In conversation with Molly Bloom
May 4, 2024
To talk with Molly Bloom is to talk with someone who was once a near-Olympic skier, suffered a traumatic, career-ending injury, moved alone to LA…
Inspirational Keynote Speaker, Entrepreneur, Bestselling Author of Molly’s Game
Molly Bloom is a top inspirational keynote speaker, entrepreneur, and bestselling author of Molly’s Game. Her memoir was adapted into an award-winning film by Aaron Sorkin. Bloom has appeared on numerous shows and in media outlets such as Ellen, Vice, The Los Angeles Times, NPR, Vulture, and has been asked to speak at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women. Molly was also in the Top 3 of the U.S. Ski Team until 2002.
What’s it like to run an exclusive poker game for the rich and famous? Molly Bloom went from olympic-level skier who didn’t know a thing about poker or Hollywood to building and operating the largest and most notorious private poker game in the world. In this motivational talk, Bloom will show the sales and marketing skills she used to attract hundreds of millions of dollars to the game and spark the interest of players like Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, A-Rod, and Ben Affleck. Audiences will get the inside story not shown in the film as Bloom shares true-life tales of her experience.
In today’s world of media overload and disconnection, it’s increasingly more important to connect and engage effectively with people for work, family and in everyday life. Affective Presence is the exciting and previously unexplored science of how you connect and engage with people, make them feel, and create an impact. It is a buildable skill that has the potential to transform the lives of those who employ it and make the world a better place.
From running the largest poker games in the world, populated by some of the richest and most powerful, to convincing Aaron Sorkin, the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood to adapt her book, to becoming one of the most booked speakers in the industry, Molly Bloom has identified the through line responsible for her success, Affective Presence. In this interactive session, you will learn the top methods for building Affective Presence, develop practical takeaways and practice how to engage and connect with people for all aspects of work and life.Molly Bloom shares her playbook for winning, derived from her experiences skiing for the US Ski Team, running the largest poker games in the world, writing a best-selling memoir, and making an Oscar-nominated movie. She breaks her philosophy for growth and success down into 7 major points over the course of her presentation, which audiences will leave invigorated, informed, and primed for their own success.
Molly will cover:
How do you come back from a failure? After the FBI arrested Molly Bloom and confiscated all her earnings from her poker business, she could have given up. Instead, she used the same lessons she learned from her father that led her to come back from back surgery to be ranked No. 3 in North America in moguls, to overcome this setback. She wrote the bestselling memoir, Molly’s Game, convinced Aaron Sorkin to write the screenplay, and the film earned an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. In this inspiring talk, Bloom will share true stories and life lessons showing that when you bet on yourself in business, you can always win.
Molly Bloom didn’t know a thing about running a poker business when she was asked to set up the most exclusive high stakes poker game in Hollywood. She was faced with the daunting question: how do you create an experience that will keep the rich and famous coming back when they can go anywhere to play poker? Molly found if she built a unique customer culture, not only would players come back, the game would become so exclusive that everyone would want to be a part of it. In this exciting and informative talk, Bloom shows how she created an experience like no other for her players and how you can apply the same principles for creating an exclusive experience for your customers.
In this engaging session, learn from champion athlete, top booked keynote speaker, best selling author and scrappy entrepreneur Molly Bloom, on lessons from her athletic background and hosting thousands of hours of high stakes poker, business and hustle with the world’s most prolific people in business, entertainment and politics. Participants learn Molly’s framework for managing risk, building courage, designing strategy and the perseverance to stick with it. This is a great presentation for sales, marketing, leadership and general audiences, who want to learn a new framework and be entertained in the process – with Hollywood stories, intrigue and some inside scoop on how the world really operates.
Molly Bloom is an inspirational keynote speaker, entrepreneur, and bestselling author of Molly’s Game. Her memoir, Molly’s Game, was adapted into an award-winning film of the same name by Aaron Sorkin. Bloom’s memoir chronicles her journey from college student to LA waitress to building and operating the largest and most notorious private poker game in the world. Her games featured hundreds of millions of dollars and players like Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, A-Rod, and Ben Affleck.
Bloom began her career as a world-class skier. While training as a pre-teen she was diagnosed with severe scoliosis and had to undergo surgery that the doctors said would end her athletic career. A year later, fully recovered; she was back on the slopes. She later joined the U.S. Ski Team and at 21 years old was ranked No. 3 in North America in moguls, but her Olympic dreams would go unrealized as she left the team to pursue other projects. This led her to what she thought would be a year sabbatical in LA.
Molly was finishing her degree in Political Science from the University of Colorado – Boulder, and was in the process of applying to top tier Law Schools, when her assistant job turned her into an accidental entrepreneur, running one of the most exclusive, high-stakes underground poker games in the world, pulling in as much as $4 million per year. What happened next is where her story truly begins.
Molly shares her life story and the skills she learned along the way with thousands, as one of the most highly sought-after motivational speakers in the world. Her experience catering to high profile celebrity clientele while running the most exclusive, high-stakes underground poker game of all time made Molly an expert on customer experience, and she offers key insights on how to provide exemplary service in a riveting keynote.
"Molly is absolutely unreal. I was obsessed with her before but am even more obsessed with her now – and so are every single one of our attendees. She is so kind, hilarious and engaging. I got to spend some one on one time with her and it was amazing. I cannot say enough good things about her. She will be the top keynote – mark my word! And, I was a bit nervous about our 85% male audience that all have really high expectations and let me tell you they LOVED her."