Mastering Impactful Communication: Insights from Philip Sessions

Our special guest today is an author, expert, trainer and coach. He's the founder of Speaking Sessions. He's also the author of Mindset Over Motivation. Very happy to have with us today Philip Sessions. Philip, how are you today?

Hey, I'm great. How about you? T.J. great.

We are joining not only a lot of social media platforms today, but we're on Amazon Live and we have the book Mindset Over Motivation. Those of you watching on Amazon Live, you can see on your carousel, depending on whether you're using a phone, an iPad, a tablet, or a computer, it's either on your left, your right, or the bottom. With one click, you can learn more about the book Mindset Over Motivation. Philip, I think you and I are probably in the same camp that there's a lot of hype about motivation and there's a lot of videos out there and you know, Denzel Washington is great and there's nice mood music, but motivation kind of dissipates. Motivation is great at a certain time when you're looking for that. But Monday morning, 6am the motivation isn't there. Do you stay in bed? Do you hit the snooze alarm one more time? Tell us what people learn in Mindset Over Motivation.

Your book, what I try and teach in that book, is that mindset or sorry, not mindset. Motivation is great, but your mind has to be made up to do something. If I could summarize that whole book, Motivation is great when you have it, you can do anything. But the problem is a lot of times, and I talk about my personal journey in that book to creating the success. At the time I thought, oh, I need to be motivated in order to be able to do something. Well, I kept waiting for that motivation and waiting and I realized things weren't happening. So it took me setting my mind to do the thing that I was trying to accomplish and the actions it took to accomplish that for me to actually make it happen. So it was all about having the mindset that I'm going to do this and not the motivation to go get that done. And I talk a lot through fitness applications because that's the most applicable thing, I think, for everybody to understand how that applies to the rest of our lives.

And tell us about your journey, what brought you here? Because in my experience, having created online courses about motivation and following other people who do that, it's typically because, oh, we screwed up at some level and either our health wasn't great, our career wasn't great, and we had to really reflect on we're doing Something wrong, let's try something else. And then finding something that works. Take us through your journey.

So, for me, and especially why I wrote this book, was because I realized in my fitness career that that was something that was. I was excelling at. I was doing really good. I was above most people. I was above average for my fitness life. But when it came to personal relationships, when it came to developing a business, when it came to the corporate career, anything else was maybe still above average. But I didn't excel as much in those areas. And I started thinking, why was that? And a lot of it came down to, yes, I had more motivation to go to the gym. But then I also did a bodybuilding show. And if you've never done a bodybuilding show before, essentially you're starving yourself. You're not any eating anything delicious anymore. And I mean, you're.

And just to clarify, meaning you were competing, you weren't just putting it on?

Yes, yes, correct. Yeah, I was competing.

I will a full disclosure for our viewers, which will surprise absolutely no one. I've never competed in a bodybuilding show. I just wanted to get that out there. And the host will be keeping all of his clothes on today during the show. But I'm sorry, please continue.

There we go. I'm gonna keep my clothes on, too, just so we're clear on that. And nobody's worried that we're gonna get kicked off of social media for undecent exposure, but when I was doing this bodybuilding show, I realized that I was able to stay disciplined the whole time, even though I. I didn't want to eat the healthy food, I wanted a chocolate cake, I wanted all these bad things, but my mind was made up that I was going to do this bodybuilding show. And through that process, it made me start to realize that, you know what? This is why I'm not doing well in other areas of my life. Because while it's a cool thing, I think it'll be great to do. Like, I would love to build a. A big business and be super successful in that, or at the time, have a great relationship. I didn't set my mind completely to that. And it was always just when I felt like it, when things felt good. And so that's what I brought into that book, and I still do to this day, is I set my mind on something, and when I set my mind on it, that's when it actually gets accomplished. But when I just had the motivation, it. Sometimes it does get accomplished, I'll admit that. But most of the time, it doesn't actually get accomplished.

I mean, I always think of it in terms of the easiest way to be motivated to do something is to have an actual genuine passion for that thing. Not thinking, I need this to get something else. I see this all the time with a lot of my students, especially sometimes in the United States, but especially in India and a lot of other countries where they say, tj, I'm really having trouble being motivated to take my engineering classes and my pre med classes because I find them boring. But I know I have to get A's or my parents will hate me and my life will be a failure. And the problem is they don't really want to be engineers or doctors. They think they have to do it because if they don't, their parents will hate them and disown them.

And.

And I always suggest that you've got to really step back and ask yourself, what is it you really care about in life? Because I know plenty of people who did extremely well in school, top grades and top Ivy League universities, and ended up in professions that they absolutely hated and practically drove them insane. So, so much to me about the mindset. Motivation requires some reflection as a human being thinking about what is it I really want to do? Because if you figure that out, the motivation often comes naturally because the mindset is there. They meld together.

Exactly, exactly. And that's why. And that's something I also realize. I appreciate you bringing that out with the fitness. That was something that I was passionate about, I enjoyed, and so I could suffer, so to speak, through a lot of things even if I didn't have the motivation, because there was a motivation in some way, shape or form. And yes, of course, looking better physically is a good motivation to keep you on track, but it's not always. I mean, look at, especially in the United States, a lot of people that are overweight in, I would say solidly, 98% of those people probably are miserable, but they're not miserable enough to make a change. And so this is again, why it goes back to having the mindset. We have to put ourselves in the mindset that we're gonna change in order to actually have a change. It's not about motivation. It's the Zig Ziglar's famous quote, something along the lines of, you have to. Motivation is like taking a shower. You have to do it every day. So that's the. That's a problem, if you will, of motivation. You have to find something to motivate you every day versus the mindset. That's There, it's ingrained. You're gonna do it no matter if you like it or not.

Rain or the great Zig Ziglar no longer with us. I did have the privilege of seeing him on stage, oh, probably about 20 years ago now. And he, he really had quite the gift and showmanship and some people could say a little bit corny, but very memorable. I mean, certain phrases of his like, you can, you can accomplish anything in the world you want if you have other people accomplish what they want. Still rings true. The book is Mindset Over Motivation. It's available this second on Amazon. You can click there, there or there. If you're watching us on Amazon, you can find out more. You can go ahead and buy the book as well. You've got it in audiobook format, a paper book format format, Kindle as well. I, I like to balance between all those different formats depending on whether I'm on an airplane or whether I'm at the beach or how I want to read. So it's available in all formats. The subtitle Motivation is Temporary. Mindset is Forever. How to Establish a Stronger Mindset. Walk us through some of the tips that you really give to people on how to develop the mindset. Because conceptually, people think, well, yeah, that, that makes sense. I understand that. But so many people go through life, I believe, not really questioning the goals that society gives them. So many people buy into this idea of you're not really successful unless you have a big house, unless you have a big business, if you're your own business person, unless you have a prestigious career that involves either owning a successful business, a big law firm, or a successful surgeon. And if, if you, if you go into life with that mindset, it's a prescription for misery for a lot of people. Right?

Yes. Yes, completely agree. And that's one of the things that's in the book talking about not comparing to other people. You have to figure out what it is that you want. Because like, just like with the Indians that we talked about with getting degree, just because their parents wanted them to, they were miserable. And that's the same thing for us. We're never going to have motivation if we're doing something that's not for us, or I shouldn't say never, but most likely we're not going to have motivation to do something or even have the mindset and fortitude to follow through with something we've decided to do if it's not something that we truly want. There has to be that. Why? Behind that, the second thing is taking action. Action over a repeated period of time will start to produce results. Just like if I eat a salad for one day does not mean that I'm going to have a six pack that same day or the next day. I have to eat a salad to time and time again. And this is not health advice, I'm just using it as an example. But I have to eat healthy and work out over a consistent period of time and then all of a sudden my body will start to show those results. It's not about taking one action. That's the right thing. Too often we think that's what it is. And so that's where that mindset comes in. We have to set in our mind that we are going to do this action until we get the results that we want and really even continue to do it after that. Because you could get in shape and then you stop doing those good habits and you lose the shape again. You have to go back and it's this yo yo diet essentially. And then the third thing is that your support, and this was one thing that really I found out as I started building my business. Your support is going to come from people that you probably don't even know or people that you know from, especially online, especially for us here in the 21st century with social media, you're going to have more support from people that don't really know you than people that really know you. Childhood, best friends, family, your significant other, because they know who you were before you started. So if you were a 400 pound person, the people that knew you were at 400 pounds are going to still kind of look at you as a 400 pound person even if you are 200 pounds, but somebody who met you when you were 200 and 200 pounds, 215 pounds almost at that person you are now, they're gonna believe that's who you are. And so the same thing, if you're trying to start a business, the people that know you but pre starting a business are gonna say you can't do that. There's no way, like why? Why are you gonna do that? That's completely different than who you are now. But the people that see you already working on that or starting to work on that and they don't know the history of you and your life, they're going to support you. And that was one of the biggest realizations I had when it came to overcoming that motivation only mentality and going to focusing on the mindset is that your supporters are not going to come from the people that, truthfully, we hope it comes from our family, our friends, our. Our significant others. It's going to come from people that don't know our past history.

How do you personally blend together your specific mindset, your goals, what's motivating you? Intensities of motivation, Things you like and don't like in a way that works for you. So, for example, I can't stand lifting weights. I don't like lifting. I've never enjoyed it. I've found it incredibly boring. But I also don't like all of my muscles shriveling up and being tiny marshmallows. So for me, my compromise is I lift weights every day. I only do 5 sets of 10 reps. You may find this laughable. It only takes 4 minutes. But for me, that's enough so that I'm at least not shrinking. How do you combine your own likes, dislikes, your goals and mindsets in a way that's flexible and works for you? Because it does occur to me that so many people, they just say, well, if I'm not going to do, you know, P90X for three hours a day, I shouldn't even bother. And that's, that's not a good mindset.

Yeah. So you have to start with small steps. Too often, I think social media plays us out. Burn the bridges, burn the boats, just tear everything down and just go for it. No, to me, it's all about taking small steps. How close can we start to bring that boat to the dock before we jump to the boat kind of situation there? So start with some small steps, things that you know that you can do. One thing with going back to social media, a lot of people talk about, oh, you got to be consistent on social media to grow your following all this stuff. But then you've got Gary Vee that says post 500 times a day and all, you know, 20 million.

And each one has to be different. I was this, just this morning reading his latest book, and he is brilliant. But wow, is it overwhelming. It's not just that. 500 posts a day, each one has to be tailored to the unique. What's unique about the, you know, Facebook carousel versus. Anyway, you're right, it's. It's overwhelming sometimes.

Exactly. So if we're trying to go in to be that. Go that extreme. Yeah, we're going to fail. So we have to start with something small, what is reasonable. And I would say something to challenge you a little bit, because for you, you talked about you working out for four minutes a day. That's fine. If that's challenging for you, that's great. If that's keeping you and getting you to your goal, that's great. But maybe that's too much for somebody. Start with one day. I would start with something that's going to challenge you just a little bit but not be so much that you're like, oh my gosh, this is overwhelming. I can't deal with it because you might be able for one day be able to work out for that four minutes or go on a four mile run or post 500 times in a day, but how sustainable is that going to be? So find something that's going to be more sustainable for you to start and, and build up that muscle of doing that. And over time, just like when we work out when we're lifting weights, maybe doing curls with ten pound dumbbells at first is really hard, but after a while your muscles build, they get stronger, they get used to 10 pounds.

Now you need and I am doing 35 pound dumbbells.

So there you go, there you go. So you slowly build up that muscle and you slowly do that with your mindset. With getting into these things. It's about just starting somewhere and taking that action consistently.

Well, I, I'm sure you're a big fan of the concept of a growth mindset. We want you to grow. So I want to extend you the, the, the offer we give every one of our guests. Because you're also a communication expert. What I want to do is listen to you just pitch your book for the next two minutes. No question. I'm going to take myself off the screen and those of you watching on Amazon again, you can buy the book right now. We are on Amazon live. If you're watching on YouTube or any other place, come on over to Amazon. You can see my store and you can watch us right there. It's in the description links on my social media channels. You can watch it there. And then we're going to go on later when we disconnect from Amazon and talk about other aspects of, of Philip's coaching practice, his speaking practice and what he does there. But we want to close out this session on Amazon Live really hearing more about the book. Mindset over motivation. We want to hear it in Philip's own words. And so many shows say, well, no promotion, don't over promote, don't do that. We're the opposite. We're big fans of people who enthusiastically want to tell people about their products, their services and what they're doing to help the world. So with that, I'm going to take myself off and just give you the next two minutes to get people excited about your book.

All right, well, if you are somebody, you're an individual that is just getting started out, this is the book for you. If you feel like motivation is the thing that you need, I promise you it's not. But I'm going to give you the secrets that are needed in order to create the motivation, which is an internal motivation rather than an external motivation, to get you the results that you want in your life. Each one of us are individuals, but through this book, Mindset Over Motivation, you will learn the mental framework that will help you build that internal motivation which will keep you going through the hard times, through the good times, through any times in order to achieve your goal. So if you're a person that is beginning whatever it is, business, life, relationships, even fitness, there's a lot of fitness applications in here, but this applies to any aspect of your life. If you are just getting started and you're thinking to yourself, I don't know where to start. I just don't have the motivation to go achieve what I want to. But I've got big goals, I've got big aspirations in my life. The book Mindset Over Motivation is the book for you to be able to learn the tactics and takeaways that you need in order to be able to build the life that you want. So go check out the book using the links in the different areas that TJ mentioned below. He here on Amazon Live.

Sorry I taken myself off stage and hit the wrong button. Philip, thank you so much. And a special thank you to all of our friends on Amazon Live. We do much, very much appreciate you. We're going to sign off from Amazon Live for right now. Okay, Philip, so we're now going to continue with all of our other social media platforms. Continuing in our conversation again, our guest today is Philip Sessions. He's the founder of Speaking Sessions. He does online coaching, in person training, group training on helping people communicate more effectively by speaking, whether it's online or in person. Philip, tell us about your practice. Because as a public speaking coach myself, I know very few people ever said at career day in seventh grade, I know I'm definitely going to be a public speaking coach. It tends to be something that people. There's a wandering path that you then get there. Tell us about your path into this particular profession.

Yeah, so my wandering path really kind of comes from a couple different directions. First of all, as I started getting into business development, I realized that Going to these conferences, that these speakers were creating massive impact and I saw what they were doing and the impact they created on my life and I thought, wow, that would be really cool to be that person on stage, to be the one that's able to create impact to so many people at one time. And another part of this was actually a job that I had in oil and gas and as an engineer. So we'll get to that in a minute. About engineer turn public speaking coach. But as an engineer, I kept getting looked over. I was a young, dumb engineer. What you're thinking engineer dumb? That doesn't make sense. But that's what I was told. Although I'm in 90% of the topics for our one hour engineering meeting we weekly because of all the projects I'm working on. And we got three or four other engineers that are more senior than me by a couple of decades and they've got way less projects yet. I'm getting talked down to time and time and time again. And I finally decided, enough's enough, I'm not going to be talked down to anymore. So I started speaking up a little bit there and I transitioned into another job. And from that job and then moving forward in my career, as I just spoke out more, I saw the change in my career. I started not being stepped on anymore, not being talked down to anymore. And if I was, I was willing to speak up. And seeing that change for me in my career was a start to the catalyst of really wanting to help others out. But I thought in my mind, I want to fix leadership. And I'm kind of still doing that in a way, but I want to focus in on the speaking coaching. And there was an opportunity when I was with BMW Manufacturing, where I was in a leadership and professional development position creating presentation skills curriculum. And that's where it all clicked together. One, the business conferences, seeing those speakers, the impact they created, Two, how speaking changed my life, the catalyst there to overcome that. And three, a large company like BMW identifying that that was a need for their people. And so all three of those paired together was where the catalyst finally came together for me to say, you know what, that's what I'm going to start a business on to help other people that were just like me as well as helping leaders. Because I realized it starts from leadership creating that culture, creating that, so to say, safe space, that safe environment for their employees to be able to actually speak up and have the opportunities to speak. And so all of that is really how I got started with my speaking journey. And so of course, being engineer, taking those technical aspects, and now I can speak technical and non technical and be able to pair that together. And that's kind of how I go about coaching now.

Fascinating that you have an engineering background. I'm not an engineer, but my father was an engineer. So I do know how engineers think. And what I have found in working with thousands of engineers over the years is a most engineers are horrible public speakers. But then again, most people in any industry are horrible public speakers. But engineers often tell themselves, well, it's okay for me to be a horrible public speaker. I'm supposed to be a bad speaker because engineers are supposed to be a bad speaker. Talk about a mindset problem, and they think of themselves as logical, rational and linear. But when I ask them, tell me your proof, your evidence that the way you're delivering this presentation is actually getting your ideas into the mind of others, they never have a good answer for that. They think that reading bullet points off of a slide is somehow effective. And there's, and I always say to them, well, that's like me telling you, I've got, I've got a new theory. I can build a bridge connecting these two towns and I'm going to make the bridge from popsicle sticks, but the first time someone drives over it, they fall down and die. Are you going to take my evidence that this is the great rate of doing it? No. You want evidence that my bridge works. I want evidence that the way you're presenting works and that that's typically what gets them to realize, oh, I've been doing it all wrong. But I want to know how do you work with engineers to get them to stop doing the boring data dump?

I get them to think about who they're speaking to oftentimes. And this is, I think we're really. Communication falls. Is that all of us? We're, we're in our head, we know all the details. We know how to bridge point A to point B and how we got there. But when it comes to communicating with somebody else, even if they're also engineers, it's a struggle because we forget we've got to fill in the voids, the missing knowledge there. So I always start with, who are you speaking with and what's their background? So if you're speaking to leadership, they don't have an engineering background. So they're not, one, they're not going to know all those details. But two, they most likely. I've met a couple senior leaders that want a lot of details, which I'm really Surprised by every time. But most of them don't care to know all the details. They don't need to know how the software works. They don't need to know how, what material you're using, things of that nature. So that's where I really start with is who are we talking to and what information do they need to be able to move forward? Is it a decision is just an info session. What is this? And that's how we start to move forward from there. So really focusing in on who we're talking to so we can deliver the correct information. Mm. Who?

The other thing always troubles me is people say, well, I'm a tech guy. I shouldn't have to be a good speaker. I'm like, well, you know what? Steve Jobs is a tech guy. He was able to give speech, so don't use that as an excuse. I am. I mean, that's now a dated reference. Steve Jobs has been gone, what, about 15 years now. Who on the scene today? Someone alive speaking do you personally admire as a communicator from the business world and the technology world? It's often easy to say, I like this comedian or politician or TV celebrity. But who in the business world, engineering or technology world do you see as being a consistently great communicator?

I'm have to look back at my books. I'm blanket. I just got it. As I'm saying, Alex Harmozi, I've got on the wall here. He may be able to say it, maybe not. $100 million offers and $100 million leads are his two books currently. But I watched his webinar as he went through, and I was completely shocked. I mean, he's very good with this video content, very good with speaking in general. But when I saw his webinar, he talked to so many different audiences in one speech. And yeah, he's not technical, but he's a business guy. And just the way he was able to speak. Another one is Andy Frisella, who owns.

I'm not familiar with him, Alex Hermosi. I have watched a lot of his YouTube video, and he's a master at the short form version and the long form.

Yes.

And whether you agree with him or not, I think anyone who's interested in social media could learn a lot by spending, you know, several hours going through his YouTube channel. But who was the other gentleman you just mentioned?

Andy Frisella. He's out of the St. Louis, Missouri area. So he. His major company or biggest company is first form, which is a supplement company, actually part of what my fitness journey was involved in was actually with. Not directly, but I used a lot of his supplements and everything like that. But he's, I guess, not super well known, but he is very influential. He's got a, I think a great podcast called Real AF on all platforms and everything. But he's very articulate, he can speak very well on business and he's very good at sharing stories to help relate as well with the information. And not dumb down, but bring down the level. So sometimes we call it dumbing down, sometimes it's about it, but it's really about bringing down the complexity to make something that is complex more simplified. And he does an exceptional job at that as well. So those two guys, I really like watching them speak and see how they carry themselves, see how they're able to talk directly to an audience and really motivate them and inspire them to actually start taking action. And they not only give you the theory, but they also a lot of times give you actionable steps when they're talking as well, which I found a lot of people, they like to just do theory or maybe they're super actionable steps, but there's nothing that's tangible one way or another to really help you understand the concepts. See the. Okay, so I need to take these steps, but I don't know how it applies to me or okay, that sounds great, but how do I actually apply that?

You see, you mentioned, you mentioned stories. Do you have a signature story that your clients and people you work with really sticks with them and resonates with them?

I would think my story about how I overcame my fear, how I started my business and everything and why I started that, it's usually the one that really sticks because my clients do see me and they're the clients that didn't see my come up, if you will. Where I first started speaking and I had the UMS and the OZ and I talked in a really monotone voice, they didn't see that early version of me. So as I start to talk about that and share some of those videos, cringe worthy videos. But the old videos, they start to relate with that more because they see somebody like you and I that speak well and have a great voice and you have an amazing voice by the way. But thanks. We have, we have good voices and it sounds like, oh well, we got voices to speak. We. Well no, it's because we've created and crafted that voice over time and learned how to articulate our message. So really talking about that come up story is what really gets my clients inspired because. And I'm sure you probably have the same thing where your clients say, well, I can't be like you. Well, you can. It's just going to take time, take action. And so that's the story I like to share a lot of times.

And they, they don't really have to be like me or you. There's, you know, they're successful people with every kind of voice. And you listen to someone like Ben Stein has a horrible flat monotone. Boys. He's made tens of millions of dollars, his voice.

Yeah, I think of Tony Robbins also. You know, he's another one with a very raspy voice, but yet people still listen to him all the time. So it doesn't matter how you sound. People are going to listen if the message is good enough.

And I mean, for. I'm a more or less a fan of Tony Robbins and been to his live events. He's basically ruined his voice by shouting. Yeah, too much. It is a cautionary tale for people like you and me and others in the business where you really need to. And he's always been miked, but he's just, he's ruined his voice. And I believe he's got the, you know, the nodes and things on his. It happens to a lot of singers, too. He is absolutely peerless when it comes to really speaking in front of a huge audience and having complete control. I mean, he's the master of that realm in part because he's done it more than anyone else now for 40 years. So I would say, whether you like his style or not, and I'm not, I'm not a huge fan of the, say, oh, every five minutes. But there's so many things you can learn by going to a Tony Robbins event, even if you don't want to speak like him. You know, short, short plug for Tony Robbins. Not that he needs us plugging him. Bill, take us. Let's get a little bit tactical because we do have a lot of people who watch this show who are also helping people communicate more effectively. Walk us. Everyone has their own style. How I've done a training is very different today than when I started out in. Believe it or not, it's probably before your grandparents were born. I did my first training in 1984. I want to know how. How do you actually conduct a training session? Now when you're working with someone, let's say they come to you and say, philip, I want your help. I can spend all day with you either in person or online. Walk us through how you work with them.

So I always like to start with, what's the goal? What are some things that if we accomplish, we can say that our time together, whether usually it's over more than one training session, but over the multiple training sessions that we will be successful, Because I want to be able to make sure that we are delivering that for them. And then secondly, I like to ask them, hey, who are some speakers that you like and why do you like them? So maybe it is that Tony Robbins is, oh, yeah, all the time, like, trying to get that motivation. I've seen some of those people that every five seconds it feels like, you know, give me a clap or, you know, something, and I'm like, oh, that's so annoying. I get what you're doing, but it's so annoying to me. So for me, like, I don't like that. But there's other people that like that. There's people that need that. There's a reason why they're doing that. So I like to ask you, what kind of speakers do you want to be like? And let's pick out the things we like and don't like. And that's what I've really done in my own personal life, with the life I'm trying to build. What things do I like from this person? What do I not like? As I build myself and I create myself into what I want to be, not trying to emulate exactly after somebody else, because they don't have everything in their life. So I take that. And then third, we figure out the why behind why they're doing this. Because yes, at first is, oh, I don't want to be embarrassed anymore, or. Or maybe it is about money. But what's that true why? And when we can figure out what that true why is, then I've got them where I can help lead them to where they're trying to go. Because now they have that internal motivation to actually fulfill that why versus, ah, you know, my manager told me I need to speak better. Oh, I know I'm not a great speaker and I need to get better. Because when I haven't gone through that third step, that why there, it tends to be the people that don't want to finish it or they. They kind of show up, but they're halfway participating. But when we really figure out what that why is and really kind of keep poking at that why and making sure we're reminding them of why they're doing this, that's when I see the most success of my clients. I really Start out with those three things and then we go through and we. A lot of times what I'll end up doing is creating a speech. We create a speech together. So we figure out stories, we figure out what they want to talk about, what the takeaways are, and we go through and practice that. And then there's video training outside of that that I'm getting.

And are you, are you working with them? Typically for a full day, a full week online, in person. What's the, what do you find is the most preferred form format these days for helping someone?

For individuals, typically online's the best. It's most flexible and we usually spend about an hour at a time. So every other week, typically, sometimes. Some of my clients I've worked with weekly also. It just depends on the client how quickly they need something done. But typically I don't like to do more than one hour once a week because it just becomes too much and they can't get enough reps in between the sessions to really get that done. Plus they've obviously got their own business, they've got their own things going on. So really try to space that out a little bit. But we can expand and contract that timeline based on the situation. But when it comes to group training, that's typically where we'll do half day or full day workshops and really work through different topics throughout that.

And if you're working with, let's say, a small group for a full day, like how many times do you get them standing up, speaking, recording them on video and critiquing them?

That depends on the session. But I at least at a minimum once throughout that day, probably twice, once before lunch, once near the end. So we can kind of do a hey, here's where you were when we started and here's where you were afterwards. And really like, I like to do a self evaluation. So they do an evaluation, but then also they have a peer evaluation. So they're getting feedback from their peers because of course, we're our biggest critic. We're always gonna, oh, I didn't do that right? Or I missed that. But when you have the peers saying, hey, here's what you did, what I think you did good, here's something you improve on. And then at the end they show the transformation that happened, even if it was only a four or eight hour session, that's going to help give them that motivation to keep going. And then they'll have some tangible things that now they can move on with and say, okay, this is what I actually need to Improve on. For instance, you may think I say, oh, man, awe all the time. Well, nobody gives you that feedback that you're saying all the time. So is that really something we need to focus on? Probably not. Maybe we need to focus on not standing like a statue in front of.

The how do you. But let me ask you, how do you make people come to that realization? Because I have clients all the time who say, oh, I don't have any problem with ums and os. And then we look at the video and it's horrible. And the more common thing is people think they have a big problem and they said one in 10 minutes and nobody else even noticed, but they're still convinced it's awful. How do you change their mindset about ums and odds? And if they do have a problem, what techniques do you have to actually get them to make improvement? Because simply telling people, pause, don't say it intellectually, they can understand that, in my experience, doesn't create change behavior. So let me hear your thoughts on this specific verbal tick issue.

Yeah, that's a great question. So what I tell them is we're not focused on that at first. Unless if it's literally every other word, then we're going to focus on that. But if you're saying that is because you haven't had enough reps. So let's get more reps in first before we focus really on not saying and ah. Because what I found for myself and I found with a lot of clients, is as you get the reps in, a lot of that goes away and it's still something natural that we're gonna say. And like you said, if you said it once in 10 minutes, nobody notices, so nobody really cares that much if there's an and an ah. I think toastmasters. While it's great that there's a focus on that, because it is something easily that most of us do.

Yeah, they go a little overboard sometimes.

Yeah, they put too much emphasis on that. It's like, oh, they've got the counter. Oh, we're going to count the ums for everybody. Horrible.

In my opinion, it's horrible.

Like, if somebody is. And I just said, like, there's another filler word right there. If somebody is using filler words left and right, that's one thing. But if it's just here and there, I don't focus on it and I tell them that's not the important thing. Your message is the important thing. We need to make sure that you're comfortable sharing your message and over time That'll get better. So if I tell them that first, if they're still stuck on it, What I like to do is video homework. It's easy for me to get this thing called an iPhone out, and I can look at it and I can make a video, and I can watch my video later and realize what I'm doing. And so that helps you get those reps in, and you just have to keep getting those reps in. And the third thing is knowing what you're going to talk about when I take. I do the most ums and odds in interviews like this because I don't know exactly what the next question is. So I'm kind of have to think of this on the fly a little bit. Yes, I know the information. I know I can give an answer. But I wasn't given a list of questions, per se. And some podcasts you get that, some you don't. But I wasn't given a list of questions. Hey, we're Philip. We're going to ask you these things so you can be prepared, because that's not natural in a. In an interview, in a conversation. But when you're presenting, typically you can prepare. You should be preparing. I know sometimes in corporate world, hey, we need you to present on this. Oh, and it's like in five minutes, that happens. But if you have time to prepare and you know what your message is, a lot of those ums and ahs are going to go away on their own because now you know your message. We use the ums and OZ to fill the gap as we're thinking because we can't sit in silence. It's uncomfortable to sit in silence. And so we have to train ourselves on that. But I found that knowing what you're going to talk about helps out, and that's what's helped my clients out a lot, is us figuring out, what are you going to speak on, what are the stories you're going to share, what information are you going to share? And when they know what they're going to share, it really takes away a lot of those ums and odds.

We have Philip Sessions with us today. He is the founder of Speaking Sessions. If you have a question for him, you can join us right on screen if you want to. You can also post your questions in the comments section. If you're watching this on demand, you can reach out to him directly. We posted a link to his website, to his Facebook page, to his Instagram page, to his LinkedIn page, to his TikTok page. So he's Very accessible. You can post your questions and comments to him there. And we'll post that in the show notes as well. Philip, for people joining us on the podcast later on. Philip, a lot of our, our audience members are not exactly like you in this space, but they are experts, they have coaching practice, a training practice. They may be speakers. And they're constantly looking at the evolution of the sales process. Now, I've been in this a long, I say a long time. I just realized it 40 years. And the sales process very different. It used to be someone would call you, you'd talk on the phone for an hour, then email. They'd email you, you'd set up a phone call. Then we went to Zoom. During the pandemic, people became a lot more comfortable with that. These days, most people get about, if they're like me, they get about 150,000 requests on LinkedIn for a Zoom call. So increasingly, people don't want to zoom, even if they've written to you saying, hey, I'm interested in training. How does it work? People don't necessarily even want to talk on Zoom. So I'm always looking for the next best way of communicating, which is one reason why I've spent a lot of time building a digital clone. So someone who doesn't want to have to get on a Zoom call and afraid they can't get off the phone for an hour or doesn't want to give an email for fear I, you know, someone could spam them for the next 10 years. I'm making a clone available so they can ask any questions. But I want to know about your approach. If someone reaches out to you on social media, do you then text back and forth? Do you try to connect on WhatsApp? What is the preferred mode of communication with your prospects? And what's the evolution of someone hearing about you expressing an interest, going all the way to becoming a paid client.

I'm, I'm probably bad about this. I probably should find a platform to say, hey, here, reach out to me, but I'm available on all of them and I'll respond wherever you're at. I tend to like LinkedIn and Facebook messenger the most. But if we do go by email, if we do end up getting to text, typically your client by then to have my number, but I'll text where you're comfortable at. And maybe that's not the best answer. I should look into that, that process for my business later down the road. But right now it's just wherever I get the message at is where I'll stick at until we're comfortable either to go to a zoom call or get on a phone call, whatever that looks like. From there, to talk in more detail. But typically, how people find me is through my social media content. And so as they're starting to see my social media content, they get more familiar with me, they start to like me more, hopefully. And then they realize that, hey, Philip can actually help me with this problem I have, which is clear and concise communication. And so from there, it's a dm, it's an email, whatever that looks like. And then we hop on a call to see if we're a good fit for each other and then move into a coaching client relationship from there.

Questions coming in from Ahmed, who says, how can I train myself to breathe in from my diaphragm while speaking?

What I like to do most is having it at, like, the end of a sentence or somewhere. I'm trying to emphasize something. As far as actually breathing in from the diaphragm, I've never really actually thought about that question, but I would definitely make sure that you don't try and take like a super deep breath, like you're about to hold your breath underwater or something, but just try and find places where there is a natural pause at the end of a sentence or when you're trying to emphasize something, but just trying to find little breath points that you can do. I don't know if I have a better answer. So, T.J. maybe you have a better answer than me on that.

I tend to think of it in terms of just trying to take a deep breath, because what happens to people quite often is they're just everything is sort of up here and everything is coming in and out of here, and they can lose their breath. And also if you're speaking and you're intentionally trying to push out from down here and using that muscle down here, it can make your voice come across a little more powerful, but without sounding artificial and contrived, because it's one thing that people can spot like this. And these days, everyone in the world has access to the best actors in the world. Everyone in every country can access Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep. So people know good acting. They can also spot bad acting. So when they see someone. Today, I'd like to talk to you about our important business development. It sounds like it's acting, and it doesn't come across well. So you want. You do want to breathe fully. Part of it is not rushing. Part of it is pause. People Run out of breath because they think, well, I want to be consortant and concise. And as soon as I finish this, I can sit down. No one can accuse me of messing anything up. They're bad. They're gasping for breath. So that's sort of how I try to help people with that. Certainly, if someone wants to be an opera singer, they would go into a lot more very, very specific exercises to really control their breath. I don't find it necessary for most people speaking. Philip, back to the business development process, because I know we have so many people who watch this show are always looking for tips and tricks on how to be more effective. Walk us through. So someone says, hey, I like your social media. What do you charge for a half day of online training with me? Something I get, I'm sure you get. And again, the old way of, oh, I'm happy to talk to you, but I need to find out more about you. Give me a call or let's schedule a zoom. These days, that's considered too abrupt for a lot of people. What are you talking about? You're Russian things. It's like going from, you know, a first date to marriage. It's too abrupt. There has to be more little steps. So walk us through someone just saying, you know, what's your price? Which I don't know any trainer or consultant really likes. That is the first question. How do you start a conversation with text and how many texts or emails go back and forth before they're comfortable talking on the phone or taking a zoom call with you?

I'm happy to just keep it in a text conversation. I mean, it is easier. Obviously, we're speaking coaches, so we. As soon as we can get to actually speaking, that's always the best. But I'm happy to keep it as a text conversation. Now, I really. It's very hard. I mean, I could throw a price out there, but if I just throw a price out to you, because you just want to know the price, I'm gonna have to make it higher because I don't know what it is that's gonna be needed. So I like to ask questions. And so that's what I'll say. Well, hey, like, happy to give you a price, but first I need to know a couple of questions to see where you're at, because let's say I'm helping you with speech prep. Well, if you already have a speech together and essentially all you need is somebody to help you critique it and give you some feedback, then, yeah, we're probably talking about One, maybe two sessions. But if you got to create a whole speech and you also want feedback, so let's just say just a speech first. So if you just want, hey, let's create a speech. All right, cool. We can probably get on one session, we can talk through it, and I can send you a document with an outline roughly of what I think you should do. We probably pull that together one, maybe two sessions as well. But if you want to craft a speech and you want to practice that speech and you want to get feedback, I usually do a minimum of six sessions with that. But I have to ask those questions first. So typically when people start to throw out the hey, what's the price? Instead of saying it depends, like, hey, I need to ask a few questions about where you're at first, and then I can answer that question. And it may not be the best way. And I could get more precise if we were on a call and could really assess the needs. But I can usually give a ballpark estimate just based on asking a few questions about where they're at in that process.

Now, you've mentioned the reps, the concept of reps, and that's music to my ears, obviously. What do you find is the easiest way for your clients to actually do the reps? I mean, I encourage people make at least one short form video a day and post it on eight platforms. But few people are willing to do that. I encourage people make an online course for Udemy or some platform. It's very hard to make a whole lot of videos speaking about an area of expertise and not get more comfortable. There's always the way of just hold up your cell phone and chat and talk, look at it. But I want to know, how are your clients getting the reps in?

So I do the video content like you were saying, once a day, a short form reel. If they're really not that comfortable, I go through Google Drive. We have a shared folder that we used for our coaching call recorder calls, all that good stuff. But within there I have a video folder and say, upload your recorded videos here because I have to see you speaking when it's not just us here. And because I want to be able to do homework and bring value to you outside of just our calls. And that's one of the ways that I do that is by reviewing your videos so I can come to the call and say, hey, and we may look at something. If, let's say you were doing the video and you were just looking off here and trying to talk to me, well, hey, we got to look in the camera and you need to see this. Now you're going to suffer through and see that. Because yes, it's uncomfortable to watch your own videos, but I have them upload it to our coaching folder. So that way if they're really that uncomfortable, they get started with that. And then another way is doing live videos. I found that there's just a little bit different fear with that versus pre recorded doing a live video. And most platforms have that access where you can do a live video. There we're doing it. Or even a story like that lasts for 24 hours. But doing a story some way, another one would be really unique. I haven't told a client to do this necessarily, but Facebook has this cool thing where it says so and so's birthday or even LinkedIn will tell you that. Make a video, send it to them. Hey tj, Happy birthday. Hope you're having a great day. Done. Four seconds, you're done. But guess what? You're getting the reps in and maybe TJ is a potential client for you, somebody you want to get to know more. That's very unique to TJ because people aren't making videos and sending them on his birthday. Now it's only once a year, but you keep doing that and you're, you're going to get people liking you. You're going to get people knowing you and seeing you. Because the algorithm, the algorithm is going to start having people see your stuff because you've engaged with them in some way, shape or form.

So in the worst case scenario, it becomes virtually impossible for you to be nervous speaking in front of a camera. It's very difficult to be nervous about anything you do every day.

Exactly.

So where do you see your career going? Do you want to be doing more keynote speeches? I mean, we had the great Julian Treasure on here just a couple of weeks ago who has the fifth most viewed TED talks of all time, 150 million views. He does coach people, but he also can give speeches and charge huge fees. Do you see yourself going more that route or what are your own goals for your own career as a communications expert?

Yes, I do want to do more keynote speeches. I definitely have done as many as I want to. I don't want to only do keynote speeches though, because I want to be able to train people. And yes, while keynotes are great, I look at that more as a something that a lot of corporations like to do, but it's just very surface level. And so I really want to get into the nuts and bolts, which probably goes back to my engineering side and really work with the individuals through workshops. But I look at keynotes more as something that's fun because you get to go travel somewhere, you get to go speak and pour into an audience and you do give them some value. But using that as more of a lead gen from my side on the business front to get people then interested and engaged with me to then move into their companies and help their companies out.

Which social media platform do you find really resonates the most with your audience? Because I think you're kind of like, I am, you're everywhere. We kind of feel like, well, we need to be everywhere. But you know, certainly the YouTubes of the world, the TikToks of the world, if you're not really doing entertainment, it's hard to build a substantial audience. Yeah, Alex Harmozi has done it talking about business. But it's really hard, especially for something like communication skills. Because when I look at whether it's Dale Carnegie or Toastmasters or a lot of, a lot of people in our niche, there's really only one guy I know who has significant audience and everyone else, even if they're Dale Carnegie, they've been around for 100 years. It's a relatively small audience. What do you find when you are posting social media content resonates the most.

And which platform LinkedIn as I look at it as career development, leadership development and LinkedIn is about professionalism and everything. So LinkedIn seems to be the platform that resonates the most. The next one would probably be Facebook, but that's more because of the groups I've been a part of and everything. And so I've got more engagement and people over there and everything. But LinkedIn for sure is the, the best spot for me overall.

And we're happy to be a part of LinkedIn today. And I see we have a couple of people viewing from LinkedIn right now. So it's great to be a part of LinkedIn. And Philip, it's great to have you a part of our show today. Want to thank you very much and just wanted to give final notice to everyone if you have questions for Philip or you want more information about his book Mindset Over Motivation and you can check out his website. We posted links to all of that in the comments section as well as the show notes. Philip, any final words? I always like to give any of our communication experts an opportunity. What's one tip you have that you think most people haven't heard that are not in all the other books that maybe other trainers don't give. You want to leave our audience with just one, one tip on how to be a better speaker or communicator or PowerPoint deliverer that they might not have heard of before?

We've already kind of covered this, but I would say stop focusing on the ums and O, we debilitate ourselves. We disable ourselves from being our full speaker potential because we focus on the fact that we're not good at this, we're not good at that. We say. We say ah. So stop focusing on the negative things and focus on the positive things. What if you don't speak? What's going to happen? What could you have taught somebody to change somebody's life? So stop focusing on the negative, the ums and the oz, and start focusing on the positive outcome that can happen if you start to speak today.

Phillip Sessions, thank you for being our guest today. Much appreciated. Take care. All right, we'll end it there when we're doing the edits and putting it out, but appreciate your time. We're going to sign off for now, but thanks a lot. And what we just did is, is going to be available on my channel. My team can send you that link, but the more polished one will be available later and then the audio podcast will say.

Okay, awesome, awesome. Thanks so much.

All right, thanks so much. And for everyone else, I'll be back. Different Streamyard, but I'll be back in just a few minutes. And we've got more. More coming up today talking about specifically how to use digital clones to communicate more effectively. I'll see you in a few minutes.