- Hey there, Dan Martell here,
serial entrepreneur, investor and creator of SAAS Academy.
In this episode, I'm gonna share with you
the power of public speaking.
I'm gonna share with you the strategies
and tips for beginners.
I'm gonna go all the way back.
I've been speaking now for 10 years,
but I'm going to go all the way back to the specific
strategies that I think are gonna serve you
at the beginning stages and make it really easy
for you to approach public speaking.
Be sure to stay to the end, where I'm gonna share with you
one of the most powerful talks I've ever given.
The one that's gotten the most recognition
and impacted the most people.
It's called "Everything in My Power."
I'll tell you more about that in a bit.
Let's get into it.
(upbeat music)
So my journey to public speaking starts
like over a decade ago, 2008, I moved to San Francisco.
I just sold my company back in Canada, where I grew up
and I wanted to practise a new skill and get involved in
the startup community and connect with people.
And I figured, you know,
maybe it's time to overcome this fear.
I mean, I used to get, my neck would get
this big bright red dot right there.
It's like a birthmark, my hands would get like crazy sweaty.
My armpits would get all like wet and like sweaty.
And I wanted to stay away from it,
I figure I'm a programmer.
I grew up as more of an introvert,
writing code and then slowly I had to like learn
how to lead teams and give talks at annual planning meetings
and birthday parties and stuff.
And it was just something I wanted to learn.
So I'm in this co-working space and the owner comes up
to me and they asked me what I do.
And I share with them that I'm in the marketing
and sales and stuff.
And they said, "Well, could you do a session?"
And everything in my body said, don't say, yes, just say,
you're busy, you can't do it.
And I said, "Yes"
And I ended up doing my first workshop
at this coworking space, San Francisco
think there might've been seven people that showed up.
That was cool.
I'm okay with seven.
And I gave my talk and I got a little bit of, you know,
excitement for, I felt confident.
I was like, "Ah, you know,
I sounded like I knew what I was talking about."
And all these things you say to yourself in your head now,
fast forward to today,
I get paid tens of thousands of dollars to give keynotes,
sharing powerful messages.
I have one of the largest YouTube channels in on the
internet for B2B software founders.
You know, so I teach software entrepreneurs
how to scale their companies.
I fly all over the world and give talks.
It's kind of something I used to do a whole lot more now
because I'm heads down building companies.
It's something that I have to say less and less to,
but you know, I speak pretty much on a weekly basis.
It's my art form, it's the thing I do today.
And I make incredible income from doing that
outside of my main companies.
And I want to share with you, if I had to go back,
the five strategies that I think would have gotten me there
faster regards to the quality and the confidence around
speaking, especially if you're a beginner,
let's get into it.
Number one, always say yes.
So right after I agreed to give my talk
at this co-working place.
I called them my buddy, Gary.
So Gary is Gary Maxwell, you can Google him.
He is a professional speaker
he's been doing this for 25 years.
His delivery is impeccable.
His wordsmanship, his energy, his ideas
that he brings to the market.
I mean, there's a reason why he's one of the top speakers.
And I remember saying to Gary, I was like,
"Hey Gary I need to learn how to be a better speaker.
What do you suggest?"
And his feedback to me was "Always say yes."
And I'm like, "That's the feedback out of all the things,
not around like story structure or like routines before you
get on stage or like how to prepare anything."
He's just like "Always say yes."
He goes, "Most people just need to put in the reps."
And he explained to it,
"The yes is if you get asked to give a speech at a wedding,
say, yes if you get asked to,
is anybody want to say anything in a meeting?
Say yes."
Like literally anytime you're getting anxious to speak,
you have to stand up and say yes to yourself.
Maybe not out loud, like, "Yes, I'll do it."
But like in your head, you know
when you have opportunities and you just need to start
by just doing it, always saying yes,
committing to the date and then figuring out
how you're going to deliver later.
Number two, the TTT, WIIFT & ETR.
We've got three acronyms.
I'm gonna break them down and share with you exactly
how you should think through them and
why if they're missing, you're talking literally fall flat.
So there's three things.
Number one is TTT,
first you wanna tell what you're going to tell them.
You want to tell them,
and then you want to tell what you told them.
It's really that simple.
At the beginning of any talk, you're gonna start off
here is what you're gonna say,
"Here's what we going to tell you today,
I'm going to share this point of view."
Then you share that point of view.
And then at the end you say,
"I just want to recap what I just shared with you."
It sounds crazy but that is the structure
of any good talk is because some people forget
and it's just a really clean way of just like beginning,
doing the thing and then, you know,
figuring out how you're gonna flow to the end.
But that's the first TTT.
The other one is WIIFT, what's in it for them.
Every person that's sitting in the audience listens
to the speaker and they want to know,
how is this going to help me?
Some speakers, especially when you start doing
more public speaking, you make it about you.
So I want you to make sure you always ask yourself,
what's in it for them?
What are the specific benefits they're going to achieve
at the beginning?
Tell them like,
"From this talk, you'll learn this, this and this."
If you don't do it,
people don't lean forward to wanna listen because they
don't know what they're gonna get from you.
So that's the second acronym.
ETR, the most important in my mind is, earn the right.
ETR means that at the beginning of a talk,
YouTube video, Facebook video, stage presentation,
whatever it is.
Even if you're giving a talk, you know,
amongst in all my companies do these
things called team upgrades.
And it's the time for everybody to teach something.
It's a 10 minute tactic and the ones that miss
the opportunity to earn the right to share their story
about how they learn the thing they're about to teach,
it misses the opportunity to build credibility.
So it's like if you've ever sat in an audience,
somebody starts talking about a thing where
they're trying to teach you,
but they don't tell you how they became the expert
or how they learn the thing.
Then you're the whole time you're listening to it,
you're not really connecting with it cause you're like,
"Why am I listening to this person, for this specific topic?
Why is that person, the person I should listen to?"
So if you look at all of my YouTube to videos
and podcasts interviews, et cetera,
I always start by trying to share my story for the reason
why I learned the thing I'm about to talk with the person.
Those are the three acronyms.
Number three, start and end.
It really can be this simple.
Are you ready for the secret?
It is this, just know how you're gonna start
and know how you're gonna end.
And if you just have the beginning and the end figured out,
trust me the fear of forgetting what to say is not gonna
be there because you'll be able to just
transition to the end.
The cool part is nobody knows
if you forgot to say something so many people,
the beginners, you beat yourself up because you're like,
"I should've said this and I was supposed to say that."
And dah, dah, dah.
Nobody cares, nobody knows.
They literally don't know.
You know if you forgot to tell a story,
I do it all the time, I'm like,
"Man, I forgot to close the loop on this story.
I forgot to tell this part or this thing."
But nobody knows except for me.
All I focus on is when I get onstage,
I've got the first five minutes figured out "How do I start?
What's the joke I'm gonna tell?
What's the point I'm gonna make?
What's the first five minutes?"
I just make sure that that's good.
And then at the very end,
"How am I gonna finish this off?
How am I gonna put a nice little bow tie on this talk?"
And I need to know how I'm gonna end.
And then obviously I've outlined the rest of it.
But if I can have the beginning figured out and the ending
figured out, it takes all the pressure off.
So make sure you figure out how you're gonna start
and how you're gonna end,
Number four, point, story, metaphor.
So pretty much, if you want to say like,
"Dan, give me the least amount of things I need
to remember to tell a good speech."
I'm gonna say "Point, story, metaphor."
And this is true for any speaking, team speaking,
social media, videos, whatever, whatever.
Here's how it works.
It's back to the, tell them what you're gonna tell them.
It's like, you have to have a point.
So like strategies for speaking as a beginner.
So that's the point.
Story, how did you learn that strategy?
You tell the story.
Why did this come to you?
And what did you discover?
What's the journey and what is your life look like today?
A lot of people, including myself, I forget to
"How does my life look different today?"
I always tell like the challenges and I learned this thing,
but I don't resolve the story.
So tell the story.
And then the metaphor for me
is almost acts as like a,
so the stories that goose,
I have a point I want to talk about,
the story is the glue.
The metaphor is kind of like a hardening,
kind of like it locks it in the mind.
So the metaphor is kind of a visual representation
of what you're sharing.
So for example, a great metaphor,
if I'm talking like the point is that you need
to let go of excuses.
Because those excuses are holding you back.
And I'll tell a story about a time in my life,
where I had excuses and I was making up all these reasons
why I couldn't do something and I overcame it.
And now this is what I accomplished
and this is what my life looks like today.
And one of the metaphors I like to use for that is,
you know, think of it this way.
Every excuse you have on a daily basis,
you come up with one excuse.
It's like a one pound weight that you put in your backpack.
And you're trying to climb this ladder of success.
So everybody's trying to climb a ladder of success for
their own world of what their success definition is.
And if every day you have a new excuse and you put
that extra pound of weight in your backpack,
that new excuse boom.
After 30 days that backpack gets some heavy
and you're trying to climb this ladder of success.
Is it gonna be easier or is it gonna be harder?
It's gonna be harder.
So we need to learn how to get rid of those excuses,
take action and keep the commitments we make to ourselves
'cause that is how we create confidence, that's a metaphor.
So you see how like having a point,
here's what I wanna share.
Then telling your own story about how you learnt it,
maybe the three lessons learned out of that
and then finishing off with a metaphor is just as beautiful
focus way to share and to speak and to learn
how to tell story.
Number five, act as if.
So a lot of folks when they get on stage
and look, I get it authenticity, et cetera.
They'll get up and they'll say,
"Hey, I'm really nervous."
Or, "Hey, I'm sorry, I'm really nervous."
Or they'll say something to the audience
that they're nervous.
Here's the deal.
Anybody sitting in the audience,
looking at the person on stage, thinks to themselves
"I can never do that.
I'm so glad they didn't ask me to do that.
Oh my gosh, I wonder if they're nervous."
And they look at them, blah, blah, blah.
Here is the crazy part,
even though, not only this little red spot right here
would get dark red, my whole neck would turn red,
when I would speak.
And I knew this was happening,
like, this is crazy
I'm like sitting there giving a talk
and my neck is getting crazy 'cause I'm nervous.
And you know, one time I was giving this talk
at a college and one of the students puts their hand up
and I think they have a question and they go,
"Excuse me, sir,
is there something wrong with you?
Because your neck is really red,
I think you're having an allergic reaction."
Imagine like that could have been a showstopper for me
from giving more talks, but I just decided,
hey, that's my body, that's who I am.
I'm not going to let that stop me.
And I never acknowledged it, I never mentioned it.
I never said, "Hey, before I get going,
I just want you to know my neck is gonna turn red.
And there's a good chance that you're gonna think
there's something wrong with me,
but just pay attention to my words and the stories
I promise are gonna be good."
And this is what's crazy, is now it doesn't happen any more.
It's the comfort level eventually it's like,
"Why do I get red when I'm on stage,
but I don't get that way when I'm talking to a friend?"
And I just practise and practise and practise.
Now, if it's a big audience, it can happen sometimes.
But for the most part, it's very rare.
And like, you can go through look at on my YouTube channel
all the times, it does happen even in videos,
but I'm okay with it because I just have a higher
why than the downside of that happening.
And I know for whatever it is for you, again,
you might get sweaty, you might get stuttering,
you might get whatever but am gonna
highly highly encourage you,
just getting onstage acting as if acknowledging your power,
acknowledging your greatness.
The fact that you're there to give selflessly
to the audience, 'cause that's the other thing
when we get nervous is because we're being selfish
about how we're worried, we're going to be interpreted.
We're not there thinking, "How do I give?"
Like, before I do a session, I get in my head I go
"Who needs my best work today?
Who needs my best today?"
And I'm showing up for that person.
And that's one person, I don't care if there could be
tens of thousands of people to hear this,
I'm giving 100% to that one person that needs
to hear this the most today.
And that is act as if,
just act as if you are that rockstar speaker
that you will become,
if you keep practising and saying yes.
So quick recap, see what I'm doing there?
I'm telling you what I just told you, wink, wink.
I use this in my own life, you now are part of it.
So one, always say yes, two, the TTT's,
the what's in it for them and the ETR.
Three, start an end, four point story metaphor.
And five act as if.
As I mentioned the beginning of this episode,
I wanna share with you "The Power of Belief." talk
that I gave at my friend Giovanni's Archangel event.
The link is below, if you wanna see an example
of me speaking on stage and sharing a very personal story
of transformation that I went through,
that's really the reason I've had any success in my life.
So if you wanna check that out as an example,
click the link below, you can check that out.
If this video may help a friend,
feel free to share with them directly,
if you like it smash the like button,
subscribe to my channel.
And as for usual, I want to challenge you
to live a bigger life and a bigger business.
And I'll see you next Monday.
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