Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 2: I tellam, I've been trying to get the show started
Speaker 2: for the last three minutes, but like over there in
Speaker 2: the baseball cap or beret or whatever that is on
Speaker 2: the other side of the world, keeps interrupting halfway through
Speaker 2: me bloody intro. Thank god, you shut up for twelve
Speaker 2: seconds so I could say what I just said, which
Speaker 2: wasn't that impressive anyway, Hello Roberts.
Speaker 1: I've got to say that was a lot of fun
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 2: Actually, Ah, when I want you to talk, you have
Speaker 2: these awkward long gaps, and when I don't want you
Speaker 2: to talk, you just keep talking. Hell are you buddy?
Speaker 1: I'm okay. Thank you for asking. That's very kind of you,
Speaker 1: Like does anybody really ask about me anymore? You're the
Speaker 1: first person today, so much appreciated. Secondly, well, I need
Speaker 1: to set things straight. When you ask me something and
Speaker 1: you get a long, awkward silence, you might think, well,
Speaker 1: Bobby Capuci is really awkward, and that would be true.
Speaker 1: But what it also could be that you're observing is
Speaker 1: that the magnitude of your question and the one this
Speaker 1: level of respect and affection that I have for you
Speaker 1: warrant jernalize and think about it. It's the powerful it's
Speaker 1: the power of the pause.
Speaker 2: Mete. You're wrapping your sarcasm in a pseudo compliment and
Speaker 2: nobody's fucking buying it, including me. But you are loved.
Speaker 2: I actually spoke to a lady this morning, this very morning,
Speaker 2: the twenty fourth of July, and she said, when have
Speaker 2: you got Bobby back on the show? I said, well,
Speaker 2: funny you ask, I said, in about five hours from now.
Speaker 2: She goes, I love him. He's my favorite. So shout
Speaker 2: out to all the others that are not that lady's favorite.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I don't even know her name. You know, when you've
Speaker 2: met some I don't know her well, I've met her
Speaker 2: maybe three times, and then you get to a point
Speaker 2: where you're like, fuck, I can't ask because get.
Speaker 1: The name my one fan. You didn't get the name
Speaker 1: hell one person.
Speaker 2: You know what? I just realized I didn't have said
Speaker 2: any of this because she's going to listen to exactly.
Speaker 1: What I just.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry, lady, but you you are amazing. I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I just I just fuck. Can we edit this out? Hey? Anyone?
Speaker 2: Melissa tiv anyway, you do know you have more than
Speaker 2: a one fan. You have many fans.
Speaker 1: Do you know when somebody told me about my shirt?
Speaker 1: She wrote in and I don't know how to take this.
Speaker 1: She said, you know, I just love your show because, like,
Speaker 1: I have insomnia and nothing gets me to sleep at night,
Speaker 1: and every night I fall asleep listening to the sound
Speaker 1: of your voice. And I was like, oh, well, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, I'm not really sure how to take that.
Speaker 2: I've been told similar, I've had sorry, I'm having a
Speaker 2: little bit of a drink. Everyone I apologize. I've been
Speaker 2: told yeah, yeah, I'm with you. I don't know, Like
Speaker 2: quite a few people say, I play your podcast when
Speaker 2: I go to sleep. It helps me sleep. I don't
Speaker 2: know whether or not I'm going to take it that
Speaker 2: you and I have trustworthy, calming therapeutic dulcet tones.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that sits better with me than we're more boring
Speaker 1: than a bag of houds. But but we could, we
Speaker 1: could rebrand this. This episode could be like all about
Speaker 1: how to cure and symn there massive it.
Speaker 2: You and I have got to be uncharacteristically efficient today.
Speaker 2: Let's crack on the I have to be out in oh,
Speaker 2: listen to you being irish. I have to be out
Speaker 2: in thirty one minutes from now. You posted today. I
Speaker 2: think it was today. I saw it today anyway, on
Speaker 2: your ig you posted something like overcoming your fear of
Speaker 2: public speaking, and I thought, while we have spoken about
Speaker 2: it in the two thousand shows or so that we've
Speaker 2: had here, and you and I in the hundred or
Speaker 2: so that you and I have done together, I don't
Speaker 2: know how many, by the way, it's probably more than that,
Speaker 2: but we've opened the door a bit. But I thought
Speaker 2: it wouldn't be terrible to do an entire conversation around
Speaker 2: the idea of being more comfortable, more competent, more skilled,
Speaker 2: whatever at doing that thing, and whether or not that's
Speaker 2: you know, talking at your own birthday, having say in
Speaker 2: a few words at your fortieth birthday when you're terrified,
Speaker 2: or speaking in a conference room to a thousand people,
Speaker 2: or anything in between. Yeah, why did you post that?
Speaker 2: And what do you Let's let's start the wheels turning.
Speaker 2: Where do you start with this with people? Is there
Speaker 2: a start?
Speaker 1: Well? I think I posted it because so many people
Speaker 1: struggle with it. I didn't actually post it. My wife
Speaker 1: Amy posted it. I didn't even know it was up
Speaker 1: until now. But it makes sense, right and when I
Speaker 1: talk about public speaking, I'm not talking about like you
Speaker 1: brought up. I'm not necessarily talking about you're getting on
Speaker 1: stage in front of like hundreds of thousands of people,
Speaker 1: although doing public presentations is definitely part of that. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about someone who gets up to give a toast
Speaker 1: at a wedding, or someone who has to do a
Speaker 1: presentation for the board, or they're a team leader, they're
Speaker 1: a manager, and they got to get up and present
Speaker 1: to their team and they either panic or they which
Speaker 1: means they completely free, or they overthink and they start
Speaker 1: to choke. And this becomes a major stumbling block for people.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you take doctor Albert Ellis came
Speaker 1: up with something that's widely used in cognitive behavior therapy,
Speaker 1: and it's the ABC process. There's ABC D, but basically
Speaker 1: it's that you have an activating event the A and
Speaker 1: this is something that causes you stress. It's associated with adversity,
Speaker 1: Like you're thinking about, I've got to give a presentation,
Speaker 1: you know, tomorrow or in the next hour. Some people
Speaker 1: it could be even next week. And then if you
Speaker 1: jump from A to C, right, the consequence consequence is
Speaker 1: what happens when you're in that situation that is causing
Speaker 1: you to feel a sensation that you're interpreting as an emotion.
Speaker 1: You don't want to feel stress, and it could be well,
Speaker 1: I start to get sweaty pumps, I start to hyperventil
Speaker 1: I start to think about you know, what happens when
Speaker 1: I get up in front of the room and just
Speaker 1: people are tuned out, They're just staring off out into space.
Speaker 1: Oh they hate this. I'm not connecting. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to get that promotion. And when you're in that state
Speaker 1: of stress physiologically, what happens to your frontal lopes. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, they downregulate and performance drops. So even you
Speaker 1: thinking that thought and being fixated on what's going on inside,
Speaker 1: if you rather them what's going on with the people
Speaker 1: in front of you, and being able to assess that accurately,
Speaker 1: you invariably bring down your own level of performance. So
Speaker 1: it's if you take a look at what's in between
Speaker 1: A and C, it's B and B stands for belief. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that could be it too, but it's whatever you're interpreting,
Speaker 1: whatever you believe about that scenario is going to dictate
Speaker 1: what's going on side of you emotionally and how you're
Speaker 1: responding to what's happening inner world with what you're projecting
Speaker 1: into your outer world. So and this cuts both ways.
Speaker 1: Let's say we take two people, right Jane. Jane gets
Speaker 1: up and she's speaking in front of the board, and
Speaker 1: she notices that somebody in the back of the room
Speaker 1: they just started looking at their phone and now they're
Speaker 1: just texting. And then she took a look at another
Speaker 1: person in the board and they're staring up the ceiling. Instantly,
Speaker 1: Jane starts to interpret that the belief there is, Oh,
Speaker 1: they are so tuned out. I am completely bombing. This
Speaker 1: is why I got passed over last year. They're not
Speaker 1: gonna hand me any more important projects. You know, they're
Speaker 1: downsizing around here. Am I even gonna have it? She's
Speaker 1: thinking about all of this. She's no longer even with
Speaker 1: the group. She's in her head. No matter how good
Speaker 1: her presentation was supposed to be, it's not gonna be
Speaker 1: anywhere near as good. And she's probably gonna not be
Speaker 1: able to wait until she gets out of the room.
Speaker 1: And every time that she presents holding that belief, she's
Speaker 1: gonna create that self fulfilling prophecy. It's not the activating event.
Speaker 1: It's not the consequence physiologically and behaviorally, it's the belief
Speaker 1: about what's happening. I mean, for all, she knows that
Speaker 1: person could have gotten an emergency text message that their
Speaker 1: kid is sick at school. What she's not noticing is
Speaker 1: the members of the board that are close to her
Speaker 1: are nodding their head into agreement. What she's not noticing
Speaker 1: is two people were leaning back in their chair. That
Speaker 1: doesn't mean anything, by the way, it's not disinterest. They
Speaker 1: could be comfortable. But what she didn't notice is they
Speaker 1: went from leaning back in their chair and when she
Speaker 1: made her third point, they both leaned in and they
Speaker 1: were engaged. So she's noticed everything in line with her belief.
Speaker 1: She's dismissing everything that's not in line with her belief.
Speaker 1: So in that video, what we do is we restructure
Speaker 1: the rules so it's impossible to have well, it's not impossible,
Speaker 1: that's ridiculous. It's a lot harder to suffer from performance
Speaker 1: anxiety because what we do with this person, let's say Jane,
Speaker 1: is we ask her, okay, on a scale from one
Speaker 1: to ten, how good of a presenter do you reckon
Speaker 1: you are? And doesn't matter Let's say she's like, I'm five.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not the worst presenter, but by far
Speaker 1: not the best presenter in my department. I'm sort of mediocre. Well,
Speaker 1: what I would ask Jane is, well, tell me what
Speaker 1: makes a five a five? Why'd you say that? And
Speaker 1: then she's in one of our classes where we're teaching
Speaker 1: public speaking skills. I might ask Jane to get up
Speaker 1: in front of the room and show me a five.
Speaker 1: Show me that five presentation, and then I'll stop her
Speaker 1: a minute or so into it, and I'll say, all right, Jane,
Speaker 1: let's tweak this a little bit. Show me how you
Speaker 1: can do just a little bit worse. Show me a four,
Speaker 1: and then we'll take it to Okay, show me a three.
Speaker 1: We'll go all the way down to one. And the
Speaker 1: reason why this works is if you're having performance anxiety,
Speaker 1: like I'm not really good at this, Well, the rules
Speaker 1: are let's see how bad you can be, And there's
Speaker 1: usually a couple of responses. One, I cannot experience the
Speaker 1: same level of performance anxiety because if I fail, I've
Speaker 1: succeeded according to the rules. Two, I'm getting the person
Speaker 1: to start to play around with range. So if you
Speaker 1: can intentionally make your presentation much much worse within a
Speaker 1: matter of minutes. And by the way, I've never met
Speaker 1: anyone who cannot. And some people are even embarrassed to
Speaker 1: do this, but eventually they get there, their presentation is atrocious.
Speaker 2: Where's they by winning?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, I asked you to do that. So it's
Speaker 1: not like, oh, I'm failing. No, you're doing the assignment properly.
Speaker 1: But the bias becomes if you can make it worse,
Speaker 1: what makes you believe that you're not capable of intentionally
Speaker 1: and expeditiously making it better. And at this point, people
Speaker 1: are laughing. They're having a good time, so they're not
Speaker 1: inwardly as as stressed or feeling so much duress. The
Speaker 1: rest of the audience, the class is laughing, so now
Speaker 1: they're not laughing at you, they're laughing with you. So
Speaker 1: now you have social support and cohesion. And that's like, Okay, Jane,
Speaker 1: take me back to that five again. I want to
Speaker 1: see that five one more time, but this time the
Speaker 1: five is a different representation of the five. She thinks
Speaker 1: she's showing you a five, but the rest of the room,
Speaker 1: and what she realizes soon is the five. Now minutes
Speaker 1: later is much better that it was ten to fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes ago. And then it's like, okay, show me a six,
Speaker 1: let's take it to eight to nine to ten. And
Speaker 1: we're working within range of emotion and expression and energy.
Speaker 1: So we're working on behavioral things that create an intrinsic state.
Speaker 1: And if you can play with locus of control in
Speaker 1: one direction, you can do it another. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons why that particular exercise that we talked
Speaker 1: about in the video works really really well.
Speaker 2: Mmmm ah, so many things around this. I had a
Speaker 2: lady on in fact, an academic and a medical doctor
Speaker 2: and a researcher and an integrated medicine specialist and maybe
Speaker 2: one of the leading trauma experts in the world. Her
Speaker 2: name is doctor Amy Appajean. Have you heard of her?
Speaker 2: She anyway, she wrote a book called The Biology of Trauma.
Speaker 2: I had her on this morning. Wow, she was so good, dude,
Speaker 2: you shall get her on your show. Amazing. Well, we're
Speaker 2: on your show and my show, so you shall get
Speaker 2: her on our show. The self help antidote great, And
Speaker 2: she was talking about you know, like the I mean,
Speaker 2: it's like so many things. It's not like, oh, you're traumatized.
Speaker 2: All right, here, do this, you won't be anymore. Like
Speaker 2: it's so it's so complicated, it's so contextual, it's so
Speaker 2: variable depending on a range of bloody factors. But she
Speaker 2: did talk on a level about how she didn't say
Speaker 2: these exact words, but we kind of traumatize ourselves based
Speaker 2: on a reaction to a thing, like something happens, and
Speaker 2: then the trauma is our response to the thing that happens.
Speaker 2: And somebody else might have the same thing happen and
Speaker 2: out of their control happening in their physical world, the
Speaker 2: thing happens and they are not traumatized. Now this is
Speaker 2: not a criticism or a praise of anyone, but rather
Speaker 2: an awareness. Right, so that being able to, you know,
Speaker 2: knowing that people get on stage who are calm, and
Speaker 2: knowing that people get on stage who are terrified, or
Speaker 2: knowing that people have got to do a talk of
Speaker 2: their best mates fiftieth and they're terrified or they can't wait,
Speaker 2: they're excited. It's not about the fiftieth It's not about
Speaker 2: the situation or circumstance. It's about how you as an
Speaker 2: individual respond to that. It's about the impact based on
Speaker 2: the story you tell or as you say, the belief
Speaker 2: you have. What's my story about the thing I've got
Speaker 2: to do this Saturday night at Bobby's birthday. It's Bobby's birthday.
Speaker 2: Amy asked me to say a few things. Oh my god. Right,
Speaker 2: So it's not about the birthday or the speech. It's
Speaker 2: about my fucking response and my story and then my
Speaker 2: subsequent anxiety and all of these things. I mean what
Speaker 2: you're saying. I but for people who don't have that
Speaker 2: at their disposal or access, where does someone start who's
Speaker 2: listening to this, going, that's cool, Bobby, But I don't
Speaker 2: have that person to walk me through that or talk
Speaker 2: me through that process is, you know, is desensitizing ourselves.
Speaker 2: You know, just exposure therapy good is like well, fuck,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna I'm going to talk to my phone
Speaker 2: and do a one minute presentation and then watch it
Speaker 2: back and then I'm going to send it to someone.
Speaker 2: Or like, what's like some practical shit that we can
Speaker 2: do that will move the needle in a short ish
Speaker 2: period of time, Like practical, real world stuff that we
Speaker 2: can do.
Speaker 1: And the answer to all that is is yes, But
Speaker 1: to a certain degree, there's got to be a balance
Speaker 1: between support, safety and challenge. If you have a sneak phobia,
Speaker 1: jumping into a snake pit is probably not a good
Speaker 1: form of exposure. You're going to die of a heart
Speaker 1: attack before snake can do anything to you. So look
Speaker 1: for tiny little situations where you can execute. I'll give you.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you an example out of my
Speaker 1: own life. Something that happened yesterday. So yesterday I had
Speaker 1: to give a presentation. We all did. It was like
Speaker 1: one of those quarterly updates. And when I sat down
Speaker 1: to give a quarterly update on the three strategic initiatives
Speaker 1: that I'm working on in order to accomplish our north
Speaker 1: Star goals, There's there's a couple of people in the room,
Speaker 1: and no matter what I say, they always think it's
Speaker 1: the stupidest thing they have ever heard. And it irritated
Speaker 1: Like there's nothing I could say that will not irritate
Speaker 1: them and make them think that that was the stupidest
Speaker 1: comment in the whole whole meeting. So I'm sitting there
Speaker 1: and I'm like, God, I really don't even want to
Speaker 1: speak right now. I'm just like looking at them like
Speaker 1: this still happens to me, And I'm so nervous because
Speaker 1: these two people and I'm trying so hard to please
Speaker 1: for reasons beyond the show that I'm hitting these buttons
Speaker 1: and all these pop up boxes are appearing all over
Speaker 1: the slide. I don't know how to get them off.
Speaker 1: So and you know, I thought about a teaching from
Speaker 1: Marcus Aurelius, where you know, in Meditations. What's really interesting
Speaker 1: is this is arguably one of the most powerful people
Speaker 1: who have ever lived, could have had anything he wanted,
Speaker 1: faced with temptations, none of us could ever even have them.
Speaker 1: But what he was so preoccupied with was virtue and
Speaker 1: abuse of power. I don't ever want to abuse this power.
Speaker 1: And he never thought anyone would read Meditations. So it's
Speaker 1: brutal honesty. It's a book to himself. And the reason
Speaker 1: why I'm bringing this up is because one of the
Speaker 1: remarkable things was his perspective on greatness, right, because I
Speaker 1: get irritated with the top of greatness people like achieve greatness,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to put it. It's like we're human beings.
Speaker 1: We can get a virus tomorrow, be gone by Saturday.
Speaker 1: So like, what is when you say greatness? What does
Speaker 1: that mean to Marcus Aurelia's greatness was no matter what
Speaker 1: situation you're in, no matter what position or status you're holding,
Speaker 1: always intend to do the greatest good with the resources
Speaker 1: you have from where you are. So for me, it
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I'm going to say this one thing
Speaker 1: and I'm going to make this one point emphatically. I
Speaker 1: am going to practice right now because this is important
Speaker 1: and it involves other people in their career development, and
Speaker 1: I am going to elevate my level of intensity and
Speaker 1: the emotion that I'm feeling. I am going to project
Speaker 1: that and play with that range, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: make eye contact with people who I know in the
Speaker 1: room are wanting to hear this and they're going to
Speaker 1: resonate with it. So that was just ten seconds practice that,
Speaker 1: and after I went through, I went through an assessment.
Speaker 1: I said, Okay, what did I do particularly well in
Speaker 1: this presentation. It's like, well, first thing is I sat
Speaker 1: down and I gave it right. I could have gotten
Speaker 1: up and walked out of the room. Wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: a very good idea for the room for the meeting
Speaker 1: of my career, but I could have done that. Second
Speaker 1: thing is I identified what part of this is going to
Speaker 1: galvanize and excite people that because it aligns with their
Speaker 1: career aspirations, and I chose to control and focus on
Speaker 1: my delivery in that particular moment. Oh and by the way,
Speaker 1: after the meeting, somebody came up to me and said, oh,
Speaker 1: can I speak to you? I have that aspiration? Can
Speaker 1: you help me get there? Absolutely have my full commitment.
Speaker 1: So that was a success. Second question is if I
Speaker 1: can go back in time and do that meeting all
Speaker 1: over again, what would I have done differently, and not
Speaker 1: just in the presentation inside my own head? Would I
Speaker 1: have changed what I was focusing on? Okay, great, So
Speaker 1: now I learned two things. I learned what I did
Speaker 1: well so I could duplicate that and create on demand. Two.
Speaker 1: I can't control the outcome of that presentation, but I
Speaker 1: can learn from it and leverage that to be more
Speaker 1: effective next time. So when you look at the work
Speaker 1: of doctor Martin Sella and he talks about explanatory style,
Speaker 1: explanatory style is what you say to yourself after an event,
Speaker 1: and there are three elements to a explanatory style that
Speaker 1: are important. It's personal, permanent, and pervasive. So if I
Speaker 1: walked out of that presentation and say, oh god, I
Speaker 1: always drop the ball. I am so stupid. Well, that's permanent.
Speaker 1: Can't fix stupid, can you. It's personal, it's me right,
Speaker 1: and it's pervasive. It's not like, ah, I'm so stupid
Speaker 1: in instances when Nope, I'm just I'm just generally stupid
Speaker 1: in all situations. Like exceeding all things, I want a
Speaker 1: couple of things happen. One, I'm probably not gonna try. Two,
Speaker 1: I can't learn anything from that. So when you have
Speaker 1: that explanatory style, it's dishonest. Whether it's like I'm amazing
Speaker 1: what you're amazing at all times with all things, now,
Speaker 1: that's probably not honest. You want to be balanced between
Speaker 1: a strong internal and external frame of reference. When when
Speaker 1: you implement something like this or that thing that you
Speaker 1: don't want to say in a meeting, you practice saying
Speaker 1: it emphatically or you know what, I'm gonna stand up
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna have fun with the toast because I
Speaker 1: know if I completely stuff this toast up, everyone's gonna
Speaker 1: laugh and that's gonna be great. So I'm gonna lean
Speaker 1: into it. I'm gonna try to fail, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna play but and then after always go through that
Speaker 1: explanatory style and balance internal and external frames. An internal
Speaker 1: frame is where you take responsibility for what you did
Speaker 1: in the moment that produced that outcome, both the good
Speaker 1: and you know the could be better, but also what
Speaker 1: happened externally outside of you, because not everything's in your control.
Speaker 1: You know, was there a time crunch and you didn't
Speaker 1: have time to prepare? That's something that you can learn from.
Speaker 1: Did somebody point to you and go, hey, uh, Craig, oh,
Speaker 1: pop up? And you know, we'd love to love for
Speaker 1: you to say a few words. I need to get
Speaker 1: better at creating on demand in the moment because I
Speaker 1: don't know when these things are going to happen. But
Speaker 1: if you go too far to an external frame of reference,
Speaker 1: that becomes an attribution era where nothing's ever your fault
Speaker 1: or your responsibility. It's all things outside of yourn. If
Speaker 1: you go too far to an internal frame of reference,
Speaker 1: everything's your fault, and you start to go from constructively
Speaker 1: dissecting elements that allow you to progress and get better
Speaker 1: incrementally even though it's uncomfortable, and you start adapting global
Speaker 1: explanatory styles where if you're just dumb or if you
Speaker 1: just suck in front of a room, why would you
Speaker 1: ever try to get better? It's not possible for you,
Speaker 1: it's not accessible for you. So it's balancing the explanatory
Speaker 1: style and balancing internal external frames or reference, putting yourself
Speaker 1: in challenging but relatively safe situations where you can practice
Speaker 1: presenting in a way that aligns with the person who
Speaker 1: you want to be and have the impact you want
Speaker 1: to have, and eventually you'll get better and better and
Speaker 1: it won't be like I'm going to say this thing
Speaker 1: in a meeting. Maybe it's I'm going to lead a
Speaker 1: meeting two months from now, or maybe next time my
Speaker 1: company has a conference they send me to represent them
Speaker 1: six months later because and I love what you said
Speaker 1: about you know, and do it in a way where
Speaker 1: it'll feel uncomfortable, but you remove yourself from being overwhelmed
Speaker 1: with anxiety in the moment where oh my goodness, my
Speaker 1: boss watched this and now now they've lost faith in me.
Speaker 1: Record yourself on video and watch it. It's not going
Speaker 1: to be comfortable, but you're not going to fire yourself.
Speaker 1: You know, You're not going to kick yourself out of
Speaker 1: the house unless it's like that bad and then send
Speaker 1: it to someone who's honest with you and supportive at
Speaker 1: the same time, and I'll tell you how they really feel.
Speaker 1: And you know, see, I see. If you get that
Speaker 1: response consistently and work on that daily, like make a
Speaker 1: video every single day to post on social media. Even
Speaker 1: if you don't post it, make a social media video,
Speaker 1: you'll get better.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to ask you some questions, but here's
Speaker 2: my rule. One minute response Max, you're ready, one minute?
Speaker 1: What is the secret?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, So being a good presenter. Let's talk
Speaker 2: a little bit more. Now, not so much you're talking
Speaker 2: at your mate's birthday, although that can be it. But
Speaker 2: now where maybe we've got to we've got to present
Speaker 2: to the group at work, and it could be five
Speaker 2: minutes or it could be something big. Like you now
Speaker 2: you want to be a corporate speaker, but you're actually presenting,
Speaker 2: let's say, for more than two or three minutes to
Speaker 2: a group. So if you've nailed everything but you can't
Speaker 2: read the room or at least have an insight into
Speaker 2: you're in trouble. So talk to me about reading the room.
Speaker 2: And as you said, we'll get it wrong at times,
Speaker 2: but with for me, one minute on building rapport, creating connection,
Speaker 2: understanding what's going in front of you, and being able
Speaker 2: to adapt to what is happening in the room.
Speaker 1: I believe and the context of this question, that if
Speaker 1: you're having trouble constantly reading the room, you're too inwardly focused.
Speaker 1: You're thinking about your level of performance. You're not with
Speaker 1: the room when you are completely focused on what you
Speaker 1: want to contribute and why, and you are projecting that outward.
Speaker 1: So there's two frames of mind. One is here I am.
Speaker 1: The other is, oh, there you are. If you're in
Speaker 1: the second frame of mind, you will be able to
Speaker 1: read that with the same way. When you first fall
Speaker 1: in love with somebody and you are so into them
Speaker 1: that you start to finish each other's sentences, you almost
Speaker 1: know what they're feeling because you are matching and mirroring
Speaker 1: them subconsciously, and you are sending the same messages to
Speaker 1: your brain that they are sending to theirs. So if
Speaker 1: you're having trouble reading the room, I guarantee you you're
Speaker 1: thinking about how am I coming off? Am I precise?
Speaker 1: Did that bullet the third bullet on the four slide land?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Did I cite that reference? Accurately. Did I unicate what
Speaker 1: was in the research? You're in your own head because
Speaker 1: all of that stuff, whilst important, is about twenty percent
Speaker 1: of the impact. Eighty percent of the impact is how
Speaker 1: do you make the people in the room feel? Can
Speaker 1: they relate to you? Are you speaking to them? Are
Speaker 1: you emotionally provocative in a good way? And do you
Speaker 1: have a cohesive narrative that allows them to touch upon
Speaker 1: something that is relevant, like a basic human need they
Speaker 1: want to fulfill an aspiration that they want to grow into.
Speaker 1: If you're not doing that stuff, you're gonna have a
Speaker 1: hard time reading the people in front of you.
Speaker 2: All right, It was way longer than sixty seconds, but serious,
Speaker 2: fucking way longer. All right. Content Like, there are some
Speaker 2: people who their contents of five out of ten, but
Speaker 2: they're fucking amazing on stage, right, You know that they
Speaker 2: know a bit about seven things, but beyond that, it's
Speaker 2: pretty skinny. And I think when I was young and
Speaker 2: I presented that was me. It's like I knew quite
Speaker 2: a bit about a small area and then but because
Speaker 2: I could get away with a bit of charisma and
Speaker 2: charm and bullshit and storytelling, I got away with it.
Speaker 2: But it caught up with me because I literally when
Speaker 2: I was about thirty, I recognized I need to know
Speaker 2: more stuff. I don't know enough stuff, right, so tell
Speaker 2: me about let's put preparation and content just I don't
Speaker 2: know what you want to say about that, but off
Speaker 2: you go.
Speaker 1: I feel like when it comes to quote unquote charisma, magnetism,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it. When it comes to
Speaker 1: true expertise, the ability to similate information and form distinctions
Speaker 1: from that information that's relevant to other people, it's mutually reinforcing.
Speaker 1: The more prepared you are and the more you know,
Speaker 1: the more dynamic and confident you're going to be on stage. Right.
Speaker 1: So I think preparation is something that you do twenty
Speaker 1: four hours a day, not seven days a week. I mean,
Speaker 1: take a day off, but it's something you do every
Speaker 1: single day. If you are cramming for a presentation, that
Speaker 1: presentation is gonna be pretty contrived. I think most of
Speaker 1: the preparation that you do it's a matter of proximity.
Speaker 1: The closer you get to the presentation. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: like a day and hours before. The more preparation should
Speaker 1: have to do with mindset and what's going on with
Speaker 1: you emotionally in presence. The further you get from that presentation,
Speaker 1: the more it should be about the content. You need
Speaker 1: to know three to five levels deeper in your subject
Speaker 1: matter expertise than your audience. Otherwise you're gonna come across
Speaker 1: as counterfeit. You're gonna be anxious and for good reason.
Speaker 1: And there's a level there's a level of dishonesty because
Speaker 1: you're presenting yourself as a subject matter expert. So the
Speaker 1: short answer is prepare around content like research, all of
Speaker 1: those things. Subject matter expertise further away. The closer you get,
Speaker 1: the more you shift that towards stage presence.
Speaker 2: Bob Ittt good answer. By the way, Okay, how many
Speaker 2: seconds adapt adaptability you get up it's not going the
Speaker 2: way you want. You realize, Oh fuck, I'm gonna have
Speaker 2: to change direction or slightly change my approach, or it's
Speaker 2: not going the way you thought it was. The ability
Speaker 2: to be flexible and adaptable in real time.
Speaker 1: Oh to fall back to my last response, if if
Speaker 1: you are constantly preparing around your subject matter expertise, and
Speaker 1: then you're in the right frame of mind, the right mindset,
Speaker 1: you're not nervous about Oh my god, am I going
Speaker 1: to bomb if I if I shift gears, are they
Speaker 1: going to notice? You'll be able to do that much
Speaker 1: more readily. Can I tell a quick story? I know
Speaker 1: we only have fifth sixty seconds.
Speaker 2: But quick story, just at everyone.
Speaker 1: There was a debate I had, and this is going
Speaker 1: back over two decades ago, with this guy that I
Speaker 1: worked with, and he was a professor, and he was
Speaker 1: like one of those PowerPoint kings, right, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you have to present from the PowerPoint and you have
Speaker 1: to have clearly defined, structured slides. I'm like, dude, you're
Speaker 1: a subject matter expert. Come in and know the ten
Speaker 1: points that you want to hit, know your examples, no
Speaker 1: how to, but you got to be able to take
Speaker 1: information and questions from the room and change course and
Speaker 1: then bring it back. That's teaching. And we just constantly
Speaker 1: butted heads on this. So one day he goes to
Speaker 1: give his presentation and the projector's not working and the
Speaker 1: slides were not delivered, so he doesn't have any slides
Speaker 1: and neither does anyone in the room. Well let's just
Speaker 1: say that was a horrible day for him because they
Speaker 1: had to pull him out of there. He could think
Speaker 1: about this, This guy was a professor, then went into
Speaker 1: a commercial enterprise. Standing in front of room decades of
Speaker 1: experience could not present. Yeah, that's what that's what happens.
Speaker 2: That's not uncommon. Thank you for sharing that story. It's
Speaker 2: like people don't get that. It's there's a difference. Well,
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've had this, but and obviously
Speaker 2: I'm not going to say who, but I've had at
Speaker 2: least five people over the eight years, maybe closer to ten, people,
Speaker 2: most of whom were well known. One I'll tell you
Speaker 2: when we finish here, like extremely well known. And the
Speaker 2: conversation was so bad. This particular person was so uninspiring, disinterested.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh my god. And I was excited to
Speaker 2: have this person. And it was also a bit of
Speaker 2: a feather in the typ cap to get this person
Speaker 2: and go, hey, guess who's on and Melissa and I
Speaker 2: waxed and waned over. I'm like, we listened to it, right,
Speaker 2: I can't. This is terrible. People will hate this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So it's funny you said that because I wrote down
Speaker 2: my last point was death by PowerPoint was So it's
Speaker 2: hilarious that you do that. It's like the antithesis of connection.
Speaker 2: And rapport and you know, instinctiveness and intuition in real time.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a secret cow. I mean, anybody listening to
Speaker 1: us right now, I think about the best conference you've
Speaker 1: ever attended, and who was an inspiring keynote speaker. Eight
Speaker 1: out of ten times they did interview is a PowerPoint.
Speaker 1: If they used the power point, it was to show
Speaker 1: you something that's visually represented or a video that's very distinct.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you can do that through spoken word.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of advantages to doing it.
Speaker 1: But I'm not against power point. But power point is
Speaker 1: so overused and depended upon, especially when you work in
Speaker 1: industries where they consider not having a detailed slide by
Speaker 1: slide PowerPoint to be unprofessional. I think the inability to
Speaker 1: get in front of a room and teach them something
Speaker 1: and take them on a journey somewhere without a like
Speaker 1: pink by numbers, bullet by bullet approach to doing so,
Speaker 1: I believe that's somewhat unprofessional. But it's kind of kind
Speaker 1: of hot.
Speaker 2: My last one. Then we're going to wrap it up.
Speaker 2: So you're doing a conference and you're doing it too.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what the industry is you're talking about, basically,
Speaker 2: how to be the best version of you, how to
Speaker 2: optimize you mentally, emotionally, physically. You know how to self managed,
Speaker 2: self regulate and be the best version of you. Very broad,
Speaker 2: very general, but you could do that with your eyes closed.
Speaker 2: Thousand people. I get up, I read your bio. I
Speaker 2: tell the room you're fucking amazing. You get up. What
Speaker 2: do you do in the first minute, Like, what is
Speaker 2: the first minute about? What's your intention? What's your focus?
Speaker 2: What's your objective in the first minute.
Speaker 1: I think the first minute in the last minute are
Speaker 1: rather important because primacy and recency is the gateway and
Speaker 1: the framing for all the content in the middle. I
Speaker 1: usually start with a provocative question that touches upon the
Speaker 1: interests or something that I know is going to be
Speaker 1: very important to the people sitting in the audience based
Speaker 1: on the subject matter, or I open with a story.
Speaker 1: What I don't open with because I think that's equally
Speaker 1: important is well today, our goal for this session is
Speaker 1: our objectives are again like PowerPoint based, not saying I'm
Speaker 1: not going to get there, but I'm going to captivate
Speaker 1: the room with the story. So the first thing I
Speaker 1: open with if it's not a question. If it's not
Speaker 1: an antidote, it'll most likely be a story for me.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that works for everybody. Then once
Speaker 1: you do that, you capture attention and they're with you. Ben,
Speaker 1: you can go over, Okay, here's our objectives for today.
Speaker 1: And then it's connected to the story you just told.
Speaker 2: You know what you don't do. You don't walk up
Speaker 2: there and go, hey, how is everyone?
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, Hey all right.
Speaker 2: How we all doing? Oh my god, stop Brian, stop
Speaker 2: fucking stop.
Speaker 1: Ryan again.
Speaker 2: How are you enjoying it so far? Sush shush, hi mite.
Speaker 2: How do people connect with you? Find you, follow you,
Speaker 2: listen to you tell the world?
Speaker 1: Yeah, please find me on Robert Capuccio dot com the
Speaker 1: self help antidote, which is the one half of this show.
Speaker 1: You're listening to dot com self help antidote dot com
Speaker 1: not self help antidote one half the show. You're listening
Speaker 1: to dot com. That would just be absurdly long, wouldn't it.
Speaker 1: And I'm on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2: No, you're not o c D at all. Thanks buddy.
Speaker 2: We'll say goodbye fare but as always, appreciate you. See
Speaker 2: you next time.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Everybody,