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

[Music] 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 wanna 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 [Music] softly pressing the buttons hi this is Marilyn it's still irritating me but I'm gonna get through it and then the beep comes on I'm like hi Marilyn this is Eric and I I guess you're not there to take my call right now mmm but if you feel like it you can call me back here's my number and then I put the phone down and I felt icky like icky like I kick sis yeah hmm so then I go back to making my calls but here's the thing I was proud of myself it felt odd and it felt weird because everything new does everything new feels odd and weird doesn't it and and so I was proud of myself that I was willing to get through the odd new it one of the biggest things you can do in your life is is get over the fear of the first 5% of stuff if any of you are really good at playing the first you know little bit of stairway to heaven on the piano it's because you didn't get through the first 5% if you got through the first 5% you can play the piano now and most of us get stumped by the first five percent of new behavior and I was really proud of myself that I did it I would never know because it was a voicemail I wouldn't know necessarily if it worked or not right but then I'm I'm making more phone calls and then my phone rings on my desk now millenials what I'm about to share any Millennials that are here and anybody who's younger than millenials what I'm about to say is actually quite frightening for you so I suggest you grab somebody's hand just because it's scary but back then when people called us we didn't have call display we didn't know who was calling I'm surprised any of us are still sane and then you know what we would do even though we didn't know who it was we answered the phone so I pick up the phone and and by the way how does 22 year old global thermonuclear Eric answer the phone hi this is Eric having a great day how about you something oh and this is what I hear I hear somebody having a seizure what the hell is this and then I hear this I'm is there an Eric working there yeah let me get him for you [Applause] I come back I come back and ago hi Marilyn this is Erica and she ended up becoming one of my best customers because finally I was speaking to her in her language and so what I want to suggest you is you need to do the same thing with the audience you need to do the very same thing with the audience you need to speak to them in the language they want to hear and the problem is is that they want to hear all of these they want to hear them all and so you have to give them to them all so here's my question for you knowing that you have people that are way more down on the kinaesthetic scale and you have people way up high in the visual scale where should you start where should you start now any of my client any of my students don't answer this I want to hear it from everyone where do you think we should start in the middle right sound like a good place here's the thing some people say that you should start up at visual how many people think we should maybe start a visual anybody thinking that how many people think middle how many people think can aesthetic okay so and then a lot of people just don't think we should start because I didn't so tony robbins starts here doesn't he I've done many events with him and I got some really good advice they said Eric your normal system won't work working with Tony because Tony has set the audience up and he's filtered out the Ken aesthetic people they're not a lot of kind of segued people at his seminars there just aren't they if they were in his seminars they would need therapy and so and not from him so when you walk on stage at a Tony Robbins event you have to walk out and you guys start off you go oh my god I'm so glad you guys are here we're gonna have so much fun today and you got to jump in and start like that because that's the frequency of the room but if you start visual if you walk out and say we're gonna have so much fun in this next section I'm going to show you how to transform your business and you're gonna learn about marketing and it's gonna be amazing then the kinesthetic people will call the police they'll be and they will leave the room and they will leave they were be gone they will be like physically hurt by your delivery and frankly the auditory people pretty much believe in with them they might put up with it if they're kind of high-end here but if they're down if they're a little low or they're gonna leave - they're gonna feel pain they're gonna be gone if you start in the middle you come out you say good evening ladies and gentlemen and fellow Toastmasters okay then these kind of setting people some of them are still gonna be irritated and the visual people no big deal they barely noticed but if you start down here if you walk out and you connect with the room and you create a sense of connection with them and then with that connection you start to build a little bit more intensity and you can bring the speed up into a more auditory tone and then as you've caught their attention on this more auditory tone and you start to get more excited about your delivery then you can build up to a complete crescendo and you've done it on this ramp it's called the charisma pattern and it works because of this when you start down here you get rapport with the kinesthetic people the visual people they're not injured by what you're doing in fact frankly they don't even know you're doing it because they haven't even seen that you've started they haven't you've started and the visual people are still talking to each other but the kinesthetic people are just going finally I like this one right and then as you as you start to warm up the auditory people are going oh oh I think it started yeah and the Kenna said it'd be going it's been going for two minutes already come on and they're an audience we're going yeah but it's pretty good and the kind of start thinking yeah of course it's been it's been good for two minutes but notice the kind of setting people still think it's good even though it's come up it's called pacing and leading and then and then what happens is you finally build up to crescendo and once you've gotten to that place of crescendo the visual people going it's started and the Kenna set and there's and then the visual people go it started and it's really good it's fantastic and the Kenna side of you it's been fantastic for like eight minutes already but notice the kinesthetic people still like it because you took them there now often I want you to think about this I want you to how many of you guys are familiar with the song stairway to heaven think about the way that starts how does it start it's a folk song soft guitar Robert Plant sounds like an angel singing at the beginning eight minutes later what is Roberts plant sound like and as we walk down the road I mean oh my god if he started there no the kinesthetic people would never have listened to that song but it is the most requested song in the history of radio because it runs the charisma pattern how many of you guys ever heard the song lose yourself by Eminem go listen to it again it is the most gentle gorgeous soft starting song and eight minutes later Eminem is screaming his heart out but the kinesthetic people like it because they were taken on that journey that song spent 13 or 14 weeks at number one that never happens anymore when you use the charisma pattern you really get to take your audience with you I want you to think about this how many of you have ever watched Martin Luther King yeah so here's the thing when you see Martin Luther King in the media they typically show you one part of his speech matter of fact let's go to somebody a little less positive in society how many of you ever seen a video of Adolphe Hitler speaking anybody seen that video what part of the speech did I show you they show you the crescendo only they only show you the crescendo they they do not show you the fact that Hitler was a genius speaker you know evil disgusting terrible but a genius speaker and what he would do with his audiences is he ran the charisma pattern he would start off soft and he bring them up but the part you see in them in the movie the part you see on the old reels kind of looks like this [Applause] you wonder you want like I don't know I don't know if you had this but I'd always like how does that stupid little mustache stay on I I don't understand right but the same thing when you see Martin Luther King they will usually show in old archival footage they show him standing there and he's like any man the first thing you see is I have a dream if he started there they would have had him locked up they were trying to have him locked up anyway but the fact is is that he didn't start there it's just that you see it that way if you go watch the original video and this is the genius thing you have that I didn't when I started this journey you have YouTube you have YouTube guys and I want you to know YouTube is not for cute kittens okay it is it is but it's actually for really interesting study and archival research as a speaker because all the great speeches are on there and if you watch Martin Luther King he starts off gently he starts off softly and then he builds up to a crescendo and that is the cruising pattern and that's how it works it's powerful and it's not something you only do at the beginning you can run through cycles of it as I've done here this morning at times dropping down softly and then bringing you back up it keeps your attention do you realize that we have been in this room for three hours no you don't really do you and on one level doesn't it feel like it's been ten minutes but on another level doesn't it feel like we've been here for a week because when stories are being told and delivered well you create Time Warp you create illusion and you really get to sync things in you will remember the things we talked about here today and I want you to take them out and practice them and I want to leave you with some tips on how you can make sure that you really really improve your confidence in your kilt and your skills as a speaker I want you to remember that you need to breathe properly that the next time somebody asks you do a talk and you notice that your instinct is to come up here I want you to force a deep breath or two or three push your stomach out not your chest push your stomach out when you breathe it should be like and then it comes up in your chest and do two or three of those and you will feel better I want you to remember that if you use your eyes softly and you gaze out at the world you will create a feeling of being incredibly relaxed I want you to remember that nervousness and excitement are effectively the same thing and so that if you can learn to create better pictures in your head you will transition your nervousness into excitement remember that nervousness is just excitement about scary stuff and excitement is just nervousness about super cool stuff and then I also want you to remember that you start your talk with a really predictable beginning where you can walk onstage I I want you to remember that you walk on stage and trigger a laugh from the very beginning and I want to end with a little bit of a story about how I do that how I start many of my talks because it was a really important day in my life and I think it can teach you guys some valuable lessons about belief I believe I believe that one of the most powerful things you can change about yourself is your belief and belief is not black and white it's not I believe or I don't believe it's not like that you believe in degrees isn't it true you believe in degrees and so something like mine Val University something like the courses in quests that you do online Valley what they're really designed to do is give you information partially but a big part of what they're designed to do is to help you improve your sense of belief improving your sense of belief changes everything for you it changes the way you see the world 1% belief allows you to see things that you didn't see before how many of you had the experience where you know you hear this people talk about this all the time you decide one day you want to buy a car and all of a sudden that cars everywhere right where was it before why couldn't you see it before I'm gonna put to you you could see it before because if you couldn't see it before you would have tried to park in the same parking spot you could see it but you couldn't see it for what it was because it wasn't important to you when you start getting a sense of belief about things you change everything beliefs are like little viruses and they eat only one kind of food and that is evidence they just eat evidence so if you have a belief that all the great opportunities in the world are gone you will find evidence of it you'll eat that evidence in the belief will get stronger but if you have a belief that there's tons of opportunity around you all the time then you will start spotting that and you will eat that evidence and your belief will get stronger does this make sense and so one day I got this phone call and the phone call was would I come out and teach business and marketing with Tony Robbins and I really legitimately thought that it was a joke I literally thought literally as in actually that it was a joke that it was a practical joke and so I at first I said I didn't say no I was just like whatever whatever you don't really want me and then suddenly the guys like yeah Tony really wants you Tony really wants you and I suddenly realized what's going on the other speaker they had booked couldn't make it I knew that for reasons he had passed away that made it difficult and and then they called because there was only 11 days to the event they've called all the other potential speakers and they'd all said no and and and so they were calling me and and it wasn't the Tony wanted me it's that they wanted me to go and speak and if they could convince me to say yes they were gonna go convince Tony I knew it I said Mitch no no no no Tony doesn't want me you need a speaker at this event you want a speaker at this event and so you're trying to convince me to do it because the guy died and the other people couldn't make it and the dude that the crazy dude that's always talking about Jesus he won't even do it and so now it's me and if I say yes you're gonna call Tony and you're gonna beg Tony to let me on the stage and there's silence on the phone and Mitch goes yeah but I can convince him for sure and so I agreed to do it and 11 days later I'm flying along to Fiji and as the plane comes in coming up over the palm trees I can see them below and I suddenly think to myself wow this is a big deal it suddenly hits me what a big deal this is I have not been on stage for three years I had been doing no speaking of any kind is this a great way to restart my speaking career well yes or no depending on how it goes right I suddenly realized that what I've done might not be so smart that if I bomb this it's gonna it could ruin my career but if I rock this I suddenly think if I rock this if I really do it well then not only will I have done well and maybe created some reputation for myself but maybe maybe I could get on the list so they don't only call me an emergency maybe I could do that is that a cool thought but you know what's really fascinating about the way you dream and the way you fantasize is you can only dream and fantasize from the position you're in right now you have already achieved impossible things in your lives and at some point you you know we buy into impossible but you've already done impossible things what happened in my case is as soon as I accepted that I could get on the list it was like taking the elevator floor up to another level of possibility and so now the plane actually touched down in Fiji and I thought wait a minute wait a minute if I do really well I won't just get on the list I want to become the list is that a better thought yeah and all that it happened is as soon as I accepted the one reality even though it hadn't happened yet I was able to see the next reality there is a clue in this you adjust your beliefs and it changes the way you see the world and so in the end I'm told when I get there that Tony will not be introducing me himself he never introduces the speakers anyway or rarely but the biggest reason he's not going to introduce me is that the reason they had my name is my friend Chet had given them my name and my friend Chet was tone-deaf about speakers like he could not tell a good speaker from a bad speaker if you were he would have gone to that event in Poland and he would have seen the woman on the stage thought she was a great speaker he everybody on stage is a great speaker so he'd recommended a few speakers to Tony and they'd all bombed and so his advice his recommendation to Tony was like that was a guaranteed to never be at Tony's event ever again and so I knew that Tony knew that and so when Tony wasn't it introduced me reason he wasn't introduced me is he was afraid I'd bomb so he doesn't want to go up and say great things about me and then I bomb right is that fair I get it and so instead the Chinese translators gonna introduce me and Chinese translator by the way is on stage translating live not like these guys in the booths at the back by the way for those who are getting this in Russian are they doing a great job for you give the translators a big hand so so these translators they're different they're not sitting in the booth they're here on stage they're not just translators they're impersonators so you got Tony Robbins up on stage going if you want to make big changes in your life you got to take massive action you got to take a decision and take action and then the translator comes on he goes Punk off so da da da da they're incredible but in the end in the end Tony isn't gonna introduce me cuz he's gonna introduce me which is fine with me but then Tony changed his mind we meet in the hallway he walks up to me he goes Eric how do you feel about your presentation I go well you know 11 days notice you're making me use somebody else's slides it's not perfect and it goes you could be a lot more confident and I said Tony the reason I'm here is that I'm a business operator I'm a business owner not an operator my companies work for me I am able to come on eleven days notice cuz my companies work your other speakers sadly not the case I think I'm gonna be okay and he went well alright then and then and then he went to his team and he said I want to introduce that guy I really liked him and it where's the introduction and they go well we can't find it we translated it and gave it to the Chinese guy and he only has it in Chinese and Tony says we'll translate it back and so we're the introduction said Eric started his first business and sold it nine years later that's what it said Tony instead walked out and he says you guys I'm so excited to deduce this next speaker he started its business his first business when he was only nine years old you guys I've had so much fun with you who today thank you so much for your love and your passion it's been a real pleasure thank you thank you thank you thank you so much [Applause]

Channel: Mindvalley Talks

Views: 338,277

Rating: 4.8839712 out of 5

Keywords: storytelling techniques, the power of storytelling, storytelling for beginners, art of storytelling, storytelling for kids, Be A More Confident Public Speaker (In 3 Simple Steps) Eric Edmeades, Make the Impossible, Possible, public speaking class, public speaking skills, the art of public speaking, public speaking tips for students, dale carnegie public speaking, tips for public speaking, public speaking body language, how to persuade people, ted talk

Id: A6Prtgjw6uA

Length: 69min 52sec (4192 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 25 2019