The room packed with hundreds of high school students grew silent as the baby-faced 5’4” male stepped onto the stage. Sporting a casual T-shirt, jeans, and his trademark Motivate Yourself bracelet, he held up a $20 bill and in a booming voice asked, “Who wants this?”

The audience cheered in unison.

He then crumpled the bill, threw it on the floor, and began stomping on it. “I hate you! You’re a failure! You’ll never amount to anything!” Regaining his composure, he held up the bill again and asked who still wanted it. The students cheered even more loudly.

“Lesson number one,” said 26-year-old David Major. “No matter what I did to this bill, you still wanted it, because it still has the exact same value. As you go through your lives, people are going to stomp on you, tell you that you’re not good enough, that you can’t make it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t… You have to always remember to listen to the big voice up here (points to his head) that tells you that you can.”

Major, a resident of Thornhill, Ont., is currently in his seventh year as a motivational speaker. He has performed across Canada, the United States, and China at high school assemblies, international leadership conferences, fraternities and sororities, award banquets, and more, entertaining and motivating more than 50,000 youth.

“I think it’s hard to find jobs like this where at the end of the day you feel like you have moved the world a step forward,” said Major in a recent interview. “You’re not just spinning your wheels doing a mundane job that needs to get done. You’re actually making a positive impact on people. I always say in my speech, ‘be the change you want to see in the world,’ and I think that’s what I’m accomplishing.”

Major isn’t your average motivational speaker. He uses sound effects, monologues, rants, and comedic messages in his speeches, always ensuring he engages with the audience. In former speeches he performed the tune to Baa Baa Black Sheep with his armpits.

Immersed in his job, his schedule changes from week to week. Some months he’s out on the road a lot hitting various speaking engagements, while other months he spends most of his days in front of his computer at home, corresponding with students, educators, and other business contacts.

Major also produces Student Leadership Activities Magazine (SLAM!), an online publication written by and for students. He aims to use the magazine as a medium to help create an online community through which students can share leadership ideas and learn from each other. He is also planning on writing a book on leadership.

Managing about six and a half hours of sleep a night, he tries his best to also squeeze in quality time with his girlfriend, friends, and family.

Major’s first motivational speaking gig ensued by fluke when he was a Grade 12 student at Westmount Collegiate Institute. He and a few other students planned the first annual leadership conference at the school and wanted to bring in a motivational speaker. Unable to afford a professional, Major and his friend decided to give a mini-speech.

About a month later, another high school requested that Major and his friend present a speech for pay at another leadership conference. Surprised but flattered, Major and his friend jumped on the opportunity, and they garnered a standing ovation. Realizing they may have found a niche, they continued offering speeches at various events.

After about a year, Major continued doing motivational speaking on his own part time while studying political science and history at the University of Western Ontario. “It’s a really fulfilling job,” said Major. “I love the e-mails I get from students after I make a speech, and it’s great when I walk out of a school and about a dozen people are giving me compliments and thanking me for the speech. Some say I helped them see things in a different way or I really made an impact on them.”

Eager to touch more lives in a positive way, Major planned to pursue his business as a motivational speaker full time following his graduation from university. But a few months after his return to Thornhill, he landed a job as special assistant for community outreach for Thornhill Member of Parliament Susan Kadis after volunteering to help her run in a federal election. So he eagerly took on that opportunity, but continued the motivational speaking work part time. Soon he was working 17 hours a day seven days a week.

Last fall, realizing he had more passion for his work as a motivator, Major decided to leave the political field and pursue his business full time. But he said working for Kadis was “the best thing that could have happened” to him. He learned a lot of the skills he now better understands are crucial to running a successful business, including maintaining contacts and promotion.

Major said he also learned a lot throughout his high school experience that helped to shape who he is today. “I had changed so much every year in high school. In Grade 9, I hardly talked to anybody, was very shy, and didn’t have many friends. I loved to get up in front of a crowd and perform, but in social situations I felt awkward.

“It was the ugliest year anyone could ever have,” he joked. “I had hair up to my shoulders, braces, and I had this peach fuzz mustache going on. I think it was the ugliest year of anyone’s life; I think I could have won a contest for how I looked that year.”

In Grade 10, Major made a move from Vaughan Secondary School to Westmount. He met some new friends, who he said helped change his life around. They encouraged him to join more school clubs and explore new opportunities.

He became highly involved in student leadership. Over the course of his high school years, he put in over 6,000 hours of extra curricular activities through his involvement in the student council, music council, drama council, Ontario Secondary School Students Association, as the eighth student trustee for the York Region District School Board, and more.

“Over the years, I gained more confidence in myself and what I was doing,” said Major. “I think it also helped me to see all sides of high school. That’s one thing I want to add to my speech. When many teens see me now, they think I’m confident and an accomplished public speaker, but that wasn’t always the case.”

Having spoken with thousands of youth over the years, Major has found there is a major issue common among almost all teens.

“There is this overlying stress that they feel, saying my parents want me to do this, or my girlfriend wants me to do that, or my teacher said to do this,” he said, “and I think most teens—most people, to be fair—don’t see the overlying picture. They don’t realize that one night’s worth of homework doesn’t make the end of their world. Even if you do fail one time, life is not over.”

Major isn’t the only one in his family who has engaged in work involving public speaking and motivating others. One of his distant cousins, who he’s never met, gives talks for corporations locally and internationally, and his father is a retired high school Math teacher.

For others thinking of pursuing a career as motivational speakers, Major said it’s important they enjoy the job, are willing to put in the hours needed to succeed, like to travel, and are okay with facing rejection. “You get rejected a lot more times in this job than you get accepted. You have to get a little bit of thick skin with it.”

He also recommends people obtain a degree in psychology or business. Speakers should also try to get as much experience as possible, he added, initially speaking in front of family and friends or others they know and eventually garnering referrals.

For more on David Major visit www.motivateyourself.net.

Shlomit Kriger is One80’s News Coordinator