So… Who is this guy?!
I’m Kevin Breel- a writer, speaker, teenager, and pretty much the guy to blame for everything you see here.
This craziness all got started when I was 17 and I’ve been pushing it forward ever since.
Here is the quick and dirty on who I am and what I’m about in 10 quick lines:
1) I’m a writer. That’s kind of a professional way of saying I’m one of those guys that you see in Starbucks who buys one coffee and sits there for six hours looking really stressed on his Macbook.
2) I’m a speaker. Basically, that’s a professional way of saying I used to get kicked out of class for talking, now it’s what they bring me in for. I initially wanted the tagline “guy who tells stories in to the microphone” but it didn’t fit on my business card. Too bad.
3) Some people think I’m tall. I think 6’6 is average height. It can lead to arguments.
4) I was born in 1993. For those of you skilled at subtraction, that makes me 19. Some people say that’s too young to have an opinion. I think those people should consider changing theirs.
5) Starbucks is my office. The rent is reasonable and I like the people, what can I say. If you ever see me there, and you say you like my blog, I’ll buy you a drink. If you don’t actually like my blog and just said that to get a free drink, I’ll really have no way of knowing. Congratulations on out-smarting me.
6) I ride motorcycles. Specifically, street bikes. It’s the best way to roll and the worst way to crash. I try to do the former more than the latter. It’s a balancing act.
7) I used to play basketball. I attribute any success I had in the sport to my height- because that’s what everyone else seems to do. Apparently I won some trophies. I guess they were throwing around the terms “All Star” and “MVP” pretty loosely back then.
8) I’m from Canada. More specifically, British Columbia. Another guy who apparently was pretty good at basketball is actually from the same neighbourhood as me- his name is Steve Nash. You might of heard of him. I think his trophies say ‘MVP of the NBA’ or something like that.
9) My family is the key to any success I’ve ever had. My sister actually started blogging before me, so I owe all this to her (or so she’ll tell you). And my Mum has been my biggest fan, critic, and the ‘in-house editor’ of my very first manuscript. She’s also one of the coolest people I know. Maybe I just don’t know that many people. Just kidding - love you Mum!
10) I think the Internet is awesome for smart people. Terrible for dumb people who just found a whole new way to refer to themselves in third person. I guess I could do that too but… that would be lame. And Kevin isn’t a lame guy.
11) I don’t do Facebook. Mainly because I saw the movie The Social Network and liked that guy Eduardo Saveirn (boy did he ever get screwed). I figured one less user out of roughly 900million + would really stick it to Mark Zuckerberg and his bottom line. Plus I discovered a little blue birdy named Twitter. I think it’s cool to tell people to “get @ me”. Really it isn’t.
(I know I said 10 things, but I wanted to see how many people would actually notice. Then I realized I have no real way of knowing that. Damn.)
I write stuff. Lots of stuff.
Initially, my writing career began as a super successful author of my own notebooks.
Well, about as successful as you can be when no one has ever read your work.
Then I began blogging, which legitimized me as a writer to other people besides my Mum and English teacher.
I started posting things about personal insight, unconventional advice, and how to do something cool with your life. Now, it’s more of a digital home for me to unload all the crazy thoughts that I have in a day. Sort of like a well designed diary with a comment section.
Despite a passion for random rants, I decided that I should probably try and organize all this stuff in to something a little more cohesive and complete. Apparently, the call that a book.
So I turned all my shoeboxes of loose leaf paper (plus the occasional napkin) and all my Microsoft Word documents in to a collection of the best work of my ‘career’.
And with that, a book was born. Well, two books actually. And by born I really mean pending a fall release on Amazon because it turned out that whole ‘getting a book deal when your a teenager’ was a little tougher than I initially imagined.
I’ll be posting sneak peaks of the content, covers, and all that good stuff here on my site so stay tuned for that. I’m actually really excited. Seriously.
I speak to groups of people. Sometimes it’s funny.
I talk to people all over the place about life, advice, and tons of other cool stuff.
Well, stuff that I think is cool. I don’t watch Jersey shore or listen to Justin Bieber so in this day and age my opinion of ‘what’s cool’ can be highly contested.
From high schools, colleges, events, charities, churches, companies, coffee shops and even a correctional facility or two, I show up and talk about challenging the way that we think and doing something with your life that you’re passionate about.
Every single show is a ton of fun, I think that a heavy message is always best mixed with heavy humour, and I end a lot of my talks with a poem. I’m weird like that.
If you have any questions about the ‘serious stuff’ like schedule or booking me, don’t hesitate to email me so I can pass it on to my manager. Seriously, it’s like, his job or something.
Some Stuff about Me written by Somebody Else:
Kevin Breel is an author, a speaker, and that’s right, a teenager. 18 years old from British Columbia, Canada, Breel is changing what everyone thought they knew about self-help and motivational speakers. “I guess I’m not really your typical speaker - or writer for that matter- but I think that’s because I don’t try to be like anyone else, I just try to be myself. Maybe it’s weird to some people, but I think for me it works.” Mixing his humour with his often painfully honest approach, Breel is publishing not one, but two books this year aimed at the youth market, and says he’s “looking forward to hearing what people think” and adds with a laugh that he “hopes they don’t suck”. Already working in association with Tony Gaskins Jr (of Oprah Winfrey fame) and his publishing company Soul Writers LLC based in Florida, no one is expecting anything to suck.
Says Gaskins Jr. “For someone to be so young, so talented, and so ambitious, massive success is inevitable for him. Kevin is going to help change the world in a major way”. Bringing a style to the stage - and the page - that people have never seen before, Breel says humbly “I don’t even feel like I’ve done anything yet. Right now I just want to improve [my speaking and writing] and try and help as many young people as I can in the process”. So far, so good for the ‘self help made simple’ kid from Canada. Kevin will be hitting the road this fall to talk with kids in high school and college about starting to live life on their terms, and not somebody else’s. And if their is anyone to set a good example of that, it’s probably him.