- So, how to have unshakeable confidence
when speaking to a group of people.
The very first lesson I want to share
with you is this,
write it down.
All speaking is public speaking.
The first thing you have to get out
of your head is,
oh, if I'm speaking to a group of people,
five people, ten people,
I should be very different versus speaking to one-on-one.
- Right. - No.
If speaking on one-on-one,
that is public speaking.
Okay, you're speaking to a group of two,
that is public speaking.
You speak to a group of 100, 1,000,
that is public speaking.
It is the same.
So in your mind, why you get nervous,
'cause in your mind you have this,
kind of this idea,
oh, I speak a certain way if I'm one-on-one,
but the minute I'm on stage,
oh I need to be like completely totally different.
That is simply not true.
So, all speaking is public speaking.
So let's talk about secret number one.
And that is this,
a speaker is made and is not born.
Say it with me.
A speaker is made and is not born.
Because you may think,
Well you know, SFU some people they are naturally born,
they have a lot of confidence
and their naturally charismatic
and their naturally very good on stage.
There are some people that you may perceive
that that's who they are,
that's what they're like,
they are always this confident.
- I think when you met me,
I'm fairly extroverted,
- Extroverted, yep.
- But I remember when the first few times,
I think about 6 months worth of you being on stage,
- The first 6 months, about the first 6 months.
- You know, see who put me up on stage,
6 times, maybe 8 times.
You know, once per month,
- Yeah - every month
- Yeah - and I was terrified
each time.
- So guests, it's very good, one-on-one.
- Yes
_ To him, that's no problem,
he can do it all day and it's no problem.
But somehow when you're in front of people,
- Yes - Right.
'cause in your mind you think that's different.
- Or I would get up there and I would ramble,
- Yes - I would pace,
I did all,
- (laughs)
- I'd try to tell bad jokes.
- Bad jokes, yes.
- I would, - No one laughs.
- No one, yeah, no
- How many ever told bad jokes and no one laughs on stage?
- Right, you thought it's funny
but no one thought it's funny.
- Yeah - Yes
- And I did all the classic mistakes,
- Yes - then you showed me,
- How to do this. - You broke it down.
- That's right.
- So, pay attention.
He's gonna show you just a fraction of those
and if you can apply,
you will do well. - And let me,
let's prove that to you, okay?
So you see SFU presenting today,
TEDx, right?
- Yes
- Speaking to thousands of people.
Australia, were going to November
- Startcon.
- Were going to Startcon, 4 thousand entrepreneurs.
- Yes. - Right,
I'll be one of the keynote speakers
along side with some amazing, - Yes.
- Amazing CO's entrepreneurs, right.
- And it's being negotiated where you're one
of the main panelists deciding the million dollar winner.
- Yeah, I'm also going to be investing some money.
Like taking on, like, looking at what,
kind of like a "Shark Tank" kind of sale.
- Yes. - He will pitch us a deal,
and I will see if I want to invest.
So, let me prove to you.
This is SFU today, right?
This is SFU many many years ago.
So I want you to take a look at the picture.
There was SFU back in Toatmasters,
when I was probably,
I don't know,
20 years old, 20 something years old.
Many many years ago. - Wow.
- So I want you to look at the picture
and tell me about this man.
Tell me about this young man.
How would he see?
Just describe.
- Glasses. - Glasses.
- Studious.
- A nerd, spiky hair
- Nervous, that's right.
You can tell he's a little nervous.
What else? - Insecure, yeah.
- Shy, you can see like,
you know you can see the shy.
Not confident, right,
not 100% confident, that's correct.
He need a makeover, yes.
- He's super young and unexperienced.
- Super young and unexperienced, right, hesitant.
The smile is more to cover up the nervousness, right.
- He hasn't met Jenny yet.
- That's right - (Laughs)
- That's right.
So what I'm saying is this,
you can see that's where SFU came from.
So I know for a fact,
a speaker is made not born.
So the speaker that you see today,
the communicator you see me today,
presenting or teaching to millions around the world,
guess what?
I learned how to do this.
It is not natural,
it is not natural born skill,
everything that I do, the skills that I have,
I developed it, I honed the skill and I learned it.
I learn it, one at a time.
So, don't be giving me an excuse.
Oh SFU, I'm not good looking,
I'm not naturally charismatic, I'm not this,
I speak with an accent, and all of this.
I don't even want to here any of those fucking excuses.
None.
Because if I could go from that,
what you see, to this,
at least you can improve, yes?
That's what I came from.
So from there, when I joined Toastmasters,
then later on, now first, you have to understand,
when I joined Toastmasters,
my goal was never to be a speaker.
My goal was very simple,
my goal was simply to improve my English.
That was it.
'cause I was shy, I was nervous,
and I thought maybe joining Toastmasters,
and in case you don't know what Toastmasters is,
it's a nonprofit speaking kind of club.
Right, you'd go in,
you would practice in front of people
and they would give you feedback.
And I joined Toastmasters because I wanted
to improve my English.
Reduce my accent just by a little bit,
that was it.
That was my goal.
Right.
So after I joined Toastmasters,
I was practicing, and practicing, and practicing,
and I was showing up.
What's the word?
Showing up every single week.
Every single week I would do something.
Every single week I would present, I would do a speech,
I would volunteer, I would do something.
After about 3 to 6 months of that,
in Toastmasters, they always give you
these little forms, kind of feedback form.
After you do a speech, people could give
you a little bit of feedback.
- Yes - Right.
And they would say, so at first couple months,
Oh yeah, you could improve on this,
and maybe you should do this,
you should speak a little louder
or you should speak a little slower.
Whatever it is, right.
Then view your feedback.
After about, I don't know, 5 or 6 months or so,
people started giving me feedback. Listen to this.
They would say, "Oh, great job."
The feedback got shorter and shorter.
"Outstanding."
"You're a natural."
Give me a fucking break,
there's nothing natural about what you see there, right.
But, you're a natural.
I'm like, there's nothing natural about what I do at all.
If anything, it's very very unnatural
and I force it, I make it natural.
Right. And from there, people thought,
Oh, you know, maybe you've got something.
I remember there was the president
of the club back then running Toastmasters.
- Yes.
- He said to me, "You know Dan, you got,
there's something about you, you got a..."
He calls it an x-factor.
"There's something about you that on stage,
even though your English is not the best,
and your deliverance is not the best,
but there's something about the way you communicate.
That people resonates with you, somehow.
Maybe because you're not so perfect,
maybe because you speak with an accent.
I don't know."
I said, "Oh, that's interesting."
So then from there,
I don't know how, I don't know why,
but I was studying a lot of the great speakers
like Tony Robbins and a lot of great people.
Back then, Zig Ziglar,
- Yes.
- The old days.
So, a lot of the speakers,
and I thought to myself,
wouldn't it be great if someday I could do that?
That was it. - Mmm-hmm
- I had this thought that if someday I could
be on stage, just like them,
and I could talk to people, I could inspire people,
wouldn't that be awesome?
That was just, just kind of like when you were a kid.
- A dream
- Like a thought, wouldn't it be nice.
He's like, I saw that Cyote nicely around that car.
- Right.
- Or you see something on a magazine.
Wouldn't it be nice if I could go there for vacation.
And that was it.
Right, because I was listening
to these motivational tapes.
- Yes.
- Cassette tapes by the way.
- Yes.
- cassette tapes back then,
I know a lot of young people like,
SFU what is cassette tape man.
Not CD, before CD, like,
- [Side Speaker] Cassette tape.
- [Main Speaker] I had that thought.
And because of,
as I was learning about different high income skills,
and I was already very entrepreneurial, so even those,
a lot of entrepreneur activities I was doing, copywriting,
- It was on computer.
- It was computer, hiding behind a computer.
I didn't have to deal with people.
- Right.
- I didn't have to deal with people.
But because I was so good at it,
I was making very good living as a young guy,
people started asking me, "How do you do what you do?"
And I was like, okay what do you mean?
Like, you just do this.
I showed them on a computer, I do my
(spoken typing noise)
kind of key-key kind of thing, right,
do my thing, and I say okay here ya go.
- Yep.
- And their like, what did you do?
Like, can you show us more?
I said, "What do you mean?"
Okay here ya go.
There's how you do it, just do the stuff.
Like, to me, because it's so second nature.
They're like, "No, no, no. Like can you teach us?"
- Mmm-hmm.
- I said, "What do you mean like teach you?"
"Can you do some kind of a workshop?
Like speak to our people?"
- Is that when you discovered you really enjoy teaching?
- I actually, good question,
I enjoy teaching I later discover.
But, I actually enjoy teaching back
when I was in high school learning martial art
and I was already teaching martial art
- Right.
- In high school because I got older, right.
So from there, I already,
I didn't know what it was like,
I didn't know it's called teaching.
- Right.
- I just knew I liked to share what I do and what I know.
And when I see people using what I teach,
and it's impacting the life,
I get a kick out of it, right.
- I remember a phrase once, "Learn do teach."
and then, I also remember you telling
the story; there's a video, a YouTube video of you,
- That's right.
- Where you talk about where you're at school,
you got bullied, then when you did martial arts,
you used to have like all the other kids come out.
- Yes.
- So that's when it started? Really?
- That's when I started.
- Wow, okay.
- So it was back in high school cafeteria
that I would just, lunch time, I would teach Martial Arts.
- Is it a way for you to better your skill
when you learn, you do it,
and of course naturally you have to teach it.
- It is, but back then, I didn't think about that.
- Got it.
- It's just something that I do.
It's just like, oh you ask me.
I didn't charge anything.
- Right.
- You ask me, "Well what do you do?"
I said, "Just do this."
and I was just,
thought, you ask me and I share with you.
- I guess the problem with a lot of people
that do "learn do teach"
is they don't even do it properly.
They try to teach it, so now their teaching
the shit to other people.
- That's right.
So from there, as I was teaching,
like this Toastmasters back then,
you can see me in the middle, right.
There was my fathers jacket, right, right.
- [Side Speaker] (laughs)
- Back in Toastmasters, right.
Yeah, that's me in the middle, you can see right there.
Now, at the time was very interesting years.
We had a lot of people who would go through Toastmasters.
They would come through the club.
- Mmm-hmm.
- Right, and you would hear stories like,
"Wow, you know, wouldn't it be great
if they could be a professional speaker?"
Including at the time the president
had told me I got expectant.
He wanted to be a professional speaker.
- Right.
- But now, guess what?
Over the years, as far as I know,
as far as I know, 'cause I still know.
As far as I know,
guess how many people eventually
went on, and become a professional speaker?
- Only you. Yep
- That's right.
Zero, except me.
Zero.
None.
Why?
- "Nobody implements." Adam says.
- Nobody implements, yes.
- You kept at it, commitment, consistent practice.
- Commitment, consistency, yes.
No drive.
It's a nice idea to have,
but you know they're not that serious.
Many, many, many, many reasons.
Right.
So then I was speaking as a young guy, right.
You know, speaking it, you know,
business type setting.
Speaking to people, small group at first,
you know, as you can see.
3 people, 5 people, 10 people, 20 people, right.
It wasn't a big crowd.
I think just, I was speaking
at a local Cashflow Club at the time.
- Oh yeah, you can see the Cashflow
- Yeah Cashflow Club, right.
It's small in a community centers,
small group of people,
20 somewhat years old. I was already,
I think this was when I was 23, 4.
Maybe, something like that.
- You had a better suit I think already by then.
- Right.
Right, so at the time.
So think about that,
that's how SFU got started.
From there, then to, later on,
more time, more practice, to this.
To being the opening speaker on TEDx.
Not once, twice.
This is TEDx Stanley Park,
I believe I was speaking to 2,600 people,
in Vancouver, being the opening speaker,
in my red suit.
From the shy,
nervous, uncertain,
like kind of young guy,
to being the opening speaker
for TEDx Stanley Park.
A speaker is made and is not born.
I made myself a great presenter and speaker.
It took many years,
many, many years.
And over the years, I've learned a lot of lessons.
I'm gonna teach some of the most important lessons
that I've learned.
but I want you to know, it doesn't matter
if you're speaking with an accent,
doesn't matter if you're not tall enough,
doesn't matter if your not articulate enough,
doesn't matter if you lack confidence,
doesn't matter if you get nervous,
none of this shit matters.
With practice, with the right training and coaching,
you could get, nah.
You're gonna get to this level,
maybe, maybe not.
But at least you could get better, yes?
You'll get just a little bit better.