Speakers: Billy McLaughlin

Billy McLaughlin

www.billymclaughlin.com  | Download pdf

Motivation | Inspiration | Leadership | Change Management

Travels from Minnesota

Empowering others to rethink the impossible

Billy McLaughlin is a Billboard Top‐Ten best‐selling international guitar virtuoso whose real‐life drama propelled him through the devastation of an incurable disorder to one of the most remarkable comebacks in musical history. Companies around the world are asking Billy to speak for one simple reason impactful inspiration!

Billy’s honest and deeply personal account of battling and ultimately conquering insurmountable odds inspires everyone to acknowledge their unlimited potential for success.

Billy is an engaging speaker committed to delivering the highest musical aesthetic while warmly acquainting himself with every audience through stories and humor. He captivates audiences with live musical illustrations while telling his true story with disarming honesty and engaging emotion. Billy shares memorable and practical lessons from his journey of transforming “incurable” into “unstoppable”!

Speaking and Seminars

Rethinking Impossible: “Completely Impossible” Today is “Totally Do‐able” Tomorrow.

Billy is the walking, talking, music‐making example of the “impossible” giving way to persistence, innovation, discipline and creativity.  Unwilling to lose his award‐winning career to an incurable disorder, in this program Billy shares how achieving the impossible simply requires:

• Clarity of purpose.
• Commitment to mission.
• Celebrating each step on the path to your goals.

Silence is Not an Option: Making Noise is Making Change

What does a beginner musician do before they start making music? They start making noise. Why do they make noise? Because they want to make music but are not able to…yet!

This program explores how silence is not an option when you want to achieve your goals and dreams. Learn from Billy’s comeback after being silenced by a mysterious incurable disorder and how we can all:

• Let go of the perfectionist that holds us back.
• Embrace the “noise” before the music.
• Shift your focus from what you can’t control to what you can control.

What Now: Innovating at Core Levels Takes Courage and Persistence!

What do you do when…

• What worked for you yesterday, does not work today?
• You are no longer getting the results you need in order to grow?
• You are struggling with new systems and learning new skills?

…remember Billy!

This program gives easy to remember steps to help both individuals and companies move past the pain of change into the joy of innovation. Billy has spent the last year traveling the world giving speeches about his early rise to musical success, tragic fall due to a debilitating disease called Focal Dystonia, and his amazing rebound.  He basically had to retrain himself to play his guitar with his left hand and he is back on top again.  It's a great story of hope and inspiration sprinkled with a little music.  He uses the attached video as an intro to his speech and then comes out on stage with his guitar and weaves the complete story with music.  He leaves the room breathless, really.

Everyone loves a great success story and everyone loves music - it’s a win win.

Meet the Artist

Billy McLaughlin has been changing people’s idea of what an acoustic guitar can sound like since the 1980’s.

 “…you may swear Billy McLaughlin is two of the greatest acoustic guitarists you’ve ever heard.” - Pittsburgh Post Gazette

 “… it’s amazing that such an extensive sound comes from one instrument.”
- Chicago Sun Times 

He is recognized as an innovative performer and composer who embraces the advantages of acoustic guitar amplification, unorthodox techniques and altered tunings while celebrating a gift for melody. His enormous yet fluid acoustic guitar tone has carried him around the world, to Billboard’s Top-Ten Chart and most recently through a devastating medical disorder called focal dystonia. McLaughlin has had to re-learn the guitar left-handed and is in the early stages of what might be described as “one of the great musical-comeback stories of all time.”

His story is the subject of an award-winning documentary film called Changing Keys - Billy McLaughlin and the Mysteries of Dystonia.

In addition to regular concert dates, Billy McLaughlin has performed/presented recently for:

• Accenture
• American Academy of Neurology
• ARC Greater Twin Cities
• Elm brook Church Milwaukee
• Fairview Hospitals
• Great Lakes Music Therapists Convention
• Gustavus Adolphus College
• Guthrie Theater Minneapolis
• Keller Williams Realty International
• Mayo Clinic
• Metropolitan Symphony Minneapolis
• Mobile Symphony Saenger Theater
• Peking University
• TEDxAtlanta
• Twin Cities Public Television Pledge
• University of Minnesota
• Wells Fargo
• Woodbury Financial

The Past

A serious professional in his teens, McLaughlin left his home and rock band in Minneapolis for the University of Southern California guitar department where he became interested in minimalist composers Phillip Glass and Steve Reich. Employing what would become his signature style of placing both hands on the fretboard, McLaughlin began composing for his first release using a technique of “hammer-ons” and “pull-offs” that create a harp-like effect on the acoustic guitar. This unusual approach led Billy to extensive national touring earning multiple NACA Campus Entertainer awards. In 1995 McLaughlin signed a multi-album international contract with Virgin Records label Narada whose first release, Fingerdance, peaked at #7 on the Billboard charts. Hundreds of shows a year and another release deep into the contract with Narada, he began struggling with his hands – something felt “off” and it was getting worse.

For two years he struggled with a mysterious and unrelenting condition of unexplainable muscle spasms and contractions. Shockingly as symptoms grew worse he could no longer perform most of his own repertoire.  In 2001, Billy was diagnosed with a neuromuscular disorder called focal dystonia. The diagnosis was confirmed at the Mayo Clinic. Going against doctors’ recommendations to quit music and look for other work, McLaughlin focused on his songwriting and returned to his rock band which was less demanding for his hands. Despite releasing his ensemble’s best recording, finally – Live! (2002) it was clear that focal dystonia had ended McLaughlin’s career as a virtuoso guitarist.

The Challenge

Feeling utterly lost without his music and not willing to give up, McLaughlin began the unlikely journey of teaching himself to play in his signature style, left-handed! Late in 2004 a documentary film crew began following McLaughlin’s desperate attempt to regain his career. Warned by doctors of a higher likelihood for developing focal dystonia in his remaining good hand, McLaughlin chose to press on towards an ambitious goal he had yet to achieve – to perform and record a new project with a string orchestra.

In January 2007, McLaughlin published a limited release of Into the Light, a concert recording of compositions for acoustic guitar with string orchestra. This collaboration with Grammy nominated arranger, Eugenio Toussaint, is McLaughlin’s first recording as a left-handed guitarist. In 2008, Coming Back Alive, a companion DVD shot by volunteers from the WWE broadcast crew capturing the historic performance was completed and released via direct marketing.

The Future

Billy’s story is truly an inspiration! The Dystonia Medical Research Foundation (Chicago, IL) has named Billy their first Ambassador for Public Awareness and for his efforts McLaughlin has just been awarded the international 2010 Leadership in Public Neurology Award at the American Academy of Neurology conference held in Toronto. Previous winners of the award include Paul Allen, Julie Andrews, Leon Fleischer and Michael J. Fox. The documentary film, Changing Keys, chronicling McLaughlin’s physical and emotional struggles, the medical mysteries of dystonia, and this amazing musical come-back has been awarded top-honors at the Houston International Film Festival. This independently produced film will begin airing on over 50 major market PBS stations in June 2010. McLaughlin is a featured speaker at the TED conference in Atlanta (May 2010) and is touring internationally including China, the Philippines, India, Europe and extensively throughout the US.