SHERIAN PUBLISHING PRESSROOM

Meet Author/Speaker Brian McClellan

 

 

Brian McClellan is a force of nature.  As he describes it, he came right out of the womb telling anyone who would pay attention that he was ready to take on the world and make it his.

His first job at 13 was not in fast food, but as an ump in the little league system, and his passion for competition is never far from the surface.

McClellan is clearly in a hurry – where is going he knows very well and the risk of not going with him is that you could most likely miss a defining moment of your life.

Brian was Ivy League educated: he graduated Princeton in 1992 with a B.A. in Economics and picked up his M.B.A. at Columbia University in 1996.

McClellan is a mixture of clichés and contradictions and each one is so intertwined that it’s hard to know where one starts and the other stops.

• He was a rap singer known as B-Nificent, who became a VP of sales for a Fortune 100 company.
• He is incredibly quick on his feet and at the same time remarkably introspective about what it takes to succeed.
• He is like lightening in a bottle but recognizes that mentoring requires patience and time.
• McClellan is the 2007 Toastmasters Georgia State Champion of Public Speaking and he continues to be inspired by Rap – a genre many find inarticulate. He, however, believes that Rap teaches us to be wise, and yet he concedes its message can be destructive.
• He understands that finding one’s greatness is not about playing it safe, but about testing the myths of conventional behaviors.  He believed in himself more than the corporation, when he walked away from a lifetime of security and risked it all to be an entrepreneur.
• McClellan confronts racism and at the same time reaches across to other ethnic groups to call out to their own insecurities and fears.

In short, Brian McClellan tells it like it is and understands what it takes to get it done.

He has walked the walk so we best pay attention…

McClellan is married and lives with his two children in Georgia where he remains an avid sports fan.

 

QUESTIONS FOR THE MEDIA

 

1.  What 5 things could I do tomorrow that would make my life better?

2.  What is the cultural significance of Rap today? How has it changed over the years?

3.  How do you feel about the derogatory words and violence that are part of rap lyrics?

4.  How prevalent is racism in America today?  If so, how does it manifest itself most directly?

5.  Why do you think you have more success than most of your peers?

6.  The Don Imus firing has faded from the national discussion. What should we take away from that experience as a culture?

7.  How do you know when it is time to become an entrepreneur? What specifically got you to leave corporate America?

8.  Do you feel that you have written a book that will resound with White Americans as well as Black Americans?

9.  I am intrigued about the phrase you mention in your book -  “love money”?  What does it mean?

10.  You were once a Rap artist. Why did you move on to corporate America?

BAM’S TOP TEN MOTIVATIONAL RAPS

1. Love your greatness more than you fear its price.  The perks of greatness far outweigh the work of greatness.  The GOAT never trades working less for having less.
2. You’ve got to have passion for your game.  Sometimes Life will take your best pass, intercept it, run it back for a touchdown, and then dance in your end zone.  Your passion for the game will pick you up, dust your shoulders off and say, “Life, I’m not through with you yet!”
3. Only a sheep blindly follows his leader to the slaughter.  A “ready to die” leader is the only leader worth following.  Accepting less makes you no better than the chicken that follows Colonel Sanders.
4. All the haters, those that would love to see you fail, love themselves more than they hate you.  Knowing this means that any and every rigged game can be un-rigged.  Knowing this will set you free.
5. It’s silly to LoJack your car or lock up your house, and then leave your most valuable possession, your right mind, exposed for all to walk upon like it says “Welcome to McDonald’s.”  Your right mind is the enabler of all things great, your most valuable possession, your house!  You must protect this house!
6. It’s natural to be out for self.  We are all here because one of our kin successfully dodged a dinosaur, the plague, a spear, a bullet or a brick with his name on it.  Yet, the greatest among us represent for more than just themselves.  The great ones go for theirs by helping you get yours.
7. Make something happen!  Make something so big it can be seen from the moon.  Make something so new that they have to call it by your name.  Take something so far into a new place that we forget all about the old ‘hood.”  Don’t just show up, but blow up!
8. The best of the best don’t bother half-stepping.  They live their lives like there “ain’t no maybe.”  They’re all “all in” or not at all.
9. Right now, there is someone who can ball like LeBron, but he’s afraid to take the court.  There is someone who can flow like Biggie if he could just beat his stage fright.  Don’t leave us wondering how fierce you might have been.  Don’t rob us of your greatness!
10. You were not meant to be the extra in someone else’s movie. You were meant to be a star.  There’s enough lime here for you to shine here.  You were meant to have Deep Impact, to hit the earth and go BAM!