Speaking For Success
"The ability to capitalize on life's misfortunes in the interests of helping others could be a new job opportunity for young black men and women."
Sun Sentinel - Pembroke Pines Community News
( www.sun-sentinel.com )
Pembroke Pines man speaks out to black youth
By Frank Fiske - Community News Senior Writer
When Pembroke Pines motivational speaker James Amps III was an 18-year -old seaman in the U.s. Navy, he found out that a friend of his in the service had stolen $300,000 from the military.
Not only did he know about the theft but the military's Naval Investigative Service and the FBI, which was investigating the crime, knew he knew. They questioned him about it but Amps refused to "rat" on a fellow seaman, he recalled.
He was booted out of the Navy for withholding information and as he recalled, learned a valuable lesson about misplaced loyalty, personal accountability and the negative and positive choices everybody faces in life. Flunking out of the Navy cost him dearly in the job market, shoving him into odd jobs such as selling cemetery plots to insurance, whatever he could find.
Then he met motivational speaking gurus Willie Jolley and Les Brown who took him aside and showed him how he could make some real money and importantly, help other African-Americans earn some, too.
"Speaking is a 10 billion dollar industry, so if you can speak well, the money is there, Brown commented. "They also told me how I could put my life's experiences, such as the negative one I had in the Navy, into a worthwhile lesson for others faced with similar choices," he explained.
"And, this could help the speaker set some lives straight and earn a comfortable living on the lecture circuit, as well." "The ability to capitalize on life's misfortunes in the interests of helping others could be a new job opportunity for young black men and women," Amps commented.
To help explain public speaking and the importance of communication to today's young people, he schedules visits to at least one minority school every time he has a paid engagement for a major corporation, he said.
Most recently, he delivered the keynote address to the NACP - Afro-Academic, cultural, Technological & Scientific Olympics in New York.
He talked to the young people in the audience about how to overcome the fear of speaking; how to tell stories to connect with an audience, plus interaction including how to shake hands properly with eye-to-eye contact.
His topic was "Speaking to Excel," and was added to the section of the conference because "we believe that your youth have to be prepared to communicate effectively in the 21st century if they are to compete at any level of society and excel," commented Rhonda Wilson Suttle, the conference's national director.
In 1995, Amps formed his own company in Washington DC called Amps Communicators, and three years later was named the 1998 Outstanding Young Man of American and the Celebrity Enterprise Speaker of the Year. He is considered one of the top motivational speakers in the country and has attracted AutoNation as a major corporate sponsor of his talks before groups, particularly of black students. Additionally, he is co-founder and former national chairman of the Young Speakers Association, and co-founder and former executive vice president of the National African American Speakers Association. Amps has written a book titled Speaking To Excel.