A leader can only be the best when he brings out the best in his people. Mario P. Fields, the co-owner and CEO of Global Inspirational Speakers, LLC, is someone who embodies this. In this episode, he joins Juliet Clark to talk about how he is taking the lead to find inspirational speakers and bringing their experiences to the world. He shares the origin story of the company and the amazing things they do at a global level, giving us a peek into what kind of people they have over and the various topics that they cover. If you are interested in becoming a speaker and creating an impact, then hear what Mario has to say in this conversation.

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Bringing Inspirational Speakers To The Global Stage With Mario P. Fields

We have another great guest and it’s going to interest a lot of you that are veterans. Before we get started, I want you to run over to YouTube and follow us on Superbrand Publishing. Go over and leave us a review on iTunes. I’d love it if you could leave us five stars. Our guest is Mario Fields. He’s one of a kind individual. I found him on LinkedIn. He always strives not only to be the best but always also to bring the best out in people. His knowledge is in being a true leader in business and life sets apart him from everyone else. His company is called Global Inspirational Speakers. I want to talk about that a lot. Welcome, Mario.

Thank you, Juliet. I appreciate you having me on this wonderful show.

Tell us a little bit about your background, your business, what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it because that’s what impressed me the most.

I did 26 years in the Marine Corps. I retired as a Sergeant Major. I’ve been married since I was nineteen years old. I’m more proud of that than anything. My wife’s a Navy veteran and we’ve been married for many years. We have two adult children, my daughter Myranda, and my son, Mario Jr. That is a quick background about me. As far as the business, Global Inspirational Speakers is a speaker and consultants bureau that primarily focuses on representing dynamic military speakers. What that means is they’re retired. They’re very dynamic in all industries. The key part of that is they have to be inspirational and that’s the big one. They have to be inspirational, credentialed by those who have heard them speak. They can’t say, “I’m an inspirational speaker.” That’s like me saying I’m tall and I’m not.

There are a lot of speakers out there who will tell you they’re inspirational and they’re not so much the story. The story is inspirational to them, but not to a lot of people around them.

Global Inspirational Speakers services all sectors, for-profit and nonprofit. The one thing I love about the Global Inspirational Speakers is all of our independent non-exclusive speakers believe in creating opportunities for their clients to unleash their potential. We focus a lot on the nonprofit civic sector more so than a for-profit speaking engagement, which makes us very unique when you compare to other speakers bureaus.

When you say inspirational, tell me about some of your speakers that guide us into what kind of speakers you look for, because you were very clear with me that you don’t take everyone.

For instance, John Vitalo is one of my speakers. He’s always traveling. For example, what a lot of people don’t know is he’s a Beirut bombing survivor in 1983. He went on to be the CEO of a successful business leader and graduated number one out of his college. He’s an amazing professional, amazing Marine. He’s an example of the type of quality speakers that I have in the company.

What kind of topics do you guys go out and speak on generally? Are there workshops? Are they keynotes?

It’s a variety. It could be a keynote speech for graduation. We do consulting. Maybe there’s a C-level or C-Suite group of people who need some consulting. We have CEOs that can consult a fellow CEO in any sector. Narration, an organization might need a narrator to narrate an event. We have those speakers who can narrate, “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the podcast.” The unique speakers that are in Global Inspirational Speakers can provide services to all aspects of the public speaking industry. That’s what makes us unique.

I noticed when I was on your website, a lot of them have expertise in some areas that not only the discipline Corporate America would need, but they have some deep expertise in some other areas as well. Could you share a little bit of that?

That was deliberate because the name of the company means something. I wanted to ensure in a global environment, I had speakers who can provide global services to organizations. That’s why when you look at the landing pages and review the topics, and the skillsets of the speakers, you get this global dynamic perspective. For instance, I have speakers that can speak on leadership for large companies with more than 1,000 employees leveraging technology to lead and manage in the global environment. I have speakers who can talk about the surviving rate, the impact of that, and how do you survive that? How do you thrive through a major event in your life that’s traumatic? I have a Silver Star recipient who can talk to the audience about, how do you perform within combat when you have a machine gun shooting directly at you? With the private sector, when you have COVID-19, who in my eyes is just the same. It’s a challenging situation. How do you thrive through an uncertain situation where it seems like it’s doom and gloom? Those are a couple of topics that our speakers can provide to any organization.

There are so many people who are unsure, “What is my path? Where is my next step? Where’s my next paycheck coming from?” Those are great paths for them to take. Even more, a lot of your people have that experience from what they were trained to do in the military, don’t they?

Ninety-nine percent of Global Inspirational Speakers have served. That doesn’t mean we don’t take nonmilitary speakers. Dr. Jill Goldenziel, for instance, never served in the military, but she is doing amazing things in Quantico. She does a lot with the military. To your question, it’s those experiences deploy. The moments of deprivation for months, no internet, no communication and having to accomplish a mission with minimum resources, using innovation and ingenuity, and leveraging the team to accomplish a mission. That’s what a lot of our speakers bring, which I think you can’t teach that in college. There’s not enough money you can pay. You have to go through and live through them and fail as well but be successful. We’re going through those unique experiences. We have speakers that let’s just say been in some austere places where the average person goes, “How the heck did you survive?”

I saw this meme on Facebook about veterans’ isolation. This is another day and there are lots of stuff. We don’t think about that. What kind of gigs, are these paid gigs, unpaid gigs? What kind of audiences are you guys serving?

We provided the speaking services for over 28 events since December of 2018 and their combination for-profit, nonprofit, speaking engagements, pro bono. We negotiate everything. There are some organizations that don’t have big budgets. This is not an organization that I say, “My speaker’s fee is this. If you don’t have the budget for that, then you’re not going to get a dynamic speaker.” That’s not how we do business. I won’t say 360, because you’re back to zero so I go 350.

You mentioned to me that your wife is the boss of your business. Tell me a little bit about what propelled you guys, you’re married, you work together to say, “Let’s start this business. Let’s do this,” and be able to start it and you’re still married. How does that work?

I did not want to build this company. I fought my wife. I’m a Christian. I fought God’s direction, and a lawyer. The bottom line is when I started my nonprofit, in August of 2018, the lawyer, my wife, and they said, “You’re going to have to start a for-profit because if there are any requests for speaking or some type of consulting requests from a for-profit corporation, you cannot use a nonprofit for a profit.” I said, “It’s brutal to start a company especially a nonprofit. I’m like, “No, thank you. Thanks for your advice. You guys are awesome and I am not doing it.”

We speed up to December of 2018, there was a company that wanted to put me on contract as one of their speakers. We had already started thinking about building Global. I was excited to know, “Let me go and contract for another company. We don’t have to build Global.” She goes, “That stupid.” We did it. We came up with the name and said, “I want it to be Global.” It’s inspirational and then we speak. It’s speaking, consulting and coaching industry. That’s what the name came from. I tried to play it off. I tried to delay it. I said, “It’s Christmas time. Money’s always tight around December.” She goes, “Here’s a credit card.” That’s the story behind Global Inspirational Speakers. This is not my dream. Since I was a kid, this is not what I wanted to do, but I followed God’s orders. I followed my wife’s orders and here we are.

If you’re interested, I know you mentioned inspirational. What are the criteria that your company looks for?

The major thing I look for is, are you dynamic? Do you believe in helping other people? Is your heart into creating opportunities for others and unleashing their potential? That’s our slogan. If I called you and said, “There’s a church that needs your wisdom, your guidance. They need you to come and speak. Their budget is $500.” Would you do it for pro bono? Without a doubt, the speaker will say, “Absolutely.” Those are the leadership traits, the character traits that I look for on top of, are you inspirational? What’s your experience? Are you global? Do you have a global perspective? Other things, and then what is the audience saying about you when I look on social media? Your LinkedIn page and your social media platforms, are they saying, “Mario Fields motivates and inspires me,” or “Mario is horrible, but he’s just a good person?”

I like to align myself with good people who have certified their reputation over time through their behavior. They believe in helping others more so than profit. Those are the type of people I look for. As far as application goes, if you notice there’s no apply button on the website. We, at Global, go through a referral system. There are some people who take the initiative to go, “I don’t care. I want to figure out how I can apply.” To me, that’s an indication that you’re serious. We have speakers reach out to me through LinkedIn or other channels to say, “I want to get a chance to apply.” That tells me that you’re serious and you’re committed coming to this very unique and hard to get in a speaker’s bureau.

Global Inspirational Speakers: Inspirational speakers are those who have accomplished a mission with minimum resources, using innovation and ingenuity and leveraging the team.

If someone’s interested, how do they get ahold of you?

There are many ways to get ahold of Mario Fields. The best way is to go to the website, there’s a button that says, Contact Us, and they can click on that and I’ll get the email, my team can get the email, or they can subscribe and send a message. The optional ways are LinkedIn or Facebook. I have all the social media platforms, but the best way is through the website.

Thank you so much for sharing this with people. I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who are looking for speakers. Going to veterans is always a great way to inspire discipline and the things that go along with that.

You’re welcome. It was my pleasure.

Important Links

• Superbrand Publishing – YouTube
• iTunes – Promote, Profit, Publish
• Global Inspirational Speakers
• John Vitalo
• Dr. Jill Goldenziel
• LinkedIn – Mario Fields
• Facebook – Mario Fields

About Mario Fields

Known as The Most Motivated Marine in the Marine Corps, Sergeant Major (Retired) Mario P. Fields is a dynamic personality and highly sought-after resource in business and professional circles. His passion, enthusiasm, and focus on service make him ideal for those who are looking to expand the potential and opportunities within their organizations.

Mario served for 26 years in the United States Marine Corps where he earned a reputation that reflects unquestionable integrity, resilience, accountability, and commitment to others. He began his military career as the Company Honor Graduate for 2nd Recruit Training Battalion, Company G. Mario served in a variety of roles to include assignments in Marine Aviation Training Support Group (MATSG) Naval Air Station, Pensacola, FL, Marine Corps Security Force Battalion, Norfolk, VA, Drill Instructor Duty at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, SC, Marine Corps National Capital Region Command and Education Command/Marine Corps University, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2d Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), Wounded Warrior Regiment, Wounded Warrior Battalion – West, and more. Mario has deployed to the Persian Gulf, Mediterranean Sea, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Africa, Australia, Cambodia, Philippines, South Korea, Mainland Japan, Okinawa, Thailand, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He has earned numerous awards to include the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal, and three Meritorious Service Medals.

Mario is the Founder and President at Still Serving, Inc, a non-profit organization that works to provide leadership programs for today’s youth. The first initiative, the Adopt-A-School program, has reached over 800 students to date. As Co-Owner and CEO at Global Inspirational Speakers, LLC, Mario continues his legacy of inspiring others through public speaking. Mario is also the Founder and President at Global Inspirational Press, LLC, and is currently working on his memoir.

Through all his endeavors, Mario’s greatest accomplishment is his family. He has been married to Nicole Fields for over 25 years, and they have two adult children, Myranda and Mario II. Mario and Nicole currently reside in California and work together to continue serving and inspiring people in their community and around the world.

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