Introduction

Andrew 0:00

Welcome to the practical futurist podcast, a show all about the near term future with practical tips and tricks from a range of global experts. I'm your host Andrew Grill. You'll find every episode full of practical ideas and answers to the question, what's the future of ... with voices and opinions that need to be heard. But beware, I'm no ordinary futurist and my guests will give you things you can use in your business next week, not next year. So let's jump into it this episode. What's the future of communication? Welcome to episode one of the practical futurist podcast. In this episode, my

Introducing Martin Brooks

Andrew 0:47

guest is the impacttologist Martin Brooks, welcome Martin.

Martin 0:50

Hello.

Andrew 0:51

Your Twitter bio says you enable of people's potential, your feedback helps people to create greater impact in presentations. Is that a good summary of what you actually do?

Martin 1:00

Absolutely. In different formats, it's really about helping people to communicate to the fullest of their potential. Utilizing all the channels of communication. They're messaging their body language, their voice, how they sequence stuff, handling performance, nervous in high pressure situations and boosting confidence. So, but all of those elements together to enable people to communicate with maximum impact.

Andrew 1:22

It's actually a fascinating story about how we met. If I look back, I tweeted a link to

Social serendipity

Andrew 1:26

my show reel back in late 2016 I think it was loud, and you responded that it was a great way to show impact. What happened next?

Martin 1:34

I thought it was really interesting in that it was the first time I'd ever seen somebody use video on some speakers. Not Hugely confident about what they do. Wouldn't pot, unadulterated tip clips of themselves either. So it was something that was, you know, being the technological enabler that you are, you'd probably don't somebody who been doing that first. And I thought that was really interesting that you put that right there and it created an impact for me that was something different. And I responded to it and then we started conversing. You're interested in what I did.

Andrew 2:08

Yeah. We'd be working together on my talks ever since then. You've become the voice in my head on stage. So that's either a good or a bad thing. So,

Who hires an "Impacttologist?

Andrew 2:15

uh, so who would hire an impact? Ologist

Martin 2:18

one of the key things that I find that I'm working with people motivates people as pain. Again, you know, and any psychologists will tell you that pain is a greater motivator than gain. Certainly in competitive situations where people have had that horrible feedback in a pitch or a presentation scenario, particularly if there's a prize like a new product launch or are a venture comp, uh, uh, company looking for venture capital intervention and get that feedback, great pitch, loved you're offering really interesting you get down to the last two. But we went with the other company supplier, we invested elsewhere and that moment of where people are realizing that they were close, they were within sniffing distance of achieving first place, whatever that is, using a sporting metaphor. But unlike sports in business, there's no, if no prizes for coming second. So it's not paying. People are realizing there was something that they could have done differently, better, or the other person did. Just something more, more often a higher level of technique and those got competitive advantage. Then often we'll come down and say people's communication skills, how well they put across their information. And interestingly, a very large blue chip company, I spoke to their chief storytelling officer Oh a while ago, and he said that he had senior people within the organization come to him constantly saying they didn't understand the buyer's behavior because they said they bought a offering that is substandard and was more expensive and that their sales people or their account managers articulated that in great detail, but they still wouldn't really have the person they paid more for an inferior product. And they're the differentiator. And it wasn't just a differentiator in terms of equality of product or offering actually the communication skills of the people actually overruled. What would it be on the pure technical analysis that the person's communication skills overrode an inferior product. So it's not just like level playing field, but you can actually lose eye with a superior offering to somebody who's got superior communication skills. So anywhere where people have experienced that pain and they go, I do not want that to be the reason that I don't feel that I don't succeed, that I don't make the impact that I want, and that's often a motivator to people to come to me and go, what could I do differently, better, more.

Andrew 4:48

So when you've got them in front of you and you've reviewed their performance, what are the sort

The performance levers

Andrew 4:51

of levers that you can pull to maximize their impact? Because obviously that like an athlete, there'll be a certain point where they just can't get any better, or maybe they can. Or is it you can have a step in change, step change with some people. And then I think with people like me that have been doing this for awhile, I'm seeing not step changes anymore. No disrespect, but I'm seeing really tiny things that can have a huge impact even though they seem quite small. What are the leavers?

Martin 5:16

Well, the, the leavers vary person to person, but there's certainly some ones that are very, very consistent with that. With my offering, I've got a sales background. So I understand the importance of having a good message on having that sequenced in the appropriate way. What's the problem? How do you solve it? How do you solve it better than other people? What would be the inhibitors, the person making the decision and how can you motivate people through the, the, the downside of the current situation on the upside of what you're suggesting. So structurally I understand all of that and a lot of people who are or presentation or pitch coaches very often come from an acting or drama background. And I that the ability to our rates and be speak clearly and use tone and pitch, all of that stuff really, really important. But fundamentally, if your message is flawed, if it's structurally on sign, you can make it as pretty as you like, but it's just not gonna work. So the starting point for me is very often the messaging, making sure that what people are going to say, one sighing, know who they're pitching to, who that audiences, where they are currently, where the speaker wants to get them to. And then the steps that are that are going to be needed in between. So my starting point is often like a satin of, I say I sat enough needs to points of reference where you are and where you want to get to. And then only when you're sat enough knows what those two points are going to start to plot the in between piece. So my starting point is often than, so the answer to your question to lever the first lever is very often how clear is the message before we start doing any of the stuff that might seem more obvious at this point in time, like body language or voice or words. Actually you got to start with the message. Otherwise you use the phrase that I say you're putting, you're putting lipstick on a pig. It's, it looks prettier, but still a vague, no disrespect to any pig lovers aren't there. So the messaging is the, is this, this the starting point? And then you can look at delivery. So what I call design and the delivery phase. So the design of the message and then the delivery, and then the leavers are things like body language. It's voice, it's the language that you actually choose. Then it's handling performance, anxiety or nerves and boosting confidence, all those core elements. And then you get into the advanced rhetorical techniques, things like that. The top, top, top, top speakers in the world do like triples or dramatic contrast or utilizing a statistics that killer stats appropriately. So there's a whole myriad of things. And now what I look at is there's a million things I could say to somebody, but I look at that starting point. Who's your audience? Where do you want to get to? And then it's a matter of whatever time is available, picking the most important things that I believe will help move that person forward and more successful communicator by making a good impact.

Andrew 8:05

So I want to change tack a bit. You told me the day that our psychology and neurology a gear to face to face communications and now we're in a world where everything's moving online. We've got people buried in their phones talking to each other

Adapting to new communications channels

Andrew 8:17

in the next room. Maybe you can talk a bit about that and how we have to adapt as communicators to these different channels.

Martin 8:23

Yeah. And if it's a really interesting point and one I have reflected on a lot over the year, particularly as new technologies become available and even, you know, going back 10 15 years, whatever it was, where email started to become, I remember going on an email, I took a course and it was like one of those things we're here to tie, go play with it, but nobody give you the rules. Yeah. And this course just blew me away even though I've been using email for a couple of years. It was like just really common sense stuff about using it. So if you reply to a person just thinking, is the title still relevant? Cause that bounces back and forth a couple of times. Very often the message and I version zero resemblance to the original title and six months later we were trying to find that email. You can't find it because it's under their own title. So simple things like that. And the analogy I think we discussed was like, you know, here we are sat in the UK. If you drive a car, you drive on the left. I've driven on the left on my life, I'm pretty good at driving on the left. So that's the environment within which I've built my skillset. But if I go to the continent, the are America and I started driving a car, it's a car, it's got four wheels. It's the same thing. But now the environment is different. So when the environment changes, you have to change your behavior to be appropriate to that environment. You can't just drive on the left because that's what you're used to in America. You die pretty correctly. The technology is the same. I think our, if you look at our human beings evolution, we've, we've, we've evolved to do face to face communication, technology and everything else is very, very new. And our species development, it's a different environment. So communicating over the phone is different. The communicating first affairs, communicating on a teleconference is very different. Uh, communicating via SMS is very different to first of your communication, primarily an email. Similarly, it doesn't have that interactivity. When you start a sentence with somebody face to face, you can look at their fiercely expressions. You can see higher, they're starting to respond. In fact, when I was studying psychology and one of the things that they were being taught was what's called sensory acuity. As you start speaking to somebody, noticing how your message is landing and do you need to change tack or what somebody's emotional response to that, and I remember the the lecturer saying, when you get really good at this, you'll be able to change the second half of a sentence depending upon how well the person is who the person has responded to the first half. And I remember thinking, that's crazy, but the more you start doing it and you build it up, you can, none of that. Is it possible on a teleconference or an SMS? It's just one way and then it lands how it lands and you go with the response that you get.

Andrew 10:57

It's a, it's a huge thing. I think I do it myself that you can become almost a chameleon, but you need that visual encourage. You need the audience looking at their phone or staring at you or nodding or whatever it is to know whether you slow down and you ride on a, on a communications channel where you can't see the other person or the, there's an impairment to see them because it's on a video conference and you can't see their whole body language as well. I think it's a really important point. So how do you use the different communications channels more effectively?

Using new channels more effectively

Andrew 11:24

Are there tips that you can give us?

Martin 11:26

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, one thing actually I saw recently, it was a piece of research where, well, technology enabling this, looking at the richness of somebody's voice and they'd done some experiments where they've got somebody to have a conversation with somebody and they measured the variants and pitch and speed and warmth and tone and emotion in the voice, which now you can start to measure. And you know, if they did a, a task group of that, then they did a second test group where people were having environments, similar conversation, but now they had just had a picture of the person that they were talking on. They could measure very, very specifically changes in the voice in terms of emotion and pitch and tone because it seemed more quote on quote real. Therefore, there's an interesting dynamic about how our vocal tonalities on the quality of our communication drop on, cause we're not tuned to that. There's nobody there. We feels like we're talking to ourselves psychologically. Even a conference I attended yesterday, uh, per speaker got up and said this will, this will tickle you. They had their speech printed it long form and on. There was parts and time where they would look down and they would read their, their speech, they're called in the linkedin grabbers. They have a d alive. And uh, and what was fascinating was I could hear the difference when they were looking down and reading versus when they come up and they were actually talking around to pace. And I could see people react. They can see people reacting, what's landing, what's not landing. They would pause in the right places, et cetera. On all of those little subtleties would come in supply. When they were doing the quote unquote face to face piece, when as soon as they looked down and we're reading, they lost that interactivity. The vocals, personalities dropped. They weren't able to pick up on what the audience were or were not responding to where to pause, where to allow the laugh to giggle out more effectively. All of those little subtleties, but coming back to the point of bite the difference and, and first and second to remember seeing Chris Hoy, the Olympic gold medalist, talk about this idea of marginal gains don't go after the big things go after all the little things on they have not cumulative effect and in a competitive environment it could be some of those small things like the drop of tonality of the voice or just often when you ask people, you know, why did you pick those personalities that I felt more convinced it was an emotion that they talk about and it's not vocal. I identification of the relationship on the enthusiasm and the energy that people connect with as much as the, the offering is being talked about. But often it's the, it's the style of delivery of the person that makes that final decision. Given this is the practical futures podcasts. I've got to drop it practical tip in there, something I do and something you've helped me with.

A practical tip for public speaking

Martin 14:12

I record my speeches. And so if I had recorded my talk and I'd been that person grabbing election, I would have seen for myself the change in attitude. And then I could give it to someone like you and you can review it and go, oh, he's a easy thing. Uh, don't look down at the speech. So how important is it if people want to improve that they, and I had to do this, it took me two years to stop cringing when I watch myself. But I think when you actually see it played back and then have someone like you, that's essentially a coach saying, this is what you did differently, how important is that? I think for people to understand their style and delivery. I think it's fascinating. I've had a couple of conversations, I've been to a couple of conferences and events in the last couple of days and on people saying to me, you know, you, we are our own worst evaluators because we over obsess on the small mistakes that we are making that are obvious to us, but you can't recognize what you don't understand. Do you? So for example, I worked with a senior executive at a, a very large accounting firm recently, and he sent me a, a, a clip that he had reviewed it and he had said the word, um, 11 times in the first sentence. So that's my first piece of fade back was, well, you said, um, 11 times in your first sentence in the first, not the first sentence, sorry, the first minute of his talk. And his first reaction was, did I, so there was no conscious awareness of that. No, no, no idea. On even earlier this week, I was coaching a CEO who's launching a whole new product. In fact today to a bunch of venture capitalists and I talked about using gesturing, what I call inline gestures are illustrators and she had no idea that she did it, but she did it sporadically. So I find I, I've even called, I've used the phrase accidental brilliance where people will do things without the awareness of what they're doing. This somehow they've lost most sized it up from somebody and they do that. So I spend, as people are sometimes surprised, I spent as much time pointing out people's good habits that they don't know they have as the bad habits that they don't know they have. And then we work from there to increase what they do

Andrew 16:14

different. Again, the practical tip, it's simple to do. If you have an iPhone or an android phone, go and buy a 10 pound tripod and a clamp, put it in the back of the room, hit record before you go on stage. It's not something that's ready for broadcast yet, but it's something that you can look at yourself and give to someone like you. I've gone to the next step. I bought some oppressional dia. I even have two cameras now so I can cut together. But that's kind of the one end of the spectrum. But I think the first thing is realizing that if you're going to improve, you have to assess your performance.

Martin 16:42

Yeah. I've, I can't tell you the number of people who've come to me and said, I just can't bring myself to watch myself. It's just too to cringeworthy. And you know, I don't like looking at myself either cause I'm like I spot every tiny little thing that I think there is an opportunity to go better. But once you get over that and once you're committed to, you know, I think you used the phrase going from good to grit, you know, the ones, there's not decision I want to get better and I'll take the pen with that. And the easy thing or the grit thing I find is that in a very short period of time, I will often film people before and after. What's your first person wants a second one. And when you can clearly show back to people, you know, the subtle changes and the difference that they make. And then as you mentioned, the cumulative effect of all of those small things all build into a greater and greater, greater impact of new, more and more and more competitive advantage.

Andrew 17:33

I remember myself, I show you one of my clips recently where I asked the audience something. No, they asked me something from the stage and when I answered I stepped backwards. I had no idea that I'd done. And so because you're now the voice in my head, when an audience member asks me a question, I walk forward and I think that probably has more impact,

Martin 17:49

but I only know it because I watched it and you then picked it up. Even watching my clip back, I would never have seen it. It's those little things that can can be so important. That's known as the postural retreat where you literally have very little faith in what you've just said. So you distance yourself from life ministry. You're running away from that and there's the famous Richard Nixon Click clap where he says, I'm not a crook. Was nodding his head yes. And I earned every cent of that money was nodding his head from side to side and the no fashion. And then he takes a step back on, folds his arms. So he distances himself from his lies and he folds his arms, which is the body psychological way of protecting the vulnerable in organs at the front. And anybody can Google that. Just Google Richard Nixon. I'm not a crook and I'm watching them nod his head yes when he says I'm not a crook. Watch them not as head side to side. When he said I earned every cent of that money and then steps back what we call the postural retreat moving away. And people don't understand that. I've met very few people when I expand it has got, Oh yes, I knew that. Oh, people respond to it. Something just seems off. They just, people feel a lack of confidence when that's done. So you don't have to be consciously aware of what something is for. How have a negative impact. We can't smell carbon monoxide, but it'll kill us anyway. And sometimes things like that can kill your pitch. So we'll ask where I aren't real value in rec and spot things that may will be reducing your impact and my rule is always I will not, I will never share something with you that it's reducing your impact on this. I give you a replacement behavior, something to do differently that will boost your impact. So that's how it was. My golden

Learning from how pilots communicate

Martin 19:28

rule, they're getting practical again on, maybe they have an airline Geek because I travel so much, so I like knowing how planes communicate with each other. And Fairview, you listened to air traffic control or go to youtube, you'll find that the air traffic controller, we'll say for example, speed where in one six a descender 7,000 and the pilot will respond back with exactly what was said, speed big one six to send 7,000 which then both sides know that they've been heard and they'd been understood. That's a really formal way of communication that saves lives. Yes. Literally can we learn from that really formal structure communication back into the workplace. You talked a bit about rounds the other day. Yes. Yeah. There's so there's the wonderful phrase that silence does not equal agreement understanding or motivation to act says Andrew nodding his head. Yeah, you can do so you can, you can communicate something on a teleconference, you know, five 10 1520 people. I've, I remember many years ago when I worked for a large corporate being on a teleconference that had a number of thousand people on it. Now you can interact without number of people effectively. It's just not possible. However, depending upon the complexity of the message, how do you know that it's being understood and certainly your starting point is just because it made sense to you in your head as you said it on you know, the context and you know where people are and where you want them to be and what they want to do differently and you're motivated. None of that necessarily transfers with your words. People will misinterpret things. How many times if they're on mute and they talking to other people to have what they are talking to each other. Yeah, absolutely. There was some research and Wall Street Journal the other day, I can't remember the exact figures, but something like 65% of people admitted to doing other work whilst on a teleconference. And you know human beings, we know we cannot multitask. That's why texting while driving is illegal. It's very dangerous. You can't do those two things at the same time and unforced, unfortunately the accident statistics support that. So the ability to be, we think we can multitask, we can do different things. We can, we know we can. We know we got a W W we. What we can do is do two tasks. Even if we can think we can, we can't do two tasks effectively as we can do. One, it's just you can't divide your brand power and have that the the division parts of the same size.

Using "rounds" on conference calls

Martin 21:37

So when talking about, come back to your question about rounds, then that's a technique that I learned on teleconference. You can say something, it's perfectly clear to you what is it clear to your, to your audience. So you can have a like a spreadsheet in front of you at the attend these and you can start at the top. Okay. So I'm going to do a round now and going to come out and I'm going to double check. That all makes sense to somebody, everybody. And when I say your name, come off mute and just confirm that that all makes sense, et Cetera, et cetera. And then you can go around. So at Tom's. That makes sense. Yes, Sheila, does that make sense? Yes. And you can go run, you can confirm understanding and or welcome questions depending on the number of people. But what's even more effective is that before you start that you say, I'm going to be asking you questions after this. I get ready. So effectively get ready. And that's one way of increasing people's engagement with what you're seeing, knowing there's going to be, it's going to be a question at some point. And then there are so that that was the rhones techniques. So even though it can't be as interactive as face to face, you're looking to bring in some of those interactivity pieces. And remembering that old idea that sinus does not equal agreement. Understanding our motivation to act. Otherwise the strongest voices will literally overpower the conversation. If you're on the internet at the moment, Google conference call in real life where they kind of replay what actually happens in and the call drops out and people talk to each other and you hear the coffee machine, the background, but I think that's a great technique. It's again, very practical tip. It sounds so, so simple that it may not even work but it will work and I think people on the conference call won't know that you are formally doing this. I'll just go. That was a great conference called not sure why not really had command of it and we've got some extra points. Let's get on with it. Yeah, and there's so there's a bite. This idea of environment when you move environment, are there new tools and techniques that you knew you need to utilize? Our, we talked the other day about the Niamh to question technique for eggs for example, and that's another way of making sure that engagement is there. Now the way we would normally ask a question is what do you think of that, Andrew? Now imagine you're on a teleconference, you doing your email, you only half listening and then I ask you a question that's not just about comprehension, but how would you apply this to this technique or this strategy to your area? Say for example, it's an international goal. Now there's Harvard. How many other people in that call become very aware that you weren't listening because you go, um, yes. Well, um, I've just coming off mute. Yeah, let me just, uh, is hit send. But so that would not work for the relationship with that person. You're not going to make them feel horrible. Uh, potentially humiliate them in front of the entire group of people. So that's it. Yes, they will be engaged on your frightened the hell out of everybody else on the call, but it's not particularly positive. So a better way of doing it is what I call the named question takes you start the question with your name. Exactly. So you reverse the order is hysterical. Andrew, let me ask you a boat, Heidi. Exactly. Pops up the question. Yeah. Because there is no more engaging signed to anybody than the sound of their own name. So if you say the person's name Paul slightly, then ask the question, you're a, you're going to get a much better response on. The person won't feel quite as bad as then having almost no time for they've got to respond. And the other side effect is that anybody else who wasn't listening, we'll go, whew, thank goodness that wasn't me. But I better start listening more intently because it might be me the next time

Andrew 25:10

del Carnegie in his book, How to win friends and influence people famous. He said, I think it was number six, uh, the sweetest sound in the world as the sound of your own names and their right man.

Martin 25:17

Yeah. It's, I think it's really a mountain. Yeah.

The power of persuasion

Andrew 25:20

I wanted to touch on something I know that we're both passionate about and that's the power of persuasion. I mean, we do what we do because we want to persuade other people to change their mind, change their software, change, change their thinking. I started reading excellent book called talk like Ted. It's by an author called carmine Gallo and it's titled Five Stars from good to great. I couldn't put it down. The, the opening chapter really affirms my thinking about the value and the skill of public speaking and Gallo provides a couple of examples. He says that persuaders are irreplaceable. He argues in the book that the days of being average in business are over. If a computer could rationalize average, it can replicate average. Average simply isn't good enough to stand out in the digital age. Another beautiful quote, if you can persuade, inspire and ignite Dnn Genatian of others, you will be unstoppable, irresistible and irreplaceable and with all the talk at the moment about AI and I'm going to lose, my job will be replaced by that. He has a point that there is a transferrable skill to all humans can learn and we can conquer. And then as the power of persuasion, one more quote, then I'll, I'll get your, your thoughts on this. He goes onto say that emotional connection is indeed the winning ticket. In a world where technology such as automation, big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning are eliminating millions of jobs and disrupting entire industries, businesses and careers. His key point is in every economic shift and we're in one right now and in this digital revolution, communication skills become more valuable and not less. I know you're not going to disagree with that, but can you, can you just amplify what Gallo was saying that the, that having the ability to communicate effectively and having a real impact will actually protect your value to an organization?

Martin 27:03

I, I, I couldn't agree with more with those ideas and thoughts and I think you got to step back a little bit and go why is that true? And one reason is certainly what you've definitely alluded to, you know, if you're, if there's a simple structure to what you're doing, I AI will be doing that in the next five, 10 1520 years, whatever that is. That timeline is going to be. The thing is about what can you do differently, better, faster and certainly communication and persuasion. We talked earlier about that idea of sensory acuity and picking up, if somebody is buying into that idea, challenged by that idea, excited by that idea. And that's very, very difficult for a lot of people to have that flexibility to be able to shift and change and do something different. So that idea of Ryan persuasion is definitely a key one. I'm the interpersonal skills to be able to do that. In fact, another quote that I've heard from Karmanos communication and leadership skills are in high demand and low supply. And if something's in low supply then obviously there's a premium, there's a premium of high demand and low supply. Everybody knows that. So that's what definitely one part of it. And I would agree and I think why is there that skill, that skill shortage? No, and I think that's because, you know, uni here we, we, we sit in our fifties you know, and, and I, and our teams in our twenties when we wanted to speak to our friends, we did it face to face or we divert over the phone. It was interactive. People are coming into the workplace now. I have spent, had done a lot of that communication that we did first of us on the phone by SMS or whatsapp lacking that interactivity piece. Now anybody who practices any skill will more than somebody else will be better at it. It's just simple neurology. Brett repetition is the mother of skill. So people coming into the workplace know who haven't got that same practice, just that same exposure to this kind of stuff like turn taking and conversations for him. You know, you can, you can always tell when somebody wants to speak because they breathe in and hold their breath, you know, simple things like that. And if you know III haven't had that practice, you're not going to be as good as that as somebody else. So I think there's a second element. Yes, I would agree with Carmen and if AI can replicated at well, but I think also for people who are younger, maybe people listening to their podcasts or thinking about their kids, you know, who are thinking about the, you know, four or five, 10 years time they're going to be into the marketplace. What can we, what can we help them with? And I think those core communication skills, certainly in leadership, if you want to inspire a team, you're on a motivated same. You want to energize the same. That's not something that AI can do, that's all human to human stuff. So the importance of those key communication skills is really, really important.

Andrew 29:40

When I got up to speak or I come

Martin 29:42

off stage and someone says, oh, I could never do that, I kind of chocolate going, that's one less competition. Uh, those and competing with me. Um, but my daughter Madeline, she's 12 and I'm encouraging her to practice these skills at a young age. And I did that. I was debating when I was probably younger than her. So I get used to being in front of a crowd. I got used to being nervous and getting over it. I had no idea that in 45 years time, this will become a real transferable skill, would be an economic skill. Part of how I earn my money in my trade is buy by pelvic speaking. Um, but I didn't realize also that we in the sh the shift now with technology and jobs are being lost, that probably this is the number one skill that will ensure that you are relevant into the next um, transformation. Absolutely. And it is one of those things that you look at the statistics that come out every year by people's top phobias. What's right up there, public speaking. And again, that's fear of rejection. Making your Safari Ville visible. Lots of people that I work with will orientate them back to what I call it. Uh, our primary psychological event. You know, what school for the first time they came up and got public. And funnily enough, if it was positive, then I get public speaking. Yes. And if it was negative, the brand goes where I stuck my head above the parapet. Once I got a shot off, I'm not going to do that again. So that's where I got to do often a lot of work. And Ryan's, you know, building people's confidence and giving them the how to so they know how to hire to be able to do it. And that's really, really important and it comes back to the old idea that if a lot of people find it difficult, then there's a niche. There's an opportunity there and I don't think our, our psychology and our physiology is going to change. I think that's going to be similar. I think if you do that, those research in five years' time, I think public speaking is always going to come up as something that people don't like doing.

Andrew 31:35

So I'm assuming the demographic of this podcast probably got three different groups. You've got the young leaders who want to impress. We've got the middle managers. Just trying to break that next point and you've got the senior execs and the CEO's who are represented, their companies.

Tips for being a great communicator

Andrew 31:47

What are some simple things that each group can can do to overcome that fear and stand out and be great communicator?

Martin 31:55

Big Part of it is psychology and a big part of, I find the emotional states that we get ourselves into, and this is very powerful but also very challenging, is that every emotional state that we ever get into, we did it. We did it to ourselves. Other people can't make you feel something. I think it was Eleanor Roosevelt's famous. He said, nobody can make you feel about about yourself. You know, that's, that's always ourself decision. So in terms of the nerves and failing and feeling challenged by public speaking, one of the things I also, I have what I call the three bs of boosting your confidence. And the first one is your brain or psychologists call your inner voice. Every single time I've worked with WHO's got a heightened nervousness or uh, well, not quite a phobia, but certainly quite fearful of the public speaking. When I see them get into that emotional state, I, I say, I say, stop. What are you saying about yourself to yourself inside your head right now on 99.9, nine times out of a hundred, it's all you're screwing this up again, a couple of Leyva. I hit this, I hit doing public speaking and says, terrible, you're watching me. I feel terrible. So how, what kind of emotion does that thought process when it career? It's only ever going to create nervousness, anxiousness. And I remember hearing this wonderful story from a voice coach years ago by John F. Kennedy. And he had an outward mantra for want of a better phrase. And when he is going on stage and he'd feel incredibly nervous looking out and I'm the president and I'm supposed to be this, we had speaker, blah, blah, blah. And he would stand in the wings and he would look out into the crowd and he would say, I'm delighted to be here with you and I know that you are delighted to be here with me. I'm delighted to be here with you and I know that you are delighted to be here with me. So that positive self talk, self talk, that mantra them or get himself into that more confident psychological state to then be able to walk out as a president of the United States and our rates and such a wonderful way that he did. So that first be your brand, how you talk about yourself to yourself as a major indicator of the psychological state you're going to be, be in on how well you're going to perform almost out of time. Uh, as I'm doing it every podcast to ensure this is all about practical things you can do. Let's have some quick fire practical tips. So what

Three practical tips for next week

Martin 34:14

are the three things listens can do to be more effective next week? Fantastic. Great question. Three things people can do to be more effective next week. First of all is think of bite that satin of analogy. If you're going to communicate with somebody, where are they, where do you want to get them to and what is the most appropriate roadmap to be able to do that in terms start with your message and make sure it, that's really clear. Most speakers I find talk with uh, on assumption of interest. They assume their audiences is interesting, that there are topic as they are and they're just not. So the first thing then is by getting that message right. The second key thing that they can do is prepare, rehearse more. The number of times I talk to people and I say on the go through their slide deck and I say, how many times have you stood up and said this out loud so far? And they look at me with the first expression that can only indicate the number is zero. So practice and rehearsal. So, so no year message, practice and rehearsal. And the third thing is look at people who are successful and we talk about technology. Look at Ted, the website, ted.com the best speakers in the world, doing your thing on start to be much more curious about how do the top speakers do this? You've referenced carmine Gallo's at books, which are all fantastic and talk like Ted FiveStars, et Cetera, et cetera. They will give you tools and tips about how to be able to do so. Three things that people can do differently. Get their message right, rehearse on plan and invest the time. And thirdly, pay attention to the fantastic resources that are right there in terms of books or tad in order to really challenge ourselves about how do we communicate rather than just thinking about content.

How has technology impacted your business?

Martin 35:55

Two more bonus, quickfire questions. You run a small business. Yes. What's been the greatest threat technologies brought to your business? Well, this is interesting and training and development, which are right where I've come from, elearning as being the greatest threat and on a spreadsheet it looks staggeringly compelling, you know, pay for 12 senior executives to come together, put them up in a hotel the night before. Then pat consultants being in the room with them, they're lost opportunity costs, they're not doing their job for those two days, et Cetera, et cetera. Hey, let's stick this thing online called elearning learning and they can do it and their own time, no travel, no time done with pack consultants, small fee. Wonderful. And that has been a big threat to the learning and development and industry non. Unfortunately everybody who has done it and knows that against the shift of environment's very difficult to make that work. There's been lots of very interesting research called that the biggest part of learning is actually something called social learning. Paying attention to what other people do or don't do, doing the things that they do well, learning from their mistakes, talking about it. And that's where people really do learn. So that whole shift you learning has been a major threat to the business, which is why I've embraced their opportunities of it. So I work differently. So I do digital coaching. So when I'm working with senior executives, people like yourself, you know, their diaries are busy. Actually the biggest challenge very often is actually getting two people available at the same time. So My digital coaching offering, which is either like with yourself, I can look at your talks, you publish them online, or if I'm working with somebody else they can just send me through a file sharing app. You know, you can email me a very large farm, which again you couldn't do 20 years ago and I can watch that video. So digital coaching is something I've known, embraced where I can watch somebody's video clip, then do a simple voice recording of my feed bike and I can play their video. So at two minutes, 32 you said this, however, what I would say would be this, so they can then watch their own video back with my voice commentary, looking at the difference of what they did versus what I'm suggesting. And then tick take it to the next level. So digital coaching has been something that I'm doing much more of. It's, it's very cost effective because there's no travel involved for both parties. And I can do my feedback when suits me and that the clients can read that and listen to that feedback with suits them. So it's much more flexible. So big threat has been elearning, but a big opportunity has been the technology has enabled digital coaching, which allows me to work with people all over the world. Man, thank you so much for being with us today. How can people find you if they want to learn more about you and your work?

How to find Martin online

Martin 38:25

Well to best place to find me on linkedin. So if you type in my near Martin Brooks and the word impact, I should come up pretty close to the top or on Twitter impact tologist the word impact

Andrew 38:37

than tologist. So two t's in the middle and I'm easily find in either linkedin, they're on Twitter. This has been the practical futures podcast. You can find me in past shows@futurist.london, and if you like what you heard on the show, and please give us a like and subscribe via your favorite podcast platform. You can also hire me to speak at your next management offsite or customer event. More details on what I speak about with video replays can also be found@futuristic.london. Until next time, I'm the practical futurist Andrew Grill.

Speaker 4 39:18

[inaudible].