September 2, 2025 • 44 mins
Today we welcomed returning guest and Professional Speaker Robert Begley who discussed his first book, Voices of Reason: Lessons for Liberty’s Leaders. Tune in to learn about his journey to become a speaker and the special release date of his book.
Call-to-Action: After you have listened to this episode, add your $0.02 (two cents) to the conversation, by joining (for free) The Secular Foxhole Town Hall. Feel free to introduce yourself to the other members, discuss the different episodes, give us constructive feedback, or check out the virtual room, Speakers' Corner, and step up on the digital soapbox. Welcome to our new place in cyberspace!
Show notes with links to articles, blog posts, products and services:
- Les Brown
- Mark Brown
- Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
- The King's Speech
- Bosch Fawstin's print, September 2
- Atlas Shrugged Day
- First Heat by Bryan Larsen - Quent Cordair Fine Art
- Voices of Reason: Lessons for Liberty’s Leaders - Speaking With Purpose LLC
- Voices Of Reason: Lessons For Liberty’s Leaders (Kindle Edition)
Episode 102 (43 minutes) was recorded at 2130 Central European Time, on August 22, 2025, with Alitu's recording feature. Martin did the editing and post-production with the podcast maker, Alitu. The transcript is generated by Alitu.
Easy listen to The Secular Foxhole podcast in your podcast (podcatcher) app of choice, e.g., Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Listen Notes.
Even better is to use one of the new podcast apps, on Podcast Index, supporting the
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Martin (00:00):
Foreign.
Blair (00:08):
Ladies and gentlemen, hello.
Hello.
Welcome to episode 102 of the Secular Foxholepodcast.
Martin,
we're going to have to mind our P's and Q's.
You know why?
We have a professional speaker on with ustoday.
Martin (00:24):
Yes, we have.
And you started out nice.
Blair (00:28):
Well, thank you.
Thank you.
Robert Begley is a keynote speaker, certifiedworld class speaking coach,
author of Voices of Reason.
As founder of Speaking with Purpose llc,
he has helped executives enter entrepreneursand other leaders find their voice and speak
with courage, clarity and conviction.
(00:50):
Robert has spoken to audience acclaim acrossthe United States and internationally.
His mission is simple, to help people speakboldly and lead effectively.
Today we're going to talk to Robert about hisspeaking career and his new book.
Robert, how are you?
Robert (01:08):
I am wonderful, absolutely wonderful.
Been on this show several times.
But as an author,
you know what it's like to have this loomingover your head forever.
I've been threatening to write a book sincethe 80s.
Holy cow.
Anyway,
(01:29):
thank you gentlemen.
It is really important to me to be with the
two of you because when you are an author,
you can't be an authority,
okay.
Without having the word author in there and
subject of public speaking, presentationskills, whatever,
(01:51):
however you want to use the expression,
it changes lives.
And my book is about seven famous speechesthroughout history.
I walk the audience through, I break downthese famous speeches from the perspective of
Aristotle.
We've talked about Aristotle in the past, but
(02:13):
his rhetoric is his book of rhetoric,
the art of rhetoric.
He mentions persuasion, how do we persuadepeople?
And he has three pillars, Ethos, Logos,pathos.
And so what I do in my book is analyse PatrickHenry,
(02:33):
Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr.
Winston Church, Aline Rand, Maga Wade,
Frederick Douglass.
Seven magnificent.
I call them the magnificent seven.
I guess.
My notebook.
Seven speakers, it's not all,
you know, exhaust.
It's not an exhaustive list, but they're
speeches that have, have influenced me.
And using them through,
(02:54):
viewing them through the lens of Aristotle,Sithos, logos, pathos.
I want to show today's leaders,
hey, you can use these principles and you havea voice and you need to use that voice because
unlike the two of you gentlemen, a lot ofpeople are afraid to speak out.
They silence themselves, they self censor.
(03:17):
And I want people to speak boldly so they canlead effectively.
Blair (03:23):
I'm still guilty of that, sadly in some, some circumstance.
But you know,
not on here you're not.
No,
no, no.
I constantly strive to, you know,
erase that.
But yeah, there's still, there is a challenge
of that.
Now just for the audience.
(03:44):
When, when you say ethos, pathos and.
Robert (03:47):
And logos.
What?
Yes.
Blair (03:48):
What does that mean in English?
Robert (03:51):
Yeah, you're right, you're right.
Martin (03:54):
Also, if you want.
Robert (03:57):
I'm sorry, you could say it in.
Martin (03:58):
Greek also, if you want.
Robert (04:02):
So ethos,
I'll give you the famous the public speakingexample, and then the what Aristotle meant.
I've studied.
I've been a professional speaker for decades,
and I've studied the science of publicspeaking.
And by ethos,
most speakers mean the credibility of thespeaker.
But guess what?
(04:23):
Credibility is important.
But Aristotle is more precise.
He. He says the moral character.
Martin (04:30):
Like the word ethics.
Robert (04:32):
Yes,
the eth. Ethos, ethics.
Same. Yeah, the same ballpark.
So credibility is an offshoot,
but the moral character of the speaker.
And I'll give you, after I finish the three,
I'll give you a little backstory, a littlehistory on the sophist.
So that's ethos, which I think is the mostimportant of the three logos.
(04:55):
That's what most speakers focus on.
That's the logical.
That's the argument.
Okay, this leads to.
This leads to this conclusion.
All right,
Most speakers, most presenters.
And let me just clarify the difference betweenpublic speaking.
Not that many people comparatively do publicspeaking.
A lot more people do what we callpresentations.
(05:19):
So public speaking, it kind of.
You think of Tony Robbins on this big stage
with hundreds of, you know, thousands ofpeople.
No,
not that many of us get that opportunity, butwe're often much more.
Often we're in front of a small group,
whether it's a board meeting,
whether it is a local chapter of communityevent or something.
(05:41):
And my point in the book, one of the points inthe book is use your voice for any audience,
any setting.
So the logos is what most people focus on.
And then the third one, the pathos,
that is the emotion, the emotional connectionbetween the speaker and the audience.
Now,
audiences, the speaker needs to be aware thataudiences come with their own baggage to a
(06:09):
presentation,
and an effective speaker needs to recognisethat.
So we should not be behind a wall saying, Ihave this content.
I'm going to rush through this content nomatter what.
You gave me 45 minutes.
I'm going to use all 45 minutes.
I got to get through this.
I'm not even going to look up from my notes.
No, that's no path.
There's no pathos there.
Blair (06:29):
Right?
Robert (06:29):
Pathos.
Seeing them watching the head nod,
asking reflective questions, establishing aconnection.
And there's a f. Famous quote which the two ofyou probably have heard.
To trust someone,
it's like we don't care how much you knowuntil we know how much you care.
Okay. And that is where the pathos comes in.
(06:52):
And Aristotle.
So it's not just pure emotion,
it's seeing the direction that the audience isin, the state of mind they're in, and trying
to bring them towards your position, trying topersuade them to.
Through your position.
So jump in on that and then I'll get to thisoffice if you have any responses.
Martin (07:12):
So how could we do it as a podcaster, then?
Because you have the listener out therelistening.
But now with new Podcasting 2.0 features,
we could even have in the future, livestreaming and getting feedback and reactions
thanks to technology.
Live item tags.
Robert (07:31):
Yes.
Martin (07:33):
How could we think as podcasters?
Robert (07:37):
Okay, so as podcasters, address the audience.
Martin (07:40):
Yeah.
Robert (07:41):
So guess what, Blair and Martin,
I think your audience can learn a lot aboutethos, logos and pathos by listening to your.
Your podcast, particularly this programme.
Here's why it's important to them.
So the way Martin knows, the way I coach, it'svery you focused.
You will benefit, you will discover if youlisten to this programme on September 2nd,
(08:07):
that's what we're aiming for, right?Yes.
You will get these benefits.
So do you hear that?Instead of saying,
I have the answers,
listen to me.
End of discussion.
Martin (08:20):
Making it for me, like, yeah, good.
Like a listener.
What's in it for me?Why should I listen?
Robert (08:27):
That's right.
Zig Ziglar, one of the most famous speakers,
says,
most famous radio station wiffm.
What's in it for me?
And when you're sitting, when you're sittingin the audience or listening to a podcast,
my coach, Ed Tate, he has he.
This is what's going on in the mind of the
person sitting in the audience or maybelistening to the podcast,
(08:50):
the speakers droning, right?
All the, all the audience members thinking is,
so what?
Who cares?
What's in it for me?
It's all about me.
Blair (09:05):
Okay?
Robert (09:06):
We know on this programme that's an egoistic.
So we as listeners go there for the egoisticbenefit.
It's not that we want to see a famous speaker.
We want to.
We want to see what we can get from thatfamous speaker.
So by integrating ethos, logos and pathos,
having a beautiful balance between the two,
that's the way a presenter, a speaker can setup the audience to be persuaded to take that
(09:32):
action after the speech is over, a day after,a week after, a month after.
Because the other issue that I'm.
That I'm battling in the book is most speechesare forgotten by the next day.
Okay.
Most and I have data on that and the reasons
why our brain isn't wired to sit down.
(09:54):
45 minutes sitting passively while someone isdroning on.
And so we tune out quickly.
18 minutes.
That's why TED talks tend to be eight minutesmaximum.
This day and age, it's even shorter becauseyoung people are desperately hooked to their
smartphones and looking for any reason to bedistracted.
(10:18):
So speakers need to be aware of.
Martin (10:20):
That and they need not be bored.
And thanks Robert, and you will continue here.
But you gave me argument for podcasting now.
So when you have listened, you could pause,
you could rewind and you could listen again.
Robert (10:35):
Yes.
Martin (10:36):
And then if you find this podcast episode value for you, then you could give
value back voluntarily in different ways.
You could spread it to a friend,
you could help us out in different ways.
And you could also stream satoshis or send a
booster gramme, real money, bits of bitcoin.
So. And we take silver also and other thingslike that.
(10:59):
So it's all good.
Robert (11:00):
There's one other aspect if I want to get to.
And I want to hear from you.
Martin (11:05):
Yep.
Robert (11:06):
Carrie Ann, this is what she would do.
She's not going to sit down and listen to
this.
She'll print out the transcript.
Martin (11:12):
Yes, it's included.
Robert (11:14):
She's a reader.
Martin (11:15):
Good.
Robert (11:16):
She doesn't like.
She is a reader and so she doesn't doaudiobooks.
She doesn't listen to podcasts.
She doesn't even want how good looking I am.
You know,
so. But the point is there's that segment ofthe audience that they just want to read the
transcript.
Martin (11:35):
And that's a good, good point, Varen.
And now it's a feature with that you can get
transcripts.
And we included that in the work to put up
transcripts.
Robert (11:46):
Right.
Martin (11:47):
So that's, it's accessibility thing.
But it's also for your matter of, you know,
how you take in or how do you say, how do youprocess things?
So that was very interesting note there.
Robert (12:00):
And you know something,
Martin?I'll say I, I'll mention that because one of
the things I cover in the book is the factthat people absorbed in absorb information by
different.
There is not a one size fits all.
And speakers need to be aware of that.
Some are visual, some, some actually visuals.
(12:21):
Having visuals leads to much greater retention
afterwards than someone standing at a lecterngripping it with, you know, gripping the
edges.
And so.
But we need to be aware of that.
How does our audience absorb information?
Blair (12:40):
Now a couple of things popped in my head, while you were talking.
And Aristotle,
difficult to read.
And so. And you.
You. You picked up a book about his rhetoric.
Is that a. Is that an interpreter that youwould recommend, you know, or if you know,
(13:02):
John.
Robert (13:04):
John Lewis?
Yes,
this was his copy.
This was actually.
This was his copy with some of his notes init.
Carrion and I, we spent more than a year goingthrough.
Aristotle's Rhetoric by Joseph Sacks is adifferent translation,
so I'm looking at different ones.
Sacks is the one that.
(13:25):
Carrie Ann, who is an interpreter,
she translates herself, can read it in theGreek.
And so in my book, I actually have a hundred.
100 in the index, 100 citations.
This is like a.
You know, it's a thin book, but it'sscholarly.
(13:45):
And there is.
So I'll just go on a slight tangent.
There's so much junk out there.
There's so much garbage.
And Carrie Ann, as the editor, she's like,holds my feet to the fire.
How do you know this number of people areafraid of speaking?
Well, the citation here.
No, someone just threw that number out there.
And if I can't find an actual source,
I had to take out.
(14:05):
I had to rewrite.
Martin (14:07):
How much time did you spend on that when.
Blair (14:10):
On your book?
Robert (14:11):
On the book itself,
more than a year.
It was late July last year that I carved out
roughly 90 minutes to two hours a day on thebook, despite running a business, despite
giving presentations and coaching and allthat.
So it was from August through,
(14:33):
I think, April.
I think I finished it in April.
And then back and forth with the.
With the publisher.
Okay, so.
But a lot of it hearkens to my past.
A lot of it are stories from.
From my past.
And so.
But, Blair, I just.
Coming back to Aristotle, he is tough to read.
He is tough to read, especially on your own.
(14:55):
I'm fortunate in having.
Carrie Ann,
we have a small group who's going through hisentire corpus slowly, very slowly.
Now we're on his metaphysics,
which is a.
His.
His metaphysics is a night to say that.
Anyway, so just coming.
Coming back to his impact with the.
(15:18):
With his rhetoric, I'll just say this.
Why did he write his rhetoric?Because back then, there was a group called
the Sophists,
and they were all about using tricks.
Martin (15:29):
Yes.
Robert (15:29):
They wanted to win an argument.
They wanted to grab the loot, grab the.
They were like snake oil salesmen, but they
were good at getting people emotionallystoked.
And Aristotle.
So the term rhetoric had, like, a negative
connotation.
Still does today, right?Yes.
Blair (15:46):
Yeah.
Robert (15:47):
In that interim, Aristotle said No, there's a science to persuasion here.
And I'm going to methodically go through theseprinciples.
Ethos, logos, pathos.
So my, one of my goals, I have billion goalswith the book, but one of them is to restore
the value of the term rhetoric.
Okay, now this.
Blair (16:06):
Thank you, thank you.
Robert (16:07):
Rhetoric tips that I'm.
Once a week I'm putting out a different tip
using rhetoric, but go ahead.
Martin (16:13):
Yeah.
Blair (16:14):
I can't tell you how, how sick I am if every once in a while I'll hear,
you know, read.
Trick your mind into this, this, you know,
this or this is how you trick your mind.
How to do, you know, to psych yourself up or
whatever.
It's not a trick,
it's.
There's a certain method.
(16:35):
Yes, you know,
but I'm. And I, I'm just everyone,
whenever I see that I just, I get, I start toboil.
But my other question, when I. Again,
sorry, Martin, let me.
And then you can jump in.
Jeffrey Sachs is S, A C K S. Joseph Joseph.
Robert (16:55):
S A C H, S. Okay, Jeff.
Blair (16:57):
Joseph Sachs.
All right, thank you.
I'll look for his books.
Or has he got more than one?
Or just one?
Robert (17:03):
Yeah, so we,
so for instance, we're doing his meta.
He's the translator of metaphysics.
He has the rhetoric.
We, we did Nicomachean ethics is his best, is
a good one.
His politics.
So we've done several of his translations.
A few like the categories he didn't do and Ithink physics he didn't do but most of them
(17:25):
were going through Joseph Stacks, histranslations.
Blair (17:29):
All right, thank you, thank you for that because I'll be looking those up.
Robert (17:31):
What.
Blair (17:33):
Since you've been a speaking for a professional speaker for quite a while, who
were your teachers, your heroes, your mentors?
Robert (17:42):
My heroes? Yeah, my all time favourite.
His name is Les Brown.
Blair (17:48):
Oh my.
Yeah, sure.
Robert (17:50):
His laughter, he cracks jokes and his laughter is like infectious.
And he says one of my favourite, my favouritequotations.
He's the first.
When you open the book, it's actually.
Let's go to the videotape as they say.
Right, right.
Okay.
Chapter one, the joy of speaking and why itmatters.
Okay.
Okay,
(18:11):
first quote.
One of my greatest joys in life is speaking.
Can you identify with that?
And then I go into why people have the joy ofit and then I flip the.
Flip it of why people are afraid of it.
Okay.
And the value of overcoming that.
I have several different ways to overcome
different types of fear of speaking.
(18:33):
So Les Brown,
I quote him so often when I'm speaking one ofmy favourites.
He says if information,
when we go to a presentation or listen to apodcast, we get information.
And he says if information was enough,
everybody would be skinny, rich and happy.
(18:55):
Look around.
Is everybody skinny, rich and happy?
Blair (18:58):
No, normally I don't have the camera.
Martin (19:03):
It's only for audio part there, so you're safe.
Robert (19:07):
So the point here is that if from the stage or from the front of the room, if
presenters simply divulged information andaudiences grasped it and acted on it,
then that, and that was enough.
Then we'd have a different culture.
So the point is we need to connect with theaudience.
(19:29):
We need to pull them from where they are hereto where we want them to be.
Now, is that manipulation?
The sophists thought it was, but Aristotle isa man of reason and he's like, let.
How do we persuade them?Well, we combine these three ethos, logos,
pathos.
So that's one example of Les Brown, like his
(19:50):
geniusness for me is that my goal is to notjust give information.
It is.
And another coach of mine,
Mark Brown, who I have regular sessions with,
met many times.
He says,
don't deliver a lecture,
bring an experience.
(20:12):
Now, a week from today, a month from today,what do you, you go to an event,
see the speaker.
What are you more likely to remember in a weekor a month or a year?
A lecture or an experience?
Blair (20:27):
Hopefully the experience.
Robert (20:29):
Yeah.
Well, yeah, you don't want to get stabbed atit.
And that's an experience.
And that's.
There are, there is that kind of thing.
But no,
an experience means you're engaging all thesenses.
You're getting them to raise their hand,you're getting them to involved.
And it's not, you're, it's not the audiencejust sitting there passively,
(20:51):
somewhat absorb, somehow absorbing thisinformation and retaining it sometime after.
So that's why I say I'm not a lecturer, I'm apresenter who gives it, who delivers an
experience instead of giving a lecture.
Okay, now, there are contexts.
I will,
(21:12):
I will say this.
Carrie Ann, who comes from the academic world
and she's gone to these conferences, theseacademic conferences,
and they do give lectures and the professorstake notes and I understand.
So my method is not optimal there.
And it took me, it took me a while to get her
to even change her thinking on this.
(21:34):
But there's even, even in the lecture format,there's a more effective way and a less
effective way.
The more effective way is asking reflectivequestions, prompting the audience,
getting that buy in telling stories,
things like that, that, that turn what we canconsider like a dry academic paper into
(21:57):
something more alive and more retainable.
More sticky is the term that I like to use.
So a speech, a presentation, that's sticky.
And this is where one of, one of the books Irefer to, it's called Made to Stick Chip Heat.
And Danny and I know Martin's heard about it.
Who.
And their point is presenters.
(22:20):
One reason most speakers have forgotten.
Presenters have what is called the curse of
knowledge.
What's the source of knowledge?Speaker knows what's in his or her head.
What they want to say doesn't mean theaudience does.
So they use these acronyms, they use theseterms that are way over.
So you right on the dime, Blair, you called meout.
What is ethos, logos, pathos?Guess what I'm talking about so much.
(22:43):
But I need to define it and clarify it soit's.
Everybody knows early on.
If I'm going to use this term 20 times, let's
get it straight from the get go.
And I have a lot, a few pages explaining what
those three pillars are in the book before youadvance.
Blair (23:01):
All right, excellent.
Now tell us about some of your speaking
engagements.
You don't have to reveal unless you want to.
I mean, who you've spoken to.
I mean, corporations or associations or.
Yes,
go ahead.
Robert (23:16):
Yeah. So last year,
Last year I was invited to Nairobi, Kenya.
Last year was a big year for speaking.
I spoke in Tbilisi, Georgia, while there were
riots going on.
And then in Kenya there was.
They had shot protesters like two weeksbefore.
They were.
They were having these scheduled planned
(23:36):
protests and the authorities were justshooting them.
So Carrie Ann and I went.
We went to give a presentation and then alsoto grade.
The culmination was 100 students from all overthe world.
And there was a debate contest on therelationship between political principles and
moral morality and political principles,
(24:00):
objective morality.
And we were the judges of that.
So first we presented and then a few dayslater we coached the students.
And for me as a coach, it was like a dreamcome true.
And a lot of the testimonials, a lot of thebook itself came out of that because my
presentation was on.
It was called Voices of Reason and it was
analysing, it was showing excerpts from famousspeeches.
(24:23):
And then I would have the audience.
In fact, I even went over time because theaudience was so engaged.
I was like, okay, what is that?Ethos, logos or pathos?
And just everyone's raising their hands.
And so.
So that was the most important speech I gavelast year.
This year I'm running events for businesses.
One of them is for engineers,
(24:45):
communication for engineers.
Because guess what?
Engineers speak engineer ease and they need toknow anyone who's seen office space.
You know, I'm a people person.
You know, like what do you do?
You need someone between the engineers and theactual people, the vendors.
All right, well, I'm that guy.
I get them.
I've never been smart enough to be anengineer.
(25:05):
And yesterday I coached a guy who's navalofficer engineer.
And I was like, no, I, I was a technician.
I wasn't smart enough, but I know what they
were aiming for and I'm a communicator, I'm acommunication, communication coach.
So I've been helping this one.
I have a 12 session series.
Part of what Martin attended because one of
(25:26):
my,
one of my friends is he's a partner in a firmand he knows the value of what I'm doing.
So he's got his whole team signed up and sowe're doing a 12 session over 24 weeks
programme on communication.
And so that's actually via Zoom.
And I anticipate getting more of those kinds
(25:46):
of gigs because I really like the businessatmosphere.
One of the things that troubles me,
including in business, particularly inbusiness, you have a good product, you have a
good service,
but it's poorly delivered,
it's boring.
You don't, you're, you yourself are not evenexcited about it.
How can you excite your audience?
(26:08):
Your.
And so that's where the spoken word ramping upthe impact.
So my goal is to be like doing businesses.
You know, down here in Orlando, there's a
couple of businesses that, that I'm in touchwith, a couple of chambers of commerce.
But in New York,
I have a gig in New York, a speaking gig tobusiness people about, guess what, the value
(26:31):
of capitalism.
Okay?
The relationship between capitalism andprosperity and having them speak out about
that value as opposed to feeling ashamed ofit.
No, that's word that, you know, that's a wordI don't want to use.
(26:51):
So I have that coming up in September in NewYork and I'm really excited about that.
And the thing is that like I'm going to beusing examples from my book.
Blair (27:00):
Good.
Robert (27:00):
And then the last I'll say before I open it back to you is on two, two days ago,
one of the Africans who I quote in the book,Edgar McKenzie from Burundi, he has an
organisation out there in Africa and I coachmore than 50 of his,
(27:23):
his network,
50 people via.
It wasn't even Zoom, it was Google Meets.
And they have power outages going on andthere's shady thing.
But all 50 of them were riveted to thecontent.
And this is going to model going forward forthe book because not only it's not just, it's
(27:44):
not just content.
There are a lot of exercises on how good
improve your speaking.
So it's a workbook and a book where if youread the material and you do the exercises,
you will be better.
It's just that simple.
And to have a willing group in Africa,
which I loved my trip there, I got to seeelephants, real life elephants.
(28:06):
Even though the hotel was saying, don't leavethe hotel, there's armed guards were
everywhere.
And I was like, hey man, this is my chance.
I, I, I gotta see elephants.
And we're here.
It's like,
and, and so a lot of exciting things,
guys.
Blair (28:22):
Again,
I've never been to Africa, but I, you seemovies and you see documentaries.
Some of it is just staggeringly gorgeous landand everything.
It's just,
and it's a shame.
They, I would, I'm hoping that, yeah, they'llget their act.
A lot of those nations there will get theiract together.
Martin (28:45):
Yeah.
Robert (28:45):
And ideas change the culture.
We know that, right?
Blair (28:48):
Yes, yes, that's right.
Robert (28:50):
And it's usually a minority, it's a small segment who are committed.
That's what we have right now.
That's one reason Magatt Wade, who is the
seventh speaker, the only one who's alive, whoI cover in, in my book,
she has a great TED talk and I analyse her TEDTalk.
And she's born in Senegal and she's anentrepreneur over there.
And now she's in, I think Austin,
(29:11):
Texas.
And her thing is open it up to entrepreneurs.
Don't give us aid, don't give Africa aid.
That's a waste of time.
It just goes to the pockets.
Blair (29:21):
Pockets of the crooks.
Robert (29:22):
Yeah,
she's like, open it up to entrepreneurs, takeout the regulations, and you will see Africa
flourish.
And my goal, that's one of my purposes with my
book, is to have those ideas as well, settingthem up for some kind of,
you know, success in the future.
But,
you know, you reminded me, I used to brag thatI'd been to six continents and I had been to
(29:47):
Africa to, yeah, to the African continent, thenorth.
I went more than 10 years ago.
I wasn't with Carrie Ann.
A town called Ceuta, which is in Morocco.
14, 15. This was a pivotal moment in Westerncivilization.
Prince Henry the Navigator, Portuguese fromnobility in Portugal, he went to this town,
(30:09):
Ceuta.
They conquered it because the Muslims, the
Moors controlled the Mediterranean at thetime.
And he opened it up and that's where thePortuguese started be shipbuilding.
The whole age of discovery.
I wrote a long article on that.
So when I went there, I went to Ceuta just tosee where Prince Henry was from.
(30:30):
You know, as I'm walking down, it's nowSpanish.
It's part of Spain, so everyone speaksSpanish, which I can fake my Spanish, you
know.
And I'm walking down and in Greek mythology,that was one of the towns that Hercules.
They were.
There's Gibraltar on one side of the
Mediterranean and Ceutis on the other.
(30:51):
And according to Greek mythology, there was aslingshot that he would shoot, you know,
into the Mediterranean. So I see these Greekcolumns and Greek figures, and I'm like, I
didn't expect this.
Then I see one of Aristotle.
I'm like, what is Aristotle doing in Africaright now?
It's Northern Africa.
Never.
Nevertheless.
(31:11):
And it wrote about him at Estoteles in
Spanish.
It had like a little plaque.
And I remember Alan Gotthelf was like the.
The aristotle authority, like 15, 20 yearsago.
And I asked him, I was like, alan, is that.
Do you know of a statue in.
Of Aristotle on the African continent?And he's left.
Maybe Alexandria might, but I don't.
(31:32):
I'd never been there.
But last year I went to the sub, you know, the
subcontinent, where.
So the northern part doesn't just like kind ofSouth Africa.
Does it really count as Africa?Or as you said, the image of Africa is like
Lion King and it's, you know,
something in our minds and.
But give them freedom and you will see things,
(31:54):
you know, like any other culture.
Just take the chains off and they willflourish.
Blair (32:01):
So what.
What is your ultimate vision or your ultimate
goal, your ultimate dream about why you wrotethat book?
What do you want to see happen?
Robert (32:18):
What I want to see happen, why I wrote the book is, guess what?
You would not know this, but I used to beafraid of speaking.
Blair (32:31):
No, I don't believe that.
Robert (32:36):
So I know how it feels,
okay?I was a singer in a rock band,
all right?And I saw this movie, Gimme Shelter, where
Mick Jagger controlled the crowd that was onthe verge of a riot.
And in Altamont, California, 10 years old.
And I said, I want to be like that.
I want to have that kind of control over thecrowd.
(32:58):
So a couple of years later, I'm singing in aband,
and after every song,
I almost had my back to the.
I could.
I could sing the words of someone else.
But when there was silence in between songs, Iwas just scared to death.
I'm actually saying something.
Okay. And then in class, you know, okay, givea speech.
I was nervous and then I walk away from.
(33:21):
In fact,
you guys know, I'm a bit of a ham.
I like the spotlight.
So I'm thinking, well, how can I performwithout having to speak?
Oh, I know what I'll do.
I'll become a ballet dancer.
Because that's what they do.
They dance, but they don't have to speak.
And then sure enough,
(33:42):
that for several years.
But then I got hired by Merrill lynch and Ibecame a manager.
And I had to present.
I had to.
I was.
I had to get up in front of people and do a
turnover shift and report to upper management,things like that.
I needed to speak with authority.
You know, this Blair Wright, data centre.
(34:02):
I was a data centre manager.
If there's an outage,
you can't get on the phone weekly.
And.
And traders cannot trade.
You need to be authoritative on the phone.
And so I went to Dale Carnegie courses and I
went to Toastmasters, and I learned thescience of speaking as a result.
So my point here, this is 30 something yearsago, is let me take this knowledge,
(34:28):
boil it down and show people who are afraid tospeak.
Now there's.
There's a few ways.
There are people who are afraid to speak andthen there are others who are simply blabber
mouths and don't know when to shut up.
Okay. They also coaching because beingsuccinct, a professional speaker knows how to
be succinct.
(34:48):
You get to the point and then you shut up and
you let person absorb the material.
So my goal, ultimately, my goal is lettingpeople own their own voice.
Because I've seen this and Martin, I've seenthis over and over again.
Someone is slumped over and they're timid andthey're nervous and after a few sessions,
(35:13):
they stand.
There's this confidence that comes out of themand they're a different person.
And the best dramatisation, if we look at filmhistory,
this movie, I always recommend it.
The King's Speech with.
It's one of those colons.
Yeah.
Blair (35:34):
First.
Robert (35:35):
Yeah,
yeah.
Anyway,
what happens in the king?The king himself has a stuttering problem.
Yeah.
So he goes to a coach, a speech coach,
and you see the evolution.
You see his confidence the entire movie.
He slumped over.
He's a tall man, but he slumped over.
Only at the end, he nails that speech and hewalks out like a king.
Martin (35:56):
Yes.
Robert (35:57):
Yeah,
yeah.
That's what I do.
Okay. That's. That's what I enjoy doing,seeing that evolution in the So I want CEOs to
have that.
I want entrepreneurs to have that confidence
when they're in front of their staffs becausethey have so much power that they're not
necessarily aware of.
Their words carry a lot of weight.
(36:18):
But if they're, if they're caving in to the
pressure of what someone is telling them orthe wrong word, you can't use these words.
So they self censor.
And my point here is no, speak up,
speak up.
Defend your company, defend your profits that
you're making the value that you're creatingso that everyone can be better off.
(36:43):
We can move towards a fl, you know, aflourishing society.
Ultimately it's for, for the purpose of afreedom and flourishing society is what my and
I think my book is a path toward that end.
Martin (36:56):
Yeah. For the defenders of liberty, as you wrote in the foreword there.
Robert (37:00):
Yes. Yes.
Blair (37:02):
And liberty.
Robert (37:03):
Thank you for saying that.
Yes.
Lessons for liberty's leaders.
And liberty here is not simply political, it'sthe freedom.
Frederick Douglass was a slave.
I go into his story.
But he taught himself how to read.
In fact, he would have gotten punished.
He would have gotten, he did get whipped.
Blair (37:21):
Yeah.
Robert (37:21):
Because he was caught reading.
Imagine somebody getting whipped today because
they're caught reading.
So he.
But his point was I have a mind and I'm going
to use it.
And then when he escaped slavery, he had a
voice and he put that voice to use.
And so Self Made Men is the speech that his,that I analyse in his book and he talks about
(37:45):
become.
The chapter title is Becoming Self Made.
How do we become self made?
We use our voice.
Blair (37:51):
You know, we tell you just,
just yesterday the CEO of Bed Bath and Beyondtold California to shove it nice.
He's not put, he's not putting any more storesin California.
And I think he said he's closing the ones thatare there because they're just not taking that
**** anymore.
Robert (38:11):
This is.
And we've seen, we're starting to see thismore and more but two, three years ago it was
really dangerous to speak out.
There were punished, there were repercussions.
And I talk in the book about Edward Snowden
and James Damore from Google.
I mentioned them by and they're not, they're
not trying to cause havoc.
They just, they're just giving evidence ofwhat they observed and speaking out and they
(38:35):
get vilified.
And so but the more the pendulum has swung alittle bit in the direction of people speaking
out and not being punished for that.
So My goal is giving people a voice, givingthem a platform, giving them the confidence,
the courage and the,
and the confidence to say what's on theirmind.
Martin (38:57):
That's what I like with podcasting, because that is freedom of expression.
And we, it's.
We could run our own show, you.
Blair (39:09):
Know, Martin, I'm assuming.
Martin, we're still.
We have an audience in over 90 countries.
Martin (39:16):
Yes. So.
Robert (39:19):
So invite Robert to come and speak in your country.
Let's go.
Blair (39:23):
That's right.
Robert (39:24):
Yeah.
Martin (39:24):
So if they reach out to us, we could, could arrange that.
Blair (39:28):
Robert, if you have anything to add, please do.
Martin (39:30):
Yes, I have.
Blair (39:32):
We can wrap it up.
Martin (39:33):
We have an important thing.
If everything goes smoothly, it will bepublished on September 2nd or on, around or
before that.
It's. It's a symbolic date.
Right.
This.
So I, I'm looking at something.
Do you know what I'm looking at right now
behind my computer?
Blair (39:52):
I do, yes.
Martin (39:53):
Do you know, Robert?
Robert (39:54):
No, I don't.
Martin (39:56):
It's an artwork, you could say, or a poster or.
How do you say it?It's a, It's a piece of.
Blair (40:03):
Yeah, a poster.
Martin (40:05):
A poster, yeah, by Bosch Foston, with 9-2-sign.
Robert (40:10):
Oh, that's right.
The dark.
Yes, yes, yes.
Martin (40:13):
In original there.
So I'm always looking at that, but.
Robert (40:16):
I'm, that's a. I'm actually looking at the Brian Larson called First First Heat, I
think you know that one where it's kind oflike Hank Reardon pouring that.
Martin (40:25):
Yeah. Reed and Steve.
Robert (40:26):
Yeah. It's pretty much based on the Hank Reardon.
Martin (40:28):
So for the, for the listener out there that don't know the importance.
September 2nd, do you want to say why you wantto have the book published there?
Robert (40:37):
And if you know Atlas shrugged, it is September 2nd.
It's called Atlas Shrugged Day because thenovel starts September 2nd, and there's a four
year timeline in real time going forth in thenovel.
There's a backstory,
but four year.
And every September 2nd there's an incident,
there's some kind of shakeup that happens onthat day because Ayn Rand herself started
(41:01):
writing it.
September 2, 1947, I believe.
So that's the referent there.
And I'm hoping you don't air it before thenbecause for the week of September 2nd to the
9th,
the book will be available on Kindle for 99cents.
Martin (41:16):
Yeah. So that's why we want.
So you, you name, you name it when you want it
published and we will.
I will get it done.
Robert (41:23):
So, yeah.
Yes. September 2nd.
And I even have a book launch party.
And yeah, so I'm grateful for that becausethis is,
this is the kind of book people need,
I will say.
And there's no book like this that gives you
philosophy, history,
presentation skills, heroism and selfdevelopment all packed up into 180 something
(41:50):
pages with tonnes,
tonnes of stories, tonnes of citations and alot of,
lot of fun.
Martin (41:59):
Great.
Blair (41:59):
All right.
A lot of references maybe too.
Martin (42:01):
Yeah.
Blair (42:02):
Well, ladies and gentlemen, we've been talking to Robert Begley, author, speaker,
entrepreneur.
Robert, tell people where they can find you on
the web.
Robert (42:12):
So my name,
Robert at Begley, is my email, but SpeakingWith Purpose is llc, is my company.
So. And the website is Speaking With Purposellc.
You'll find all my info up there.
And there's even a pull down for the book,Voices of Reason.
You can even pull down from that website ifyou want a free chapter of the book,
(42:36):
the opening chapter I have right now availableand the table of contents, things like that.
So I want to say thank you gentlemen forhaving me again.
Did we,
did we escape the foxhole?Did we, did we,
yet again, like three for three with thisfoxhole thing.
Blair (42:55):
I was just about to say thank you for manning the foxhole with it.
Okay.
Robert (42:58):
Manning it, yeah.
Martin (42:59):
Thanks, Robert.
Blair (43:02):
That's my signature line.
Robert (43:03):
I. Yeah, I think.
Blair (43:05):
Anyway, Robert, been a great.
It's been a great pleasure.
Martin (43:09):
Yep.
Blair (43:09):
And we will hopefully see you again.
Robert (43:13):
Yes, you will.
Blair (43:15):
Very good.
That's a wrap.
Martin (43:17):
Yep. Thanks.
Robert (43:44):
Sam.
Foreign.
Blair (00:08):
Ladies and gentlemen, hello.
Hello.
Welcome to episode 102 of the Secular Foxholepodcast.
Martin,
we're going to have to mind our P's and Q's.
You know why?
We have a professional speaker on with ustoday.
Martin (00:24):
Yes, we have.
And you started out nice.
Blair (00:28):
Well, thank you.
Thank you.
Robert Begley is a keynote speaker, certifiedworld class speaking coach,
author of Voices of Reason.
As founder of Speaking with Purpose llc,
he has helped executives enter entrepreneursand other leaders find their voice and speak
with courage, clarity and conviction.
(00:50):
Robert has spoken to audience acclaim acrossthe United States and internationally.
His mission is simple, to help people speakboldly and lead effectively.
Today we're going to talk to Robert about hisspeaking career and his new book.
Robert, how are you?
Robert (01:08):
I am wonderful, absolutely wonderful.
Been on this show several times.
But as an author,
you know what it's like to have this loomingover your head forever.
I've been threatening to write a book sincethe 80s.
Holy cow.
Anyway,
(01:29):
thank you gentlemen.
It is really important to me to be with the
two of you because when you are an author,
you can't be an authority,
okay.
Without having the word author in there and
subject of public speaking, presentationskills, whatever,
(01:51):
however you want to use the expression,
it changes lives.
And my book is about seven famous speechesthroughout history.
I walk the audience through, I break downthese famous speeches from the perspective of
Aristotle.
We've talked about Aristotle in the past, but
(02:13):
his rhetoric is his book of rhetoric,
the art of rhetoric.
He mentions persuasion, how do we persuadepeople?
And he has three pillars, Ethos, Logos,pathos.
And so what I do in my book is analyse PatrickHenry,
(02:33):
Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr.
Winston Church, Aline Rand, Maga Wade,
Frederick Douglass.
Seven magnificent.
I call them the magnificent seven.
I guess.
My notebook.
Seven speakers, it's not all,
you know, exhaust.
It's not an exhaustive list, but they're
speeches that have, have influenced me.
And using them through,
(02:54):
viewing them through the lens of Aristotle,Sithos, logos, pathos.
I want to show today's leaders,
hey, you can use these principles and you havea voice and you need to use that voice because
unlike the two of you gentlemen, a lot ofpeople are afraid to speak out.
They silence themselves, they self censor.
(03:17):
And I want people to speak boldly so they canlead effectively.
Blair (03:23):
I'm still guilty of that, sadly in some, some circumstance.
But you know,
not on here you're not.
No,
no, no.
I constantly strive to, you know,
erase that.
But yeah, there's still, there is a challenge
of that.
Now just for the audience.
(03:44):
When, when you say ethos, pathos and.
Robert (03:47):
And logos.
What?
Yes.
Blair (03:48):
What does that mean in English?
Robert (03:51):
Yeah, you're right, you're right.
Martin (03:54):
Also, if you want.
Robert (03:57):
I'm sorry, you could say it in.
Martin (03:58):
Greek also, if you want.
Robert (04:02):
So ethos,
I'll give you the famous the public speakingexample, and then the what Aristotle meant.
I've studied.
I've been a professional speaker for decades,
and I've studied the science of publicspeaking.
And by ethos,
most speakers mean the credibility of thespeaker.
But guess what?
(04:23):
Credibility is important.
But Aristotle is more precise.
He. He says the moral character.
Martin (04:30):
Like the word ethics.
Robert (04:32):
Yes,
the eth. Ethos, ethics.
Same. Yeah, the same ballpark.
So credibility is an offshoot,
but the moral character of the speaker.
And I'll give you, after I finish the three,
I'll give you a little backstory, a littlehistory on the sophist.
So that's ethos, which I think is the mostimportant of the three logos.
(04:55):
That's what most speakers focus on.
That's the logical.
That's the argument.
Okay, this leads to.
This leads to this conclusion.
All right,
Most speakers, most presenters.
And let me just clarify the difference betweenpublic speaking.
Not that many people comparatively do publicspeaking.
A lot more people do what we callpresentations.
(05:19):
So public speaking, it kind of.
You think of Tony Robbins on this big stage
with hundreds of, you know, thousands ofpeople.
No,
not that many of us get that opportunity, butwe're often much more.
Often we're in front of a small group,
whether it's a board meeting,
whether it is a local chapter of communityevent or something.
(05:41):
And my point in the book, one of the points inthe book is use your voice for any audience,
any setting.
So the logos is what most people focus on.
And then the third one, the pathos,
that is the emotion, the emotional connectionbetween the speaker and the audience.
Now,
audiences, the speaker needs to be aware thataudiences come with their own baggage to a
(06:09):
presentation,
and an effective speaker needs to recognisethat.
So we should not be behind a wall saying, Ihave this content.
I'm going to rush through this content nomatter what.
You gave me 45 minutes.
I'm going to use all 45 minutes.
I got to get through this.
I'm not even going to look up from my notes.
No, that's no path.
There's no pathos there.
Blair (06:29):
Right?
Robert (06:29):
Pathos.
Seeing them watching the head nod,
asking reflective questions, establishing aconnection.
And there's a f. Famous quote which the two ofyou probably have heard.
To trust someone,
it's like we don't care how much you knowuntil we know how much you care.
Okay. And that is where the pathos comes in.
(06:52):
And Aristotle.
So it's not just pure emotion,
it's seeing the direction that the audience isin, the state of mind they're in, and trying
to bring them towards your position, trying topersuade them to.
Through your position.
So jump in on that and then I'll get to thisoffice if you have any responses.
Martin (07:12):
So how could we do it as a podcaster, then?
Because you have the listener out therelistening.
But now with new Podcasting 2.0 features,
we could even have in the future, livestreaming and getting feedback and reactions
thanks to technology.
Live item tags.
Robert (07:31):
Yes.
Martin (07:33):
How could we think as podcasters?
Robert (07:37):
Okay, so as podcasters, address the audience.
Martin (07:40):
Yeah.
Robert (07:41):
So guess what, Blair and Martin,
I think your audience can learn a lot aboutethos, logos and pathos by listening to your.
Your podcast, particularly this programme.
Here's why it's important to them.
So the way Martin knows, the way I coach, it'svery you focused.
You will benefit, you will discover if youlisten to this programme on September 2nd,
(08:07):
that's what we're aiming for, right?Yes.
You will get these benefits.
So do you hear that?Instead of saying,
I have the answers,
listen to me.
End of discussion.
Martin (08:20):
Making it for me, like, yeah, good.
Like a listener.
What's in it for me?Why should I listen?
Robert (08:27):
That's right.
Zig Ziglar, one of the most famous speakers,
says,
most famous radio station wiffm.
What's in it for me?
And when you're sitting, when you're sittingin the audience or listening to a podcast,
my coach, Ed Tate, he has he.
This is what's going on in the mind of the
person sitting in the audience or maybelistening to the podcast,
(08:50):
the speakers droning, right?
All the, all the audience members thinking is,
so what?
Who cares?
What's in it for me?
It's all about me.
Blair (09:05):
Okay?
Robert (09:06):
We know on this programme that's an egoistic.
So we as listeners go there for the egoisticbenefit.
It's not that we want to see a famous speaker.
We want to.
We want to see what we can get from thatfamous speaker.
So by integrating ethos, logos and pathos,
having a beautiful balance between the two,
that's the way a presenter, a speaker can setup the audience to be persuaded to take that
(09:32):
action after the speech is over, a day after,a week after, a month after.
Because the other issue that I'm.
That I'm battling in the book is most speechesare forgotten by the next day.
Okay.
Most and I have data on that and the reasons
why our brain isn't wired to sit down.
(09:54):
45 minutes sitting passively while someone isdroning on.
And so we tune out quickly.
18 minutes.
That's why TED talks tend to be eight minutesmaximum.
This day and age, it's even shorter becauseyoung people are desperately hooked to their
smartphones and looking for any reason to bedistracted.
(10:18):
So speakers need to be aware of.
Martin (10:20):
That and they need not be bored.
And thanks Robert, and you will continue here.
But you gave me argument for podcasting now.
So when you have listened, you could pause,
you could rewind and you could listen again.
Robert (10:35):
Yes.
Martin (10:36):
And then if you find this podcast episode value for you, then you could give
value back voluntarily in different ways.
You could spread it to a friend,
you could help us out in different ways.
And you could also stream satoshis or send a
booster gramme, real money, bits of bitcoin.
So. And we take silver also and other thingslike that.
(10:59):
So it's all good.
Robert (11:00):
There's one other aspect if I want to get to.
And I want to hear from you.
Martin (11:05):
Yep.
Robert (11:06):
Carrie Ann, this is what she would do.
She's not going to sit down and listen to
this.
She'll print out the transcript.
Martin (11:12):
Yes, it's included.
Robert (11:14):
She's a reader.
Martin (11:15):
Good.
Robert (11:16):
She doesn't like.
She is a reader and so she doesn't doaudiobooks.
She doesn't listen to podcasts.
She doesn't even want how good looking I am.
You know,
so. But the point is there's that segment ofthe audience that they just want to read the
transcript.
Martin (11:35):
And that's a good, good point, Varen.
And now it's a feature with that you can get
transcripts.
And we included that in the work to put up
transcripts.
Robert (11:46):
Right.
Martin (11:47):
So that's, it's accessibility thing.
But it's also for your matter of, you know,
how you take in or how do you say, how do youprocess things?
So that was very interesting note there.
Robert (12:00):
And you know something,
Martin?I'll say I, I'll mention that because one of
the things I cover in the book is the factthat people absorbed in absorb information by
different.
There is not a one size fits all.
And speakers need to be aware of that.
Some are visual, some, some actually visuals.
(12:21):
Having visuals leads to much greater retention
afterwards than someone standing at a lecterngripping it with, you know, gripping the
edges.
And so.
But we need to be aware of that.
How does our audience absorb information?
Blair (12:40):
Now a couple of things popped in my head, while you were talking.
And Aristotle,
difficult to read.
And so. And you.
You. You picked up a book about his rhetoric.
Is that a. Is that an interpreter that youwould recommend, you know, or if you know,
(13:02):
John.
Robert (13:04):
John Lewis?
Yes,
this was his copy.
This was actually.
This was his copy with some of his notes init.
Carrion and I, we spent more than a year goingthrough.
Aristotle's Rhetoric by Joseph Sacks is adifferent translation,
so I'm looking at different ones.
Sacks is the one that.
(13:25):
Carrie Ann, who is an interpreter,
she translates herself, can read it in theGreek.
And so in my book, I actually have a hundred.
100 in the index, 100 citations.
This is like a.
You know, it's a thin book, but it'sscholarly.
(13:45):
And there is.
So I'll just go on a slight tangent.
There's so much junk out there.
There's so much garbage.
And Carrie Ann, as the editor, she's like,holds my feet to the fire.
How do you know this number of people areafraid of speaking?
Well, the citation here.
No, someone just threw that number out there.
And if I can't find an actual source,
I had to take out.
(14:05):
I had to rewrite.
Martin (14:07):
How much time did you spend on that when.
Blair (14:10):
On your book?
Robert (14:11):
On the book itself,
more than a year.
It was late July last year that I carved out
roughly 90 minutes to two hours a day on thebook, despite running a business, despite
giving presentations and coaching and allthat.
So it was from August through,
(14:33):
I think, April.
I think I finished it in April.
And then back and forth with the.
With the publisher.
Okay, so.
But a lot of it hearkens to my past.
A lot of it are stories from.
From my past.
And so.
But, Blair, I just.
Coming back to Aristotle, he is tough to read.
He is tough to read, especially on your own.
(14:55):
I'm fortunate in having.
Carrie Ann,
we have a small group who's going through hisentire corpus slowly, very slowly.
Now we're on his metaphysics,
which is a.
His.
His metaphysics is a night to say that.
Anyway, so just coming.
Coming back to his impact with the.
(15:18):
With his rhetoric, I'll just say this.
Why did he write his rhetoric?Because back then, there was a group called
the Sophists,
and they were all about using tricks.
Martin (15:29):
Yes.
Robert (15:29):
They wanted to win an argument.
They wanted to grab the loot, grab the.
They were like snake oil salesmen, but they
were good at getting people emotionallystoked.
And Aristotle.
So the term rhetoric had, like, a negative
connotation.
Still does today, right?Yes.
Blair (15:46):
Yeah.
Robert (15:47):
In that interim, Aristotle said No, there's a science to persuasion here.
And I'm going to methodically go through theseprinciples.
Ethos, logos, pathos.
So my, one of my goals, I have billion goalswith the book, but one of them is to restore
the value of the term rhetoric.
Okay, now this.
Blair (16:06):
Thank you, thank you.
Robert (16:07):
Rhetoric tips that I'm.
Once a week I'm putting out a different tip
using rhetoric, but go ahead.
Martin (16:13):
Yeah.
Blair (16:14):
I can't tell you how, how sick I am if every once in a while I'll hear,
you know, read.
Trick your mind into this, this, you know,
this or this is how you trick your mind.
How to do, you know, to psych yourself up or
whatever.
It's not a trick,
it's.
There's a certain method.
(16:35):
Yes, you know,
but I'm. And I, I'm just everyone,
whenever I see that I just, I get, I start toboil.
But my other question, when I. Again,
sorry, Martin, let me.
And then you can jump in.
Jeffrey Sachs is S, A C K S. Joseph Joseph.
Robert (16:55):
S A C H, S. Okay, Jeff.
Blair (16:57):
Joseph Sachs.
All right, thank you.
I'll look for his books.
Or has he got more than one?
Or just one?
Robert (17:03):
Yeah, so we,
so for instance, we're doing his meta.
He's the translator of metaphysics.
He has the rhetoric.
We, we did Nicomachean ethics is his best, is
a good one.
His politics.
So we've done several of his translations.
A few like the categories he didn't do and Ithink physics he didn't do but most of them
(17:25):
were going through Joseph Stacks, histranslations.
Blair (17:29):
All right, thank you, thank you for that because I'll be looking those up.
Robert (17:31):
What.
Blair (17:33):
Since you've been a speaking for a professional speaker for quite a while, who
were your teachers, your heroes, your mentors?
Robert (17:42):
My heroes? Yeah, my all time favourite.
His name is Les Brown.
Blair (17:48):
Oh my.
Yeah, sure.
Robert (17:50):
His laughter, he cracks jokes and his laughter is like infectious.
And he says one of my favourite, my favouritequotations.
He's the first.
When you open the book, it's actually.
Let's go to the videotape as they say.
Right, right.
Okay.
Chapter one, the joy of speaking and why itmatters.
Okay.
Okay,
(18:11):
first quote.
One of my greatest joys in life is speaking.
Can you identify with that?
And then I go into why people have the joy ofit and then I flip the.
Flip it of why people are afraid of it.
Okay.
And the value of overcoming that.
I have several different ways to overcome
different types of fear of speaking.
(18:33):
So Les Brown,
I quote him so often when I'm speaking one ofmy favourites.
He says if information,
when we go to a presentation or listen to apodcast, we get information.
And he says if information was enough,
everybody would be skinny, rich and happy.
(18:55):
Look around.
Is everybody skinny, rich and happy?
Blair (18:58):
No, normally I don't have the camera.
Martin (19:03):
It's only for audio part there, so you're safe.
Robert (19:07):
So the point here is that if from the stage or from the front of the room, if
presenters simply divulged information andaudiences grasped it and acted on it,
then that, and that was enough.
Then we'd have a different culture.
So the point is we need to connect with theaudience.
(19:29):
We need to pull them from where they are hereto where we want them to be.
Now, is that manipulation?
The sophists thought it was, but Aristotle isa man of reason and he's like, let.
How do we persuade them?Well, we combine these three ethos, logos,
pathos.
So that's one example of Les Brown, like his
(19:50):
geniusness for me is that my goal is to notjust give information.
It is.
And another coach of mine,
Mark Brown, who I have regular sessions with,
met many times.
He says,
don't deliver a lecture,
bring an experience.
(20:12):
Now, a week from today, a month from today,what do you, you go to an event,
see the speaker.
What are you more likely to remember in a weekor a month or a year?
A lecture or an experience?
Blair (20:27):
Hopefully the experience.
Robert (20:29):
Yeah.
Well, yeah, you don't want to get stabbed atit.
And that's an experience.
And that's.
There are, there is that kind of thing.
But no,
an experience means you're engaging all thesenses.
You're getting them to raise their hand,you're getting them to involved.
And it's not, you're, it's not the audiencejust sitting there passively,
(20:51):
somewhat absorb, somehow absorbing thisinformation and retaining it sometime after.
So that's why I say I'm not a lecturer, I'm apresenter who gives it, who delivers an
experience instead of giving a lecture.
Okay, now, there are contexts.
I will,
(21:12):
I will say this.
Carrie Ann, who comes from the academic world
and she's gone to these conferences, theseacademic conferences,
and they do give lectures and the professorstake notes and I understand.
So my method is not optimal there.
And it took me, it took me a while to get her
to even change her thinking on this.
(21:34):
But there's even, even in the lecture format,there's a more effective way and a less
effective way.
The more effective way is asking reflectivequestions, prompting the audience,
getting that buy in telling stories,
things like that, that, that turn what we canconsider like a dry academic paper into
(21:57):
something more alive and more retainable.
More sticky is the term that I like to use.
So a speech, a presentation, that's sticky.
And this is where one of, one of the books Irefer to, it's called Made to Stick Chip Heat.
And Danny and I know Martin's heard about it.
Who.
And their point is presenters.
(22:20):
One reason most speakers have forgotten.
Presenters have what is called the curse of
knowledge.
What's the source of knowledge?Speaker knows what's in his or her head.
What they want to say doesn't mean theaudience does.
So they use these acronyms, they use theseterms that are way over.
So you right on the dime, Blair, you called meout.
What is ethos, logos, pathos?Guess what I'm talking about so much.
(22:43):
But I need to define it and clarify it soit's.
Everybody knows early on.
If I'm going to use this term 20 times, let's
get it straight from the get go.
And I have a lot, a few pages explaining what
those three pillars are in the book before youadvance.
Blair (23:01):
All right, excellent.
Now tell us about some of your speaking
engagements.
You don't have to reveal unless you want to.
I mean, who you've spoken to.
I mean, corporations or associations or.
Yes,
go ahead.
Robert (23:16):
Yeah. So last year,
Last year I was invited to Nairobi, Kenya.
Last year was a big year for speaking.
I spoke in Tbilisi, Georgia, while there were
riots going on.
And then in Kenya there was.
They had shot protesters like two weeksbefore.
They were.
They were having these scheduled planned
(23:36):
protests and the authorities were justshooting them.
So Carrie Ann and I went.
We went to give a presentation and then alsoto grade.
The culmination was 100 students from all overthe world.
And there was a debate contest on therelationship between political principles and
moral morality and political principles,
(24:00):
objective morality.
And we were the judges of that.
So first we presented and then a few dayslater we coached the students.
And for me as a coach, it was like a dreamcome true.
And a lot of the testimonials, a lot of thebook itself came out of that because my
presentation was on.
It was called Voices of Reason and it was
analysing, it was showing excerpts from famousspeeches.
(24:23):
And then I would have the audience.
In fact, I even went over time because theaudience was so engaged.
I was like, okay, what is that?Ethos, logos or pathos?
And just everyone's raising their hands.
And so.
So that was the most important speech I gavelast year.
This year I'm running events for businesses.
One of them is for engineers,
(24:45):
communication for engineers.
Because guess what?
Engineers speak engineer ease and they need toknow anyone who's seen office space.
You know, I'm a people person.
You know, like what do you do?
You need someone between the engineers and theactual people, the vendors.
All right, well, I'm that guy.
I get them.
I've never been smart enough to be anengineer.
(25:05):
And yesterday I coached a guy who's navalofficer engineer.
And I was like, no, I, I was a technician.
I wasn't smart enough, but I know what they
were aiming for and I'm a communicator, I'm acommunication, communication coach.
So I've been helping this one.
I have a 12 session series.
Part of what Martin attended because one of
(25:26):
my,
one of my friends is he's a partner in a firmand he knows the value of what I'm doing.
So he's got his whole team signed up and sowe're doing a 12 session over 24 weeks
programme on communication.
And so that's actually via Zoom.
And I anticipate getting more of those kinds
(25:46):
of gigs because I really like the businessatmosphere.
One of the things that troubles me,
including in business, particularly inbusiness, you have a good product, you have a
good service,
but it's poorly delivered,
it's boring.
You don't, you're, you yourself are not evenexcited about it.
How can you excite your audience?
(26:08):
Your.
And so that's where the spoken word ramping upthe impact.
So my goal is to be like doing businesses.
You know, down here in Orlando, there's a
couple of businesses that, that I'm in touchwith, a couple of chambers of commerce.
But in New York,
I have a gig in New York, a speaking gig tobusiness people about, guess what, the value
(26:31):
of capitalism.
Okay?
The relationship between capitalism andprosperity and having them speak out about
that value as opposed to feeling ashamed ofit.
No, that's word that, you know, that's a wordI don't want to use.
(26:51):
So I have that coming up in September in NewYork and I'm really excited about that.
And the thing is that like I'm going to beusing examples from my book.
Blair (27:00):
Good.
Robert (27:00):
And then the last I'll say before I open it back to you is on two, two days ago,
one of the Africans who I quote in the book,Edgar McKenzie from Burundi, he has an
organisation out there in Africa and I coachmore than 50 of his,
(27:23):
his network,
50 people via.
It wasn't even Zoom, it was Google Meets.
And they have power outages going on andthere's shady thing.
But all 50 of them were riveted to thecontent.
And this is going to model going forward forthe book because not only it's not just, it's
(27:44):
not just content.
There are a lot of exercises on how good
improve your speaking.
So it's a workbook and a book where if youread the material and you do the exercises,
you will be better.
It's just that simple.
And to have a willing group in Africa,
which I loved my trip there, I got to seeelephants, real life elephants.
(28:06):
Even though the hotel was saying, don't leavethe hotel, there's armed guards were
everywhere.
And I was like, hey man, this is my chance.
I, I, I gotta see elephants.
And we're here.
It's like,
and, and so a lot of exciting things,
guys.
Blair (28:22):
Again,
I've never been to Africa, but I, you seemovies and you see documentaries.
Some of it is just staggeringly gorgeous landand everything.
It's just,
and it's a shame.
They, I would, I'm hoping that, yeah, they'llget their act.
A lot of those nations there will get theiract together.
Martin (28:45):
Yeah.
Robert (28:45):
And ideas change the culture.
We know that, right?
Blair (28:48):
Yes, yes, that's right.
Robert (28:50):
And it's usually a minority, it's a small segment who are committed.
That's what we have right now.
That's one reason Magatt Wade, who is the
seventh speaker, the only one who's alive, whoI cover in, in my book,
she has a great TED talk and I analyse her TEDTalk.
And she's born in Senegal and she's anentrepreneur over there.
And now she's in, I think Austin,
(29:11):
Texas.
And her thing is open it up to entrepreneurs.
Don't give us aid, don't give Africa aid.
That's a waste of time.
It just goes to the pockets.
Blair (29:21):
Pockets of the crooks.
Robert (29:22):
Yeah,
she's like, open it up to entrepreneurs, takeout the regulations, and you will see Africa
flourish.
And my goal, that's one of my purposes with my
book, is to have those ideas as well, settingthem up for some kind of,
you know, success in the future.
But,
you know, you reminded me, I used to brag thatI'd been to six continents and I had been to
(29:47):
Africa to, yeah, to the African continent, thenorth.
I went more than 10 years ago.
I wasn't with Carrie Ann.
A town called Ceuta, which is in Morocco.
14, 15. This was a pivotal moment in Westerncivilization.
Prince Henry the Navigator, Portuguese fromnobility in Portugal, he went to this town,
(30:09):
Ceuta.
They conquered it because the Muslims, the
Moors controlled the Mediterranean at thetime.
And he opened it up and that's where thePortuguese started be shipbuilding.
The whole age of discovery.
I wrote a long article on that.
So when I went there, I went to Ceuta just tosee where Prince Henry was from.
(30:30):
You know, as I'm walking down, it's nowSpanish.
It's part of Spain, so everyone speaksSpanish, which I can fake my Spanish, you
know.
And I'm walking down and in Greek mythology,that was one of the towns that Hercules.
They were.
There's Gibraltar on one side of the
Mediterranean and Ceutis on the other.
(30:51):
And according to Greek mythology, there was aslingshot that he would shoot, you know,
into the Mediterranean. So I see these Greekcolumns and Greek figures, and I'm like, I
didn't expect this.
Then I see one of Aristotle.
I'm like, what is Aristotle doing in Africaright now?
It's Northern Africa.
Never.
Nevertheless.
(31:11):
And it wrote about him at Estoteles in
Spanish.
It had like a little plaque.
And I remember Alan Gotthelf was like the.
The aristotle authority, like 15, 20 yearsago.
And I asked him, I was like, alan, is that.
Do you know of a statue in.
Of Aristotle on the African continent?And he's left.
Maybe Alexandria might, but I don't.
(31:32):
I'd never been there.
But last year I went to the sub, you know, the
subcontinent, where.
So the northern part doesn't just like kind ofSouth Africa.
Does it really count as Africa?Or as you said, the image of Africa is like
Lion King and it's, you know,
something in our minds and.
But give them freedom and you will see things,
(31:54):
you know, like any other culture.
Just take the chains off and they willflourish.
Blair (32:01):
So what.
What is your ultimate vision or your ultimate
goal, your ultimate dream about why you wrotethat book?
What do you want to see happen?
Robert (32:18):
What I want to see happen, why I wrote the book is, guess what?
You would not know this, but I used to beafraid of speaking.
Blair (32:31):
No, I don't believe that.
Robert (32:36):
So I know how it feels,
okay?I was a singer in a rock band,
all right?And I saw this movie, Gimme Shelter, where
Mick Jagger controlled the crowd that was onthe verge of a riot.
And in Altamont, California, 10 years old.
And I said, I want to be like that.
I want to have that kind of control over thecrowd.
(32:58):
So a couple of years later, I'm singing in aband,
and after every song,
I almost had my back to the.
I could.
I could sing the words of someone else.
But when there was silence in between songs, Iwas just scared to death.
I'm actually saying something.
Okay. And then in class, you know, okay, givea speech.
I was nervous and then I walk away from.
(33:21):
In fact,
you guys know, I'm a bit of a ham.
I like the spotlight.
So I'm thinking, well, how can I performwithout having to speak?
Oh, I know what I'll do.
I'll become a ballet dancer.
Because that's what they do.
They dance, but they don't have to speak.
And then sure enough,
(33:42):
that for several years.
But then I got hired by Merrill lynch and Ibecame a manager.
And I had to present.
I had to.
I was.
I had to get up in front of people and do a
turnover shift and report to upper management,things like that.
I needed to speak with authority.
You know, this Blair Wright, data centre.
(34:02):
I was a data centre manager.
If there's an outage,
you can't get on the phone weekly.
And.
And traders cannot trade.
You need to be authoritative on the phone.
And so I went to Dale Carnegie courses and I
went to Toastmasters, and I learned thescience of speaking as a result.
So my point here, this is 30 something yearsago, is let me take this knowledge,
(34:28):
boil it down and show people who are afraid tospeak.
Now there's.
There's a few ways.
There are people who are afraid to speak andthen there are others who are simply blabber
mouths and don't know when to shut up.
Okay. They also coaching because beingsuccinct, a professional speaker knows how to
be succinct.
(34:48):
You get to the point and then you shut up and
you let person absorb the material.
So my goal, ultimately, my goal is lettingpeople own their own voice.
Because I've seen this and Martin, I've seenthis over and over again.
Someone is slumped over and they're timid andthey're nervous and after a few sessions,
(35:13):
they stand.
There's this confidence that comes out of themand they're a different person.
And the best dramatisation, if we look at filmhistory,
this movie, I always recommend it.
The King's Speech with.
It's one of those colons.
Yeah.
Blair (35:34):
First.
Robert (35:35):
Yeah,
yeah.
Anyway,
what happens in the king?The king himself has a stuttering problem.
Yeah.
So he goes to a coach, a speech coach,
and you see the evolution.
You see his confidence the entire movie.
He slumped over.
He's a tall man, but he slumped over.
Only at the end, he nails that speech and hewalks out like a king.
Martin (35:56):
Yes.
Robert (35:57):
Yeah,
yeah.
That's what I do.
Okay. That's. That's what I enjoy doing,seeing that evolution in the So I want CEOs to
have that.
I want entrepreneurs to have that confidence
when they're in front of their staffs becausethey have so much power that they're not
necessarily aware of.
Their words carry a lot of weight.
(36:18):
But if they're, if they're caving in to the
pressure of what someone is telling them orthe wrong word, you can't use these words.
So they self censor.
And my point here is no, speak up,
speak up.
Defend your company, defend your profits that
you're making the value that you're creatingso that everyone can be better off.
(36:43):
We can move towards a fl, you know, aflourishing society.
Ultimately it's for, for the purpose of afreedom and flourishing society is what my and
I think my book is a path toward that end.
Martin (36:56):
Yeah. For the defenders of liberty, as you wrote in the foreword there.
Robert (37:00):
Yes. Yes.
Blair (37:02):
And liberty.
Robert (37:03):
Thank you for saying that.
Yes.
Lessons for liberty's leaders.
And liberty here is not simply political, it'sthe freedom.
Frederick Douglass was a slave.
I go into his story.
But he taught himself how to read.
In fact, he would have gotten punished.
He would have gotten, he did get whipped.
Blair (37:21):
Yeah.
Robert (37:21):
Because he was caught reading.
Imagine somebody getting whipped today because
they're caught reading.
So he.
But his point was I have a mind and I'm going
to use it.
And then when he escaped slavery, he had a
voice and he put that voice to use.
And so Self Made Men is the speech that his,that I analyse in his book and he talks about
(37:45):
become.
The chapter title is Becoming Self Made.
How do we become self made?
We use our voice.
Blair (37:51):
You know, we tell you just,
just yesterday the CEO of Bed Bath and Beyondtold California to shove it nice.
He's not put, he's not putting any more storesin California.
And I think he said he's closing the ones thatare there because they're just not taking that
**** anymore.
Robert (38:11):
This is.
And we've seen, we're starting to see thismore and more but two, three years ago it was
really dangerous to speak out.
There were punished, there were repercussions.
And I talk in the book about Edward Snowden
and James Damore from Google.
I mentioned them by and they're not, they're
not trying to cause havoc.
They just, they're just giving evidence ofwhat they observed and speaking out and they
(38:35):
get vilified.
And so but the more the pendulum has swung alittle bit in the direction of people speaking
out and not being punished for that.
So My goal is giving people a voice, givingthem a platform, giving them the confidence,
the courage and the,
and the confidence to say what's on theirmind.
Martin (38:57):
That's what I like with podcasting, because that is freedom of expression.
And we, it's.
We could run our own show, you.
Blair (39:09):
Know, Martin, I'm assuming.
Martin, we're still.
We have an audience in over 90 countries.
Martin (39:16):
Yes. So.
Robert (39:19):
So invite Robert to come and speak in your country.
Let's go.
Blair (39:23):
That's right.
Robert (39:24):
Yeah.
Martin (39:24):
So if they reach out to us, we could, could arrange that.
Blair (39:28):
Robert, if you have anything to add, please do.
Martin (39:30):
Yes, I have.
Blair (39:32):
We can wrap it up.
Martin (39:33):
We have an important thing.
If everything goes smoothly, it will bepublished on September 2nd or on, around or
before that.
It's. It's a symbolic date.
Right.
This.
So I, I'm looking at something.
Do you know what I'm looking at right now
behind my computer?
Blair (39:52):
I do, yes.
Martin (39:53):
Do you know, Robert?
Robert (39:54):
No, I don't.
Martin (39:56):
It's an artwork, you could say, or a poster or.
How do you say it?It's a, It's a piece of.
Blair (40:03):
Yeah, a poster.
Martin (40:05):
A poster, yeah, by Bosch Foston, with 9-2-sign.
Robert (40:10):
Oh, that's right.
The dark.
Yes, yes, yes.
Martin (40:13):
In original there.
So I'm always looking at that, but.
Robert (40:16):
I'm, that's a. I'm actually looking at the Brian Larson called First First Heat, I
think you know that one where it's kind oflike Hank Reardon pouring that.
Martin (40:25):
Yeah. Reed and Steve.
Robert (40:26):
Yeah. It's pretty much based on the Hank Reardon.
Martin (40:28):
So for the, for the listener out there that don't know the importance.
September 2nd, do you want to say why you wantto have the book published there?
Robert (40:37):
And if you know Atlas shrugged, it is September 2nd.
It's called Atlas Shrugged Day because thenovel starts September 2nd, and there's a four
year timeline in real time going forth in thenovel.
There's a backstory,
but four year.
And every September 2nd there's an incident,
there's some kind of shakeup that happens onthat day because Ayn Rand herself started
(41:01):
writing it.
September 2, 1947, I believe.
So that's the referent there.
And I'm hoping you don't air it before thenbecause for the week of September 2nd to the
9th,
the book will be available on Kindle for 99cents.
Martin (41:16):
Yeah. So that's why we want.
So you, you name, you name it when you want it
published and we will.
I will get it done.
Robert (41:23):
So, yeah.
Yes. September 2nd.
And I even have a book launch party.
And yeah, so I'm grateful for that becausethis is,
this is the kind of book people need,
I will say.
And there's no book like this that gives you
philosophy, history,
presentation skills, heroism and selfdevelopment all packed up into 180 something
(41:50):
pages with tonnes,
tonnes of stories, tonnes of citations and alot of,
lot of fun.
Martin (41:59):
Great.
Blair (41:59):
All right.
A lot of references maybe too.
Martin (42:01):
Yeah.
Blair (42:02):
Well, ladies and gentlemen, we've been talking to Robert Begley, author, speaker,
entrepreneur.
Robert, tell people where they can find you on
the web.
Robert (42:12):
So my name,
Robert at Begley, is my email, but SpeakingWith Purpose is llc, is my company.
So. And the website is Speaking With Purposellc.
You'll find all my info up there.
And there's even a pull down for the book,Voices of Reason.
You can even pull down from that website ifyou want a free chapter of the book,
(42:36):
the opening chapter I have right now availableand the table of contents, things like that.
So I want to say thank you gentlemen forhaving me again.
Did we,
did we escape the foxhole?Did we, did we,
yet again, like three for three with thisfoxhole thing.
Blair (42:55):
I was just about to say thank you for manning the foxhole with it.
Okay.
Robert (42:58):
Manning it, yeah.
Martin (42:59):
Thanks, Robert.
Blair (43:02):
That's my signature line.
Robert (43:03):
I. Yeah, I think.
Blair (43:05):
Anyway, Robert, been a great.
It's been a great pleasure.
Martin (43:09):
Yep.
Blair (43:09):
And we will hopefully see you again.
Robert (43:13):
Yes, you will.
Blair (43:15):
Very good.
That's a wrap.
Martin (43:17):
Yep. Thanks.
Robert (43:44):
Sam.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.