By Kristin Withrow, CSDA Communications Specialist
CSDA’s Annual Conference & Exhibitor Showcase is September 9 – 12 in Indian Wells, California. This year’s opening keynote address with Mike Rayburn asks the question What If? We interviewed Rayburn to share some highlights from his topic before the conference. Registration will be open until the start of conference!
Mike Rayburn is a two-time TED Talk Presenter, an innovative entrepreneur and Hall of Fame speaker who uses world-class guitar and comedy to teach change and innovation to corporations world-wide. He has headlined Carnegie Hall, headlined in Las Vegas, and performed more than 5,000 presentations in 20 countries on five continents. Rayburn is a regular on Sirius/XM and morning radio nationwide. He has performed as guitarist with The Beach Boys and John Oates. Rayburn’s keynote is called “The What IF? Keynote Experience.” You will learn three simple tools for harnessing your unrealized potential, creating and leading change, and becoming a virtuoso performer. You’ll hear amazing music including a solo guitar version of Bohemian Rhapsody.
Oh, and you laugh a LOT! No one does what Mike Rayburn does.
Tell us about your Keynote Address for the Annual Conference & Exhibitor Showcase.
It’s all about innovation, creativity and possibility-thinking. It’s all about the simple question of ‘What If?’ How can we challenge the status quo to look at things and find new ways to do what we do in a better way for radical problem solving?
It seems people, and certainly government agencies, tend to resist change. What’s your angle on getting people to be open to the idea?
I love it when I can get people to change their attitude toward change, to stop managing change and instead start to create change. The only way to manage change IS to create it. Time breaks everything. The graveyard of obsolescence shows all these different products, services, companies, careers people aspire to – all sorts of things that are now gone. Things change!
I will illustrate my point using humor rather than a PowerPoint and statistics, so it’s a lot of fun.
What’s an important thing to know about change that people should keep in mind?
We all need to be able to re-examine how we do things. For example, one of the great modern questions is ‘will AI replace humans?’ The fact is AI will not replace humans, but humans with AI will replace humans without AI. We resist change that hurts, but we shouldn’t resist change just because it’s change. If we are able to be better at what we do because of change, why not do it?
What do you tell people who are resistant to the concept of change? Those who see the hardship in it rather than the possibilities.
It's about a new mindset; the ‘what if’ mindset. I teach how to look at the landscape that everyone sees but find the opportunities everyone else misses. In the carrot – and – stick concept, we focus on the carrot.
So, you help people find the “why” attached to the “what if?”
Yes, it’s a sense of purpose to why we do what we do that means everything to us. Look, it's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day, in the numbers and the figures, and the complaints and people’s comments, and the media and everything else and forget there's someone on the other end of what you do.
How does creativity play a role?
I want to revive the ability to think BIG about what we can do, how we can serve, how we go about what we do to serve - all of these things. My presentation is fun and interactive and will have the audience leaning into their own creativity to move from managing change to creating and leading change.
After his keynote presentation, Rayburn will be available to sign copies of his book "What If? Dare to DO More BE More and Reach Farther Than You Ever Thought Possible." The book is available at MikeRayburn.com. In addition, CSDA will have a limited number of copies available for purchase at the conference.