Live Setup And Chaotic Check-In

SPEAKER_00 0:03

I see you. We have special guests. They can't hear you, by the way. Can they? Yes. Oh, okay. They can hear all of us. Oh, good. This is good. Are we streaming now? Are we live? I just got the notification we're live.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

Oh, welcome back to Corporate Strategy. Oh, hey. The podcast that could have been an email. I'm I'm Rigatoni Tony.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

I'm Mickey Mickey Mike.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

Micety Micety Mike. I like that. That's good. Rigatoni's pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Rigatoni Tony's pretty good. Kind of made me hungry. Hey. Hey, who's this?

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Oh, this is Penny. Hey, we're in a different location. I cannot read. The LASIK is finally given out.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Well, can you not see it? I can see okay.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

I can see let's go. I can see your message. We are in the living room. I I can read it with my left eye, not my right eye. Oh, interesting. I can read it with my light right eye. Well, it's good.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

That means we can plead each other.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

Oh, good. We can just take two of our eyes and become a whole human. Exactly. Hey, Michael. Hey, Anthony. Long time no see. I've missed you, buddy. Yeah, me too. I've missed you too. I've missed you a lot. I miss doing this.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

I know. It feels like a lifetime.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

It's been a long time.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

It feels like so much has happened since we last talked.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

So much has happened. It's been two weeks since you looked at me. Drop your arms to the side and say I'm crazy.

unknown 1:32

No?

SPEAKER_03 1:33

Okay, well.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

No, I didn't pick it up. I'm sorry. Right away.

SPEAKER_03 1:36

Right along. We didn't do one last week. We didn't. Hey, you ever had you ever had one of those experiences where everything is so chaotic, crazy terrible that you can't even remember why everything was so chaotic, crazy terrible?

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Yeah, I've had a couple of days.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

You just like, I don't I don't even know what happened.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

And you can't even like recall. It's like, how did where did we start and how did we get here?

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Something happened last week. And I think I went into a fugue state is what happened. I'm just like, you know what? I'm not gonna deal with any of this. It's been, it has been.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Are you out of it? Is the question. I don't know. You might still be in the funk.

SPEAKER_03 2:14

I don't know. I might be in the funk.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

I want everyone, I want to rewind. I want to rewind back to our last podcast where words were said before your launch. Oh, yeah, everything's ready. I'm taking a few days off, and everything's gonna be just fine. That was your point of no return. You should have never said that.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

I should have never said those words.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Because I I think I specifically brought up, yeah, this is like crunch time for you, and this may or may not turn out well.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

I yeah, no, it was a mistake. It was a mistake to be confident that things might get easier.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

That was the mistake, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

You thought you were ready. So now you got a recap for us. What happened? What went wrong? Where did everything get turned upside down?

SPEAKER_03 2:58

It really wasn't any one thing. It was just everything. That was really it. I just like everything went wrong? Every single thing, it was just like non-stop, non-stop, everything chaos all the time. And like I I really I couldn't even pinpoint it, I couldn't even tell you. Like I even if you if you if you said I will in view right now, if you don't tell me, I couldn't do your head. I couldn't tell you. Well, we don't we don't say the G word.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

We don't want to get you know censored on YouTube. Yeah. Assault rifle to my head.

unknown 3:35

That's better.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

That's the technical term.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

So so you you had a launch not this week.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Launched a product uh last week, yes.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

On Wednesday.

SPEAKER_03 3:45

On Wednesday. Launch went off great.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Okay, so it kicked off just fine.

SPEAKER_03 3:49

Kicked off just no, I mean the launch itself wasn't the problem, you know. We've had we've had a lot of events going on. Uh just I did a bunch of webinars. I just had a lot of I had a lot of like things, basically. Like my calendar every day. Just packed. Just packed. Eight to five. It was there was something going on. Like there were I I think last week was like one of the few weeks where I really didn't eat lunch at a normal time any single day. Wow. Just like wasn't gonna happen. Um just a lot of a lot of things. Just a lot of things, a lot of life, a lot of work, and it it it manifested in my in my my body. Yep. So then it was just like, I'm in pain, I'm tired. I wanna. I I don't think I ever fully recover for that hospital trip.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

I don't think I ever I don't think you did.

SPEAKER_03 4:40

I don't think I ever actually left the hospital. I think I'm still there. That's that's what I actually think.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

That's the plot to this movie.

SPEAKER_03 4:46

I'm still in the hospital. Yeah, this none of this is real.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

This podcast is going to be the thing that what was what is that movie? Where you have the spinning thing and you know, that was not the one I was thinking of, but yes, uh Inception. Inception, that's what I'm saying. I knew it was an I and something. I was like, I can't remember the word. That's one of them. That's exactly what this podcast is. Yeah, corporate strategy is what's gonna snap you back into reality.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

I hope so. I hope so.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

For people's sake, I hope so.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

I hope the top falls over, but I don't think it's going to.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

It could just keep spinning.

New Location And Weird Drinks

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Hey, we're in a different space. Yeah, I know. There's a lot of weird things happening. There's a lot happening on this podcast. We're in a different space. I mean, we are, and you know what I think it's time for? What's that? What are you drinking?

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Well, I can't move now.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

Here. Oh, thank you. Well, you're gonna reach the weird. Oh, hey, check it out. Oh shorts. Shorts. Um today, nothing fancy, just uh a little waterloo.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

So I've got a confession. Yeah. I uh stopped at two places before this to try to find you something weird to drink. Yeah. And you failed. I failed miserably. You failed miserably. I was this close to buying a really weird alcoholic drink.

SPEAKER_03 5:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

And I was like, that's gonna be too far.

SPEAKER_03 5:50

I don't think I don't think we can actually, I don't think we can consume alcohol on YouTube.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Oh, is that was that really? I think that's really a thing. Oh, that's unfortunate.

SPEAKER_03 5:56

I think it's really a thing.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Because yeah, all of them said like 11%. There was this weird like ginger lime berry drink, but it was 11% alcohol. It was this size. You should have got that for me because I would drink it anyway.

SPEAKER_03 6:09

Not on the not on the show, but like that sounds great. You should it sounded fantastic. Send me a link to what that is. I would love to try that.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

I also stopped in an Italian restaurant because I was hoping maybe I could find some Italian soda for you. And look, look what I just did. I have had so much trouble with these.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

Why have so much trouble with this batch?

SPEAKER_00 6:29

I fixed it. Has anybody ever had that happen where you flip the thing and it just doesn't work?

SPEAKER_03 6:32

I had one that literally just ripped right off the top. I mean, it's loose. My hulkish strength.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Yeah, maybe it's just you're too strong.

SPEAKER_03 6:38

I think I think this batch of Waterloo, guava berry, seltzer, not sponsored, is just not uh the the tabby.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Serial number 19215. Check your containers. This batch is not good. It's not good. It's not good for you at all. But yeah, I stopped to get you something at an Italian place. They also had nothing but alcohol. And you know what the place was called? Who's some? Anthony's. Anthony!

SPEAKER_03 7:00

Anthony Is that why you're like 27 minutes late?

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Yeah, it's why I was a few minutes late. Okay. It wasn't full 27.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

It was I think when I said 27, I was being very specific, which means that I couldn't be lying.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Definitely not. Can we say 345? We started like at 346. We did pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 7:17

You know, it was a pretty smooth intro, too.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

So, do you care to explain why we're in a different place? Yeah, so why we have a guest on our podcast.

SPEAKER_03 7:27

Yeah. We usually film in my wife's office, who's actually in the stream chat shout-outs. She is currently going through an office re-renovation. You know, my wife, we've talked about this before, she's been on the pod.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 7:39

Um, she does streaming, she does voice acting, she does lots of cool stuff. So her office is kind of this amazing wonderland of lots of different types of like creative endeavors. I can attest.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

It's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_03 7:50

And when you see us, we're actually in front of a green screen in front of her computer, and we're like, we're doing our thing. She is redoing her office so that it'll actually make doing this easier in the future. But it means that we have to do this from my laptop in the living room today. Fair enough. So that's I'm okay with it.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:06

We have done way worse. We've done way worse.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

I.e., a McDonald's recording a podcast.

SPEAKER_03 8:10

We need to do that again. I think if I trusted the McDonald's Wi-Fi, we'd be there right now. 100%. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

You should have just said, meet me at this location and send me an address. Meet me at the Mickey D's. I would know where to go. Those golden archers. How are you doing? How's the back? I actually so back is good. Great. Toe is good? Great. It looks pretty good. I'm looking at it. Don't show the people. This would get banned so fast. I can see it. It's a little bruised. It's not even bruised. That's blood. Oh, it's don't worry, it's blood.

SPEAKER_03 8:39

It's not a bruise, okay? That's actual blood. It's gushing from my foot.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Oh, yikes. Well, our physical ailments seem to be like they're healing. Yeah, maybe. I think so. I think you've cursed me, actually. You know why? You want to say that? You want to say that to me? Yeah, I do want to say that to you. Because I, in my normal exercise routine, always comes with a little bit of jogging. I love to go for a little run, do some hit. I do it on the treadmill. A little hit? Yeah, a little hit. You know what that is? High intensity interval trail. I know what it is.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

I just, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

For the listeners, for those who aren't watching the stream. Yeah, so it's like, you know, 10 to 15 minutes where basically you go for like 30 seconds as hard as you can, and then you do a minute at a moderate pace. So you kind of keep your heart rate up, you fluctuate it. It's really good for your fat loss and overall heart health. Anyways, I hurt my foot somehow. I woke up and my foot hurt, and I immediately thought of you. I was like, what did you do to me? I'm cursed. Yeah, I got too close in proximity, and somehow you tossed it over me.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

Yeah, you got some blood too.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Yeah. I hope that's not blood. Yeah, I see it. It's really like my ankle, my foot, and then I don't know what this muscle is called. I can't remember. On the outside of your shin. Yeah, that's the uh Yeah, yeah, you you tell me. That's the your bronchial tendon. That's the magnemite tendon. That one hurts. Yeah, magnite. I did nothing different, so I blame you. I don't know how it happened.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

Oh, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Yeah, I don't know why you did that to me.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

I'm very sorry. I didn't mean to. I swear I did not mean to.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Maybe voodoo doll, like you poked the needle into it, and I just am now feeling the rubber.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

I did do that. I did do that. I got an Etsy witch, actually. I was like, please curse Michael. I don't know what's going on in my life right now, but I need to stop. I need to get to the street. Send some of my angst and pain and misery. I appreciate that. Yeah, so I send it to you. But physical. That's why my toe is doing so much better.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Yeah, absolutely. You transferred it over. It makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

I mean, it's still bleeding, it's still gushing, but you know.

Injuries Updates And A Company Launch

SPEAKER_00 10:22

But, anyways, back to back to how I'm doing. Yeah, how do you do that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Footback, great. I had a big week this week too. Yeah. It was not as hectic and crazy as yours, but it was equally exciting. I finally announced what I'm doing. Yeah, what are you doing? So I finally launched my company. We help people get the time back to do what matters most. Yeah. It's basically an agentic AI technology. What matters most? What matters most is the work that actually matters. Uniquely human. Creativity.

SPEAKER_03 10:48

Uniquely human.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Uniquely human activities. Creativity, innovation, all the things you wish you had time for in your day-to-day job that you never have time for. But this technology revolution. What if I wanted less time in my day-to-day job?

SPEAKER_03 11:01

No doubt. What if I don't want a day-to-day job?

SPEAKER_00 11:03

See, can you help me with that? I think in reality, you enjoy doing the fun things about work. You hate the mundane, stupid stuff.

SPEAKER_03 11:09

Is there fun?

SPEAKER_00 11:11

You're a bad person talking about this. But long story short, we help businesses adopt AI in a way that's helpful. I love that. Yeah. And you've got success stories too. We have a good uh success story. We're with pretty some pretty some awesome clients that we've signed recently. And they're doing some really, really cool stuff. So how can people find out about this? I'll post in the Discord. Oh, yeah, I'll post in the Discord. That's a great way to get people in the Discord if they're not really there. Yeah, you should go there and check it out. We're just getting started, but there's a lot of exciting things happening. So yeah, I thought I'd finally share because some people have been asking, so I figured might as well announce it. Everyone's been asking. I know, nonstop.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

They like no one cared where I was. They're like, why is Anthony gone? They're like, no, I don't care about that.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

No one cares about him. I want to know what is going on with Michael. What's he doing? Well, that's the announcement.

unknown 11:56

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

So it's exciting. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03 11:58

Big congratulations. That's a huge project. And now the world is ready to see. They are. What comes next?

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I think so. So, anyways, yeah, that's the exciting stuff. That's awesome. So I'm happy your launch went well, my launch went well. Yeah. Uh, and so is all your pain staking right now basically tied one-to-one with the launch, or is it just work stuff?

SPEAKER_03 12:17

No, it's just working stuff. It the launch, I would say, went great. Okay. Um, no real complaints there. The it just it just work, just work in general. It never ends, and I need it to. Hence why I was asking if your company could help me with this. Because I don't want to work anymore. Yeah. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done with people. I'm done with logging into things, I'm done typing on the keyboard. Like, I don't want to email any of that. I don't want to email.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

I want to talk to a virtual assistant. I don't want to do that either. Don't want to do that either. I don't want to talk to anybody. Okay, I got the solution for you. Okay. Elon Musk, Neuralink, right into the brain.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

Oh, that's not gonna happen. That is not gonna happen.

Palantir Manifesto And Tech Panic

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Ads right into your retinas when you don't pay your subscription bills. I don't think that's for me.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

I don't have you read, hey, uh, speaking of wacky uh tech CEOs, have you read Palantir's manifesto they published on Twitter, formerly known as X?

SPEAKER_00 13:11

No, I'm a little scared.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

You should take the time to go read what Palantir posted on Twitter formerly known as XX. Was it recent? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Yikes.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

I'm gonna have to go and read it. You can't even say it.

SPEAKER_03 13:25

Hold on.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Are you gonna read this out there?

SPEAKER_03 13:27

This is this is some great podcast material. Just are you you're familiar with Palantir, right? Palantir. Yeah, very familiar. Manifesto.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

But I have not been following them on social media.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

Yeah, this week, here's here's your new section. Sorry, three weeks ago. Uh they posted.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

This is a new segment. It's called Read the Headlines.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

It's called Read the Headlines. They posted a 22-point manifesto on Twitter. This is a tech company that basically like runs all the security cameras in the United States. Just, you know, FYI. Um, let me read you some of these. Oh my gosh. Because we get asked a lot, the technological republic in brief. This is a real company posting this on Twitter, formerly known as X. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation. You know, not so bad. I don't know if I disagree with that. If you're making technology, you should be helping the country you're I agree. It's like 50-50. Right. Number two. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Oh my goodness. Right, right? That's some aggressive language. Like we start here and then straight it's a roller coaster. Uh is the iPhone our greatest creative, if not crowning, achievement as a civilization? Question mark. The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible. This went off the cli quick. Number three, free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and the security for the public. I have a question for you, Michael. What the hell did any of that have to do with free email is not enough?

SPEAKER_00 15:14

I didn't understand a word you said after free email is not enough.

SPEAKER_03 15:18

The limits of soft power for the limits of soft power of soaring rhetoric alone have been exposed. The bold text just gets longer on each of these, by the way. The ability of a free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power. And a hard power in this century will be built on software.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

There are 22 of these. Please don't. Please, like that second one was just off a cliff. And I just can't even like the way it's written, too, just doesn't resonate with an a person. I wait, wait, wait. What was that last one? The psychological. Uh scroll up one more, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

The psychology the psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Oh my god. Uh number 12, the atomic age is ending. Uh I would argue the atomic age hasn't begun because we're still on fossil fuels.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

Uh no other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. American power has been made possible by an extraordinarily long piece. The the post-war the post-war neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

This is what why does this company feel that they need to do this?

SPEAKER_03 16:34

That is the exact question I have been asking myself since I read this. Like, I already know Palantir is very tied in with a very specific group of the political elite. They are very tied in with taking over the security cameras. They want to create uh what is it, a surveillance state. They want all the data on all of us all the time.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Big brother.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

Big brother. Palantir is big brother. And then they post this on the internet, and I just like I just don't even understand why. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Like, even the word pluralism is hard to say. Why would you put more words in that statement?

SPEAKER_03 17:18

Yeah. This is uh that's the news for this week. Uh that's read the headlines. Read the headlines. Well, we we actually just read the article. Like, we we spent time. We went straight to the source. You can't make this up because it's right here, right? So we we spent time.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

You wonder what the prompt was into the AI that they used to draft this. You know what I mean? Like, hey, I want you to come up with the most controversial, the biggest topics ever, and use the most what is the right even word for it? Ridiculous words that you can think of to confuse people that could be taken in 30 different ways.

SPEAKER_03 17:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Like, because half those words you never hear in normal speak of anyone ever.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Like, what's the last time we heard the word plural? Pluralism.

SPEAKER_03 18:05

Pluralism.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

I can't even say it.

SPEAKER_03 18:07

Pluralism.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

People don't say it because they just don't want anybody to have to hear it. You don't have to go through it. It's it's a work, it's a work for the lips. The pluralism.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

Like your lips are doing all the work.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Actually, that's a nice tie-in to what our topic's gonna be today. I know it is.

SPEAKER_03 18:21

I know it is. I can't wait.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Oh it's gonna be a blow.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

I was gonna I was gonna actually cancel the podcast forever.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:27

I was gonna delete the show. Write it out of existence. And then you told me what today's topic is gonna be. I'm like, you know what, I can do a few more episodes.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

I'm back in.

SPEAKER_03 18:33

I can do this a few more times.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Let's make it happen.

SPEAKER_03 18:35

I can do this a few more times. I do think it's a great lead in.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Dude, it's it's crazy. Like this post by Palantir, it's funny because of the fear-mongering around technology and AI right now. Like, it is insane what they're doing. Like, no offense to Anthropic. I actually love a lot of their products, but the fear mongering they're causing with their mythos model or whatever, like, hey, we're gonna put it out there, it's gonna, you know, undo all these security vulnerabilities, basically gonna crash the whole economy and the world as is. And like, I literally got asked by my pest control guy. I told him I run a technology company, and he was asking me, he's like, So do you think AI is gonna end the world?

SPEAKER_03 19:10

I mean, I do.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

But like, that's just an average person in society that literally thinks the world is about to burn down because of what's been put out into the open.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

Did you see the video capitalist correspondent Alexa Strepo posted on our Discord?

SPEAKER_00 19:23

I am so behind on Discord. I'm sorry, people. I am gonna get back to it.

SPEAKER_03 19:26

We firstly, we need to have Capitalist Correspondent Alexa Strappo back here. We need to have him, he's like he's down the street. We could just drag him into the middle of the couch. But he posted a video in our Discord, and I unfortunately watched all of it.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

And let me tell you, it's bleak. It's really bleak. Because it's not it's not about how AI is gonna end the world, which I absolutely believe it's going to. It's about how AI is going to ruin our lives with the kind of work it's creating for us. Great. So yeah, take the time. Join our Discord if you haven't. Uh if you want to do so, you can click the link in the in the notes. Get in there, check out what Cavill's correspondent Alex Restreppo posted, and be shocked. That's so bad. Be shocked and awed by how bad things are.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

I'm gonna I'm gonna watch this whole thing. But it's it's funny, you know, as I was thinking about the mission for my company. The number one thing that I put on my mission page is like AI will not replace people.

SPEAKER_03 20:20

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

And I I firmly believe that. It's like, sure, it's gonna get better and better, it's gonna continue to improve. There will be displacement of jobs and reskilling that's needed. But truly, the power of the agentic AI era is the people, the SMEs, the people that understand the process. They have to be able to guide it and train it and develop heuristics and evaluations to keep it honest and reliable. If you've tried, and anybody on this podcast that's listening can attest to this, if you've tried to actually create agents that go and do things autonomously and they do it as expected every single time, it doesn't ever work.

SPEAKER_03 20:53

Right. No, no, I don't disagree with you at all. I don't disagree with you on that end. You always need a person. I think the problem is it's not it's not us interact. I then this is this is always the point I'm trying to get to, right? Is like you and I work in an industry that is greatly benefited by AI because it's all data and patterns. Yep. Right?

SPEAKER_00 21:13

So like when Well documented patterns.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Yeah, when I use AI for my job, I'm having it work against our help center. I'm having it work again, or I'm having it learn from our help center, learn from the things I write, learn from you know everything that I've created. So it's basically an extension of my brain.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

I think the problem is when you step outside of tech, health, science, and get into the nitty-gritty of like customer service or you know, uh any anything that most laymans who aren't making good money are being replaced by AI, you immediately run into the complete and utter failure of it. Right. And then if you watch the video that was posted in our Discord, you see what the future looks like for all of the college grads. I'm so sorry for all of you that this is your future.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

If you're a fresher, it is gonna be tough.

SPEAKER_03 22:05

Well, there's no entry-level jobs. Yeah. There's none. And you only job you can get is going to work as basically an AI, I forget what they call it in the video, but it's your job is basically like a quality control individual. Firstly, you're fighting everyone else for contracts to be quality control for like$30 an hour. And then you're watching like literal AI, I can't say the words because YouTube will censor us. AI torture things. Yeah. And you have to say like whether or not it looks good or not. And that's the future for our PhD graduates. I can't wait. That's the future. Aren't you excited? So I fear, I fear in that regard, because I think you and I, and many others in the tech industry, are the exception. We'll be the ones that turn off the lights, for sure. But uh where are will there be lights to turn off when all of the humans rise up with their torches and start burning down the data centers, which is going to happen. We are on this path. It's gonna be a wild time of our lives. When people get hungry, they're gonna burn them data centers down. I mean, so they gotta go somewhere. They gotta go somewhere. And everyone, I mean, that's the thing, is like there's been this souring. Everyone's looking at it and they're like, that's taking my job, that's making everything more expensive. I will go burn this thing down. Like, that's that's my fear. I think we have a very good understanding of it. Like a AI can be used to great extent, to great success with technology, with technology-related sort of companies and leanings, I fear for the common man fear. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

I think the uh one of the reasons too is as I was starting this business, I was like, it's it's coming whether we like it or not. Like whether you like it or not, this change is coming. Right. And you can't resist it. It's coming just like the dot-com boom. It's going to revolutionize our lives and what we do. But what happened after the dot-com boom? Oh, yeah, there was a good crash afterwards. Big old crash. Way over-indexing. And we're doing the same thing right now. Companies are burning billions of dollars to acquire users onto their platform and get them obsessed with it. Just like the dot-com era.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

And then they're gonna over-index the other way and reprice everything, and everyone's gonna be like, I'm not using this. I can't afford it. And then there we're eventually we're gonna find a middle ground, maybe. Yeah. Or after some data centers are burned down and there's some catastrophic failure, eventually we'll find a middle ground. And so I'm hoping we can help people and good people figure out how to find that middle ground a lot faster.

SPEAKER_03 24:29

Do you do you think this is this is the dumbest question I'm ever gonna ask in my life? Do you think that the the likelihood that a data center gets burned down because they just built it incorrectly, but they false flag it as like some kind of AI, uh extremist, anti-AI extreme. Actually, no, we just don't know how to wire and cool things anymore because that that skill set is just it's in demand, but no one's going and learning how to cool things. That's a problem. HVAC is in such a high demand right now, and no one knows how to do it. Yeah. Very few. That's a job that will always be there. Especially where we're truly. If if you're watching this and you're wondering what I should do with my life, plumbing and air cooling. That's what I would recommend. You're not gonna go away. You will be a king. Yep. You will be a king amongst the peasants. Yeah. 100%. So it's crazy times. It's crazy times. We're gonna see what happens. Crazy times. I feel like this podcast uh more and more is being taken over by crazy times.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

I know. I feel like somehow AI is taking over this podcast, even though we do not want it to.

SPEAKER_03 25:27

No, we don't.

Why Public Speaking Still Matters

SPEAKER_00 25:29

But it happens anyway. So maybe we should jump to the topic. What is the topic? So we talked about earlier, you know, something that uh something that kind of was a lead-in to this is around how do you speak in public to people?

SPEAKER_03 25:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

And I actually think that's something with AI, like especially as jobs get less and less in person and remote. I feel like people, when they chat now, even in like Slacker teams, are literally going to like ChatGPT and being like, respond to this.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

I hate it.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

And then copy and pasting over.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

I hate it. Isn't that crazy? Like, I will straight up call you out on that. I'll say, do not, do not chat GPT me.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Yeah. There's some things like you just see it and you're like, that was not from you. That was copy and pasted from the chat engine. But I think public speaking, you know, like it or not, is something that will help you be successful in your career. And regardless of what position you play inside your company, even if you're an individual contributor, you are going to have to speak in front of people. Even if it's as simple as like daily stand-ups, right? That you guys are checking in with each other. Learning how to speak in front of people, whether it's a daily stand-up, it's in front of one or two people, or it's in front of crowds of hundreds. We've done both. Yes. Both of us have done both. And there are definitely a lot of skills and things that we picked up over the years that I think we can help with. And I know you're naturally really good at it, but I think there's some golden nuggets that you can share with some people to help them out.

SPEAKER_03 26:48

The first one is if you're not good at it, don't do it. Not even practice? Don't even try. Don't even try.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

I disagree already.

SPEAKER_03 26:58

There is no saving. And I'm gonna be real. I gotta I gotta be real. Be real, please. Absolutely. So many people think they can public speak.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:10

And think that they are able to, if I practice these slides enough, if I go through it and I memorize the script, it will come off good. It comes off incredibly rehearsed and incredibly unpersonal.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Every time.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

The here's here's the test that I actually teach a course. Do you at my company? Yes, I teach an evangelism and storytelling course. That's really cool. I do. And I'd be happy to teach any of you if you're interested. But like one of the things I tell you in part of my course, if you can do it, you can do it, and you know you can do it. And I think a lot of people fall into the pitfall of I need to speak the way Anthony speaks, I need to be able to go and present the way Anthony presents, and that is not the case. If you are a data nerd, you need to present and talk like a data nerd, which might mean you don't need to go give a keynote session. But to your point, you might be the perfect guy to talk at every single stand-up about the status of something because you have all the knowledge, the know-how, and the capability to deliver those points effectively. Yeah. And that's everything, right? Like you have to know your audience.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

That is the best first tip that I was thinking of too. Who is your audience? Yes. Who are they? What is your what is your goal of delivering whatever message you're trying to put out there? And that's what I always try to put myself into, like when I'm talking, no matter how small.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

It's like I always start with that. Who am I talking to and what am I trying to instill in them? And do I have a goal or an objective? Do I want them to learn something? Do I want them to feel something?

SPEAKER_03 28:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Like what are you trying to get out of that conversation?

SPEAKER_03 28:46

And you have to be able to think if I'm talking to one person who's an expert and I'm an expert, it's just kind of conversation.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:53

But the more people you add into your sphere of presentation, you have to be able to up level. And you have to be able to do it on the fly.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:02

There's no level of rehearsal, there's no level of like slide notes, memorization. Like you have to understand the concepts at a layman level or even like the dumbest level. Right? I have to be able to take what I'm saying and boil it up into absolute baby talk. Right. So my super wide net audience understands it. And some people cannot do that.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

Fundamentally cannot. And that's why I say it's not for everybody. Yeah. Truly some people just cannot do that. But a one-on-one, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

In a stand-up with people who all understand what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 29:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Absolutely the place to do it. Yes. And I think that's where a lot of people, to your point, get tripped up. You don't have to be the person that presents to the large crowds. But if you feel like you want to, you have to do exactly what you're saying. It's you have to understand your audience is not the audience who's at stand-up and cares about those nitty-gritty details. I have seen a lot of terrible presentations.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

So many.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Hackathons, you know, little events that are happening. They present at the end of the day. Here's everything that we did. And it's like, no one understands a word that you just said in this audience. And if you're trying to win a prize, like good luck. You're not going to win it. You have to make it relatable to your audience.

SPEAKER_03 30:12

Yes. Yeah. You have and the being able to distill an idea to make something relatable to an audience, right? Like I have this thought in my head, how do I blast that out so the most people can understand it? Or the people I'm talking to. Right. Sometimes I gotta make it more technical, right? Like this audience is really not buying the fluff marketing story I'm telling. I've got to go deep in the weeds. Right. Being able to read that room and go that path, huge.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

You know what's really essential to what you just said is, and I think it's a sure, know your audience, but also know your content. If you truly don't understand, and I I've made this mistake.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Even our big core company that we worked at, I was sent uh to China to train a team. And I thought I knew my stuff. I'm like, I studied the slides, I studied the documents, but I didn't really in practice understand what I was doing.

SPEAKER_01 31:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

And I got there and I did okay until it got to another deeper level, and then I was like, I am out of my depth. And at that point, you can't fake it till you make it. Like once you go into that depth, there is no getting out of that depth without really quickly sharing to everybody that you have no idea what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 31:23

Pro tip number two, set expectations.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:27

Because you, that situation is a perfect example of when you are talking to an audience. You know, we use executive summaries in white papers when we create things we want people to read. We're like, hey, here's the two paragraphs for any stupid exec to go read and understand. You have to do the same thing with your audience. Like, you a lot of people think when they present, it's like, oh, I'm going to be like water and go where I need to go. And you do have to do that a little bit, but you also need to understand, like, hey, we're gonna talk about this specific topic. We're going to go this deep. And that's what you're gonna take away from this. Like, if you don't like that, leave the room.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:05

Right? Like, I think a lot of people feel they need to please when being able to tell a concise story to a specific audience is just as important. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

You know, when I'm an audience member, even if it's like a little meeting of 10 to 20 people, or it's, you know, a massive audience, what I always appreciate is when the expectations are set up front. Yes. Here's what you're gonna get at the end of this discussion. Set the expectation. We talked about this in our meeting prep podcast, I don't even know, years ago at this point, where we said in your meeting agenda, have the outcomes present of what you're trying to achieve and have structure for your meeting. And I think that's really important, even in the public speaking context, because yeah, if you don't set that up front and everybody sits there and listens and they have different expectations of what's going to happen, they're going to leave disappointed. Yeah. Like, I didn't get the thing that I was here for. But if you're clear about it up front, either one, and I've had this happen to me, I'm curious if it's happened to you. I've gone into a meeting with like 20 people and I shared what I was going to present and the outcome I was expecting. And my boss was like, that's not what we're going to talk about today. And I was like, oh shoot, I horribly misunderstood what to prepare for this meeting. Interesting. And there was a communication issue with me and my boss. Yeah. We just weren't on the same page. But we had to cut the meeting short because we're like, we are not prepared to discuss the thing we were going to talk about today. Interesting. We will come back. But I'd much rather have that than like trying to fudge our way through or presenting something that no one wanted to talk about. Agreed. Like it's horribly embarrassing in the moment, but in hindsight, it's way better than trying to or having the negative backlash afterwards.

SPEAKER_03 33:36

And in that specific scenario, I would assume you aren't properly briefed. Right? Like that's that's not on you. Yep. That's on the person who's supposed to brief you for this thing. Yeah. You know, I'll do a lot of presentations either at conferences, events, I'll do webinars. And the thing I always ask, because I'm not the person who sets any of this up. I've got handlers basically who will say, like, Talent handlers. You're gonna go talk to Storage Review, and they're gonna, they're gonna be talking to you about this specific thing. And I, you know, they'll give me a brief. Usually it's a two or three-page brief of, you know, here's what this person's interested in. That's great. Here's some questions they might have for you, or they'll just say, hey, they want you to present on this topic. You've got 30 minutes, get this point across. So, like the brief is very important. And I would actually say, like, a good tip for anyone who's interested in public speaking or presenting, make sure you have one of those. Never just say, like, I'm gonna show up and present. Yep. Because that is a surefire way to fail. Always get a brief because that'll help you understand if you're talking to a repress, to an audience, to a meeting room. Like you have an understanding of what you need to bring, and then you can frame your mindset around that.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Yep. So so far we said understand the goal of what you're talking about. Are you trying to instill an emotion and inspire people? Are you trying to explain a product launch? Are you trying to go into the depths of how you use the technology to do something and just share about the technology? Or are you trying to go in the technical weeds to explain an issue and how it was resolved? And the second thing is know your audience. Okay, who are you talking to? If I'm trying to explain an issue that happened and how we went about fixing it, am I talking to my stand-up team who knows very in-depth exactly what I'm talking about, where I can be like, yeah, this uh DLL that's in our product, do DLL still exists? This DLL and our product crash because I think we should have got rid of those. It crashed because of this XYZ issue. Like they're gonna pick up on that. If I'm talking to the the C level of the company of why you know we lost millions of dollars last week, I can't say the word DLL. They're gonna look at me and be like, don't understand a word you just said. You have to learn how to abstract that information up. And I think that's a really good tip of saying, hey, there was a technology failure. It was due to an overloaded server. We want we're prepared for whatever it is. And then also make sure that you understand and set expectations up front of what you're gonna go into. So, like before that meeting with the C level, you can say, hey, we are gonna go over what happened, how we resolved it, and the impact that it had. We're not gonna go into the technical details of exactly what happened. If you want that, we have those details separate. So setting those expectations up front prepares everybody to be like, okay, cool, I'm not gonna ask questions about the super technical stuff. I'm gonna stay at the high level and get that understanding.

Breathing Movement And Controlling Nerves

SPEAKER_03 36:19

Um, easy pro tip. Breathe. Just breathe. Just breathe. Truly, uh, a lot of people get stuck on this one when they're when they're doing any kind of public speaking or even just meeting speaking, is the thought of speaking scares them. Yeah. So they'll br they'll, you know, like hyperventilate, they'll fix it, they'll hold their breath, and then they'll release. Right. And then they find themselves out of breath. And the brain needs oxygen to be able to think. And like, truly, one of the most important things, anytime I do a film shoot, they the the director will always say, take a deep breath, and then start your conversation. Yeah. And start doing whatever it is. If I'm reading from the prompter, you start reading from the prompter. If I'm doing just a straight from the heart, straight from the heart. But breathing is super important to speaking. Yeah, it it goes without saying, but like so many people forget to do this. And I see that with the rookies out there.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 37:07

They're just stammering and stuttering, it's because they're not breathing.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Yeah, your brain has no oxygen to be able to speak clearly and definitively. I think. Uh, do you get nervous? Not at all. In front of big crowds? Nothing. Never. Okay, so I'm a nervous in front of big crowds person or in front of high-level executives because I get in my head too much. But there's a lot of ways, like you said, breathing that can help you overcome that. And some people get nervous just speaking in stand-up. I see it. Yeah. I when I'm really comfortable, I have no problem just speaking. I never get nervous. Even in front of crowds of 20 to 50, no problem as long as I know the audience. But if it's going to be a high-level meeting, if it's talking about something we didn't do well on, if it's a large audience, I do always get nervous. I I don't know why, even though I know my stuff, I always do. But breathing is a great tip. I also get a little bit of the shake. And what I learned, see, I'm not very steady. I'm shaky anyway, but when I'm speaking in front of people, I definitely get a little of the shake. Something that can really help with that. This is my shooting. Something that can really help with that is put movement into your speaking. And so, like you're holding a mic and you're just standing there like hunched up and you're shaking. That one doesn't look great, but also it's just going to put all that energy in your hands. Yeah. If you put it in a meaningful movement, and if you're watching on the YouTube, that you're like explaining and you take a step forward and put out your hand, or be like, and when you think about it on this end, like when you use those motions, it gets rid of your shakes because it gives that energy something to go into. And so that for me helps a lot is breathing in the mat.

SPEAKER_03 38:28

One one caution on the movement is they call it they call it the caged tiger. Don't don't pace back and forth. Yeah. Because then you then you look like you don't need to go to the bathroom, or yeah, you're like doing something about you know doing something malicious to the audience. Move, yeah, move with intent.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Intel movements.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

Like take a step forward and put your hand out, you know, explain something to the right. But it's a matter of moving your body a little with it. Like don't just move a hand. Right. You've got to like take a step, move your body, engage. It puts everything at ease.

SPEAKER_03 39:00

And if you are in a position where you're public speaking, you're doing a stage presentation, and you do do pace. Like move around because that actually draws the audience's attention. Just even the the slightness of taking like five steps to the right and then standing and talking to the audience, make something of it. Yeah. Just don't just do it because you think I need to move or I'm nervous, so I'm moving. For sure. It's the difference between those two things. It really makes a huge difference.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Yeah, if you rock, if you shake, put that into intentional movement instead. Yes. And I think that will really help you. I also heard with the breathing. I heard this the other day, and I don't know if it's true. I do like deep diaphragmic things that's correct. Which is like not when you breathe, not in your chest going out. Breathe in the belly. It's your belly going out. And you literally just want to like puff it out, and as you're breathing, feel it there. But I also heard that you want to release your breath out of your nose twice as fast as it's coming in. Oh, I've never heard of it. So when you breathe in, you go, or out of the mouth, sorry. And then you go like fast. Yeah, I don't know. People say that helps with nerves.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

Uh, you know, when I've done it with some directors in the past, they've been like, deep breath in, out, deep breath in, speak. So that that does sound right.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

You gotta go out fast, but go in nice and slow. Make sure it's a belly breath. That really helps.

SPEAKER_03 40:12

And the thing is, this leads into one of my other tips I give in my training session, is energy is everything. Yeah. Right? When you're talking to anyone, even if it's a one-on-one, even if it's on a podcast with your bestie, you gotta have energy. Yeah. Right? And it has to be a natural energy too. You never want to present with like overexcited because you think that's what people want. You never want to present as Eeyore because no one will like you.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

Yeah, no one likes that.

SPEAKER_03 40:39

Be yourself. Think about how you feel if you like, if you like Star Wars, think about how you feel when you see a new Star Wars trailer. That's the kind of energy you need to bring to your presentations, is an excitement about what you're about to talk about. Because if you're not excited, your audience service heck ain't gonna be excited.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Right.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

It's it's natural charisma when you're excited about something. And I think that people are drawn to that. They're drawn to people, like think of your favorite YouTubers, your podcasters. You like them because of their energy. And that's what you have to come off with. I 100% agree.

SPEAKER_03 41:12

There and it goes both ways, right? Like it could be excitement, it can also be concern, right? If you're presenting something that is actually very concerning, bring that gravity to the situation, right? Like we were talking about the AI earlier. I am deeply concerned about the future of everything. And I think I bring that across pretty well with the way I talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

Right.

SPEAKER_03 41:31

There is concern in my voice and my emotions.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

Right.

SPEAKER_03 41:35

That is energy being channeled into an emotion, and it's very important for public speaking, which is again why memorization and slide notes and all of that is just the most terrible crutch you can rely on because it hampers emotion, it hampers energy, and it focuses you on the wrong thing.

Audience Engagement And Tone Control

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Yep, absolutely. And if you're watching on the podcast, you can already tell. Like we both speak with our hands, we move with our body because it it's something that I think we just do naturally, luckily, but we don't get into our heads too much. It's just natural movement for us. And I think people pick up on that energy, they pick up on that vibe. And I think that's what really helps uh portray your message. I think the one of the ones too is like if you're talking to a group and it's a larger group, I think something that's really important is engaging with the audience. And like people, and you'll see it all the time. If you're presenting in front of a meeting from 10 to 30 to 50, whatever, you can still engage everybody in the room to get their attention. Yeah. I love to do that. I've done it in many of my public speaking opportunities where I spoke in front of hundreds of people. I I engage everybody. I'm like, who's been to Universal before? And like people raise their hand and they get excited, and because they're now engaging, they're now paying attention. And I think that's a really great way to get people involved, but also help draw them into what message you're trying to share.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

One of the things I love to do, and you can steal this. You can steal this too if you like. One of the things I love to do when I present to let's say audience is all like 20 to 50, when it's a it's a room where people can ask questions, right? Is I'll bring a piece of swag or something to give away, like a backpack, something nice, right? Yeah. And I'll say, whoever asks me the question I cannot answer about the general presentation, right? Like you're not allowed to ask me, you know, what the weight of an African swallow is, but like you can ask me anything about the presentation. And if I can't answer it, you get the backpack.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

I like that.

SPEAKER_03 43:22

And that puts everyone on alert. Yeah. They listen to everything I say because they're looking for the stump to chumps. And they're also gonna try and like ask that question because they want the backpack.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

Right.

SPEAKER_03 43:32

Right? That is a surefire trick to get people to pay attention to you the entire time. Yeah. Now the only caveat is you gotta know your stuff. Yeah. Back to point one is like you have to know what you're talking about. You cannot play that trick if you're like, I'm just reading.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

If you get stumped on the first question, yikes. Yikes, you're done. You have more backpacks. I actually really like what you going back to the tone thing too. Like, I'm and people who have been watching this and listening to us for a while, I'm a generally optimistic. Happy smiley person. But in front of the C level audience who thinks they're all big and bad and tough and they want a serious message, I can change my tone to be serious. And they pick up on that because they know that's not who I usually am and they take it much more seriously. They're like, oh interesting.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

And so like I use that trick too of like you change, you use your tone to send the energy and the message you want to portray of like, no, I'm being serious tonight. Right. We're having a serious conversation. And they all feel that, and that draws them in because it's different than what you usually are. And so I think that's a really good tip. Sorry, I jumped backwards, but no urgency.

SPEAKER_03 44:31

I mean, like, there's an there's an urgency and then there's an emotion to presentations that, to your point, is very important. If you're talking, one of the things I run into a lot, because I'm talking about cybersecurity a lot, is if I'm talking about a company that's been like attacked, I can't be making jokes like, oh, you know, they should have locked the front door, should have put that data center and a little more, you know, glue in there to keep it all together. Like, no, it's like you you have to be respectful of the material, yeah, the the situation, and also the audience itself, right? Right? Like, do not be making jokes when you're talking to an organization about like healthcare and heart, you know, disease, right? Like bring it bring an amount of seriousness to that.

SPEAKER_00 45:15

Yeah, there's places where you bring weight or levity, depending on the situation. Exactly. Yeah. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 45:20

When I'm at the when I'm, you know, talking to uh you know people at the funeral home, that's the best time to crack jokes.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

They love that.

SPEAKER_03 45:27

They love it.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

Cheryl absolutely loves when you bring up that joke.

SPEAKER_03 45:30

They love it.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Well, one thing I also um think is important to talk about next is in I think this is actually important in any type of conversation you have, whether it's public speaking, whether it's a small group, is learning how to tell a story. Yes. And crafting your material to be in that story format that anybody could follow.

SPEAKER_03 45:50

What's your story format?

SPEAKER_00 45:52

So I don't know that I have an exact one. It depends on the situation. Like, is it a problem?

SPEAKER_03 45:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:57

And so then it's like, okay, what happened? Why did it happen? How are we going to prevent it from happening again? Like those things. Or you could tell it of a story of like, this is how we got started. This is how we got alerted of the problem. Okay, we have another, another hound has approached. Another hound coming through. But I think just being able to tell that story to draw people in of like, okay, I understand where you started. I understand where the plot twist happened, I understand the conclusion and how you kind of resolved it and what the hero story of the moment was.

SPEAKER_03 46:29

So I'll give you two. I'll give you two different methods you can use. Uh, the first is if you know your audience knows kind of what you're talking about. It's called the Amazon method, and this actually comes from Amazon. But basically, the idea is you tell a story that focuses on what is the problem? What are people doing today? Why does that suck? Why are you better?

unknown 46:49

Right?

SPEAKER_00 46:50

I like that for like a new product.

SPEAKER_03 46:51

When you have an audience that's aware of like the situation, you they know the problem, so you're reframing it to them. You know what the problem is, this is the problem. Here's what other solutions are doing about it. Let me tell you why that sucks, let me tell you why we're better. Right? And that's a really good method. You'll notice if you ever look at any of Amazon's material, that's how they do it. It's a really good method. The other one, if you are in a situation where you are trying to present to something that you don't know what the audience knows, you cannot go wrong with the hero's journey. Classic hero's journey, classic Hollywood book storytelling. But you don't talk about a character like you're talking about a product. You're basically telling the story of what is the rising action? What well, firstly, what is the conflict? What are we going to, how are we gonna grow? Why is the conflict bad? What is the rising action? What is the conflict doing to make the world worse? What does our hero do to fight this conflict? Give me a little bit of uh, you know, hero versus conflict. Here's what the situation is, here's how we deal with it. Falling action, and this is how everything turns out. Resolution, my life is better for this. Yep. Right? You can take either of these formats. I'd say the second is better when no one understands anything, because then you tell a complete story. It's a little bit longer, and it's definitely something that you have to know how. My my dog just straight up punched Michael's.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

She did. She went right for the kneecap.

SPEAKER_03 48:14

Both of these work though, and I highly recommend them. Most of the presentations I give fall on one of those two things based on who I'm talking to.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

I like those two, those two ways of doing it. I always try to put it in some sort of a format, but I don't use a structure. I think using those structures is really helpful because it's relatable. Yes. It's something people's brains can tie into because it is every story, every superhero story, everything that kind of puts together, it's easy for someone to understand.

SPEAKER_03 48:38

It's the it's like the oldest trick in the book, truly. Like it goes all the way back to caveman era, painting on walls. This is how they told stories. Like the hero's journey is ancient. Yeah. It's ancient.

SPEAKER_00 48:50

This this talent or practice of putting things in a story so anybody can understand it is so helpful in so many facets of life. Like even in interviewing, like being able to tell a story about yourself. Yes. Like while you're talking over your resume or a successful achievement or something that didn't go as planned, like being able to tell that in a concise story, a hero's journey, any sort of those formats is so so helpful because it helps draw people in and keep their attention and understand how you went from rags to riches or whatever it is. Well, people like lean in too. Yeah. Like, oh man, I tell you more. Is this gonna be okay? Am I gonna be okay?

SPEAKER_03 49:23

And I mean that's the point, right? Is like when you have that conflict or that challenge, people want the good guy to win. Yep. So when you position whatever you're telling as the good guy and showing how it overcomes the conflict, you get engagement.

SPEAKER_00 49:35

Yep, absolutely. I actually think it's it's helpful. Like the first one that you said, what did you call it? The first format? The Amazon format. The Amazon format.

SPEAKER_03 49:43

Like that is their they patented this. This is their whole thing. It works very well though.

SPEAKER_00 49:46

I always love the what, so what, now what format format, because it's really easy to understand. It's like, okay, and this is typically for an issue or something like that. It's like, okay, this is what happened. This was the impact. Why does it matter as the so what? Like, so who cares? Well, we lost a million dollars, or we lost these customers, they had a data loss. Now what? Like, what are the steps that we're taking to move forward? So it's a nice, just easy, compelling story.

SPEAKER_03 50:09

It's a really good one, especially if you're an executive, or if you have to deliver some not so great news to people. I would I would say with the more dire, the more urgency, and maybe it's a little bit more of a downer conversation. What so what now what is a great way to handle that kind of information.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

Yeah, absolutely. Um, what's next?

SPEAKER_03 50:29

Be yourself. Oh, like a big one is be yourself. This is this is why I say again, like, if you are not a public speaker, if you if you get the shakes, if you're terrified, you should not do it. Because that's not who you are.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:41

Right? Like, I am a public speaker. That is who I am, it is who I am in the core of my DNA. I see people who think I can do this if I just practice it enough. And like, that's not what you're good at. Yeah, do you need to? That's not what we hired you for. Yeah. And it is it is very funny because when you are able to just be yourself in your presentations, whether it's your serious self, your funny self, your neutral self, people want to see that. People are interested in people and they like to resonate with people. But the one thing no one wants to see is a person who is trying not to be themselves and be something else.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

It's so easy to feel out when someone is just not they're they're not being genuine.

SPEAKER_03 51:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 51:20

Like, not being genuine is it's so easy for the human brain to pick it up of like that's just not that, especially if they know you.

SPEAKER_03 51:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 51:26

It's like that isn't that person.

SPEAKER_03 51:27

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 51:28

And like that just turns you off to pay attention. You're like, uh, I don't feel like this is genuine. I don't want to pay attention. Is it actually even gonna be accurate of what they're talking about? Like, you start to question it.

SPEAKER_03 51:37

You lose trust. Yeah, you lose trust. That's what it is. And people can smell it, they don't even have to know you.

unknown 51:42

Right.

SPEAKER_03 51:42

Like, I think what this guy's saying is kind of sus. Right? Like, you just you lose all credibility and authority. We have no idea what we're talking about, but it's the confidence and it's our genuine self that that really helps get this point across.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

Yeah, know your content, do it in a way that is natural to you. Fake it till you make it. It's funny because there are situations where fake it till you make it, I feel like are good, but in public speaking scenarios, it's never it's never good.

SPEAKER_03 52:07

You should never fake it in any kind of public meeting speaking scenario.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

Like, don't you don't know the content, if you're not being yourself, like those things just you can't fake that. Right. Especially in front of people. It's gonna, and especially if you're trying to get like a promotion and you do that in front of a large group, like of executives or whatever, and you're trying to get to that next level. It's so easy to just it's all of them just immediately get turned off, and because they only see you for five minutes a month, they're like, okay, well, that person kind of sucks. Like in reality, it's true because that's all they see from you is you being disingenuous, you're not knowing your stuff. Like, don't do it if you're not ready or if you don't need to.

SPEAKER_03 52:43

Agree. Yeah, agree. I think it's such a that is such an important thing, is so many people feel pressured because they think this is the only way I get to move up.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:51

Is if I'm able to give a presentation, if I am able to command a meeting, and that's just not true.

SPEAKER_00 52:56

Right.

SPEAKER_03 52:57

There is so much need for, well, there's there's still need for brain work today. And I think a lot of times people who are very, very good at the brain work might not be so good at the the more public speaking type work.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:11

Because when you're able to really hone in and focus on a specific, and this is not universally true, but just I've noticed that people who are very, very good being able to go in, solve the problem, focus in on the issue, they see things at that microscopic level, but they're not always able to bubble it up to an audience consumption level.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

And think about it this way, too, is public speaking is not the only way to get a message across.

SPEAKER_03 53:33

Bingo.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

There's so many other ways. You can write a white paper, you can code something, write a report, create a report, you can write a nice email. Like all those things still are you portraying and getting across your message, your objective, whatever it is. It doesn't have to be public speaking, so don't feel forced to do that.

SPEAKER_03 53:50

And you know what's funny is I saw this a lot at Big Corp. I would work on presentations and scripts for execs. Things that I would present without need of script or presentation for an exec. And they always got criticized every single time. They're like, it's so disingenuous. Like, why are they reading? Why are they up there like just reading the slides word for word? And I'd be like, because there is this insistence that certain people do this, when in actuality their value was the ability to make executive decisions, be able to understand the organizational layout and put right people in right places. Right. And there was really no expectation for them to do this, but they felt like they had to because of their title or their presence in the company. Right. And it is just so funny to me. Like, no one doubted that they were good at their job. But when they go up on stage, everyone doubts that they were good at their job.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

Yikes.

SPEAKER_03 54:52

Yeah, and I that's the irony. Like, that is really the irony, is like the need to be seen can often create a worse result than had you not been seen at all.

SPEAKER_00 55:00

Absolutely. Yeah.

unknown 55:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

And I think that's a really good point of like if you're an individual contributor and don't feel pressured into public speaking. Yeah. If someone's like, oh, can you present this at the meeting? Like, look around of like what your goals are. Okay, I just want to get promoted to the next level. Does anyone who's at that level public speak? If if you're a back-end engineer, do they ever public speak? Don't feel like you need to. Just be like, no, it's okay. Like, I'm good, but I'm happy to like write up an email or documentation if you need me to. And that's totally okay. Should be totally fine. And it's gonna make you look better at the end of it.

SPEAKER_03 55:30

You know, and I think that's a really good point because if you are asked, let's say your boss comes in and says, hey, I need you to present on what you've built in the last month, and you're not a public speaker, you are very uncomfortable about this. The best tip I can give, get in, get your point across, and get out.

SPEAKER_00 55:46

Get out ASAP.

SPEAKER_03 55:48

Do not linger, do not filler, like come in, have a have a message you want to get across, prove that point. Any questions, get out. Everyone will appreciate you for doing this.

SPEAKER_00 56:00

100%. Like, I also think there's a place where you can tell your boss, like, hey, this has nothing bearing on you. I am not a great public speaker, but I'm happy to put something together for you, you know, so you can present this and I'll be there to answer questions, like if that's gonna be what's needed. And I think a lot of people would appreciate that. Like, I've had people on my team tell me that. I'm like, okay, that's fine. Yeah. Like, tell me, you know, I'll talk to it at a high level, and I'll just say if you have any questions, you know, Anthony's here to help answer this.

SPEAKER_03 56:25

I will ask. I'd be like, hey, would you be interested in doing this? Yeah. Because otherwise I'll do it.

SPEAKER_00 56:29

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 56:30

Right? Like, I want to make it no pressure for my team. You do not have to present. I'm happy to do that on your behalf. It's what I'm good at.

SPEAKER_00 56:37

Right.

SPEAKER_03 56:37

But if you'd like the opportunity to try, like I welcome it.

SPEAKER_00 56:39

This is actually a good managerial tip too. If you're an extroverted manager, don't pressure your people into public speaking. I've had plenty of people on my team be like, hey, I just I don't want to do this. Like, do I have to do this? And I'm like, I should have asked. Like, I just assumed you were like me and you wanted to do this. It goes back to knowing the love languages of the workplace.

SPEAKER_03 56:57

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 56:58

Knowing their style and their preference, and you know, I think all that is really, really important.

SPEAKER_03 57:02

And if and if this is your situation where you are the manager speaking on behalf of your team or your employees, use their names. For the love of God, when you go up there, just go up there, please give credit. Take credit for it. Don't say we. Give credit. Say, hey, Janice just created this brand new feature. Let me show you how it works. What Janice built, like, give all credit where it is due, because one, your employees will appreciate you for it. And two, it shows that you are just speaking for them because they're not comfortable. And it actually like it creates a very nice sort of ecosystem. Yeah, absolutely. Where it's like, I can really trust this person, I trust this person to talk on my behalf.

SPEAKER_00 57:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:41

Right? Like, it's a it's a really good two-way relationship.

Slides Q&A And Closing Strong

SPEAKER_00 57:44

Yeah, I love that. You actually mentioned something great too, is like if if someone puts together material, I think material is a really important part of this. Like, if you're presenting in front of people, what kind of material should you have?

SPEAKER_01 57:57

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 57:58

Based on the conversation.

SPEAKER_03 58:00

Let me tell you what you should never open up on any webinar ever. If you're ever presenting to anybody, never open Excel.

SPEAKER_00 58:06

No, please. Never open Excel.

SPEAKER_03 58:09

I see it so much on like meetings. This is inappropriate even on a meeting or talking about Excel. If you're going to present, PowerPoint and keynote exist for this purpose. Be able to capture things and put them on a slide, make it big, try to avoid walls of text, tables of text. Put the information that needs to be seen on that slide and nothing else.

SPEAKER_00 58:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 58:32

More slides with less on them, I think is always better.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

100%. I think and go back and watch like an Apple keynote for anything. Look at their slides. 10x improvement. That's all you see. They have hundreds of slides. Hundreds. And it's all like three words on every single one. And you watch the entire thing.

SPEAKER_03 58:49

Yeah. You're locked in. Well, and you know, this goes back to something we said earlier, but when you're moving, when you're using energy, when you're clicking slides, you're regaining your audience's attention, right? Anytime you can do something to get them reinvested in the conversation, taking a drink, showing a slide, clicking next, that's good. That re-engages your audience.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 59:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:13

Yeah, I think keep the content simple. Don't go crazy with the animations, but sometimes animations are really helpful in the storytelling and sequencing of something. So I do think sometimes it's powerful to be like before and after and like put them side by side. But I do think it's important that you plan the flow of it and you focus on getting the main points up there when it makes sense in your story. Only the main points. Yes. And then you talk around them. Why does it matter? What does the point actually mean? Clarify the statement if you need to, but talk over those points. Don't write walls of text.

SPEAKER_03 59:44

Well, and this is where those storytelling techniques come in, right? If you're gonna use slides, and I love slides. I love slides.

SPEAKER_00 59:50

I'm a big fan of slides, too.

SPEAKER_03 59:51

Yeah, they're great. Follow a construct. There are plenty of constructs out there. You can use the Amazon model, you can use the hero's journey. There are other like the uh what so what now what. Build your slides with that format in mind. Obviously, you can meander and go in and out and interject personal anecdotes as you move through this, but having your slides constructed in a storytelling format, one, helps keep you on track, two, helps keep your audience engaged because we know these things work. And then you don't just throw up the random Excel database. Why are we looking at this for 30 minutes?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:24

Did you see my formula? Come on.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:26

Like, no one wants to see that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:28

I think that's a really great tip. I agree. I think we we might have, I think the only thing I would conclude on is like at the end, reiterate your state, your your main objective points and be like, so this is where this is what we wanted to talk about today. We talked about these three points that summarize, you know, our objective and kind of conclude the meeting on or the public speaking, whatever it is, on the key points that you want to get across. So it's I've seen even things like on TED Talks and whatever, where it's like, if you're gonna take anything away from today, yes, here's the three things. Summary points. Yes, summarize is super, super important at the end. And even interviews as you're talking through your story, summarization at the end, or if they ask you a problem and you solve the problem, you go through the whole journey, summarizing what you discussed at the end. Like that's just a powerful speaking tool.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:16

The other thing I would add, because I completely agree with that and I have nothing else to say, is if you're going to open up for questions, don't just say any questions. I mean, you can't, I mean, if you're David S. Pumpkins, you can come in and be like, any questions, and that'll work. But uh think about how your audience saw your presentation, think about what they might ask. So you could say, what did I not tell you that you still want to know? Right? Because that immediately engages the oh, I was thinking about this. Like, how do you, how does your product do X? If you can, if you can open up the floor to questions in an interesting way, you'll get interesting questions. And honestly, that makes for a more interesting dialogue between you and the question asker. And have a dialogue. Don't just answer the question. When you said your piece, say, does that make sense? Or did that get to what you were looking for, or do we need to go deeper? Like, give them the end to follow up because the rest of the audience is also interested. Yeah, they're all thinking that same question. And uh when you close, be sure to thank everyone for watching.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:15

Yeah, I think even having your name or like how to follow up with you for more or something is also because you just said your name at the very beginning, they might not even remember, especially if it's a conference and I've spoken at conferences. At the end, they're like, Who are you? and what was I talking about that whole time? And like at the end, having something where you can thank them after questions, of course, take questions as you need it, and repeat their question back to them to be like, okay, I understood it properly. Yes. I see a lot of people do that wrong in Q ⁇ A's where like they either won't actually answer the question but think they did, and then they just move on to the next person. So I think doing the tip of, hey, uh, did I answer your question? Was that exactly what you're getting at? And you kind of get you know more value out of a QA.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:53

The the one thing I like that you said, and this is what I say in every single evangelism training I do, it's such a cliche, and I hate cliches, but this is a thousand and twenty-seven percent true.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:05

Thousand and twenty-seven, that's specifically.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:06

The most realistic, realistic that's a thousand more minutes than I was late today. They you're right. They will not remember what you said, but they will remember how they felt.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:19

And I stand by that cliche with every fiber of my being. Yeah. Like they, I've had people come up to me years later at conferences and be like, oh, I saw your presentation. On what? I don't remember, but I really enjoyed it. Like it's so true. Like they will not remember what you said, yeah, but they'll remember how they felt, and that's important because the real goal of all of this is to create a brand for you or your company or you're representing.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:45

Yep. Absolutely. I think we got it. Summarize at the end. Know your goal, know your audience, tell it in a story format, present it simply, talk around the problems. Be yourself, be yourself, breathe. That was really loud. She breathed. That was a big thing. That was the way a dog breathes. She breathed right on cue, thank you. And then at the end, you know, ask questions, conclude, repeat your points, and then you know, close it out. Yeah. Say thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:13

Uh it never hurts to take the microphone and just drop it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:15

Yeah, of course. I think if you ever have a chance, immediately drop something on the floor.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:21

Kick over the podium that your laptop is on. Just walk away, deuces. Throw up the deuces, I'm out. I'm out. People love that, actually. I do it every every chance I get, I knock something over as I walk away. Kick a chair.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:35

You know, just you know I love to do if you're at a teams meeting, an interview, just always make sure you shut it off as you're wrapping up and saying bye. I just feel like, yeah, but don't don't finish it. Don't finish the word. Yeah, but do that even when you're talking person.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:48

Yeah, but he's gonna go move. He's gone. It's power play. People will people will truly feel intimidated by it. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, it's great. I think we did it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:58

Hopefully that was helpful. You know, and I think this all these tips apply to every chance you have to public speak, and you will, no matter what role you play. You'll interview, you'll talk to somebody, you'll need to express how you feel about something. Like these are just general tips that help you do all that that we've learned talking in front of small groups and very, very large groups. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:14

Yes. Couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. Cheers. Waterloo.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:20

Waterloo.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:22

Um, so I think that does it for oh, you know what? Before we before we well, I think it does do it. It does do it. It does do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:29

It does do it? Was that it? It does do it. Okay, we're just doing it.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:31

For another episode of Corporate Strategy, the podcast committed an email. Big thanks to our supporters who follow us on Patreon and support us with their money. Just again, in case you didn't see the last episode, we are cash flow positive as far as hosting, managing, and presenting the podcast. Although I said that and literally we went over time last month. We're$4 over. So it's because we we had like six hours of content. These episodes are long now.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:55

We keep drawing them on and we keep drawing them out. It's so much fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:57

So we were cash flow positive for a minute. We might, because I failed to show up for a podcast last week, we will be cash flow positive this month. Thank you to our patrons. This is the first time in our experience of doing this for over 200 episodes that we were able to do this without pulling into my pockets. So I truly thank you from the bottom of our heart. And if you're interested in supporting the show, you can do so by clicking on the link. It is a link tree now in every place. It's a link tree. You can click the link and you can take a look at our Discord, at our Patreon, at our website, at our merch shop where we sell merch that has our logo on it that does not make us any money. Get your baby onesie. Get your baby onesie while you can. It's baby season. It's time to reward everyone with a baby onesie. Why not? Uh, and if you can't do any of those things, the least you can do is share this episode with your friends. Maybe you have uh someone who's got public speaking coming up and you are tips. Send them this episode and just like tell them, hey, deal with the Peter Thiel uh talenteer first 20 minutes. Like just fast forward.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:59

Yeah, fast forward through is just scrub through that nonsense and then you'll get through.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:02

I swear there's some gold in there. It's deep in there. You gotta get through 22 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:07

You gotta get through it, but then eventually when you do, it's the best.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:10

It's the best. It's the best. And you know who's the best? Is my co-host, Michael. Let's go! Thanks for being on the show. And once again, if you're interested in his new endeavor, you gotta join our Discord.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:20

Gotta join our Discord to find out.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:21

Join our Discord to find out. Uh, we need to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:25

We owe our patrons exclusive content.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:28

Well, we do, but we also owe our regular viewers another game stream.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:33

We do. We gotta do something fun. Next week?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:34

We've got to figure that out. Next week. Maybe next week. Yeah, I think next week is two weeks for you. Prime time. Let's do it. Um, and that that'll do it for another episode of Corporate Strategy Podcast. Gonna be me, me mail, me mail. Me mail. Me mail. I'm Anthony. And I'm Michael. And you're on mute. We will see you next week. End it.