Speaking and Communicating Podcast

It might not happen at all like that for you, but me using that personal anecdote was very convincing, wasn't it?

That's how you become more persuasive, that's how you become more impactful when you're speaking, is you need to intermix personal anecdotes with information and evidence.

Because an anecdote, a personal experience is not evidence, but it is more convincing than evidence.

Welcome back to The Speaking and Communicating Podcast. I am your host Roberta Ndlela. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning in to.

Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development. And by the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify and leave us a rating and a review. Now, let's get communicating.

Now let's get communicating with my special guest and friend today, Ivan Wanis Ruiz, who is a speaker, author, MC, and founder of End Boring Communication. His book is actually End Boring.

Ivan, what is so boring that you had to write a book about it?

Oh, dude, everything is. Like everything is boring. This is the thing.

Yo, there is a sense of, you know, in French you say ennui which means boredom that we all have. And I'll give you some really good examples.

My listening audience, all of you amazing listeners, the millions around the world, when was the last time you were in a meeting and you weren't bored?

When was the last time you sat in a virtual training session and you were like, wow, that was really useful and educational. I can't wait to do that again.

And the answer is never because usually you logged in and you're like, why are we even meeting? This is super boring and it's not relevant.

And if you think about it, Roberta, think about all the limited time you have in a work day and to take away half of it with meetings. How much is that affecting your productivity, your happiness, your effectiveness and your growth?

There is a global epidemic of boredom. And if we can remove it, dude, if we could stop being boring, we would be on Neptune by now. Seriously, think about this.

Okay, Roberta, you watch YouTube, right?

Right.

Chances are, if you watch YouTube and we all do, or you're on Instagram or whatever, there are certain people you watch because you love the way they deliver information.

Yes.

Are you the smartest person? No. Are they the most educated?

No. Are they an expert in whatever subject they're talking about?

No.

But we watch them. Why? Because they're entertaining.

They're not boring.

Think about it like this.

Think about it, Ivan. I hear you. Yes.

We do. The videos that are more entertaining are the ones that go viral. But here's the thing.

Because we talk mostly about these communication skills that people need in the workplace. Should you always be entertaining when making a presentation to the board of directors?

It's a great question, Roberta, because it's like, hey, if I come up and do a stand-up comedy routine at my monthly quarterly update to the VP, is that professional, right?

And you make a good point, because you can't go into the room and be like, what's up, everybody?

Put your hands in the air, right?

You can't do that.

Can't be like coming in like that.

Maybe some places you can. So let me throw this idea out. You can give me your opinion.

OK, three points. First point, is it our attention spans getting longer or shorter?

Shorter.

Definitely. Number two, is there really that any information that I can't find out for myself by reading a PowerPoint deck or doing a Google search?

Shared GPT. Yeah.

Which is the third one. Think about all the technical tasks that are getting more and more automated because of AI. So think about this.

That means that in our communication, details, no one wants them. Number two, information has almost no value. Number three, my technical abilities have less and less value.

So what value does a person actually bring? If it's not information and expertise, it's going to be your ability to deliver information, your ability to persuade and convince, because all that other stuff is becoming less and less valuable.

So where is the balance? Which was the question you asked, right? Communicating professionally.

Where is the balance? That's why I wrote the book. The whole book is filled with tactics on how to be succinct.

And we'll do one right now. We'll do one just for funsies right now. How to be succinct, like exercises to make yourself succinct.

The book is full of tactics. Here's how you summarize the presentation in one sentence. Here's like three different ways to do that.

So you can get to the point quickly. But then I also talk about in the book, tactics to become what I like to call infotainment. Because that I believe will be the competitive advantage of the future.

And let me give you one more example of this. Any CEO or super senior person that you have listened to was probably charismatic, especially the ones that people liked. Is it because they were an expert in everything?

No, they were likable. And one of the most underrated leadership skills in the world, Roberta, is likability.

Or what they call charisma?

It could be charisma. I like to think likability because if you like someone, you're going to listen to them. You're going to support them.

You're going to follow them. Right. Someone who's charismatic, you might not get all of that from them.

But if you like somebody, like Roberta, we had a really fun conversation before this started, right? And right away, I like you.

Yes.

So that means right away, I'm going to support you more. Like right away. There's some guests you've had on that it was a nice conversation and you've never thought about them again.

There's other guests that you really connected with. You're like, I want to help that person. I want to help that person.

That's like ability.

Now, those with likeability, does that mean when they present?

OK, so it's the infotainment. But what role does confidence play? Because you say that confidence has nothing to do with how you feel.

I thought that was quite intriguing.

Well, I believe that confidence is a physical action.

I like to get my tactics, you know, in the book, from a bunch of very random, non-typical sources, because I think there is a disconnect between what people think of as good professional communication and what actually is good professional

communication. And I'll give you some examples, OK?

OK.

People will tell you things about physicality that are just weird. Roberta, you and I are talking, just socializing, talking like, you know, colleagues.

Right.

We're moving all the time. We're doing all these things. We're not really speaking formally.

But yet when you do a presentation, we say things like, never cross your arms. But like, isn't that just normal?

Like, never put your hands in your pocket.

That is so normal. And here's the thing. Watch any really good speaker.

And I'm not talking about politicians or CEOs, because none of us watch politicians and CEOs. You've never done it. You've never gone like, hey, you guys don't want to come over on Friday night.

We'll party by start, but we'll kick off the party with like a Tim Cook speech.

Hey, let's go watch Steve Drogba.

No, no, exactly. No, hey, you guys want to watch the Google Keynote? No, nobody wants to do that.

We'll forget those people. Stand up comics, late night talk show hosts, YouTube influencers. What are they doing to be dynamic and charismatic?

And it's a bunch of physical actions. And I'll show you one right now. OK, we'll do this together.

OK, Roberta? So, number one, if we're speaking virtually, for everyone who's listening, go on YouTube, follow Roberta so you can see this. OK, so number one, I did a lot of research into like, what do YouTube people do to be virtually interesting?

Non-verbally. The first is your frame. So take your hand like this with your thumb on the bottom.

Put it up to the top of your head. If your hand is cut off, then you have a good frame. If there is space above your hand, you got to dip it down.

OK, part two, put your hands over here.

OK, so I need to stay here the entire video.

Don't you dare breathe or move.

Never.

Let's keep going. Let's keep going. So part two, put your hands to your side like this.

If your hands are over close to your face, like if they're on a V, if you're making a V so that I can see them, you're too close to the camera.

Oh, yeah.

So think about this. OK, if we were out for a coffee, I invite everyone to do this. Go do some people watching and you will see that normal communication, we move every few seconds.

Our bodies and our arms. When we are professional, we no longer do that. We become very still, which is why it's hard to look at someone presenting, which is why you get bored.

So here's a strategy. And go watch any good YouTube celebrity. And you will see this.

When they're talking, they always have a frame where their hand is cut off and you can see their arms at a normal level. Like right now, I'd probably want to dip it lower, but you're going to see my bed here. There you go.

Pretend I have a nice background. But if I'm talking normally, I'll have a fun background and I'll go like this. So you can see me talking on one side of my body, on the other side of my body.

This is why it's so important. The idea is you need to become visually interesting through physical actions. You talk on one side of your body, you talk on the other, you cut off your hand, you always have this perfect little screen.

Why? Because presentations are not things you listen to. Presentations are not things you read.

They are things you watch. If you are not interesting to look at, I will look at something else. Which is why everyone listening here has always logged into a Teams meeting, a Zoom meeting.

And what do you do? You pop up your email. I'll just do my work and pretend to listen.

And you're not really paying attention. And then you think this, Roberta, you think this. You've thought this, I've thought this.

Listeners, you have thought this. I'll just get this live deck later if it's important.

And they usually send it on Slack. Yeah.

And you'll never look at it. You'll never look at it.

And speaking of slides, what makes slides boring? And how can we end boring slides starting today?

Here's the number one thing you need to understand. No one will ever read your slides.

After preparing like 50 slides, no one's going to read them after all my hard work.

Have you? Have you?

Have you ever watched the presentation and just like, yes, reading bullet. Yes. And here's the worst part.

Now, here's the worst part. If you did do that, you know what you'd have to do? You'd have to ignore the speaker.

Yes, that's what happens actually.

And especially if you read faster than the speaker, because some of us are fast readers, we tend to read bullet, bullet, bullet, bullet, and the speaker is still speaking slowly on the second bullet and you're done.

And then your mind starts to wonder.

Done, exactly, because you have no idea what they're talking about because you were too busy reading. So you wait till the next slide before you start to focus again. Here's the truth, my friend.

Most of us design slides to be read because that's what we send them after the presentation. But if all the information is on a slide, why should I listen to you? So here's what I do.

Here's my recommendation for not boring slides. Make your traditional presentation with the bullets and everything. Okay?

Save that. Copy that document. Then, delete everything so that the slides by themselves don't make sense unless you listen to me.

And I'll give you a couple of examples, okay? So you can understand the before and after. Because the truth is this.

PowerPoint was made in 1987. It was included in Microsoft Office in 1992. Now think how different all our communication is since 1992.

But presentations have stayed the same because they're all still the exact same thing. A picture with a bunch of bullets. And we have not adapted our communication.

Watch any good YouTube video and you'll see this as like a full out example. No YouTuber is sharing a bullet point presentation. And if they are, none of you are reading them.

What they are doing is sharing visuals. So here's what I do. I always talk about this thing called the lazy rule.

And the lazy rule says, what can you delete and say instead? So that my slides by themselves don't make sense until after you've heard me talk. And what I send you when I'm done is the initial slides, the ones that I made a copy of.

But when I present, it's very little information, mainly pictures and like a couple of keywords to anchor people. And I'm just looking right now to find you a really good example. Because I have some examples.

I'm just looking through some presentations to find them to you. But does that make sense?

It does, because I've sat through presentations where they write a whole essay and they read it. And I'm thinking, why did you think if you give us this, we're not going to read it ourselves?

And I've also prepared presentations where I was trained to just have maybe three bullet points. And each bullet point you'll have two, three keywords max, just as a reminder. But I talked about it.

Exactly.

Wait, stop. Everybody stop. Listen to what Roberta just said.

Because what you just said was profound and I don't think people got it. Slides don't tell you what to say. Because a lot of people use them as notes.

Slides remind you what to say. And you just said it. They're a great reminder.

And what you said is profound. Slides remind you what to say. So when you look at them, oh, yes, that's right.

And then you say it.

Yeah, you talk through it. Because yes, I understand if you're doing a work presentation, you don't want to forget something, especially if you're presenting in front of your boss. You don't want to forget something.

You don't want to do a bad job. I understand that. And that's why you want to remind us so that they don't think you skipped anything and doesn't look good at it.

I fully am in agreement with that. However, you don't want to write the entire essay on a slide.

100%. Let me share something with you. Let's see if this works.

Okay.

Okay.

See this slide?

Yes. Hey, Laurence Fishburne, Matrix.

Okay. Read that.

What if I told you, you read the top text wrong? No, I didn't.

Look at it. What it if I told you? You didn't even notice it, did you?

Why?

Did not see that it.

Yeah.

Because you technically didn't read it. You see your brains.

I did, but I think it's the bad. No, Ivan, I think it's the bad.

No, no, no. Let me tell you. I'm going to tell you why this happened.

I'm going to tell you why it happened. I know we never want to admit it. We never want to admit it, but our brains work in a certain way.

So here's what happened. Your brain makes a thing called a schema, which is a shortcut, like a shortcut of information. So you didn't look at that and go W-H-A-T, that is what.

You didn't do that. You saw that whole thing as one thing, and your brain said because of a schema, we're 99% sure that says what if I told you?

Yeah, because I've seen it like a million memes.

Yeah, yeah.

And the reason it did that is because if you think about it, our brains have existed for millions of years. But reading only came about maybe 10,000 years ago. So the brain hasn't fully evolved to process words.

So what it does is it tends to make schemas, like shortcuts, because it's too much information. And two, it tries to remember them as pictures, which is why, Roberta, if you've ever read To Go to Bed, it's because it makes you sleepy.

Yes.

If you've ever like looked at a bunch of words, you're like, I'm not even going to read this now because it's already overwhelming to me. Because reading technically, and if you think about this, this is going to blow your mind, isn't natural.

That's why you fell for it, because we don't read, we see things as images. And when you realize that this is the lazy role, read that for me.

The numbers or just the text?

Whichever you want.

All right, this time I'm going to be very careful. I don't want to miss anything. Hold on a second.

So it says, you were too lazy to increase my screen.

You were too lazy to read the whole shut up. And you were, you noticed you skipped it, because when there's too much information, you ignore it.

So what can we do to make this? You see, you fell for it.

It's the lazy rule.

I do it too. So here's a really good example of how you can tweak this, okay? Let's say you have a slide like this, okay?

And for all my audio listeners, go to the YouTube channel because you're going to want to see this. Okay? Roberta, real quick, tell everyone the YouTube channel.

Okay.

Speaking and Communicating Podcast is the YouTube channel.

Okay. So if you're like me, this has been up the whole time and no one watching this has read it. Even now.

Try to read this right now, okay? Roberta, if you try to read this, notice something is happening. You have to try and like cut me out.

You have to start ignoring me to concentrate. And I can guarantee that already you've probably start and stopped a few times because it's almost impossible to try and listen, but also to read.

So all of a sudden you've realized, oh my gosh, I haven't absorbed anything from that slide. So what can you do instead? The lazy rule says, what can you delete and say instead?

So I would take that slide and I would turn it into this. This is what I send them in the email afterward on the Slack channel. This is what I present.

Now notice by itself, if you just saw this, what 25% every year.

But what? Yeah.

Read that first bullet for me. I'm going to shut up for a minute. Read that first bullet.

According to FAO, up to 25% of grains is lost every year because of contaminations.

For example, diseases, fungi and insects.

So does that 25 every year make sense now?

Now it does. So this context, yes.

So the idea is, I say those things just the way you just said it, but this is what I show them. So all of a sudden, the slide is not giving you all the information you need. But this 25% every year, that's going to act as a little anchor.

It's easy to look. And now here's the thing, you look at it, but now you have to listen to me to understand what it means. Which means all of a sudden, you can't be checking your email.

All of a sudden, the lazy will have my attention.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's one example of making slides. What can you delete and say instead? Sending them the wordy version, showing them the simplified version.

Yes.

Especially if you're presenting numbers, you might not always have images, but numbers with arrows going up and down, showing increase, decrease. Yes. We quickly absorb that as compared to a whole story.

And can I highlight something, Roberta?

Please do.

Notice that when you're talking, you're always moving.

You were just doing it now and I could see it on the bottom. But this is the thing, that's normal. And I remember when I was learning communication, people would try and find these rules for what you should do with your hands.

Yes.

To be honest, even on this show, we have talked about them. I think that a lot of people get caught up in the, I want to look professional in front of my colleagues, in front of my peers.

Then those things take over, all the tactics take over, and people even forget to be themselves. Just making a transformation.

So I always say, instead of trying to look professional, why not just look normal?

Yes. Say that again.

Well, instead of looking professional, why not just look normal? And the truth is this, there's no one right way to use your hands or not use your hands. The secret to looking calm, confident, normal is diversity.

Because when we are in normal conversations, we have a diversity of movements. The only time hands are distracting is when they do the same thing over and over. So if my hands don't have any variation, it doesn't matter what I do.

It doesn't matter. Very quickly, you only notice this hand movement because it's the same thing over and over, and it's very distracting.

It is.

But when I'm doing a little bit on one side, maybe I talk with one hand, maybe both hands, maybe I relax for a minute, maybe I go back with both, the diversity is what makes you look confident and calm.

So listeners, anyone who says this is what you do with your hands, they mean well, but they don't know what they're talking about because it's diversity. Many things, not one thing, will make you look confident.

And also, this is something a friend of mine highlighted to me. He's a teacher, so he was teaching his students public speaking as well. He says some of them get so theatrical in using the hands.

It's like, I think that every word has a hand movement.

It's insane.

So you know how you get the natural hand movement? It comes down to your practice. So most people practice in their rooms, in their office, looking at their PowerPoint, in privacy.

Right.

I practice where other people can see me.

Such as?

This will give people anxiety.

Walk around the block, saying my presentation out loud. Being in the park and sitting in the park and just talking to a tree. Why?

Because the reason you forget, you get nervous, you don't know what to do with your hands, is because of the anxiety, the fear. People are watching you. The nervousness, I'm going to make a mistake.

That is because you've never trained with nervousness. When I walk around the block, I feel so self-conscious. I'm like, oh my God, people think I'm crazy.

Good, because I am replicating what I feel in the real world. Like what's really going to happen? When I go to the park and I'm like pretending to do my presentation, even if no one is around, I feel so self-conscious because what if someone sees me?

But what I've done, if you practice that way, when you have to do it for real, you're still going to feel nervous, but it won't be new. You'll be used to it and it won't affect your delivery.

Because those are strangers too, similar to the ones in the park.

You want a fun example?

Yeah.

Can I give you a fun example?

Okay.

I do voices for video games.

Oh, that's fun.

Yeah. So it is a very stressful environment because you are being paid to perform. You know what I mean?

Not only do you have to say the lines correctly, they are listening for every syllable of how you say a line.

And what you have, you're in a little booth, and there's five to ten people all watching and critiquing every little thing you say, and how you say it. That is very stressful. That is a very high stress environment, right?

You're costing the money because they're all paying you to be there. So how do I prepare? Roberta, believe me when I tell you that I'm walking down, like one of the main streets in Toronto, saying my lines out loud.

And it's a video game, dude. It's a video game. So I'm saying crazy stuff like, it's the helicopter, get down, grenade, grenade, grenade.

And I'm not yelling it, but like I still remember walking down the street and going something like, pass me the AK, pass me the AK, pass me. And people are walking by and I'm like, oh my God, oh my God.

No one ever asked if you've taken your meds that day?

And I'm not saying it's super loud, but just the fact that someone might hear me, I still remember being at a red light, waiting across the street and I'm like, oh my God. I'm like sweating because I'm so nervous.

There's people all around me and I'm like, everybody get down, everybody get down, everybody get down. And I'm just saying my line out loud and people are kind of like, that sounds like a threat.

Yeah, it sounds like danger.

But I'll tell you, by the time I got into that sound booth, because I had been working and practicing with stress, the stress I felt, you'll always feel it. But I was so used to it that it didn't affect my delivery.

I was still able to deliver because I had practiced with stress.

And one of the big complements that I always get, why I get hired, and this has been privately in one-on-one conversations, producers have said, you know, Ivan, one of the things we like about you is that you don't crumble.

Sometimes actors come in and if we ask them to do it again, they just panic, they freak out and they can't deliver. But you always are able to like really go with the stress, you're able to go with the flow. And it's because I practice with stress.

Here's the thing, you know, how we always make up horror stories of what could potentially happen if we haven't been in a situation.

I think you walking around the park and practicing your lines in front of strangers and seeing their weird reactions. What's the worst that could happen?

Everyone just ignores you. The fear is what stops you.

But it's fear of the unknown of if I mess up in front of a thousand people, what's the worst that could happen? And you start running these horror stories in your head.

And that's why people get nervous and anxious and have butterflies in their stomachs. But I think your technique just basically says, I'm throwing myself in the deep end. What's the worst that could happen?

And people just walk by and they watch you. And yeah, it's not as horrific as it was gonna be in your head.

And the other element to that, Roberta, is that we've all heard it, right? You've heard this, I've heard it. It's one thing to say, what's the worst that can happen?

It's another thing to experience it. So we say, what's the worst that can happen? Nothing, nothing's gonna happen.

It's one thing to say that. But when you actually go and practice, I will do it like in the cafeteria where there's people eating. At work, I'll do it with like in the boardroom with the door open.

Experiencing that nothing happens when you make mistakes or when people look over, nothing happens. Experiencing it helps to build the resistance to it.

That's right. Now, let's talk about influential people. There's something that you said, which is really powerful.

What makes people influential?

Well, here's one of the truest things you will ever hear. And I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying it's how the brain works.

Right.

I've been doing some research on like the dark side of communication.

What is the dark side?

Okay.

Because I got a little tired of like people always using the same cliche examples. Let me break it down. Most people use examples that are from CEOs or famous people, people who already have a following.

Right.

And so a lot of the tools that we use from them don't apply to our day to day.

Speaking with passion, connecting with your audience, that doesn't mean anything when it's a five minute scrum on Friday morning. Yeah, I have to present this database update. What is Speaking with Passion do?

It's totally unrelated, okay? So I decided to think about like, who's really a persuasive person? Forget all these influencers and forget experts.

Forget me. Who am I? There's not a person listening to this podcast who knew who I was before this podcast.

Right.

You know what I mean?

I'm not a big famous person, but who is really persuasive? Who is really good at creating a following? Cult leaders.

Yes.

So I researched, what do cult leaders do?

And this is what they do. This is almost entirely, and this is what every one of your guests, every guest in every podcast, they all rely, if they're any good, they will all rely on anecdotal evidence.

Again, I'm not saying it's right, but a personal experience and anecdote is not evidence. It is not evidence, but it is more convincing than evidence.

That's why a cult leader will say some crazy stuff and get people following them, because they'll use a bunch of little tiny examples, personal anecdotes.

But the scientist who spent 40 years researching the topic that tells you that that person is wrong, you ignore them, because they're using information, facts, and logic.

Here's what my brother said about that. The reason why cults are so successful and have such a huge following. Hope is such an amazing product to sell.

Here's why. You know, when I buy a product from the shop, I expect a certain benefit. I expect a certain experience from spending my money.

I expect a certain value. When you sell hope, how do you measure that it didn't do the thing that it was supposed to do? And when you say, but it hasn't happened, they say, keep hoping.

So you keep coming back. It's such an intriguing product to sell because you cannot measure that me buying this, it's not doing what they said it was going to do.

Let me level that up Roberta. You know how people sell the hope? Through an anecdote, through a little example.

Yeah.

So I'll give you one of my favorite examples to use.

And you want to talk about selling hope? Let's talk about fitness.

Right.

There's all these fitness influencers that say, all you got to do is this and this. That's what I did. Here's two people that I helped and they also did it.

And now you can do it too. All I did was like drink coconut water. Now I have a six pack.

You know, up here, you're like, it's a gimmick. It's probably not going to work. But there's a little part of you that's like, but maybe I should try.

Because the anecdote is all it takes to convince people. Like Roberta, you and I have both, probably had some sort of health food, that we have no idea why it's healthy. But someone said it was, and so we did it.

The superfoods.

Oh yeah, there was a time when I was...

Every superfood is bullshit.

Yeah, it's all BS. It's all BS. It is.

If you look at the research, it's all BS. But one dude was like, I went to the Himalayas and I did it. And I couldn't believe it.

Now it's a secret. And now I'm giving you the secret. It's a personal experience.

And that's usually the most powerful way to convince someone is with an anecdote. When people try and defend their beliefs, sooner or later, it always comes down to an anecdote, a personal experience. And that's why you can never convince them.

So how does that apply to public speaking and making presentations?

If you want to use your message to be influential.

Give me an example. Give me an example of a topic or some sort of speech that you want to be influential in. And I'll show you.

Empathy.

Let's make it harder.

I'm going to talk about empathy. Okay? And why people should be important.

Let's suppose I'm an airline mechanic. Okay? I'm an airline mechanic and I'm doing an update on a new engine component.

Forget all the emotional stuff because that's not how most of us need to present. Very few of us are going to do motivational keynotes. Most of us are going to have a PowerPoint presentation 10 minutes in a boardroom.

Yep.

So let's use that.

But let's suppose I'm an airline mechanic and I'm trying to persuade you to be more empathetic to this new process that we have to do.

And you don't like it because it's more complex and you have to learn a whole new process even though the current process works fine.

Right.

That's a very typical business situation. Right. Most of us will go through all the reasons why this is a good process.

We'll rely on the information and the proof.

To try and persuade you. Yeah.

Yeah. Most of the time when you do that, people will be like, I'm not going to do it, I hate it or I'll do it but I don't like it.

Instead, what you have to do is before in the middle and after the information, throw in personal anecdotes and examples. So let's suppose the process is more complex, right?

And instead of saying, it's more complex, but over time it'll become more efficient and it'll help us to grow. You're like, I don't care about that.

But what you could say is like, so the other week I spent 20 minutes and I kind of like banged my head against the wall. And then after the 20 minutes, I kind of understood the new process.

And the crazy part is for the last couple of days, I've been trying it. I'm going to lunch early because I'm finishing things faster. Let me give you an example of where I was banging my head, and then I'll go through the technical stuff.

But when I figured out this one little part here, when I just spent like 20 minutes reading this one part here, all of a sudden, I'm telling you, I got 15 more minutes every day.

Like just yesterday, I had 15 more minutes, and so I left work 15 minutes early. Now, is that going to happen to you? No, it might not happen at all like that for you.

But me using that personal anecdote was very convincing, wasn't it?

I want the 15 minutes early, who does it?

That's how you become more persuasive. That's how you become more impactful when you're speaking, is you need to intermix personal anecdotes with information and evidence.

Because an anecdote, and this is the real thing, I've said it once, I'm going to say it again, an anecdote, a personal experience is not evidence, but it is more convincing than evidence.

It is more convincing than evidence. Words of wisdom from Ivan Wanis Ruiz, the speaker, author of End Boring, MC and founder of End Boring Communication. What's one last thing that our listeners and viewers can take away from you today?

We have enough ideas in the world.

We need tactics to execute on those ideas. If you want to be a speaker, if you have an idea worth sharing, unless you can show me a physical, simple tactic that I can use to start doing that idea, it's useless.

All the motivational speeches in the world will change nothing, unless you give me a tool that I can use tomorrow. I know it's not the most motivational, but it's one of the truest things. There's enough ideas.

What we need is tactics.

To implement those ideas. So Mr. World Cup MC and salsa dancer, thank you so much for joining us today.

Would you like our listeners to reach out to you? And where can they find you online?

Absolutely. First thing, comment on this video, comment on YouTube, comment on Spotify, wherever you listen. If you agree with me, or if you disagree with me, tell me why.

And you know, if we get enough comments, let's go back and we'll have another episode where we'll go over the comments.

For sure, yes.

And I will answer your questions.

Yeah.

So put your comments down. If you want to reach out to me directly, it's PublicSpeakingLab. publicspeakinglab.com, PublicSpeakingLab on Instagram, PublicSpeakingLab on TikTok, PublicSpeakingLab on LinkedIn.

PublicSpeakingLab. And the reason it's called the lab, by the way, is because in all the training I do, this is another big thing. Everything needs to be interactive.

Everything we do from 2025 onward needs to have 50% or more people interacting and 50% or less you talking. So in my workshops and my training and my keynotes, the audience is working, doing, discussing or demonstrating more than half the time.

If you want to be someone that is really impactful, whether or not you want to be a speaker or not, here's another little grain, a little nugget for you, Roberta. There is nothing that you can do.

No amount of energy, movement, nothing you can do that will motivate, engage and energize people more than letting them talk to each other.

Yes, that is very true.

I mean, I could rant about this forever, Roberta.

That's why we're going to have another episode.

When was the last every conference you've been to?

You know what I mean? I'm just like, ah! You need to let people interact with each other if you're bringing them into a room together.

Because it's not about you, it's about them.

Thank you so much, Ivan. This has been so much fun. And yes, we're going to bring you again for another episode.

It will be my pleasure.

Roberta, thank you all so much for having me. And thank you all for listening to some crazy person from Canada rant and rave about why everyone's wrong except me.

Our pleasure, crazy person from Canada. Thank you for joining us on The Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

Please log on to Apple and Spotify, leave us a rating and a review, and let us know how improving your communication skills has bettered your life, both professionally and personally.

We hope you continue to listen to The Speaking and Communicating Podcast, and stay tuned for more episodes to come.