So, my first tip for you is ECP. What does it stand for? Excitement, curiosity, and passion.
In a nutshell, if you need to give a presentation, if you’re going to be talking with somebody,
find a way to bring in things that excites you, things that you are curious about,
things that you are passionate about because when you do this, your energy is going to show.
You probably know a lot more about these particular subjects and your
expertise is going to shine through. Now, if you’re at a party with friends,
that seems pretty easy. Just bring up things you have in common, things that you guys have
done together. Maybe it’s traveling, maybe you like to spend time outdoors, maybe it’s gaming.
But, how do you do that actually at work? Especially when you got to give a presentation,
you’ve got to talk about something that’s incredibly boring like about,
okay, what are we going to do for this holiday season to be able to get more sales?
Well, the reality is if you’re the one putting a presentation together, if you’re going to be
leading the Zoom call, you have a lot more power than you think to actually take the conversation
and bring in some of your passions like gaming. I understand, you sell furniture or maybe office
equipment, not super exciting, but your passion is gaming and you’ve seen how gaming companies
have been using marketing because they’ve been using it on you to actually create more purchases.
It’s like, hey, can we bring in some of these ideas. So, you create analogies,
you show that, hey, this company did this, is there a way for us to do something similar,
so that we can get our sales up? And, let’s talk about curiosity because
this one’s really important whenever you’re speaking one-on-one or in a small group. Because
when you’re curious, you’re listening and that enables you to ask better questions to delve in.
All of a sudden, other people that are speaking realize that they’ve got a captive audience,
somebody that wants to hear more about something that they love to talk about. And when people get
to talk more, they like you more, all of a sudden, there’s more engagements, everyone is smiling and
the conversation speaking is going much smoother. And then, of course, we’ve got passion. Passion
is the energy, passion is the love, passion is the emotion that people feel. They don’t
necessarily even know what you’re talking about, but they can see, they can feel. All of a sudden,
you’re resonating with the excitement of the subject that you’re covering.
And this is contagious and the only danger here is that you could possibly go on too long
talking about something that, yeah, they may not be catching everything.
So, a few years back, I was the Youpreneur Summit in London giving speech at the Queen
Elizabeth Center. There were hundreds of people in the audience. I’ve been
invited by my friend, Chris, and I have admit, I was incredibly nervous getting on the stage.
Now, the exercise I went through to calm me down is I thought through the worst
case scenarios. To me, worst case scenario was walking out there tripping knocking myself out and
Chris having to call an ambulance and me wasting everybody’s time, me not, you know, just simply,
yeah, that would have been worst case scenario. So, when I was going up, I made sure I – my
shoes are tied, I have good shoes on with traction. I just eliminated
that from happening. I also thought, you know, I could lose my train of thought, slides could
not work, that’s happened to many people. So, I had the notes written. I had thirteen
points. I had them written down with a little bit of explanation in the back of my pocket on a note
card. Hey, my throat would get dry and I expect them. I was told there’s going to be water. I saw
water for other speakers, but what if there’s none for me? I brought my own water bottle.
I basically thought through, I was prepared. A good Boy Scout, be prepared is exactly what I
did. I thought through various scenarios and I made sure that I felt I did everything I could,
thought through all the worse things that could happen and was prepared for them.
Now, gents, if you’re enjoying today’s video, do me a favor and smash that like button. It
lets the YouTube algorithm know that, hey, this video is good. And, honestly, guys,
I want to know if you enjoy videos like these that talk about things beyond style. I really enjoy
making these and I want to know if you like them. The next tip to speak confidently as an adult
is to have a point when you open your mouth. And that point doesn’t need to be earth-shattering,
doesn’t need to be momentous. It can be something as simple as acknowledging another person
by saying, hello, good morning, hi. That was your point. What you want to
avoid especially if you’re nervous, if you don’t feel like you’re a
great speaker is aimless conversation. Now, small talk and that type of thing
right there, definitely could have a purpose. And for someone that is an advance speaker or
someone that’s practicing small talk, it’s a great thing. It can build up, you know,
a little bit of trust. It can break the ice. It can, you know, kind of fill a little bit of
space and just simply you can learn a little bit about a person without going into deep.
But, for a lot of people, it is something that if you’re feeling nervous,
think about, well, what do I want to get out of this conversation, where do I want to lead it,
especially if it’s at work or if it’s with somebody that maybe you’re talking to the
first time, you just d you want to learn a little bit more about them? Okay, that is the point.
You know, you’re not looking to hammer them with questions,
but you are looking to, hey, I’ve got to go, I’ve got a direction where I’m going with this.
Now, building off that last tip, having a point, let’s talk about strategic silence. Silence
in conversation is perhaps what scares most amateur speakers. People that are nervous around
other people the most is the awkward silence, where, yeah, you just feel like you want to
make yourself small disappear because you don’t know what to say, because it just feels weird.
But, here’s the thing, flip it. Start to understand the power of
silence especially when you say something and you’re trying to make a point.
Maybe you want to all of a sudden just let it
sink in what you say. You want to give the other person the ability to go into the conversation or
even play with it. Acknowledge the awkwardness. You know, you’re kind of making joke about it,
like, wow, we don’t have anything to talk about, do we? So, by acknowledging the awkwardness,
by acknowledging the silence, all of a sudden, again, you’re breaking the ice.
And the point getting back to the earlier one is simply to engage to point out that
I’m human. You’re not to reveal a weakness like that. You can’t fill everything that you maybe
aren’t the loudest most talkative person. This isn’t a bad thing. It maybe that all
of sudden, you find out the person you’re speaking with has a lot more in common with you. It’s like,
yeah, I’m pretty awkward at these types of conversations as well, all of a sudden,
you smile, you share that and the conversation can keep going naturally.
And, gents, if I missed anything, if there’s a point that I should have added to today’s video,
let me know in the comments below and I will send you an RMRS challenge coin.
Next up, gents, let’s talk about filler phrases. Let’s talk about crutch words and let’s talk about
slowing things down and why it’s so important. So, filler phrases, crutch words, these are words,
phrases that we fall to whenever we can’t keep up, our mind cannot keep up with our mouth. When
you’re speaking too quickly and we don’t know what to say and so, we throw in a like, we throw in an
um, we throw in that filler phrase, well, I’ve been thinking about. It doesn’t add to anything
that you’ve been saying. Slow things down. In fact, there was a great TED Talk, they talk 190
words a minute is about optimum whenever you’re speaking giving a presentation talking with
others. You can talk a little bit faster when you’re engaging with people, one, two-on-one,
you know, three small groups like that. Larger groups, though, you want to slow it
down. It has a huge impact, not only in your ability to sound more authoritative, but by
slowing things down, you can naturally eliminate all the filler words, all those crutch words
that you are defaulting to when you were trying to spout things out too quickly.
And I know with that last point, it’s a bit hypocritical because here on YouTube, I speak
very quickly in my videos. Part of that is the way the algorithm works and what we’ve noticed
is that people want information quicker. But, again, if you’re engaging with
somebody one-on-one, small groups, then you definitely want to slow things down.
Now, you’ve probably noticed my hand movements throughout this video and that’s important.
What did they say? There was a joke about how do get an Italian to shut up,
you tie up his hands and they can’t speak. But, there’s a lot to be said about that. To me,
your hands and your gestures, this is a big part of our communication, especially when
there are subtle references in what you’re saying. Whenever you want something if you’ve got a little
bit of dry humor, if you’re dropping a joke, you say one thing, you know,
no, but you’re nodding your head. It’s almost we see one thing and we hear another in our mind.
And this is something that your hands, like if you’re going to, hey, talk about something big,
you illustrate big. It emphasizes the point. Now, hand gesture over the top can be very
nervous movements and you want to avoid that. Again, it’s also understanding your audience.
If you’re over in let’s say Spain, Mexico, hand gestures are going to be much more common
than if you’re in a more reserved society, perhaps over in Japan, over in China,
you may not see such animated conversation. You have to, again, understand the culture.
Again, depends on the situation, but hand gestures can be very,
very powerful to help you get the point across. Now, I know some of you guys are watching this
video thinking, okay, Antonio, these tips are great, but can you make it even easier?
Can you develop a fragrance that will enable me to have more courage? Put me in the zone,
basically I could condition myself to be able to finally go up and speak to that woman. Have the
confidence to be able to, yeah, maybe deal with rejection, but more importantly know
that I’ll never regret not having asked her out. Well, guess what, guys? I have developed that
fragrance set over at Mission Fragrances. Guys, you know I’m passionate about fragrances. And one
thing I love about fragrances is how you can smell them and they can put you in the zone.
They are directly linked to the memory part, basically the emotional part
of the brain. And this is something unique to all the senses that scent that smell has.
And over at Mission Fragrances, we developed the system where you can condition yourself to
feel a certain way when you put on certain fragrances. Our fragrances, Honor, Courage,
and Commitment are specifically formulated to help you get into the zone, to become a more honorable,
more courageous, a more committed man. You want to lose 30 lbs and you want to be
committed to going to the gym, you can use scent to basically help remind you and to give you the
strength to emotionally put you in that place, so that you, hey, this is something I need to do.
And, I’m really proud of what we’ve created here, guys. If you want to learn more,
down in the description of today’s video, you can go check out Mission Fragrances. I go
into the science, I go into how we condition, how these were formulated over on that website.
So, again, if you’re curious, go check it out, guys. The project over at Mission Fragrances is
a passion project of mine and something I’m really proud of and, yeah, go check it out.
[0:10:03] Now, this next one is
incredibly simple. Simply roll your shoulders back and sit up straight. When you sit up straight,
when you stand straight, when you roll those shoulders back, you push the chest out.
Not only does your voice sound better, but you just feel more confident. You feel like, okay, I
belong. You – others are going to pick up on this. I know this is something in the military that
people all the time notice that, you know, you’re told to stand in attention. You stand very erect.
In general in the military and those habits whenever people see someone in the military,
they’re like, wow, are they taller? They just seemed more confident.
This is something as a human being we notice the stance, we notice the positioning of others
and it is something that it reflects in what they’re saying. So, if you want to come off
as more confident, look more confident. And, of course, this is a style channel,
so let’s talk about dressing the part. Actually, looking confident, because here is the thing,
if you look the part of a success, people are going to think you’re a success. So,
before you even open your mouth, people are making a judgment on you.
In fact, there was this great study about musicians walking out and playing the music and
the audience judging them. Now, here’s the thing is it was a recording. It was the same music that
various audiences listen to, but the only thing that changed was the way the musician was dressed.
And based off of that, they perceive the music as either good or bad. It was classical music.
And whenever the musician came out dressed formally, dressed well in a suit,
people gave them a higher ranking than if he was dressed casual. Why? Because they associated good
musician would dress the part that they expected. So, when you violate that, you know, it’s not
people are bad, it’s people are lazy. And they have in their minds an idea of what a confident
well-speaking, well, you know, what this person looks like.
So, if you dress to the part and, again, you don’t have to wear suit,
but you do need to dress well. You need to wear clothing that fits you. It fits the situation,
it fits the expectation of the audience. Whether you’re going on date with one person,
you are giving a presentation and you need to think what’s the expectation, we’re going to
a really nice restaurant, where it is expected that people are wearing a collared shirt where
I could get away and dress up a bit with the sports jacket because we’re in New York City.
Or is it something, hey, I’m giving a presentation to a thousand construction workers in the Texas
heat and I’m going to dress a bit down. I’ll also wear maybe a collared shirt,
but I’m not going to wear a necktie, I’m not going to wear a sports jacket, I’m not going to wear a
suit because I want to better relate with these people. The same time, I do want to -- I am an
expert and I do want to engage with them. So, you got to think through what the
audience is expecting, but don’t forget to leverage your clothing to come off
as more confident, come off as more competent. Now, this next tip to speak confidently is
perhaps the hardest one on this list and that is to practice, to put in the effort
to actually take all the information that I’ve talked about in this video and go out and perhaps
make a fool of yourself because you’re not going to do it correctly, you’re going to make mistakes.
You’re going to go out with some of your friends and you’re going to start the conversation
with this beautiful woman and you are going to trip over your words. You’re not going to
make the point that you wanted to. It happens, but here’s the thing.
Going through the suck, embracing the process, you realize, you know what? Yeah, she was beautiful,
but she definitely wasn’t my type after listening to her speak, so I’m happy I got that rap in.
And that’s what you want to view this as. View this as like going to the gym,
putting in the reps. When you first go to the gym, it feels awkward, it feels
like a play. You don’t know all these machines are. You are sore, it just doesn’t feel good.
But, guess what? After you’ve done this for a couple of weeks, it feels foreign
not to go. All of a sudden, you start getting a high of engaging with others. You start
becoming that guy that volunteers to give the presentation because you actually enjoy.
You find that you are perceived as a leader, not because you give perfect presentation,
but because you step because you’re not afraid to go out there and,
yeah, I only spoke, you know, got 95% of it right, but no one focuses in on the mistakes.
What they focus in on is that you’re the type of person that you aren’t afraid to
throw yourself out there to get better. And that’s what this is all about, gentlemen,
you becoming the man you know yourself to be. All right, gentlemen, so what video to watch
next? How about behaviors that signal low intelligence? Basically, are you signaling stupid?
Find out, gents, in this video right here. You don’t want to do these things.
So, it’s a good one. I enjoyed putting it together. Go check it out, guys, right
here. Boom, click it. Go check it out, it’s good.