When you sound like everybody else, you get treated like everybody else. You get compared, haggled with and forgotten.
Jason Hewlett knows this better than anyone, because for years his job was to sound like somebody else. He was a full-time impersonator in Las Vegas and played every major casino as Elton John and more. He then turned down a lifetime casino headline deal that would have broken his promise to himself. It got him blacklisted from the city. He went on to build a keynote business delivering 2,000+ corporate events for some of the world’s biggest companies, and he’s one of the youngest people ever inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame.
In this episode Jason shows how one small tweak (a bit of country twang) turned a failed Elton John audition into a job. He also explains how every founder and leader can find their own “moonwalk.”
In this episode you’ll learn:
🎤 The one tweak that got him the job, and why your next level might be just one dial away
🎰 Why he walked away from Vegas, and the difference between a goal and a promise
🕺 What “signature moves” are and why most leaders keep theirs in a drawer
📝 Identify, Clarify, Magnify: his 3-step process to find your signature moves (and your team’s)
🎩 How to use your signature moves at work vs at home
🤝 How an entertainer earned the confidence to have hard conversations in the boardroom
❤️ His biggest regret as a business-owning dad, and what he changed
About Jason Hewlett:
Keynote speaker, emcee, consultant and board member. Author of The Promise to the One.
🌐 https://jasonhewlett.com
💼 Find Jason on LinkedIn
CHAPTERS
0:00 Paid to be somebody else
2:10 What impersonation taught him about standing out
3:55 The Elton John audition, and the one tweak that got him hired
6:35 How a kid doing Pee-wee Herman voices became an impersonator
8:30 Vegas casinos fight over his one-man show
10:05 Why he walked away from Vegas
12:25 Blacklisted from the city
12:50 Goals vs promises: why a promise beats a goal
15:15 The corporate gig that turned an entertainer into a keynote speaker
17:45 What are signature moves? (The Michael Jackson moonwalk)
20:50 Jason’s signature move (you have to see this)
23:15 The speaker who bakes cookies for every attendee
24:40 Spreading joy, even in a tough room
27:45 Identify, Clarify, Magnify: how to find your signature moves
34:10 How to make it not feel like another HR workshop
37:55 Signature moves at work vs at home
41:50 From entertainer to emcee, agency owner and consultant
44:30 What he brings to boards and big companies
48:25 Where the confidence for hard conversations came from (Vegas and Utah)
51:40 Reading the room
52:50 How his leadership evolved: from transactional to empathy
57:10 Risk appetite and four kids in five years
58:45 Quickfire: best decision
1:00:20 Best advice: “The light you shine is the light you receive”
1:01:05 Who helped him most
1:02:15 Biggest regret
1:04:45 Nearly quitting for a job at Wendy’s
1:06:50 Something most people don’t know
1:07:45 What legacy means
1:09:00 Where to find Jason
If you got something from this conversation, hit subscribe, drop your biggest takeaway in the comments, and leave five stars on Apple or Spotify. If you know someone who needs to hear this about joy and signature moves, share it with them today.
