Becoming a better public speaker and presenter with Sardek Love

Femi 0:01

The ability to speak or present in public is something we all have to do at some point in our lives, our careers, or as business people. For a lot of us, it can be scary and for some an impossible task. But there is an art to it, and these skills are learnable. Coming up in this podcast 23, I'm joined by international speaker, coach, and author Stardeck Love as you explore the art of public speaking and share some simple skills anyone can apply to becoming a good and effective public speaker. Stay tuned for this powerful episode. Welcome to the You Unleashed Podcast with Femi Akiemi, the podcast where we explore how to unleash your potential in the workplace, your hustle, and life in general with practical real-life steps. Sometimes I use stories from my past, and trust me, I have got some stories for you. Sometimes I'll just share stuff I've learned, and other times I get people who know a lot more than I do to come into the studio and break it all down for us. You know what I usually say. I've become a believer that done is better than perfect. So whatever it is you do, whatever it is you set your mind to, just start and you'll get better as you go along. Please don't forget to like the podcast, share with your friends and your family, and anybody you want to see become unleashed, at least some feedback on our Apple Podcast page or whatever platform you use. With that said, let's jump right into it. Okay, hello everyone, welcome to the You Unleashed Podcast with Femiakin Yemi, the podcast where we share how to rocket in the workplace and life in general. Now I know one of the things I always do in the podcast intro is I always talk about inviting guests, and I've been doing it for a long time, long time followers who know I've been saying I'm getting a guest on board, and I never quite do, but last week I did, and now I've got another one. So um I'm beginning to fulfill my word. I am a man of integrity, trust me. I don't just say this stuff. Um, so it gives me great pleasure to invite someone who is a friend, a mentor, and someone I for the first time I heard him speak the way he captivated the room. I said, Yes, that is somebody I want to learn to speak like. So it gives me great pleasure to um introduce the CEO of Sardeck Love International and the president and founder of Infinity Consultancy and Training Solutions. Um, a highly engaging and impactful speaker, and he's probably spoken about what 32 countries across the world, and he's the author of um a few books. So it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you Mr. Sardek Love. Sardek, thank you so much for joining us.

Sardek 2:56

Man, for me, it's a pleasure to be here with you and your listeners. So I am excited uh and honored to have an opportunity to come on here and help people get more unleashed in the world of speaking, however, they want to do that.

Femi 3:10

Fabulous. Thank you. I mean, I speaking is one of those things that you hear a lot of people talk about I would rather die than stand up in front of people to speak. So tell me, how did you get into public speaking?

Sardek 3:26

So my journey, I won't bore you with a lot of details, but it was like many other people. I'm an accidental speaker. And uh yeah, I mean, the reality is in short, I was in a very technical job in my first role. And when uh it was an underwriting job. So if anyone's familiar with insurance, you know, uh I was a medical underwriter for Blue Cross With Shield in Virginia, yeah. Very, very technical. And yet I had this ex you know, expressive personality, and most underwriters are very introverted. I'm very much not, you know that. And um yeah, that's not me. So I was good at the technical side, but then I always had to do something to get rid of this energy. And and so my my management team recognized this about me, and so I would get my work done and do it well, but I would get it done early, and so I would start messing with other underwriters, and they would get really irritated with my wanting to have a conversation. So they said, you know what, let's let's give you an outlet for this energy. And next thing I know, I was doing presentations and that the rest is history. That's history.

Femi 4:34

So it's one of those moments. So that's how you became unleashed. You uh to unleash your full because I know this is what you love to do. I have seen you captivate a room of five, ten, and even at the American Um Tech Um Talent Development Society, which were both members of it, which is where I met you first. I've seen you captivate captivate a room of hundreds using props and all sorts of things. And I thought, I wonder how he does it. So um, I'm pretty sure that's something we'll dig into as we get into this. But tell my friend, how are you? How are you these days?

Sardek 5:07

Well, I'm like everybody else, man. We're all dealing with this COVID-19 pandemic, so I'm hanging in there. Uh, many of the speakers and trainers, and I being a professional speaker, a lot of my business obviously was disrupted from speaking in terms of in front of groups. But you know, I quickly and the the cool thing for me is I've been skilled at doing virtual programs for years. It's just something I didn't really focus on a whole lot in my business because I prefer the face-to-face, as you know. But uh when this this forced me to shift, so I've just pivoted like many uh had to do, but I I really didn't have to do it as as much as the others. And uh so I'm doing okay. I'm doing really well and and and uh it's it's going well.

Femi 5:51

Oh, and and that's good. I mean, it's something I found too. All of a sudden, um there's this demand for speaking virtually, and there's this demand for um virtual communication. Now, a lot of us in in the speaking field and training and all of that, we've been doing this, but they've always treated us as almost like um it's almost like a gimmick, or it's it's a nice to have, is probably the way to say it. But all of a sudden, there is a demand for speakers virtually or for employees, for staff to be able to communicate effectively virtually, and and and that takes a different skill in itself, doesn't it?

Sardek 6:27

It's a whole lot of different skills, and that's one of the things that I'm addressing right now, you know, in the for the speakers and trainers in particular, is I don't know, I don't know about you, but I've taken this time to sit in on lots of different webinars and Zoom meetings just to one, see what's going on, and two to you know pick up some new tips. And I I have seen almost probably 90% of these things are filled with boring, rambling, irrelevant stories, and just yes, they I'm gonna put the word out there. Most people suck at this, but it's not their fault. It's not, it's not, it's not their fault they don't know what they don't know.

Femi 7:03

They don't know what they don't know, and you automatically think, Oh, I speak like this face to face, so I'll just do the same thing I do virtually.

Speaker 1 7:10

Right.

Femi 7:11

And what they don't realize is you have people who can they'll put the screen on, but they can be looking at their phone, they're not engaged, so it's one thing to speak, but it's another thing to have your your listeners captivated, your audience captivated, isn't it?

Sardek 7:23

Yeah, and and there's every aspect of this whole process. A lot of people are new to doing the virtual setup and they don't know how to set up their screens for this. I mean, just looking at you and I, we're at eye level with our cameras, and a lot of people, their shots are, you know, you're looking up their nose at the back of it, you know, all that kind of stuff. So one of the things I'm I'm addressing just on my uh whether it's LinkedIn or Facebook page, is I'm throwing it out there saying, here's some tips, tutorial videos on how to even just do your virtual presentation setup and making it simple for you because we don't want to look up your nostrils.

Femi 7:59

No, we don't, a lot of nose action. Yeah, I'm recording. So you spoke very quickly, and that's a good chance to mention this. You spoke very quickly about your LinkedIn and your and your handles. Tell us where can we find you actually? On if you for those of I know a lot of people will be interested after the good things you have to share. Where can we find you on the social media?

Sardek 8:18

Yeah, good question. So I'm on all the major social media channels and platforms. I'm very active on LinkedIn, and I have both Facebook professional for my business, and I also have a personal Facebook page. You're more than welcome to join me on my personal Facebook page. I'll tell you why you want to. And I'm on Twitter, not as active, uh because you know, that's just not where my target market sits as a lot. So, and then I'm very active on Instagram as you are as well. So people can find me. I'll just mention this very quickly about my personal Facebook page. I do that's where I show a lot of my fun side. Okay, I keep it business, but it's it's I have a sense of humor, and people have realized that about me. So if you want to have some fun, get some quotes, and then just see the absurdities of life and have a little fun, connect with me on my personal Facebook page and join that tribe because that's crazy. We have a lot of fun over there. Okay, and that's called Sarek Love. Yeah, every everything is under my name, Sardiq Love. Just look me up and you'll find me. You can Google me and you'll see everything, or you can go to each each man up uh social media uh platform and you'll find me.

Femi 9:24

Yeah, and I can vouch for that. I follow you and I get a good laugh, but I learn at the same time when I follow you. So that's great. So tell us, I know um just before um COVID-19, this unfortunate pandemic, you were always on the road. And one thing I always notice when I follow you is that you are at one airport or another, I know. And I always wonder how does it keep it up? But tell us, you were in the middle of promoting your book. Um, tell us what's the name of the book and tell us what that book's about.

Sardek 9:51

Yeah, so the book is, and you can see it back on the wall there, at least the cover Speak for a Living, second edition, and it's co-authored with uh Ann Bruce. We released that book back in October, or it was released by the Association of Talent Development back in October of 2018. So we're a year and a half in, and the book is positioned for those who are interested in learning how to build a speaking career, whether it's speaking, training, coaching, consulting. So it's the business side of speaking for a living. It's it is the second edition now, and and because Ann wrote the first edition, and the second edition has the black cover here. So we basically updated it. Uh, the first one was written a decade ago, so it's a little bit outdated, as you can imagine. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, fabulous.

Femi 10:39

All right, so tell so tell us some of the what are some of the things that you some some some it'll be good for you to share some. So we have um a lot of people when one of the big challenges they find is as individuals, as business owners, as people who have to present, who have to communicate to big audiences, tell us some tell us some things you can share with us that we are to think about that can make us better, more effective, and powerful communicators and speakers.

Sardek 11:05

No doubt. So we'll keep it simple to five things, right? Uh, and and this is what I coach anyone who wants to be a presenter, and we're all literally presenting all the time. So the five things, if you're actually doing a presentation of any kind, whether it's to a small group, uh, if you're training, or if you're doing a you know full-on presentation, doesn't matter. These five things are important. And number one, you should become very good at telling stories. Wow. Now, now, storytelling, people tell stories all the time, but the problem with most people when they tell story stories is they tell a story that starts here, it goes over there, it goes over here, it goes over there, it goes over, and you never have a point. So there are some very easy ways to tell stories. It's a formula, really. And that's one of the things I teach is the narrative arc of the storytelling process. So learn how to tell stories, and I can go deeper on any of these, but I'll just give you the five real quick. Um, the second one I would say is know your audience. And as simple as that may sound, most people go in there and they come from an ego perspective, what they think as opposed to what their audience wants or needs. And and um, and so that sets up where you start telling stories about yourself as opposed to telling stories that are relevant to your audience. So find out and know everything about your audience. And that's important because if you know your audience, then the next one, the third thing, is you really, you really must know what their what I call massive freaking problems are, MFPs, that's what I call them. You know, we all have problems, but what are the urgent, pervasive, biggest challenges that are driving them nuts, that are barriers to their success? If you know those, yeah, you can appeal to them and they'll pay attention to you, and then those stories should be based off of providing solutions to those massive freaking problems. So knowing their problems. The fourth thing I would say, Femi, is they uh most people don't really know how to, and I call it edutain. So it's be an entertainer and a trainer educator at the same time. And and uh most people don't know how to do that. You there's a variety of techniques you can use, whether it's storytelling, uh embedding appropriate humor, uh, all kinds of things, but you need to have a sense of edutainment about you because adults don't, as you know, they don't like to sit there and just listen. Um, you want to be an engaged in some capacity, and then the fifth thing that I would mention very quickly is um, and this comes over time, is find it's a lot of people call it find your voice or develop your style. Don't try to imitate others. You might use somebody else as a roadmap or a model for a while, but then really be seeking to try to develop your own speaking presence and style because that's what's going to make you memorable. You know, um, when I first started on the speaking side of my business, I I idolize and to this day, I still idolize John Maxwell. So I would try to emulate his storytelling ability, and it just didn't work because he comes from a preaching, biblical, pastoral background, and storytelling is a little bit different there. And and and that I couldn't really emulate those those types of stories because I was trying to be like him. Once I realized it's okay to be Surdi Glove, I found my style, and that's how we met.

Femi 14:31

Wow, wow. That's powerful, and those are powerful things. And I'll work through a few. I think it'd be good to like kind of talk talk about them from the start, and without giving us everything, just enough, is so storytelling. I mean, what are these what's this formula about storytelling? So if someone's listening, what's what's what can they do to just get storytelling better?

Sardek 14:54

Yeah, this is easy, folks. Uh, storytelling. There are a few components to every story, and it all follows a formula. So the the formula, and I'll just kind of walk you through it. So think about your favorite movie. Okay, and and I'll use uh it as an example. That's one of my favorite movies by uh uh Stephen King, one of my favorite books, too. So the hero, there's characters in there. So you got the hero, which is the main character, and you've got the villain. Yeah, and the hero starts out in the first part of this is they start out, they always start out in good fortune. So everything's okay. So in it, you can imagine you probably see if you're familiar with the story, it's about kids being chased by a clown and all that. Well, the movie starts out with a kid, think of a drone coming in, zooming in on a kid that's riding a bicycle down a street. So that's the oh, everything's cool, the kid is fine, and then you have the hero who's okay, and then the next part is you introduce the villain, yeah. And the villain's sole purpose in the story is to introduce conflict or put the hero in increasing levels of despair. Yes, so you have to find the problem that becomes that conflict, or that's the villain. So in the business world, the villain is the problem that your audience has. Yes. Okay, so you introduce that conflict, and now all of a sudden the kids are afraid of clowns, and this clown is chasing them, and in those stories, killing kids and all that, they're all disappearing and all that. So you got a main character that's trying to figure out how to survive. So things just keep getting worse and worse and worse, and the narrative arc is they're going into further despair. So part three, uh, so let me come back. Part one is identify the hero, they're in good fortune. Part two is the villain, introduce the villain, which uh brings in a conflict. Part three is things have gotten so bad that the hero uh just doesn't seem like he or she can make it. The world is coming to an end for them. And then at that very it's called the bottoming bottoming out. They're at the worst point that they, you know, nothing looks like they're gonna make it. And then you introduce the third character in every story. It's called the guide. Yeah, so the guide comes along and helps, and the sole purpose of the guide is to come and give the hero advice so that the hero takes action from that advice and saves the day. So let me come out of it for a second and come over to one of my other favorite uh movies, and it comes out of uh your one of your superheroes there in the UK, and particularly in London, uh 007.

Speaker 1 17:45

Right?

Sardek 17:45

So in the in every movie, 007 has a guide that comes along and helps him save the day. And in most cases, it's uh Q gives him the the uh the tools and techniques to to give him uh the things to help him overcome and beat the adversary. So that's that's the arc, and I'll recap it real quick. It's hero. Yeah, introduce the villain, brings a conflict or problem. The problem gets worse and worse and worse until it looks like things are just gonna not work for the hero and the hero won't make it. Then you come in, introduce the guide. The guide provides advice to the hero, the hero takes that advice, that advice helps the hero save the day. And here's the last piece of the formula when you are telling a story, you should never be the hero. You should always be the guide that comes along by your customer or your audience. They're the hero. Yes, you give them the solution that you provide as the guide to help them save the day. So you, as a speaker, are always looking to be in the position of the guide, and that's very powerful.

Femi 18:53

Now that you talk to me about it, I think about business meetings. So people who are presenting in meetings, people who are speaking in their local church in the community, or you're asked to stand up. The hero or the subject is the people you're speaking to, or it's the business. So if you're a business presentation, the business is doing well, and then all of a sudden the business has a big crisis, sales drop, or something's not working, or the or the project is failing, and all of a sudden you come, you're the guide, and you come that these are some things we can do. We can apply this step to improve the business, improve everything, and then the business takes that in, they apply it, and then in sales improves, or whatever it is that they're doing, or the congregation, or your audience, whoever it is you're speaking to, they apply your guide, and then change happens and there's a transformation, and it's about making people invested in that story. That's why the there needs to be a bottom for your hero. Things need to get so bad that everyone's invested in seeing how does this get better, and then the guide comes in and then it does go. And that that's how you loop it in and it creates a powerful story.

Sardek 20:00

It's a formula every major blockbuster movie, every blockbuster book follows the exact same formula. There's variations of it, but it's called a 3X story. And if you follow it, you're gonna naturally engage them. There's a little bit more complexity to it in terms of how to do it right, but that's the basic formula. And so, what I teach most people, whether it's a business person who's presenting for the first time, doing basic presentations or full-on speaker who's standing on a stage to you know generate ten or twenty thousand dollars for one hour speech, the formula is the same. The practice and the execution is where you create the uh experience.

Femi 20:37

Yeah. And that comes with that, that comes with practice, right? At least if you get the fundamental blocks. People have um coaches like you who can train them to get it perfect, but at least if you follow those principles, that's a start, right? That people can start to to get better.

Speaker 1 20:54

Fantastic.

Femi 20:55

I love that. That's something I certainly will be taking on. I think the second one you spoke about was audience. I cannot tell you the number of times I've seen people go into meetings. They so if it's someone going into a meeting with an exec and they start going into detail, like you start seeing the executive team yawning, or or vice versa. You go into a a room full of underwriters, for your example, really technical people, and you keep it so high level, they start asking questions, you're thinking, I don't get it. Tell us how important is it to know your audience, or why is it so important?

Sardek 21:28

Well, if you want to influence anybody, you better know who they are and what motivates them. Because if you don't, how are you gonna make any difference to them? People only take advice from those they know, like, and trust. We've heard that cliche. And you can establish your credibility to get them to know, like, and trust you fairly quickly. One of my favorite examples in terms of um so I'm an African American uh man, and one of my first things that I did when I started my business, my speaking training coach consultant business is I started doing work. The oil and gas industry. Now, let's put it in perspective. I went into West Texas, and I know many of your listeners will understand Texas just from stereotypes and everything about Texas, but they don't see people like me, African-American men, on an oil rig. Okay. Let's just keep it real. So here I am, I'm showing up to teach oil rig managers and their crews in West Texas about leadership. Okay. Now I have no credibility with them, but the one thing that I had, because I never worked on a rig, I don't know anything about rigs. The one thing I did have in common with them, and I understood this audience is in the US, most people in the oil and gas industry are big NASCAR fans, race fans. Yeah. I happened to, when I was moved from New York to Virginia, I lived near a one of the major uh NASCAR circuit racetracks, the Martinsville Speedway. So to immediately understand them and to connect them and get them to just be willing to listen to me. I immediately asked them one question: Who's your favorite race car driver? What number? Tell me your number. And they would throw out 58, 47. And I knew what those were. So I immediately started talking to them about, you know, Earl Dale or Hart or some of the other prevailing uh race car drivers of the time. And pretty soon they forgot that I was very different from anything that they ever saw or would ever see on an oil rig in West Texas. So you got to know your audience at that level. If you don't, you're walking into a hornet's nest of wasted time.

Femi 23:39

That that's so powerful. And what you said there just reminds me of I I know you're a John Maxwell fan, like I am. And one thing you always say is if you win their heart, you win their hand. If if you don't, if unless you empathize and put yourself in their shoes, and then you can understand how they see the world, then the connection comes. But if not, you're going and there's a disconnect. And once there's a disconnect, you lose the room very quickly, don't you? You just lose the room, and it's hard to win it back.

Sardek 24:07

It really is. I think there's some studies out there, I'm not sure on the most recent ones, but I've seen studies in the past where they said people judge you and evaluate you within the first like uh three seconds or less. So, you know, you've got a very short period of time to get them interested. And then what, like you said, if you don't get it and keep it, it's it's awfully hard. And once you lose it in a presentation, it's it's usually gone.

Femi 24:33

Yeah. Yeah. So it does look like preparation is a big part of presenting or speaking. The better prepared you are, the more chance you have of winning, right?

Sardek 24:43

Absolutely. I want to know as much as I can when somebody contacts me about speaking. One of the major things I spend a lot of time on in terms of the conversation, exploratory conversation, is tell me all about your audience. Tell me what are their massive freaking problems so that I can get an understanding, so that I can then start to tie in and think about what are the experiences that I have, as well as stories I can bring that'll quickly grab their attention and keep it.

Femi 25:10

And what I love about that is whether we like it or not, even in conversations with your friends, if you're trying to influence um someone, um, someone you meet for the first time, someone that might hire you for a job, you're trying to pitch for business, even when we meet people we want to connect with networking, the more you can connect, the more influence you can have. And to connect is to be able to speak their language very or speak their language or their lingo very quickly.

Sardek 25:37

Yeah, yeah. And to your point, the more you can talk about their problems and their interests and be a solution provider to them when they want it, the more influence you'll have. It really is that simple. The challenge is we're hardwired in our mind to think, and I did see a study on this 90% of the time people think about themselves. Very few percentage of the time do they actually think about others. So we're all creatures and it's a survival thing.

Speaker 1 26:04

Yeah.

Sardek 26:05

So those who win are those who help others, and you've heard Zig Ziglar say it, others have said it, you help others get what they want, and you'll get what you want. It really does truly come down to that.

Femi 26:15

Yeah, it's like that old Steve Steve Covey thing where he says, seek to be on seek to understand before you seek to be understood. Yeah, and I think that that's pretty powerful. I think that's one I think everyone can take on board, is it doesn't matter what it is, you need to move yourself after the way. It's not about you, it's about impacting the listeners, it's about your message being heard, and they only heard it through their world, they only understand it through their own worldview, isn't it?

Sardek 26:42

That's exactly that's a great way of putting it. It's through their lens. If you can tap into be the producer of their movie, you get them. If you don't, if you try to produce your movie, yeah.

Femi 26:53

Good luck. I love that one. I love that one. So on to the next one. F MFP, the massive freaking problem. Freaking problem. And so, what does that mean? What is that massive problem? What does that mean?

Sardek 27:10

Okay, so this one is is as simple as it is, it's not easy. Again, because we tend to try to superimpose what we think other people's problems are. The best way to figure out what other people's MFPs are, massive freaking problems, and this is gonna sound super simple, and it is, it's just to simply ask. It doesn't get any simpler than that. And so, how do you do this? You you simply see most people, and I I did this on a recent uh Instagram live that I did, a session on the the three habits uh of success, and I did that with Hamza Takea out of Kuwait. And I asked him, and I'll ask you just to reflect on the question. When people encounter a problem, when you encounter a problem, what's your first reaction? Is it a statement or is it a question? It's only a statement, isn't it? It is 95% of the time it's a statement, people have a problem, and then if they immediately go into try to solve that problem, but they do one of two things. They either uh they either accuse or they defend. Now, let me explain this very quickly. So if someone thinks that the problem was caused by you, they're gonna accuse you. Yes. If you, on the other hand, think someone is accusing you, what do you do? You defend. So typically, when problems are present, people go into either accuse or defend, and rarely do they ask questions of how to solve for that. And that's the challenge. So, one of the big habits of understanding other people's masses, freaking problems, is not to assume that you know what they are, is to simply ask, What are your problems? What are the what's the biggest challenge you're facing right now? That question alone is so powerful because now people do what I call throw up. If you get them and they trust you, you say, What's your biggest problem? They'll go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Tell you everything you want to know. Then just listen.

Femi 29:11

And I'll come back to that, but I'll loop it back to the previous point about know your audience. This is where sometimes you have to know them. And sometimes knowing them also means asking the question. So don't don't, if you're creating a presentation or a PowerPoint or you're going to speak, don't just assume that you know what the problem is and just blurb it out. Like you said, it's it's ask. Sometimes just ask and they'll tell you. And it's like when I when I when I said when I said Sardek, I'd love you to come speak to our um to my audience about one or two things. You said, What do you want me to speak about? What's their pain point? And I said, Oh, these are these are my kind of audience, these are the things I get questions about, and I went, and you went, Great, I have just a thing for you. So you asked me, so and now we're here. So I think that's a powerful one. Is just it it's it's just ask. It's just ask, isn't it?

Sardek 30:02

It literally let me tell you, man, and you've seen me do this. So I uh, you know, one of the things about my success as a training professional at large conferences is I use an index card, and and Femi knows this. And if anyone wants this activity, you can just reach out to me afterwards and I'll get you the activity. But imagine if you ask people, and I have at the ATD A Association of Talent Development Conference on an annual basis, I get uh 1,200 to 1,500 people in a room. I give each one of them an index card and I ask them to write down the biggest challenge that they're facing in their job right now. And I give them like 30 seconds to write it down. And then I get them go through this whole activity where they rank these cards and any anyway. So at the end of the process, what I end up getting out of that 1200-person room is 1,200 individual cards with their descriptions of their problems. And guess what? Most of them have come out in themes. So I start to see the themes of what the major problems are. That has allowed me to then figure out where do I spend my focus as a speaker, trainer, consultant, coach on which problems, where are their top 10? I can tell you the top 10. Actually, I can tell you the top 20 challenges that training professionals have on an annual basis. But here's where it gets sweet. This is from an index card, but here's where it gets really sweet. Now I can see what they wrote and literally take their words word for word and reuse those words in my marketing so that people will say when they read my descriptions of my sessions at conferences, they're like, I want some of that. Because listen to this. If you're a training professional, have you ever delivered training that even you would have slept through? Yeah, most people would say, yeah. Um, if you're a training professional, have you ever delivered training where you ask questions and got bone crushing uh crickets, no, you know, silence and no responses? Yeah, oh yes. Oh yeah, oh yeah, right. Um if you're a training professional, have you ever ran out of time because you got so much content? So you just start rushing through the content and just to get through it. Have you ever had that happen? No, you never had. Yeah, and so what you're doing, what I'm able to do is take those are words that were on index cards and literally just pull them off the index card, put them in my session descriptions, and give them to event planners and say, if your audience, I know if your audience are training professionals, I know that they here, they're gonna answer yes to this, and that's gonna draw people. And then I say, if you want a solution to any of these problems, come to my session. That's how I pack my sessions and I call it the map uh pack the freaking session session description formula. I just gave it to you on an index card.

Femi 32:46

That's amazing because one of the things I always tell people, and I think people should start trying to do, is whenever you're running a virtual call or whenever you're running a session where you're going to present, one of the things you can always ask is very quickly, is what do you hope to get out of the session? And you ask that question. People go, Oh, I hope you cover this, you hope you covered that, and then you have a list somewhere, and you or you make a note, and by the time you finish that, if you've covered off most of that, you have some very satisfied customers. And that's what I tell people all the time.

Sardek 33:19

Yeah, totally agree. That's so that's another angle of a great strategy, absolutely.

Femi 33:24

So that's so that's that's powerful. So it's really just asking people. So if you're and if if you're one of the audience, now if you're if you'll have a presentation, you're if you're presenting, you're speaking, and it doesn't matter what you do, sometimes just ask.

Sardek 33:39

Yeah, and one other thing I would say too, ask, and then the other side of the communication process is listen. Oh, yeah. And yeah, because most people don't listen, they stop listening, they're listening to return a response and to actually wait for their turn to talk as opposed to active listening. Here's another little tip on listening. Um, and I always tell people if you're a presenter or you want to do presentations that are effective, be a collector of complaints. Listen to the things that people regularly and consistently complain about. Because if you can have a solution, if you can be that guy that provides a solution to the most frequently complained about, aka most frequent or freaking biggest freaking problems, you now also will grab their attention. See, people want solutions to problems, that's what they're seeking. And so when people ask me what do I do, here's how I describe myself I'm a professional problem solver. That's what I do.

Femi 34:33

That's what that's what the world needs, isn't it? Yeah. So, yeah. What problems have you solved? And then you tell them what problems you solve, and then boom. Exactly. Wow. And you you said a lot about listening, and I'm gonna pivot off that list. I know we're on number three. You said you have to listen. How important is it to be able to, even as you're speaking or presenting, listen? How important is listening, reading the room? How important is that? And is that something you can do easily? I mean, talk to us about that.

Sardek 35:03

Yeah, that's that's another nuance, and that's I give you credit, and this is where your expertise comes into play because you know this. A lot of your listeners, if they're not in the training or in the speaking world, they may not necessarily know this. But to read your room, listening is both active listening through hearing, but it's also the body language, reading people's facial expressions and all that. And so one of the tools that I use a lot for that and became trained in is the disc profile. If you're familiar with the behavioral assessment disc, and the reason I prefer that one over some others, like the Myers-Briggs personality assessment, is disk is a behavioral assessment, meaning it's not personality uh driven and personality traits are innate, you're who you are from a very early age. Whereas disk, behavioral assessments, you can actually people change their preferences on their behaviors based on a variety of different things. So a good speaker presenter should be adept at looking at the room and reading the room. And the more that you can read the room and see if things are not resonating through body language, you can see people start to react. If they're not getting it, or if they're starting to do things like look down on their phone while you're talking, you're losing them. Or you're gonna switch up your tactics and your techniques, or uh, and to your point earlier, I think you mentioned about the getting into business presentations with executives and you just go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, no, no, no. That you're gonna lose them. So that's where reading the room and the listening, both actively and through the body language, is hugely important. In fact, I would say that's probably aside from your content, the next most important part of any presentation is reading the room and adapting as you need to.

Femi 36:43

So tell us, have you have you ever been in that situation? And what what what have you done? So sometimes maybe you got the room wrong, you read the audience, you you didn't, you miss it, you didn't, you don't you didn't know, you don't know your audience quite well, and you're speaking and you realize I'm losing them. How did you save it? How do you what can people do to save a presentation that's not quite going or a speaking session that's not quite going as they want, and they're losing the room?

Sardek 37:09

Well, uh, the best example that I always talk about, and it actually happened there, and when I was there and you came and picked me up, and and I did a program there in London. The most aggressive feedback I've ever got where I lost the room was there. And and I don't mind saying the company name, it's okay because it's true. It's a it was a massive failure on day uh this was a multi-day program, I think it was four days on day two with BP. And I was there to do a consulting program for BP, and I lost that room, man. I I thought I knew the room, but there were some cultural differences. And I actually had a woman come up to me and and I asked for anonymous feedback at the end of day one, where they could just write out how they're feeling, any changes they want me to make. She actually made sure that I knew it was her. So she she came up last and gave me her sheet. So I knew it was her. When I read her feedback, it went like this. Uh, and I don't remember exactly what she said, but it was along these lines. She said, Um, I'm not confident and sure that you know what you're talking about. Please stop telling uh asking us questions because it appears that you don't know. Um, she used a term that's very uh familiar to you. I forget the term now, uh, but it I didn't know what it was, but I I talked to you and figured out what it was. But ultimately, what what she was saying was, I sucked. And so I I you know, I went back to the hotel that night and and I had not had this level of, and I knew I was losing the room because this particular woman was a strong influencer with the rest of the group.

Speaker 1 38:43

Yeah, yeah.

Sardek 38:45

So you know, this was a this is and I'm I got three more days. I'm like, what am I gonna do? I didn't sleep that night, so I came up with a strategy and I said, you know what? It instead of me trying to figure it out, let me just ask. So I I use what I just talked to you about. So I came back in the room. Now I showed the the manager, I showed him the feedback, and I said, I'm I need to you know do an interjection here. I said, but I don't need you in the room. I want you out of the room, I want them for an hour. Yeah, and he said, That's really risky. I said, I know, but I've lost them already, so trust me on this, man. Uh, you know, either and I knew the stakes were high for him, so I framed it up that here's the stakes. Either you give me a shot and I save it, or if you don't give me the shot and let me do it by myself, it's gonna be bad anyway. So give me, you know, give me a chance. So he took the risk and gave me a chance. Now I came across very confident, but the reality was I had no idea if it would work, but I was gonna go there. And uh I went in there and within an hour I got everything out on the table, got people talking, fleshed out what the real issue was. I was just listening and I flip charted what they said, and then they said that they wanted me to change, I literally said, Okay, here's how I'm gonna change them. So, in in process, real time, I told them, okay, I didn't I didn't react, I didn't defend, I didn't feel like I had to defend anything. I just said, Okay, if this is what they want, this is what they want. And I changed the entire way I facilitated. And by lunchtime, now I'm not saying this to boast my ego or tell you a lie, but by lunchtime, and I have an email, he sent me an email at lunchtime of that second day, and he said, I don't know what you said, but I'm hearing that you have done something incredible that no one anticipated. We finished up that program and it was an amazing success, but day one was a huge derailer. Um, and so I had to listen and let my ego go.

Femi 40:39

Yeah, I remember picking you up that day, actually, and you were down, you were down, and you I forget the word you used as well now, but uh I know I helped you uh explain that. But I think this brings up to some we're making a pivot into other stuff now, but there's a number of things I love that's come out here. Number one is as a speaker, you will get bruises. Or as a presenter, if you're going to present to executives, to your peers, or anywhere, sometimes it's just nature of putting yourself out there. Sometimes you may lose the room and you have to take it on the chin and learn from it. Sometimes you get an opportunity, or like you, to turn it around if you have the experience. If you don't, you have to learn from it. But also you have to you've got to be you've got to be willing to to listen. And that's it, and that's the thing that I that I take my hat to you for. And I also appreciate that you were vulnerable enough to share is that you're admitting that I mean you speak you spoke in 36 countries, you speak in rooms of a thousand five hundred or two thousand, and this is you saying sometimes it didn't go well, and for all of us, all of our listeners, you're not making promises. The reality is some sessions will not go well, but you've got to get back up and continue. So, is that thing a thing for speakers? You have to be resilient. Is that something our speakers have to kind of oh yeah?

Sardek 42:01

In fact, we talk about it in the book and Speak for a Living Second Edition. We talk about the fact that if you decide, you know, you want to do speaking as a career of some sort, whether it's training, speaking, coaching, consulting, you better have a you better have thick skin and you're gonna take it on the chin. It is inevitable. Somebody's not gonna like you for a variety of reasons, rational, irrational, it doesn't matter. Um, as much as I am very good at what I do, and many of us are very good at what we do, you know, even to this day I get the evaluations from uh my conferences, and people will say I'll get one, two, or three, or four, five out of a thousand, two thousand people, and I'll get a few that will say, basically, I sucked, uh, it was a waste of their time. And you know what? Here's what I do with that type of feedback. I take it under advisement. If there's something that I can take action on to improve, I do. But the other side of this is, and this is something that I had to learn too, is there are people, everybody has an opinion, and opinions are like, but we all have one, and so it's okay to get give me the feedback, but tell me what I can do to make it better. If you're just giving me your opinion, I appreciate it, thank you. But I may not use it, you know. I need actionable stuff, so but yeah, you definitely gotta listen, you definitely gotta be an ego list, and you gotta be willing to take it on a chin. It's okay, yeah.

Femi 43:18

And that's a powerful point, is not every feedback is valuable, so you take it under advisement. And what that means is when people give you feedback, you've got to almost without logically and without emotion assess the feedback to see if it's a fair feedback, or if if you uh and don't forget, you've got maybe 90% of people say you've done a great job. So you don't want to throw out the baby with a bath wall just because of one person who said something. So um out of every 12, there'll always be one, right? That's that's right.

Sardek 43:49

Your your point is so well taken, right there, and that's and I want to highlight that because that is the big issue, and that's the big point right there. Focus on the majority, yeah, respect the outliers, but Don't make your decisions based on outliers unless you're going towards them from an innovative perspective. So you got a bell curve. Some people are going to love you, some people are going to hate you. Most people, you know, in the middle, you focus on where your audience is. That's why knowing your audience is so important. And I always tell people to your point on this, on the outliers, if I'm speaking and that person doesn't resonate and I don't resonate with that person, they're not my ideal customer or target anyway. So it's okay.

Femi 44:28

You can't appeal to everybody. No. That's in fact. No. Yeah, um, no, no, I think that that's that's some powerful. So and I think one of the things I also want people to realize is I because I know because you train all kinds of people, you coach all kinds of people, you speak to all kinds of people, and that's what people need to realize. The fact that you make the fact that you are not necessarily thinking of going into public speaking the way we do it, the reality is if you are going to grow your career, if you're going to grow in whatever field you are, people will want to hear about how you achieved it. Or if you want to, the higher you go in your career, you're going to need to let other people know what you plan to do. So you will always, whether you may not be thinking of yourself as a speaker, but for all of us, as our career develops and whatever we do, we will be called on to speak. And the better you are at it, the more effective your message gets heard. Because at the end of the day, we all want our messages to be heard, right?

Sardek 45:27

Well said. John Maxwell has a definition of leadership. He says is leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. The way you get it is through your spoken word and your ability to solve other people's problems. It you know, so it's simple as this stuff. I always say what is simple is not easy. And in fact, one of the things I've done here with the uh COVID-19 pandemic has allowed me to pivot a little bit. And and so now moving more into more of a brand where my performance consulting side is coming out, where I say, you know, as a professional problem solver, what I do is peak performance. It's and peak performance made simple, simple but not easy.

Femi 46:08

Oh, yeah, it's it's like the whole thing with Apple. People see it, and everything is so simple, but there's a lot of hard work that went into it working smoothly. Yeah, wow. I love it.

Sardek 46:19

Yeah, yeah. Sophistication, when you can take complication and simplify it, that's when you know you're good. And when you're speaking, no matter whether you're a professional speaker or not, here's the key simplify complexity, or I like to say complexity simplified, you will win every time.

Femi 46:38

Oh wow, complexity simplified, you will win every time. Every time, love it. Now, the next one is educated. Now, I'm going to tell people who have not been to any of your sessions because I've been. I attended one of your sessions once, and it was weird. You asked your your assistants to give out sweets, and I got one of these sweets, and you asked us to suck on them, and they were really sort of really bitter, and then something else happened after that. Tell me, what is that? What's the deal with that sweet? What is it about what's that about? And this is linking into entertainment. What is about that sweet?

Sardek 47:17

Yeah, so what you're referring to is this activity that I I created, and I call it a taste of change. Again, and many of you, if you're familiar with these candies called warheads, so they're known for being very sour at first, extremely sour, and then they eventually turn sweet. And when they go sweet, yeah, there's five different flavors that they turn into. But on the front end of that thing, it's one of the worst tasting things you'll ever put in your mouth. Now, what I do is I use that as you've experienced, and then thousands have experienced since I've been doing this for the last, I guess, six, seven years now, is I use it as a great metaphor of change to show that if you can go through and everyone goes through change and experiences change relatively through an experience. Most managers and leaders don't understand how that experience actually evolves. So I take you through it with the candy and say, okay, put it in your mouth. And then you, if you put in your mouth, you can't spit it out. And most people, it you know, they're gonna get varying degrees of how bad it tastes. And and I and it's a very visible experience, you got facial expressions, everything. And then I'm coaching people to stick with me. I'm I'm doing it with you, hang in there, and then I start saying, How many of you have gotten sweet? Some hands will go up, some hands won't. And then I'll tell them, here's the best tip that I can give you right now. If it's not sweet yet, here's the best tip I can give you suck it up. Because change requires you to suck it up. You got to go through it to get to it, to get to the destination. And then I ask them the second thing, I say, So what flavors are you experiencing out there? And they'll say, raspberry, blue cherry, blah, blah, blah, and watermelon. And I'll say, that's another point about change that many people don't realize. People will experience the same thing, a piece of candy or some change, but they'll have very different experiences. It might come out as a lemon flavor, it might, and it's all based on your background and experience. So, and I do this activity as you've seen me do it in less than 10 minutes. And so I build it this way: I say, I'm gonna teach you everything you need to know about change in 10 minutes or less. And and it's a powerful is it is of all the activities I do for me, it is the most recorded, most requested activity, most popular activity I have ever done. It has gotten me keynote speeches left and right, year after year.

Femi 49:38

And that, and that's and and what you've done, Dave is you've entertained, but you've educated. So tell us, edutainment. Is that what edutainment is about? It's really finding a way to inform and educate in a way that is so much fun they don't even know that they're learning.

Sardek 49:53

That's it. The phrase you just said right there learning is so much fun that they don't even know that they're learning. When you can do that, whether it's through your spoken word or using props like pieces of candy. And if you want to see this, for those who want to see this activity, see me do it on stage, uh, you can go to my website, SardeekLove.com, and you can see the the it's on my website, uh, A Taste of Change. And uh you can see me do it where I did it for a conference in India. Uh, it is it is by far my most popular thing. And I'll say this real quick: people come back to my session year after year at these different conferences, they know what's coming, and they come back. And I again I ask, I ask people, you know what's coming, why are you back? And then simply say, We love this activity, we love to watch you do it, you know.

Femi 50:40

Yeah, yeah. And that was the same for me. Like, I put and I I must admit, I went, Oh, this is a gimmick. What's this? And I and we were not friends that we were then, so I was still kind of suspicious. And I went, okay, I'll bite. And I put it in my mouth. I went, mm-hmm. And I saw everyone else kind of start to smile and grin because it was obviously they they they'd gotten to the sweet part, and it was still bitter or sour for me, and then my face broke into a nice smile, and then you kind of said, That's change, it's painful at the beginning, but then the end result is beautiful, it's sweet, and that's always stuck in my head. And that's the thing about I want to tell people here is if you're presenting, you're speaking, you have to find try to find humor in it, but make sure it informs and educates, not just for the sake of it. And and then that that leaves the last time. Because I I don't remember what you spoke about that day. I remember that, and I remember that change can be rough at the beginning, it can be sweet, and that's what's stuck in my head. And for adult learners, and most of us will be speaking to grown-ups, that's what sticks. It's things they can remember that stick, isn't it?

Sardek 51:48

It is, and and I'm gonna highlight what you just said because you hit on something that we didn't talk about, but this is a key component of storytelling or presenting in general, and is whatever you do, whatever story you tell, whatever actions you're taking, it has to have a lesson tied to it. So, what's the point? Don't tell a story, don't do an activity for the sake of doing. It has to tie back to a lesson that they learn. Like you said, you don't remember what I talked about, but you remember the experience, and you remember it. I don't know how many years ago this was that you saw it for the first time.

Femi 52:22

And you still in Atlanta, so that was what three years ago? It was three years ago in Atlanta, yeah.

Speaker 1 52:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Femi 52:30

So fantastic, yeah. So, and that brings me to the next one: the voice. How on earth do you find your voice? Because we all get I've seen I see it all the time, and I've been there all the time. I I I start speaking, I look at the way you speak, and I go, I want to command a state like Sardeck, and I see a Jim Smith, or I see a John Maxwell. He just sits down and he comes, he just sits down with the with a table by his side, and he's got his um iPad, and he's just swiping and speaking. And people just how do you get to that point? Or what's the fastest way to? I mean, tell us about finding your voice, and uh tell us about finding your voice.

Sardek 53:08

Yeah, I think, and this is something that's an evolution, and and so the shortest answer that I would tell you, and then I'll give you more detail, is is practice. You just simply have to practice, and and it you're gonna change over time, you're not gonna stay the same. But what most people don't do is they don't know what they don't know about speaking or presenting, and so they don't even know how to come about it. So they might go back to their high school or secondary education where they did a presentation skills course or maybe did presentations in high school, but that's not the same in corporate or in a business setting. So, one of the fastest now, tell you the fastest way to figure out your voice at any given time is to have a coach because they'll be able to help you figure out what type of speaker are you? And there's various categories. I won't bore you with the details, but either so John Maxwell, he calls himself, he's not a motivational speaker, he's a teaching speaker. And so he's a teaching speaker, he teaches lessons through his experience. While he uses motivational and inspirational techniques, but he's teaching you motivational people, John uh Jim Smith Jr., Dr. Jim Smith Jr., he's pure motivation, high energy, rah-rah, rah. Tony Robbins, you know, get you walk across coals and not feel a thing, kind of stuff, have you crying, screaming, yelling, high-fiving. You know, so those are motivational speakers. You got the speaking, the teaching speakers, and you got other types. So it took me a while to to figure out exactly. Like I said, I wanted to be like John, but I was like, but I can't be like John. And then I went to Jim Smith's Jr.'s workshop and he tried to pull me into the high-end, you know, high impact motivational stuff. And that just wasn't who I'm not the get up there and do that. That's not my thing. So I had to figure out what I was. And over the years, I figured out that I am a teaching speaker, but my style is I use facilitation. So I'm a facilitated teaching speaker. I created my own category because I didn't know it existed. So yeah, that's like but again, it's through practice, trial and error. You figure out what's working, what's not, you figure out where you suck and where you don't, and then you just go into areas where you're really strong and keep refining that over time.

Femi 55:23

And that's important, and because neither is more, um, they're both different, and neither is more, it's not that one is so because I've seen Jim, I've seen you in a room, and I've seen you command a room of thousands, and people were attentive. And I've seen Jim in a room, like you said, and he's got them fired up, jump Jim Smith Jr. jumping up, running up and down, and they're engaged as well, and they're fired up. So there is, I think people need to understand that there is no wrong or right, there is what is your style, and the point is find your style and then hone it and then develop it and continue to improve, right?

Sardek 56:00

Exactly. And and as I indicated, so I went to the John Maxwell team and I looked at him, and I eventually went over to Jim Smith Jr. to kind of look at what he was doing because I wasn't sure. And that's because I didn't have a coach or a mentor helping me at the time. So I was on this fact-finding mission. I call it, I kind of jokingly call it like the from the Kung Fu series with David Carradine, always on this journey that was endless, and I would, you know, and I wasn't sure what I was. And once I got to gym and and and I realized what that did for me was I love Jim, but that's not my style. So it gave me what I wasn't. So it I eliminated through process of elimination. Okay, I can take motivational, high-end motivational. That's not me. You know, I use motivational and inspirational techniques, but that's not my style. Um, whereas once I got a coach and a mentor who said, Okay, tell me what you like to do, what you're really good at. And then they said, Okay, here's your lane. Go down that lane. And from that point, I just went narrow. And that's the power of a coach, speaker coach, or a presenter or mentor, is it's helping you narrow down and stay narrow as opposed to broad.

Femi 57:03

And that's something I try to tell people is the best speakers, make no mistake about it. The best speakers have someone, whether it's the Barack Obama's or whoever, they have speechwriters, they have people who help who watch them rehearse and help them hone their craft. The best speakers have someone, and the higher up you go in your career, the higher up you go in whatever it is you want to do, that people want to hear you speak or present, you need to start to think about investing in someone to help you get better at it is at what it is that you're trying to do, i.e., in this case, speaking.

Sardek 57:44

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, though, and to your point again, I'll reemphasize it. Those who are the best, they have coaches. Don't think for a minute. Amy Porterfield, who's one of the top podcasters out there on uh digital courses, she'll tell you, I I've had coaches all the year, you know, and I I have coaches. So you if you don't have a coach, if you want to take it to that next level, that's how you get there because they can help you uncover the gaps that you're going to experience because you're too close to it, you can't see it.

Femi 58:12

Yeah.

unknown 58:12

Yeah.

Femi 58:13

Oh, that's brilliant. That's brilliant. And and for some of you, even if you can't, you're not at a position where you can um you can afford a coach or you don't think you need to, I think you should, but if you can't, certainly find someone who's ahead of the game than you who can coach you or give you some tips to help you get better. So, so so that's fabulous. So I've got you here. I know we've been speaking for a while. There's I I I had a webinar yesterday, I think day before yesterday, and someone asked a question. I wonder if you can help actually. They said, commun in this new post-COVID-19 world of visual of virtual conferences, your body language virtually um virtually or how you communicate virtually is even more important. I mean, do you have anything to say about sort of body language virtually or or how to sort of project yourself um virtually?

Sardek 59:03

Yes. In fact, uh, this is something that I am um helping people with right now, and and we're you and I are demonstrating it here. So for those of you who uh if you if I don't know if you're gonna have the video option out there for them, but if if you can see the video and go back and watch, just watch our interaction, watch Femi, watch me, you'll see the model of what it should look like. So, first of all, body language, your camera needs to be set at the angle where it's high level. Don't do the up the nostril look, don't do that, right? The other thing is it should be conversational, and and that's the one big mix, uh miss I see and hear on on Zoom meetings and webinars right now. That these people they have their scripts. If you're reading from a script, you suck. Okay, you can have your bullet points. Look, I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna show you behind the scenes. Here are my notes, right? Okay, it's it's just bullet points because I I don't need to rememorize everything, but I also don't need to script this stuff out. Come on now, you're professional, you know what you're doing, and yeah, and I learned from you as well.

Femi 1:00:07

So I don't have notes, I just have some key lines of written. And I've said I'll just use those as my guiding posts, and we'll kind of feed off that.

Sardek 1:00:14

Yeah, yeah. Whatever it is that works for you and your style, but but do not sound scripted robotic or any of that thing. Be natural and uh, you know, and smile as much as you possibly can. If you go back and look at this video, you can see our smiles, these are all genuine and natural. So be natural, the more natural you can be, the better. And now, now let me say this real quickly: the if you are more of a detail-oriented, introverted type presenter, be mindful that this is not a knock against you at all, but just be mindful that the more introversion and the more detailed combination that you have in a virtual space, if you're not talking to others who are like you, it's going to turn them off. So, because people are looking for interaction and at least some semblance of that face-to-face. On the reverse of that, if you're high energy, you got to tone, you got to be mindful not to be all over the place, too, because you know. So you got to have a balance on this stuff. And then last thing I'll tell you, besides body language and all that, your background in a virtual space. Don't have stuff in the background that's gonna be distracting, have stuff in the background that's gonna be credibility reinforcing.

Femi 1:01:34

Which is what you have, which I I'm I'm learning from that now. That's what I can see with you. I've got your your books in the corner, your your your your your degrees that you have, a picture of you with someone important to someone dead to you. You've got your ATD, you've got your A, exactly, and they've got your ATD. So these are things that validate you, and they also sort of they just make the background even more professional, right? Exactly.

Sardek 1:01:59

Exactly. And so most people right now, one of the mistakes they're doing is they're having the wrong angles, but then they might have because people are seeing an insight if you're working from home, they're getting an insight to your home, they're looking, and so they're gonna start evaluating and judging you, they're gonna quickly, just like I said earlier, they're gonna judge you in an interaction within three seconds. Well, the first thing that most people are gonna look at is your background, yeah, and see what's in the background. So if you're a professional, if you got books, if you got degrees, if you got whatever, make it credible, but don't have a shot of your bedroom and under your bed, which I've seen. Yes, yeah.

Femi 1:02:36

And this is almost like and and and to move the virtual world into real life, that's that's that's why you have to, when you're speaking, I guess you have to find a way very quickly up front to let them know why you are the right person for this for this talk. So if it's within the business, they may know you as as the as the top guy, so you don't need to do that. But in some cases, where you're presenting, you have to let people know very quickly this is who I am and this is what I've achieved because you haven't you don't carry your plaques around with you in virtual, it works, but in the physical, you've got to find a way to let people know your credibility, right?

Sardek 1:03:12

Yeah, you know, I'll give you this thing that that I found by accident. So I was doing a video, um, or actually I did a post on my Facebook page, my personal Facebook page, yeah, and I talked about some mistakes and failures I made in 48 hours because I was my my premise right now is with all this change and massive change going on, it's a great time to fail fast and fail frequently because people will give you a pass when there's a lot of massive change, as opposed to when things are going well. If you make a mistake, you might get beat up. But right now, because everybody's freaked out, you can make a lot of change and fail at it. And people are like, they'll give you credit for trying. So I I posted on my Facebook page and said, Hey, you know, fail fast, fail frequently. Here are three things I did in the last 48 hours where I just blew it. And I had I had uh my wife take a picture of of me and my setup here. You know what happened? People immediately they they applauded me for that and then they liked the tips. But I had people start asking me, Hey, what's up with your setup, your your your your lights, and your can you tell me more about that? That started me going down the path of now looking at because I never thought about my microphone, my cameras, and all of a sudden people started asking questions about this. Now, if you go look on LinkedIn, you'll see where I've now done this 10-minute video, put it out there, and it's getting traction. So, where am I going with this? Is the whole point in people don't know what they don't know, and if you give them snapshots where you create credibility, see my setup screened credibility because I have cameras and all that, and that's why you're seeing this this imagery uh is very clear because I have an external camera, which you should if you're gonna do virtual stuff, yeah. External mic, the blue yeti. They want to know what tools am I using, yeah, which is which is what I use as well. Yeah, yeah. So these are the things that in a virtual space you got to look credible, and and so I have established very quickly. I started taking pictures of me doing podcasts and being on webinars, and now people are like coming to me for tips, and that's perfect.

Femi 1:05:15

That's perfect, fabulous. So I did I know we spoke for a long time. So there's one last thing before we go, and I'm gonna ask you to to encourage our so and this is probably make it make a segue. I have a lot of people are just nervous, worried about speaking, presenting in publish in public, pardon me. Let me leave it to you to share some words in summary to encourage them that there's nothing to fear, and doing it should they have nothing to fear. What message do you have for people who are worried about speaking?

Sardek 1:05:51

Yeah, this one is so I'll qualify it a little bit because speaking is not for everybody, even though uh of us may have to do it at some we we do have to do it some capacity but uh because I think when you look at those lists of the top 10 things that people fear the most speaking public speaking actually shows up in like the top three every time yes it does it does yeah some people are just deathly free and I'll never forget I had a young lady in a training class teaching training trainers how to train and she came up to me and she asked me she says Sardi she came one-on-one she didn't do this publicly uh she said look I I hate this but my boss told me I have to do this what should I do and here was the advice I gave her I said sweetheart don't do anything that you hate if it's not for you then you have to make a choice if that job is the right fit or if your boss is the right fit but never suffer in silence no matter what life is too short for that okay now having said that if you if you know now all of us and I still have butterflies when it comes to speaking so don't get it don't get it twisted it's not like I get this stuff and goes away but what I do is and here's a tip I'll give you if you have to speak if you focus on those five tips we gave you earlier know your audience know their massive freaking problems you are 90% there because now if you can address their problems and focus on them that's the key focus on them address their problems through storytelling entertain them and do it in a way that doesn't distract them you will be fine you will be absolutely fine no matter what you do fantastic that's been really informating and educational so thank you so much um really powerful insights and I'm sure it's something a lot of our listeners can take and certainly leave here with a lot more insights into what it takes to speak or become a speaker. So with that said we can follow you on all the major social media platforms and it's Sardeck Love isn't it yep so you just look me up on social media sardeeklove.com on any of the platforms I'm on there by my name uh my website Sardeeklove.com is there I said sardeklove for socialmediabut uh com but you get the idea and then if you're interested in the book for those of you who want to take a look at that speak for living second edition because there's two out there you can get that on amazon.com and then for those of you who might be interested in you know this the art of speaking if you're more interested in how to do that and doing it more professionally or in a professional capacity as Femi knows uh and Bruce and I my co-author we have the Speak for a living success academy which is an online speaker coaching academy that we take you and go deeper than the book so we take you through coaching and and live QA sessions and and all that. So anyone who's interested in that you can just go to speakforliving successacademy.com and take a look and again if anyone has any questions you can reach out to me uh as well um just that if you just do uh go on my website you'll see my email address and you can hit me up with any questions.

Femi 1:08:59

Yeah and that's the one thing I'll say about Sadek you've always you've got such passion for speaking you're always willing to help other people and to just give them some tips to go and and that's one of the great things that drew me to you because the first time I met you I know the first the first year what 2014 there was a ton of people around you so I couldn't quite get through but by the second time I got through and we had a chat and from there our friendship was just grown so thank you thank you very much for coming everyone it's speak for a living um second edition it's black the second edition and Bruce and Sardek love available on Amazon and also it's um the speakfor a living um success academy success academy speakfor a living successacademy dot com yep dot com you can also go there and he run um Sardeck runs an amazing and I've done it there's there's conf there's um coaching calls there's content for you to run through that has just made a difference to me and and I will say you're one of the people who encouraged me to get into podcasting because when I was assessing the best way to get my message because I was passionate about uh doing what I do you said think about podcasting so um so that's been it it's had an impact on me and everyone I know who's used it's had an impact on them so certainly have a look at that but with that I'd like to say a big big thank you um so locked and once the lockdown's over you um you're back on the road I guess yeah yeah I think uh we're gonna be in this for a minute and uh you know so so I do think that the virtual space let me put it to you this way for those of you who might be speakers out there or trainers you might as well if you haven't already pivoted you might as well build out the virtual capacity and and because we can always go back to face to face but it's it's a lot harder to go virtual if you've never been there.

Sardek 1:10:47

So build out that capacity get the equipment get the practice right now is a great time to fail fast and fail frequently figure it all out now and that way you'll be ahead of the game because those who don't practice and perform right now when things do pick up you're gonna get left behind.

Femi 1:11:04

Yeah things are never going to be quite the same even when we change there's going to be a people are going to realize you can do it a lot cheaper by doing it virtually so everyone business presenters speakers whatever it is you've got to learn to move with the times and be ready to communicate virtually thank you very much Sadek um really appreciate it. It's been a pleasure and um I do hope I'm sure we're gonna get demand and we'll have to bring you back in the future again for this. So thank you.

Sardek 1:11:30

It's my pleasure and again thank you for the honor of having me and congratulations on this I know when we talked and you told me your idea about Unleashed and I said go for it. I'm so excited to watch I've been watching on Instagram so keep rocking it my man you're doing all right and it's really cool to see you doing your thing.

Femi 1:11:46

All right thank you thank you listen everyone our ability to influence people around us comes from our ability to communicate and win their hearts then win their minds and get them to do what we want them to do. To become unleashed we all mean influencing people with your voice speaking and presenting is something we all have to do so if we're going to do it why not do it well we have one life to live and we should live it in faith and in power this week go out with a mind to stay on top and to speak with clarity and authority and without being afraid to make mistakes because that is the secret after all have a great week get unleashed and stay unleashed