Setting Ridiculous Goals with 'Lord Zoom' John Drinkwater

Doug is joined by John Drinkwater, known as toastmasters Lord Zoom. John talks to Doug about how he became a Zoom expert during the pandemic, creating virtual Toastmasters events including TV productions that drew global audiences. He shares Zoom's AI capabilities, content creation strategies and his unconventional approach to goal setting.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• John describes himself as either fully committed or completely disengaged, which explains his approach to goals as ‘dangerous rabbit holes’ that consume his focus once he commits to them.
• After closing his business to care for his parents, John joined Toastmasters International for mental stimulation, becoming involved just before COVID forced everything online, positioning him perfectly to become a Zoom expert!
• When faced with hosting a Toastmasters conference online with no budget, John engineered a complex computer setup that transformed Zoom meetings into a TV-show experience, earning him the nickname "Lord Zoom" and attracting nearly 1,000 viewers globally.
• John believes effective online presentations should combine public speaking skills, marketing techniques, acting methods, and video production knowledge. Being reasonably good at all four areas beats being excellent at just one.
• Zoom's built in transcription, caption capabilities and companion AI can work together to capture meeting content and refine it, with the AI able to process transcript content into polished, concise material that preserves the speaker's intent.
• For ambitious goals, John recommends multiplying your target by 10-100x to make it ‘stupendously stupid’, even if you fall short, you'll achieve far more than with modest goals, while pairing this with more realistic short term milestones.
• Creating scarcity through limited availability (like offering only 500 spots for a program) generates FOMO (fear of missing out) and makes people more likely to commit, even when pursuing extremely ambitious targets.
• Rather than giving all content away free, John advises offering enough value to inspire interest, then creating interactive coaching programs where people work through processes together, as group coaching provides multiple perspectives and is more scalable than one-on-one sessions.

BEST MOMENTS

"I'm a very binary guy, I either sit there and don't say a word, or you can't shut me up.“

"I basically just told my customers, I'm terribly sorry, but I'm going to stop trading in a couple of months time because I've decided that I love my parents so much that I want to look after them in their final years... and I disappeared for ten years."

"If you're going to do it, you need to have an overriding ridiculous goal and whatever your overriding ridiculous goal is, you probably need to multiply it by 10 or 100 to turn it into absolutely stupendously stupid goal."

"If you think half a million is good, then why not a million? And you think a million is not good, why not aim for five million? Now if I fail miserably and I get five hundred thousand, it's still a brilliant goal."

"If people are gonna watch you, then you should take some effort to make it more interesting.”

 

 

ABOUT THE GUEST

https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndrinkwaterlordzoom/

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Website: http://dougbennett.co.uk/

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/financialdoug/