The Russian Perspective on Public Speaking Sergey Kuzin
http://sergey-kuzin.com/en/video/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26lqrr_zFB8
Below is a time-coded transcript of the show:
speaking the show about effective speaking in public to the media at work
0:15and in life speaking with TJ Walker my special guest is Sergei cousin he’s been
0:29called the TJ Walker of Russia that one no one’s called him that I’ve gotten
0:34back that’s it
0:35he is a prominent well-known media trainer presentation coach in Russia I
0:40first met him more than a decade ago when he was here in the United States
0:44doing his PhD dissertation he’s written a variety of books on everything from
0:51media man to his latest line of fire 201 tips on answering tough questions he’s
0:59worked with every sort of major corporation not only in Russia but major
1:04international banks car companies on every continent circuit thanks for
1:09joining us today thank you TJ for inviting it’s great that the Russian DJ
1:13work is now making the American DG Walker it’s so pretentious with me to
1:17say that way but I just couldn’t when it’s your own podcast you can do what
1:22you want sometimes they’re over the first day when I start doing that you
1:25will show an example now I want to talk about your new book line of fire but
1:31before that i know a lot of our audience is based in America they’re all over the
1:35world but a lot of them are based in America and when they heard that I was
1:39going to be talking to a Russian media trainer that the first question they
1:43wanted me to ask is how do you deal with what appears from our own biased
1:49perspective perhaps to be a situation where the government leadership there
1:54i’m stating this delicately is perhaps a very uncomfortable with any criticism
2:01from a business leader or a government leader how do you make that tap dance I
2:06there is really quite a lot of restrictions probably more than in some
2:11Western countries in Russia we’re getting what you say in the media but
2:15you’re pretty free to say anything you want on last
2:18your credits criticizing the Crown’s position that being said a lot of people
2:23think that uh some tough questions I being filtered out massively when it
2:30comes to Putin’s press conferences and I can witness that is not true actually a
2:37lot of questions being asked of our president it are very very tough and
2:42he’s a good speaker i cannot say he is a legendary speaker but he handles
2:49toughness very well without so there’s no there is no need to filter the top
2:54questions out as far as the the other speakers are concerned they’ve got to be
3:00careful and have some double filters on their mind and part of the Russian media
3:05training is to help speakers and business mind their tongue when they’re
3:13making comments that are politically sensitive mean the United States
3:19certainly has its flaws but we do let people even people running for president
3:23called the current president more on an idiot that they’ve made you know why all
3:29the inflammatory comments not only Trump but others and there doesn’t seem to be
3:34any penalty for it and nobody disappears quickly but had putting all that aside
3:40does that affect how the typical business person approaches media
3:46training public speaking training in Russia I would think they would be an
3:50even higher percentage of people who say let me just keep a low profile and that
3:55way no one will criticize me I’ll well the right people who want to be a local
4:03profile regardless of where they are out wouldn’t say that there are more people
4:07in Russia who want to be low profile because of those political restrictions
4:10i would say there is no official censorship in the country there’s more
4:15like self-censorship in in the speaker’s mind they try to restrict themselves
4:21just to be on the safe side but when it comes to business when it comes to
4:25promoting their products brands products and projects there is
4:32i would say there is no big difference between Russia and other some some other
4:37countries in Europe or the United States line of fire is the book it’s also a
4:44training program you have in a video
4:47tell us about it yeah the book is called in the line of fire
4:51how to answer provocative questions at the negotiations presentations and
4:56interviews it helps the deal with situations like investors making
5:03startups and asking them questions like what if it doesn’t work why should we
5:08trust you or recruiters meeting job candidates and asking them questions
5:13like what’s your main disadvantage or maybe common managers making difficult
5:18clients so all sorts of situations and business where you have to deal with
5:22resistance is covered by my program in the line of fire that includes the book
5:28that video course and the offline training and what’s the number one tip
5:34people get from you that they say well hadn’t heard of that before haven’t read
5:37that people never thought of it
5:39what do you have it jumps out of people as being especially helpful and also not
5:44something they’ve heard of or that the number one team has changed your
5:49attitude
5:50once you change your attitude to the top questions you are able to answer them
5:55the widespread attitude is the top questions is a sort of exam and you’re
6:01being examined by those investors recruiters difficult clients or top
6:06bosses in reality you’re not and there is no such thing as the right answer
6:13so once you once you leave that role of a student standing next to the
6:19blackboard trying to find the right answer and forget about the need to look
6:25for the right answer you develop the right at acute that helps you be more
6:30effective in the line of fire
6:32for more information go to Sergei cruising . com that’s ser g ey k uz I
6:42and.com Sergei Kuzon
6:45thank you for being our guest today
6:48stop okay so that concludes sort of our initial interview that you would have if
6:55you were on the Today Show Good Morning America presently morning news programs
7:00in Russia elsewhere
7:02that’s a little over five minutes that’s more than you would get on your typical
7:06talk radio show now it’s time for us to pull back the curtain and dissect it
7:15well we certainly talked for a couple minutes for our audience in advance of
7:19recording but when we started all the sudden and this happens to host all the
7:25time the host started blurting out all sorts of things that weren’t planned so
7:29I actually monopolized probably more time than you thought talking about the
7:35geopolitical situation in Russia took some of your time
7:40tell me how you plan for an interview for this particular interview what your
7:46goal was and how in general you plan for interviews
7:50well initially i was planning to talk about the ADA line of fire product which
7:55is the book the offline training and the video course and we happen to mention it
8:01but it seems to me that the focus of the conversation shifted a little bit to the
8:05Pacific to the political issues and I I felt like I lost track of myself because
8:12although I’m heavy mice how by its messages and proud of me and often from
8:18time to time I forgot to add them into my answers so it’s it’s it was pretty it
8:28is pretty challenging DJ to talk about politics all out of the side without
8:32being ready to do that and to me I want to hear your impressions on the lessons
8:37but to me the lesson is you can’t structure everything perfectly every
8:42time
8:43sometimes particular host will want to just go off somewhere they’re not have
8:48to get you I wasn’t out to get you out i was just all of a sudden genuinely
8:53interested now I should point out a number of things you did well
8:57that wouldn’t be obvious to just listen to it because i’m looking at Sergei’s
9:02bio here he’s written a number of books so we took the time in the pre-interview
9:07to talk about ok of the ones you have written which one do you want to focus
9:11on do you want to focus on the training your main website and we discussed in
9:18advance that it was in the line of fire and i did in fact mentioned it several
9:22times it so a lot of the influence i believe you have in a media interview is
9:30what happens in the pre-interview and it put by the way that gives me a good
9:35signal suggestion to myself for the future I should probably record the
9:40pre-interview fits with the guests and make that as part of the podcast too
9:45because that can be helpful to people to learn how that goes
9:49alright tell us what else you were doing to prepare not only for this interview
9:53but other interviews
9:54ya know what i usually do to prepare for an interview is I have a speaker buddy
10:00someone who can hear me before I actually get my message across in a real
10:05interview and when i first had my interview on the one of that Moscow fam
10:12radio stations i was pretty anxious about my first upcoming experience and
10:19what helped me uh was the fact that i keep the phone and just called my school
10:25friend and said Sasha please listen to me right now and I just told him
10:31everything i want to say i wanted to say and he is that you know they’re gay
10:36I i’m not sure i got you i’m sure I i understood that thing out of what you
10:42said and I had to talk through for the second time and it was better and put it
10:49when it talked through what I have to say for the third time it was much
10:52better
10:53so my number one tip and the number one thing that I have that I always followed
10:58you in the preparation as is that you have to put the words you’re going to
11:03get across on your tongue in advance and make sure your horse your speech out
11:10loud
11:11make someone here you or record you before you actually pronounced the
11:17speech so this is the number one thing I do want prepared so have a speaker buddy
11:22and to me the most the most important thing you mentioned that I think really
11:26helps people is it’s not enough to practice in front of everybody you have
11:30to ask them what do they get what they remember and if in the case of Sasha the
11:37person says I don’t know what you said I don’t understand my rule of thumb is
11:42it’s never the audience’s fault it’s always my fault it’s always the
11:47speaker’s fault if the audience doesn’t get it
11:50absolutely it’s always the speaker’s responsibility you know to to get the
11:56message across on to make sure the audience understands that going back to
12:01your question about what I did to prepare I frankly speaking i was
12:06sleeping for 15 minutes right before they interview you know getting well
12:12rested that help yes because today was so straight stressful it’s pretty late
12:17now in Russia was 290 m and I i really have to now forget about the upcoming
12:26interview with DJ you know to come thing to wait things calm down a little bit so
12:32that’s probably the thing number two but of course before that I was thinking
12:36about the messages i wanna get through and some one bites that I want to make
12:41sure i pronounce your name to you
12:44ok let’s get let’s take a step back in time you weren’t always a presentation
12:50coach trainer and nor was i how did you get started in this career because this
12:55isn’t something that the typical first-grader says mommy daddy when I
13:00grow up I want to be a public speaking coach how did you get into this
13:05yeah I i started as an interpreter of working for public relations agency I it
13:14was late nineties and after that i work as a public relations manager at that
13:21there is an agency and how I decided to be a business training
13:25was like that little bit more than 15 years ago the the agency I worked for
13:30stage an event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of rebook which is this
13:38footwear company in Russia and more than 400 people gathered in one of the most
13:45prestigious places in Moscow downtown and the president of reblog of one of
13:52the stage it was a very quiet very reserved a 60 year old guy standing
13:59somewhere and the shadow pretty short and can you imagine the interpreter very
14:05loud very unreserved quick Whitehall you know standing right in the center of the
14:10stake in this spotlight and translating the President as if he was speaking now
14:16the president so the people called men have never seen the presentation of nice
14:20to the president for the interpreter and vice versa no I had a very difficult
14:25conversation with my boss who afterwards said you know Sarah a you have to be the
14:30shadow of your client not vice versa so and that was the there was the moment of
14:39truth for me and I understood that I’m more effective in the spotlight then
14:46when i finish and not in the shadow you know there are some people who can
14:51manage things in the shadow there are more effective there and i asked myself
14:55was that just feeding the a goal that I want to be in the spotlight and over the
15:00years I answer that question there was no it’s just it’s just the way I feel
15:05better and work better when i stand in front of a group of people and tell them
15:10something interesting and inspires me much more than anyone anything else
15:16since that’s the way i decided to be the the trainer but i could not be the
15:21training immediately you know because i was working as an interpretive so I
15:25suggested now the president of public relations agency for which I work that I
15:31on the weekly basis i make english language training for the employees of
15:37that company
15:38and very soon after a couple of months i think we started corporate debates in
15:44English we started meetings we studied to learning how to speak in public in
15:48English so it was through learning how to speak English that I became teaching
15:55people and that’s that was the moment when I my a career started to transform
16:02in a moment I’m going to want to know about the first time ever you were in
16:07the spotlight and i don’t mean even in a business setting it could be first grade
16:11show-and-tell but if you have any memories of the first time you ever
16:16stood up and spoke to more than three people I want to hear it but first some
16:21housekeeping matters if you’re trying to become a better speaker yourself you can
16:25sign up for our free no-obligation online media training course just go to
16:31media training worldwide . com or click on the show notes below and you’ll have
16:37more than a hundred online videos on media training and public speaking
16:42training sent to you at no obligation our special guest today is Sergei kuzin
16:48you can reach him at ser g ey k uz I n.com Sergei when were you first in the
16:58spotlight all the kids in the Soviet Union had to go through this public
17:07speaking experience and I believe that’s one of the reasons a lot of people in
17:11this country hate to speak in public because when you were going to
17:17kindergarten there was a group of people that the the group of other kids
17:21actually looking at you and they the teacher took the chair in the center put
17:27you on that chair and you have to tell averse to everyone else and this was pre
17:341989 so it is still in fact the Soviet Union or you’re in
17:38yeah it was yes it was a tease it was like Middle Ages that I at that break
17:44lake great collection of mine goes back to those times and they the first thing
17:52you
17:52think and feel about today’s experience things is things got it’s over you know
17:57and you feel like you’d never probably do that thing again that’s what
18:02certainly not the time when I wanted to be a public speaker because you were
18:06made to do that you’re hated that verse you didn’t want you didn’t know why
18:11you’re doing that you had just you know magic to survive through that experience
18:16so well when I help people speak in public and most of the people who are my
18:24clients come from the Soviet past may recollect that and that’s kind of fear
18:29that i think has a some national traits for us and we have to overcome that for
18:36the younger kids who were born in nineties and ready to thousands it’s I
18:42think it’s much easier to learn to speak in public because they didn’t have that
18:48experience and growing up did you have anyone that you really thought wow that
18:54is a great public speaker any role models you had and especially if it’s
18:59not an English speaker I’d love to expose the audience here to some
19:02different names
19:04well I my father actually influenced me a lot he was not a public speaker but it
19:12was fan of public speaking and when I was 10 or 11 years old he read to me a
19:21book i didn’t know the name of that book but he looks like he picked up the most
19:27interesting pieces from that book and before we went to bad here read those
19:32pieces to me and when I asked him daddy what is the book’s name and he said it’s
19:38it’s just a secret book time will come you will know what it is and i think i
19:45was very very excited by that experience I wanted to say the name of a book and
19:51he never told me but I i found that book under the under his pillow and I’m sorry
19:59it’s not the Russian name is Dale Carnegie’s house the influence people
20:02you know and a call
20:05classic book that is a hundred years old
20:08yeah seriously and it’s actually still filled with good advice i mean some of
20:13it is dated it always talks about he when a man does this it it’s sexist but
20:18so much of the advice is still worthwhile he says things like don’t
20:24read tell a story be conversational things that you and I have to tell
20:30comments every day because people get scared
20:34absolutely yeah well and because it was a secret book you know I was so
20:38intrigued to discover what is what it is that i think it was the first time i was
20:43interested in the fear of public speaking and I was that book secret
20:47because he was a capitalist American no I bedtime actually was not forbidden
20:56thing just my father wanted to incite some interest in the like encouraged me
21:04to learn something about the public speaking that’s why he was keeping that
21:09suspects you know he was trying to stimulate and intrigue for me and Kiki
21:15succeeded very much I’ve steel very fun of public speaking as if I was like ten
21:19years old that is good attitude to have
21:23and you mentioned attitude is so important I always stress to people the
21:27public speaking is is really one of the few things in life where your attitude
21:32can make all the difference
21:34Sergei you and I go out golfing today I can have the best attitude in the world
21:38i’m still going to shoot a hundred and fifty and that’s cheating
21:42my attitude is not going to help my golf game at all but speaking is different
21:48i’m interested in your take on that on you may be added to public speaking
21:53yeah how does attitude really affect public speaking and how do you change in
21:57attitude that someone just inherently has a bad attitude about public speaking
22:01well but for me the bandage you do public speaking is the feeling that you
22:07have to perform I think public speaking has nothing to do with performance even
22:12last with some perfect performance
22:15some people are very scared of speaking in public just before is because they
22:19think they have to be perfect in public all they have to do in realities talk to
22:23the people that’s a that’s I I think that’s one of the reasons I’m such a big
22:29fan of the couch for example the guy from us trailer without legs and feet
22:35i I’m sure you’ve heard about him hes yes his experience I don’t think he’s
22:40you know very proficient in some public speaking techniques tricks and gimmicks
22:47you know but he’s leaving with she’s leaving what she’s speaking and that’s
22:53why the level of trust to what he says is so high and he’s such a good public
22:59speaker solely due to the right attitude he loves the people he’s talking to
23:06she knows what he’s talking to he feels what he’s talking about and that’s the
23:12number one reason why he’s so great as a speaker i do agree with you for the most
23:19part I think that ninety-nine point nine percent of people in the world in
23:24business politics academia they are better off not thinking of their speech
23:31as a performance but i always tell people is people come to me thinking I’m
23:36gonna teach them how to act on the stage
23:38the reality is i teach people to stop acting their already acting scared for
23:43most people they’re better off just speaking as if they’re having a
23:48interesting conversation with one friend doesn’t matter they’re giving a
23:52so-called formal speech to a thousand but there is one exception there is a
23:58type of professional platform speaker who really has polished stories and they
24:05do bring in quite an element of the after kalady they’re using every inch of
24:11the stage they they really have their pauses down and there they are in fact
24:16doing it word for word that that’s rare exception but i do think there are the
24:21occasional exceptions
24:25any thoughts on that I went when people are speaking to the media actually they
24:31it’s a
24:32and Jenner i would say it’s different type of of speaking and you you cannot
24:39be conversational to the journalists it’s not a friendly talk when you’re
24:44talking about when you’re sitting in a cappella and chatting with your friend
24:48you cannot apply that same pattern to to the 8th route to the media interview so
24:55it’s it’s a very different story that you can but it might result in loss of
25:01job a reputation because yeah humor sarcasm
25:06yeah yeah irony is just doesn’t come across well and edited down into a text
25:12story after how do you continue to improve as a speaker you you gave a lot
25:18of thought to this and you started off in a very logical way of translation and
25:23into the next step you went and i’m going to ask a few more questions about
25:28your academic work but you you took the time and trouble of traveling to the
25:33other side of the world getting a PhD
25:36how do you continue to learn now that you’re outside of the academic world
25:40when it comes to your speaking and communication skills I well first of all
25:45i’m reading the books of DG Walker haha shameless pandering which we encourage
25:52here at this program
25:53well you have plenty of material you know where you can get their endless
25:59video we’re watching them and you develop with you and it’s a lot of fun
26:04actually and also i attend a lot of trainings by other trainers in my
26:08country and outside and when you see how other professionals work it helps you
26:15develop very very very fast in addition to that when I don’t have time to attend
26:20someone else’s training i watch them online and i watch things like Linda
26:25common Coursera calm and subscribe of course to the official tab tog i play at
26:30least you know about their 50 or so talks and many of them i dedicated about
26:35to the subject of effective public speaking and another thing i do develop
26:41is the speech critique when you pick up a famous person
26:46public politician are famous businessman and try to see what can be improved in
26:53his maybe already perfect speech and you’ve got to think well before you
26:59could keep guys like Barack Obama as a speaker you know but if you dare do that
27:04you become a better speaker yourself now tell me i’ll give you my assessment but
27:10I want to hear your assessment Barack Obama strengths and weaknesses and let’s
27:14give equal time to both well strikes that well first of all strength he is a
27:20very strong speaker otherwise they think that people would not write books such
27:25as well how to speak like a bad mother are several books with that title and I
27:30think one of his strengths is that he can explain ordinary people are some
27:36public things I recent I one of his speeches wasn’t about the American Jobs
27:41Act which is very controversial and was a dick you know piece of thing for like
27:48500 pages or so and in three minutes
27:52he was able to explain why is it so important of for the Senate to accept
27:59the the American Jobs Act and the people supported it because she could put 500
28:06pages into I know seven of 10 sentences to make it clear for the people uh
28:13what’s inside and i think this is one of the strength he can speak in slogans
28:19he’s twitter-like and he’s a master of some biting and a lot of things are very
28:27flamboyant in in what she’s talking about
28:30but after now for the hard now for the hard part now for hardware do you feel
28:35he’s weak where do you feel he needs to improve or could improve obviously
28:40doesn’t have a big need a moment where could he still improve it
28:44I i think that you know where when you speaking slogans people also when you
28:52become a president people expect you to change the way you speak
28:59and I think he found his way to speak and he’s pretty he got stuck into his
29:05general you know he’s Barack Obama and that’s it he can I think he’s relax
29:11flexibility in terms of adapting to situations different audiences different
29:18locations different topics so you can recognize bark Obama even even if you
29:23don’t watch him don’t share him you just take a tax we did at UCLA a barcode mama
29:29said it you know i think as a speaker especially if you’re president at his
29:34face you have to be more you know flexible and you ready to work in
29:40different generous where I fault him where I still think he’s not great is
29:47when he’s doing interviews he looks down too much that can make him look less
29:52than confident and uh the uh the UH was creeped in in a way they don’t want he’s
30:00giving a set speech from the teleprompter I do think he’s a great
30:04teleprompter speech speaker and it always amuses me when in this country
30:09power political figures who loves Ronald Reagan and always talked about what a
30:14great communicator he was the very same people who trashed Obama for reading a
30:19teleprompter and wait a minute you have Reagan for reading look at sorry to
30:23interrupt you look at the way to you is turning left and right look at the
30:28teleprompter though
30:29now that’s the one area where i would criticize obama and have for most of his
30:35presidency although his most recent speech at the Democratic convention he
30:40wasn’t doing that where I fault him is he has traditionally been to mechanical
30:46in looking at the left teleprompter for a set amount of time and then the right
30:52teleprompter and going back in a way that’s almost clock like the best
30:58speakers mix it up they’ll look straight forward for a while they look for a
31:04short time at the left one then maybe a longer one of the right but it’s not is
31:08mechanical and four years that’s the one area where I
31:13faulted him is in how he used the teleprompter because he did so many
31:17other things well but that was the one flaw he was just too mechanical going
31:22back and forth at the same set time I do want to ask you about the Academy you
31:28take your academic like seriously you received a PhD and came to I think
31:35that’s when I met you you were on your way there to iowa i hate to sound like
31:40an anti-intellectual i’m certainly not an anti-intellectual did not work my way
31:46up being being a junior high school dropout i went to some would say a
31:51prestigious university graduated from honors but I personally never pursued
31:56any graduate studies in anything to do with communications because i always
32:01found that there was an inverse relationship between higher education in
32:07the in the academic communication field and actually being a good communicator
32:12and that was sort of a fancy academic way of saying in my experience anyone
32:16who has graduate studies and communication is usually a lousy speaker
32:22number one and number two they’re usually lousy to teach people how to be
32:27better speakers think I’m fair unfair was your experience I your affair for
32:33the Russian reality i think because I wear when I met people like Bob Baron
32:39professor of the year in social psychology 2005 and when i started
32:44working with bruce brown bag who worked with element rolling road the principal
32:48speaking medications and must read book i think i saw them speaking you know I
32:55saw Bruce rhombic speaking he was a very good one
32:58he was a perfect speaking himself although he was a perfect academic to I
33:04cannot say I’ve seen like a hundred of American academics speaking but I can
33:10say that most of them a good speakers in comparison to what I what I saw it in
33:15Russia because in Russia we mostly learn what is called rhetoric like you know
33:21ancient Greek rhetoric and a lot of a lot of that
33:27is concerned with the theory of constructing a speech and has little to
33:33do with the practice of public speaking
33:35when my daughter went to the kinder go to the first grade in the American
33:41school I know is that she has to speak on public almost every day and you know
33:48it is such a drastic difference between this digital the the two countries so
33:55when I got back I started noticing the huge gap between theory and practice
34:00between academia and what they are trying to discover and the real life so
34:10probably there are always out there is a problem between theory and practice
34:15always there is a problem but i would not what I have such when I find yes
34:20what I find talking to clients even today sometimes young executives who
34:25perhaps were in college or business school just two years ago and i’ll ask
34:31about their speaking experience they’ll mention a public speaking class in
34:35college and I always a business guy always ask the same question I see how
34:39many times were you videotaped in an entire semester of your own speech half
34:46the time it was zero the other half the time it was three times or fewer once at
34:53the beginning of the year once in the middle of the ones at the end and you
34:58just fucking with you I have a lot of work to do then I just find that bizarre
35:03the time when every single student has five video cameras on their cellphone
35:08their ipad and started getting my own hobby horse but is that I stress to all
35:15of my clients any training i do someone is going to get on on camera
35:20not one or two or three times but at least ten times in a day that’s really i
35:26find the only way to help someone dramatically improve as a speaker yeah
35:32of course there’s always room for development but for I just thought about
35:35the top that talks and if you look at the let’s a toffee
35:40tedtalks mail those talks are pronounced by professors and they’re very good
35:46speaking I was certainly some professors are good speakers in my experience they
35:54are not professors of communication or rhetoric or oratory or media they they
36:01happen to be you know passionate about physics or chemistry or urban
36:07development so I certainly don’t mean to suggest that all professors are bad i am
36:13limiting my criticism to the academic arena of communication studies which for
36:22some reason seems to be just correct you a disaster in the academic world but
36:28enough of me beating that that horse
36:31however you improved over your have you improved over your career as a
36:36communicator we all continue to evolve grow your continuing to watch TED talks
36:42and learn from others but what are you doing really differently now when you’re
36:46asked to give a speech compared to 10 years ago or 15 years ago
36:52well first of all I make sure i videotape myself and I make sure that I
36:58have a speaker by and what I call as I rent and ear someone who can hear me
37:04before I speak I also my little trick is to try to sleep right before I talk you
37:11know it takes some stress help me and when i when i try to sleep if I am
37:17sending the message to my buddy that’s okay life is not over after this
37:23presentation and what I also do differently when i get ready for my
37:27speech is i’m using the mind map program which is like mine Jago any software
37:33that helps you build those mind map and this is a perfect tool to brainstorm
37:39everything you want to say as part of your speech and structure it in in the
37:44way you want it
37:45so these are some of the things i do differently any speeches or for that
37:52matter media interviews really stand
37:54out is disastrous for the real learning moments i mean i’ve been i’ve had people
37:59scream at me hang up on me on shows i had a host pulling a gun on me once on
38:04the air
38:05I’ve been booted off stages tell us about some of your worst experiences as
38:10a speaker and as an interview subject while talking about the worst experience
38:16of mine I as a public speaker i remember the time when i first came to the United
38:24States and joined a local postmaster community and it was designed a little
38:35disaster because i had a stereotype that you know all Americans were so
38:39politically correct that they never talk about such interesting subjects that sex
38:45politics and religion and i decided to pick up a subject to talk about
38:50hey guys you’ve got to talk about sex politics and religion more frequently
38:53and I prepared a ten minute speech in front of an audience of 50 people so and
38:59to hook the attention the first thing I did is I asked to raise two hands those
39:06of you who have talked about sex politics religion and the last two
39:11mounts and believe it or not more than half of the audience raise their hands
39:16with which means that you know thank you Americans out not as political correct
39:22his I thought they are because back in Russia when I was part of that
39:26toastmaster community to in Russia and I just pronounce the name of Jesus Christ
39:30the president of our club came up to me and said you know Sarah game we are an
39:35international club and we don’t mention the names of religious leaders because
39:40there may be Muslims or his representative of some other religions
39:44in the room and you know i had such boom oh my god is dead so it was a stereotype
39:51I’ve made a big mistake because i did not analyze my audience and uh I based
39:58my speech on the stereotype instead of actually going and meeting the actual
40:03members of the audience and talking to them private but i’m curious you asked
40:08question you gave them the opportunity to register feedback and to raise their
40:14hand you didn’t just assume that only two percent had talked about politics
40:18once you saw that half of them had spoken on that topic how did you adjust
40:23your speech or how did you recalibrate uh yeah I understood they can I cannot
40:29now pronounce the speech about how did I had prepared because i had like 10
40:33minutes of arguments and you know examples and statistics proving that you
40:41have to talk more about those subjects and I had to make a confession and I
40:46said that dear does masters I frankly speaking i was preparing a speech about
40:53this topic and now i will talk about the biggest mistake you can make getting
41:01ready for public speech so I disclosed the situation and of course instead of
41:0610 minutes i was talking like 45 or seven so much less but my blunder
41:12somehow turned into a sort of success
41:16just because I ask them a question in the big in the very beginning it could
41:20be much worse if I didn’t sure and a lot of people make the mistake of asking a
41:26question and then just keep on going with what they planned if you’re going
41:29to ask the audience a question you can listen to it and reactive let’s take a
41:34timeout a moment and give a little plug to toastmasters because you know if
41:38you’re ever going to make a bad speech toastmasters is the perfect place to do
41:44it because the stakes are so low you’re not talking to actual investors clients
41:50customers prospects so for those on audience looking to practice more
41:56there’s probably a toastmasters chapter near you where you can practice your
42:01speaking so check them out the google toastmasters are believe it’s
42:04toastmasters not org a good organization and them as i’m sure you are
42:09Sergei I’m often asked to speak at chapters around the world so just wanted
42:13to give them a little plug
42:15is there any speech that really stands out for you is the best speech of your
42:21life you’re a member of National Speakers Association I’ve been active in
42:26a past president of the New York Chapter myself and there are a lot of speakers
42:31in that organization who say you know what eighty percent of my business today
42:37all traces back to one speech I gave this trade association or this
42:43convention 17 years ago and it all sort of bet started with three big clients
42:49and that snowball is there anything comparable to that for you and it
42:53doesn’t have to be a success in terms of clients or money it could just be the
42:58response you got uh well it we started talking about toastmasters at the
43:05another example from that life pops up in my mind uh if you don’t mind
43:10sure uh it was an international speech contest taking place in Moscow and I did
43:18not have any time to prepare because my schedule is so busy but I found a little
43:23idea that inspired me so much that I pronounce the speech that was the
43:29winning one I got the first place
43:31just because I found like at little simple thought that I was so much
43:36inspired the thought was first to become happy then you achieve something you
43:40know a lot of people think that they become happy after the HD something and
43:45you know it just occurred to me that first you have to become happy and then
43:49because of that you have a better chance to achieve something you didn’t like you
43:53know this little simple thought when i started developing it in my in my mind
43:58and thinking about examples of a lot of people who are you know dreaming to get
44:02a job and promised himself that after that become happy or they marry the
44:06right person an opportunity to become happy you know I what I can tell you
44:12married the wrong person is a great way to guarantee being unhappy
44:16alright yes but you know this little simple thoughts with really inspired me
44:24so much everything you know statistics references quotes came by themselves
44:29after I found the what I call the point of passion
44:33so what I once i found that point of fashion everything went by the by itself
44:39and it was one of the world most pleasure pleasant experience I’ve had
44:43and so now i am curious about this because you put the point you just
44:48mentioned you got to be happy first then career accomplished not reverse is
44:53certainly a point that many people that said it’s basically said in every
45:00motivational book on life book on happiness book on success how do you
45:04take a concept that is already well-known has been talked about by a
45:10lot of other people and make it fresh
45:13how do you get people to pay attention to something like that when their
45:17inclination is to sack a same old stuff I’ve heard it before let me stone out
45:22and check my email me that is the fundamental challenges of certainly SMO
45:27speakers in the motivational genre is it all starts to sound the same and not
45:31that any of the advice is bad but it does sound generic after a while
45:36yeah absolutely the only way to do that DJ is to talk about your life your
45:42personal experiences your stories and I i remember in other speech when i was
45:49talking about something like it’s time to act
45:53what could be more commonplace and battle than the cold erection time to
45:58act
45:59no but I I i remember the friend of mine who is a 18 years old a girl and she she
46:08had cancer and the doctors said that chest two years to come and i made an
46:14interview with her i was a father and the answer she gave me and the answers
46:23which i quoted in my speech which was called start to act was so install
46:32insights and full of personal impressions and feelings that it sounded
46:39really fresh
46:40there is nothing new Under the Sun you know someone said
46:43but if you take a thought and put it through your personal experience it
46:51sounds new and fresh you mentioned a moment ago your stories in a moment I’m
46:58going to ask you to share what you think of is your own signature story with our
47:03audience but first quick reminder you’re listening to speaking with TJ Walker if
47:08you like the show please subscribe
47:12better yet give a rating on iTunes better still forward the link to the
47:18show to friends family members colleagues others who you think could
47:22benefit from our content our guest is Sergei kuzin you can find out more about
47:29him by going to his website serg ey kuci n.com he is an internationally renowned
47:38media trainer public speaking coach and business Traynor based in Russia Sergei
47:46what are your what is your favorite signature story that people come up to
47:52you afterwards and are repeating it back to you
47:56well it’s hard for me to think about that particular one I already told the
48:01story about a mile with the the way I found myself in this life when I used to
48:08work as an interpreter and after that I decided to work is it as a business
48:12Traynor it but now I I’m thinking about you know the story of an HR director and
48:23a beat for consulting company and I had a meeting with her at about 10pm she was
48:28very tired and i was very tired actually because I was waiting for you for her
48:33and when I thought you took naps all the time not that day
48:44ok and you know it i ask your what do you have to say and she took me like
48:50four pages of text which her assistant i was writing based on what is it
48:56what she told her I looked through the text and the phone all those corporate
49:01mantras about effectiveness about the need to delegate to manage more people
49:08you know to to do incorporate some changes into our everyday life all that
49:15battle stuff that comes from speech into speech into speech and I looked her in
49:20the in the eye and said what do you believe and she said I believe in God
49:26and I said okay it’s great that you believe in God would you help but do you
49:31really believe with regards to the subject of your speech and she said you
49:39know I have to talk all these things you know she gave me this for pages of tax
49:44has said forget about the text you know imagine that you’re not going to have
49:49400 people in front of you
49:51you’re going to have just one friend sit in front of the tale of the other side
49:54of the table you’re having a cup of coffee
49:57just tell me one thing that you believe with regards to the subject to your
50:02speech and she said everyone is HR and I said what she said everyone is a chart
50:10and I said what do you mean and she said you know if you’re a manager
50:16you’ve got to be able to recruit perfectly well and motivate people and
50:20try to help them develop within the organization so if you work here
50:26you’ve got to be in a chart regardless of your real position them regardless
50:31was reading on your business card and I said do you believe that that she said
50:36yes it has said from from 0 to 10 how much do you believe that she said 10 and
50:43that’s the way we found the point of passion and I’ll once you find the point
50:48of fashion and help or help with the speaker find . fashion everything goes
50:53by itself all those examples statistics references quotes after that we started
50:59structuring the speech and in two hours or less we prepared something
51:03drastically different from what she initially had and it was the biggest and
51:09most success
51:10two species ever delivery because the ear a year ago before that she was
51:17afraid to speak so much that she wanted to retire before before the time but
51:22once you found the point of passion
51:24everything went and I felt like I really you know help people i follow a big
51:30point of passion that may be really happy
51:34fantastic example and i do want to clarify because I think a lot of people
51:39here this is well that sounds wonderful
51:42that sounds great but somehow my topic my business is different i love passion
51:47and other speakers what they’re talking about cancer overcoming their whole
51:52family dying or this or that but i’m just giving a quarterly report on
51:57revenues and my response interested in your take is you might not think of it
52:02as passion but what is it you care about that’s really important 89 bullet points
52:09on a powerpoint can’t all be important
52:12which one of these points are so important that you’re going to be upset
52:17of people don’t understand and remember and just coming at it from a slightly
52:21different standpoint but certainly it someone can genuinely feel passionate
52:26about something it’s almost impossible for them not to be a much better speaker
52:31yes I uh I believe that even if you’re talking about pencils you can find your
52:40point of passion it’s always possible
52:43it’s just the way you you just have to start looking for at also the people
52:48don’t start it
52:49don’t even start doing that again i love your passion for your craft
52:56I don’t want to end on a negative note but i do want to give I try to give this
52:59opportunity to all of our guests I’d like to give you the opportunity to
53:04debunk some of the bad public speaking advice out there because I’ve constantly
53:10overwhelmed with how much bad advice there is recently as yesterday there was
53:16a front page story in The New York Times about a major American University in
53:21their business school having stew
53:24and practice their speeches in front of dogs because they are quote field
53:29non-judgmental yeah they’re non-judgmental they also don’t
53:32understand anything you say or gonna remember anything you say or take any
53:35actions so to me it’s just an idiotic waste of time but i want to know from
53:41you what what do you think are some of the worst pieces of advice out there
53:45that actually harm people when it comes to their presentation and communication
53:50skills
53:51well the the advice that I would imagine is pretty funny but I’m I’ve been
53:58fighting with it for years now because of the book by ron half i can see you
54:03naked at every public speaking training you would hear an advice for every
54:08participant that they when they say that you know in order to fight your anxiety
54:12you have to imagine your audience naked and when I ask the questions could you
54:20please raise your hands those of you who have tried to imagine these audience
54:25naked or any other audience naked and know what does because you know it’s
54:29something from from theory it’s a funny theory which we doesn’t work as far as i
54:34know run half did not actually recommande three managing the head
54:38you’re talking to a group of naked people that you’re absolutely right it’s
54:43a good one-liner it’s a good joke eh
54:46nobody does it be if they did you find two big problems number one either your
54:53audience is too disgusting and you will be able to focus for it’s a little too
54:59exciting and you won’t be able to focus
55:02that’s true that’s true are also coming from of this same idea imagine that they
55:09are little pink rabbits imagine that they’re little kids imagine that they’re
55:14animals you know to fight your anxiety i think all that doesn’t work and even if
55:20it it helps you feel a little bit more confident i believe that there is a
55:26danger of our whisk that you start talking down to SB yeah that can
55:36come across this condescending up you’re talking to your audience’s of their
55:39children
55:40how about just talk to them like they’re human beings until think you would want
55:45one friend Oh pink making rabbits for it
55:48something like that yeah next thing you know you’re here you’re patting them and
55:52rubbing the behind the ears and that’s not going to go over well especially
55:56with the HR department since we’re all part of HR know any final tips or advice
56:03that you have for the audience on how they can be better communicators
56:07oh well a lot of when I was writing a book the media man a friend of mine
56:15asked me why you’re writing that book you’re only like 27 years old have we
56:20ever talked to the media
56:22I said no I’ve never talked to the media but she is that why you writing a book
56:26about how to talk to media if you haven’t ever talk to the media so by and
56:32the surprising seeing as that i spent like two or three years right in it and
56:37in those two or three years I had dozens both media appointments and you know if
56:43you if you want to really do something and you start doing it like Gardo
56:50universe you know start helping starts helping you and those opportunities
56:56flood into your life if you just decide to do it if you decide to write a book
57:03we decided to become a public better public speaking
57:06just do it that could be that’s probably my advice and maybe the second device or
57:12I don’t know do you need only one or two it wise to TJ
57:17well the last thing last thing i do need from you is what specifically do you
57:21want this audience to do for you you’ve been generous with your time for the
57:25last hour
57:26how can they help you want them to go to your website most of your books are not
57:31available in English yet but what else would you like them to do have a
57:34newsletter how else can people communicate with you
57:38well they can first of all booked me and I’m ready to delivery program which is
57:44called in the line of fire that helps a people become better speaker
57:49it’s because I take them through stressful experiences and I believe that
57:53speaking in the line of fire is like you know an emergency kit which you must
57:59have before it’s too late
58:01speaking of the pressure is the best way of learning to speak that’s what I
58:04believe and that’s why I developed this program and I can deliver it in any
58:10forward for a format from one our keynote speech 400-500 people or at
58:16fully-fledged 2day corporate training I i can personally come and help them be
58:22better speakers and speak like a leader in the line of fire and that
58:29yeah that’s it probably Sergei kuzin thank you for being our guest today for
58:33more information go to his website at Sergei cruising . com ser g ey k uz I
58:42n.com and it will be available in the show notes as well I’m TJ Walker
58:51speaking with TJ Walker is the number one rated daily streaming TV and radio
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