I’d spend my whole life in service of becoming a musical theatre performer. When that falls away, you’re like, “Oh my God, I’m worth nothing.”

And I really felt like I was worth nothing.

There’s this thing — I spoke about this in my TEDx talk — about how we feel fulfilled as human beings. You have two ways of being. You have your self-image, so how you view yourself, and then you have your ideal self.

For me, my ideal self and my self-image were close together, and that means you’re more happy, you’re more fulfilled in life, and your self-esteem goes up.

In a matter of seconds, that sort of went the other way.

And then, yeah, it can cause severe mental health issues.

So I had to keep going because I was like, “Cool, I have a choice. I can lay in bed and feel really, really sorry for myself, or I’m going to go and make something with myself.”

No Bullsh*t Talks is a podcast for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs.

There’s too much bullsh*t out there, especially when it comes to business. This podcast aims to highlight what’s true and what’s not in the world of entrepreneurship, bringing you honest and raw conversations about the roller coaster that is entrepreneurship.

Each week, my guest will be a high-performing entrepreneur, sharing the ups and downs of their journey and helping you prepare for the road ahead while providing you with actionable insights and absolute gems of knowledge.

Stay tuned as I introduce this week’s guest.

Pascalle Bergmans grew up on a stage in the West End, playing in musicals such as *Wicked*, *Mary Poppins*, and *Robin Hood*.

Originally from the Netherlands, Pascalle moved to the UK in 2016 and speaks six languages. Now, she’s the founder of Present Tales, where she helps leaders deliver their stories with impact and passion.

I present to you this week’s guest, Pascalle Bergmans.

Pascalle, welcome to No Bullsh*t Talks today.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. This is so exciting.

I personally love that you are matching the sign.

Always. I have to match. Always on brand.

I got the memo. I love that.

As you know, I’m a big fan of your outfits, so it’s always good.

But I’m so excited to have you here because what’s so funny is that we were chatting about public speaking, and then I even did a podcast on my other podcast about public speaking, ripping up the public speaking industry, and you messaged me saying, “We’re going to have so much to talk about.”

I was like, “You’re taking the piss. Let’s go.”

But I’m so excited to dive into some of those topics today.

First, are you able to give us a bit of a spiel about who you are for those that don’t know?

I mean, if people don’t know me, that’s a big problem for me.

Then I need to work harder.

I need to be better.

Um, no. So my name is Pascalle. I’m originally from the Netherlands, and my career was always in musical theatre. So I’ve done that for 18 years.

Then I had a stroke six years ago, so that meant career over.

For me, it was the end of my life because I was like, “I’m only good for one thing. I can only do singing, dancing, and acting.”

So I moved into the corporate space, learned a lot, and also learned that I hated working in the corporate space.

But the thing I noticed was that people were missing opportunities and just being very unclear in their communication. I noticed that I got promoted much quicker just because I was really good at presenting.

At some point, my husband said, “You have a gift for turning very complex topics into simple conversations. Why don’t you start teaching people that?”

So that’s now just over two years ago.

I started the business with normal public speaking coaching — helping people who struggle with anxiety, for example, or who want to get a different job, so they need to come across better.

That sort of morphed into me writing talks for people. We’re talking TED Talks, we’re talking big keynotes for CEOs.

Then I got invited to speak a lot. I got invited to do paid speaking gigs, and my clients started to get paid speaking gigs. I was like, “Oh, here’s a little niche that I had not discovered. I didn’t know this was a thing.”

And then, yeah, now I help people monetize their speaking gigs, whether that is on or off stage.

Do you know what I love? You’ve just explained a natural progression and transition into what you do now.

I think what gets painted on social media is that, “I woke up one morning and I knew I was destined to do this, and suddenly, three simple steps later, I became this.”

You could do it too. Buy my course.

Buy my business course.

That’s the next step.

That’s the next step.

No, it was definitely not overnight success.

And I just think it’s so nice that you kind of did that.

You said you were on the West End stage, acting and doing musical theatre, and then you just dropped a massive bomb and skipped past it, by the way.

I like your intro. It was just like, “Then I had a stroke casually and got paralyzed.”

I’m just like, “Okay, we’re going to have to circle back to that because that was a major thing you just said.”

I remember when I first found this out. I was like, “Wait, what?”

There were so many things coming through my head.

I don’t know. There’s so much awareness around stroke now. It’s like F.A.S.T. and all these acronyms and stuffs.

And all you think of is that.

Then I look at you and think, “You’re one of the most put-together humans I’ve ever seen.”

Thank you.

I can’t see it.

It’s weird how you associate things.

But let’s get serious for a second.

Talk me through it, because you were so young as well.

How?

Let’s hear the stroke story again.

Yeah, right.

So, at this time, my career was musical theatre, and when you do musical theatre and a master’s next to that—also a master’s in musical theatre—I lived and breathed musical theatre.

So I was not sleeping, not really eating, and just working, working, working.

One day, I went to the bathroom and got ready for work in the morning. I was blow-drying my hair, so I whipped my head forward. I came back up and felt something pop, if you can call it that.

I was like, “Oh, that was weird. Maybe it’s just my neck, you know, a bit stiff.”

Then I saw my eye start to hang a little bit like that, and I remember the thought: that’s not normal.

Because when this happens to you, you’re still very much conscious, but you also can’t think quite straight.

So when I started to speak, I was like, “Ah, okay… problem.”

Again, you’re not thinking stroke. You’re thinking exhaustion. That’s what you’re thinking.

Slowly, my whole body sort of goes a bit to the side. At this point, I was with a boyfriend at the time, and he said, “We should probably go into A&E.”

I was like, “Yeah, okay. Let’s give it a try. Maybe they’ll just give me some fluids or something.”

So we walk into A&E, and we walk up to the reception. You know, there’s always a grumpy person with a pen and a notepad, right? She’s on the phone to someone, asking their name and that sort of stuff.

We walk up, and this woman looks up, exhausted, like, “What now?”

She looks up, and you see her go, “Oh.”

She hangs up the phone, doesn’t say anything, grabs her other phone, and starts calling a code.

At this point, I’m looking around like, “Oh, action, right?”

Because when you’re in A&E, you’re going to be bored as hell. So it’s like, “Oh, we’re going to see some action today.”

Then the gurney comes around the corner, and I’m thinking, “Oh, who?”

They put me in the bed, and I’m thinking, “Whoa, you’ve got the wrong person.”

They start strapping me onto all these machines and putting all these blood things in there. They take off my bra, and I’m like:

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No. How about you buy me a coffee first?”

They drive me to CT because you’re not allowed to have a bra with a wire on.

So I’m in CT, and they give you this contrast fluid because contrast shows all of your veins and arteries. They need to see where the blockage is or if it’s already opened up.

What happens, though, when they give you contrast is the insides of your legs get really warm, so it feels like you’re weeing yourself.

At this point, I can’t properly see. My left quadrant has gone in my eye. I can’t see, I can’t talk, I can’t really move, and I’m starting to think that there’s something seriously wrong.

Then I feel like I’m peeing myself.

So I remember screaming, “Something is wrong! Help!”

And the intercom goes, “Ma’am, just be quiet for a moment.”

I was like, “Yeah, no. No, we’re not. Get me out. Get me out.”

So it was a lot. It all happened very quickly.

I think about 45 minutes later, this doctor comes in and says:

“Okay, so you’ve had what we call a stroke.”

And I just laughed.

I said, “I don’t know what that is, but it sounds bad. I don’t think that’s what I had.”

Because I honestly thought, “You’re crazy.”

He’s like, “Well, you are paralyzed.”

I was like, “Uh-huh. I know that. Thanks. No shit, Sherlock.”

He’s like, “We’re going to have to put you on blood thinners and all kinds of medication.”

The clot had been resolved, so that’s all good. I was very lucky that it was very short.

But it sort of started as a TIA and moved into an ischemic stroke.

Yeah.

Then I started a few months of very, very long rehabilitation.

I’m lucky that my dad’s a physio, so he could help.

But at that point, I couldn’t tie my shoelaces. I couldn’t feed myself. You become completely dependent.

Then it’s like, okay, my career is over.

I can’t do what I normally do to make myself feel good.

I also struggled with horrible migraines for months and months and months.

So that was a really dark time, for sure.

God. Honestly, you feel like you’ve just written out a script for an episode of ER or something.

I’m just like, that’s…

Who would play me in the movie?

You can cast whoever you want. It’s quite exciting.

I was trying to think. I think Claire Danes would be a good fit for you.

I’m okay with that. She’s a great actor as well.

I just think, God, how old were you, for a start?

Twenty-two.

Twenty-two?

Yeah.

This is terrifying for so many reasons.

First of all, how on earth do you cope with something like that at 22?

We all think we’re so mature at 22. We all do. Then you realize when you grow up that you’re an idiot at 22.

To cope with something that monumental, I don’t even know how that’s physically possible and mentally possible.

But more so than that, you must have lost a huge identity of who you were, like you said.

People don’t get how big a deal that is.

It can cause serious mental health problems, having that disassociation between you as Pascalle, the West End girl, the musical theatre performer, and then asking:

“Who am I now?”

If everything you’ve known for 22 years of your life just disappears overnight, it’s so easy to slip into this victim mindset because you’re like:

“I’m 22. Why is this happening to me?”

Oh yeah, I’ve been there.

So how did you get out of this?

Like I said, you seem like the most together person.

When you tell me this story, I’m like, this doesn’t add up.

But at the same time, it’s the most inspiring thing because I’m like:

If you go through something that extreme and that huge and you turn out like this, tell us all how.

Because that is the most magical comeback.

It was a really weird feeling because when that happens, you start questioning everything.

I’d spent my whole life in service of becoming a musical theatre performer.

When that falls away, you’re like:

“Oh my God, I’m worth nothing.”

And I really felt like I was worth nothing.

There’s this thing—I spoke about this in my TEDx talk—about how we feel fulfilled as human beings.

You have two ways of being.

You have your self-image, so how you view yourself, and then you have your ideal self.

For me, my ideal self and my self-image were close together.

That means you’re happier, you’re more fulfilled in life, and your self-esteem goes up.

In a matter of seconds, that sort of went the other way.

And yeah, it can cause severe mental health issues.

So I had to keep going because I was like:

“Cool. I have a choice. I can lie in bed and feel really, really sorry for myself, or I’m going to go and make something of myself.”

Also, bills were coming in and I wasn’t making any money.

So I needed to make sure that I could eat, that I could pay rent, and just meet the basic human needs.

So I was like:

“If I’m not going to do what I want to do, I want to at least make money.”

That became my main driver.

So I thought:

“I’ll work in finance because that means money, yeah, right?”

I didn’t know anything about finance. I hadn’t done maths in school because this was still a time where you could say, “Oh, don’t worry, we’ll give you an A or we’ll give you a B and then we’ll be fine.”

So I go into this industry. I started working for PwC, and eventually I ended up at a company called Russell Investments, which was an asset manager.

I just remember the first few weeks thinking, “This isn’t English. You’re not speaking English. You are speaking a different language.”

They’re talking about bonds and equity, and I was like, “What?”

Okay, but I was just an admin assistant, right? I was organized, and I was like, “I can do this. I can learn on the job.”

I went to work crying every single day.

I lived in Farnham at the time. I worked in London because I couldn’t afford to live in London, but then my bills for the train were so high that it really didn’t matter.

I would be up at 5:00 a.m. every day, get on the train, because it was like, “You have to be here at 8:30. If you’re not here at 8:30, you’re in serious trouble.”

Even though I finished my job within four hours every single day.

So I had to be on that train.

I fainted every single day. That’s how high my heart rate was. I would just faint on the train, get off at Woking, get the next train, and then go into London.

I spent that whole time crying.

The hardest part was that this office was on the West End, and I would walk by *The Phantom of the Opera* and all of the other shows. It was such a smack in the face.

I would come into work, go to the toilet, wipe my face, put some makeup on, and be like:

“Okay, now you have to play the part of the admin assistant.”

The only way I could get through that was by dissociating from my personal self and playing a character.

I really did.

It was a character.

And Pascalle the admin assistant was really friendly. She even spoke a little bit differently.

I was like:

“Hi guys! What are we doing here today?”

I had to make a character because I couldn’t survive. I just couldn’t.

Eventually, I started to get promoted because they were like:

“Wow, you’re really good at explaining things. You’re really good at talking to people.”

I ended up helping out on one of the biggest pension funds in the world as their relationship manager because they were like:

“We want her. We like how she talks to us. She talks to us as a human being.”

Eventually, I left finance. I worked in tech.

But all the while, I was so unhappy, and I just had to play these characters.

I would come home and cry.

My husband can tell you this.

I would work from 9:00 to 5:00, and in between I had a half-hour lunch break and would just cry. Just let it all out. Let it all out, and then move on.

I was not nice to be around.

I really wasn’t.

I was depressed. I was anxious. I was not myself.

In my last job, I had such a bad time that my husband said:

“Anything is better than you working in a corporate job.”

“So I’m going to take all of this financial responsibility now, and you’re going to do what you’re best at doing, which is communicating with people.”

And Present Tales was born.

Honestly, people say that running a business is the most stressful thing you can do. It is, but it’s mine and I get to decide.

So for me, this has been the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Even though it comes with all of that responsibility, I can be me every day.

I get to wake up and I don’t have to put my little outfit on and then go, “Oh, now I’m a different character.”

No. I’m Pascalle every day, all day.

I like her.

She’s better.

So no more roles, no more masks, just me.

Gosh, honestly, that was so beautiful.

Props to hubby, for a start, I want to say.

Yeah, please.

Honestly, I know everyone’s like, you know, women empowerment and all that sort of stuff, and you obviously are amazing, but props to hubby for supporting you with that and being like, “Do you know what? I’m going to take all this financial burden so that you can achieve your dreams.”

I have to give props to him. I feel like that’s really sweet.

God, all that stuff you’re saying is terrifying because I think there’s a lot of talk now about masking and authenticity.

But we’ve all done it.

We’ve all put on this character.

Like you said, you were Corporate Pascalle, turning up every day and you were miserable.

As much as people moan now about what life is like, God, how much better is it now that you can turn up to work and actually be who you are.

Like you said, if you turned up at 8:31, you’d be in trouble.

In fact, people say, “If you’re not early, you’re late.”

That’s another motto, right?

I’ve been to so many jobs like that where you can’t do anything.

You can’t dress a certain way.

We’re both wearing quite out-there jackets. Years ago people would have said, “Women shouldn’t dress like this. Don’t stand out.”

It’s like, “Oh, that’s a bit ostentatious. What are you trying to prove?”

But now it’s like, actually, just be who you want to be.

It’s so lovely.

God, all that is absolutely terrifying.

But again, this is after you’ve had a stroke.

This is what I’m trying to understand.

You got up every morning, you worked that way, and you fainted every day after having a stroke.

Were you not worried about your health at all?

I guess when you’re young, you just don’t really think these things.

Honestly, and nobody knows this, at some point I actually hoped that I wouldn’t wake up.

I was like, “I hope that I fall in between the tracks.”

I was so miserable that I would rather not exist.

I was like, “There has to be more to life than living your life in this way.”

At some point, I would actually be sad that there were people over me saying, “Oh, is she okay?”

And I’d be like, “Oh no.”

I almost hoped for another stroke and hoped it would just take me away because I was like, “This is horrible.”

It was a really, really dark place to be.

But I also realized you’ve been given another chance, right?

You could have been super dead.

So I started to realize the good things about life.

I like how, when you take a breath, do you know how nice that feels?

It could very easily not have happened.

That feels nice.

The color of the sky.

I know it’s like, “Oh, the sky is blue, we all know that.”

But you start to notice different things.

I started to appreciate things about life that I think just go by when you’re in that rat race.

So when I was like, “Okay, this is really dark,” I think I told one friend and she was like, “You need to see a therapist.”

So I did.

I got help and that really helped.

But again, it’s that mental health wellness that you need to look after.

I wasn’t doing it.

It wasn’t a thing at that time, right?

We didn’t know about this stuff.

So yeah, it was a dark time.

People say, “Oh, you had that stroke. That must have been the hardest thing.”

I’m like, “No. The stroke was easy. I didn’t have to do anything for that.”

It was picking yourself up afterwards that was the hard part.

That was the thing that I would very easily say I would never want to do again.

I’m good.

I just want to live my life now and have a good life.

Oh gosh, exactly.

Actually, it kind of echoes one of my favorite quotes:

“It’s not about whether you get knocked down. It’s whether you pick yourself up again.”

That’s exactly what it is.

Because we’re all going to get knocked down.

We all are, over and over again.

Like you said, you had that choice.

Do I just lie here and feel sorry for myself, or do I get back up and actually fight for this?

And you did.

What I love about it is the progression.

You got up and thought, “I need money. What industry has the most money? Finance. Great. Let’s do that.”

It makes sense.

I totally get it.

You’re like, “Right, I’m not an accountant and I’m not a trader, but I can start as an admin and work my way up.”

And you did exactly that.

Then you were like, “This sucks. What do I do now?”

That’s why I really like this story because it seems so natural to me.

It actually is.

I can see the thought processes.

It’s like, “Okay, this sucks.”

And then you’re like, “Right.”

Oh my God, it’s mental.

But I want to transition to the happy stuff now because I feel like that’s a lot.

As I said, it’s beautiful that I don’t see any of that.

I don’t see any of that because it means that you are the true Pascalle.

Like you said, you don’t have to be this fake person.

You can be who you want to be.

And you’re able to inspire other people to do that, which is so beautiful.

Also, I love the fact that you found your way back to your stage.

Because you said to me, “My career is over.”

But it’s not.

It’s just shifted now.

It’s different.

But you’re still on the stage.

You’re still out there doing what you’re meant to do.

I still felt so guilty because my parents paid a lot of money for me to go to drama school.

These things are not cheap.

I was like, “Oh my God, I’m wasting all of my learning.”

But I didn’t.

I still use this every single time I’m on stage.

I totally get it.

I feel the same way.

Parents invest a lot in you.

My parents were fantastic.

They invested so much in all of our careers.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve let them down in certain ways.

I originally went to medical school.

That’s where I started off.

Obviously my parents supported me to get there.

I couldn’t be further away from medicine doing what I’m doing now.

I mean, I’m trying to picture you as a doctor right now and I’m like, “Yeah, why not?”

But also, how?

I’d be in the hospital like, “We could do this! We could do this, guys! Let’s just change the whole hospital.”

Let’s make it pink, for a start.

Start with making everything pink.

Thank you very much.

I just can’t.

I’m a natural entrepreneur, right?

But you know me well enough to know that I love helping people.

That’s where that came from.

That passion to be like, “Who helps the most people? Doctors help the most people.”

Then I was like, family doctor, this is the right path for me.

I quickly found out it wasn’t the right path.

But when your parents support you the whole way to get there, you feel guilty.

People pay a lot of money for all these things.

You think about music lessons.

I also did drama.

You think, “What if this was a waste of money?”

Then you start to think about all the ways you’re using these things.

All the skills I learned in med school are still there.

The ability to handle huge workloads and trying to do all these things, multitasking and that sort of stuff.

I’m able to do that now running a business, which is great.

We ended up winning a lot of medical clients as a result because they were like, “Wait, you went to medical school, so you understand this.”

I spent so long translating medical clients’ jargon into language that laypeople could understand.

There are little bits of your life that still come up in what you’re doing now.

Even if you can’t see the connections, there are things that help.

You’re landing certain gigs because of something you’ve done in the past.

You can look at it and say, “Actually, that wasn’t a waste. I had to go through that to be where I am today.”

I think that’s what people should remember.

Not everything is a waste.

Everything is a lesson at the end of the day.

It’s just how you use it.

I do love that about it.

But I definitely want to talk about public speaking.

There, let’s go to the good stuff. You thought that was good? Because, to be fair, I think we’re all on the same page on this.

I get such a pet peeve with this. Okay, I want to start with my rant first, my mini-rant, because I don’t want to take away from you.

My pet peeve with the public speaking industry is that it seems to be normalized to just ask experts to give up their time to educate the world, to put loads of energy into writing amazing keynotes, and do all that for free.

Bear in mind, these are the people they consider to be the best in the world at what they do. The literal best. But yet you don’t ever have a speaker budget to pay for their time and their energy.

These events are draining, as you well know, because we’re still recovering from the 10X event.

You truly are.

They are draining, right? And I just don’t understand why it’s so normalized that this is just a thing.

In fact, then it goes even more screwed up, in my opinion, where organizers then charge speakers to be on stage. Certain speakers want to build up their reputation and want to feel cool about being on stage. They want that cachet to be like, “I’m speaking here. I’m speaking here. Look at my LinkedIn. Look at my Instagram. I’m a public speaker.”

I’m like, darling, you paid five grand for the opportunity.

I mean, it’s disgusting how much money they’re paying. I just don’t understand how screwed up this is.

We hear all these celebrity influencer fees or whatever, and we’ve heard someone spends 12 million to have Rihanna perform at their birthday party. That’s ludicrous, but at least it makes more sense.

She’s one of the best in the world at what she does. She’s so freaking successful. She’s claimed her fee, she’s named a fee, and someone wants to pay it. You’re worth whatever someone wants to pay for you at the end of the day, right?

Someone was happy to pay 12 million dollars for her.

I’d charge 12 million for my next gig if someone wants to book me.

Exactly.

But, at least that makes sense. She is an expert. You’re paying for her to come over, and she’s paid well for her time—very well for her time.

But, talk me through how on earth this is normalized and why this has happened. Because you speak out about it all the time, and your whole thing is, “Let’s get you paid.”

You must have this argument with people all the time. Why and how does this happen? How do we stop it?

Honestly, well, we stop it together. That’s number one.

There’s a big distinction between the two things that are happening here.

Number one is when people pay to speak. They are officially an exhibitor or a sponsor.

If we look at big conferences or trade shows, where you have all these different brands and five different stages, the keynote is often paid. The keynote is often a famous person or an author or someone like that, and they get paid well for what they’re going to do there.

The rest of the people are most likely people who have paid to be on that stage because it comes with:

* You get to put your brand in the leaflet.
* You get a stand.
* You get all of that exposure.
* And now you also get to speak.

Some of those people hire other people to speak on their behalf. That’s a whole different industry.

Then you do get paid.

I know people who work for Microsoft, for example, and they do some of their presentations. They learn the content, they get paid by Microsoft to then go on stage, but Microsoft pays for that speaking slot.

The same for you and me. You could say, “Okay, I want to be at XYZ event. It’s 15 grand to exhibit and have a speaking slot of 20 minutes. Great, I’m going to do that.”

That doesn’t make you a public speaker.

Yes, you are publicly speaking, but you have not been given that stage. You are saying, “I am the expert, and I’m going to pay to show why I am the expert.”

Whilst a lot of people think, “Oh yeah, now I’m a speaker.”

It’s like, you’re a speaker when you get asked specifically to do a talk that you’re famous for, on a subject that you are an expert in.

That’s when you can say, “I’m a speaker.”

The other thing is… people speaking for free. Yes, all the time, all the time. Stop it. Just stop it, okay?

So, of course, later today I’m going to this event where I’m speaking. That’s a friend. It’s like a 50-person event. She’s like, “Oh, I would love it if you come and do a 20-minute session. I’ll give you a free ticket to the event.” I’m like, “Absolutely, I’m there for you.”

Yeah, that is a rare occasion, okay? Because if some event or an organization messages me and goes, “Pascalle, we would love for you to host a workshop on storytelling or public speaking. Would you like to come and do that? What does it cost?” That’s when they’re asking for a workshop or a training because they’re asking for me to teach them a certain skill.

That’s the same if you can ask for a speaking slot, right? If I am asked, “Pascalle, we would love for you to come and speak at this conference on public speaking, but we want you to do it for free,” I’m going to be like, “No, you can find someone else,” right?

Because yes, for some people that means exposure. Exposure doesn’t pay my bills, okay?

This happens a lot in the arts anyway. Anything that we can’t touch, we don’t really want to pay for. So if you, for example, see a band perform in a pub, they often don’t get paid because it’s, “No, we’re giving you exposure, so people might book you for their weddings and their anniversaries and all of that.”

It’s the same with this. People go, “No, well, we have an audience of a thousand people and you might find some clients.”

I might, but that’s not guaranteed. Yet you are asking me to spend at least five hours writing a talk, then at least another five hours rehearsing that bloody talk, coming down to wherever your event is, spending time with your delegates, doing the talk, and then spending time networking.

And then the time recovering from that event because it’s exhausting.

Exactly. But it’s a day that I can’t work. There’s opportunity cost involved, right? There’s rehearsal time involved. So that’s two full days already, right?

So my day rate is five grand. How much do you think I’m going to ask you for me to speak at your event? Okay, thank you very much.

And I normally, when people say, “Oh no, we don’t have a budget,” I’m like, “Well, you should have thought about that.”

Because if you have a sore knee, for example, you go to the doctor and you go, “Listen, I’m going to tell all of my 5,000 Instagram followers that I went to you as a doctor, so can you just fix my knee? Do the whole operation, you know, spend all of that time working on my knee, but I’m going to tell people about you and send them your way.”

And then people look at me like, “Yeah, that’s wrong.”

Like, “Yeah, that’s great. I’m going to use this strategy to fix my health. This is brilliant. Free healthcare for me.”

But you don’t do that, right?

Same with a builder. You don’t ask them, “Okay, I need a new kitchen. Can you put it in for free? And then the whole street can see your building works with your name on it.”

No, you’re going to have to pay for the materials, for the time, and then a little bit extra for profit.

So, of course, you should pay a speaker if you want an expert to come and do a talk. View a talk as a training because these talks are not just… even if it’s inspirational, people are going to take so much away from that that you need to see it as asking someone to come and share their expertise as a training. It’s not just that at all.

So it’s having those difficult conversations. And we even see that men have no problem having that conversations…

So a lot more men are paid to speak. They’re paid better to speak, and we see that there’s at least a 38% difference between men and women when they get paid to speak.

And I kid you not, I’ve been at events where I was the only female paid speaker, but there were like five other women speakers. Then there were like three men. The men got paid, I got paid because I asked for it, and the women were just so happy to be there.

I was like, “No, because your happiness is not going to fill your tummy, or pay your rent, or take care of your children’s dental care, whatever it is that you pay for, right?”

So we need to start having those hard conversations, and we need to start showing event organizers, like, you want an expert at your event, which means people are going to love your event because I’m going to be speaking there, and all of the other speakers. It means people are going to rebook the event, they’re going to tell friends about the event, so your event grows.

So you better be paying my ass because this is great for your event.

So stop thinking about it as value to you. Start thinking about your audience.

But unfortunately, with conferences, that’s their business. Their business is selling speaking slots, it’s selling stands, and that’s fine. But if you are asking somebody else, you better make sure you’ve got budget to pay them.

Yeah, and I think that’s it. It’s the transparency of what it is. And I think, like you said, the sponsorship model is a totally different model.

I don’t know, I get such a bee in my bonnet with the absolute bollocks that lands in my inbox every day. It’s like, “Oh, do you want to be on the front cover of this magazine?
CXO Magazine.” Yeah, like some made-up thing by some company miles away, no viewers.

And they go, “Oh, it’s only going to cost you $1,400.”

And I’m like, “Sorry, what?”

And sometimes I write back, I’m like, “Oh, are you paying me this fee? Is this the fee you’re paying me?” Because I’m like, “I’m certainly not paying anything.”

And they’re like, “No, no, no, that’s for you.”

I was like, “Well, I don’t pay for PR. If you want me to give up my time and do an interview and everything, then you can pay me for my time.”

And I was like, “Also, my profile is going to help your viewership. You’ve got two viewers.”

So, you know, no. If I share that on my social media, you’re going to get a lot more viewers.

It’s a big difference, and they’re like, “Okay, $500.”

And I’m like, “Oh my God, this is just so stupid.”

But it’s like this with them, and there are loads of them coming up all the time. It’s just the most ludicrous thing.

And the same with awards industries now. They just charge you like eight grand to go to awards dinners because of the hope of getting this thing.

And it’s like everyone’s just so obsessed with this fame and fortune.

And I sort of get the sponsorship and, because of exposure, I totally get exposure. Same as any sort of marketing, PR, advertising, right? You stick your name on a billboard, it costs loads of money, and you don’t know what the ROI is.

And I think this is what my gripe is as well with all this. You don’t know what your ROI is from that audience either. And it’s like someone has to start somewhere.

So I totally get that. And I think if you’re new to public speaking and you are building up a new brand for yourself, you are going to judge your time a little bit more.

I don’t know if you think it’s fair to say, but I think that taking on a couple of free gigs here and there, like speaking gigs, if you don’t have much of an audience and you’re kind of getting used to it, yeah, and building up a showreel or whatever.

But the moment you get known for something, and the moment people know you as, “Oh, actually, they’re seeking you out because you’re the expert,” they’re seeking you out for a reason.

These people want you to be on their stage because they know that either you have a good social media following — that’s often what it is. It’s selfish for their reasons. They know that your name has got clout so that they will actually make ticket sales because they’re picking you.

If they’re seeking you out and saying, “You would be a great fit for our event,” then, hell, they should pay you. That’s what I think.

I think that’s kind of the indication. And it’s like if you’re sort of not sure, and you’re reaching out and calling anyone to do it, and you apply, I think that’s a little bit different.

But personally, I think that if you are the type of person who already is established, you should definitely, definitely get paid, right?

I agree. We need to start getting paid.

“But the biggest problem is people don’t know how to start getting paid to tell us, because I want to know how to get paid.

I mean, I wrote a post actually, I think on LinkedIn, you probably saw it, where I declared that last year — maybe it was last year actually — I did 42 speaking gigs unpaid. Most of them were unpaid.

UNPAID?!

Oh. Imagine if you just got £1,000. That’s like £42,000 that you could have made.

I know. And I was saying that a lot of them is because I just decided I was going to do them. And bear in mind, I’ve been doing public speaking since I was a kid. I went to LAMDA, like I’m trained. So it’s like I’m definitely qualified. I’ve been paid to speak at Google and in The Shard and at ExCeL.

Why did I do that? I don’t know.

But I think it was the time when everyone was obsessed with building your personal brand, and I kind of got sucked into it. Some of them seemed really fun, some of them seemed really cool, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is quite nice. It’s like I’m building my name up.’

Then I was like, ‘I’m exhausted.’

Yeah, that’s tiring.

And the opportunity cost. Also, they didn’t give me expenses. Some of them were far away.

Yeah.

And I was like, ‘This is so wrong, it’s unbelievable.’

Yes.

And so I wrote a post on this, declaring it, and people were like, ‘Oh my God, you didn’t get paid for that gig?’

And I was like, ‘No.’

So then I was like, ‘This year I’m not going to do any unpaid gigs unless it’s for something I really, really, really truly believe in.’

So there’s a big difference, right?

So I stopped, and then suddenly money came in, which was great.

But at the same time, I was someone who had a reputation. I still got sucked into this free gig malarkey and bullshit is probably the correct word for it.

Exactly.

And, you know, I don’t know why I was doing it. Thinking back now, I’m like, ‘I’m such an idiot.’ Like, it really is stupid.

You’re right. Just taking it out of your head, I can feel it. I can feel it.

But it is true. I don’t know why, but I did somehow.

So if I’m doing it, there are millions of other people doing it. So how on earth do we actually get paid?

Right. This is the part people go, ‘Just tell me how to get paid.’

In order to get paid, you need to start first seeing it as an actual service and almost like its own business, right?

So public speaking doesn’t just become a nice way to network and get new clients. It becomes, ‘This is part of my services.’

Yeah.

So, for example, I have one-to-one coaching, I have group coaching, and I have public speaking. So that’s an actual service that people pay for. There’s VAT on that and everything needs to be covered.

So that’s the first thing.

Then we need to know what you’re going to talk about.

So instead of thinking, “Okay, I’m going to get paid,” let’s make you a signature talk.

Yeah.

What’s the talk you’re going to be known for?

Why that talk?

Because, for example, personal brand is a big thing, right? Everybody’s a personal brand guru at the moment, and I work with quite a few of them. All of them get asked to different events to speak because it’s important that even though you’re doing something that everybody else is doing, why you?

So niche down.

And I said this to you earlier: do you want to be the buffet or the steakhouse?

I heard this on another podcast, and I can’t remember the name of the guy, but it was such a good analogy. Because if I’m going to book you, I know why I’m going to be booking you. Because I want a no-bullshit approach to entrepreneurship, for example.

When people book me, they know they’re going to get sparkles on their stage. They know they’re going to have someone who swears on stage, and they know they’re going to have somebody who’s going to explain how communication works, right?

So my whole thing is communication.

So you need to be known as one thing.

So first of all, start thinking: what is the thing I want to be known for?

If that’s personal brand, personal brand for what, right? Personal brand for legal professionals? Personal brand for people who have never been online before?

What is your unique selling point on a certain topic?

Because there’s lots of public speaking coaches out there, right? I’m not the only one, thank God, because everybody needs something else.

But I bring a very special, specific thing to the table, just like all of those other people do.

So don’t be afraid to stand out, right?

Don’t be a buffet where we have a little bit of everything. It’s like, you don’t really know what you want, right? Because it’s too much choice.

Be the steakhouse.

If we’re going, “Oh, I really want a steak,” you say, “Oh, I’m going to go to Hawksmoor” — I think that’s what it’s called — because they’re known for their steak.

You’re not going to go to a buffet for a banging steak.

Banging steak. Shout out.

Right?

So don’t be afraid to niche down.

And people then go, “But I also want to talk about this, and I want to talk about that.”

Okay, you will get a chance to talk about that.

Because even though my thing is public speaking and how to get paid speaking gigs — that’s my number one talk. I get booked for that one all the time.

But I also get booked to talk about communication in the workplace, leadership — never led a team in my life, right? But I get asked to talk about it.

I get asked to talk about my stroke.

So I still get all of these other talks out of it as well, but I’m known for this one thing, and that has massively helped me amp up my speaking gigs.

Once you have that signature talk, test it out.

This is when you do your talks for free, yeah?

Because the only way you’re going to figure out if it’s going to land is by actually having an audience.

If you think you’ve got a really funny story but nobody laughs, you’re going to be like, “Oh, okay. Let’s try that again.”

Another good thing is just talking to friends and going like, “Hey, I’ve got this part in my talk that I want to add. What do you think of this little story?”

And if they go, “Yeah, I love this,” great.

If they go, “Too much,” then don’t do it.

So test that signature talk out.

Do it on a podcast.

Do it on a podcast.

Hello.

Another thing is we need assets, right? How are you going to sell something if you have nothing to show for it?

Because you’re not going to call up an event organizer and be like, “Can I just quickly do my one-hour keynote, and then you’ll listen, and if you like it, you buy it?” No, it doesn’t work like that.

So, a speaker reel. We need pictures of you on stage. We need a speaker pack with all of the information in there.

So that’s why you do your free stuff, right?

Invest in a videographer if you can. They don’t have to be super expensive. Or get your friend with her new iPhone to just make some really cool shots, okay?

It doesn’t have to be a super long speaker reel. It can be 90 seconds because it’s like a trailer.

If you’re in a movie theater and you’re watching a whole movie to decide if you want to watch it, there’s not really any point. So it’s just there to be a teaser.

Not too much B-roll. Not too much of you getting ready for the whole thing. Just you on stage, showcasing that people are watching you.

Yeah.

And if you’re not booked for gigs, go into a nice place like this where we are right now, or go into a conference organization or whatever and just ask them, “Can I just book one of your stages for an hour, right in between stuff, and just record something real quick?”

Yeah.

Because it’s you on stage. Nobody bloody knows how many people are there in the audience.

Yeah, good hack.

Although now I’m just thinking all the people are going to be doing bullshit things like, “I just spoke on this stage and this is available.”

We will know, okay?

I know almost every event that’s happening in Europe. I’ve got a database. If you’re posting about your bullshit and you’re speaking there, I’m like, “That event wasn’t on.”

Please help me call out the bullshit on all those people who clearly do that.

I will.

So, that’s another thing you can try, right?

You need a speaker pack. You need to know how to market your talks and you as a speaker because then it’s no longer just you, it’s you as a speaker, right?

So why are people booking you?

And then we can go out and find speaking gigs.

So it means posting on social media saying, “Hi, I’m open for speaking.”

Yeah.

How about that? Ask for it, right?

Don’t try to convince people. Challenge them on it.

“You want a cool speaker for your event? You want this event to book out? This is what I’m going to offer your audience.”

Don’t email an organizer with paragraphs about who you are and your whole story. No.

Just go, “Hi, when are you looking for speakers for your event?” Or, “When are you making the agenda?”

Or, what would it take?

Really good sentence: “What would it take for us to have a conversation about me speaking at X, Y, and Z event?”

Because when you say, “What would it take?” you’re already putting it in their heads to start accommodating you.

“What would it take?” Great.

Also for sales calls. I like it.

Or, like the sentence: “Here’s why this matters to you.”

Like, “Hi John, I’m a speaker and I would like to come and talk about how a stroke helped me to reach peak performance. Here’s why I think this is going to be an added benefit to your event.”

It’s very hard to say no to that.

Make it easy for people to say yes to the next conversation.

Don’t email somebody cold and expect to get the speaking gig, okay?

Just turn it into a conversation. Have a call with them. Understand what the event is about.

You know, the normal stuff you would do to sell your services. This is another service.

Look for these things. Look at your peers. Where are your peers speaking?

I messaged a few public…

Where do you look for these things?

Look at your peers. Where are your peers speaking?

I messaged a few public speaking coaches that are a few years ahead of me. “Where are you speaking?”

Some of them said, “Fuck off.”

Oh really?

Some of them said, “No, I’m not going to tell you.”

I was like, “Fine. That’s okay.”

Some of them said, “Here’s a list.”

And I got their list and I reached out to those organizers.

You know that when you overtake that person, you know who you’re going to support and not the other way around.

Oh my God.

That’s why we need to have each other’s backs, right?

Look at your competitors. Where are they speaking? Make sure you find out because people will be posting about this. When you’re speaking on a stage, it has a certain prestige, so people will post about that stuff.

So look at that first and start having those chats. Just ask them, “Where are you speaking?”

Also, start thinking out of the box.

I spoke at an event called BrightonSEO.

Yeah, I know.

Nothing about SEO.

It was so funny. I was thinking that. I saw that only because your outfit stood out.

Oh my God, this outfit.

So I was like, “Wait, what the hell has Pascale got to do with SEO?”

I actually thought that.

Actually, I was in the cab on the way over here. I was thinking that same thing because I was like, “What the hell? That’s how good you are at landing gigs.”

Because I was like, “You don’t know anything about SEO.”

I don’t.

And I even said that in my pitch.

But you were that inspiring that they wanted you on the stage, and that’s why it’s so brilliant.

I figured it out.

I looked at last year’s agenda. They had a content track, and I was like, SEO is all well and good. Once they find you, they land on your page. How do you turn that into a sale?

So I was like, it’s always looking for the links.

So don’t think, “Okay, my thing is personal brand. I’m only going to go to entrepreneur-type events.”

There might be other stuff out there for you as well.

And then the best thing that I’ve come across personally is B2B.

Because conferences need to make money. It’s very hard to get paid as a non-famous person at a big conference, right? Especially the bigger gigs.

So B2B: Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Fortune 500. That’s a list of 500 companies that have money.

Yeah, they’re doing well.

Those companies invest heavily into their employees.

So we’re talking management days, leadership days, Christmas parties, SKOs, whatever you want to do. These organizations have all of these events that they’re hosting all throughout the year.

Accenture, I think they do an event every week at the moment. Panels, keynotes, talks, whatever.

So start having conversations with those people because they want to spend money for someone to come in and talk because it looks good for their brand, it’s great for their employees, and it gets new people in the door as well.

So start thinking more B2B.

Again, it’s a service, right?

You wouldn’t sell your coaching services, for example, to an event. You’d go to a company.

That’s exactly what this is.

Oh my God, all of it makes so much sense.

You’ve got me thinking because I’ve been toying with this post for such a long time because of those 42 speaking gigs.

I got zero footage as well from that, which is ridiculous.

Someone the other day — I did a talk at Google. I’ve done two talks at Google this year, and one in San Francisco, by the way.

And someone said to me, one of my colleagues was trying to do a post, “Can you send me some pictures?”

I was like, “I don’t even have pictures.”

Oh girl.

I was like, honestly, I’ve been so rubbish with this stuff. I’ve just gone to these places.

So part of me was toying with the post, going, “I will waive my next three speaking fees if you record it and actually create content.”

That’s the bare minimum.

Yeah.

So I feel like, okay, so you need to get paid. We’ll talk, we’ll talk.

But it’s like, whatever you do, even if it’s free, pictures.

There’s often going to be a photographer or someone in the audience. Take some pictures of me where I don’t look like…

Right, because my face does look like that.

Get a videographer, right?

I work with amazing videographers who do this.

And make sure that they at least cover your expenses, right?

Because you can get paid in travel and paid in content. That’s also very valuable.

So for example, San Francisco. If I’m like, “Oh, I really want to speak at that event, but it’s all the way in LA. I really want to go to LA.”

So how about you cover flights for me and my husband to fly out, plus a week in a hotel?

That’s also getting paid, just in a different way.

So it’s getting paid in experiences.

So whatever you do, don’t speak wholly for free, okay?

And if they do say, “Well, no, we’re not going to pay anything,” use the doctor example and just watch them sit there and go, “I can’t get out of this.”

Right?

So make sure you always get some form of payment, whether that is money, experiences, travel, or content.

Don’t do it for free.

And especially if you’re a woman because there’s still such a big pay gap.

We’re talking about the gender pay gap in the office. There’s a huge gender pay gap in speaking.

I need to see more women out there living their best life, sharing what they know.

So let’s make it happen.

On that note, I just want to know numbers.

What are we talking?

You said content, whatever, but if you are an established speaker, you know, and with experience, what is the fee?

I mean, you said ten grand, but I’m guessing people are working their way up to that.

What should we be expecting?

What’s normal?

What’s not insulting?

There seems no normal in the speaking world.

I would say charge higher than you think because a lot of people say, “Oh, I only want to charge £1,000 because I don’t want them to turn me down.”

I’ve actually had it happen where I charged £1,000 all the way in the beginning, and the organization said the CEO wouldn’t sign it off because they think that when you charge that little, you’re not an expert.

So start at two and a half grand at least, okay?

And people go, “Oh my God.”

I’m like, what would you charge for your coaching services?

Two and a half grand, most likely, for a month of coaching, right? One-to-one.

So do something like that.

But if I look at it, I’ve got friends who charge more than £50,000 for a 30-minute keynote, and they don’t even have to be there the rest of the day. They just show up five minutes before, and then they leave ten minutes after.

Some of my clients charge £20,000 for a keynote.

So these are good numbers, right?

You don’t start there. These are people who’ve done this for a long time, who are really big experts in their field.

But you should easily be able to get to five grand within a year.

And if people suddenly say, “Oh, that’s quite expensive,” and try to negotiate you down, how would you normally react to that?

So I explain everything that goes into preparing a talk like this, and that I’m obviously going to be there the whole day.

Whenever I’m booked, I count myself as being there the whole day. That’s just part of my package.

I say how much time goes into rehearsing it.

I’m like, I could turn up not prepared, and that’s not going to make me look bad. It’s going to make you look bad as an organizer because you booked a terrible speaker, right?

I explain that if I was giving this information to my clients — so if I do my paid speaking talk — people pay good money for me to teach them that kind of information.

So I go, “You’re getting that at a highly discounted price.”

So I just flip the script and go, “Listen, this is what goes into it. This is the type of value that you’re getting. Other people pay more than five grand to learn this information.”

So it’s up to you if you want to give this to your audience as a gift or not.

God, I love that.

And I just feel like it’s all about…

I know I hate the term “know your worth” because I just think that’s such an awful thing, and it’s been overused on social media.

But it’s really about having that confidence to understand what is worth paying for.

And actually, like you said, it’s a service. It’s your time.

People don’t realize that you’re giving up so much time and energy and opportunity cost for doing this.

But this is amazing.

Right, how do people get in touch with you? Because you can clearly help a lot of people.

Yes.

So, Pascalle Bergmans. If you type my name in, it’ll come straight up on LinkedIn. That’s the best place to reach out to me via DMs.

Otherwise, I am also on Instagram. Recently started, so there you go.

So it’s PascaleBergmans96, I believe. People can find me there.

Or they can go to my website, [www.presenttales.com](http://www.rentals.com), and fill out the form.

Amazing. I will put all of that in the show notes so it’s easy to access.

But I just want to be like, okay, you know, you get all these people these speaking gigs. I mean, can you get anyone speaking gigs?

I feel like obviously they can’t just be full of bullshit, but some people probably listen to this and go, “I’m not a public speaker.”

You do this. You help train them, don’t you? And you get them up.

So you believe that you’ll be able to turn Cinderella into the princess at any point?

Yes.

It’s why I used to call myself the Fairy Godmother of Public Speaking.

Honestly, you need to have your story.

People say, “Well, I didn’t have a stroke.”

I’m like, you don’t have to have had a stroke.

Honestly, normal life is so interesting on its own.

As long as you feel like you have a story to share, it doesn’t have to be mega.

But if you’re like, “I have something that I really think people could benefit from, they would enjoy listening to it, or it would just take them out of their normal life for a second,” then you can become a speaker.

So you don’t have to be a boy, girl, pretty, ugly — it doesn’t matter, right?

It’s just for anybody that feels like people need to hear about this.

So yeah, I’m still yet to find the person that I don’t get a paid speaking gig for.

Oh, I love that.

So challenge to make her 100% record.

Please don’t challenge me.

I love it.

Thank you so much for today. It’s been brilliant.

Thanks for having me.

Yey.