Inspirational Interview with Diana Robertson

Hi everyone, welcome again. I'm so, so excited to have my next Interview of the Month where I interview speakers, leaders from across the world who have done some pioneering, excellent work. And I'm so excited, and I've been with this, uh, trainer trying to get her schedule for last few months. So it's not even easy, right? Because she's of course so busy, and she also recently became a mum. So congratulations to her. I'm talking about, as you know already, Diana Robertson. She's an award-winning speaker, communication skills trainer, and founder of SkillMe, a soft skills academy. Having been a shy introvert herself, she has now devoted her life to helping introverts unleash their potential with the power of communication skills. So while we— I invite her to be on the stage, please drop in the chat from where you are joining us. And also, if you have any question that you want to ask Diana, feel free to put it in the chat and we'll see what question we can take. So welcome, Diana, welcome to the show. I'm really, really excited to have you here.

Hello everyone, hi there, how are you doing?

Awesome. So Diana, why don't we start with your journey? I know everybody, every one of us have our own unique stories, our own unique journey, so we'd like to hear from you about your journey maybe 1 to 2 minutes?

Sure. Uh, story behind what? Behind becoming a speaker, Haritosh Srivastav? Behind, I don't know, the business? Or behind what?

I mean, you can choose. I would say behind all, but that would be probably long. But let's, let's talk about the entrepreneurship as well as the becoming a soft skills trainer.

Okay, fair enough. Um, Sure. So since I was a child, I was, I always wanted to become a business owner. That was just my thing. I know normal children will want to try random things, but I specifically wanted to become a business owner. But the thing is, there was one big issue. And the issue was that I used to be a very quiet, shy kid. The type of person who would sit in the corner, never raise her hand if I'm asked something in the classroom, and not because I wouldn't know the answer, but simply because I did not want the attention and all of these people looking at me. I would just get terrified, would go red, would go really scared, and I won't be able to say the right answer even if I know it. So I was that type of person. And the thing is, as you can imagine, in modern world, uh, somebody with such communication skills might be not the best person to lead a business because you need a lot of interactions with people on a daily basis, all the time. You need to manage your team, you need to find good suppliers, you need to negotiate some terms, you need to show leadership characteristics in yourself. I mean, potentially you want to be charismatic as well. And those are the things I all didn't have. Now I know Haritosh Srivastav gave me just 2 minutes, so I guess I'll just Um, I can speed it up, but the point is I used to be there and, uh, that did not work. That did not work for business. That did not work for other works I was— work I was applying for. And what I started to do is I started to focus on my communication skills because I realized that was the stopping factor behind my, uh, in front of my success. So I started to do all types of things. I started to join public speaking clubs. I started to join various courses. We're talking public speaking, debates, drama, improv, you name it, I tried it. I tried them all. And it was a super, super difficult journey because, I mean, imagine if I struggled to speak in front of just the classroom. I mean, imagine if I needed to speak in front of the camera or in front of you know, all those people whom I don't know. Uh, but eventually, uh, it started to work, and I realized that it is possible to gain communication skills even in adulthood. And eventually I did it so much that I realized that actually I am now pretty good at teaching the stuff as well. And that's how it later developed into a business, even though that was never, never the plan. And I had other businesses before this, but it just seems to me that people started coming to me for advice. So we were like, oh, Diana, can you help us with this and with that? And it just seemed to be the thing I was good at, and I felt that other people needed these type of skills and they wanted to learn them from somebody who learned them rather than who somebody naturally had them. And that's how eventually it turned out into Skills.me Academy.

Wow, that's an amazing journey. And yeah, you, you didn't take more than 3 minutes. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, uh, so what was the, you know, epiphany? What was the moment? Because I know you just talked about that, yeah, this is where you said, okay, this is my ikigai, my purpose in life. Was there any particular instance that you discovered that now this is what I want to do for the rest of my life? Or was it a series of events that led to that?

Well, uh, yeah, sure. So the thing is, before this, I mean, I, uh, my background is in finance, just so you know. So the way I viewed business opportunities was purely kind of financial outlook. So sort of, um, does it make sense to open a business in this industry? What's the growth rate of this industry? What's— how difficult it is to enter? How difficult to exit? Are the costs, you know, all types of return on investment. So all types of things. And whenever, as I mentioned earlier, I was always looking for business opportunities. So that's the type of outlook I had on these things. So before this, I had a food delivery business in Russia. So think like Uber Eats and Deliveroo. Yet it was times when, I mean, it was some time ago. So it wasn't when people delivered things. It was the time when you would go and pick up from the restaurant. So organize the actual delivery system behind it. So, but the thing is, uh, when I did that, for some reason, for a really unknown reason to me, I did not enjoy that. And when you don't enjoy something, it's very hard to make yourself work for it, especially in startups where you don't see the money coming in straight away. You need to work really hard first and then well, in most cases, and only then you see the income. And then the income is not coming soon, and then you're not really enjoying the process. And for me, that was kind of, uh, it's really hard to do. And then due to a number of personal circumstances, moving between countries, I stopped that business. And then I kept on looking, just continued being open. So, okay, so what kind of things can I open next? But the thing is, I mean, nothing really stood out to me. I don't know, I just couldn't find anything that I would enjoy until eventually, as I told you, like, I was developing these communication skills, people started coming to me. I was giving advice for free, I was mentoring, then I was organizing. I don't— you, I mean, you know Toastmasters, but those of you who don't know Toastmasters, it's a volunteering, uh, organization where you develop also public speaking skills. And there, as a volunteer, you can be in charge of a whole club, which is kind of like a small company in a sense. So I started doing that, and I realized I'm doing super well. I mean, we were like the top club in the whole— in whole Russia, actually, um, in terms of various things like new clients or just members progression. And I realized it's something I really liked. So that made me for the first time consider maybe I should go into this industry. And for the first time, I wasn't looking at the financials. I was looking at the type of thing that I enjoy and the type of thing I do well. And well, the finance followed later. So yeah, that was kind of the moment.

That's amazing. And yeah, I was looking at your profile. You seem to be truly multinational. I've been into 3 different geographies myself, and I could see that you were in UK, you were in Russia, you were in China, and I don't know, any other countries as well?

Syria.

Syria, wow. So now that's an interesting question because I know every geography, and this is not to typecast any particular geography or country, but there is an innate communication style of different countries. So based on your time that you spend on different countries, what do you think are the different communication styles that you notice, say, for in Russia and China and Syria and any other country that you have visited?

Absolutely, that's a great question, Haritosh Srivastav. It's actually a very interesting question, um, because I mean, at SkillsMe Academy, we teach things more kind of internationally, but we're still UK-based, so it's still more or less UK, slightly American style, but I mean, that's about it. But sometimes, well, we often get people from all around the world and sometimes we get interesting questions. For example, people come from Germany. Now I've been to Germany. I didn't live in Germany, but, uh, I, I mean, every time I just can't but notice a major difference in a sense that Germans, from what it seems to me when they come to me, they seem to be much more direct in their communication. Also possibly because in many cases we've got German engineers coming specifically to that as well. Uh, and for example, we teach to, uh, add more context into things. So for example, we teach storytelling, and storytelling is not about saying one sentence. It's about adding more details. It's about adding, like, telling about the journey. And it seems to be a skill that's most German engineers at least lack, like properly lack, to the point that, I mean, I remember I was at one German university and there I split people into groups and I asked, okay, so let's, you've got 5 minutes, let's tell a story. And I gave them the specific detail. So it was a very simple story just about themselves, something to do with introduction basically. And normally if I take a UK class, we've got mixed backgrounds, which you'll have is that most of the people would be exceeding 5 minutes and they would be like, oh, I didn't finish my story, there was still something to tell. There, people were done on average in 30 seconds.

Wow. Wow.

30 seconds.

Wow.

So when I get them back, I'm like, so did you manage to finish on time? They're like, yeah, I mean, we finished ages ago. So that was a very interesting thing, how I found Germany specifically was very, very direct. If we take Arabs, they're actually people who probably in general don't really need to tell story, learn storytelling, because that's all they do. They all will stories all the time.

And it seems very interesting.

So often most people, to most people, it comes naturally. Not to all, obviously. Anything that I say today about different people I'm generalizing.

I'm just— absolutely, absolutely. That's what I also said at the start of the question. This is not to typecast somebody to say, yeah, this all, all UK people or all Indian or Chinese are like that, but this is a general observation you see as a coach. Yeah, go ahead.

Sorry. Yeah, no, no. Yeah, absolutely agree with you. Thanks for specifically mentioning this. This is just a general tendency. I guess the final example I'll bring is Eastern Europeans. So I'm talking about Russians, but that applies to countries nearby as well, similar type of communication style. So we're talking Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania. So very similar. Um, uh, I went to present at one big, um, corporation in Russia. Yeah. And I used— it was an English presentation, so I was using my normal English style of presenting, which is slightly towards American, just because this is the type of thing that I like, where I'm quite energetic. I smile a lot. I ask people questions. So what do you think? You know, so I bring that energy intentionally. That's actually— I mean, when I'm tired, I'm not like that, but when I'm on a stage, I try to be that way just to bring that energy up so people are involved with me, so they can— so they listen to me. So this is like a tool that I intentionally use. Now, I did that at that Russian corporation and people, you could see that I got people's attention. So I mean, that was, that was a tick. They listened to me, they were paying attention, they heard me because I was asking them questions later. But what I also do is sometimes I distribute feedback, anonymous feedback things, and I asked them about the style of presenting. And what I heard from them is literally the opposite of what I hear from people from the UK normally. What majority of people wrote is that I was too energetic for them. I was like an— somebody said an actress that needed attention. Wow. Um, actually, I really needed their attention, not because I wanted them to look at me, I wanted them to listen to me, but that's what said. So not everybody, always not everyone, everybody is different. Some people said, I love the energy. But in general, that's the tendency. Whereas in the UK, when I present, it seems to be the opposite. Most people mention that, oh my God, I really like the energy. It's so engaging. It's so entertaining, like super engaging speaker. So that's another interesting thing I learned just by being myself. Apparently, I slightly upset some people in Russia.

So yeah. Interesting conversation. Yeah, amazing. Thank you for sharing those stories. Now, while you are talking about all these stories, I do remember I saw a post from you on LinkedIn somewhere about something which happened on an Italian restaurant when you are doing— yeah, proposing something. Yeah, do you want to talk about that? Only if you're comfortable.

Uh, yeah, sure thing. Just let me get a sip of water.

Sure.

Haritosh Srivastav is talking about the post where I was sharing a story of how I needed to present a sales presentation to my first ever client with that business I was talking to you about, the food delivery. So the company— my clients were the restaurants, and my job as a, as an owner, I had to persuade those restaurants to work with me so that I deliver their food. And this situation happened when I went to this posh restaurant and they were desperate for clients. Like, you could see they were absolutely empty. And what I was offering them would really, really help them out. Just like, you could see that they will just basically be making more sales and not losing anything else in return. So I come to them all prepared, and this is before I started working on my communications thing. This is like one of the hints I got that, oh, I need to develop my communication skills. So I come to them all prepared, and I prepared a beautiful presentation. Haritosh Srivastav, I bet you've never seen slides this beautiful in your life. They were like, they were very, very beautiful. They were moving, like you press on one thing, it takes you to another thing. I mean, oh, best design, best template as well. I mean, in terms of structure. And so I start the slides and I get to slide number 3, and the owner of the restaurant who was there, who was a very impatient Italian guy, he just stood up and he was like, so why should we work with you? And I when he did that, and he just needed to wait for the actually 2 more slides because we would— I had the 10 reasons why they should specifically work with me. But in that moment when he did that, with that little bit of aggression as well, what happened is that it shut me up and just made me close up. And instead of— I mean, what I should have done is like, okay, listen, so 'calm down, let's say these are the main reason is because I'm gonna make you money.' That's what I should have said, but I just couldn't. No word escaped my mouth at all. And I was just sad like that and blinking at him like, what has just happened? And I couldn't remember what I was talking about. I just couldn't. Even though of course I know I'm gonna make you money, I couldn't say that. And the, what's happened next is that in this moment, it happened so quickly and I was calm, I guess, for quite a long time. Uh, no, calm, quiet. The guy just went out and left the room and slammed the door. And that was such an embarrassing moment because his team consisting of 8 members were still around the table looking at me. And I'm also looking at them and they're like, huh? And all stood up and also left the room right after the guy. And somebody mentioned to me, well, these were nice slides.

What a compliment.

I can't believe you two become my customer. And I mean, what just happened? I couldn't believe it. And of course, In most cases, that's not how the conversations go. Obviously, I mean, there are exceptionally slightly arrogant people out there sometimes. But the thing is, it makes you realize that actually could have done better. And I know that could have made a client out of them. Because as I told you, Haritosh Srivastav, I knew that my service would have been of help to them. But then I couldn't. And that was one of the cues when I was like, okay, I really need to do something about it. And this is when what helped me with this is learning impromptu speaking and kind of improvising. I went to improve a lot, so that really helped me to get the ideas fast. So again, it's another really nice skill to learn, which by the way, we teach at Skills Bee Academy.

Awesome. Awesome. I love that story. And you're filled with stories. So my next question is about storytelling itself, which is You do talk a lot about and teach about storytelling. Now, if somebody who's just starting off and he wants to learn storytelling, what are some of the things that— one or two things that they can start incorporating, like, right after this interview?

Sure. I mean, again, come with a mindset that it is a skill that you can learn. So I was born without good storytelling. Skills. I'm telling you, I mean, I used to be the type of person who, if I am especially in a group, if I'm in a group thing with them, with my friends, and they would be telling stories and laughing and like, oh, you can't imagine what happened, and this and that. And I would be the type of person who'd say yes, or yeah, that's really cool. Oh, that's really funny. But I wouldn't be the Speaker as such, I would be the listener who says, yes, yes, yes, that's nice. And if I started to tell stories, and I tried that many times, what would happen is I would get lost in some detail and go a bit slow. For some reason, I would not be able to grab their attention and keep it. Maybe I'll grab them and then in the middle of it, they start talking about something else that happened to somebody else. And that was just so, so rude if you think about it, but at the same time, I don't blame them. I mean, they're my friends. It didn't mean anything bad towards me. It's just because I, as a speaker, wasn't able to get their attention. Now when I tell a story, I know that everybody comes down and just listens to me. So the number one thing, so basically number one advice is just be open to learning. If this is something you don't have right now, it doesn't have to stay stay this way, it's definitely worth investing some time into learning this skill. Now, a quick technique. Okay, just, just so you know, I won't be able to teach you too much about storytelling.

Of course, of course, that's not the question.

But just as part of this interview, one of the core elements of any story is a conflict. Conflict doesn't mean that you had a fight with somebody. Conflict is just the term storytellers use or filmmakers use, but in fact it's any type of problem. And so, for example, um, if I, I can tell you a fun story about how I nearly missed my flight, but I cannot tell you about a fun story about how I went to the airport and everything was fine. That would be very boring. You see what I'm getting?

Nothing, nothing, nothing special in that.

Yeah, exactly. So we as human beings, for some reason, we like the problems. And that's why people like gossiping as well. Like, can you imagine what she's done? Or something like that. It's about, it's all about problems, some sort of problems. Um, and a lot of people say that, oh, my life is so boring. Nothing interesting happens. I don't have fun stories to tell. This is not true because literally all our lives are stories and we're faced with challenges every single day. All you need to do is to register, okay, this is a challenge. I could potentially tell a story about it. So that would be the number one technique and number one rule of storytelling. And also what you want to do is to make that the center of your story. So you don't want to, back to the, um, to the airport example. About getting, um, nearly missing the flight. Let's say you nearly missed the flight because of security at the airport, because they were really annoying with you. Well, in that case, you want that to be the middle of your story. You don't want to start how you woke up in the morning and you had plenty of time. And you can mention it, but you can mention it really quickly, but then Make sure, because people, if you, you, if you tell us uneventful things for too long, you're gonna lose people's attention and you're not gonna get to the interesting bit. So you want to make sure that uneventful things you tell them fast, but then the eventful thing you don't tell it fast. You actually spend some time on telling it, telling it like, and I look at the security guy and he looks at me and I'm like, And whatever, whatever thing happened there.

Right, right.

So you, like, as a magnifying glass, you want to bring that into that problem. Then that ends, and then a quick conclusion at the end, rather than— because a lot of people naturally, what they think is, okay, this is a timeline and I need to spend an equal amount of time on everything. That's not true. You really want to magnify the problem and tell less about the things.

Wow.

So I hope that helps.

That's amazing, amazing tips. That first, get into the storytelling mindset, because anybody can be a great storyteller. And then sharing the frame of work of zooming in and zooming out onto the conflict versus all the integrated. Yeah, we all have been, and I have been like, telling too many details. And by the end of the detail, like, yeah, you can see people are turned off, or they're checking their phones or doing something else. All right, so we are coming close towards the end, but I do want to ask you, because you have been an introvert, yeah, you say in your intro as well, uh, so how can an introvert— and this is not only about interpersonal communication or talking to somebody on phone or friends and all, but also in the workspace— how can introvert, no, uh, how do you say, become a better communicator? Any of your tips on that?

Sure. So I think what I'm going to say will apply not only to introverts, but also to extroverts, because actually everyone needs to develop certain skills. It's just different skills sometimes. So for example, I really needed to learn the skill of storytelling. I realized that once we did that. I'm an introvert and I— now being an introvert doesn't mean you can't say much, but like, I was a type of introvert who wouldn't say much. I would be just like those German engineers who would communicate in quick sentences and that's all, because I would think maybe that's all I can get from people in terms of attention. Now, an extrovert in general might be a person who would be saying more things in general. Doesn't mean that's All extroverts are like that. Yeah. So an introvert might need to learn how to tell longer and more interesting stories, but an extrovert might need to learn how to, uh, not exaggerate in terms of details so much. So because they may also lose people's attention by saying so much, it's also possible. So the idea is it doesn't matter who you are, but what matters is how you develop the skills. And the main tip for developing any communication skill is to do it through practicing. And this is key. I mean, it sounds— it might sound obvious, very obvious, but the thing is, if I ask you how to ride a bike, how to learn how to ride a bike, everybody will say you just sit on the bike and you ride it, and you fall a few times, you get up, you ride again. When I ask, how do you learn public speaking or something, many people will start by, I don't know, maybe watching videos, Googling things, etc. But actually, I mean, it's great to get that knowledge, but unless you actually do it, you will never be able to speak in front of the public. Because in very many cases, you already know how to do things. And like, if I watch maybe somebody and like As a non-professional speaker, I'll be like, well, they really need to say things louder and more expressively. But when you put me there, I know I need to be saying that, but I won't be able to do it. So literally the only effective way to learn communication skills is to actually do it. And as much, as much as possible. It's hard. It's the hardest way, but it's also the quickest way actually. So in, at the end, it will really pay off.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Diana, for sharing such an amazing, amazing insight. I know your time is limited, you've got a number of things. So tell us how people can connect with you and know what kind of services that you offer. And yeah, uh, would love to connect you with some people.

Sure. So, uh, I mean, you will find me personally on LinkedIn. Feel free to connect with me, feel free to message me. And if you are interested in joining communication courses that we offer at SkillsMe Academy— and by the way, all of these courses are based on practice. So we don't only give you the knowledge, we also make sure that you practice it with us to the point where the skill becomes a part of who you are. So rather than thinking of something, oh, what did they tell me in lesson number 3, it comes to you naturally. You just do it because you've done it with us many, many times. And to find SkillsMe Academy, you just write skillsme.co.uk Or you can check out our Instagram, it's @skillsmesoftskills, all in one word. Then you'll be able to get some hits, some nice interesting ideas in the Instagram where we teach little things there. And also on our website, you'll be able to get the actual courses.

Now, amazing. Thank you so much, Diana. And please guys, go and check out her academy. I've checked out some of the Instagram posts and it's really intriguing and interesting content out there. And yeah, if you're looking for a soft skills trainer, want to learn and grow, yeah, go and check out her. Thank you so much once again. It was a pleasure and honor to have you in my show. So I hope to work with you and talk to you pretty much again soon, very, very soon. So take care. And yeah, for all the people who come join us, as I say all the time, until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep going out of your comfort zone. This is Haritosh Srivastav, and I'll be back maybe next month, maybe another month, with another amazing speaker trainer. All right, take care, stay safe, stay blessed.