Communication Expert Vinh Giang: Why You Keep Getting Interrupted (How to Use Your Voice So People ACTUALLY Listen)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(00:25):
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Speaker 2 (00:45):
You take a deep breath and then continue speaking. The
reason people aren't comfortable with the pause is because they
don't know what the pause is for. Right The pause
allows people to process what you're saying. Think about it now, listeners.
As you're listening to that, the moment I paused, you
had a moment to process the things that I was saying.
Do you want to be more charismatic communication? There are

(01:07):
two fundamental areas. Didn't that just seem really important? I
was so bad at interactions with human beings. There was
just a period of my life where I didn't understand
what anybody was saying to me.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
You're saying that everyone can go from being a shy,
unconfident speaker to being a prolific speaker.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Like yourself, being a confident communicator. That's just another series
of behaviors that you can practice. So when people say, oh,
I'm shy, I always say to them, that's because you've
been practicing the shy behaviors for the last fifteen, twenty
thirty forty years.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
What are the top three things the practical problems that
people are coming to solve when they come to you.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
The number one health and well.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
In the podcast Jay Sheety Jay Shety then Jiang is
an award winning entrepreneur, keynote speaker, podcast host, and communication
coach who specializes in helping people master the art of
confidently speaking. With Vin's charisma and simple techniques, he transforms

(02:12):
communication training into an engaging and unforgettable experience. Over the
past decade, Vin has built a global audience, inspiring millions
through social media and live events. Vin teaches individuals the
tools to amplify their voice, command attension and break through
communication barriers. Welcome to the show, Vinjiang Vin. It's so

(02:35):
good to see you finally, Man. I can't believe it's
taken us this long to get together. Have been a
fan for a very very long time.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Thanks so much, Man, it's kind of sur real sitting
on your set.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Ah, thank you, Man. I love the way you do
what you do. I love the effortless nurse. I love
the confidence you're giving people, the empowering ability you have
to make people feel comfortable in their own skin, in
their own voice. And I want to start by just
asking you, like, what made you commit your life to
helping people find their voice and find their confidence.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
I always feel like the thing we end up doing
in life tends to be something that had a massive
impact on us when we were younger. I don't know
if you find the same to be true, But for me,
man Jay, when I was young, I was such a
bad communicator. I was so bad at interactions with human beings.
And the reason for that is because English is my
third language. So I grew up first learning a Chinese dialect,

(03:30):
or did you, And then I learned Vietnamese and then
I learned English. So there was just a period of
my life where I didn't understand what anybody was saying
to me, and I couldn't communicate with other people. So
I just went through a pit of life where I
felt really isolated. I didn't realize that I was doing
it in my career, but as I learned how to
communicate more effectively, became a professional speaker, all of this,

(03:52):
I went, oh wow, now I have this skill that
I can teach other people. So the moment I just
tried teaching it, I felt fulfillment and I never really
felt that level of fulfillment before. That's when I decided,
oh wow, it's cool to do it yourself. It's even
cooler to help other people do it. And then that's
kind of when I went all in with it and
found so much fulfillment. And again, I'm sure you get

(04:15):
this all the time, but it's the comments that emails
you get and you're, oh, wow, I'm doing something that matters.
Was before I was a magician. So I did that
for years, and it feels weird to say it because
I don't want to talk down on what magicians do,
not at all.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
It's just for me.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
The applause at times when I was doing magic, it
felt really empty to me because I did it for
so long and it started to feel a little bit empty.
And then when I started teaching public speaking and communication skills,
it felt full, It felt better, it felt more fulfilling.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
From the way you're talking about it, you're saying that
everyone can go from being a shy, insecure, unconfident speaker
to being a prolific speaker like yourself.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yes, because it's all just a series of behaviors. Everything
you and I are doing right now, everything you see
a great community to do on stage, everything you see
a great creator do on video, it's just a series
of behaviors. The way you're moving your mouth, the way
you're manipulating airflow, the way you're moving your hands. It's
all just behaviors. So when people say, oh, I'm shy,
I always say to them, Oh, that's because you've been

(05:17):
practicing the shy behaviors for the last fifteen twenty thirty
forty years. Being a confident communicator. That's just another series
of behaviors that you can practice. And if you practice
that for ten twenty thirty, you'd be a confident communicator. Right.
So it's just behaviors that we get attached to because
it becomes a part of our identity. And then I
think when it becomes a part of our identity, all

(05:38):
of a sudden, now we feel like we're stuck, but
you're not. And then there's this really interesting concept. I
don't know if you've come across it before, where it's
where does your voice come from? Where do you get
your voice from? You learn how to communicate based on
the people you're inspired by when you were young, and
you just learn behaviors from them. Like I'm watching my
daughter now, my daughter Melody, she's one, and I can

(05:59):
see her watch us and then start to mimic the
things we do. Right, all right, My wife the other
day met her spaghetti. She wouldn't eat it. So my
wife was furious. Your so upset. She's like, ah, you're
not eating it. And then she goes, ah, she does
the exact same thing. Right. And then my son he
picks up the way I speak beause he's seven. Now
I notice he has certain nuances that I have. So again,

(06:20):
the voice you currently have, people think, oh, that's my
natural voice. No, no, it's not your natural voice. You
lost your natural voice when you were two three years old, right,
Whereas the voice you have now, that's your habitual voice.
It's just a series of habits. And the thing that
I find the first most fascinating is that when the
habits move from your conscious mind and it goes into
your subconscious mind, now you feel it's a part of you,

(06:43):
and now you're stuck with it. But in the beginning
of your life you have to consciously think, oh, oh,
Dad speaks really softly, so I'm going to speak really softly.
But the moment you do that for two three years,
now it moves into your subconscious mind and then you go, oh, no,
that's me. No, No, it's still just a series of behaviors.
That's all that it is.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, I've always loved that model of unconscious incompetence. Yea
to unconscious competence and for anyone who doesn't know it,
four stages, the four stages. The bottom stage is unconscious incompetence.
When you are unconscious of your incompetence, you have no
idea what you're doing wrong. You probably don't know that.

(07:20):
You our try and fill every pause, say like at
the end of every sentence, whatever it may be. And
we all have an unconscious incompetence, especially in the way
we speak, and that's when we have this mindset that
you're saying, where we think it's our voice, but actually
it's just practice behaviors. And then above from that, which
is what I love. This is what you do so

(07:41):
phenomenally well when you're with your audiences, is conscious incompetence.
You're helping people become aware of how our body language,
our voice, our tonality affects us. And then above that
for everyone who doesn't know the model is conscious competence correct,
where now you know why you move your hand that

(08:03):
way and why you choose to lower your voice or
lower your pitch or whatever it may be.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
And that's kind of a frustrating part for people to
be at stage three, right because they go, I know it,
but I mean, I still have to think about it.
So when they do it, it's really interest because I
see my shoes do this all the time where they
go hello, everybody, it's great to be here, and then
they go, vinn this feels so fake, it feels so phony.
But I'm like, you have to go through that stage
to get to stage four, which is unconscious competence, which

(08:32):
is my story yes, and a lot of people aren't
willing to push through that because they go, no, it
doesn't feel natural, so that means it's not right.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Let's talk about that.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
That's really yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
I think that's one of the biggest challenges because I
think we're both sitting here as people who've trained, worked
hard at our craft, worked hard at our art, and
now at this point it does feel like unconscious competence.
But a lot of people say, well, no, but if
you had to learn it, then it's fake. It's un
it's not really phony, it's phony. But what's the difference

(09:04):
between developing a skill versus faking it? Like, what's the difference.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
I love your definition of home where you say home
is the familiar, right, and to me, the way you
currently communicate you have a home, and that is because
those behaviors you've been repeating for the last ten, twenty
thirty years, right, So that feels like home to you.
Whereas what people don't realize is and I don't need
to take a long explanation for them. I do think

(09:30):
I think it's important. When you used to ask me
what my home was when I was young, I would
say my suburb, So I'd say Salisbury Downs. Then as
I got older, I started to explore my city, I'll
say Adelaide is my home. South Australia, right, And then
as I explored more of us my state, then I
would say it South Australia is my home. Then I
split more of Australia. Australia is my home. Now I've
lived in LA and southern California, like, oh, I kind

(09:51):
of feel like America is my home too. And then
as I travel more of the world, I go, oh,
the world is my home. The same thing with your
communication skills. You have access to this incredible instrument, but
your home is such a small part of that instrument.
Say a piano has eighty eight keys right right now,
Home to you is five keys because you're only familiar
with those five keys. But as you start to realize

(10:12):
you have access to this incredible instrument, you start to
play the other keys. Home becomes the entire piano. Whereas
the struggle that people have is the moment they do
something that they're unfamiliar with. Instead of labeling it as unfamiliar,
they label it as fake and phony. And what happens
the moment you do that you stop exploring your instrument,
and now you are limited to the five keys you've

(10:34):
been playing with your entire life. And I think there's
an over attachment to the familiar which keeps us the same.
Because when you think about this, most people change the
way they dress, they change their glasses, they change their house,
they change their car, but they never change the way
they talk. They never change the way they communicate because
we are way too attached to the familiar. And I
say to my students this all the time. Don't be

(10:56):
so attached to who you are and the present. You
don't give the future version of your chance. There's a
future version of you where the world is home. There's
a future version of you where you can play all
ata keys.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
I love that concept of we change our hair, we
change our glasses, change our clothes, but we don't change
the way we communicate. And I was going to ask you,
when you have so many people coming to see you speak,
what are the top three things the practical problems that
people are coming to solve when they come to you.
So when someone comes and says, vin, I need your help, Yeah,
what are they trying to solve in their life? The

(11:27):
top three things that you hear.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
First thing would be they want to get from stage
one unconscious incompetence to like, you've made me aware of
one thing, how can I start to become aware of
more things? So again self awareness. So first thing they
go is, how can I become more self aware? I've
now been I'm awake now to the problem of my communication.
How can I begin that journey and become more aware?

(11:50):
And when they ask me that question, then I share
with them a very simple technique. And a very simple
technique that I share with them is record and review.
So the only way to become more aware is if
you see yourself. And most people hate watching themselves on video.
Most people hate listening to themselves on audio, So that
means they've been going through their entire life avoiding the
two most critical things you need to develop self awareness

(12:10):
with your communication, and they hate this process. So the
process is record a video of you speaking for five minutes, right,
and then when you review and reflect on that video,
leave it for a day so you're less critical of yourself.
And once you've left it for a day, the first
time you grab your phone to review the video, put
it on mute, and then just look at yourself. And

(12:32):
then as you're looking yourself, take notes. What am I
doing with my hands? How am I facial expressions? What
am I doing with my legs? How am I moving?
Am I? Do I have any visual ticks? So you
take a whole bunch of notes. That's the beginning process
of self awareness. Then after that, turn the volume up.
Just listen to yourself. Now turn the phone around, play,
just listen, and as you're listening, now listen to the
vocal qualities. What do you like about your voice? What

(12:53):
don't you like? What can you hear? How's your rate
of speech? How's your volume? What's your melody like? Do
you hear the passion? If you're passionate about something, you'll
take so many notes when you do this, What are
you feel of words? Non words? Right? You get all
of that down. Then the last step is get it transcribed.
So once you transcribe it, now you can see the
way you communicate in a completely different perspective. You might

(13:13):
notice you speak in circles. I repeated the same thing
four times? What am I doing? Right? And you'll see
different things. If you just go through that process once,
you'll get a list of five to ten things that's
how you begin your journey of self awareness. Yet people
will resist that because it's too uncomfortable. They will record it,
but they won't watch it. But the ones that do

(13:36):
jay I immediately get a DM after shock. I can't
believe I do X. And it's crazy because I think
of one of my students right now where he said,
for six years, I've been held back in my career
because my managers and my leaders say that I lack clarity,
I lack authority, and I lack confidence. And he goes

(14:00):
and they give me this feedback, yet they don't tell
me what I need to improve. And you know what
I realized been through doing this record a review process.
The one thing that has robbed me of six years
of progress is my uming and ring. I can't believe
Umming and Ring has held me back. And he was
so frustrated, and I remember I had to tell him, I, look,
that's I get your frustration, but at least didn't hold

(14:22):
you back for twenty years. And you realize it now.
But something simple as Umming and r Ring held him
back for that long and destroyed his perception of being
a great leader. It's kind of crazy.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, that's what I wanted to get to is that's
the problem I feel. Someone may see your work and
they'll say, well, I don't want to be a public speaker.
That's right, that's not the point. The point is there's
a promotion that you're not getting because you don't have authority,
or the challenge is you're not able to ask out
the person on a date that you really want to
take out on a date, like you don't feel that confidence,
Or there's the challenge of you're in a team meeting

(14:58):
and you feel like your voice is never heard. People
always overlook your opinion, they don't hear you. What are
some of those stories that you've heard of people that
have had those types of challenges that are coming to
you and saying exactly like the one you just told us.
They're like, oh, Vin, this is actually solving a daily
issue for me.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
The big one people keep interrupting me. Not only do
they not listen to my ideas, they interrupt me and
then my turn is gone now And the idea that
I was going to share was one that was going
to be able to change the course of the meeting.
But because they interrupted me, now I'm invisible, and that
keeps happening to me. And then when they ask me,

(15:37):
they go, why do other people interrupt me? Why does
it happen? The reason is something that I don't think
you'd expect, because it comes down to vocal presence and
physical presence. And when I see them in the situations
where people interrupt them, the reason is because their vocal
presence is low and their physical presence is low. So,
for example, everyone's sitting around a meeting table, and again

(15:59):
I go, look, send me an example right where you're
doing a big zoom meeting and you're allowed to send
me this. Send it to me. Let me see what's happening.
And when you see it, everyone's sitting down. And then
the way she would bring up the question, It was
a woman who asked me this, and I remember the
way she'd ask it is very low volume. So look,
I've just got a quick idea i'd love to share
with you all very small body language. And if I
was talking to you like this right now, it is

(16:20):
so easy for you to interrupt this version of me,
So easy. Whereas imagine instead I said, take control of
this stand stand. Oh, I feel a little bit weird.
We'll just prime the reason, just go, look, I've been
sitting all day. Do you mind if I stand for
my part of the presentation? Oh great, all right, then
you just stand. If you stand, now, all of a sudden,
you're in a position of more authority, and if you
use larger body language, stronger volume, the version of me

(16:41):
right now, this version is infinitely more difficult for you
to interrupt. Absolutely, it's infinitely more difficult because you've got
more authority, you've got more credibility. But again because a
lot of people in those situations fall victim to a
lower default volume, a slower default rate of speech, smaller
body language, and all of a sudden people interrupt.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Them, absolutely, walk over them, yes, completely ignored.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
So I say, I often said to my students, the
reason people interrupt you is because you're easy to interrupt.
Create a bit of that friction, right, create a little
bit of that authority. And then again they try it.
It feels a little bit again they say fake and phony,
but I'm like, reframe it, reframe it. It's just unfamiliar.
And then they started to do it, they go, oh,
it felt really unfamiliar. Then, but the moment they do it,
they go, wow, people like just from standing alone viving.

(17:28):
I feel like I stood. I just had a bit
of volume. I didn't even use my body language, but
already people are not interrupting me. So again, it just
goes to show that how you use your instrument and
your voice lets other people know how they can treat you.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah, that's such a great point. It's so true, and
I hope everyone who's listening and watching right now, I
want you to rewind back right, go backwards the last
five minutes everything that then said, from the point of
self awareness through to just now, and practice it in
your next meeting. Right listen to yourself in a meeting,
even record yourself while you're in a meeting as you

(18:01):
are normally, as you are right now, and then go
listen back to that and then apply what Vinver's saying.
Because it's so interesting to me how daily our communication
is impacting our lives and we think we're not getting
promoted because we're not networking and we're not technically brilliant,
technically gray or whatever it may be. Or maybe you're
sitting there going chair, I'm actually one of the best
in the company when it comes to XYZ. But now

(18:24):
I realize that it's my ability to coach people guide
people because I have that influence. I wanted to ask you,
how does an introvert get the courage to do what
you just said, because I'm sure there's a lot of
people listening to right now they're introverted naturally. I mean,
do you even believe in introverts or is that also
a practice behavior?

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Well, there definitely is a difference, obviously. I ask my
vocal teacher the same thing. I said, what's the difference
between an introvert extrovert? And she goes, the key thing
is just how they get energy? Are you introverted or
you extroverted? I mean, I know I'm very extroverted. I
get energy from being around people. But she goes, introverts
they lose energy once they're around people. So she goes, look,
that's the key difference. Now, let me ask you a question.

(19:04):
A pianist, if they're an extrovert, would they play differently
to an introvert. I'd had to think about the for
all because I thought, surely this is a trick question.
And I said yes, and she goes, no, you're an idiot,
there's no difference. You will not be able to tell
who it is an introvert and who is an extrovert.
If you listen to a pianist, great music is great music.
Your voice is an instrument. Great music is great music,

(19:26):
she goes. The only difference is introverts have to be
highly strategic with when they play their instrument. Extroverts can
play their instrument all day. It's more difficult for an
introvert because you have to be highly selective when you
play your instrument. It's an excuse that I think some
of my friends who are introverted used to give and
where they say, oh, because I'm introvert, I'm not going
to play my instrument well at all. And as I no, no, no,

(19:49):
you still have energy. You just have to use it
much more strategically, and you have to be highly aware
of how you can rejuvenate that energy. Yes, you have
to very conscious. It's harder for introverts. It is harder
for interrovit to acknowledge that. However, if you've got great
ways to about to rejuvenate your energy, and you have
good menu items like good things you can go and
stack on and recreate some of that energy and rejuvenate,

(20:10):
then you still have to learn how to play your
instrument well, otherwise you will become that person that And again,
the majority of my students are the person you described.
It's the I'm ways smarter than John, I'm way smarter
than Sarah. But why did they get the promotion? Why
didn't I get it? Well, it's because if you are
technically ten out of ten, but your communication skills are

(20:30):
a three out of ten. Do you think your organization
perceives you to be a ten out of ten or
a three out of ten? You are only as good
as you can communicate. So as you improve your communication skills,
you start to shine your light more brightly in the world.
Whereas a lot of my students tend to think, oh,
but it's my boss's responsibility to see the brilliance in me. No, no,
it's not. It's your responsibility to shine brightly, not their responsibility.

(20:53):
So when you take it upon yourself, things change.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
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(22:25):
sure you use the code on purpose. And now let's
get back to the episode. There's such a need for
ownership and accountability for our lives because, like you said,
and I for a long time believed that someone was
going to come and spot my talent and see it
and nurture it and help me build up. And I
realized no one was coming and that no one could

(22:47):
see it because they were too busy in their own lives.
It's not that they were bad people, or they were bitter,
or they were wrong, or they were not able to
spot talent. Everyone was busy. People were just busy in
their day today. They don't have time to spot your
skill and your talent and nurture it. If someone's listening
to this right now and they're saying, Vin, I love

(23:08):
what you just said. I'm an introvert. I agree with you.
There are times when I can and can't perform or
can't bring it out. How do I hold energy? How
do I create energy? If I have a meeting coming
up today, if I'm going to be on a zoom
call today, what do I do in order to make
sure I'm not my best because right now I'm going
from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting, zoom call
to zoom call. I'm just exhausted.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
First thing is you have to learn how to protect
your energy. For example, yesterday I was doing a couple
of different podcasts while I'm here in La and I
didn't leave the hotel room. The podcast wasn't n til four.
I didn't leave the hotel room at all, to the
point where my videographer freaked out and just knocked on
my door and said, are you okay? Are you still
all right? Are right? I'm like, yeah, I'm conserving my energy.

(23:49):
I'm a fairly high energy person, so I have to
conserve my energy. So all morning is again I didn't
talk to anyone this morning. I had to waite to
talk to you. Because if you don't conserve your energy
and you just give it all the time everywhere, then
you won't have any So that's number one got to conced. Yeah, right,
And then the second thing is have go to I
call them menu items. Have some menu items that you
can quickly reach for. So one that I love is

(24:11):
whim off the breathing technique, right, the guided bubble breath.
Two cycles of that before a meeting. My brain is
auction ender. My body feels good, I feel like I
just I just feel revitalized.

Speaker 1 (24:24):
Can you break the bat down for us.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Just so if people don't know YouTube, but it's it's
thirty deep breaths in and out, So thirty of that,
and then after that, at the end of the thirtieth
one you breathe out and then hold your breath. And
you'll be shocked how long you can hold your breath for.
You'll be shocked. The first time I did this, I
couldn't believe I could hold it for a minute and
a half two minutes. I thought I was going to die.

(24:46):
I thought I was dyeing. And then at the end
of you holding your breath for a minute or so
as long as you can. After that, just take a
deep breath in, hold for fifteen seconds and release. And
that breathing technique alone has energized me, even when I
am doing zoom calls at three am in the morning

(25:07):
because I work with some US clients, it just gets me.
Three cycles that are two cycles that incredible. I was not
a believer in that at all when I first I
was like, yeah, surely that's not gonna way what breathing.
I do that every day, change my life. My go
to technique to energize myself. The next one to me
is a snack, something healthy. I love blueberries, raspberries with

(25:32):
a little bit of cream. Oh man, a light meal,
I love it. Right, And then favorite beverage, my go
to his coffee. I don't know, that's what I feel like.
Some people are gonna tell me it's gonna kill me,
but I love it. So have your own go to yeah, right,
have your routine a routine. Yeah, I have a playlist
of videos that crack me out. I don't know if

(25:53):
you have you seen videos that made you last?

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Save them? Yeah, save them because they're patching put in
a mood. I'll give you one. Last one for me
is again, I've just got so many things out of
my menu.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Are no. I love it.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
I also love orchestral war music. Okay, so like Hans
Zimmer esque, Yes, I love. And if you're listening to
Interstellar Hans Zimmer while you're doing whim half as you
take a sip of coffee, oh man, I'm gonna try that.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
Yeah, I'm going to give that.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
It's an intoxicating mix.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
I love that. Yeah, my routine is a lot more simple,
but I love no. But you're right, everyone needs one.
I went on my world tour two years ago now.
We did forty cities across three to four months around
the world. Got to come to Australia, a place that
I absolutely loved. It was my first time there. I
didn't get to come to Adelaide. I hope I do
next time, by the way, Yeah, oh no, please don't be.

(26:48):
We did Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and honestly, there was something
about the Australian people that stuck with me. I was
telling you this a bit earlier. There was this banter back,
which I loved. I would banter would be on stage.
I'd you know, little quips and things, and they'd come
back at it and I loved it. And the other
thing was everyone was so grateful. Everyone would just say
to me, they'd be like, thank you for coming all

(27:10):
this way. And I was like, wait a minute, you
came to see my show. I should be thanking you,
and I was. I was so grateful that people turned
up in you know, the thousands that came out, and
it was just amazing. Everyone was so grateful there was
such a great energy. But the reason I brought it
up is I realized that my tour schedule was extremely
different from a keynote, because a keynote is I've got

(27:30):
to do it once and then it's done. This was
every night, if not every other night, if not sometimes
in Australia, I did two shows back to back on
the same day because we were at the Syney Operas
for two days. But we did two shows in one day,
one show the next day, so three shows across two days,
and then went to I think it was Brisbane or
Melbourne that was lost, and so my tour schedule was different.

(27:52):
But I realized I had to stop eating at twelve.
My show was at eight pm. I had to stop
being at twelve. I'd have protein bar around five six
pm to give me that little bit of boost of energy.
I'd have a sparkling water because I preferred that, just
before I went on, and then I would have to eat.
I'd get off stage at ten to a meet and
greet for two hours, and then i'd eat at midnight

(28:14):
every day. Now that's not my normal schedule at all,
Like that's completely against my normal schedule. But I had
to find that, And I think that's what's so interesting
about this is that I sleep at nine nine thirty
every night. That's what I'm in bed, So for me
to be having to eat dinner at midnight is so abnormal.
But I found that there was a different routine. I

(28:35):
also didn't go out to any noisy places before or
after the show because I had to be on vocal rest.
I knew i'd lose my voice if I went to
a restaurant or whatever. So for three four months I
didn't go to a restaurant. While I was out in
all these cool cities. I was like, Oh, did you
go to this place?

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Did it?

Speaker 1 (28:49):
I was like, no, I didn't go to any of
those places because I would have lost my voice and
then I wouldn't be able to perform. And I think
that's the important part of the craft, that there's a
dedication and a surrender to this is what matters, and
therefore some of this other stuff is going to have
to fall by the wayside.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
And what you just said made me think the importance
of finding what works for you. Yes, I feel like
people have this misunderstanding that I should just have this
energy naturally. Back to your original question, right, I should
just have it naturally, and if I don't have it naturally,
there's something wrong with me. It's like, no, you have
to not eat for eight hours to get yourself into
the right state. And I think that fastest state helps

(29:28):
us think more sharp and helps us be more on
point right, And it takes work to show up with energy, intension,
and purpose, Whereas I think people have this illusion in
their minds that oh, it should be easy yeah, and
a week yeah, or there's something wrong is no, no, no, no,
no no. There's a craft to it. Like even preparing
for a zoom call, some people go, oh, is that
a bit much, But that's how you show up three

(29:51):
zoom calls, back to back, structure it with fifteen minutes
in between. You have to reset. Even for me, it's
doing these podcasts, traveling overseas. I'm exhausted. But then again,
if I choose to give this energy, I need to
conserve it. I need to have ways to rejuvenate it,
and I have to go through the process and you
have to commit to the craft. You have to commit

(30:11):
to that discipline. Whereas if you one night did eat
at six pm, well then that show wouldn't be as great,
but you were dedicated. And I think that that is
what people have to really understand is there are ways
to do it, but you've got to take yourself through
the process.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah. Absolutely. For someone who's listening to their voice, now
they're listening to us, they're like, vin, I'm going to
listen to this. They start listening back to their voice
and they cringe at their voice because we all have
this strange and by the way, we all have it.
I have and I want to say that here, I
have that too. No one likes listening to the sound
of their own voice. There's something uncomfortable about it. First

(30:50):
of all, do you know where that comes from? And
then what do we do about that? When you're listening
back and you just you know, your body, your face,
everything's just listening.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Is when you look at yourself on video two. And
there's a reason for that. The reason we hate the
sound of our voice is because when we hear ourselves
on the recording, that's not where how we sound to ourselves.
The way you sound to yourself. You have a deep, rich,
barry wide voice, right, And the reason you have a
different sounding voice to yourself is when you're speaking the
vibrations go through your bones and your muscles, and then

(31:21):
it hits your ears. The vibrations of the sound is
going through a more dense medium, which creates a lower
pitch sound. So when you hear yourself via an audio replay,
that's going through the air waves, so your voice sounds
thinner and higher pitch. So you immediately go, no, no, no h,
I don't sound like that. I sound like this. I

(31:41):
don't sound like this, and they freak out. So that
difference in the medium in which you're receiving the sound
causes people immediately to reject because it actually does sound different.
The reason why people are like looking at those ons
of video is because it's fipped the other way, and
they go, I had to look like that because you
look at yourself in the mirror every day, whereas on
camera it shows the way other people see you. Whereas

(32:01):
when you look at yourself in the mirror, it's flipped.
So your entire life, you've seen yourself a certain way. Right,
unless your face is perfectly symmetrical, right, then you go, oh, no,
I don't look like that. So immediately people go, I
look weird. I sound weird. So the thing you need
to do. There is desensitize it. Mate. Just listen to
yourself over note, like, do you listen to a podcast now,

(32:21):
and do you still freak out about your voice?

Speaker 1 (32:23):
Not anymore?

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Not more anymore, because you're desensitized. So what happens is
a calibration happens what you hear in your head and
what you hear on an audio replay. The calibration starts
to just do this, and then gradually you can't hear
the difference anymore. And then when you look at yourself
and I'm on camera and also in the mirror, the
calibration starts to happen. You go, oh, that's me, Oh,
that's just me. Yeah, it's painful, but if you go
through that, you get over it.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
Yeah, it's all that discomfort in the beginning. Yeah, it
is that we all need to go through. I was
we were doing about this earlier. So I was really
fortunate because when I was eleven years old, my parents
were so scared that I was so shy and so
insecure that they forced me to go to public speaking school.
And so my school had an extracurricular activity with the
London Academy of Music, Drama and Arts for seven years.

(33:08):
I had about three sessions a week of two to
three hours each. It was fairly rigorous, and you'd have
to take exams, and the exams were pretty rigorous too.
So every year you'd go to this exam and you
turn up and the examiner would be in a room,
and before you'd meet the examiner, you'd get you could
take a book. It could be any book you wanted,
but they were going to pick any page and ask

(33:30):
you to read it in a emotive, dramatic and powerful way.
And so they could pick any page out of a book.
The next part of the test was they would give
you a topic fifteen minutes before you'd be in a library.
This is when we didn't have you know, yeah, they
probably was the Internet, but there wasn't this. They'd wanted

(33:51):
to keep you away from all of that. You'd be
in a library and you'd have fifteen minutes to preper
talk about the dangers of smoking or whatever. It was
a topic that picked and you had to structure a
talk out and the talk had to be five minutes long,
and so you had to do that. The third part
of it was you had a prepared presentation with visual aids.
This is when we still use projector screens and ye, yeah, yeah,

(34:15):
And then you were tested on that, including the visual
aids that you used, and I'm sure there were a
couple of other things as well, and then you'd get
graded and it was uncomfortable. We'd be sitting in a
class and remember we're all like young teenagers at this point,
so everyone's even more judgmentor and more you know. And
you get into the class and you're all making these
weird faces to try and warm yourselves up, and they're

(34:36):
telling you to enunciate and pronounce all of the letters differently,
and you're doing all these silly things. Your friends are
laughing at you, and it's exactly what you're saying. The
reason I brought it up is that it was years
of discomfort. It was just years of looking silly, looking stupid,
sounding bad, giving a bad talk, giving a bad presentation,

(34:57):
walking into a room. Then all of us sudden that
discomfort change to confidence. And I find that for most
of us, especially as you get older, going through that
discomfort becomes harder. For example of me and you. I
don't know how old you are, but I tried to
pick up a sport A couple of years ago in
the pandemic. It was much harder for me to learn

(35:18):
a sport at this age than if I played it
in my teens. So when you're meeting people in their twenties, thirties,
maybe forties, fifties, and they're trying to change their instrument,
they're trying to change their voice, that discomfort is so
much harder than when I started at eleven or whatever
age you started at.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
How do you.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Encourage people to sit with that discomfort, to go through that,
because it is harder.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
Such a beautiful insight that you shared there. The reason
it was easier for you at eleven is because you
were new to a lot of these behaviors completely. The
behaviors haven't been ingrained in you yet, whereas when you're
forty now, I'm thirty.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
Eight, so I'm thirty seven. So yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
So once you're forty and you realize this, you've done
forty years of repeating one behavior, two behaviors, a series
of behaviors over and over and over and over again.
That's why it becomes harder, right, And all of a
sudden it becomes way more difficult because now you have
to unlearn something that you've been repeating for that long,
so I think there's really difficult there. One other point
I wanted to mention what you said there too, is

(36:17):
that you said you went through years of discomfort. A
lot of people have this idea that again, it should
just be a quick process, and if I'm struggling for
a period, then something's not right. It's like no, no, no, no,
struggle that's good. It means you're in the process of change, right,
You're going through the process of change, and you have

(36:40):
to be willing to put in that effort, go through
the struggle. And I think the thing that people are
resistant to is failing because I believe, and I want
to ask you this question, did you learn more from
your successes in those situations, in those public speaking exams,
or did you learn more from your failures?

Speaker 1 (36:55):
Failures?

Speaker 2 (36:56):
People don't want to fail now. I don't want to
make a video put it out on Instagram where made
a full lot of myself. But that's how we learn, right.
I don't want to do a speech where I forget
what I'm going to say, but that's how you learn.
You have it happen, then you go back and you go, Okay,
why did I forget. Oh it wasn't well rehearsed, right,
Why do I forget? I didn't know how to do
with my nerves. Now you need to learn how to rehearse.

(37:17):
Now you need to learn how to manage your nerves.
So all of a sudden, if you don't fail, you
don't know where your weakness is, and then you don't
know what to work on. So you've got to pay
the price. You've got to pay the price. Back to
your original question, that's great.

Speaker 1 (37:30):
I am so glad you brought that up.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
Yeah, it is so important because I think people just
now are resistant to failing. Yet we learn far more
from our failures than we do from our successes. Sure,
so for the person who's forty, Oh my god, then
how do I now? How do? What do I do?
Am I doomed?

Speaker 1 (37:45):
No?

Speaker 2 (37:46):
No, you're not. It's just when Jay was eleven, he
was able to work on three or four different behaviors
at the same time, because you're so elastic, right, There's
so many things that could change about you when you're
at that age. But when you're less elastic in your
older years, you just now have to focus on one
thing at a time. So I've coached a few CEOs
of some pretty big companies here in the US. And
it's so funny because when I map out there I

(38:08):
used to do I don't do it anymore. But when
I did it, and I mapped out their coaching program
and I showed it to them, they got upset because
they're like, wait, you're making me work on my volume
for four weeks and that's all we're doing. This feels stupid.
And in those moments, I just have the courage to go, well, look,

(38:28):
then pick somebody else. It's okay, get a refund, pick
somebody up, because I kind of said to them, you're
fifty and you've been speaking with a very default quiet
volume for fifty years. Do you expect abow to change
that in forty eight hours? Because every because I get
them to send me a video every day, right, and
when they every time they send me a video, I
go watch what you're doing For the first seven days,

(38:50):
even though you know we're working on volume, your default
volume is like a four out of ten, and that's
when they go, oh far out. I keep defaulting back
to it. So the older you are, you've got to
realize one thing at a time, one thing at a time,
but it drives people crazy. I want to do seven
things and I want to do hand gestures. I want
to learn how to storytell, I want to use volume,

(39:11):
I want to add pitching melody. I want to do
all of it. But that's also what leads to no change.
That's why most people never change the way they sound,
because they're not willing to sit and be patient and
do one thing at a time.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yeah. A good example is thinking about it, like driving,
how many bad driving habits have we picked up in
the last twenty years because we haven't been tested, we
haven't reviewed it right. And I recently had to redo
my driving test because of moving here and you know,
getting a state idea and all that kind of stuff,
And I realized just how many bad habits you pick up. Now.

(39:44):
I believed myself to be a safe driver and a
good driver and a responsible driver. But still the fact
that for twenty years no one's watched me and checked
on me driving, you lose that. And so that's twenty
years of driving, which is something we do every day,
which is similar to speaking. You're doing it every day,
but no one's doing what you're You're not fatal point, right,
you're not recording yourself driving and sending it to someone.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
You just made me think of something for it when
you said driving as well. I mean when you think
back to the four stages of learning we talked about before,
and you talk about unconscious competence to keep people a
sense of what's possible once you really go down the
path of mastery of communication skills, think of an area
in your life where you have achieved unconscious competence. It's driving,

(40:28):
whether we're good or not, that's another thing, right, But
most people, I would dare say sometimes too, you're kind
of unconscious when you're driving because you're so good at it.
You've done it every single day of your adult life,
so you've gotten to a point where you are unconsciously competent. Right,
And then people always ask me now they get of
in when you communicate? Now, are you thinking about gesturing?
Are you thinking about storytelling? Are you thinking about I go? No,

(40:48):
I don't because like with the car, when you think
you want to go to the grocery store, do you
have any thought now into Oh I need to open
the door, Oh I need to check my blind spot,
or I need to ad Just know it's all automatic.
So the reason why I try to inspire my students
to improve the communication skills because I say to them
that means in the very next conversation you have with
a client, a customer, a family member, you can just

(41:09):
think I want this outcome. I want to be a
help them in this way. Your skills and abilities will
just take you there. And that's why you come across
in these podcasts and the professional people who do this.
It's so natural and when people are sitting there going
I want to be that natural. But it requires a
dedication to mastery.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Yeah, and that's the point that I really want people
to get. I remember sitting and watching one of my
favorite comedians who became a friend, and he was just brilliant,
like he would have the audience laughing and enraptures like
in the palm of his hand right, but everything looked
and felt completely off the cuff. So he'd literally just

(41:49):
turn up on stage. It wasn't like he wasn't in
the flow. Sometimes you want a comedian and you can
tell there's an arc, and you can tell there's a story,
and you can tell it's planned. Yeah, this guy would
literally come up. People are aid anyone has anyone read
any books lately, and like someone who name of a
book came be like, oh yeah, I read that page,
and you make a joke out of it. And then
someone else and he'd be like, Oh, what's your favorite
song right now? And it's all a conversation brings out

(42:10):
a song. Oh yeah, I can't believe he said that
lyric makes a joke about the lyric and it was
unbelievable to watch. And I spoke to him afterwards and
I said to him, I said, who did you learn
that from? Like, where did that come from? He said,
I've practiced it so much that it looks spontaneous, but
it's completely trained. And I think that's what everyone wants.
Everyone wants for it to look spontaneous, but that took

(42:32):
years of discomfort, courage, failure, training, Masteret. When I'm telling
a story or hosting a podcast, I'm not trying to
sound like anything because your voice has for so many
years become that way. And I'm at a point in
my career for sure I was asked to give I
just gave three keynotes in the Middle East in January

(42:53):
and in Dubai, and I said to myself, I'm going
to walk into these and just channel, like I just
want to go in there and just be. I'm not
gonna I'm gonna have some notes. I know what I
need to talk about, I know the title of the talk,
but I'm just gonna be. And I had so much fun.
I had so much fun. And it seemed like the

(43:14):
feedback was great for the audience whatever, but it was
just so much fun for me because I was like,
I just want to feed off the energy in the
room and they were all and my friend, one of
my best friends, he came with me and he was like, Jay,
every talk was different. He goes at the one billion summit,
you were hilarious, like I was like watching a comedian.
And then he goes at Mind Valley it was really
deep and like, you know, philosophical. And then at the

(43:36):
other place, the corporate event, it was very professional. He
was like, there were three talks in three days and
they were all completely different. I was like, because I
was just feeling the energy of the room and I
love that walk me through. How many hours, how much time,
how many years have you seen people take to get
to a point where they feel that sense of unconscious competence,

(43:56):
not of not of mastery, because that can take many years,
but a sense of comfortability where it's flowing and they
don't feel phony and contrived anymore. Where what have you seen?

Speaker 2 (44:06):
It depends on your longer what have you seen. I've
seen unbelievable change within six months. And this is someone
who has become problem aware that this thing has been
destroying my relationships, destroying my career growth. And when that
pain becomes that great and you become problem aware, I
can't believe how quickly some of my students have been

(44:28):
able to change. And then I've seen it take as
long as three or four years and where I'm still great, yeah, yeah,
exactly where I'll get an email three to four years
later and they go, I can't believe it's taking me
this long to email you. I almost feel a little
bit of shame. I'm like, no, because it took me ten.
So that's amazing. That's incredible, right, because it ranges so
much depending on the intensity of the pain they feel

(44:51):
and the realizations they have. I have to bring it
back to what you said before, because what you said
before about you going to three events and just going
with the flow. I know the people listening to this
right now while you were saying that, they were clenching
their butt checks because they were like, Ah, that's so
that's so freaky. And I wanted to speak to that
because what you just described to me is one of

(45:14):
the ultimate benefits of mastery in this arena, and it's freedom.
You were free in each one of those speeches. You
were free to go where the audience wanted to go.
That's one of the things I rarely ever get to
even talk about because I don't get to speak to
others usually who are so proficient at this skill set.

(45:36):
That's ultimate freedom, Jay. When you feel something, you think something,
and you're immediately in the moment able to articulate it
with clarity and make people laugh at the same time.
That is so powerful.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Man, I'm dan shiit is just what you're saying.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
It's like goosebumps, and to know you're going into that
being able to do that, like again, it's achievable for
you listening to this too.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
What I love about it is that there was so
much discovery for me on that stage, and that's what
I do it for. I don't do it to show
off or be like, oh, look, I don't need to
prepare or be lazy or not respect my client. I
do it for discovery. And what I mean by that
is when I don't plan to that one hundred percent,

(46:20):
I now have the opportunity to find and discover in
the moment. So there were so many things that I
said in those three keynotes that have never said in
my life. And that's where I get your Yeah, you create.
And I said that first because I wanted to take
it back and say, my first experience of public speaking,
I want to ask you about yours. I was around
seven years old and my mum always wanted me to

(46:45):
be on stage and do things like that, and I didn't.
And so it was a religious assembly and I was
dressed as people from my culture and I was asked
to go and sing and speak on this prayer in
front of my class. Now, I grew up in London.
I grew up in an area where there weren't loads
of Indian people like me. I'm now on stage dressed

(47:08):
in traditional garb. But it was basically me wrapped in
a sari if you've ever seen that. And my mum
had even put some makeup on me, probably to try
and make me look more of the part and it
didn't help. And then I'm on stage in front of
all my friends. I'm seven, eight years old something like that,
and I stand up there with this prayer that I'm
not that well versed in or practiced, and I start

(47:30):
singing it. I have a terrible singing voice, and that's
not humble. There's a difference between a speaking voice and
a singing voice. I can't sing to say my life.
And I start singing, and the whole audience starts laughing immediately,
like just like literally all my friends are rolling on
the floor laughing. And now I'm starting to cry because
I felt really embarrassed, and I look down because I

(47:52):
forgot the words, and now I can't see the words
because my tears are blurred the words in my papers.
I've lost the notes, so don't know the words. And then,
to make it even worse than that, my teacher walks
on stage. She puts her armor around me and walks
me off, which is the most embarrassing thing in the world.
And so I go from that at eight years old.

(48:14):
And this is why I love what you're doing for
the world, because you're showing and proving you can build
this skill. It is a muscle, and that was my
first experience of public speaking. A few years after that,
after all the training as well, I was probably speaking
of rooms of zero to five people and pouring my
heart out into just five people. And even now when

(48:37):
I look back, I loved it because I just got
to be so proficient and practiced. And so when someone's saying, oh,
do I have to do this for four weeks or wait,
only five people are showing up or whatever those things are,
those are actually really really beautiful moments. I want to
ask you, what was your first time public speaking? What
was the first ever experience on step?

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Have you recovered from that experience?

Speaker 1 (48:59):
I have now. I have now. But even though I
started getting trained when I was eleven, I probably didn't
get half decent until I was like seventeen or eighteen.
Like that's why when you said you can get people
then three to four years, I'm like, that's pretty good,
because if I started eleven, I probably got half decent
at sixteen to eighteen. I wasn't good when I was
like twelve, thirteen, fourteen, All those years we're just you know.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
It's such a common story among many of the students
that I coach. There usually is some kind of event
when they were younger that has led them to believe
that I'm terrible at this thing because there wasn't the
right support that you were thrown into that you did
even practice, you didn't even learn the words right. So
so again like you were set up to almost fail

(49:41):
when a lot of the old presentations that would do
when we're young, that's what they called, right, are you
going to do a presentation? We're set up to fail.
When you're eleven and you have to do this presentation
in front of your cast, do they teach you how
to use your hands? Do they teach you where to
put your notes? Do they teach you how to summarize
notes and not write the whole damn thing on Q cards? No,
they're sending you up to So this is such a

(50:01):
common story because our school system, the entire year has
one day well we have to go on in front
of the class to do it, and guess what. Guess
what happens to day I'm sick, mom, I can't go
to school, and then you stay and then you missed
the one day you have training, and then if you
do the training, you all set up to fail. You're
all set up to so every person has a version

(50:22):
of this. My version of this is a little more
dramatic because I was older. I was in university and
we had to do a presentation for accounting, and I
was so nervous. I remember going to the toilet ten
twelve times, so nervous. And then I got up on
stage and I had a sniffle, so I kept I
kept touching my note. I had to sniffle. And then

(50:44):
I got a blood nose then, and I didn't realize
I had a blood nose because I thought it was
I thought it was I was just I thought I
was just booger, so I didn't know. I just wiped it.
Blood comes across my face. I don't know I have
blood on my face. Why are you speaking while I'm speaking.
I didn't know it was blood, right, And then I
obviously a blood vessel went. I was so nervous, was going.
And then I didn't realize it was blood and I
was still talking, and then people started laughing. And then

(51:06):
I tasted blood. And at the moment I tasted blood,
I looked at my hands. There was blood everywhere. I
start freaking out. I didn't know what to do. The
teachers didn't even know what to do either. Do you
know what I had to do? I finished the talk
and it was finished, took It was only a five
bitt of presentation, but I finished it because I didn't
know what to do, and I panicked, and it was
just the worst presentation I'd ever given. From that point,

(51:27):
I just thought, yeah, you know what, I'm going to
avoid this at all costs. I'm never going to do
it ever again. This is the worst experience of my life. Yeah, yeah,
just and then I walked off. I just yeah, I'm
glad that back then and no photos. That's so traumatic.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
Well, that is traumatic, man, to actually bleed, to be
that nervous, to be that stress.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Yeah, that's how stress I was.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, to experience that, that's I love that.
That's where you started. And now if someone watched, like
when I watch your vidism, this guy's a genius. Let's
take a short break to hear from our sponsors. All right,
thank you to our sponsors. Now let's dive back in.
One of the things I was thinking about as we're
doing this, and I'm really trying to put myself in

(52:09):
your audience issues, my audience issues, the community that struggles
with this. One thing that I've definitely seen as I've
traveled and we both have international audiences, is this fear
that people have around their accents, and that can often
make people quite unconfident. And it's really interesting because obviously,
when I moved to the States, people really enjoy listening

(52:31):
to a British accent in the States. But where I
was growing up in London, to me, the smartest people
sounded American accents. Professors Harvard, Princeton, Stamford. When you heard
these professors do ted talks or whatever it was, it
was always in an American accent. And it's almost like
in England we grew up on American rap music. You
grow up to such a culture that our feelings are

(52:53):
skewed towards certain accents. And so if you're from a
country where you feel or a state, or anyway even
in the United States, you may feel like your accent
isn't well received. How does how does someone deal with
that kind of pressure.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
I just believe accents are rarely a problem. It's it's
really the articulation and the pronunciation that lets people down.
Because I just feel that accents are beautiful I've got
students from all over the world, Jay, and I I
love listening to the accent because it tells a story.
It tells me who you are, where it lets you down.

(53:27):
Is like when I first came to the US, I
didn't realize I had so much Australian slang and Australian's
user like we shorten all of our words. Is like, yeah, man,
I want to Yeah, maybe I won't, you know, Yeah,
all right, Like it's just I didn't realize I was
doing so much of that, and people go, oh, Australian
accent is awesome. Yeah. If I if I talk for
a secon, you won't even understand what I'm saying if
I don't articulate and pronounce my words correctly.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
Yea.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
So I really believe that. And I have this happen
all the time in my in person classes where someone
will come and ask that very question and they will
have a Polish accent or or maybe they will have
an Indian accent, and then the moment I just get
them to over articulate and practice, all of a sudden
it completely changes how they sound. And here's where it happens. Jay,
It's because for me, for example, Right, I learned the

(54:13):
Vietnamese language, so I learned a set of Vietnamese mouth movements.
My big mistake was when I learned English, I used
the same set of mouth movements in the Vietnamese language
to go speak the English language. Fascinating, right, So then
all of a sudden, now when I speak English, my
accent wasn't the problem. The problem was I wasn't articulating correctly,
so people didn't understand me. I used to not pronounce

(54:35):
my teas British be wor good with this, but Australians
and even Asians I didn't do it. So I'd say
things like I can't. I wouldn't pronounce I can't. I
wouldn't pronounce that, And then my tea's I would say free, Oh,
I can I have three of those instead of three
of those yeah. And then what people were associating with

(54:56):
low levels of intelligence was not so much my accent.
It was just because I didn't articulate my words well.
And this can happen in any culture. This can happen
with any accent. I've heard people with Chinese accents, Indian accents,
Polish accents, Russian accents. But when they articulate their words beautifully.

(55:17):
Oh man, it's like you get to listen to a
different genre of music. Otherwise, imagine everyone sounded like us.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
There's no flavor, there's no personality.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Personality. Again, I do not believe accents or a problem.
I believe the problem lies in your ability to articulate
and your pronunciation. And here's the quick activity that you
can do to help you. One of the greatest things
I learned that my speech pathologists made me do was,
first of all, grab a book. And every single day,
you grab a book for five minutes, four times a day,
if you want to take it real seriously, every time

(55:48):
for five minutes, read the book and overdo your lip movements,
overdo the tongue movements. And then, if you want to
take it to the next level, put a pen in
your mouth, because if you put a pen in your mouth,
you're forced to over articulate and do it out loud.
And by doing this you'll start to learn and record
yourself while you're doing it too. You'll start to learn,
oh wow, I struggle with this sound, this consonant, this vow.

(56:10):
And as you start to bring a little bit of
awareness to it, you go ah, right, I need to
change the way I'm shaping my lips. I need to
change the way and just going through that process alone.
I remember doing that for three months. And I had
to do that when I came here to the US
because I slurred my words a lot. And in Australia
you fully understand before I might, right, yeah, there's no
dramas with that. But over here, all of a sudden,

(56:31):
I was speaking in Texas and I still remember speaking
in Texas for the first time. It was so sweet.
They're like, I love the gap. I ain't got no
idea what he's saying.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
Right, And it was like this weird thing where.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
And then I literally had to go see a speech
pathologist even later in my life because in Australia it
wasn't a problem and I didn't realize it too, but
when I slurred my words that much, it made people
think I wasn't smart, right, And this is why people
in the world think the British are so smart. Is
it just the accent or is it because as they
articulate extremely well, right, right, So you can sound smart

(57:04):
in any culture, in any with any accent.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
Should we get a couple of pens?

Speaker 3 (57:11):
Can you pass as a couple of just that people
realize what it is, yeah, and that we also need
to do these like I'm I'm probably going to contact
you straight after this and go, Vin, I'm not kidding you.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
I mean this, Thank you so much. What type of
pen doesn't matter, It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. It
could be a sharp.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
I think it depends the more challenging it is.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
That one I think I've already let's not give you
I've already this one does not have back marks, no, no, no,
look you can see what I've done with this.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
We do this for a segment.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
Yeah, But what I was saying was, as soon as
we finish this podcast, I'm probably going to message you
in say, Vin, can you please critique all of my
I'm going to send you a speech and ask you
to help me get better, because I think the mistake
is also that you get there and then you don't
need these techniques, or that you don't need to improve,

(58:00):
and that you don't need to work.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
On it practice anymore.

Speaker 1 (58:02):
I think about it all the time.

Speaker 4 (58:03):
So anyway, let's let's Yeah, can you see how difficult?
This is very difficult, right, And I want people to
think about this. Who can you understand better right now?

Speaker 1 (58:15):
I'm not sure you've.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
Got to give me more than that, Jake.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
Okay, So Rinn, how are you today?

Speaker 2 (58:23):
Feeling a little.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Bit jet lagged? Okay?

Speaker 2 (58:26):
I came all the way from Australia.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
Yeah, I just got back from Mexico yesterday and I
went to a friend's wedding and we had a really
good time.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
Oh that's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
I'm really happy for him.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
Oh, so happy for you. It's in doing these things
that you start all of a sudden. Now that I
now when I speak, I feel like, oh I'm so
sharp totally.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
I can do even just from a few moments.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
Because you're forced to stretch your mouth so much bigger
to make the shapes, to be able to create the sounds.
Whereas the biggest problem, and again this happens in the
English language. When you think about the European languages, the
Asian languages, we actually don't have to drop our jaw
a lot to speak those languages. Interesting because when I
speak Vietnamese, you know, I can do a lot of
Vietnamese with my mouth closed. Can you even learned Nignam

(59:13):
three eleven son? I barely have to move my jaw.
English is one of the very few languages where, when
you think about consciously how you're speaking, you have to
drop your jaw so much to speak the English language. Well,
whereas again, the Asian cultures European languages, you don't have to.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
Again, each language has a different set of mouth movements.
So by doing that simply alone, you felt it straight away, Yes,
because you had to move your jaw so much, totally.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
I can actually feel like we've worked out Yeah, like
that's what it feels like.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
And that we did it for thirty seconds.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
Absolutely, and you can keep that pen Oh, thank you.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
I do think you want it back.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
I genuinely feel the difference from such a short period
of time, and I could tell if I did it
for longer, it would make an even bigger difference.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
Well, imagine you did it for five minutes. Yeah, and
you started dedicating yourself to me, Yes, yes, my goodness.
Within a week, you'll notice your mouth moving differently, and
you'll notice yourself sounding more clear. Accents are not a problem.
You've got to stop thinking that. People always go, oh,
I hate my accent. That tells a story. It's your culture,
it's your history, it's what makes you unique? And I

(01:00:18):
always love to think of it as it's different genres
of music.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
Yes, and that's what we're seeing in music in the
world right now. Anyway. You're seeing languages pour in through
different artists and people, and it's such a need for that.
I wanted to ask you something because this was a
big evolution point for me. So from eleven to eighteen
I went to public speaking school. I got the tools,
is how I like to see it. But it was

(01:00:42):
only when I met the monks and I started to
learn about Eastern wisdom and philosophy that I felt I
had something to talk about, and I wanted to ask
you how much you weight the balance between what you
have to say and how you say it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
Both equally important. I see some books where I read
where they go, no, what you say is more important,
and then some books say, no, how you say it
is a more important And I think they kind of
have to do this sometimes because they are an expert
in one particular arena. But again, I believe the answer
is not which one, it's both both just as critical.
Same with me. I think until I found the purpose

(01:01:22):
and the fulfillment from teaching public speaking, I didn't really
have much to talk about. I didn't and until I
found that, then all of a sudden, I started creating content.
Then the content started to take off, And I think
it's because I love how you've positioned what you do here.
It's on purpose. When I found that purpose and I
had the tools and I was able to use my instrument,

(01:01:43):
then all of a sudden, the world resonated with that. Yes,
whereas before I did make YouTube videos back in two
thousand and eight two thousand and nine, just for fun,
but they didn't really go anywhere because even though I
had decent access to my instrument, it just didn't go
anywhere because I wasn't aligned. You could hear it. It
wasn't on purpose.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
Yeah. No, I'm glad I brought that up because I
think a lot of people are struggling with either or
Like someone may come to you, they may learn all
the tools, yeah, but then they're gonna have to find
what they use it for. And like you said, there
may be someone else who actually has lots of knowledge,
but then they don't have the tools to share the
wisdom or the insight.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
And that's generally the student that somehow discovers me right.
It's the one that is I have something to share
with the world, but some reason, every time I share it,
people misunderstand me. Every time I share it, it doesn't get
the impact that I desire. And it's the truth because
you have You could have the greatest piece of music
written by Beethoven, but if you play it poorly, it
is that the greatest music. And again, it's so interesting

(01:02:39):
because I understand my students so intimately now where I
know what they'll say that they say things in their
life like they go, I'm just gonna let my work
speak for myself. Why not speak for your work too? Right? Well,
why can't we do both? Why why are we so linear?
Why can't we do both so good? Right? And when
they realize that, they go, oh, okay, right, it opens
their mind to the whole idea of I kind of
have the tech responsibility to shine my light. I can't

(01:03:01):
wait for someone again. And I remember we have a
mutual friend, Mel Robins, right. Yes, Mel helped him with
my speaking career. At the start of my speaking criage,
Mel used to flick me the gigs that couldn't afford her.
I became the cheap Mel Robins for a period, so
I was the cheap mel Robins. She was amazing and
so gracious where well because she couldn't do those gigs,
but maybe she was busy as well, and she flicked

(01:03:23):
them to me. That's how she started my career here
in the US.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
Know that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
And she was one of the people that I saw
from her content as well early on where she said
no one's coming to healthier, no one's coming to save
your That's when it really hit home for me to
I went, Okay, I'm gonna have to go do this myself, right,
And you take ownership for that. And yeah, because when
you take ownership, you step into your power. When you
blame others, you kind of lose all of it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
Yeah. What about someone who comes to you and says,
I talk too fast? How do you teach people to
slow down? Because I think that we're all scared of pauses, right,
Everyone's always trying to fill the gaps, even if you're
in a conversation with someone. We don't like pauses. I've
for years had to practice the ability to say it's okay,

(01:04:06):
if I need to look away, if I need to think,
if I need to reflect, if I actually just need
to take something in whether I'm on a podcast, on stage,
or in a private meeting, how do we get comfortable
with's slowing down and pausing rather than trying to fill
all the space, because that's such a natural thing to do.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
The first thing I'd say, if you speak really fast,
well done for being aware that you do. Most people
are not aware of it is a lot of it
is to do with your mindset and the state of
mind that you're in. When do you think people speak
really fast when they're feeling what.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
They're nervous, cacious, anxious, etc.

Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
Right, So you've got to you kind of kind of
have to address it at the core there. So what
you need to do is you have to identify when
are you speaking fast? In which situations are you speaking fast?
Oh it's when I'm in a job interview. Oh It's
when I'm going in for my quarterly review. Well great,
Now you know in these isolights situation the triggers are
high pressure situations. Okay, cool. That means before you go

(01:05:04):
into those situations, you need to still your mind and
your body. Again, it comes back to breathing. All right.
I couldn't believe it, but there were workshops that I
was invited to and I did some of them. I
couldn't beieve we could spend three to four days on breathing.
And then I found out there was a seven day
workshop on breathing. I went seven days. There's so much
profound wisdom in the breath, and I did not understand

(01:05:26):
it until I started learning more about it. So again,
breathing before you go in, go with the wim Hoff breathing,
and that will slow down your mind and slow down
your body, and then all of a sudden it slows
down your speech. The next thing is adrenaline also causes
you to speed and speak really quickly. So before you

(01:05:47):
go into a presentation or something that's making universe, get
rid of the adrenaline. Some brisk walking, do a couple
of push ups. Do some star jumps. I know you
call them jumping Jackson. Yeah, mate, it's not called a
jumping jack it's a star jup. Mate.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
So do a kind of star jumps in English?

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Are you doing? Yeah? Americas have it wrong? Yes, who
the hell is jack? So all of a sudden, I
do twenty star jumps, right, And when you do that,
you get rid of all the adrenaline. The Adrenaline is
what makes you shake and also what makes you speak
really quickly, because when you start to shake, it's sending
signals to your brain that you're nervous. Now you start
to think you're nervous, and when when you think you're never
know you're speaking really quickly. Right, So again, these things
help slow you down. Now, those are things you can

(01:06:24):
do before you're going. One last thing you can do
before you're going, Actually, is what makes us really nervous
is being self conscious. But you can only be self
conscious if you're thinking about yourself. So then stop thinking
about yourself and realize it was not about you. If
you're going on stage, it's not about you. It's about
every single person you're going to serve. And I'll be

(01:06:44):
honest with you too. Coming here, I felt a bit nervous, right,
but then I thought to myself, it's not about me.
It's about me trying to add as much value as
I can to Jay's audience, and it's about Jay. I
want to connect with Jay. And the moment I made
it about you and I made it about the audience
that we're about to serve, I had no cognitive capacity
left to be nervous because I'm thinking about myself. So
to me, these three small tools you got the breathing,

(01:07:04):
get rid of the adrenaline, and mindset shift. It helps
calm you down. And now when you go in, if
you find yourself racing in it, then pause and take
a deep breath. And that's how you can remedy it.
Because if you go in you're like, oh, I'm here,
I'm really exacted. You take a deep breath and then

(01:07:25):
continue speaking, and right after the deep breath, it's going
to slow your speech right down. Even when I did it,
there all of a sudden, feel more relaxed. Now. Yeah,
the reason people aren't comfortable with the pause is because
they don't know what the pause is for, right And
when you think the pause is useless, that's why you

(01:07:46):
develop the behavior of filling the pause, always talking non
filler words as well, and so liked you know what
I mean. We do that because we don't understand the
power of the pause. Whereas the pause allows people to
process what you're saying. Think about it now, listeners, as
you're listening to that, the moment I paused, you just
did it again. You had a moment to process the

(01:08:06):
things that I was saying. If I just talk really
quickly and I don't pause at all when I'm talking,
all of a sudden, now everything that I say has
no clear points because you don't have any time to
process anything that I'm saying. All of a sudden, everything
after all becomes mumba jumpo, right, it just becomes nothing.
Whereas pausing gives people time to process, pausing gives you
time to breathe so that you can relax, so that
you don't speak too quickly. There are so many benefits

(01:08:28):
to it. I mean, think of music again. I love
using music analogies because the most important note in an
orchestra happens after a crescendo, which is what silence. They'll
build the peak and then all of a sudden, musicians
will play and play and or get to this peak
moment and then just nothing, and the audience is in

(01:08:51):
awe of what they just experienced.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
You speak about it so powerfully and it's so convincing.
I'm like, this is this has to hear because I
applied that even and that came come back to zoom calls, meetings, everything.
I think it's so important to not feel that the
person who talks. The fastest is the one who will
get their point in. And I think that's sometimes the

(01:09:17):
thing of like, hey, guys, I just really want to
say this with you, because if we just if we
just did this, this would solve everything, Like this is
the thing. And it's almost like you've actually lost all
importance because of that pace.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
Also because there's no clarity. Yes, if people don't process
anything that you say, there's no clarity. Yes, you have
to think about communication is not what I just send.
It's how it's being received. Right, It's not oh, I've
sent it, it's done, it's out there. What do you
think I don't even remember what you said? Yeah, And

(01:09:48):
I think I think that's a that's a big mistake.
And and often people do that again because they don't understand
that the way you deliver has an impact on how
others receive.

Speaker 1 (01:09:57):
Yeah, I really appreciate your which to the audience consciousness
versus the US consciousness, because it seems really small, it
seems really obvious, it seems kind of of course that
makes sense, but it really is everything. Yeah, Because all
of a sudden, if you're thinking about being impressive, that's

(01:10:20):
a really hard place to live. From because now you're
judging every word that comes out of your mouth and
judging whether it's impressive, whether it's powerful, whether it's profound,
whether it's whatever it is. And now you actually have
no thinking space. Yes to actually be profound, impressive and
all those things you want it to be, it's just
not possible. Whereas if you are thinking, Hey, what's that

(01:10:43):
person in the audience struggling with? What are they really
struggling with? What's their challenge? What's the thing that And
that's why, that's how we started this conversation. I was like,
what's everyone worried about when they come to you? Because
to me, that's the most important thing. And if I
know that what they're worried about is their acts and
their voice, their whatever it may be, now all of
a sudden I can address that and I can speak

(01:11:06):
to that, and actually I can make them aware that
I'm aware of that. And that's the same in a meeting.
I think sometimes if someone said to me in a meeting, Jay,
I know that you really want the podcast to be
a special place for people to really learn, grow and heal.
I know that it's a big priority in your life,

(01:11:28):
and I know that it's something that you put your
heart into for six years. This is how to make
it better. All of a sudden, I'm like, I'm all
is because I feel like you actually get where I'm
at and where I'm coming from. Whereas everyone said, Hey,
you know, I've just got this really great idea i
want to share with you all of us, Like, well,
I don't know if it's a great idea or not,
because I don't even know if we're on the same page.

(01:11:50):
And so walk me through some of the ways people
can establish by what they're saying and how they want.
You did this beautiful video well there's you're one. But
I loved it. I absolutely loved it, and I realized
I do it unconsciously, and when I saw you explain it,
I was like, there you go. That's why. That's why
you're such a great coach and such a great teacher.

(01:12:10):
It was that idea of meeting people where they're at,
and you were saying that when people come to you
and they're like, oh, then you're amazing on stage and
you were great and they speak really quietly, and you said,
if you come back to that and go, yeah, what
did you like about it?

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
Or even worse like, oh, thank you so much, ah,
because you bring sometimes you bring that stage persona straight
down yeah. Oh yeah, And how did I learn that?
Because that's what I started with. Yeah, and you see
them and then they freak out. But that's why I
want to ask you, So, how do we do that
in a meeting? How do we do that in our
daily life? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
Where sometimes what we're saying, but also how we're saying it,
we're not even giving it the importance it deserves. How
do we establish more authority and influence when we are
sharing an idea, when we are proposing a method.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
You've heard a lot of body language experts say you
mentioned mirror people, Yes, right, to build rapport, to make
it about them, to build a connection you met, mirror
their body language. But what a lot of people don't
realize is you can also match and mirror their vocal foundations.
So when you think about the voice and you divide
it into five different categories, and you think it from
the perspective of rate of speech, volume, pitch, and melody,

(01:13:14):
tonality and the pause, now all of a sudden, you
have these five factors that you can start to think
about when you're talking to people. So if someone comes
up to you and they're naturally speaking a little bit
quickly because they're nervous, right like that, and they're speaking
a little bit lower volume, and their melody is not
as great of a range, and you notice these things,
then you match in your mirror where they are with
their voice too, And then people immediately feel like, oh,

(01:13:36):
you're approachable. Yes, And it's not that we stay there
because some people go, oh, but that's in authority, that's
not right. No, No, that that's you being a great and
dynamic communicator. That's you going, hey, I'm going to meet
you where you are to make you feel comfortable, to
build connection, to make it about you meet them where
they are, and then slowly you take them back out.
So if you're meeting them without you go oh, hey,
thank you for coming up and saying hello. But hey,
can I just ask you quickly too, what did you

(01:13:59):
really take away? What was the key thing you took away?
Oh you took that away. Oh that's awesome. Hey, I'm
so happy that you came up and had a chat
with me all of a sudden. Now, once you're in raport,
you can take them to where you want to go.
And that's something you can take onto a zoom call.
You meet them where they are, right. If someone's really
excited about an idea they want to bring to you,
you can meet them there with that excitement to show
them respect, right, as opposed to a lot of the

(01:14:21):
times previously in my life, someone will come to be
really excited and I have one gear, Jay, and I'm
just one gear. I'm like, oh, that sounds really cool. Yeah,
that's great, awesome man, And I didn't realize that then
all of a sudden, I made them feel less important,
whereas now, all of a sudden, I've learned that, Ah,
when someone comes to me with a peak emotion, even

(01:14:41):
if it's frustration, I will mirror that for them to
show them the hey, I feel you. It's like, oh man,
that sucks.

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
So it's not just in the words that I use.
I deliver it in a way so that they can
hear that I'm with you and I'm on the same page. Yes,
it's one of the fastest ways to build raport with people.

Speaker 1 (01:14:56):
Yeah. I think that's so important because you could a
zoom call and someone turns up and they're in a
really sad, low mood. Yeah, and in your head you think,
come on, like, come on, bring more energy, right, yeah,
and then you get frustrated. Yeah, and now you feel
you're dragging them up a hill. Whereas if you were like, hey,
I just want to check in with you, like you're right, yeah,
how's it going?

Speaker 2 (01:15:16):
You lower your volume two? Yeah, you meet them where
they are. Hey. You know notice it on the other
call you weren't. Are you okay? And all of a sudden,
people are way more likely to open up if you
used your instrument of that way as opposed to, oh mate,
what's going on? Yeah, what's going on?

Speaker 4 (01:15:29):
Man?

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
Come on, look at the weather outside. It's amazing today.
What's going on? They're definitely not opening up to that person.
But I didn't have that sensitivity growing up, No sensitivity.
I didn't know why so many of my relationships when
I was young would fail. Like I remember one of
my partners when I was really young, where I would
ask her. I'd say to her on a Friday night,
I'm like, hey, I know we've got dinner plans tonight,
but the guys are doing a land party and we're

(01:15:51):
going to go play CS go Can I go? And
you'll go yeah, Fine, just go then, and I just
went you are the most amazing girlfriend in I thought
you would have said no. And then a way next
day you broke up with me, and I was like
why And I'd listen to backstrop boys and I'd be like,
why did you break up? Is she? But she said yes?
And that's when I went through that eraror. I was like, woman,

(01:16:12):
are so confusing, it doesn't make sense. She said I
could go. And it was because I wasn't listening to
the emotion in the voice. I didn't even have that gear. Man,
I just thought what people said, Oh, that's it. I
take you for what you said, so it's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:16:24):
So it's fine and we justify it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:26):
Yeah, what do you think?

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
No, but you did say but you said yes.

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
Yeah, I know I did, but but that's not the point.
And then yeah, but again all of a sudden having sensitivity.
Now I've got so many different gears now, Jay, And
that's the analogy I love to use too, is that
because sometimes a lot of people feel that, oh, there's
only one version of me, and Jay, this is the
only version of me, and I'm this version of me
in every situation. That's like having a car with one gear.

(01:16:49):
We are so much more dynamic that than as a
human being. And I get my shoes to think of
this all the time. Think about when you're angry. You
use your voice differently, you use your body language differently
when you've done something wrong. And when I've done something
like I've maybe stayed out with the guys too late
one night, I come home, I talk different to my wife.
I'm like, I know, yep, I'm sorry, and I'm very sheepish.

(01:17:09):
You you're different when you've done something wrong. We use
our instrument differently in every single one of those situations,
but when we don't consciously think about it, sometimes we
can default to just one gear. I shopped at the
interview the exact same way I shopped, and we shopped
in just one rigid gear, and we go, why am
I not standing out? Why don't I get more attention?
Why don't I get that promotion that I deserve? Yeah,

(01:17:32):
you've got to learn to be more dynamic.

Speaker 1 (01:17:34):
I'm really glad you made that point, because I was
saying that to you earlier. When I'm on the podcast,
I'm a certain way because it's a conversation, yes, But
when I'm on stage I get the license to be
funny and yes, banter with people and bring people in
the audience into that conversation because I can yeah version
of you totally. I always say that when I'm on stage,
I'm the three to sixty version of myself because I

(01:17:54):
get to be all things yes to everyone that I
want to be. Whereas here I'm having a one to
one conversation. This is kind of what I'm like when
I'm having a one to one conversation with a friend,
a family member, whatever it may be, because that's my
natural way of being. And then if I'm making a
video where there's no people, I find it that's like
the most minimal version of me. Yeah, because it's to me,

(01:18:17):
it's all about energy exchange. Yes, So if I'm in
a room full of ten twenty thirty people, maybe ten
thousand people, there's so much energy to play with. It
can be fun, it can be this. It could be
that when I'm with you, we're matching each other's energy.
And then if I'm on my own and it's just
a camera, then i can think about who's going to
watch it. But really, I'm only letting one percent of
me be me for me, for me, I'm saying. I'm

(01:18:40):
not saying that's the way for everyone. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
No, but it brings up a really important insight that
I learned along the way, and it's that be as
big as the room.

Speaker 1 (01:18:46):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:18:47):
And you notice how sometimes people do this incorrectly. And
I used to be one of those people. Tell me
how you do that incorrect well, because I when I
first learned about all this, I went, oh, wow, this
is amazing. I'm going to bring this and then and
I'll bring this, and then people are like, ah, it's
a little bit of a winker. That's a bit much,
don't you think. And I used to do that because
I had no sensitivity. I just thought, oh no, this

(01:19:08):
is really good. I should be like this all the time.
And then I realized, oh wow, no, no, no, just
that simple rule of be as big as the room. Again,
the version of you I'm assuming if you're in front
of ten thousand people. Imagine we're in front of ten
thousand people and we went out like, OHI everyone, it's
great to be here, and I'm excited to It won't work,
it won't work right unless your ear totally then it's
totally fine. That's on brand, right, whereas all of a sudden,

(01:19:31):
you need to bring a much bigger version of you.
But you have to develop that sensitivity. Whereas I see
sometimes when my students were new to communications, they missed
the mark and usually they're too small. Yes, more often
than not they have this fear I'm going to be
too much.

Speaker 1 (01:19:45):
No, no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:19:46):
The danger is not your too much. The danger is
that you've been living way too small. For me. It's
always about pushing them up. But the fear they have is, oh,
but it's too much. I'm like, no, no, no, no, it's too little.
You're playing too small. Right. So again, that sensitivity is
important to develop. You're with thirty people. It's a different
version of you, and it's okay because you you have
to be a bigger version of you to be effective
in that medium. Yes, otherwise will seem like you don't care.

(01:20:09):
Otherwise sometimes it can come across like you don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:20:11):
It's such an art and what we're talking about is
obviously the spectrum of yes, you know, the kind of
like the expertise, the mastery, all the way through to
the challenge. And it does blow my mind that public
speaking comes out as the number one fear in the world,
and seventy five percent of the world's population is scared

(01:20:33):
of public speaking, and it's something we have to do
every single day.

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
And people think, but I'm not on stage. Yeah, but
anytime you open your mouth in public, that's public speaking, right,
it is public speaking. Yeah, you're publicly speaking every single day.
And that also shows an opportunity. Jay, if seventy five
percent of people fear it, that means only one in
four people kind of do it. So if you can
get good at this skill, you now have a competitive end.

(01:21:00):
And one of the greatest things that I've noticed is
that why do creators become such great communicators they do?
I mean watch creators. Why do they become such great communicators?
It's because they film themselves every single day and they
watch it back and they notice behaviors that serve them,
and they notice behaviors that don't serve them, and then

(01:21:23):
they remove the behaviors that don't serve them. Because one
of these things that I ask a lot of creators,
I always ask them like, so, what formal communication trainings
you do? And they're like, what what are you talking
about it. I'm like, I had to learn so many
years to and from that simple that's why I want
to bring it back again for the listeners. Right, that
simple process. If you just committed to the process of
recording yourself once a week, you will now have one

(01:21:46):
of the competitive edges that all creators have. They're impeccable communicators.
And why do you keep going back to the creators
that you love every single week you keep watching every video.
It's because they're able to form a connection with you.
What skill are they using to form that connection with you?
The ability to communicate and articulate ideas with clarity. So
all of a sudden, now you kind of see that

(01:22:06):
hidden secret there where it's about they just keep putting
in the reps.

Speaker 1 (01:22:11):
It's I never even put two into together. It's such
a great point that they're actually practicing that exact method.
But first, here's a quick word from the brands that
support the show. All right, thank you to our sponsors.
Now let's dive back in. When I left the monastery
and I got a job at Centure, we had someone
come and do public speaking training while we're at the company.

(01:22:33):
I wish it was you, it wasn't.

Speaker 2 (01:22:34):
Yeah, I would have been terrible at it at the time.

Speaker 1 (01:22:39):
But they had us film ourselves and it was really
interesting to me. I believed at that point that I
was I was. I wouldn't say I was a seasoned speaker,
but I was a very experienced speaker, because even as
a monk, I gave, you know, three hour lectures every day,
and so there was a lot of speaking involved in
teaching from scripture and wisdom and that we had. But

(01:23:02):
it was really interesting. As a monk, I would sit
and speak like you'd sit on a low It's called
a vassa san in the Indian language, and what it
would be described as, I guess it's a very low
bench like you may have seen it in movies or
whatever it may be. It's just very very low, and
it's it's a small seat, and so you're sitting cross legged.
Low it's position, and your hands are usually in there

(01:23:22):
and you may use some hand gestures, but generally they're
rested and it's a smaller group. I would stand and
talk if I was giving a talk to university students,
which I did while I was a monk as well,
and maybe there'd be a circle of people. But then
we videoed ourselves and it was really interesting. I found
myself in that video, just doing this the whole time.
And then I watched that video back and I found
that that's all I did with my hands at that time,

(01:23:44):
and it was so powerful to be able to see
how you and it looked so cringe, right, it just
but it's like every time I made a point, I
do this, and then I'd come back to here, and
that's a very like you know, as a monk, our
palms would actually we rested in meditation whatever. And it
was so interesting how I'd taken that habit right into
my work life. Oh right, right, And I was giving
a corporate talk at the time. But what I'm saying

(01:24:06):
is I'm reiterating the point of needing to film yourself
speaking like I stand by it fully and I think
you're spot on. Make you people to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:24:13):
It's so cooled to geek out on this. Yes, you've
had so much training in this arena. Right now, even
as you listen to this to the listener, you already
know what great communication looks like because you've been to
a conference and a speaker walks out on stage. Within
ten seconds, you now make a decision whether you're listening
or your life and you'd make a big decision whether

(01:24:35):
you're you're going to go to your now social media
feed or not. Right, So, there are certain cues that
you recognize as being cues that are engaging. Oh the
way they're using their voice, I'm in the way they're
using their body language. Oh, I'm in right. So you
already have all of that information in your mind. But
here's where it gets interesting. You've never applied any of
those ideas in your head to yourself. So you'll be

(01:24:59):
shocked because again, when you all of a sudden watch yourself,
you go, oh, no, I come across like Barry. Ah, no,
sorry to the Barry's out there, just pick the random name.
But again they go, no, I come across like Barry.
But that's because again you've been avoiding this your entire life. Yes,
and then the reason why I wanted to bring it up again.
I'm so glad you brought up again is because if
there's one thing you do if you listen to this

(01:25:20):
episode is record a video of yourself, and you'll think
Jay and I later because you'll see things that you
didn't realize. You know, you have so much beautiful knowledge
already in your mind about what makes a great communicator,
because why are you drawn to a certain YouTube video
and a certain creator. You've already had these internal references
in your mind of what great communication is for you. Yes,

(01:25:40):
And all of a sudden, now you get to apply
the same list of things to yourself. Do you know
how cool that is? That is so cool? And which
brings me to my next point where my students ask me.
They go, well, well, then how do I become myself? Though?
How do I find my Because I always talk about
this present version of you and your way too attached
to it. Let go of the present version of you,

(01:26:00):
give the future version of you a chance. And they go, well,
how do we make that transition? Well, I say, look,
first of all, just record yourself. But then after that,
as you begin this journey. I view the journey of
being a great communicator like the journey of becoming a
great chef. So how would you become a great chef?
You would go out and you would look for a
great chef, and you would look for one of the recipes.
You buy the recipe book, and then you'd copy the
recipe right and then at the beginning you copy the

(01:26:23):
recipe almost exactly, and then you start cooking it, and
you eat it and you go, I didn't think that's
what the chef was intending. So you copy a little
closer and you go, oh, I did the method wrong.
And then as you copy closer, you go, oh, wow,
that day's amazing. And then as you cook it a
few more times, you gain the confidence now to go,
you know what, I'm going to add a little more chili.
I got to say that the chef didn't put enough chili.
You put a bit more chili, you put a little lemon,
you put a little bit of more garlic, onion, everything,

(01:26:45):
and now you make it your own. Same thing with
communication skills, Yes, if you want to get some inspiration,
go look up your top five communicators.

Speaker 1 (01:26:53):
Yeah, and then.

Speaker 2 (01:26:55):
Sit down watch if you break it down, what are
they doing that you love so much? Try those on.
Now you have an ocean of different behaviors to play with,
and you'll try some of them on.

Speaker 1 (01:27:07):
You go, that's not me.

Speaker 2 (01:27:08):
Like, same with me. When I first started speaking on stage,
I admired Anthony Robins so much. I was like, wow,
because I've read his books that changed my life, and
I was like, I'm going to try to be like
Anthony Robbins and I jumped up and I did it,
and it felt so wrong because I was like, this
is not me, but that was okay. I had to
have done that to know it wasn't for me. I

(01:27:29):
had to have eaten that dish to know I didn't
like the flavor. But too many of us judge it
before we try it. Absolutely, I'm not even gonna try
that dish. No, try it, because that's how I discovered
some of my favorite dishes in my life. Was I
resisted it, tried it, loved it, loved it after that.
So again, start looking up a list of five communicators
that you love and then just pick a few different

(01:27:49):
things from them and try it on. Yeah, it's all right.

Speaker 1 (01:27:52):
We share one of our favorite communicators, which is a
bit more obscure that most people may not be aware
of it, may not see him as a communicator's Darren.
I think Darren is absolutely Darren is my favorite person
on stage.

Speaker 2 (01:28:05):
To what showmanship? Yeah, showmanship is a magician's fancy word
for communication skills. Yeah right, unbelievab showmanship.

Speaker 1 (01:28:12):
Everything from the humor to the pacing, to the body language,
to when to sit, when to stand.

Speaker 2 (01:28:19):
Mastery, yeah, yeah, it makes you want to give up
magic when you see someone like that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:24):
He's too good, too good for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:28:27):
And I remember doing a trip to the UK my wife.
My wife likes Dane Brown, not she just doesn't love Darren.

Speaker 1 (01:28:35):
Same sentences.

Speaker 2 (01:28:36):
We followed him to three cities to watch the same show.
So that's why my wife couldn't stand it by the
end of it. But I watched the same show three times.
I loved it even more the third time. What you
talked about before, his ability to execute what they call
planned spontaneity is unbelievable. That is such a skill, like

(01:28:58):
your comedian friend. Yes, even though it happens nearly every night,
people think it's random. Yes, but it happens every night
plant spontanety. He made it look spontaneous every single time,
and I appreciate it every moment of that. I was like,
how did you make that looks even more fresh than
the first two times? It's incredible, But that's what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:29:16):
I love hearing that story that you went there three
times even though you knew what trick he was going
to do. It's because that's what you're doing. You're studying
the art of what worked and then the other speech
that I love, probably my favorite favorite favorite speech of
all time that I've listened to the most at least,
is Steve Jobs's Standford commencement speech. And it's a really
interesting speech because there's nobody gestures, there's no use of hands,

(01:29:38):
there's nothing. It's potentially even monotonous. I think he speaks
at the same volume pretty much the whole time, but
there's something just so profound. His voice is phenomenal. It
talked to me through why that works. Why are so
many people love that speech apart from it being Steve Jobs,
Because I don't like to be like, oh, it was
a good speech because it was Steve everyone loved it. No, no, no,

(01:30:00):
there was still something. I mean, the content's insane.

Speaker 2 (01:30:03):
But think of from the perspective of music, Yeah, right,
there are times that lyrics can be so powerful. Yeah,
that the way you play that song is irrelevant because
the lyrics of it speak to your heart. Yes, it's
so strong that it doesn't matter how you play, it
hits you. And that's where you can lean into the content.

(01:30:25):
There is some content that is just so powerful that
regardless of delivery, it hits because of the profound nature
that exists within the lyrics. And then I've seen pianists
play Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star, and I was flabbergust. One
of the most basic songs you've ever heard, and the
way they added chords to it and the rhythm and

(01:30:48):
the way they really I've never heard to go to
a little star of that. So you can take something
basic and use delivery to make it amazing, or you
could take something truly profound and have no delivery and
is just as an amazing And that's the beauty of music,
that's the beauty of poles and art, and it's the
beauty of that right. And you just have to determine
for you with what you're currently doing, does it have

(01:31:10):
that level of profoundness and can you keep that level
of profoundness that consistently throughout this life where you can
just forget about delivery. And if you can, damn good
for you. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, thing, job, that's incredible,
and everything you say is that potent. Then you don't
have to worry about your communication skills because one of
the I'm sure you get this, you get trolls, but
I always have trolls of my content where They're like, oh, yeah,

(01:31:32):
but then what about Elon Musk. He doesn't have to work,
what about his communication skills? And I always say I
shouldn't ever respond to these, but sometimes it get a
bit cheeky and I do, and I go listen, mate,
if you're as smart and intelligent as Elon Musk, forget
about communication skills. Just get us to mask, make us
a multiplanetary species, right, I forget about it. Please please
save the human race. But if you're a mere mortal

(01:31:53):
like me, then you probably should work on this skill.
But do you know what I mean? So again, and sometimes,
and sometimes you're right. Sometimes when you have something that profound,
you also want to let go of some of the
bills and whistles. I agree, you want to let go
of some of that. Yes, it's a delivery choice and
a delivery style.

Speaker 1 (01:32:10):
Yeah. A good balance. One that I've seen is Matthew
McConaughey's Oscar speech and he accepted for Dallas Buyers Club.
It's like that perfect balance between he's I mean, he's
got an amazing voice, phenomenal orator and communicator, and at
the same time the content so profound, and so you
see a great marriage of the two in that one
where there's showmanship, there's performance, and there's potency. Yeah, and

(01:32:35):
you're right, I agree with you. I only brought up
the Steve Jobs one because and I love the way
you explained. I'm so glad I asked it because that
idea of the lyrics just being so profound, really just
read it realized. He literally read it off a piece
of paper, and you listen to every single word. I mean,
you know, it's so powerful. I was going to ask you,
people can sense when something feels inauthentic. What are we sensing?

Speaker 2 (01:32:58):
Misalignment? However, want comes to communication alone. It's usually people
trying something out that they haven't really ironed out yet.
And I hope this is not nauseating and people and
starting to vomit in the back of their throats at
this point. But when somebody first plays the saxophone, how
does it sound? Yeah? Yeah, no, Greg, Yeah, I have
one of those neighbors. Yeah, it's fine, it's fine. I

(01:33:19):
find it very sweet as a young kid learning how
to play right and do you ever sit for a
moment and going that is the most inauthentic saxophone player
I've ever heard in my life. No, what a fake
saxophone player? No, you get that person's learning and I'm
just making a communication related Yeah, I love it. So
when I have my students try out things for the
first time, and they're doing things like this, right, So
they first learned volume, they like, oh, I've been speaking

(01:33:40):
with a low volume my whole life. So then they go, Okay,
I'm going to try to talk like this. Okay, and
I've just learned hand gesture, so I'm I'm gonna try
to People immediately look at that and go inauthentic. Yes,
you're doing something that's not authentic to you. No, no, no,
I'm like stop. That is someone just starting to learn
how to play the saxophone. And the moment you call
them in authentic and fake, do you know what happens
to them? They're now rev to the same behaviors that've

(01:34:01):
been repeating for the last thirty years of their life.
It's such an intricate moment for someone when they're choosing
to play their instrument in a different way that you've
got to help them move towards the future version of them.
Jay right, And that's what we sense, that inauthentic part
where we go Oh, this person, I feel like they've
been in authentic. Yeah, you don't know the backstory. Maybe

(01:34:23):
this person is trying to be heard because their entire
life they've been invisible. And the way that they're trying
on this new way of speaking is because they're just
testing out the instrument in a different way. And you
just caught them on a bad day. You just caught
them when they were playing poorly. And I think we
need a little more of that compassion. Yeah, we need
a little more of that empathy because I've approached that
and I've made those judgments before myself too. But I've

(01:34:46):
also been through that messy middle where when I spoke again,
I was like a robot, and again I knew that
people were judging me. But if I didn't have the
courage in that moment to push through, then I would
still be the same version of me from fifteen years ago.
So I feel that from a communication context, when you're
trying to improve, when people sense that in you, it's
just you learning how to play the saxophone. Yeah, it's okay.

(01:35:06):
So all you've got to do is this. All you're
going to do is this before you start to play
with your voice. And your body differently, and you start
to improve the way you communicate prime your conversations. Say
say to your partner, say to your neighbor. Before you
learn the saxophone, say hey, listen, I've been inspired by
listening to Vin and Jay on the podcast, and I
want to I want to change the way I use
my voice. Okay, I've been quite my entire life. I

(01:35:27):
want to give you and the kids more energy. If
you see me speaking with more volume, can you encourage me?
Because I want to be more. I want to give more. Yeah.
All of a sudden, if you give that context now
the next time you're like, hey, honey, I'm home, and
she was like, oh hey, it's so good to see you.
Try now with that context, they support you. Without the context.
If you just immediately come home, they go eh. I

(01:35:49):
know what they'll say. They got why are you doing
that with your voice? Why are you doing that with
Why are you doing that?

Speaker 1 (01:35:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:35:54):
And it's because something my vocal coat used to stay too.
She used to say this, she goes, your voice is
your personality. And I used to I'm like what as
she goes, no, no, no, your voice is your personality. Then
when people compliment you on your personality. The literal thing
they're complimenting is how you're playing your instrument. Interesting because
that's how we perceive personality. We perceive personality through the

(01:36:14):
use of the instrument. Personality comes through music. That's why
you can listen to a soundtrack. I do this experiment
with my kids, not only my kids, but my students too.
I love doing this experiment where I just play a
piano track and I get them to listen to it,
and I go, what words come to mind? And it's crazy.
They will say things like my students will say things like,
oh I hear complexity, I hear drama, I hear oh

(01:36:37):
I hear pain, I hear misery, I hear nostalgia, And
always wake them up to it and I go, do
you know there were no words in that, none, none, whatsoever.
Yet you've got a world of meaning from that. People
get a world of meaning just from the sound of
your voice and how you use your voice. So if
you pay no attention to that, that means you're putting

(01:36:59):
no intention into how you're coming across.

Speaker 1 (01:37:01):
Yeah, And I love that point, man, I love your
heart for saying that too. That so much of the
time when we think someone's inauthentic, it's really just inexperience.

Speaker 2 (01:37:09):
They're trying something new.

Speaker 1 (01:37:10):
Yeah, they're trying something new and boring, and we always
look at it and we judge them and we think, oh,
they're fake that, you know, and half the time it's
just someone trying to figure something out.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
And then what we don't realize we're doing is then
we give them negative feedback that immediately puts them into
the same patterns of behavior that has been causing them
pain because we're not as compassionate. We see what they do,
we don't see why they do what they do, right,
Whereas I think if we took a moment to get
why would that person do that? Maybe they're exploring their
instrument right. And I think it was Carl Jung that

(01:37:39):
said that, again, we see what people do, we don't
see why they do what they do.

Speaker 1 (01:37:45):
Then it's been such a joy talking to you man.
You are You're brilliant. You're not just a brilliant communicator.
You've got a great heart to and it comes across
in the way you want to help people and see
them grow, and the amount that you've thought through the challenges,
the trip ups, the all the blocks that we run into. Man,
it's it's really beautiful and I really thank you and

(01:38:06):
commend you for your amazing work and it's it's very special.

Speaker 2 (01:38:09):
So thank you man, Jay, thank you for giving me
the opportunity. I'm from Adelaide, South Australia. I never thought
that I'd ever be able to connect with you in
person and hang out with you. Joe.

Speaker 1 (01:38:19):
This is thank you. No, I'm a fan, so it's easy.
We end every episode of On Purpose with a final five.
These have to be answered in one word to one sentence, Maxiz, Yeah,
so you can't.

Speaker 2 (01:38:31):
This is my krypton.

Speaker 1 (01:38:33):
You can't. Yeah, okay, I'll probably break it for you
because you're such a good explain. I'll let you do it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:39):
No, no, no, no, I won't. I'm going to try to
stick to pay rules are rules? Okay?

Speaker 1 (01:38:42):
All right? The first question, what's the best piece of
communication advice you've ever heard or received?

Speaker 2 (01:38:49):
Your voice is an instrument. Play all of the songs
that are trapped within. You don't die with all your
music trapped inside.

Speaker 1 (01:38:57):
That was great.

Speaker 2 (01:38:57):
Sentences, long sentence.

Speaker 1 (01:38:58):
It's a great. Long sentences are fine. Second question, what's
the worst communication advice? You've ever had received or given.

Speaker 2 (01:39:06):
If you're nervous, just look over their heads. I was
literally given that advice.

Speaker 1 (01:39:12):
What are you meant you can expland what are you
meant to do?

Speaker 2 (01:39:14):
Well? Well, again, you want to look at people, look
at them in the eyes, because the advice was look
over their heads. They won't be able to tell. And
this was my first piece of advice I was given
when I was going on stage and I started looking
over people's heads and it just looked like I was arrogant,
right because I was like, oh hey, ye, good to
see yo, and I wasn't looking them in the eyes.

Speaker 1 (01:39:30):
And also, you get no feedback, you have no energetic exchange.

Speaker 2 (01:39:33):
Yeah, well, the worst thing is it's that and then
you look like an arrogant argain.

Speaker 1 (01:39:38):
Yeah, that's interesting. I never thought about that, all right.
Question number three on that point, why does our body
and our handshake when we're nervous.

Speaker 2 (01:39:47):
It's the excess adrenaline and you have the remedy to
that in this episode already star jobs.

Speaker 1 (01:39:54):
I love it. Question number four, what's something that you
you I used to believe was true about communication, but
not anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:40:04):
That I was stuck with the sound of my voice.
It's just a series of behaviors. If you change the behaviors,
you change the sound. Example, when I told my dad
I wanted to leave accounting to become a magician, I
remember what he said. He said, what the hell you
want to be? To Harry Potter, literally what he said
to me. I just changed the way I moved my mouth.

(01:40:26):
I just changed the serious of behaviors. I changed the
sound I was able to create. It's just behaviors.

Speaker 1 (01:40:30):
Walk me through that conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:40:35):
Yeah, So my mum and dad are refugees on Vietnam
and they cling to safety insecurity because of fear. And
they've known fear all of their lives. So I remember
coming home saying a woman and dad, I said, Mom, dad,
I really want to quit university. And obviously they wanted
me to fulfill the Asian prophecy. Obviously same with your parents. Yes,
I'm sure I had this really heart to heart conversation

(01:40:57):
with him where I said, Mom, Dad, why did you
escape the wall?

Speaker 1 (01:41:01):
Why?

Speaker 2 (01:41:01):
And they said, we escaped because we want to find
a better home for you. But I'm like, yeah, but
why why was Vietnam at the time not a good home?
Why is Australia about a home and they said freedom
And I said, oh great, so you you made the
decision to flee to Australia for freedom, then do you
want to force me into a career that's going to
create misery for me? Is that what you want? And

(01:41:24):
I know why you're doing this because of love, Mum
and dad, because you're you're so afraid. But we're not
in Vietnam anymore. We're in Australia. We're free. And I
know that the reason you came here is to give
me the freedom to do what I love. And I
was able to wake them up from fear and remember
the main reason why they came here in the first place,

(01:41:45):
because their lives were driven by fear of not enough
of we're in danger, and they still carried all of
that fear. They didn't realize it. And when I woke
them up to that, it was such a beautiful conversation
because it was always like, my parents will reminded, no, no,
thank you for reminding us. We've been so driven by
fear our entire lives. Because I said to them, I
did work experience at an accounting firm, and Dad, do

(01:42:06):
you know what they all do on a Friday night,
they go drinking because they're drowning their sorrows in something
they don't like. And I'm sure people love accounting, it's
just where I did work experience, they didn't love it.
They dreaded every day, right, And I said, that's me.
That's going to be me. That that's the path I'm walking.
So I already know that's not the path, you know.

(01:42:28):
And then the most beautiful thing my dad said to me,
after realizing all of this is he goes, you still
owe me one thing, though, Boy, in this life, you
have to jump as high as you can. And as
long as I'm alive, I'll forever be your net. And
I needed that net a lot of times. Oh yeah,
I tested that net many times. And I share this
now in a long answer because Jay, I'm sitting here

(01:42:51):
having achieved things I've achieved because of my mom and
my dad. Without that net, without their support, without their love,
without their guidance, I wouldn't be here, been able to
do this. And I think this is true for those
listening to you. Would not be where you are if
it wasn't for whether it's the families we choose or
the family who were born into. If it wasn't for them,
we would not be who we are, we would not
be where we are. They must be really proud now, yeah,

(01:43:13):
they still and then you quit magic. The first time
my dad came and saw me speak at the end
of it, the funniest thing. He comes up to me
and he goes, they pay you for this. He was
so mind blowing because he goes, because I wouldn't. He
was just he was so shocked. He couldn't believe that,
he couldn't believe it was a thing. He couldn't believe

(01:43:35):
that professional speaking was a career.

Speaker 4 (01:43:36):
Part.

Speaker 1 (01:43:36):
Yes, but it's so beautiful to see their mind open up.

Speaker 2 (01:43:39):
And then the most beautiful thing my dad said to
me recently, this was maybe in the last five years,
where he came up to me and he said, thanks
for not giving up on me. Because there was a
lot of conversations at the time in many different Vietnamese
famili where the kids would give up on their parents,
where it'd be like, you know, if you're not supporting
me stuff you yeah, now, whereas I really didn't give
up on my parents. I remember my first magic kig

(01:44:01):
I did and I made like fifteen hundred bucks for
performing for an hour. This was like outrageous, this is
a week's worth of work, right, And I bought home
the cash and I was like, Dad, look I got
this in an hour. And I celebrated that moment with him.
I made him a part of that because I knew
that I had to slowly show him what's possible. I
couldn't all of a sudden go dad, refugee in through
the war, and it immediately said magician to him. It's like,

(01:44:23):
what the frick is that? That doesn't make sense. But as
I slowly shared my wins with him on my journey,
I was able to open my dad's mind. So my
dad got to be a part of the journey with
me and my mum. And when he thanked me for that,
it was one of the sweetest moments because you could
have very easily gave up on me, and now we
have this beautiful relationship and it's one of my most
important relationships.

Speaker 1 (01:44:42):
Yeah, that's beautiful, man, Thank you for sharing that.

Speaker 2 (01:44:44):
That counts as one word.

Speaker 1 (01:44:45):
No, no, no, I wanted to hear it. Fifth and
final question We asked this every guest who's ever been
on the show, if you could create one law that
everyone in the world had to follow. What would it be?

Speaker 2 (01:44:57):
Use your instrument to spread more love, kindness and compassion.

Speaker 1 (01:45:02):
Vinjiang, thank you so much, such an honor having you here.
I hope I get to do this many many more
times together.

Speaker 2 (01:45:08):
Thank you Jack.

Speaker 1 (01:45:09):
If all of you are listening and watching, if you
don't already follow Vin on social media, we will put
all the links in the comments, go and follow him
across TikTok, Instagram, all platforms. I really hope that this
episode makes you a better communicator to your partner, your parents,
in your profession, in all areas of your life. It's
such a key skill that's needed. And I would love

(01:45:30):
to see on Instagram and TikTok the clips, the moments,
the parts that really stood out to you, tag us
both so week and see what you're practicing. If you
do a video of yourself every day and start posting
our practicing tag us in it, I want to see it.
I really really want to see it. I really really
want to see it would be so awesome. I'd love
to be able to interact with you all and see
how much you've grown from it. And again, Vin, you'll

(01:45:51):
welcome back to on purpose anytime you want.

Speaker 2 (01:45:53):
So thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:45:53):
I hope you'll come back and we'll see you again.
Thank you. If you love this episode, you'll love my
interview with doctor Gabo Matte on understanding your trauma and
how to heal emotional wounds to start moving on from
the past. Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable.
So a tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick,

(01:46:14):
does it. It goes where it's soft and green and vulnerable.

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Jay Shetty

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Communication Expert Vinh Giang: Why You Keep Getting Interrupted (How to Use Your Voice So People ACTUALLY Listen)