13 Years of Communication Skills Knowledge in 53 minutes

Summary

In his 53-minute video, Vinh Giang distills over a decade of experience in communication skills, focusing on the importance of visual and vocal images. He emphasizes mastering your vocal image, comparing the voice to an instrument, and discusses foundational aspects of communication like speech rate, volume, pitch, melody, and pauses. Through engaging storytelling and practical examples, Giang provides actionable insights to enhance communication, whether in personal interactions or while speaking publicly. He highlights the benefits of practice and adaptation in learning these skills.

Highlights

• Vinh Giang compares your voice to a musical instrument, emphasizing the need for practice to unleash its full potential. 🎻
• Learn to vary your speech rate based on the importance of the message to keep your audience captivated. 🎤
• Master the art of volume variation to demonstrate confidence and authority in your speech. 🌟
• Explore pitch and melody to avoid sounding monotonous and engage your audience better. 🎵
• Facial expressions add emotion to your words, making your communication more impactful. 😊
• Pauses are powerful tools in communication, aiding in information processing and minimizing filler words. ⏯️
• Understanding the nature of wit involves recognizing the fine line between benign humor and offensiveness. 😆
• Effective public speaking involves focusing less on yourself and more on the audience's needs and engagement. 🌍
• For better online presentations, maintain eye contact with the camera and manage your on-screen presence actively. 💻
• Continuous improvement in speech involves recording, reviewing, and learning from feedback to enhance clarity and effectiveness. 📊

Key Takeaways

• Your vocal image is as important as your visual image - treat your voice as an instrument to be mastered! 🎤
• Varying your rate of speech can keep your audience engaged and highlight key points. ⏰
• Volume isn't just about being loud—it's about conveying confidence, authority, and emotion. 📣
• Pitch and melody bring your words to life; don't stick to a monotonous tone. 🎶
• Facial expressions are vital for injecting emotion into your voice; your face is your remote control for expression. 😃
• Pauses give your audience time to process information and enhance the clarity of your message. ⏸️
• To become witty, understand the balance between benign and violation in humor, and practice actively listening. 🤓
• Public speaking isn't about you—it's about serving your audience. Shift your focus to them. 👥
• In online communication, maintain eye contact by looking at the camera, manage your body language, and stand to engage better. 📹
• Develop your communication skills through recording, reviewing, and continuous practice. 🎥

Overview

Vinh Giang opens the session by drawing attention to the underappreciated art of vocal image. In a world fixated on visual appearances, Giang shifts focus to mastering one’s voice, emphasizing its role in forming impressions. He draws intriguing comparisons between vocal usage and musical instruments, advocating for a holistic exploration of one’s vocal potential rather than sticking to familiar notes. Engaging tales and humor pepper the session, making complex concepts accessible and entertaining.

Diving deeper into the technicalities, Giang outlines foundational elements of communication like speech rate, volume, pitch, melody, tone, and pauses. Each element is dissected with practical examples and relatable scenarios, demonstrating how these factors can bring speeches to life. Whether altering speech speed to highlight key points or using pitch variations to avoid monotony, Giang’s tips are crafted for immediate application, enhancing both personal and professional communication skills.

In his interactive session, Giang also addresses deeper questions, such as overcoming the dislike for one's own recorded voice, maintaining engagement in online meetings, and understanding humor dynamics. His insights touch on the importance of leaving a lasting impression beyond mere words by weaving in emotion and authenticity. Giang’s emphasis on serving the audience, whether in traditional or digital environments, aligns with his overarching message—communication, above all, is an enriching exchange between people.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Communication This chapter delves into the fundamental areas of communication, emphasizing the importance of visual image. It highlights how society often focuses on visual presentation, including dress and body language, and its impact on communication, particularly in professional settings.
• 00:30 - 03:00: Visual and Vocal Image The chapter 'Visual and Vocal Image' discusses the initial assumptions people form based on visual cues when meeting someone in social settings, like at their homes or during meals. Upon seeing an individual, assumptions are made based on their posture, attire, and facial expressions. Good posture is associated with confidence, professional attire with professionalism, and smiling with warmth and friendliness. These instant judgments occur before any verbal interaction takes place.
• 03:00 - 07:00: Vocal Mastery and Behaviors The chapter focuses on the concept of 'vocal image,' which refers to the impression people form about someone based on their voice. It discusses how people develop thoughts and opinions about a person through their vocal image, emphasizing its importance in shaping beliefs about one's personality. The chapter notes that, despite its significance, vocal image often does not receive the attention it deserves in society.
• 07:00 - 12:00: Vocal Foundations - Rate of Speech The chapter titled 'Vocal Foundations - Rate of Speech' discusses the significance of vocal attributes in shaping perceptions of success, credibility, friendliness, and trustworthiness. It highlights how these vocal traits contribute to the formation of assumptions and beliefs about individuals. Despite their importance, this area is often neglected. The chapter offers insights into vocal mastery, addressing a common question among students – whether it is possible to change the way one speaks. It implies that the content will reveal techniques or considerations related to altering vocal delivery, underscoring the impact of speech rate on personal image.
• 12:00 - 18:00: Vocal Foundations - Volume The chapter titled 'Vocal Foundations - Volume' explores the idea that the way an individual speaks is essentially a series of behaviors. The author suggests that it is indeed possible to change how one behaves, including speech patterns. Through personal anecdotes, such as living in the U.S. and interacting with Texans, the author emphasizes their fondness for Texans, particularly highlighting their love for barbecue meats. A humorous interaction with a Texan client is shared, where the client distinguishes between being a cowboy and a redneck, offering insight into Texan culture and identity.
• 18:00 - 24:00: Vocal Foundations - Pitch and Melody In the chapter titled 'Vocal Foundations - Pitch and Melody', the focus is on how altering vocal behaviors can significantly transform one's vocal image. The transcript begins with an anecdote about Texans and quickly shifts to highlight the importance of vocal styling. The speaker emphasizes learning how to style one's vocal image in order to build trust, rapport, and connection through pitch and melody.
• 24:00 - 32:00: Vocal Foundations - Tonality This chapter focuses on understanding the voice as an instrument and the foundational aspects of vocal techniques. The instructor emphasizes the importance of perceiving the voice not merely as a tool but as an instrument that needs to be played and nurtured. The discussion involves vocal foundations and exercises that students might find challenging or unnatural at first, such as hitting higher notes. The aim is to convey the intricacies of vocal tonality and authenticity in voice training.
• 32:00 - 41:00: Vocal Foundations - Pause The chapter 'Vocal Foundations - Pause' challenges the perception that unfamiliar vocal exercises or sounds are artificial or insincere. It encourages reframing this mindset by equating one's voice to an instrument, like a piano with 88 keys, where every sound produced is valid and authentic, even if it is not familiar. The goal is to explore the full range of one's vocal abilities, emphasizing that no aspect of one's voice is fake or phony, merely unexplored.
• 41:00 - 51:00: Self-Awareness and Improvement The chapter discusses the importance of communication and learning to utilize our entire 'instrument' effectively. It emphasizes 'rate of speech' as a foundational element. The chapter suggests that how we begin our communication can significantly affect the audience's perception, using the example of an overly fast or slow speech rate to illustrate how it can influence listeners' comfort and engagement.
• 51:00 - 59:00: Overcoming Nervousness and Judgment The chapter discusses the importance of varying the rate of speech during communication. It highlights that maintaining a consistent speed, whether slow or fast, can result in losing the audience's engagement. The speaker demonstrates how sticking to a default rate, even if initially engaging, can become monotonous and ineffective without variation. The emphasis is on the effectiveness of changing the speech's pace to maintain listener interest.
• 59:00 - 67:00: Online Presentation Tips The chapter provides tips on how to keep online presentations engaging by varying the rate of speech. It suggests slowing down when discussing important points to emphasize their significance and speeding up for less important information. This variation helps to maintain interest and highlight key information for the listeners.
• 67:00 - 82:00: Developing Wit and Humor This chapter focuses on the importance of volume as a fundamental component of speech. It introduces the concept that varying volume, similar to varying the rate of speech, can enhance a presentation. The narrator explains that volume is critical as it breathes life into all other vocal foundations, suggesting using a scale of 1 to 10 to adjust volume levels. Even while being miked, the narrator chooses to use a strong volume level (about 7 out of 10) to ensure clarity and engagement.
• 82:00 - 87:00: Encouraging Introverts The chapter titled 'Encouraging Introverts' explores the impact of certain qualities on perception, particularly for introverts. The narrator discusses how these qualities can help one appear more confident, authoritative, and full of vitality, which is essential for conveying belief in one's words. These attributes are important in boosting not only personal confidence but also in how others perceive you. The narrator underscores the implications of these qualities on self-confidence, indicating that adopting them can lead to more positive interactions.
• 87:00 - 93:00: Improving Public Speaking Skills The chapter focuses on the impact of vocal aspects such as volume on public speaking skills. It discusses how varying levels of volume can influence an audience's perception of a speaker's authority, vitality, and belief in their message. The discussion emphasizes that using strong levels of volume can physically move and engage an audience by transmitting energy and vibrancy. However, it also notes that sheer loudness is not equivalent to power, highlighting the complexity and foundational importance of volume in effective communication.

13 Years of Communication Skills Knowledge in 53 minutes Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 you see in the word of communication there are two fundamental areas we will begin with and please take notes if you do have a piece of paper or your phones the first area that we tend to all focus our time on is an area known as our visual image in our society we spend lots of time on our visual image and your visual image is the way you dress everyone's dressed here to the nines is the way you dress and your body language and when you reveal to your clients you walk into
• 00:30 - 01:00 their homes or you meet them for lunch or dinner when they see you and you Reveal Your visual image they start to form assumptions about who you are they form assumptions if you've got good posture they'll make the Assumption oh this person seems confident if you dress a certain way they make the Assumption oh they seem like a professional and if you've got a smile on your face they make the Assumption oh this person's warm they're they're friendly these are assumptions and then you sit down at the table and you reveal to them what's
• 01:00 - 01:30 known as your vocal image which is your voice when you speak people start to form thoughts and opinions about who you are as a person that's your vocal image in our society we tend to spend no time on our vocal image but this is how important vocal image is once the person sees your visual image and then you Reveal Your vocal image they now start to form beliefs about who you are as a
• 01:30 - 02:00 person whether you're successful whether you're credible whether you're friendly whether you're trustworthy they start forming all these assumptions and beliefs about who we are yet this is the one area we rarely spend time on so I'd love to share with you a quick master class on vocal Mastery a lot of my students tend to ask me this they go Vin is it actually possible to change the way you talk the answer is in a question I'll ask all of you
• 02:00 - 02:30 is it possible to change your behavior yes you can the way you speak is just a series of behaviors I'm just currently using a series of behaviors right now I lived in the US for 4 years and my favorite group of people in America were the Texans love Texans love Texans love the barbecue Meats have over there one of my clients had this brilliant saying he always said to me he goes v i want you to I want to welcome you to Texas I want you to know that I'm a cowboy in Texas I'll tell you the difference between a cowboy and a redneck Vin you see Cowboys we ride
• 02:30 - 03:00 horses rednecks they ride their cousins that was when I went I love Texans this is amazing I want to be a Texan but you see I did this just for a quick note that all I did with my mouth was I changed a series of behaviors that was it completely changed my vocal image so once and for all let's learn how to style our voo image to build trust to build rapport to build connection and
• 03:00 - 03:30 also to influence your voice is an instrument start seeing it as an instrument it's not just this tool no it's an instrument it's an instrument that we play what we're about to dive into is what's known as the vocal foundations when students come to my classes and I teach them about vocal foundations often my students will say to me vin you're getting me to do this with my voice and maybe use notes that are quite high that doesn't feel natural Vin that feels inauthentic
• 03:30 - 04:00 and it's fake and it's phony quickly I need you to make a reframe it's not fake it's not phony it's unfamiliar to you that is all don't confuse the unfamiliar with being fake and phony your voice is an instrument growing up I was pushed to play the piano so what I'll say to you is a piano has 88 keys what we're here to do is we're here to explore all 88 of our keys none of the keys are fake or phony if you can make the sound it's your voice it's not fake or phony just unfamiliar with it
• 04:00 - 04:30 that is all so the goal of communication is to learn how to use our entire instrument the First Foundation is rate of speech please write this down rate of speech this is a foundation because imagine I started the presentation this morning and hi everyone it's great to be here you're freaking out you're saying I should have pretend I got Co not come so right again here's
• 04:30 - 05:00 the thing if I if I stick to a slow default rate of speech I'd lose your engagement same thing happens if I stick to a hi everyone's really good to be here can't wait to take you through the five core Foundation it's going to be brilliant you're going to be able to learn all the ways you can amplify the best parts of yourself if I stick to a really fast default rate of speech it's not engaging nor is it effective here's where it gets super interesting what if I stuck to a fairly engaging rate of speech like this but I stuck to this as my default rate of speech and I didn't vary this rate of speech at all what started as being
• 05:00 - 05:30 engaging after a while becomes monotonous isn't that weird so the key here is you must vary your rate of speech with purpose and here's how you do it if what you're speaking about is very important slow down it acts as a verbal highlight for The Listener focus on this didn't that just seem really important it does and if it's not as important speed
• 05:30 - 06:00 up simple rule gives you nice variety in your rate of speech volume volume is the lifeblood of your voice volume gives every single other Foundation life I look at as having a scale of say 1 to 10 okay so right now I give you a context I'm using about a seven fairly strong levels of volume even though I'm miked up I still use fairly strong levels of volume why if you're put pushing for about 7 out of 10 6 to seven
• 06:00 - 06:30 the following qualities come across one you appear is more confident second you'll come across with more Authority third you'll show more vitality and finally it shows the audience that you believe in the things that you're saying I'll drop it off in a second and Watch What Happens so if I spoke to you here think about what that does to my of confidence
• 06:30 - 07:00 how you perceive that how you perceive my level of authority how you perceive my level of Vitality how you perceive whether not I believe in what I'm saying you see it's physics when you use strong levels of volume you're literally moving people you're vibrating people they can feel your energy they can feel your Vibrance but it's not to say that a loud volume or the time is powerful no volume is a very interesting foundation in that
• 07:00 - 07:30 when you when you go quiet and you draw people in that's also powerful but if you stay there as a default it's not as powerful if you're always loud and obnoxious and you stay there all the time as your default kind of my wife hates it she calls me a bit of a wanker every time I do that right so so we don't want to stick to that volume either it's about varying our volume but you can do it with meaning you can draw people in if it's very important but you can also really push a point and this is critical for us to understand
• 07:30 - 08:00 you come to life when you breathe volume into your voice you can't help it you know otherwi if I spoke like this slight serial killer vies do you right it's natur we just do this unless you discover you're a psychopath um third it's about pitch and Melody pitch and Melody pitch and Melody these are the different notes you can hit there is a Melody that lives underneath your voice every time you open your mouth and you speak because look we you may not be
• 08:00 - 08:30 guilty of this but we all know someone who comes in on a Monday and [Music] just it's Monday 5 days till Friday okay we we don't want to bring that melody in our communication when communication matters most okay we can save that for ourselves now here's the thing I love my vocal coach I've got an opera singer as my vocal coach out a Southern California Melissa trink I believe she's one of the best and she taught this simple technique to allow me to expand the range of my voice and it's
• 08:30 - 09:00 called the siren technique so the siren technique is when you you can read if you're doing this for speaking and let's say I'm reading the notes on the script and I start low and then I go really high and then after that I'm not afraid to you know even go into the fal and sound a bit like Mickey Mouse that I've discovered recently my son told me and then after that I come back down and then all of a sudden go really low again that allows you to slowly expand your vocal range simple exercise 5 minutes a day oh this is my favorite it's my favorite tonality
• 09:00 - 09:30 tonality this is the emotion that lives underneath your voice emotion pitch and Melody there are different notes you can hit tonality emotion in Psychology they've done enough research to understand there are six core human emotions you've got happy sad disgust angry surprise and fearful six cor human
• 09:30 - 10:00 emotions attached to each one of these core human emotions is a facial expression so I'd like you all to try this please genuinely try this with me okay so I'd like you all to make a really sad face please just really sad thank you thank you very much and I'll count us from 3 2 1 and we just say good morning everyone with really sad face just Channel with the energy and in three 2 one just good morning everyone you sound terrible now let's try it again except this time I'd like you to make a disgusted face I you know my just got a little German Shepherd
• 10:00 - 10:30 cleaning the garden got a bit of pool in my fingers so it's kind to oh oh that's disgusting so just Channel a disgusted face we say good morning disgusted come on really disgusted and then good morning everyone in 3 2 1 good morning everyone you sound disgusting the point I'm trying to make here is that your face is the remote control that allows you to inject emotion into your voice your face is literally the remote control
• 10:30 - 11:00 now what happens when people get nervous what happen what's the first thing that happens face goes blank so what happens is this hi everyone really good to be here really excited to take you through the core foundations of great communication I really believe I'm very passionate about this notice how there's no emotion in my voice there's no emotion because there's no facial expression that's all if you want to move people when you speak move your face
• 11:00 - 11:30 all right the last one is pause it's frightening isn't it the pause is really powerful though when you understand why the pause is powerful it makes you less likely to avoid it the first Reason Why the pause is powerful is because when you pause you give people time to process what
• 11:30 - 12:00 you've said notice how you're processing notice how you're processing again you process when I pause because when I don't pause to give you an example right now you have to continually follow what I say and then if you don't pause to process anything then after I finish my message there's no Clarity for you at all because I didn't pause for you to process pausing allows the listeners to process what you're saying second beautiful thing about the pause when you get very comfortable
• 12:00 - 12:30 with super comfortable with it what that does is allows you to reduce your filler Words which are the words we use to fill the silence and reduce our non-words which are the sounds we make to fill the silence when you have filler words and non-words in your everyday communication it distracts people from the message and it reduces the clarity of your message
• 12:30 - 13:00 example so when it um comes to uh great great communication the um thing about you know uh the pause is you you know going to you it decreases the clarity of your message as you remove the filler words and the nonwords it increases Clarity increases Authority and improves credibility by the way if you're new to my channel my name is Vin Jang and I've been teaching communication skills now for the past decade and my goal with
• 13:00 - 13:30 this channel is to share communication tips each and every single week to help you succeed in your personal life and your professional life so if that's something that you value please consider subscribing so that you won't miss out on future videos my question and comment is I think like a lot of people I don't really like listening to my own voice and I think a lot of people feel quite self-conscious when they listen to themselves back and it's quite tricky cuz I have a podcast and and um it's obviously going to be a bit of a
• 13:30 - 14:00 learning curve if I can actually listen back to my episodes but when I do I spend the whole time going oh I hate my voice and could you give me some tips of what I could focus on in terms of what I should be looking out for so I can focus my mind on that rather than cringing the whole time while I'm listening to myself do anyone else hate the sound of their own voice I can't relate can't relate love the sound of my voice let me share with you why first of all let's address
• 14:00 - 14:30 the big thing here which is you're saying you don't like the sound of your own voice and all of you don't like the sound of your own voice do you know why you don't like the sound of your own voice yes the reason you don't like the sound of your voice is because how you sound to you is not how you sound to others because when I open my mouth and I speak my voice is creating vibrations through the air that then reach the ears of others right it's vibrations through the air whereas when you hear yourself you hear
• 14:30 - 15:00 yourself through the vibrations of your bones so you naturally because you're hearing vibrations through a denser object the sound sounds deeper so to me I sound like Barry White so when I go I'm like oh yeah right that's how I think I sound but in reality I probably like oh everyone good to see you right so that's the reality though and because that that so so when you hear yourself through a recording you are now hearing your voice through Airwaves which is different right so
• 15:00 - 15:30 it's like the way you look in the mirror that's not how you look you don't look the way you look in the mirror because it's like kind of flipped everyone sees you the other way around that's why when we see ourselves in photos we're like oh no I don't like it I don't like it it's the same thing is because you look at yourself in the mirror every day you don't look at yourself in photos every day so you've got to understand that it requires time for you to become more comfortable with that sound and reception and perception starts to recalibrate it starts to equilibrium starts to achieve right and that just
• 15:30 - 16:00 requires you to relentlessly go through the Mastery cycle every time you do a podcast episode listen to it you've got to desensitize that and soon The Voice you're hear in here and the voice you hear in here it starts to become the same but if you keep avoiding it and keep avoiding it the difference in the sound will always be like this and and here's the reality to all my friends here when you see a video of yourself that's how you look and when you hear yourself that's how
• 16:00 - 16:30 you sound let's flaunt what we have and enjoy what we have let's learn to embrace that that is you you're a unique individual with a unique instrument with unique experiences with unique stories and unique value be you do you right so don't be afraid of that and and that takes time and it requires you to listen to your podcast all the time okay what's the name of your podcast it's called All About You with Dr Shauna wats it's all about you like And subscribe there was a second
• 16:30 - 17:00 part to your question what do you do on the list of things that you do right it's very simple when I'm watching my students I'm looking for all of the foundations I'm looking for vocal foundations I'm looking for body language so I'm going how's the person's rate of speech okay check that's looking really good how's the person's oh volume playing in safe mode only playing between a four five and a six not really expanding their volume much okay that's what we need to work on the extremities of volume okay how about tonality oh not a range of emotion here so what's going
• 17:00 - 17:30 to happen to all of you now as you listen to your podcast back with the new found knowledge that you have you now will hear things in your voice that you've never been able to hear before you're now going to listen to and be like I said I was frustrated but I didn't hear the frustration so to make the podcast better instead of just saying I was really frustrated when that happened it's I was so frustrated when that happened to me there's a difference in experience right so you will start to now hear different things in your own voice because of the new knowledge you've acquired then I naturally speak
• 17:30 - 18:00 pretty slow can you help when it comes to speaking slowly there are potential software issues and potential hardware issues let me explain what I mean by software issues is that from the way you asked the question and from the way this question was framed to me I could almost tell that this person their English was their second language third language fourth or maybe maybe even fifth language like for my wife English is a fifth language it's crazy and the interesting thing about people who learn
• 18:00 - 18:30 English as a second third fourth or fifth or sixth language is that they often think in the language that they speak the most most often so for a long time my wife her main language that she would speak in for example at home was Chinese right so all of a sudden if you speak Chinese 70% of the time and English 30% of the time you think in Chinese so she would think in ch this is software right so she would think in Chinese and then even when she's speaking English now she has to take those Chinese structures and then
• 18:30 - 19:00 translate it to English and then speak English and this is why you'll find that a lot of people who speak English is a second third or fourth or fifth language I'll stop doing that now I'll just say English as a second language you find that people who speak English as a second language they often have a lot of grammatical errors and the reason they have grammatical errors is because in in Chinese the rules in grammar and Vietnamese the rules in grammar are completely different to English that's why they have and make those grammatical errors so then it's even harder for you because if you've got some software
• 19:00 - 19:30 things that you are doing and you're processing you are now thinking in Chinese realizing that there are some grammatical errors that you might make so then not only are you translating it to English you are now also adjusting the grammar and then speaking the English language trying to do it as best as you can that is one of the main reasons that causes people who speak English as a second language to speak a lot slower because there's so much processing going on with the software and the the only way to remedy this is and and and this
• 19:30 - 20:00 is true no matter what language you speak it could be an Asian language it could be a European language uh like again it doesn't matter what language here if you want to improve that you actually then need to speak English more than your mother tongue you do you do otherwise you won't start thinking in English that means you need to almost reverse it and speak English at least 60 to 70% of the time and then speak Chinese or Vietnamese 30% of the time because whatever dominant
• 20:00 - 20:30 language you use in everyday communication that tends to be the language you you think in and I had to do that because English is my third language I used to think in Chinese and Vietnamese and then translate to English but as I started speaking English more and more and more and more and more right now in my life I think in English and I speak in English and now I speak Vietnamese slower because I think in English and I have to translate to Vietnamese so you've just got to sit there right now with that piece of information and think to yourself am I suffering from a trans issue and a software issue up here and that tends to
• 20:30 - 21:00 be the most common one hardware issues let's get into it now when it comes to Hardware a lot of the times if you can think quickly but your mouth can't speak quickly enough because if you try to speak any faster then all of a sudden you start to right it's the equivalent of a child trying to run before they know how to walk and I know this seems a little bit strange speaking quickly requires a set of mouth movements that you can do at a
• 21:00 - 21:30 very fast pace it's why when you listen to rappers you are just astonished because they can speak and sing at such a fast rate that sometimes they'll do these bits where they they take a deep breath they go and then like Eminem he can just wrap this incredible these incredible Lyrics these incredible poems and he can do them so fast yet you can still comprehend what they're saying not many people have developed the ability to speak at that rate of speech now I'm not saying you should speak as quickly
• 21:30 - 22:00 as rappers or Eminem does what I'm saying is you may not even be able to speak at this way of speech that I'm speaking right now sometimes people with this way of speech they already going to struggle right so it means that there could be at Hardware issue in that you need to practice moving your lips more and faster and actually as silly as it sounds practice a faster rate of speech because if you can't speak with a really quick rate of speech then all of a sudden even if you think really quickly you won't be to speak really quickly do you see what doing and that's something
• 22:00 - 22:30 you actually have to consciously get good at otherwise your mouth can't keep up and I'm not saying speaking fast all the time is effective I'm not saying speaking fast all the time is ideal because if I just spoke really fast all the time and I did this video and I did it almost at two time speed after a while if I just keep doing this it's going to be really difficult for you and I can't focus on any other form of delivery I can't focus on any other aspect of my voice and all of a sudden you just become mum jumbo right that's not effective now if I stuck to that as a default it's not effective now it is effective if I'm able to do really quickly and you're go oh my goodness I
• 22:30 - 23:00 love this and I did little spurts of it that's important because it shows passion it shows enthusiasm I also needed to be able to make those mouth movements that quickly for it to be coherent here's how you remedy Hardware if you're finding that your speaking is slow because it's hard for you to create the sounds it just means that your mouth movements or the the muscles and the shapes of your mouth that you're making for the English language you just need to become more familiar with them and you need to strengthen the mouth
• 23:00 - 23:30 movements for the English language and by strengthening the mouth movements for the English language what does that mean tongue twisters trust me try tongue twisters because tongue twisters as you do them after a while you'll be like oh man my mouth was so sore especially if you ensure that your articulation and your pronunciation is really accurate so I would practice tongue twisters just search online top 10 most difficult tongue twisters and you'll be shocked at how difficult they are and I would try I I would first try to do them
• 23:30 - 24:00 slowly and then I'll gradually increase their speed and that allows you to update the hardware and at the same time as you start to speak English more you better update the software and I find that doing those two things in combination dramatically allow you to improve your writer speech hey Kathy um okay so when it comes to public speaking can be a very nerve-wracking experience yes I want to know what advice can you give to to someone um to kind of help with nerves okay first thing
• 24:00 - 24:30 is we get nervous often because we don't know our content inside out first of all I'll give you three things first of all what's the one thing people fear while being on stage the most what's what's the bigest thing they fear I'm going to go judge judge but also I'm going to go what blank that is a huge fear that most people have and they fear going blank so when you fear going blank Kathy what happens is you start to you're in your head and you're not present with the
• 24:30 - 25:00 audience so the whole time you're just thinking oh God I hope I don't I hope I don't forget what what after slide seven says and then what happens is that starts to pile and selft talk Etc so rehearsal proper rehearsal is critical I'll just give you one step for rehearsal there's a thing called a table read so most people when they print out their talk this is what they do and again this is relevant even if you're doing a team meeting okay it doesn't have to be on stage but when they print out their talk they stand in front of a mirror and they go good morning everyone it's really good to be
• 25:00 - 25:30 here got it locked in rehearsal how you rehearse is how you present low levels of effort during rehearsal equate to low levels of retention so to do a proper table read you need to sit there and read it as if you're presenting to the audience so hey everyone great to be here can I just get a sense how many people here know who I am you have to rehearse the way you're going to present first thing second thing is a quote from Mark Twain who says you worry less about what people think
• 25:30 - 26:00 about you when you realize how seldom they do people aren't thinking about you you're just not most of you are sitting here thinking how can I get the most value out of this guy that's what you're thinking I want to get the most value out of this presentation right you're not thinking about the other things whereas we get so caught up and trapped by the fear of judgment no one's judging us everyone's trapped in their own minds with a list of things to do that they must do when they return home to their children never knew some pain could come from such lovely little things but again
• 26:00 - 26:30 second thing and I'll say the third thing you have to realize and I love this about the American culture that I do not see enough here in Australia but I love this about the American culture some find it a bit nauseating I don't mind it in the American culture there's a word they use and it's called serving when you're on stage Kathy it's not about you you are there to serve the audience doesn't matter how your suit looks at that point once you're on stage doesn't matter how your hair looks whatever it's not about you you are
• 26:30 - 27:00 there to serve others in the audience those three things I believe will help calm your nerves keep a little bit of healthy stuff in there because it means you still love what you do otherwise you become Barry from uni adelade thank you for the question my name is Claris and my question is can I use the same the same techniques in an online presentation and how to engage how make people engage during the online online presentation as you did in how do we
• 27:00 - 27:30 engage people online yeah yeah I'll give you three things there's a lot but I'll give you just three these are the 8020 again meaning these are the 20% of things you can do online that will give you 80% of the results number one the most important Body Language online is eye contact and the majority of people do this incorrectly so eye contact online is very different okay so for example when you're communicating online when you're speaking look into the camera
• 27:30 - 28:00 basically 100% of the time whereas most people look at themselves so don't look at yourself hide self viw so you don't get obsessed about how you come across and how your hair's not sitting right today hide self viw look at the camera when you're talking 100% of the time and then even when the other person's talking to you you look at the camera 80% of the time so that when they're talking you're giving them your eyes so that they can connect with you first thing second thing understand the study of proxemic
• 28:00 - 28:30 proxemic is the study of distances so most people who don't understand this what happens is they're too close to their laptop so when they appear on a virtual call they appear in what's known as the personal space personal space is about this close so then all they see is your shoulders and your head okay even closer is called the intimate space which is when all they see is your face that's way too close that's way too close some people appear virtually in the intimate space and that's why when you turn on the zoom call you're like whoo whoo I see every single thing on
• 28:30 - 29:00 your face and being in the intimate space and also the personal space is incorrect you want to be in what's known as the social space because when you're in the social space they can see top of your head down almost to your waist and this is possible even when you're sitting uh in front of a virtual call so you're far away enough so that when you appear on the virtual call in their brains they don't feel uncomfortable because when I when I get too close to you like for example if I if I get into even if I get into your
• 29:00 - 29:30 personal space and I'm here with you this is uncomfortable even though you're a fan so you see so that that's what happens is when you you appear too big on screen and then you just pop up all of a sudden people freak out so social space and the benefit of being in the social space is your hand gestures are in shot so when you talk you can be more Dynamic and the thing about virtual communication is you appear in a box MH and the more of that box you take up with your body language the more engaging you'll become visually so
• 29:30 - 30:00 imagine the box right and if I'm just really small in the box and I don't do anything I don't have online presence whereas imagine the Box around me but if I'm talking hey hey good to see you thank you so much for joining our virtual team meeting today hey let's talk about a few things we're going to go through so social space hand gestures final thing stand Do not sit don't sit because when you sit it impacts your diaphragmatic breathing whereas when you stand you've got better access access to the instrument you got better energy you've
• 30:00 - 30:30 got more Vitality way better standing desk or stack lots of books up and stand but it's not common people stand sorry it's not common people stand in front it is in my world it is in my world uh the people who do this at a worldclass level all stand they don't sit okay because the moment you sit you know like if the the moment I sit I talk a little bit softer I'm a little bit more low energy I don't really use my hands as much especially when the screen is this Clos most to me then I then all people see is you do this that's all you're doing cuz
• 30:30 - 31:00 most people swivel on their chairs and that's all you're doing you're like yeah that's it so again social space hand gestures eye contact and then also stand three things I would say there's a lot more but that that that start there at20 by the way if you're enjoying the content thank you if you didn't know I'm actually running a 2hour free master class on communication skills where you can join me and learn live so you can try learning with me if you want to come along to this session click the pinned
• 31:00 - 31:30 comment in the comment section to be able to save your seat hope to see you in class how do you learn to be witty and off the cuff we're going to jam on this okay wit is essentially someone saying something and then your ability to respond quickly but even though you responded extremely quickly what you responded with caused the other person to laugh right and what you said was also perceived as being rather intelligent and that mix of quick that that that that that mix of speed
• 31:30 - 32:00 intelligence and humor makes them go oh my God you're so witty you're so funny you're so witty that's what creates uh the perception of someone being witty now we got to address something here 20% of the time that this happens the person truly thought of that thing that quickly and said it in the moment okay only 20% of the time is that true right because people who perceive others to be witty they're literally thinking wow you thought of that in like half a
• 32:00 - 32:30 second and said it and W you're amazing look 20% of the time that's true however 80% of the time that person has experienced that situation before they didn't come up with that thought in that moment in half a second they've said that thing before in a different situation 80% of the time they were prepared for that moment ah I had to burst your bubble but that's me too there are things that happen all the time where you're like wow Vin so witty nope I've just experienced that moment
• 32:30 - 33:00 before and because I've experienced it before many times when it comes up again the speed comes from the experience now again I'm telling you there are times when I am truly witty in the moment right but that's that's that's that's quite rare so you give me more credit than I deserve and you're probably giving other people credit who you perceive as being witty a lot of credit that maybe we don't deserve or maybe we do deserve it maybe we do deserve it because it's a great skill so that's the first thing I want you to understand so
• 33:00 - 33:30 now that you understand that let's talk about all the different elements of it right because like we've discussed timing timing is critical if you say the right thing too late it's not wiip right because people kind of go oh yeah well I could have thought of that if you gave me 20 minutes I could have thought of that if you gave me 4 days so again it loses its Effectiveness so timing is critical so learning that timing is critical second thing is it's got to be intelligent there's a intellectual quality to wit right because if it's not intelligent
• 33:30 - 34:00 well then it's just silly it just seems silly as opposed to being witty so there's an intellectual component so it shows that you've put deep thinking into this right or or you're able to think about it in a very intellectual way another thing I think that's really Critical with wit as well is it's got to be it's got to be a little bit risky because the nature of humor is there's a benign there's a benign violation
• 34:00 - 34:30 meaning now this is going down a deep Rabbit Hole now comedians danced The Comedians dance this really fine line and I feel so sorry for them because they get in trouble for this all the time think about a situation where we laugh and that situation is when we're being tickled okay so think of the situation of being tickled being tickled is a benign violation meaning it's benign because I'm not hurting you right I'm just I'm just tickling you it's so it like it's a benign situation in that
• 34:30 - 35:00 I don't I don't I'm not I'm not hurting you but it's also a violation because if you think about it oh my goodness imagine going up to another grown person and going like that is that is such a violation of personal space right and the context that I want you to think of it in is is when you were young or or even now as a grand adult think of it as a grand adult say you've got a really close friend and they ticker you a little bit well it's funny you probably laugh you probably oh no stop doing that what are you doing you crazy crazy right now all of a because that's a benign
• 35:00 - 35:30 violation it's it's benign because it's a friend of yours and you trust them it's a violation because well it's a little bit violating right but now think about if you were just walking out in the streets a random stranger comes up and tickles your armpits it's funny thinking about it but it wouldn't be funny if it happened to you cuz you be like dude what the freak what's wrong with you why' you do that right that's just a violation right now that gives you a bit of an insight into humor because humor
• 35:30 - 36:00 requires both it can't just be violating and it can't just be benign because a benign version of you being tickled is you tickling yourself so if I just do this I'm not laughing I can do the I can do to any part of my body and I do this it's because it's just benign and I think this gives a great little summary of where something is funny and where something's not funny so if I if I just do something that's benign well then that's that's that's it's not funny and I'll give you an example too if I just said I walk to the
• 36:00 - 36:30 park that's benign doesn't make anybody laugh right but if I said sorry about this uh if if you got kids around mute to me I walked to the park thought I was going to fart but then I [ __ ] myself for some of you that's too much violation and you're not laughing right now and that's totally fine I get it I'm a sick person I'm sick I'm disgusting I get it gets me every time sharting I
• 36:30 - 37:00 think it's quite funny one of my best friends just recently sharted himself and he told me vulnerably and I laughed oh I laughed I laughed till tears came out it was one of the most joyous days of my life but anyway so there's tears there's tears I'm a child but you see for some of you that was too violating and you're kind of going ah Vin come on that's uncalled for you see that's the risk that you have to take when it comes to humor un unfortunately for standup comedians sometimes they go too much
• 37:00 - 37:30 violation but the thing is they're speaking in an audience with 4,000 people 2,000 people you can't please everyone and that's the thing about humor and that you you'll find that there are some comedians that play it too safe and they play it way too safe and you sit there and you just the whole time you're like yeah it's not funny it's not funny whereas the nature of humor is that there's a part that's benign and there's a part that's violating there's two components and where where people laugh is where there's that intersection between the
• 37:30 - 38:00 two and how much you go whether you go more benign or you go more more violation that's a sensitivity that only you're able to build because you're going to find the right mix for you because each different type of personality can get away with different amounts of violation and benign I know some comedians that are super benign and it's funny because it they also mix it with their personality so as a what you're asking here is a very complicated question and I'm trying to Deep dive into this as much as I can without blowing out this Q&A too much
• 38:00 - 38:30 but can you see the difference between benign and violation hopefully that's clear so that's that's that's risky okay now we talked about timing we talked about the importance of intellect and I think again standup comedians are the most intelligent people in the world because to learn how to do this well requires a massive amount of intellect you've also understand the importance of benign and violation now the next component that's really important as well is you knowing when to try things there's a situational awareness
• 38:30 - 39:00 component here that's very very important and again that you enhance your situational awareness by learning how to actively listen really well because I don't take I I I don't try to inject wit all the time there there are moments where you shouldn't inject wit right there are moments where you shouldn't do it because if you try to be witty all the time then what happens is people kind of go oh my goodness not right now Azrael like this wasn't the moment for it and you know how sometimes we have friends who do do that right I used to do that as well well when I didn't have good sensitivity for this but how do you develop the sensitivity
• 39:00 - 39:30 for this you got to do it wrong and if you do if you do it wrong and you don't go through the Mastery cycle and you reflect and you review well then you're never going to get good at wit the price you have to pay to develop that wit is you're going to get it wrong and you're going to say the wrong thing at the wrong time you're going that's going to happen it's like saying I want to learn to ride the bike but I never want to fall off the bike well then you're never going to learn how to ride the bike it's like I want to learn how to skate but I never want to fall off and scuff my shoulders my shoulders and I want to scuff my elbows well if you never if if you're
• 39:30 - 40:00 not willing to pay the price of falling off the bike and the skateboard well then you're never going to learn how to be a great bike rider or skater you're just never going to learn it and I think people people don't learn the skill set because the price is quite great because saying the wrong thing at the wrong time will offend other people it it will offend other people it's going to happen unfortunately but then that's comes down to your ability to say hey I'm so sorry I didn't I didn't actually really mean that I I and i' I've had to backtrack quite a few times myself too there is a
• 40:00 - 40:30 big price and there's another price that you have to pay that most people aren't willing to pay sometimes you say something and then it won't be funny yep you say it and then it won't be funny and that's a price right people go oh I feel humiliated now I took a shot and I missed and then ah now here's the thing though I'm going to give you one last thought on this before I move to the next thing and we could go down this rabbit hole for days I'll I'll spare you you that if you attempt wit and you don't know how to navigate it and you kind of say
• 40:30 - 41:00 something and you kind of go a no I'm so sorry everyone a crap I tried tried to do a little bit of wit and then now no one laughed and you're all offend I'm so sorry everyone I I I really shouldn't say that you know and and then if you just spend now 30 seconds talking about how you weren't funny and how you failed at being witty now you've made a big deal out of it and everyone's going to remember it so the key skill to learn here while you're developing it is hey if you say it no one loves move on it's okay I I I I just accept that it didn't
• 41:00 - 41:30 work but you're not you're not cluing that I was trying to be witty in that moment to you you might just go oh I don't even know what that was and then you just keep mve before you could think before the other person could even think any more about it I've already moved on if you don't make a big deal out of it they won't make a big deal out of it if you want to learn how to be more witty you've also got to trust yourself more in that the next time you want to say something that you think could come across as witty trust yourself and just
• 41:30 - 42:00 try and if you try and it works you must go through the Mastery cycle and go why did that work why what was it about it that that made it work what was it about my personality my delivery my timing the the the structuring of what I said the intellect what was it what was the benign violation component there that made it work ah and as you reveal and reflect you'll get some insights and as you get some of those insights plan and improve on next time how you can apply it again how you can use the same line or how you can take that same intelligence that you've just gotten
• 42:00 - 42:30 from that reflect and review and apply it to another situation and then plan and then wait for the opportunity when that opportunity comes along respect and trust yourself not respect trust yourself again and try again and if it doesn't work good reflect and review again because if you never reflect and review on the attempts you'll never get better at this skill and if you never attempt it you'll never get better at this skill and I can tell you right now wit is it's such a secret power because when
• 42:30 - 43:00 you have the ability to make others laugh in the moment oh your ability your ability to instantly build rapport with people so powerful don't forget though 80% of the time where you see someone be witty it's not in the moment they've experienced that situation before they're just repeating a line that they know works it's like when I'm on stage and I I remember this one time where I was asked to come on stage and everyone was applauding and then there was this one one woman who was like woo yeah and
• 43:00 - 43:30 like it just really obvious that voice and then I just said thanks Mom and then the moment I did that everybody laughed and I was oh that's really cool that works great was it the first time I did it nope was it even my original line no I've heard somebody else say that before and I thought that's such a cool little witty line for that particular moment and I borrowed their line right and I borrowed their line so I think it's
• 43:30 - 44:00 powerful when you start to notice these moments happen and you can think to yourself oh how can I use that in a situation that happens when it's spontaneously happening with me all I'd say is you can just personalize a little bit to yourself too right you can say you can instead of just saying thanks Mom you can say thanks Mom told you not to do that but thank you right all of a sudden you can make it your own just a quick one so when first a compliment mystifying and the question I have is I'm thoroughly confused after day one uh
• 44:00 - 44:30 should I be learning magician should I learn to actually do a drama should I learn and train my voice to be a singer what should I do to actually be like you oh I wish my mom was here to hear this oh cuz she thinks no one should be like me that's great thank you that's right can you just have a quick hug yeah let's hug it out man that's beautiful thank you that's so kind of you uh first
• 44:30 - 45:00 of all don't be like me no it's not a joke we're going to answer it first you don't want to be like me you don't you want to be like you and I'm going to answer this question for everyone too okay so here's how you find you and I'm going to use the analogy of being a chef how does a chef become a great chef uh bringing bringing his own elements of creativity into the Kine yes but before that when you don't know anything about it how do you become a great chef you go to to the basics and learn the skills yes who do you learn the
• 45:00 - 45:30 skills from uh somebody who you admire perfect that's the answer so what you do is right now you're saying you admire me thank you what you do is I would I would advise you not to just pick me I'd advise you to pick another four so the goal is to pick five chefs that you like in the communication space okay find five communicators that you really like when you see a great communicator you're no longer thinking I don't know what they're doing but they're amazing no no now you can see oh look at the tonality in their voice look at the way they move
• 45:30 - 46:00 their face look at the way they speak quickly and then slow down and create that inure and keep me hooked look at the way they use the hand gestures so you now can see what you couldn't see before so what do you see you see the ingredients now so when you pick these five great chefs You Now list out their ingredients and then you copy you imitate okay imitation is the greatest form of flattery okay so you IM them and then the first time the chef Cooks the recipe the first time the chef does it
• 46:00 - 46:30 right they follow it and then they eat it and they go doesn't taste very good and then they went ah I didn't I didn't I didn't stick to the recipe close enough the second time they copy it they stick to it exactly and then they do it and then it tastes good and then they do it again 10 20 30 40 times and then now they go you know what I'm going to add a little bit of chili right and that's you adding you but you first start with the foundation of looking for the five communicators you're very inspired by and you imitate and it's funny because
• 46:30 - 47:00 if you look at me I'm I'm the combination of three speakers that I've picked and the three speakers that I've picked and and they all have the same last name they're not related this is just weird the first one is brne brown I loved her likeability and I brought her likeability into me so I like BR Brown I really like Les Brown because he's such a great motivator and I went like that I want some of that and then Darren Brown is one of my favorite
• 47:00 - 47:30 magicians and it's the three of them gave birth to me right disgusting but the thing is I was able to then add my own flavors to it but I started by copying them it's not confusion it's you now being able to see behind the madness so when you look at a communicator now you can see the ingredients in their recipe thank you what's your name Jennifer Jennifer lovely to meet you Jennifer hello um how would you encourage people to come out
• 47:30 - 48:00 of their shell a bit more my staff are a bit more quiet yes how we get them to be a bit more outgoing maybe oh I love this thank you for and thank you for for standing up and asking that question I I know it's difficult to ask questions like that so thank you Jennifer right I have to share something with you when I was when I was about ah goodness when I was about 12 there was only one thing it's funny that I'm telling this story but when I was 12 there's only one thing I wanted more than anything do you know
• 48:00 - 48:30 what it was Jennifer it's a girlfriend I really wanted a girlfriend and another time when I was 12 I wasn't the popular guy in school not at all Lenny my best friend was an athlete basketball and he had this amazing adad Dash jacket that reverses and it's white on the inside we had secondhand clothing and Lenny would go to school and on cold mornings get this character he would take off his jacket he would reverse it and he'd pop it on the prettiest go in school and say stay warm and he plays basketball and
• 48:30 - 49:00 then the girls just swon over him and I'm just sitting on the side eating a packet of chips and I'm I was going Lenny you're amazing so I asked Lenny one day I said Lenny how can I how can I just find one girlfriend you know you have heaps and and Lenny gave me the best advice he said oh it's easy man uh just be funny I was like I knew it was easy so I went on to Yahoo because that was all at the time there was no Google yet and I just went jokes and I found one it was this girl I fancied her name was
• 49:00 - 49:30 Stacy beautiful blonde hair and I remember see Stacy in the class I was like being funny girlfriend love yes so there's this one moment in class I promise this story is relevant and there's this one girl in class and I I had there was a pause in the class and I stood up I said Stacy did you know that the first French fry wasn't cooked in in France it's cooked in grease she had no idea what the hell that me meant right and then you know what's worse she she turns around she
• 49:30 - 50:00 flicks her beautiful blonde hair beautiful she F she looks me dead in the eye she says oh my God you're not funny stop stop trying to be like Lenny I know she's a bit of a [ __ ] I know and sorry just slight anger still inside but then what she did was Jennifer she put me back in my mold there was a mold that everybody in my life had for me and the mold that I that they all had for me was the mold of textbook loser really uh during school
• 50:00 - 50:30 sporting events never get picked uh teachers never remember my name also friends in class didn't really have any except Lenny don't know why but the thing is there was a mold for me so the moment I tried something different I tried to break out of my mold these people immediately put me back into that mold and the reason I'm sharing this story with you Jenifer is that what saved me was my dad he pulled me out of that school put me in a new school and what he did was in this new school what I realized
• 50:30 - 51:00 with that no kids in this school had any preconceived ideas of who I was and that freed me from the mold that everyone in my existing school was creating around me so I realized Jennifer I needed to find a new environment where no one had preconceived ideas of who I was so I could practice the part of me that I want to develop one of the most amazing places Jennifer improv classes I know this sounds outrageous but in an improv class it's a safe environment where it symbolizes a new school no one knows who
• 51:00 - 51:30 you are and they get you to play improv games to get you to break out of your comfort zone it's the most fun you ever have as an adult Vin before improv Vin after improv completely different human being so I I I'm not a pharmacist my mom wishes I was but I prescribe you 10 classes of improv it will change your life I genuinely mean that hi I'd love to know if you want to be a brilliant public speaker what are the three tips that you would give to me one of the most powerful things you can do is a
• 51:30 - 52:00 process called record and review simply record a 5-minute video of yourself right and you need to speak improvised it cannot be something you know well cannot be rehearsed needs to be improvised 5 minutes you must speak for once you film this 5minute video leave it for a day don't look at it straight away you are too damn self-critical then the next day when you review this video you review it in three different ways the first time you review it turn the sound all the way up press play turn your phone down just listen audit the auditory component of
• 52:00 - 52:30 your voice known as your vocal image ordered it what do you like about it what don't you like about it what are some limitations second grab the phone turn the sound off press play make sure it's on mute just look at yourself start taking notes how's your body language are you moving your face what's your facial expressions like do a visual audit of your visual image take notes build self-awareness on how others are currently seeing you third
• 52:30 - 53:00 component get the video don't listen don't watch it get the video transcribed and when you get it transcribed make sure you leave in the ums and the RS and what's known as filler words leave them in print it out red highlighter bring all your nonwords and filler words to the Forefront of your mind that's robbing you of clarity every time you talk three things do that once you basically have a mirror in front of
• 53:00 - 53:30 you yeah I hope it helps it's very powerful routine it's it's why I film my presentations every fourth one I send it to someone one of my mentors to give me feedback yeah it's record and review very powerful