Trendsetter Tuesday: Amani Roberts on Unlocking Creativity in the Meetings Industry

To celebrate our 2024 Meetings Trendsetters, Meetings Today launched "Trendsetter Tuesday," a podcast series of interviews with the 20 Trendsetters recognized in our July/August issue.

Amani Roberts is the Chief Musical Curator at The Amani Experience and has a mission to awaken the creativity within hospitality and music professionals. Roberts leverages his extensive experience and education in music and hospitality to provide the ability to see different possibilities hidden in plain sight.

Through innovative teaching techniques honed as an award-winning professor at California State University, Fullerton, Roberts uses actual turntables, music, nostalgia and even a touch of improv to bring fresh and effective methods to the classroom that help educate his students of all ages. He makes it his goal to encourage everyone to be as creative as they were when they were young, and Roberts brings that creativity back to people with mature tools to unleash their creative minds.

Meetings Today's Taylor Smith sat down with Roberts to learn more about his journey in the events industry up until this point and learn why he's considered to be a Trendsetter in the industry.

[Related: The 2024 Meetings Trendsetters Paving New Paths in the Events Industry]

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Transcript:

Editors note: The following transcription was facilitated by AI program Otter.ai and proofed by our editors. Although it is very accurate, there inevitably will be some mistakes, so please consider that when reading. Thank you.

Taylor Smith  

Hello, and welcome to this Meetings Today Podcast! I’m Taylor Smith, destinations and features content developer for Meetings Today, and I’m back with another exciting podcast celebrating our Meetings Trendsetters class of 2024.

Every year, Meetings Today selects 20 Trendsetters whose unique contributions to the meetings and events industry make them stand out. Those 20 names were revealed in our July/August issue and online at MeetingsToday.com earlier this summer, and I was so happy to see so many familiar names on this year’s list including one of the industry’s creative minds, Amani Roberts, chief musical curator at The Amani Experience.

Amani has a mission to awaken the creativity within hospitality and music professionals, which was greatly hampered during the pandemic. He leverages his extensive experience and education in music and hospitality to provide the ability to see different possibilities hidden in plain sight.  

Through innovative teaching techniques honed as an award-winning professor at California State University, Fullerton, Amani uses actual turntables, music, nostalgia and even a touch of improv to bring fresh and effective methods to the classroom that help educate his students of all ages.

He makes it his goal to encourage everyone to be as creative as they were when they were young, and Amani brings that creativity back to people with mature tools to unleash their creative minds.

His contributions to the industry made Amani the ideal candidate for our 2024 Meetings Trendsetters, and he is here with us today to tell us all about how he got there! Thank you so much for joining me, Amani! 

Amani Roberts

Thank you very much for having me. I love that intro. Thank you. Thank you.

Taylor Smith

Of course, I'm very excited to have you on the podcast today. It's fun to do a little kind of 180 and have you interview the interviewee, this time on Adventures in business, live with you and Mandy, which was so fun. But I want to start by letting you know, getting the audience to get to know you, and having you share a bit of an introduction as to how you found your way in the meetings industry and started your own company, and, you know, found your niche, really, in the industry.

Amani Roberts

How I started my way in the industry. I started a long time ago. I was, if you remember, if you go to an event and you go to, like, a banquet, and you want to get a drink, you go up and you ask the cashier, can I get two drink tickets for this. I was the person selling you the drink tickets. That's what I first did in the beginning. You know, I was young, 17, maybe 18 years old. I did that for like, about eight or nine months, and then I went to Marriott, and I worked at the front desk, and that was an amazing experience. So that's kind of how I got my start. I was been with Marriott. I started. I stayed with Marriott for almost 20 years I traveled all over the country, from DC to Atlanta to Chicago to Dallas to Miami, back to DC, then out to LA, all over the place, all almost every time zone. And so that's kind of how I got my start. But then as I continue to progress with Marriott, I found myself in lots of or significant more meetings and doing spreadsheets. And as you can tell, I love to be with the people, helping the people. So it really wasn't meeting my needs anymore. So I decided to take a huge risk, take over 65 or 70% pay cut while living in California, which is not easy, and decided to retire from Marriott and pursue DJing full time along the way, and from pursuing DJing, I realized that DJing full time is really hard to do in the beginning, so I would do other side jobs, like writing, social media, writing, drove for Uber all sorts of things, and eventually I found my way and got an opportunity through my volunteer work at MPI meetings, professional International, the Southern California Chapter. I was on the board, and we went to present at Cal State, Fullerton, Long Beach, poly Pomona, North Ridge, and UNLV. And Fullerton called me middle of summer one summer, towards the end of the summer, actually, if I'm being honest, and they were like, we have an open teaching position. We think your experience matches with what we're looking for. Are you interested? I was like, yeah. Although I never coached or never taught before at high school or college, I was like, yeah. And so they did the background check, and, like, a week before the semester started, like, Okay, you're in. Here's an old syllabus. Here's a old exam. See, see you here for orientation. And so that's what started the teaching career, which I've been there now over six years. Now, I teach four classes. I created a music business class for the university. I coach people in the music industry, and so that's kind of gives you an up to date kind of journey. I wrote my first book and released it in April of 2020 my second book is coming out in February of 2025 um, five, yeah, that's kind of a powerful synopsis. 

Taylor Smith

Yeah, you wear multiple hats, and very impressive. So tell us a little bit about the Amani Experience. What is your your company, your brand, and how can you know? How can the industry partner with you or benefit? From you with like through your company that way.

Amani Roberts

So the Amani Experience. So we're like an entertainment company, and I DJ events all over the world, primarily corporate events. Also do some clubs and social too. So DJing events also professional speaker. So I speak on unlocking your creativity through the use of music and nostalgia. I speak about the music business and also why everyone needs to write a book. Those are my three main topics. And just you know, if you industry people want to partner with me, we have a very unique team building activity, which involves a DJ lesson and getting people on stage and learning some quick DJ skills as well as microphone skills. That's a fun activity that people love to do in their conferences, team building, workshops. That's what I do. And so if people want to come and have me speak to their events, I love Kino speaking, also workshops, or if they need some music, like a real DJ to come and DJ events like I'm your guy.

Taylor Smith

Yeah, we know who to reach out to, yes. So what have been some of your career highlights so far, so far, or achievements you're proud of, opportunities you had that you were really excited about things where, you know, you you think about them, and you're like, Yeah, that was definitely a moment that when you write your next book, you know, it would be a chapter in there. Yeah,

Amani Roberts

there's a couple that come to mind, I'll say, I'll start kind of long ago and work my way forward. I won, like the top sales award for Marriott three years in a row, 2001 two and three. And what was really, really impactful is that the industry took a hit after 911 but I still was able to exceed my sales goals and win that awards. That's one that comes to mind. I would say another one is graduated from scratch Academy, which is a DJ school for a school for DJs, and I had to come back and redo a last semester, which is very challenging mentally and actually in the art of DJing. That's another highlight, releasing my first book that was great. That was like, you know, and that was like, you know, and that was in the middle of pandemic, but that was a highlight. And then there's probably two more, I would say, getting the part time faculty award winner of the year, like best part time faculty for 220, 22 and 2024 at Cal State University Fullerton, the School of Business. That's a big one. Yeah, big one. And then maybe the last one would just be like, speaking on stage with like industry speaking legends like Les Brown, Willie jolly, and then Imran Kim Cole. So that happened this past August, and that was cool, because I love Les Brown, and I've been looking up to him for many, many years, and to be on stage with him was amazing. So that would be another, more recent highlight.

Taylor Smith

This industry definitely opens doors to opportunities like that, and I didn't even realize it until at one event, I had the opportunity to interview John Doran boss, who was on America's Got Talent. He's a former NFL player, and he, you know, I'm sitting in there, and you're like, starstruck. You're like, how did I get here? Like, what? What did I do to to, like, open the door to this opportunity? But those are really the the moments where you're like, Wow, this is, this is amazing. This is definitely going down in my little history book for sure.

Amani Roberts

Yeah, yeah, agreed. I think, um, also, like, and I need to work on this too. Like, you can't make sure you remind yourself of those moments and how far you've come, because a lot of times we get so focused on what we want to do next and what we don't have currently, that we forget how far we've come. So I just say that to help people in the audience, as well as myself like we need to make sure we recognize how far we've come and how much we've grown.

Taylor Smith

And be patient with yourself. Give your patience is hard.

Amani Roberts 

Patience is hard. Let me tell you.

Taylor Smith

Yeah, one of the hardest things there is, I think, yes. So you mentioned already how you ended up in a teaching role. But one thing that I think is super important to talk about is how we set our industry up for success in the future, and that goes down to students in the schools who want to be a part of this. So what have you learned about the importance of educating young professionals on this industry and through your classes, what has kind of stood out to you or been exciting to them, to learn about the industry and being a part of it.

Amani Roberts

I think when young professionals, young students, look at our industry, they make not they're definitely not aware of all the different jobs that are available and the roles that they can fill. I think they pretty much look at meetings and events like, Oh, I gotta work in a hotel. I gotta work for AV, or whatever. Or, you know, I work at the front desk. They don't realize just the variety of things they can do. Working with a destination management company, working with a company that provides, you know, like furniture some working for a company that hires speakers. Like, there's so many different jobs that. Are not publicized that are available in the industry. So it's our responsibility to make sure people are aware. How do we make sure people are aware where we we bring in guest speakers who have are doing these jobs or have done them in the past. You know, a lot of students aren't even aware that they can work in a city they love for the Convention and Visitors Bureau. Like that's not a job that's talked about a lot, but that's a really cool job where you can travel, you can represent a city that you love, and you can sell the city on a grand scale, like, if you're working for a city like LA Las Vegas, you know Chicago, you're bringing major events to the city that you can participate in. But we don't really talk about that. That's not really well known, so it's our responsibility to have it in our curriculum, but also bringing guest speakers that can speak to their experience doing that job. And that's where the students connect. When they see someone else that looks like them doing a job that they had never imagined, that gives them the idea and inspiration that, oh, I can be just like that person. I can do that job. So I think that's important.

Taylor Smith

Yeah, I when I learned about DMOS and CVBS and just the opportunity to, I mean, I grew up in Chicago, I've been in Chicago my whole life, and that's just like, you're just selling your home, and it's just so cool to me. And I think that it's such a fun opportunity, like, I've learned so much about my city that I didn't even know, you know, living here my entire life, like discovering things that I didn't know existed through CVBS and DMOS and the the fun events that they're able to put on. And I think it's so important, like you said, to show them what's possible and to let them know that. I mean, even for me, I have a background in journalism. I didn't study hospitality or rent management or anything like that. There is room in this industry for everyone. No matter your background. You will find your niche. And if there isn't one, you just create it, because there's room really for everyone to be here. One thing I do want to tap into a little bit is the idea of nostalgia and creativity or and music to unlock creativity and the need for creativity in your event planning and programs. So can you kind of elaborate on your process and how you turn to music and nostalgia to tap into a side of folks that they may not have been able to unlock recently?

Amani Roberts

Yeah, absolutely. I think I like to use a lot of different examples and kind of pair the examples with different music groups. So one of my favorite concepts that I teach is about taking creative risks. And I think we can look back to a couple like, you know, music groups in the past, like, one of my favorites is Earth, Wind and Fire, and so they were, they were really big group, but they had to take a creative risk to really get to the next level, to get to, like, legendary status. So they started out having a magician work with them during their live concerts, which was very unique back in the day. And so they would have musician magicians work with them. They created, like, this really funky space triangle thing that they had in their shows. It was very successful. Ironically, the magician's assistant that they were working with at the time was one of the famous magicians of all time, David Copperfield. And so they they work with this magician and set themselves apart. And so that's like a creative risk. Another story I like to share is like, for people who are using nostalgia, I always like to look at like, cool in the game. So we all know cool in the game, they have the famous song, you know, celebration whatever, Celebrate good times or whatever. I could actually play it. No, I don't have it, but, but they didn't really hit that legendary status until they had to collaborate with two people. They had to collaborate with JT Taylor, who was a new lead singer, and then they had to collaborate, I forget the gentleman's name, but he was also a producer, a Brazilian producer, and they use that collaboration to get them to the next level, where they find way able to get top hits. So then, when I work with people like you're young, so I would say, maybe, you know, if you're struggling, Taylor, I would say, let's go back to maybe when you were 10 or 11, and what was some of your favorite songs back then? So what would you say? What would we say? What would you say?

Taylor Smith

The first one is, what makes you beautiful by one direction, which was the anthem when I was 10 years old. It was breathing, yeah.

Amani Roberts

So perfect example, what makes you beautiful. And so if we're trying to get through a project, I say, well, let's go back to when you were 10 and you were listening to what makes you beautiful. And I bet you were more able to take risks back then. And so what was your mindset back then? You just probably didn't have a care in the world. Let's kind of take you back through a time machine, the way back machine, like Mandy calls it, and let's get you back at that mindset to when you were more creative, you were more apt to take risks, and then from there, we kind of grow and build it out. So that's like three quick examples of first, like how legendary R and B groups have used creativity and nostalgia to propel them, but then also how you can use songs that bring back great memories to also push you forward.

Taylor Smith

I love that, and now I'm definitely going to have a little dance party later. So one directions, old hours. There you go. So perfect timing. So pivoting the conversation a little bit to talk about trendsetters. Again, trendsetters is commonly used in our industry. We hear this term a lot. And I mean, you know, anyone can really be a trendsetter when you when you look at it in a certain light, right, there's, they're motivating and they're inspiring, but they're the the main thing about being a trendsetter is you're doing something different, and you are, you know, being you're you're setting the standard for something new and exciting and offering something that's going to benefit the industry. There's so many qualities to to trendsetters, but when you think of of what it means to be a trendsetter, how would you explain that to our audience today?

Amani Roberts

I think to be a trendsetter, you have to consistently think outside the box, consistently take action. So you're doing things that are outside the box, and you cannot be afraid of failure, and you just have to continue to push yourself in the industry to be different, stand out and just be just, just stand out, be different, and try some things that might not be on the straight and linear path, but will still get you two further than you would be if you took the linear path. That's in my mind, what a trendsetter would be, just someone who continues to push the limits, do things differently, and continues to excel at that.

Taylor Smith

How do you deal with any doubt or uncertainty or fear when it comes to you know the linear path is, is the straight one? It's it's clear. You've got the map to follow, but you might be looking down the path that looks a little sketchy, a little sus, and you know, that's scary. So how do you find the confidence in yourself to push yourself out of your comfort zone and take those risks?

Amani Roberts

Yeah, it's very sus. Since you mentioned that, yeah, I would say fear is real. There's a favorite saying I have by I believe it's Susan Jeffers. She wrote a book called fear, the fear, and do it anyway. So you know it's going to be there. Just don't let it stop you. Try to keep moving forward. And there'll be many times where you doubt yourself. So I think when those times happen, make sure you're surrounded by people who can help you get through the tough times. I think that's the most important thing. One of the valuable lessons I've learned in the last five or six years is make sure who you choose to be in your inner circle be very, very selective, because you need very positive people there. You need very honest people with you, and you don't want people in your circle that can increase the doubt you have in yourself. You don't need that. So be selected by who you have around you. Lean on them when you're feeling doubt or uncertainty and you know don't fear is going to be there. It's always going to be there, because once you succeed, then they have the fear of succeeding again. So it never goes away. Just acknowledge that little guy on your shoulder or girl, and then keep moving forward.

Taylor Smith

Yep, make him your friend. Yes, one thing that has helped me too is just being real with myself, right, letting myself feel all the emotions that I'm having, not bottling them up. Because when you do, the likelihood that you're going to explode and they're all going to overwhelm you at the same time is so much higher. And when I say, okay, you know what? I am afraid. I am scared. This is something that I don't know how to navigate, that's when I feel like I can find more of a level headedness and ask myself, okay, what is the next step I need to take? Who are those people in my circle that I could reach out to for support and being vulnerable and authentic with them. Makes those relationships stronger. It makes me feel more confident in my skin, because I'm being real with myself. And you know, authenticity and vulnerability have been too of I never realized how crucial they could be to just your overall success and happiness and just comfort within yourself until you find the people who who accept you for being authentic and vulnerable, and that's really when your inner circle comes together. It's all about quality over quantity. Is Amen.

Amani Roberts

Yes, yes. As my good friend and speaker mentor, Judy holler, says, Make fear your homeboy. Fear is my homeboy. That's a good mantra to live by. So yes, I agree.

Taylor Smith

I'm going to have to write that one down. I think that's my new favorite poll quote from from this podcast. So what was your initial reaction to finding out you were a 2024, meetings trendsetter, and how do you you know kind of want to go about embodying that this next year, when, with that recognition.

Amani Roberts

I was, like, very surprised, very honored and humbled and just excited. I appreciated that you know, you know you, you, you and your team, they continue to look outside the box for people that are setting trends. Things and doing things differently. That really, really made me feel happy, because it's good to get different people doing different things that are putting moving our industry ahead, and that really was probably the thing that excited me the most. So I feel very honored and excited now, in terms of what I'm going to be doing this next year, I'm just going to continue to do things outside the box, push the limits. Also, I think it's really important that, as I'm working and doing things, bring other people with me through, reach back and bring some people with me and help other people to be more creative and to do things differently. I think you mentioned in the bio, but it's really cool. Like in my classes, I really, of course, we teach the content, but if we're always teaching the content all the time, that can be a little bit boring. You know, don't repeat that. And so, you know, like doing things differently, like the last two semesters, now, I've added in, like doing some improv activities to help my students who are graduating college become more professional speakers. Because, as you know, and I have to compliment you, you do a very good job of being like on stage and speaking. But that's like people fear that more than they fear, you know, dying almost, yeah. And so I'm trying to, by being a trendsetter, get our next generation of leaders to come into the working world already proficient and doing well at professional speaking, because then they don't, then they realize later on that, oh, I have to speak a lot. Whether I'm doing presentations at work, I'm trying to sell to clients. So my goal is by adding improv activities, by adding a lot of personal development activities in my classes, get them prepared. So when they're interviewing and when they're in their jobs, they're already ahead of the game in terms of speaking. So that's one way that I will continue to help you know, and use the trend setting, position and award to really keep pushing the industry forward. Doing things differently. I will, personally, with my job, continue to take risks and think outside the box. I have a book launch coming up in February, so that'll be very different. Just doing things like writing a book as being a trendsetter and just continuing to do that. So that's kind of a little bit on my list to do list in terms of being and pushing the trendsetter name and movement forward.

Taylor Smith

I think the professional speaking part is so important to talk about, because when I started in this role, Never did I think I'd be getting on stage at something like, I'm x America, and speaking to industry professionals, I was like, didn't even know that was a possibility for me. And I do have school to thank, I think, for helping me get to the point where I'm comfortable talking to strangers and being on on stage or put on the spot and interviews like that. Because I did interview so many people in journalism school, it's kind of what it's all about is, is interviewing people and having conversations like that, but not everyone gets that opportunity. And I mean, speech was a requirement for me in college, but it was so weird to have that speech class, honestly, because there were people from all different majors, and you could see the level of confidence between all these different people that was just all over the place. But I don't think we prioritize enough that in any role you're in like you're going to need to speak up and vouch for yourself and have these, you know, pitch a new idea to your boss, or anything like that. And so I admire that you're trying to, you know, bring this to light in your classroom. I think that's going to be very helpful for your students.

Amani Roberts

Yeah, I agree. Like, right now, like, the focus, and the focus is on, like, storytelling, because you can imagine, like, if you're on stage and you're telling a story, people are going to listen. Well, you know, if you're just spouting out facts, that's not really positive, like facts tell stories sell and and like, I'm working with my students, like we did activity this week where I just put up a random photo. It was a photo of like Garfield, and it was a photo of like Taylor Swift, and it was a photo of like the beach, and each person had to get up, pick the students randomly, and say, Okay, I want you to tell me a 32nd story about just that photo, just to get them in the mindset of like, ad libbing and improvising to tell a story about the photo. Because what we're going to do is towards in the class, then they're going to be speaking about the projects they're working on, and they have to tell stories about the companies they're studying. So I'm trying to develop that skill of storytelling so that it becomes a muscle that they can continue to use after they leave, because I'm trying to prepare them for success once they leave school. Yep.

Taylor Smith

I think that's so fun. I mean, Garfield makes me excited. Garfield was actually invented at Ball State, so, okay, yeah. See, I've got a story I could tell too.

Amani Roberts

See, there you go. Muncie, Indiana. Ballsty, there we go.

Taylor Smith

Yeah. So you answered this already a bit by like, what you plan to do this next year. But how do you how do you inspire yourself? How do you stay motivated? How do you find you know, the the fire within you to keep following that path that. That may not be have a clear end in sight, but you know, it's, it's hard to keep pushing yourself when, like you said, you maybe succeed once, and you're like, oh my gosh, I have to do this again. Like, where do I go from here? So what is it that you do for yourself in those instances?

Amani Roberts

Yeah, I think that's an interesting question, because to inspire myself, like, maybe one thing I do is I love to read autobiographies, because that you can draw inspiration from other people's journeys. Actually, I try to stay off of social media, oh, because that that will lessen the inspiration. So I try to stay off social media more and more. That will be one thing I do, which is a little bit counterintuitive, I try to do my fair share of, like, writing morning pages, journaling, because that will help. I try to watch documentaries. And those are the things I do. I do probably like, you know I need to do a, probably a better job of consistently Drawing inspiration. I like to learn new things, like I'm trying to learn how to play pickleball, of course, improv. So by learning new skills, it will increase my inspiration to do other things, thinking big, like I have this book coming out, which is a huge project, but just the process and going through it, and then seeing it come to life is going to be a huge inspiration to then maybe take it further and do a documentary based on the book. So those are some things that I do to really try to make sure I stay inspired.

Taylor Smith

Yeah, I love that, and I admire the the social media take that you have, because I cannot tell you how many times I've found myself Doom, scrolling away in my bed, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I just wasted an hour, two hours of my time, watching other people live their lives and be creative while I haven't done anything but like, got away in my bed watching these videos. And there's I. I've always been a very like arts and crafts person, and I scrapbook like all the trips that I take for work, and I'll keep my plane ticket stubs like I'm still the person that goes up to the kiosk in the airport and physically prints out my ticket, because I want that memory. I keep everything, but I think I still have trips to scrapbook from 2022 and my stack of like random papers, is just keeps piling up. But after work, you know, I'm not working on that, because I'm just going on social media and doom scrolling away and continue to pile up. So I think that's something that can inspire a lot of people. Is tapping, you know, on signing off of social media and and just unlocking your your creativity, like you do again, to do something that really gets your your creative mind working again. Um,

Amani Roberts

yeah, I agree. Go for a walk. I think the thing with social media is that, um, it brings the comparison factor into it. And they say, you know, the comparison is the thief of joy, which is exactly true. It's very true. And the challenge with social media is that most of what you're seeing people post is not quite real. It's filtered, it's exaggerated. They're not going to show you the tough times. Now, LinkedIn is a little bit of a different platform, but you still run to issues there. So that's business. You can stay on there a little bit, but the rest of them, like you really have to be careful about what you're consuming and how much you're believing what you're seeing. Is what I'll say, because it's very interesting. So just take a walk, be out in nature. There's something that I preach called artists dates. Once a week you go to like the beach, to a museum, to a movie, something solo, where you can kind of spark your creativity. I don't know what I'm gonna do this week. I have to figure that out, but, yeah, do some different activities, like an artist date of one where you go to like an exhibit, or maybe you're going to concert, or something you could do to really kind of get re inspired, if you can make a practice of doing that once a week. Don't have to be big. It could be something small, even going to eat by yourself just outside that can really continue to help you become more inspired and to unlock your creativity even more.

Taylor Smith

I'm going to need to start doing that too. A little solo date.

Amani Roberts

Make a list, yes.

Taylor Smith

I've got so many ways I could be creative to treat myself to a little, a fun little solo date. I love to go into like Chicago has a lot of festivals and art fairs and craft shows, and year round, they inspire me, but they're also not great for my bank accounts.

Amani Roberts

There's some free options out there, so unless you have to spend money all the time. Now, sometimes spending money is good, but yeah, treat

Taylor Smith

yourself. So kind of to wrap things up today. What is one piece of advice you'd give others in the industry or our audience today who are looking to become trendsetters themselves, and maybe not to the extent you have but to you know, even if it's just in their own lives, they want to change something up for themselves. What. It's one piece of advice you'd leave our our listeners with.

Amani Roberts

I would say, if there's something that you've been thinking about doing, whether it's starting a business, starting a blog, learning about a new hobby, traveling to a new city, like, don't put that off. Like, start the process. Research the plane tickets, maybe you go and attend a class that has focused on maybe a new new side hustle you want to start, or a new skill you want to learn, even if it's a new language, like, don't put that off. Because a lot of times we keep putting off things that we want to do, that our heart is telling us that you should be doing this, we put off. So I'll do it when I have time later, and then all of a sudden, time runs out. So I would say just the advice for people who want to kind of join the trendsetter movement is to stop putting off things that they really want to do, particularly creative activities, and just start and do something every day, every week, and then look how far you've come in a year. And the world will be better off because of it, but also our industry and the people themselves will be better off because of it too.

Taylor Smith

Wow. Amani is out here calling me out. I needed to hear that. I think, you know, I'm

Amani Roberts

just saying, but you know, I need to follow the same advice too, exactly.

Taylor Smith

I have so many things that I'm like, my my personal, like, portfolio website, I really, I haven't updated that since I graduated college. I'm like, this isn't even accurate anymore, but I'll get to it eventually. Like, I just keep pushing it off. Now it's going to be, you know, it'll, it'll happen in the new year, is what I'm telling myself. I'm like, no, just do it. Like, why don't I just do it? So I'm going to have to call you up and be like, Amani, give me that pep talk one more time.

Amani Roberts

I'm always here for you, always here for you. But just, you know, take action. You know, instead of talking about doing things, just take action. It's one step at a time, and you'll be better off because of it, yep.

Taylor Smith

Well, so where can our audience find you or stay connected with you, if they you know, need this reminder again?

Amani Roberts

Yes. Amani, experience.com. Is my website. So that's a like apple. M like Mary a like apple in like Nancy, I the word experience. It's all one word.com. You can go on there. You can find me like you could take this quiz I have which R and B group is you. So see what quiz you take. To take the quiz, and that'll help you, and that'll that's fun. Actually gonna do it for my book launch. Follow me on all the socials too. Find me on LinkedIn. But really, the website is a good place. You can find out everything about like my coaching, speaking, DJing, the website's a good home base,

Taylor Smith

Perfect. I'll make sure I link to it in this podcast. Thank you, of course, thank you for joining me, Amani, I always have a great time chatting with you.

Amani Roberts

Well, thank you for for honoring me and allowing me to be on the podcast, and I can't wait to talk and continue the conversation. Of course,

Taylor Smith

That was Amani Roberts, chief musical curator at The Amani Experience and one of our 2024 Meetings Trendsetters. Once again, I’m Taylor Smith, destinations and features content developer for Meetings Today, and I want to thank you all for joining us for this special Meetings Today podcast. If you are interested in listening to more Meetings Today podcasts, visit us at www.MeetingsToday.com, and thank you again for listening.