Communication Skills for Career Success | The 4 Stages to Becoming a Confident Speaker

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Hello and welcome back to the Market Maker podcast. And today we are tackling one skill employers tell me is an absolute non-negotiable across every role in finance. And in fact, I would say in any professional role, and that is communication. So whether you're a quant analyst or a client lead, How you speak can be an absolute game changer, not just for acing things like a HireVue interview, but also for when you're actually performing in your day-to-day job. So joining me is James Percy-Smith, founder of The Elocution Coach, which AmplifyMe have been working with for many years, and they've done some amazing things for our team internally. We're going to break down two vital stages of speech. One, building awareness as a student, two, high-stakes application in your actual early working life. So James, welcome to the show. How are you?

Good morning. Thank you for having me on.

Very well.

Very well.

Cool. Well, look, we caught up, I don't know, a week ago or so, and you were telling me about something which I guess two words I'm familiar with, but never connected. And that was speech literacy and this idea of students being aware of speech. So, what do you mean by that?

If I'm really honest with you, I think most people could benefit from being more aware. And a lot of people who come to us when they call the office and they say, "Oh, you know, my boss has said this," or, "You know, I've realised this in the recording." One of the first questions is, "Okay, great. So what do you need to improve?" And usually the response is, "I don't know. I have no idea. I just have this sense that I need to improve somewhere." So, particularly for those who are younger, at university, there is really this huge unknown. They don't actually know what they need to be working on. And of course, at that point in time, they're focusing so much on skills, data, knowledge, all of those great things that might get them through those processes later on in life. But actually, as we know, a huge amount of the job is down to their communication, which they forget about. And unfortunately, it's something they don't necessarily invest in at that stage in their career. So, I think the main thing is for people to start to understand the process. There isn't a quick fix. I wish I could come on this podcast and say, "There's a magic pill," or, "There's a quick fix I can give you to make you an incredible speaker tomorrow." But it does take time. It's like any skill. I think for most people, looking at it as a journey is the best way to see it. And we always talk about the speaker's journey. There are 4 stages that you have to go through. You can't skip these stages at any point. You have to go through these stages. So, stage 1 is effectively where you are completely unaware that your speech is not at the standard that you would like. So that's like if you think about being a child, when you're 8 years old, you get in your mum and dad's car, they're taking you to a club, and you think, you look out and you think, "Ah, that's so easy. I could do that. I can drive this car." But at 8 years old, you are completely unaware that you are legally, physically, and mentally unable to drive that car. So that might be when you go to university and yes, you have to do a couple of presentations, but it's easy 'cause you think, "Oh well, it's just my It's just my friends, that's it. There's no pressure, there's no issues. And then suddenly you're either thrown out into the real world or you've got a huge part of your dissertation that you have to present to some qualifying people. And you suddenly become aware, which is stage 2, that your speech is not at the standard that you would like. And for me, that was my very first driving lesson. I had never stepped a foot in the driver's seat until my very first driving lesson. I didn't have that thing when I was a kid. I didn't get in my parents' car and drive it around on my provisional license. So it was a very scary moment. And I sat in the car and the driving instructor says, great, James, get into gear 1 for me, please. And this is London as well. It's not even, you know, in Surrey, the countryside. And I'm like, oh my, how, how do I even remotely drive this car? So I became very aware very quickly that my skills were not up to scratch. So a lot of people contact us They speak to me and they're at stage 2. They kind of know something's not right, but they need to understand what it is. And then they start to work their way through to stage 3. And that is, for example, when you've done your examination, you've got out on the road for the very first time by yourself, and everything is a conscious process. You're looking down, you think, okay, clutch, manual, brake, gears, everything, everything's going right. Indication, red light. That is very much like when you've been working on your speech. You know, there's a few exercises, maybe it's from today's episode, maybe it's from a course or a YouTube video. And you think, okay, I can do that. I can put that into play, but it has to be a conscious process. And then stage 4 is where you reach unconscious competence. It's where you can do stuff without really thinking about it. And I find it quite scary. You know, I don't know about you, Anthony Cheung, but if I drive from A to B and I've been driving for a while now, I will sometimes get to B in terms of the destination and think, I don't remember the journey. I don't remember leaving A. And that's great in a way, because for speakers, that's where you can go into a presentation, a meeting, an interview, and you're not thinking, okay, I've gotta use this, this, this, and this. You're thinking, what do I want my audience to feel? What do I want my audience to know? And that's the focus.

That's such a good analogy, 'cause I think it everyone can, most adults, it's probably like 90% can, can resonate with that story. Cause yeah, I remember when I first started driving that stage 3, I think when you're out on the open road, you're still literally thinking like mechanically process 1, 2, 3, 4, and you're looking in the mirror and you're doing everything. And it almost feels like I will never get to that stage 4, but I guess it's just the repetition. And cause you've had good foundational training from hopefully your instructor at that point, it feels like, and that muscle memory kicks in, but, um, like all things, right? I guess it's, is repetition a key then to, to get to that unconscious state?

I think it's repetition and a lot of people won't like me saying this, but it's also down to pressure as well and starting to make sure that you are slowly but surely popping in those moments of pressure. Now, I think the key thing is what we don't want people doing is going out and trying every single trick of the trade, every tool, every technique, every exercise. You want people to go out and try one little thing. And when that works, great, move on to the next thing, the next thing, and slowly build up that pressure. If you are someone, for example, and I'm sure there's lots of people who will hate me for saying this, but it's true. If, for example, you've got a big interview coming up, let's say you have the one, the one job that you really want. My advice is this: go and apply for a whole load of jobs you don't want. A whole load of jobs that at the end of the day, you will, even if you get offered the job, you won't want to take. And as an employer myself, I hate saying that because I know how much our time is wasted. But at the same time, people really build up these interviews to be this huge moment. And of course, if they have a tiny little bucket of interviews, they're going to then feel too much pressure. So my advice is apply for a few, maybe 2 or 3. That you think, yeah, great. I don't really want the job, but I think it's good experience. Apply for it, work your way through the interview process, and then you'll have the ones that you really want afterwards, which means you've almost had those few practice rounds under pressure. Now, if you don't want to do that, which is fair enough, if you don't wanna waste people's time, uh, then of course you can, uh, get a friend, ask a friend, uh, to maybe bring a friend that you don't know to sit down opposite you and, and interview you. Because they're an unknown entity. But yeah, you have to build it up over time.

Just a question, the things like Toastmasters or those kind of speaking groups, would that be a good place to go to create some level of pressure just because it's public speaking? Would that be a logical step?

Yeah, I think there's a couple of different opportunities out there. As I say, maybe the employer one in terms of interviews is a little bit more rogue, but there's lots of things. Toastmasters is a great example. I would actually encourage anybody listening to go and join a local Toastmasters because it's such a great opportunity. You are in a room with people that are all there for the same reason. They all want to improve their public speaking. So, although I always say no audience is your enemy, because who wants to sit in a meeting or a presentation and have a boring speaker? Nobody wants that. No interviewer. Wants you to walk through and be the worst candidate ever. They want you to be the best candidate ever. So they're always on your side. But Toastmasters is really, really, really safe. And it gives you that pressure of an audience, maybe 10, 15 people. But if it all goes horribly wrong, hey ho, it's just a testing environment or a playground.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that the pressure point is really interesting. And again, I guess it ties into the driving analogy. The one thing about when you drive, even when you're experienced, there's always a randomness of another person's behavior, which adds a little bit of pressure to your daily drives. So there's always this constant, I guess, buildup of reaction as well that helps, I'm sure. But moving to then the virtual environment, because one of the things I get asked a lot by students is part of a general larger company process is that people have to do what's called a HireVue, which is a virtual interview. There's no one on the other side. You get proposed this question to answer and you get like a 90-second, 2-minute response time, and it's just a series of questions. That is where I see a lot of students struggle, primarily because it's a virtual interaction. They find it just really uncomfortable. So what kind of advice can you, can you give around that?

It's very prevalent now because we have AI everywhere, and we are now in a world of digital everything. So everything is a screen now. And even for those companies who've gone hybrid, uh, you know, it's very rare that you'll find yourself, especially in those initial stage interviews, if you do actually meet a human, you'll find yourself in person somewhere. It will usually be on a Zoom call or a Google Meet, or of course, uh, bits of software that will interview you for them. I think there's two bits of advice here when it comes to connection. Although in normal circumstances, like for example, this podcast recording, I would always recommend to look at the person on the screen. So what a lot of people do, there's a lot of advice out there where they say, look into the camera lens. Now, if I was to look into the camera lens while talking to you, it would look a little bit strange, right? Because I'm not building a connection with you. And it's the same for Zoom calls in work. You have your grid, right? You have a little grid there where you can see everybody's faces. Connect with them. Play the eye game. Look at every single person for 1 to 2 seconds, because you are connecting with everybody as if you're in that real boardroom or you're in that real meeting room. You're connecting with every single person there, which is why I'm looking at you now. However, the only caveat to that is, of course, with some of these bits of software, you don't have anybody. You sit there, you open up the piece of software, it then starts to interview you, and it will say, quite literally, look directly into the camera lens. Now that can be really daunting for a lot of people, and my advice is still look into the camera lens, even though I advise not for things like this where you've got a real human, but because you are now effectively connecting to the interviewer who's sitting there and maybe reviewing those videos later on. But you have to see the lens as the eye of the person you are talking to. And what a lot of people don't do is they don't build this profile. So they go into these interviews thinking, I'm being interviewed by AI, I'm being interviewed by a recording. You're not. Someone is actually going to sit there potentially and watch this. So build out who they are. What do they look like? What's their voice like? What are they wearing? What behaviors have they got in terms of body language? Build that all out in your mind way before the interview, so it's in your head. And then when you are looking at the camera and answering the question, try and imagine that that is the pupil the eye of the person, the interviewer that you're talking to in that moment.

That skill then, I can see how that would be really powerful, which is visualization. Like if you can put your mind in a place where it's not a camera, it's someone there. I'm in that interview room. I can feel like almost the mugginess of the room. I'm feeling a little bit pressured, but embrace it and visualize it. But visualization, I think most people are aware of what that is. But how do you get to the point where it can be a useful skill to adopt once under pressure though?

Yeah, I think it takes practice. That's the first thing to say. Again, it's one of those things that people think is miraculously going to work. I'm gonna go into this interview and suddenly be able to visualize this person. So it takes practice. So my advice is a couple of things. Number one, practice with a webcam, uh, camera, an iPhone, whatever it is, and imagine it's the real interview and do that a couple of times. Now don't over-practice. I think a lot of people over-practice their answers. They read it like a script and it gets very, very dry very quickly. So don't practice too many times, but have this idea of looking down a lens and become really comfortable with it. One of the more uncomfortable exercises is to actually record yourself for a full minute, just staring down the lens. Really? Like that.

Or just licking silence.

Just, just as an exercise. And it's horrible because we don't, as humans, we hate silence. It's one of the biggest things we talk about is the power of the pause, the power of silence. We hate silence. So sitting there in a room with a camera and a lens and staring down that camera lens for a whole minute in complete silence is an incredibly uncomfortable exercise. but you become more present, you become more aware and comfortable of that lens staring at you. I think the other thing which we kind of forget as adults is this power of play. So as children, children are great little actors because as children, we love the idea of playing these characters. If you think about it, at nursery, you have this, you know, this fancy dress box and you get to choose who you'll be that day. Maybe you'll be the fire person, maybe you'll be a nurse, maybe you'll be a doctor. And suddenly in your world as a, you know, 5-year-old, you are that person. There's no question about it. No one can tell you you are not a nurse or a doctor. You are. And I think we forget that over the course of our kind of teenagehood into adulthood. But actually, if you go back to that idea of playing a character and being with another character, that can really help in those moments of pressure as well.

On that point then, because that makes a lot of sense, but often you hear people talk about, you've got to be authentic. So where's the balance between, I need to role-play to get myself in the headspace to kind of like be confident, but then at the same time, I can't be too abstract from who I really am because people are telling me I need to be authentic. So how do you balance that?

It's a good question. So, I think you've got to balance or at least see a difference between the role that you're playing, whether that be a position, for example, or an environment, and you as a human being. And it all falls within that realm of imposter syndrome, which a lot of people suffer from. And well, okay, first-hand experience for me, I used to be a police officer and my first ever shift It was, yeah, it was a very, very strange experience for me because you go through, talking about the speaker's journey earlier on, you go through this whole series of, of, uh, kind of training experiences. And part of that, for example, is personal safety training where you are actually learning how to defend yourself and other human beings. And at the time you think, how does this actually work? Because I'm learning all of these things, but is it gonna kick in at the right time? And of course it does because they really put the pressure on you in those training environments. But my first shift, I was standing at the top of the stairs. It was an incident where someone needed medical attention, and my colleague was downstairs. So I was upstairs, she was downstairs, and this paramedic comes in. He comes up the stairs and he turns around to me. He says, great, look, I think we're gonna take him to A&E now. So, da la la la la la la. And my brain was going, why are you talking to me? Like, go and speak to the police officer downstairs. I really struggled with this idea, even though I was standing there in this uniform, I had this man talking to me, I really struggled with this idea that I was a police officer. So, for the next few months, I played the role of a police officer. I didn't change who I was. I didn't change my identity in terms of the way I spoke, but I changed the way I saw my role and my position. So, I played the role of a police officer, or James acting as a police officer, and then over time, it became second nature, and then 4 years later, I was doing it without really any hesitation.

As you've been like explaining these things, I was just thinking about my, I just took my daughter to school.

Yeah.

And I was thinking about like how me as a parent and how I position myself as how I interact with her as a 7-year-old. It's almost like I want her to see the best versions of me. So she picks up all of the positivity, the good characteristics. I think every parent wishes that, obviously it's stressful at times. It's funny how you are almost role-playing when you're a parent, when you're, because how you are with your partner to how you are with your children is actually very different. So it's interesting that we possess these skills. We can obviously do it and we do it quite naturally. It's just, we're not conscious of the fact that we're role-playing almost. It feels like, yeah.

Parents, parents are the best speakers, the best speakers. If you think about it, it's the thing where it's just part of our being. As soon as you become a parent, and I'm not a parent, but from speaking to friends who are parents, there's a sudden need to step up and we don't really question it. We don't think, okay, I'm going to go and spend, you know, 12 months doing a training course on how to be a dad or a mum. Of course, there's training along the way, but naturally in terms of you as that character, as that role, it's just something that happens naturally. And one of the things is for a lot of parents, we use this idea of when you read a bedtime story. All of a sudden you become a great speaker. You sit there with this story and all of these characters come to life and suddenly all the environments are described in a way that's really interesting, intriguing. Because again, it's this idea of, you know what it's like to be a child and you go back to this very quick way of thinking and speaking. So if you could take some of that in terms of engagement and the creation of sounds and the creation of these characters and put that into your adult work, I think we'd all be better speakers.

Oh, come on, that, I'm gonna take that. That is absolutely, I do that every night and I come, I become like this storyteller, but okay. Well, look, one of the other things I wanted to, while I have you, ask you about was that a lot of the students often do highly technical roles. One area is more sort of quantitative finance where a lot of the people come from a maths, physics type background and they're deep solving these numerical based problems. Yeah, but they still need to communicate whether it's to their peers, because you're not working as a silo, you're part of a team and you need to work with other stakeholders in a business, for example. So how do you, how do you go for technical students from data awareness to kind of vocal awareness for them? Is it a similar journey or from your experience to those more technical-minded people go through a slightly different process?

I think they do go through a slightly different process. We've worked with a lot of people, and I've worked with a lot of people that are within the technical field, and they're very logical. They have a lot of logic. And I think one of the problems is that they start to speak to people, to that side of the brain in terms of the prefrontal cortex, where ultimately that's where logic and reasoning sits. What they need to do is start to mix those two sides. So you've got the prefrontal cortex, And then on the right-hand side, you've also got the kind of the limbic system where you're connecting to their stories. It's connecting to their emotions and their feelings. And the reality is that if you take those two worlds and put them together, you get someone not just understanding the data, but you also get someone remembering the data. People fail to remember facts and stats, but they do remember stories and what they felt at the time of that story as well. And I think, and there are lots of people who would disagree with this, and I do partly disagree with this depending on the field. But if we look at the Mehrabian model in terms of communication, how that's broken down, you're looking at 7% of your communication being linked to the data or what you are actually saying. And then you've got 55%, which is the majority, linked to body language and nonverbal gestures. And then you've got 38% linked to how you actually say it, or the tone of your voice. So, if you think about it from that perspective, you are going into this presentation with maybe either peers, or you're looking at someone who's more senior than you, and you are focusing purely on data, data, data, data, data. And actually, it's a small amount. And of course, if your tone of voice isn't working, then it's not going to help and support the data side of things either. So, I think we have to remember that it's not just purely, let's spew out the facts, let's spew out the data. We have to tell the stories that link to that data.

And so to tell good stories, the final part of this first section then is kind of listening skills. So how does effective, what does effective listening look like to you? And how does that then translate into being able to speak better, communicate more effectively?

I think there's two sides of this, and then there's two versions of it as well. So I think version number one is being a good listener. And that's where you are mixing the worlds of active listening and reflective listening. So those two things working in tandem. Active listening is where you are ultimately giving that person an indication that you are indeed listening. So again, if we were doing this podcast episode and I started to kind of drift off over here while you were talking, You are going to very quickly think, James isn't listening. Now that's gonna throw you off as a speaker, and also it's going to make you feel like I'm not interested, I'm not intrigued, I don't want to know more. So then you'll probably stop talking. So I'm going to maintain eye contact with you. Yes, I might think of things off to the corner at points, but I'm still going to maintain that eye contact. I might nod, I might even make a noise like, great, yeah, or an encouraging sound. That's active. That's showing you that I'm active in this conversation. Then you've got reflective listening. So, what a lot of people do in things like interviews is they sit there and they think purely— when that person's talking, they're thinking purely about, "What am I gonna say? What am I gonna say? What am I gonna say?" It's the worst way to do it, right? You need to make sure that you are listening to every single thing that person is saying so that you can use that in your response. Now, there's no rush. When you respond, there's no rush. People feel like, "Oh, if I don't jump in with an answer, they're gonna think that I'm not—" 'intelligent' or 'I'm not smart' or 'I haven't got the skills.' No, take your time. Take 2, 3 seconds. If you're really struggling for a response, say, 'That's a great question,' or 'I actually think...' You give yourself that little bit of time, extra time to come up with the right response. So you've got those two things wearing around where you've then got reflective listening and you're giving that person maybe a little bit of a summary. So, 'To touch on your point, Anthony, that you said earlier...' It gives that person an indication I was listening. You can actually go too far. And some people take on that advice where I say things like active listening, as they're sitting there going like this during the interview. And they're saying, "Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm." And it gets very irritating. I had that actually during an interview. This is a couple of years ago. And it was incredibly irritating, because I was trying to explain the question to this interviewee. And they kept going, "Mm-hmm." Mm-hmm. And my acknowledgement of that wasn't, "Oh, you're listening." It was, "You don't want to be here. You want me to get to the end of my sentence." So, you can have a version where someone goes too far. And of course, reflective listening-wise as well, you don't want to summarize every single element of that person's question. It's just a tiny little bit that you need to summarize.

All right. Good stuff, all mates. Complete sense. So let's move on to, I'm thinking there in my, in the back of my head, am I shaking my head too much while James is talking?

Everyone goes very self-conscious when they're speaking. Yeah.

I feel like as well, you're going to drop the bomb and just go silent for a minute just to test my nerves or something like that. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk a little bit more about then the, what we'd call like the application phase. So now you're in the job. So those, those kind of that period between your kind of early to mid-twenties and even beyond really. And it goes from answering questions like we've just described in this interview interaction to then influencing outcomes. Influencing outcomes, I guess, could be managing a client's expectations. It could be trying to talk to your superior about a potential pay rise. Like it changes now you're, there's a different objective and there's more other elements that, that come in. So what's that transition and how does that application change then with some of the things we've been talking about?

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Yeah, I think when you, before you go into that job or that role, you are effectively playing the role of a passive. So you're sitting there at university waiting for your name to be called, or you might kind of put your hand up like this and Wait, hopefully they'll pick me. And you're not sure about the information. You're not sure actually what you are saying is correct. So, in those moments, you are acting as someone who's very passive. You go into a role, you go into a job, you then have to become proactive. Now, what a lot of people get wrong is they take a lot of those elements of being passive into that proactive role. So, when they start to ask questions or they start to make statements or offer their opinion, they add in little tiny fillers, little tiny phrases that make them seem really unsure. I hope I'm right. Well, if you're not right, you'll be told you're not right. So, things like, I just think, I'm just following up, I would just like to add. No, I'd like to add, I'm following up, I think. That really quickly shifts you away from being passive and unsure and uncertain, which makes you look like you don't know what you're talking about, to someone who actually does know what you're talking about. So, I think, yeah, it's very much a language thing for a lot of people. It's just shifting their use of language so they can influence other people, be more persuasive to those people as well.

I was just thinking then, as you were describing that, that the uptalk analogy of when people finish everything with this kind of moving up. Like it's, uh, I read it in some research that that's a psychological hedge that by asking the question, you're kind of giving the onus on the other person to validate rather than you telling them. Is that right in what I read? Yeah. Why people do uptalk?

Yeah, absolutely. Uptalk, upspeak, upward inflections. They're all kind of different terms, but they all mean the same thing. Yeah, it's you questioning whether you are who you say you are. The most common time we see this is in intros. So, in companies, when someone joins a team and they go onto a Zoom call and say, "Great guys, I'd like to introduce John. John, tell us about you." "Hi, my name's John. I've worked in sales for the last 25 years. I joined the company recently and really excited to be here." "Okay, are you called John?" Yeah. Uh, have you been in sales 25 years? Cool. So these are all facts, but because we are nervous and because we want to gauge the room, we are like looking around thinking, are people on board with me? Do they like me? Suddenly your whole pattern of speech changes. So the key thing is you've got to see it almost like an aeroplane landing. So instead of you going down and up, down and up, which would be a horrible journey for anybody on a plane, you've gotta think about it coming downwards. And landing flat at the bottom. And one of the best ways that you can practice this is very simply put, get a piece of text, go on BBC News, find any article you want, and practice with the text in front of you, rising up and rising down, rising up and rising down, because you then get used to this idea of your voice going up and going down. What I should say, and what a lot of people don't think about, is you can actually use an upward inflection or upspeak as a tool. So, for example, if you work in sales or you work in any role where effectively you've got to gauge the room, have an open conversation with someone, you can of course use a bit of upward speak to open that conversation up, invite someone to respond, but that's a very precise use. It's not something that's habitual. And I think that's the biggest thing for most people.

I'm working from home at the moment, and actually last week I had the window salesman knock on the front door and he was amazing. I mean, he could get a sales role doing anything. I mean, he was an older chap, so he's obviously, it's not his first rodeo, but he was doing that as well. He was asking questions that I felt it's only polite that I answer because the way he was queuing me up with the up talk. Now I think about it because he kept, you know, the strategy just kept me talking and then all of a sudden you're booking in appointments and you're doing all sorts. It was really effective, actually.

Because the product doesn't change. The actual service that they're offering doesn't change. It's the way that they're communicating that service to you. And you've clearly been influenced. You know, you might well have booked in that appointment because of the way that he acted around you. But let's say, for example, someone else had come to the door and they were very withdrawn and their voice was very much swallowed and their articulation was off and you're thinking, sorry? All of a sudden, you're now not trusting that service. The company's the same, the product's the same, the service is the same, but your entire perception of that brand is now different because of the way that one person, that one employee communicated with you.

So a similar way then, when you're managing up and down, so you're in an organization, you have, maybe you manage a small team, 2 or 3 people who are more junior to you, but then you have a boss and a boss's boss, for example. What would you recommend for how your communication, articulation, body language, how do all these things, how should you be thinking or using them differently, if different at all, to these different stakeholders?

I think in many respects, there are certain things that remain the same. And you obviously have in most organizations, this very clear structure of seniority and certain people obviously are above, some certain people are at the same level as you, some people are below you in terms of that structure. And I think your communication style does have to change. For example, let's say you're speaking to an MD. Naturally, MDs are very, very busy. They don't have a huge amount of time. And of course, in a heartbeat, they can have to go. They can get called into another meeting that's more urgent than your meeting. So what a lot of people fail to do is they get very nervous and they start to waffle around the point. And they come into that meeting and they say, great, I'd like to just talk to you about something that happened the other day. And I've been thinking about it. I've been doing my research and da da da da da da da. And by this point, you've A, already lost them. They're now thinking about the next thing they need to do. And B, if they get called away, that's it. You've lost your opportunity. So in terms of structure, talk about the decision first. So I've decided to do X because X, Y, and Z. Stop going around the houses to get to the decision. Give them the decision first and then provide the reasoning, the logic, whatever it is behind it. Treat them like Twitter. You know, on Twitter, the big difference between a Twitter post and a Wikipedia post, or X, I think it's called now. I never know what people refer to it as. But either way, when you go on X, Twitter, you make a little tiny post. It's 140 characters. And that's all of the most critical information that that person needs to read there and then. That is your MD. That's all they've got time for. Whereas if you're speaking to a peer, treat them like a Wikipedia post. You've got the time to be able to give them the ins and outs of everything and also make them feel more at home, more comfortable with you, more warm towards you. So I think the language has to change. The actual information that you're presenting has to change and the structure of it has to change as well.

And does body language— so I'm thinking like you're in the workplace at this point. How much influence does that have? Like you get this, going back to the analogy of being a child, it was like, teacher comes and you're all up straight and you're kind of, yes sir, three bags full sir. Like, we obviously don't go that far, but is there a degree of that to show respect? And I know that there's obviously cultural differences as well. I mean, if we were out working in the Far East, which our team often do, and you go to China or Japan and then there's different there's some different protocols in play, but just generally speaking, is there also that— how important is that, the body side of it?

Absolutely. Yeah, it's huge. Massive. Uh, it's such an important part, I think, of general communication, but also in those moments where you're talking to people from different cultures, but also from different ranks and different positions and different roles. We had this recently, we did a bootcamp in London and someone flew from Nigeria. To the bootcamp. And it was fascinating for me because I had a very lengthy conversation with him. We talk about body language all the time, talk about handshakes, the best way to do a handshake, when to handshake, all of those different elements that go into handshakes. And it was fascinating talking to him because his, the culture that he lives in is completely different. And he was explaining how actually in those circumstances, this bit of advice that you're giving would actually be seen like this. So I think if you are, for example, someone who works in a company where you are traveling, You are moving around the world and visiting different places with different cultures and different ideas. You have to make sure you do your research. Find out what is the standard for a greeting. So, for example, body touch, physical touching in some countries is really frowned upon. It's not something that they would like you to do. And so therefore you have to then respect their culture when you are there. So, it is a huge part. When it comes to things like MDs, senior ranks, all of that kind of stuff, I think there's a couple of things to bear in mind. I think if you start doing things like when you're at school, where you start standing up straight, hands behind the back, right? Like this. It looks a bit odd now. I think it looks like you're almost in the army and you're going in to report for duty. And I think that kind of body language is now on its way out. It might still exist in certain trades, but in the majority of things, it looks a bit odd. Also, if you're hiding any part of your body, so for example, your hands are behind your back, your hands are in your pocket, it really is closed-off body language. We don't— psychologically, we don't like the idea of things being hidden. So, if you have your hands in your pocket, it can look a little bit too chilled out, like, "I don't care. I'm kind of relaxed." Whereas having your hands open, ready to be able to communicate with the person you're speaking to, leaving them in what we call home pose. So, it's literally just in front of where your sternum is, just above your stomach, effectively. That is a really good resting place for your hands, because then you can use them to gesticulate, describe your ideas. And remember, it's a big part of communication, so you need that ability to use those hands. That would be my advice in those circumstances.

When you were talking about using hands then, I remember when I was young, and this would again divide opinion, but because of my age, people won't remember, but in the late '90s, Tony Blair was someone who I looked at as a teenager and go, he's a great speaker. He was really charismatic. The way he spoke, he used his hands, things like that. Who in the modern world now, a famous person, do you look at as a professional coaching this stuff and go, wow, that's, that's really great in terms of all of the components being hit? That someone in any profession listening to this conversation might go, okay, yeah, I can see how and why that works. The only one you just sat and go, wow, that's really well executed.

Yeah. I, okay. I think there's a couple of things to, or a couple of people that come to mind and they're for different reasons. If you are someone who is really struggling with the speed of your speech, And the idea of jumping in too quickly, go and watch some interviews with Jordan Peterson. He is an expert in taking his time. When he does podcasts, interviews, talks, people ask him questions and he just sits there for 2, 3 seconds considering his point, wondering what he's going to say. And then he starts talking and he holds that room in all of those situations. So go on YouTube, find some examples of him. Technical speakers, Simon Sinek is a great example of someone who has a huge wealth of knowledge. And some people would disagree with me, but I think he is a great speaker. I think there's a lot of passion behind his words. And he is someone where you receive all of that information through storytelling. So if you're someone who really struggles with that idea of having data, information, stats, go and watch some Simon Sinek videos. In terms of politicians, I think it's a difficult one. I think there's so many of them now. I think in terms of right now that I wouldn't necessarily use as an example without mentioning names as good public speakers. I think looking back, I think you're right. Tony Blair is a good example of someone who does really good speeches, really good speeches alongside David Cameron. I think they were both the top of their game at the time. And of course, Barack Obama, I think is what people use a lot, but I do genuinely think he is something else in terms of scale-wise, speaking-wise. He has got almost everything that every speaker desires, which is charisma, a voice that melts most people. And you've also got someone who can tell a great story. And so I think they're all examples of people that could be used as a way of learning how they do it.

I know I'm going slightly off-piste here, but you said the word charisma then. Yeah. How do you, what are the ingredients that make charisma? So when you say, let's say Obama, I don't know Obama. I'm assuming you're not, he's not on your WhatsApp. So we're not, we don't know him intimately.

I wish he was. I wish he was.

Yeah. But why are we so drawn to him as a figure? Like if you were to like, break it into a toolbox? What is he doing that equals charisma, do you think?

There's lots of factors that go into it. And I think for a lot of people, you are born with an element of it, or you grow up with an element of it. And that's when someone is very friendly, warm, they have a good sense of humour. These are all things where they can crack a A little tiny joke that's humorous and everyone goes, "Oh yeah, that was good. That was good." That can add to that feeling of, "Oh, they've got good charisma." However, I think one of the things that Barack Obama does so incredibly well, which I think a lot of people could learn from, is treating speeches, presentations as a conversation. You are not having a one-sided conversation here. You know, if you're doing a presentation, as an example, what I see a lot of people doing wrong, especially in the younger years of their careers, they go into a presentation and they think, right, I'm going to just present all of this data. I'm going to talk, you're all going to listen, and I'll get to the end. I'll say thank you very much and sit down. No. Every time you make a statement, every time you go through a certain point, you need to be thinking about the fact that the people in the room are having an opinion. They are responding, but they're not responding verbally. They're responding in their heads. You've got to give them time to do that. If you're having a conversation with someone, you don't suddenly just keep on talking. Hopefully you let them jump in with their response. So allow them that time. And I think that's what he does so well. If you watch any of his speeches, he's looking around at his audience. He's allowing them to respond even though he doesn't know exactly what they're saying. And that's what makes him so charismatic and just generally a good, interesting, intriguing speaker. Yeah, that's such a good point.

I've never thought about that. When people are absorbing and contemplating and thinking, it's just a non-verbal response, but too often or not, you just kind of go one, it's one-sided traffic. It's just bosh, bosh, bosh, and you're hitting them with information. So yeah, that's a really good, almost epiphany actually. You explaining it like that, that makes a lot of sense. Anthony Cheung. Yeah. No, go ahead. If you have another point.

I was going to say just on that point, because it links to the whole presentation side of things. The presentation, the slide deck is not the presentation. It's a visual aid. It is there to aid you visually. You have to switch around. It's like public speaking. People say public speaking is scary. All you're doing is speaking in public. It is more than you. So if you've got one person opposite you, that is public speaking. Switch it around, speaking in public. So visual aids, same thing. It is there to aid you visually. When you are speaking to your audience, you need to connect with them, not with the screen that's behind you when you're staring, looking over at all the words that are on the screen. Allow it to tell the story, allow it to support you as the presentation.

Okay, well, we're getting towards the tail end of the conversation. So two things. One, we love on the show to give some practical advice that people could take away and maybe start to implement some of the things we've been discussing. So what would be a recommendation for a 5-minute routine to keep awareness sharp during our busy lives, our busy working weeks?

Yeah. 5 minutes is a good point because I think if you just put 5 minutes in a day, do that across 30, 60, 90 days, you will see your ability to speak publicly increase massively. And you will see those improvements very quickly. I think there's a couple of things. Number 1, you've gotta start with your breathing. People all too often fail to think about their breathing. And if you're someone who gets nervous, if you're someone who finds you get very dry and very croaky, you're not using your voice effectively. So you need to engage that breathing system first. You could do something very simple like box breathing, where you breathe in for 4, hold for 4, and then out for 4, hold for 4, in for 4, hold for 4. And that is a way to regulate your breathing. So I'd start with that. If you have, for example, the first thing in the morning, take a little bit of time, 30 seconds to do some box breathing. Once you've done that box breathing, then move on to a very gentle hum. It's a very good way of warming up the voice for someone who might not have had that training necessarily, where you're just humming on a single note. And if you want to, you can go up and down, which helps start to stretch and warm up that range as well. Take another 30 seconds, 60 seconds of doing that. Then articulation. Easy. It's so easy. Tongue twisters. I bang on about these all the time, but they're so useful. So you've got things like Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. You've got how much wood would a chuck chuck? You've got Betty Botter bought some butter. All of these are tongue twisters.

You said those a few times, crikey.

There's so many of them. So you do learn, I mean, I know probably about 50 off by heart now because I've done them for so long, but you do learn them off by heart, which means that you can go and do them in the shower. Great place, by the way, to do your practice because you've got the steam, hopefully, and that really helps just from a hydration perspective. So do it in the shower. 3 tongue twisters. Try and focus in on not being the fastest. When we're kids, it's this thing of in the playground, who's the fastest? Who can speak the tongue twister the fastest? Oh no, you failed. As adults, it's not. Take your time. So Peter Piper picked a peck. Get your mouth around those sounds and you'll build up those muscles. And the other thing that I would do, and if you can do this every day, great, I think is record yourself. Get your phone. Everyone has a mobile phone that usually has camera abilities nowadays. So stick the phone up somewhere, hit record, no preparation. Talk for 60 seconds on a topic of your choice. Could be anything. Could be about what you're doing at work, what you're going to have for dinner, where you're going on holiday. When you're finished, stop recording. Take your phone, go into the photo album and press play and put the phone down so you can't see yourself and you can only hear yourself. Take a notebook, start to write down everything you notice. This is the whole awareness stage. So write down everything you notice about what you hear. So you're taking away all of that communication in terms of body language. Then once you've done that, flip it back up, mute it. Now watch it back with no sound and just watch yourself, uh, body language-wise. What do you notice? Write it all down. And then finally, take yourself off mute, watch the whole thing with the visuals and the audio. And write everything you notice down. And what you've now built on a daily basis is everything you need to be working on the next day or the same day.

Oh, I love that. That is so practical and something we can all do. And it reminds me when I used to play basketball at a higher level as a youth player, often you would, you would look at game tape. So you'd look at in any sport, You'd sit there and you'd watch an opposing player, say if Federer is going to play Nadal back in the day, you would work out what's his play and how would you respond. And so this going back and reviewing one time the footwork, one time the backhand, one time the forehand. I like what you're saying. It's kind of like, look at the audio only, look at the body only and breaking it into its components. That sounds such So simple, and yet you wouldn't really think of it like that. And slow everything down.

If you were to treat your speech like learning an instrument, I used to play the flute when I was a kid, and my teacher would, every time I'd get a phrase wrong, it would be like I trip over one of the sounds or one of the notes. They make me go back and slow everything down by 50%. Da, da, da, going through it. Okay, fine. Okay, I've got that. A little bit faster. Okay. Da, da, da. Fine. A little bit faster until eventually you can do it at full speed. So if you are finding, for example, there's a word that you can't pronounce correctly, if there's a particular phrase you trip over or don't remember a lot of the time, slow it down, bring it all back and take your time to build up that muscle memory.

And then that other, the other point that resonated there was about trying to incorporate it into a habit that you, it's least frictions possible. 'Cause I think one of the reasons why people don't go to the gym is 'cause, oh, it's cold outside. I've gotta drive to the gym. I'm not gonna go to the gym. The barrier's too big. As you said, if you're in the shower, I would hope most people shower before they go to work, but that, that people could do that and they don't have to do it loud. You know, I don't want my wife going, I think he's losing his mind. But, uh, to, to warm yourself up. So I think that's really good as well. It's what I kind of encourage our community to do with consuming market-related podcasts. It's like, do it when you're on the bus or going to campus or doing your shopping or in the gym. It's like, use that time so you don't have to reallocate more time to do things that are going to detract from the things you really want to do sort of thing. So yeah, that's, that's really cool.

And I think just on that point, when it comes to practice and habits, because it's a very valid point, people really fail at the first hurdle because they think, ah, for example, Me as someone who hates going to the gym, I really have tried for many, many, many years to try and build up the habit of going to the gym. And for many, many years, I'd go to the gym on my first day back, and I'd go in and I'd spend an hour, and I'd leave and go, "Oh, that was so much effort. That was really just— I can't be bothered." My friend who's a PT, he turned around to me, this was a couple of years ago, And he said, I want you to try something. I want you to go to the gym every day for the next 30 days, but you're only gonna do 5 minutes. I want you to walk into the gym, get on the treadmill and walk. That's it. Go on your phone, do what you want. I was like, all right, fine. 30 days passed. By the time I got to 30 days, I was already doing 15, 20 minutes. 297 days later, I hadn't not worked out because you're building up this repetition and that muscle memory, and it takes 30 days to form that habit. Right? But James Clear said something in Atomic Habits. If you haven't read Atomic Habits, it's an amazing book. But he always talks about this idea that do not set yourself the target on your best day. Set yourself the target on your worst day. So if you are saying to yourself, okay, I'm gonna spend 10 minutes to work on my speech every day. Great. So if everything's falling apart, your kids are sick, the dog's having to go to the vet, work's called in, you have to stay on till midnight. Are you still going to be able to do 10 minutes? And if the answer is no, you've set yourself too high of a target. It needs to be what you can do on your worst day.

Talking of books, I know that there's another fantastic book out there, or coming soon.

What is that book, James? Yeah, it's my book. It's my first book. Yeah. Master the Art of Speaking. It's coming out on the 16th. June. So it's pre-ordered now on Kindle. And it's coming out in paperback and hardback on the 16th of June as well. So it's really, for me, it's a book that I've built based on how I learn best. And I love books where you can pick it up, you can open any page and you can learn something tool-wise, exercise-wise that you can use there and then. But I also love books that have a story to it. And I can sit there and read on holiday and read the whole thing back to back and enjoy it as a story as well.

And also you mentioned bootcamps earlier in the conversation. So what are those as well? Just so people know. Totally.

So we are actually now, uh, we've been doing bootcamps for a long time and they've usually been in London. They're a full day of training with our team. So it's from the morning all the way through to the afternoon. And effectively it gives people an opportunity to not only learn from us in terms of those skills, exercises, tools, techniques. But then stand up in front of a group and actually speak and enjoy that safe space where they're all there, like Toastmasters, where they're all there to become better speakers. But so many of those have sold out, we're actually now moving to a monthly bootcamp. So, we've got every 2 months in London, Central London, we're doing a bootcamp on the last Saturday of the month. And then in between those dates, we're doing our regionals. So, we're doing Manchester, we're doing Bristol, Milton Keynes, and Birmingham as well. So, wherever you are within this part of the world. Or actually, to be fair, I say someone flew from Nigeria to come to our bootcamp. So even if you're on the other side of the world, do come along. As I say, it's on the last Saturday of every month.

Yeah, well, having met you and your team many years ago, and seeing the growth of your business and the impact you've had on our workforce, I mean, I'd encourage everyone to definitely check it out. And I'll drop some links into the show notes and so on. But yeah, wish you all the best with the book and your continued growth of your your business and your team. I certainly learned a few things here. I felt very self-conscious of nodding too much as you were explaining things. Everyone does. Yeah. Maybe I could go back and turn off the audio and watch my body language. I'm just there like nodding like I'm a, you know, but let's wrap it up there. And any questions people have, please let us know in the comments below. We'd love to interact with you in the community. But James, thank you very much for being here. Thank you.