PUBLIC SPEAKING: Present Seamlessly and Be Fearless on a Stage!

1. Welcome!: You want to tap into your own genuine chime and magnetism once became public without having to rely on any gimmicks or trick, public speaking plays a role in most people's lives. And experts estimate that up to 77% of people theory. Now, if you don't want to learn cheap tricks, camouflage, technical jargon, there'll be useless on a state, but rather genuine long-term ways to make your true charisma shines through. You're in the right place. My name is circus aspect. And over the past decade, public speaking become a colossal element in my life. As I've gone on to perform a huge stages and give presentations or hundreds of people as to teach in hundreds of students, both in-person and online. I seen what makes people struggle with the fear of public speaking and prevents them from tapping into the most captivating version of themselves. In this course, I've included all the ideas and exercises, but not only helped my students, but it took me from being completely shy and terrified by oddities to being a professional presenter. This course is everything you'll need to go from wherever you are at a point where you can seamlessly and confidently deliver anything to your audience and be fully present with them with multiple hours of content and complimentary files you about whatever pace you desire. You learn everything from how to shatter the fear of public speaking, mindfulness applied to this discipline as well as techniques and how to practice present. And so much more, it's time for you to become the most engaging version of yourself. Take action and join the course right now. 2. What to Expect...: So you are considering joining the course or have already enrolled. Thank you. I'm super excited to take you on this little journey and you're probably thinking, wondering what is going to be about. So we're going to talk about so many things. It's really exciting. First of all, we're going to talk about theory behind the fear of public speaking. Because I personally think that the fear of public speaking, which is in the fear of judgment, fear of strangers. All these things we're going to discuss is the main thing at hat k, The main issue we have to talk about. Once we tackle that, we genuinely tackle that with genuine change and ideas and ways to implement that throughout your life. So you really tackle this through exposure therapy and to many other things that we're going to talk about desensitization and really understanding what's going on in your brain and why you feel like that. That's really going to be the game changer. If you don't have a fear of public speaking, we're still going to talk about technique. We're still going to talk about how to practice, how to write your speeches. Ways. You can make your presentation more likable, more enjoyable. How to start it off with a great tone. We're going to talk about so many things. We're going to talk about mindfulness to, and how you can apply the principles of mindfulness to public speaking. It's gonna be super exciting. So that's the curriculum. That's where we're going to see three ideas that I'm going to repeat throughout the course that are crucial to see if this resonates with you. This is important for your journey is one, public speaking is more about unlearning and learning in the sense that you're not going to necessarily adopt new skills, new things that you're gonna do. You're gonna let go of a lot of things, fears and anxieties. The racing thoughts that are going to take you out of the moment. Because its thing number two, what I think is the biggest thing, what I think is the epitome of public speaking is being in the present, in the moment and developing almost like a sixth sense that we talked about in show business as reading the room and being able to calibrate the moment and making that presentation, that speech that show unique to that moment. And really showing you how letting that you're genuine, confidence, charisma, magnetism shine through you, really showing the best version of yourself. So the third and last thing that I'm going to save throughout the course, and it's really important is that it doesn't matter. The topic doesn't matter the degree of silliness or seriousness that it is. All of these things I think are going to apply and are universal to public speaking as a whole. I really, I've, I've talked about, I've done public speaking from standard to doing speeches about suicide and serious issues. So I really think, and I've also had students who have done all sorts of topics in anywhere through the spectrum. Really think all of these ideas and go into apply for your topic regardless of what it is. So enough of that in the introduction, jump in rehab, no excuse. Let's talk about public speaking and let's talk about how to get rid of that fear and anxiety. Let's talk about technique. Let's talk about how to really shine through to your audience. You're the best version of yourself. Be there with them and develop that intuition, that sixth sense to mix the moment, unique and amazing and exciting. I'm super excited to share all of this with you, and I'll see you inside. 3. How to Never Have an Awkward Situation: Hello and welcome to the course. I'm super excited for the content we're going to be talking about before we get into the structured syllabus outlined course, I wanted to give you this little lesson. Since every time I talk about this with, with students, even with friends and family, I find that if you've never thought about this before, is truly a light bulb epiphany moment for your communication, social, public speaking skills. And I thought I'd give this to you at the beginning of the course because it's something you can start to apply and really see how it can change. A lot of moments that may seem as though they're like incredibly awkward or uncomfortable. And the premise of this is incredibly simple. It's nothing to write home about, but it's the realization that a moment is only awkward. Really, if two people or more, for that matter, are acting as if something is not happening, Right? So it's this pretend game. It's like the expression of an elephant in the room. Like there's clearly a huge thing which is the elephant in the room and we're just acting as if it's not there. So from that premise Going off of that, the eradication of the awkward moment is so simple. All you have to do, this, embrace it. It's talking about the elephant in the room. And it seems so simple yet it's so, so, so effective, like it happens all the time in, you noticed that people that who are charismatic, magnetic in the connect with their audience or with whoever they're speaking to. They do this all the time. For example, a comedian won't land a joke, and instead of just going with their material, I have not a backup job because that seems like it's scripted, but they'll they'll come up with some, something on the spot which embraces the fact that no one laughed at the joke, and hence makes it so much easier and funnier. And it gives everything sort of lightness as silliness, that is, to not be taken too seriously, right? So someone will say a joke, it won't land and then we'll give some sort of line along the lines of, well, that's the amazing response I was waiting for. It's not incredibly witty. It's not, or it can be, but it's unnecessarily incredibly witty or special or are clever. Just that moment of embracing the awkwardness of saying like, Oh, this happened like if we, let's not do this pretending game where you act as if it didn't happen and act as if it didn't happen, then we create this sort of weird tension. Just that can be incredibly useful. And of course, in the setting of public, public speaking, I get the setting of comedy, which is a form of public speaking. But if you're giving a presentation or a talk or whatever you're wanting to use the skills for can be incredibly useful. You forget about something. And people are like, at some point, It's a long time. Goes by whether you're whether you're thinking about what to say. Instead of speaking as if nothing happened, just say, say something, whatever comes to mind. And we're going to talk about spontaneity and then, and not taking us selves too seriously, not having to have everything perfect because of course nothing is perfect in the sense, in the ideal sense, but every, everything is perfect already. But we'll talk about that down the line. But the idea is very simple. And it's that if you just it's already, I already said that if you just embrace it and there'll be more TCR and in the context of public speaking can be forgetting what you're saying. It can be your slideshow not working. It can be so many things. And it's as simple as just addressing the fact that it's, that it's actually happening. And most of the times though, it'll be an incredibly positive response from your audience. They'll actually be charmed and there'll be funny and it's nice to see someone recognize how stuff isn't always going as planned because it isn't, you're not in control and it's incredibly human. And it generates empathy when someone realizes that they're not in control. And of course they don't care as an audience member, if the slideshow isn't working. You don't care if they forgot the words. It's even nice. We're having this moment that breaks the fourth wall and they're embracing. And they forgot it. And we just keep going and there's nothing more. Not not as if nothing happened, that would be going off the awkwardness, but you get what I'm saying. To recap. Any socially awkward moment where you're doing something that kind of goes off the script in a negative way. As long as you embrace it, it'll be fine. It'll be fine. There's no need to start thinking about that to engage your logical thinking self-conscious mind, and get off track snow. No need. You can just be like, Oh, my slideshow, turn it off. Well, it's, it's, it's, these things always happen. You don't make whatever it's okay. Of course, this code with your personality, your essay. As I said, we'll talk about spontaneity anyways, the idea is incredibly simple. And as I said, I just wanted to give this at the beginning of the course because it's something you can start using right away and it'll give everything more of a sense of lightness when you have this realization that you can, any moment that seems awkward or unplanned or anything, you can just embrace it and go on with it. Like that sound on my necklace just made it happen and we don't have to pretend like it it didn't it's okay. You know, like it's, it's perfectly fine. This is not a comical way of accepting it even is just, it's kind of, it kind of is a bit meta. So it's my sense of humor. But it might, you might have not found it funny, but it was like, Oh, yeah, it did happen. We don't have to pretend. Like it didn't. And you may already be using this or this may come across as a light bulb moment. But I do think in public speaking, it's an incredibly useful tool that'll be super refreshing for you if you haven't thought about it or if you have, then how can you apply it in another way? There's so many different ways it can come into play. Someone's phone may ring. And instead of trying to speak over it and acting as if that's not going on. Just embrace it and make fun of the situation. You know, like calling it out, who's, who's calling. And depending on what you're giving a talk, you can say like, I don't know when I do magic, sometimes I save it. If it's David Copperfield TO him, I'll call after like stuff like that. Just it's, it's taking everything with a grain of salt. If you forget your script, you can say like, well, I was doing so well. Wherever your PowerPoint presentation goes off, you can blame the technical guy that doesn't even exist. Josh, I told you, come on, deal with anything, anything that just embraces the moment talks about the elephant in the room and doesn't create this weird tension between you and the audience where you're doing a pretend game. It's just, it just feels lighter and easier going. And yeah, there's not much more to say for this. I'm super excited for the rest of the course. Now we're going to get into the syllabus going from a to Z through all of the things I think are very, very interesting about public speaking and all of this process of learning to unlearn many things that we've gone about in this topic, but I'm not going to spoil anything. We're going to see all of that in a second. Again, I'm super-excited and I'll see you in the next lesson. 4. Why Are We Afraid of Speaking in Public?: So, ladies and gentlemen of the public speaking, it's time to start with the actual outline, the syllabus that the curriculum of the course, we did a little less than at the beginning. We've probably done some introductions. I'm not really sure because this is the first stuff I'm I'm recording. So yeah. Sounds like she's started with the material. I thought it was a great place to start to talk about what is behind all of it. Because as I've probably mentioned in introduction and probably in the trailer, I'm seeing this more. My approach to teaching public speaking and a lot of disciplines in this area is more about unlearning, that it is about learning new techniques, new ways to move your arms. A lot of times students will come in. They'll be like, What do I do with my arms? How do I move them? We'll make is the person who was asking that at ease with being in front of a bunch of people? That is my first question. Because if you are at ease with being in front of, say, 800 people, which is not to imply that that's what you're doing. I have no idea. This is, of course, which applies to all sorts of forms of public speaking. Maybe you're at ease with being within 100 people. I doubt very much that you be needing any sort of hand gestures where there were not that you will not need them in your explanation, but that you need me to tell you what to do with them. I think it's something that is very typical and learning and teaching that teachers will talk about. Solving a problem, which is clearly a problem which is not to know what to do with your hands. Instead of addressing the source, they addressed this problem and addressing the source will cure all the consequential for the following problems that stem from that or issues cursor, It's not really a problem to not know what to do with your hand. But anyway, that Rambo side, I think the source of the issue with public speaking is the fear of speaking in public. You also fovea as, as it's technically called, a weird thing, calling it something like that because it makes it seem as if it's a diagnosis. It's a big thing. It's like putting to creating a monster out of it. Not to say that it doesn't exist. I've been there. I felt the fear of speaking public speaking in front of 246800 people. Like it doesn't matter. I didn't mean to 100. I'm in like two people, the beginning. I wasn't incredibly introverted in the sense that in the introverted 10th, but I didn't want to go out and speak to people, tell stories, any of that. So I know what it feels like. But I also don't think it really helps to make a big thing out of it. Because I think that this fear, in most fear it for that matter. But this fear is mostly an illusion that the stems of the narrative and let's talk about it. One of these two things that I'm going to mention, or some form of amalgamation of them. In fact, most of the times, I'm sure. And if it's your situation where you're scared of speaking in public, which makes sense. It's like you one of the most common fears out there. If you're in that situation, you probably have a mixture of these two. It's either fear of the stranger or fear of being judged. And this one is, they're both huge ones, but of course who doesn't feel the second one? The first one for that matter. But anyway, let's start at the beginning. That the fear of the stranger, what is it? Why does it happen? What's going on with this? In recent times, I've been interested in evolutionary biology. And I don't say this to sound pedantic or anything like that. I say it because I found something that would explain why we're so scared of talking to strangers. From what I understand, humanity has existed for at least 200 thousand years. And 95 per cent of that time, we've existed as nomadic hunter-gatherer societies, which are the environment that we've evolved to be in. Okay? To me, think about it. In a society of 150 people or less, it will sound like a lot. But if you've lived there all your life, It's just like a big family. There really are no strangers, right? So this concept of finding people on the street, we don't know, is this completely alien to the operating system that we functioning? So we take that operating system, which is our body, which has evolved to be in a society of that nature for over tens and hundreds of thousands of years. And you put it in a macro city with millions and millions of people are not even that just thousands will be enough. Then of course it's going to feel alien. It's going to feel like something that you're not prepared to because you want. You have all these systems that have been evolving over years to lead to a certain environment and you put it in a completely different environment. It's how an animal feels in a zoo. In fact, Christopher Ryan, the author of a civilized to that, talks about this and says that the only difference between humanity and other species of animals is that we are the people. We are the only ones to design our own sued that we live in. That's a weird thing to talk about it and we don't need to get that deep into the rabbit hole. We just need to understand that this idea that they are strangers in our societies living with us this is, might be alien to us and it makes sense though we made perhaps we shouldn't be used to this. And there's so many things that stem from here. But just knowing that it's kind of liberating. Because you know that it's not necessarily an issue that you only you encounter. And it's an issue that this probably programmed in a sense, of course in, in, in the sense of nature programs, but it's something that's programmed deep inside you, right? Not only that, but the narrative we grow into. And this is not to say that it is not based in reality. So the narrative we grow into his radically different from one we would have in a society of that nature. Nowadays. Pretty much regardless of where you live in, as long as you live in, in, in an industrialized part of the world. You're told you, you get some form of expression of this fear of the stranger. Not to talk to strangers, not to mingle with strangers. All these things that come out of not doing weird stuff on the streets did through the city, whatever, right? Because it can end up with all these horror and tragic stories that we hear about. Not to say that they aren't real. Just to see that the narrative we grow with the weird, impregnated with constantly is radically different from the one we've evolved to be. So it makes sense that we feel, feel like a fish out of water. It makes complete sense. But now that we know the situation, what do, what do we do about it? Well, wouldn't it be beautiful? And throughout the course, we're going to talk about a lot of things that are very much a profound, almost existential idea that you don't need to go out and change the way you see the world in order for them to operate. Like to work in your framework, they don't need to. You can go ahead and do that and change the whole way you think we don't. All you need to use, you can almost use them as a game, as a little exercise. You used you play with yourself to just see the issue of public speaking as way simpler, way less scary than we make it to be in our hyper occupied narratives and our mind and our crazy conscious logical mind is racing with thoughts of anxiety and preoccupation. But if there's one thought, one little further, you can go away with. And I really think in, really, even though it's not easy, it might be simple, but it's not easy. I really think it's going to really and it's going to radically impact the way you see the issue. And the way you think about strangers. Says little phrase by the Dalai Lama that I'll never get tired of repeating. I've said millions of times to students. I even spit it out and in casual settings. And it's this thing that he said that it's, I've never met anyone who to meet was a stranger. I've never met anyone who to me or just trained you. That just seems like the most beautiful, beautifully simple way to look at medium people interacting with people. You don't know that I've ever encountered. I really tried to live by that when this is not a course on meeting strangers. But public speaking is inevitably intertwined with speaking to strangers. So it's really something that I think about when I'm, when I'm traveling alone, when I'm going out this, I do it all the time as I go about my day out. We're going to talk about practical ways to apply because sure that this sounds like my sound, incredibly poetic. But how do you go about actually seeing people as if they're not stringent and we're going to talk about that. And if you take the action that I'm going to propose, it's going to become seamless, like eventually actually interact with people as if they were people you already know, like there's a point. And you've probably met people like this, that you talk with them and it feels so natural as if you've known them all your life. And those interactions are generally incredibly beautiful. So just picture going out on the stage and seeing people. Do you know them all your life? Just looking around, seeing familiar faces and then talking. Of course, people are also scared. And I get this a lot. Even though for some people it might seem striking, definitely is for me when I hear this from students and it's that they're more scared of speaking to people they know and then people that they don't know. I don't know how much of that is actually true when it might be perfectly true for you. And we're also going to talk about that. But as for the issue of the fear of the stranger, what if there were no strangers? It seems so simple. But once you see that this field of the stranger seems natural because we haven't evolved to be surrounded by strangers, then let's just stop being surrounded by strangers. And again, I know it sounds very simple for something that is much more profound than that. But this is just a theory lesson, is all about taking action. I just want these thoughts to start dancing in your mind and we'll talk about them in the future and how to change that. I really think it will have a strong impact on your approach to public speaking. But the second issue that we encounter when we feel this anxiety with immense fear of speaking in public. Because the issue of people judging other people, not liking us, of our image, which for most people is incredibly bound to help people see them. Happens to that image when people don't like her talk. When people don't like us, when they think we're we're not funny or were not charming and we're not magnetic. What happens to that? Well, this is not a philosophy core course or class, or if this were a class about piece, about being at ease with existence. And chant, or what's this word I'm looking for it. There's this word I'm looking for that. Perfect for this situation will come to me. I would, I would make the word of the oriental Philosophy resonate. And we talk about identity and we've talked about how in the West, we talk about ourselves as being a center, an isolated center of sensitivity inside our body, inside our mind. In that there isn't really a way to justify ours. Seeing ourselves is that it's nowhere to be found. We talked about ourselves as an amalgamation of past events and a future entity patients that we have all of which don't exist. The only thing that exists is the present. But this is not a course on being at ease or anything like that. So the only thing I'll say, and again, all these thoughts, if you're interested, you can of course talk with me and we can go into detail. And you can research Taoism or Zen Buddhism or any of that. But again, these sorts, and it's important that I point this out in the first lesson because we're gonna be repeating stuff of this nature throughout the course. The salts don't necessarily have to become the way you think about that. But you can use them as frameworks and gained an exercise so that you use to think about public speaking and make all of these seem a little silly, little easier, a little less threatening. Because it can be very daunting when you use the frameworks that you've been given, right to think about speaking in public and I understand that. That's why so many people are scared of it. So the only little thing I want to, I want to point out and I can still been trying to remember that word and it's not coming to mind, it's annoying, but just picture this great word. And it really is bringing across my message. You have to go away with one thing, this issue of people liking it. But one thing that I have to say is that if you want someone to like you, the only thing you can do, the single thing you can do is show them you. If you want someone to like, you genuinely want someone to like you, more you can do is show the mu. If that's not liberating and relaxing and I don't know what it. Because if you want someone to enjoy your presentation, your talk, your speed, or you can do is do the speech. Your speech. The moment. You bring into the equation. Any thoughts that you think they might have about you giving the talk and trying to morph the talk or the presentation are you to those thoughts? Then it's no longer your presentation. It's no longer you, it's changing. Then they're not going to like you, even if they like what you're doing, they're going to like the thing that you're portraying, which is not. This might seem a little puzzling, confusing, but it's incredibly simple. And it's the idea that again, I'll repeat it because it's a very simple idea, but of course not easy. And we'll talk about how to actually get to that. To that point. All you can do to have someone like you show them you and then whether they like you or not is up to them. Like you really can't do anything else about it. Even now as I'm giving this class and I'm speaking, I'm thinking about all these thoughts that could be racing through your mind. You who, I don't even know who you are at this point. In a weird sense, you don't even exist. I'm speaking to a camera and I'm thinking what thoughts you might have about me two more, what I'm saying, to give it to you, you realize the paranoia, all the hallucination that's going on behind that. You can just like go there and be there. I really think the epitome of public speaking is being there with your audience in that moment. Because genuine unity is really that a talk show, a standard piece confused, so different in so many different performances. Calibrating to the audience, to the moment. Even though the words are the same, the delivery, the message, everything can be so different depending on the moment. And this is something we're going to talk about. But if you think that you really can deal with all the variables logically as you're giving the talk, then it's completely outlandish that you think that you can think of all your talk or the presentation, all the logistical things, memorizing, knowing what you have to say. And then think of how to move your hands. Then think of what people are thinking of you. Then think, if you think you can deal with all those variables in your mind during the talk, That's insanity. You can, but what you can do is be there and trusted. All those other things are gonna be dealt with by this system, this operating system, your body which is, has this wisdom of hundreds of thousands of years of evolving. A system would operate without you doing anything. There's this haiku that I absolutely love. This poem that is sitting quietly doing nothing. Spring comes and the grass grows by itself. That really brings into the equation. Now, without you doing anything, There's so much already going on. What have you can get out of your head? Stopped. Paying attention to all those racing thoughts. And be there with the audience in that moment. Then you won't have to think about your hands, how to move them, all of that. And that's really what I wanted to get across with this course. These unlearning, all this letting go of those thoughts and thoughts like this. Like seeing people as if there are no strangers and realizing that, oh, you can do to have someone like you is show them new thoughts like this. Really, really show, shine some light on how all of that is just an illusion that contributes nothing, right? Even if it's not an illusion, even if that is truly you, which doesn't matter if it is or not, it clearly doesn't contribute anything. So throughout this course, we're going to talk about how to shut down this conscious logical mind when we're in the setting of public speaking. Just so that way we can be there with our audience. Calibrate naturally to them, show genuine, true selves. Magnetism, charm, that isn't some sort of character that we're playing because we saw in one course that you have to move your hands like this or walked through the stage with a certain confidence and and and character. No, none of that. None of that. It's all you can that moment with the audience. And I'm sure this resonates with you so much. If you go back to the conversations you've had, really felt magnetic and amazing and almost life tenure, those conversations, I'm certain you will find that that person was not thinking about what to do with their hands and hold those variables, having to control them in their logical reason, rational mind. Find that there was none of that, that they were just being there with you. And so were you. That's why it was so amazing. So that's the idea. That's the theory. That's a lot of theory by the way, that that was a little ramble. And I hope you got something out of it. But that's his Rambo. That's the theory. How do we go about actually applying it? Well, that's what we're going to find out in the next lesson. 5. How do We Transcend this Fear?: So in the previous lesson, we talked about the fear of speaking in public. What it is, where I think it comes from, from my understanding. And I'm basically that before we talked about the theory behind it, it's great. It's great to understand it is, it's probably shine some light if I did my job correctly. This is something I've seen with a lot of students. It was probably liberating to see that the fear of the stranger is almost a natural thing in the unnatural setting we live in. And also it was hopefully liberating to think about this idea that you can't do anything to influence whether someone likes you were not besides showing the mute. So that's great for theory. But now we're gonna go about the practice. So as I'm, as I've said multiple times at this point and as I'm going to keep repeating, my approach to this is more about unlearning, that it is about learning. In a weird sense. Of course, we're gonna be learning many, many things. We're going to be learning stuff that you might have never done as like breathing exercises, meditation, thought. So you can have in your mind. Then of course, the technical stuff that is behind public speaking. I do think that the vast majority of this discipline is dealing with that fear, with being terrorized of speaking to a group of strangers or a group of people. I know because I've been there. And to be fair, most of it was the anticipation leading up to it felt impossible to actually be there in front of those people then when I was there till it easier that then and I felt it would be for some people, they freeze on the stage and the worst moment. So that's why we're talking about all of this, how to deal with this fear. Because I think once you get the few down the part where you almost excited to be in front of all those people until your story, then everything else comes naturally. And of course some things don't come naturally. Or eyes naturally is like talking to a camera because you can unlearn all the things you want. But the camera is just not, it's just not natural. It's something we've we've come up with and it's I'm looking right now at a tripod and a camera. And I have to imagine that the lens is your eyes and I'm looking at you, it feels terribly unnatural. I did have to learn that at first. It didn't feel that great, but hopefully it's getting bad. So the first thing I want to talk about, again, this is just a framework. This is like a little game, an exercise you can play to use in the context of public speaking, it doesn't really have to apply to all your life even though you can't. Sorry, It can, and it is. All of these ideas are resonating throughout colossal philosophy, especially Oriental philosophies. That's what I'm going off of mostly. So there's tons of literature behind what I'm saying. But if you don't have to use it at to encapsulate all your life. That's not necessarily what you have to do. And I'm thinking most of mostly as a little game you can play with yourself. To make public speaking simple. I hope that comes across because we're going to talk about some stuff that sounds a little deep, a little almost mystical, but it's not, none of it. The first thing is to realize that you're not in control. Because again, all of these thoughts can be so liberating. Because when you think about an audience with maybe hundreds of people, it depends on the setting, maybe thousands of people going there. And in your mind, you think that you have to control each and every person's image of yourself at the same time. Or you're thinking about the words you have to say, think about your slideshow. Maybe your site two is going automatically, so you have to go one at a time. And then you thinking about all these variables as do we have any control over them. It's, It's crazy. Actually. It's giving so much anxiety to your brain, to your mind, to your body. When you should realize that really you can do nothing about most of it. Absolutely nothing or you can do is your best to get the logistical things behind before the presentation, to show the speech, whatever. Get all of that done before. You can practice your speech. You can practice your, your being at each with strangers, which we'll talk about. And that's pretty much all you can do. And then just show up and be there. That's all the things that are tier control. Most of the things you do beforehand. So you should be not, you should not be worrying about controlling the situation at all. When you're on the state. There's nothing you can control. So why worry about it? Then? You're just worrying about worrying, and it's just this endless loop of worry that helps you print it. Absolutely nothing, no. End of it. I know that sounds terribly easy to say. But really, we think about all the effort that goes into thinking. You can control something and all that is doing that you can control the setting and the environment. Now that it's doing, it's extracting you from that moment and pulling you in your head and giving you all those thoughts. Are these antibodies, all these preoccupation, when? And this, I think this is a premise most people will accept. Is that the best talk, the best speech, the best conversation you can have with someone who's right there in the moment. Seeing you listening to you, just calibrating to you in a very natural sense. I can't really be put into words in Taoism. The Bible quote unquote of Daoism, starts with this phrase that the Dao that can be explained, it is not the eternal Dao. And that encapsulates a lot of what we're going to be talking about. Because if you think about it, most things and you go about your day, you can't really put into words how you do. You could not be able to tell me how you control every aspect of how your body moves. Like I have no idea why this hand is moving. When I tried to, I do not have to try to control it. They're not have to reason through it. I do not have to rationalize it at all. It just happened. And this phrase, it can be applied to many, many things. Freeze of doubt. At the beginning of the Daodejing, we tend to set the Dao that can be explained is not the eternal Dao. But it's, I bring this to say I can speak about it. There's many different ways, but a lot of it is just the process of trusting. Trusting that your body, which has been evolved, which is like it's been hundreds of thousands of years leading up to this point where you have this body, has all these instincts going on. You really don't have to worry about it and it'll just operate like I'm just moving my head without having to think of moving my hand. It's crazy. It's actually amazing. But I'm saying this because if you get out of your mind and you stop trying to control it because we've already established, and this is not very debatable, that you have no control of what the people are gonna be thinking of you. All you can do is show you. So there's no point in worrying. Well, you can do is be there through your talk and trust that your body, if you're there, will calibrate your audience. How many times have you been so busy? You've having conversation and someone's speaking, and you're so busy with the thought of what you're gonna say after they finished speaking, that you didn't even hear what they said. That's nonsense. Why even having that conversation in the first place? If you're so busy thinking about your thoughts, right? Like it's just people yourself. Like there's no point in that, in a weird way. I can really not put this into words. And I know a lot of people experienced the same thing. And it's when you're onstage. You can, you can hear this in comedy, you can hear this in theatre. People will talk about feeling the room. And that's why I'm saying that it can't really be explained. It's sort of intuition is six then there when you're just there with your people, you're in the zone as people call it. And there's so much research nowadays about getting in the zone or flow state. And none of that. I'm thinking. Don't bother with any of that. Just stop thinking. And it will come naturally. And again, I know this is easy to say on it and I'm going to give you action for you to see how this can be applied, right? You're gonna go from 0 to nothing in action taking. And it'll be, it'll be easier. But what I'm getting to is that the sixth sense, when you stop speak, thinking, and you can really listen to proficient public speakers that I've done this for a long time. But they know how to feel the room. They didn't know in a, in a rational sense, but they feel the room and they calibrate. They do jokes with depending on the room, the timing is different, right? It depends so much on the setting, that place where you're doing it. The people, what they've been thinking about, what the previous talks they've had. If you come from a conference, if it's serious, if it's not serious, what type of people they are with education they have, There's all these factors. They just have to hear that you're not in control of. You can be in control of them. I know you can do is let go of control and then you'll have it in a weird sense of your ligand control. You'll have it because you'll be at ease with the lack of control. So the second is incredibly similar and they're all in the same line of thought. It's just just articulating them in different ways to show, to show your conscious and your unconscious mind how all of this it may take you to align them so that you can really let go because you have confidence that you can let go. Okay, so it's just ways of saying this in different ways. And this is a process that was a huge process for me. I was someone super neurotic, if you will. If you want to use that word or describing personality trait, could truly tried to think about it. And I was very, very rational and logical and I would think about everything, typical introverted science that you want to think about every possible scenario. And it seems so daunting. How are you getting even control all of this, all of these variables? Well, you don't. Can you don't have to. Okay. Again, these are liberating or hopefully they are. Maybe they're maybe they're generating more anxiety, but, but bear with me, bear with me for this post till the second thing is letting go of outcomes similar to control. Piu has this idea of outcome of what the ideal scenario of your presentation is. Then it's really a binary thing. You either get it or you don't. But letting go of outcome is something that's so many people that are proficient at what they do, practice and preach. Professional athletes will talk about this, will swear by this rule of letting go of outcome. You will not hear about a professional athlete who's doing a sprint. And it's thinking, Oh my God, I need to do it under ten seconds. I need to do it under ten seconds that no, there's none of that. It's just the moment. It's, it's their breathing. Now. And you can see this in the portrayal of these moments in movies. They're silent, there's quiet, There's that flow state. The reason this all of this preoccupation just they're on they're getting gray there and they're set up position. They hear the gun and they run. And that's the run. The now, right? There isn't the outcome. There is an outcome, of course you want that. I'm not saying you don't want that. You let go of the thought of outcome good, it doesn't contribute at all. The things you can control come before. Once you're there, it's go time. It's hey, have a good time. Like why else are you bothering doing anything? Even sought to have a good time, right? Like you may as well. You have a little time on this world. You may as well enjoy. Take it a little lighter, right? And it's speaking in public. It's a time where you have to speak like, I'm having a blast right now telling all of these things. It's the time where people listen to you and you can maybe crack jokes and you'll tell me, you will tell me that your target so serious and there's no place for jokes. I call icon be SML. There is always space for job. But if you don't think you're funny or you don't like jokes. If you don't like laughing, You don't like having a good time up to you. But, but even if it is the most serious talk in the world, giving it a spice of silliness, who surely brighten it a bit. We'll make it seem less daunting. Alan Watts, a very famous philosopher, talked about how you think about the most profound issues of life as silly. And suddenly it becomes a little lighter. So you can think about the most profound things in life and silly. And there's, of course, of course scope, full schools of thought, whole schools of thought that goal on this idea of absurdity and silliness of philosophy. But we can think about all these profound things as absurd and silly. How can you not think about your talk? But as silly, like, come on, it's solid, little silly. The third idea I want to talk about, and of course it's super similar. Again, it's all different ways talking about the same thing, which is probably that it's all a little silly, but you don't have to bother with all these thoughts and all these preoccupations to the third thing I want to talk about, and again, it's super similar. It's all different ways of talking about the same things, of showing how this is all much flatter than it seems, less daunting. It's not that serious. It's just a little game. It's the idea. And when I say serious, don't and don't think that I'm not saying that, I'm saying it's not important. You might think like, Oh, he's not taking myself seriously. No, no, no, no. Like I do this for a living. I speak in public for a living. And I'm still taking this conversation with you, if you will, lately, drinking something silly and taking it as job, even though I think it's immensely important, it's of colossal importance to my life. I take it with a grain of salt because why wouldn't you like I'm not in control of what you're going to think about me. You might think that this is all some mystical woo-woo nonsense. Like I can hear you all like it, then not much I can do about it. All I can do is show you me. The third thing is not trying or non-striving. And we're going to talk about this in the module of meditation. And we're going to talk about a lot of thing. And we've touched on in different ways. Pneumonia of meditation, non-striving or non trying is again similar to NADH outcome and letting go of control. And it's, there's also a paradox here, is that if you try to do something, if you're trying to do something, that means by definition that you're not doing it. If you're trying to do it, then you you're, you're trying and you're not doing it, right? It's of course a paradox, the stems from, from words and there's many of these, but it's a little thing that why would you try to do some known tried so hard, just do it. And whatever happens will happen like and if you've gone outcome and you realize that you're not in control, then. You don't try it, you just do it and it's all okay because there is no outcome. You're not in control. That's all fine. So the last thing I want to talk about in this lesson, and again, it's very similar and I've mentioned it and I'm going to keep mentioning it in different ways. See idea to stop thinking. I know I've said it in different ways, but really Dude, Stop, stop thinking. Of course, I know. It's ridiculous to say that as a command to your mind, stop thinking, then you just get caught up in this cycle of thought. So that's not what I'm saying. And this is something people get wrong about mutation that you have to actually stop thought. That's not what I mean. I mean is to not give. And this is especially hard if you're a citizen of the West, if you've grown up in a way to not give so much value to your rational conscious mind. Which if you think about it, the only reason you can rationalize is because you have this irrational. Not in the sense that it doesn't respond to reason, but in the sense that it's, you have all this unconscious process, which is your body. And because that unconscious processes going on, you have the ability to reason. So thinking of reason as hegemonic or superior to not reasoning is ridiculous. The only reason you can reason is because you don't read it. That sounds like a complete mess of words. But hope my ideas coming across when I'm trying to say, is to give less value to your conscious mind, to the mind that is trying to grasp, to control due to your nerve, all your nervous system wants is comforting. It does. It says, Oh my God, the anticipates, right? And it creates this scenario that says, Oh my God, I go out and I speak. All these people are going to judge me. You're going to hate me. They're going to throw fruits Acme, it's going to be terrible. Stop thinking about all of that. You might actually find that it's not as terrible. Think that's speaking in public. Be beautiful thing. Completely enjoyable, fun, exhilarating thing where you can, can discover things about yourself that are amazing. You can be your true self. So many people talking about this, The being onstage, they show who they really are. And a lot of people in trying to show their best version of themselves, they get so tied up in the trying to show someone or something. And of course, if you're trying and you're not doing, by definition, you're not doing it because you're trying. You're not there yet because you're trying to do it. If you let go of all of that, then you'll see that this innate cell, you're true self, if you will, if you want to use that language, will come through. And I really believed that at the core of it, you already have it unless you're a rare specimen. And I don't mean this in a, in a judgy way and I really doubted anyone listening to this course has never had a beautiful conversation, has never seen a charming, captivating talk, has never had a moment with another person in a conversation, in some sort of speaking, some sort of communication, any of that was already public speaking. I really didn't know what that anyone watching this has not had one of those moments where it just felt seamless. If you've had it means that it's already there. You already have It's all yet. It's like artists, sculptors, when they look at it on a blog. And the sculpture that they're going to do is in there. It's in the block. They have to do is take all of the extra things off, right? That's what I'm talking about. Unlearning as opposed to learning. Because it's already there. You have it, right? We already know what captivates people, how to be with people. It's all in here somewhere. And you know that, you know, because you've had you've had these conversations, you've, you've made people laugh in your life. You've done this before, It's somewhere in there. So you have to do is let go of all the extra stuff. Let's take the block or the sculpture. You break away all the extra parts to reveal. That's sculpture. It's exactly the same thing. There's a story about a man who's fighting a bear. And the thing is that the bear knows every movement them. The bear is inside the person's thought. So he knows that every movement he's gonna do, he knows every action he can do, he knows every technique, every strategy has everything. So the only way the man can defeat the bear spray being spontaneous, by being truly spontaneous, not trying to be spontaneous, not thinking, Oh, I'm gonna be so spontaneous. Which is a paradox in and of itself. The only way that man can defeat the bear is by not thinking, by just acting, by distrusting the system that he has, which is his body. Just to clear, Just to clarify, spontaneity doesn't mean that you have to come up with your script. You can have a script. You can add the words memorized word by word, but as I've mentioned, the same show with the same words, the same speech, the same piece, the same act. If the person is in the flow, is letting go, is there with the spectator? The same joke even can come across in so many ways, in a myriad of different ways. Can really be radically different. Because there's so many variables, right? So spontaneity doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be spontaneous and what you're saying, you don't have to be incredibly witty. Us know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about this obsession in the web, about learning things and probably in all of the world right now. About learning things on one thing. When you're learning engineering then sure you want to learn things. Do you want new knowledge? Because that's not in here somewhere, but public speaking. Come on. It's in here somewhere that you've done it before. So it's all about unlearning. It's about letting the spontaneity, this true self, this genuine unity come through. It's not about learning how to move your hands in determining way. What does that even mean? Has so many students who come and say, How do I move my hand, right leg? Or I keep using this example, but they do with everything. When do I smile? How do I be funny? How do I move on the state? How do I use my tone? I'm not thinking about any of that right now. And maybe you think I'm not being charming it all in there. The keys that you are thinking that this is a captivating and you don't need my example. You can find it in, in a vast number of public speakers. That's not thinking about how to be captivating. They're just letting yourself come through and spontaneity in this situation, right? Just as in the story of the bear and the man, the spontaneity is not in the worst necessarily. It can be, right? You can go off track, off script and talk about whatever you can. One of the important things is to realize that there are no roof. If there are no rules to public speaking. To realize that there is no button, you can press and go from there. From nut speaking, speaking in public. This is not, this is not at math. You can learn all the equations and then go and use them. Something much more abstract. It's human, right? It's, it's a little debt selling goal. It's being there in the moment, not thinking, and then in your spontaneous essence come through. So to summarize everything we've talked about in this lesson, number one, letting go of control, realizing that you don't have it. So you may as well not spend energy thinking about it. There's so many variables and all of the ones that you can control happen before you go on state. Once you're on stage, you can be thinking about how people are perceiving you and doing the thing at the same time. It's impossible, right? All you can do is just focus on being there. Look at your audience, see how they react you. By the time you're there. I'm going to make sure that you've practiced your speech or your jar wherever you doing. Enough times for it to come naturally. So you'll have to do is be there with your audience. Calibrate to them, see how they react, what they need. Not in a conscious way, not in a rational way, but in instinctual human way. We have empathy. We have mirror neurons or wherever the car, whatever the code, I don't care. I'm not a neuroscientist and pretend to be. But I've been on the stage many, many times and I know how it work. I know that this starts out for help. No, don't help at all. Or that it all there yet to do is be there with the audience and then it will come much more naturally than you might think. And of course you will have practice that not saying that you want. Number two, the second thing we talked about letting go of outcome, very similar. Once you're there, there's no point in thinking about your outcome, how you want your perfect presentation to be. Chances are it's not going to be. Things are gonna go wrong. Your presentation, your slides, we'll go with different points. Your projector will shut off, someone's phone will go off. Anything will happen. But there's no rules. No one knows. First of all, hi, presentation is meant to go high-speed, has meant that goes so it's okay. No one needs it to be perfect. No one does it, no one cared. Someone prefers as a spectator, you prefer much more. If someone's phone goes off and that person had dresses that as we spoke about in the first lesson and make some funny moment out of that. Then if everything goes according strictly to plan, but the person is not there with that. So let go of outcome. It's not important. You think about icon after the thing you think, how did it go? And probably it's better to let go of it even after it and just be like, it just went like, who cares? There's nothing you can do it. And the last thing and probably most important in this lesson is stop thinking. And this is a weird paradox and we'll get into how to do, how to do that. Of course, you don't really do that, but don't give so much value to your rational mind, to conscious mind, to your reasoning, to your logic, won't help you in this scenario. It's not useful, it's not important, it's not a tool that you have to use. So just relax. Let your spontaneity coming through. Let your best version of yourself or your most genuine version of yourself shine through. It's already there. Like that block. Pick that sculpting. You just need to let go of all the extra things. Show that thing that's underneath all that block of whatever material you're sculpting with. This thing that that is here. Because you have had those conversations before. You have been charming at some point, you have made jokes that had been funny. So just take it with a grain of salt. Stop thinking so much about everything and just let it happen, let it unfold and you react, and you deal with it as a comp. Or instead of trying to control it before it comes, it's ridiculous predictors. So in essence, it's outlandish to try to have all these variables in your mind when you can do nothing about it. So just relax, let go of it, and keep working at these ideas throughout the course. We'll also talk about technique of course. But this is hopefully a little refreshing and a little liberating way of thinking about this beer. This menacing, daunting fear of speaking to people in public. And I'll see you in the next lesson. 6. Realize You Already Have "It": The other day, I was in the subway and I gave my seat to someone. And I turned around and I saw this kid who looked at me and without thinking about anything, just did this motion, tapping the sea, the empty seat next to him, inviting me to sit there. I felt this was a lovely, beautiful, spontaneous moment. And it happens a lot in kids. They, they, they aren't. These ideas about identity, about who I am. The traits, the bed belong to my persona that I have gathered and accumulated from arbitrary past events to define who Sergio is. So whoever you might be in the realm of being a kid, it's so much more simple, much more spontaneous. And I think we can learn a lot from that in order to speak in public and of course, for other aspects of life. But speaking in public, public speaking is what concerns us here. Imagine you had that mindset when going on a stage to present, to talk, to do a speech, where you went thinking about all these logical rationalizations and conceptualizations that we have, you weren't thinking about who I am, who the spectators are, what they're thinking, what the reaction will be, how I will react to their reaction and all this chain reaction of events. When the kid tap the seat next to me, next to him, he was just he was just doing it because it came out of him in that moment, it was that spontaneity that we've been talking about. He didn't think about how I would react. He wasn't expecting and this is crucial. He wasn't expecting anything from me. Had I not sat there, remained exactly the same. What I did didn't change the idea of who he was in his mind in any way. And of course, it's not only this story you can think back to when you were a kid or when you see kids acting, they'll fall down. Just get up back in and start playing. And of course it depends on the age and their environment and all that. But bear with me just the poetic aspect of this remain in order for the message to come. And the method is that when you reduce all these variables that we've talked about, which we're not in control of and contributed nothing to anything. When you can be yourself, you can be you regardless of the environment, then that's genuine, competent. Genuine confidence doesn't, is not dependent on how people react to you. Someone who knows that people aren't going to listen, speaks as if they know that people are going to listen. They're not racing to get to the end of the thought because they think that someone's going to cut in and talk about something else. Someone who's really genuinely confident in their comedic prowess doesn't wait for the laughter. Maybe we'll even laugh at their own joke. And there's two types of people that laugh at their own job. People that need other people to laugh, and people that just think of they're genuinely funny. And it's, it's really, if you observe social interactions are public interactions, you'll see that this happens all the time. Genuine confidence is not how your body standards. It is a consequence, stands as a consequence of genuine confident. The true, genuine confidence. And I know this might sound a little redundant, but that is being in contact with yourself, being yourself regardless of the consequences. And it's not a cookie cutter advice that you've heard millions of times. A, b yourself. Like what does that even mean? Well, what I'm proposing is letting go of all these racing thoughts and ideas about who everyone is in the room and how everyone is going to think about each other and especially how they're going to think about you. Let go of all of that, um, all these roles, the character, everything, and going down to the core, which is I'm here presenting. And let's, let's enjoy this moment, right? That's, these are the paradigm shifts, the, the mental frameworks that I want to work with. And it's the reason why these lessons are going at the beginning of the course and not after. Because before we get into all the action taking and all the habits, the habits that you can build over time, and the things you can do right before your performance. And all of these, before we talk about all of that thing, these frameworks are of crucial importance, right? Everything we've already talked about. Now this idea that Can you without doing anything, the person that stepping on that state is already enough. There's this idea that we've grown up with that is, that is incredibly present and you see it all the time. This idea that we were chasing to get somewhere that never come, right, and then that makes us not be here. And now, which, as is discussed in many works of literature and philosophy, is the only thing that exists now. And this is another cookie cutter advice that you get a lot live in the present. But what does that mean? Well, it means that for one, on one hand, we're discussing now, it's not chasing that moment where I'll be the perfect public speaker that can go on stage. No, you, as you are right now, without changing anything about you are enough. And even if you don't genuinely believe that just having this as a mindset can be of colossal impact. Just thinking this. Before you go out and perform or talk or whatever, is really the cure to this imposter syndrome, this imposter syndrome. And that is also one of the main things in public speaking. Why did we born and listened to me? Why am I doing this talk, all of these things, especially when it happens in all sorts of public speaking, doesn't it? Another way to think about this is that you're not a failed attempt at being your favorite public speaker. You're not a fit and this applies to anything. You're not a failed attempt at being your favorite gardener, dancer, poet, whatever, right? It's very easy to see another performance and think, Oh wow, I didn't move my hand like that or I didn't make the crowd laugh at that moment. And this happens all the time. It's this obsession with comparison that we have. But realize that you, this moment, as you are, already have tons to give to your audience. Of course, there's room for improvement always. But you already have tons to give to your audience. Because this idea of imposter syndrome, it's so common among public speakers. I've had millions of times where I'm going to do a show. And I think, Oh, but at why do they want to see me? Why would they want to listen to me? This happens all the time, especially when you see another performance that you think. You see, you start something, you have something coming up, a talk or something and you'll see another one and you have all these thoughts racing them all. I didn't include this and that and I know this, not just relax. Can you already have your talk to your presentation and all that? And that's great. And it might not be great. Don't get me wrong. It may be terrible, but you have it as it is and know that as it is right now. It's enough. This is not the time. And I'm thinking, especially when you're going on stage and a day or two before. It's just not the time to start racing with these thoughts. And just in general, you're not a failed attempt at being your favorite public speaker year. You as cookie cutter as that might sound, that has all these qualities that people will find it in here. And perhaps it's a little harder to see it from your own perspective. And you start thinking about all the ways that people are going to judge how you move and if it goes wrong and it look being completely honest. When is the last time that you saw someone being ridiculed? One is it do you even remember unless it was very recent, you probably won't even remember. Remember. When you think about how people are thinking about you. Which already sounds ridiculous that we would spend energy on that, but we do. When you think about how people are thinking about you, It sounds so daunting, so incredibly daunting that they have all these complex thoughts and it's this conspiracy that they're all going to do, that they're all going to think and do and laugh. And now, just think about anytime that you've seen someone be ridiculed, barely care at all. You have enough with your problem to start obsessing over this person or whether you don't care. And this goes back to the first lesson when I'm about to say right now. But embracing the awkwardness and if anything does go wrong, just embrace it, accepted. It's fine. It doesn't matter. And this idea that when you've seen someone talk and it hasn't gone great, you've probably had empathy, right? How much more empathy would you have and how much less cringe would there be if they just said like, Oh, I'm not killing it, am I? You know, some, something like that. This is to link it back to the first lesson. We talked in that lesson. But again, this is on this theory module. I want to get all these frameworks, all these ideas that help us see how as doesnt daunting as we may make it seem tantalizing, as we may make it seem. Public speaking is really a lot lighter than it seems and it makes sense. It's understandable as we've seen, why so many people have this fear. But it's also easy to see that it's got all these fields that we have are just an illusion. Because when we are, they're exposed to someone that's, that's being messy and sloppy and does not remember the word and is not doing a great job on state. We don't care. We zoned out or we go somewhere else. I know it doesn't seem like the most ideal scenario, but someone moves on out, but that is the worst scenario. What is the worst scenario you have in your mind, it seems like it gives you this this anxiety, this immense feeling of that something's going to happen. But the worst-case scenarios That's a moment of zone out and miss one or two sentences that you said. That's it, right? Going back to this idea of being your genuine self, your genuine confident persona, that doesn't have to react to what's going on around, which is the genuine expression of confidence. Going back to that, how do we go about acting with that? How do we go about letting go of control and all these things we've been talking about in these lessons. Well, we're going to see that coming up. We're going to see a lot of practical ways to apply. We're basically done with the theory, with all these frameworks or that I've really enjoyed. And I hope you have taken something of value out of here. But now we're gonna get into the practical aspects, habits you can do for long-term changes that are going to slowly impact your life and how you approach public speaking and how confident you are with it. And also just stuff that you can do right before. In fact, we're going to talk about one colossal thing and this, you're going to see me repeat over and over when colossal way to get into the public speaking mode that I never see anyone talk about. It's fascinating to me because I think it's by far the best method to get out of your head. Stop with the racing thoughts that are, that are hunted, hunting, hunting you, hunting you. Daunting you what? These thoughts that are in your mind and they're making you not be there with your audience. I'm sure that we are going to discuss a way that is bulletproof. It's going to help you 100% guaranteed. And we're going to talk about that and many other things. I'm super excited. So I really hope this module and these lessons have helped you so far. And I'll see you in the next lesson. 7. Principles of Meditation Applied to Public Speaking: So in the past lessons, we've been looking at all sorts of mental frameworks and ideas that are behind the fear, public speaking that surround the topic of confidence and all sorts of fun things. But in this, in these lessons moving on, we're going to start talking about practical thing that you can actually do. But she, in these next few lessons, we're going to talk about things that are going to change your state of mind. I don't really loved the word state because it makes it seem as though you have to get somewhere and the realities that you're already there. But in a sense, they will make you be more in touch with yourself and less in touch with your racing thoughts, if you will. That that's a better way to put it. And we're going to look about at meditation. And this might seem a little daunting if you're not that acquainted with the subject. It's something that is growing a lot in the West, but it's still regarded as something more magical and mystical depending on the circle, it's none of that actually has nothing to do with this image of someone levitating or whatever. It's actually something that is proven to change the patterns in your brain. And again, I'm no scientist or a biologist. But I know there's a lot of research behind this now and it's been going on for centuries before the research. But of course we always want the rationale and the logic behind it. And it is there. It's something that now is encouraged by intrapreneurs, high-performance athletes, high-performance people in all sorts of subjects. So we're going to talk about a bit, we're going to talk a bit about how it applies to public speaking. And before we get into a guided meditation, which we're going to do together. And you can go back to that meditation as many times as you want. You can do it on your own. You can take it as a habit or you can use it just before going to speak in public. However you wanna do it. But it is something that is really impactful, especially with both short-term and long-term. Maybe the first time. It's not that life changing because you're expecting something to happen and nothing is really going to happen. All of that meditation, in a sense, is sitting. In order to sit, right? It's all this idea that instead of chasing, That's something that someone they have to become in order to be the perfect public speaker, you just allow yourself to be here with yourself, relaxing your thoughts a bit and being at ease with the moment. It's something that in the West is not very common. Just sitting to sit, right? It's, we're always chasing that. That's something but enough of that. What principles of meditation can we apply to public speaking? And I think it's pretty much all, all the essential aspects. First of all, I want to talk about beginner's mind. This is approaching something as though you're a complete beginner. If you're a novice and non-expert, this is great as you go about public speaking because instead of expecting, and this goes back to all these ideas we talked about in the previous lessons. Instead of expecting to control every possible outcome and scenario. If you think about yourself as a beginner, you may be much more at ease with anything going. However it has to be. Because if you think I'm an IBM proficient public speaker, I am an expert, I'm a pro. Then the stakes are pretty high. If you think of yourself as a beginner who are open to suggestions, open to not being perfect, open to so many new things because that is just seems again much more later, much later. And this meditation applies because as you go about it, you have to be at ease with anything that happens because even if you meditate a lot, there'll be days where your mind is racing with thoughts and you won't be able to let them go. Bias, we'll talk about, we'll talk about this analogy. Thinking that didn't, they're just cars on the highway and you're just seeing them go by some days that you want. And when that, when that happens, just embraces beginner's mind and look at it with, with openness. And that takes me to my next point. Don't judge. Don't judge yourself. As you're meditating or as you're speaking in public. If you judge, this is a brilliant thing that I use all the time that this little mental game or trick, if you judge yourself, don't judge that you're judging. Right. Because then you just enter this wheel of oh, no, I'm judging. Stop judging. Why am I doing this little game that you play with yourself? So beginner's mindset. Look at it as if you're a total beginner with much lower stakes, with nothing to be known. High, super high standards. So of course all of these are very similar. And the next one I wanted to talk about is acceptance. And this once again applies to both meditation and public speaking in a great way. Because as you go about meditation, you're going to have all these things that happen to you that just make you think that you want to stop meditating or that you're not doing it right, or all of these things. And you can just accept them. If you see a discomfort in your arm and you can just look at it in your mind. Of course, without moving or anything, you can just acknowledge it, recognize it, and accept it without having to change it, right? This happens so much when we're speaking in public. There's all these things again that we want to change and not just accept them as they are. Take whatever is coming to you because you can't really control it as we've been through. So you may as well accepted some things. He accepted. And if you can't and you have to scratch, don't judge. It's okay. You don't have to judge yourself because you're a beginner. You know, all these little ideas resonate together. They work together in the middle. It's basically all the things that you'll get on your own if you've already meditating or as you go about meditating, they just come to you. You realize like I at the beginning, I was so unable to ignore an H when I was meditating. And now all I do is focus on the edge and be fascinated by the fact that my body can feel it. And then it just becomes this cool thing. And of course, a lot of meditation and we're going to talk about in the next lesson, a little introduction to what meditation is, what to expect and not expect from it. But here we're talking about the mindsets. Meditation. A lot of it is a change of focus. Instead of focusing and you're racing thoughts, focusing on the sensations in your hands or whatever. So zooming in into that H and pointing here, I don't know why I'm imagining that this is a T, but anything could be a T. But when you zoom in into that itch and focus on it, then you're doing that. You're redirecting your focus and then works wonders. So yeah, beginner's mindset, not judging and acceptance. Then the next one we're going to talk about is trust. This is a big one and this is one that took me quite a while to really feel in my bones as I meditated or went about my day or spoken public. Trust that just as your body and your mind has been working for all your life without you having to think for a second about it. They'll keep doing that as you go about your presentation and your talk or your meditation session. Just as you're, this sounds silly to say, but it's so relaxing and so liberating to think that you can just trust everything around you to be as it is and hold you and I mean, everything like the floor. The simple thought when you're meditating, seeing that the floor is holding, you can be so comforting. Or even as you're speaking in public that people have empathy, that people want the best for you. Again, this, this, this idea of trust that your body is not going to collapse even though you're this, I've had students tell me that they feel when they're gonna go on stage or when they got to talk to strangers, that they're going to die, they feel like they're going to die. It's not a light billing of course, to feel something that explicit and extreme. So trusting that your body knows what it's doing and that you're not. Can a faint or collapse or die in the action of speaking in public is very comforting. And it's something that in meditation, you do a lot because you were so used to being or feeling like we're in control or like we're in the driver's seat. In the sense that we think that all our decisions stem from rationalization, even though it's a bit silly because you don't really decide to decide, right? But that's a topic for another day. But we're so used to thinking that everything stems from rationalization. Reason that letting our thoughts go buy, it might seem a little daunting. As if it's not what it should, what should happen. So trusting that your body knows what to do better, much better than your conscious mind will make you be much more at ease. And it's a beautiful. So we have so far beginner's mind. Non judging, acceptance, trust. The last one I want to talk about is non-striving. And we've talked about this a little bit in the past, but this is crucial when you're meditating because. You have to realize that you're just sitting to sit. That's it. Non-striving. Don't strive to have your mind blank or to think that you're going to reach the state where everything is blissful. You might, might, Don't get me wrong. You might find yourself in a Zaatari, which is the Japanese word for sudden enlightenment. That can happen. But don't strive for that. Like just the pleasure of sitting down and feeling your body. Be there and focusing on your breathing and taking time to be with yourself for a second. Can be plenty. You don't need any more than that, right? It's located on strike for anything more. And again, non-striving is an idea that high-performance people in all industries or sectors talk about. Athletes, talk about non-striving all the time. You never talked about this before, but you'll never hear an athlete say that during the chewing the thing they wanted it so bad. Like they were just thinking about getting the thing that, that doesn't happen because then you don't focus on the actual performance. In fact, that was just watching a video of a very high performance climber. And he was teaching his partner. And he was saying like, it almost seemed like you wanted it too much. So this high, this high performance, which is a national champion or whatever of climbing, I'm not super, I'm not going to serve climbing or whatever, but it just struck me that he was telling his partner, Don't try so hard. Don't don't try as in don't do all your effort but don't want it so bad. Don't drive so bad because all of this effort you're putting into striving, you're not putting into actually claiming it's so much energy that you're investing in one thing, that thing, instead of doing that and getting. All these principles are principles that align with both meditation and public speaking. They resonate together. And this is just a little introduction. So you know that as you go about meditation, all these things that you get out of it. Really I going to impact your public speaking. And I mean, really like, like a lot of significant change. I've seen this in myself, in students. And I just, it's an amazing thing that anew, in a sense had to trust it, right? Because it may seem like why it's sitting and then make me feel anything different. Well, it's all these things that we've talked about and being there with your audience, that's the game changer, right? When you stop thinking about all these external things, about what they're thinking, what these judging or these racing thoughts Going on, stopped doing all of that. And you're there with your audience. It's almost like a sixth sense that you're calibrating your reading the room, as they say in comedy or even acting. Leave talk a little bit about reading the room. Yeah, super-excited. We're going to do a guided meditation. Before that, I'm going to do a little introduction on what to expect during your meditation. And then we're going to talk about some other exercises we can do. Super excited. And I see you in the next lesson. 8. Watch This Before Meditating: So since I want you to have that, meditate like guided meditation as a thing that you can go back to as many times as you want. We're going to talk about all the little ideas and thoughts that may arise, all the things that go there you should think about at least once before entering the realm of meditation practice or however you want to call it. And there's a few thoughts and questions that arise because of if you've never done meditation, because of depictions in media and whatnot. The first one, probably the biggest, is the idea that you have to have your mind blank and free of all thoughts and whatever. It's not that at least that's not for the most part, what we're, what we're doing. What we're doing is just changing in a very simple way, changing our focus from our racing thoughts to other parts that maybe our breathing. It may be a certain part of our body. Body scanners. We're going to do whatever. Also. A big thing is that we're just sitting as I said before sitting to sit. Okay. It's not trying to get our mind blank and now it's just taking a moment to sit, just to sit to be with ourselves not trying to go over every thought and just like D codify it and go through the rabbit hole now just letting the thoughts go past, right? So a good analogy that is used a lot is like if it's highway and all your thoughts are just cars on the highway and you buy the side, just watching them go by, you just let them go back. Because of course, it's impossible to, to just not have those thoughts. Go buy your minuses. That would be turning, turning it off and say, Yeah, that's not the point. If you do find yourself opening up a thought and diving into it and whatever and forgetting that you're, you should be putting your focus elsewhere. Then just say to yourself, thinking, just say that to yourself in your mind. There's no need to go into judging or into anything, any, anything like that. Just say to yourself, thinking. Okay. As for the position, you the common meditation practice position is with your pelvis elevated above your feet. So sitting on a pillow or more than a pillow or a misstep or whatever. But really if that's uncomfortable, you can do it on a chair. You can even do it lying down and it's all fine. Okay, Now, the important part for this type of annotation is not for what we want to take out, get out of it is not the position. And all these formal strict practice that you might find if you were in a monastery. It's not that we just want to take our focus from our racing thoughts into another part so we can see that we don't need to pay all this attention to them and everything is, will still be fine. This idea of trust that we talked about before. So I personally, I'm doing it right now. I have my pelvis elevated, them sitting on a pillow so that my pelvis will be elevated. But if you want to be on a chair or lying down on the couch, whatever. Okay? A good idea, an important idea is that your precision should inspire dignity. I think that clarifies all the doubts because people, they should my fingers be together, should my hands to be like this open, facing downward? Pull these questions. Well, whatever inspires dignity for you, I personally have this position laying on my feet, for the most part, with my legs crossed. But you don't have to. You can be laying down with your palms up, whatever appears, I get inspires dignity for you. So one last thing is breathing. Breathing technique, if you will. So the one thing I want you to try to put your hand on your belly. Then when you breathe in, I want you to feel that that your belly is inflating because we're very used to breathing. The test like this. But for here we want to breathe to the diaphragm. I think that's how you say it. Like this. Okay. And then a good way to think about your breathing as you go along, because there'll be times when I indicate that you should focus on your breathing. And what I want you to picture then is that you're breathing in through your forehead. That's going all the way down to the bottom of your spine. So that's the bleeding. Then when you breathe out, it's going all the way back, up back up your spine and out in front of your forehead. That all combined with your belly inflating as opposed to your chest. But it's not too straight. It doesn't really matter. It's just so that you have an idea of how to go about the breathing hard to concentrate on your breathing, how to focus on it, whatever. Again, this is all not straight. You shouldn't be judging yourself, striving, having any sort of idea of outcome, any of that, It's just to relax thing that if anything, it will relax you. And hopefully we'll get you out of your racing thoughts and more in contact with your body, your breathing. And the, now, with all that said, let's get into our guided meditation. 9. Guided Meditation: So before closing your eyes, take a moment to feel your body in the position that you're in. And this is a time to really get comfortable and feel your body in this position. So now let's do a few deep breaths before closing our eyes. Then when you're ready, just make sure that you're doing deep, slow breathing and you can feel your belly expanding as you do that. And now slowly, we need to put your attention, refocused the top of your head. Put your focus at the top of the head and imagine that part of your body just relaxing. Then. Slowly start moving down your hand to your forehead. Relax that to your eyebrows, your ears, your eyes, nose. Slowly scanning down your face and relaxing every part of it. Really putting the focus, their healing every part of your face. Nice exercise to do is to tense up your face in the in-breath. And then relaxing on the out-breath. Feel a little silly. Who really helps to relax? The feet? Moving down. Your lips, your chin, slowly tooth. When you're on your throat, you can swallow. Just imagine that you're relaxing it. Moving down shoulders. This is a big one. Can do a little shake. Movement. Relax them, allow them to be relaxed. Moving down to your chest. You can try to tense it. So you can then feel the difference when you relax and local. Same with the abdomen. Now, we can breathe in and tense and relax as we breathe out. Just putting our focus throughout all of our body. Being aware of how it all feels. Notice clean discomforts as you go along. And just acknowledge them without needing to change any. Focus on your arms now, biceps, your forearms, moving down to your hands. Notice how they feel. Relaxed, any tension? Still, maintaining deep, slow breath. They've got any point. You find yourself immersed in thought. Just tell yourself, think. No need to judge or tried to change anything. Just acknowledge that you're thinking. I'm moving down to the hips. And of course, you can focus on the spine to one. And down to the hips. The tenant owes the buttocks relaxing everything she got. Noticing. How would you notice any sounds in your environment? Don't feel the need to change them. Just to accept them. Now moving on to our legs, quads, hamstrings, just relaxing them into our calves and their feet. Relaxing every part of now that we've gone over every part of our body in detail, then slowly. You can do a quick scan from the top of your head to the bottom of our feet. Relaxing and releasing any tension. Feel what it's like to have this awareness, how your body feels. Relaxation without having to go anywhere, having anything to do. Just being here. Because your body and your breath. Focusing on your breathing. Going in through your forehead, the way down to the bottom of your spine, and then back out the same way when you breathe out. Allowing yourself to be here. Now, without the need to anticipate bureaucrat. If you do stay knowledge that you're doing it with the word thinking. If any discomfort arises, you can zoom in on it without the need to change it. If anything, is itchy? Just assuming on it. Focus on how that feels. Just enjoying being here with yourself. Everybody in breath, having to rush. The next thing. Sitting to sit, to focusing on your breathing. That's cyclical breathing. Your belly expanding. P. Notice any part of your body tensing up again? Just focusing on it. Allow it to relax. Teeth. No. Then you can move your focus from your breath part of your body. Say your hand. Right hand. Moving all your focus onto your right hand. And seeing how that feels. Focusing all your attention on your right hand. And then from there you can go to your right index. How old that focus concentrated in that small area. You might can have tingling, might feel a t, or you might feel nothing. And then from there take all that focus now to your left hand, then to your left index. See how that. Then you can take it to your feet. You can try to even it out between your hand. Play with the redirection of focus on your body. Then slowly to another brief scanner for your body to seeing how it feels now, how it might have changed from before. Relaxing once again, every part from the top of your head, the bottom of your feet. Just noticing it without needing to change it to with long deep Pratt. And then very slowly come back to peel the room. Feel surface you're sitting or lying on or even standing. Start to notice the sounds. Slowly open your eyes. 10. Prepare With These Visualization Techniques: So in this lesson I wanted to talk about a technique, an exercise that people that perform amazingly in highly, in a lot of different fields use. You can use for public speaking. And it's related to what we just did this guided meditation with. I hope you enjoyed and I hope you go back to it and do it many times or that you use it without me needing to guide you or whatever. Once you've done it a few times, you can go ahead and do it on your own that you will have the same, same effect or better. Of course, as you get more used to the practice of just sitting to sit. But anyway, this idea I want to talk about is visualization. And I think it's important to clarify what it is not. Before explaining what it is. What visualization session is not. It's not a blueprint to what should happen during your performance. Speech, talk, whatever. As you go ahead and you maybe close your eyes and visualize yourself on the stage. On the stage that you're gonna be in, in front of many, many people. Whenever you visualize, should not be the expectations. You have, the outcome you want when you go on the state can, because that would be a whole contradiction with everything that we've been talking about. It is not that you get this idea and then you need to control everything in order to get that result, know what it is. In fact, it's a way to expose yourself in a, in a light controlled environment, in a way without actually having to deal with the situation. And it's something that a lot of high performance people do. Professional golfers do it. They visualize the ball, go in where they want. They visualize the whole court course before going and playing a game. My Gregor, the fighter of the MMA fighter, used to talk about this a lot or perhaps to those I don't know. I'm not acquainted with him, but he could visualize sense of going into the ring and getting ready for the fight or whatever. And it's great because it's something that happened when we dream. We get used to situations that we're not necessarily going to be exposed to anytime soon. It's almost like a, like a little training. And that's what visualization can do. And it's great if you do it after meditation or the moment where you're very relaxed and aware and conscious because then you can really put yourself in that situation with that state of mind. So imagine yourself on a stage being very relaxed and being very at ease and enjoying the moment because it's not really happening, of course, it's just picturing in your mind. And it's a way to get used to it slowly. And it's a form of exposure therapy, which is something we're going to talk about. But of course in a much more controlled way. Alright. So I just wanted to introduce you to this idea that a lot of highly successful people in a lot of different fields do this. They visually, could you close your eyes just as you did for meditation? You breathe deep. You visualize yourself on stage and just walk around that stayed and do as if you were performing and go in through your thing. Of course, once you're practicing your spiel, this is great because then you can really pick those up, doing the whole thing and talking and doing that. And even you'll even have spontaneous things that happen if you do it right during your visualization. So it's a great little controlled practice that you can do. Tonight's exercise. Not a lot more to talk about it. Use it if you think it's going to be helpful, try it, at least see if it, if it works. And yeah, I'll see you in the next lesson, which I do think one of the most important things we're going to talk about in the course. So see you there. 11. LIFE-CHANGING - Warm Up Like This!: Now it's time to talk about what, in my opinion, might be the single best way to go out and speak in public like the way that it will get you out of your head that are making me in the moment. That'll just relax all these racing thoughts and just get you out of that state and into the now for public speaking specifically. And it's, it's, it might sound silly because it's something we do for sports all the time. Something we differ a lot of activities and it's warming up right away. It makes someone sends re going from from the state where you're not speaking in public to the state where you're speaking in public progressively without going from non-speaking at all to jumping on a state. It might seem silly. And you might think that people do this a lot because you see like voice exercises and breathing exercises and all these things that warm up the voice or whatever. But, but that's not, that's not mean that that can be helpful. But that's not the main issue at hand. The main issue is that when you get on the stage, you become, or you think you're gonna become paralyzed by thought and you may very likely become paralyzed by thought. Not to the point where you can speak, but to the point where your performance is highly compromised because of these racing thoughts. So how do you warm up from going to have, from going from the stage where you have all of these salts to having none and being there in flow state, the president, whatever. And the way I found, and I honestly think this is game-changing. I do not know why I've been I've been in public speaking trainings many, many times. I've been in like month not like one leg courses that lasted months of public speaking. I've never heard about this idea, this technique, this warm-up. It's really the most amazing thing and it's warming up with, with silliness and social freedom and talking to people. So there's so many things you can do in this realm. But if you're going to, the main thing we've been talking about is the fear of talking to strangers and being judged. So if that's the main thing you have to deal with than the best way to warm up to speaking with 800 strangers is to talk with one stranger and another one and another one. It might seem a little daunting, but you can go and du's little baby steps. The first thing I would recommend, imagine Monday we're going up to a performance that I have this afternoon or tonight or whatever, it doesn't matter. So first I do a meditation, okay, and then now, now we're going to put together all the ideas we've talked about. First I'll do a meditation, then I might visualize myself. But of course, the visualization is something that you can do weeks in advance or months leading up to that. So I'll meditate to visualization and at this point I'll be in a very relaxed state if everything has gone well. But of course, I may be nervous because I'm tasting something that is intimidating and scary, especially if you haven't done it many times. So then my recommendation is that from there, call a friend who you can have a funny, light-hearted conversation with, crack some jokes. And then from there go. I'm trying to think how you can do it in baby steps, right? Because I personally would go out and talk to strangers because the first time you do it, you're like, oh, they're not going to like me, whatever. And of course it's a strange thing. But then once you go from there, you'd show your brain that you're not going to die because your brain wants proof, not promises. The once you've done that, then it really see that. And then you slowly start just letting go of those thoughts that are trapping you in. The idea of not going because of the fear. You can do this in so many ways and actually do this before recording the lesson, I go over some lessons alone, speaking out loud and being silly and moving lot. And that just makes me get out of my mind and do this without having to think too much so I can be here with you and without thinking a 100 times about every word that I say. So that's one exercise I do. But then you can do this about calling a friend and then just allow yourself to be, to be silly. You can move your body and all sorts of ways and do Get out. Get this idea that everyone's watching you and judging you, even when you're alone, get it out of your head. You can start like jumping around and screaming and do whatever you need. And I do mean it to be silly, it has to be silly. That's the whole idea. Forming up with silliness and lightheartedness and seeing that all of it really is not that serious, that you can be incredibly silly and no one cares, even yourself. You're probably the one who cares the money to do it in front of a mirror and see yourself and all that. Then when you're going there to the venue, to the stage, to the presentation, joke around with people, with the people there. Maybe if you're doing a presentation for coworkers, joke around with them. If you go into a performance. When I'm performing in theaters, I'm joking around with the people that have that are helping me with a sound equipment and with the lights and everything joking around with them. If some people are coming into the venue, joke around with them, just have a little lighthearted lead up to this. Because if you go from non-speaking at all and being in your mind and thinking, oh my God, this is gonna be so scary, so terrible, so tantalizing. If you go from that to going on the stage and speaking, then it is going to be so hard. Or even if you've done voice warm ups, like what does that even mean? How is that going to help you with this? Like it's completely unrelated. Warm-ups are great. Don't get me wrong. I want to say there are great. They might be useful. Not a huge fan of them as you can see. But what you really need to warm up to his speaking to strangers and being there. And if you're walking to the venue, you can say hi to people on the street. And I know some of you are going to be like freaking out because I've had so many students who I told him like, don't talk to strangers to warm up and it becomes like a, something that they can't even fathom. If you can't even fathom say entitled stranger, I know it's different contexts, but if you can't even fathom saying hi to a stranger, how are you going to be at ease with being in front of the stage with 800 people. And this is something we're going to talk about too as a long-term idea. This lesson is more about like hours before the performance, like getting into that state of mind where you're just like free-flowing without having to think about them and actually being spontaneous. The best way to do that is to slowly build up the spontaneity and start getting out of your head and talking to people and, and seeing that you don't want to do it and still do it, That's the thing. Of course. If you don't, you're scared of strangers and you're not used to talking with strangers and it's not gonna be, oh, I'm gonna do this warm-up thing that I heard in the course and I'm gonna be fine with it. Know that you're still gonna be scared or nervous or whatever, but still do it. And so many things you can make. You can say hi or you can compliment people and what they're wearing. Or you can crack a little joke, or you can even tell them like I'm nervous, I need to talk with someone to ground myself like strangers are gonna be way, way nicer to you than you think. And even if the worst-case scenario they're gonna be like No, sorry, I'm in a hurry and leave. No one really cares at all. It's like what we talked about. The last time you saw someone being ridiculed, you probably don't remember it. You didn't care at all? Most likely. But yeah, this is a this may sound silly, honestly because it's not something people talk about, but it's without a shadow of a doubt. The biggest game changing thing I've seen for me, for it, because I've done it. And I've shown this to students, and I've shown this to friends, and they've all had the same feedback as I have that at some point it just clicks. And you just click into this self amused state where your width here. You're funnier. You're more relaxed, you're having more fun. And it all happens because you get out of your mind. You're thinking thoughts and you are here in the moment. And instead of thinking about doing the thing, you just do it, right? And it really, every time I show this people are like, Wow, Now I'm just like free-flowing. And there's this point where the self amusement, this flow state or whatever you wanna call it clicks. And it happens when you're warming up to speaking to strangers. And it doesn't have to be strangers necessarily. You just have to get into this talkative state and do it with people. So you see, you're doing this exposure therapy and proving to your brain that you're not going to die when you do your presentation, presented in front of your friends, presented in front of whoever, and just allow yourself to be silly as you lead up to that. And an actually be silly. Of course everyone. We'll find their own ways to do it. I personally, first, the first thing I'll do is just take, jump around and be incredibly silly. And then obviously on the street or we easily with people that I don t know. Especially it's especially important if it's with people that you don t know. But if that's so terrifying that you can't even fathom doing that, then it's fine if you do it with brands or you call a friend that you know, you have some good banter with and you're going to have a funny conversation that's gonna get you in this state. Anything that helps you can to help this. But I can't stress how important this is really, I do not understand why more people don't talk about. It's such a game-changer. It just takes you from being horrified, going onstage to being like, it can really, it doesn't always happen. Sometimes you click while you're on stage. There's this point where you're like you crack a joke and people will laugh onstage or whatever. And then you're like, oh, and then you'll suddenly click it. It is this feeling of clicking. But many times I'll do this warm-up thing and then I'll I'll just be like, I'm going onstage. ****, yeah. Well, you know, like super excited. At this point, I'm already excited. I would love to go on a stage like right now. I'm enjoying the recording of this lesson, but I'm thinking about when I was like really terrified of strangers and talking to strangers or presenting even when it wasn't for strangers. Yeah, This might sound a little repetitive, a little strange even. But the idea is that just as we warm up to perform any sport, just as we warm up for pretty much anything. Why are we warming up for speaking in public, especially if we're so scared and it's such a common fear. I don't know. My proposal is that you do warm up and that you are silly. And even if your talk is incredibly serious, don't get me wrong. Even if your targets incredibly serious, I think you should be silly before it. Because what Salinas does is it gets you out of your head, out of your thoughts and onto here that it's seeing that exposure therapy, It's the proof that you're not going to die of your silly or the overview ridiculed or whatever, that doesn't even exist. You can only be ridiculed if you think of being ridiculed. If you don't think there's anything ridiculous that you're doing them. Or if you think that it's ridiculous, but you're fine with that. But anyway, we're going on a little ramble. But the core idea remains that you should warm up with silliness leading up to your performance and that is going to get you in that state was not thinking and doing. And of course, we're going to talk about if you've practiced this many, many times, you don't need to be thinking, you know what you're gonna do, you know what you're gonna say. And then you can just be there with your audience and calibrate and all these many things. We've talked about. All these ideas. We've talked about control, outcome, all of this. If you warm up through this method and you'll find whatever works for you. And it depends on how comfortable you are with people and strangers or not. If you warm up with this method, you let go of control and you let go of outcome. And you'll trust that you don't have to think, you do it without having to sit. You will trust that you don't have to think without thinking about trusting it. It's a weird thing, but you will, you just do it, just be taught to explain and put into words because it's literally the process of stopping thinking. So you can't really rationalize how you didn't do that because there's just this point where you click and you're there with your audience. And so many people talk about this. And again, I've mentioned this many times. Have chameleons talk about reading the room, how it says, it just becomes like a sixth sense that it's very hard to put into words. But if there's one way to get into it that I know, it's this, it's warming up with silliness, warming up, talking to strangers, talking to friends, being lighthearted, and without thinking about it too much, right? Instead of being completely neurotic in your brain, analyzing all the different outcomes that can happen. And trust me, I've been there and it's not the way to go about it. The way to go about it is I've done all my preparation, all my practice leading up to here. Now what I can do is enjoy, can't control it. So I may as well have fun and I'll have fun before it. So I'll be in a mood to have fun doing it. So again, that might have been we'll do repetitive, a little confusing. Just go out and warm up before your performance and it'll be so great. I promise. 12. Use This Habit to Quiet Your Mind: So this is something I didn't even have in mind that I wanted to include in the course until a few hours before recording this, honestly. And it's taking cold showers. This is not directly related to what we were talking about. But at the same time it is taking cold showers is a habit that I, that I've adopted for a long time now and I absolutely adore it because it would call taking. I mean, freezing like the coldest you can put it on every day. And maybe you've heard of wind Hall and other people in the realm of preaching for cough and cold showers. But what it does for me, it almost forces me to apply all these ideas we've been talking about. Because when you were there and you turn the shower on freezing, you can't really tense up and tried to not feel that. That's all you're going to do is generate tons and tons of suffering and you're going to want to stop it. There's 1 after you've taken a few or many times on the person, I guess maybe some people do it instinctively. But for me there was a point where I was like, Oh, I can just relax and let go and feel the cold. And not try to control the code, not tried to get an outcome out of this. Just trust that my body knows how to deal with. It's way more than my conscious mind. So I'll just relax into it. And really the only way to enjoy or even deal with the cold shower is to let go of control. I think that is it can be useful both as a long-term habit, as something you do right before your performance. So going back to the previous lesson and we'll do this whole routine of meditation visualization and cylinders. Before all of this, you can do a cold shower. And I actually do that very often before meditating. I'd do one every morning. And after that I meditate and really gets me into this clear quiet place in my mind. Were then meditation seems seamless. And I really think it's because you have to apply all of these ideas for you to be able to even enjoy the culture. And I know it sounds so scary, tantalizing whatever maybe not. But I know a lot of people that when I talk about this are like, Oh my God, cold is unbearable either. I don't, I didn't use to deal with the cold, but now this exercise really helps me and it's not something that you must do in order to be a great public speaker. In fact, it sounds kind of silly to even put it in the course of this nature. But since we've been talking about meditation and visualization, all these dates, mine if you will, or this letting go of thought. Well, I find that co-chairs really make me let go of my thoughts and my rationalization and my ego, if you will, and make me be here. So it's just something to think about. Honesty. It's just a little less than if you're interested in research. When half, he has great videos on it as a book to which you can read yourself some breathing exercises that can accompany this, but treated very much as a meditation. If you're gonna do it, Just please deep, let go of any tensions and don't try to control it, just relax into it. A string Does that sound with very deep breathing? And you'll see that it isn't that bad. Probably we managed to keep the deep breathing and your body relaxed. And even though the activity has nothing to do with public speaking, the process is very similar and happens to me. I love that leading up to the Co-chair. I'm completely horrified by the idea. I think it's going to be the worst thing I can possibly think of. And then when I turn it on, it's not that bad. That's, that happens a lot. With public speaking. You think that people who are going to be judging you thinking how bad you're doing. All these tantalizing, haunting thought. So you get then reality when you jump on the stage and you talk. Many times seamless, or it almost seems silly that you had all these scary thoughts and anticipation to it. You realize that people actually want the best for you live. They don't want to see you humiliated. And especially if you apply all these things we've talked about like embracing the awkwardness and being there with them. People will be almost loving to you, if you will. It's much lighter than it seems. So just something for you to think of. Don't have to do it if you don't want to, but I think might help. Why not try it out? Similar to this idea of visualization. You don't have to do it, but a lot of people do it. Actually. Cold showers or another thing that a lot of high-performance athletes do. Now that I think about it. So, yeah, try it if you want. And this is the last lesson of the module. Hope you enjoyed it. Now we're moving on to more practical things. Techniques, if you will, wait to take action, waste to take action that are actually directly involved with how you look when you speak in public with your delivery. All these things, even though, in my opinion, the most important things we've already dealt with, theory wise and even practical wise with the warming up and the meditation and all that. Now we're going to talk about some long-term things that you can do, some shorter term and then of course, techniques and all that. But I don't know why I'm talking about what we're going to talk about. You're going to see that in a second. So I'll see you. There. 13. The Summit of Public Speaking: We've talked a little now about exposure therapy and the fact that your mind wants proof, not promises. And what I mean with that is that we can talk about theory and how your objectively not in control and how you shouldn't strive or have an outcome. Your mind. And that's so great. And it is true. Or at least I think it's true. But the reality is that your mind is still going to craft all of these narratives and all these things that it thinks people are going to think. This little wheel of endless self-doubt and self-consciousness and all that. And the way you stop that is not by talking within or rationalizing. It's none of that. It's through proof, not promises. That's what that little slowly and if you will, means. And the way to do that with public speaking on a long term, right now on something that you can apply to your life, to every aspect of it is this is, I keep going back to this, but the core at what lies at the core is not being afraid of speaking in public. That is the main issue at hand. Because you don't look for a course on how to speak one-on-one with a person, with a friend, right? You don't ask yourself how to use your hands when you're speaking with a friend. Why? Because you're not you're not scared of that you're, or you may be. But for most people, that isn't scary and I don t think for anyone who saw him with someone who they consider their genuine friends, that's scary. So when you're there, you don't have to think about all the actions that you have to do and how to use your tone and your hands, none of that. So the issue at hand is the fear of speaking in public. And this, this is the last thing we're going to talk about this and then we're going to move on to more technical things, if you will. But I do think that the backbone of this is practice warming up and exposure therapy. Practice is really the backbone of all of them. How to practice your technique, your voice hearing, all of that, things that you're actually going to use and do during their performance or talk. But then you also have the exposure therapy, which is this. We're going to talk about all the mindsets and all that we've talked about and then the warm-up we've already discussed. But what are we talking about here? It's becoming or becoming, if you will, open to strangers, it's applying that idea that we talked about that I've never met anyone who to me was a stranger. Applying this through all your life and not seeing your life and public speaking adds a little dichotomy, but a little synergy that is present throughout. And you do this slowly in baby steps. And this is something that I've done and it's helped me massively. And not only for publics book, everything really is public speaking. Random boom, when we mentioned public speaking in general, we mean onstage, presentation, whatever. But I love it. It's public speaking. One-on-one. It's public speaking. This is public speaking. So working on this helps you in all of your aspects of your life because you always interacting with people. You become more open and less afraid and, and more there and you stop seeing this barrier between you and the stranger, you and the other person, then it really all becomes much more seamless. The way you do this or the way I went about it. And I've had other students Go button and it's really helped them is by exercises in social freedom. From 0 to 100, you start very slow and with very slow, I mean, like very slow stuff that you're already doing every day, but just taking it a little Next step. So if you're going to buy groceries, for example, and the cashier asks you, how's your day going? Instead of saying good, you just actually say something substantial about your day. Actually give some information the same when you cross with someone and you have this little moment of Smalltalk, go out of your way to actually give something to show yourself to them. Whatever happened during the day, whatever comes to mind, honestly, you don't have to think about it too much. And people actually find this incredible peasant. And I'm, and I'm sure you can relate because pure going about your day and someone cracks a joke with you or whatever, and smiles or cares about you are asked a question genuinely. It gives you that little boost in a sense, it's nice. It's to be noticed and for someone to spend a little time on you for whatever reason. So do that with people as you go and then don't at the beginning, you don't have to look for new situations. The ones that you're encountering are already enough to take that. Next step and become a little more open and interact a bit more. And notice how you have spontaneous reactions all the time that you're blocking in the sense of interacting with people happens all the time. Like I noticed that I would be cracking many more jokes and doing many more comments if I didn't have this idea of the character and all the things that I have to block. Like it's something false to someone on the street or on the floor or whatever. Many times you don't pick it up because of courage or lack of courage or whatever self, self-consciousness, You know what I mean? But sometimes it is things like this happen all the time. Like I noticed the other day I went I was cycling and I went by a group of three guys and they were being incredibly silly. And I thought that was really funny. And in the past I would've stopped myself from laughing. But in that moment, I laughed at what they were doing and we laughed and it was a little nice moment or things like these happen all the time. I crossed a guy the other day. And I know this is not a course on social skills, but it's still very important for getting your fear. Speaking with new people and becoming more open and making public speaking a seamless aspect of your life. This is all very important. Maybe other day I was I'd like to do this contrast between what I would've done. Probably I know a woman, what I do, I do now not to say that I'm completely spontaneous or perfect or realized being if you will. But I definitely see the improvement from before and how not restricting myself as much as I would have and it becomes much nicer. And you meet many more people and this barrier between you and the stranger becomes much more blurred and it's actually rather beautiful thing. Going back to the example the other day I noticed I was walking on the street with some friends and I saw someone who had a surf skate and I love surfing and I used to have one and I was like, Oh, surf, skate, whatever. We ended up talking and we ended up hanging out. And really just that simple. And if it's you in the shoes of someone coming to talk to you, you don't feel that weird or scared or whatever. If they come good faith, then you can censor and your D and L. In fact, in movies it seems so seamless, right? And you, when you see it in the movie, you never think, Oh, wow, he just talked to a strange. There's none of that because it's, it's actually rather lighter than we make it seem. So the way you go about structuring this in your life depends on where you are at, on how comfortable you are with strangers, are comfortable, you're being open. It really is something that you have to escalate slowly. I can give you tons of examples. And in fact, I think I'm going to add a PDF with action to take throughout maybe a month or whatever, but small little exercises that you can do. You can check that out, but you can do all sorts of stuff. I remember when I first started becoming more open because you have to have in mind that I was completely neurotic and introverted and all those things. And I was controlling every outcome in my mind and becoming super anxious about all of that. So one of the first exercises I used to do, and of course, when I say exercise, does that mean in the lightest way possible? It's all like a little game. It can be very fun and very nurturing for your life, just being more at ease with strangers. And in fact, you'll find that without as you go about these exercises, many of them will, might result in great stories, are new friends or whatever. But one of the first ones I would do is go out and just ask people what the time was. Not for me, for incredibly flick it like a challenge, like intimidating. Yeah. So if you want to have to start there, start there. If you want to start complimenting someone, go out and compliment someone in the same way that we talked about in the lesson about warming up. All those things apply, but doing those every day. So there's no change going from, from the introverted you to public speaking you, it's always public speaking. You, it's always open you. Right? That doesn't mean that you always have to be speaking with people. You have to be super high-energy, not it's none of that. You don't have to become a new person. That's not one of these. Just in this way, relaxing all those tensions you have towards stranger than doing this through exposure. Exposure therapy. So yeah, you can go compliment someone. You can wave at, someone you can whatever. Like, I do all sorts of weird social freedom exercises and it's really enjoyable and people really enjoy it. And no one cares at all that you find that people couldn't care less like you walk by a restaurant, people are having dinner and you wave at them. You say is good, whatever, and you have a little laugh with them and they enjoy it. You enjoy whatever. Yeah. If you if you like someone's outfit, ask them or if you have any doubts about what they just all the thing that if you weren't going to block yourself from doing, you would probably do. They give you think like, Oh, I love that bag. I wonder where they got it. Ask whether they got it. It sounds so silly. But it is a process of unlearning because you've learned all these social customs and most of them you can break. And both parties will benefit. In most situations where you speak to a stranger unless they're lacking a huge rush. But even if they're in a huge rush, the worst-case scenarios though say I'm in a huge rush, right? So there's really no situation where you're going to make their life worse or your life boards by speaking with a stranger. Unless you have, like, as long as you come in good faith, of course, subscribing to any other idea, of course, anything any of the cases and describing. Okay. I don't think I need to speak with that much property for my message to come through. So yeah, go go about your day and at the beginning it will be a conscious effort. And I know because I've done it and I've gone through the process with other students at the beginning and it'll be a conscious effort where you have to really go out of your way to do it. And meditating can help. If you want to do that before any of these exercises, then go out and be a little silly with strangers and enjoy it. I'm an exercise I've seen online which answer was very funny and I've actually gone and tried and done with strangers is you go up to someone and you say, I don't want to be weird, but and there'll be a point. And I've talked about this in my comedy course, that this is the type of joke. And there'll be a point where you both just start laughing or the realizes it's like a big job and you can see their face going from like, oh, it's a stranger to, Oh, this person is strange to like, oh, this is funny. It most of the time because you can control the reaction, maybe the walkway or something, but who cares? Sound like minded. You did write it as long as you have some integrity and you're not going out and doing insulting social freedom exercises in doing funny, quirky things, then it'll be fine. Another one I like to do is dancing in the street and do that a lot. I think it's great to get out of your mind and just realize that everyone's fine with everything much more than you would think, especially with things that other people aren't doing. You're so busy thinking about your life and in your thoughts that you don't bother being concerned about what other people are doing. Make honestly think about your own life. As I've discussed many times. You probably don't even remember the last person you saw being ridiculed and you honestly don't care? Unless you yeah, you probably don't care. I don't care. I know most people don't care. So you're dancing industry. Very funny. I enjoyed a lot. And once you start doing this, you'll come up with all sorts of things and it becomes a really nice game. Again, I want to stress that even if you think that your talk and your niche or whatever, it's very serious. Being silly and getting out of your thoughts still helps, even if you're not gonna be cracking any jokes. That's important. And of course I believe that there is no torque where you can't crack a joke, basically like it all depends on how you do it and I'll bet you don't. It's not all about jokes. That's not my message here. It's all about getting out of your thoughts and being there and seeing that this barrier that you've created between you and the stranger, now that you've created, we've all created as a societal tool or a defense mechanism or whatever, is much blurrier than you might think. And the more you're exposed to that, to this, the more your mind sees it. And the mortal becomes a rather silly. And you start seeing people like there are no stranger, started seeing the world like There are no strangers. And it becomes a beautiful, beautiful thing. And Travelling becomes richer because you're meeting people at the time. Going out of your house becomes so much more exciting because it's all potential adventure. There'll be a transition from trying to do it too. It just becomes a part of your life and then it's a blast. It's all a little blast. Honestly, I really encourage anyone to do this, even if you have no particular interest in public speaking. This is great for confidence is great for your social skills. Um, yeah, yeah, No, I think, I think speaking with strangers, it's even greater, in my opinion for spiritual journey, but that's a whole topic for another day. But yeah, I'm gonna leave a PDF with all sorts of social freedom exercises. I really encourage you to do this. I think this is crucial, absolutely crucial because it really makes it so that you don't have to do this transition from 0 to 100. As soon as you go on stage, you're already used to being with strangers, being with people being open, not scared, to be vulnerable to show your true self. All of those things to hide, to hide behind the mask, to be exposed to the judgment. All that, those things that we think about when we're thinking about speaking in public. If you go about these exercises and applying them to your life. And again, exercises is always in air quotes because it's not really an exercise. It's just unlearning a lot of social customs and becoming more at ease with the fact that it's all just a little silly, right? Life is a comedy, learned to laugh. They say, not really sure who said that, but I've heard that anytime. Yeah. Why not? Right. So even if your target silly, I know you're there thinking, even if you're talking serious. I know you're there saying, No, I can't apply all of this. This is nonsense. No. Trust me. You've ever had done, I've done speeches about suicide. This is not to pride myself on that, but I've had a situation where Venice Beach about suicide. And I still think that all of these exercises were great to address that topic with vulnerability, with presence, without the mask and the fear of being judged. Because then you just become a vehicle for that speech to take place instead of being caught up in your thoughts and your identity and all this will become a, which is what it is your speaker. You're a vehicle for that speech or presentation to come through. So even if it's incredibly serious, all of this that I'm explaining has a place in your life and it has major plates. Because honestly, most of public speaking is getting rid of that fear and being at ease with the stranger and the people on the mass and all that. So yeah, taking it from 0 to 100 and your life and slowly getting out of your comfort zone with social freedom exercises. I think it's one of the most useful things you can do in, in so many things, but especially for public speaking. And I really hope too, that you do it and to hear of your feedback of what things you came up with. What funny stories and adventures you might go on. As a consequence. Doing all these funny moments I've taken place and all of that. And even if it's that small action of just telling your cashier something about your day, when when he or she asks, how's your day or anyone for that matter. Right. Just being a little more open to people and breaking that barrier between me and the person, me and the stranger. 14. Properly Use Eye Contact!: So now I want to talk about something that in this genre of things, actions, gestures that you do when you're on stage presenting, speaking, whatever might strike one of the most awkward if you're not accustomed to it. And it actually is in some way shape or form awkward for everybody out there and it's eye contact. As much as I say that if you're there fully present, immersed in the experience, that gestures will come naturally. Saying hand gestures, tonality, emphasis. Than then we're going to talk a bit about that. In other lessons. I have preached. In a sense that those things will come naturally as long as you tackle the fear and being in the present and being out of your thoughts and the rambling of your mind. However, eye contact is slightly different in that if you've grown up not doing it and practicing it and all that, it is a little odd. It is a little odd and it's pretty much equally as all when you're, or more when you're in a stage with multiple people, as much as when you're one-on-one with someone. And it's three different types of eye contact, I guess, like when you're one-on-one with a person, when you're in a small group, when you're with a big audience, It's like three different things, except it's all the same technique, if you will. It's all the same approach. Again, this is something that you can practice on a day to day basis. You can do it in your life. Slowly start incorporating more eye contact. And it's something that goes hand in hand with your confidence and your comfort with speaking to people and strangers and communicating in general. As you develop your communication skills, you'll notice that your eye contact becomes more solid, more genuine, less awkward. That, and it has a lot to do with this six tenths, this reading the room. They said, Yeah, I've been talking about throughout the course. So I encourage you as we talked in the previous lesson, to go out and as you were trying, these new social freedom exercise is going out of your comfort zone to be a little more open and a little more comfortable with strangers to incorporate intense eye contact, or at least more intense than you're used to. It, it push yourself a little out of that comfort zone because you will see that it really impacts your communication. And it's great because the main thing that lets you calibrate and change without you having to logically think, okay, this person is not enjoying what I'm saying or whatever. The best way to gauge an audience's reaction or a person's reaction is through eye contact. There's this old saying that the eyes are the window to the soul. And in a way without having to get spiritual, magical, mystical, it is sort of true. You can really see what a person is feeling like without having to again, rationalize it through eye contact with a one-to-one, One-to-one person who is very simple. The only thing I would say, and this is sometimes helpful for people is not to change between one or the other. Just look at, choose one eye and stick to that one. But then it gets a little tricky when you're talking about an audience. Kickers were how, how do you do I contact with an audience? Well, it's exactly the same. You're going to look at one person in one eye while you talk. Now you don't want to do this with the same person throughout all of your target presentation. Good, it's going to be a little awkward. But if you have a big audience or whatever size audience, you want to feel as though you're talking, you're talking to everyone. You want them to feel that to how you approach that as you look at someone in the eye and talk to them. And then look at someone else in the audience and talk to them for a few seconds and look at different parts the room. And really focusing on them as if you were talking one-to-one on them. It'll make you feel like you're there with them. They'll make them feel like you're there with them. Even if you're not looking at them directly, the people nearby, the people in the audience will feel as though you're there with them because it's almost like they're, they're like There's this expression in show business that doing a show for less people is more complicated because you have to take multiple lions. But doing a show for one audience is, for one large audience is easy because you have to obtain one line. So it's kind of old idea that when you're looking at someone, the rest of the audience will feel that connection, that link that you're there with them. So the idea is to look at someone, talk for a few seconds there. Look at someone else, talk for a few seconds there and really talk to them. Really gauge their reaction, how they're looking at you. You'll see how they empathize with your expression. And then all this will happen in a subconscious level. We are having to think about it at all. But as long as you focus, deepen their eyes, it'll, it'll, it'll be much easier for the calibration. This sixth sense is reading the room to develop seamlessly. And of course, it'll be much easier to apply if you're practicing on a daily basis, you're doing eye contact on a daily basis. Again, it's the thing that for many people it's very awkward because it's intense. Especially if you're not that confident in yourself. It's not something that the striker, So it strikes you as natural or seamless in many cases. So that's why we can practices, we can do this exposure therapy and just a customer ourselves to do that. So then when we're with an audience, it's more seamless. 15. Effectively Communicate for a Camera: So this in principle shouldn't be a very complicated thing. I just thought I'd do a separate lesson because it's a related to all of the course. All of the course as a whole, not really related to the lesson we just had on eye contact me because my biggest tip for on-camera confidence that I've gotten over recording quite a few, a lot of hours in front of a camera. And several courses and teaching hundreds of students online is eye contact. But of course, who do have eye contact with if there's no one there, you don't even know potentially who's going to be looking at this. So the best tip I can give you is to look straight into the lens as intimidating, as weird as that may be or strike you. That is the thing I've found. To make this communication the less awkward, the least awkward as possible. So looking straight into the land is my number one tip for on-camera communication, speaking, confidence, whatever. Then there are few other things that you can do that it was really funny when the quarantine thing happened because you saw that a lot of late night shows were having to host their shows in their homes and they were doing so many things that people that have filmed it on camera, I know that they should never. And one of them, the one that you could see the most is people were recording and you choose on Zoom calls all the time. People record with their camera under them facing up. And it really isn't the best angle. Like it just looks less professional. Less it makes you look good. Just give you a worst position plus it's not enhancing adult as per facial features and anesthetics in general, it's not the position you want to always have your camera at eyesight like AI, hype level, whatever or higher, slightly higher, not super high, but never under but that's not I mean, I don't know. Maybe you have some do that for some intention, whatever. But in in general, if you're doing like for a conference call or presentation or anything, you're going to want to have eye level or higher. So yeah, it's a little awkward. Looking at the lens. You really have to get used to it. And this is good because we're going to talk about practice. And when we practice public speaking, I mean, you are going to want to act as though you're speaking to an audience. But then you can also practice. You can take advantage of the situation. Because I'm going to recommend that you practice in front of a camera and record yourself and see yourself in action. So it's great because then you can practice the eye contact, the lens contact or however you want to call it. It's really now that I'm talking about, say when you repeat a word many times on, it starts to lose its meaning and it's weird. It's the same thing now that I'm looking at the lens, that's the really striking me as awkward. But yeah, that's, that's the number one tip. I can give you. My first lessons that are used to record way back when I would not look at the camera and it was so awkward. It seemed like I was speaking to someone else and it just it was strength. So you look at the camera, have it above your eye level or at eye level? Never below. Yeah. Oh, of course. All the other things we've talked about apply. In fact, I talked about how before I recorded these lessons, I'm warming up with silliness, with getting out of my head, out of my thoughts. And I'm being silly, talking a lot, getting in that talkative state where I'm not thinking and double thinking and had just stuck in this train of endless thought. And you know what I'm talking about, this crippling doubt while I'm talking, presenting, teaching, whatever. So all the other concepts we talked about applied perfectly to on-camera confidence. There's just a few tips and tricks like looking directly at the lens for having it above eye level or at a level that you just might not think about. But everything else still applies. I'd still recommend that you warm up. I still recommend that you try to be there with your audience, even though you might not be doing this live like I'm doing. So it can be a little bit weird. Just really empathize with this idea that you have an audience and you're speaking to them and really be there with what you're saying so that the gestures will come naturally. The voice tonality, the emphasis, or that really short lesson, brief lesson on this topic. And I'll see you in the next one. 16. Master Your Scripts (Writing & Reciting): So even though this is not a writing class, I thought that I would talk a bit about how to go about your script, your speech, whatever you're writing, or presentation, whatever, just so you have something to hold onto if you've never taken a writing course for aren't that acquainted with writing or whatever? I do have quite a background in writing. I haven't written it plays, shows. I would actually a columnist in the newspaper. I know a little bit about writing. Again, this is not a writing course. So if you want to learn more, delve deeper into that rabbit hole and other sources. But here I'm just going to provide a little bit of something about script writing and actually how to go about your scrape, whether to memorize it or not. But anyways, a little structure I want to give you that helps for basically any presentation you're giving in public speaking. And it helps give it all a sense of continuity to wrap it up. Well, to give it the cyclical structure, wrap it up in a little nice gift box, if you will. You leave the presentation feeling like, oh, all of that made sense. It was all thought out. It was all lovely. The idea for this is very simple. It's the cyclical structure. It's Houston writing all over the board for fiction, non-fiction, dynamic stuff. You name it, it's there. So what I recommend is to start with a little story, some form of hook related to your presentation. At the beginning, just a few sentences that do a story and they leave you with some form of cliffhanger to you don t really ended. Then you go with all your presentation. All of it. Doesn't matter how long it is. And then at some point you've finished right at the end, you've finished the story, you wrap it up, right? So I don't love this example because it's a bit sad. But I, I, I talked about this previously, how I was giving a speech about suicide. And I had a story about someone who wanted to commit suicide at the beginning. Then I had the whole speech, and then at the end I had how that story ended, which is actually that he became this person. The beginning of the story, became an activist for the cause and whatever, and it ended like that. Okay, so you see how that'll help everything give this sense of finished, roundness, polished, and reliability in the sense that it came back full circle, just makes it feel professional, well-written, thought out, whatever. And it also gives you the hook at the beginning. Because it has to be an emotionally charged story. Something that really activate the audience's mind, engages their emotions, whatever. So you really start off with a strong emotional impact. This is very typical in sales. The emotional impact and all so, or emotional hook, if you will. Your startup with that, don't finish it there, leave it hanging and then go or it doesn't matter if they forget about the story. Go all your presentation, then finish with the ending of the story. Bring it back full circle. Of course, make sure it's coherent. Make sure you say so that person, the murder story, however you want depends on how long the speeches. There's many, many, many, many writing structures. I just think this is one that's very relatable to most stories, speeches, presentation that you can probably find a space for in your situation and is very useful if you don't know how to structure it. Just this will help. It, will help you with the hook, people being interested in the talk, and then to give it that cyclical structure. So another thing I want to talk about while we're on the topic of writing scripts. And scripts in general is whether to memorize it or not. This is a huge thing or a huge debate in like public speaking workshops, classes, whatever. And I think it's very interesting. And my personal take is that at the beginning, until your polished and until you're confident and until all that fear of speaking to strangers or in public or judging or whatever. Until all of that fades and you don't ever go away. But until you're at ease with it and you embrace it. Until then, I propose that you memorize the script like an actor does to the point where you can say, without thinking at all, that's my personal recommendation. Because if you have that fear and that insecurity and that crippling doubt, why would you add more variables to the equation that you have to control? Why don't you just deal with all the variables that you can beforehand. So then when you're there, you can really focus on just being there. Right now, focusing on remembering the script or whatever. Some people will say. Like if you don't, if you're memorizing it, then you're going to have to be thinking about No, no, no. I'm talking about like memorizing it to the point where you can say, you can jump in the middle of the script, say a word and keep going from there. So like really going over and over and over and over. And this is related to practice, which we're going to talk about in a second. And it's really important at the beginning to just do that and minimize whatever. Because if you have a paper, you're going to be, at the moment, you're scared, you're gonna be looking at the paper, just reading. You're not gonna be telegraphing and then presenting properly and communicating a charismatic leader magnetically and being there with your audience and level on calibrating to how they're feeling, which is like the ultimate level that we're seeking all the time. In this course. You're gonna be in the paper. If you have flashcards, which is what other people recommend, then you might get lost, you might get confused. You might think like, Oh, what was it that I had to say? That's fine. Once you have a solid foundation of background and you can really you're confident in your skills to present. There's the point where you develop something. 17. Make the Most Out of Practicing!: So onto one of the most important monumental lessons in the course and ideas that I have to give you about public speaking. Actually, it might come across as a bummer because there's nothing much that you're going to take from this lesson that you can start applying. But what I recommend and what I think is one of the most foundational things for public speaking, especially at the beginning and throughout. Honestly, is practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. Because I know I've said this multiple, multiple times, but the main thing with public speaking and communication is this fear of judgment and all the stranger. And there's so many variables, as we said multiple times that are not in your control. And there's some variables that are in your control. But my point is that if you can minimize the variables that you can control beforehand, you take care of those when you don't have this immense fear and anxiety, if you can do that when you're comfortable in your home, chilling out, then when you're on stage, you don't have to focus on those. And you can really relax into the situation because there's nothing that's in your control. At that moment. We just want to leave it to the point where you've done all the work that you could was already done. So all you can do now is b p there. So for that practice is colossal. When I'm doing a new show, when I'm doing an evening course, when I'm doing a new speech, I practiced it so many times. I've done this lesson that I'm talking about. I've gone through it many times before actually doing it for a camera. And with courses it's a little bit different because I've had many, many, many students. So i've, I've said this thing so many times before, right? With the show, It's different because before I do it in a theatre for the first time, I spent hours and hours in front of a mirror recording myself with people of confidence that I can be critical and told me what they think over and over and over again to the point where I can do without thinking at all, like I'm just there, right? And then I can improvise and go off script. All those lovely things that you can do once you have the foundation, right? And again, this may be a little frustrating because there's no shortcut, right? There's no magic button that you press and you become charming. This is really about long-term effect and change and genuine confidence and tapping into your confidence and charisma and magnetism. And the best way until you become the best way you can do exposure therapy with a big group is by exposing yourself to a big group. But of course, if you have massive anxiety, you can't do that. So what do we do? We minimize all the things that are gonna give you anxiety. So the best thing you can do for this is practice. So how do we practice? Well, first of all, as I said in the previous lesson, you gonna have your script and you're going to memorize the script. This is the for the beginning, for the first speeches and presentations you do until you feel like you have that. You're going to feel it. You're going to feel that you have that intuition or that confidence to you, even though you're nervous or scared because that doesn't really fade away. You know that you're gonna be able to improvise and go off of whatever happens. This is something that just comes with time until you feel that if you're terrified, just memorize the script, memorize absolutely everything but we talked about in the previous lesson. So once you have it memorized, and actually this process of practice is going to help you really didn't really memorize it while you're memorizing it and all that. Once you haven't memorized, you're going to start practicing in the mirror, saying it out loud. So you get used to the words, used to the timing, used to the emphasis used to the tonality, right? It's all the things that people asked for. Students asked for what do I do with my hands? But all of that you figured out beforehand, right? There's nothing you have to be thinking about during thing, none of that. So during practice in front of the mirror doing your thing, you're doing your gestures as they come naturally. You can be a little forest. It's okay because of course it's going to be a little awkward, right? You're still figuring it out. You're going to look at yourself straight in the eyes, in the mirror, okay? Then you're going to practice eye contact tonality, making sure that you memorize it perfectly. You're going to practice all the things and you're gonna be seeing them in real time. This is great for the beginning, that you figure out how you look. How you look might be so different, how you think you might be so different from how you actually look. So working in front of a mirror is great. Of course, you can do your speech all the time in your mind, in the car, in the shower. Anything like I've I've practiced speeches everywhere, everywhere I've gone. You can do them to a friend or a family member. One of my process of practices first, I start with a mirror. I go over, over, over and over. Then I go to a camera and this some of you are going to hate. I know I've had students tell me that they hate their voice. They hate seeing themselves. Who get over it. Okay. Get a camera, pop it there, and just look at the camera. And of course you can act as though there's other people, look at them to your whole thing. And then you're going to have the pain of sitting down and powering through your speech. Some of you are going to hate this, but you have to do it. Because then you'll see exactly, well, not exactly. You're probably gonna be way more critical with yourself. Them are actually going to be, you're going to see what people see. And then you can go over that, say, Oh, that sounds a little fast. I couldn't get that joke. I couldn't get that story. I didn't really pronounce that word properly. Then you probably realized and this happened to me at first. This happened to me when I was starting to record video lessons. I was talking so, so, so fast. And maybe it still happens every now and then. In a lot of lessons I talk very slowly. And it might, even when I'm doing it, it feels like I'm going so slow. But now it's almost become like my new rhythm. At first it felt so annoying because I was like, I want to talk faster, I want to get these thoughts out. Then when I saw it on video, I was like little racing car. Like it was going so fast, it was almost like unintelligible. So you find these things might be completely different things for you, but you'll find them once you see yourself on video. It's a great, great, great tool. And it will also help you practice eye contact. Practice. Getting out of your head really is social great warm-up. And it'll get you out of your head because at first you're gonna be like, especially if it's your first time ever, you're going to be like in your little bubble not wanting to move, maybe not like the most. I've been exposed to, the most people are gonna be in their bubble. And this is what I was doing, not moving, doing my thing, trying to memorize what my speech. Then slowly you're going to let go. Relax. Realize that once you've seen yourself 20 times, you realize that you're going to see yourself again and you're not going to care the first time you see yourself. It's like, Oh my God, Is that what people are seeing? It's so darn thing. So scary, so intimidating. But then slowly let go and you expose yourself to it. And it's all part of this process of becoming designated or inhibited and never know which one. I mean, whatever you know what I mean, you become exposed to it enough times that you become seamless, natural, right? So that's my process. I first got in front of a mirror. I really go through all the thing. I do, all my speech I do with the timing, the exact timing I would like in the day. I don't feign it. I do it. The make-believe. Then with the camera, everything exactly the same, the gestures, exactly how you want it to look on the day. Then, depending on how important it is and how much, how confident or not confident I feel. A few friends or family members. And I'll ask them if they mind watching and then I'll do it for them. And then I get some feedback and then I can practice my eye contact and all that. Okay? I've done that many times with shows and speeches, doing it in front of a small group so they can small group that you feel fine in front of. And again, first time it might feel weird. It might feel like you can virtually fear your stuff, almost like in a third person thing like, Oh, this is so strange. Whenever you get over that. And how do you get over that? The best way we talked about it, warming up with cylinders, getting out of your head. And all these things that we've talked about now start to come into play with the practice because this is what leads up to that presentation, that speech, that show whatever. Okay, So first mirror, then camera, then little group of people. And of course you can change this in any order you want, whatever helps you. But the most important thing that I want to give you before I leave this lesson, because it's very, very important you can get trapped in this. Is, there is no perfect, there is no goal. You're getting two. Okay? You have to relax and let go of it at some point because there's always gonna be something that you say like, oh, I wish I wouldn't have I would have done this different in whatever. Okay. No, you're gonna have to realize that all the things we've talked about still remain, that people aren't going to take it so seriously as you are, because this is you and for you it's massively important. But no one's going to care about how you're extending your pinky finger. While I would think about these things at the beginning of my magic career when I started doing shows like, Oh my pinky looks so weird. And all this paranoia, all these thoughts and it's, it's okay, no one's going to think of that. So just practice until you feel confident you can say your speech without thinking about it whatsoever. But don't get obsessed with it. Don't get so involved that you're always thinking about, oh my god, it's gonna be, it's gonna be fine. Okay. You're going to have the people around you to tell you if you're willing to do that, to tell you, or you can send the video over to friends if you feel too intimidated by people seeing you live in, you should do that because you're gonna be live in front of people. You deal with it as you want. But realized that there is no perfect, there is no ultimate goal that you're reaching because it's not an exact science. And again, you're not failed attempt at being your favorite public speaker. And every presentation is gonna be unique. Every moment is going to have different expressions because you're feeling different. The moment is different. How you're going to express it as completely different even though the ideas are the same, right? And again, this comes back to the calibration. When you're in a room with an audience and you're looking at them and you see their faces. Sometimes people are not feeling like it's super dense things you might want to make it a little more light. Or sometimes people are super focused. You might want to make it more specific, more dense, more intense, more in-depth. So all this calibration will happen. So don't stress too much because it's going to change. It's kinda more that actually, if it's a presentation that you're going to do many times, you'll do it once. You realize, even though you've, even if you've practiced it hundreds of times, you'll do it in front of people for the first time and you'd be like, Oh, that was terrible. I mean, I have to change that and know that this if you've ever done standup of, you know, someone who's done stand up or you are acquainted with comedians at all. You know, this is true. I know this for sure. When you do a standard piece at the beginning, it's so different moments you thought that we're going to hit, Don't hit and vice versa you, so you're changing it around, you're figuring it out, and you're going with it. Okay, so just realize that the moment, it's gonna be so different from how you're picturing it in your mind. So just all the things we've talked about apply by just meditate or whatever. It'll be fine. Still you can visualize it but don't get too stuck on it. Because there is no perfect, there is no ultimate goal. Just practice to you. You can do it without thinking about it. So you can be present in the moment with the audience and show you we've talked about many times. So I hope this doesn't help. Again, this is one of the most important things. This is probably the backbone. There's a few things here that are the backbone. Exposure therapy, for sure. Warming up, That's huge, huge, huge, should push the therapy warming up and practice. Probably the three biggest things we've talked about. So yeah, don't, don't underestimate this tool super-important. That's really going to help you. So, yeah, of course, if you want any feedback, feel free to show me videos of you presenting or whatever, send them over. I'll be happy to help give you my take on it and whatever you need. 18. Enter the Stage With the Right Foot: In this lesson, I want to give you a few ideas, a few free wins, if you will, that you can do right after watching the lesson. If you're going to present them five-minutes, you can apply them, use them, make them your own. Whenever. I decided to leave this at the end of the course because it's really not life-changing. It's truly not absolutely changed the game of your public speaking. It's just a way to enter the state that can be funny. Or some of them are serious, some of them set the tone. You will see. So the first one I want to talk about is, and this is very related to practice and having memorized your script. If you've done that, you can enter the stage. And beforehand, you should have put like a stand, like lectern for your script to go on. Then you enter the stage and you grabbed the lectern and you move it away. There's a very strong moment, especially if there's been other speakers. If it's like a debate where people have been using paper and reading off of it or using knowledge, whatever it is. Or even if you're just unknown to strong moment, because people expect one thing and they're like, Oh, this is a real deal. Even though you're not better than someone who's using papers or your presentation is not intrinsically, are inherently going to be better because you're using paper or not using paper. Just a strong moment that really sets in the audience's eyes set you had someone confident that knows what they're doing in control of the situation. Because imagine that, that image are going up. Don't say a word. You grabbed the lectern and you move it to the side of the state, then you come back. No paper? No, nothing. Also, you're not behind anything. You're not protecting yourself from the audience, you're exposed. And this instinctively is very powerful and really communicates confidence if you can pull it up, which of course you can, because you've applied all the other things in the course. You're taking action and you'll becoming more confident, more open, more genuinely in touch with herself and the moment. So you can really pull it off. Be there with no blockade, no separation between you and the audience. And then presenting. This is something that I love to do. It's very strong depending on what sort of speech you're doing. It's not silly role. Those of you who are saying that your speeches are very serious, very solemn. Whenever this is not, ciliates can be very impactful. And it's a great way to set the tone from the beginning. Something you can do right after watching the video, free when nothing you have to practice or anything. So now on to the more silly ones that I enjoy. I also enjoyed the other ones, but these ones give a little more room for play and fun and whatever. A technique that I love to use when I'm doing a show, even if I haven't presenter, is to present myself. I think it's super funny. It's really enjoyable, really breaks the weird tension that there is when presenter introduces a speaker. It just started off with a lighter tone and with weird little connection between the audience. It's like a little wink to the audience and it's almost like you'd become friends instantaneously. So what I do is maybe I'm wearing a jacket or a blazer. I'll take it off and I'll come into or depending on what outfit I'm wearing are where a slightly different outfit, just for the fun of it. It's like self-aware comedy. Now come up and it'll be okay, I guess so. And the presenter today, I'm gonna be introducing you to the guy. He's OT. And you can play with this depending on your personality, the tone of your speech, whatever. But you're basically going to introduce yourself. And you say, I'm going to introduce this guy. He's a bit weird or whatever. He's awesome, really, really handsome or, you know, I've been talking with him backstage. I don't know what to expect, but it however you want to play it, then you go like, ladies and gentlemen, the best juggler in the world, put your hands together for boom, and you say your own name, and then you run backstage, you take off that piece of clothing on, you add something, then you come back out and you've introduced yourself. It's funny. It again, demonstrate confidence. It's a lot of, it breaks all these premises and all these preconceived notions of what a speech or presentation should be. And really shows that you are in control of the situation. You don't really care about norms. Not in a rude way and in a playful, confident way, even if your speed to sue it, I always have to clarify this, but even if your speed two series, you can do it. It's just going out and presenting yourself. And you can see if you can say a few things about yourself, you can really act like a brilliant man. He did this and that. Even if it's without being funny, it's already a little, just a little wink, a little nudge, a little way to start the presentation with a lighthearted. Okay, then you can come out and do the little lectern thing, right? It's still those two still exist. If you want to break that, you want, just want to get the audience ready. And it is the very likable thing to do if you do it right. So then you get your audience ready and then you do the electron thing and boom, your solemn, serious, intense presentation can start. So just to clarify, in case it was a little weird, you're coming out and you're acting as if you're someone else, but everyone knows you're playing a little character. And if they, if they don't know what you looked like before the presentation, it's really funny when you come out and it's the same person. So you come out in the cell, can't marry a presenter. I'm going to introduce you to this person. And so he's going to talk about topic which is great importance for all of us. It's what they serve in the cafeteria. So whatever. And he's pretty cool. I've been talking to him backstage. I think you're gonna like him. Yeah. He's, you know, he's a little bit awkward but it's gonna be fine. So everyone put your hands together faster and everyone's clapping. Then you run back, you put your blazer on and you come out, hey, thanks, thanks. Well that presenter, what a handsome guy, don't you think? Whenever the last one I want to give you the last little free when, again, these are not game changing ideas are just little things that you can add to your presentation, whatever. And you can do this at the beginning. You can do this at the end. If you have a funny moment and people are clapping, You can do it. Then two, it's, again, it's one of these things, these three little free wins or something that breaks the norms and shows that you're in control. You're confident you know what you're doing. You've done this millions of times, even if it's your first time doing. Okay. So it's great ways to start and great little things to throw into your presentation. So this is when someone is clapping, not what someone's one-person stamping in the audience. Know. When the audience is clapping, You look very humble and you go No, no, please, please, please. And then as soon as they start to stop, you go like practically, you don't have to stop to speak. You can just be with your gestures. Does this a lot when I go on stage and I go No, please, please, please. And they start to stop. Oh, yeah. Much better, Martin. Yeah, fantastic. You can do this in the middle of your show again is just say no, no, no, please. Actually, no, no, no, come on. You can do this 234 times depending on how quirky and silly you're feeling. You can do this at the end. When they're at the end, you can do it like four minutes if you really had a great time with your audience and they liked you, and you're filling in that little afterglow of the show, you really want to finish like that depending on how long it's been two, depends on many factors. But again, you calibrate to the room. You've done all the other things that we've talked about, you know, what you're doing, you can calibrate. So again, it's just when they're clapping. You can be like No guys, man, come on, come on. And then when they're stopping, actually no, no, no, come on, come on. You take it and then you're like, Okay, now, shut up. Now and I'll bring it in, bring it in. I think you guys just going off of that, bringing non-Jews a bit, relaxing a bit, taking it all with a little lighthearted tone and enjoying it. Showing it you're speaking with people, no one cares. So finally, just have a good time, right? And you've practiced this many, many times. So it's all going to be good. So that's just three little free wins that you can apply your presentation if it fits the tone. If you think it fits your personality, if you think it's going to enhance it. Again, it really shows dominion of the genre, the art of public speaking. And you know what you're doing. And yet when you're practicing in front of the mirror, do it to see if you'd like how it looks when you're doing it for the camera, when you're doing it for your close family and friends to see if they find it funny, quirky, potent or not. So yeah, use that as you, as you will, as you may, hope you enjoy it. And I've really been super excited for this course. It's been a great journey. And I'll see you in the next one.