"I barely escaped a hurricane to be here," yelled Walter Bond.
"Give me some more applause."
And with that quip, the former NBA player and motivational speaker got the crowd going first thing this morning at the AI Summit in Kelowna.
Bond is from Boca Raton, Florida, which was just lashed by Hurricane Helene's heavy rain and heavy winds.
Bond, who played for the Dallas Mavericks, Detroit Pistons and Utah Jazz in the 1990s, laced his pep talk with basketball analogies.
The same three-part 'Peak Performance Huddle' that made him successful as a professional basketball player has allowed him to excel in the business world of motivational speaking, corporate training and leadership coaching.
He stressed that the same trifecta will make you a powerhouse in business, in your life, in your relationships and in your health.
"Mindset, skillset, tool kit," Bond repeated over and over as a chant for success.
And this is where Bond quipped again and had the crowd laughing and nodding.
"Success is 80% mindset and 20% skillset," he explained.
"That's how I made it to the NBA. But, Michael Jordan and LeBron James had better skillsets."
When it comes to tool kit, Bond continued with the sports analogies because his tool kit was a basketball, training, nutrition, coaches, etc.
And then he made the big AI (artificial intelligence) segue.
"With the right tools you will become unstoppable," he stressed.
"And AI is the most powerful tool to hit this Earth. My wife and I use it in our business all the time.
This is when Bond introduced Nikki Csek, CEO of NowMedia Group and the organizer of the Level Up AI Summit.
Csek spoke of her company starting 25 years ago and leading the digital mobile revolution of designing websites and social media marketing.
"The world is about to change again at an unprecedented pace with the AI revolution," said Csek.
"It's a new era of opportunity, prosperity and abundance. There will be two kinds of companies in this shift -- those that fully adopt AI and grow and succeed and those that don't and go out of business."
On that commanding note, Csek introduced the next speaker -- Chris Payne, chief operating and financial officer at Salmon Arm-based 4AG Robotics.
"Definitely, we use AI in our mushroom-picking robots," he said.
"And this kind of technology can be used and developed in a small town just up the road called Salmon Arm."
Robots not only pick mushrooms efficiently from big aluminum racks at big industrial indoor farms, but the technology also addresses the shortage of agricultural workers.
For the rest of the day, the crowd at the AI Summit, will hear from artificial intelligence experts and early adopters from Singularity University boss Dr. Peter Daimandis, tech power couple Kane and Alessia Minkus, tech entrepreneur and capitalist Jeff Booth and forestry leader Brent Tolmie to tech innovator Dan Burgar, Product Muse AI founder Carol Wilder, agriculture innovator Gavin Dew, City of Kelowna manager Doug Gilchrist and NowMedia Group's insightful inquiry architect Jim Csek.
