Walmart’s CFO Rings the Alarm - Why Are Leaders Whispering?

Hello and welcome to the Communisphere. I'm your host, TJ Walker. This is an experiment. I'm going to be coming to you live. You can post your comments, thoughts, questions. I'm going to be giving you analysis insights on how to be a better communicator. Here in the Communisphere, it's all about helping you communicate more effectively. Because my belief is your ultimate success really depends on how well you communicate to the world in business, your personal life, your professional life. It's also about how well you receive communication, specifically how well you listen. What do you filter out, what do you let penetrate your own mind? What are you listening to? Ultimately that's going to have the biggest impact on your health and your happiness and your and your relationships. So we're going to hit go live here. We're simulcasting today on several different platforms. We are on YouTube, we're on TikTok and I see some friends joining us on TikTok today. Thanks so much. So special hello to user 6807King others if you want to see more what we're doing, because I'm only referencing some videos, you may want to come over to YouTube or a few other, really any other platform. TikTok is the one platform we can't simulcast on using the platform of Streamyard. So that's why you see me looking this way. We're going to hop right in to some top issues of the day. The one that, that's getting a lot of attention from Walmart. So I want to hop right in. Note to my editor Ben, who's with us, here's the part where we're going to use for later short form videos. Walmart cfo and we're gonna redo it. Is the cfo. I was thinking it was the CEO. So we're gonna hop right in and do this. So full transparency. We're doing the creation of short form long form video here and you're seeing it warts. And so you're going to see how an actual creator makes things. The first take isn't always perfect. That's why we're going to occasionally do second takes. Walmart CFO John David Riney just warned that thanks to new tariffs, prices could start rising by the end of the month. Everything from bananas to electronics is about to cost more. And when Walmart says that, it's not a prediction, it's a spoiler alert. Now here's the funhouse mirror part of this. Back in 2024, US inflation was 2.9%. That's lower than the UK's inflation rate, which was 4.2%. Germany had 3.5%, France, 4.0%, Italy, 5.7%, Canada, 3.9%, and basically all of Europe. And yet it was treated like your paycheck had been set on fire. But now, with forecasts like Goldman Sachs predicting 3.8% inflation by December, suddenly the new message is inflation totally normal, not even worth discussing. Here's the problem. You can't scream house fire and then there's a candle burning and then shrug when the whole kitchen's actually going up in flames. Sooner or later, people smell the smoke. Okay, end of that section. And note to my editor. That's the part we would use for the short form. And now I'm going to go in more depth and give you more analysis from my communications perspective. Elvin Jung says Hello. Hi. From LinkedIn. Elvin, thank you so much for joining us today. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post. And Target CEO said:2 weeks ago basically the same thing. His communications probably was sweating in that moment. So let's step back a moment. I'm not here today to be a political commentator. There's plenty of political commentary in the world. Okay. And there's left. Right. And there's partisan commentary. I'm here as a communications expert, so that's what I want to focus on now. So if I say something, you think I'm criticizing your guy? I'm asking you. Just get over it. So in here in the United States, there was a huge, huge political issue 2023, 2024, about how inflation was absolutely running rampant, crazy because of specific government actions by the administration in power. When you actually looked at the facts, what you found was that inflation was higher in all the big countries, big prosperous economies. The United States compares it to most of Europe. Here's the thing few people got. It didn't seem to matter whether those governments ran up deficits, did a lot of stimulus to help people get out of COVID or not. Some countries had relatively austere budgets. They still had higher inflation than the United States. I say this not because I'm trying to defend the previous administration. Now we have a situation where top leaders at CEO Target other companies are suggesting we're going to have really high inflation because of recent policies involving tariffs. What we are starting to see from supporters of the current administration in the media is essentially this inflation doesn't matter because it's for a higher purpose of bringing back manufacturing to the United States. The message is if there's short term pain, but it brings back high paying manufacturing jobs, United States will all be worth it. So here's where we gotta tease this messaging out because it gets a little confusing. The message two years ago, a year ago was, okay, maybe there is some inflation and maybe deficit spending and increased spending caused it. But it's for the higher purpose of not having dramatically higher unemployment, which is what you typically get in a recession, which had been predicted that didn't wash politically. The last administration was swept out of office. Its poll ratings are still low in part because people found that argument compelling. They really believed, and I'm not here to discount their feelings, that inflation was too high. But now we do have a situation where inflation could all of a sudden get a lot higher than it was a year ago. The difference being it may be that the United States has much higher inflation than other larger economies relative to our own or relative to others. And that unlike last time when our inflation rate was actually lower, it's higher than the people we compare ourselves to. So how do you spin that? There are a few ways of doing it. One way is to simply say disregard what various officials are saying about inflation. The numbers are wrong, the books are cooked. In theory, that could be said. I don't know if people are going to the grocery store and their eggs are suddenly 100% more than they were last week, if that's going to be convincing. The other argument is frankly that it's for a higher purpose. Here's the problem with that. And I'm not here saying that the public is always rational and that I'm always rational. That's not what I'm saying. But typically there needs to be some thread of rationality. The problem here is I simply don't know of a single economist in the United States or around the world whether they are liberal, centrist, conservative, right of center, libertarian, who sees how the current tariffs are actually going to, and propose tariffs at varying stages will bring back manufacturing jobs of pens and electronics, things like that, to the United States. Now maybe it does, but I haven't seen any economist voice that opinion. There are opinions coming from the current administration saying that, but that's, it's, it's a lot tougher to communicate that message if you don't have any outside validation. Right now, inflation rate is not high, it hasn't gone up much. So there's no immediate crisis communications problem. But if the CFO of Walmart is correct, the CEO of Target and others are correct, and we do See rapid inflation. You're going to have a crisis communication situation and I don't know how the current administration gets out of it. I'd love to hear from you. Hi, I'm TJ Walker. Thanks so much to my TikTok friends. If you want to see what I'm actually looking at, so see some of the visuals, you might want to come over to the YouTube channel or my Facebook page or LinkedIn or any place you can just find me TJ Walker. And if you do have a question, I see that we have a lot of people joining us on TikTok today, so thanks so much for stopping by. We're here talking about communication and how you and I can be better communicators. We're analyzing top communication in the world, in the world of business, politics, government, pop culture and health, trying to dissect the messages, figure out what works, what doesn't work, so that you and I can become more successful in our professional life by being better communicators. And we can be more successful in our personal lives, in terms of our health, our relationship based on how well we receive communication. Coming in, I want to say a special hello to Albin has joined in again, says I've joined a lot of your courses on Udemy. It was life changing advice for my communication skills. Well, Alvin, I'm very happy to hear that. That's music to my ears. So if you care to share at all what you've learned and why it was helpful, please let me know. I would love to know. And Albin, if you haven't tried it yet, I would urge you go over to tjwalker AI. That is my new digital clone and it can talk to you and help you at any time, day or night, in almost any language. And unlike me, it never gets tired, it never gets grumpy. So you may want to try that out. You can talk to it just like you're talking to me. Get feedback if we have time. I'll give a demonstration on that in just a little while. But you just go to TJWALKER AI. You don't even have to give an email address or a name if you want to type in questions. If you are interested in speaking to the video version and getting feedback, getting critiques, you can do that. All you have to do is give a name and an email and you don't have to give a credit card or anything like that. My friends on TikTok, you going to love it. So please check out tjwalker AI. And I see a lot of our friends from TikTok are joining us live. TikTok does a great job of sending out the message. I see George Lanza is with us, Perwin is with us, many others. If you have any questions that relate to communication skills, please feel free to post your questions and I will take a look at it. The There were a number of stories that did in fact jump out at me that I want to share with you. And in full disclosure, we're trying to kill two birds with one stone. Some cases three birds with one stone. With what we're doing here today, I'm having a live set interactions with you right here and I'm also recording stuff that's going to be used for long form and short form videos for social media. And eventually these will be tested and the stuff that does the best will be pulled out and turned into a weekly podcast. That's what we're trying to do here. Elbin writes. Yeah, I always ask your AI everything. I have a debate competition coming up, so that's great to know because you can in fact not just ask questions of tjwalker AI, but you could actually rehearse a debate. You can rehearse a speech and it can give you feedback on what you're saying, but also how you've got your backdrop frame. Like right now, I'm not framed the right way for TikTok because I have you off to the side, but people watching me live on YouTube or any other platform are seeing something that is a little different because I am framed specifically in a way to try to look the best I can on camera. So let's go to the next topic here. Note to editor Ben this is something we would want to use for a short form video. I'm going to go ahead and pull up the story. It relates to the new Pope and you'll find out about this in just a second. I've got to pull up the story so we have a visual to join us with us. So an interesting feature. So we're going to get ready. Hop in right now. So Pope Leo XIV just got the keys to the smallest country in the world, literally smaller than Central Park. And what's the first issue? He uses his global megaphone for artificial intelligence. Not celibacy, not confession apps, not not Vatican TikTok, but AI artificial intelligence. And that's fascinating because as tiny as Vatican City is, the Pope still commands the world's most powerful moral media platform. One line from him makes headlines in every time zone. And Leo isn't easing in. He's Jumping straight into the algorithmic deep end. In his very first speech to journalist, he he said AI has immense potential, but also warned it must be used for the good of all. That's not a throwaway line, that's agenda setting. This guy literally has a math degree and a spiritual mandate. So he's framing AI not as a gadget, but a moral crossroads. Think about the optics. Heads of state are racing to use AI for power and profits. The Pope just put it on the table. And as a justice issue, labor, dignity, truth, and whether or not you're Catholic and I'm not, or even religious and I'm not, it matters when one of the most influential communicators alive decides that AI isn't just a tech story, it's a human one. Okay, that's the end of the short form segment. I'm now going to try to expand on that. If you have thoughts, questions, comments, disagreements, feel free to weigh in. I do. And I'm not gonna say I'm a fan of the Pope and I'm not an opponent of the Pope. I'm focusing on him simply because in our modern era he is essentially a celebrity with a large, big megaphone, a huge platform. He can communicate whatever's important to him to millions of people like that. And he has a billion followers in the sense that there are more than a billion Catholics in the world. But beyond that, he has the ability to use the media to get whatever he thinks is important out to the entire world. So he is important in that sense, regardless of your views of religion pro con or your views on God, whether you think there's one that exists or not. That's why I think it is important to note that he did spend time talking about artificial intelligence is really like the first thing he put a spotlight on. Every Pope gets to set certain agendas, put a spotlight on issues they care about passionately. And this Pope is putting a focus, at least initially, on artificial intelligence. I agree. AI is incredibly important. I'm not one who thinks it's automatically going to solve every single problem and we're all going to be in complete nirvana forever. In the very short period of time, we'll all live forever in complete abundance and wealth and happiness. I'm not someone who's just completely filled with rose colored glasses scenarios. I'm also not a doomer who says, oh, there's a 50% or 90% chance the AI, computers, robots are going to rise up and kill us all and kill humanity. I'm not making that prediction either way. I do think it's extraordinarily powerful and it could go either way in the short term. I think AI is going to be used in ways that quite often, not always quite, quite often are going to be extraordinarily powerful in a positive way for some people. I'm doing what I can to try to expand that to help as many people as possible. Currently I have more than 3,000 people using my own artificial intelligence clone to help them communicate more effectively and to be more successful and inlet. I'm hoping it will help you. And Elbin says he's enjoying asking it questions from time to time. I'm glad that is working for you. Those of you on TikTok may want to try it out. It's tjwalker AI and you can ask it any questions you want if you want to figure out more about any aspect of communication. So those are really my main big thoughts on what the Pope has said. Just putting a spotlight and full disclosure, I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of, I would say, any religious organization. So it's not that I'm just endorsing whatever the Pope says. I do find it fascinating that, that he did decide to use his bully pulpit, or again in this case, his pulpit, to put such a spotlight on this issue. And that's why I wanted to comment on it. Other things grabbing my attention in the news. It relates to health because all of us are bombarded with health information every single day. And it comes in a lot of different formats. When I say health information, you may think, okay, yeah, I saw this study that said I need to drink more water. Yeah, we see something like that once a month. Meanwhile, we're all bombarded every single day with 10,000 ads. Probably at least a thousand of them are to consume sugary products. Coke, Sprite, Mellow Yellow, other fruit juices, products that have processed potato chips, foods that have processed carbohydrates that for the most part kill us. This is all health information we're receiving on a daily basis. So it's not that we never get good information, but it's the proportion if once a month or even once a week you see some article giving you good information on how to live a healthy life. But we're all receiving thousands, thousands of messages a day to do things that harm our health, which is what eating junk food and drinking processed sugar does. There's a huge imbalance, and that's what I'm worried about and why I want to put a little time focusing on that. So that is the subject of really the next commentary here that I want to talk about from a new study. So we're going to bring that up and hop right. By the way, if you want to add to the conversation or the debate, feel free to click the link. It's posted in the comments. You can not just add a text comment. You can actually come online and speak and talk to me directly and share your thoughts. We're coming to you live on text TikTok, YouTube. Our TikTok friends are over here. Thanks so much for joining me. And we're coming on LinkedIn, Twitch, I believe, Facebook and a handful of other platforms. So glad you can join me. And I'm sort of going behind the scenes. This is a new show I'm doing called Communisphere where we look at every aspect of community communication going on in the world with the goal of helping you becoming a better communicator. Because my big belief is the ultimate success for you professionally comes down to how well you communicate. The ultimate success for you personally, in terms of your health, in terms of your personal relationship, is how you receive communication, how you listen to messages being communicated to you. So that's the whole point of why we're here today. So I want to hop right in and talk about this new study that just came out. So note to my editor, this is where we would start the video for a short form video. And this one's going to ruffle some feathers, I'll tell you that right now. Okay, parents, I've got to say this straight. You're not being nice. By feeding your kid fried chicken nuggets, sugary cereal and soda every day, you're slowly killing them. Literally. And now we have the data to prove it. A new 10 year study came out of Denmark tracking nearly 700 children and found that kids were growing belly fat. What we cutely call baby weight were already showing signs of heart disease, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes by age 10. That's right, by age 10. That's not chunky and cute. That's clinical, measurable metabolic damage. And the biggest predictor, waist size. Not bmi, not weight. Belly fat. If your kid's waist is growing faster than their height, they they're on a fast track to lifelong health problems. So let's drop the excuses. My kid won't eat vegetables. You know what else your kid would do if you let them watch TikTok for 24 hours and eat nothing but Skittles all day long. But that doesn't mean you hand them a bag, a Charger and call it parenting. If you love your kid, give them real food in your own home. Cook, shop smart, say no. Be unpopular at dinner. That's your job. Because this is the stuff that determines if your kid makes it to 50 without a prescription drug regimen. Don't wait for your kid to get a diagnosis. Wait for their plate to look like something a grown adult should actually eat. Be a parent. Okay, note to editor. That's where we would cut it for the short form. Okay, this is a tough issue. There's nothing easy about this, but it does come down to communication. The problem I face, you face every parent faces, is your kids are bombarded with these 10,000 ads I'm telling you about and 10,000 marketing messages. And it's not just a 30 second ad. It's not just a cute video popping up about how cool Chick Fil A is or the new playground in McDonald's. It's driving by in the street and seeing that Chick Fil A sign. It's going down the highway. And so one mile to the next, McDonald's. We live in a world where every second of the day your kids are being bombarded with, you go, stop. Forget gas. You weren't going to even get out of the car. You stop for gas, someone goes into the Restroom and there's 10,000 commercial sugary products, highly processed food products, all with nice Tony the Tiger images and cute faces and celebrities and Mr. Beast face on that candy bar, all saying, eat me, eat me, eat me. And the result is we now have an epidemic of obesity and diabetes and children being overweight. And it's not just, oh, look at the cute chubby kid. It's not about aesthetics. It's not about trying to be a thin fashion model. It's not about developing anorexia. It's about not developing diabetes. It's about not being obese. We now live in a world where 70% of Americans are either obese or or overweight, diabetic, or many of them pre diabetic. It's an epidemic. And as sad as it is when a 75 year old develops diabetes and dies at 80 rather than at 95, it's even sadder when an 8 year old kid develops diabetes and is wildly overweight and obese and doesn't even make it to age 30, that is an absolute crisis. Now I see this with my own daughter's friends where we're out to dinner and then I'm in the awkward spot because I'm the only parent saying, can we just Eat some real food, a real salad, real veg, something that isn't fried, processed food, something that isn't just French fries, something that isn't the same old heavily processed, all the. All the nutrients and brands stripped out of the pasta. Can we have something that's real food that isn't heavily processed? And I'm the only parent requiring or asking for this. Now I'm the bad guy. So this is not an easy issue. It's hard to communicate it because you feel like you're one voice and there's a thousand others all arguing the other message. Because the message that is being communicated to your children and to all of us all day long is eat more processed sugar, drink more processed sugar, eat more french fries. The message is not eat more broccoli. There's no gigantic ad campaign giving sponsorship deals to me and all of the influencers out there. Hey, where? The Spinach foundation urge people to buy fresh, raw spinach and eat raw, fresh spinach at dinner tonight. No one's doing that. Consequently, people are not eating much spinach at night. So that's. That's the real problem. And that's why I thought it was worthy putting a spotlight on this particular new study that came out, because people tend to think, oh, you know, worry about my health when I'm 50. Well, might not make it to 50. If your childhood is filled with the typical garbage diet and your waistline is bigger than your height, which is happening to kids around the country and around the modern world. Special. Hello to our good friends on TikTok who are joining us, Seeing us from a different angle. And I apologies, you are occasionally seeing me because I am wearing shorts. Today it is in Florida. You're getting the side angle. Trying to look more professional for our friends on YouTube and LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and the other platforms we're on. Want to thank those of you who have joined me. Again, if you have questions and if you want to appear right on camera, you can do so. All you have to do is click the link and you will appear right on screen. Or you can also just type in questions, too. So this is an experiment. This is the first draft of what I'm thinking will become a podcast known as the Communisphere. A blend, obviously, of the word communicate. Excuse me? Communiverse. Communisphere was the other name I was thinking of. So Communiverse, a blend of the word communicate and universe, meaning big something that embodies the entire world, the entire universe. The Communiverse So that's what we're about. It's about analyzing what's going on in the world of communication. Spotlighting good communication so we can learn from it. Spotlighting bad communication so we can learn what not to do. So those are some of the things we plan on doing in this particular program. I also want to get feedback from you. My team has just sent me a link to short form videos that they produced where I've done similar stuff to this and we've then produced them to figure out what works, what doesn't work and how can we make it better. Which ones do we want to use? Which ones do we actually want to put on TikTok on YouTube and others? And which ones do we say, Eh, you, you know what, that's just not good enough. So I want to share with you some of what my team has put together and we'll take a look at these together and figure out, okay, that's a keeper. Or this part needs to be tweaked and this part is good to go. So let's take a look. I'm going to share with these. I'll be seeing these the same time you do. So let me go ahead and share it with you. I'll go ahead and make it full screen and again you can tell me whether you think it works or it doesn't work. Okay, so that's, that's a video that is relevant to what I talked about in the first one. So here's my challenge. You know, I look at that, I thought it was interesting, but you know, I'm biased, I can't tell. So if you see anything, I'd ask Elbin and any others watching live to weigh in. Did you like it? Is that a keeper? Should I post it? Should I delete it? It was 108 seconds. Now YouTube and I gotta, I've got a silent. I've got to put my phone on airplane mode so my alarms don't come off. YouTube and TikTok, now they do allow longer videos, but in theory if I can make it 108 seconds, I should somehow figure how to make it 59 or 60 seconds so it can get in even more platforms at that length. Here's the problem. Talking about that as an issue is what I don't want to do is instantly get put in a political box and then people look at it and say, oh, this guy is anti somebody I like. He therefore must love everybody I hate, therefore I have to hate him, therefore I should discount everything he says, therefore I should never Watch him again and write nasty comments. I've been in that game before. I don't want to be in that game here. So I'm asking you, do you have any thoughts on how I can communicate issues that deal with government policies that deal with complex issues as they are communicated to the public through a variety of media and do it in a way where you and others genuinely feel like I'm not here to grind a political ax, but to give you the most accurate insights possible. Because do I have political opinions? Sure. But that's not the agenda for why I'm here communicating with you or with my friends here on TikTok or anyplace else. So if you have any thoughts on that, please let me know. I would say, all in all, I was happy with the way the editor handled that. Let's take a look at the next video and give some feedback to my production team and my edit team. It. It's. Okay. So again, I would ask you, what do you think of that? That's the first time I've saw that I made it. Obviously that is me. That's not my clone. Although interestingly, my clone is capable of making short form videos. The entire thing can be generated by AI, the script as well as a video clone alone of me. But that was me and I was in fact reading a script. Again, I would say I kind of liked that. I thought that's what I wanted to convey. I thought there were important communication messages. In retrospect, it's probably better if it had been 59, 60 seconds rather than, I think 108 seconds. But in general, I thought it was pretty good. Okay, let's look at another one. I'm not going to go in complete order. I'm going to skip the Megan one. I think I've seen that. Let's take a look at the next one here. Okay, so this, this is a bizarre story to me. And in full disclosure, I have a friend, since deceased, who was a part of this or he didn't work for them, but he was an active member of this organization and I never really got to talk to him about it. I just. I didn't know if I would embarrass him or not. But again, this is. This is essentially, according to legal officials, a cult. And through speaking, I mean, they weren't using guns, they weren't beating people. They were using the power of communication to convince people to essentially do whatever they wanted to become indentured servants, give them money, take their pants off. Am I saying that's a Good thing. No, I'm not. I'm saying it's a perfect example of how powerful communication is and why we've all got to learn how to safeguard ourself. When we hear people who are powerful communicators and we figure out how not to let them entice us into doing things that are going to be harmful to us, ruin our finances, ruin other things too. So that's why I put a spotlight on that. If you have any opinions on that, please let me know. And our good friends on TikTok, if you have any opinions on that, let me know. I see a lot of you have signed on and have stopped by to say hello. It's. It is frankly harder for me to see any comments because I have to then go and scroll on the phone. But wow, it certainly seems like many, many hundreds of people have joined us live on TikTok and I appreciate you very much stopping by if this is your first time. I'm T.J. walker. This is not a regular live stream. This is one we are doing today is kind of a test for, for a new show concept called Communiverse, where we look at every aspect of communication going on in the universe, or certainly within the, the earth, the world, and how we can learn from it, what's working and what isn't work. And someone just. Just got the number one Grifter badge. I just got the number one Grifter badge. I don't know if that means you're giving it to me. I don't think I've made any sales yet. I don't think I'm attempting any grift. But I do want to say hello to so many friends stopping by on TikTok today. Some of you have seen my videos before, but maybe not had a chance to talk to me live. So Whether you're on TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, I am here live today. This is a chance for you to chat with me, ask questions, give feedback. So I want to go over another feature I'm looking at doing and frankly get your feedback. One of the things I'm interested in doing is learning from good and bad. TED Talks. TED is, is huge. I'm a fan of TED Talks, the good ones, but there are a lot of bad ones these days too. So what I'm going to do now is just type in. I'm going to go to YouTube and you can do this as well. I'm going to type in TED Talks TEDx in the last week. And I'm also going to Judge by view count so I'm going to look at videos just in the last week and sort by view count. So here's one that is received 51,000 views in just the last Let me make sure it's giving me out just the last six days. How to reclaim your self worth by TED holiday Tess Holiday 28,000 views why is good leadership advice often flawed? By Dr. Rafael Chuas let's take a look at this one and again I'm going to give you my own analysis. So why I think I'm going to I'm going to take the sound off for the opening music part and we'll hop right in. So it's starting off pretty clean. Just hopping right in. Have you ever found yourself in a leadership position? So one of the things that that TED does very well is they don't let their speakers waste time. Good morning. I'm happy to be here today. Let me tell you about my whole bio. They really encourage people to hop right in. So he's doing that. He's asking questions and pausing. That's making him conversational. He's not rushing. So many business speakers in general, and the bad TEDx speakers are rushing. They're trying to use every second. They're stripping out their speech of grammar. The pausing allows your audience to think, reflect and be a part of a conversation. So we're only a few seconds in, but I'm liking what I see so far with his natural pausing, asking questions, engaging the audience, And note to our friends on TikTok, if you want to see what I'm talking about, come on over. Just search on YouTube for TJ Walker and you'll see because I'm playing this video here, which you can't see. Sorry. So he's asking deep questions and giving people a chance to think about what if they don't like me? He's hitting emotion right out of the gate. It. So he's doing things now that get people to shake their head. He's right. People are often giving advice that's just simple, it sounds good and then you try. It doesn't necessarily solve all the problems. So he's voicing things that people have heard. There's a familiarity. He's getting us to nod our head. And he's also wetting our sense of anticipation of oh, he's going to go beyond the normal stuff. He's going to give us something deeper. That's a great way of leading us in and creating a sense of anticipation. And he's, he's increasing our Expectations. Oh, he's not just going to be another glib guy who says it's all about communication, Bringing in a little humor. So he's looking at other ideas out there, throwing it up, letting us think about it. So this guy has performed better in the last week than all, But I think two other TED talks or TEDx talks, and in any given week there's often, you know, hundreds, if not thousands, so he's doing something right. I bet if you went, and we don't have the time to do it today, if you went through and timed how many words per minute the average TEDx guy or woman or speaker is doing, they're doing a lot more words per minute than he is. Perfect example. It's not about how many words come out of your mouth. It's about the impact you have on your audience by slowing it down, by pausing, by asking a question, giving the audience time to really reflect and think on. How does this relate to me? He's actually communicating more than someone who's just rat a tat tat, tat tat, putting out more facts, more words. So he's a minute and 37 seconds in, and now he's going into a story, introducing character. He said, let's call her Tina. So he's not violating anyone's privacy, but we can now visualize a human face. Very important. Basically, all good TEDx speeches and TED speeches have stories involving real human beings or at least composites of real human being, stories with humans. Oh, sorry, I moved that to the wrong page. So again, what he's doing is clever here. He's not just saying, I have the answer. And here it is. He's going through all the other common answers people have heard, giving it a fair shake, fleshing it out, then letting people experience and see the problem before he gets to his solution. I'm assuming this. I'm watching this fresh through fresh eyes the first time, like you are. And again, similar to all TEDx speech, there's nothing particularly good he's doing here, but they're all good about the fact that there's no notes. He's not reading a teleprompter. He's not looking down at the some screen on the floor. He's talking to us in a conversational way. And that's something I give the whole TED organization a lot of praise for, is encouraging people and essentially requiring them not to stand behind a lectern, not to read a speech. He also doesn't sound memorized. He's clearly comfortable with this. He's clearly practiced, rehearsed, given it before. But he doesn't have that sort of artificiality of someone who's memorized their presentation. Some of the things I do see with TED Talks is they sound like people who are auditioning for One Man Plays. One Person Plays on Broadway. And it has this theatrical quality. And then I said, it just comes across as phony. I like the fact that he sounds like he's just having a conversation with it. So it sounds real. Good use of physical movement for transition. He finished a sentence, he finished a thought. He didn't say. Now let me go to the next point on my slide. No, he paused, he took a little half step, changed the angle he was facing. It's a subtle thing. It creates variety. In the same way, if you're reading a novel, sometimes there's a comma for a pause, sometimes a period, sometimes a paragraph break, sometimes a chapter break, sometimes a whole section break, where chapters may be in four different sections of a book. So he's doing a nice job of communicating not just with words, not just with sounds, but with subtle body language and movement and not just movement of the face and hands. His whole body's moving and yet he's still staying in the very narrow, small red dot, which they encourage you to do. And this one looks like it's only about four and a half, you know, less than five feet across cross. So what I like here is also showing nuance. He's saying this idea that there's one way of being a leader and it's going to work in every atmosphere and every environment. What's good in the technology world is good for the government world. He's saying that idea is sort of bogus. And that now is giving him more credibility because. Because he's coming across as someone who's thought seriously about what makes good leadership advice, what makes it work, what makes it not work. And he's given a lot of thought to how people shoehorn something that might work. And well in one place is not working in the other. So what I see from this guy, it's not a. A big mystery as to why he's not doing well or why he's doing well. In terms of views. It's that this is classic good communication. The pausing, the subtlety to it, the dialogue aspect, the movement and saying things where, okay, this sounds reasonable, he's partially reaffirming things we. That the average viewer would say, yes, that's true. That's been in my experience. Now, presumably he's going to get to things where we think, ah, hadn't heard that before. That's interesting because Every truly great TEDx speech, I believe, has a moment where you say, ah, one of two things. Either, wow, I didn't know that before. I never thought of that before. That's a genuinely good new idea worth spreading. Living up to the name, this was worth my time. Or you have a moment where the speaker says something and you thought, okay, I've heard of that idea before, but this speaker packaged it in a way that's more interesting, memorable and useful than I've ever heard it. And I can now talk to other people about it to convey the same idea. That's what I look for in a good 10 or a TEDx speech. Either a new idea or an old idea packaged in a new way that makes it interest, amazingly more interesting, useful and relevant. And that's what I don't know because we haven't had time to look at it yet. We are going to look at another speech in just a moment and let's see if we can find the opposite of this. So I just searched for TEDx talks in the last hour that had, excuse me, the last day that had the most views. I'm now going to do the opposite. Let's see if we can learn any. I mean, sometimes someone can have a great speech, there's no views for a week and then it takes off later. So you don't always know a hundred percent. But now I'm going to do a filter and well, you know what, we'll keep it by view count. We'll just scroll all the way down and see if we can find some that have very, very few. So I just scrolled all the way to the bottom of the page. Now we're at speeches that have less than a thousand. Some of them had 44,000 views in the last week. Keep in mind the average TEDX talk or the median is only a couple thousand views. People think, oh, you do a TEDx talk and you're gonna have millions and millions of views. Not necessarily. It doesn't really work like that. Now we also have some TedX that have been turned into shorts. So I don't know that that's a fair comparison. How I failed at being, okay, this has 300 views. Let's keep going and see if we can find a full length TEDx that has a particularly low count. Not to embarrass or humiliate anyone, but just to see if there's any lesson we can learn. So here's one Topic I like. Topic we've discussed already today. AI will never be intelligent, and that's okay. This is from a TEDx at a Alborg, and I'm not familiar with that particular location. That's a school or a city. Let's take a look, see if we can learn anything from a purely technical standpoint on why this presentation is perhaps not resonating as well. I can tell you I like him right out of the gate. Good movement, good energy. He's not frozen, he's not stiff. He captured my attention. Hey, these days everybody's talking about AI. And I think he's right. They are. We were just talking about it. The Pope is talking about it. He did draw me in, so not a bad opening. So he's not afraid to sort of lay out his thesis in a powerful way. So strong communication. Said something provocative. He's clearly gesturing, using his full range of voice. Okay, so that part is kind of wasted. I hope at the end you'll agree with me, and if nothing else, you'll gain another perspective. That's the kind of thing that people could deduce after watching him speak. You can. You can watch any speaker, whether it's a TED Talk or somebody on TikTok or anyplace else, and always deduce later. Okay, I learned another perspective. So that's what I would call sort of fluff. Although in general, he was interesting, succinct. Got to the point, let's watch more. Everybody says, and occasionally. He just said, I think many speakers worry too much about ums and ahs. You can be a great speaker and say, and constantly, no one will notice. If you have interesting things to say, you could be a horrible speaker. Never say. And no one remembers what you said. So I'm not bothered by him saying there. I don't think he's doing it too much. But let's see, after you hit a certain number, you hit a certain threshold. It can annoy people. They can start counting the ums and uhs and ignoring what you're actually saying. I don't think he's in that category, though. Okay, so now he's outlining. This is a problem. Telling me you're going to tell me three stories is fine if you're my professor in college. And I'm going to have a test, so I'm going to outline. He's going to do three stories, and story one and story two. That's not how the human brain processes information. When you're simply listening to someone, you're far better off using that time that you're using now, saying, I'm going to tell you three stories. Just start with the first story, say it, then go to the second, then go to third. So this is what I would call a structural flaw with his presentation. But again, I think he's overall pretty good. I don't want to seem too harsh with him. Let's see where he goes. So I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to. Again, this works. If you are a university professor or high school teacher outlining when everyone is working, he's talking about the future, what he's going to do. If you lay it all up on a board or in a textbook. That works. It's not how human beings sit back, watch a TED Talk, whether they're in the audience or watching online. Stay in the present. Tell me about one interesting idea right now. Let me taste it, touch it, visualize it, remember it, internalize it, reflect on it, then go to the next point. So he's spending too much time doing all these roadmaps and showing us the architecture of his speech, which again is useful in a university professor where you're going to be tested and you're taking detailed notes. It's not useful to the typical person listening a TEDx or a TED talk. But I have to tell you, I love his movement. I love the confidence, I love the variety of where he's looking, thinking and pausing and reflecting and walking. All good stuff. He should have just started there in 2004. I was in high school and captured our attention that way. I mean it's fine to be self effacing, it's fine not to be overly arrogant. But he's there as an AI expert telling us what we think about AI is wrong. And now he's sort of undercutting himself saying if I know anything, like maybe I don't know anything about AI, it's a fine line. I'm not saying never be self efficient facing, but at this stage of the relationship, we've only known him for 79 seconds. He spent a fair amount of time telling us what he's going to tell us. Now he's telling us he might not even be an AI expert. He's undercutting his message and he's making it a little bit muddy. I like the repetition for emphasis. Yeah, people reading a speech don't do that. People staring at PowerPoints don't do that. He's, he's definitely comfortable with the material. He's confident, he's sharing his Expertise. I like all that. It. So I like the visual aspects of the storytelling. I'm liking that he's saying it's a twist. I like a little bit of history there. I like him talking about his personal experience. I like him talking about his emotional. He's hooked. So he's talking about his emotional attraction to things related to AI. I do like that smile on these. Really sharing his passion. Great speakers do that. Average speakers, boring speakers, are afraid to be unprofessional and show their passion. They keep it all bottled up. So I like a lot of what this guy is doing, okay, but he's over complicating things. So he started off by saying, I'm going to tell you three stories. He starts off giving context. He starts off telling a story he's halfway through and now he's saying, well, let's leave that here. Now I'm going to go to this other story and it may all fit together in the end. And things like that can work well sometimes in a sitcom where you have all these loose ends and then it comes together at the end because there's laugh lines throughout and you're going to stay and watch it. But with TikTok or, excuse me, with TED Talks, we're not necessarily going to stay for the whole thing. I just feel like now we're getting closer to the three minute mark. I don't feel I've really learned anything yet. I don't feel like I really think, okay, this is worth my time so far. The way I did with the first guy, at least saying things a little bit differently. So there's a little bit too much complexity to the structure, how this presentation is coming together. And I think that's why he's seeing such a relatively low count. Now, the thing about YouTube or any social media, someone can have almost no views for two years. Some influencer, someone wildly famous, can talk about it or link to it, and all of a sudden it gets 50 million views. So you can't necessarily judge it by that. I do think that you can learn from people who have high views to figure even if you don't agree with everything they did, even if you think something they did was. Was cheesy or gimmicky, you can at least learn from them. Whereas ones that have almost no views, you can also see, okay, they're telling me the same old thing. Let's look at this one. This one has 138views after seven days. I'm going to mute the music so we don't get accused of violating anyone's copyright because the last one, it was a mixed bag. There were things I thought weren't great, but there were some things that were pretty good. Okay, so right out of the gate, I'm seeing papers, which is very unusual in a TED Talk. I'm seeing the speaker looking down a lot. That's usually a danger signal because it means someone's really uncomfortable and nervous. And it's okay to be nervous, but if the audience is having to spend their time worrying about you being nervous, then they're not focused on your ideas. So that's why it's so important to be confident. If nothing else, it just relaxes your audience so they can focus on what you're saying. Now, I could tell right away it sounds like this speaker is speaking in a language that isn't their first language. And I really applaud anyone willing to give a speech and in a language that is not their, their first language. So I don't want to seem like I'm, I'm picking on that person for doing that. So. And I want to overall thank them for taking the time to do it. So I want to be very careful about how I do this. I'm not looking to hurt people, make them feel bad. I'm here in this new live stream show the Communisphere to really help all of us become better communicators so we can all be more successful in our lives. Because I do believe that how successful you are in life is often dependent on how well you communicate. The ideas in your head that you're sending out to investors, customers, clients, prospects, colleagues, determines your success in your career and how well you receive communication from others. What you actually take, understand, internalize has a tremendous impact on your health, your prosperity and your relationships. So that's why I'm spending the time doing this. And if you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them. Special hello to our good friends on TikTok who've stopped by. I see so many I'm trying to see. I do have a hard time seeing the comments, so I'm just going to quickly scroll up. Those of you on joining us on TikTok, if you have any questions that relate to communication skills, you can always go to my clone, TJ Walker AI and get personalized answers. Talk to it just like you're talking to me, but it's private. One on one conversation. You can practice a speech and you can do it in 32 languages. So I only speak one language, but the clone is fluent in 32 languages. But again, you're getting my ideas, my expertise, so you may want to check that out. I want to look at some other top stories today that I thought resonated with me and therefore potentially with you when it comes to communication skills and larger lessons. I am looking at the world through the lens of communication skills, good and bad communication. I'm not looking at the world through the lens of political party or ideology like anyone else. Of course I have political opinions and ideological opinions. But that's not what we're really doing here. We're trying to look at what is going on in the world from the perspective of communication so we can all get better. Okay. I want to focus on a couple of other things that I think are of interest to anyone who follows the world of communication and where I had a couple of ideas that I wanted to share with you that I thought were were potentially relevant. One of the items I will share with you popped in front of me. It is a story that goes through infomercials. Now before you say, oh, TJ's really cheesy, he's talking about infomercials. Let's not forget the fact that there was a time when infomercials were absolutely huge, not only in America, but around the world. And the reason so many people know Tony Robbins, the personal development guru is because he embraced this technology of infomercials. It's really a long commercial, a 30 second commercial style to look like a regular talk show. These days people don't do it as much. It's not economical because people are not watching infomercials. They are watching TikTok and YouTube and Facebook. But many of the principles still apply in terms of use. Testimonials show convey emotion. What I would recommend to you is you can Google this. 14 things you could buy only from an infomercial at 3am in the morning. And it goes through some of the most famous infomercials ever. The rejuvenating facial tone mask, the Flowbe hair cutting system. I do well remember these, these were funny and I believe it or not and you can laugh. I don't mind laughing in my. I don't have a Flowbe but I use something like a Flowbe to this day where I just go like that and it's one length and I don't ever have to go to the barber because there's not that much there. And it was from, you know, sort of a spin off of this product. ShamWow, the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie. Lots of products were sold again and again. The Clapper this is something you can activate an electrical switch. Therefore you could turn your lights on and off with it. Oxiclean a. More this is a Billy Mays in commercial production. He's no longer with us I believe, but the Ab Roller. I saw someone using an ab Roller just last weekend at the Gin. Ronald Reagan, a former President of the United States, famously did these in the White House. So this is how a lot of products got their start or really grew into prominence because of how it was communicated. So the reason I point this out to you is you may in fact want to take a look at infomercials from time to time. Now just last week I did a serious, serious in depth look at a 1990 Tony Robbins infomercial. I went through the entire thing. I don't think we've posted it yet. But if you have an interest in knowing exactly why an infomercial does this, when, when do they repeat? How do the testimonials come on? Why is this being said this way? Why do we wait so long before we even see the star of the show? I go into a detailed analysis. It's almost a two hour video where I am dissecting a 30 minute Tony Robbins infomercial. Now it wasn't his first ever. The first one went on in 1989. This was one that hit the airwaves he in 1990 but copyright 1989 and Tony Robbins looks completely different. His voice sounds completely different. So if you have any interest in personal development, communication, the rise of influencers before they were even called influencers, you're going to want to take a look at that. So I do want to thank people who were nice enough to spend time today and stop by, especially our good friends on TikTok. Thanks so much for joining by the way. If you got any, I realize it's a little bit difficult because you're looking at the side of me. If you are interested in learning more tools on how to communicate more effectively, go ahead and subscribe. Because typically you'll see one, two, three or more videos a day posted that are tighter, more focused and edited. And if you're watching this on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, any other platform and you're not subscribing currently, please subscribe, take a look at it, and if you want to go to the next step and it cost you absolutely nothing, I would recommend that you go to tjwalker AI and I'll just give you a very quick little sample of this so you can get a sense, it's easy to use. It does sound more or less just like me. And again, it's completely free. Not forever, but it is free. To start with it, I've already signed in, so it's. It's not going to ask me for information. But we're going to go in, take a look, and I'll just demonstrate exactly how it works. If it works. It is technology. It doesn't work perfectly every. So, tj, I'm here sharing you with, with my friends on social media. We're streaming live for someone who's never heard of you, never even heard of video AI, explain what you're all about and then your particular expertise, and then how people typically call you and use you to help them communicate more effectively. Okay? And so there we have it, which is a perfect example of it doesn't always work. So in that case, for whatever reason, the clone just didn't work. That has happened from time to time, obviously, as all technologies do. But I would say in general, it's a fascinating technology. I mean, this is actually me here, a video recorded, and then it's using the power of AI to have me nod and talk where I sound more or less like myself. But for whatever reason, it's just not working today. But give it a try later, and perhaps it will. I want to thank you today for spending a little time with me. If Elban and others who have joined us, if you have any special requests, you can always reach out to me, post a comment wherever you've seen this video or any of my other social media videos or right on my channel comments page. I do look at comments and I'm happy to review those and be responsive to your needs. I'm TJ Walker. May all of your communication bring you success and happiness. I do like that smile, really sharing his passion. Great speakers do that. Average speakers, boring speakers, are afraid to be unprofessional and show their passion. They keep it all bottled up. So I like a lot of what this guy's doing, okay? But he's over complicating things. So he started off by saying, I'm going to tell you three stories. He starts off giving context. He starts off telling a story he's halfway through and now he's saying, well, let's leave that here. Now I'm going to go to this other story. And it may all fit together in the end. And things like that can work well sometimes in a sitcom where you have all these loose ends and then it comes together at the end. Because there's laugh lines throughout and you're going to stay and watch it. But with TikTok or, excuse me, with TED Talks, we're not necessarily going to stay for the whole thing. I just feel like now we're, we're getting closer to the three minute mark. I don't feel I've really learned anything yet. I don't feel like I really think, okay, this is worth my time so far. The way I did with the first guy, at least saying things a little bit differently. So there's a little bit too much complexity to the structure of how this presentation is coming together. And I think that's why he's seeing such a relatively low count. Now. The thing about YouTube or any social media, someone can have almost no views for two years. Some influencer, someone wildly famous, can talk about it or link to it, and all of a sudden it gets 50 million views. So you can't necessarily judge it by that. I do think that you can learn from people who have high views to figure even if you don't agree with everything they did, even if you think something they did was cheesy or gimmicky, you can at least learn from them. Whereas ones that have almost no views, you can also see. Okay, they're telling me the same old thing. Let's look at this one. This one has 138views after seven days. I'm going to mute the music so we don't get accused of violating anyone's copyright. Because the last one, it was a mixed bag. There were things I thought weren't great, but there were some things that were pretty good. Okay, so right out of the gate, I'm seeing papers, which is very unusual in a TED Talk. I'm seeing the speaker looking down a lot. That's usually a danger signal because it means someone's really uncomfortable and nervous. And it's okay to be nervous, but if the audience is having to spend their time worrying about you being nervous, then they're not focused on your ideas. So that's why it's so important to be confident. If nothing else, it just relaxes your audience so they can focus on what you're saying. Now, I could tell right away it sounds like this speaker is speaking in a language that isn't their first language. And I really applaud anyone willing to give a speech in a language that is not their, their first language. So I don't want to seem like I'm, I'm picking on that person for doing that. So. And I want to Overall, thank them for taking the time to do it. So I want to be very careful about how I do this. I'm not looking to hurt people, make them feel bad. I'm here in this new live stream show the Communisphere to really help all of us become better communicators so we can all be more successful in our lives. Because I do believe that how successful you are in life is often dependent on how well you communicate. The ideas in your head that you're sending out to investors, customers, clients, prospects, colleagues determines your success in your career and how well you receive communication from others. What you actually take, understand, internalize has a tremendous impact on your health, your prosperity and your relationships. So that's why I'm spending the time doing this. And if you have any questions or comments, feel free to post them. Special hello to our good friends on TikTok who've stopped by. I see so many I'm trying to see. I do have a hard time seeing the comments so I'm just going to quickly scroll up. Those of you on joining us on TikTok, if you have any questions that relate to communication skills, you can always go to my clone, TJ Walker AI and get personalized answers. Talk to it just like you're talking to me, but it's private, one on one conversation. You can practice a speech and you can do it in 32 languages. So I only speak one language, but the clone is fluent in 32 languages. But again, you're getting my ideas, my expertise, so you may want to check that out. I want to look at some other top stories today that I thought resonated with me and therefore potentially with you. When it comes to communication skills and larger lessons, I am looking at the world through the lens of communication skills, good and bad communication. I'm not looking at the world through the lens of political party or ideology like anyone else. Of course I have political opinions and ideological opinions, but that's not what we're really doing here. We're trying to look at what is going on in the world from the perspective of communication so we can all get better. Okay, I want to focus on a couple of other things that I think are of interest to anyone who follows the world of communication and where I had a couple of ideas that I wanted to share with you that I thought were were potentially relevant. One of the items I will share with you popped in front of me is a story that goes through infomercials. Now before you say, oh, TJ's really cheesy he's talking about infomercials. Let's not forget the fact that there was a time when infomercials were absolutely huge, not only in America, but around the world. And the reason so many people know Tony Robbins, the personal development guru is because he embraced this technology of infomercials. It's really a long commercial, a 30 second commercial style to look like a regular talk show. These days people don't do it as much. It's not economical because people are not watching infomercials. They are watching TikTok and YouTube and Facebook. But many of the principles still apply in terms of use. Testimonials show convey emotion. What I would recommend to you is you can Google this. 14 things you could buy only from an infomercial at 3am in the morning. And it goes through some of the most famous infomercials ever. The rejuvenating facial tone mask. The Flowbe hair cutting system. I do well remember these. These were funny and I believe it or not. And you can laugh. I don't mind laughing in my. I don't have a Flowbe but I use something like a flow be to this day where I just go like that and it's one length and I don't ever have to go to the barber because there's not that much there. And it was from, you know, sort of a spin off of this product. ShamWow, the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie. Lots of products were sold again and again. The Clapper. This is something you can activate an electrical switch. Therefore you could turn your lights on and off with it. OxiClean A more this is a Billy Mays in commercial production. He's no longer with us I believe, but the Ab roller. I saw someone using an Ab Roller just last weekend at the Gin. Ronald Reagan, a former president of the United States, famously did these in the White House. So this is how a lot of products got their start or really grew into prominence because of how it was communicated. So the reason I point this out to you is you may in fact want to take a look at infomercials from time to time. Now just last week I did a serious, serious in depth look at a 1990 Tony Robbins infomercial. I went through the entire thing. I don't think we posted it yet. But if you have an interest in knowing exactly why an infomercial does this, when, when do they repeat? How do the testimonials come on? Why is this being said this way? Why do we wait so long before we even see the star of the show. I go into a detailed analysis. It's almost a two hour video where I am dissecting a 30 minute Tony Robbins infomercial. Now, it wasn't his first ever. The first one went on in 1989. This was one that hit the airwaves in 1990. But copyright 1989. And Tony Robbins looks completely different, his voice sounds completely different. So if you have any interest in personal development, communication, the rise of influencers before they were even called influencers, you're going to want to take a look at that. So I do want to thank people who were nice enough to spend time today and stop by, especially our good friends on TikTok. Thanks so much for joining by the way, if you got any. I realize it's a little bit difficult because you're looking at the side of me. If you are interested in learning more tools on how to communicate more effectively, go ahead and subscribe because typically you'll see one, two, three or more videos a day posted that are tighter, more focused and edited. And if you're watching this on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, any other platform and you're not subscribing currently, please subscribe, take a look at it and if you want to go to the next step and it cost you absolutely nothing, I would recommend that you go to tjwalker AI and I'll just give you a very quick little sample of this so you can get a sense it's easy to use. It does sound more or less just like me. And again, it's completely free. Not forever, but it is free. To start with it, I've already signed in, so it's not going to ask me for information. But we're going to go in, take a look and I'll just demonstrate exactly how it works. If it works, it is technology. It doesn't work perfectly every. So tj, I'm here sharing you with, with my friends on social media. We're streaming live for someone who's never heard of you, never even heard of video AI, explain what you're all about and then your particular expertise and then how people typically call you and use you to help them communicate more effectively. Okay, and so there we have it, which is a perfect example of it doesn't always work. So in that case, for whatever reason, the clone just didn't work. That has happened from time to time, obviously, as all technologies do. But I would say in general it's a fascinating technology. I mean this is actually me here, a video recorded and then it's using the power of AI to have me nod and talk where I sound more or less like myself, but for whatever reason, it's just not working today. But give it a try later and perhaps it will. I want to thank you today for spending a little time with me. If Elban and others who have joined us, if you have any special requests, you can always reach out to me, post a comment wherever you've seen this video or any of my other social media videos, or right on my channel comments page. I do look at comments and I'm happy to review those and be responsive to your needs. I'm TJ Walker. May all of your communication bring you success and happiness.