How to Speak Articulately (Full Course)

By the end of this video, you are going to learn how to be an articulate speaker, how to speak better than 99% of the human population. So, lock in, give me a few minutes, and I will guide you through it. What is the purpose of communication? This is the most important place to start because then you will know what techniques you really need and what techniques you can leave and save yourself some time. The purpose of communication is to change behavior. To change behavior. And yes, I do spell it with a U because I had

British education. Change behavior, okay? Now, some people might say, "Well, what about beliefs?" Yes, you also change people's beliefs, but if you change people's beliefs, guess what happens? You change their behavior. So, I want you to remember this, effective communication is about changing behavior. This will make more sense as we get into the details of this. If you are a CEO, for example, okay? What is your job? Your job is to paint a strategy that people follow. Your job is to convince people to work for your company, to get the best talents. Your job is

to sell the product to your customers. All of this involves changing behavior. This is what a CEO or a leader does. Whether you are an employee or a leader, you in some way want to affect people on the other side of your communication to change their behavior. But now, I'm going to say something a little controversial, okay? Let's say you are someone and you speak with the best vocabulary. You have the best words in the world. Every time you open your mouth, people think, "Wow, where did you find this word? That is amazing. Let's say

that you have the most organized well-structured presentation. Let's say you don't say a single um or ah. Let's say you have an amazing use of gestures and body language. And let's say that when you speak you are very high energy. You're not boring, okay? Go with me here. Let's say you have all of these things that people associate with a good communicator. So, let me ask you this. What if someone had great vocabulary, a well-structured presentation, no ums and ahs, high energy, but their presentation doesn't change behavior. Is it an effective presentation? Is it an

effective way of speaking? So, we must have some sort of scale, some sort of way to judge what makes some communication more effective than other pieces of communication. Why am I pointing this out? Because so often, myself included, we think if I can just learn how to speak better, how to have better words, how to improve the sound of my voice, all of a sudden I'm going to become a better speaker. And yes, the sound of your voice might improve, the vocabulary might improve, but if no one's buying the product, if no one wants to

work for your company, if no one wants to act on the message of your speech, have you changed behavior? The answer to that is no. So, in my books, you can have amazing vocabulary and you can still be a bad speaker. You can have the best structured presentation, you can have the best gestures, no ums and ahs, and you can still be an ineffective speaker because a purpose of communication is to change behavior. Are you following me? By the way, if you don't know who I am, my name is Yasser Khan. I've coached more than

50,000 leaders around the world on how to speak like a CEO with confidence, clarity, and credibility. Now that you know this, we know whatever we learn in terms of communication skills, it must have the ability to get people to feel a certain way. Get them to think differently or do something differently. If that doesn't happen, we're not effective. So, the only techniques that we're going to learn today are the ones that change behavior. And this will help you relax a bit more because so often I hear people saying, "Oh, you said um." Or this wasn't

grammatically correct. Yes, but can you do that and still change people's behavior? If the answer is yes, then we're focusing on the wrong thing. What do we do to speak in a way where we can change people's behavior? This is a framework that I've developed. It's called HUB, H U B. Think of it like the hub of all of your communication has to go through this format. I I'll explain what that means. HUB. Let's talk about the H first. Before you worry about vocal variation, before you worry worry about storytelling, when you speak, the most

basic thing that you need to do when you open your mouth, people must be able to hear you. This might sound obvious, but I will tell you when a lot of people speak, other people they don't hear what the speaker wants them to hear. They don't hear because they might be not loud enough. Maybe they're talking too quietly. So, first, get people to hear you before you get into the other parts of your presentation or other parts of your speech. Two quick things we can break this down into. One is your words or spoken word.

Two is your body. People they will look at you and they'll get a message. They're hearing. They're paying attention to you. So, you might be saying certain words, but if your body is saying something else, what people are hearing is also going to be different. Let's start with the words, okay? So, what you actually say. What determines whether people can actually hear you? Number one is volume. Do you speak loud enough for person This is an ear to hear what you're saying. With experience, I will tell you I had a client and I have many

clients who go through the same exact issue. They will speak like this and you know, very quiet and they really talk that you can only understand what they're saying. And I have to ask them, can you speak a little bit louder? A little bit louder? And whenever I ask them, can you speak louder? They almost always say I am speaking louder. I feel like I'm screaming. Something to note, if this is an issue for you, we have a terrible gauge of how loud we talk. The way you speak is accustomed to how you spoken your

entire life. If you mumble your whole life, that is your normal. That is what you think is normal. For other people, that might not be their normal. So, if I asked you or someone says speak louder, you're going to feel uncomfortable in your mind because you think you're screaming or you're talking way too loud. When on the outside, it'll sound completely normal. I can't tell you how often I see this in my classes where someone says, "Yasser, I feel like I'm screaming." And I will ask everyone else in the group, do you think like he's

screaming? Do you think like she's talking too loud? 99% of the time, no, it sounds completely normal. So, if you are someone who struggles with the volume of your voice, speak loud enough that in your mind it feels uncomfortable. In your mind it feels uncomfortable because if you speak the way you always do, your brain has no reason to resist it. We're just going to continue doing what we always did. But if all of a sudden you do something new that your mind doesn't associate with your previous personality, it's trying to hold you back into

your existing identity. So, let's say this is you and you work as an accountant. You are 27 years old, you're introverted, you bombed a presentation, whatever. All of these you have done, you've spoken a certain way, you have you've learned from your parents or the people around you, you've spoken a certain way your entire life for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, and eventually you say, this is just who I am. This is how I speak. This is my identity. Well, you weren't born speaking like that. You learned to do it somewhere, right?

So, a lot of people say, this is who I am. This is my identity. And they lock themselves in there. So, when they try speaking louder, what happens is their old identity, remember, the brain doesn't want to change. The brain wants to stay the same. It takes less resources for the brain to if it doesn't want to change, it doesn't use any resources. But if it has to change, there's a lot of discomfort, a lot of resources the brain has to use. So, every time you try something like pausing longer or talking a bit loud,

your old identity will start saying things like this sounds fake. This is too much. This is robotic. This is inauthentic. If this is what you feel, quite counterintuitive to understand this, if this is what you feel, you're doing it correctly. You're doing it correctly because your old identity is being threatened. If you speak the way you normally do, if you're not really pushing the volume, pushing the way you communicate, then your body is going to be comfortable and there's going to be no change. So, the way you know you're making progress is you will start

to feel uncomfortable. That inner identity, the voice will start yapping. Hey, what are we doing? This is not who we are. Why are you talking loudly all of a sudden? Let Let's talk the way we we we always talk. So, you want to look for discomfort. So, with volume, most of my students struggle with volume because they hear this inner voice, I'm too loud, this is too much, this is not how I talk, this is not who I am, and then they stop. You want to feel like you're talking way too loud. So, volume. What

can you do about sounding clear so people actually hear you? Enunciate. This is my favorite. Enunciate. Enunciate means, and you'll observe this as I am talking, when you say the words, when the words come out of your mouth, can people hear the sounds of each of the individual syllables in the words? So, for example, if I was going to talk like this and I was going to say, "Hey, if you wanted to get people to Well, listen to you, Uh, you got to make sure that uh, know they can hear you and your volume is

really high and you know, you all of the words are combined together. You cannot hear the sounds of the individual syllables in the words. But, and I want you to pay attention to what I'm saying now, as I am talking, you will notice that you can hear just about every single syllable clearly. I am overly pronouncing it. In my mind, I feel like, "Yasser, this is ridiculous. You're doing it too much." But, on the outside, to you, I'm sure, it just sounds like I speak clearly because I enunciate the sounds. What does it mean to

enunciate? It means to sound it out. To sound it out. So, for example, if I wanted to say extremely excited or I can say, "I am extremely excited." What I'm not going to do is say "I'm extremely excited." "I'm extremely excited." Just mix them together. I am extremely excited. "I'm extremely excited." I am extremely excited. Can you hear the difference in the clarity there? Remember, first, they must be able to hear you. If they can't hear what you're saying clearly, the message will not come through. So, enunciate your words, meaning move your mouth. A lot

of people, when they talk, their mouth barely moves and they talk a little bit like this and there's barely any air coming out of their mouth and then they kind of mumble and then they just don't pause and they keep going on and on and on. Instead, notice how my mouth is opening, allowing me to take in air, speak clearly, and also project my voice. So, enunciate. This is one of those powerhouse skills. If you can learn to enunciate, all other aspects of your speech will improve. You learn about volume. You've learned about enunciation. Let's

talk about pauses. When you speak, let's say you have a sentence and it goes on and on and on and on and you don't stop and you keep talking and you keep talking and you keep talking, eventually the audience gets overwhelmed because they have no time to process what you're saying. Connection is made in the space between your words. If you talk and talk and talk, the audience will listen before they have time to really process what you've said. If you give them more information and more information, their brain is constantly playing catch-up. Constantly playing

catch-up that they can't process it and eventually the brain will get tired and they will stop following you. So, you can say the same thing, but what we're looking for here is we're looking to add breaks. You want to make sure when you get to the end of a phrase or you get to the end of a sentence, there's a slight pause. You can hear me do it right now. I'm not pausing for 2 seconds, 3 seconds, just a hint of a pause. I'll say something, let it land. Say the next thing, let it land.

Think about it in your mind whenever you have a full stop, period, comma, wherever you have this, naturally stop talking for 1 second, allow the person to process, and then continue. So, for example, in my TEDx talk, the phrase that resonated with my audience the most is, "It's not what you say, it's what they remember." It's not what you say, it's what they remember. But, imagine if I said, "It's not what you say, it's what they remember." Doesn't land, right? I can talk a certain way and then all of a sudden, I can slow down

and say, "If there's one thing you remember, it's this. It's not what you say, it's what they remember." As opposed to, "If there's one thing you remember, it's not what you say, it's what they remember." Just doesn't land. So, you have to have pauses. If you overload people, they can't hear you because there's too much information for the brain to process. So, you have volume. You have enunciation. You have pauses. If you just do these three things, people are much more likely to listen to you. But, let me toss one more in there, okay? And

that is variation. Variation. If I spoke like this from start to finish, and you just knew exactly how I was going to speak, eventually, you would tune out because your brain can predict what I'm about to do, and the brain likes novelty. Can you see how bored you are already? The brain wants novelty. It needs a reason to continuously pay attention. Your brain is a prediction machine. If the moment you can tell, "I know what's going to happen," your brain tunes out and does something else. So, you need to get the listener unpredictability. They don't

know what's going to happen. The way you do that with variation is you vary up your pace, and you vary up your volume, you vary up your emphasis. So, for example, My name is Yasser. I am really excited to be here. I'm talking loudly, right? But, if I just talk like this the entire time, and a lot of motivational speakers do this, they just talk loud, loud, loud the entire time, you get bored of it. It's a bit too much. But, if I talk like this, and I said, "My name is Yasser Khan. I'm here

to teach you public speaking." Again, there's not a lot of variety. And if I talk like this, actually you can't follow me because it's just going If I talk like this then it's too slow. So, fast is not good, slow is not good, loud and quiet is not good, variation is what we're looking for. So, for example, if I'm talking like this and all of a sudden I can slow down and I can make a point. And then I'm going to tell you about how excited I am by going high up in volume and when

I really want you to listen I can go down and I can start whispering. But notice how your brain doesn't really know what I'm about to do. This is variation. Now, you don't need to do it to the levels I was doing it. Depends on if you're on stage, if you're in a corporate meeting. Please, in a meeting if someone says, "Hey, what's the update on this project?" Don't say, "Well, the update on this project is that I got an email from the client and they said we are not Don't talk like this. So, please

context-dependent. You can have less variation, but still variation. Why is this important? You can say the best thing, but if people don't like the way you sound, if it is boring, if their brain can predict where you're going, how you're going to talk, they will tune out. So, have some variation. And also, so you sound like a more charismatic person, so you sound like you have some some juice to you. I see so many speakers, they try so hard to be articulate. They want to select the right words and they just sound robotic. They sound

like an AI, you put a You put a speaker in front of an AI, it has all the perfect words, but there's no personality. That personality comes from variation. So, the hub framework, we talked about how people can hear what you're saying. Let's talk about the body briefly. I don't want to go too deep into this. But, if you have all of these things you're doing when you're speaking, but your body is getting in the way, that will not help. I have a matrix that I teach my clients. This is the only thing you need

to understand about body language and what to do with your body. This is a matrix called the movement matrix. On one side, you have control and uncontrolled. On the other side, you have expressive and suppressive. What do I mean? All body language can be put into these four boxes. So, let's go A, B, C, D. All right? Control meaning, is my movement, does it look like I'm in control? When people are nervous, what do they do? Hey, everyone, really excited to be here. Uh my presentation today is about Do I look like I'm in control?

No. But, when you look at leaders, you will notice their movement is deliberate, they're in control. You don't have to move your hands just for the sake of moving your hands. You can be here and that's totally fine, too. You don't have to make big gestures as long as you look like you're in control. That's how leaders speak. When you're in control, you're composed, you're comfortable. Expressive or suppressive. When you are speaking, notice with my hands, I am an expressive person now because I practiced it for a very long time. When I speak, my hands

open up. I'm describing things. Move from here to there. I don't have a vocabulary of gestures. Do this when you say this word, do that when you do that word. I don't have that. But, I think, okay, I'm talking about this thing, how do I describe it? That's how my my my works. So, I'm expressing myself with my body. What is the opposite? The body is suppressing. You become smaller. You start hiding. People who are afraid of public speaking, the way they'll suppress themselves is they'll make their body smaller, they'll they'll hide their hands. Hey

everyone, really excited to be their voice will also suppress because your body and your mouth, they're synchronized. If you make your body small, it's very difficult to sound I'm very excited. But if you make your body big, it's very easy to sound excited. So, are you expressing yourself or are you suppressing yourself? A B C D You want to be somewhere on this side because if you are uncontrolled and expressive, like hey everyone, I'm really excited to be here. Uh today I'm going to talk about you know the purpose of communication. Um I'm expressing a

lot, but it's uncontrolled and it looks it looks frantic. Frantic. All over the place. You communicate tension and anxiety to the other person. Then if I am uncontrolled and suppressive, uncontrolled and suppressive, it's just I can't I can't control myself. I'm just completely frozen. Hey everyone, I'm really excited to be here uh today. Completely helpless. So, this is frozen like Elsa. So, this is where you want to be. There's a purpose for each of them. Now, controlled and suppressive, you might be wondering, well, why do I want to be suppressive? If you are in a

business meeting and you want to have a serious conversation, it helps you to tone down. So, if someone says, hey, we want this to be 90% cheaper. Unfortunately, this is the final price. I'm not expressing myself. Highly in control, because that's what the situation requires. If you're speaking seriously, today, you are about to receive some bad news. Control. I don't need a high level of expressiveness here. So, if you want to display authority or assertiveness, you can have a high degree of control and you can suppress your movement. Lastly, and this is where I find

myself 90% of the time, this is controlled and expressive. So, you're both in control of your gesture, but you're also expressing yourself. You're comfortable. You don't feel like you have to just hold yourself down. This one makes for the best public speakers in most cases, not all the time. You can be highly controlled and you can have emotional stories that move people. If you look at Steve Jobs' Stanford speech, he delivered it like this. Completely controlled, read from a read from a script, almost no tonal variation, and it's one of the best commencement speeches you

will ever see. So, again, nothing is good or bad. Remember, it always comes back to purpose of communication. Maybe you were speaking frantically and someone found you relatable and they bought your product. You convinced them and you changed their behavior. That is effective communication. So, this is everything that you need to know. I call this ideal. This is the most natural way of speaking. The controlled and suppressive version, this can also become robotic and less relatable. When you're speaking very seriously and when you don't have any tonal changes in the way you speak, people might

think you're a bit reserved. This one tends to be more ideal. This is what you can do with your body to get people to hear what you're saying. Now, people have heard you. They have paid attention to your body, they can hear you. But what if it still doesn't change behavior? What if it still doesn't change behavior? You can say all the right words, the best vocabulary, but people don't buy your product, they don't hire you. The person you're asking out, they don't want to go out with you for whatever reason. Has it worked? No,

it has not. Something else that you If you say all the words in a way that people can understand it, that is a better determinant than you saying it for them to hear it. So, for example, if I'm describing a product to you and it's clear, my volume is very loud, and I am speaking in a very enunciated way, but you don't understand how the product works. Am I effective at communicating? No. So, once you make sure they can hear you, the next step, the U in there, where did my black marker go? Screw it.

The U is Oh, I'm holding it. There we go. The U is understand. They hear you, but now do they understand you? They hear you, but now do they understand you? We're getting deeper into our communication. I can't tell you how many founders I've worked with. They They're very charismatic speakers. The moment they open their mouth and they start describing the product to me, I have no idea what they're talking about. And this is one of my It's my edge because if I don't understand what they're saying, neither does their audience. So, we've talked about

hearing, let's move on to understanding. Can the audience understand what you are saying? Can you simplify it in a way for other people to understand it? Something I don't like, people say, "I want to dumb this down for the audience. I want to dumb this down. These people, they don't understand it because they're not intelligent." No. If they don't understand it, then you haven't done a good enough job of simplifying. So, if you're Let's say you're someone who works in tech and you develop software. You will explain that to another software engineer in the certain

language. You will explain it to your wife a certain way. You'll explain it to your grandma a certain way, and you'll explain it to a 10-year-old a certain way. You have to have the ability to adapt. So, how do you do this? How do you simplify? The first first concept concept of verbal efficiency. Verbal efficiency, what does this mean? Verbal efficiency means, and this is me explaining something so you understand, how can you say the same thing with the fewest possible words? How can you say the same thing with the fewest possible words? Why is

this important? Let's say this is the brain, okay? If I am talking and you and I have to give you I have to give you an update that the timeline for the project has been pushed. If I say, "Hey, yeah, so I'm just touching base on the thing we talked about last time. I know that we had a certain deadline for the project, and I know you've been very excited about completing this on time, and you must have so much else going on in your in your day-to-day schedule, but unfortunately that the vendor reached out

to us, and they said that unfortunately they're not going to be able to do it, but but it's okay, you know, I talked to them, and they said the the deadline will be pushed to next Tuesday. It shouldn't take any more than that, and they should be able to do it by then, and I'll I'll let you know what they say after that." How many words did I take to communicate that? And look how much space in your brain I took to communicate that message. I'm not efficient with my communication. I have to say way

too many words to get the point across. If I wanted to say the same thing, I could have said, "The client reached out to us. The deadline has been pushed to the 12th, which is next Tuesday. I'll keep up with them or I'll check in with them to make sure it's delivered on time." How much easier is that to understand compared to blah blah blah blah blah blah blah? So, remember this. The more words you use to describe something, the more brain power it takes the other person to understand. A lot of people think, "If

I want to be a good speaker, I must say more." No. You must say more with fewer words. You must say more with fewer words. So, I want you to audit your language. When you speak, when you write an email, start with a one sentence. What is my main point here? What am I trying to do? So, I was recently hiring a video editor, and I asked him, "What is your expected salary? Just give me a number." "Well, you know, there's a lot of things we can do together and typically in the past when I

work, I'm not" "Just give me a number." "Well, you know" What What does it tell me? They're either afraid of saying it or they don't know how to say something concisely. The best editors that I've worked with, I'll say, "What is your salary expectation?" "I'm looking for something between this and this." Direct answer doesn't take up all of this mental bandwidth. So, when you speak, be verbally efficient. Number two, X is like Y. X is like Y. If you were explaining something that your audience might not understand. Let's say you're explaining how to learn public

speaking. If I said, "The first step in public speaking is to establish a baseline point. Once we have a baseline point, we have to identify our 80/20 opportunities. Once we know our 80/20 opportunities, we eliminate the 80 and we double down on the 20. We're going to create a systematic lean focus plan for you to develop those skills, find your domino skills, and over time make you a better speaker." Did you understand anything I just said? No idea, right? Now, you might think, "Wow, this Yasser person, he he has all of these fancy words. He

must be smart." But, you have no idea what I said. Am I going to change your behavior? No. And worse, I might even make you feel stupid because I'm using all this language that's going right over your head. Let's get back into it. X's like Y. Take something that the audience doesn't understand. Compare it to something they do understand. X is like Y. So, in this example, the public speaking example, you had no idea what I just said. But, if I said, "Learning public speaking is a lot like learning to ride a bike." First, when

you tried, it's intimidating, and you don't think you can ever do it. You get on, and you keep falling off. You get on, and you keep falling off. You feel ashamed. You feel embarrassed. You don't know what to do. But, eventually, when you know where to place your feet, when you know how to sit, over time, you start riding the bike for 5 seconds, for 10 seconds, for 15 seconds, and eventually, your body learns how to balance, and then you can learn to ride a bike, and a few weeks later, you completely forgot about all

the things you were concerned about. Now, you can just get on the bike without even thinking about it, and you can do it naturally. Public speaking works the exact same way. First, it will be hard. You think you can't do it, but over time, your body is going to get used to all of these new techniques you're learning, and when you have enough repetition, enough practice, you'll completely forget that this was something you struggled with. X is like Y. Did this help your understanding? X is like Y. Take something they do understand, and connect it

to something they don't understand. Jeff Bezos had a TEDx Talk where he compared the the internet boom to electricity. I think the TEDx Talk might even be titled the the electricity metaphor. He's a big He uses metaphors and analogies all the time. It's one of my favorite ways to help people understand. So, be verbally efficient. Don't use too many words to say the same thing. X is like Y. Number three, road map. What do I mean by road map? Do you know where you're going when you speak? Because if you don't know where you're going,

your audience certainly does not want to know where you're going. So, imagine if someone came to your your apartment, or you ordered a cab, you got in the cab, and the cab driver, and this has happened to me many times, actually, when I visit a new city, they're just spinning in circles. You're you're you're going back in the same intersections over and over again. Eventually, you'll start to get nervous. Does this driver know where we're going? Do they have any clue? You won't understand their behavior pattern, and you probably won't trust them. So, you must

have a roadmap of where you're going because if you start speaking and you're taking the audience on a journey and they have no idea where you're taking it, they're not going to feel comfortable giving you their time, giving you their attention. So, do you have a roadmap when you speak? Do you know where you're going when you speak? So, how do you do that? One one one. This is an easy way. First, you start with your one main takeaway. Okay? So, for example, if I asked, "Yasser, I want to grow I want to grow my

social media following. What's the number one thing I I should do?" The one main thing you should do is post consistently. That's the one main idea. Now, I know where I am going. Now, I know what I'm going to talk about. If I said, "Oh, yeah, post consistently and you know, find the best editing software, uh look at the uh you know, the the competitors and uh yeah, you know, you just got to be in it for the love of it." Now, I'm going all over the place. You have no idea where I'm taking you.

Of all the things you can do, the one thing I would recommend is consistency. I would rather you make 30 bad videos, one video a day, than try to make one perfect video because right now you don't know what that one perfect video even looks like because you've never done it before. So, pick up the phone every single day for 30 seconds, say something into your phone, and upload it. That is the detail that I'm providing. First, the takeaway, then the one piece of detail, and at the end, take away again. Why? Why would I

repeat myself? Shouldn't you not repeat yourself? You're going in circles. If your answer is short, then yes, you can stop here. You can say, "I would recommend you make videos consistently every single day. Pick up your phone, record it for 30 seconds, and upload it. That's all I want you to do." Concise communication. But if I'm speaking for longer, if I've spoken for about a minute, people remember what they hear last. People remember what they hear last. If you've given them a lot of details, they might forget the main message. So, that's why at the

end, you say the most important thing again. So, that's my main advice. Be consistent. One, one, one. When you give them an answer, they now know, "Okay, I know what the answer is. I know where he or she is taking me. I'm along for the ride." And then they'll follow along with it. To change people's behavior, they must hear you, and they must understand you. Three of the ways that you can make people understand you. One, be verbally efficient. Don't use too many words to explain the same exact thing. X is like Y. Compare something

they understand to something they don't understand to bridge the gap. And number three, a road map. Know where you are going before you open your mouth. A lot of people, they think, "If I just talk, eventually I will know what I'm talking about." Maybe think about what you're about to say. Now, we're going to get into the third element. We've learned to make people hear what we're saying, understand what we're saying. There's one more important element. And that is this. The B in hug is believe. Believe. They hear you, they understand you, but do they

believe you? They hear you, Do understand you, do they believe you? Can you see how unless we pass our communication from this filter, it doesn't it's not effective at changing behavior. You can learn the best words. You can learn the best analogies. You can speak as concisely as possible. But if you still don't change the the way people do things or think about things, have you been an effective communicator? The answer is no. So, all of our tips will always come back to this. Changing behavior. And in order for you to change behavior, you must

get people to believe you. Now, I'm going to share something that is a little controversial, but that's what I do and that's okay. And that is when you are too polished. I have made this mistake many times, like more times than I can count. When you sound too polished, which means you don't have any ums and uhs, all of your gestures are pre-choreographed. Every single word is memorized. If I get on stage and I say every single word perfectly as I memorized it, what's going to happen in the mind of the audience is they will

think I am performing. They will think this is not who I actually am. I am trying to be a different version of myself who I am not. I'm trying to be this polished, perfect speaker because I'm insecure about being myself. And when you see someone who's appearing as someone other than who they are, what does it do? Immediately breaks trust. Immediately breaks trust. And I used to do this as a public speaking coach. I still see a lot of public speaking coaches do this where they they speak in overly poetic language or they use vocabulary

that they would never use in a day-to-day conversation or they try to come up with ways to describe things that just sound unnatural. It doesn't sound like something a human being would ever say or they chat GPT their script and they read it on YouTube. Immediately you know, even if this person is good at this thing because they're reading off of a teleprompter, because they memorized every single gesture, this is not who they are. I don't think I can trust them. So, you can have the best vocal variation. You can have all of this stuff

that helps people understand, but if your sixth sense kicks in and says, "This person far too polished, a little too perfect. I don't think they're real. I will discard this information." This is why instead of being perfect, it's important to be present. If you are present in the moment with the audience, and you have flaws in your speech, you can say um or uh most leaders do it. You can speak really fast for a while. You can speak really slowly for a while. If you sound like a human being, if you take time to think

about what you're about to say, you sound real. You don't sound ultra polished. People will believe you. So, in a very real way, you can be a less a less polished speaker, not the best public speaker, but you can be a better communicator because people believe you're real and they're more likely to change their behavior. Can you see the difference here? Being a better speaker is not about sounding amazing all the time, using the best words. It's about getting people to do something. Whether it's someone in a business meeting, whether it's someone that you're trying

to convince to drop a bad habit. All communication comes down to this. So, instead of being perfect, be present. Yes, rehearse your presentation, but don't memorize every single word. Say the words out loud enough times where now you can say it like in a conversation. If you're saying your ABCs, you don't need the ABCs in front of you, right? You've said it so many times that it just comes to you naturally. That's how you rehearse for your presentation. Fact number one, believe. Number two, proof. Proof. I can say that I'm the best public speaking coach

in the world, that I can help you transform in 10 days or less, which by the way is my specialty. That is what we're the best in the world at doing. But I can say it, and if I don't have any proof, why will you believe me? Why will you believe me? So, how do you How do you communicate proof? You do that through storytelling. Storytelling. So, when I was hiring, I used to work as a recruiter in a past life, which means people would apply for a job. I was the one looking at the

resume. I would go through all of the applications and submit it to the hiring manager. If we had a software that we recommended, people If you wanted that software expertise in that software, we would ask them, "Do you have any experience with blank software?" So, for example, if we're using a video editing software like Adobe Premiere Pro. If I ask, "Do you have experience working with Adobe Premiere Pro?" Some people might say, "Yes, I I the best experience with Adobe Premiere Pro. Okay? The next person will say the same thing. The next person will say

the same thing because they're all trying to get the job. So, how do I know if not only you have experience, but you have the best experience? This is where stories come in because you can give me proof from the past of it actually happening. Yes, I remember when I was working with this client, all of their video files were stored on their Adobe Premiere Pro project, which is a software for video editing. So, I went in there, I did XYZ, I made this kind of video, I brought in another team, I did ABC, and

now they're in this position. You've told me a story. You've given me real proof, and now I believe you because you have proof. So, again, I can say all the right words, but if I don't have proof of it, I don't know if it's going to work. So, for example, whenever I am helping new students understand they can change, they have a few existing beliefs in their mind that I need to change. And that is I'm stuck as who I am. I'm stuck as who I am. I'm an introvert. And this will take too long.

Okay? I'm stuck as an introvert, and this will take too long. If I say, "Actually, don't worry. Even if you're an introvert, you can make a lot of progress, and it's not going to take too long. In 10 days or less, you can see a difference." Okay, maybe it's helpful. Maybe if I'm a person of authority, if I have a large following like I do, you might believe me. But what reason do you have? Is there any proof? But what if I say something like, "I completely understand where you're coming from. In fact, I felt

like this my entire life. I felt like I was an introvert. I I couldn't even talk to people because I was thinking, "What do I do with my hands? Where do I look? What am I supposed to say?" I would get so in my head that I would just stop going out, and it was this vicious cycle. I would go out, and I would feel embarrassed by my social performance, so I would just go home, and I would go home, and I'd be embarrassed that I had to leave. And if I didn't go to the

event, then I would regret not going, and it was this vicious cycle of anxiety. Do you feel the same way? At this point, a lot of my students say, "Yeah, that's exactly what I'm going through." So now, there's relatability. I've told you a little bit about myself. Then I can say, "You know what made the biggest change for me? I used to believe, remember, I'm on their level, I'm telling them I believe the same thing they believe, until I started practicing every single day using this technique. And I was shocked that in just a week,

I made this much progress. In fact, I was in disbelief. But then I won my first public speaking contest, people started calling me up and saying, "Can you speak at this conference?" And now, 10 years later, I'm the number one most followed CEO speech coach in the world. So I understand, if I was in your position, I wouldn't believe me either. But now, not only through my journey, but having coached more than 50,000 leaders, I've seen it time and time again where I see people who think they're introvert introverted, but what they haven't done is

just practice on a consistent basis. Are you open to trying? Can you see the difference of that as opposed to "Actually, it'll work for you. It won't take too long."? I've given you real proof, a short story, to help you go from disbelief to that belief that will then change your behavior. Change your behavior. Number one, if you want them to believe you, too polished. Don't be too polished. Number two, give them some proof. Number three, this is a little counterintuitive. Three, admit limitations. Admit limitations. If you speak and you tell people that you are

the best at what you do, we're the best, we've never had a bad client, every single speech I've ever done has been the best speech I've ever given, I have always been the most confident person I've ever known, that's why you should listen to me. Might sound great, but you can't really relate to me in any way, and it also sounds unbelievable. How is that possible? But when you admit to your limitations, this is telling people, calling out your flaws, people will relate to you more. People will relate to you more. So, for example, in

a lot of my talks, when I'm speaking to a corporation, I don't want them to feel like, who is this guy? I've never seen him before. Why should I listen to what he has to say and change the way I speak? That's the default mindset they have when I walk into the room. So, I have to change that behavior, and I'll walk in and I'll say, hey, I know this is a cybersecurity firm. I'll be the first one to tell you I know nothing about cybersecurity. I don't even remember my own password. That'll get a

chuckle. And I will tell them, I know nothing about your industry. But there's one thing I do know is that the way you speak determines how people treat you. And then I'll go into a story about that. So, because I have admitted limitations, I built more proof, and then I doubled down on it. I'll tell them later on, hey, I once delivered a presentation, it was an hour-long presentation, I made sure I had the best words so people could hear me, I had all types of analogies, and by the end I got a round of

applause, but no one changed their behavior. No one implemented any of the techniques that I talked about. What's the problem? It took me years to realize that I had to also get them to believe what I was saying enough to implement it. Because they have one belief, and I'm trying to get them to replace that belief with a new belief. So, you admit your limitations to build trust. I'll give you one more example. I was once at a a shoe shoe store shoe shop shoe store shoe store. I was going to buy a pair of

shoes, and I normally go I just find whichever shoe has the thickest padding, and usually it's also the most expensive one they have. So, it was the Nike Adidas Boost. Nike Adidas Adidas Ultra Boost, and I was going to buy it. The person at the store asked me, "What do you need this for?" And I said, "Oh, I just need it to walk around the house." He said, "I wouldn't recommend this. This is a little too expensive for what you need. It's overkill. There's a shoe that's much more affordable that's much better for what your

needs." And that shoe was half the price. I ended up buying that one based on his recommendation because he had admitted limitations. Even though I was going to pay more money, buy a more expensive product, I'm sure he would have gotten a a bigger commission check because he told me, "Hey, even though this isn't my best interest, I don't think you should get this. You should get this instead." What does it do in my mind? This person is honest. They will admit to their limitations. They will tell me when they're wrong. I can trust their

recommendations in the future. So, if you are delivering a presentation, if you're speaking in a meeting, don't try to be an expert on everything. Don't try to give advice on things you're not good at. Don't try to be perfect. Show your flaws. People can relate to that. Vulnerability is how we connect with each other. That's one way that you can get people to believe you. And lastly, uh synchronized. What do I mean by synchronized? This is We're getting back into speaking techniques here, but you can say all the right words, but does your body and

does do your words do they synchronize together? So, I'll give you an example, okay? Let's say that I am the CEO of a company and I'm trying to give you some updates on how the company is doing, all right? I showed up and I said, "Hey everyone, welcome. Uh yeah, so, you know, the company is doing uh really well. And um yeah, you know, we're hoping for a lot of growth over the next few years. Uh and yeah, we we've got a lot of um you know, um exciting products that we're going to share soon.

Uh so, thank you all for being here." Do you believe what I'm saying? I'm willing to bet you're a little suspicious. Why? Because my words and my behavior, my body, my spoken word, they did not synchronize, they did not match. I didn't sound like someone who sounded confident. I didn't sound like I believed what I was saying. So, if you don't believe what you're saying, the other person will not believe it. Remember this, belief is contagious. And it is contagious through emotion. How do you speak about something? If I say, "Hey, I'm really excited to

be here." Does it sound like I'm excited? But if I say, "I'm really excited to be here." Same words, different emotion, you're going to believe me based on one of them and not the other one. So, when you're speaking, you can say the right word, but is it synchronized? Does your body and your language and your spoken word, does it synchronize together? That will show people they can trust you. Because a lot of people, they'll listen to you and something in their mind, their intuition will tell them, "I don't know if I can believe this

person." Every Everyone in the world is not a body language expert, right? But they've seen enough, subconsciously their brain has even made a decision, "I don't know what it is, but I don't trust this person. I can't describe it, but I can't trust it." Chances are something to do with lack of synchronization. What you're saying and what you're doing does not match. As opposed to, "Thank you for being here. We're really excited. The company is doing so well. In the next year, we're projecting three extra revenue and we have five exciting products that are about

to launch. So, I'm genuinely from the bottom of my heart excited that you were here." As opposed to, "Thank you for being here. We're really excited about the next few years of our company and all the exciting products that we're about to launch." One of them you believe, the other one you don't. Let's do a quick recap. If you want to speak better than 99% of the human population, number one, remember, actually, purpose of communication is to change behavior. Doesn't matter if you have the best vocabulary, the best words, the best body language, no ums

and ahs, does not matter if it doesn't change the way people think about something and do something. Hub. [snorts] All of your communication must pass through this hub. Can people hear you, the words and the body? The body language. What are you communicating when you speak? What are you communicating with your body? Once people can hear you, they can comprehend what you're saying, do they understand what you're saying? Are you using too many words to communicate the message? Can you use an analogy to get people to understand something they don't already understand, and do you

have a clear road map when you speak? What is the main point? Where are you going with it? So, you make sure they can hear you, they can understand you, and lastly, they must believe you. If they don't believe you, it doesn't matter if they heard you or they understood you. You can't be too polished because people will immediately sense something is off about you. You're too perfect, you're hiding something. Whatever you're saying will go in the can. Next, you have to have proof. You can't just say you can do something. You can't just say

you've done something. Provide proof in a story so I know it's real because it actually happened. Admit your limitations. When you admit that you're not perfect, and when you admit this is what you can't do, this is what you can do, these are the mistakes you've made, you earn trust in the mind of the other person. And lastly, your body and your words must be synchronized. If your body is saying one thing and your words are saying another thing, it is not going to be synchronized, and people simply will not believe you. If you just

do this, you will speak better than 99% of the human population.