Geoffrey
00:00:00.000
You don't want people to look at your slides. You don't want them to put their attention on the slides. Because at, the time they put their attention on your slides, You lost them and you might never get them back.
Darin
00:00:14.075
This is DevOps Paradox, episode number 3 1 4, building your speaking career from meetups to main stage. Victor, it's no surprise, basically from April through November, you are on the road speaking at conferences the whole stinking time. Is that about right?
Viktor
00:01:33.214
thought it will be different. I thought, hey man, I'm going to go to four or five in total. And then, we are now recording this before the end of January. I already have 30 and I'm going crazy.
Darin
00:01:45.763
30. Did you, did I hear that right? 30? Holy cow. Okay. So that means a lot of different things. Um, but rewind Victor, when did you do your first talk? First technical talk? Do you think?
Darin
00:02:15.903
yeah. So with that in mind, you did the exact same thing back then that you do today in preparation and how to get ready and all the things, right?
Viktor
00:02:27.083
I was a bit more nervous back then. I did prefer a bit prepare a bit more. But I was speaking with a colleague, and I do remember that he was freaking out, kind of, we cannot go this unprepared, and I thought that we're preparing too much.
Darin
00:02:44.389
Yeah. It sounds like you, um, so on today's show, we have Jeffrey Huck on Jeffrey. How you doing?
Darin
00:02:56.672
now before we continue, Jeffrey, say your name as it's supposed to be said and not in the unfortunate Americanized way that it should be said.
Darin
00:03:12.300
Jeff. Oh, that's even better. Thank you. Okay, good. That'll, that'll even say Jeffrey sounds very polite, formal, but Jeff, okay, Jeff, I'm going to be okay today. Good. So Jeff. Used to be a software engineer that then pivoted to speaking. So that pattern doesn't seem very odd to me. I've seen a lot of developers maybe move into developer relations and then they might go out on their own and just do speaking and that's all they do. I can think of two or three people that it seems like their job is to get on a plane and go speak at a conference and that's it. Is that normal?
Viktor
00:03:51.710
It's happening with development that is probably different than many other industries is the community. Very often developers would be involved in Docker computing, helping prepare, helping this or that, right? And through those things, they get working more and more in public, right? Which eventually might lead them to speak, right? While in other professions, you almost need to decide to speak. Like, my first talk was not, was not intentional, right? I was just working in open source project and, uh, we were invited to go and give a talk on a conference and so on and so forth. Uh, and before that, uh, again, it's open source, so I've evolved with community. So it's almost like a natural progression that does not necessarily exist with, uh, in other industries.
Geoffrey
00:04:45.775
people, they start to talk and they realize for some reason that they like it. It wasn't my case at first. First, it was something I was extremely scared of. Care to do and that I wanted to overcome because I felt it was limiting my professional evolution and by challenging myself to put in those scary situations, I discovered I started to like it and even love it.
Darin
00:05:19.199
You started to like it and then love it. It sounds like A drug, unfortunately, is that because I've, I've seen some people, you know, go down that path and it's like, you know, that you just get used to it and now you've got to have it more and more, sounds like you maybe had a little bit of imposter syndrome to start out. And then all of a sudden it's like, no, I need this. Is that what happened?
Geoffrey
00:05:46.369
Oh, I like I like your analogy with the drug. I think here, what's the main difference is might start to get addicted to it. But the question is, is doing it more and more and more something that creates more meaning in your life, something that brings happiness that gives value to others, or is it just for yourself? So in this sense, you can see it as a. Kind of a positive drug. You get addicted to it, but the more you do it, the more meaning it brings to yourself and those around you.
Darin
00:06:29.372
How does that apply to you, Victor? Does that seem about right to you? I'm thinking about your 30. It's like, are all 30 going to bring meaning and joy to your life?
Viktor
00:06:37.927
Most of them will because we are entering into warm period and I'm Almost never miserable when it's warm. I'm miserable in cold weather. And there are a couple of places I've never been, like Costa Rica. That's going to be awesome.
Darin
00:06:55.110
So how does that align to you, Jeff, based on what he just said? If it's warm, he's happy. So, again, the April through November in the Northern Hemisphere is typically warm. He wouldn't do so well, I guess, in that same time frame in Australia. But that's a different conversation.
Geoffrey
00:07:11.061
based on what we talked about, Victor seems completely addicted to public speaking. That's for sure.
Darin
00:07:18.968
That's interesting. Okay. We're not going to go down this rabbit hole way too long. I sort of gave a brief overview of how you did, you were developing. And then all of a sudden you started speaking. What, what was the tripping point for you to get to that point? Were you just fed up? It's like, okay, I can't open this ID one more day. I would much rather open either keynote or, um, what's the, what's the Microsoft one? I've got it blocked out of my mind. What's the presentation software for key or from Microsoft
Darin
00:07:52.465
I use a different one, so I don't even remember anymore. Did you just want to live in those kinds of tools instead of an ID?
Darin
00:08:02.799
Yeah, I know you do Victor, but I'm asking what Jeff did. You know, what, what was that changeover for him
Geoffrey
00:08:09.478
I didn't start talking about a specific topic. My goal at first was just to overcome a fear. So I would just go on stage, improvise on some silly topics, doing improv. And it's only once I was comfortable on stage that I found the topics I wanted to talk about. But the content wasn't here first. It was first a willingness to challenge myself and then came the willingness to share what I knew.
Darin
00:08:45.183
talking about being comfortable on stage? I mean, you just walk up on a stage and you look at people. What's so hard about that?
Geoffrey
00:08:52.760
The emotional reaction that you have before, going on stage can be overwhelming. And you can try to find the reason why. You can try to narrow down the fear, but this might not help to overcome it at all. You just create a story about the why.
Darin
00:09:13.181
Create a story. Why would I need to create a story? I mean, I'm just going up to talk, right? And you were talking about this, let's do improv. It's like, why do I need a storyline? It's just improv. I'll just say whatever I think of.
Geoffrey
00:09:23.758
But the thing is, it's just an emotional reaction and the best way to overcome fears is by exposing yourself winningly. To the fear. just do it again and again, do everything that you feel is scary to do. And that's how you overcome the fear. So you don't even have to find an explanation for why the fear, because the process of exposure doesn't require you to understand what's happening.
Darin
00:09:56.806
Let me set up a scenario real quick. Let's say I have submitted to a number of call for papers and nobody is giving me a chance. I'm getting frustrated. I've got like two or three topics I can talk on. Nobody's giving me a chance. So it's obviously them and not me because they don't know how great I am. what is wrong in that scenario?
Geoffrey
00:10:21.159
You get accepted for your ideas. Not because of who you are. If you get rejected, it doesn't mean that you as a person has been deemed not good enough to give the talk. It just means that the organizer saw your abstract title of your speech and didn't seem, think that the audience would be interested by this talk as much as the other options that were available. That's just what it is. It's not a rejection of you. It's a rejection of your ID at the time it was received. And in the context, it was received. or if you want to practice, I suggest joining a Toastmasters club. It's a public speaking club that you find in all major or middle sized cities, where you can usually meet up every week or every two weeks. And go on stage for a few minutes. If your aim is to improve your speaking skills, that's the, usually the first step to do.
Viktor
00:11:35.275
Move to a city, bigger Yeah, move to a bigger city, where there is Toastmasters. This is that. No, but Jeff is, Jeff is right, uh, Toastmasters are now everywhere. Uh, so, shouldn't be a big problem finding it, really. actually, let me digress over there. I would, Toastmasters is amazing. I absolutely agree. But that's a route that you already chose to decide to speak, right? And to focus on your speaking, not necessarily on other aspects of things that might be useful for you wanting to be in public as engineer, right? In our profession, fortunately, You have even more meetups than Toastmaster clubs, right? There are KCDs and DevOps days and this and Java something something, right? You have those meetups everywhere, and you don't even need to, uh, go there with the intention to speak. Toastmasters is great, but you're forced to kind of go on a stage in a way, right? Uh, people rotate. This you can just help out until you get the courage to jump on a stage, and you will be speaking above Actually, you will be speaking to the audience that is used to the subject of the stuff you want to speak about, right? Toastmasters is very generic. You will find a teacher, you will find a coach, you will find another software engineer, you will find a doctor, right? In software meetups, you will find software engineers, right? Likely souls. People who are doing the same thing that you're doing. You're probably equally scared as well.
Geoffrey
00:13:20.897
Meetups are a great way to start. Definitely. And you can even just go there and do a two minute impromptu speech, just ask the organizer that you would like to try it, you know? There is nothing wrong by going to an event, asking the organizer, just say hey. I'd like to practice my public speaking skills, and it's something that I never did before. Can I get just two minutes to talk about something, uh, to get some practice? That's a very easy way to get your first, experiences. And then if it goes well, or if it, or if you want to, to talk, um, uh, for a longer time, just ask for a slot. Usually Organizers are looking for people to make talks and it can be as short or as long as you want.
Darin
00:14:11.734
I'm going to correct you just a little bit. You said usually meetup speakers are looking for Talks. Organizers. Sorry. Yeah. Organizers. Uh, organizers are always looking for talks and not usually always it's, it's a never ending thing for them. Yeah. It's, I guess it depends on the market, but I can say, and Victor already alluded to this. We're recording in January. I'm doing a meetup in the Dallas, Texas area in February that the organizer reached out to me because I'm part of the group. I think this is the other part of it is, okay, I want to speak at all the Java user groups. Okay, great. Do you attend any? Well, no. Why not? You got to become part of the group, part of the community that will help you get in easier. It doesn't mean that you will always be accepted, but it'll help because you've already built the rapport with people. Does online make a difference nowadays anymore? Meaning Victor has a very strong online presence. Between the podcast, the YouTube channel, does that help it out if you wanted to go speak somewhere,
Viktor
00:15:24.152
Having a name that people heard helps a lot. Right. And when I say name, that can be name. Hey, my village, right in my city, my country and whatever, right? That expands over time. But, most of the submissions will be very similar and reviewers are very often. I'm not talking about conferences rather than meetups. Reviewers are bombed and have to reject 90 percent of them. equally mediocre submissions. If they see, Hey, I heard, I saw that guy, right? Or that girl, I heard that person speak, uh, that can help, right? But that's a grind because it takes a lot of time to get there.
Geoffrey
00:16:11.729
One of the, advantage of having a relation with the organizers is that in case they don't find your speech or your topic interesting, you will know the reason why. When you pitch online. To people who you don't know, you will get ignored a lot and it's very easy to get discouraged and you will never know if it's because your message ended up in spam or if it's because of you, that's how you can doubt on yourself or if it's because of the topic or it's because for another reason. So that's probably what you did, Victor, when you started, you found topics with people who you knew, which allowed you to know what types of talks. Are interested and accepted
Viktor
00:17:11.671
Yeah. It was something like that. It was a Bob's project that was maintaining and that was remotely interesting. And I was invited to be the colleague.
Darin
00:17:20.932
So it sounds like Victor was able to make that happen because people reached out to him, but it was a colleague. He did it again, 20, 25 years ago. Let me ask this to Victor.
Darin
00:17:39.772
Yes, you were. So when you did that setup, can you even remember how you went through the process? Again, you said earlier, I feel like we're behind. That was your, your partner in this and you're thinking, uh, we've got way too much already. Or some variation of that, right?
Viktor
00:17:57.792
That depends on personality, right? I was his logic was always He's changed, he changed a lot, just to be clear, right? He doesn't do that anymore. Back then, we need to know every sentence, every word, everything that we're going to say, and how we're going to say it, and what we're going to answer if they ask, and what's not, right? My logic was, I know this stuff. What's the first thing that can happen? It's a bunch of, it's a bunch of nerds that are more afraid of me than I'm afraid of them.
Darin
00:18:30.429
You're not right. Or you're not right. You're not wrong. So let me ask this, whether I know you, because we've been doing this for long enough now. You're actually an introvert. You're not an extrovert.
Viktor
00:18:42.252
I'm an introvert. I never start the conversation. You will never find the person who will tell you that I approached him or her and ask, how are you doing? That never happens. I don't know how that fits into me being on a stage. I honestly cannot explain
Darin
00:19:01.642
well no, I think I know why. We'll see if Jeff agrees with me or not. So you by nature, you are an introvert. You're not going to initiate things. However, if things are already happening and people join in, At that point, you are a semi extrovert because you've already found your comfort level. And for you, now you have found your comfort level on the stage, on the platform. It's not new to you. So when you were setting that up, Victor, did you make any kind of normal middle changes or did you, was it really, these are a bunch of nerds. These are my people. And I don't have to worry about it, right? It was just the comfort level,
Viktor
00:19:51.377
Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, I said earlier that you will never hear or see me initiate the conversation, right? But when I'm asked, I can talk for hours if it's something that I'm familiar with, right? So you need to ask me first. And conferences are like that. In my head, I'm probably wrong, right? They asked me to talk about BDD Assistant, that's the name of the project, doesn't exist anymore, right? So, I'm not initiating this, they asked for it.
Darin
00:20:23.678
So coming back to Jeff, how does that, that storyline align with what you've seen and maybe, maybe even what you've gone through, because it sounded like you got fed up again, correct me if I'm wrong. You got sort of fed up with the whole development life cycle and you just wanted to beat a fear. So then you just started speaking until you found what you wanted to do. And then once you found what you wanted to do, it sounds like it was probably pretty similar to Victor. You knew the content, you knew whatever the, the ideal was. And you were able to take it from there. Is that about right?
Geoffrey
00:20:57.621
before speaking. Actually, I started by challenging myself in networking situations, and I completely understand the Victor when you say that you're not the one who initiate and I've actually had people I worked with. To work on their speaking skills that during our discussions, I discovered that there were doing this never initiating, they were comfortable. Once people came to talk to them, of course, because everyone knows how to talk, right? So why wouldn't you be if you're in an event where you're passionate about the topics? And if someone comes to talk to you about it, of course you can talk for hours. But what I discovered, and it worked for me, but it also worked with people I work with, is that initiating a discussion is just a muscle. It's hard to do it the first time, but once you, usually, if you initiate a conversation at any event, any place, with three different people, You go there, start a conversation. Once it's finished, you go to another person and you iterate three times. Then something happened. There is a kind of a mental shift, some, something switch in the brain and you start to get a very excited and you want to talk with everyone. And if you never experienced it, you might believe that you're not the type who initiate. But the fact is, if you try it, do it a few times, you might completely change how you view yourself. It happened with many, many people I met in networking events who were extremely outgoing, which is the type of people I am today. And when I ask them, they usually tell me the same story. Oh, you know, I'm a huge introvert. But somehow I found the, what we call the extrovert switch.
Darin
00:22:59.776
How do we flip that extrovert switch? Because I still have a problem with that. I am still very much an introvert
Geoffrey
00:23:06.900
Initiate a conversation with three people. Go to a place, initiate three conversations.
Geoffrey
00:23:15.277
Oh no, one after another. And the first one will be crazy hard. The second one will be hard. The third one will be still a little bit hard. And then somehow you, you, you feel um, open. You feel more energy and you feel a kind of excitement that makes you want to talk with everyone.
Darin
00:23:38.376
So Victor got used to speaking on stage. I actually am fine speaking on stage. It's not that big of a deal, but what about people that as soon as they step off of the ground level onto that first step to take two steps up to a stage at six inches off the ground? Or however many centimeters that is. I don't know. I can't do the math in my head. How do we help people get over that, overcome that perceived stage fear? Because it may not be real stage fright. It might be something else.
Geoffrey
00:24:10.906
It will be scary the first times, but I don't think there is any way to remove this. Even if you practice a lot on smaller stage, going on a bigger one, there will be some additional pressure. But, that being said, when you talk on small stages, you develop habits. And the small stages means even less than eight people, you develop habits of looking at people of using the stage, the ways of talking of express expressions. You don't lose those habits when the pressure is higher, a bigger stage or could be a situation that is of a higher stake. So you keep those habits, but suddenly you feel a lot more energy and most people, they don't really know what to do with this additional energy. Start to feel tense. You start to feel it's really energy. What I recommend in order to prepare yourself for those. Moments is to go to a smaller stage, but do as if it's a big stage. So you talk louder, you may express yourself with more, um, emphasis, it's more energy. And I think this is the best you can do to prepare yourself for those situations.
Darin
00:25:42.764
I'm going to throw in a couple of extra ones there because in the times where I wasn't actually on stage, I'm used to doing event production. And there, to me, there are two types of speakers. There are the people that you would love to work with again, and then there are the jerks. Don't be a jerk. What do I mean by that? Don't show up with one minute left on the clock before you're supposed to start. And it's like, Hey, here's my three computers. I need to get hooked to that up. I'm not going to be a very nice person as a stage person. What I do want to look for is somebody that showed up maybe 10 minutes before and they're sticking with me throughout the time. My favorite person, Victor, you're not going to like this one, showed up during the previous break. If it's a multiple break room or breakout rooms, they showed up during the previous break. Or maybe even before that and scoped out the room and already introduced themselves. It's like, Hey, this is the kind of thing I'm going to need. When would you like for me to be here? So it's easier on you as the tech person for the room. Those are important things. Going back to my earlier example of don't you know who I am? My response as a tech person is I don't care who you are. I'm not being paid enough to put up with this kind of crap. Am I wrong in that Jeff?
Geoffrey
00:27:02.473
It's the idea, right? It's the, the, you're here for the ideas, for the insights, for the value. more than for a person. So in this way, yes, I agree. And oh, by the way, talking with people of your audience before your speech can be a very effective way to know what people are here for. Because if you ask for feedback after your speech, they will be biased by the content you gave them. But if you ask them before, they can tell you exactly. What they would like to get from your speech.
Darin
00:27:42.428
But I already have all of my slides done. I don't have time to rewrite my speech.
Geoffrey
00:27:46.771
Oh, you don't have to modify it. That would be a bit too much. But for the next time, you will know. And if you, you know, you always have the ability to illustrate. You have your speech, and then suddenly you remember about this person who told you about their specific situation. Let's say that they are working on a sales system and they have a specific problem. Then during your speech, you can always say, another example would be, if you're in sales and you have this specific problem, that's the type of things that you can use in order to fix it. It can be very, very slow, small. Hints.
Darin
00:28:28.666
Let's talk about the actual presentations. We were talking about the slides a minute ago. So all slides should have a minimum of 20 to 25 bullet points at 8 point. there should be at least 70 slides for a 10 minute talk. What else am I missing? Um, oh, and there needs to be video in it too. That has to reach the internet. Okay, Jeff, what am I doing wrong here?
Geoffrey
00:28:51.842
Ha! Everything! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Just do the opposite. You don't want people to look at your slides. You don't want them to put their attention on the slides. Because at, the time they put their attention on your slides, You lost them and you might never get them back.
Geoffrey
00:29:18.351
You'd be very disappointed if you were to check what people remember bird from your speech a week or a month after it's almost nothing. They will definitely not remember your slide. They will just remember. if you did your job well, three or four key IDs.
Darin
00:29:41.449
So you're saying, I don't need slides. I just need to come up with, it almost sounds like a storyline. Three or four points, like I'm going to run somebody through three or four points and I get to a final conclusion. Are you saying that's all I need to have, to have a good presentation?
Geoffrey
00:30:03.131
if it's more complex, they will not remember, you can show the process of an ID, you know, instead of just saying, this is. What I say, let's, let's have an example, if you were to give a speech about the importance of testing of automated testing, you might start by talking about horror stories in which there were no tests, then a good story in which there were tests and what's the difference between the two. Then you can talk a little bit about the, the how you do it, what are the, the main mistakes that you should avoid by doing it. So you, you're still in the same, it's the same idea that you look from different point of views, and that you, you talk for, with different methods, with a story, with facts, facts with statistics. So it's, the same ID, but from different point of view, which gives more strength to the ID itself. But the main ideas in opinions, the main, the big ideas in a talk, you shouldn't have more than three, maybe four, three is better usually.
Darin
00:31:26.969
So that's interesting. So let me ask if there's three main ideas, it seems like I'm splitting my focus. Are you actually stating there should be a main idea and then three supporting things to get me to that main idea? Okay,
Darin
00:31:44.681
just making sure because it's like, boy, I've been doing them all wrong if I'm supposed to be doing that. This is a DevOps podcast. Typically today's a little bit different. We always talk about continuously improving, shifting left, all these other things. Do you have any strategies to improve, continuously improve as a speaker? Like that's I guess you got to do it, number one. Because if you're not speaking, then you're not a speaker. It's like, if you're a writer or you're not a writer, well, if you're writing, you're a writer. Same thing with speaking.
Geoffrey
00:32:18.635
Doing is the base condition. If you don't do, you can't improve. Yet, we still, many, if not all of us, have this example of people who talk every day for years for seven to eight hours, and yet who are extremely boring, probably have a, an old teacher in mind. So just speaking will not make you improve. The key to improve is to stretch. You need to stretch your skills, your abilities. You know, if all the time you go on stage and you stay behind your microphone and you speak in a monotone voice, you can do that for years. It will never change. If you want to be able to be more expressive, more emotional, to use the stage, you have to do all those things. You have to expand your comfort zone. In public speaking, since it's a highly emotional state you're in when you do those speeches, the best way is to do everything that you feel scared to do. So if you never raised your voice, if you never said, Hello, Houston! That kind of things, do it once. Just to see if you like it. Especially if it's scary. Because being scared to do something means that You somehow find that there is something interesting in it. You know, we are not scared of things that we would never do anyway. But we are scared of things that when we picture ourselves doing it, it raises our rate. So do everything that you feel a little bit scary.
Viktor
00:34:17.847
I'm scared of lions. After, after this conversation, I'll go to the zoo, jump over the fence and overcome it.
Darin
00:34:35.735
what else can we do? I mean, it seems like we've got to do But if nobody's giving me the opportunity to do, what do I do? We talked about Toastmasters, but let's say I can't get to Toastmasters because I've got six kids at home at night and I just can't do Toastmasters at nighttime.
Geoffrey
00:34:52.781
kids at home, why not telling them a story? That would be great. Every night you tell them a story and see if the, you know, attention don't lie. For example, it's storytelling. The ultimate point is attention. If when you talk your story, you realize that you have the attention all the time. Then you, it means it was a great story. If you realize that at some point people start to look away. It means that you didn't, tell your story in an engaging way. If you have children at home, I actually work with a client who have children at home and it's exactly what he's doing, so that he can practice more. Another example, very easy to do, is record yourself. You can do, choose a topic. That you like that you want to share something about record yourself two minutes and watch the results and do it until watching yourself doesn't feel cringe. That's usually a good, way to know if you're comfortable, if you seem comfortable is when you watch yourself doing it, you don't feel it's very weird. It's fine. Then you look, natural. So this is a good hack.
Darin
00:36:13.083
I'm guessing unintentionally you've used two minutes in a couple of different examples. What's magic about two minutes to you?
Geoffrey
00:36:20.538
The most important part Is the beginning. If you don't put the right amount of energy in the beginning, you, you will have to climb, and you see many speakers like this, you know, they start speaking a bit low, and it takes two minutes before they are a bit comfortable. But if, when you start, you're Directly going with your energy, you don't spend those times to go up. So I like doing small speeches because it's something that makes you practice the start,
Darin
00:36:57.161
Because if you don't get the start right, nothing else matters. You haven't hooked him, I guess.
Geoffrey
00:37:03.904
or if you don't get the right, the start right. You might never get attention. You might never get a good impression from the people who are, who are looking. It's most of the time when you go to a speech, you hear the first 30 seconds and you know, if the speech is going to be good or not. If you're not hooked, can't force being hooked. It's the job of the speaker. You
Darin
00:37:29.411
So let's talk about this for a second. Victor has been doing some co presentations with a couple of different speakers over the past couple of years. do you think about that? So let's say that you're a reasonable speaker on your own, but now you're going to do a tag team with somebody else. How does that work? Have you thought much about that, Jeff?
Geoffrey
00:37:54.390
need to do it with people who you know you have a good dynamic with. And something that you have to, have to try. Some people it works well. Others, not much. What you should avoid though. I have a few experiences in watching that kind of talks. Private jokes, really, really bad. Usually the audience, when the, you do private jokes and then the audience, they don't know what you're talking about and you just lose them. So that's something that you should be of.
Darin
00:38:28.460
I want to go back to the storytelling structure for a second. Some stories you start cold, you build, you build, you build, you end. That's sort of a classic structure. One structure that depending on what day of the week it is for me is getting to the end from the beginning, meaning sort of like these murder mysteries. You halfway into the story, you taught, you set that up as the start and then you rewind and build up to that point and continue. What do you think works the best? Or is there a best? Is it just different stories?
Geoffrey
00:39:06.050
Start with action, not with descriptions. Actions are what works the best to set up a story, because people already, they get hooked very easily. And if you look at movies, movies always start with something going on. You don't see the, um, it's not introduction and description. So yeah, starting, like you said, something that is already going on. It's the best way to start a story.
Darin
00:39:35.291
So if that's the best way to start a story, what's the best way to end the story? Do we drag it out? Do we just keep on beating the dead horse? do we come to an end?
Geoffrey
00:39:46.000
Why do you tell the story? Usually there is something that you want to achieve. You want people to learn something the way you use your stories to put what you wanna say in light, usually it's about a transformation. There is a bit something going on. There are problems, there are obstacles, and there's a transformation. That's what the story is all about. So that's where the story should lead. That's also how you should your story by knowing what's the end. And then once the end is stated, once the transformation, once you reach the peak, that's when you should just cut. Because everything that's coming after the peak will be obviously less interesting than the peak itself. So why, why would you impose this to the audience?
Geoffrey
00:40:49.223
That's why it's so hard to write stories. Because we have this bias, you know, you, you lived, if it's about something you lived, something that, that you really happened to you, you have all of those things that you want to tell. And that's why it's so important to ask someone else. What they think of your story and what they find is not needed to make your point because we are very bad to judge it ourselves. We are so attached to the details and what we wanna say that we are better off by asking someone else those questions.
Darin
00:41:32.775
What haven't I asked? It feels like setting up stories, I mean, we could spend hours talking about how to set up a story, how to build a PowerPoint deck, how to, uh, What is the bottom line here? What do we, if we're just wanting to get started, where do we just start? Is it, if we have kids, tell them a story? Maybe at first read them a story, then eventually create a story, and then tell the story. How do we get started?
Geoffrey
00:42:00.540
That's great. Yeah. We can get started by recording short videos. If you can go to a Toastmasters club, go to a Toastmasters clubs. Otherwise, go meetups, ask for time to speak. if you have an opportunity where you're at a dinner to tell a story or to say something, try to do it in a dinner or in a meeting if you're not the type of person who speak up. Whenever you have something that you feel is important, speak up. That's how you build a muscle. Also, if you go to a conference. You know, they always ask for questions at the end. Why wouldn't you be the first one to ask a question and see how it goes? You have all of those opportunities around you. It's always behind something that's a bit scary, but that's the sign it's the right thing to do if you want to improve. Because if it's not scary at all, You're not really improving. You're doing what's what you already know,
Geoffrey
00:43:05.970
but not too much. If it's paralyzing, it's probably too much of a, of a step. You know, it's nice to have a lead, a base leader base of fear because it shows that you're trying something new and it shows that you're trying to improve because if you try something new, Automatically you improve because if it works, you keep it and then you're better. And if it doesn't work, you know more about things that don't work. So either way you win
Viktor
00:43:33.878
You know, if it goes to other extreme kind of, if you are so paralyzed that you poop yourself, the audience will certainly remember your talk more than anybody else's. It's going to be the most remembered talk in a conference. I guarantee it.
Geoffrey
00:43:51.694
It will. And, oh, by the way, if you freeze up, it's fine. You know, many people are scared of the freeze.
Viktor
00:43:58.994
But after you poop yourself, you need to have prison. Go get off the stage. Otherwise it's going to be a real disaster.
Geoffrey
00:44:07.579
Usually, if you freeze, the best thing to do Just talk about what's happening. Hey guys, there was one thing I was really afraid would happen. It's forgetting my speech. And guess what? Just happened. Can any of you tell me what I just said a minute ago before I froze? just, talk about what's happening because you're a human, everyone knows it's scary. So no one will, mad at you and just telling what happens can and will create a human connection with people in the audience. And as you do it. Instead of freaking out, you know, instead of thinking, Oh, what was I thinking? And running your mind a hundred miles per hour, just talking about what's happening now will slowly relax you. And they will be fine. So if you poop yourself, just, just say it
Darin
00:45:06.391
or not, but just, you know, keep it, you know, whatever works for you. Let's put, we'll leave it that way. All of Jeff's contact information is going to be down in the episode description. Jeff, thanks for being with us today. We hope this episode was helpful to you. If you want to discuss it or ask a question, please reach out to us, our contact information and a link to the Slack workspace or at DevOps paradox.com/contact if you subscribe through Apple Podcast. Be sure to leave us a review there that helps other people discover this podcast. Go Sign up right now at DevOps paradox.com to receive an email whenever we drop the latest episode. Thank you for listening to DevOps Paradox.