Transcription
I just finished an exclusive master class with hundreds of people where we jammed on their biggest communication problems, and I asked my team to cut it down to the best bits so you can watch it here on YouTube for free.
So I'm just wondering if you have any tips to not be so conscious of my thoughts and overthinking how I'm speaking, but just being in the moment and present, having that communication with that person.
So there are four stages of learning we all go through. So you've got stage one, which is unconscious incompetence. And unconscious incompetence, to put it really simply, is you don't know what you don't know. In a way, communicating was easy in inverted commas because you don't know what you're doing wrong. You're just doing what you've always been doing, repeating a series of behaviors you've always been repeating. So, nothing really happens at that point because it's unconscious, right? And again, I noticed you saying the word conscious a lot. You're no longer in stage one of learning, which is fantastic, right? Fantastic. A lot of people still live in that stage when they're unconscious of the things they're bad at with their communication.
You're most likely at stage three. But let me talk you through stage two. The second stage of learning is now conscious incompetence, and you start to become aware of what you're not good at. So this is once you join a program and you go, "Oh, I shouldn't and are I should pause instead. Oh no, I'm I've paused for 15 seconds. That's too long of a pause." So now you start to become conscious of what you don't know. So you're in a position now where you're learning. And this often is a place where a lot of people get stuck. They start acquiring knowledge. They become conscious of the things they didn't know. So now they know what they don't know, but they don't go beyond that. They don't start applying that to themselves more. They don't push through the discomfort of learning. They never get to stage three.
And I have a feeling you're here because in stage three, this is now when you move to a certain arena, stage three, which is now conscious competence. This is where you now know what you know. You're doing it, but you still have to think about it. You understand you've got to use hand gestures, but you catch yourself in this weird place where you go, "Oh, I better move my hands like this." Whereas my before my hands were like this. Ah, damn it. Move your hands like this. Oh, don't pause. Just make sure you keep talking. Oh, make sure you don't speak in stato. Make sure you speak in legato. Oh, eye contact. And this is the point of learning where it's it's a lot of cognitive strain, which is what you were describing, where you have to think about all these different things that you're doing, and it's really frustrating. You have to push through it. It's like the analogy I always use with our students is that like when you're driving, you know, when you're first driving and you're in that point where you're stage two where you have to think about everything, you go, "Oh, no. I've got to two hands on the steering wheel." Oh, crap. Of course, you got to you got to turn on the engine before you have your hands on the steering wheel. And then you turn the engine on and you go, "Okay, gear." No, no, not gear first. I got to put the handbrake down. And you have to think through everything. It's really stressful when you first learn how to drive.
But as you keep pushing through that, as you keep pushing through that, what's happened for most of us that can drive? Well, we reach stage four of learning. And stage four of learning is what? Unconscious competence. And this is an amazing place to get to. This is a form of mastery. It's a form of mastery. And for many of us who can drive, we've reached a level of mastery with driving because we now do it unconsciously. The same thing happens when you get to stage four of communication. When you keep pushing through all those uncomfortable situations, even though it's uncomfortable, even though you paused for a long period of time, as you keep pushing through that, the pause will start to shrink. You will become less self-critical of the ums and the because you'll be able to slowly replace it because you're applying a lot of the knowledge. And then instead of thinking, I got to go to the grocery store, that means I got to first get into the car, handbrake, reverse, then drive out, then take the first left. No, no, no. You just think grocery store and then your skills and abilities take you there. Gradually with your communication skills, someone will ask you a question and then you just think I want to do this and your skills and abilities will take you there.
Once you identify a certain situation that makes you nervous, that makes you communicate poorly, it's then about you going, "How do I put myself in that situation more often?" Because the key here, the key from being able to get from here to here, this key is reps. Often the moment people do something that creates discomfort, they often immediately move away from it. "I don't want to experience that ever again. That was the worst thing I've ever done. Put my hand up in a team meeting, said something, um too many times, paused for 15 seconds, and everyone thought I was having a stroke mid-sentence. I'm never doing that again." Therefore, they get stuck in stage two or they get stuck in stage three.
Because reps, I mean, do you ever notice how sometimes you say something to one of your colleagues and they just don't listen? But then somebody else comes along, says the exact same thing, and not only do they listen, they thank the other person for the idea, and you're left there thinking to yourself, "What in the actual? I literally said the same thing last week." You see, this happens to you because you said the right thing, but you said it in the wrong archetype. You said it in the wrong voice. There are four voices, aka archetypes, that we all have access to. I've just recorded a brand new 90-minute master class on how to master these four different vocal archetypes. And if you want access to it for free, just click the link below in the description or scan the QR code. This is something I only usually teach in my paid programs, and you get access to it for free. So go check it out.
Hello Sarra.
Hi there. I live in the SF Bay Area. I work as a data scientist. As I started going through your course, one question that comes to my mind is high stakes situations, right? You are presenting to a VP, and there are other execs in the room. They pose a question, a follow-up question while you're presenting. You do not know the answer to this question. You do not want to say, "I don't know the answer to this question." How do you defer? How do you diffuse the situation in a way that you do not look clueless and incompetent?
The beautiful thing in this situation is that I just want you to know this happens to all of us. This happens to every single one of us. It happens to me when I run my workshops. I run three-day workshops. People ask me many questions during those periods, and sometimes you just don't know the answer. Now, my first piece of feedback to you, and it may be inappropriate in your situation, but again, I'm speaking to many people here on the call with me. There is a beauty to acknowledging the fact that you don't know something when you truly don't know something. Now, of course, there is also an ugly side to that where they associate that with you being you have poor levels of competence. "You should know that, and then now we have to review our entire employment arrangement with you." Right? Now, if they already see you as an expert and you have a very strong reputation, then you saying you're not sure and that you don't have the exact answer to that right now, that's very beautiful. I mean, I've done that before on stage, and people said, "Oh, wow. He's so vulnerable. Oh, he's so authentic." And then it worked good for me. But then I'm sure there are situations where if you did that, people go, "Oh, wow. That person's really incompetent. They shouldn't be up there. They shouldn't be teaching." So you have to have enough emotional intelligence to go, "Well, what kind of reputation do I have?" There are times when it's actually quite powerful to say you don't know because it's very humane and human. But then there are times when, like the situation you're describing, you need a fallback. The most powerful fallback that I've used is simply by saying, so if you ask me the question, say Alex asked me a question I didn't know the answer to, and I'm like, "Ah, crap, don't know the answer, but can't seem like I'm incompetent at this point." I'll just say, "Alex, I would love to be able to answer that for you. Could we just take that offline? I've only got another 15 minutes for the presentation. I want to make sure we get through the entire presentation. How about we take it offline?" And it's your ability to manage that with confidence in the moment that will dictate whether they believe you or not. And and and that comes down again to delivery. How, because if if you did that, they asked you a question, and your delivery changed from how you were speaking. So, for example, think about your vocal foundations. Think, think about your body language. Think about these things. This is why the skill of improv is very important. So, they ask you a question. They go, "Oh, Vin, could you could you explain to us quantum mechanics?" Yep. Yep. Look, look, um, thank you for, you know what? How about we take that offline? And then when we take it offline, I'll I'll be able to I'll I'll explain to you exactly what quantum mechanics means. Yep. That's great. Okay, cuz I got 15 minutes left. I got Well, then now they clearly know you don't know the answer. All right, but then again, you have to think about your vocal foundations. If you, you, you have to be very focused now on your body language and your vocal foundations. It can't shift. It can't change. So they ask you again, I would really opt in for that. I don't know if anybody asked me this. "Vin, could you explain to me your understanding of string theory and how that intertwines with quantum mechanics, if it even does? Could you could you speak to that?" "Vin, Alex, I'd love to be able to connect with you on that. I I I could geek out with this with you over the next seven days, but how about I take this offline with you? We connect on string theory and quantum mechanics after. I've only got 15 minutes left to finish the presentation. Is that all right with you?" "Thanks, Alex." And you continue. This is this is hard. This is really hard to do in the moment while you're under pressure, while you recognize in your head you don't know the answer. But that's really the only path out is that you tell them, "We'll connect on this after." I prefer the option of connecting with them and saying, "You know what? I'm glad you brought up that question. I I I have a gap in my thinking. I have a gap in my education, and I'd love to learn more about that. Right. What what would you have to say about the connection of quantum theory and string theory? Would would you have something to add?" And I would love to get them to contribute to the conversation as well. But again, in a job situation, if it's not right, take the conversation offline instead. You have to be able to do it confidently, otherwise they know.
When answering questions under pressure, how can we think more clearly and respond with structure? Is there a framework you rely on to avoid rambling and freezing?
Yes. My favorite go-to framework is 321, and it simply stands for three steps, two types, and the one thing. I use this framework all the time when someone asks me a question to avoid my brain from rambling. The reason your brain rambles and the reason you ramble is often your speaking, your thinking process. So what we often do is our brains are like this. Our brains are all over the place. Someone asks you a question. You don't know which part of your brain to access. So you start telling them this thing. Sorry, I'll do this. You start telling them this thing, then you tell them this thing, then you tell them that thing, then you tell them that thing, that that's the equivalent of rambling. Whereas what a framework does is it funnels your thinking. So it funnels the crazy into a distilled piece of communication. So it's a distillation process, and it takes all the wild things in your brain and it distills this beautiful, clear, concise, and coherent piece of communication. That's what frameworks do. So when you look at the three steps, two types, and the one thing, what that's doing is that's creating the funnel. That's creating the constraints for you to think. So then when someone asks you a question, "What is the meaning of life?" That's such a heavy question. "What's the meaning of success?" So your brain goes, "What is the meaning of life? Oh my goodness, there's family, there's contributions to the world, there's you doing great work, there's..." and then you start talking all over the place. Whereas if you use this framework, you can just say, "The one thing I think of when I think of the meaning of life, the one thing I think of, it's it's about you finding your gift and then being able to share that. That's what I think. That's the first thing that I think of." Now you're able to respond, but in a way that's clear, coherent, and concise. Because saying the one thing, by you even saying the word "the one thing," it creates that beautiful constraint, that funnel, that creates more clarity, more coherence, and it's way more concise.
Keep leaning on these frameworks, and there are so many. And the reality is often people leave it at that. They go, "Oh, I understand it now." But they never master it. That's the crazy thing. Most people just never master it. They learn for learning's sake. They learn to feel good. They learn for the dopamine hit, but then they don't master the things they learn. And and I think that's the thing that that's why we live in the world where I think a lot of people feel quite hopeless. I think they feel quite hopeless because we're consuming a lot, we're learning a lot, but we're we're applying very little.
I'm too self-conscious. My mind goes blank like a lot of people. When I do my speeches, I write very good speeches. So, I tend to speaking still from my heart. I don't read like I don't speak my speech just by looking and reading. I do eye contact. My language is very rudimentary. I'm from the Philippines. I was not a very good communicator growing up. So my question is, how do I improve my language, cuz I think it's sometimes is very elementary, not sounding professional?
Simple language is far better than complex language. And when we're communicating with everyday people, and everybody is an everyday person, we're all human. No matter what context we're in, we're still human. I think a lot of the times we think, "Oh, I got to go serve my clients." Uh, your clients are still people. They still have children, and uh, they have been a child at once in their lives at some point. Using overly complicated words to describe a simple situation is one of the traps we fall into when we feel a sense of imposter syndrome. When we feel like, "Oh no, I'm not smart enough to be in the room. Oh no, I I don't deserve to be there." Then we try to overdo it by overcomplicating our words, our vocabulary, because we have this innate need and desire to feel smart or feel good enough. Whereas the best communicators in the world communicate very simply. They don't overcomplicate their language. They don't overdo it because often what that does is it creates distance from you and the audience. It, I, it, you start to throw in jargon that people don't understand because you have this need to appear smart, or I have this need to appear smart, and then as a result of an innate need that I have, we're not serving the audience. So please, I, I, I wanted to jump in there and and share my thoughts on that because often the desire to use more complicated language, not really to describe a certain scenario, but rather out of the need to appear more professional. I think that comes from a place of often fear. And that fear then robs us of the connection we would have felt with the audience.
But there's something I want to dig into with the question that you asked. And you said you're reading your presentation. Now, do you think when you're reading your presentation with a script and you give eye contact, do you feel that has room for improvement?
Definitely. I wish I could speak spontaneously.
Most people don't rehearse properly, therefore they don't remember. And I'll give you the the biggest tip here. When you're rehearsing your content, do you know how most people rehearse? When most people are rehearsing, they'll grab their their their speech and this is how they read it while they're rehearsing. They do this, okay? "There you go. Okay. Good morning, everyone. Uh, it's really good to be here. I just want to get into the first three topics on it." Mhm. How you rehearse is how you present. This is why most people sound robotic when they rehearse a lot. This is why most people have that illusion that, "Oh, because I've rehearsed it 50 times, I now sound robotic." No, it's because you sounded robotic while you're rehearsing. You sound the way you rehearse. And you've also got to understand this key lesson here. Low levels of effort during rehearsal leads to low levels of retention. So when you're rehearsing, first tip is you want to read it as if the audience is in front of you. So you want to read it with with lots of expression and you, "Hey, good morning. Oh, it's so good to see your beautiful faces. Listen, as we move into the day, day one of our time together, I want to share with you a poem." So when you when you put that level of effort into rehearsal, high levels of effort leads to high levels of retention. And that alone, if you read through your presentation five to 10 times with high levels of effort, you will be shocked how much you remember. You'll be shocked.
And the reason I bring this up, why rehearsal is so important, is because so many people have the fear of going blank. So many people have the fear of, "What if I forget what I'm going to say?" And then they do forget what they're going to say. And think about this: when you go to present, if 80% of your brain is thinking, "What if I forget what I'm going to say? What, what, wait, what, what comes next? Uh, I, I, I'm, I'm not sure what come," you, you, you put no, you have no cognitive capacity left for delivery, for thinking about your hand gestures, thinking about your voice. And the greatest example of this that I want you to think of is think back to when you used to sing songs out loud when you were kids. Think back to this, okay? And you, you, you know the lyrics to the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, the Spice Girls, whatever tickles your fancy, right? And and you think back, and you used to be able to sing it with your heart. And when you're singing Spice Girls and you're singing, "Bash," you're using your hand gestures, and you're singing, you're into it. You don't have to remember the lyrics. You're just thinking about your delivery, getting your voice right, getting your body language right. And then you have that one friend. You have that one friend who you know doesn't know the lyrics, right? And they're there trying to sing too, but they're like, "Oh, and as long as you love me," and and they're all they're all self-conscious. They don't know the words. How do you know how stressful it is being that person? You've probably been that person yourself, too, where you don't know the lyrics, but you want to pretend and you want to be a part of it, but you're you're so self-conscious. You're like, "I don't know the words." You're halfway thinking about the dance moves, and then you end up just you end up just doing something weird, and you're like, "What? I, what am I even doing?" And and then you end up just ruining everyone's karaoke experience. But that's what happens to most people when they're giving a speech. It's the equivalent of them not knowing the lyrics because they don't know what they're going to say next. So if you want the freedom of being the person who can sing their heart out the song and and do all the beautiful uh boy band moves and girl band moves, right? Then you have to know what you're going to talk about. You have to know the lyrics of the songs completely because the only reason why dancers are able to dance on stage and have such great vocal delivery, it's because they know the lyrics. The only way you're going to unlock that version of you is if you go through the rehearsal process and you know the lyrics. And what that means is what that means is now you've got 80% of your cognitive capacity spent on delivering and your delivery, as opposed to you spending 80% of your cognitive capacity, "Oh gosh, wait, I'm I'm finished the first module now. Um, wait, what do I move to next? Oh, crap, I just heard myself saying um. Oh, no." And then you start freaking out. People often don't realize that when you go through the proper rehearsal process, the majority of those fears and the anxiety goes is away. So much of your delivery has been stunted because you have no cognitive capacity to be able to focus on delivery. That's why most people sound robotic. That's why most people when they're speaking, they sound dead. Because all of their cognitive capacity is spent on, "What am I saying next? What am I saying next? What am I saying next?" Solve that, and you unlock a whole new version of you. You now can sing "If You Wanna Be My Lover" like you've never sung it before. We need to bring back the the boy bands and the girl bands in life. To be honest, I missed that.
How can I build trust quickly when having one-on-one conversations with a new acquaintance?
Trust and rapport can be built very quickly via you doing something called matching and mirroring. Now, when it comes to matching and mirroring, there are two things you can match and mirror. You can match, you can match and mirror. Most people already know this. The first thing is body language. But what's relatively unknown and people don't talk about is vocal foundations. Okay? And vocal foundations, again, as you go through the program, you, you'll learn it's made of rate of speech. It's made of volume, pitch, and melody, tonality, which is the emotion underneath your voice, and the way they pause. And the core rule is when you want to build rapport and trust quickly, you want to, as quickly as you can, show that you're similar. And the fastest way in which you can do that is with your voice and body language. Whereas for them to know that you share common values, that takes time to be able to surface. It takes time for the conversation to evolve, for you to then connect that, "Oh, wow, I went to high school there, too. Oh my god, best friends." Or you find out that, "Oh, you're from the same school, the same friendship group, from the same whatever it is." Once you find those points, you can very quickly connect, and rapport then builds quickly from that. But that takes time. That takes time. So when you think about an interaction that happens immediately, if you want to maximize your chance of connecting with the person, having rapport, and connecting in in in the first few minutes, matching and mirroring their body language and showing similarity there allows for that connection to happen.
Now, there's a big, big lesson here that you've, you've got to recognize because let's say, for example, you go, "Oh, but, but then what if they're just really small and and quiet and and shy? What do you mean? Do I just have to become that?" Well, well, you learned this lesson here. Here's the core lesson from that. You meet them where they are, and then you take them to where you want to go. I know my handwriting. I should have been a doctor. I know. So, you meet them where they are, and then you take them to where you want to go. Now, in reality, it looks like this. Okay? So, I'll give you a sense of this. And this is again, a lot of people hear this, they, they know it, but they don't do it. I see this go wrong all the time because people tend to have this idea that there's a one-dimensional version of them. "Oh, there's only one version of me. There's only one version of me, and that's the version of me I bring to every single meeting." And then sometimes what happens is if, if the version of you that serves you 30% of the time is the most dominant version you bring to every single situation, is too serious, then people just perceive you to be too serious, and then they go, "Oh, that person's always so serious." Or if you're too bubbly, etc. "Oh, that person's really, really fun, but they're not competent, right?" So, people can relate negative things to wonderful traits. But your goal is, you want to be, you want to be able to be all the colors of the rainbow, right? So, what we want to do here is we now want to be able to, okay, so if this person comes to me, and this happens all the time when I'm out in public going grocery shopping, sometimes people come up to me and they go, "Oh, hey. Hey, I didn't want to disturb you and your family. Just wanted to come say hi." Right? And and if I came to that person and and I, I, I'm, I'm usually MY LOUD SELF. "OH, OH, YOU GOT TO TELL ME. HAVE YOU LIKED AND SUBSCRIBED YET? JUST LETTING YOU KNOW. JUST WAITING FOR MY 10 MILLION SUBSCRIBER PLAQUE. HOW'S THAT GOING?" Well, it's not going anywhere because have you subscribed? They'd freak out. They'd freak out and they'd go, "Oh gosh, Vin, so intense in person." So, what you do is if if they come to you with smaller body language and they, they go, "Oh, hey V. I just, just want to come and say hi. I didn't want to disturb you and your family." You recognize what they're doing with their body language, and and obviously I'm not saying don't just mimic them exactly and, oh, that's okay, that, no, you just, you subtly do it. You just recognize smaller body language, definitely lower volume, slightly faster the pace of rate of speech. Okay, cool. I can, I can do that. So, again, "Oh, I, I, I, I didn't want to disturb you and your family, just wanted to." And then you can come into be like, "Oh, it's okay. It's all right. It's, it's okay. My wife's totally cool with it. It's totally fine. And hey, I, I, I, I would love to know how, which, which platform do we connect on? Which one do we connect on?" "Oh, Instagram." "You got to follow us on YouTube, too. Do you follow us on YouTube? Bring out your phone. Bring out your phone. Bring out your phone. Come on. Follow us on YouTube, too." Right. And do you notice what I did there? If you didn't notice what I just did there, what I did was I met them where they are. I was quiet with them. And then I gradually, once I got into rapport with them, I moved them to where I wanted to be. And the wildest thing when you do this and you start to actually apply it and not just cerebrally understand it, but you now do it as a default and you do it consistently, is you'll notice that you'll be able to connect with people very quickly because immediately when you match and mirror their vocals and their body language, they feel safe immediately, and then you're able to bring them out of their comfort zone.
I, I want to talk about imposter syndrome, and I think that's something we can end on. I think that's something inspiring to end on. This has been my antidote to it. So the way I used to think of this whole teaching journey is I used to think of it like this. This is this is level 9,000. These are levels. Okay. I used to think when I was at level 10 of my journey as a communication teacher, I used to think that, "Vin, you don't have the right to teach because the only people who should be teaching communication skills are people who are at level 9,000." That's the only people who should teach. You don't have the right to teach. You are way too newbie to teach. And for as long as I believed that, I, I didn't teach communication skills. And it stopped me from teaching communication skills for years because I felt like I wasn't qualified enough. I didn't have five degrees. In fact, I don't even have any degree to my name. I don't have a PhD. And as a result of that, then you shouldn't teach. And for as long as I believed that, I didn't.
But what I didn't recognize was the following. What I didn't understand was that if I'm at level 10, who am I the best teachers for, and who am I not the best teachers for? I'm not good. I'm not good for anybody here. I'm not good for anybody there. But who am I good for? I'm good for all these people here. I'm good for the people at level 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. All those people I can serve. So I want you to recognize as well, if you're thinking to yourself there too, "Oh, V, I'm not good enough to start this yet. I'm not good enough to do this yet." Well, you are because maybe you're at level five. Well, great because you're if you're at level five, do you know how many people in the world are stuck at level 4, 3, 2, 1, and even zero? You are the perfect teacher for them. Why are you the perfect teacher for them? Because you still remember what it's like being at level 4, 5, 3, 2, 1, zero. The person who's at level 9,000 has long forgotten the struggles of a beginner. The person at level 9,000 no longer can relate to what it's like being a level five. You ask them a level five question when they're at a level 9,000, especially if they've forgotten the beginner's mindset, they're going to think you're stupid. And I've seen teachers do this. I've seen teachers at level 9,000. You ask a question, and they, they immediately go, "Now, you know that question you asked is a stupid question. As a result, I'm not even going to answer that." And then now you get demoralized. You don't want a level 9,000 teacher. You want someone who's close to you.
So when I unlocked that way of thinking, I thought, "Oh my goodness, that's amazing." But here's the better unlock. Because what happens? Tell me, what happens when you teach? When you teach something, you naturally get better at it. Because when you repeat something over and over, when you teach the same thing over and over again, you get better and better and better and better at it. So what does it do naturally? What it does naturally? It moves you from a level 10 to now you arrive at a level 11. And then you keep teaching at a level 11. And then what happens? Oh, now you now you move and you move to a level 12. Teaching it is the very action that actually makes you get better. So the very thing that you're avoiding because of imposter syndrome is the very thing that's also stopping you from progressing on your journey of mastery. Isn't that crazy? No longer let imposter syndrome hold you back. But rather instead of thinking to yourself, "Oh, when I feel imposter syndrome, I think to myself, 'Oh, I'm on the right path. I shouldn't be doing this.'" Instead, lean into it as an indicator that you're on the right path. Teach. Share the content that you want to share. Create the content that you've been wanting to create. Make that video. Post it on LinkedIn. Share your knowledge even before you feel ready. Because in the process, you'll become more ready. You'll become better at your craft. You'll become a better teacher. And there are so many people you're going to serve on the journey. So, don't let the imposter syndrome hold you back this year. Allow it to become something that moves you forward and progresses you on the journey of mastery.