How To Become A Master In The Art of Public Speaking (Part 2 of 2) | Eric Edmeades

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So the first thing we talked about this morning is the stage effect, so the stage effect is the unfair advantage that you create for yourself by standing in front of an audience – and I just I want to – I want to give you a little Bit more information about that the stage effect is a really fascinating thing.

The stage effect is kind of like it works like this. The quality of your presentation, plus the size of the audience, creates the level of attraction you create as a speaker. Does that make sense? So so what that means is that the bigger your audience, the more attractions can happen, and I’ve noticed this very much in my career, because when I would go out on tour when I launched in a new country, I might go on a tour in a new Country and nobody knows me, and so I go there and some of the audience, some of the events might have 20 or 30 or 40 people, but then some of those people end up coming to one of my workshops.

Those people have a certain attitude toward me when they come to the workshop, as my career in any given country gets bigger. Like I came here to Thailand some years ago, and I did an event – and there were about 2,500 people in the audience when those people come to my events, they treat me differently than the people who saw me with 30 people because there’s something powerful about people Watching you, the same thing applies on YouTube.

Somebody sends you a video and it’s got four views and somebody sends you another video and it’s got four million views which one are you gonna watch. The the views are the size of the audience, and so, if it’s got, four million views you’re more likely to watch it.

If you’ve got five thousand people in the audience, it creates more attraction. And so what this means is that when you stand up in front of an audience and you deliver from your heart, you are creating a level of attraction that is far beyond what you can create one-on-one.

If there’s ten people in the audience, it’s far more attraction than one-on-one, this is so important because in marketing there is no system of marketing that is more effective than personal contact.

I’M not talking about effective in numbers, there’s many systems that can better with numbers, but I’m talking about effective when it comes to creating a lasting memory or impression with somebody. Nothing will create a more lasting impression really than face-to-face contact with somebody.

But the problem is: is face-to-face contact isn’t very practical. How many people can you meet and really connect with in a day eight, if you really have it back to back and you’re spent, I mean I don’t know and look if you live in England, you can kind of travel around pretty quickly and meet with a Lot of people, because there’s 60 million people living on a postage stamp.

But if you live in Canada, it’s a little different. I was working in Canada and Vancouver and I had a client in England and we’ve been doing business for a few years, but we’d never met before and one day he calls me there was Eric we’re.

Finally, gonna get to meet and I said awesome what’s happening, goes I’ve got a conference I have to go to and I’m gonna come come. I’M coming to Canada. I said that’s great, I said: what’s what’s, the scheduling goes well, I’m flying into Toronto.

On Monday, the conference is on Tuesday and I’ve got Wednesday and Thursday free. So I figure we should get together for lunch, and I said okay and I were you planning to come out to Vancouver and he goes.

I have a rental car now. Some of you will be aware of North American geography, but some might not so I just want to put this in perspective. This is Canada for you. If you would like to drive from Halifax Nova Scotia to Vancouver Canada – and you have three friends to do, the driving with you and the car only stops for you to put petrol in you, eat and sleep in the car.

It will take you four and a half days. It’S just you know it’s a big place. What I’m getting at is face-to-face contact in our world today is not gonna, be the most effective because it takes so much time, but the good news is is that face-to-face contact is even more powerful face to faces it’s even more powerful.

I am well. Let me ask you and if you already know the answer, I don’t need your answer. If you don’t know me, you haven’t met me, am i introverted or extroverted how many people think that I’m pretty extroverted who thinks I’m pretty extroverted seems so I’m up here on stage whatever? How many of you think I’m more introverted.

So the fact of the matter is, I am significantly more introverted than I am extroverted. You will notice, I will walk around here. I don’t walk up and talk to people all the time and introduce I mean I wouldn’t say: I’m shy, I’m just introverted and one of the greatest tools of the introvert is learning how to be great at storytelling and standing on stage, because then you don’t have To go meet people they come and meet you it’s different.

You meet them all at once. It’S an incredibly powerful thing, but that’s social. But what about economic, and so the example I often use economically, is that if I’m a business consultant – and let’s say I’ve got my my friend – Derek Eric and Derek and – and I am the introverted business consultant and he’s also an introverted business consultant and we’ve decided To buddy coach each other we’re gonna try and get through our stuff, and what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna go to a networking event and we’re gonna try and have a competition to see who can meet the most people.

So introverted business consultant Derek, goes off to the event pocketful of business cards and he’s handing out business cards and he’s meeting all the people so good to meet you I’m so happy to meet you.

Here’S my card. You have a card with you, you and you have a card as well. Can I have an and Derek is meeting them all and at the end of the day, he’s got a pocket full of business cards. I, on the other hand, introverted Eric business consultant to I don’t want to do all that.

I call the organizer and say hi I’d like to come and speak at your conference. Here’S my show real here’s, my bio boom and I get myself booked as a speaker. I walk onstage, I speak for 45 minutes. I make people laugh, maybe cry, maybe think I give them distinctions.

Who’S gonna have the most business cards at the end of this conference. I probably am, but but wait a minute. Let’S call it a tie. Let’S say we get back to our hotel room, we take out our stacks of business cards, we put them down and it turns out it’s a tie.

Okay, so we have to go to the tiebreaker round the tiebreaker round. How does that work? Well, what we do is we start calling the people we met. So Derek starts picking up the phone and saying hey: do you remember how we met at the conference yeah? It was over by the Starbucks yeah yeah.

I was the blue shirt. Do they remember him? Barely a few might what if I called him, I pick up them ago: hi, it’s Eric, oh you’re, Eric calling from the presentation. I’Ve created a deeper, lasting memory.

Is it true? So the tiebreaker is that I have as many business cards, but these business cards mean something they connect something now, let’s go to the next tiebreaker round, which one can charge more for the same consulting services.

I want you to hear me about this. This is not a small thing. This person does not charge 10 % more than this person. This person can charge many times what this person can charge. I didn’t fully understand this.

Until one day, I was doing event in Las Vegas Nevada, and I did my presentation at this event. Many speakers were there. I spoke for about two hours and these these guys walked up to me. After it I was standing with my wife.

They walked up and they said we’d like to buy you lunch. What do I know at this point? They want something but I’m hungry. So I accept a lunch and so we go off for lunch and we’re sitting there at lunch and they start trying to hire me to work for their company in California.

I don’t want to live in California. I live in the Dominican Republic and just to put this in perspective for you how many of you are familiar with kiteboarding anybody, so how many are not familiar with kiteboarding, but you are familiar with wakeboarding, so I’ll describe kiteboarding for you, it’s like wakeboarding right.

It’S like wakeboarding you’re, on a snowboard type thing and in the wakeboarding the boat is pulling you right, but with kiteboarding it’s like you control the boat and the boat can fly. It’S an incredible sport and I live on kite beach and there’s wind ten months of the year.

San Diego is beautiful, but the wind is seasonal and the water is there’s a technical term for this. Let me just I have it here. I have it in my phone, I had looked it up, freaking cold, it’s really cold and so alright, if I don’t need a wetsuit even in December, I’m not interested in going to live there.

I don’t want the job, but they keep trying to get me to do it, and I finally said to look what do you really want from me and they explained what they were looking for, and I said no, I really, I don’t want it and they said Well, could we hire you as a consultant? Actually, no I’m not look.

I’M busy. I have a full calendar, I’m not. I want to spend time with my family. I don’t really want to, but I don’t like saying and so sometimes I’ll say no with a number. This is one of the smartest ways that any of you will learn to raise your prices.

You you, you deliver so much value that people want to do business with you and then you say no with a bigger number, and so I decided to do that. They go well. Could we have you come in for like one week of the month for six months, and I want to say no, but I don’t.

Instead, I said sure it’d be $ 20,000 for each week they said. Okay, I said oh [, __ ] and then I said well before you say: okay, I don’t fly on the weekend, I’m with my family. I fly on the Monday and I fly home on the Friday.

So it’s three days twenty thousand dollars, and they said okay and so for the next six months. I did this before that. I would have sold days for a fraction of that amount if I was open to consulting which I wouldn’t have sold, because I didn’t want it, but all of a sudden I found the stage effect has an immediate and powerful financial return.

It helps you sell things. It helps you get a job, it helps you get that promotion. It helps you get the funding for your business, it helps you recruit people for your company. It is the ability to leverage it’s so powerful.

Now, in order for that to work, though, we have to have some skills, we talked today about how to get more comfortable, but now what we have to do is talk about some skills. One of the most important skills you can develop as a speaker is the ability to go to a conference and deliver a talk that will appeal to the highest percentage of the whole audience.

Irrespective of the topic, because you will occasionally get asked to speak at conferences where there’s a wide variety of people in the audience – and your topic might only appeal to 1/2 or 1/3 of the people – is that possible? And so the trouble is, is you’d almost be better off if the other people would just leave, because if they stay in the room with their naysay or energy, if they stay in the room checking their facebook if they stay in the room talking to each other.

They’Re gonna ruin the energy of the room and they’re going to distract other people from your presentation. You know they don’t all sit their side right. You’Ve got the interested person in the disinterested person and the interested person, and then it just messes up the room and you can’t make them leave, and so what you need to do is keep their attention and so doing that we use something.

We call broad spectrum appeal that is to deliver with broad spectrum it’s to deliver in a way where the audience likes what’s going on, even if the topic isn’t a direct match for them. So there’s some keys to this.

The first key use stories we already talked about it this morning. Stories are the operating system of the human mind. Look if you tell somebody something they’re, not gonna. Remember it, but if you relay the information to them in a story that triggers emotion, they’re gonna remember it you see your mind, has too much stuff to process, and so what it does is it decides what to hold on to and what it will hold On to is anything that has an emotion attached to it.

Does this make sense to you see if you have a day, that’s completely boring and you have no emotions about that day. Are you gonna remember that day? No, but if you have a day where you had an intense emotional experience like say somebody drove into your car, are you gonna? Remember that day you had an attention motional experience, if you have no memory, sorry, if you have no emotion, there’ll, be no memory.

If you have too much emotion you, you could end up with PTSD. That’S ultimately, what it’s about is that the emotion is so intense that it writes the memory and so solidly that it can’t be shaken out now, once we begin to understand that that that emotion is the glue that causes memories to stick once we get that, then We know that we have to deliver things in story format, that is the operating system of the human brain.

Now sometimes feel company go well Erik. That’S all fine and good you’re up there telling your stories. I don’t have any stories. Does anybody feel a little like that? Don’T have so many stories or the other thing they say is well Erik, but I have to.

I have to just deliver numbers. I just I’m an accountant and I have to deliver numbers to the board of the come. How do I do that story? Well, what you begin to realize is that delivering a story is about the way you deliver anything and – and what I mean is is that if I have to come and deliver the numbers, then I can walk out here, and I can say, ladies and gentlemen, of The board, I have the numbers, we projected 14 percent growth on the quarter and in fact we achieved 16 percent.

Well done everyone! That’S how it’s done right. In fact, that’s somebody doing it quite well in our world. It can be done a lot worse than that. Right how many of you have been to a conference where you’ve been sitting in the middle row and you’ve been wishing? You were on the edges, anybody been to that conference, okay, so I’ve been there and so what? If? Instead I walk out and go.

Ladies and gentlemen, the board I’ve got the numbers from the accounting department today and I’m really excited about this, because when we set the targets you’ll remember we projected 14 percent growth on the quarter and you might recall I wasn’t a big believer.

I wasn’t so optimistic about that and so this morning, when I got the numbers from the accounting department I held the envelope my hand. I just took a moment before I opened it and then I tore the envelope open and I read the report and then I had to read it a second time and I’m not kidding.

I had to read it a third time to understand what had happened. We projected 14 percent growth on the corner and what we actually achieved was 16 percent. Is it different? I created suspense, I created drama and I made it a story.

It didn’t even take much longer, but I did it in a way that you will now remember that. In fact, I will be able to walk up to some of you three four days from now and go how much growth did we post and you’ll go yeah? It was 16 percent right, like you will, because I gave it to you in story.

So the first thing you have to understand is it’s not even that you have to have so many stories. It’S that you have to recognize that the information needs to be delivered in story format. When it’s delivered in story format, it becomes memorable.

The only way, you’re gonna get anybody to remember anything is by linking an emotion to it. How many people in this room you had in school in your first 12 years of school, you had at least one or two teachers that to this day, you would love to have lunch with them and thank them for the contribution they made in your life.

Keep your hand up if they were a storyteller nine times out of ten more, like nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand. These guys are storytellers, isn’t it true, they’re, totally storytellers and and the teachers that didn’t tell you stories, you don’t remember what they taught you and these days you don’t even remember their name.

Do you? No, I moved. I grew up largely in Halifax Nova, Scotia in the eastern side of Canada and one of my teachers. When I was in grade three – and I know, every country uses different grade, three means like eight years old, and so I was seven or eight years old and I was in his class and he was brilliant at storytelling.

He understood everything about storytelling. He understood the suspense one day we were putting he we used to sit in his chair and he would put his one leg up on his desk. You know kind of bad for him, don’t you think so we often would sit in art and when he would come into the class and we’re eight years old and we’d put our feet up on our desks and then he walked in one day, and he goes You guys think, that’s funny, don’t you and we’re like yeah, you do it, so we can do it kid thinking right and he goes well.

I’M gonna tell you why I do it. He said one day I was going out on my first date in my car and I was driving along and I dropped my girlfriend off at her house after an incredible day and then I turned around and I was so high.

I was so happy. I was so full of love from this experience. I’D gone out on my first date in my first in my car on my first time and I was driving along and I was heading alone and then suddenly something happened to the car.

Somebody had hit me a little bit from behind and then the car started to slide and it was sliding toward this tree and I saw the tree and it was the weirdest thing, because there was nothing I could do and the tree just kept getting closer and Closer and it was almost like slow motion and all of a sudden yeah we did, I just slammed into the into the tree and and and and then and then and then a little.

While later I woke up on the road I had been flung out of the car, and I woke up on the road and the weirdest thing is – I had never been able to do the splits before, but now I was on the road and I was doing The splits only the problem was my knee was bent here and so this bone had been broken so badly that it was sticking out through the skin and so now there’s a metal rod in my leg, and so when I sit at my desk, while you guys Are working if I don’t lift my leg up on the desk, it becomes incredibly painful.

That’S why I put my feet on my desk says. Otherwise, it’s considered to be incredibly impolite and I’m sorry I didn’t share with you share that with you earlier I was 8. I still remember that story. Incidentally, I have not shared that story once from stage ever until this moment.

Never have I shared that story that I can think of. I still remember it from when I was 8. Then then, one day he comes in, he goes because one of the important types of stories to tell are metaphorical or allegorical stories, where you tell a story that the audience wants to hear.

This is broad spectrum appeal. You tell a story that the audience wants to hear, but that’s teaching something else. Do you understand, and so he walks in one day and he goes guys it’s health class. Does he have our attention? No we’re 8 health class doesn’t get interesting until you’re 12 right.

I mean, let’s be clear: 12:13 health class starts getting a little, you won’t admit it, but it’s starting to get interesting right. You’Re, 8 years old. It’S not interesting! So he’s like it’s health class, nobody’s interested and he and he walks up to the blackboard and he takes out this thing and he’s like he says all right now.

Does he have our attention? Why does he have our attention? It’S 1978, its 1978, and I don’t know how many you guys are Harry Potter fans. Okay, however big Harry Potter got, it will never hit society the way Star Wars did not ever you watch any three hours of television in North America, any three hours of television news, sitcom movie, you will hear a Star Wars reference.

It’S the way it is. He understood this in 1978 in 1978, he was drawing characters from the Star Wars, universe and he did this. He goes now this force field. Was he brilliant? This force field is your skin.

He says these are antibodies, they are defending you, and these are the germs and bacteria that are trying to get into your body and make you sick. I was eight years old, that’s exactly what the blackboard looked like, because he understood how to tell stories.

Storytelling will change everything about you away. You do a presentation, it will change everything about the way the audience receives it and the beauty is stories are broad spectrum automatically the toughest audience I ever had the absolute toughest audience I’ve ever had.

I got this phone call. Eric would you come and speak for this inner-city school in London? I will speak for schools pretty much unreservedly if I’m around, if I’m nearby and I’ll, do it pro bono, if I’m around it’s free I’ll, show up and do it.

The one thing is is that when I’m doing pro bono speaking, I won’t always put the same level of preparation as when I’m getting paid. I I have things to do in my life, so if I’m speaking for free, I just kind of show up and wing it.

I’Ve got enough stage experience that I can usually pull that off. It’S okay and I get to the school and I haven’t done any research and I walk in and the headmistress walks up to me and she says: are you ready and I go yeah totally? I’M ready.

I said which kids am i speaking for, and she said all of them. I said oh really. What kind of school is this? Is it a high school because I could speak to all of them? You know high school, 6. 8. 16 to 18.

I could do that or is it a junior high? You know 13 to 16. I could do that or is it like last half of elementary school? You know six to twelve or you say eight to twelve or is it elementary school? I can do that.

Six to five to eight or something I could handle that she goes no it’s at k-12. I said k-12. That means for those you don’t understand. K-12. It means that the youngest kids will be four years old and the oldest kids will be 19.

They will be from 4 to 19 in one audience. I said really how interesting I said how long, how long do I have to speak for an hour and a half there from 4 to 19 and I’m gonna speak for an hour and a half.

I said: ok, excellent, no problem, and so immediately I start going through the system I’m going. I have to. If I have to create broad spectrum, feel I got to figure out. What’S common to all these kids, like I’ve got to figure it out.

First thing that is common to all of them stories stories are common, all of them. Now you have to tell the story slightly nuanced, but the fact is, for you do four-year-olds like stories. They like the same story over and over and over again and do 19 year olds like stories sure they do.

In fact, layered stories is one of the most valuable skills you can deliver up in the world, and you all know this, even if you’ve never heard the term before layered stories. This is what I’m talking about.

How many of you have ever watched a Disney movie with children and you’ve noticed that you suddenly realized as a child? You were watching a movie that was actually made for your adults. Isn’T it true? You watch a Disney movie and there’s weird little sexual innuendos, adult jokes and they’re all above the consciousness of children, so they’re telling two stories, and so this idea of being able to tell parallel stories or or or multi-layered stories is really valuable.

So I’m thinking, okay, I got to tell a story and I got to make sure it’s got four-year-old features and it’s got 19 yield features and all between first thing I decide second thing: what else is common to all these kids games? Do four-year-olds like games? Do 19 year olds like games, done deal, I’ve got it covered, then I think about.

I need one more thing. I need a thread I need. I need some kind of thread that I can use and I suddenly realize what it is, and I thought back to mr. kolchin ski Harry Potter, because that was what was going on back in and if you were 4 year old.

If you were 4 years old, did you like Harry Potter? Damn right, you did if you were 5 or 6 years old. Did you like Harry Potter, absolutely if you were 7 or 8 or 9 or 10, or its 11 years old, if you’re a 12 years old? Do you like Harry Potter? Absolutely if you were 13, 14.

15. 17. 18. 19. Did you like Harry Potter? You did but secretly you read the books in a brown paper bag right. Yet you didn’t you liked them, but it was a bit and by the way, if you were 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 years old, did you like Harry Potter? Damn right, you did my wife and I lined up at a book store to buy the final Harry Potter book at the bookstore unreleased night at midnight, and we had to buy two copies because there was no way one was waiting for.

The other Harry Potter was pervasive, it was pervasive, and so then I went out and I delivered a talk for these kids and I use stories. I played a game with them and I used Harry Potter references. I talked about guys.

I’M gonna show you some really cool stuff and by the time I show you this stuff about your life. All the other people will seem like muggles to you did that work for them yeah and at the end of my talk, the kids celebrated.

I got a big clap from them. Everything was fantastic and normally, when I finish a talk, it’s the audience that wants to come over and say hello and take a picture and do that fun stuff. Not this time.

This time it was the teachers, the teachers literally and by the way I I just want to, especially if you guys are any Americans here literally means. Actually, I just want to be clear that you can’t have your head literally explode unless it actually explodes.

I just wan na be clear about that, something that bothers me every now and again so the teachers literally, which, which means they actually write literally they cornered me and I’ve got my back against the wall and the teachers are surrounding me and they’re going.

How did you do that? How did you do that? I can’t hold them for half an hour. One age group and I said first of all, you need to relax. I said I only had to hold them one time. I only had to hold them one time and I was new and I was novel, so you can’t you can’t blame yourself.

The first thing is, I only had to hold him the one time and they’re like yeah, but still like. I have to hold them for a whole hour for my class, and I just can’t do it. You held him for an hour and a half and all the age groups.

How did you do that and I said, and I broke it down for them. I said guys it’s about storytelling. I told him of a mr. katimski and no kidding. They immediately asked me if I could come back and speak at the school again for the teachers, because teachers are not being taught really effectively how to teach they’re being taught how to babysit and how to run curriculum.

Does this make sense, so so broad spectrum appeal? It starts with the recognition that story is the ultimate language. It’S the ultimate operating system for the brain, and once you get that, then you make sure that your talks always contain a percentage of story.

You you, you tell them some information and then you use this story to prove it or you tell them a story and they and they get the information inside the story. But the fact is no emotion, no memory done then.

The next thing you saw me do there is: what is the common thread of the audience? You always want to know. What’S the common thread of the audience as best you can figure out who your audience is and try to figure out? What’S common about them and if you can’t find anything, that’s common about them, that might be the common thing.

I will often come out here and do it right now shout out some of the countries you guys are from. Let me hear it: Canada, United States, Mexico, UK, Brazil, Korea, Israel, the Ukraine, Crimea, that’s that’s Russia! Now! Isn’T it that’s not funny? The point is all of a sudden.

All of a sudden, I found something where you’re all uncommon, with each other. Only I’ve made that common because you’re an incredibly international group and suddenly I can speak to you all about me.

I’Ve created something uncommon in the common. Does this make sense, and so you want to look at what the common threads are in the company in in the in the audience and then let’s get to delivery delivery.

Is so straightforward guys and it’s not what most conference speakers are doing. How many of you guys were at the finals at the speaking Academy, finals? Okay, there were what 14 or 15 speeches have you ever in your life been to a conference where all 14 or 15 speakers appeal to you like that? What happened there? Do you know what a many of you came up and said to me? Many of you walked up to me after that and said, but why were they at a speaker course? That’S what they came and said to me: I’m like you, should have seen him on day.

One some of them were very talented on day one. Some of them were so shy and so nervous on day, one that, if you handed them a microphone, it kind of looked like this and that’s not what it looked like on day.

Five did it so one of the things that we showed them and that you saw was using a range of vocal techniques, not speaking in one tone. You’Ve all been to that conference where somebody stands up and for an hour puts you to sleep and they weren’t.

Even and hypnotist, but they should have been. Ladies and gentlemen and fellow Toastmasters, I don’t mean, look, I love Toastmasters. I really do it’s one of them. Every one of you should go, join a Toastmasters and get practice.

The challenges is that it’s a great place to practice, and what often is happening is is that people are becoming formulaic speakers. If, if you, if anybody ever comes up to me and says, did somebody do your course, the only reason I want them to know that they did my course is because they were so much themselves.

I don’t want everybody coming out being the same. You understand, and so so when we talk about delivering, we’re talking about delivering with passion with with you delivering yourself to the audience with you being who you are.

I am. I am NOT interested in the speakers that can come up and act really well, it can be fascinating, it can be wonderful. I saw a talk once it’s one of the best talks. I’Ve ever done. I admire the speaker a great deal.

It was incredibly funny. It had huge poignant moments in it, it taught really valuable stuff and it was clinically perfect. It was one of the best talks I’ve ever done, but it’s just missing one thing: heart and soul.

It was perfect. He moved to the exact right place every time on the stage to say the right thing and he did the right posture every single time for this thing that he did and everything was clinical and then when he wanted to go back and reference that sore and He went back to that same spot.

This is all really powerful skills to have, but if the audience can tell that you’ve done the same talk a hundred thousand times, then it doesn’t feel genuine anymore and the heart connection is broken with the audience.

You should know your story so well that you can tell them with imperfection that you can tell them like you’re telling them at the dining room table yeah I’ll, be in the middle of a talk. Sometimes only going.

You know it’s like that time. You know what are the the archaeologists Harrison Ford Indiana Jones, that’s right! What are the odds that I forgot Indiana Jones? What are the odds of that? They say that whoever you at my most, when you were 11 years old, is who you grew up to become Indiana Jones.

Go look at my website. I mean I, I travel around the world, I’m interested in archaeology, I’m in the bush with the animals all the time. There’S no chance. I forgot his name, but in that moment I will do that.

Why? Because it breaks the story and makes it look like it’s fresh and coming out from my soul, it makes it and then the other thing is. Is it gets the audience sitting on the edge of their chair going? We better pay attention because he sure isn’t right.

Like it’s it, it brings them in and the other thing that it does – and please hear me about this because some of you have one of the greatest fears of speaking, and that is that you might one day be onstage and forget what you were going to Say who’s afraid of that it’s horrible you’re standing up here and you’re going.

Oh man they’re, never gonna pay me now it just it’s horrible, but the good news is the audience is paying attention, and so I will do my Indiana Jones trick. Every now and again to keep the audience live and fresh and then every now and again I will get distracted.

Something will happen and I’ll have how many of you have ever found you’re, giving a presentation and you’re saying words out loud, but your brain is talking to you back here yeah every now and again my brain will distract me and then I might forget where I Was going and then I’ll go? Where was I going with that and then the audience is like you were going this way? Is it true? They will tell you, you never need to be afraid of it again, don’t be afraid.

Just tell really compelling stories make sure they’re paying attention. Then you don’t have to worry about remembering ever again, because here’s, the real funny part, is in many of my trainings on speaking.

I will do that a few times and then I’ll come to the part where I’m teaching that I do it I’ll do it without showing them and then I’ll go. How many times have I forgotten what I was planning to say or forgot where I was in the story and they’ll say: oh, it’s been three or four times this morning and then I’ll say and I’ll show them what I did and then I’ll say how many Of them were real and they have no idea, they have no idea, and I will tell you it does happen to me I’ll.

Tell you it’s ten percent compared to how often I do it, but it does actually happen to me and I’m never afraid of it. I’M just standing here and I go oh crap. Where was I going with that and I look down in a section the audience and they’re like oh, oh yeah? Where was he going with that and then they’ll tell me and I’ll go? Thank you, and by the way, when I say thank you to them when they came up with the answer, how do they feel they feel great? So you don’t have to worry about that.

You engage the audience you tell stories. If you tell stories, you will have their engagement, but then you have to use the vocal range. You have to use your voice when it’s when it when a when a speaker stands up and does that good evening.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m so glad that you came here for my talk today today. What I’m going to do is attempt to kill you through boredom. I’M gonna use this one vocal tone, the entire time which some of you currently find pleasant, but within a short time you will stop hearing my words at all who has seen that speaker.

We all have, and now here’s the good news for you, how many of you think it would be really cool to become a speaker. How many of you’d like to do that. Here’S the good news, Helmut you’ve, all seen that speaker you’ve all seen them think about this.

If you’ve seen that speaker that speaker is making money as a speaker, I’m not kidding you, it’s like the easiest place in the world to be the best. If you just walk out and be yourself and they’re not willing to do it, and so you can walk into any conference and instantly be one of the top speakers simply by being yourself using your voice and telling stories that it’s done.

It’S absolutely incredible. I just yesterday got this incredible video from Lucas Lucas as a young man who found me on YouTube and he ended up signing up and doing our wild fit program. I never met him and he did our wild tip program and then he got more interested in my stuff and it turned out.

I was doing my speaking Academy program in Calgary, and so he signed up for it he’s like 23 or 24 years old. This is pretty proactive, behavior for a 23 year old and he signed up for it and he showed up and he was so quiet and so reserved and then he at one point he got up to introduce himself and he told this whole story that none of Us knew my team didn’t know it.

None of us knew it. He says I found Eric on YouTube. I signed up in a wild, fit I’ve lost 35 40 pounds, I’ve given up alcohol and drugs. I’Ve completely turned my life around because the wild fit, and so I knew I had to come out to this program and learn about speaking and stuff.

So I got another video from him. I got it just yesterday. Actually, no I got it this morning. I watched it this morning. He has since doing the speaking Academy gone out and spoken in two speech contests like in these big contests for speaking, and he finished in the one third place and he finished in the other one first place he had never done.

Probably speaking before he came into the program, he is so grateful for his ability to communicate, but here’s the kicker, those winning prizes, things that all that was for him was empirical evidence.

What really blew him away is that now, when he has to talk to the adults in his life, he’s able to communicate to them effectively now when he has to talk to the police, if somebody pulls him over for speeding or whatever he’s able to talk to Them effectively, he said it’s given him, this ability to communicate and it’s fantastic.

It changes everything do you know. I was driving along in Tanzania and I had just finished. I used to run these leadership programs where I would take people up Kilimanjaro to teach some leadership, skills and state management skills and all this kind of stuff and after the Kilimanjaro trip we went to Zanzibar and a few of the clients came with us.

My mom was meeting us there because my mom does a lot of work in Africa and in Tanzania specifically and and my wife was there and so we’re in the car and I’m driving and I’m driving along and I’m not wearing a shirt because it’s Africa.

Okay, it’s very hot and I’m not wearing a shirt and I come around the corner and there’s a policeman there with his car and he waves me down and he said scuse me. Can I see your driver’s license please.

So I show my driver’s license and he goes in Tanzania. It’S against the law to drive the car. Without your cert shirt. I’Ve been in Tanzania like several times: I’ve climbed Kilimanjaro seven times, and I’ve been in that country to not climb the mountain.

I’Ve been there. It is not illegal to drive without your shirt on okay, but I know what’s going I go, I don’t think it’s illegal to drive without your shirt on here. He goes yes, it is. This is a Muslim country and I said well well at this point in my head: I’m like no, it’s not a Muslim countries and savart is a Muslim area within a larger country that has a non-denominational approach to language and religion.

So no, I chose not to say that to him and and and he says well, you’re gonna have to pay a fine, and I said fine, I’m okay with that and I’m not gonna pay a bribe, that’s what he wants. He wants a bribe and I won’t do that.

I’M not gonna pay him a bribe, so he goes well. You’Ll have to come with me and it turns out that I’m right beside the police station, so we walk over to the police station. Now many of you will know – or some of you might not – that Tanzania used to be Tanganyika and it used to be under German control and, if think about, when it was under German control right like back in those days, you know Doberman, Pinschers and, and that Kind of stuff – and so this building was clearly built back then you could just see it had that Gestapo look about it and I walk into this gestapo building and he takes me into a little room and it’s a Gestapo room.

I walk into the room. It’S concrete and I sit in the chair and there’s a desk and there’s a guy behind the desk, who is wearing a military-style uniform like he has ribbons and medals. I I’m not kidding you and – and I this is all by the way designed to intimidate me.

I sit down and, as I sit down in the chair, I realized that the lamp over here is aimed exactly at where my head is in the chair still left over from when the Gestapo was there. I can, if I listen really carefully to the walls I can hear we have face of getting the ancestor miu right now.

You know, and and this is all by design to freak me out, but I just unfree countable, so I’m just sitting there. I just made that up so so I’m sitting there having this, you know conversation he goes well.

You know you should be respectful and wear your shirt and bla bla. Well yeah. I guess so, but I don’t really think it’s illegal. So I challenge you to write me a ticket and show me how it’s illegal and he’s like.

Well, we maybe we could avoid the whole ticket thing and I go. I think we should avoid the whole ticket thing any goes. Well, maybe you could make it worth. My while to avoid the ticket thing – and I said no write me a ticket, and so we have this little banter and conversation and in outside in the car.

My mom is in the car with a couple, my clients and my wife, and one of the clients goes and they’re freaking out, because you know what, if you haven’t, travelled a lot and and and the guy you’re traveling with just gets hauled away by the police.

In a military uniform, you know you’ve watched CNN, you know what’s coming up, you know something bad, and so so they turn to my wife to my mom and they go missus head meets, which she hates cuz, like she changed her name back after the divorce.

So Jan mrs. head means drives her crazy, mrs. head means, are you worried about Eric and she just said she’s in the passenger seat of the car and she goes nope. I’M I’m worried about the cops and true to form true to form about four minutes later.

I walk out both cops with me. The one cop comes up opens the door. For me, no kidding opens the door for me, I get in, he closes the door and then he hands me a hand-drawn map that he’s made to get me to the spice market.

No fine, no bribe because I was comfortable to communicate being comfortable to communicate, is your right. It is your right, and so one of the ways that you become comfortable with it is recognizing you’re already comfortable with it.

You are you just forget every now and again here’s one of the ways you remind yourself: it’s called alcohol, isn’t it I mean I’ll, tell you I’m not a super big fan of alcohol myself. I haven’t had alcohol since I was 21 years old.

I have no judgement about people having alcohol. In fact, some of my friends are much better people after one drink, you know they just they’re more fun, but the fact is what happens is when we drink alcohol.

Our inhibitions are reduced somewhat and – and I remember seeing this commercial, it was actually a radio commercial. So I didn’t see it. I heard it, it was a radio commercial in Canada and what they did is they had the sounds from a party full of eight-year-olds, and then they had me and you should hear the eight-year-olds ten-year olds they’re.

You know partying and doing their thing and then it’s sound with adults having a party as well, and you could hear the difference – it’s a big difference. Then they said now. Here’S the 8 year olds after the cake and the sugar and the ice cream, where the 8 year olds different completely.

It went like nuclear bomb, aha, you’re yelling and there you can hear it, it’s just incredible and then they said and now here’s the party with the adults after four bottles of wine and soon buy them, and what you could not tell the difference between was the Children and the adults, the children on the sugar and the adults on the alcohol, you couldn’t tell the difference between the sound.

The pitch was slightly different, but everything else was the same. Now, what’s happening is that when we drink alcohol, it’s like it gives us permission to be a little louder than we normally are, or a little quieter than we normally are, or a little bit more ver and use bigger hand.

Is it true, so what I’m saying to you is that you are already a good communicator, but sometimes we need a rule or a mechanism or a chemical to help us get that out and, and so what I want to suggest you is is, it doesn’t have To be that way, and – and you can watch this like at our workshops – you’ll see me – do this I’ll – have somebody up on stage and they’re delivering like an adult.

I would like to tell you a story about the time that I went to Disneyland and they’re. Just talking like that, and I go stop for a minute tell the story like the audience is full of 12 year olds. What do they do on the stage they go? I’D like to tell you this story about the time I went they.

They know what to do. They know what to do. They start using their full vocal range, and so I want to share with you what that looks like there. There are some different, like communication frequencies in our population, so there are some people that are largely more visual in the way they communicate they’re, largely more visual.

So what does this mean? It means really that they think in pictures and a picture is worth a thousand words, so they thought they talked quite quickly because they got to get all the pictures out, and so visual people tend to talk really quickly and loudly, and they speak like this.

There are some speakers that are quite known for being very visual. Anybody have any names now, if you, if you want to create massive action in your life, you have to make a decision and then once you’ve made the decision, you have to take action and once you’ve taken action, you got to check the results and if you’re, Not getting the results, you want change your approach.

There are other speakers that are more auditory. They have a more steady tone. They talk with a predictable cadence. They speak in a way that is quite pleasant to listen to for a short period of time, but is also somewhat hypnotic.

They use words like sound, listen to me, I’d like to share you know they have this kind of different energy about them. Then you’ve got another group of people that are a lot more kinesthetic in their delivery or feeling centered, and they they talk really quietly and they use long pauses.

They give you time to process the things they’ve said they use words like feeling and warmth in connection. Those are the visual people, that’s driving them crazy. So the fact is that all of those ranges – and if you really look back at everything that I’ve done so far today, I’ve used all of them.

I’Ve used all of them and yet most speakers will come out and they will deliver their talk right here good evening, ladies and gentlemen and fellow Toastmasters, I’m going to continue to speak like this for another hour and a half, and as I continue to speak like This I’d, like you to know that the cabin me deep pressure, deep pressure is in the event that the cabin depressurizes oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling, so these people louder faster.

These people more cadence, more predictability, better pronunciation, these people, soft long pauses, these people use words like vision, destiny, see it done. These people are crazy, they say stuff. I can’t you see what I’m saying: no you’re, not a cartoon right and these people here they use words like listen that clicks.

For me, I, like the sound of that that that resonates, and then these people they talk about it’s in my gut. I feel really warm. Is it true, but here’s. The great thing is that your audience has all of those people in it, and it’s not that there’s thirty.

Thirty percent. Thirty percent. Thirty percent – it’s not like that. That’S the way it’s taught very often if you’ve studied neuro linguistic programming or psychology they’ll often teach that there are some people that are like this and there’s some people.

No don’t do that. It’S a thermostat, it’s a thermostatic range. So there’s some people that are here and here and here and here and here all the way up – your whole audience is made up of these people, and I learned this because I’ll tell you it’s not just useful on stage it’s useful in your entire life.

The first time I learned it, I was 22 years old and I was in another category just slightly above this called global thermonuclear visual. It made Tony Robbins, look very quiet. I was so fast and so excited about everything, and I was always a silly.

I was like this, I was terrified to be on stage, but in my friend my friends I was nuclear visual and then I went off and I learned this stuff and I was in sales and I was on telesales and I would pick up the phone and I’D call people go hi.

This is Eric. I’M gonna sell you some stuff today and – and I did very well – I had the highest call levels. Our company, I had the highest closing average of our company. I was the best in our company consistently and then one day I learned this stuff and I sat down to my desk and I was ready to make more calls than I’ve ever made before the average sales person our company was making 35 calls a day.

I was making 50 a day who was making the most money me, but I had made a commitment to get to 75 a day. Now I not gonna have a moment of peace. I was gonna make calls every second and I went down and I went to make my first call.

I picked up the phone and there’s Maryland and I’m going ah damn it. I don’t want her to be the first call today. Woman never takes my call. Never returns my call, but we didn’t come here for this to be easy.

Did we did any of you come into this life for it to be easy? Cuz III want to just put to you that sometimes you want it to be easier, but if video games are any easier people stop playing them if books are any easier, you wouldn’t read them, and I just want to put you that the next time, your life’s A little difficult you should rejoice in that because you came here for that.

Didn’T you well I’ll, prove it to you how many you’ve ever had that break up. You know the one, the really soul-destroying break up who’s had the soul-destroying crying awful break up. What kind of music did you listen to? Okay, you came here because it’s delicious, even the pain, is delicious.

That’S why we listen to that so glad you made it. I will just sit here in Brazil. Just leave. We like it! Okay. Where was I going with that? Marilyn Marilyn? I actually did forget that time. You got me Marilyn, and so I pick up the phone and I call Marilyn I’m gonna break through I’m gonna get through my, I think, I’m throwing gggggg cuz Millennials back then we had to press buttons and and before that we actually had to dial You, you might not know this when we talk about dialing, a phone number, it’s cuz.

We used to have to dial you anyway, so I I press the button and then Marilyn does not answer the phone because she never does, but her voicemail comes on. This is Marilyn and I’m not here to take your call, but if you feel like it you you can leave a message.

You know after the beep I’m going be hey Marilyn. This is it that’s not what I learned and I delete the message. I put the phone down I step back from the desk. That is not what I learned that it’s not what I learned.

That is not what I learned. Okay, I know what I learned: , softly pressing the buttons hi. This is Marilyn.

Source : Youtube

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