No. 1 Communication Expert: This Speaking Mistake Makes People Dislike You! Vinh Giang

you have this ability to become confident in every single area of your life it's about us just learning a new series of behaviors for example there's

something called a siren technique in three two and one Nas are crazier than

usual fantastic that's fantastic you did a great job right and then this next one is volume so critical because if I just

increase my volume and I talk like this I sound a little bit aggressive don't I but with volume to highlight something

you could go very quiet so it's about waking people up to the power of their voice and we all have access to these

talks let's go through all five Vin J is the award-winning speaker and communication expert who helps people

harness the power of their voice and body language in all areas of their life just so overwhelming of how many people

are suffering with not being able to communicate they're asking I'm introverted does that mean that I'm doomed how do I become more confident

how do I speak on the spot and we think there's no way for me to ever change in this it's super sad because I lived a massive part of my life like that I was

the awkward kid I couldn't communicate with anyone I moved school so many times because I was bullied then I broke them

all and then I just learned all these new behaviors has completely changed and anyone can do this in 3 to 6 months and

I'm going to teach you so the first thing that really matters is a three-step process I call it record and review it's going to dramatically change

the way you talk and the way you show up but how do we start a conversation with another human being I've got a simple game called high buff and it gives you

three opportunities for a conversation to spark and we'll play it in a second and then there's hand gestures to level up your physical presence and then a

simple framework that helps build connection there's so many other things we can talk about and we're going to go through them but some people do have

severe social anxiety what you say to those people the first thing I would do is [Music]

is this has always blown my mind a little bit 53% of you that listen to this show regularly haven't yet

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you so [Music] much Finn if you had to

summarize what it is you do fundamentally and why you do it how would you summarize it I help people

learn that they have access to one of the most beautiful instruments in the world that can help them negotiate

whatever reality they desire and I learned this through my

first ever vocal teacher Miss Stanley and I'll I'll never foret get this experience there's a dingy music Corner

um in South Australia and I would go there for lessons and at the first time I met her I walked into the room she's old lady and she says nothing to me

except the words sit down young man so I sit it feels super awkward it feels

super weird and then she plays one key non-stop on the piano for 2 minutes it's

literally I was like oh [ __ ] this is like something out of a horror movie and then she turns around she goes how do you feel I said nothing weird awkward

what and then she goes good turns around plays this beautiful song called marage

diamore goes over for 2 minutes and then she turns away she goes how do you feel and I said ah weirded out from before

still but I feel wow that song had love there was lust there was romance there

was excitement the and she goes good honey most people most people go through

life speaking like this I'm going to teach you how to speak like this

and that's to me at the time I remember thinking to myself that is the greatest sales pitch I've ever heard in my life

because I'm now going to sign up for 12 classes with you because you've just helped me realize something I've been struggling with my entire life I haven't

been thinking about my voice as an instrument I thought it was a tool what do you do with a hammer you use a hammer

what do you do with a screwdriver you use a screwdriver what do you do with the piano you play with it what do you do with the violin you play with it and

she started to teach me that I have this instrument that depending on how I play it it changes and shift how others feel

how much do you think that will change the trajectory of someone's life like what is the impact if I get really good at communication why does it matter I

was invisible my entire childhood I was invisible I wasn't the cool kid I wasn't

the good-looking kid I wasn't the charismatic kid I wasn't the funny kid I wasn't the anything kid and by learning

this skill I've been able to negotiate an incredible reality and that's why I

love Tim Ferris is quite so much reality is negotiable cool well what skill do we use to negotiate the reality we desire

it's our ability to communicate teaching that to others has been one of the most fulfilling things

I've ever done and I I genuinely believe that makes the world a better place and I almost sometimes feel like

I'm just here to tune pianos I'm here to help people tune and fix and learn how

to play and and and I get so much fulfillment from that my parents have this fundamental belief it's so

beautiful they believe every child is born with a diamond with a gift with a with something in them so I found one of

my diamonds early on it was magic right so I was really good at Magic they hoped it was medicine accounting you know the

Asian prophecy so when I found that diamond being magic I thought that all I

had to do was get really good technically as a magician because that's what I was Tau at University being an accountant oh if you become really

technically proficient as an accountant you'll become an amazing accountant you you'll be successful you get the BMW you

get everything get partner so I thought okay magic same thing get really good technically spent thousands of hours in

my bedroom by myself in front of a mirror practicing magic got nowhere

because I was missing an ingredient magicians call it Showmanship fancy word for communication

skills right one of we we both inspired by the same person I believe one one of the people we're inspired by is Darren

Brown impeccable Showmanship impeccable technical skills so when you pair

technical skills with great communication skills that's when you thrive I believe because let's say for example you're

technically brilliant you're a 10 out of 10 technically but you're three out of 10 with your communication skills do you think people perceive you to be a 10 out

of 10 or three out of 10 and you know this hearing so many different pictures some of the greatest ideas have flown

under your radar Without You noticing because the founder didn't do it justice it's an interesting idea to think that

we might rise or fall to the level not of our technical ability but our communication skills as it relates to

how the world perceives us and it's both the importance there is both whereas I

feel like we get stuck into this world where we think oh it's one or the other and I my students always ask me this which one should I focus on I said the

reality is both it's it's not as simple it's both because if I have great Showmanship and when it comes to do

doing slot of hand I suck that's not going to work either the people that I've been able to help the

most in my career so far are the people who are technically so amazing at what they do and they've been hidden away in

the back office as a technician and then bloody Brad always gets the promotion

right Brad always gets it ah damn it Brad got it again Brad's not smart as me Brad is not as good as me right and and

it's because Brad talks better he's more visible in the work environment you really think it often comes down to just

how we speak and communicate our value yes because if you can't communicate your value in a way that is clear and

concise people it's it's not their responsibility to see the Brilliance that exists within you it's I believe

your responsibility to learn how to shine your light brightly it's it's super sad because I lived a massive part

of my life like that English is my third language uh the first language I learned is a Chinese

dialect not that impressive my wife speaks five but thank you the first language I Learned was a Chinese dialect called diu right it's a bit

of second language I then had to learn fluently is

Vietnamese so I had to learn all these different languages growing up these were my first two core languages that if I wasn't proficient in it grammar would

be pissed off mom would pissed off so we had to study it and then I went to school and had to learn English so I

went to school I was completely invisible I couldn't communicate with any other kid

they couldn't communicate with me so what do kids do oh it's too hard oh just ignore you then they bully you oh yes I

didn't even know it was bullying because I couldn't understand them right I could kind of read what they seemed mean but I

no idea what they were saying so I spent so much of my childhood especially in those single digit years around 5 six

and seven this is super sad but I I just spent a lot of time in the toilet because I didn't want to deal with the

shame of being seen by myself so I just hid I just found a corner somewhere and

no one and then gradually I started to learn English but even when I learned English I sounded funny because I had an

accent so then they called me fob fob fresh off the boat yeah and they just

kept calling me oh there's the fob there's the fob oh he's so fobby so and then so then even though I learn the English language now I'm scared to speak

it because I don't want to sound like a fob and there were all these challenges and so I know what it's like to feel

invisible I know what it's like to be ignored and that was a long time ago and

I guess the question that it leaves me with is how easy is it for someone to learn like what is the time span that it

would take from The Experience you've had with teaching people to to make a radical change in your communication

skills it depends on your level of desire and motivation if you really want it I'd say 3 to 6 months you think you

can change your communication skills in a IAL way in 3 to 6 months I've seen it I've seen students do it it's when

instead of just thinking about I'm trying to learn a new habit it's what James Clear says you you adopt a new

identity where they adopt that new identity because one of the things I do is I share that story about my schooling experience at the beginning of my

in-person classes and I say I want you all to imagine now you're at a new school no one here in this room with us

right now has any preconceived idea of who you are break the mold break it and

then you see grown adults do things they wouldn't normally do break out of the play with their voice be a little silly

reconnect with their inner child and then in that moment they fall so deeply in love with that version of them

because of the reactions they've been able to get from all these strangers around them that they commit to it it's

when you experience that change in the moment it usually leads to a fairly profound desire after that oh I want to become this now but then they make a big

mistake and the biggest mistake they make is they'll go home to their partner and who has no context of the experience

they've been through and they've just went oh I've been quiet with my my voice my entire life and they'll go home they

like new me new year new me honey and then their partner goes oh why you doing that with your voice oh you learned that

from Vin what that's gross why are you doing that that's so fake it's so inauthentic and then they revert back to

who they have always been their entire life what areas of one's life have you

seen in those examples change when someone learned communication skills because we we often the examples we've

given so far are just like work yeah yeah yeah with their children this has been the coolest part because

I'm a dad I I get I I I teach a concept called vocal foundations which we can

dive into later and there's these beautiful five core vocal foundations that people can learn and I love it when

parents go through it because I always see these comments where they said oh my goodness just read to the kids they've

never reacted to me in that way before the moment the one night I go home and I read to my kids and I do it in a boring

way they go Dad don't read like that do it the fun way and and what they're

asking for is they're asking for that vocal variety they're asking for that inner child for that playfulness and I

think that's one of the greatest I think that's one of my greatest superpowers is the ability to be playful and the

willingness to be playful so you're going to help me in work you're going to help me be a more entertaining engaging

parent are there any other areas of one's life that improve when they crack communication yes there is an area and

the area is improv learn improvisation people all

want to get better at communication often it's because they want to get better at conversations what is a gamma conversation what are we doing right now

what are we doing this is a gamer improv I don't know what you're going to say you don't know what I'm going to say and then based on what I say you improvise

and you say something so even though I know you've never done improv before you are amazing at improv because that's a

skill you had to have developed to become the incredible podcaster that you are right now right so that to me is

such a important skill when you're playing with your kids too it it helps you with all areas of life it's the tide that lifts all boats because kids love

to play they'll say something oh and then then the cow now is an astronaut and most parents like Ah that's cool honey that's cool no play now it's also

fighting zombies that exist on the moon and you didn't know about it m and you play with them and when you're playing

what are you using you're using your ability to communicate and how many people have you taught in person and or

online oh over 70,000 now wow yeah you have millions and millions and millions

of followers online as well that tune to learn communication skills from you from all around the world and if and if I was

to zoom in on the DMS that you get the things that people are struggling with

when they message you the reason why they watch your videos what is it the

most common message that we get when people type a comment and leave it on our videos is is it possible for me to

change the sound of my voice really well because you think about it right nobody likes the sound of their own voice the

first time you heard heard yourself on a podcast were you like oh no or did you say I love it look how sexy I sound when I was younger and I was little cassette

recorders and I heard my voice I thought [ __ ] hell who's that yeah me too right so that is the biggest inse one of the biggest insecurities for most people

when they first become problem aware with their communication skills is oh is it possible for me to change the sound

of my voice is it possible is it possible and and and when you reflect

upon this even when you reflect reflect upon this most people in their entire life will never change the way they

sound they will never change the way they communicate they'll change the way they dress they'll change their hair they'll change their glasses they change they'll

change all these things about themselves but the way they communicate and the way they sound stays consistent generally

M it's because there are a lot of psychological blocks that keep us sounding the same we keep ourselves

sounding the same you know there's I'll share with you a few of these okay

MH with my vocal teacher at the beginning of my journey when she got me to do things with my voice where she said all right let's do a really high

Voice haveit have a bit of a play Vin and you know go into false Seto and she wouldd make me do things like this I'd

go red because I'd go oh that feels so weird oh now I'm becoming so deep with

my voice this feels so fake and it feels phony I immediately came up with those objections as I'm sure you would feel

that too if I got you to do that right and when I dealt with my students that's the immediate thing that comes up they go it's fake it's phony that's not me

and then now just like my vocal teacher she would always challenge me she goes well if you could make the sound and you

play the key on your piano you describe to me then how is it fake how is it fake if you were able to make that sound that

is you that is your instrument that is just you playing with keys you're unfamiliar with that's it you've gone

through this entire life being so familiar with this key that anytime you press any other key you go oh it's not me no no no you're just familiar with

this key and you're unfamiliar with the others that alone helped me understand

that oh wow it's not fake because for the longest time I thought it was fake and

because I thought it was fake I never changed the way I T and and why is it that we don't want to play with those

other Keys is it because we've got so used to playing with a particular set of keys and you're so familiar with it

playing the other Keys comes at a cost a perceived cost well it goes deeper than that it goes even deeper than that

because where did you get your voice from who did you learn it from there's an idea that people have in their minds

about this thing called a natural voice okay this is another objection my students give me they go oh that's not my natural voice and speech pathologists

will tell you this the voice you have right now is not your natural voice you lost access to your natural voice when

you were two or three question if I asked you to scream at the top of your lungs right now for about 10 minutes

yeah would what would happen to your voice oh I'd lose it yeah my daughter 12 months old can scream for 3 hours

stevenh and she does not lose her voice because they have this beautiful access to their instrument they can naturally

access that in instrument whereas as we grow older at the age of three or four we start to be inspired by certain

people in our circles as a result of being inspired by people what do kids do they emulate they copy so the voice that

you've developed you've copied that based on the people you were inspired by when you were young it's just a series

of habits the way you speak the way you sound is just a series of behaviors it's how you manipulate your vocal cords how

you move air through your body how you shape your lips where you place your teeth how you maneuver your tongue how you maneuver your soft pallet depending

on how you do all of that you create a certain sound but if I change now as you said people are going to think I'm weird

that's right well that's right but that's the thing you have to have a process to go about that change okay CU if you immediately just talk tonight

with your partner with no context they'll go she like what the hell why did you why did you talk to VIN on the

podcast yeah why now you're fake yeah right we'll get to that in the moment

what I'm saying is that the reason why you don't move from that is because you genuinely feel stuck I'll give you the reason behind it

when you're first imitating dad I had one of my students his name is tanzia beautiful beautiful guy he had a very

soft way of speaking beautiful soft way of speaking and what he didn't realize

is that in the beginning of his life he saw Dad do it really inspired by dad so he copied dad so he had to consciously

think about all these little behaviors all these nuances to copy dad's sound and then after you repeat those

behaviors for one year two years you no longer have to consciously think about it cuz you've mastered it so now those

behaviors move from your conscious mind it moves into your subconscious mind and then when behavior is move into your subconscious mind now it feels automatic

M so now you feel like it's you so now you don't doubt it you go no no that's me it's like no no it's still just a

series of behaviors yeah and I often tell my students I say all the time I say don't be so attached to who you are

in the present you don't give the future version of you a chance and the moment these things happen it's incredible

seeing these changes because all my students will do is they'll change three things more volume more Melody bigger

hand gestures people completely change the way they perceive them it three simple things that they do

creates a profound change in how others perceive them volume Melody and hand gestures

yeah I was thinking to one example of one of my students who a female Rachel who who felt like she didn't have great

executive presence and it was because she became she she labeled herself as being

shy and I I like to break these things down for my students too I'm like the the reason you're shy and the reason

you're really good at being shy is because you've been repeating the Shai behaviors for the last 25 years so

you're really good at it and that's all right it's because you've been practicing Shai for 25 years being more

confident it's about us just learning a new series of behaviors let's let's try a larger gesture I've seen this on

multiple podcasts now just try a larger gesture try a stronger volume try being more melodic with your voice and then

she was practicing that immediately the feelings of oh it feels fake it feels pH but I go oh no it's just unfamiliar and

the moment she makes that reset she goes oh I'll continue continue to explore them whereas if she thinks it's fake

she'll revert back to being who she was before so how do I speak impromptu how do I be in the moment and come up with a

good answer another one is I'm

introverted does that mean that I'm doomed okay yeah and another really

common one is I don't have much Connection in my life I wish I felt more

connected to the people that I'm around why is it that I can't get past the the

the good day mate how are you yeah I'm good how are you yeah I'm good all right cheers mate have a good one oh the small talk yeah yeah this is a big topic right

so again is just how do we how do we get to these conversations like that you get to have on so many of these wonderful

podcasts that you do so I reckon you would have insights here too there's like I was looking earlier there's almost like a billion search results on

Google for people trying to figure out um or trying to provide answers to how to communicate successfully so let's get

into it so I youed this term vocal image yeah what does vocal image mean it came

about when I realized I spend and I think most of us spend a lot of time on our visual image right how how we look

our body language the way we dress mhm but very rarely do people spend time on their vocal image now oh make it make

sense when people see you and you Reveal Your visual image they make assumptions about you pretty quickly so they form

assumptions oh this person seems friendly maybe they're confident because they got good posture maybe they're smiling they're friendly and then all of

a sudden when you open your mouth and you speak they now turn these assumptions into beliefs so what may be assumptions

before now they go oh you are friendly you are confident right or they might

think oh no bit of a wanker right and and and you've had these experiences before I've had them before where you

assume you see someone you oh that person go meet them ah not really nice that's weird so it's another layer that

we don't think about though because we again think we're stuck with our voice we think we're stuck with the way we communicate we think there's no way for

to ever change this so let's let's talk about how one can improve their vocal image so that they're effective across

context sure you mentioned Melody volume hand gestures if we start with Melody

what the hell is Melody the different notes you can hit with your voice okay so is that variety yeah variety yeah

pitch variety pitch and Melody okay well because there's a Melody that lives underneath your voice all right let's do

an experiment I'm going to play you a a piano song and I want you to listen to this and then you're at home right now I

want you to listen to to the track can see what words come to mind so we'll just play we'll play the [Music]

song okay yeah um all right sadness right so so and then if if listeners at

home could could could have a voice here too that maybe say they would say somber nostalgic yeah right all these words

would come up and and again if we sat with this for all we would get plenty of words let's try another one right let's change the mood let's shift to something

like uh this um inspirational motivational good

see all of a sudden now and and I'm thinking running towards something yeah right and and again there's a part of me

that think oh cheesy commercial right there's that there's that part of it too so you can hear all these different things let's try one more this one will

shift gears again and what about this

one uh like a horror movie scary about to die something bad's about to happen

omnus a little a little three-year-old stood on the the landing of the staircase at night yes with long black

hair yes correct so that that that again all of a sudden paints all these different vivid pictures in your head

the reason I did that experiment is there were no words in any of those

tracks yet think about all of the words that rushed to your mind as you were experiencing the melody mhm the

different notes what people failed to realize is that you have a melody in your voice yeah this is why when some

people walk into our lives it it could drain the energy from our lives and when they walk in you feel the

impact of them walking in right in the negative way or a positive way some walk in and you go oh I feel good I feel

great what is that it's the melody in which they come in with can you have a pretty limited range limited Melody but

still hit people with scary and sad and inspiring I believe you can yeah again

because we we genuinely don't have Ada keys right so again it's one of the it's a it's a metaphor but I believe that we

can create so many different songs with our voice if we learn to treat it as an

instrument and we we can we can play with the technique to help you increase your vocal range if you want sure there's something called a uh this is

fun this is a fun one there's something called a siren technique okay okay so aarin technique is when you you read

something with a low voice and then you go towards a high voice and you go back down to a low voice so now I don't want you to do to start with I just want you

to read this as you would and then we'll try the siren technique so just read it as you would neutrally first so just read that as would okay so for those

that can't see Vin has passed me a card yeah Q cards and on the card it has a bunch of words which I'm just going to read and and and as you're listening at

home have a guess of what movie this is from want to know how I got these scars my father was a drinker and a fiend and

one night he goes off crazier than usual Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself he doesn't like that not one bit

so me watching he takes the knife to her laughing while he does it turns to me

and he says why so serious son comes at me with the knife why so serious he sticks the blade in my mouth let's put a

smile on that face and why so serious beautiful what movie is that from no idea I don't want are you serious Dark

Knight The Joker okay so heat ledger so amazing okay cool great so again you read that in your neutral voice now what

we're going to do is we're going to play with the instrument okay so the siren technique is when you read with a really low voice and then gradually go to a

high voice and I'm going to challenge you to not be afraid to go into the faleto not be afraid to play so just play and and and it's not about going

low at the start and then high at the bottom within each sentence I want you to go up and down up and down I really

want you to play with your voice otherwise I'm going to push you okay in three two go want to know how I got

these scars my father was a drink and a f good

and more na he goes are crazier than usual Mommy gets the kitchen knives to

defend herself good okay wow it hurts now try to go in a way

where it is a little more even just give it a go but normally you won't be able to because you won't have all of the range fully expanded try again keep

going he doesn't like that not one bit good so me watching he takes the knife

to her yes laughing while he does it good turns to me and he says why so

serious son fantastic that's fantastic you did a great job right but you feel that

feeling you feel right now yeah weird it yes and it's not so much about getting you to speak like that on the podcast

but it's more just helping you realize this instrument that you have is capable of so much more yeah there is so

much more that it can do as opposed to what we normally do with it right because for the longest time in my life

I didn't have any Melody because I I just thought this was how you talk and the reason I can switch to this very

quickly Stephen is because I practice these behaviors for about 25 years what's even more interesting is they

they've done studies where they had five or six people talking at the same same time and the person who the person heard

was the person who had more melody in their voice oh really the person who is more melodic what they say becomes more

memorable whereas if all of us were speaking like this me yourself Jack everyone all of a sudden you wouldn't

hear you wouldn't be able to hear the difference mhm was all of a sudden if you just start to play with your voice a

little more how do you know you've not played with it too far do you know what I'm saying by playing with the to far and

then getting feedback right and people are so afraid of that though and they don't realize that they they don't go

too far they underplay the risk is not going too far the risk is not going far enough again

at this point when people heard me of course of course squeaking like Mickey Mouse they're going to say [ __ ] me like

I you're going to have to remind me again Vin why this is worth it you'll be able to make people feel more connected to you they will feel what you're saying

not just hear what you're saying I mean do you notice this in some people of course they will say things but you don't feel it yeah it happens in

America's Got Talent Australia's Got Talent where Simon Cal will say right right very good but I don't feel it what

are they talking about it's the emotion in their voice there is emotion in your voice too

do you want to go to the next one please I didn't know there was more there's more yeah there's five [ __ ] let's go through all five no the next one I'm

just going to get you to read this one as you would and then I'll tell you what it is okay just so you don't get ahead of yourself okay okay cool and and see

tell me if please tell me you know this movie far out Stephen I don't know who you are I don't know what you want if

you are looking for ransom I can tell you that I don't have money but I I do have but what I do have are a very

particular set of skills skills I have acquired over a very long career skills that make me a nightmare for people like

you if you let my daughter go now that'll be the end of it I will not look for you I will not pursue you but if you

don't I will look for you I will find you and I will kill you yes very dark movies I love these movies what movie is

this that is the movie called where he his daughter gets kidnapped what's it

called yes it start with L his name Lion King I'm joking no what is it right

from Taken but here's the thing so the next Foundation is rate of speech okay

so if you reading that and I was kind of just giving you some coaching again as you reading that think of rate of speech

of having a scale from 0 to 10 yeah all right so one being painfully slow and 10 being as quickly as you possibly can

right so you were around playing around of five very comfortable that's your default rate of speech most of us when we're nervous we just have a default

rate of speech we fall victim to a default rate of speech when you think about rate of speech there's a way to

use it and the way you use rate of speech is if you really want to highlight a point creating an auditory

highlight slow down that creates an auditory highlight it's like a highlighter with your words and if you

want to be able to show Charisma energy you speed up and if it's not as important you can speed up and that's fine this simple rule gives you vocal

variety with your rate of speech that's simple rule and what does changing my rate of speech then do to the message

I'm communicating it makes it more memorable clear okay there's more clarity in it right so for example if I

if I was speaking and I said right now I'm going to go through the five core vocal foundations and I'm going to take you first one through is rate of speech

then after that I'm going to talk to you about pitch and Melody and then after that I'll talk to you about the importance of the other three right now you have no idea what is important and

what is not important okay right whereas all of a sudden now if I said I'm going to take you through the core five vocal

foundations all of a sudden you now have a point of focus and the big thing that people want with their communication is

Clarity well if you are going to be more clear the delivery needs to be clear so

that the receiver gets what you intend okay it's not just about the exchange of information because how I say something

impacts how you receive it so I want to slow down where I want to hit emphasis yes and this script has multiple places

where you want to slow down when people are nervous yes what what happens they speed up they speed up they speed up

considerably considerably and have they ever measured that oh does anybody know

if you get above 210 words per minute you be a little bit too far and what's the average person speaking at in terms

of words per minute around 150 you want to get to around 150 180 that's very good that's a good kind of rate of

speech to be at whereas if you're slower than that then again it just gets a little bit monotonous at times for

people but again here's what's fascinating if I if all of a sudden now

I stick to a default Melody and then stick to a default rate of speech notice what's happening in your brain right all

of a sudden you start again you start to switch off right whereas all of a sudden if I start to vary my radi speech the transition from slow to fast is what's

hooking people so if you were to try to read that again now but I want you to slow and some bits painfully slow down

and play with your voice and then some bits go quicker and then the last bit I'm going to kill you slow it all the

way down and be playful it's not about okay I'm going to start from on

here sure if you're looking for a ransom I can tell you that I don't have

money but what I do have oh are a particular SE skills skills I've

acquired over a very long career let's

skip to the end if you let my daughter go that will be the end of it I will not

look for you I will not pursue you but if you don't I will look for you I will find

you and I will

kill you yes give him a big round of applause that was amazing so much but

again you feel so strange when you do it yeah I do yeah it's so fun to listen to

and and and again this is us practicing this is a safe environment I'm not don't do your next podcast like that but again

it just goes to show the range that we have access to and how it changes the message in such a profound way it's the same words yeah it's the same words but

when you read it the first time it didn't sound scary at all now I feel scared there's something I I noticed

this in like board meetings and stuff especially with like younger team members or people that would class themselves as being shy that they do

hurry along and there is a certain someone said to me the other day that people that have the most confidence in

Charisma they like move and talk as if a li if they were a lion yeah yeah you know they're slow and they're composed

PR versus Predator I remember listening to the episode was fantastic yeah there is it's people who are confident take

their time what's that third one okay just read part of it read read part of it you're more than happy to Freestyle

read part of it now if you know what you are worth then go out and get what you are worth but you have to be willing to

take the hits and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you want to be because of him or her or anybody cowards

do that and that ain't you you're better than that now the thing is this next one is volume oh [ __ ] yeah volume so

critical okay for many different reasons MH volume is the lifeblood of your voice mhm volume carries all the other

foundations you're about to learn volume carries the melody volume carries the rate of speech it carries everything

right and again I think of it as having a scale from 1 to 10 and a lot of the times like what you just did people are

around at three or four M and they stay around there when you use volume there's

two ways to auditorily highlight something with volume volume is fascinating because with we of speech you slow down but with volume volume to

highlight something you could go very quiet okay so if all of a sudden I

wanted to say something scary I could lower my volume and say it but then all of a sudden notice what happens if I

just stay here now what's started as a great verbal highlight now just kind of seems doesn't seem effective anymore

because if you make something default it becomes non-functional and what signals

I'm not a confident person what side of the scale the lower scale okay on volume

okay because that's one of the default shy behaviors that a lot of people exhibit and what about leaders where do

they land on the scale depends if they're self-aware right sometimes if they're not self-aware they can be on the higher end

and that's you know you have someone come across as a little arrogant sometimes it's just too much volume because too much volume without the

other foundations now you come across arrogant so again if I give this back to you and again just for fun like I I want

you to go loud I want people to hear outside of this studio what we're doing [ __ ] so just just have a go and just and give me and give me a whisper too at

some point give me a whisper too now if you know what you're

worth go out and get it go out and get what you're worth but you have to be

willing to take the hits and not pointing fingers saying you

ain't where you want to be because of him or her or anybody cowards do that

and that ain't you yeah you're better than that oh it's amazing yeah what you

just did made me feel why did I feel is what is a voice a voice is a series of vibrations so you just

sent vibrations my way that made me feel mhm that's why we say people have Good

Vibes right we kind of we understand it's happening but we don't understand that kind of frequency level at the

vibration level but it's happening at a physical level MH where depending on how you use your voice you're

genuinely moving people quite physically we did rate of speech we did

volume we did the yeah and then there's there's two left right there's two left yeah right so

this one read it as you would parts of it and it's not because I'm lonely and it's not because it's New Year's Eve I

came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody you want the rest of your life to start as soon as

possible what we're moving into now is the emotion that exists within your voice tonality this is the emotion that

exists right so the way to add more emotion into your voice is to move your

face because as I eloquently put it at times your face is the remote control that allows you to add emotion into your

voice so let's play right so now I'll give you different faces to make I'll tell you a different faces to make and

you make those different faces and allow those emotions to come through your voice okay so if it's happy then I want you to sound really happy if I don't

want you to sound really sad so we'll start with and and try your best to play with this I want you to make disgust

like just uh disgust and let that come through and give me a more volume give me disgust in three two and it's not

because you're lonely yeah and it's not because it's New Year's Eve surprised really

surprised I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life angry give me

angry you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible happy best day of your life Stephen you want the rest

of your life to start as soon as possible that's so beautiful you know this already in our brains there's miror

neurons right and when I see you go through these different facial expressions I feel what you feel even

though I know this is a a situation we've created here for us to experiment it's a safe environment but every time

you went through any of those emotions I felt it because I didn't just see it are men

worse at this stuff yes they are yes because I feel well for me I can only speak personally for me I was taught to

keep my emotions on the inside right I always taught that it's a sign of weakness to show you being sad you being

happy you should just be composed composed at all times and then that's what I thought and that that led me to

the behavior of speaking whereas I just always speak like this because I'm a man

and I should always speak like this and I still remember going to one of the concerts and my my my life turns over she goes how do you feel I'm like this

is a really exciting concert and and and and she goes well okay you obviously hate it and I'm like

no no I I love it I love it and I just I didn't know how to emote and again I thought I was stuck like that because I

was stuck like that for years and that that damaged a lot of my relationships because here's a thing

that I think and it might be helpful for you too when you're listening to someone talk you don't have to react with sound

because otherwise you'll be seen as interrupting the other person right you can react with facial expressions and

that is one of the most powerful ways to show them you're listening and that you're following along how cool is that cuz if someone's saying something really

bad and you're like yeah it shows them you're locked in yeah you learn it as a podcaster yeah you do because the

audience they're looking at you for most of the conversation so 95% of the conversations on you yes what they don't

know is that throughout that time I'm basically talking to you with my face you are and you're really good at it so

if I turn my head like this it means tell me more so I'll be you'll be talking a go like this yes and it means tell me more yes and then it's it's

interesting and you can expand that range yeah it doesn't just have to be curious yeah and cuz I see you do it I

see you consistently do the different faces to give me the queue to almost go oh he wants to elaborate oh he's in he's locked in do you know you can the thing

I've learned from both speaking on stage but also doing this is you can also [ __ ] it up you can also communicate the wrong

thing yes accidentally one of them that people communicate quite often that accidentally is they start talking while

you're speaking do you ever know that like when someone's um listening to speak they start they start going like

this yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and it means shut the [ __ ] up I need to I have something to say I just did it like that but it's

that kind of no but it's that kind of thing it's like you know I think who was on my podcast it was Vanessa she said if

you do the fast nod it means shut the [ __ ] up so if you go yeah but if you do the slow nod it means oh I love this so

if I go oh I've learned something that's curiosity tell me more versus

yeah with yeah yeah and wave my hand yeah yeah yeah okay so tonality so emotion and that was so beautiful to see

you do that because it just again we just have such great range and then imagine you start to vary your rate of

speech now you vary volume you've got different Melody you've also got different facial expressions this is

such a rich song that you're playing now do you think much of about the actual words

you're saying as well of course I can see that you think about the structure of what you're saying like you're

thinking about cuz when you start speaking I notice that you often go into

a story straight away something interesting you'll say this is one of the greatest things I've learned from my teacher is that intentional it is

because I believe stories are more sticky than me just throwing you a bunch of tips and hacks and tricks do you have a storytelling formula I do what is the

storytelling formula I think the way most people tell stories is is they report stories so I'll share a story

with you okay and reporting a story is let's say you ask me the question I this is one of my favorite stories it's let's

say you ask me how I met my wife reporting a story is just me saying oh I met my wife at a bar and I did some

magic to her she didn't like it and that was cool and then I gradually was able to wo her in the end but I met her at a bar that's me that's me reporting the

story right it's kind of sounds like a news reporter yeah right so if you think about it again let me just anchor it with a news reporter it's like a news

reporter saying last night at a bar at 9:00 p.m. Vin Jang went to AAR called distill and tried to pick up a Gil did a

Cheesy magic trick it didn't work therefore he failed he came back four times again and then he saw her and then he succeeded and now they're married

onto the next news right so it's it's kind of very reporter whereas matter of fact matter of fact whereas this is the

story of how I met my wife so I still remember this because this happened in 2009 I crashed a girl's graduation party

named Vivien it was at a bar called distill this beautiful bar called distill and there was two levels to this

bar on the bottom was for everybody and on top was the high rollers you had to buy expensive drinks to get to the top

and I got to the top and I saw this beautiful Malaysian girl sitting by the bar so I said to my friends I said watch this and I take a packet of cards out of

my pants cuz I'm magician so I walk up to her walk up to and I say would you be impressed if I transformed this king of

hearts into the Queen of Hearts like yourself disgusted I know you're making

the disgusted face and and that's how she reacted she she looked at me as if she smelt a bloody fart she looks at me

she goes I'd be more impressed if you transformed into a real man had a conversation with me

boom and I've never had that reaction before normally people say wow you're amazing so I said to her no thanks and I

left tail between my legs the boys all teased me and everything but I was so drawn her confidence just oh there was

something there I went back to the bar four times in a row she wasn't there she wasn't there she wasn't there then she was there and I walked up to the second

time and I said Hey listen what if I transformed into a real man andon I took you out for a

coffee and we fell in love you know and that that's that's the story of how I met my wife whereas the

way I would normally tell that story is just oh I met her at a bar did some tricks she didn't like it and then that was fun yeah but all of a sudden there

was so much life so much zest in that story I noticed you added so much almost irrelevant

detail but you talked about the bar having two floors and stuff make it visual okay so I could picture it in my

mind want to make it visual well it's it's it's well okay so here's a when you think of the storytelling formula if you

just give the who what where and when that's the basics people need but what turns up from reporting to

reliving because that's what you want to get to you want to get to reliving a story is the ingredients that you just

called out so intuitive if you to call him out vax v a s which stands for

visual auditory kinesthetic and smell so I'm just describing those few things for you right and it doesn't always have to

have all the ingredients but you want to add some of those ingredients right so the visual I describe to you the visual the auditory what I said I did my voice

I did her voice I gave you dialogue right so all of a sudden you bring those the story to life now it goes from

reporting to reliving so if I if I told that story and let's say that now the connection

ability is again it's to do with improv as well is instead of just going out and

saying here's three ways to show up authentically when you're trying to pick up someone yeah instead of doing that I

share the story first I get you to engage I build rapport I build chemistry now you've heard the story now you have

rapport with me you feel more relaxed you feel more creative right then I link that story to so the very next time you

walk up to a girl if she does say no she may not be saying no to you she may just be saying no to your approach here are

the three ways you can show up more authentically as a man I believe that is a much more

powerful way to then go into the three tips whereas I I feel that because of

the world now with social media we just we we've lost art form of Storytelling

is just give me the three tips now I've heard you talk about these four elements to a great story which is the hook the

struggle the break through and the application which is kind of what you just displayed there well the the

importance of application I think is something that I really focus on with my students the and by application you mean

the lesson or the big takeaway from the story cuz sometimes people tell stories and they go nowhere well it's also what you do after

okay because I can I can share a story but if I one of our viers went viral and

and I don't to be an expert on social media okay so I don't I still don't understand how some of these things work

even though we've been able to grow all of our social channels quite quickly I I don't understand how it works it to me

I'm like oh wow I can't believe that worked last time oh it doesn't work anymore huh that's weird so to me it's

what people love is when you give them a really simple pragmatic takeaway that they can go and actually

do like go do it now where whereas we we don't apply knowledge we just keep

consuming and go through knowledge acquisition there's there's a cycle of Doom that we go through there's just

just cycle of I mean this is the cycle my students go through oh drob promotion oh crap I need to work on my

communication skills what's the first thing they do they go to Google and then they Google how do I improve my interview skills my communication skills

then they get back 10.6 Million results they go ah this is too crazy surely someone's created a YouTube video then they go to YouTube they type in how to

improve communication skills they get 3 million videos right and they go oh this is too chat GPT I'll go to chat GPT now

how to improve communication skills and it gives you these generic answers from blogs that have no relevance to you and then after that you feel so overwhelmed

you do nothing with it but it's just this cycle we all fall victim to over

and over and over again we just keep consuming knowledge and nothing actually changes because we're not applying

it so the the key is to get out there and start running some of these techniques in the real world and just

pick one pick one and just try it it's like we're going through all these different things right after this

episode go out and just try tonality with your kids and read them a children's book because those books are naturally emotive and if you don't have

kids borrow a niece or a nephew and just watch the impact on the other human being as you play with your instrument

watch them smile watch them giggle watch them react to the way you play your instrument because then it wakes you up

to the fact that you've got access to this and that I can change the way someone feels what

power yet we don't use it I've just realized that there's one more left there is one more left here okay I know

I know what this yeah of course if you didn't I'd be quite deeply offended yeah I'll get you to read this and we'll play

with the last one okay yeah okay my name is Maximus Decimus Meridius correct

commander of the armies of the north general of the Felix Legions loyal servant to the true Emperor Marcus

aelius father to a murderer son husband to a murdered wife and I will have my Vengeance in the life or the next

perfect now we're going to read it again except the final Foundation here with the voice is pause whatever emotion

comes before the pause once you pause it intensifies that emotion so if you got the feeling of anger and you pause oh

that is a pause of anger but if all of a sudden I'm sad and and then I pause you

prolong the sadness it's a pause of sadness and think about how important the pause is in music and I love the world of music I love listening to

orchestral music and when you think about it what happens right after a crescendo it's a pause silence the most

important note that they play during that peace yet we barely use it and what

else does the pause do when you pause you give me time to process what you're saying yet we are so afraid of the

pause my name is Maximus Decimus Meridius commander of the armies of the

north general of the Felix Legions loyal servant to the true

Emperor Marcus aelius father to the mer murdered

son husband to a murdered wife and I will have my

vengance in this life or the next oh

beautiful when you paused you gave me time to process the weight of what you're saying the first time you read it

you rushed through it just like that nervous employee in front of their leaders who just rush through it you may have just shared the most brilliant plan

for a marketing campaign but because you rushed through it I didn't feel the weight of how profound the strategy is

there's something when you pause you almost you tell the person don't you act almost inexplicitly that they should

really give a [ __ ] about the thing you just said yeah like it really mattered it's important yeah because you're like

giving it space to breathe and do you see what all these foundations do what do they give you

ultimately like what does It ultimately lead to Clarity do you think there's a certain

set of those tools that when applied or a certain sort of style of speaking that makes people

dislike you is there a certain one that just doesn't make them warm to you is it the low pitches is it the fast

speaking the there's sounds that people don't like for example have you ever

called I don't mean to pick on real estate agents but it happens a lot to me in Australia when you call a real estate agent it's hello this is James from XY

real estate and when you hear that sequence of Melody no worries I'll put you on to the next person and you hear

you switch off you just go ah this person just just I'm not really connected to that person and all you have to do is you just tell them to

switch the melody and just don't use that sing song voice and they call that a sing song voice in the world of vocal

training right you've got a sing song voice and if you keep following the same Rhythm you have a sing song voice so instead of doing that just go hey it's

James how can I help mate you said the same thing you just switched up the melody that sounds a little more sincere

because it was a bit more varied or exactly right and it's not what everybody uses because once everybody

uses the same thing all of a sudden it now sounds like a script that's why people are so afraid when they're

creating content online they go I I don't want to sound scripted there's a sound to it and it

generally follows up that's why newscasters they there's a sound to it yeah last night at 9:00 p.m. there's

that there's a and then they keep using the same Rhythm over and over and over and over again the same Melody sequence over and over and over and over again

and am I right in thinking if I wanted to be really boring I should just kill all variety kill all the foundations

nothing give me nothing and and it's what happens when people again the people that I serve it's what happens is

because they go I'll let my work speak for itself and and I say that's great that

means you do great work but why not speak for your work too why can't we do both MH why does it have to be one or

the other yeah it's a shame not to do your work Justice you know because you can do it at disservice just by

delivering it without the foundations as you've said yeah and and then other people as you said they could have a

half the idea but double the double the Showmanship yeah and that happens too

that happens too right so to me it's about helping those who they' they've got something amazing you've got a story

you need to share you've got an idea you need to pitch you've got incredible technical skills that you've worked on

for the last 15 years and you're thinking why am I still stuck in this position it's well hey let's let's do

great work and let's let's allow ourselves to build the ability and grow the ability to shine how does one

increase their self-awareness as it relates to their communication skills is there is there a practice I can do to

understand if I'm good bad at this if you are problem unaware to communication and right now you just go oh this is

something I need to work on then this is the three-step process you have to commit to and just by doing this it's

going to dramatically change the way you talk it's going to dramatically change the way you show up I call it record and

review and I learned this as a magician and it's so practical when it comes to Magic and communication skills First

Step record a video of yourself speaking for 5 minutes a full 5 minutes and

always immedately say oh what do I say though Google or chat GPT great

conversational starters and then use those for yourself and just talk but it has to be impromptu because I'm trying

to tease out core behaviors I don't want you to give me a pitch that you've delivered 20 times already I want you to just in the moment speak I'm trying to

tease out some non-functional behaviors so once you've recorded that video of yourself for 5 minutes leave it for a

Day video or just audio video you want video you want to be standing while you're doing this okay once you've got

that video recorded leave it for a day because when you watch it straight away I'm fat I'm ugly I don't like myself I

hate the way I sound you leave it for a day you're thinner you're better looking you love yourself more time and space it's amazing so leave it for a day then

when you watch it back you review it in three different ways the first time so you record on your phone you turn the

sound all the way up press play turn your phone over just listen here you're

doing an auditory review and just listen to your voice and now because you've listened to this podcast you also have

five vocal foundations can think about so now auditorily think about how's my rate of speech how's my volume oh my

default rate is around a three oh I speak really and I stick to that oh my default volume is oh my goodness it's

one oh wow there's no tonality there's no emotion in my voice there's no pitch for oh I am not pausing you'll be able

to take so many notes and you'll be able to hear things you've never been able to hear before because most people avoid

filming themselves because I hate the way I look and I hate the way I sound right so to

me once you do that you have you'll have a page of notes and a whole new level of awareness on your auditory communication

skills so the next step is now you turn your phone back around you turn the sound and put it on mute you press play

and you just look at yourself and then as you're watching yourself because most people don't do this unless they're creators you don't do this that's why

creators are such great communicators is because they do this that's why you're a great listener in a podcast because you watch yourself back so now as you just

watch yourself back without the auditory feedack back all of a sudden now you'll see things you don't normally see oh wow

I'm swiveling a lot on my chair oh wow I don't use my hand gesture oh W I'll put my hands behind my back oh this is my

big tick I keep touching my glass I can't help it oh I need to work on that but you keep touching your glasses right

I keep touching my face I keep touching my mouth I keep fiddling with things you'll see a whole bunch of non-functional behaviors that you've

never seen before because you've avoided it and also because you have this idea in your head that you're stuck you're

not it's just a series of behavior yes right and then afterwards the final form

of review don't listen to it and don't watch it get it

transcribed because now you'll see the way you communicate from a different perspective and you go oh my goodness I

ramble I I talked about the same thing over you because you see it from a different perspective sometimes you don't hear that it's easier to see it

and then you see it and I can see you reacting right but that's that's what people do is they they go oh not only do

I ramble because when you get a transcribed leave in all of the nonwords and the filler words nonwords being the

sounds we make to fill the silence filler words being the words we use to fill the silence and so like do you know what I

mean this transcription is immediately going to reveal to you all of your

auditory clutter the things that you say again nonwords and filler words auditory clutter that's the again the ano like do

you know what I mean um uh highlight it with a red highlighter because it might not just be those one of my big ones was

okay okay I taught online during CO as a

result of that because I didn't get the inperson feedback from my students I would always say okay at the end of my

sentences because I wasn't getting any feedback so I say that's the vocal foundations okay all right now that's

body L okay okay okay and I didn't even notice I was doing it but that process revealed to me immediately oh wow I

didn't know that I was able to remove that because it didn't serve why does it matter to remove the

clutch to words you know the like as um why does it matter I'll give you an

example of it you know like um if I you know was uh taking you through like the

um core uh you know vocal foundations you know like uh it decreases the

clarity of the message it's okay to have some be human I get it it's not about none but it's about having some and not

have your speech littered with it is it easy to overcome that yeah it is because

to get rid of that bad habit you just need to learn a new habit and the new habit is pause so the very moment you

feel like saying um we're not lagging we're just pausing

right you pause and that's why as part of the vocal foundations you have to learn to

be comfortable with what we're doing right now just

pausing and it's okay so I've got my three sheets of paper there there I've

I've done the auditory assessment I've done the visual assessment I've looked at the transcript and I've seen the

words and again is it repetitions from there on after to like step before that okay because nor normally what happens

after you do that and I know because my students have done it and then what happens is overwhelm because they

go oh my goodness there's like 26 things I have to improve that's which one do I pick and

then they'll have to DM me on social which one do I pigment and then analysis paralysis and to me is it doesn't matter

pick one so what you do is you crate yourself a little 12we plan and you plan it one week at a time so first week rate

of speech great so you the whole week you you you you just look at rate of speech okay okay at the end what do you

do of that week record and review again did it change no guess what you're

doing next week rate to speech and it's that commitment and I love this Japanese word called Kaizen

Relentless Improvement and you all do this here amazingly that's what you got to commit to and you focus on rate of

speech until you see change and I used to do coaching I don't do it anymore because I've got two kids and I you know

they're the most important people to me right now but I used to coach CEOs and they would see my plan to help them

improve their communication skills and they get pissed off because they go I I'm just doing rate of speech I'm

like yeah because your default is so slow you're putting everyone to sleep

and if you don't change it after week one or week two I'm still going to get you to do the same thing and just by increasing rate of

speech alone they became so much more Dynamic took a month we all know people that overt talk and overe explain 100%

like how does one know if they're doing that and how to change it by being able to record yourself while you're in conversation with someone and zoom is

amazing now so all of a sudden now if you want Awareness on that record yourself and and the beauty of recording

yourself on something like Zoom is all of a sudden now you can you can watch yourself and you see the other person

too do you recommend someone like me if if we're trying to improve the communication skills of everybody in the

company to record our meetings and to send it after 100% and review it and and

and you you may not get reactions when people say things because most people the only thing they'll give you feedback on with your commun this is the only

feedback anybody will ever give you on your communication I felt like you talked a bit too fast they'll never say

anything else because anything else is an attack on your personality right so people are very afraid to give you feedback right especially you being the

big boss no one's going to give you feedback right so all of a sudden or maybe they do I feel like your team

do what I'm trying to get at is all of a sudden now when you watch yourself back on those videos you now will see their

facial reactions people are very honest with their body language you've had body language experts on here people might be able to lie with what they say but all

of a sudden they tell the truth with their body language you will see people do the silent yawn right you'll see people they just do the silent yawn

right they keep their mouth closed but they're yawning you will see the these things if you start to reflect and review and you go a I shouldn't have

said that I took too long I lost them you can see it I do that with my

classes when I record when I used to do my Keynotes I had a whole career as a keynote speakers when I did that I used

to duct tape two GoPros together and I'll duct tape the little red recording button so the audience doesn't know like

that I'm I'm recording myself and I'm also recording the audience only for my purpose right as I review my speeches

and I would watch backto back the audience faces and my Keynote and I could you you can see where you

lose people because at a conference their faces light up with their phone you can literally see when you're losing

them in the talk and when you watch those back toback it is so humbling because you go wow did I go on for why I

thought it was a fun tangent it wasn't and then I kept that tangent in for bloody six months because I thought it

added so much value it did not add value so the only way to get that awareness is you have to find Opportunities where you

can record yourself do you mind if I pause this conversation for a moment I want to talk about our show sponsor

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shopify.com Bartlet and when you went up on stage as a keynote speaker was there anything

that you did before you went on stage to make sure that you performed optimally cuz you were speaking what 80 times a year or something yeah yeah yeah it got

pretty full on yes have a way to calm your mind calm your body and get really

focused and the way I do it is the first thing I would do is whm Hof the guided

bubble breathing 30 times and then hold your

breath and then a deep breath in hold for 15 and then release three cycles of

that oh stepen I'm my mind is relaxed my body is relaxed and then the next thing

I do is I just do a little bit of brisk walking do maybe 10 20 push-ups why

because I'm getting rid of the adrenaline that's building up in my body because if you don't get rid of the adrenaline you will go on stage and you

start pacing the stage and I've seen speakers do this where they Pace there's no reason for their movement but they're

moving because there's so much adrenaline In Me Right non-functional Movement nonfunctional so get rid of the

adrenaline so a little bit of brisk exercise gets rid of that adrenaline that you don't need so do those two

things and depending on how nervous I am I may have to do a mindset shift and the mindset shift

is the only way you can become self-conscious and nervous is if you're thinking about yourself so if you're not

thinking about yourself and you have no cognitive capacity to think about yourself then how can you be nervous so think of the

audience right before coming to this I felt a bit nervous I thought you know what I'm just going to think about Steven and I'm going to think about his audience how can I add the most value

possible in this podcast as we and the moment I thought about you and your audience I I don't have any

cognitive capacity left to think about me MH so when you kind of think about this act of service it it shifts where

you are you're not in your own body anymore you're not self-conscious your audience conscious helps and is there

anything you do with your mouth and your tongue CU sometimes especially if I've woken up early in the morning and I'm

like jumping on a zoom call with some foreign time zone yes like it feels like my mouth isn't quite like there yet and

also it feels like my brain's not connected to my mouth so first thing is lip trills have you ever done lip trills

before no okay lip trills are this perfect and a lot of people won't be able to do that so all you do is get

your two index fingers push your cheeks together and you can go do your favorite song so you think of

your favorite song and you you know Final Countdown one of my favorites

right now do that for an entire song so do that for your favorite song and once you've done that if you do that for 2 to

3 minutes now all of a sudden your articulators have woken up you've also woken up your vocal cords and your lips

now being the main articulators we use to shape the words that we say it's awake the siren technique is another the

great way to wake up your voice and you've done the the S technique which is read low and then go high read low and

then go high the other thing that I learned from studying your work is this idea of the Power Sphere when you're on

stage ah this Power Sphere I've got a picture here you got a picture that I I learned this from Mark Bowden Mark Bowden is an incredible body language

expert and I was lucky to do some coaching with him when I lived in the US and he taught me this concept of the

area between your belly button and your eyes yeah and that's the P sphere so when you're gesturing to people a lot of

people who are shy they gesture below the P sphere well just like hands to so so again they're doing all these different things but they're doing this

like oh hey great to see you oh I'm so excited to be here it's great right and why are they doing that because they're

because they're playing small okay scared to take up space right so and again I get a lot of my female students

ask me this question they say oh Vin I feel like I don't have enough presence and I get the feedback I don't get executive presence what is this elusive

thing called executive presence it's simple it's two things it's vocal presence and physical presence and how

you use your hand gestures allows you to level up your physical presence so if you've got better physical presence

because you're using your hand gestures within the PO sphere all of a sudden you've got that executive presence that

they're talking about so you need to get your elbows off your sides 100% yeah yeah you again I think of myself as

having this sphere around me the way that I remember Mark sharing this with me and not be afraid to go to the edges of the sphere don't be afraid to go to

the edges of the sphere otherwise we tend to a lot of people T-Rex it right the T-Rex it right don't T-Rex it just

have your arms nice out and big don't be afraid to take up the space and and then there are foundational gestures you

should learn paired with this the first one which you're doing already this is uh Virginia Satia came up with these and

she was a family therapist and she came up with the foundation to hand gestures this is plator try so you've got your

hand for people that can't see you've got your hands Palm face up Palm face up and out plator okay beautiful gesture to

show that hey I have no weapons I have nothing to attack you with right so this is play so you're showing your your

palms wonderful way to greet people as they come in hey in like this instead of surrendering just kind of hands up hey

great to see you okay beautiful great however it's closely related to its

cousin I don't know right I don't know is this so again it does lack Authority so if you want more Authority you use

what's the second one called leveler leveler is hands facing down so hands p face down yes right feels a bit we're

doing sitting down but this is leveler right it's there a element of control yeah well the hands face down well try

this try this give this a go right I'm saying this a lot to my daughter at the moment she's very one-year-old very

sweet very naughty so again say Melody don't do say inator say melody stop doing that so just try it so we'll count

you down in three two melody stop doing that perfect okay you're going to do the

same thing now in levela okay so in and give me more volume in three two melody

stop doing that I didn't tell you what to really even do did you notice how your voice changed yeah what what CH my

face changed as well and what what changed with your your body um I what had changed with your your vocal quality

sorry it went the pitch went okay the pitch went down yes correct and I didn't

tell you to do that yeah right so all of a sudden cuz I was doing I was doing anger but frustration yeah yeah yeah exact and no one told you to do that

that's a universal thing what's fascinating about what just happened there is people are afraid of a monotone voice and they don't realize that a

monotone voice comes from a monotone body so you just moved your body from this to this and you created a different sound yeah is the voes connected to the

body the body's connected to the voice and the biggest mistake you see here within this realm here is you do imagine

you did a great keynote and at the end imagine I do this at the end of the KE imagine I do this right are there any

questions right versus are there any questions I was going to say with the level of one where you start putting

your hands down I thought you wanted to get off stage and I don't want any and I I don't want any questions yeah the next one is called

blamer have a guess at what blamer is pointing yes correct this is blamer a very strong Gest

and then a softer version of that is the full finger point you point with all your fingers politicians get taught this they they soften it soften it a bit and

then they soften it with their full finger point I noticed this on the podcast sometimes I noticed the people accidentally do it when they say

something yeah oh because they'll say they'll say something like um you know entrepreneurs they can be they can be

quite sad because they they don't have balance and as they're saying it they'll like accidentally point at

me than me but it it does make contextual sense so they'll go your entrepreneur sometimes they don't have work life and they're like they don't

know they're doing it but they're like subtly gesturing in my direction um yeah yeah I know what you

mean it's like yeah some people have you put on a bit of weight oh what am I I didn't know that

oh my a do it all the time yeah again it's just different ways to vary the way

you look visually that's blamer you got a softer version and then you've also got this wonderful one they call the computer and

computer is a wonderful an extra thing you can do when you're on a podcast and someone's you you you experience or you

hear heightened emotion you can also respond with your face but you can respond with your body too you can kind of go into computer and computer is just

one arm under the armpit and the other one at your chin you go H one arm across and one and some people call this the

think of POS right but you can go in this you go combine with a head tilt soften it right straight up is a little

bit straight soften it is that is that what head tilt does it softens it just softens it's like okay I I I feel what

you're going through and the reason they call it computer is I'm processing what you're saying I'm leaning in I'm showing you that I'm processing as opposed to

sometimes we're unaware we don't move our face and we just sit there and they're talking and we're like this yeah and they don't know if you're there the

sensitivity is when you sense heightened emotion so if they start to get a bit frustrated you

get you can show them with your body too beautiful pose then the the final one is

distractor which is a pattern break it's an auditory and visual pattern break for

example if you're on stage and you're talking and you've got gone on a tangent I've done this maybe you've done it and

you realize the audience they're all on their phones instead of continuing you can execute distractor and do distractor

to get their attention back oh I'm sorry oh I I've gone down that tangent let me

bring you back let me use a different analogy so auditory in that there's a clap involved MH visual in that I'm

Shing bees imagine me Shing bees as I was doing that so clap and Sh bees there's an auditory and visual pattern break that now allows me to get your

attention back if you're doing this more than once in a presentation you need to work on your rehearsal process you need to work on you delivering the

presentation in a way that's more coherent I guess all of this stuff also applies to when you're making video clips for social media so many of us are

building personal Brands and trying to make content but we we make boring unengaging videos yes because you come

to life I'm coming to life visually yeah what we're seeing here is I'm coming to life vocally and Visually here's where

people get stuck again they go but that's not me yeah do do you think right

now I'm I'm watching Beast games and I'm loving it it's just I'm so addicted to it Jimmy's doing great and do you think

Jimmy talks like that his everyday life do you think he goes home and he says to his Pana and next we're going to go to dinner and for dinner you're going to

have three Choice he doesn't talk like that but he understands that in that context for that Medium the message I'm

trying to communicate I have to play my instrument differently to achieve the outcome that I desire and you're gonna

have to do the same thing in your life whereas people are addicted to this idea of there's only one me do you know what's interesting is I think there'll

be a certain cohort of people listening that just go oh God this is so I know

it's so much it's so it sounds so exhausting then and I I just I just can't be I can't be bothered V I can't

you must have heard this before I've heard it before and I share with him that the idea of influence you've got to

understand that takes work it's like saying I want to become the best basketballer in the world but but it's too much work so it's a deal if you want

this if you want this then this is how you this is how you get it yeah the world has really changed especially in

the last couple years post pandemic and much of our communication now takes place on video calls Zoom Google

Hangouts this kind of thing yeah how do the rules that you've said and you've talked about today apply or not apply to

when I'm doing my zoom meetings yeah it's even more important

online because the moment you sit in front of a camera and you're not a Creator what happens the moment it's

unnatural what happens to you because it's weird sitting in front of a webcam what happens to you do you think you lose yourself a little bit yes yeah

everything drops all of your vocal foundations disappear so what do I need to be thinking about to be effective I

want to be the most effective person on my zoom course because I do worry sometimes I do worry because I have big investment meetings and stuff with

startups or Founders that I'm in the process of trying to do a deal with and I think God if we do this on Zoom it

might not be so good I might come across worse I feel like I'll come across better in person so I often move the

meeting to in person and then sometimes it's not always convenient right it's never convenient cuz you got to drive somewhere and fly

somewhere so I'd rather be effective on Zoom nothing will replace this it's why I flew here from Australia is nothing

will replace this if we did this virtually it's not the same but when you have to do it virtually you have to give

more of yourself if you want them to feel valued you have to adopt a mindset of

generosity I'll explain we often think of generosity as the first form of generosity which is which is money right

easiest form of generosity to grasp and then you think about it for a bit more you go oh it's it's time oh okay cool

and then you think about it for more often people don't think about the third form of generosity which is energy

that's what the third form is because right now with you I'm being generous with my energy I'm choosing to do this

stepen I'm not I'm not just I'm choosing to do it because I want to connect with you because I want to be able to to to

to to share the knowledge and I want to be able to do this whereas there's a part of again there's a part of my brain

that's like oh man you're jet lagged you're tired just just back off a little bit who cares all good whereas I'm now

being generous with it and online you have to be so conscious of that you have to be so much more generous with your

energy because naturally when you're sitting in front of a camera you feel weird and then all of a sudden it's like

my wife when she watches me run my classes she goes I can't be in the same room because I feel like you're being

too much and I am because when I'm when I'm teaching my classes onine four 500

people I bring a much bigger version of myself to that class I'm bring a much

bigger version than this and then my poor wife sitting this you get oh he overdoing it he overdoing it but to

every single student on that class with me virtually oh Vin this is so engaging it's so beautiful to see how much zest

you have for what you do and afterwards I'm exhausted but it's a choice I'm willing

to make to be masterful with what I do in that moment now make sure your camera

placement is well placed a lot of people when they appear on Zoom all you see is their head now that makes you less

visually Dynamic whereas this is why you need the external mic push the laptop back external camera wider lens let them

see your whole torso yeah I love this this is so important and I I learned

this from Vanessa van Edwards where you you brought her on oh yeah such a powerful such a powerful concept where

it's the idea of proxemics where there's the study of distances most people when they appear on Zoom they appear in the

intimate space and the intimate space is when your head is right next to your partner at night where you're doing pillow talk and that's how you appear on

zoom and when you appear that close you feel self-conscious everybody else goes oh that's a bit right so if you all of a

sudden now learn to appear in the personal and social space which means they can see your full torso that people feel more comfortable

but now you also have access to your hand gestures light yourself well okay and

something very simple if you're doing Zoom meetings all the time and it's critical for you in your work then learn three-point lighting right three-point

lighting you've got that going on right here right and if you don't know what it is if you just searched it you'd find it which is essentially three point

lighting you've got a key light you've got a fuel light and you've got a hair light behind you right okay so there's a light behind you yes there's one on the

side here yes and there's one in the front is that what you mean yes three key lights ESS again they they they

technically call my videographers teach me all this where they say oh you need a you need a key light you got to have a fuel line then you're going to have a

back line and the moment I did that on my zoom calls I just look different to every single other person who appeared on that Zoom call interesting I'm just

clearer I'm crisper right and this is again if you want to take it to the next level I want to take it to the next

level all right then great then get a better quality camera too don't rely on the laptop camera okay right A lot of people do this who are creators you just

get a nicer webcam minimum 1080p so you look sharper you look clearer and you're

well lit okay now you look better done perfect get an external mic okay because

if you spend all of your time working on all of these wonderful vocal foundations and you've got a shitty microphone and

then you talk a you you've lost there again and get [ __ ] good Wi-Fi while

you're yes please oh Australia needs to listen to this as well fiber optic yeah 100% and then all of a sudden now so you

visual looks good auditor is looked after and and don't be afraid to bring a bigger version of yourself so much of

this is about identity isn't it it is we're like so many of us including me uh we're trapped in our identity like who

we think we are do you know what one of the really remarkable things that always reminds me how like BS our communication

style and and our identity by way of this is is just different accents yes the fact that someone can live in an

area and they can be scous or they can you know live in another area and they

sound completely different like they're from New York or something and MH it just goes to show that we're just like

it's so contagious and easy to blend in yes with one's environment I remember

experiencing a negative experience with accent when I started to improve my articulation and I wanted to improve my

pronunciation everybody around me was saying you're trying to be British oh really you're trying so hard to be

British how F I'm like no no I'm just I'm just trying to improve my articulation right I used to slur my

words all the time being an Aussie we use so much slanging yeah I was G up I

didn't want to right and I could I could get that to a point where you won't even understand what I'm saying yeah I was going I

didn't want to yeah no didn't want to do it right whereas I didn't pronounce my te's and then when I did pronounce my

te's instead of saying three I would say free can I have free of those and that's

how I used to talk and I didn't realize by talking about that people were making judgments about my intelligence and I was like what I

didn't even know this I didn't even know that this was happening and all I was doing and and again people try to keep

me the same because of identity that's not how you should sound Vin that the mold you are is you're a fob mate what

are you doing why are you trying to be this British Australian and I just said to them because when I speak like

that it creates the wrong perception in people's minds and then they now look down on me as a result of

that there are some accents that experience more discrimination than

other other accents they did a study in 2006 it was a survey of the chartered Institute of personal and development

found that 76% of employers admitted to discriminating against candidates based

solely on their accent we judge a book byes cover don't we we have we have that

I I have a thought though my thought is and this is what I believe is that I

don't believe accents are a problem I believe articulation and pronunciation

are why do you think people think people from the UK are smart there's this perception of it don't don't you get

that where you're sophisticated James Bond it's because you articulate extremely

well especially the ones that make it to the movies right the ones we see it's because of that and and you can have

that level of sophistic ation and intelligence and you can radiate that intelligence with any accent I have I

have students from India who the moment they improve their articulation it's beautiful there's nothing wrong with

your accent for the longest time they said my accent is a problem I said no no no no it's not a problem the problem is

and here here's where we go deep your whole life you've learned the mouth movements to speak the Indian language

then when you go speak the English language you're Now using Indian mouth movements to speak the English language

which are the wrong set of mouth movement ments to speak this particular language but no one teaches us this and I use the Vietnamese mouth movements to

speak the English language therefore accent and lack of clarity so what did I have to do learn the set of English

mouth movements completely changed me and how how' you do that speech

pathologist oh really I had to go see a speech pathologist yeah I struggled with this Stephen my whole life that's why

when people look at me now very easy to assume oh he born with the gift of the gab and the reality I was born quite

gaess yeah and I I I share that because it is

a skill that anybody can learn when when you say to me you can't do this you can't do that to me I hear oh then I

speak with my hands in my pockets and I'm stuck that way for the rest of my life take them out take it out it's just

a behavior yeah I mean when you told me that your English was your third

language I couldn't believe that yeah because there's no remnants there's usually a remnant of the language you

spoke before yeah there's like no evidence of it because this has become the primary

language that I speak the majority of the time now but even so yeah my mother she spoke in [ __ ] I guess she was she's

Nigerian so she spoke Nigerian MH for her childhood moved to the UK when she

was I think late years so maybe early 20s but there's always been the remnants

of Nigerian and she's almost 60 now so that's 40 years is that just because she hasn't tried to well I think it's linked

to Identity it's I don't want to lose that okay I don't want to lose that connection I want to lose that sound it's why again

most people don't change the way they sound throughout the entire course of their life I'm not saying she should because there is something about your

origin that gives you a little bit more that's right something a little bit more interesting but when I look at some of the research it shows that in terms of

employment opportunities I I would love that study to be done in a way where the people who

are speaking with accents have incredible articulation or pronunciation as opposed to them

speaking with poor articulation and pronunciation there's a big difference Research indicates that individuals who

use non-standard speech patterns such as African-American vernacular English often face negative perceptions

regarding their intelligence competence they have worse housing opportunities and they have worse legal outcomes right

that's a it's a profound it is adverse reaction just from how you speak it's a real it's a real unfairness like an

injustice isn't it it is it is it's it's like when I was

and and it's one of those things where this is it's super weird I remember when I was becoming a professional speaker

some of my peers uh who who were also Asian I remember them saying to me they said

hey it's going to be really hard man right because that's for the Caucasian man with white hair the game you were

about to play and at the time I had blonde hair right as an Asian guy and

they're like you there's this thing called a bamboo ceiling Vin and I was like what the hell

is a bamboo ceiling I've never heard heard of this before and he goes oh it's a ceiling specifically for Asians cuz it's a bamboo ceiling it's a ceiling we

can't get past so we call it a bamboo ceiling right and and and again it's it's real right for many and I believed it to be real and for as long as I

believed it to be real I didn't try I didn't try to go for those Geeks with

these big Fortune 500 Co I didn't because I was like ah there's a bamboo ceiling I can't and I remember this

quote from Steve Martin that truly inspired me where it's be so good they can't ignore you and then there was a

chapter while I was here I said you know what [ __ ] it there is no bamboo ceiling for me all right I I I refuse to

acknowledge that there is this damn thing I'm just going to get so good at my damn craft I'm going to get so good at being on stage I'm going to duct tape

bloody GoPros together and learn this game minute by minute and I was able to soar in my career to a place where I

never could go and I had those limitations placed on me

all my life all these different labels place on me all my life Steven and when

I choose to believe in them they had so much power over me and when I chose not

to at times some of them weren't even real and I was creating Myself by speaking about

them all the time and I couldn't believe where I was able to go with my speaking career the stages I was able to get on

these companies I was able to work I this is this even real do they know I'm from the northern suburbs of South

Australia Adelaide that's wild that you went from not speaking the language to being paid Millions to speak to speak

the language and and and to teach other people how to speak it yeah that's my best friend says that all the time he

goes it's the most hilarious thing in the world and I hope that becomes a point of inspiration that

it doesn't matter if English is your only language second third fourth or fifth these are just a series of behaviors that anybody can learn and if

this is what you want actually it's even more extreme because you were bullied for not being able to speak the language

so much so that you had to move to five different schools and now yeah you earn

Millions from speaking the language and teaching others how to speak it probably

some of the same people that would have bullied you yeah I I actually had some of them Reach Out which was crazy it was

crazy Redemption Arc yeah there was a there was a bully that stole a bike from me and broke my heart my mom and dad

worked for months about to buy me that bike it was $280 Australian dollars which was huge during the '90s it was an

incredible BMX bike with stunt pegs and everything and I bully found out where I lived and stole it and reached out 25

years later to apologize you have asked him for that [ __ ] I thought he was going to give me that [ __ ] bike back but he didn't and what

was crazy was it was so beautiful because because of the Good Vibes I've

been able to put out he saw who I had become and I thought it was so man of him I respected him so much for that and

I think a part of me needed it too where he reached on he said hey man he said I'm so sorry and I said hey I'm I I

can't thank you enough for this because there's been pain in my heart that I haven't been able to resolve and and and

you've just resolved you've just resolved some of that for me when you apologized and said sorry because my mom

like again it was just so meaningful to me that bike you know and it and again I just I was so happy I was so blown away

that he he apologized you it was it was really beautiful when dealing with people like

bullies workplace bullies people that are insulting you or patronizing you

what is the best technique conversationally to disarm them or to you know to stop to stop them from

doing or to come out on top per se whatever that might mean the simplest version of that for me is to

use improvisation yes and and instead of disagreeing with you I will humorously

agree with you and again I'm not sure if this is the best thing in the world people should do but I I diffuse this

very simply because I've had it happen to me all my life where they say to me and then it just doesn't give them a leg to stand on they're go oh you're an

idiot like yeah I'm I'm I'm a bit clumsy at times I know that and they don't know

where to go with that after that where they go oh yeah and and and you're stupid you go you know what I I I've done so many stupid things in my time as

an entrepreneur I I if you've seen some of it oh I hope you haven't seen all of it what's the yes and technique the yes

and is just when you acknowledge what they're saying and you're just building on top of it right it's like yes and

you're right sometimes I can be a bit bit of an idiot it requires you to remove your ego though because again and

you have to be okay with that because we're all flawed human beings aren't you letting them win though in that

situation it it depends on how you define win to me I'm just not going to be hooked into this whereas before I

would defend myself I like oh what have I done that made you think that but I'm not interested if you're not in the I

love this quote from ber Brown where she says if it's I think from Theodore Roosevelt if you're not in the arena

with me I'm not really that interested in your feedback what if you I'm on Dragon's Den I'm on Dragon's Den there's

100 pictures a year they come into the den five of us dragons here we're interrog ating them we're asking them

difficult questions based on what you know about communication how should they handle

our critiques and our challenges is it that yes and thing because what's the

opposite of yes and the opposite of yes and is yes but right and and the classic

scenario is if you said something to them simple as and I remember sharing this with one of my clients where I saw

in their calls when people were arguing with them about their prices they would say yes but the reason we're expensive

is because we spend a lot more on R&D and we update our software all the time so all of a sudden when you say yes but

you're taking your conversation to a negative Direction but means whatever you say I'm going to negate that and I'm

going to give you my version of reality whereas when you say yes and the same thing can you you could critique them

and say oh I think your services are too expensive yes and Stephen the reason for that is because we invest heavily in

research and development so all of a sudden when you say yes end you're taking it in a positive direction you say yes but you're taking it in a

negative Direction one we're going to build upon this and we'll work through this one I'm negating what you're saying

and I'm just going to share and force my version of My reality it's it's a simple technique in the world of it's so

effective though I see it in the Dead all the time I see when my fellow dragons will be like interrogating someone and I'm watching and I watch

some of them they go yeah but but but and they just get the person's backup like they just it's like it becomes this

real antagonistic exchange and it reminds me of T sharot who's a neuroscientist that was on my podcast who told me they did studies where they

put two people in these like brain scanners and they got them to agree and agree and agree and scan their brains

and when they agreed their brains were illuminated then in the next round they got them to disagree at a certain moment and when they disagreed with each other

in these brain scanners their brains basically shut down because they'd gone into shut down they the almost like you

could when I say shut down it's like the lights went out um and so she taught me this law

that I wrote about which is called Never disagree when you say that people go never disagree doesn't make sense

doesn't make sense that's what you're saying do so good for is even if you say something negative it's all right even

you say that your content sucks yes and I know sometimes we put our content that just misses the Mark I'm human and then

there's no fire now because we're not creating the friction to create a fire and I I I again take that path

because I'm just not interested in just arguing for blatant argu I'm just not

interested in that the other thing that people struggle with a lot and we talked about it a tiny little bit earlier on is

starting conversations and small talk yeah it's difficult I think it's becoming increasingly more difficult as

we become more sort of digitalized in our lives it requires so much courage I feel that starting a meaningful

conversation requires a lot of Courage how do this sounds like a crazy [ __ ] thing to say on a podcast in 2025 how do

we start a conversation with another human being is there like a I've got a favorite I've got a favorite technique that I use and it requires courage so

you have been warned it requires courage and it's a game simple game called Halo Buffalo Halo Buffalo I love this game oh

you're not aware of this again because you haven't played in the world of improv H Buffalo high is something that's going great for you low something

that's not so great for you Buffalo something interesting about you now there's a reason why this game is so

great it's great because if I play Hollow Buffalo and you play Hollow Buffalo and we'll play it in a second are you game to play yeah okay then what

we're doing is we're creating something called conversational threads let's play first so do you want

to go first or do you want me to go first you go first okay sure hi I'm doing the Diary of a CEO podcast this is

pretty awesome so I love that about this like this is amazing for me this is a big high for me

low I'm really struggling with what is enough in this chapter of my life and

how much I should pursue building my business how much I should grow it I'm really struggling with that enough component and something interesting

about me is I have three alpackers and I live on on acreage gosh that's crazy

I gotta beat alpacas now don't beat alpacas whatever you like got a dog

called Pablo yeah there you go you're overthinking it don't overthink it give it a go hi I'm really enjoying this

conversation and I'm learning a lot which is amazing low I haven't been

working out in the gym as much as I want and I'm concerned that my like balance is off because I'm recording a lot and

things are out of whack and I'm trying to work in the evenings and that's a struggle trying to squeeze my relationships in there as well um random

interesting thing uh I'm training for a marathon that I haven't signed up to yet

that's incredible I didn't know you're going to do that that's incredible that's not as good as alpaca and definitely wasn't as good as

alpaca however that's great okay when you have the courage to do do this with someone now I have given you three

conversational threads that you can pull on do you say it to them that we're going to do Hyo Buffalo I play this game

with people I meet that I want to connect with okay this is not if I'm on the bus and I'm talking to someone no because that's generally small talk and

if you don't want to connect with the person doesn't make sense but what if I'm in an elevator or I'm in a social setting I'm at a networking event well

the game I just gave you is different the game I gave you is a game that you play with a colleague you've been working with for the last four years but

you barely go beyond High okay right because and we'll stick to that and then I can share with you the other one but

to me what's powerful about that game we just played is we all have people the reason people hate their work so much is because they don't feel connected and

it's because they're not having conversations at work it's because they don't feel a sense of connection with their team members so to me when you are

courageous enough to play this game say you've been with working with Susan for 12 months and you always see each other

in the lunch room but you never you just just sit down with Susan and go Susan I know this is a bit crazy listen to a guy

named VIN on coo he said if you want to connect with someone and you care about the connection play a game called H

Buffalo are you game play and just do what we just did because all of a sudden now I've given you through threads right

excited to be here also struggling with enough and then I also Shar with the got three Packers I live in an acreage there

are three things that you could choose for what you're interested in asking me about you just gave me three things I'm also very conscious about health and I

haven't been that great with it too so all of a sudden we can I've got three threads to choose from what's the opposite of that did you watch the Mr

Beast oh I haven't who's Mr Beast oh that's cool all right I see I'll see you in the meeting at too I'll catch you

then no worries because you've taken your shot in the dark and you've given one thread and it just didn't hit

whereas I'm I'm giving myself three chances here I'm giving three opportunities for a conversation to spark but in actuality there is six

threads here because there's three from me there's three from you I'm going to roll around the office when I get back to London and I'm going to ask people

for some higho Buffalo and just and because all of a sudden that requires vulnerability that requires something you're excited about and it's also

something interesting you didn't even know I didn't know you were going for a marathon man that's awesome right you should sign off for it yeah I should

what's stopping you no matter where I am in the world it seems like everyone is drinking matcha

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CEO let me know how you get on small talk is so critical I was

reading this study that said 55% of relationships both professional and personal are formed through small talk

and Casual interactions a study done by the University of Oxford and it says

that 80% of conversations in the workplace involve some form of small talk that's Harvard Business Review if I

want to be a master at small talk is there anything else that I need to know I really struggle with small talk 321 I

tell my students 321 which is three steps two types or the one thing so just

have that in the back your head there are three steps to something there are two types of something or the one thing

is so when someone's talking to you you want to keep it fairly brief and you want to kind of minimize that small talk and you know you don't want to turn it

into Big Talk they'll talk to you about something and you go the one thing about building a personal brand is XYZ or just

X right so you go the one thing about personal branding if I could share with you now is the importance of being

consistent hey so good to meet you let's take a quick selfy and then you go so

again you have that framework in your head whereas before when people ask me heav what's what should I do with my communication skills I got stuck in the

Trap of oh man I've just heard you talk there are so many things that I can tell you I can tell you immediately now there

are eight things you probably should start focus on in this sequence but then now it turns into something I don't want it to be so now I have that framework I

just think all right so in response to this can I go down the three steps to what they're saying the two types of

what they're saying or the one thing about what they're saying is this and do you think I should have some nuggets

nuggets some questions in my back pocket that I roll out for frequently some pre-prepared small talk things that

aren't have you seen the weather yeah yeah yeah yeah you should and and these are important and and you can create

your own I mean I love the what do you do in your free time I really enjoy that question because it opens up so many

doors to so many interesting things that people do as opposed to them telling me what they do for a job because we've

heard this many times before when someone asks you what they do for a living I'm trying to understand where you are in the status hierarchy I love

what are you doing your free time I I genuinely love that question and have a list of three to four

questions just have them in your back pocket that framework of 321 though that allows you to get out of that small talk

in a brief manner they ask you a question about personal branding oh there's there's two types of personal branding oh hey the three steps to

personal branding are or hey the one thing about personal branding is hey good luck so good to see you let's take a quick selfie is there an art to having

a difficult conversation so say someone has been always interrupts me at

work and and know I do you know why it happens though why because of low levels

of physical and low levels of vocal presence if you know if I talk to you

like this and I'm going to share a really good idea with you and um it's so easy to interrupt this person so you

have to you have to fix that at a foundational level you have to increase your vocal presence you have to increase

your physical presence because it's infinitely harder to interrupt this version of Vin as opposed to the version

of Vin you just experienced before that's the first thing I would say at a foundational level that's what you want to fix and again that's to do with

volume that's to do with hand gestures pow feere all the things we've spoken about and by leveling that up it's much

harder to interrupt this yeah I couldn't interrupt this guy it's harder yeah yeah

whereas all of a sudden people aren't aware of that and they think oh people interrupt me just because people are rude no no it's because you haven't

indicated that you are you're taking the floor right now this is why I say to people who get interrupted all the time

all right here's a simple another simple straty if everyone's sitting around a team meeting stand when you're about to

deliver your point because when you stand you now have more physical presence so all of a sudden people won't

interrupt you as long as you're standing because I'm still talking the biggest objection people have to the pause is

they say oh but if I pause people interrupt me not if you're standing if you're standing and you pause it's clearly a pause for effect I'm still

taking the floor right so so there are so many other things you could do to prevent it from happening you can even prime the

conversation if you know know there's a seral interruptor sorry I do this sometimes if

there's a seral interruptor in your environment and I was just pointing at myself there I don't interrupt because I want

to be a jerk sometimes I feel like oh I want to add value and and that's I I want to give them the Ben upit of the doubt that's what most of them want to

do but then there's the 1% that are just Sero interrupted I just always I always I want to take the floor they don't

respect you they don't respect you yeah I want that floor that very difficult you have to have a

private conversation with outside but to the 99% of people who are interrupting because they want to add value you just

need to Prime the conversation you just need to say hey look to everyone in the team I want to share my idea if you give

me five minutes at the end of it I would love to ask for your input but i' would love to share my idea completely and holy is that okay and I just get them

all to agree and if they do but in after I've said that I can let them say the thing I go thanks Stephen I'm still

sharing the idea I'll come back to your question in a moment and you have to reclaim your land do you think you have

to mirror someone's you know you talked about these five foundations am I meant to mirror yours to relate and resonate

with you it's one of the fastest ways to build rapport with someone we we learn about it through body language I think a

lot of people understand the concept of matching and mirroring when it comes to body language right if you come up to someone and you want to build rapport

quickly and they've got big body language if you do the same then it will help them feel more connected to you right people rarely think about it with

their voice and that's the same thing the years of going on stage and speaking I've had so many people come up to me

where if imagine someone comes up to me they're like oh Haven that was an amazing keynote and I took that same energy VIN on stage to go oh thank you

so much for coming up hey thank you I appreciate it you'd freak the hell out of them right so instead of that I match

and mirror their vocal foundations I'm like oh hey thank you so much for coming up I know it's a bit scary to sometimes

meet us but you know when we fart it still smells hey thank you so much for coming up and connecting with me the

idea is you don't stay there though M you meet them where they are and then you take them to where you want to go so

I'm meeting them where they are so they're comfortable and we build rapport and connection I'm like oh hey so good to have you come up thank you so much

and and hey if you if you took a moment for a second what was your favorite part what did you really connect with when

you were talking to me so I met them where they are and then I slowly bring them to where I want to go and it

happens like magic where you will see them slowly come out of their show a little more you've got to meet them

where they are first to build that Rapport I've heard you talk about this thing called Ford yes f o r d we're talking about

family occupation Recreation and dreams and what's the context there well it's these are the points of conversation

that I could talk about if I wanted to engage with that person for a longer period of time instead of just thinking about what they do that's what I always

used to do I always us just think about career occupation oh what do you do I tended default to that when I was in the keynote speaking career but then Ford is

just a wonderful acronym to go well there's so many other things we could talk about there's so many other things we could talk about right I could talk

about family Recreation occupation and your dreams and why does having a a

broader set of things to talk about cause more resonance and connection because that interaction feels different

to every other one okay otherwise it always feels like occupation it's always about occupation I I I just love having extra

things to about to go to like the dreams again I I love asking people that question I love watching there's a

gentleman named Simon squip who who who's being able to own the brand of what is your dream right it's such a

powerful question and it causes people to pause and think and what is my dream

it sometimes can lead to pain sometimes lead to wonderful conversations there's something about the depth of the question I think as well that just like

it hits people yeah it hits people especially with the vulnerable things when you started saying that you were struggling with too much

yeah there's something that changed in me I was like oh yeah he is

human that's why Halo Buffalo is so powerful is because and that's why I say it requires

courage because I know that the moment people heard me say that they they they clench their butt cheeks they're like oh

no I don't really want to do that but the moment you do it it changes everything it shows I'm human shows I

struggle shows I've got things that aren't going that well you know when we um had the conversation on the podcast

with Vanessa about body language one of the things that I saw in the comment section was people pointing out that in

different cultures yes different rules apply yes it's kind of what I was saying earlier about being British we're a bit

more conserved yeah do you need to sort of overlay all this advice with cultural Nuance 100% a motivational speaker from

America coming to Australia doesn't work well because if they they come to Australia they're like oh get on your

feet let's start Australians are very skeptical like those in the UK and we kind of sit back we're like yeah no mate we just started we're not doing that

just yet and that's why when American speakers come to Australia they're like oh they're so it takes them a long time

to get into it because we're so skeptical in Australia too right I think we we kept that as we went to Australia from the UK and there's still that so

you've got to be sensitive to that and before you go and speak in a certain country I think it's very important to go right what are the cultural norms and

expose yourself to the I've made mistakes before right I I I've done the ultimate mistake

I went there's a bit in my keyote where I say I told my dad I wanted to leave accounting and become a magician and my

dad said what the hell you want to beat a Harry Potter right so I play right I play a little bit with the voice and

then I went to I went to Asia and I did the same accent no one laughed and I

went right no sensitivity there I I I didn't realize it that well I they

didn't find it funny cuz they're like oh yeah a was sweating bullets and then

they start to slowly realize oh he's taking the piss oh and then the audience turns against you I've done it wrong

many times before I've done it wrong as many and again that's how you learn but people don't want to learn that way anymore they don't want to pay the price

of failure that's the only way you learn and and so many people hate

hearing their own voice they do I remember the first time I heard my own voice I could believe it when I was recording those little cassettes back in

Plymouth when I was a kid do you know why no it's because when you hear your own voice you're

hearing the vibrations through bone and muscle muscle tissue you're hearing

those vibrations so they sound deeper more resonant to you so when you hear your voice you're like oo I sound like Barry wide so you think you have this

deep rich voice because you're hearing it through a different medium whereas when you open your mouth and you speak to another person the medium is not

muscle and bone it's through air so it's less dense so it sounds

higher pitched so one of the main reasons people hate it immediately is they go oh what why do I sound why do I sound like this whereas in actual

reality it's because it's going through a different medium one's going through bone and one's going through muscle the other one's going through the air so

this is why I thought I could sing and then when I recorded singing and I played it back I was Dreadful made the same error I couldn't believe it I

thought something was wrong with the recorder yes and that's what happens to everybody and it's also the same thing with why why people hate themselves on

camera it's because you see yourself in the mirror and you see yourself the way you see yourself in then you see

yourself in camera and it's flipped the other way and you go whoa why I don't look like that why does this part of my face look different well it's because

that's what everybody else sees but you've been looking at yourself in the mirror your entire life you've been listening to yourself through bone tissue and muscle your entire life so

how do I overcome that desensitization you have to listen to yourself do you still care about your

voice do you still listen to it yeah you don't care anymore you love the sound of your voice now don't you I wouldn't say I love it but I'm I'm so used to it it

doesn't make me cringe anymore because you've desensitized yeah because you're now hearing what other people hear and

you and again that's why you should record videos of yourself and I still think that record and review thing if

that's the one thing you do after this it's going of if you pick three things to change after you do that process it's

going to radically shift the way you come across when you speak you imagine you are only three

changes away from completely transforming that's all that it takes I've seen my students do this time and

time and time again and and I I I wish I was able to show you in these video examples when all of a sudden they just shift more Melody more volume larger

body language it's a different human being it's crazy and again I'm not saying be

that all the time it's now you having gears right it's like a car most people

just one gear and I'll bring that one gear that one communication style to every interaction why is it not effective do

you think this whole introvert extrovert thing is [ __ ] I asked my vocal teacher this

and I said like what's the what what's what's the difference and and she asked me this question in return where she said that

pianist you saw at the concert I took you to if they're an extrovert how would it be

different when they play the piano and if they're an introvert how would it be different I said I have no idea she goes

it's the same thing just you're playing your instrument the only difference between introvert and extrovert is an introvert they lose energy from social

interaction so you have to be highly digant you have to be highly diligent when you're expending that energy and

you're playing the music for people you have to be extremely diligent whereas those who are extroverts they can play it for a longer ex extended period of

time so again for an extrovert it's just about choosing when you do that choosing when you play beautifully as opposed to

oh I'm I'm an introvert I I should just talk like this then because I'm an introvert it's like what

really social anxiety some people do have like severe social anxiety um so

many of the think they might have clicked on this conversation because they're interested but they have no belief in themselves that they could

ever change because they literally their body goes through almost like a panic attack when they're in these social

situations what you say to those people it's the slow process of

desensitization it really is I I I I find it exposure therapy yes I find it

and I was that I mean the whole reason the only reason I learned magic in my life was because I felt like I had no

value and I had to go learn a whole craft to have value so that I could be

amazing because by myself I'm not amazing that's why I learned magic because I felt like I wasn't amazing and

then when I had this amazing thing then everyone thought I was amazing I was like oh I'm amazing now but then one day I forgot my cards at school and then all

of a sudden I went home and I had some social interactions I went oh I'm not amazing what I'm trying to say here is

instead of picking something like magic and then using that as a crutch because I did and then in every conversation

with you I would have to do magic with you first before I do anything else because if I didn't I I don't feel

confident now I feel like I'm I have nothing to give so to me this this is why I push communication

skills so much let me share with you a story let me let me give you a little bit of context when I was 13 I went to

year Camp freshman Camp I had a really good friend at the time named Kevin I

saw him playing ukulele around the fire camp and for the first time I saw Kevin talk to girls me and Kevin bonded over

the fact we would never talk to girls because I couldn't do it he couldn't do it and we bonded over that that night he broke that that trust cuz he was talking

to girls he was playing as ukulele and he was amazing and I felt so pissed offu at him I ran back to the cabin and the

next morning I went the only friend I have here is now talking to girls and and then the next morning I see him at

the breakfast table by himself I was like what this guy was the bee's knees last night and now he's by himself what

the freak and I didn't understand that for the life of me and then I experienced in

my life with cards when I have a packet of cards I could talk to anyone but then when I didn't have my cards I couldn't

talk to anyone I had crippling social anxiety and I went a this is what we

call contextual confidence oh interesting so in certain contexts I'm more confident even the

people you're talking about who are anxious there are certain contexts where they are contextually confident and they

light up there's a certain topic that if someone talks about it that they might think of themselves of being a bad communicator but because that topic

comes up they now are a great communicator right so then the idea of contextual confidence led me to really

working out that communication skills is such a critical skill set why because if I master the use of my voice if I master

the use of of my body language I master of the ability to story tell can I leave my voice at home can I leave my body

language up can I leave my ability to story tell and connect with other people at home you can't now you have this

ability that follows you everywhere you go meaning you become contextually confident in every single area of your

life do you get tired when you go home yes 100% I can imagine cuz you are high

energy because I choose to give yeah I I I'm I'm I'm conscious choosing to do

that and there are times when I choose not to so that in the times where I do give I can give you the best version of

me I didn't leave my our interview today was 4 p.m. right M I didn't leave the

hotel room at all all day why because I'm conserving that energy for you okay

thank you yeah you're welcome and to the point where my videographer was asking me he said hey dude are you all right

and then he goes look just just and he was I love him he so concerned about me he goes just just wave to me outside of

your windows I can see you I open the door oh this door opens and I waved I was like hey he's like oh cool cool cool

on your swe cuz I didn't I didn't leave my hotel room right because I was conscious of that crazy I was just conscious apprciate itk that's all right

that's all right I was already jet lagged I didn't want to I didn't want to be [ __ ] no but I can relate as well cuz I I I sometimes wonder if energy is

finite or if I do this podcast and then I you know I'll go in go into the real

world and I just I don't want to I'm so I'm depleted yeah and I I always wondered if that's something I could do

something about if I just need to Buck up and just you know try there's only so much of that you can do and it is a

limited it it is a limited Supply that's why it's so beautiful when someone is willing to sit and be present and play their instrument with you mhm because

it's it's it's a conscious thing whereas I used to approach every interaction with oh bring the bare

minimum and I I didn't Val I didn't understand that that exchange of energy

you get so much more out of life when you give more not just with money and time but with your energy yes there's a

transaction here that's happening that's invisible and and I treat like it's so

weird and it doesn't happen because I have a lot of followers lots of people don't know who I am on the way here I

got upgraded on my flight because I just built connection with the person and I thought you know what I'm just this

person's probably had a lot of boring conversations I'm just going to make him laugh so I just spoke make him laugh and they're like

oh and and it happens I feel like I just found this cheat code in life where I keep my energy when I need it and when

there are times I need to I'll I'll use the energy like a currency yeah it is and I'm I'm not I was I didn't think

they were going to give me an upgrade but I did they did which was so cool right and they felt good too you

probably hypnotize them or something yeah I don't know maybe magistry yeah it's it's it's an energy bribe I going

back to what you said earlier you said that you're at a phase in your life where you're struggling with

the thought that when is enough enough yeah it's been really hard yeah

I mean are you feeling this because as you build your personal brand as this podcast reaches more people as it is

already as it gets bigger and bigger and bigger more and more and more opportunities come along the momentum

gets faster and faster and faster it becomes harder now to steer what is that

struggle though so struggle implies that there's two forces pulling in two different direction so describe both

forces to me there's a part of me that is very

ambitious but my identity now has been upgraded I'm not just entrepreneur I'm dad and there's a pull between the

entrepreneur in me and the dad in me and it's mutually exclusive yes and they're both so strong and I've never felt it

this strong my daughter's about to turn one my son's seven turning eight and

these forces now Stephen are so strong because my father was so good in my life

such a pillar in my life that I used to be a away a 180 days a

year right I missed out on so much of my son's upbringing and I I don't want to make

that same mistake and again I didn't realize there was this I didn't see the correlation between success and

sacrifice I I I drank the Kool-Aid I thought you can have everything you can have everything and and I I haven't

found a way to do that because the more success I have there sacrifice that comes right behind it you know and and I've just am

learning what is the amount of sacrifice that I'm willing to to to have and it's it's so hard because

as as I value being like the more I value being a father the the bigger these opportunities that come along as

well and then you're like ah so it's this constant push and pull this and how

are you navigating that in terms of have you got a framework for the decision or

a framework to know what you should say yes to and what you shouldn't every 6 months I do a process called recalibrate

and recalibrate is a process I came up with with one of my best friends and myself Ali terai he's one of the founders of a company called future golf

in Australia and we go away for about half a week to a week and we get permission

from our families and we review and reflect on the last six months and how we've lived and the decisions we've made

and we go through memorable moments and we go through down moments and because we both Journal we can reflect back

quite accurately on oh what made us feel [ __ ] in the last six months and then we save ourselves from doing those same actions in the next six months and then

the things that made us feel good we go all right those go in more category so now how can we do more of those things that made us feel good so the way I

protect myself from that is by doing this process but even then the push and pull is it's always ever present that

struggle is always there what is your ambition I told you about my two kids

right I I had very selfish Ambitions early on in my career very ambitious uh

my own which was to make a lot of money um you know to to be able to do do all

these different things that I wanted to do in the material world and all of that and then my son was born and he was born

in 2017 and we were in America and we were firsttime parents and

we we didn't know what to expect we didn't have many friends while we were here and we were super isolated so we didn't we didn't have other kids around

my son and and I still remember this trip I went on to Japan with my cousin and her

husband they're both psychologists and we're one week into that trip

and I remember them saying hey we we have something really important we need to talk to you about and and I was like

what the hell guys why are you being all serious what's going on and and and they sat my wife and I down and they

said we we we we think Xander is autistic my

son and at that point because I I thought it was because of me being away I thought it was because oh because I'm

away so much that that you you didn't want to connect with me and

and they confirmed that they said all these things eye contact um maybe he won't be verbal

maybe it was one of the most difficult periods of my life and then my wife leaned over and

she said do you think it's by chance that one of the greatest things that

people who are on the Spectrum struggle with you're really great at do you think

it's by chance that he came to us and at that point I was not teaching

communication skills really yet

and it's almost a very selfish goal but the reason I teach it is because I think you know that one of the

main things that happens when you teach something Stephen is that you become better at it you deepen your knowledge

in that Arena you get better at teaching it you get better and better and better at teaching it a big part of my ambition

in this chapter of life is to get so good at teaching this that I can help my son you know now my

son talks my son gives me eye contact just last year my

son did the most amazing thing where I was teaching a class filled with hundreds of

people and he just walks up on stage grabs the mic and talks and asks me if I

God Can I have this book Dad I'm like yes of course you can he did something that scared every single person in that room and we didn't push him to do it and

how do we make that happen he came to that theater with me 30 40 times first times you stand outside the theater you

just listen to dad's voice then you step you stand you open the door you stand in there and you can kind

of see Dad from a f too much okay that's all right you got overwhelmed step back out and just step by step by step by

step my son was able to gradually walk on stage and do the thing he did and I just went wow this is so cool because me teaching this I've understood now wow I

can break it down to micro steps for you

and selfishly that's that's such a big part of my ambition right now is how can I get so good at teaching this that I I

can help my son overcome one of his most challenging difficulties we experienced in this

life incredibly beautiful your father as well yeah was and is an incredible

person you were telling me a little bit about him before but I also did some research on the life he lived and what

he went through and his brothers and his family and it was incredible and he is now a monk and my mom tell me about that

confers ation yeah Mom and Dad before I moved to the US

they yeah they we sat around a kitchen table like this and and they said hey we've got a big bombshell to drop on you

and and and we want to become monks right we've been we've been playing the money game we've been playing the status

game and and we we're suffering we're suffering and we've been following Buddhism for years and we find so much

peace in in this pathway he said we're suffering yeah how we would buy a new

car because one of my uncles bought a new car we'd buy a new house in a two-story house because one of my uncles

bought a two-story house and I watched my dad play this and I saw it and it got to the point where we got a jet ski and

we didn't have a boat license so what are we doing with the jet ski and it

became this weird moment where I was like oh dad like can we take it out oh no we can't because none of us have a boat license so dad had his own

suffering in his life he went from nothing in Australia to building incredible businesses with his brothers right they started South Australia one

of South Australia's first grocery stores and then they went to buy pharmacies and restaurants and takeaway

stores they did commercial property really residential property so they they built all this up and they'd fled from

they fled from war from war so they started from nothing in Australia and I watched them do that right the most

memorable thing that led me to this path of Entrepreneurship that I am in now is I saw

them we would have three bedrooms in the house one was for sleeping the other two were sewing rooms and then after you

sewing all day you go outside you peel onions and you get paid 50 cents per bag of 20 K bag of onion that you peel you

get 50 cents for that whole bag peeled and then after that every part of our garden was dug up to grow vegetables

that we will sell for 10 cents a bunch at the local grocery store and then after that as well they would also cook

these delicious things in vietnames got one and then we would cook them and sell them for 50 cents each inside the house

right that's what we all do so I watch them do that to then buying a farm to then realizing that oh the farmer sell

to an agent the agent sells it to grocery stores oh we should save up money saved up for years bought a grocery store so then we became the farm

we became the grocery store right and I just watched them do all of these different things and and there were

years where Dad was really happy but then there were years that started to come where he find I saw him really

empty and you're just going through the motions of doing things because I'm know Uncle did it so I guess I'll do it too

and I and that's what he meant by suffering is that they were playing that money game and they were playing that status game and they felt

there was an exhaustion to it when they when we had that conversation there was such exhaustion

there and I remember feeling it which what made me think cuz because on my head I was thinking oh you just want to

get a divorce but but when I when I felt the exhaustion of it I went oh are you exhausted of each other or I went wow oh

wow there there's a game you're playing and you're so exhausted and you found freedom because you're so excited for

this other thing and this other thing was becoming a monk becoming a monk renouncing they renounced everything

renounced everything yeah and then I became the person that then had to give some of the things that they

needed I think I think one of the greatest gifts that my parents have given me is not giving me an

inheritance it's one of the greatest things at the time I want to negotiate that so bad I was like 20% could we just

can we just split it a little bit but one of the greatest things they did cuz that didn't kill my drive was it a lot of stuff they had yeah they had money

Millions yeah and then I and then then I almost had then there's a part where and

again to be completely truthful with the journey then I was like oh well then now now I need to help you and I I had to

because they had a vision and I wanted to help them so I bought him a block of land to help them build a meditation

center and my dad was like no no no I just want the like just land and then he had a shed there and then he said just

whoever comes to help us put the shed together that will be the meditation center it doesn't need to be anything more than that and then he had all these

people in the Vietnamese Community come along and but you paid around the back no I didn't I didn't pay them I didn't pay them I didn't pay them I had to pay

some diggers to come in to actually you know move the land in certain places but I was happy to do that and then I saw

them build this beautiful little spot where it was filled with Gardens with vegetables and self-sufficient now and

people in the Vietnamese culture come to them because a lot of them are suffering from PTSD but they don't acknowledge it where is this place in South Australia

we got a little block of land and um yeah it's called nmai and then they they

just have people go there vietnames because my dad doesn't speak English that well so he's got a bunch of people

from the Vietnamese culture coming to who are suffering from the war and some of them have had children pass away and

all these and then I see my dad bring someone who the craziest situation when I saw him have someone lose a child one

of the greatest pains I think a human could ever know and then walk in in tears dad speak to them hold their hand

went for a walk and then just took their hands they started gardening and I watched this ridiculous thing happened in front of me where then he took them

gardening they plant did a few things they picked some fruit they went in the kitchen they cooked and then he just said to them at the end of the day you did something amazing today you planted

some fruit for those who you may not be around for but when this tree grows you've planted some beautiful fruit for

someone to eat you've done something really good today and I watched him almost heal someone without saying much

at all because and I said Dad how did you do that he goes because I just took them out of their head just for a moment

into their hands to give them a moment of quiet people people know how to get

out of their own troubles sometimes they just need a place to need some shade is is he happy I've

never seen him happier where and I was the biggest skeptic cuz I thought surely

there's going to be a crack and I was playing that skeptic I think I feel kind of bad playing that skeptic because for

a period of my life I was like is this real like is it real or is this a

phase and as far as I can see it's it's real get on him and and he's so free

though is cu he wakes up every morning there's he has this incredible

he's no attachments he's he's he's detached from everything what has he told you about the endless pursuit of

Mo has he given you any cautionary sort of warnings about yeah yeah it's it's

it's it's what brought me back home from the US it's what brought me back you told me a quote which I loved before we started

recording what was that quote while I was in in the US he he doesn't say much my dad right growing up he he he

supported through action a lot and I remember when my mom called me and said hey I your dad wants to talk to you and

this is when I was in the US and I was oh man I was so KN deep in the keynote speaking career I was on the road 200

days a year and I was doing 80 speeches it was it was such a addictive career because so financially rewarding so

fulfilling as well and I loved performing and it was so amazing and I I couldn't get out of that world but I was

so lonely here in the US I was so miserable but again again because you get paid more you go oh you one more

year one more year oh honey it's okay we'll just do one more year and my dad called and he just said a sentence that

brought me home and the sentence was and and I I'll preface this because he knows I love medieval movies I love I love

this kind of movies and he said a king that knows the limits to his desires will rule a lifetime

and I'd lost track of my desires at that point what does he mean by that you'll

notice kings that want to continually conquer I want to conquer more I want to conquer more land and and gradually what

happens to them is they die they get killed whereas the kings that know the limits to their desires they rule an

entire lifetime and that's what I really connected with and that's what brought

me back and I walked away from a speaking career to go back to south Australia Adelaide I remember my agents

in Australia said can't you at least come back to Melbourne and Sydney you're going to Adelaide and and to me because

I wanted [Music] to the pendulum had swung so far one

way that I reacted in that way and swung so back far the other way and I learned

a lot going back because a lot of the beliefs that I had weren't real I believe that I had to be here in

Southern California to have this business that I wanted to build to become the person you thought to become

I I had that belief and that belief wasn't real is there a voice inside you

that goes God you could do it bigger 100% it's there go to New York 100% it's

there but my my dad's voice is there though my dad's voice is also there which I'm grateful for because I made

the mistake with my son already Stephen I was a away so much I was away so much

I don't want to make the same mistake with him ongoing I wanted to

recalibrate because here's what would normally happen to me I would always achieve the goals of a