World of Speakers E.26: Tomislav Perko | Hitchhiker’s guide to professional speaking

Ryan Foland: We are back here.

Today I'm super excited because we're talking with another world traveler, somebody who has traveled through hitchhiking and the most basic means possible to meet amazing people and then bringing that story back around the world in a speaking capacity.

Ladies and gentlemen, Tomislav is on the line with us now. Thomas, how are you, sir?

TP: I'm pretty good, sir, and how are you?

RF: I'm fantastic. Have you been hitchhiking yet today?

TP: Not today, today I've been busy and I'm actually back home for a few more days and then I'm back on the road, not hitchhiking, but we'll get to that.

RF: Awesome.

Tell us a little bit more about your story— where this all came from?

You are a classic example of someone who is speaking around the world and traveling around the world, but I know there's a good backstory to it, so let's get to know you a little bit.

TP: Yes, I think like with every story, it starts with reaching the bottom, right, hitting the bottom.

My story started back in 2007, 2008, when I had a pretty different lifestyle. I was a stockbroker in Zagreb, Croatia, in my home city.

I was leading a completely different lifestyle, the stock exchange like Wolf of Wall Street, those kinds of things.

And then, the financial crash came in 2008 and I lost everything, not only did I lose everything, but I was in a huge debt, I was around $35,000 in debt.  

I had no idea what to do. I was broke, I had a job that I didn't really like anymore, plus I still hadn't even finished my master's in degree at the university.

Reaching the bottom of my life kind of inspiring me to ask myself the one and only question and that was, "What do I really want to do with my life."

By chance, a lot of people came into my life, people that were traveling around the world mostly through this website called Couchsurfing.

I was living in my home city and I was hosting all these people from all around the world.

Hosting them opened up an entirely new world for me, the world of travel. They inspired me, they motivated me, they educated me how to travel really cheaply.

I tried it, and I've been doing it ever since, so in the last seven or eight years most of the time I've been on the road.

I started writing about it, taking photos and traveling around the world with almost no money.

RF: Wow, and when you say traveling around the world, I mean, you have traveled around the world.

I saw a map on your website, and it was just all these little dots connected, crazy, like all over the world.

Is there any place you haven't been to?

TP: Well, there are many places I haven't been, but when I speak of continents, I haven't been to North America.

That's one of the most important ones some might say, but I have skipped USA and Canada and Mexico for now.

I haven't been to Antarctica of course, because that's too chilly for me, I like hot and warm places around the world.

I've been to Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and South America.

RF: Very cool. And I would imagine that in Antarctica it's hard to find some good hitchhiking spots.

TP: I've heard some people actually managed to hitchhike some cargo boats or get a job on some cruisers that go to Antarctica.

But yeah, you can't really hitchhike on Antarctica, or maybe if you're lucky, you can find some scientists with their snowmobile vehicles or whatever.

It just never occurred to me to go there, to get that out of my bucket list, it never was on my bucket list.

A lot of travelers will tell you, it's not about collecting the continents or countries, it's just about traveling and doing what you like and enjoying spending time with other people from other cultures.

RF: Now, when you were growing up, did you have aspirations to travel or did this really just stem out of the fact that you had this rock-bottom moment and then the world sort of presented this as an option?

TP: I wanted to travel all my life just like everybody else wants to travel.

I think it's kind of something we are born with, it's something that is ingrained in us, this quest for the curiosity and willingness to explore.

When we're kids what do we do, we try to look what's behind that door. I wasn't really somebody that wanted to travel more than the kids or the people that I grew up with.

I started asking myself these questions when I was growing up, and I wanted to see for myself what this world is all about.

I didn't want to believe in what my environment taught me, what my parents taught me, what my school taught me, my religion, the media, my government and so on and so on.

I think the biggest inspiration for me came from the people that were traveling themselves, and just by hearing their stories I was like,

"Wow, these people lead really cool lives, I want to give it a shot."

I gave it a shot. It wasn't a big deal, and then I realized that if these guys can travel, I can travel, and if I can travel— everybody can travel.

So it's just a matter of priorities and what you really, really want to do in life.

RF: These travels have allowed you to write a book and then you've come back and you speak now in various places about this topic of travel.

Have you always had that public speaker bug, have you always been comfortable in front of people?

Tell me about your history with your natural ability to speak and share stories?

TP: When I look back, I have never really had an idea to use my traveling to give public speeches. It wasn't really a plan of mine, it just happened by coincidence.

But, looking back even further, when I was a kid, when I was in kindergarten, when I was in elementary school, I was one of those kids that liked to stand in front of the class and give a talk about something.

Maybe it was only homework or maybe it was like some school play and I wanted to be a part of it, so I kind of had this— I am not sure if I can call it urge, but I was more comfortable with public speaking than other kids in the elementary school.

It didn't mean that I wasn't nervous, of course, it just meant that being out there in front of everybody would give more than what fear would bring back

Even today, even after years and years of giving speeches and giving talks and lectures and so on, I'm still nervous, sometimes I go out in front of 20 people, sometimes I go out in front of 1500 people, I'm still nervous every single time.

It comes with practice, I guess, rationalizing everything that it's okay to be nervous, it's okay to be afraid.

Just go ahead with it and in the end, you will be you will understand why you were afraid and you will see that it was definitely worth it.

RF: Yeah. With your job in the stock market— were you more in a sales capacity or were you more in transactions?

Were you interacting with other stockbrokers and did your sort of innate ability to speak and that gift of gab and that confidence that you have, did that really help you to become the successful stock broker that you were?

TP: Well, I'm not sure if I was a successful stockbroker.

I was a successful stockbroker when everybody was successful, when the market is going up it's not really hard to be successful.

I thought that was successful and everybody around me thought I was successful because I was earning a lot of money, but looking backward, a lot of people were earning a lot of money back then.

When it comes to my profile of a stockbroker, they call it a day trader, so I just went into the office, I did contact other clients like,

"What do you want to invest today, do you want to sell, do you want to keep something, do you want to buy something," and so on.

But for me, the stock exchange was just psychology.

When I went into the office, I had two screens before me, one was "buy" one was "sell" and I was just looking how people were reacting to certain news, and if I would see there was a lot of people that want to buy, I was getting in front of them and of course trying to buy low, sell when it's high.

For me, it was all just psychology and it was a game and maybe even gambling as well because it gives you a lot of adrenaline when you are buying and selling.

The money that I was in charge of was really big, especially for me, I was only maybe 22, 23 years old, so there were not millions, but hundreds of thousands of dollars involved.

It has kind of taught me to react in an instance, let's just put it that way. It kind of helped me later on with traveling, with keeping my lectures and my public speeches and so on.

Like everything in life, it was definitely a lesson.

RF: What is the main topic or the set of topics that you speak about?

Is it really traveling, is it adventure?

Is it some of the lessons that you've learned while traveling?

When you take the stage, what are the common topics or your favorite talks to give?

TP: In the last three or four years, I’ve given a large variety of talks, but I think I could break it down into three major categories.

The first is something that everybody likes to hear and that is how to travel the world with almost no money.

That was also the title of my TEDx talk which also brought me a lot of people that heard about me and so on. It is actually one of the top 50 most viewed TEDx Talks of all time.

This is the topic that everybody wants to hear about, because the majority of the people want to travel and they don't have money.

Here I am, a guy who was hitchhiking around the world, who was couch-surfing around the world, so I'm telling them what I did that allowed me to spend a little bit of money and travel all around the world.

I'm talking about alternative ways of traveling, from hitchhiking, walking, cycling to alternative ways of accommodation, CouchSurfing, camping, volunteering, home exchange, house-sitting and so on.

So this is the topic that I think people want to hear the most.

The second part, is the biggest challenges I had to overcome while I was traveling, and before I embarked on my travel.

That part is not only about travel stories, it is also life lessons that I learned and it's kind of an inspirational, motivational talk as well, because I'm going through my fears, I'm going through the lessons I've learned, that I have experienced on my own skin the hardest way.

That's the only way we can learn these kinds of things, if we live through it.

This way I'm trying to tell people, "Don't be afraid of this and that, this is how I have dealt with certain issues and so on."

That's the second part of the talks that I give.

And the third part is actually the one that comes in the last couple of years, and that's how I turn my love and passion for traveling into my job and into my career.

I'm telling people how I managed to get as much social media followers, how I wrote and self-published and crowd-funded two of my books, how I started to give speeches and talks and lectures and so on.

These are the three main topics:

1. How to travel the world with almost no money

2. Lessons I've learned on the road

3. How I turned my travels into my career.

RF: Awesome, those are the three topics that seem to sort of build on each other which is fantastic.

I want to pick your brain about how you would help others who want to become better speakers.

I think it might be fun to challenge you to come up with some analogies to your hitchhiking, because I watched some of your videos and you have really funny kind of a bunch of tips, like tip number 15, tip number 56, and you're on the road and you're basically giving amazing advice for people who want to hitchhike.

And as I was listening, I couldn't help but think of an analogy to some public speaking skills in relation to hitchhiking.

Let's spend the next few minutes going through hitchhiking advice that also is something public speakers can learn from.

TP: Sure.

Okay, so with hitchhiking, the most important thing is to prepare yourself. I think this is pretty much the same with public speaking.

With hitchhiking, you don't have to have some experience to hitchhike, but you have to know how to pack your backpack and how to find the place, or choose a route that will take you to the next city, using google maps or Hitchwiki.org which is amazing, it is like a Wikipedia for hitchhikers.

The most important thing is to prepare yourself while hitchhiking because if you're not in the right place, you are not going anywhere.

You can just stay in front of your house and try to hitchhike there, but there is probably a low chance that somebody is going far, far away.

It's the same thing with giving public speeches, you have to prepare yourself, you have to know what you want to say, like where you want to go when you're hitchhiking.

Preparation is a great thing, even though it might lead to a lot of improvisation, but I think you can improvise if you prepare yourself in the right way.

With hitchhiking, you also have to choose a good spot to start hitchhiking, to continue hitchhiking, whether that's on a gas station, on a highway, toll booths or whatever.

It is the same with public speaking, if you are giving a speech of a topic that doesn't really interest a lot of people, you have to find your niche, you have to find the people who are willing to hear your story, who are interested in your story.

If I was to go with my travel story to some kitchen appliances festival— what are the chances that people there would listen to me.

Or if I go to the kindergarten, kids there won't be that much interested, maybe if I dressed as a clown and tried to explain them in a funny way what hitchhiking and traveling is all about, yeah….but still.

Also, one of the lessons is how you look when you hitchhike, so if you are grumpy, nobody will stop.

Nobody wants a grumpy guy in their car, nobody wants a smelly guy in their car, nobody wants a wet guy who just cannot afford an umbrella or a raincoat or whatever.

So look decent, smile during hitchhiking, a pretty much same thing that goes with public speaking. You have to look decent for people to listen to you.

That doesn't mean you cannot rock bare-feet and have dreadlocks and if you are on that kind of a lecture or on that kind of the festival, yeah, go ahead man.

I gave a lot of my talks walking bare feet, but it wasn't in some nice, fancy places, it was like in a park, you can also connect hitchhiking with giving public speeches.

Also, one thing when hitchhiking, this is a controversial thing, like should you have a sign or should you not have a sign.

I like to have signs, but even more than having a sign while hitchhiking, I like to have a slideshow when I give my talks.

Because in case I forget something, in case I skip a very important thing that I want to say during my lectures, my slides are here to remind me what I want to want to talk about.

So slides are very, very important for me during my talks, because they give an audience a visual interpretation of what I want to say, but in the same time, it reminds me of the story and what I want to say.

Today I have over 300 talks behind me, but at the beginning, it was really important not to forget something and this is why I use my slides.

If I forget, if I get confused I just look behind me and I see one word, or I see one sentence that I know I want to make a certain point. But also, it's important to improvise.

Like with hitchhiking, sometimes you're going to one city and you meet some people on the way, and you just change your route and go the other way.

That can also be very valuable during talks, but that maybe comes with some more experience.

And then, the last but not the least— is to enjoy.

The hitchhiking is not the best thing in the world, and if you are doing it just to get from "Point A" to "Point B", I don't see the point of it.

It’s the same thing with public speaking, if you're doing it only to earn money or put yourself out there for I don't know what reasons, that's just not good because, after a while, it will lose something that put you up there on the stage.

RF: Alright, so from a world travel using hitchhiking, you're saying preparation is key, finding a good spot where you are going to give your speech is important.

Then you've got how you look, you don't want to be this stinky speaker, but granted if you want to wear bare feet and have dreadlocks if you're talking to a bunch of other people that appreciate that sort of humble authenticity of like, "This is what I'm doing right now," then that works.

I really like this idea of as a hitchhiker, you've got this sign or no sign, and I guess it's informing your audience who is in the car blasting by at 70 mph to 100 mph of where you're going.

But you've taken this hitchhiking lesson to basically say that's why it's important for you as a speaker to have the visuals to help guide you as the audience is driving by when you're on stage.

TP: You kind of surprised me with the connection between hitchhiking and public speaking, I've never thought about it before, but now when I think about it, there are a lot of things that connect these two actually.

RF: Yeah, and this could be a whole new speech for you, like, "How to speak like a hitchhiker," or, "The hitchhiker's guide to speaking." That might be good.

TP: Yeah, thank you for giving me the idea.

I'll just start working on another topic now when I hang up this call.

RF: And if you think about it too, just kind of on the communication side of things, if you are prepared, you're in the right spot, you look good, you have a sign or not, depending on what's culturally relevant, you're willing to improvise if the car that you're driving is going different way and you're enjoying the process.

If as that person you still do not communicate well, or you fumble your words to the person you're trying to get a ride with, the chances of you being successful as a hitchhiker really is dependent on your communication, you're talking body language, you're talking preparation, so this whole new series you have could be traveling communication for individuals who want to hitchhike, there's like some real humanistic basics going on with hitchhiking and the communication that goes on with it.

TP: Yeah, you're definitely right, and you're going very, very deep, I think this talk would be hours and hours.

Even though I've started hitchhiking seven, eight years ago and giving public talks like three years ago, I never had this idea that there are so many things that connect these two.

But also, maybe something that I haven't really mentioned before is you have to have your own story, you have to have the reason why you are doing it.

I said if you're hitchhiking from "point A" to "point B" just to get to "point B", maybe you won't enjoy it as much.

Also, with giving public talks, you have to know what's in it for you, what is in it for the people that are listening to you.

And you have to turn it into something bigger than just me speaking to all these people or me hitchhiking and traveling around the world.

It has to have some sort of a bigger value for the people, you have to give something.

Like you have to give to your drivers when you're driving with them, you have to give them a cool story, you have to give them a smile, you have to maybe give them a small present, because they are giving you a ride, they are hosting you in their own car which is also their intimate space.

It's also connected with public speaking, people came there to listen to you or a bunch of other people as well, but you are there in the meantime, so you have to give something to them.

You have to give them something valuable so they don't go on their mobile phones while they're listening to your talk, you have a certain amount of time to just give them everything you have.

That's what I did with hitchhiking, that's what I'm trying to do with public speaking as well.

RF: And I think that the rabbit hole even goes deeper.

When you're inside of the car this idea that you have to somehow be a value as a passenger, you can't just be a stinky, grumpy guy who sits there and falls asleep and snores, you're actively listening to their stories or you're sharing your stories with them.

And if you think about it, every time you get into a car in your hitchhiking, that's like a little private show.

TP: Yeah, definitely.

RF: This is a stage where you're in the audience, talking with the person and really, whatever is happening outside the vehicle is what's happening, but it's an audience of one or two or three or, if you're in the back of a pickup truck and there are 10 people, right, you have a little mini stage.

TP: Pretty much, yeah, looking from that perspective, probably hitchhiking and talking with my drivers improved my public speaking skills.

Before I started hitchhiking, I pretty much never gave a public talk. I mean, I did in high school, yeah, about certain issues or school plays.

But yeah, probably you're right, maybe hitchhiking was just— not just, but a part of hitchhiking was also practicing for something else.

Now I understand what that something else was.

It was me standing on the stage and giving my story to other people.

RF: Yeah and you mentioned that you have 300 talks you've given, so here's a challenging question.

Just take a guess, how many rides, how many different car rides have you successfully hitchhiked?

You might not know, but just take a guess, what do you think, how many cars have you hitchhiked in?

TP: Definitely more than 300.

RF: Okay.

TP: But I would say know between 500 and 1000.

RF: Okay, let's just say 500, so now you can say,

"Look, I've given over 300 speeches in front of an audience and over 500 personal presentations in vehicles."

TP: I will definitely put it on my speaker's CV after this conversation.

RF: Exactly, that's funny.

You can put together like a travel program, a whole new guide which is the hitchhiker's guide to public speaking, and you have them put themselves in different situations.

"If you're in a truck, in the back, and there's three other people, try to captivate them with a story that's more than five minutes less than seven minutes, ask engaging questions."

I can see that being a traveler’s public speaking guide.

TP: I  think we should stop doing what we are doing now, and just go on this project together.

Yeah, and we can transcribe the audio and then that'll be the lesson plan and all kinds of stuff.

RF: Yeah, let's stop with these podcasts and stuff like that, let's just do these talks, something completely new. But yes, seriously, it is a really, really good thing that you have come up with.

RF: It's a really good concept, it's solving a problem.

I think that you're deeper into the public speaking and have an ability to train others.

Think of it, the world traveler or the person who wants to like hitchhike around, they probably aren't thinking about how to improve their public speaking skills, let's be honest, right.

TP: Yeah,  like I didn't.

RF: But if you are there saying, "Look, you can follow your dreams, you can travel around the world on hardly any money," and at the same time they can get, maybe call it an MBA in speaking, but change it to like a masters in— maybe it's MHA, a Master's in Hitchhiking Association.

TP: I think we can start the university or something.

RF: Cool, and then if you when you write your next book just let me know and I'll help you illustrate it with some stick figures.

TP: Definitely. I think we'll do some cooperation together, you gave me some great thoughts.

RF: I'll be a test pilot, I'll say, "You know what Thomas, I'm going to go travel all of Europe and I'll follow your curriculum and then I'll document it and share it." Yeah, there you go.

TP: Plus, in like nine months or so, I'm planning to organize a hitchhiking race through Europe.

Have that in mind.

RF: Okay, sign me up, I'll be your first contestant.

So let's transition in the last part of this show. I always like to know how people monetize their message.

How you turn this travel from CouchSurfing into a lifestyle and a business.

And it sounds like this is a big part of what you talk about, so step us through what you share with people about how they can take something as simple as traveling and turn it into a business.

TP: Okay, so the first thing where I think people make the biggest mistake is to start doing something because they think it will bring them money in the long run.

So with me and my traveling, with my travel stories, with my public speaking, it was never really meant to be what it is today.

I started traveling because I wanted to travel, period.

I didn't start traveling because I wanted to make a blog, because I wanted to write books, because I wanted to give public speeches, these are all the things that came years and years later.

Why I started and how I started monetizing my travel stories— I wouldn't have even thought about it probably if I hadn’t have this huge debt after the financial crash.

After this financial crisis, I found myself bankrupt, I was in debt 35 thousand dollars and I wanted to travel, so I wanted to blend in these two things, I wanted to travel and I wanted to earn money while traveling.

I was thinking about how to make that possible.

My first idea was to go to Australia and work there for a year, live like only on bread and water, earn a lot of money, pay off my debt, then continue traveling.

But then, the longer I thought about it, I realized my friends from Facebook were really happy to see my photos when I was traveling and hitchhiking and doing this and that.

I was like, "Wow, maybe I should start writing about it, maybe like other people that don't know who I am maybe they would be interested in following my story."

"All those people that inspired me, motivated me, educated me, maybe I can give back kind of a debt to society and try to motivate, educate and inspire other people."

For the first couple of years, I had no idea how to monetize, I hadn't even thought about it.

But later on, it kind of came to itself, I started writing my blog, I created a YouTube channel, I started my own website and so on.

Facebook was my main social network that I communicated with the people. I also started very early, back in 2010 when there was not as many Facebook pages as it is today, so maybe the timing was also very good and very important.

I just gave to people what they wanted and I gave it for free, for years; everything I shot, everything I wrote I was giving away for free.

I saw no point in selling. I thought, "I was traveling around the world with almost no money and now I should sell this to somebody— no, no".

I used the other approach, I was like, "Okay, I want to give everything out there for free, but is there any company maybe, or association, or something that could pay me to kind of promote their products while I'm traveling?"

Before that I had to get a certain amount of people that are following me, I couldn't go with 1000 Facebook likes and go to a big company and say,

"I want to travel around the world— give me money to do that."

They would have said, "I have 200 people that want to do the same thing, why are you so special?"

I had to have something that is more valuable than my competition, in strictly economic terms.

When I had my first sponsors, I already had between 5,000 and 10,000 people on my Facebook page, so I could go to a certain company here in Croatia— it's a small country with only 4.1 million people living here, so I already have something to offer them, that's also very important.

Step number one is— don't do what you're doing just because you think you will earn money from it.

Do it because you like doing it, and then find a way to monetize it.

The second thing is— create something even before you try to monetize.

You should create something first and then see if somebody is interested in backing you up, sponsoring you, buying your book.

I wrote my book after five years of traveling, so I already had 50 thousand people on my Facebook page and I was like, "Well, if I write a book, will somebody buy it?"

Of course they will, because all these people have been reading all of my stories for years and years.

A lot of things happened to me just because I was doing what I liked doing, I know it sounds like a cliche, but it was like that, I was doing what I liked doing, and I was always thinking about,

"Okay, what I create, I create it because I love it, but is there another way that I could maybe earn my living from it so I don't have to do something that I don't like, so I can be able to travel around the world."

So it started with having sponsors while I was traveling, and after my travels, at one point I didn't want to travel as much as I traveled before so I was like,

"Okay, maybe it's time to write a book."

And so I wrote the book and I was like,

"Okay, what should I do now? Should I publish it by myself, or should I find a publisher?"

I was like, "Well I already have all these people in my social media, I should publish it myself. Wow, there's this thing called crowdfunding, let's try Indiegogo, let's try Kickstarter."

That's how I managed to get get the funds for my book, and when I published my book, I was like,

"Okay, what should I do now? Maybe I should go on a tour. How should I go on a tour, I don't have any money?"

"Let's hitchhike around Croatia, let's send the books in all of the cities, let's ask the people from Facebook if will help me organize lectures in their own cities and I will organize everything for free, and I will earn some money by selling books."

Later on, after first 100 lectures, I figured out that actually some libraries give you money to come there and give a speech, and I was like,

"Wow, seriously, I can get the money from the library plus I can sell the books— wow perfect!"

And then after 200 talks, my friend from Brussels told me, "You should come to Brussels to have the talk here."

I was like, "Who is going to come in Brussels, I'm a Croatian guy and I'm not that popular outside of Croatia."

And he was like, "Well, let's try organizing it."

And he found a pub four 100, 120 people and he opened up a Facebook event and invited all of his friends from Brussels.

We were hoping to get like a 100, 150 people that will just come for the free lecture in Brussels.

After a couple of days we had over 35,000 thousand people on the Facebook event that wanted to attend, and we were like,

"Damn, what just happened?"

With no promotion, with just word of mouth.

RF: "We need a big bar!"

TP: Exactly, and then, we said, "Let's rent a venue, let's rent a big venue and charge for the tickets."

I was really skeptical, "Who's going to pay for the tickets to come to my lecture?"

I had over 200 talks and nobody ever gave me any money for it,  at least not the people that came to the lectures.

We gave it a shot, we rented a huge venue in the center of Brussels, it was 1432 seats and we sold it out. We sold tickets for five euros and was sold out the venue, and we did it twice, only in Brussels.

I repeat, nothing of this was planned.

I had a goal to travel and when I traveled. Then I had a goal, "I don't want to go to work in an office, maybe I should use my travel experience and my travel stories to turn it into my job."

Then I found first sponsors, then the book, then the lectures and then the combination of the sponsors and books and lectures.

There is a large variety of things one can do to do exactly what I did— to turn their passion and love for something into their job, into their career.

RF: Wow, and it sounds like social media played a big part in that.

Would you suggest that that is a common sort of crown within that strategy that you have, building that base, building your fanship with them along the way?

TP: Definitely.

We live in a world where everybody is constantly on social media. When I was thinking about it, when I started writing back in 2010, I was like,

"Okay, which channel should I use to reach to as many people as possible?"

It had to be a free channel because I had no money to create my own website. I chose Facebook, because it was free for me, it was free for other people, and I just did it that way.

So yes, social media had a massive impact on what I did.

But I think that we always adjust, if there are no social media we will find another way.

If I don't go out to a library to sell my books, I would just go on a beach somewhere and find a projector and a beamer and hold a talk right on the beach somewhere, I will find a way.

If I believe in my story and if I am at least a little bit educated about economics.

I think you only need common sense, I think you only need some logic, I never use my masters in business and economics, like the things I read in books and so on to use it on my business.

Later on, when I used some of the things in my business I realized, "Oh that's something that I learned in school."

I learned that on the way, I didn't learn it first and then used it, I just learned from my own mistakes, from my own falls and my own successes.

RF: It really sounds like this route to monetization is very similar to hitchhiking travel adventure right?

Going back to sort of these hitchhiking tips, being prepared, choosing the right spot, being flexible, being aware of what you look like during the process, guiding you and your listeners or readers whether it's visuals, whether it's a book, whether it's social media posts, and this whole idea of enjoying the process but leveraging the tools around you, and if there's no wi-fi— figure it out, right?

Get a sharpie marker and make a sign. And this ability to ebb and flow with your surroundings and it sounds like your monetization process was exactly that,

"Hey, we're going to just go, and then, along the way, we're going to figure out what works and then we're going to try it."

"And if there's a fork in the road, we're going to choose a way, and if that doesn't work, we're going to go back, we're going to choose the other way."

It's a very logical, but very unstructured kind of adventure, it seems like.

TP: Yeah, I always say to people, "Guys, to do what I did, you just need common sense, you just need some basic logic."

When they hear my story, people think, "Oh, this guy is such an adventurer, he is so brave."

I'm nothing out of the ordinary, I'm just like the guy next door.

My life was pretty much the same like lives of all the people around me, I just used common sense, I just used logic and I did that extra step, let's just put it that way.

I was afraid of doing all these things, but I looked at them rationally and with logic.

I said, "Why should I be afraid of something that I never did? Let's just give it a shot and see if that something is that scary or not."

Also, the same thing goes for hitching, even for public speaking.

When I went out to give a public talk, I was completely nervous, I have a video of my first public talk back in 2010, it was like I was just jumping from one leg to another, my voice was shaky, I couldn't keep eye contact with the audience and stuff like that.

With practice, with time, the reward comes.

I have also just thought of another connection with hitchhiking and public speaking— a lot of people ask me now when I have a lot of experience, they ask me,

"Is it hard to tell the same story all over again?"

I always tell them that it's the same thing when you're hitchhiking, everybody who picks you up they want to hear your story or they want to tell you their story.

But you always have to look it from their own perspective, this guy asks me, what's my name, where I'm from, what am I doing for a living, how do I afford to travel etc.

That is the same type of question that 10 people had asked me before that, so this is the 11th time maybe that I have to share the same story.

But you always have to look it from their perspective, it is the first time they ask you this question. During your lectures it is the first time somebody comes and listens to what you have to say.

So you have to look at it that way. If you look at it like, "I'm here, I'm giving the same talk—" it's not a job for you.

Can you imagine teachers after giving the same lecture for five different classes going to the sixth class and being like,

"Guys, I already gave this lecture to the five classes before you, I'll take a break."

It's pretty much the same thing. You always have to look at it from the perspective of the other side, whether it's the driver of the car or somebody from the audience during your public speech.

RF: I love that. I'm looking forward to this "Hitchhiker's Guide to Public Speaking".

As kind of a final note here, one of my favorite tips that you had in your hitchhiking was that you take your thumb like this, and you just put it up.

And you said, "Most of you have a thumb, so this is easy."

TP: It pretty much is, yeah.

RF: Yeah, and so, those people that have a message, that they have the ability to speak, even if you can't physically speak, you can sign, but think of your voice as your thumb.

And if you want to share that with people, you've got to speak your voice, you've got to put it out there just like you put up your thumb, otherwise no one's going to pick you up, no one's going to sit in your audience and no one's going to want to hear your story.

What a fun analogy, and I'm excited to follow your adventures and I am definitely excited to be involved in the hitchhiker race coming up soon.

TP: We will definitely continue our little talks about this hitchhiking public speaking mixture. It has a potential, actually.

RF: Yeah. Hey, tell people what are the best places to follow your adventures online?

TP: Well people can just google my name, so it's Tomislav Perko, I have a website Tomislav Perko.com, I am on Facebook, I'm on Instagram.

They can check my TEDx talk,  which is called, "How to Travel the World With Almost No Money."

I think that's the best thing that people can start with, if they are interested in my story. It's 18 minutes long, and it is one of the best lectures I ever held and it's in English.

Majority of the talks I gave are in Croatian because I gave them in my own country, but I think Facebook is probably the best social media where that they can follow me.

RF: Excellent, we'll make sure to put all that stuff in the show notes.

Well, Tomislav, this has been amazing, fun stuff.

Everybody out there, remember, speaking is like hitchhiking, you’ve just got to put yourself on the right road and you’ve got to put your thumb out and then you just got to tell stories, right?

TP: Exactly.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to share my story with some more people.

If I can just close it with one thing that I like to really share with other people— no matter what people tell you, how to travel, how to hitchhike, how to give public speeches— go and figure it out for yourself.

The story I give, all the stories you hear, all the inspirational talks, all of the travel stories and this and that, you can learn a lot from it, but go and learn on your own mistakes, go and learn from your own talks, from your own bad experience, this is the way that you will learn it not only in theory, but in practice.

So yeah, take everything you can from these podcasts, from YouTube videos, from blogs. But if you don't go out there and try it for yourself, everything else is in vain.

RF: Word to that.

Alright Tom, this has been a blast and we will talk to you later, see you online and maybe share the stage sometime.

TP: I really hope so man, it was a great pleasure and yeah, goodbye to all of your listeners.

RF: How do you say goodbye in Croatian?

TP: Zbogom.

RF: Alright, on the count of three, we'll say that together— one, two, three: ZBOGOM.

Alright, we'll see you Tom, have a good day.

TP: Yeah man.

 

A bit about World of Speakers

World of Speakers is a weekly podcast that helps people find their own voice, and teaches them how to use their voice to develop a speaking business.

We cover topics like: what works versus what doesn't, ideas on how to give memorable presentations, speaking tips, and ideas on how to build a speaking business.

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