JJ Birden

Former NFL pro offers strategies for seizing opportunities and overcoming obstacles, where he inspires resilience and positivity in audiences throughout North America.

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Earlier this month our office had the pleasure of hosting JJ Birden for a lunch presentation. His message was impactful, direct, and relative to all of our employees. He weaves stories from his athletic life and blends it with his business acumen to deliver a presentation that is consumable and enjoyable to a wide audience of people. In addition, he and his wife are kind and responsive individuals. So if you have a group of employees, students, athletes (really his message can work for any group) I would highly recommend JJ to speak at your next event.

Douglas Adams

Vice President Morgan Stanley

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Reasons to Book JJ Birden

Audiences relate to Birden’s captivating story about his experience in overcoming challenges to join the National Football League as a professional player and play with the best competitors in the business.
His presentation equips listeners with practical strategies and key actionable takeaways, which audience members may immediately incorporate to obtain a winner’s mindset.
As a best-selling author, Birden shares an inspirational book, called When Opportunity Knocks 8 Surefire Ways to Take Advantage. Focusing on proven strategies for enhancing performance and improving productivity, he inspires audiences to reach their full potential.

Viewing obstacles as opportunities, keynote speaker and former professional football player JJ Birden inspires leaders to incorporate winning principles for success in beating adversity. Helping listeners to focus on obtaining a victor's mentality, JJ leverages his experience overcoming obstacles on the field and in life to master thoughts, overcome failures, and maintain determination in the face of challenges. His message resonates with audiences who are inspired by JJ's engaging keynote addresses. Offering continuous improvement strategies, he helps listeners avoid complacency and improve productivity in personal and professional experiences.

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Keynotes

Keynote by speaker JJ Birden: From the Field to the Boardroom: Building a Winning Team!

Unlocking your team's potential.

Many organizations struggle with teamwork, causing role confusion and difficulty balancing individual and collective success. This leads to demotivation and disconnection from the bigger picture. Without a clear team strategy and commitment, organizations face communication breakdowns, trust issues, conflicting work styles, and lack of collaboration, leading to overall failure. Effective teamwork is crucial for success and progress.

In this keynote, JJ Birden leverages his contrasting NFL experiences to provide actionable insights and delivers powerful lessons on building successful teams. He compares the 1993 Kansas City Chiefs, who nearly reached the Super Bowl, with the 1989 Dallas Cowboys, who struggled through a 1-15 season. Through these experiences, he illustrates essential strategies for creating winning teams in any environment.

JJ aims to empower organizations to achieve their goals and cultivate a high-performance culture by translating the principles that made his teams great. This keynote inspires leaders and teams to embrace change, foster growth, and create environments where everyone can thrive.

Key Takeaways:

Growth: Audiences will learn strategies for personal and professional development through change, mentorship, and effective leadership. They will gain insights on how mentorship can transform team dynamics, inspired by NFL legend Joe Montana's experiences.

Retention: Attendees will understand how to create a winning culture that ensures long-term success. They will discover the importance of commitment and loyalty in fostering team cohesion and sustained performance, drawing parallels between professional sports and the corporate world.

Teamwork: Participants will know how to employ methods to foster a supportive team environment where dynamics are optimized for success. They will learn the significance of sharing and celebrating team achievements to ensure everyone feels valued and motivated.

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Keynote by speaker JJ Birden: Winning as an Underdog

Being an underdog gives you a STEALTH opportunity to win!

In today's fiercely competitive landscape, organizations often find themselves at a perceived disadvantage when pitted against industry giants with larger market shares, extensive budgets, and formidable resources. However, this perceived weakness can be transformed into a strategic advantage with the right guidance. Rather than limiting their growth potential, these organizations can harness their unique strengths to foster alignment, momentum, and ultimately, sustainable growth.

Drawing inspiration from his own journey as an underdog, JJ Birden, a former NFL player and successful business professional, shares invaluable insights in his compelling keynote,
"Winning as an Underdog".
Despite facing odds stacked against him—where the average NFL player towered over him by 43%—JJ mastered the "underdog mentality," leveraging his perceived shortcomings to fuel his success both on and off the field. Through over a decade of experience in the medical and fitness equipment industries, JJ continued to embody this mentality, defying expectations and achieving remarkable success.

In his captivating keynote, Winning as an Underdog, JJ empowers attendees to embrace their underdog status and capitalize on every opportunity. With a blend of undeniable truths, actionable strategies, and inspiring anecdotes, JJ guides participants through a collaborative experience, showcasing how underdogs can not only thrive but also revolutionize established business norms. Join JJ Birden as he reveals how underdogs are the true catalysts for innovation and change in the business world.

Key Takeaways:

Recognizing the strategic benefits of embracing underdog status.

Knowing how to cultivate a mindset that thrives on challenges and adversity.

Implementing JJ's proven framework for narrowing the underdog disadvantage.

Maintaining unwavering determination and resilience on the journey from underdog to industry leader.

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Keynote by speaker JJ Birden: Seize Your Opportunities

Success is not going to be given to you--you have to go get it!

Businesses have always aimed to get more out of their people, but it is becoming increasingly hard to provide resources, instruction, and encouragement that actually motivate employees to show up and give their best. To truly succeed in today’s extremely competitive business world, organizations need employees who are genuinely motivated to give their best, improve each day, and do whatever it takes to win. Unfortunately, not everyone has this capacity; JJ Birden does, and he can help anyone develop it, too.

Seize Your Opportunities
focuses on the individual and what one must do for success as part of a larger group—no matter the odds, and no matter how much hard work it requires.

As a former NFL wide receiver, JJ knows what it takes to reach the highest level of performance and have the capacity to maintain it. Many of the success principles he learned as a professional athlete have helped him thrive in the business world as an entrepreneur and professional speaker. In this presentation, JJ shares his winning principles and strategies and teaches audiences how to maximize and seize the opportunities in their lives.

Success is not going to be given to you. You have to achieve success; and once you have it, you can't stay at that same level. You have to continue to work to fight mediocrity and complacency. JJ will show you how.

Key Takeaways:

Finding, defining, and defending your Why.

How discipline and self-motivation lead to success.

Achieving your breakthrough through adversity.

Developing championship focus and resolve.

How complacency can destroy momentum.

Avoiding complacency by continuous self-improvement.

The Joe Montana Effect - what JJ learned playing with one of the greatest athletes of all time.

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Customer Reviews

Douglas Adams Vice President Morgan Stanley

Thank you so much for speaking to our office earlier this year. You were highly motivational and communicated with our financial advisors in a way that they connected with. Your humanity, compassion, and enthusiasm really come through in your presentation and it’s clearly one of the best I’ve seen. I was at a dinner party Saturday night and 2 people were talking about your presentation, even though it was several months ago. Thank you so much for the positive impact you’ve had on our people!

Merrill Lynch Overland Park Kansas

JJ Birden was excellent to work with and did a great job learning about our company and the audience he would be presenting to. He tailored his personal experiences to our audience in a way that they would relate to and learn from. I would highly recommend JJ Birden!

Jean Broders Sr Brand Manager

JJ recently spoke to our group about his story and how to seize opportunities, even in the face of adversity. JJ Birden is a highly effective speaker who captivates his audience with his infectious positivity, poise, and seamless delivery of his life story. Although his past struggles and setbacks are plentiful, his relentless perseverance is admirable. His story takes place in the NFL, but his message is universal. Sports enthusiasts or not, your audience will connect with JJ's story on a personal level and will hopefully siphon some of his “can do” attitude!

Laura Parlagreco Astro Box Corporation

JJ took the time to understand our industry and personalities of the group and speak directly to our group. His energy kicked off our conference perfectly. He was the talk of the conference!

Christy Sipos Manager CIVILTEC engineering inc.

In September, my company Pension Advisors hosted a Client Appreciation. We wanted to have a non-industry speaker to motivate, inspire, and connect with our clients. JJ did that, and beyond. My clients ranged in industry, location, and age, and JJ was a Home Run. JJ’s message to me why about hard-work, and persevering, and while a former professional athlete, he was very humble in how he talked about his approach to overcoming tremendous odds to get where his is today. I would absolutely recommend JJ to anyone. He is the real deal, and a joy to deal with. He is personable, fun, engaging, and one of the most professional people I have ever dealt with.

David Krasnow Pension Advisors

JJ delivered an exceptional presentation! He was prepared, confident, engaging, and compelling. The Sales team was inspired by his message. From initial planning to message delivery, JJ was a fantastic partner!

Michelle Diekroeger Director, Sales Enablement

JJ was a phenomenal speaker whose message really resonated with our crowd (High School Graduation Ceremony). He was prepared, on time and provided a clear and concise message to everyone in attendance. We had multiple families express their gratitude after the event for his speech and the message he delivered. I would highly recommend JJ to anyone looking for a dynamic public speaker capable of captivating a room.

Ron Campton Primavera Online High School

JJ Birden

Team motivator inspires companies to empower a championship environment

Birden joined the National Football League as a small man compared to his teammates and competitors. At just 5’10 and 157 lbs, he played nine seasons in the league. After earning a walk-on position with the University of Oregon football team, Birden faced several challenges. He encountered doubters, injuries, and unremarkable stats. However, with determination and hard work, he eventually earned an NFL Combine invite.

His performance at the Combine led to an NFL draft pick. Unfortunately, injuries and setbacks cast doubt on his ability to play and four NFL teams rejected him. Still, facing one of the toughest tests of his career to date, he dug deep and moved forward. In 1988, he was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in round 8 of the NFL draft. During his career, he played for the Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys, Kansas City Chiefs, and Atlanta Falcons.

Leveraging his experience in overcoming obstacles on the field and in life, Birden shares insights into how resiliency and determination can take a person from a mediocre to an extraordinary life. Focusing on topics from leadership principles to strategies for thriving in business, Birden imparts practical tools for overcoming obstacles to win. His inspiring presentation offers listeners a powerful message about succeeding regardless of the circumstances a person faces.