Mastering the Presentation Stage with Geoffrey Huck | Ep. 54

Speaker A: You know, when you want to talk about going into a lot of these public speaking, you want to come off as somebody who's intelligent, who knows their stuff, so.

Speaker B: Ooh, big mistake. That's a common one. You know, I work.

Speaker A: Hey, friends, this is podcast Rune by software engineer. On, um, this episode, I get to talk to Jeffrey Huck, public speaking coach, helping tech leaders embrace any presentation stage, whether it's a closed meeting or a national conference. If you enjoy podcast written by a software engineer, don't forget to hit the follow button on your podcast app so you don't miss out on the new episodes. And you can pick up podcast merch@perry2.com shop. Enjoy the episode. Welcome back to another episode of podcast written by software engineer. I'm your host, Perry, and today with me is Jeffrey Huck, speaking coach, specialized mostly with tech leaders all around the world to teach them better at, uh, public speaking. Jeff, welcome to the show.

Speaker B: Hey, Perry. Hey. I'm very happy to be here, and I'm absolutely excited.

Speaker A: I came on saying that, like, you work with so many cool people in tech, and tech people talk to many other tech people, and not just tech people as well. But even before we dive into all that, though, who is Jeff and what is coaching for public speaking?

Speaker B: Hello, everyone. My name is Jeff. Born in France, software engineer turned speaking coach. Because speaking used to be my weakest point. I was very shy. It was very hard to connect with everyone. I used to dread talking on the phone, and so I decided to work on it and I turned it into a superpower. And nowadays I help fellow tech people to be better at speaking too.

Speaker A: I've never really put it to spin as a superpower, if anything, but it really makes sense just because it's something you don't. Not everybody is born with it, let's put it that way. And there's always this stigma connotation where people in tech are just not good public speakers. And today it's really a great opportunity. Demystify all of it. I've experienced it. You've experienced it. I was seeing software engineers born and bred. Well, mostly bred, if anything. But, um, even if we just kind of discover a little bit in terms of. I'm always fascinated that I, number one, I'm very lucky to talk to another software engineer. But we don't all get into it the same way. For example, I'm very boring. I just end up doing like a comp. Sci degree, and next thing you know, it's like, oh, sure, get a tech job and everything. So but maybe in your context, if to just, like, put some background, if anything. Where did you grow up? I guess, and was it kind of techy already? Did you already have a lot of, like, technological people around you?

Speaker B: Wow. Not at all. No, no, no. I'm born in a very small village in France. Less than a thousand inhabitants, so there were probably more codes than computers. But fortunately I got my hands on one and somehow I got very interested into hacking. So I used to go on those websites. You probably know them. It's like, there are 100 vulnerabilities on this website and your goal is to find them all. So I thought it was really cool. But I realized that I had to learn how to do the programming in order to really understand those vulnerabilities and find them. So I learned programming. And again, some very strange thing happened. At some point where I noticed I discovered that there exists algorithmic contests for less than 18 years old. So the goal is to solve algorithmic problem. And, uh, I'm a challenge guy. You give me a challenge. I'm like, okay, I need to solve this challenge. So I got really interested into it. I learned many algorithms. I gained dexterity as coding. And I was selected to be trained, um, um, by an organization in Paris who's training young people to compete at the ioi, the International Olympiads in Informatics. This was a huge deal because I was 16 and I was from a very small village. It was my first time in a big town. Paris was, like, crazy for me, and I learned so many things. It completely changed the trajectory of my career because it was the first time I was being helped by people who were better than me. Long story short, a few years later, I went to the Olympiad, International Olympiad in Informatics, as a competitor. It was amazing. And from this point, things started to get more chaotic. So it's not like you. I didn't get a degree and then went into software engineering. I wanted. I tried to get a degree because I saw that was the path. Like, yeah, let's go get a degree. But what I realized is that, uh, it's so boring to go in school when you already know the stuff. So I learned so many things in these competitions, in those trainings that when I looked at the programs at the universities and schools, I realized that I had already more coding experience as people who went, uh, to the school already. So I couldn't stand going to the school. Although I was very shy. Like, very, very shy. And we will talk about it later. But this is also one of the reasons I Stopped going to school. So I dropped out. Found a job as a developer in a small advertisement agency. It was okay, but it became boring after a few months because the projects were too easy. Tried another company, was the same, a bit more complex. So interesting at first, but then boring. So I decided to start as a freelancer. And I was a freelancer for about 10 years.

Speaker A: It flies. And the thing is, like, nobody would believe you just keep on saying that, like you were shy back then, you were shy back then, and next thing you know, your life almost seems like a movie. The more you spoke about it, the more there was these like, little glimpse of like, how did you get into the ioi? How did you get into. How did you start from a village, from less than a thousand people that had more cows than computers? Honestly, I think I want to put this into perspective is uh, that nowadays we take it for granted there's chips everywhere, there's computers everywhere. Your phone is a computer, your glass is a computer. But maybe this is probably just Perry geeking out, if anything. Do you remember what was your first computer? Do you remember if it was a Windows machine or Mac mobile machine?

Speaker B: You always remember your first computer, right? It was a Windows A98. Um, let me think. I think, I think it add 64 gigabytes of RAM. Uh, megabytes. Megabytes, of course, because we changed the order of magnitude since then. Probably around six giga of hard drive. That was a nice floppy. Floppy, uh, you know, yeah, the floppy disk.

Speaker A: The one that, where you get to like play around this little spring in it and. Oh my goodness. See, like I keep on saying that, like. Yeah. No matter how much like, how different are paths of going into computers, like those moments of like, oh, this was my first computer. And even I keep on thinking about this where obviously if I didn't touch a computer, I would have never really got into this whole like, line of work, let's say. And then maybe the, the interesting part, like I was kind of waiting to ask you about this stuff, the, the algorithmic context, but also just like the, the hacking. I know hacking always has a term behind it, but there's like white hacking, there's like, um, black hat hacking. There's all these kind of fun terms to it. But what did, what did it mean back then? As in, I remember when I got my first computer ob. Start exploring. The first of all, we didn't have Internet most of the time back then. So number one, check out the games, check out the pinball. Uh, that was the big one. The pinballs on the machine. If you were lucky, you maybe had Doom back then. Um, what did that look like from that point you had your first computer? Was it directly straight into, um, looking into, I guess like hacking tournaments or. How did you stumble into that?

Speaker B: Yeah, it was, it was a process. You know, I first I started to use it as a good old user, used to do paint and then draw on the screen. And then I was thinking that, wait a minute, there are people who are creating those things. You know, I realized I was just a user. It's like when I was younger also I was playing video games, but I kept thinking, wait a minute, there are people who are creating those video games. That's something else. Um, so I searched with the early Google how to. It was weird because I didn't have the right keyword. So, you know, so I took a very long time until I found how to do it. I remember searching for how to create a software and of course I didn't get what I wanted to get. Uh, if you didn't know the name of the programming languages and if you didn't even know that there are programming languages that you need to use to create games, you couldn't find it. So it took a while. And then somehow I heard about hacking. Hacking, you know, in the um, pop culture, hacking all those people who are bypassing the rules, they are going into the FBI or the CIA computers and those crazy stuff. And so I just searched on Google. What's hacking? So little funny thing here. I started as um, with a, um, very weird way to get access to the Internet. And I had parental control. So the first thing I had to do in order to find more information about hacking was to somehow convince my parents to log in with the administrator account so that I could change the settings and put my account as an adult too, so that I had access to those websites. That was my uh, first thing. And m. Yeah, then I discovered about vulnerabilities, challenges. Um, it's just so cool, you know, when you have a problem to solve and it's like exploring, discovering, learning how it works. I just got really hooked by it.

Speaker A: Oh my goodness, you really caught the wave at that point. I mean nowadays it's very popular. All these like, I think like HackerOne websites and all those that really promote this culture of like, oh, ethical hacking and all that. But you were really like way back then already looking into all that. That is so amazing to hear from your, your perspective. I think one maybe. Okay, I'm gonna ask this one because I Know, I'm. I never get the chance to. But what was the programming language seen, uh, like back then when we were dealing with that? Uh, um, I know like for me back then, like obviously a lot of C C, maybe you had like at school some skill scheme, maybe a little bit Python, very early php. I think that was kind of like a landscape. I mean JavaScript was there back then, but very, very young at that point. But um, for you, what did that look like when you really got the chance to look at programming and the for loops and whatever else you were doing back then?

Speaker B: I like to say it was M. My first love, the C language. Wow. So beautiful. I loved it so much. It's how I got started by learning C. So it was very difficult because you didn't have stack overflow at that time and when you had a problem you had to copy um, the issue or I found some forums on the Internet where uh, eventually I would ask a few questions, like all of those weird stuff like sockets. How do you connect to a network? I remember this was also a huge exploration because if you don't know what's a socket, if you don't have the keyword, you had to find, you had to find it in a certain way. And I just couldn't with my keywords. So I went to a forum with other developers and then asked, uh, how can I connect to another computer? And they were like, yeah, you have to use a socket. Here's the manual pages. And so I would read the pages and try to understand how it goes. It was really C at the beginning. JavaScript, you couldn't do much. It was a very shitty language that was only to be used in a browser. And each browser ran, uh, kind of a different version of JavaScript. So this was really, really hard. I really started with C. I got interested into C because it seemed to be the evolution of C, but I never really liked it uh, as much as C. And then I also got interested into Assembler because I was like, you know, it's always like, oh, does it work? How does it work? How does it work? And then you ask the question again and again and, and so when you know how to build a software with C, you're like, wait a minute, there are people who build C, it doesn't exist in nature. So how did they do that? And then you learn about Assembler and you start to, oh, wow, it's how the processor works. And it was amazing. I also learned that you can ask intel for the documentation of the processors and you can probably still do that today. There is a page, you fill up the information and then you get. You receive five big books containing the documentation of the architecture of the processor.

Speaker A: This is all fascinating. I would have never believed it, but I'm checking this out. I absolutely will check this out in terms of getting the documentation and all that. And it's so good how you're already painting so much of the picture. You mentioned like the assembler language and then you talk about C and talk about websockets and the hacking thing. Like it all pieces it together where even from the get go you have this mind of, you know, asking the questions of trying things out. Who built this? How can I build this? And it's not really natural for all that. And even the social engineering, the social hacking engineering, getting some permissions more than other ones. This is absolutely fascinating to put that all together. And for context, was that all in French as well?

Speaker B: That's how I learned English actually. Um, the information weren't so much available in French French at the time. There were, I remember one forum, but most of the informations were in English. So I really learned English in order to learn more about computer sciences. It led me to a point where I could understand written English very well, but not speak it. So it took a lot of practice to reach the same level that I had at reading.

Speaker A: But speaking, I feel like, yeah, it's a craftiness, I think Akiba says the craftiness behind all of it. And obviously you have all the tools with you today, right? It's something that you've done so long ago, but then today when you piece it all together and yeah, I'm absolutely fascinated by, by all of this for sure. I think one of the topic that you didn't mention at that time is of course when you're dealing with a lot of these, like, I mean Internet and then you're talking about these documents and reading all that, it's very like you and a computer. But then there's the other aspect of you going to school, you living life and you interacting with other people. And as you were saying, like being shy is a quality that people have, but it also has its impact when you deal with other people. Right. Um, if you were so shy that you're not able to speak to other people during school, then you might not learn something as much as other people and all that. So maybe from your experience from back then of when did you notice that you were shy? Was it like while you were shy back then or was it like a retrospective look back. And then we're also going to talk about a little bit later that you know, obviously you overcame it. That's always the fun part to that. But obviously how you went from that to I guess your first full time role and then from your full time role moving do what you are doing today. I feel like that is such a good story. I just want to go back to the part of when did you realize you were shy back then?

Speaker B: Oh yeah, I realized I was shy when I was in my early teens. I mean I knew what was happening in my body and I knew why I wasn't talking to people. But in retrospective I would never have learned so much about computers if I would not have been shy. If I were to be the cool guy in those early years, I would never have spent all my weekends and holidays and evenings on the computer. So I guess that's the price to pay. You asked me how I got my first full time job. Um, it was in this advertisement agency. So I found um, online uh, job posting. So I answered. Then I got into an interview and I just told about my personal project. At that time I created from scratch an E commerce website. So my mother wanted to launch um, a business online and there weren't really um, turnkey solution. You couldn't just like today you just create an account on a website and everything is set up. I really had to learn PHP and build uh, all those systems with the products with the cart with the uh, payment and everything. And so when I went into the interview I just talked about this and I was hired on the spot.

Speaker A: It makes it seem like the more you think about the shyness the more you're just like in this loophole of thinking about it. But when you talk about something that, that you really love doing and you care about the shyness or any other qualities that you kind of just like don't really think about. When you talk about other things that you're passionate. I think that's something that was really cool to just hear you see, reflect as we were saying. And at least it wasn't something about um, somebody just points at you be like, oh, you're shy. It wasn't something like that. It was more like a self discovery as you were saying during your school years or teen years of interacting with people. Be like, oh, I'm somebody shy. But then again as we were saying you made really good use of your time while, while doing that because I know a lot of people probably just end up in a, I don't know, just playing Video games. Not that video games are bad. I know sometimes when I'm sure I'm just gonna go play video games wherever. I don't play that much nowadays, for the record, but back then, very, very different story. Um, but yeah, I think for a lot of people that could relate to this, as you were saying, like, oh, when you, when you are getting your first role, you have to talk to people. Even going into an interview, you got to be able to communicate what you're passionate about. You could deep down be loving something. But if you're not able to communicate it, how does that help? Right? And obviously you're like, I'll call you an expert at this today. It's very fair to say that you're an expert at this nowadays. So we could talk about it in terms of, like, when, um, even doing software engineering, that's, you know, doing full time, you talk to a lot of people. Well, depends on the team, of course, but most of the time you talk to other teammates, other engineers, um, when you're doing software engineering, but you also talk to product people, you talk to design people, and you talk to even some stakeholders, even some business people, depending on what you do. So during, I guess, like very early on, I, uh, like comparing like somebody during their early career in software engineering versus, like later in the in their career. How did you see, I guess like, you interacting with other people when early on, let's say, your first job, we were saying, did you find it easier? Did you find that you had to go home and do homework and be like, oh, wait, how do I practice so I could present my code better, present my ideas better? That's a great perspective to really think about. Uh, when you, you went through that,

Speaker B: well, that's a very good tip that you, that you give here. I, uh, didn't do any of those. I just went there and, uh, I waited for people to come talk to me. I would not really talk to them. One of the issues that I had was that whenever I had the attention on me, I would suddenly freeze. My brain was freeze. And it was so frustrating because I knew that I knew my stuff. But whenever you put me in the front of a client and you say, hey, Jeff, how is it going? Uh, how does it work? And then suddenly you like, I stupid now cannot talk. Don't know. Um, that was the most frustrating part. You know, it's when you lose your intellectual abilities whenever there is the spotlight on you. Like in a meeting. You're in a meeting and then you talk and then, oh, there is a technical issue. Jeff, what do you think? And it's blank. And then after the meeting I'm like, well it's so easy. Of course I know, but I couldn't access my brain at that moment. That was the biggest part. Oh, um, phone calls also was uh,

Speaker A: those are the words that it's real time, it's live. There's no post production editing for any of that if anything. So I can definitely relate to. I keep on saying that like sometimes you never get known what you get to thrown into. I mean after working so many years in tech, you, you, you and I as well, sometimes you join a meeting and you even have, you don't even have any idea who's in there to begin with. Next thing it was like 50 people and it's like how in the world did I get myself into this? But um, well don't, don't, don't worry people. There's solutions to this, as Jeff could mention coming on is that there's a lot of ways to look into that because I mean like when you're talking about. Sure, if you talk to peers, if you talk to software engineers, it's a lot easier because you see them nearly every day, you work with them on the same project. And then in terms of like being ah, being able to share your concerns, you're more natural at being like, oh, I'm not sure how to build this, can you help me with this? Like it's more easier when it's like closer people, proximity to how you work. But then when you saw all that happening of like you starting to talk to a lot more uh, I guess like stakeholders or business people, what somebody should do in that instance, if you're, if you're looking at that situation from a third person point of view today or if it's somebody else that you're seeing and uh, they're going through that, what is something that you could I guess like quickly recommend them to think about to uh, you know, lose the nerves when they get into that.

Speaker B: Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about the solution here. The issue that I had and that you might still have and if you're listening to this is that you're too reactive. You react to people when they come talk to you and you never have this a lot of experience at going from yourself into a discomfortable situation. Like you know, there is something to be told about, but you will wait people to talk to you rather as you going to the people and talk to them because there's discomfort and that's the main key. You know, when you have trouble to speak, being it. If you're shy, if you have social anxiety, it's emotional. It's not about the knowledge, uh, that you have. It's not about the what. It's only emotional. And the only way to overcome something emotional is by voluntary exposure. You have to make the step. You have to jump into the discomfort. If you're always waiting for things to happen, you would never learn. That's one of the reasons why people, uh, who say they're introvert and shy. Even if they go to many social events, if they're not the one who makes the first steps and talk to the others, they never learn. But if they do those steps, they realize after a few tries, it completely reverts the feelings and the sensation, um, that they have in those situations.

Speaker A: Yeah. And people like genuine connections, let's put it that way. As in, like, when you talk to people that you've never spoken to and then going out of your way to do it, I think there's always something that you get out of that in terms of, you know, a buzz, as somebody would probably put it the way. I really like the way you were putting that. Like, number one, it's like being the reactive part. Because I could easily see myself as a software engineer over the years being like, I mean, I got work on my plate, I got tickets on my JIRA board. I'm just gonna do them all day and doing that. But then the downside, of course, is that, like, if you never go out of your, out of your way to ask questions, you may miss some acceptance criteria. You may not be able to clarify some stuff properly. And that obviously has an impact down the line of, like, maybe you're not building the right thing, maybe you're not delivering the right stuff. The business probably doesn't benefit from what you're building and then, you know, a plethora of other things. So I kind of very understand where as we're seeing that, like, our natural state is comfort, our natural state of I'm just going to stay in my little, little area to be building stuff. And then your advice of really just like, being like, no, the world is big and nobody's really saying anything wrong. As far as I could tell. When you're going out to look for help, you're not really saying anything wrong. You're just trying to get more, um, things done. But then this one I want to call out for sure. When you talk about public events, when you go to tech events, I'm sure you go to many and we're going to talk about a couple of tech events that you've been to and all that. And I've been to a couple of tech events is that you go into the room and it seems very aggressive, right? People. There are people, there are for mostly the pizza and the beer. Just kidding. But there's a lot of those like fun things that happen. But then you do realize that people got out of their home, their comfort zone to be at the event. And the fact that you're able to see so many people and you could talk to any, anybody honestly and people are very welcoming to talk during that time. That's because of what these events are for. So the fact that Jeff, you brought up these public events, I love them. I keep also think that I highly encourage anybody. If there's any tech events and all that, like go sign up, go to them. They're always, always fun. You get practice in those situations, if anything. One thing that is also interesting from your perspective Jeff, is when you were saying you went from a software developer at a full time role at uh, different companies to try them out and also freelancing because as a freelancer you probably know it's very different in terms of how you have to manage your day to day from a freelancing to um, I guess like being part of a full time corporate employee and all that. So how did that, I guess like evolution look like in terms of being able to find confidence of what you do? Because a lot of time when you're a freelancer, you're really selling what you do at the end of the day. So was it a night and day thing where you just woke up one day and be like, oh, I'm super confident, I know exactly what I'm capable of doing and I'm going to go into freelance software engineering. Or was it not like that?

Speaker B: I was confident in my technical uh, skills because I had the experience that whenever I'm asked to do something or whenever I want to solve a problem, I could find a solution. Given I spent enough time thinking, researching, I would always find the solution. So I knew that there's good chances that whatever technical problem I'm being asked to solve, I can do it. I had this technical confidence, but that was it. Confidence in tech, in my technical skills didn't translate into social confidence at all. I would dread the phone. I would avoid making phone calls, I would avoid asking questions by email. Even for me, social confidence is about speaking up when you have something to Say it's not speaking up when you don't have anything to say just because you want to fill some space and feel bigger. That's not the case. It's really about speaking up when you feel that now there's something important that no one's talking about and that you believe it should. And usually it materializes with a sensation in the stomach. You know, this butterfly sensation, this adrenaline rush, rush of energy that we can feel in a meeting when we consider, oh, uh, I should maybe pinpoint something. I should ask this question. I should ask this question. Even if it seems stupid or not, sensation builds up. Those are the moments where you have something important to say because otherwise the sensation wouldn't show up. So it's all about those situations. Do you have it sometimes?

Speaker A: Oh, absolutely. Uh, mostly when I'm unprepared. But I'm sure you definitely have better examples.

Speaker B: Oh yeah, it's always when you're unprepared. If you're prepared to, um, talk about something, it's fine, you're prepared, you know you're gonna talk about it. But meetings are real time events. There are very short windows in which you can talk about something because context switch so fast. So it's really like moment to moment opportunities. If you feel something is important and you not say in the few seconds after the feeling starts to pop, opportunity is gone. And the company can make huge mistakes because if you would have spoken up about these issues, it could have changed the whole outlook on the problem.

Speaker A: Yeah, and some people might even call this as a foresight, if anything. Right. This feeling, this tentative.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's just your brain that is, your brain is noticing that there is something and it's noticing it's something important because otherwise you wouldn't feel this energy. It's really, your body is helping you here. It's giving you energy because it knows that this is something unusual. Uh, it's something that you're not comfortable doing because you don't have much experience talking in those situations yet. And so it gives you energy as a friend, you know, here, energy so that you can do it. But most of the people at those times, they think they, uh, oh, should I talk? Oh, uh, but what will I say? Is it stupid or not? But it's too late. If you have the energy, everything is ready in your brain and you should just start to speak. Uh, so for me, this is social confidence. It's talking when you have something important to say.

Speaker A: I've definitely asked myself the question, is it stupid or not? So Many times in my brain before saying something and next thing you know, it just gets blurted out regardless. Um, yeah, those are amazing. Just because you kind of described it in a way that it's a lot of it is going out there, finding this inner feeling. But also it's practice. At the end of the day you have to do it multiple times. It's not just you do it once and then everything happens. It's something that, that needs to be perpetual, right?

Speaker B: Oh, it's a muscle. It's a muscle. The first times you do it, of course it will be awful because you don't even have the confidence that you can speak in this situation. You know, you have the sensation and it's like exploration. I uh, like to see it as, okay, the sensation is here, let's start to speak and see what's coming out of my mouth. And we will see. We will see. My experience is that it works. It works. If you trust yourself in those situations, the right words will come out of your mouth. It doesn't mean it will always be life changing. Like it could be, could be a mistake. In theory, your brain doesn't know everything. It's an automatic machine that is assessing the situation, thinking that there is something important to say. But it can be wrong because you don't know everything and you don't have much experience speaking in those situations. So you learn, but those are the situations in which you can learn the most. And it gives you confidence because once you did it a few times and um, noticed things go well in those situations, you're more likely to do it again and you start to see yourself as someone who speaks up, as something who's brave. So you start to have this identity shift. You start to see yourself as someone confident, confidence. And then it's a self reinforcing loop. The hardest to, is to start, but once you started, it gets better.

Speaker A: Double, double highlight on the feedback loop. As you're saying to be able to get feedback is that you have to produce something. Whether it's like slowly talk to more people, slowly talk to larger teams, slowly talk to different customers, clients, any of that. That's the feedback loop that you're getting. That the more you practice, more you try this, it's going to come back, you're going to get the feedback and if it goes well, happy days. Right? If it goes well, then you'll get a lot of like good feelings and all that. So this is really amazing because even just hearing of your journey, but also the similar journeys that a lot of people go through when you're slowly expanding your own, I guess, responsibility. When you go from full time employee to a freelancer, you talk to many, many people and it's really on you to build this skill. Not just technical skill, we're talking about the skill to be able to use the technical skill, communicate, build relationships with people. That's the skills that we're really looking into. And obviously you're building a lot of other people's relationship skills nowadays, so we're gonna jump into that. Uh, actually one thing that is really cool is obviously you did a lot of years of software engineering, freelancing and all that, but there's a while you also did a bit of public speaking as well, which is similar, but also very different than just talking to, I guess like stakeholders or other teammates. So can you just, you know, describe a little bit when you started doing public speaking? Cause I feel like a lot of people have always wanted to do it but never really did the jump and everything. So what was your experience like getting into that?

Speaker B: I started in a very weird way. I was at an event and I met someone who told me she's organizing a, ah, poetry event. The game was to you could write your poetry or read poetry in front of uh, a group. And I was in the process of self development. I used to go more into events and initiate conversations with people and with group in order to beat my shyness. So that was my goal. I wanted to completely overcome it. And when I had this opportunity to do public speaking, I thought, well, that seemed to be the next step. Once you're comfortable to talk to people you don't know, to just go, hey, what's going on? Or to groups, hey guys, why are you here? That kind of things. Then the next step seems to be public speaking. So I went on those and it was a very fun experience because I had the opportunity to write something that I would say. And since it was poetry, I had unlimited creativity possible. You know, if you're in a corporate environment, most likely you cannot exploit, express extreme anger or extreme frustration and scream in a meeting. Usually it's not the right environment. But in those circles, this poetry circle, I had the opportunity to try everything. One of the first things I tried was to play extreme emotions, anger, joy, frustration, hope, in the most extreme way to express those emotions. And this was liberating. It really pushed all the blocks, all the barriers, all the emotional limitations that I had. I completely pushed past them. And that's how I learned initially public speaking. This was only the beginning of the path because once I did that, I also wanted to be able to speak seriously. You know, first you have fun and you try every crazy thing that's going out of your mind and it's, it's liberating, but this doesn't make you convincing. Uh, this was another step on the process where I went to a different types of event. Toastmasters event, maybe you heard about it. In order to be able to speak about more serious matter and to convince

Speaker A: for the people who are unfamiliar with it. Do you want to give a quick, like very, very high level of Toastmaster?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's, uh, an international organization with clubs all around the world for people who want to learn public speaking. So most clubs have a meeting every week or every two weeks. You go there and you have the opportunity to speak. Usually it's by doing two minutes improvisation on a topic. So you have a topic, two minutes. You go on stage, you speak two minutes and then people give you feedback. You can also prepare speeches that are a bit longer, five to seven minutes. And you have the opportunity to take a role in the organization. So you can handle one part of the meeting. You can even present the meeting. So you can take all those leadership and talking situations which make it every very, I mean people who go to Toastmasters, after a few months or years, they're usually, they're transformed, can say it, uh, in this way.

Speaker A: And yeah, who doesn't want a good transformation? It's always about transforming with better skills and better relationships and better, I guess like resources and context of being you at the end of the day. So public speaking, a lot of people have always like found that daunting, um, in the sense of like especially the more serious topic, you know, when you want to talk about, when you are the expert of talking about something, going into a lot of these public speaking, you want to come off as somebody who's intelligent, who knows their stuff, so.

Speaker B: Oh, big mistake, big mistake. Oh yeah, big mistake. Because that's a common one. You know, I work with many people in tech. In tech, we are smart. You know, it's our identity. If you learn computer, every, everyone in your family thinks that you're smart. All the friends think that you're smart. And so you have this smart mask. And that's what's holding many people in tech back. Because they're afraid to lose the mask. Because what happens if I'm not as smart as people think I am? And so they use more complex words to say simple things and they're very nervous on stage because they can Lose their identity. Imagine that you think you're smart. You go on stage, you mess up, and then you leave the stage thinking that you're not smart. There's so much at stake. So one of the main limitations that people in tech have, uh, that's it. It's the, uh, smart mask. I want to sound smart. I want people to know that I'm smart, to think that I Smart that I know my stuff. If you remove all of this, everything becomes easier.

Speaker A: I'm, um, definitely part of that fallacy. I for sure would be like, oh, I need to keep up the. Actually, not Perry. I'm not gonna speak for Perry, because Perry really comes off as. I'll come off as whatever I come off. And then if I sound smarter at the end, then good, so be it. But I definitely am part of the thought. The group of people who would think that, like, oh, the people who go onto a TED Talk at the end of the day, they really, just from out of the gate, are very well prepared, presented. But as we're seeing, like, it's a very high bar to set yourself at the beginning of a talk, if anything. So this is actually mind blowing. Every time I. Every time you describe something like this, I'm like, wait, I never really thought about it that way. Which is why, as you're saying, your experience of working and public speaking and talking to so many individuals that do have to address an audience, that really comes in handy in terms of explaining how to break this down. Because in the public speaking world, as we were saying, I use the word jittery. But a lot of the even unpreparedness of like, or even a lot of times you're talking to people that may do business or may not do business for you. You keep on saying that, like, you have so many, I guess, like, responsibilities, and that the more responsibility and the more you're trying to hide behind this mask that we're talking about, it bubbles up. Right? Is that common symptoms that you see of people that. Whether it's like, bubbling up into fear, anxiety, like, how would you describe, like, the common bad case of somebody having, I guess, like, uncomfortability public speaking? What are some signs that you see?

Speaker B: The most extreme is the mind freeze. People go on stage and then suddenly they freeze. And, um. M. The more they spend time in this state, the more they panic. And usually they leave and they have a very bad experience and might never ever go on stage again. That's horrible. It's what used to happen to me in meetings or whenever My boss used to ask me a question in front of my colleagues. Suddenly, the mind is blank. Stupid. I'm babbling. I think in those situations, you know, it's emotional again. It's emotional. Can you avoid it? Probably not. If I give you a solution to be sure that you don't freeze, uh, maybe you will get more confidence going on stage, but then the solution might not work one day, and in that case, you will be completely doomed. So that's the most extreme one. And I'm not going to talk about the problem without giving the solution, because I don't think that would be. That would be fair for the listeners. You know, I'm just, uh, adding a fear in the. It's okay to freeze. It's fine. It's completely okay. Actually, it happens even to people who are experienced speaking. It's not something that you can control. You can be fine in every situation, and then suddenly you have a bigger event, more pressure, uh, than it happens on you. If it happens since it's emotional, what can you do? Nothing. There is no magic solution to give you, to get you out of this state. But there is a trick. Because even if you're completely submerged by fear and anxiety and everyone is looking at you and you're sweating and you can't access any part of the speech that you prepare to give, you still have access to something. The present moment. You still have access to your hands, your eyes. You still see, you feel. And in fact, the situation is so intense that this feeling and this seeing have more power, are more vivid advice I give in those situations. Just speak about what you're experiencing. Say, hey, right now I'm feeling, uh, extremely stressed and anxious and I lost my speech. I just can't remember it. You can ask people. I'm looking at you and I'm very sorry for you because you came here and then I'm not speaking. Can anyone, um, help me? What did I just say before so that I can get back on track? You know, they just speak that you say you're. You say, what's happening? You're not hiding anything. And usually when you do that, it gives you in the mind of the audience, gives you a bonus because you're not this untouchable and invincible speaker. You are a human like them. Suddenly, they can relate to you because everyone knows that speaking in public is scary. And suddenly you admit it. It happens to you. So you're human. You're closer to them. And as you do that, you will slowly relax and you will get back on track. So you will go back to your speech, you will return in a state of less and stress because you just tell the truth. You have nothing to hide anymore. So the tension will go away. Maybe not completely, but at least enough for you to speak and the audience will give you more attention. So it's quite good because you transform the worst possible thing that can happen to you into something that's quite nice and positive, like a team effort.

Speaker A: I really like the way how you just spin it into like, as you're saying, it's human. It's a human thing that. What's the point? You're going to block yourself on that? There's a. What, you're just going to keep on blocking and standing there for a couple hours? No, as you're saying, let nature, let the naturalness of, you know, public speaking take over. And as we're seeing, like, more. More often than not, there's good outcome than anything. Um, for the people who just nailed their public speaking the first try, like, that takes a lot of time to practice, trust me. I think behind the doors, like behind the scenes, people who are absolutely great at public speaking have spent hours and hours and hours practicing for it. Um, another parallel that you kind of really put that was really, really cool, is going on stage this term of whether it's an actual public speaking event or going into a meeting, it's really when you are the speaker that you're going on stage, whether it's one person, 50 people, a thousand people, it's really the same concept as we're seeing, right? Think about what you're trying to say. And the more you're describing that scenario, that like, disaster scenario, right. Of being like, oh, I'm like, mind blocked and everything. The more I think about this really, like, I guess like pop culture in software engineering, do you know rubber ducking? You know the whole term of like speaking to a rubber duck and like, the more you talk about your problem, the more somehow you end up finding the solution and then it just ends up being like, oh, yeah, it's not that complicated. Did you ever think about it that way? When you talk about people, whether they're being blocked in public speaking or blocked in meetings, and I'll think about that. Is the solution to recommend them to go through the rubber ducking process but in public, in front of people?

Speaker B: Oh, wow. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's. Oh, that's a good one. Uh, yeah. I actually use this technique of talking to the duck about a problem that I can solve. And I noticed also that sometimes we're just so much into the problem and feeling bad and stressed that we lose, um, the big picture. And it's probably similar when you're in front of, uh, an audience. You have this problem of anxiety, but you lose the big picture. And the big picture is that people are here and they want you to succeed. They want you to give a good speech. They're here, they're with you, and they know that it's hard, and it's okay if it doesn't work. Because at the end, even if you mess up once, people will not remember you forever. Especially in our culture where things are going so fast and we get so much information every day, uh, people will. You might think that you screwed up, but then six months later, when you speak to people, they will tell you, oh, yeah, you gave a great speech. I got some great insight from what you said. And you're like, what? Really?

Speaker A: We are our own critics. We are our own biggest critic. If anything, I know so many people out there, including myself. Sometimes I'll be saying something and I mispronunciate something. I'll be like, I cannot get over this. In my head, I'll be like, I cannot get over how I mispronunciate xyz. And then next thing you know, like, nobody noticed or nobody cared, and everybody understood what you're trying to say. Everybody learned something. So as I was saying, like, maybe a lot of times it's just me eating my own brain. More than anything else that's happening on, uh, that.

Speaker B: The way I like to see it is, of course you will make mistakes. If you don't make mistakes, it's that you're not taking enough risks. And if you don't make mistakes, you're not maximizing your learning. If you want to learn more, you need to push beyond what you know. So you need to be ready to make mistakes. And the way I like to see it is that we are here in order to learn more about the world, in order to give more of our gifts, in order to help more people. So every time you fail, you are increasing the knowledge that you have on how the world works. And the world definitely wants you to get better, because the better you have, the bigger the problems you can solve and the more people you can help. So fading is, in a way, in service of the future and in service of other people. Don't be afraid about it.

Speaker A: You always magus minutes in the best way possible. You've always given people the chance to look at it. Any bad or good situation, be Like a learning experience, right? No matter the outcome, you are learning it and you are getting better. After all those events, if you're aware

Speaker B: that you are here for learning, you could make the same mistake again and again. But if you realize that it was a mistake and in this way having a negative feeling once we fail, uh, it's an indication that there is something to change. Because otherwise you would do the same again and you would not learn. So it's hard, but it's part of the process.

Speaker A: And trust me, anybody listening, you're not the only person going through that. If you are going through that, millions of people daily are going at it and m now more than ever. The good part is we could go through it like, not alone. We go through it like as a community. There's people obviously just like Jeff that are helping, um, so many people out there that are doing that. But that's really a concept of, yeah, let's make that a good thing, let's do better at public speaking and all that. But then there's also, as you were saying, like, resources, right? I think, a really cool transition and something that you made it into, I guess like your day to day, something that you get to breathe is helping other people with this aspect, specifically this like speaking coach part of you, you love sharing a lot of these tips and even, I mean, of course you work a lot in tech, but I feel like a lot of what you teach is not just only for people in tech, it's for people just in general. But, um, even, even for me to be curious, to be like, you were doing a lot of, um, software engineering, you were doing a lot of public speaking, you did Toastmaster for years. Um, how did that transition happen in terms of, hey, you wield the power to help other people. I don't think it was a single day where you realized that happened. But how did that transition happen of wielding this power of helping others be better speakers?

Speaker B: When I was in this Toastmasters Club, at some point I've been asked to become the president. And it came to a big surprise because I didn't even consider being the president of the club. But somehow that's where I was heading to. So I accepted and more people started to ask me for help for tips. How can I do this, how can I do that? So naturally, naturally I started to give tips, I started to coach people in the club and it was so great, it was so fun. I realized that I had more fun doing that, that now spending lots of time behind the computer solving complex problems. It's like two different brain states. And I found it extremely hard after a whole day of coding, coding, coding, to go into the speaking mode. It seemed to be two different words. So I had to make a choice. Which one do I choose? And since I'm a man of challenge, uh, you give me a challenge. I. I jumped into it. I saw that it would be a great challenge to become a coach gradually, day to day.

Speaker A: And this part is that I like the. Obviously from the first minute m. You're seeing, you love the challenges. I definitely could hear it the whole time of building this challenge, building the capacity of tackling all these challenges. What is fascinating about what you get to do day to day is that is this still the part where there's unexpected, I guess, individuals you get to work with? I feel like it's very unpredictable in terms of applying your skills to different people, because there's what, billions of people in this world, and everybody's different. And trying to find the success into helping everyone is always a good challenge. And that's why I may want to be asking you about this where. How, I guess, like, how common are people's. Like, whether anxiety or, um, unable to. To. To unblock themselves, like all these issues that we're describing this whole time of, uh, maybe some public speaking going wrong. How common is it from one individual to another in a set of this set of all these problems of not being able to public speak? I guess like. Well, what is, I guess like common that you see in the people that you work with and what is uncommon in the people that you work with? Just so that we have a comparison in terms of what, what we all experience, basically?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question. Wanting to be seen as, uh, smart and competent and trying to control the perception that others have about us. That's extremely common, my experience. So that's why, uh, I noticed it right away when you told me about it. Trying to. How can I try to sound smart? And those are very common. Then some people are comfortable speaking to one person, but not to a group. Other people have trouble to speak even to one person. So in this case, uh, it can be different. Usually the anxiety is very common. Anxiety before speaking. That's something that I found in nearly, nearly everyone. One guy told me that I coached, told me he doesn't have it, but he was also a teacher for years. So maybe that explains it. Then. It can also be a trap to be very comfortable in one specific situation. I've also met teachers who were very comfortable speaking in their normal environment. But whenever they would speak to another audience, suddenly anxiety shows up. Suddenly it's very strong. And then they don't know what to do because they are not used to deal with those feelings.

Speaker A: I can imagine if I don't have a blackboard behind me, I can't speak properly if anything, um, it's always some like, obviously I was kidding, if anything. But there's always, as you're saying, your natural habitat and your natural comfort zone. But then you having seen so many different cases, it was so good to see the comparison between what is more common, what is less common in terms of what is a blocker for somebody to be public. Speaking of anything, um, I love sharing these. A lot of times where it's like, what am I uncomfortable with in front of a lot of people is obviously I want to look smart, but over the years I kind of gave up on that. The second part of me trying to like, trying to what is it? Stay in track, stay on, like stay aligned with the idea of what I'm trying to say. Like I'm presenting on a topic. If I don't stay on that topic, I get a bit anxious that I'm going to like on a tangent, if anything. So that's another part of me that I'm trying to think about all the time to be like, stay on topic, get through it. Um, those are definitely like something that I, I love sharing these where it's like, oh, wait, I. I could recognize what went well, what doesn't. Well, and usually it's one of those like, oh, you didn't stick to the interesting part. If anything, um, sometimes I ask this question just because this is something that obviously I don't coach other people. Nobody should even listen to me to begin with. But whenever we're working with other people, um, and actually fortunately in tech I work with so many other people and I work get to work closely with them, whether it's pair programming, whether it's helping out with the project, whether it's helping hire other people with all that kind of fun stuff. In tech, there's always frameworks that I use, right? If you're trying to hire a good candidate, then you have pipelines, you have criterias, you have your job descriptions, you have all that and then you have like interviews and then you have your role to play in part of it. So that's one way of seeing your framework build out for that specific responsibility. If you're code reviewing something, then you have a framework code reviewing. First of all, you read the ticket, you Kind of figure out what is the goal of the ticket and then you get yourself familiarized with the code and then there's always some checks. Are you importing properly, are you using the correct interfaces, are you trying to make the correct packages and all that. So those are all I keep on describing as like, framework of how I do my day to day, my secret sauce. If anything, um, even for me going into public speaking, like, I have a framework in terms of trying to like calm my nerves, to be like, don't read the script, don't even have a script. A lot of times like that, number one. And then my framework is really just practice it, but not too much. Do maybe one or two practices have a live audience before your actual show? Those are all the frameworks that I kind of have a list that I do before going into that. So I guess after saying all that, my question to you probably is, I'm not going to ask you what is your secret sauce? Because obviously that is your secret sauce. But what is the framework that you tend to use or some guiding northern lights or north stars that you use when working with people that are seeking that help, that are reaching out to you? Do you have a framework that you follow or is it everybody has a different framework depending on whoever you work with.

Speaker B: Now there is, um, the shortest way to develop those skills. It includes social skills, networking, but public speaking, you could say it's fear based. Uh, fear based. You use fear as a compass. That's the base of the methodology that I'm using because it's the fastest way to get those skills. What do you feel, uh, scared to do? It shouldn't be extremely scary. Try to find something that scary but seems doable. That's why it's better to increase the steps one by one because otherwise you can feel overwhelmed. So first, if you start public speaking, it's just speaking, it's already scary. There is no need to add extra stake. Just find a place to practice to put you on stage. Face the fear, do it. And then very important, once you face the fear, once you did, uh, what was scary? Be proud. Be proud of yourself. Don't focus on the negative. Don't focus even of what you could improve. You did it, you faced fear. What does it mean about you that you're brave and that's it. Focus on that. I did it, I'm brave. Then you repeat, oh, uh, what feels scary now? Speaking, still scary. Okay, so let's just speak, add, ah, nothing else and be proud because I did it. At some point you will realize it's a little bit less scary, start to be a bit more comfortable, and it's like, m interesting. What can I do now that brings a little bit of fear? Oh, maybe I can talk a bit louder. So you add a moment in your speech where you talk a little bit louder. Then the next type, maybe it will be, oh, let's try to make eye contact. Longer eye contact. Let's try to use my body more. Let's try to smile. Every time you speak, you add a little something that feels scary, and you repeat, repeat, repeat. Of course, sometimes it will not work very well. That's feedback. You learn. And all the time you will discover that, wow, it was so great. Like, at that moment, I just screamed, uh, because it felt that it was the perfect way to put emphasis on what I said, and it worked. And then you use it again. So it's really about always finding something to increase the size of your comfort zone. It's only when you have something that you fear that you really make progress. It's all about emotional blocks. In fact, to be incredible on stage, like, incredible. To talk like a superstar. The only thing that is between you talking as a superstar, like a, uh, speaker who completely stands out and mesmerizes the audience and who you are today are blocks, emotional blocks. You're not speaking freely. You're not speaking loud enough. You're not using your body in a confident way. You're not looking at the audience. You're not speaking in a mysterious way. You're not making poses. It's all things that are a little bit scary. But once you did all of those things that are scary, once you increase, you pushed your comfort zone in all directions. And you can really do whatever you want on stage in the moment because you have the experience doing it. That's where you're completely free. And then you can talk with whatever style that you have, however you want, and be someone who stands out. That's the framework. You find something that brings fear at least a little bit, you do it, and you, uh, focus on, you were brave, you did it. Congratulations. And then you repeat. Find something else. A little bit of fear. You do it. And repeat. Uh, repeat, repeat.

Speaker A: I'd like to highlight that it's not a single fix. It's not just one fix that you push out there and you're suddenly, like, all resolve. And you're the best public speaker. As you're saying is you can definitely focus. The framework that you mentioned is great. It really focuses on one part at a time. You're not changing it to a completely different person overnight is you're building on these blocks, you're building on these foundations that you're able to get strong. I keep on saying my, uh, this is completely tangent. I love Obama in the sense of like, I respect how he's able to channel a message in every one of his speech. I don't even know why I said that, but I feel like every time you mention what is the qualities of a good speaker, you just think about the way he shows himself. I don't know. This is a really big tangent. I was just saying that a lot of times when you describe somebody, you notice that it's a lot of practice, a lot of small details to be able to do that. Um, the other interesting part, I keep on trying to ask this question to myself is, do most people start at zero? What I mean by that is whenever you work with some individuals, nobody starts at the same place, I'm assuming. Or do you find it more often that everybody starts at a part where they're completely shy and they honestly cannot hold a meeting with two people, for example. So what is this like, I guess like starting point that you see most common when somebody's looking for help in terms of breaking out of their shell?

Speaker B: Usually they, ah, have a little bit of experience at presenting. They might still feel a lot of anxiety before. They are very unsure of how they perform. But they already have a little bit of experience. Uh, it's rarely someone who is completely paralyzed and never was on stage. Usually there is always some experience and they want to be more confident. They want to not feel so much anxiety before. They want to make sure that they're saying the right thing. They want to be able to captivate with stories. That's very common storytelling. They want to be able to convince. Then it doesn't really matter how much experience, um, the person have, because the process that I, that I use can be used whatever. Um, your current experience as a speaker is people who come to me, they're not comfortable, fully comfortable, they have their own style, they're not like this. So usually they want to reach this state where they can be this special unique speaker, this own style, this own person who stand out that they can be.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's what a coach is for. I love this, I love this part in the sense of like, there's so much you could do to help yourself. But then sometimes a lot of people realize if you want to get to the next level or even the next level or the next level, there are help out there that will give you the, you know, insight, the tips and the guidance to do it. And that's why I love this asking this question is the answer is some people might start at zero, but there's a lot of other times where you're able to self help yourself and then you get to a point and then you just want to keep on evolving into the next one. So I, I, I love thinking about this stuff more than anything. Um, maybe if I could just ask this one, this other one because I'm obviously so curious about this stuff is progress. When people talk about progress, we all know it's not, you know, 0 to 100 overnight. Some people may do that. Honestly the you're lucky if you're able to get 100 like progress over and everything. But when you're working with a lot of individuals, what do you recommend to keep progress? I guess like in corporate speak I hear this a lot but like KPI's right like key performance indices where what are good signs that somebody is going in the right direction because usually that's something that is very helpful because we love having some bite sized feedback as we're trying to make ourselves better at the end of the day.

Speaker B: So how do you know that you're progressing? A good key is attention. If you can keep the attention of the people you're talking to where you speak. That's already a good point. If you don't have attention, then there are obviously things that you want to change. Another way to know it is that you start to be more aware when you speak. That's a very good key of progression. You start to notice the people, you start to notice what they are doing. You start to realize that you're talking to them and somehow start to do all those other things like body language, like using the stage, looking at people, the way you talk other, all of those start to be like a flow, start to be a little bit more automatic. It's really what happens once you break past your emotional blocks or emotional limits and you have more experience. It starts to be more automatic. There starts to be a flow. You start to like the moment and to be here. That's the uh, that's how you know that you're progressing. And then of course asking for feedback, you know, if you want to convey a specific message, it's worth it that at the end of your speech you go talk to people who are in the audience and ask them what they learned. Because if they don't, if they don't get what you wanted them to get, then it means that they're still some room for improvement.

Speaker A: I definitely love those. The awareness, the attention of what people are paying attention to when you're talking. Those definitely good indicators of, you know, being able to convey a message at the end of the day. I want to come back real quickly to Jeff as well. You're obviously busy day to day left and right like all around the world. If anything, what I guess helps you run your day today? I asked this question a lot. Where what are your favorite like weather apps or software or anything? Gadgets or anything? Is there anything that like you must have in your life? Maybe a specific, you know, note taking app on your phone or something? Like what are some cool applications or software or anything that you want to call out in your day to day life that makes it easier?

Speaker B: Uh, I've been using Trello for a few years now. I like it because it allows me to put everything out of my brain and just I know it's written somewhere and I know I don't have to think about it. So I use it for many things, reminders, things that I don't want to forget, uh, related to many areas of life. It can be work, it can be my personal life. You know, I even have a reminder in my Trello every once in a while to do something with my wife. So it really, it even helps me to, to not forget, to have a balanced life. So I guess, uh, that's the app that I'm using the most for organization purpose.

Speaker A: I think you're the first guest who mentioned is Trello. And funny enough, I also use Trello for a lot of the managing this podcast and everything. So if people don't know what Trello is, it's basically if you know what Jira is, it's kind of like Jira, but more snappy. They're from the same family, they're both from Atlassian, but it's just so much snappy. You can have all these swim lanes and you can just like move from one to another and it just snaps. And there's a very satisfying feeling between all of that. So thanks for sharing that. More than just me, somebody else is using Trello out there to be doing a lot of this stuff. Um, but yeah, I always want to ask this question in terms of like just very overall in the oversight of everything that we've discussed today is that number one, you've shared so many great, great, great tips left and right. Every two seconds was something that we could learn and maybe from your advice of now that you've helped and you will keep on helping so many more people, it's kind of like this trickling effect, this like, exponential effect where they're on their own journey of helping other people. Right. Maybe intentionally or subconsciously, that was your goal. I'm sure it was very much your goal of being able to spread a lot of this, like, positive good habits and, you know, empowerment to public speakers. So maybe my question, probably the final question, I guess, what is your advice on somebody that is so positively affected by learning being able to speak well, what do you want them to radiate to other people in the world? Do you want them to just mimic whatever you're trying to teach to other people? Or is there just another way that you want to see, I guess, like this spread of empowerment.

Speaker B: Find your style. Find your own style. And it has to be something that you enjoy. If you don't enjoy when you speak, it doesn't mean that you're not a born speaker. It just means one, you're not doing it in the right way. So enjoy while speaking. Once you enjoy, you will naturally talk about the things that you feel inspired. And if you feel inspired by something, chances are other people will find it inspiring too. And so that's where it's spread around. But it's all about how you start. It's all about how you start. The way I like to see it, uh, just to complete this idea. Finding how to enjoy speaking is the most important step on your journey. And it has to be the first step you want to improve gradually on something that works. It's like in software engineering, you have this mvp and the MVP must validate that you solved the problem and that customers are ready to pay for it. That's when you start to improve the product. If you improve something that doesn't work, or if you improve something that people are not willing to pay for, you're just wasting time, energy, and resources. When you speak, you want to have a base of you like speaking, and then you improve on that. If you don't like speaking and you try to improve on that, you will just add more layers of misery to your existence. Very bad idea. So focus first on talking and enjoying, seeing what you like to talk about, how you like to talk, and only once you have this improve. But if you don't enjoy, focus only on this thing and finding how to

Speaker A: enjoy it, finding the joy in speaking. Love it. Couldn't have said it better myself. Honestly, Jeff, I think cover to cover, from, from minute one, you've shared so much and it's really an empowerment. At the end of the day I keep on saying that like I sit here, I listen to all this, I feel better at the no matter what. And the thing is like for you, you live it, it's a day to day thing. And on my end I keep on saying thank you for not only what you do but also just being here sharing all that. So on my end, big, big, big thank you for all that. But also, where could people find more of Jeff?

Speaker B: I'm on LinkedIn. I post tips about speaking almost daily so you can find me there, can reach out. I answer to all messages. And Perry, can I give a gift to our listeners?

Speaker A: Oh, absolutely.

Speaker B: I wrote a small PDF of how to start, how to find this way of speaking that you find joy in it, the first steps. And I compiled this into a PDF and you can find it on um, Geoffrey hug.com podcast. So it's my name.com podcast and of

Speaker A: course all the links will be shared in the description notes below. So definitely go check it out. But I can't say more than this in a sense of like, I absolutely enjoyed listening to you talk about every single thing that I could probably relate to. I feel like there hasn't been an aspect that you've missed in any of this. So once again, thank uh, you so much for being on the show.

Speaker B: Thank you very much. It was super cool. Thank you.

Speaker A: And for the rest of you, of course we will catch you on the next episode. Take care. And that was Jeffrey Huck, public speaking coach for tech leaders. All the links are shared in the description notes below. Go check them out. If you would like to be on podcast written by a software engineer, reach out to us. Just email contactairetsu.com can't wait to have you on the show. Once again, thank you so much for listening to podcast written by software Engineer. Don't forget to hit the follow button on your podcast app and leave us a review on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It's completely free and if you want to tell your friends about podcasts moving by software engineer, that's totally cool as well. Anyways, I am Parrots Hugh and I'll catch you on the next one. Big love.