward to the feeling and enjoy having that feeling present.

For those who don’t know your story, you were admitted to Great Ormond Street Hospital after falling ill on a school trip and had to learn to walk, talk and breath again on your own after contracting 3 viruses at the same time and having been given just 10% chance of survival and needing to be brought back to life 12 times. How did you manage to maintain a positive outlook in such difficult circumstances?

It sounds a bit crazy saying this out loud but it was the little voices in my head that got me through it haha. I didn’t ever think I was going to die in hospital and a big shout out to the staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital for guiding this way of thinking. It was a positive, uplifting environment throughout my time there. I was more mesmerised by the fact I couldn’t do anything anymore. Couldn’t raise my arm, couldn’t speak due to a breathing tube (tracky) sticking out of my throat. Couldn’t breathe without machines doing up to 90% of my breathing for me. I couldn’t sit up without toppling over.  I saw my time in hospital as a game of how do I get better? One day nurse told me that by sitting on my bedside chair, even though it would hurt me, would be strengthening my back as my muscles would be twitching and contracting, strengthening and helping me to keep balance. That explanation stuck with me, so when I was asked by the physio team to sit up for 5 mins, I would. Push for 6-7 minutes because it would bring me ‘one step closer’.  I started to see improvement in myself, taking my first step, then 5 the next day, then a lap of the ward the next week. I got addicted to progress and pushing a little bit more, getting better over time and that mentality has stuck with me all these years.

You then partnered with Whitbread to help raise millions of pounds for Great Ormond Street, touring the country to see people raising money. Was there any wacky fundraising things you saw people do?

Now that was an amazing chapter. I was asked by GOSH Charity if I wanted to help them to try and win a charity partnership worth £7.5m with a company named Whitbread (I thought they were a bakery at first!). I said yes and a team from GOSH and myself went to Whitbread’s head office to do the pitch…and the partnership was won! I was then asked by two directors at Whitbread, Simon Ewins and John Forrest, If I would like to join Whitbread and help them raise this money for GOSH Charity. I said yes to the opportunity and with this, got to travel the UK and help orchestrate National Charity Weeks, and fun (and sometimes really wacky) charity events throughout the year. I think a couple of the most wackiest was one of our biggest charity pusher’s, Nick Smethurst, had a pint glass full of maggots and put a huge mouthful of them in his mouth for 10 (slooow) seconds! Another was our Big GOSH Spell-out campaign, where teams around the UK would use there bodies to spell the word ‘GOSH’, needless to say we had some very creative entries!

One of the feedback we get from events is just how lovely you are and the time you take to talk to everyone. How important is that for a speaker to be “more than just a speaker” and take time to know people?

Very. I’m always listening to feedback I receive and what people say about other speakers they’ve met too. It all helps with speaker development. A trick is to put yourself in the shoes of various people that put on an event. Event organiser – what does their day look like and what thoughts could they have? Will the caterers show up, will the speaker show up? It’s quite a stressful role. How can I help extinguish the fires? I can message the night before to say I’m looking forward to the event, or show up a hour earlier than arranged to either get on with emails in the corner, or offer an extra pair of hands to help with setting up. The AV team – Introduce myself super early, do a mic check, send my slides in advance and bring them on the day on usb stick, and bring my own laptop, speaker system, clicker as backup so all bases are covered and reduces any AV hiccups. Audience – get to know who the audience are, what they do within the organisation, listen to feedback after the talk, find out what parts of the talk is most talked about, what parts needed more clarification and make changes to my presentation so it reaches a wider audience even if it means removing certain jokes or things I say that people may take the wrong way. The aim is to have a sense of inspiration within the entire room, not singling anyone out. Lastly, politely refusing any special service including queue jumping at lunch time because you are ‘the keynote speaker’. That alone, could make people think negative things about you and then the ripple effect of this is your inspirational/motivational words won’t stick as strong as they could when you are on or off the stage. Staying grounded, not letting the Speaker Ego take over, being appreciative for every opportunity, creating time and space to listen to others and naturally, over the years you will encounter the power of word of mouth recommendations.

Do you have a favourite event you spoke at?

Yes indeed! I once was in a low place mentally and decided to dig myself out of it by challenging myself to contact 100 people a day to get back into speaking and after three weeks of doing this, I received an email saying”Hi Anthony, thank you for your email, we’ve been on your website and love your story, would you like to speak at our conference? We will fly you here and back home, give you a hotel room and feed you. Would you like to join us?” Fly me out?? Who are they? I contacted so many people I had forgotten who they were. I searched the conference name, ‘Happiness and it’s Causes’ and it was Australia! The other side of the world to me. Not only that, but it was my biggest audience of 1500 people! (see clip below of the aforementioned event in Australia)

And along the same lines, is who is your favourite speaker?

Eric Thomas, an American Motivational Speaker was the first speaker I had heard that made me feel the power of motivation with one of his talks named ‘How bad do you want it’ In short he spoke about a man who wanted to be successful so asked a guru. The guru told him to meet him at the beach at 4am. On arrival he asked the man to walk out into the sea and kept saying further, go further. When the water was up to his neck, the guru dunked him under and held him for a brief moment. The man struggled and fought and then jumped up with a big gasp of air. The guru then said, when you want something as bad as you want to breathe, then you will be successful. This story told in Eric’s powerful voice, with his energy, really connected and stuck with me. My other favourite is a good friend of mine called Caspar Berry. He is a poker champion with an incredible brain and a Motivational Speaker with an incredible way of sharing stories. He introduced me to memorizing and using a high number of powerpoint slides to keep engagement. I currently use 108 within a 45min talk and it works well with keeping engagement, keeping a good pace and learning to say exactly what you need to say in a short amount of time, eliminating waffle.

And lastly, I know you are a massive fan of Eminen – in your opinion what it the definitive Eminen Album?

This is the hardest question you’ve asked today. Marshall Mathers LP because it was such a powerful entry into the mainstream, shaking the whole industry up. The Eminem show because the artist development was visible and nearly every song was a banger. Kamikaze because it came out of nowhere and dropped without any publicity and his lyrical capability was evidently present. Overall I would say my favourite is The Death of Slim Shady, as it is written as a movie, where it makes sense if you listen to each song, in order. He also brought back the old Slim Shady voice and had a quite comedic battle with the two sides of his personality. What a lovely question to end on!

More details on Anthony can be found on his own website or on his webpage on our site and below is a clip of him speaking at the event in Australia.