How to do great presentations & communicate effectively with Simon Raybould

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Well, hello and welcome to the super Connector Show, where
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I'm delighted to be joined by Simon Raybold, who is
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a specialist trainer and voice in presentation skills. He's also
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a published author. You can see three books behind you,
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which I'm sure we'll talk about in a moment. But
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he is also known as presentation Genius in Certain Challenge
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in Certain Challenge Channel. Sorry, I can't even get the
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words out. How ironic tort is someone who's a voice
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coach and a presentation genius. How are you doing, Simon, I'm.
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All right, I'm all right. The Presentation Genius brand wasn't
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wasn't my choice. I have to get It's the most
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eager centric title for a book and a brand and stuff,
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isn't it. Ever?
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I remember it, and yeah, absolutely it was.
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The publishers came to me and when we're launching a
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brand which is kind of the opposite of so and
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so for dummies. So there was presentation Genius, sales genius,
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marketing genius and all that kind of kind of jazz.
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Would I write Presentation Genius as the first one of
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the series. So and they made it a best seller.
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It was nothing to do with me. It was all
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down to the publishers. You're very humble, and I say
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it's a good book, but but they were the ones
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that did the work. And I thought, given that I've
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got a best seller, I'll use it a brand. Why
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would you? Why would you walk away from that as
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an opportunity.
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Yeah, that's good. Well, well, I've read the first two books.
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I haven't read the third one yet. We were saying
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before we went live, so I need to need to
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get a hold of a copy of that. But I
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was also working out that first book. I've got a
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copy of that. It was probably about almost twenty years ago,
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and that's when I first met you. So that's pretty amazing.
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I love the fact that now. And what's I've still
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got hair?
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Well? Yeah, I think I had a bit more hair then,
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but not not a lot. Yeah, yeah you haven't. I'm
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still quite young for it. Look, and I think hopefully
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I haven't had a shave. This is really normally on
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a lot better groomed than today, but I'm I'm slack.
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Tell me I've go first, how many how many hours stubble?
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Is that? Well? Normally I trimmed my beard on a
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Wednesday and I didn't trim my beard last Wednesday, so
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it's it's coming up a week now.
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I can't. I can't, I just can't. It takes me
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about six weeks to do anything other than look like
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an overachieving teenager.
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Well, you did have a good to beard not that
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long ago, and I thought that looked pretty good.
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I think it makes me look old.
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Well, media, I thought it made you look distinguished. But yes,
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you look younger. You look younger now, yes, certain, so, yes,
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so this is this is a good chat for the
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for the listeners. But but yeah, so it is. It's
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it's about twenty years ago when I first met you.
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So I was working at the time for not for
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profit social enterprise and they were putting me on various
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different training courses. So I remember going along to that
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because I haven't had any training or any experience really
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have given presentations until then in a work capacity. So
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I came along and I did really enjoy the training
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that you that you delivered, and we were just saying
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before you got people lying on the floor and breathing
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exercises and all kinds of stuff, and your book very
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useful as well. So I learned a lot from that.
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And since then, I've obviously gone on to host lots
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of events and do lots of Yeah, I'm not saying
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I'm an amazing presenter. And you have given me some
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one one coaching as well, which was helpful as well, because,
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as you rightly said, and I am aware, I am
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quite softly spoken and part of my which is a
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good thing if you want to make people feel included
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and welcome. But it doesn't necessarily get across that you
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in charge to talk a little bit.
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About carried to the back of the room with authority.
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Yeah, yeah, And I know sometimes I struggle to project
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my voice of a long distance, which is which is
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why I'm doing these podcasts, I suppose in these videos
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because people have to listen to my voice and this
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and this has.
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To get the six inches to the microphone and that's
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it exactly.
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Yeah, But lots happened since then.
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I'm still doing and only doing presentation skills training. That's
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what I'm a specialist in. There's there's a lot within that. Obviously,
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tending and all that kind of jazz is the new thing.
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But I've not flickered. I've not waivered in twenty years.
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No pivoting no panicking, no changing. It's always been just
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about presentation skills and helping people communicate better.
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Yeah, well, I think that's really good because you know,
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it's still something that's really important and also a challenge
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for a lot of people. I think you know better
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than me that the stats. But isn't it like the
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greatest fear or one of the greatest fears that people
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have is public speaking.
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Yeah, there's that fantastic stat that's it's a disingenuous representation
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of the of the statistic, But there is some research
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that says, if you ask people to list the things
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that they are frightened of, public speaking is higher than dying. Right,
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Hence hence the joke and death came hurt third from
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from a first book which suggests that more people would
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rather be in the coffin at a funeral than giving
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the eulogy. Now that's that's a horrible misrepresentation of the statistics,
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but it does kind of make the point. I'm okay
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with that if everybody was happy doing presentations firstly out
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about our living, but secondly, those people who aren't nervous
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when they make presentations, they're the real nightmare clients for me.
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Because frankly, there are only two reasons not to be nervous.
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One is if you don't care, or two if you're
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a sociopath, and I don't want to work with either
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of those two groups of people.
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Frankly, yeah, well that's okay. So I was going to say,
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this is the second podcast we've done so working out before.
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If you want to know a lot more about your
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background and how you got started, which we will talk
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about a bit now, but we did a podcast super
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Corrected Show podcasts way back in February twenty twenty just
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because the Lockdown. Yeah, incredible, but encourage people to listen
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to that as well. But my next question is going
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to be what what happened next after that?
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For you?
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If you're delivering training.
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At the beginning of lockdown, Yeah, I have.
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Twenty twenty, So every twenty twenty you're you know, we're
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talking about.
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What was in lockdown was? What having in lockdown was
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that I remember sitting here in front of my computer
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and just watching the cancelations coming in. Wow, just kind
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of an email. So I've got to counsel an email.
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So I've got to counsel an email. Sorr, I've got
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to counsel, which was massively, massively depressing, and I took
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the opportunity then to start doing some research on new
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stuff and new material and all of that kind of jazz,
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a lot of which is now coming to fruition. So
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that's when I started working on the story making book.
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Because I'm not very good at sitting around doing nothing.
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I can do it for about ten minutes on a
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good day, but as soon as lockdown happened, we went, okay,
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there's nothing I can do. Then I just kind of
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went into research mode to start getting more detail and
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even more detail and even more detail because I start
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you probably know, I started life as a research scientist,
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and if I'm not careful, I can go on into
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full on nerd mode and just research and research and
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research and research and research and lockdown. Gay with the
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opportunity opportunity to do that with a clear common because
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I didn't have any clients, it was great, absolutely fantastic.
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Yeah, well obviously obviously an awful you know, situated for
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for a lot of people, but also an opportunity, like
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you say, to do that which you maybe wouldn't have
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done otherwise, or maybe you would have been putting off
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or doing alongside a very busy calendar. So did it
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give you that opportunity? I think at the end of
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the podcast we do talk about how you were in
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the in the beginning stages of pulling a new book together.
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So maybe maybe you're just thinking about it back then.
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I'm not. I'm not sure. But then.
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I struggled to remember what I did last week, so
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asking me to remember what I did. That's why I've
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got a diary and I've got staff. It's what I'm
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talking about. And I haven't the faintest idea, but it was.
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It was pretty weird, and then after lockdown, it took
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a long time for people to start going back to
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face to face stuff. I can do online training, and
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I do do online training, and I do it really
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rather well. I've got some glorious software that allows me
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to do some very cool things online, but it's never
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quite the same. It's not got quite the same buzz,
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it's not got quite the same flexibility. So, for example,
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on a face to face training, if somebody asks a
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question and everybody else in the room goes, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
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that's good, then I can go down that route much
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more easily than I can if I'm doing it down
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the wire, if I'm doing it to camera, I've got
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some flexibility, but not as much flexibility. So I give
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you an Example's I'm doing some training last week. I
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did about ten I did about ten minutes on a
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couple of nerve control techniques, and somebody said, can we
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do more of those? Now? I'd given ten minutes. Is
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you can get some good stuff in ten minutes, but
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I've got about two and a half hours worth of
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nerve controlled techniques everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we want some more.
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We want some more, we want some more. And because
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I was in the room, I was able to just go, Okay,
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here's another tool, and here's another tool, and here's another tool.
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I think we spent about forty five minutes. I'd expected
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to do ten fifteen. We spent about forty five minutes
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looking at a huge range of techniques for calling people,
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controlling people's nerves and all of that kind of can't
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do it online, but just so much easier face to face.
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Yeah, yeah, well I know that. Well, you do come
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across very well on camera, but I know there is
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a lot of energy in your presentations as well, and
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you know that's that's deliberate, but you do. You do
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give off some good energy when you're talking, and you
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can feel it. You can actually feel it in the
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room when you're giving a talk, and.
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That's very flattering. The money will be in the usual fivers,
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nonsequit paper overload, left in the usual place. Paul, Is
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that okay?
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Yeah? But then there's there's other people or who Yeah,
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the energy disappears around the room when they speaks. So
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I've got I've got a bunch of things I'm going
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to ask you about. Right, thought on it, right, But
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do you want to just tell us a bit more
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about who you work with now or who typically would
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come to you and when and why.
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About two thirds of my client base is professional services.
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Usually when they realize that they've got something coming up
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that they're not prepared for, and they kind of go,
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we've got this, we've got this conference, and we want
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to put our nerds on stage because our nerds know
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what they're talking about. But our nerds can't look anybody
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in the eye.
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Can you?
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Can you get our nerds customer facing that kind of thing.
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So the biggest clients Dell Computers, Reno finance kind of thing.
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Most organizations are smaller than that. They're quite a lot
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smaller than that. There may be twenty people, or it
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could be a team within the local authority. And I
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tend to go in and my typical way of working
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is to do a day's work where you go, here
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are the principles of making cracking presentations, Go away and
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practice them, dine yourself a presentation, and I will give
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them unlimited free support for a couple of weeks. While
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they do that, they just email me with does this work?
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Does that work? Does you know? As much as they like?
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For a couple of weeks, and then we'll go back
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and we'll put those new presentations on the floor and
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critique those those new presentations, and we find that everybody
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learns from each other almost as much as they learn
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from me on those days. And you can occasion that
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you see first person goes up and there's a comment
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that goes, yeah, but Simon said such and such, the
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penny drops, you go, oh, yeah, we shouldn't have done that.
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And then if you look carefully, you can see other
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people surreptitiously changing their slides later on on the day
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so that they don't make the same mistake. It's huge fun,
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oh as you absolutely the best way to earn a
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living there possibly is because I spend most of my
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time learning what other people do, which makes me great
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for the first round of a pub quiz. My general
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knowledge astonishing, my backup knowledge not so good, but the
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first round of knowledge, you know, because I've worked with
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accountants and then industrial chemists, and then cybersecurity people and
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then environmental consultants, and then you get the idea. But
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the thing they've all got in common is that they
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are really really good at what they do. To talk
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about it, and then the other half of my other part
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of my stuff tends to be one man bands and things,
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and I put on open courses where they can come
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to me because that way, excuse me, that way I
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can keep the prices down for them. In fact, that
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was pretty much when you and I first met twenty
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years ago, and I've just started doing those again. After
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oh maybe a ten year hiatus. I stopped doing them
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because the admin was such a pain in the neck.
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But then software has changed so that it's really easy
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to sell tickets and all of that kind of jazz,
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you know, because when I first started, oh god, here's
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a confession for age you ready, When I first started
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out doing this, event Bright was not a thing.
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Wow.
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I had to send individual invoices to everybody and make
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sure I got paid, and it was a pain in
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the neck. Now, of course, it's dead simple. You just
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create something an event on event bright or Ticketmaster or
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whatever you're using. Because there are some there are better
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and cheaper alternatives to event right these days and jobs
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are good. All the admirins, all the admin is done
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for me, But honestly it is. We laugh so hard
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we cry sometimes, and that doesn't mean it's not hard work.
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I really work people very hard on these courses because
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they're paying me good money to be better presenters. But
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that doesn't mean you can't have a good time when
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you're doing it. Mm hmm famous words.
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Well, if I would encourage anyone who's watching or listening
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to this, I would encourage them to, well, here you speak.
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I know you've spoken at our events, our platform events
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and our startup scale of week events. But definitely book
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onto one of your courses if they want to learn
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how to be a better public speaker, just improve their
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communication skills.
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I was going to get it plug in at the end,
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but we've got.
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It in get it. Let's get it in now, let's
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get it in there. Well, because it does. It does matter,
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doesn't it. Like they said, there's there's so many people
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who are really really good at what they do, but
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they find it difficult to communicate that in it in
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a way that's understandable by others that need to understand
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that information, and.
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Not just understandable, but actionable. So I'm going to give
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I'm going to risk flying quite close to the the knuckle.
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Yeah right, not one of your events, So I'm being
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very careful so that you can't identify who I'm talking
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about one of your events. I remember talking to one
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of the speakers at the coffee break. They didn't know
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who I was or what I did, shocking, And we
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had a conversation and they went, I loved it. It
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went so well. It was it was absolutely brilliant. It
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went absolutely it was it was lovely fabulous, it was
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just it was just brilliant. I'm going to take this
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up for a living. It was brilliant.
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Well, they said their talk was so good.
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They said they were amazing. And then two months later
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I had an interesting conversation with them over coffee saying,
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and how many leads did the did it generate none?
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I don't care how good you think your presentation is.
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If it has generated no interest and no action, it's
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it's not an effective presentation. And I'm all about the
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presentation working and moving the needle as it were, and
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having something happened. Yeah, Now, apart from the fact that
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their definition of a great presentation was very different from
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mine because it was bloody awful. But even if it
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had been cool, if it didn't do anything, then there's
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a question about why you're doing it, if that makes
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If that makes sense, and I'm all about that. It's
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got to do something. It's got to be worthwhile something.
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Is that your end on? Mind?
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My end? The puppies just started bargaining. Someone just came
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into the house very I don't know.
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I don't know why. Asked if that was your end
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or mind? Because I don't have a dog.
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I knew exactly the parrot behind you. No, yeah, because
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it's hang on.
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If you want a parrot, Oh, I've got a parrot.
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That's not realizard.
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This parrot is nailed to the perch.
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It is okay, I'm going to ask you about props.
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I was going to ask you about this. Have you
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ever because you've got your parrot on your book and
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you've got a parrot there, have you ever dressed up
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as a pirate with a parrot to deliver a presentation?
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Have you ever dressed up as a character to deliver
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a presentation?
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I have used all kinds of props, depending upon the gig,
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but in my head, because the presentations are all about
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getting something to happen, there is a risk that if
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you use the dressing up thing, people remember the dressing
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up rather than the message. So I'll I'll give you.
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I'll give you an example. A couple of times I
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have finished gigs by playing the can you know the
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Peruvian box drum?
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I've seen it.
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Yeah, you're very good, and all people remember going, oh,
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you're the Khan guy. Yeah, but they don't remember the
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stuff that led to so I don't anymore. I have
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used props, for example, I've used a white coat because
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I started life as a research scientist. Or I've used
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glasses or sunglasses or whatever quick change props. I've never
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used a costume because they just it takes too much
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faffing about and it gets in the way from the
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audience's perspective. Unless you are unbelievably slick, it gets in
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the way. But at that point, the slickness with which
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you change costumes becomes the thing that the audience remember.
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So I spent you know, I was when I was
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touring as an actual one point, I did a one
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man show called Rescue Speaking. I played eleven different characters
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in this in this thing, and one of the bits
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of feedback I've got was how clever it was that
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my eleven different characters all looked different and stuff. They
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couldn't remember a damn thing about what the characters did
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or what they said. They were just so obsessed with
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how I had managed to change character and persona by
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just changing a scarf, And you know, you get.
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Yeah, oh no, you just reminded me of I think
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I did skip through the last podcast that we did
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the way back in twenty twenty, and there's a bit
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in a way I talk about guy called Derek Sivers.
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It was a successful lunentrepreneur, probably speaker or their philosopher,
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but it used to be a professional clown. There's a
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there's a famous video of him online where he takes
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to the stage dressed as a like Piero type clown.
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And I mean it's a very striker. It grabs your attention.
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But and it made sense for the talk that he does.
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But like that could have just totally bombed. It could
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have been funny for the first like minute. And then.
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If it serves the message right, if it's to serve
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your ego, less less good if you if you me
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but don't me wrong. I'm a fan of props, particularly
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if there are props that you can leave behind with
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an audience. For example, if God help you, you're pitching
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for work and there are six companies or you know
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some kind pejoratively, I'm going to put my air quotes
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around this and call them beauty pageants, you know, the
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kind of thing where the winner of today's competition willet
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two hundred thousand pounds investment, that kind of thing or whatever.
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If you can have a leave behind prop, then that's
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a really handy way of using the prop, because the
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first problem you've got there is actually being remembered at
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the end of the day, after somebody has sat through
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two and a half or three hours worth of pitch presentations.
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If you can give people something as part of the presentation.
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Then they go, why have I got a brick of leg? Oh?
397
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Yeah, yeah.
398
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So a three D prop in particular really sticks in
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people's heads. If you can't do three D prop, a
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two DP prop will work. If you can't do a
401
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two D prop, then you should be able to do
402
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it to the proper And if you're paying them money,
403
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I will help you design one. But the point is
404
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that you've got you've got to have some way of
405
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being memorable. Yeah, and crops are useful for that kind
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of thing in those circumstances. It's all about does it
407
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does it serve the message?
408
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You see that quite often on dragons then, where people
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delivered a pitch and then they hand something to the dragons,
410
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and sometimes that works really well. Sometimes it doesn't. Know
411
00:22:31.279 --> 00:22:34.240
it depends on what it is obviously, whether it works
412
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or not.
413
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I remember one thing when they did that and went, look,
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here are indestructible ride along suitcases for children. Yeah, one
415
00:22:43.759 --> 00:22:47.519
of the dragons sat on it and it broke. It's
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no longer indestructible at that point, and all of your
417
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credibility goes. But there's a reason they do that is
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because they know they have they've got to stand out.
419
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I should doubt that nothing about dragons Den is real.
420
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Not even Sorry, I'm going to disillusion you, Paul. Not
421
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even the elevator, not even the lift on the web.
422
00:23:06.279 --> 00:23:08.680
None of that is real. I'm sorry about that.
423
00:23:09.880 --> 00:23:12.440
Do you ever do you ever watch Dragons then? Do
424
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you ever just for research? Or do you ever watch it?
425
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The better ones?
426
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I end up screaming at the television. I did the
427
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same with The Apprentice. I end up because you know,
428
00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:30.680
there's a presentation thing in Prince, I'm gonna swear, so
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brace yourself. My usual comment is.
430
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For foxs sake, Yeah, I think the ones on The
431
00:23:40.880 --> 00:23:43.880
Apprentice are terrible. Some of the ones on Dragons. Then,
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you know, you can just see it. I know it's
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heavily edited, but sometimes you can just see it. They're
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just well put together, some of them, and they just
435
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get they get the response because the response is the
436
00:23:56.160 --> 00:23:59.880
Dragons want to invest in them more. You know, whether
437
00:23:59.880 --> 00:24:01.519
it happens in your life or not.
438
00:24:01.680 --> 00:24:05.799
Is talk about very much about designing your presentation backwards.
439
00:24:05.960 --> 00:24:07.880
So the first thing that I will always ask people
440
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is what do you want to happen at the end
441
00:24:10.440 --> 00:24:11.200
of this presentation?
442
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Yea?
443
00:24:12.720 --> 00:24:15.000
And in dragon and stand. It's very easy. I want
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00:24:15.039 --> 00:24:18.640
them to invest, Okay, what do you need to do
445
00:24:18.839 --> 00:24:21.359
in order to get them to trust you to invest?
446
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And you work backwards with a series of questions like that.
447
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In another circumstances, it's not quite so easy, you know.
448
00:24:27.240 --> 00:24:29.240
So I want them to adopt this new health and
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safety policy or whatever I want them. I want to
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generate leads whatever it happens to be. Okay, what would
451
00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:39.039
you have to do to generate leads? What would you
452
00:24:39.079 --> 00:24:40.759
have to do to mean that they adopted the new
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00:24:40.759 --> 00:24:42.960
health and safety policy? What would you have to do
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to And as soon as you can answer the question,
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the presentation design becomes relatively easy. It becomes a technical
456
00:24:50.279 --> 00:24:55.599
exercise at that point going does this make it more
457
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likely they will invest? Does it make it more likely
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they will buy my stuff? Does it make more likely
459
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that they will So? Here's a really silly example. That's
460
00:25:04.640 --> 00:25:08.000
really really silly example. You know, the end of most presentations,
461
00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:11.000
there's that kind of the slide that says, so if
462
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you want to if you want to know more, get
463
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in touch, which is just limp and pathetic and doesn't
464
00:25:18.559 --> 00:25:21.160
work for for dozens and dozens and dozens of reasons,
465
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but one of the reasons it doesn't work is because
466
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they put every possible way of connecting with them on
467
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the slide. An email address, a smoke signal, a phone number,
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a second email address, a LinkedIn file, whatever. Right, there's
469
00:25:38.680 --> 00:25:40.759
a shared load of research that says that the more
470
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choices you give people, the more likely it is that
471
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they will take none of the above as their response.
472
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So one simple thing you can do in your presentations
473
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is what do I want to do? I want them
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to download this PDF document for example? Okay, instead of
475
00:26:00.440 --> 00:26:03.960
giving them sixteen different options, just give them a bloody
476
00:26:04.039 --> 00:26:07.720
QR code that links to the PDF document. And at
477
00:26:07.720 --> 00:26:10.559
that point their choice is not They're sorry. Their choice
478
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is do I want it or not? Their choice is
479
00:26:13.480 --> 00:26:15.720
not do I want it or not? And if I
480
00:26:15.759 --> 00:26:17.960
want it, do I want to get it this way?
481
00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:21.279
This way, this way, this way, this way, this way.
482
00:26:21.279 --> 00:26:24.480
You got the idea, So you just start asking questions
483
00:26:24.519 --> 00:26:28.440
and pretty soon the design falls out of the falls
484
00:26:28.440 --> 00:26:32.079
out of the skies, as it were. Someone just commented here,
485
00:26:32.119 --> 00:26:34.039
going I did not to see expect to see a
486
00:26:34.039 --> 00:26:36.720
parrot to day. Yes, the parrot's called sid by the way,
487
00:26:36.759 --> 00:26:38.640
whoever it is. It's just commented the parrot is called
488
00:26:38.720 --> 00:26:40.440
sid named after Dad.
489
00:26:41.640 --> 00:26:45.319
Wow, I don't know who's comment on that. We'll have
490
00:26:45.319 --> 00:26:47.039
to go back on that. Yeah, I wasn't expecting to
491
00:26:47.039 --> 00:26:49.000
see apparently, but you know it's.
492
00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:53.960
Yep, said the story parrot.
493
00:26:52.079 --> 00:26:56.079
Very good. That's a good point you make on that,
494
00:26:56.119 --> 00:26:58.720
because yeah, you do see that. I mean even so,
495
00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:02.480
obviously I do part more events, and I've got to speakers,
496
00:27:02.519 --> 00:27:06.160
lots of speakers all the time, and I choose the speakers.
497
00:27:06.200 --> 00:27:08.279
You know, sometimes people say they want to speak, but
498
00:27:08.559 --> 00:27:10.759
usually it's may ask the people to speak because I've
499
00:27:11.160 --> 00:27:13.680
I think that they've got something worth talking about, or
500
00:27:14.079 --> 00:27:17.799
I've heard them speak before. To be fair, I don't
501
00:27:17.960 --> 00:27:20.720
usually give them a great amount of coach and on
502
00:27:20.799 --> 00:27:23.759
how to deliver the presentation. Maybe I should do that, Simon.
503
00:27:23.799 --> 00:27:25.799
I know you've some of the ones that you've seen
504
00:27:25.880 --> 00:27:28.519
recently you've thought maybe would benefit from a bit of
505
00:27:28.759 --> 00:27:30.640
bit of support.
506
00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:33.960
If I've had a sniper rifle the presentation ten.
507
00:27:33.839 --> 00:27:37.079
Minutes or yeah, maybe that thing I should I should
508
00:27:37.519 --> 00:27:41.799
offer in the future. But usually they'll say what you
509
00:27:41.880 --> 00:27:43.799
want me to talk about and saying well, it's an
510
00:27:43.799 --> 00:27:46.480
opportunity for you to introduce yourself like who you are,
511
00:27:46.599 --> 00:27:51.880
what you do, what you offer, and a strong cold action.
512
00:27:52.079 --> 00:27:53.960
That's that's usually what I say to them, right and
513
00:27:55.480 --> 00:27:58.599
usually they're all right. Usually they're pretty good. There's some
514
00:27:58.720 --> 00:28:01.680
better than others, obviously, but I don't like to be
515
00:28:01.720 --> 00:28:04.680
too prescriptive with what I asked them to do. But
516
00:28:05.119 --> 00:28:07.039
definitely the ones who have a strong call act at
517
00:28:07.079 --> 00:28:10.200
the end where it's just one simple thing to do,
518
00:28:10.839 --> 00:28:14.319
where it's maybe scan the QR code to get a
519
00:28:14.359 --> 00:28:16.759
free guide that's going to give you something valuable, is
520
00:28:17.079 --> 00:28:20.319
quite useful. That that usually works if it's something genuinely
521
00:28:20.440 --> 00:28:24.400
useful and it's not just scan this connect whether and
522
00:28:24.440 --> 00:28:26.920
then I'm going to hit you with the sales pitched
523
00:28:26.960 --> 00:28:29.240
straight away and try and flog you everything.
524
00:28:29.400 --> 00:28:33.359
Or I had one of those today. I literally accepted
525
00:28:33.400 --> 00:28:36.599
a LinkedIn request and while I was writing the message
526
00:28:36.640 --> 00:28:39.480
that goes great to speak to you. I've not done
527
00:28:39.559 --> 00:28:42.440
much on LinkedIn recently, So what was it I did
528
00:28:42.519 --> 00:28:45.960
that caught your eye? While I was writing that message?
529
00:28:46.400 --> 00:28:51.119
The sales pitch arrived straight away. I've just got to
530
00:28:51.160 --> 00:28:55.960
get Kyle has just put Sid the parrot nice try
531
00:28:56.000 --> 00:29:00.279
cow Sid with a y s y d interesting, why
532
00:29:00.319 --> 00:29:01.599
it's a high class parrot?
533
00:29:02.119 --> 00:29:04.799
Yes, it was it was it Sydney or was it
534
00:29:04.920 --> 00:29:05.319
just Sid?
535
00:29:06.880 --> 00:29:11.880
Well? My dad and my granddad were called Sid and Sydney.
536
00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:14.720
I can't remember what they were called further than that,
537
00:29:15.160 --> 00:29:16.960
I've never bought her to find out, but Sid and
538
00:29:17.000 --> 00:29:19.759
Sydney with my dad and my granddad very good.
539
00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:22.000
I'm jumped around a bit here, but we were talking
540
00:29:22.039 --> 00:29:26.440
about the previous guest, Jeremy Lee, who was the founder
541
00:29:26.480 --> 00:29:30.119
of JLA Speaker Agency, and one of his other podcasts
542
00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:32.119
he told he's got a dog who I think makes
543
00:29:32.160 --> 00:29:35.400
an appearance in there in the podcast who did called
544
00:29:35.480 --> 00:29:39.640
Sydney Yeah, And another of his podcasts he was talking
545
00:29:39.680 --> 00:29:41.880
about how he was going to get the dog and
546
00:29:41.920 --> 00:29:43.279
he didn't know whether it was going to be a
547
00:29:43.279 --> 00:29:45.839
boy or a girl, so he chosen the work the
548
00:29:45.920 --> 00:29:48.039
name Sydney because it could be a boy or a girl.
549
00:29:50.599 --> 00:29:53.359
Sometimes people called Chris, you kind of go okay, I'm
550
00:29:53.359 --> 00:29:57.119
meeting small. In fact it recently I went to In fact,
551
00:29:57.119 --> 00:30:03.160
you and I met recently in Pink Lane and months
552
00:30:03.160 --> 00:30:05.079
ago I meant I went to see somebody in Pink
553
00:30:05.119 --> 00:30:10.480
then called Sam Yeah, Samuel.
554
00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:16.720
Were expecting one one thing and then it was something else.
555
00:30:17.079 --> 00:30:18.920
I did my usual trick of turn up forty five
556
00:30:18.960 --> 00:30:20.759
minutes early, so they had to recognize me.
557
00:30:24.839 --> 00:30:29.279
So, I mean, we'll touch a bit more about slides obviously,
558
00:30:29.319 --> 00:30:32.119
Like I think a lot of people just try and
559
00:30:32.839 --> 00:30:35.000
put too much on their slides either, just try and
560
00:30:35.400 --> 00:30:39.920
say too much. So are you yes what you're saying
561
00:30:39.960 --> 00:30:42.759
just is it less is more? Or is it just
562
00:30:43.400 --> 00:30:44.799
clear on what you want to get across?
563
00:30:45.119 --> 00:30:47.119
Yeah, So what happens is quite a lot of time
564
00:30:47.200 --> 00:30:51.319
I see people putting their first brain drug dump, first
565
00:30:51.400 --> 00:30:55.519
draft of their slide deck up on the screen behind them,
566
00:30:55.759 --> 00:30:57.319
where what they've done is go right, I want to
567
00:30:57.319 --> 00:30:58.839
talk about this and talk about this, and talk about this,
568
00:30:58.839 --> 00:31:00.200
and talk about this and talk about it, and just
569
00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:02.440
to remind themselves what they're going to talk about, they
570
00:31:02.559 --> 00:31:05.680
just dump it all on the screen in bullet point
571
00:31:05.720 --> 00:31:08.319
form and then proceed to read the damned bullet points.
572
00:31:08.880 --> 00:31:11.279
The problem with that is that people can read a
573
00:31:11.319 --> 00:31:14.599
lot faster than the speaker can speak. So by the
574
00:31:14.640 --> 00:31:18.200
time I have read my bullet points, the audience has
575
00:31:18.519 --> 00:31:21.559
read for themselves all the bullet points and is sitting
576
00:31:21.559 --> 00:31:24.119
there for twenty seconds waiting for me to catch up,
577
00:31:25.160 --> 00:31:29.200
getting bored, getting frustrated, stopping, concentrating and all of that,
578
00:31:29.640 --> 00:31:32.160
all of that kind of jazz. And the least people
579
00:31:32.240 --> 00:31:34.680
do that is because they don't trust themselves to remember
580
00:31:35.079 --> 00:31:36.680
what it is that they are going to say, so
581
00:31:36.720 --> 00:31:41.640
they've bune it on the script. Better alternatives, just notes
582
00:31:41.759 --> 00:31:43.960
would do. No one's going to shoot you if you
583
00:31:44.039 --> 00:31:47.759
have to use index cards. I mean it's better not
584
00:31:47.880 --> 00:31:50.839
to use index cards because of the Oppenheimer effect. I'll
585
00:31:50.880 --> 00:31:54.359
explain that in a second. But index cards where you
586
00:31:54.440 --> 00:31:56.559
just glance down at your notes, are better than having
587
00:31:56.599 --> 00:32:00.480
the damn thing on the screen behind you, because then
588
00:32:00.519 --> 00:32:03.759
you're you're already you're competing with your slide for your audiences,
589
00:32:03.839 --> 00:32:08.839
for your ances attention. But in its cards will do better. Still,
590
00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:12.000
use present a view in your PowerPoint, so you've got
591
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:14.680
your notes on the laptop in front of you and
592
00:32:14.720 --> 00:32:17.559
they are different from what the audience sees upon the
593
00:32:17.640 --> 00:32:20.119
screen behind, so that you've got your notes there if
594
00:32:20.200 --> 00:32:24.960
you know if you need them, or better still, just
595
00:32:25.079 --> 00:32:28.720
rehearse the damn thing enough to be able to do
596
00:32:28.839 --> 00:32:32.160
it without having to have a script in front of you.
597
00:32:33.039 --> 00:32:37.960
Apart from anything else scripts don't work. Scripts sound scripted.
598
00:32:39.960 --> 00:32:44.319
I'm going to can I go all nerdypoor is so
599
00:32:44.880 --> 00:32:47.480
nerd wise right, And I'm going to simplify, and I'm
600
00:32:47.519 --> 00:32:50.240
going to offend everybody who's really into this kind of thing.
601
00:32:50.640 --> 00:32:54.480
But long story shot, English is two languages sitting on
602
00:32:54.480 --> 00:32:58.839
top of each other. There's the Norman stuff, which was
603
00:32:58.880 --> 00:33:03.079
all about written communication because they were in government, and
604
00:33:03.720 --> 00:33:06.079
then there's the Saxon stuff. And I'm going to swear
605
00:33:06.160 --> 00:33:10.960
so brace yourselves that the Latin Norman stuff tends to
606
00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:16.000
have complicated words, complicated word structures such as the word commence,
607
00:33:17.440 --> 00:33:22.160
and the Anglo Saxon stuff which has a verbal heritage
608
00:33:22.279 --> 00:33:24.599
rather than the written heritage that doesn't have the word
609
00:33:24.640 --> 00:33:27.839
commence in it at all, that has the word start.
610
00:33:29.400 --> 00:33:33.480
So as soon as you start writing a script, you
611
00:33:33.599 --> 00:33:36.319
end up with phrases like, oh, the commencement of the
612
00:33:36.359 --> 00:33:41.039
project we discovered that, you know, well, who's going to
613
00:33:41.119 --> 00:33:44.359
listen to that? What you need is the Saxon version
614
00:33:44.440 --> 00:33:49.400
of when we started or if you if I'm the
615
00:33:49.440 --> 00:33:50.920
city example, I'm going to give you now, I'm going
616
00:33:50.920 --> 00:33:54.880
to swear, so brace yourself. The Latin version goes there
617
00:33:54.960 --> 00:33:57.880
was a degree of intercourse involved in Well, no, the
618
00:33:57.920 --> 00:34:04.359
saxon is fuck much more accent, it's much more conversational.
619
00:34:04.640 --> 00:34:08.119
It's the words you would use in real life as
620
00:34:08.119 --> 00:34:11.559
opposed to the words you use when you are writing. So,
621
00:34:11.559 --> 00:34:15.400
if you're writing a script, writing script is bloody difficult
622
00:34:16.280 --> 00:34:19.480
because unless you're very, very very talented at it, you
623
00:34:19.599 --> 00:34:27.039
end up writing a document with complicated words and complicated
624
00:34:27.079 --> 00:34:30.119
words structures, and it sounds like a written document being
625
00:34:30.159 --> 00:34:33.440
recited by a dalek. So you want to rehearse it
626
00:34:33.480 --> 00:34:36.119
to the point where you don't need the damned script,
627
00:34:36.599 --> 00:34:39.119
so that you can, for lack of a better term,
628
00:34:39.519 --> 00:34:43.159
semi improvise around what you are saying. I don't mean
629
00:34:43.199 --> 00:34:46.239
make it up as you go along, but semi improv
630
00:34:46.920 --> 00:34:49.519
so that you've got a note on the screen in
631
00:34:49.519 --> 00:34:52.719
front of you to remind you to talk about so
632
00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:56.559
and so, and you know your stuff so well that
633
00:34:56.599 --> 00:34:59.320
you can talk about so and so for thirty five
634
00:34:59.360 --> 00:35:02.559
seconds to get your message across and then move on
635
00:35:02.599 --> 00:35:03.440
to the next thing.
636
00:35:03.840 --> 00:35:04.159
M hm.
637
00:35:04.920 --> 00:35:05.599
Does that make sense?
638
00:35:06.079 --> 00:35:11.039
Yeah, that's good because that's that well, that comes with practice, obviously,
639
00:35:11.039 --> 00:35:12.800
if you if you know you well, if you know
640
00:35:12.840 --> 00:35:14.559
your stuff inside out. But then if you know how
641
00:35:14.639 --> 00:35:17.519
to talk about your stuff, and you've got experience doing that,
642
00:35:17.639 --> 00:35:20.000
So there's certain things that I could just get up
643
00:35:20.039 --> 00:35:22.000
and talk about and I wouldn't have to think too
644
00:35:22.079 --> 00:35:25.320
much about it because I've done it a lot. But
645
00:35:26.559 --> 00:35:30.639
something something I wouldn't say, it's struggle with money. Maybe
646
00:35:30.760 --> 00:35:33.519
I think I struggle with is because I host a
647
00:35:33.519 --> 00:35:36.400
lot of events and I do interviews, but I don't
648
00:35:36.440 --> 00:35:39.679
often give a presentation. So if I get asked to
649
00:35:39.719 --> 00:35:43.280
do a presentation, it's a new presentation. I have to
650
00:35:43.320 --> 00:35:46.320
pull together some new slides because I've not done that before.
651
00:35:46.559 --> 00:35:50.400
There's other people who have a talk or a series
652
00:35:50.400 --> 00:35:52.719
of talks that they just deliver over and over and
653
00:35:52.760 --> 00:35:56.639
over again. So then, yeah, lucky people, but you know
654
00:35:56.719 --> 00:35:58.519
that you know what I mean, You're you're seeing them
655
00:35:58.519 --> 00:36:02.079
where they may be. That's their job to just deliver
656
00:36:02.159 --> 00:36:06.559
the same presentation at multiple conferences and events and sales.
657
00:36:08.320 --> 00:36:10.239
Hats off to them. And I do work with that
658
00:36:10.360 --> 00:36:12.960
kind of person if they throw enough money at me.
659
00:36:13.639 --> 00:36:17.199
But I do I much more concentrate and prefer to
660
00:36:17.239 --> 00:36:20.599
work with real people who have got to make a
661
00:36:20.639 --> 00:36:26.719
presentation rather than want to be a professional speaker much
662
00:36:26.760 --> 00:36:28.480
more people like you who have kind of gone, oh damn,
663
00:36:28.480 --> 00:36:31.599
I've got to pull this presentation together for next Thursday
664
00:36:31.800 --> 00:36:36.800
because the boss wants to report on such and such. Yeah,
665
00:36:37.199 --> 00:36:38.559
are you going to ask me how to do that
666
00:36:38.599 --> 00:36:40.239
in a short period of time?
667
00:36:40.320 --> 00:36:43.119
No? No, no, no, Well you can talk about a bit.
668
00:36:43.159 --> 00:36:47.000
I've got some of the things I've written. We'll go through. Right,
669
00:36:47.079 --> 00:36:50.000
we've touched on it already about dressed it up and props.
670
00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:52.559
But I was going to say the importance clothing, the
671
00:36:52.599 --> 00:36:55.960
clothing that you wear. What's the thoughts on that?
672
00:36:56.440 --> 00:37:00.480
Right? There is quite a lot of recent search on this,
673
00:37:00.679 --> 00:37:05.559
as you can imagine. Most of it suggests that you
674
00:37:05.599 --> 00:37:09.760
should aim for one level of formality above your audience,
675
00:37:10.199 --> 00:37:11.320
but match for style.
676
00:37:11.840 --> 00:37:12.119
Okay.
677
00:37:12.159 --> 00:37:14.559
So the reason I say match for style is to
678
00:37:14.679 --> 00:37:17.199
establish a rapport with your audience. So if they're in
679
00:37:17.280 --> 00:37:19.079
jeans and T shirts, you don't want to turn up
680
00:37:19.119 --> 00:37:23.000
in a three piece suit. Okay. But the reason the
681
00:37:23.039 --> 00:37:26.840
research says one level of formality above them is to
682
00:37:26.880 --> 00:37:30.679
give you a degree of authority and credibility. So if
683
00:37:30.719 --> 00:37:35.239
they are in scruffy jeans, you would turn up in
684
00:37:35.519 --> 00:37:41.320
smart genes. If they are in smart jeans and a shirt.
685
00:37:41.760 --> 00:37:45.639
You would turn up in proper trousers and a nice
686
00:37:45.760 --> 00:37:48.280
classy shirt. Whether you would go as far as a
687
00:37:48.280 --> 00:37:50.480
shirt and tie these days, I don't know, because there's
688
00:37:50.480 --> 00:37:56.079
a degree of formality that we've kind of were abandoned,
689
00:37:56.079 --> 00:37:59.079
as it were, that kind of thing. But for the
690
00:37:59.119 --> 00:38:03.039
first and only time, I think in today's conversation, I'm
691
00:38:03.039 --> 00:38:06.360
going to give you my personal opinion, which is I recommend,
692
00:38:06.760 --> 00:38:10.800
if you don't know your audience, turn up two levels
693
00:38:10.800 --> 00:38:14.400
of formality above where you expect them to be, because
694
00:38:14.440 --> 00:38:18.239
if you've cooked up and misguessed, you can always come
695
00:38:18.360 --> 00:38:23.320
down a level of formality in seconds, whereas you can't
696
00:38:23.360 --> 00:38:27.039
go up a level of formality. For example, if I
697
00:38:27.079 --> 00:38:29.039
turned up in a in a smart shirt and it
698
00:38:29.159 --> 00:38:32.599
was too formal, I could roll my sleeves up and
699
00:38:32.679 --> 00:38:35.559
it becomes informal, whereas if I've turned up in a
700
00:38:35.599 --> 00:38:42.559
T shirt, I can't certainly magic a shertain tie out
701
00:38:42.599 --> 00:38:47.880
of nowhere. Match for style, go one level of a
702
00:38:47.960 --> 00:38:51.840
formal above and just do the obvious checks about is
703
00:38:51.840 --> 00:38:54.199
it going to clash with your slides, is it going
704
00:38:54.239 --> 00:38:58.440
to clash with the background, are you camouflaged? So I've
705
00:38:58.480 --> 00:39:02.519
seen speakers turn up to speak not at your event,
706
00:39:02.599 --> 00:39:05.039
but at events like it where they've had a red
707
00:39:05.119 --> 00:39:12.119
background and they've been wearing a red dress. It's a
708
00:39:12.199 --> 00:39:19.320
floating head. All of their body language just just disappears completely.
709
00:39:20.400 --> 00:39:23.320
So just just check the obvious things for it. And
710
00:39:23.360 --> 00:39:26.159
while we're at it, there is quite a lot of
711
00:39:26.159 --> 00:39:29.159
research that says, with one exception, the less you move,
712
00:39:29.480 --> 00:39:33.559
the more authority if you appear. Now, if you're wearing
713
00:39:33.880 --> 00:39:37.440
clothes that float about and dangle, and you know, big earrings,
714
00:39:37.440 --> 00:39:39.440
so as soon as you turn your head, you're not
715
00:39:39.480 --> 00:39:41.639
just turning your head, you're turning your head and things
716
00:39:41.760 --> 00:39:44.239
wobble all over the place, that would start to make
717
00:39:44.320 --> 00:39:45.800
you look at it like a bit like you're moving.
718
00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:50.320
So just just air on the side of caution. If
719
00:39:50.400 --> 00:39:54.199
in doubt and you've got a quick question, have you.
720
00:39:54.400 --> 00:39:57.800
Do Normally you respond to questions but go on to
721
00:39:58.480 --> 00:39:59.960
couldn't wrap.
722
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:02.239
If you ever coached an AI in public speaking sometimes
723
00:40:02.800 --> 00:40:08.440
known speak words, would you be opening with AI presenters?
724
00:40:08.480 --> 00:40:11.599
I'm not quite sure what that means. Would I be
725
00:40:12.360 --> 00:40:17.360
happy teaching an AI to present? If so, only a
726
00:40:17.400 --> 00:40:20.079
really intelligent AI, because most of the ones i've met
727
00:40:20.119 --> 00:40:25.280
so far have been really stupid and come skynet when
728
00:40:25.400 --> 00:40:27.320
they hit sentience. I'm going to be first on the
729
00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:30.760
execution list for having said that. I'm sure. But what
730
00:40:30.800 --> 00:40:38.320
there is, interestingly, are some nice AI coaches sitting inside PowerPoint.
731
00:40:38.360 --> 00:40:40.239
For example, I've forgotten the name of it. As soon
732
00:40:40.239 --> 00:40:43.639
as we hang up, it'll it'll company me. But you
733
00:40:43.679 --> 00:40:47.039
can actually give your presentation to a PowerPoint and there
734
00:40:47.079 --> 00:40:51.679
is an AI sitting inside PowerPoint that will look at
735
00:40:51.760 --> 00:40:55.159
your speed of delivery, the number of times you use
736
00:40:55.519 --> 00:40:57.920
er and um and all of that kind of jazz.
737
00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:00.760
It'll look at whether there's variation in your pitch. To
738
00:41:00.840 --> 00:41:03.760
keep your audience interested in that kind of jazz, you
739
00:41:03.920 --> 00:41:06.679
do have to take its results with a huge, great
740
00:41:06.760 --> 00:41:12.880
pinch of salts. So, for example, conventional wisdom and therefore
741
00:41:13.039 --> 00:41:16.000
AI will tell you that you should never go err
742
00:41:16.320 --> 00:41:20.039
in a presentation. These are called filler words. The jargon
743
00:41:20.159 --> 00:41:23.639
forum is disfluencies. Turns out as as soon as you
744
00:41:23.679 --> 00:41:27.199
do the research, there is an optimal level of dysfluency,
745
00:41:27.239 --> 00:41:30.159
which is not zero. So you don't want to get
746
00:41:30.239 --> 00:41:33.880
rid of all the ers, because the only person that's
747
00:41:33.920 --> 00:41:37.199
got rid of all the ers is said the performing
748
00:41:37.239 --> 00:41:42.880
story Parrott, it becomes robotic, and depending on the nature
749
00:41:42.880 --> 00:41:47.679
of the presentation, the optimum level of dysfluency changes, but
750
00:41:47.719 --> 00:41:50.159
there is always an optimal level of dispute. It's somewhere
751
00:41:50.159 --> 00:41:55.719
around five seven percent ish for a live presentation. So
752
00:41:56.199 --> 00:42:03.039
if you are always uh uh uh, well I think
753
00:42:03.119 --> 00:42:07.360
the thing is okay, that's that's too much. But similarly,
754
00:42:07.440 --> 00:42:11.159
if I had thrown at you and never stumbled my words,
755
00:42:11.519 --> 00:42:16.159
that would have looked artificial as well. So take the
756
00:42:16.159 --> 00:42:21.239
AI input with a degree of what it's called the
757
00:42:21.280 --> 00:42:23.519
Microsoft one is what it says on the tin speaker coach.
758
00:42:23.599 --> 00:42:27.400
There you go, and you remember the name to it
759
00:42:27.440 --> 00:42:27.880
the way.
760
00:42:27.920 --> 00:42:30.760
We don't normally get a live interactive comments, but.
761
00:42:33.119 --> 00:42:37.599
Thank you LinkedIn user. You are, but thank you LinkedIn user.
762
00:42:38.039 --> 00:42:42.320
Normally, normally we get comments after the podcast. That's good,
763
00:42:42.400 --> 00:42:45.079
that's coming. So we'll respond to all of these as
764
00:42:45.079 --> 00:42:46.000
well afterwards as well.
765
00:42:46.039 --> 00:42:49.360
We're reply to them with a bit We take it
766
00:42:49.400 --> 00:42:51.440
with the pinch of salt, but it is there. My
767
00:42:51.559 --> 00:42:55.280
experience of it is that the process of rehearsing with
768
00:42:55.400 --> 00:42:59.679
the the AI is more useful than the AI itself
769
00:43:00.599 --> 00:43:03.239
because it forces you at least to sit down, shut up,
770
00:43:03.280 --> 00:43:07.119
and go through your presentation, rather than what most people
771
00:43:07.119 --> 00:43:08.840
try and do is the first time they make a
772
00:43:08.840 --> 00:43:11.719
presentation is at the same time as the audience sees it.
773
00:43:12.960 --> 00:43:15.079
And that's that's a hiding to nothing. Even if it's
774
00:43:15.119 --> 00:43:19.239
going through it two or three times once, even is
775
00:43:19.239 --> 00:43:21.559
better than better than nothing. But I do need to
776
00:43:21.599 --> 00:43:23.840
throw it at this point. For the love of all
777
00:43:23.920 --> 00:43:27.159
you believe to be holy. When you go through your presentation,
778
00:43:27.280 --> 00:43:32.000
to practice it, do it out loud for two reasons.
779
00:43:32.440 --> 00:43:35.519
The first is you never make a mistake inside your
780
00:43:35.519 --> 00:43:40.159
own head ever, because you don't stumble over your words
781
00:43:40.320 --> 00:43:43.639
in your own head. And the second is you think
782
00:43:43.840 --> 00:43:47.719
up to ten times faster than you speak. So what's
783
00:43:47.719 --> 00:43:51.639
a twenty minute presentation in my head is a two
784
00:43:51.719 --> 00:43:54.800
hundred minute presentation when I put it on the floor
785
00:43:54.840 --> 00:43:57.400
in front of an audience. And that's assuming I don't
786
00:43:57.440 --> 00:44:01.199
screw anything up. So for you know, find somebody, sit
787
00:44:01.280 --> 00:44:06.599
them down, make them listen to you, obviously pay them
788
00:44:06.760 --> 00:44:09.840
unless they are a close family member and have no excuses.
789
00:44:11.920 --> 00:44:14.880
Good, that's helpful. So well, you mentioned it a bit
790
00:44:14.920 --> 00:44:18.400
about movement, so I was going to say body language
791
00:44:18.639 --> 00:44:22.480
what's any thought on body language or tips on body language.
792
00:44:23.159 --> 00:44:25.000
Yeah, the main one is not to worry about it.
793
00:44:25.599 --> 00:44:27.440
That's it. It's as easy as that.
794
00:44:27.960 --> 00:44:30.280
What people pays a lot on there. Some people move
795
00:44:30.360 --> 00:44:34.079
back with them forwards a lot, sometimes too much or so.
796
00:44:34.119 --> 00:44:36.559
Do you remember I said the less you move, the
797
00:44:36.559 --> 00:44:39.280
more authority if you will be perceived as there's a
798
00:44:39.360 --> 00:44:42.920
question there of how authoritative if you want to be perceived,
799
00:44:43.719 --> 00:44:48.719
versus how accessible you want to be perceived. Now, I'm
800
00:44:48.760 --> 00:44:51.000
a six foot tour white bloke, and if I'm working
801
00:44:51.039 --> 00:44:54.039
at the front of a relatively small room, I tend
802
00:44:54.199 --> 00:44:58.239
to move a lot in order to make myself look less,
803
00:45:01.639 --> 00:45:04.119
Whereas if I'm working on a bigger stage, I tend
804
00:45:04.199 --> 00:45:08.800
to stand still because I want to exude more authority.
805
00:45:08.960 --> 00:45:11.519
If that makes if you know what I mean. Now,
806
00:45:11.679 --> 00:45:15.639
pacing depends on why you're doing it. If you are
807
00:45:15.639 --> 00:45:18.840
doing it because you are nervous, obviously the audience picks
808
00:45:18.920 --> 00:45:21.519
up on that. If you are doing it because you
809
00:45:21.679 --> 00:45:26.400
have linked it to something you are saying, then the
810
00:45:26.440 --> 00:45:28.719
meta language, which is the whole the proper term for
811
00:45:28.840 --> 00:45:30.480
body language and all that kind of jazz, because that
812
00:45:30.480 --> 00:45:32.719
includes facial expressions and all that kind of thing. The
813
00:45:32.760 --> 00:45:37.480
meta language reinforces your message. So if you are, for example,
814
00:45:37.599 --> 00:45:40.280
talking about I used to do this and now I
815
00:45:40.360 --> 00:45:44.320
do that, and it becomes a journey across the stage,
816
00:45:44.960 --> 00:45:50.039
that sits in your audience's mind as a progression, a movement,
817
00:45:50.079 --> 00:45:51.800
and it becomes a good thing. But if you are
818
00:45:51.880 --> 00:45:54.920
just pacing left and right and left and right, it
819
00:45:55.719 --> 00:45:59.039
becomes a distraction. The question that most people ask me
820
00:45:59.239 --> 00:46:02.320
is what should I do with my hands? And the
821
00:46:02.360 --> 00:46:04.679
answer is what would you do with your hands? If
822
00:46:04.679 --> 00:46:08.480
you're talking to me in the pub now, some people
823
00:46:08.519 --> 00:46:11.440
wave them around, Okay, we will, okay, So if you're
824
00:46:11.920 --> 00:46:16.400
a fozzy Bear on the Muppets on LSD or something,
825
00:46:16.480 --> 00:46:18.320
when your hands right, there is a distraction. I've got
826
00:46:18.360 --> 00:46:23.760
tools for that. But most people gesticulating naturally is the
827
00:46:24.320 --> 00:46:27.199
is the way forward. If you find you are moving
828
00:46:27.239 --> 00:46:29.360
your hands too much, just put something in them. So
829
00:46:29.400 --> 00:46:33.840
for example, I sometimes give people a pair of my
830
00:46:33.920 --> 00:46:36.840
glasses to hold, and I tell them that they're massively
831
00:46:36.880 --> 00:46:42.000
expensive glasses, so don't break them. Don't you know? One reason,
832
00:46:42.079 --> 00:46:43.960
when it is fair, they are expensive glasses. But one
833
00:46:43.960 --> 00:46:45.960
of the reasons they are expensive glasses is because you
834
00:46:46.000 --> 00:46:48.400
can't break them, which is why I'm brave enough to
835
00:46:48.840 --> 00:46:50.880
give them. And as soon as you put them into
836
00:46:50.920 --> 00:46:54.880
somebody's hand, they stop waving their hands around quite so much,
837
00:46:55.960 --> 00:46:58.679
and it becomes so much calmer and much karma presentation.
838
00:46:59.440 --> 00:47:01.840
The same go for clickers, The same goes for your pen.
839
00:47:01.880 --> 00:47:05.440
If you're going to write on the whiteboard again, it's
840
00:47:05.480 --> 00:47:09.199
all about horses for courses, it's does this movement get
841
00:47:09.199 --> 00:47:13.360
the message across better? If yes, make the movement, If no,
842
00:47:13.920 --> 00:47:19.480
don't make the movement. But for most people who are
843
00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:23.599
normal people who have to present the risk of starting
844
00:47:23.639 --> 00:47:26.440
to think about your meta language means that there's so
845
00:47:26.599 --> 00:47:30.440
much going on in their heads they are more likely
846
00:47:30.519 --> 00:47:33.400
to start making mistakes and stumble and all of that
847
00:47:33.519 --> 00:47:37.000
kind of jazz. So the only people that generally recommend
848
00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:40.440
start to worry about the meta language are performers or
849
00:47:40.440 --> 00:47:42.880
people like me who make a living out of it,
850
00:47:42.920 --> 00:47:47.440
who have got to get it nailed. But if it's
851
00:47:47.559 --> 00:47:52.800
normal people, excuse yeah, worry about it far less than
852
00:47:53.079 --> 00:47:56.440
as a rule of thumb, if somebody advertising it on
853
00:47:56.480 --> 00:48:01.119
LinkedIn or on Facebook, going the secret tip so and
854
00:48:01.159 --> 00:48:03.519
so and so and so and so. The more more
855
00:48:03.599 --> 00:48:06.719
hype there is the advert such as the secret tip
856
00:48:06.800 --> 00:48:10.480
to mastering the body language on stage and making audiences
857
00:48:10.519 --> 00:48:12.880
love you. Right, the more hype there is, the more
858
00:48:13.039 --> 00:48:17.320
likely is to be complete and utter bollocks. Yeah, you'll
859
00:48:17.360 --> 00:48:21.199
see stuff on LinkedIn, sorry, on Facebook going only seven
860
00:48:21.239 --> 00:48:24.000
percent of meaning is in the words you say. Ninety
861
00:48:24.039 --> 00:48:26.199
three percent comes across in the body of language and
862
00:48:26.239 --> 00:48:27.920
facial expression works.
863
00:48:28.440 --> 00:48:29.199
Utter.
864
00:48:31.920 --> 00:48:34.639
Even the guy who did the research that they are bastardizing.
865
00:48:35.559 --> 00:48:39.639
He just screams whenever that happens. And he's written so
866
00:48:39.719 --> 00:48:42.199
many articles and being on the BBC and stuff saying
867
00:48:42.199 --> 00:48:46.000
this is not what the research says. Shut the this stuff.
868
00:48:47.519 --> 00:48:50.719
So there's so much hype about body language. It is Sorry,
869
00:48:50.760 --> 00:48:52.400
I'm starting to rant and froth at the mouth.
870
00:48:52.639 --> 00:48:55.239
No, no, this is good because yeah.
871
00:48:56.320 --> 00:48:58.320
Always marketable, but it's never useful.
872
00:49:00.559 --> 00:49:04.719
It depends on the nature of the presentation of the talk,
873
00:49:04.960 --> 00:49:07.679
the purpose of it. Yeah, it's just horses for course,
874
00:49:07.719 --> 00:49:10.280
isn't it. So I think you've seen him before, but
875
00:49:10.360 --> 00:49:14.480
I know Brad Burton who's a motivational business speaker. He
876
00:49:14.519 --> 00:49:17.159
moves around a lot because he's very high energy and
877
00:49:17.199 --> 00:49:22.719
he's he's usually the opening keynote to hype people up
878
00:49:22.880 --> 00:49:25.440
like that. That's his job is basically to get people
879
00:49:25.480 --> 00:49:28.280
geened up and excited, So it makes sense for him
880
00:49:28.320 --> 00:49:30.559
to do that. Then I can think of other people
881
00:49:30.559 --> 00:49:36.719
who are more maybe like money people, like finances investors.
882
00:49:37.079 --> 00:49:39.119
They don't tend to move around like that. They do
883
00:49:39.199 --> 00:49:44.239
tend to be very sort of calm, steady, assured, confident.
884
00:49:44.360 --> 00:49:47.000
You know, that's that's the way they are. One of
885
00:49:47.000 --> 00:49:50.079
the best examples of yeah sorry, One of the one
886
00:49:50.079 --> 00:49:52.760
of the best examples of a speaker as a lady
887
00:49:52.800 --> 00:49:56.880
at interviews. So at first Newcastle Stoop a lady called
888
00:49:56.880 --> 00:50:02.400
Amber Ray and she talked about in a monologue or
889
00:50:02.400 --> 00:50:05.639
dialogue in her head of the two sides of our brain.
890
00:50:06.199 --> 00:50:09.039
So she was like she was moving from one side
891
00:50:09.039 --> 00:50:10.599
of the stage to the other. So she was like,
892
00:50:12.519 --> 00:50:14.920
what if I do this, I really want to do this.
893
00:50:14.920 --> 00:50:16.639
This is my future. And she was talking about this
894
00:50:16.800 --> 00:50:19.880
like painted the picture of this utopia. And then she
895
00:50:21.199 --> 00:50:23.880
but what if it feels what and people think I'm
896
00:50:23.920 --> 00:50:25.800
stupid and it's all going to go wrong. But then
897
00:50:25.800 --> 00:50:29.719
to get moving, and that was really really good because.
898
00:50:29.519 --> 00:50:32.920
It reinforces the personally. This is a personal thing. I
899
00:50:32.920 --> 00:50:36.000
would have done it just by turning this great. No,
900
00:50:36.119 --> 00:50:39.840
it won't so that I moved less on stage. But
901
00:50:39.920 --> 00:50:44.199
that's a personal interpretation. But that's perfect because what she
902
00:50:44.320 --> 00:50:48.599
was doing there, the movement masked the mapped to the
903
00:50:48.639 --> 00:50:51.840
message perfectly well. And that's that's what it's all about.
904
00:50:52.280 --> 00:50:55.880
Does it get the message across better? Have you come
905
00:50:55.920 --> 00:50:58.000
across the book and the phrase does it make the
906
00:50:58.039 --> 00:50:58.800
boat go faster?
907
00:51:00.159 --> 00:51:01.960
About it? I haven't read it, but do you mention it?
908
00:51:01.960 --> 00:51:02.639
A couple of times?
909
00:51:03.199 --> 00:51:06.159
Olympic rower? Basically, the question is does it make the
910
00:51:06.159 --> 00:51:08.400
boat go faster? If it makes the boat go faster
911
00:51:08.760 --> 00:51:11.320
Olympic rowing. If it makes a boat go faster, do it.
912
00:51:11.679 --> 00:51:14.360
If it doesn't make a boat go faster, stop doing it.
913
00:51:14.440 --> 00:51:16.199
So does an extra hour in the gym make the
914
00:51:16.239 --> 00:51:18.960
boat go faster, Yes, we'll go to the gym. Does
915
00:51:19.000 --> 00:51:20.639
go into the pub on a Friday night for eight
916
00:51:20.679 --> 00:51:24.039
pints make the boat go faster? No, We'll stop going
917
00:51:24.039 --> 00:51:25.719
to the pub on a Friday night for eight pints.
918
00:51:25.760 --> 00:51:28.760
Then the same is true of whatever you're doing in
919
00:51:28.800 --> 00:51:31.639
a presentation. Does it make the boat go faster? Does
920
00:51:31.719 --> 00:51:35.639
it make people more likely to act upon the thing
921
00:51:36.320 --> 00:51:41.840
you want them to do. If yes, do it, If no, don't,
922
00:51:42.440 --> 00:51:44.679
But don't overthink it, because as soon as you start
923
00:51:44.679 --> 00:51:47.280
to overthink it, your brain goes, oh my god, I've
924
00:51:47.280 --> 00:51:49.800
got to take three steps to the left and to
925
00:51:49.840 --> 00:51:54.360
turn twelve degrees to the right. Oh strait, I've only
926
00:51:54.400 --> 00:51:58.239
turned eleven degrees to the right. Shit, and you forget
927
00:51:58.239 --> 00:51:59.639
what you're supposed to be saying at that point.
928
00:52:00.119 --> 00:52:05.360
Yeah, well that leads us so nicely to gesticulation. So
929
00:52:05.519 --> 00:52:07.480
you've just done some really good examples of that. For
930
00:52:07.480 --> 00:52:12.599
anyone that's watching this thought on that, can you gesticulate
931
00:52:12.639 --> 00:52:14.679
too much? I mean, what you've just done there, You've
932
00:52:14.719 --> 00:52:18.559
you've emphasized certain things, and you've demonstrated really really well
933
00:52:18.599 --> 00:52:21.239
with you with your hands, and it added to what
934
00:52:21.280 --> 00:52:25.480
you were saying. But some people just like wildly gesticulate.
935
00:52:26.320 --> 00:52:29.000
So if you find you wildly gesticulating, the trick with
936
00:52:29.159 --> 00:52:35.159
the glasses in your hand. But by and large, gesticulation
937
00:52:35.320 --> 00:52:38.679
is part of body language. So I don't know if
938
00:52:38.719 --> 00:52:41.440
you've ever done this, but you know, when you take
939
00:52:41.440 --> 00:52:45.679
a phone call and you do it using earbuds, you
940
00:52:45.800 --> 00:52:50.599
gesticulate naturally even though the other person can't see what's
941
00:52:50.679 --> 00:52:56.679
doing right. It's because the way we move is intrinsically
942
00:52:56.719 --> 00:52:59.519
a part of the communication process that we are that
943
00:52:59.559 --> 00:53:02.960
we are doing. So the starting point for what I
944
00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:06.199
say for people, and it changes under circumstances, but the
945
00:53:06.239 --> 00:53:10.519
starting point is always what would you do if you
946
00:53:10.559 --> 00:53:14.800
were explaining this to your aged aunt or your twelve
947
00:53:14.880 --> 00:53:19.400
year old and she was your aged aunt was slightly deaf,
948
00:53:20.840 --> 00:53:25.519
not stupid, but just not quite upon the lingo what
949
00:53:25.559 --> 00:53:28.320
would you do? And you can see I'm doing it now.
950
00:53:28.400 --> 00:53:30.960
I'm asking a question by going what would you do?
951
00:53:31.639 --> 00:53:34.159
Would you do this? Or would you do that? Or
952
00:53:34.199 --> 00:53:39.199
would you do this? So I'm creating the pictures with
953
00:53:39.360 --> 00:53:46.159
my gesticulations just to visually add to the thing that
954
00:53:46.199 --> 00:53:50.360
you are talking about. Again, don't overthink it, because the
955
00:53:50.400 --> 00:53:53.039
moment you go, oh, I'm supposed to have gesticulated with
956
00:53:53.119 --> 00:53:57.440
my left hand. Ah shit, I accidentally gesticulated with my
957
00:53:57.519 --> 00:54:00.760
right hand. It's all gone wrong. I quickly just start thinking.
958
00:54:01.320 --> 00:54:05.880
At that level, your cognitive load start to just go up.
959
00:54:05.920 --> 00:54:09.199
Your brain starts to explode, all your information dribbles out
960
00:54:09.239 --> 00:54:10.760
of your ears. You forget what the hell it is
961
00:54:10.760 --> 00:54:13.440
you're first be playing, and you get into this vicious
962
00:54:13.440 --> 00:54:18.039
spiral of panic, making more mistakes, making more panic, making
963
00:54:18.079 --> 00:54:20.800
more mistakes, making more panic. And there is an example
964
00:54:20.840 --> 00:54:24.360
of gesticulation which illustrates that point I'm making. I mentioned
965
00:54:24.719 --> 00:54:29.119
a vicious spiral, and I'm if all you're doing is
966
00:54:29.199 --> 00:54:30.599
listening to me, this is not going to make any
967
00:54:30.639 --> 00:54:33.559
sense at all. Watching the video, you can see that
968
00:54:33.599 --> 00:54:36.599
I'm doing a spiral repeating spiral gesture with my hand
969
00:54:37.000 --> 00:54:39.320
to add to what it is that I'm saying.
970
00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:45.639
Okay, and I've written out a lot of things here,
971
00:54:45.639 --> 00:54:51.360
what about your stance? Because I remember when when I
972
00:54:51.400 --> 00:54:53.719
came to your house and you did some culture with
973
00:54:53.880 --> 00:54:56.400
a I thought was good. You got me to step
974
00:54:56.519 --> 00:55:00.519
into m m all as the as the present, the host,
975
00:55:00.599 --> 00:55:04.039
which I thought was really good. Don't I don't necessarily
976
00:55:04.079 --> 00:55:06.880
do it as, but when I think about it now,
977
00:55:07.360 --> 00:55:12.039
I do kind of enter of the room from the side,
978
00:55:12.079 --> 00:55:15.039
and it is it is like I'm stepping into that
979
00:55:15.760 --> 00:55:16.519
post role.
980
00:55:17.360 --> 00:55:21.800
So this is a short term fix rather than the
981
00:55:21.880 --> 00:55:26.159
long term one. But a very useful tool for people
982
00:55:26.159 --> 00:55:29.679
who go I just don't know what to do is
983
00:55:29.719 --> 00:55:34.079
to create a performance version of themselves, stage version of themselves,
984
00:55:34.119 --> 00:55:38.119
an avatar of themselves and go okay. So this this
985
00:55:38.239 --> 00:55:42.960
stage Simon, let's call him stage Simon. Stage Simon knows
986
00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:48.760
what to do. How would stage Simon stand okay? And
987
00:55:48.840 --> 00:55:53.079
you step into you step into that role. I don't
988
00:55:53.079 --> 00:55:55.079
know if I've anybodze have I noticed? But if I
989
00:55:55.280 --> 00:55:59.039
come to your events, don't say a damned word, not
990
00:55:59.159 --> 00:56:03.320
a word. I am awful at the networking stuff, always
991
00:56:03.400 --> 00:56:06.400
leaving it to other people to ask the questions. Most
992
00:56:06.400 --> 00:56:09.079
people don't know I'm there. But if you put me
993
00:56:09.119 --> 00:56:14.840
on stage, the whole persona changes because I step into
994
00:56:14.880 --> 00:56:16.400
the I step into the role. I step into the
995
00:56:17.039 --> 00:56:20.199
And in fact, there's a team member I've got called Claire,
996
00:56:20.239 --> 00:56:24.079
who swears she can see something change behind my eyes.
997
00:56:26.079 --> 00:56:29.000
She's you know, I've known for fifteen, twenty year, twenty
998
00:56:29.000 --> 00:56:30.840
five years now, and she'll take the piss left, right
999
00:56:30.880 --> 00:56:34.800
and center out of her friend Simon. But wouldn't dream
1000
00:56:35.559 --> 00:56:39.360
of mocking stage Simon, because that's that's a different man.
1001
00:56:39.400 --> 00:56:42.559
That's a man, know, that's a man who is behaving
1002
00:56:42.599 --> 00:56:45.760
in a different way. So you step into the and
1003
00:56:45.760 --> 00:56:47.639
then you get off the stage and you step back
1004
00:56:47.639 --> 00:56:51.480
into your normal personality. So it's a difference between simple
1005
00:56:51.519 --> 00:56:56.840
Simon let's call him step and stage Simon. Stage Simon
1006
00:56:56.880 --> 00:56:59.079
knows what he's doing, because I've kind of gone like,
1007
00:56:59.280 --> 00:57:01.440
what would what would a presenter who knows what they
1008
00:57:01.440 --> 00:57:04.800
are doing do? Right, it's down there? What would a
1009
00:57:04.840 --> 00:57:07.519
present who knows what they're doing do with this slide?
1010
00:57:08.599 --> 00:57:11.880
Do it? And it works because it's much easier to
1011
00:57:11.960 --> 00:57:14.480
talk about somebody in the third person and solve other
1012
00:57:14.519 --> 00:57:18.559
people's problems than it is your own. Solve your own problems.
1013
00:57:18.639 --> 00:57:20.840
You had to solve them, it wouldn't be a problem.
1014
00:57:21.079 --> 00:57:23.960
So what should I do is a really hard question.
1015
00:57:24.639 --> 00:57:27.840
What should that person over there do? That's a much
1016
00:57:27.840 --> 00:57:32.039
easier question. And if that person over there is the
1017
00:57:32.159 --> 00:57:37.440
pretend version of you, you've now got a role you
1018
00:57:37.480 --> 00:57:40.639
can act if you like I'm saying that you want
1019
00:57:40.639 --> 00:57:44.400
to go through your entire life. Masking is the technical
1020
00:57:44.480 --> 00:57:48.480
term for it because it's exhausting, but it's a bloody
1021
00:57:48.599 --> 00:57:52.039
useful tool for novice presenters to get themselves up and
1022
00:57:52.119 --> 00:57:55.760
up and on stage. I have forgotten what question that's no?
1023
00:57:55.599 --> 00:57:56.760
No, no, that was good.
1024
00:57:56.880 --> 00:57:57.079
Yeah.
1025
00:57:57.360 --> 00:57:59.719
I think we talked about in maybe either in the
1026
00:57:59.800 --> 00:58:02.719
last podcast, well, definitely when we did that training together
1027
00:58:03.280 --> 00:58:08.039
talking about Beyonce has an old ego, Sasha Fierce, so
1028
00:58:08.159 --> 00:58:12.039
like that's the character, the like badass, loads of confidence,
1029
00:58:12.159 --> 00:58:14.360
get on stage, is going to be a different person
1030
00:58:14.360 --> 00:58:17.360
because off stage is a bit more. I'm sure she's
1031
00:58:17.480 --> 00:58:19.920
very confident off stage now, but like in the early days,
1032
00:58:19.960 --> 00:58:21.280
she needed to step into that.
1033
00:58:21.559 --> 00:58:24.000
The story goes that when she when she first went solo,
1034
00:58:24.280 --> 00:58:27.880
she would literally throw up in the wings with nerves
1035
00:58:27.920 --> 00:58:30.559
and stage fright. And at the beginning of her career,
1036
00:58:30.599 --> 00:58:36.760
Beyonce never went on stage. Sasha Fierce went on stage.
1037
00:58:37.360 --> 00:58:40.199
I don't know, I've never met Beyonce personally. I don't
1038
00:58:40.239 --> 00:58:42.880
know how how much we need to worry about that,
1039
00:58:42.960 --> 00:58:47.119
but all right, I think it's it's worth whatever, Right,
1040
00:58:47.280 --> 00:58:50.159
you good on your last You've got a couple of bob.
1041
00:58:52.119 --> 00:58:54.719
But then, but definitely, I think the whole I was
1042
00:58:54.719 --> 00:58:57.480
going to say, preparation before you give it all as well,
1043
00:58:57.559 --> 00:58:59.800
how important that is because some people need a lot
1044
00:58:59.800 --> 00:59:02.880
of like build up bother you'd like, they can't talk
1045
00:59:02.920 --> 00:59:05.519
to anyone before the one stayed. They're in the zone
1046
00:59:05.559 --> 00:59:07.840
and they're like they're a name that don't want anyone
1047
00:59:07.880 --> 00:59:11.519
interrupted that, And then others need a bit more relaxation
1048
00:59:11.880 --> 00:59:14.079
and a lot more chilled, and they're torn of people,
1049
00:59:14.079 --> 00:59:16.440
but they're still using that to get into the zone.
1050
00:59:16.519 --> 00:59:19.199
So thought on that tips on that.
1051
00:59:19.679 --> 00:59:23.559
Yeah, just ask yourself whether you're energized by people or
1052
00:59:23.639 --> 00:59:27.480
by silence. Now I'm clearly energized by silence, and I
1053
00:59:27.519 --> 00:59:29.440
want to be left alone as I get my head
1054
00:59:29.440 --> 00:59:33.039
into the game. I know other people, though, who wants
1055
00:59:33.079 --> 00:59:35.760
to be distracted or who want to talk to people
1056
00:59:35.880 --> 00:59:39.760
because it gets their energy up before they go on stage.
1057
00:59:40.639 --> 00:59:42.159
Another way of doing that is, if you don't want
1058
00:59:42.199 --> 00:59:45.400
to use the people, just create yourself a playlist. So
1059
00:59:45.440 --> 00:59:50.119
I've got a very specific playlist that gets my head
1060
00:59:50.159 --> 00:59:53.440
in the right game before I go on stage. I
1061
00:59:53.480 --> 00:59:56.719
can't always use it, I can't always play it, but
1062
00:59:56.840 --> 00:59:59.760
even just humming a couple of tunes from it has
1063
01:00:00.159 --> 01:00:02.679
sets me up as a you know, in a condition
1064
01:00:02.719 --> 01:00:05.679
as it were. But crudely speaking, it depends on the
1065
01:00:05.719 --> 01:00:07.639
person you are, and I know that that's going to
1066
01:00:07.639 --> 01:00:10.760
really hack people off because answers where I say it
1067
01:00:10.960 --> 01:00:16.039
depends that's really unhelpful. So the simple technique that is
1068
01:00:16.079 --> 01:00:19.079
to ask yourself, am I energized by people? Or am
1069
01:00:19.119 --> 01:00:23.960
I energized by silence. I am simplifying horribly, but that's
1070
01:00:23.960 --> 01:00:26.639
a starting point for you to have a conversation with
1071
01:00:26.679 --> 01:00:30.480
yourself and go, what should my pre presentation which will.
1072
01:00:30.239 --> 01:00:36.719
Be yeah, yeah, well I know that. So the events
1073
01:00:36.760 --> 01:00:39.199
the platform then, so any other events that I organize.
1074
01:00:40.039 --> 01:00:42.920
I love talking to people hosted events. I get a
1075
01:00:42.920 --> 01:00:45.880
lot of energy when it's all over, I'm buzzing, and
1076
01:00:47.400 --> 01:00:49.800
but before the event begins, I do need time on
1077
01:00:49.840 --> 01:00:52.840
my own, so I usually get up earlier than normal
1078
01:00:53.000 --> 01:00:55.239
on a It's usually on a Friday when I do it,
1079
01:00:55.280 --> 01:00:57.559
so I normally get up, normally get up a twenty
1080
01:00:57.559 --> 01:01:00.159
five bay six on an event there, I normally get
1081
01:01:00.239 --> 01:01:03.159
up with six right, So I'm hope I'm ready, got
1082
01:01:03.199 --> 01:01:06.639
everything prepared, head to the venue. I like to get
1083
01:01:06.679 --> 01:01:09.280
to the venue really really early, so people aren't supposed
1084
01:01:09.320 --> 01:01:11.679
to arrive till nine, so I like to be there
1085
01:01:11.719 --> 01:01:17.079
for eight. Everything all set up, the laptop, set up,
1086
01:01:17.159 --> 01:01:21.199
all the slides, working, banner, stands up, room how I
1087
01:01:21.199 --> 01:01:25.800
want it. I like that done ideally within by half
1088
01:01:25.880 --> 01:01:28.880
eight before anyone else arrives, because people start arriving from
1089
01:01:28.960 --> 01:01:31.960
quarter to nine, and I don't like it if people
1090
01:01:31.960 --> 01:01:34.480
come in early really and start talking to me because
1091
01:01:34.480 --> 01:01:37.039
I'm still trying. I need a bit of time as well,
1092
01:01:37.400 --> 01:01:41.239
and I usually like to keep people out of the room.
1093
01:01:41.840 --> 01:01:45.800
So you use do you use a checklist? I'm guessing, well,
1094
01:01:45.800 --> 01:01:48.239
in my head it must be. I'm getting there's one
1095
01:01:48.280 --> 01:01:51.159
in your head. But yeah, I mean I literally use
1096
01:01:51.159 --> 01:01:55.239
a written checklist. Still, But you're saying the user a
1097
01:01:55.320 --> 01:01:56.199
checklist in your.
1098
01:01:56.039 --> 01:01:59.119
Head my head, But I mean it doesn't I can
1099
01:01:59.159 --> 01:02:01.239
cope with it if if it doesn't go as a plan,
1100
01:02:01.320 --> 01:02:05.320
and definitely sometimes you just have to roll with it.
1101
01:02:04.559 --> 01:02:07.000
But but I do prefer it when I've got a
1102
01:02:07.000 --> 01:02:09.800
bit of time, but a piece and quiet to myself
1103
01:02:10.199 --> 01:02:13.440
before people like and then it's almost like I do, like, right,
1104
01:02:13.559 --> 01:02:15.280
I'm going to go out into the room and I'm
1105
01:02:15.320 --> 01:02:17.199
going to start networking. I'm going to be torn to
1106
01:02:17.280 --> 01:02:19.400
people and making sure have a good time. And then
1107
01:02:20.320 --> 01:02:22.039
but I need that silence.
1108
01:02:24.000 --> 01:02:27.840
I literally have a checklist called ties and flies, okay,
1109
01:02:28.119 --> 01:02:30.119
And I will go through the checklist and go have
1110
01:02:30.360 --> 01:02:32.039
you know, have I checked this? Have I checked that?
1111
01:02:32.159 --> 01:02:36.360
Have tic tick? And it depends upon the gig as
1112
01:02:36.360 --> 01:02:40.239
to how paranoid you are about the checklist. You know,
1113
01:02:40.239 --> 01:02:42.800
if someone's paying me five grand for a gig, I'm
1114
01:02:42.840 --> 01:02:48.119
going to have a paranoid checklist, which includes things like
1115
01:02:48.320 --> 01:02:50.800
walk the stage to find out where the squeaky floorboard
1116
01:02:50.880 --> 01:02:55.320
is because there is always a squeaky floorboard, and to
1117
01:02:55.360 --> 01:02:59.280
instinctively stand. It also includes things like have I checked
1118
01:02:59.280 --> 01:03:02.000
that my microphone batteries are full? Have I checked that
1119
01:03:02.119 --> 01:03:05.880
the range of the remote control clicker actually reaches the
1120
01:03:05.960 --> 01:03:10.480
laptop that I'm supposed to be working in broadcast? But
1121
01:03:10.599 --> 01:03:15.079
for other gigs from quotes normal people, that checklist could
1122
01:03:15.119 --> 01:03:18.000
be something as simple as have I got the right
1123
01:03:18.079 --> 01:03:22.800
number of handouts? Have I checked that the screen that
1124
01:03:22.840 --> 01:03:24.920
I'm going to be using in the boardroom has an
1125
01:03:25.039 --> 01:03:30.599
Hdmi cable? Because if it hasn't you screwed that kind
1126
01:03:30.639 --> 01:03:33.360
of thing? Or do I if it's got a Wi
1127
01:03:33.400 --> 01:03:36.280
Fi connection? Have I checked that I can connect to
1128
01:03:36.320 --> 01:03:41.800
the screen using the Wi Fi sidebar? Avoid Wi Fi
1129
01:03:41.840 --> 01:03:46.559
connections to screens like the Devil. That's a separate conversation.
1130
01:03:46.920 --> 01:03:49.559
Always go for a hard wired Hdmi cable if you can.
1131
01:03:50.320 --> 01:03:55.519
Simple things like have I got parking? Because Scot's law,
1132
01:03:55.880 --> 01:03:58.559
you will turn up for you know, an important briefing
1133
01:03:58.760 --> 01:04:02.280
for the board, and you'll discover that there is no
1134
01:04:02.400 --> 01:04:05.000
parking at the venue and you've got to park two
1135
01:04:05.039 --> 01:04:08.639
miles away or half mile away, and you don't have
1136
01:04:08.719 --> 01:04:13.320
the right app for the fricking payment thing, and all
1137
01:04:13.320 --> 01:04:16.000
of a sudden everything's gone to hell and you're all anxious.
1138
01:04:16.280 --> 01:04:19.239
Just check those things out in advance. It's not difficult.
1139
01:04:19.360 --> 01:04:21.639
It's all common sense. It's not you know, none of
1140
01:04:21.679 --> 01:04:24.400
it is rocket science. But that's why I've got a
1141
01:04:24.480 --> 01:04:28.159
checklist and mindset. Do I have the phone number of
1142
01:04:28.239 --> 01:04:31.480
my contact, the mobile phone number, so if I'm lost,
1143
01:04:31.519 --> 01:04:34.480
I can speak to the person I need to have
1144
01:04:34.599 --> 01:04:38.280
I checked even how I get in through the front door,
1145
01:04:39.159 --> 01:04:41.559
because if I'm there for at eight thirty for a
1146
01:04:41.599 --> 01:04:44.320
ten o'clock gig, you can bet your bottom dollar there
1147
01:04:44.320 --> 01:04:48.800
will be nobody on reception. Yeah, little things, little things
1148
01:04:48.880 --> 01:04:49.079
like that.
1149
01:04:49.400 --> 01:04:52.000
It's all about making your life easier, and so a
1150
01:04:52.000 --> 01:04:56.360
bit of preparations so they less surprises and you've got
1151
01:04:56.440 --> 01:05:01.079
less things to worry about. And absolutely on the message.
1152
01:05:01.639 --> 01:05:03.679
Yeah, I'm over the top compared to most people who
1153
01:05:03.760 --> 01:05:06.119
just need to go. Have I got the right number,
1154
01:05:06.280 --> 01:05:11.320
Have I charged my laptop? Because nothing undermines your credibility
1155
01:05:11.400 --> 01:05:14.480
halfway through your presentation, nearly as much as going, oh sorry,
1156
01:05:15.519 --> 01:05:19.679
does anybody have a where's the power? That's it. You're gone,
1157
01:05:19.679 --> 01:05:23.079
You're song. No matter how good your content is, if
1158
01:05:23.079 --> 01:05:25.920
you have to stop for that kind of technical cockup,
1159
01:05:26.639 --> 01:05:31.159
then I can't help you. It's too late at that point.
1160
01:05:31.400 --> 01:05:35.880
You should have checked those things beforehand. Paranoia is is
1161
01:05:35.880 --> 01:05:36.800
my middle name.
1162
01:05:37.000 --> 01:05:39.880
Paranoia, it's your middle name. But it keeps it keeps
1163
01:05:39.920 --> 01:05:40.719
us saying so.
1164
01:05:42.960 --> 01:05:48.320
And honestly, the checklist is just because no matter how
1165
01:05:48.400 --> 01:05:51.320
good I think I am, there's always a chance I'm
1166
01:05:51.360 --> 01:05:52.239
going to forget something.
1167
01:05:52.960 --> 01:05:57.480
Yeah, I've got one more, maybe maybe two more. It's
1168
01:05:57.559 --> 01:06:04.599
just about the portance of sling. Does is it better
1169
01:06:04.639 --> 01:06:05.400
to say?
1170
01:06:06.519 --> 01:06:09.679
It changes your voice? It changes your voice. So even
1171
01:06:09.760 --> 01:06:12.800
when you are presenting on the phone, or even when
1172
01:06:13.039 --> 01:06:16.079
the audience can't see you smile because it lifts your voice.
1173
01:06:16.119 --> 01:06:18.280
So let me give you a demonstration. Now, this might
1174
01:06:18.320 --> 01:06:21.840
not work. It depends upon how good the loudspeakers are
1175
01:06:21.840 --> 01:06:24.039
in the laptop that people are listening to this with.
1176
01:06:24.320 --> 01:06:26.760
If you've got ears, this isn't going to work. But
1177
01:06:26.880 --> 01:06:29.760
here's my voice without smiling, And if I recite the
1178
01:06:29.800 --> 01:06:32.280
alphabet to you now it just goes A B C
1179
01:06:32.440 --> 01:06:36.280
D E F G H, whereas I smile and now
1180
01:06:36.320 --> 01:06:39.519
reside the alphabet and go A B C D E,
1181
01:06:39.920 --> 01:06:42.519
just a lot more bounds to it, a bit more energy,
1182
01:06:42.599 --> 01:06:45.440
A B C And it's yes, it is that I'm
1183
01:06:45.480 --> 01:06:48.800
pronouncing things differently, but I'm pronouncing them differently because I'm smiling,
1184
01:06:49.480 --> 01:06:52.000
and that changes the way that I the way that
1185
01:06:52.039 --> 01:06:54.639
I do things. Now, there are presentations where smiling is
1186
01:06:54.639 --> 01:06:59.039
an appropriate is appropriate. You know, we're gathered here to you know,
1187
01:06:59.119 --> 01:07:01.840
to say bye to our beloved friends so and so,
1188
01:07:02.679 --> 01:07:05.199
and a big beabie smile is not appropriate because big
1189
01:07:05.239 --> 01:07:08.079
bebie smile is you know, never appropriate for somebody having died.
1190
01:07:08.119 --> 01:07:12.199
But you get the you get generally speaking, a nice
1191
01:07:12.559 --> 01:07:15.079
soft smile is important.
1192
01:07:16.400 --> 01:07:19.159
Well, there, it's not appropriate to be smiling, as it
1193
01:07:19.199 --> 01:07:22.400
depends on the message. Again, you're grinning away and it's
1194
01:07:22.400 --> 01:07:26.400
a really sad.
1195
01:07:25.320 --> 01:07:30.400
With five million pounds in the red. Yeah, right, that's
1196
01:07:30.400 --> 01:07:33.440
not going to work. But as a rule of thumb,
1197
01:07:34.159 --> 01:07:38.039
it's just a shorthand way of lightening your tone of voice.
1198
01:07:38.119 --> 01:07:41.159
And even if you're not smiling on the face, there's
1199
01:07:41.280 --> 01:07:45.800
just literally literally just thinking about smiling changes the way
1200
01:07:45.840 --> 01:07:50.119
your voice sounds and the level of energy in your voice.
1201
01:07:50.639 --> 01:07:57.440
So pretend, pretend to smile, pretend to smile on the inside. Yeah,
1202
01:07:57.880 --> 01:08:04.079
and then finally, obviously, just gonna ask about diction and accents.
1203
01:08:05.039 --> 01:08:11.000
Oh right, brace yourselves, I'm going to get all nerdy. Right,
1204
01:08:12.199 --> 01:08:18.119
Accents aren't a problem. How easy you are to understand
1205
01:08:18.800 --> 01:08:23.279
is so if your accent makes you hard to understand,
1206
01:08:23.479 --> 01:08:25.800
it means that your audience is spending some of their
1207
01:08:25.920 --> 01:08:29.520
mental energy. The jargon term is cognitive capacity, let's just
1208
01:08:29.560 --> 01:08:33.560
call it mentally. They're spending their mental energy on translating
1209
01:08:33.600 --> 01:08:37.000
what you have said. It's a kind of a soft
1210
01:08:37.119 --> 01:08:41.840
version of speaking a foreign language. I don't think in Spanish,
1211
01:08:42.119 --> 01:08:44.960
so if somebody speaks to me in Spanish, I have
1212
01:08:45.039 --> 01:08:49.479
to translate it in my head into English. And by
1213
01:08:49.520 --> 01:08:52.439
the time I've spent my brain space translating their Spanish
1214
01:08:52.479 --> 01:08:56.399
into English, I've not got the content of what they
1215
01:08:56.399 --> 01:08:58.680
were saying because they've moved on to do something else.
1216
01:08:59.119 --> 01:09:01.399
I'm making it sound like becoming much better Spanish speaker
1217
01:09:01.439 --> 01:09:03.800
than i am. I'm not. But you get the you
1218
01:09:03.800 --> 01:09:09.560
get the gis But as a simple tool rather than
1219
01:09:09.560 --> 01:09:12.479
worrying about your accent, just worry about the clarity of diction.
1220
01:09:13.880 --> 01:09:16.479
And I'm going to I'm going to go over the top,
1221
01:09:16.640 --> 01:09:19.640
right but there if do you know Mary had a
1222
01:09:19.640 --> 01:09:25.119
little lamb. Yeah. One way of warming up, which is
1223
01:09:25.159 --> 01:09:28.600
completely over the top unless you've got an important gig,
1224
01:09:29.600 --> 01:09:32.680
is just to recite Mary had a little lamb four times.
1225
01:09:34.039 --> 01:09:36.159
The first time you do it straight. The second time
1226
01:09:36.199 --> 01:09:38.159
you stick your fingers in the side of your mouth
1227
01:09:38.199 --> 01:09:42.119
and paul sideways like hell. The third time you push
1228
01:09:42.600 --> 01:09:45.279
so that your lips form a vertical rose type think.
1229
01:09:45.359 --> 01:09:47.920
The fourth time is straight. So this is not going
1230
01:09:47.960 --> 01:09:50.479
to work if you're just listening on audio, But if
1231
01:09:50.520 --> 01:09:53.520
you're watching, it goes like this. Mary had a little lamb.
1232
01:09:53.520 --> 01:09:55.720
Its fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went,
1233
01:09:55.720 --> 01:09:58.520
the lamb was sure to go. Oh, how to color
1234
01:09:58.520 --> 01:10:09.560
it out? Closer and hold on. Mary had a little lamb.
1235
01:10:09.680 --> 01:10:12.520
Its fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went,
1236
01:10:12.640 --> 01:10:14.319
the lamb which you should be able to hear that
1237
01:10:14.359 --> 01:10:17.600
the fourth time is clearer than it's just because they've
1238
01:10:17.640 --> 01:10:22.479
warmed up these these muscles here. If you can't bring
1239
01:10:22.520 --> 01:10:24.600
yourself to do that, and I don't blame you because
1240
01:10:24.640 --> 01:10:28.359
you look like a prat. Just just rub and stretch
1241
01:10:28.479 --> 01:10:32.760
and you'n that kind of that kind of thing. If
1242
01:10:32.800 --> 01:10:36.399
you are going to do those exercises, the best time
1243
01:10:36.479 --> 01:10:38.920
to do them is about two or three minutes before
1244
01:10:38.960 --> 01:10:44.600
you go on stage, which coincidentally tends to match in
1245
01:10:44.680 --> 01:10:47.279
terms of time. It tends to match when the previous
1246
01:10:47.319 --> 01:10:50.319
speaker is wrapping up, and it doesn't have to put
1247
01:10:50.359 --> 01:10:54.039
them off because they're standing on stage going. So in conclusion,
1248
01:10:54.279 --> 01:10:55.720
i'd like, and they look at you in the front
1249
01:10:55.760 --> 01:11:00.399
row and you're going and pulling funny faces to put
1250
01:11:00.399 --> 01:11:03.479
them off, but just give them in the loo or
1251
01:11:03.720 --> 01:11:06.079
just put your hand out your mouth and pretund you
1252
01:11:06.119 --> 01:11:12.680
own it something to make your addiction clearer. Yeah, it
1253
01:11:12.720 --> 01:11:15.560
doesn't matter how. I don't want to ask anybody to
1254
01:11:15.680 --> 01:11:18.640
change their accent because their accent is part of their
1255
01:11:18.640 --> 01:11:21.840
cultural heritage and that's not up to me to change that.
1256
01:11:21.880 --> 01:11:23.359
If they want to change it, they can change it.
1257
01:11:23.359 --> 01:11:25.159
If they don't want to change it, they shouldn't. I'm
1258
01:11:25.239 --> 01:11:28.960
not asking anybody to change their accent. I am suggesting
1259
01:11:28.960 --> 01:11:31.399
that sometimes we need to be a little bit more
1260
01:11:31.520 --> 01:11:34.920
clear in how we speak, particularly if you're using a
1261
01:11:35.000 --> 01:11:43.479
microphone in a big echoe room. Particularly, excuse me, particularly
1262
01:11:43.520 --> 01:11:46.760
if you're speaking to people who don't know you. My
1263
01:11:46.840 --> 01:11:51.760
microphone off the coffer a second, there you go, Particularly
1264
01:11:51.760 --> 01:11:54.039
if they don't know you, so they can't compensate for
1265
01:11:54.079 --> 01:11:58.760
your accent. It's not an accent thing, it's a clarity
1266
01:11:58.800 --> 01:12:01.760
of diction thing. Yeah. The original research for this way
1267
01:12:01.800 --> 01:12:05.880
way back in started in the States where they split
1268
01:12:06.000 --> 01:12:10.159
students up randomly into two groups, and one group had
1269
01:12:10.159 --> 01:12:13.680
a set of lectures as normal, and another group had
1270
01:12:13.880 --> 01:12:16.199
a set of lectures from a lecturer who had a
1271
01:12:16.239 --> 01:12:23.439
strong Mexican accent. Same lectures, same slides, same gestures, everything
1272
01:12:23.479 --> 01:12:27.119
is the same. When it comes to the exams, the
1273
01:12:27.239 --> 01:12:31.399
students who had the lecture with a Mexican accent did
1274
01:12:31.439 --> 01:12:35.800
not do nearly as well as the students who had
1275
01:12:35.840 --> 01:12:40.159
the lecturer who had no accent. Turns out, the guy
1276
01:12:40.239 --> 01:12:43.720
with the Mexican accent he was the professor, and the
1277
01:12:43.800 --> 01:12:46.399
guy with no accent he was just an actor whose
1278
01:12:46.439 --> 01:12:50.560
only skill was copying the gestures and slides and things
1279
01:12:50.600 --> 01:12:53.239
over the other guy. He literally did not understand the
1280
01:12:53.279 --> 01:12:56.479
words he was saying, but he was a better speaker
1281
01:12:56.520 --> 01:12:59.359
and a better teacher because the audience didn't have to
1282
01:12:59.359 --> 01:13:03.479
spend their time. I'm fighting past the lack of clarity
1283
01:13:03.520 --> 01:13:06.960
of what this guy was saying. M hm. We now
1284
01:13:07.079 --> 01:13:09.960
know it's not his Mexican accent that was the problem.
1285
01:13:10.039 --> 01:13:12.920
It was the fact that people were having to think harder.
1286
01:13:15.319 --> 01:13:18.000
I've really really rushed an explanation of that.
1287
01:13:18.119 --> 01:13:22.720
No, no, this is all really really valuable insight because well,
1288
01:13:22.720 --> 01:13:25.640
I'm going to encourage everyone who wants to speak at
1289
01:13:26.000 --> 01:13:28.279
our events to listen to this or watch this. But
1290
01:13:28.319 --> 01:13:31.159
it's it's a good reminder for me as well. Some
1291
01:13:31.600 --> 01:13:34.840
of it I know from what we've spoken about before,
1292
01:13:34.880 --> 01:13:38.600
but whether as I didn't, I've forgotten. So it's really
1293
01:13:38.640 --> 01:13:40.680
good reminder for me as well, because I definitely don't
1294
01:13:40.720 --> 01:13:43.840
do warm up or anything like that, but sometimes I
1295
01:13:43.920 --> 01:13:49.560
sing in the car on the way to thee. It
1296
01:13:49.680 --> 01:13:53.800
just depends. I I've got a random playlist, but no,
1297
01:13:53.880 --> 01:13:56.159
I don't. I don't have I don't have anything in particular,
1298
01:13:56.239 --> 01:13:59.039
but maybe maybe I do need a song to build
1299
01:13:59.079 --> 01:14:00.359
out on the way there.
1300
01:14:01.760 --> 01:14:06.199
Pick pick one, okay, pick the walk on music.
1301
01:14:06.560 --> 01:14:06.760
Go on.
1302
01:14:06.800 --> 01:14:08.640
Here's a question for you, Paul, If you have to
1303
01:14:08.720 --> 01:14:09.760
have walk on music.
1304
01:14:10.960 --> 01:14:14.640
Oh well, I think I get asked for walk on
1305
01:14:14.800 --> 01:14:18.279
music in the past. I've got two I've got to
1306
01:14:18.800 --> 01:14:25.199
depends how I'm feeling. One is rot Down by the
1307
01:14:25.199 --> 01:14:30.600
Beastie Boys Okay, which is just a really funky bassline,
1308
01:14:30.960 --> 01:14:37.279
just a very cool hip hop m just it's quite exciting,
1309
01:14:37.600 --> 01:14:41.000
but not very well known. And then the other one
1310
01:14:41.359 --> 01:14:49.199
is oh but yeah, it's called Pump Up the Jam okayetronic,
1311
01:14:49.640 --> 01:14:53.520
Like that's just I just love that song. Like that song.
1312
01:14:54.159 --> 01:14:56.119
When I first heard that, I think I was eleven
1313
01:14:56.359 --> 01:14:59.359
when that came out right, and that song changed my life.
1314
01:14:59.359 --> 01:15:02.119
I was just like, this is it, this is the
1315
01:15:02.199 --> 01:15:05.119
music I want to listen to. And I became a
1316
01:15:05.199 --> 01:15:10.520
DJ producer club promote labor and that was the first
1317
01:15:10.520 --> 01:15:13.880
song that really and even now it's still excites me.
1318
01:15:15.479 --> 01:15:18.640
And that's a great way of dealing with the nerves
1319
01:15:18.720 --> 01:15:21.439
and getting your head in the game. For a speaking
1320
01:15:21.479 --> 01:15:24.079
gig is just to listen to something that takes you
1321
01:15:24.159 --> 01:15:27.880
to a place where you are comfortable and happy. You
1322
01:15:27.920 --> 01:15:31.119
don't have to play it to the audience. Sometimes often
1323
01:15:31.279 --> 01:15:33.760
that will help because it raises the energy of the
1324
01:15:34.119 --> 01:15:36.760
people in the room. So if they're sitting in an
1325
01:15:36.800 --> 01:15:40.840
empty room and an empty auditorium, they tend to start
1326
01:15:40.880 --> 01:15:46.159
to whisper to each other and whereas if there's background music,
1327
01:15:46.199 --> 01:15:48.199
they start to relax a little bit, which is why
1328
01:15:48.239 --> 01:15:51.640
people play background music in restaurants and things, so you
1329
01:15:51.640 --> 01:15:55.039
don't have to play your walk on music to people,
1330
01:15:55.119 --> 01:15:58.159
but play something to boost your audience, and then play
1331
01:15:58.159 --> 01:16:00.000
your wark on music to boost yourself.
1332
01:16:00.479 --> 01:16:00.880
Mm hmm.
1333
01:16:02.319 --> 01:16:05.359
Mine is from series ten of Doctor Who.
1334
01:16:08.880 --> 01:16:10.560
Is it a bit of is it instrumental?
1335
01:16:10.720 --> 01:16:13.479
Is it? It's called I Am the Doctor and it's
1336
01:16:13.520 --> 01:16:16.600
it's the bit they play in Doctor Who whenever he's
1337
01:16:16.640 --> 01:16:22.239
about to do something astonishingly clever and safty the the
1338
01:16:26.920 --> 01:16:28.159
can you edit that from the.
1339
01:16:28.239 --> 01:16:33.840
From I Love It brilliant?
1340
01:16:34.520 --> 01:16:37.000
Did you say that question? Paul? I'm happy to go on.
1341
01:16:36.960 --> 01:16:41.319
But no, no, there is anything else. They are the
1342
01:16:41.479 --> 01:16:43.399
questions I want as well.
1343
01:16:44.119 --> 01:16:45.680
We've been here fifteen.
1344
01:16:45.720 --> 01:16:47.720
If there's an exactly I was gonna say, Is there
1345
01:16:47.760 --> 01:16:50.000
anything you wanted to add or anything you wanted to
1346
01:16:50.399 --> 01:16:52.720
flag up or tell her about you've got?
1347
01:16:53.039 --> 01:16:55.880
There's a rant I want to have If that's okay.
1348
01:16:56.399 --> 01:17:00.760
There's there's a lot of people pitching at pitching up
1349
01:17:00.760 --> 01:17:03.880
people going tell stories, Just tell stories.
1350
01:17:03.560 --> 01:17:05.279
Just tell stories to hear why both stories.
1351
01:17:09.359 --> 01:17:12.239
Stories are a useful tool in the same way as
1352
01:17:12.319 --> 01:17:15.319
slides are a useful tool, but they're not a silver bullet.
1353
01:17:16.039 --> 01:17:19.840
So just randomly throwing stories at your audience does nothing
1354
01:17:20.039 --> 01:17:23.199
except either bore or entertain them. It doesn't move. I
1355
01:17:23.199 --> 01:17:27.119
wouldn't talk on the book's called story making. I wanted
1356
01:17:27.119 --> 01:17:29.199
to call it story using, but that was such a
1357
01:17:29.239 --> 01:17:33.159
crap phrase i abandoned it. I really want people to
1358
01:17:33.199 --> 01:17:39.079
think about using stories in their presentations rather than telling
1359
01:17:39.199 --> 01:17:42.880
stories in their presentations. And so what that happens As
1360
01:17:42.920 --> 01:17:45.359
soon as you start doing that, you take out the
1361
01:17:45.399 --> 01:17:48.359
first ten minutes of most people's presentations when they go,
1362
01:17:48.840 --> 01:17:52.479
let me tell you my story, and they usually go,
1363
01:17:52.920 --> 01:17:55.800
here's a little bit of background about me. But basically
1364
01:17:55.800 --> 01:17:58.439
it's just a chronology of what they've done and how
1365
01:17:59.039 --> 01:18:03.800
they've got there. Doesn't serve the audience. For reasons, well,
1366
01:18:03.840 --> 01:18:06.359
just for reasons. All it does is just burn the
1367
01:18:06.399 --> 01:18:10.880
audience's capacity to pay attention. I want people to listen
1368
01:18:11.039 --> 01:18:13.920
to a story and kind and go does that story
1369
01:18:14.880 --> 01:18:20.680
serve the point I am making? So if I've gone
1370
01:18:20.760 --> 01:18:24.199
everybody should have first AID training. If that's the point
1371
01:18:24.239 --> 01:18:26.319
I'm trying to make, everyone should have first DAID training.
1372
01:18:26.880 --> 01:18:30.800
If I can then go a story for example, so
1373
01:18:30.920 --> 01:18:34.199
and so had our training and only three days later
1374
01:18:34.399 --> 01:18:37.840
somebody collapsed on the street and they did CPR and
1375
01:18:37.920 --> 01:18:42.039
save that person's life. That's a story that backs up
1376
01:18:42.119 --> 01:18:46.640
the data point I'm making. But stories about oh, how
1377
01:18:46.720 --> 01:18:52.039
I climbed Killimanjaro backwards with bare feet while sticking spoons
1378
01:18:52.079 --> 01:18:57.640
in my eyes because I'm hard. What does that do
1379
01:18:57.800 --> 01:19:01.720
for an audience? It just proves that that person's done
1380
01:19:01.840 --> 01:19:04.880
something that normal people can't. You get the idea.
1381
01:19:06.760 --> 01:19:11.359
It's good, it's good, use them. Do you like? Do
1382
01:19:11.399 --> 01:19:13.159
you like? Have you ever watched mad Men?
1383
01:19:14.640 --> 01:19:17.279
I've watched a couple of episodes, but I've not really
1384
01:19:17.279 --> 01:19:19.920
got into it. It's just not do any choice. I
1385
01:19:20.039 --> 01:19:22.079
just never got around to watching it.
1386
01:19:23.279 --> 01:19:27.640
I love mad Men, but there's dondre By charismatic, like
1387
01:19:27.680 --> 01:19:34.359
the main character Madison Avenue advertising executive. There's a really
1388
01:19:34.399 --> 01:19:37.640
famous scene, one of my favorite scenes, where they're pitching
1389
01:19:37.760 --> 01:19:41.560
the Kodak what was known as the carousel. Can you
1390
01:19:41.680 --> 01:19:42.640
remember the old like?
1391
01:19:42.960 --> 01:19:45.520
Yeah, where what was?
1392
01:19:45.560 --> 01:19:49.039
It? Slides with the photos on and it would go
1393
01:19:49.079 --> 01:19:53.680
around and it would project the image on the So
1394
01:19:53.680 --> 01:19:56.680
so he's if you google it, if you google mad
1395
01:19:56.720 --> 01:20:01.680
Men the carousel, it's just a brilliant example of storytelling
1396
01:20:01.880 --> 01:20:05.119
because he's talking about the carousel, how it's it's taking
1397
01:20:05.119 --> 01:20:07.840
me on a journey. It's going backwards and forwards out time,
1398
01:20:07.880 --> 01:20:10.800
and he's bringing up these images of his his marriage
1399
01:20:10.840 --> 01:20:14.000
and his kids and this happy time and whatever, and
1400
01:20:14.039 --> 01:20:16.680
it's it's an emotional way of doing it. And by
1401
01:20:16.720 --> 01:20:18.720
the end of it, the people he's pitting you while
1402
01:20:18.760 --> 01:20:23.119
I crying, and because I think I remember rightly, the
1403
01:20:23.199 --> 01:20:26.800
worn't show whether they go with their company or someone else's.
1404
01:20:27.560 --> 01:20:29.520
But at the end of it, like, right, okay, we're
1405
01:20:29.520 --> 01:20:31.439
going to work with you now. Because it's it's so
1406
01:20:31.880 --> 01:20:34.479
powerful of getting the the emotion across that it's not
1407
01:20:34.680 --> 01:20:38.000
just a projector it's a time machine.
1408
01:20:38.279 --> 01:20:41.119
Yeah, I like that. I like that, but that you
1409
01:20:41.159 --> 01:20:44.560
don't need to have a long story either. You can
1410
01:20:44.560 --> 01:20:51.199
get a story into two sentences. So I'll brace yourself.
1411
01:20:51.279 --> 01:20:53.560
I'm going to just let my ego off the record.
1412
01:20:55.680 --> 01:20:58.159
When I did my ted X, the ted X, my
1413
01:20:58.239 --> 01:21:01.199
TEDx is exactly the average length through ted X twelve
1414
01:21:01.239 --> 01:21:04.760
minutes seconds. In twelve minutes thirty seconds, I burnt through
1415
01:21:04.880 --> 01:21:10.600
fourteen stories because they used them as tight illustrations of
1416
01:21:10.720 --> 01:21:14.680
things rather than doing one long waffly on it goes,
1417
01:21:14.960 --> 01:21:18.680
so on it goes story. But I honestly don't care
1418
01:21:18.760 --> 01:21:22.800
how people use stories so long as they consciously use
1419
01:21:22.960 --> 01:21:26.720
those stories as you've just identified to do. It was
1420
01:21:26.760 --> 01:21:30.359
a conscious choice rather than just to throw a story
1421
01:21:30.399 --> 01:21:32.760
at the audience and pray yeah.
1422
01:21:32.840 --> 01:21:34.840
Because in mad Men they used to do that lot.
1423
01:21:34.880 --> 01:21:36.640
I was like, oh, we're going to lose this deal.
1424
01:21:36.960 --> 01:21:39.359
Bring in dondre By and Andreava. I would save the
1425
01:21:39.439 --> 01:21:44.279
day because you would tell some story, that powerful, charismatic story.
1426
01:21:45.199 --> 01:21:46.760
I'm going to have to go back. Is it a
1427
01:21:46.840 --> 01:21:49.279
Netflix or right Player or I can't remember.
1428
01:21:49.520 --> 01:21:52.439
It's probably on Netflix, but it was it was on
1429
01:21:52.520 --> 01:21:56.600
BBC when I first came out and you searched for
1430
01:21:57.159 --> 01:21:58.319
the carousel mad Men.
1431
01:21:58.640 --> 01:22:01.680
That's okay, It'll be on YouTube somewhere.
1432
01:22:01.880 --> 01:22:06.159
Yeah, yeah, now, Simon, I love it. It's always a
1433
01:22:06.159 --> 01:22:09.439
pleasure told you. I know this is a bit more
1434
01:22:09.760 --> 01:22:13.760
business well presentation focused, but I just love totally. Any Anyway,
1435
01:22:13.760 --> 01:22:16.640
we had a great conversation in the coffee shop last week.
1436
01:22:17.760 --> 01:22:20.600
Which can I just do an official shout out to
1437
01:22:21.000 --> 01:22:24.920
coreyin my wife, the tea Fairy. While we've been online,
1438
01:22:25.039 --> 01:22:26.800
she has sneaked in twice.
1439
01:22:27.279 --> 01:22:29.159
Oh well, I didn't even notice, and.
1440
01:22:29.359 --> 01:22:32.399
We filled my team up, So there's a reason I
1441
01:22:32.479 --> 01:22:34.600
married her. It turns out that is it.
1442
01:22:34.960 --> 01:22:38.359
Well, behind every great presenter is a great, great woman,
1443
01:22:38.800 --> 01:22:44.840
great great great partner, provide the excellent right. Well, if
1444
01:22:44.840 --> 01:22:46.760
anyone wants to find out more about you, obviously you're
1445
01:22:46.760 --> 01:22:50.000
on LinkedIn. We'll put links underneath here. But what's the
1446
01:22:50.039 --> 01:22:51.880
best way for people to get in touch with you
1447
01:22:52.000 --> 01:22:52.840
they want to work with you?
1448
01:22:53.439 --> 01:22:56.520
LinkedIn? Is it is a good starting point? Or Simon
1449
01:22:56.840 --> 01:23:02.119
at Presentation genius dot in. Somebody else had the dot
1450
01:23:02.119 --> 01:23:05.880
com so I couldn't get it. So it's Simon at Presentation, genius,
1451
01:23:06.039 --> 01:23:09.640
dot info or LinkedIn. I think there are about four
1452
01:23:09.680 --> 01:23:11.960
Simon ray Balls on LinkedIn, one of whom is a
1453
01:23:12.000 --> 01:23:15.279
Canadian baker, So don't start talking to him. He doesn't
1454
01:23:15.319 --> 01:23:20.600
know anything about presentations. Nice chat, nothing about presentations.
1455
01:23:20.640 --> 01:23:23.600
Amazing, Love it right, We'll leave it there then, thank
1456
01:23:23.640 --> 01:23:28.560
you Simon. All right, yeah bye,