By R.V. Baugus
Dr. Jerry Teplitz, JD, PhD, CSP, president/CEO of Jerry Teplitz Enterprises, Inc. in Virginia Beach, VA, and a familiar name to those who attended VenueConnect in Toronto in 2018, brings his dynamic “Managing the Stress of Change” session to ENCORE, IAVM’s new virtual conference and trade show, on Tuesday, October 5 from 44:50 (ET).
For someone who early in his career pushed back against practices designed to combat stress (and before stress was even widely known or considered with the implications it carries today), the light came on and the career change was set in motion from practicing law to the world of speaking (more than 1,800 presentations to more than 1 million people) and authoring books (nine) that have led to Dr. Teplitz earning a wealth of accolades.Those include the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association. The Canadian Society of Association Executives has designated him an Association Excellence Speaker, and the Professional Convention Management Association has designated him a “Best-in-Class” Speaker. He presents and consults on Management and Leadership Training, Sales Development, Brain Integration and Stress Management.
We wanted to find out more about his work and what attendees can expect to learn at the presentation that is guaranteed to change your life, or your money back (well, see how this actually once happened)!
BEFORE WE GET MORE INTO YOUR PRESENTATION, YOU HAVE TO SHARE SOME BACKGROUND HOW YOU CAME TO ENTER THE WORLD OF BRAIN PERFORMANCE, NEUROPLASTICITY, AND STRESS MANAGEMENT.
I was very active in student government and elected student body president my senior year at Hunter College. I went on to law school at Northwestern, decided to become a licensed attorney and passed the bar the first time. Our professors were actually upset because they don’t like it when you have like 100 percent passing the bar the first time because they’re not teaching! I became an attorney for the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency in the very early EPA days.
While all that was happening I started getting into what was considered weird stuff back then with friends getting into yoga, meditation, and nutrition, when it was totally off the wall. I was actually scared of it and not interested but I kept getting around my friends and had peer pressure. One of the first things I tried was yoga and with a negative attitude. I was going to prove to them it didn’t work so they would leave me alone.
The problem is it actually worked. The lower back pain problems I had for most of my life were gone. I got so excited I became a master teacher in yoga. This was in 1974 and I decided to study some other things including a Japanese pressure technique called Shiatsu that is like acupuncture except you use your fingers.
I in effect put together treatments for headaches and later discovered I could cure a hangover in ninety seconds and migraines in five minutes. I decided to start teaching and found out there was an organization called the National Association for Campus Activities with programming boards, activity boards, to see what was available in terms of entertainment like bands and comedians and a lecture board and so that’s where I fit in. I started speaking to colleges and created a program for passing your exams. I didn’t use the word stress because stress was not in the vernacular when I started speaking in 1974.
My first book came out in 1976 called How to Relax and Enjoy. I have spoken at over 400 colleges and universities around the country. In 1980 I decided to switch over to the business arena and the convention industry and associations. By the way, when I speak at colleges I actually created a relaxation guarantee because even though my program is free to the students my fee is paid for by the activities board. I made a guarantee that if you came to this program and were not more relaxed when you left I would pay you $4 for having come to this program. In total, I have spoken to 120,000 people only four have gotten money back.
A director of student activities once came up to me and said I have a problem. I asked what the problem was, and he said the whole left side of the audience is here for the money. What are we going to do? I said don’t worry about it. Nobody came up!
HOW DID THIS CAREER CHANGE GO OVER WITH YOUR FAMILY AT THE TIME?
My mother freaked out and thought I was going to die. It was more than not recognized. It was thought to be of the devil, actually.
HOW WILL YOUR PRESENTATION RESONANTE BEST WITH OUR AUDIENCE?
The title is Managing The Stress of Change. It doesn’t take long if you look at what has happened in the last year to know that change has literally been instantaneous coming at us. Tied in to that is stress. Regardless of whether it is running an event, running a vaccination clinic, having to lay staff off, or having to rebook dates, those things are all change. The problem is if you do not have something to get rid of your stress it can affect you long term. As a matter of fact, in 90% of all illnesses the bottom line is from stress. We’re talking about how it can impact long term. It is almost like when you have PTSD and so what I will be showing is how you can take a negative stressful situation that is in your mind and can’t get rid of to how you can be able to get rid of the charge attached to that thought.
I am actually going to give them an experience of that and not just me talking. I did this with ASAE in a virtual program with a slightly different title for the Kentucky society and they said 95% of the attendees rated it excellent.
You will see that it is easy to do to get rid of the negative attitudes. At the end of the program I ask people to pick another thing and do it by a day later and the next day on something else to prove to yourself that it wasn’t just on the virtual that it worked.
IT SOUNDS LIKE ANY MAIN TAKEAWAY YOU HAVE FOR THE AUDIENCE WILL BE SOMETHING THAT CAN BE USED OVER AND OVER.
The takeaway is if change happens and stress happens five times in a day in two minutes on each of those things I will show you how you can get rid of the charge, so a total of 10 minutes on five things. This way the stress doesn’t build and doesn’t affect you. That is critical because when you have stress coming at you from change is when we get overloaded and it becomes fight or flight or how some people freeze like the deer in the headlights. You stop thinking at that point because your signals don’t go to the part of the brain where you can have choices that help you decide what to do. It stops at the fight or flight mechanism and overrides everything that’s survival which is most important, and so in two minutes I will show other options that can pop in that you never thought of.
Not yet registered for ENCORE? There’s still time! Click HERE to register now!
