#92 Garr Reynolds, Presentation Zen

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Join Dr. Sciarretta for a conversation with Garr Reynolds, the author of  Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery, for a compelling discussion about the fusion of Zen aesthetics with modern communication. Garr shares how his journey from Oregon to Japan has shaped his philosophy, emphasizing the power of simplicity and focus. Garr's insights extend beyond visuals, touching on the growing role of AI in both storytelling and education, while reminding us of the unyielding value of authenticity and creativity.

Garr's YouTube channel

Garr's website

Keynote by Jensen Huang

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Hangout Podcast.
I'm your host, david Shoretta.
Come on in and hang out.
In this episode, I wasprivileged to sit down remotely
from Japan with Gar Reynolds.
Gar is an internationallyacclaimed communications

(00:24):
consultant, teacher and theauthor of bestselling books,
including the amazing bestsellerPresentation Zen.
This is a book that I stumbledupon probably more than 10 years
ago and a book that I've giftedto many friends and colleagues,
especially when the topic ofhow to create more compelling

(00:47):
presentations comes up.
Our conversation was wideranging.
We talked about Gar's more thanfour decades living in Japan,
the Zen aesthetic and how thathas influenced his work and his
views of the world, the role ofrunning, walking, being out in

(01:08):
nature, and much, much more.
I hope you enjoy thisconversation as much as I did.
Welcome, gar.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
I guess it's morning on yourend of this planet and afternoon
here, so thank you so much.
That's right.
Thanks for having me.
I thought we'd get started in aplace that is a natural

(01:31):
starting place for most people,which is, with an origin story
where you come from, where yougrew up, what about your past
might point to where you are nowin time and what you do for
work and what you do for life.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Right, right, okay.
Well, I'm calling in from Japan.
So I've been here well overhalf my life for sure, maybe two
thirds of my life, basically,since I graduated.
So I went to Oregon State formy undergrad, same as Jensen
Wong, the NVIDIA CEO, andshortly after that I had some
time in Peace Corps.
But basically I've been inJapan, except for graduate

(02:12):
school in Hawaii and then backto Japan.
But why did I come to Japan?
Maybe it's because I grew up onthe Oregon coast.
Our house was right on thebeach.
In those days you didn't haveto be wealthy to have a huge
house on the beach.
I mean, everybody did.
That was what you did back inthose days, that's in the 60s
and 70s, and I guess you know mymother always said the next
country over is Japan.

(02:32):
You know.
So if you keep digging, you'regoing to end up in Japan.
We dig in the beach.
So I just always had this sortof, you know, romantic feeling
about going someplace far away.
And then, once I arrived inJapan and just started reading
and studying about the culture,I just felt, yeah, I really fit
here.
I mean, I'm always a GaikoKuchin, I'm always a foreigner,

(02:54):
I'm not Japanese, but it's justvery, very different from the
United States.
So I fit really well here.
But in terms of presentation,where did that start?
When I was younger maybe youknow this because you know high
school students as well I thinkI was more confident as a 15, 16
, 17-year-old certainly an18-year-old and so I just loved

(03:16):
presenting and public speaking.
I did it in college and peoplesaid, oh, you're really good at
this, even though I was reallyshy and introverted.
I'm less confident now as ahuman being.
It's funny, you get that hubriswhen you're younger and then as
you grow older, you go well,there's so much I don't know,
but when you're 18, you think,well, I kind of know everything.
So anyway, I was just reallyinterested in public speaking

(03:39):
and communicating and performing, since I was a musician and
still am.
So I just like that idea ofconnecting with an audience.
And then I combined that with myinterest in graphic design and
visual communication, whichseemed to really lend itself for
the visual aspect, notPowerPoint per se, but the big
screen.

(03:59):
Someone taught like a SteveJobs kind of keynote kind of
thing, but this was long beforePowerPoint was invented.
So my first presentation I was17, in high school in a science
class using 35 millimeter slides, but the screen and the
projectors were really bright.
So it's just like today,basically really huge screen,
four by three screen in thosedays, 35 millimeter slides, you

(04:21):
know.
So I take the photos, photos,and then wait weeks for the
slides to come back, so that Ireally liked that.
It felt like being, you know,combined cinema, a little bit
aspects of cinema andphotography and kind of TV.
I felt like a TV weatherman.
So that's when I kind of got thebug, when I was 17 in high
school and then went to collegeand studied philosophy and then

(04:42):
I didn't really do we didn't dopresentations in those days with
visuals, of course, becausecomputers just came out when I
was in college.
But, um, we would present, likeat the chalkboard and things
like that, and so anyway, I justalways kind of did that.
So that's kind of the originstory.
But then how did thepresentation zen become this
thing?
As you know, you've heard ofdeath by powerpoint and you've

(05:02):
probably seen a lot of boring.
I've suffered it many times,yeah so I started, um, well,
after well, I worked for apple.
You know sorry, yeah, I wasbeen asia forever, in japan
forever, but then I did um leaveto work for apple and um then,
and I was before that, I was apresident of an apple user group
, um, and so I was, you know,very much interested in in

(05:24):
presentation and then came backto Japan.
But how did this presentationZen stuff started?
So when I was at Apple ofcourse you can't do your own
thing, you can't do your ownpresentations, you can't have a
website and things like that.
So I got a chance to become acollege professor, so I left
Silicon Valley to come back toJapan, to Kansai Gaida

(05:44):
University, and then I started awebsite and Presentation Zen
website as well, 20 years ago orso.
And then I just put everythingI know for free on the website.
And then eventually I didn'tknow this would happen but
Pearson you know Pearson's a bigpublisher and they asked me to
would you like to write a book?
So I, yeah, so I did that.

(06:04):
And then I've written threeeditions of that and a few other
books, and some books inJapanese too.
So that's where we are, andthen I just go all over the
world, all over the world doingkeynote presentations and
seminars and things like that.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
Well, I have to say that what I discovered you and
your work by accident nowprobably, god, probably more
than 10 years ago hopefully itmight be correct I remember
being so frustrated by what Isaw as this general addiction to

(06:42):
PowerPoint that I was seeingall around me and as it became
more accessible.
And then that's online and yougot Google Slides and there's
just all these differentvarieties of the same, different
flavors of the same ice cream,so to speak.
People would cram a bunch ofcontent into as few slides as

(07:04):
possible because they somehowthought that there was this kind
of stigma against having a longpresentation slide-wise.
So you'd get these justcomplete dumps of information.
And I remember one night goingonline and there's got to be
books on presenting.
And that's how I found one ofthe editions of presentations

(07:27):
and and I've since gifted it toI don't know how many colleagues
, especially when, when they'reespecially towards the start of
their careers, where they're,they go oh, oh, you want me to
present at the board meeting, doyou have any tips?
And I go hey, yeah, yeah,here's this book and it's really

(07:48):
heavy on images and it's lighton text and you can go through
and really pick up the aesthetic, and that's really what
originally kind of turned me onto your ideas and I've just
always been very grateful.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
So thank you.
So how have you used it?
So what's like the mostinteresting?
Have you used it?
So what?
How is it?
You know what's like the mostinteresting presentation you've
done or you felt, you know?

Speaker 1 (08:11):
I, the most interesting work that I've been
able to do and I think thatothers, colleagues of mine and
just friends is when we try todo a presentation where there's
you know, I always joke if youcan, if you can do a
presentation and do a slideshowwith no words, I'm going to take

(08:32):
you out to dinner.
On the screen that's a littleextreme, right but where really
people think about the imagery,the high quality images, the
planning it out in an analogformat first.
So that's kind of an idea that Ipicked up from you, just even
the post-it note approach.

(08:52):
So I've tried to do we have aleadership retreat every year
and I put together what's ourjourney been in the past year,
and then what do we think it'sour journey been in the past
year, and then what?
What do we think it's going tolead to in the future.
So I'll it'll be images fromthe previous year and then

(09:12):
leading into the future.
So really trying to think,trying to channel that idea that
you have mentioned, even of theslide projection, because I
remember my dad was an amateurphotographer, used to show us
these slide shows back, like I'mtalking about 1978 and stuff,
and you, because of you, had toreally choose your slides

(09:35):
carefully back in those days,right, like it was expensive to
get them made.
Um, we didn't have this overabundanceundance of images,
right, it was like you had tochoose them carefully.
Think about the sequence.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Right.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
And so really trying to run through that.
I don't fashion myself to besome great presenter, but I
really try to channel that fromyou.
The other thing that I'vecoached people on is the empty
space, whether black or white,between slides.
Um, to not be afraid to have ablank screen so that the

(10:14):
attention of the audience is onthe, on the idea and on the
presentation and what's justbeen said, rather than all eyes
just looking at the next contentyeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
You could do that in the old days, you know, you just
put a I guess no slide in theright.
Oh, it'd be white anyway.
Yeah, kind of white and toobright I guess.
But yeah, but with you knowsoftware today you can just, and
you can always just hit the bkey, you know, on your keyboard
or your um, whatever, it'salways on a remote control.
But if you kind of plan thatyou have a black slide in there,
otherwise even you knoweveryone's looking at you all

(10:47):
the time, so it's looking at thescreen all the time.
So, yeah, it's a good, it'sgood to plan that in, right, it
makes it more interesting thatway.
And also, the thing is, whenpeople get off topic, and that's
fine, right, you want theaudience to be engaged.
But let's say, you have a slideup I don't know about um, you

(11:09):
know, it's something just notrelated now to it.
There was a question and nowyou're kind of going off in a
tangent, but it's relevant.
Well, yeah, just hit the b key,you know, make that slide go
blank, because otherwise it'swait.
Are we talking about that data?
No, we're not talking aboutthat anymore, right?
so yeah, that's a little littletrick you can do how much?

Speaker 1 (11:23):
how much influence has?
Has japan?
You know and I've never beenfull disclosure, I've never been
to japan, it's definitely on mylist but kind of a, a zen
aesthetic.
Um, that may be somewhat of astereotype but also, I'm sure,
has some truth to it how muchhas that influenced your work,
your book, book, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
Well, yeah, a lot of people, a lot of foreign people
who come over who are reallyinterested in Japan.
Of course you get into theculture and Daisetsu Suzuki, who
wrote over 100 books in Englishon Zen, and he had said that
that's really at the heart ofJapanese culture.
Even people don't talk about it, they don't go.
Hey, look at Zen, this Zen thatPeople don't, and most people

(12:06):
are either sort of a mix ofBuddhism and Shintoism.
They're not really veryreligious, but all Zen is, I
mean the Zen aesthetic, zen arts, like tea ceremony and
different kinds of calligraphy.
And then you know no theater,Sumie, which is kind of a brush
painting.
You know no theater, sumie,which is kind of a brush

(12:27):
painting.
You know they have hundreds ofdifferent shades of black and
gray on white.
Yeah, so the idea is justsimplicity.
I mean it's not really just aJapanese idea, but you just
start.
You need something to kind of aframework.
It doesn't really matter whatthe framework is.
People have their philosophies.
So Zen is, you know, well, I'mgoing to say thousands of years.
I'm not sure exactly when itcame from, when it originated in

(12:48):
India, then came through Chinaand Korea, but really hit Japan
about a thousand years ago.
Buddhism was before that, butZen Buddhism about a thousand
years ago, and the aestheticjust really fits with the idea
of, you know, simplicity.
So you can apply that to manythings, such as diet and cooking
, obviously.
In terms of art, architecture,yeah, everything it's really.

(13:13):
I think we need it more thanever.
I know it can be cliche andpeople think, oh, it's not
really about Zen, but you can'thelp but be inspired by it.
So you study it, like Zazen,which is meditation.
I was interested in that.
I didn't really do judo orkarate so much, but you can
learn a lot from those arts,those martial arts as well.

(13:37):
So actually, a buddy of minewho's a curator of old Japanese
pottery in Kyoto and he showedme one day he goes, oh, let me
show you this, and he pulls out.
I went to his office, came backand he had a business card from
Steve Jobs.
Now, steve Jobs didn't giveaway many business cards.
I didn't even know he ever hadbusiness cards.
But there it is.
It was similar to the ones Ihad when I was there, but he

(13:59):
actually had a business card andhe had him.
So my friend would uh be sort ofthis private, um, you know,
tour guide.
So steve would come, sometimeswith one of his children or just
by himself, and he was reallyinterested in japanese culture,
you know the arts, and so myfriend would take him around to
different museums and he's just,it's just like the things you
hear about steve, he's just tonsof questions, really interested

(14:21):
, and of course he would applythose kinds of things to
products and so on.
So that's the whole point.
I mean you as an educator, youknow, know all this.
You never know whereinspiration is going to come
from.
So as an educator myself, Ijust try to make a fertile
ground and hopefully things willstick, stimulate students to
really want to pursue somethingon their own, of course.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
I remember, you know, I think it's probably been, you
know, told a million milliontimes, but the story about steve
jobs saying that the mostimportant course he ever took in
college was a calligraphy class, um.
But I also remember, when theywere designing his private jet,
that he obsessed over one button, certain area of the you know

(15:04):
the whether it was going to be aright, a toggle or some sort of
other switch Cause he was thatfocused on detail, right,
simplicity, functionality,relevance, and then just
eliminate what's not necessary.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, he was a big fan of of Japan, japanese
culture and morita at sony andyeah, he would often take trips
to japan and he was very popular.
I mean he's a, I mean he'spopular everywhere and but you
know, the legend's kind ofbigger than the actual person
now.
Um, but yeah, he was obsessedwith that.
I was listening to a podcast byone of the guys that worked for

(15:40):
him not that long before hepassed away.
But he was showing him thisadvertising kind of thing.
You know like how advertisingcan work on the iphone, and his
examples that he showed werelike sears and when I was
looking so I showed sears and Ishowed I don't know like some
outback steakhouse or somethinglike that, and I go I'm thinking
oh god, no.

(16:00):
And of course at the end of thestory is steve, it's just irate,
like how dare you show me thiscrap?
First, you don't choose thosecompanies.
If you're going to showexamples, it's the Ritz-Carlton,
the Four Seasons, whatever thetop Nike it's going to.
You don't do Sears or OutbackSteakhouse.
But this guy came from anothercompany.
You know his company was boughtout but it's really funny.
So once you work there and youget to know Steve's thinking

(16:23):
we'd often have, like we'd saydoes Steve know about this,
because I would see somethingstupid in a meeting.
No, he doesn't know.
Yeah, that's good, because youknow what.
He wouldn't approve this.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
These were lower level things that never got
pushed up.
Yeah, that's interesting.
So you were there at a prettycritical.
How long were you at Apple for?

Speaker 2 (16:41):
No, no, I was only there two years, just a couple
of years after he came back.
I mean, when he came back I wasinvolved with Apple stuff, but
from the outside, but I attendedall the events there and I was
president of a user group inJapan.
But when he came back, applewas basically a couple of
quarters from bankruptcy.

(17:02):
I mean, that's how bad it was.
It's hard to believe.
And then a few years ago theywere actually the most valuable
company in the world, I meanbigger than Shell and ExxonMobil
, whatever.
It's crazy that they went.
That's quite a success story.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, I remember I think one of the first laptops I
bought in the, I'm going to say, early 90s was a some version
of a Mac and it was just.
It was terrible and thatmust've must've been.
I felt like I'd bought like aFord Pinto or something.
I was like this is just and Idon't.
It was probably when he wasn'tthere right, when he had just

(17:36):
come back.
I don't remember the dates, butit's really been quite a
remarkable, a remarkable journeylast 30 years.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yeah, there's really good lessons there, for I mean
for educators too, or certainlyprincipals or superintendents
who have to.
You know, you know they're yourleaders, right?
You see the big picture.
So what happened is that therewas this product creep.
So Apple was all aboutsimplicity and they lost that.
They made too many products,just too many products, or some
were very similar, and that'snot what you want to do.

(18:05):
So he came back and just did athing on a whiteboard and it was
basically four product linesthat we have.
I mean, just simplifying meansyou have to throw away stuff
that some people still like.
You know it could be somecurriculum or something like
that.
But you see the big picture,but you're always going to have
people say no, no, no, no, don'tcut that.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
It's interesting that I'm so glad our first
conversation got postponed,because we're now right in the
middle of budget reductionsmid-year due to some um things
we didn't predict, and part ofthat is is a leaning right,
becoming lean strong.
You don't want to become so,you don't want to reduce so much
that you become weak, but it'sreally true.
We have initiatives, we've gottechnology tools that we've

(18:52):
barely used, we've got platformsthat are redundant.
We've got all these things.
Eventually, when there's animperative because you want to
make sure that you stay in theblack budget-wise, you go okay,
let's lay all these things outand let's go through the process
of what can we get rid of, whatcan we eliminate but still
remain relevant and strong andeffective, and and I actually

(19:14):
think it's a really healthyprocess- yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
The thing is, you know someone's going to not be
happy about it, so it's a lot, alot of people are happy.
Yeah, we had with apple.
It was, there was somethingkind of like an eye.
It wasn't like an iphone, butit's called lot easier.
Oh, a lot of people want tohave it.
Yeah, we had with Apple.
It was that there was somethingkind of like an eye.
It wasn't like an iPhone, butit was called the Newton, which
anyway, it was the kind of a PDApersonal digital assistant kind
of thing.
This is 25.
I don't know how many you're 30.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
That's a long time ago that's like the era of it
had a lot of fans.
We got otaku.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Otaku just means, like you know, nerds, but in a
good way, like they love thisstuff.
And when they canceled thatbecause like, well, you know,
we're going to focus on, likenotebooks, you know, laptop
computers, computers I forgetwhat the other thing was that's
when iMac came out, you know thecolorful ones and all that.
And so they're like protestingone time in Cupertino.
They're like, you know, bringback the Newton.

(20:10):
So you just have to really befocused.
And there's a book you've heardof Maria.
What's her name?
Kondo, is it Kondo, kondo,maria?
The simplicity.
She's all about like gettingrid of stuff, you know,
decluttering your life and yourstuff.
Um, but it actually can.
You know, minimalism canactually make your life more
powerful.
So you know, if you have to cutsomething here, it actually can

(20:35):
make other things stronger, youknow.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
So you have to kind of think of it that way I think
we certainly in the us we havemany of us just have kind of
this feeling like our space isunlimited, right, like our
houses are big and you, you fillup your garage and then then
you get a storage, you get astorage container and then you,
you put those damn sheds in yourbackyard and you fill that up

(20:59):
with stuff and you're like Idon't even remember how many
circular saws I have, right, I'mjust going to go to home depot
and buy another one.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
Instead, slowing down and simplifying, um, it's an
interesting thing to think aboutyeah, I mean, if growth is
always the metric, is alwayswhat you measure, you know more
growth?
Well, it can't.
How can that go on forever?
There's got to be other waysand other countries I don't get
off topic of what we're talkingabout, but other countries
measure things like differentthings, not not just GDP, but

(21:26):
happiness and well-being.
You know all these kinds ofthings Because that's never.
It's very Zen in a way, orBuddhist.
It's never enough.
You know you're attached.
If it's always more, I'll behappy.
If I can only get this rightand then you get that, you go.
Well, I'm not happy.
Now.
Your emphasis is in the wrongplace.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
I wanted to ask you you know what you think have
been the positive and negativeimpacts of technology on
storytelling?
Right, like, obviously we'reable to have this very natural

(22:06):
conversation across time zonesand thousands of miles, you can
fly around the world and dokeynotes and and they can book
you on email via email and allthose pieces, but do we lose
something of the both the, thethe kind of primal impact of
storytelling?
Obviously, for the vastmajority of storytelling's life,
we were around fires and we'resitting in a cave or whatever?

(22:28):
Did we lose it?
Because we can.
It's too easy to bang out aPowerPoint and screen there.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Yeah Well, you have to imagine, well, how could I
tell the story if the lightswent out, if the electricity
goes out?
Right, I have to have a backupplan, and that you know.
The essence of this is not justabout you know the technology
at all, so things like this.
I mean of this is not justabout you know the technology at
all, so things like this.
I mean this is a supplement andI, yeah, I do a lot of online,
not a lot anymore, but duringCOVID, of course, that's what I

(22:55):
did and it was okay, but yeah,something it's not nearly the
same as being face-to-face,being live, but technology, you
know, supplements, notsupplements augments that.
My English augments that myenglish augments that.
I mean, I love concerts now,it's always the way I dreamed it
would be.
I saw queen, not with freddie,but with you know, with adam.
Uh, you know 55, 60 000 people,but, and we were kind of far

(23:19):
away, high up in these seats,but they have massive screens.
These led screens areabsolutely enormous.
So we get to kind of the bestof both worlds, this
visualization, and then we getcloser to the actual performers
there, even though it's a hugestadium.
So it's mostly good stuff.
The thing I'm worried about notworried about, but right now

(23:40):
we're in a weird place with AI,which isn't even new because
I've been using you didn't callit AI, but we've been using it
for a long, long time.
I had a.
Magisto was a is a app, a videoapp that automatically you just
give it all your vacationphotos and videos and it makes a
great video.
You don't have much controlover it, but it's like all this
technology or all these specialeffects, okay, but I stopped

(24:01):
using it because I I want tocontrol, I want to be, I like
the process.
So the thing is, right nowthere's all these apps that are
saying you know, presentationsin seconds, we'll make your
PowerPoint in seconds, no needfor research.
I mean, these are actuallythings they say I've got all
this, I wrote this down.
You know, we're at the grifterstage, people trying to make
money, but some things I don'tthink there are shortcuts to,

(24:23):
and we, you know, like moviemaking, of course there are
things that really shortcuts to,and we, you know, like movie
making, of course there arethings that really really help,
but at the end of the day, I do,I don't know, um, the idea that
ai is going to automaticallywrite a script for you.
It can help you with somethings because you can bounce
ideas off of you, but I I thinkthat's been uh, it's overblown.
I think ai mainly or will beused, not for those creative

(24:45):
things where it is now, butthings like like being able to
detect cancer, for example, inan MRI that a human would miss.
All these kinds of things.
This is great, great use of AI,or safer airline flights, or
whatever.
But right now it's all talkingabout how this app will
automatically obviously writeyour paper.

(25:05):
I mean that it can do, butwhat's the point of the paper
for anybody?

Speaker 1 (25:10):
It's interesting that you mentioned the paper thing.
I was writing an article acouple of weeks ago and I
thought I'm going to run thatkind of bullet point concepts
through AI and have it give mesources of each of the key
points, right?
So I ran it through and boom,immediately popped up and it

(25:32):
seemed super official and itgave me a reference list and
everything, and.
And then, as I and this is likethe paid version of chat, gbt,
so I thought, whatever, it'scosting 20 bucks a month, and I
would say 80 of the sources wereeither dead links or were links
to a similar website where youmight find that information, and

(25:56):
some of them gave me directquotes that, even when I pasted
them in due to google search,didn't exist.
They were completely made up,you know, and which is an
interesting, I mean they were.
I mean this thing is languagelearning models are ostensibly
learning from, from everythingthat's out there and this corpus
of information that continuesto grow.

(26:18):
But but I just I left thatexperience feeling like I I'm
just gonna scrap this right fromscratch and then I'm going to
make little notes and I'm goingto go back in and do a Google
search for these concepts, andit was actually much more
accurate.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
Yeah, it's funny.
You mentioned quotations, andusing quotes is really useful in
a presentation, but usually thesource should come from
something you actually read, andit could be just an article or
something in a book.
So I found a website thatpromotes itself, as you know,
I'll quote.
So I just searched myself.
So I'm like my book and it gaveme 30 quotes and every single

(26:54):
one of them I never said.
I never said those things andit says and it's already a slide
that you can use, and it willsay blah, blah, blah.
I mean one of them simplicityis the ultimate sophistication,
which is in my book and it'sattributed to Da Vinci.
Leonardo Da Vinci said that, Imean, and so I put that.
That's a quote, but it says myname underneath it.

(27:14):
That was the close one.
The other ones are completelymade up and it's just paddling.
I mean.
It's like it says do your bestalways in every endeavor to
persevere through presentation.
Gar Reynolds, I never said sucha weird, stupid thing.
Where are they getting thisfrom?

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Well, and then the next layer of that is the
deepfake videos where they'llactually, if you're a known
personality, they'll actually.
You know, there are all thesevideos now of Elon Musk telling
people to send him one Bitcoinand he'll return two Bitcoins to
them.
And here's this code.
And you watch it and you go.
I don't know Elon Musk otherthan what I've seen in videos,

(27:58):
but I look at it and I go it'slike a 98% real looking thing
and for a while there's agesture and you go.
That doesn't seem totally human.
But in another, another fiveyears, we might not be able to
tell the difference sure you youwon't.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
You won't be able to tell the difference between
people.
You actually know someonefamous like that, but then there
I came across one the other daythat I thought was real.
It was not a famous person, soI don't know the person, it's
just a talking head, a personbut it felt very um, uh, uncanny
valley.
You're familiar with that term,uncanny valley, which came from
japan.
It just means when something'svery, very fake, you know like a

(28:33):
cartoon or a robot, then we'reokay with that because we
understand what it is.
But when it's like it's 99percent there, or even 99.9
percent, and then you thinksomething's uncomfortable,
something's a bit weird.
There are actually people likethat, people.
People, for example, who maylack empathy but seem very nice
but eventually, wait,something's off here with what

(28:54):
this person said.
It's kind of like that.
It's a weird feeling, anyway.
So I'm watching this and she'stalking, but the lips are
matching perfectly, but there'ssomething.
It's just like a dead.
It's a weird feeling.
I go, okay.
So this is the problem.
The whole website came up, orYouTube channel came up, about a
month ago.
A video every day.

(29:15):
You can do this with AI.
That's all it's doing.
Ai writes the script does thenarration, the visuals now using
some.
It's amazing what it does, butit's all fake.
It's just some guy wherevercreating this stuff and it's all
fake.
It's just some guy wherevercreating this stuff and it's all
regurgitated from wikipedia anda million.
I mean it doesn't contributeanything.
The idea of education andcreativity is we're creating

(29:36):
something that didn't exist.
You know.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
We're adding something what's not even adding
anything yeah, that's ainteresting place we're at right
now, especially in regards toour, our, our children.
Right, like what are they gonnagrow up believing or knowing to
be true and be able to filter,filter that out?

(30:00):
I mean, I'm my.
My when I was in college waswhen let's see the end of
college, I think my senior yearof college, I got an email
address and it was like youcould only email people at other
universities.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
And.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
I was like this technology sucks.
It doesn't even scroll.
You got to hit return to godown to the next line.
I go.
This is why I'm not amultimillionaire.
I'm like, oh, this technologywill never take off but whatever
.
And so that was how you knowthat was.
I was 20.
And so now I'm in my fiftiesand obviously I've kind of got
that balance between the tworealities.

(30:35):
But someone who's being bornnow, by the time they're 15,
like what does that look like?

Speaker 2 (30:41):
Yeah, well, I heard someone else talk about this.
Is that the?
I mean you people like einstein, you know, not to, you know
name drop, but people likeeinstein or, uh, richard feinman
or anyway, all the brilliantscientists who were, you know,
probably on the spectrum, I meanthey're brilliant guys, right,
but they still.
They also grew up readingethics, you know, reading
philosophers, and they had somemorals were something they

(31:05):
thought about.
Right, try to do good, you knowyour fellow man and all this
and that might be seem to bemissing now.
If it's only just about you knowtech and how much can you do,
and that's a really importantpart, humanity is a huge part of
it and we shouldn't lose that,and that's what I worry about
school or things that are cut,and if it's just always focused

(31:28):
on tech.
I mean, if I do have kidsthey're now 14 and 12 and I wish
like they don't ban with myson's school it's a private
school, international school,but they don't ban phones and I
wish they did because they'redistracting, and I would love if
I could afford it if a schoolexisted that had no tech at all,
if I could afford it if aschool existed that had no tech

(31:49):
at all.
That's what I want.
I want my kids to developresilience and to be able to
read and write and resilient andcreative and problem solvers.
That to me, that's going to getyou far in the world.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
It's interesting that you bring that up.
You know, schools.
There's this recent push,certainly in California, but
also across the?
U, the US and I know in Europeas well, of controlling, banning
, limiting cell phones on schoolcampuses.
I don't know if you've read, uh, the anxious generation.

(32:19):
Jonathan hate height um, Ipronounce his name uh, really
compelling book and makes thiswhole argument about how's the?
You know, after 2010, 11, whenthe iphone became ubiquitous.
It's really this.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
It's exactly like you know, in 1966, you know the
father complaining about thatrock and roll, the long hair,

(32:54):
the rock and roll, you kids, andof course they were wrong.
Rock and roll is awesome, buton this I'm not wrong.
No one knows the future.
But we have wisdom, the eldersdo have some wisdom sometimes,
and what we need are more youngpeople and they do exist out
there.
Young people saying this isridiculous.
This is addiction.
It's not even reading, as youknow.

(33:14):
You read the article.
I'm sure I think it was Harvard, but kids won't read.
These are Harvard kids whocannot read a book.
I totally believe that becauseI'm the same way.
I used to read books,nonfiction, I mean.
Look at the shelves, they'refull of books and I buy books,
but I don't read them.
I read them, I read all thetime.
So kids are reading constantly.
They're one sentence at a time,one sentence here, maybe a

(33:36):
paragraph, but the idea to sitdown and think about things and
annotate it's got to be so hardfor them.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
I can't remember the author's name, but I think it's
called the Shallows or Shallowsor something.
I think the guy was atechnology writer for the New
York Times.
I remember reading this bookand I read it and it was hard
for me to get through the book.
And he's talking about how hardit is for him to get through
that.
You, you remember in college orin high school.
You're like, oh, I'm going toread whatever.

(34:08):
They assigned this.
It was like Dostoevsky orwhatever.
And you and like, I'm thinkingabout it now and I go, I can't.
I know it's at least I feel Idon't have any science to back

(34:29):
this up, but I feel like it'schanged the way I view absorbing
information.
Now I'm doing more and moreaudio books because I feel like
it fits into my workouts or myruns or whatever.
And then I go and I'm like you,I have bookshelves full of
books that I get a chapter inand I jumped to something else.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah, so we need a movement.
There is a slow I call, call itslow reading, but then people
think I'm talking about idiotsor something.
But you know that's.
But we need, I need to promote.
Actually it was an article.
I think it's a school in swedenthat got rid of books mostly to
switch to, you know, ipads andthings, all digital ebooks and,
um, it costs a ton of money todo that and now they've reversed

(34:59):
it and they're going back tobooks.
So, yeah, I'm the same way I.
We need a movement to promotebooks.
Even you know people like andkids tell me they if they have
to read, they do prefer paperbooks.
If they're going to read a bookand there's many advantages to
paper books, it just feelsbetter, we're less anxious, you
get away from tech, yeah getaway from alerts and

(35:20):
notifications, and yeah, and youcan kind of flip back and forth
.
I mean some things are great, ofcourse, with ebooks, because
you can just search, find meeverything about this word.
I mean it's great.
But on the other hand, it'sjust something about holding.
Uh, you know the difference of,you know, holding a I don't
know a baby and imaginingholding a baby, you know, or a
dog or what a cat you know, it'ssomething interesting here.

(35:45):
Yeah, I love, I love books, Ilove, I love old books.
You know I used to um present,for I'd go to the oxford to the
side business school.
Anyway, I went into the librarya few times and like they have
books that are hundreds andhundreds of years old, that you
have to like wear gloves andeverything but gosh, it's just
so.
It's amazing what?

Speaker 1 (36:05):
who do you think?
I mean, you've talked aboutsteve jobs.
I know I've seen you in videothat we spoke a little bit about
him here too, but who do youthink are some of the most
effective presenters you'veyou've either worked with, or
coached or seen?
Perhaps we can find them onYouTube, perhaps not, but could

(36:28):
you give us some examples ofthat and what makes them so
effective?

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Well, yeah.
So for me I'm not interested in, like, people who are really
polished, I mean people on thenetwork news, cable news.
I mean these are people who'vebeen doing it a long time and
that's not the rest of it, we'rejust regular people.
But how can we be much better?
So I love to point to peopleand I just did.
I just made a YouTube.
It's on my YouTube channel, Ijust put it up yesterday from a
former student.
I mean he's a former seminarstudent of mine in Paris.

(36:52):
He's a Swedish medical doctorand he's leading a movement in
nutrition to help peoplemaintain their healthy lifestyle
.
Anyway, there, a healthylifestyle.
Anyway, it's a keynote style ofpresentation.
He did last year and he did onejust a few days ago, but in a
his home, in his office studios,and he's it's just, he makes a
really good use of visuals andyou know structuring a problem

(37:13):
solve.
You know a problem solutionstructure.
And yeah, I mean he's not a,he's not going to be on the tv
news, he's not a dynamic.
I mean he's a very soft-spoken,he's a regular guy, he's a very
to be on the TV news.
He's not a dynamic.
I mean he's a very soft-spoken,he's a regular guy.
He's a very smart guy andthat's to me, that's most of us,
right, we're just regularpeople, but he's very engaging
and he just does a really goodjob.
He understands the importanceof visuals and the little things

(37:34):
, kind of how Steve Jobs was.
Little details are reallyimportant and so we spend extra
money to get to really amazingscreens because that, you know,
that matters.
So there's that one.
I mean I can give you the linklater.
It's on my youtube channel.
Great, yeah, we'll put it inthe show notes.
That's that would be great.
And then, in terms of famous and, like you know, the big keynote
and not just keynote but alsoin interviews um, jensen wong,

(37:55):
who I mentioned before, is theceo, founder of nvidia and he's
not a household name like a BillGates, but he should be.
He's the 20th richest person inthe world.
I mean, he's worth right Today.
I think he lost 8 billion a fewweeks ago because he said
something, but you know, onpaper I don't know what it is
it's near 100.
I think it's 100 billion, whichis insane, right?

(38:17):
Anyway, but I love he's just aregular guy.
He's from Oregon.
I mean, his parents are fromTaiwan.
I think he moved to the Stateswhen he was three, went to
Oregon State and then Stanford,started his own company and he
does his keynotes, which are,yeah, very visual, really great.
But he's just a regular guy,right, so it's not perfect.
I like that.
I don't like the new Applerecorded keynotes.

(38:39):
The new Apple recorded keynotesso-called keynotes they're not
keynotes, they're like keynotes,they're videos and they're kind
of they're too polished, tooslick, even though they're by
the regular people, includingTim Cook.
But anyway, jensen, I love hiskeynotes because there are
little tiny mistakes in there,but I love that.
And in his interviews, forexample, there's this one

(39:05):
interview where I thought theguy interviewing him was
disrespectful.
A younger guy with Bloombergtalked over him and all this is
the kind of thing where a lot ofCEOs would have walked out or
got really angry.
He's just a really nice guy youwouldn't think and I don't know
what he's like.
I have never heard anything badabout him, but I do know some
CEOs with like Fortune 1000companies that are nice people
and they say you can be a nice.
Of course you have to be firmand you have to be a leader, but
you don't have to be.
I don't want to say the word.

(39:26):
You don't have to be a D-head.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
You don't have to be.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
And, of course, steve Jobs was.
He was not a pleasant personoften and you probably don't
want to cross paths with him,but on stage he was great and
very you know, very, veryapproachable.
So there's a good lesson there.
And with jensen he's just yeah,it just seems like a really
nice guy, but that comes acrossin his interviews and in on
stage as well.
So that's another one I wouldlook for.

(39:52):
In terms of famous people.
Um, in terms, I used to reallyrecommend a lot of ted talks
years ago, my first edition ofthe book.
I had a lot of cooperation fromTed with that and I've been to
Ted when it was in Long Beach.
I don't watch them anymorebecause they're just a little
bit too slick.
And I know they have theirpresenters memorized.
They literally memorize whatthey're going to say rather than

(40:14):
just having more.
You know, a good idea.
Of course you're strict, but Ilike the imperfections, I like
the realness.
I don't like memorized, unlessyou're an actor.
I mean if you're an actor,right, and of course that's
different.
I mean if you're Tom Hanks,then fine, we're not going to
know you memorize.
You know it doesn't seemmemorized, but most of us aren't
like that.
So if it's memorized, it's not,it's going to feel a little bit

(40:35):
off.
So I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
I don't have a list of names, but no, that's a,
those are, those are, those aregreat.
And you know I was, I, you, Iwas going to ask you the
follow-up about ted talks.
So I'm glad that you youbrought that up because I
started to kind of feel thatsort of a shift in my perception
of ted.
Eventually, right, it is likethere's ted and there's ted x,

(40:59):
and then there's local, whatever, and they're all.
They all kind of have structure.
And I had the privilege ofinterviewing or having a
conversation with a guy who hedid an early Ted talk, like 10
years ago or more, on thisexperiment that he did in India
with the hole in the wall school, where he oh, yeah, yeah, I
know that one and I rememberseeing this thing on an airplane

(41:21):
and I was like it blew my mindand it's a very he's a down to
earth dude who who even hispresentation was very, very down
to earth and and amazing story.
And I, when I interviewed, whenI we did a zoom like this and
he's in London and I just I lovelistening to the guy who's so
down to earth.
And we started out and he saidI have one question for you Are

(41:45):
you going to publish the videoof this?
And I said no, it's audio only.
And he said okay, good, becauseI'm wearing my favorite sweater
and I just spilled some peasoup right here and I hope this
doesn't show up.
And then the whole conversationkind of had that human touch
where you felt like yourprofessorial uncle was having a

(42:06):
conversation with you across thedinner table and I'm like
that's I think the beauty ofit's really hard to coach
someone in that right.
It's like is it a real humanexperience or not?

Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, you can help.
Even a really ineffectivepresenter can be.
You can help even the really,you know, ineffective presenter
can be.
Everyone can learn to be better.
But yeah, I mean, of coursethere's, you know, the
superstars, but I think everyonecan learn to be really, you
know, really really good, reallypassable.
But another person who died, ofcourse, many years ago, but
Richard Feynman, a prize-winningphysicist, but he has a lot of

(42:41):
his videos.
I don't know if it was notBerkeley, but where was he Down
in California, Anyway, Cal.
Tech or something Cal Tech, Ithink, right, yeah, anyway, he
did all these lectures that wererecorded.
This is the 60s, so he's at achalkboard but on a stage, so
it's very much like apresentation, but he's teaching

(43:03):
and he uses humor and he's notboring and the students are
engaged.
There are no iPhones then, ofcourse, but he would use humor.
A very bright guy, obviously.
So that's someone I alwaysrecommend.
I mean to me that's like myhero.
He's a great communicator,whether it's in an interview or
on stage.
He would say things like youknow what is science?
How do we do it?
We have a hypothesis.
So what do we do?

(43:23):
Well, first we just guess, andthen the whole audience laughs
what do you mean?
You guess no, no, don't laugh,that's what we do.
You guess, right?
I think this is my hypothesisand then we check it.
Anyway, he's really engaging.
I've seen keynotes where he'sgone over two hours.
I mean, think about a two-hourkeynote but he did things to

(43:44):
break it up.
He'd bring different people.
Of course, some of theannouncements were very exciting
, but it's just never.
It's not boring and he had areally great way on stage, but
when he was younger he was notgood In the early 80s.
By the time the Mac came out hereally learned.
He's like anything, he goeswell.
I'm not really great at this,so he got great at it.
But by the time the Mac cameout he was very charismatic in

(44:07):
front of an audience but alsovery approachable.
And so people mightmisunderstand because he seems
so approachable In real life notso much, and I don't think you
can fake it.
So I'm not trying to suggestthat he's faking it, because I
don't think you can fake it.
He's a very unusual.
He was a very unusual person inthat regard because he could
really turn on a charm.

(44:27):
And I don't mean that.
I don't mean that he was asnake oil salesman, because I
don't.
I think he actually believedeverything that he said and he
would change his mind.
He often would change his mindwhen he got better information.
So he wasn't a con artist, buthe was optimistic about things
he believed in.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Of course, do you recommend?
Maybe you do this for yourself,but do you recommend that
speakers, presenters, uh, filmthemselves practicing?
Um, you know, I've, I've, Irecord a video to our staff
every week and it's it.
You know, I usually do it inone take because I want to make

(45:04):
it natural and I don't have alot of time in my day and I just
literally my phone and I sendit out.
But as I, I always watch itbefore I send it out to make
sure I didn't say somethingthat's confusing.
And I feel that even from thatprocess, over four or five years
of doing that, I'm getting alittle bit better yeah, do you
yeah sure I mean, yeah,absolutely.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
Well, the more you do , the better you're going to get
, and if you can watch yourself,I mean that's the best.
Coaching, a good you knowfootball coach or whatever, is
they have film right and thenthey the sensei you know yoda
right, so you have to see it.
Oh, I, you can explain it.
This is the power of the visual.
You, I can show you, I can kindof do it myself, but when you
see yourself doing it, of course.
Yeah, this brings up anotherpoint that's related to that

(45:50):
Presenting, like I mentionedwith Dr Enfield.
I'll send the links to youlater.
But one is on stage and then oneis just in front of a camera.
Maybe there's someone elsethere, maybe there's not.
I find that really hard.
I find it extremely hard.
It's much easier to do apresentation live.
I'm all prepared, I got theslides, everything's working,
I'm not worried about it.
It's one take.
There's no possibility ofanother take, it's just go.

(46:11):
But when there's no audienceand there's just that camera and
you can't do other takes, Imean, if you saw my outtake reel
, which is 90% of it, you knowyou it's, I swear, like a
drunken sailor.
I mean, it's so frustrating,and so that is another art that
teachers need to can work on too.
There's teaching in front of aclass, but if they want to make

(46:32):
videos as well, supplementaryvideos for their students, which
I know a lot of professors do,you just have to keep doing it
and you'll get better at it.
You have to, kind of I just Idon't know why just the camera
is so difficult.
We're a live audience, isn't?

Speaker 1 (46:48):
I wonder how much of that goes back to the kind of
primal roots of of story, rightlike it was meant to be,
something shared in in incommunity and family, in a
circle, and with people thereand watching their expressions,
and I don't know.
I think the camera is reallyartificial, because I've had

(47:09):
that same experience.
I had to record an onboardingvideo for new staff and with our
HR team and they said, well,there's the studio, you can go
to the studio and they're goingto record this video.
And I thought, okay, great,here are my topics.
And I get to the studio and andthey're going to record this
video, and I thought, okay,great, here are my topics.
And I get to the studio and I'mI'm used to filming one take on
my camera off to staff, butthose are our employees.

(47:30):
But now I'm trying to projectout and think, what are new
staff or prospective staffwanting to see?
And the very nice producers atthe studio are saying can you,
can you do another take, can youtalk a little bit more?
And I'm thinking, oh my God,and then I start to clam up
because it just doesn't feellike a normal conversation.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
Yeah, yeah, no.
I think what you said earlieris absolutely.
The reason is that it's verynatural to us I don't know how
many tens of thousands of theDNA developing that we're just
used to telling stories ortalking in front of other people
at least one other person andit's only been a few.
What?
A little over a hundred years.
The idea that we'd put a cameraand I would pretend that's

(48:14):
really hard to do it doesn'tcome natural to a lot of us.
But interestingly, my shyeststudents, the most introverted
students, they would prefer torecord themselves by themselves
with a camera where my moreextroverted students, it's
easier.
Like me, even though I'm anintrovert, I find it easier to
be in front of people.
I think most people probably do.

(48:36):
Once you get over that fear of Imean, both are scary for people
Because we don't want to stickout, because you know that's why
leaders are often you know,sometimes they're sociopaths,
because it's not.
It's very normal to want to bein the middle of the herd
because you're, you know you'renot going to be attacked.
So it takes a special personthat really wants to put

(48:57):
themselves out there.
So it's not.
I mean no one, I mean nowell-adjusted person is not
nervous, especially when they'restarting out.
They might eventually get usedto it.
I mean, you're younger than I am, but people like Johnny Carson,
who was a very famous talk showhost but he never watched
himself.
He was very shy, he neverreally got over the nerves, but

(49:18):
he was a professional so hedidn't know he was nervous,
which is what I always tell mystudents.
I had one recently.
She was just so nervous, thewhole idea of it.
But I told her no one knows,you're nervous, you don't look
nervous and no one will knowthat you're nervous and it's
very natural and no one knows.
So just slow down and it willbe fine.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
And she did great, and that's yeah, and she did
great.
Now you teach universitystudents to present and or in
the context of some othercontent, that's what they're
presenting.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
Yeah, I have a lot of just presentation classes, but
you know, I have a marketingclass and a senior thesis class,
but the presentation is a bigpart of that and they always say
when they review the class,that's their favorite part,
where they didn't know they weregoing to get that, because
they're used to what are goingto be lectures and it'll be a
test.
And my philosophy is lookeverything's online.

(50:12):
Youtube is amazing If you wantto learn something.
There was a kid that learnedcoding.
He's like 20 and he's making abunch of money and he never went
to college.
Oh, I know, it's free.
Harvard puts all their codingstuff for free.
If you're motivated, you couldlearn it.
Everything's on youtube also ifyou're so.
But we still have classes.
So I think class should be verywe got to do stuff.

(50:32):
It's got to be interactive andI mean, otherwise, why are we
here?
I mean, you can learn thisanywhere.
So let's be here and I'll bemore like a yoda figure and
we're going to do stuff in class.
That's my feeling of it.
So it's not.
But in terms of subjects, yeah,it's the students doing
presentation is a big part of it, but sometimes it's at the

(50:53):
whiteboard so they might explain.
They have time to prepare andthen they just write stuff on a
whiteboard and talk about that.
You know group work but notgroup work.
That's really forced, but theyreally.
Anyway, they, they like it,they like the group work I
wanted to ask you.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
So oregon is known for for a lot of things rainy
weather, and I think I thinkwhere they, I think where they
filmed the goonies, is on theoregon coast, oh, sure, yeah,
and uh, also the home of nike,um, and you, if I, if I'm not
mistaken, are a runner or you'verun, and yeah I still, I still

(51:31):
run.
I started running, yeah, yeah,what?
So what's the?
Do you see a parallel?
Maybe I'm stretching, but I'mjust always intrigued because I
I've run my whole life and nowI'm starting to slow down
because my hips don't hips don'tlie, as they say.
But I've always just reallyenjoyed that simplicity, really
Right, like there's no cheat,there's no faking at running.

(51:52):
You're either doing it or not.
You're either faster, you'reslow, you're out there.
Do you see parallels betweenthat and your, your presentation
, work, and then a follow on tothat is what is your?
Do you?
Do you find that that helpswith your ideas and your work
when you're out there running?

Speaker 2 (52:08):
oh, yeah, yeah.
So recently it's more likewalking and sometimes jogging,
because as you get older youknow, I read this thing where,
like people who lift weights,like older men, they never die
lifting weights.
It's always when they're out onan hour run they really push
themselves.
So I think at this age, I mean,walking is so beneficial.
And if we had a scale andrunning maybe a tiny bit, maybe

(52:32):
a tiny bit more, but it's reallyprobably has diminishing
returns if you run too much,right as hips go and things like
that.
Walking is so good for you.
And if you're walking in theforest, which we call forest
bathing this japanese idea andthere's some science behind it
that you're actually gettinghealth benefits from the trees
and being in nature, and ifyou're also walking, wow, that's
just amazing.

(52:52):
But oh, it's absolutely.
It's amazing for creativity,for inspiration.
So I always have the phone withme because it's just the way
life is now and if I ever get anidea, it often happens and so I
just record myself, I just talkit and just put it away.
I don't listen to anythingbecause it's safer and I like to
hear the birds and my footstepsand everything.

(53:14):
But yeah, it's absolutelycritical.
I think any creative personyou'll find that they have
something that they're doing.
But so I never stopped.
I never stopped running.
I'm from the most beautifulplace in the world was Cannon
Beach.
It's a beautiful beach.
Yeah, goonies, parts of Goonieswas there and so, yeah, it's
just, the forest is right there,it becomes, it's all forest,

(53:35):
huge.
You know Douglas fir forest,and then boom beach, beautiful
beach, and you get the sound ofthe ocean.
It's the beach, it's the air,and then the forest is also
there.
It's like this is the mostinspirational place.
If you can't come up with ideashere.
I don't live there anymore.
I miss it a lot.
How often do you get back?
No, not very often at all.

(53:55):
So it had been nine years sinceI'd been in the States with my
family and I went back and Idrove them to the Goonies house
and all the places where Goonieswas filmed and, it's funny,
where they're like in August andI found the house and it was.
We're walking back to all thesepeople, all these you know
middle America people and theirrental cars.
Is the Goonies house up there?
Yeah, it's amazing movies.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
That's how I found it .
That's that's how I, you know,I can remember it was a family
vacation and we went to theGoonies' house.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yeah, well, yeah, astoria is a really cool town.
Now A lot of movies have beenfilmed there and it's kind of
like Wellington in New Zealand.
Wellington is kind of likeHollywood of New Zealand.
So Astoria should do more ofthat, because for cinematography
it's often cloudy, not raining,but with cloudy and cloudy the

(54:43):
skin looks so good.
It's this great atmosphere whenyou have clouds sometimes fog,
so it gives it a really nicelook.
Sunshine can be problematic,even watching a sporting event.
Right, my son asked me we'rewatching some game NFL playoff
game and it was sunny though.
So you know how the ISO doesn'tknow what to do, so it's
overexposed in the sunny areaand it's too dark, but cloudy

(55:04):
days are great for that.
So, anyway, that's my plug forAstoria Please make all your
films there.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
Support the local economy.
So I wanted to.
I ask you, you know you've hada really interesting life
because, as you say, you'vespent more than half your life
in Japan and you've had thisinteresting journey with Apple

(55:32):
and also you know kind of anunconventional path now,
traveling around the world doingkeynotes and in a day and age
of more and more bells andwhistles and more sexy AI and
everything, really thesimplicity piece.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
What advice would your 60-something-year-old self
give your 18-year-old self thatyou wish you knew time?
Yeah, yeah, well to, oh not.
Look, if I was 18 today.
You mean, yeah, like what haveyou learned, um?

Speaker 1 (56:10):
you know?
In other words, if you could goback and talk to that 18 year
old, what would you tell him?

Speaker 2 (56:15):
yeah, well, I mean things that would help me now.
So that's, that's a differentquestion than what?
What if I were 18?
You know, today, like nobodyknows the future.
So I, you know, I have noregrets.
I wasn't going to be in stemanyway, although I do like
science pretty much, but mathwas not a strong point of mine,
so I just went with what was mystrong point, which was reading

(56:38):
and writing.
So i's why I studied philosophy.
But I think for a student thereis no panacea and people say,
well, it's STEM, or it's STEMplus this.
You got to know how to read andwrite and be curious.
The worst thing is to be anincurious.
Some people just are incurious,I guess, but that's just a very
depressing thought.

(56:58):
So, you know, and I think I amcurious, so I don't, I was
stimulated, but I'm notparticularly, you know, and I
think I am curious, so I don't,I was stimulated by I'm not
particularly, you know,intelligent, but I think I had
the right.
I liked my teachers and I thinkthey, I was inspired by them to
be curious about the world andI, I think the arts are so
important I actually I wish Iwould have done more arts when I
think about junior highespecially.

(57:28):
That was a completely waste oftime for me and mostly my fault.
I was a good kid but a Cstudent.
It wouldn't have matteredthough it would have been better
served if you sent me to musiccamp for two years and I did
nothing but music.
I wouldn't be any different,except I'd be a great piano
player or a cello player,because academically I got
nothing out of that, and evenearly high school, the freshman
year.
But my last three years of highschool was great because I was
way into music and drama and allthese things, but I didn't do
painting or I didn't do fine artbecause I thought, well, I'm

(57:49):
not a fine artist, I can't draw,and I regret I should have done
more fine art because no oneknows what the jobs are going to
be.
You're going to learn, you'lllearn that anyway.
So we used to think it'sprogrammers, programming yeah,
get a degree in cs.
And now there's these kidsgraduating from berkeley and
they can't find a job with theircs degree.
So nobody knows.

(58:10):
I I don't know what you shouldstudy.
Don't go into debt, whatever itis.
Do not go into debt.
Go to a community college ifyou have to, for two years.
I mean, the idea is, just donot do the debt.
I did debt, but but it was solittle compared to today.
But study what you want.
If you study whatever you studypsychology, and people say
you're never going to get a jobdoing that, well, you still keep

(58:33):
your interests.
You're still doing other things.
You can intern, have a YouTubechannel, do whatever, follow
your passions, but just don't gointo debt.
And if it's a STEM thing thatyou're really interested in
engineering and you can handleit, then absolutely.
There's no guarantee, though,that the ai won't replace that
job, but isn't ai is not goingto replace us.

(58:56):
There's a lot of hype right now.
There'll be different jobs andyou know, but I I think the
human people who arecompassionate, who have empathy,
who can be great communicators,who can still be kind to people
and thoughtful people they'regoing to be in more demand.
And smart people, people whohave good BS detectors, who

(59:17):
aren't swayed by social media orwhatever cable news says, but
really thoughtful, well-read Ithink that's also really
important to be well-read, tojust understand the world.
Not in bytes, but yeah, I'veread books, it doesn't matter,
you just read understand theworld, because we don't know the
text is going to change anyway,but if you can understand oh,

(59:39):
this is like what Socrates saidabout whatever these are not
superfluous things I thinkthey're going to still be
relevant, it's not really whatyou know?
Can you think?
I mean, anyone can have an ideaor repeat something, but how do
you know what you know?
Can you think?

Speaker 1 (59:55):
It's really great advice.
I know we used to, just even afew years ago, trying to predict
what careers were going to looklike.
Even five years down the roadis really hard, right Like who
would have thought that was athat, a data scientist or a you
know big data thing?
But now that's gonna that'sprobably going to go the way of

(01:00:16):
AI analysis of amazing amountsof information that a human
can't do.
So what else are we going to do?
But my daughter's getting readyto graduate from college and
I've said similar things to herthat you just brought up, which
is reading, writing, thinking,being a good person, just the

(01:00:37):
emotional intelligence ofinteracting with other people,
trying to read a room, figuringout you know, the end of the day
, no one's no sensitive,sensible person's going to want
to go to a therapy session withan ai bot.
Compared to right, compared toa thoughtful social worker,

(01:00:58):
right like, who could sit in theroom with you and talk yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
Now nobody knows, I'm not worried, so I'm not.
You know it's famous last words.
You know, like Bill Gatessaying was it?
no, who could ever need morethan one megabyte?
You know, or something likethat.
So you can't.
No one knows the future.
But that's the thing is, no oneknows.
But there are people sayingthat they do know and you get
all these cliches like, yeah, aiwon't replace your job, but the
person who knows ai willreplace your job.

(01:01:25):
Ai is just going to be like theair we breathe.
Everyone's going to.
We use it, we've been using itall the time.
And yeah, there are tools.
The kids know it.
The kids know.
Oh, actually, my son.
He had to do a fill in the blankfor a science.
You know like 20 questions andfill in the blank.
And so I go well, you do that.
I came back like 90 secondslater he's done.

(01:01:47):
He filled it in, but he didn'tknow it.
He took a picture of it withhis iphone, put it into some ai
I don't know if it was chat orwhatever it was and it gave him
the answers.
That's a picture.
Then he had to copy it, ofcourse, because it didn't is a
paper.
That's it, that's it.
Well, obviously, giving fill inthe blank is not something you
do as homework, right, becauseand you can't blame the kid you
can say, well, don't use ai, butI mean what they're going to

(01:02:09):
use, of course, and I use ai allthe time.
I mean jensen.
The jensen wong was mentioned,so it's a constant.
It's like an assistant.
It's there, you have questionsabout things.
I'm not.
It's still my creative work.
It's not writing my paper ormaking my video, but I have
questions and it's.
It gives me sources.
It answers the question.
I used it for what time at it?

(01:02:30):
What time is it now in SanDiego?
That better be correct.

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
Exactly.
Yeah, no, I, I, we just had astaff meeting and we were doing
like a brainstorming, put abunch of post-it notes up and
different one idea per post-itnote.
It was on a theme.
And I remember we finished themeeting and one person said okay
, I'm gonna take down, I'm gonnastart jotting down all the.
They sit there with theirlaptop and I just thought you

(01:02:55):
know what?
I took a photo of the wall andput it in a chat gpt and I said
make a list of all these andorganized by common themes, and
it's instantaneous.
You know, is it cheating?
I don't think it's cheating,any more than me wearing these
glasses now.
After that, we can get to.
Okay, what does it mean thatthere are these themes, that
this is.
This theme came up morefrequently than the other.

(01:03:17):
What does that mean?
Chat gpt can't tell you whatthat means.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
That's the human side sure, sure, and there are a lot
of job and friends who are inhotel business and they have to
write a menu for things.
I mean this is kind of gruntwork no one really likes.
You know you have to come upwith this paragraph to explain
this steak or something.
Have ai do it and then you gothrough and then you know you
put.
That's so helpful.
I've used it where people saythey've asked me give, give me

(01:03:40):
the top 10 things ofpresentation Zen.
So I did that with AI and thenit and I said give me like 30.
And then I used 10 of them.
They were not incorrect.
It's just like having anassistant.
That is saves me a lot of time,so that I'm totally embracing,
you know, the LLMs.
That's very useful, but it'snot going to make your
presentation for you.

(01:04:01):
It can already, but who cares?
I don't want that, just like Idon't want an AI wife.
I have a real partner.
I have a real human.

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
Well, you've been very generous with your time and
I know I wanted to honor ourcommitment to the hour time, but
I wanted to.
Before I come to the lastquestion, is there anything that
I've not touched on related toyour work, something that you
think, um, uh, our listenersshould know and, and perhaps you

(01:04:34):
know, if not, and at leastwhere folks can find you?

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
um, yeah, well, sure, there's gar reynoldscom if you
just search my name, garReynolds G-A-R-R.
Reynolds, as in the aluminumand you can contact me from the
website and the YouTube channel.
It's Presentation Zen onYouTube.
But the only thing is I kind ofsaid it before but in terms of
teachers education, I thinkpresentation is more important

(01:04:59):
than ever because you can't fakeit.
Even if you got used ai to helpyou a lot, but you still have
to stand there and deliver andyou have to do the q?
A.
So let's say it's five minutepresentation and we're gonna
have five minutes of discussion,or I mean you can't fake that.
But the paper you could fakeand it's very, and then it gets
time consuming with peopletaking it through.
And did you fake, you know?
So I'll probably writing.

(01:05:21):
I don't do writing in my classbut if I did I would do in-class
stuff right, I mean because youcan write it in class, but I
don't do that kind of class.
But I would think for justabout any subject having
students do presentation wherethey have to actually do the
research you can use ai to helpyou with that.
But what I show in my videos isai at the beginning.
Yes, to help you to get anoverview, just like we use

(01:05:42):
Wikipedia, students could usethat to kind of, you know,
refine their questions.
It could be about anything, forexample, I don't know, maybe
like, is fat, is animal fatreally unhealthy?
That could be a question, right, and then research that.
But at some point you need toidentify some actual books or
papers, some PDFs that you couldactually get away from digital

(01:06:03):
and sit down and read.
I still think reading is soimportant.
Yes, you can still watch videos.
At some point you really need toreally know your topic, know
the subject.
I mean, you know your subjectbecause you've been doing it for
decades right.
But when you're a 15-year-oldstudent and you're going to
present on, I don't know thehealth benefits of fat in a diet

(01:06:23):
or something, well, you need tostudy this and then you're
going to present it and thenyou're out.
You're going to teach us, too,right, and when you teach,
you're learning, right.
You know?
The book Make it Stick talksabout that how learning should
be difficult.
If you don't have a struggle,you're not going to know it and
you're not going to remember it.
So it's kind of like that.
So I think presentation is hereto stay and you can do it with

(01:06:47):
technology or without, butthat's something even if you're
an introvert.
Make it a safe place forstudents, even students who are
not real comfortable doing that.
It still can be a good learningexperience for them.
Presentation is learning.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
It's not just sharing , it's also learning Well we'll
definitely link to your websiteand your YouTube in the show
notes and really appreciatedyour thoughts and your ideas
today and your generosity ofyour time.
The last question is ahypothetical so and it'll be
interesting because of yourdesign background as well, if

(01:07:24):
you're given the opportunity todesign a billboard for the side
of the freeway.
Those are dangerous, yeah,dangerous.
I've had, I've asked peoplethis and they say I don't
believe in billboards becauseit's that's visual pollution,
but we're going to assume we'regoing to pass that.
What does boards?
Because it's that's visualpollution, but we're going to
assume we're going to pass that.

(01:07:45):
Um, what does, what does uh garreynolds billboard say about
what you feel is important aboutlife, about you?

Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
oh no, that's a.
That's an interesting question,as you ask everyone that right
I do it's kind of a synthesizingdistillation question.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
Yeah, I wish I had more time.

Speaker 1 (01:08:05):
The whole point is you're not supposed to have time
, it's supposed to be immediate.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
I mean, if it's a billboard, what would get
attention?
I guess it would be Apple-esque, right with lots of white space
and Helvetica in the center.
But it's not my quote.
But be here now, be somewhereelse later.
I think that's just a reallyimportant thing.
We're so distracted and I'dbeen reading about, you know,

(01:08:30):
zen since high school, but itjust seems more relevant now
because it always talked aboutyou know how to stop distraction
, how to be here 100%.
You know this is the moment.
There is no other moment.
You know, know the past doesn'texist and we need to understand
the past and the future, butthey don't really exist.
This moment exists, somethinglike that.
I don't know, let me thinkabout it.

(01:08:51):
But yeah, just white with ablack helvetica, that would get
attention because there's somuch noise, that actually would
get attention it would in in itssimplicity right.
Anyway, it's hard not to answerwithout a cliche.
I missed a cliche.
I tried to avoid it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
Well, I really thank you, Gar, for your time and I've
really looked forward to thisconversation and I've admired
your work for a long time and,as I said at the start, your
books are frequent gifts of minestaff members and others.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
Well, that's very kind of you.
Well, if I'm ever in the SanDiego area, I'd love to visit
your school.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
Yeah, please stay in contact and we'll connect.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
All right.
Thank you very much, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
Thank you, good luck, bye-bye.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Bye-bye, okay, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
Thank you very much.
All right, thank you Bye-bye.
Thanks for joining us on theHangout Podcast.
You can send us an email atpodcastinfo at protonme.
Many thanks to my daughter,maya, for editing this episode.
I'd also like to underline thatthis podcast is entirely
separate from my day job and, assuch, all opinions expressed
herein are mine and mine alone.

(01:10:08):
Thanks for coming on in andhanging out.