How to Talk to Humans
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Steed, Sharon
Developers are trained to communicate to things with a goal in mind. When you're talking to something like, say a computer, you type in your code and it responds by giving you back what you want. Simple and straight-forward. Talking to humans? That's more of a challenge. Why? Because communicating with people requires a special set of skills - namely, empathy and a little bit of storytelling. In an industry filled with brilliant minds, great ideas and mass disruption, so few of the best and brightest know how to tell their compelling story. This workshop will teach you how.
 Hi everyone. Oh, wow that is loud. I'm not used to talking on a microphone so this is going to be interesting. Okay, so I am Sharon and I'm going to be presenting this workshop today and I'm just going to go ahead and get started. So a great thing about the tech industry is that there is a ton of disruption and innovation. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of that happening on the communications end and I am as guilty as the next marketer and communicator of falling into the right and true methods to get my points across. As you can tell, I have a speech impediment. I stutter and it has made a lot of choices for me in my own life. I chose to be a writer because I was a lot more comfortable with the written word as opposed to obviously talking to people. I chose to be a freelancer because any time I would go to a job interview, I would become just engulfed with so much anxiety that I wouldn't be able to get a word out, even my name as you guys could tell a couple of seconds ago. And I chose a lot of times to be sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy silent even though I knew I could add value to the conversation. And value is a word that I am going to be talking about a lot today. And I am also going to be talking about marketing as well. These are key points and they are going to make a lot more sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy thinkers as a writer with about eight of them in the his and his and his marketing capacity. I have learned a couple of things about what companies sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy think they need to do to get their eyes on their brand. They talk a lot about mobile strategy and SEO, hashtags and social impacts and of course Facebook and Twitter. And also branding. The problem with that word is that a lot of companies have trouble seeing themselves and exposing their flaws as I am doing right now. Think about it. When was the last time when you had an idea for a marketing plan and you scratched it off the list because it exposed a weakness? It probably happens a lot more often than you think especially when you are in an early stage company and you are working with limited means. You stick with what you know. Today I want to challenge you to abandon your strengths and explore the things that you consider to be a weakness. So often we consider weakness and out as negative. They walk hand in hand that those feelings aren't necessarily a bad sissy sissy sissy sissy think. The Italian intellectual and I am probably going to butcher his name, you, that is creative because it allows for alternative ways to see the world. What if you applied that to your company's brand or even your personal brand? I love to read and one of my favorite authors is Haruki Murakami. He actually uses a form of weakness in his writing. The Atlantic actually wrote about him and talked about how no other writer writes as many bad sentences as he does. If you have read any of his books you will understand that. His writing is compelling because of the storytelling and that is another concept that will be a talking a lot more about. The plots take you from supernatural to reality almost in the same paragraph. It is often written properly or long winded. But it works. He is marketed himself by using poor sentences to his advantages. Now he is one of the great writers of our time. That is another tip. You can stand out by being unequivocally and imperfectly who you are. Always remember that sometimes your greatest vulnerability can be your most valued asset. And Kevin Plank, who is the founder of Under Armour, he understands this incredibly well. The first rule of his formula for innovation design is to do one specific thing really well. And that is what he did. For the first five years of Under Armour they only had one product. It was their compression t-shirt. For me in my hisness it was writing in all forms. I covered editorial and then I went over to hisness and then I ended in marketing. That builds credibility. And once you have that under your belt you can begin to grow from there. For you it could be a voting time to a couple of platforms that you know will work and then disrupting and innovating from there. My personal disruption was doing this. It was speaking. I began speaking about a year ago as a way to break out of my shish-sh-sh-sh-sh-shell. I was terrified to talk to people one on one. And obviously I was even more terrified to do anything that compared to what I'm doing now. So once I put myself out there my biggest fear, my strongest vulnerability and my greatest out I realized that I was connecting with people in a real way. It's a lot easier to connect with your audience whether it be a larger group like this one or in a one on one conversation. If they know that you are s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-a-lod as well. So the question that I'm going to pose to you today is what's your disruption? What is the one thing that terrifies you that worries you, that makes you vulnerable. What challenges you at the point of being afraid? That's where your sweet spot is. That is what is going to capture your target audience and then make you stand out. People are probably going to tell you that you need to be the strongest communicator to succeed. But sometimes the truth is that you have to be the most transparent one. Alright so now we're going to get into our first exercise. I want you guys to pair up. I think there's probably enough people to do this in pairs. I want you to talk about an area in your professional life that you consider a weakness. I can give you some examples of that. It could be like talking to a toss about something. It could be trying to connect with a co-worker or it could be trying to explain a technical concept to a non-technical person. After you've talked about that, also talk about a time when that weakness kind of overcame you and caught the test of you. So you're gonna do this in pairs. Preferably with the person that you don't already know. So you may have to kind of, I don't know, probably around the room a little bit in order to make this work. So I'll give you guys like 10 minutes. Alright so we're gonna wrap this up. This exercise. Okay so how did it go? Talking about a thing that you don't consider to be positive. How did it feel? Go ahead. You know I found that conversation to be a lot less shallow than most of my conversations. Really? A little more deep because like you said it kind of helps open up a little bit. It helps to relate to someone else who is also weak in areas. And Matt here pointed out, you know, in the tech industry we all tend to feel somewhat inadequate in some and not many areas. So I thought that was great. Who needs church? Anyone else? Yeah we're kind of joking. It's like that's quite nice right here. It's like, you know, if I go out with you it's a terrible act. Right? You know, not like, oh where are you from or whatever. But it definitely was like, oh it's actually not real. Yeah like a real, like, have a real conversation with someone. It's crazy. Well that's awesome. I mean that's a really good job. I mean I don't know if I would be able to do this exercise after being in a workshop for 10 minutes and I'm presenting the workshop so lucky me. But yeah that's, oh go ahead. Yeah well it's actually a good segue into the next part. And hopefully you'll be able to talk to your team easier about anything after this. That's the goal. How to talk to humans. So yeah. Before I go on, does anybody else have anything that they wanted to add? We're all friends here now. So good. Good. Okay. So the first thing that you guys have to know about communicating with other people is that everybody is exactly like you. Right? Like everybody wants to be liked. Even right now I like I want you guys to think I am awesome. That I'm interesting and that I'm funny and that I'm the coolest person here. Like yeah like that's just who we are as people. Our terrains are wired to connect. We, it's how we've gotten this far in evolution is the through group egg sisi sisi sisi sisi sisi sisi sisi sceptance. So if you go back to the exercise as you were talking about the thing that made you vulnerable, you even at that moment probably attempted to present it in a way that still kind of puts you in a positive light. But what you're forgetting in your own insecurity is that the other person has the exact same n-n-n-n-n-n need as you. As you were opening yourself up to them, they too needed you to like them as well. And I understand this very well because of shi-ysi-国喘如果 you don't understand the words of processing tends to feel like I am in a position of weakness here. All of you guys actually hold all of the power. You know, like all of you guys could just aside, like okay, I'm over this and all of you guys are just gonna walk out and leave. And I feel like okay, well I'm up here and you guys can choose like by Sharon and that would be kind of the end of that. And in situations like this one, where there is a communications power and talents, our insecurities about how we communicate with each other always kind of come to the surface. An example of this would be when you are talking to an angry investor. They have given you hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you're lucky, they've given you millions of dollars and they have to have these answers immediately about how you are spending their money. So what types of physical reactions do we have? Here we have, anytime we feel like we are in a situation like that, I can give you an example. I was running late this morning and I immediately started us, sss, sweating, which I know is a very attractive thing to think about right now. But yeah, we get hot and a lot of us tend to speed up our speech or we have problems articulating ourselves. We have these reactions because we perceive the other person as holding all of the power. But again, you have to always come back to the fact that the other person, and it doesn't matter the role that they play, they still have that case of need for you to like them. Because that's who we are at our roots. We are people who have to be accepted by everyone else. So when you do have moments like that, just remember that everyone in every sss, sss, social situation is a little bit vulnerable because our case, human instinct is always going to kick in. So now that we know that the other person is exactly like us, we need to know how to use this to our advantage. So there are two types of communicators. There are the intelligent informers and the sss, social relators. Again, they both want the same thing, but how they go about it is completely different and one of the ways is always going to trump the other ways. So I'm going to begin with the intelligent and former. This is a person who is going to try to sss, show you how awesome they are by trying to impress you. An example of this, and I don't want to offend anyone, I have done it before and it's awesome and it's great, are the people who do CrossFit and who absolutely love it. They talk about it incessantly. I have abs, I can run a mile in two minutes, I can live blah blah blah and it's like that's really great that it's helping you, however, how is this going to help me? How is this going to add any value to my life? How is your love of this one thing going to help me? It's not, right? That's the problem with this approach. It's a very me-me-me-me-me-me-me-me-me-me-me-foc-ed approach to it And it can crack fire for obvious reasons, but mainly because you aren't the valuing the person who is on the receiving end. And that brings us to the social relator. And their goal is to make the other person feel valued, right? They try to learn about other people, they try to support other people. And the bottom line is, they listen. I actually read a really great quote about Richard Branson. It was by a person who has spent a lot of time around him. And he says that he always listens a lot more than he talks. When you think about a person who a lot of people consider to be charming and charismatic, I'm sure that the first thing that comes to everyone's mind is how they talk to people. That's actually not how they're presenting themselves. They actually, so at valuing the listener, they look into your eyes when you speak. They use their, they respond to the silent cues that you give them. And they, here what you have to say, and they only interject when they, no, no, no, no, no know that they can add value. And, we call this empathy. If you want to know the basis of how to talk to another person, Empathy is it. I mean, all of you guys have a lot of empathy vroom vroom vroom, vroom vroom vroom right now because you are here hearing everything that I have to say, even though I am at times having a really difficult time, actually, ss-sss-sss-sss-sss, saying it. Okay, so now we're going to get into the next exercise. Okay, I want you to find another person in, in, in, in the room who you haven't talked to yet. And then, I just, uh, want you to ask them a couple of questions. And it can be about anything. But if you wanna make it, you know, like his-ness-like, then you could ask him about like, you could ask him about like, their job or their company. And you could also like, ask them about their favorite part of their job, okay? And the goal here is truly to just talk to a new person and kind of keep in mind how you are talking to them and listening to them, all right? So I'll give you another eight to 10 minutes. And then we'll come back and we'll talk about it. All right, so how did it go? Did you enjoy this? Was this weird? You did, you enjoyed, yes. Does anybody have any comments about what they, go ahead. I was trying to listen to this person. I find that while listening to what he has to say, in the middle of it, I'm trying to come up with my next thing to say instead of listening. I'm trying to put myself off, but it's kind of hard to concentrate. Maybe my OCD. Yeah, well, it's a lot easier when you, we're always telling people about ourselves and we're always giving other people clues about us. And so if you just kind of like, take the information that he gives you, and then you can turn that into questions, like there's always more things to ask. Yeah, well, while I'm digesting the information, I'm not listening to his next thing and then I'm like, oh, what? Oh, wow. Oh. It takes practice, you know, lots of practice, but I'm sure that you'll get it. That happens to me a lot too, but especially when someone's talking to you, you're just like, oh, I'm going to be in the press, and then you forget where the conversation is, and then the press is actually on your screen, and you lost your spot, and then your fear has come into actuality. It's just like, damn. I'm telling you, I'm trying to, for me, it's easy talking about technology or something, because I always have something to add. How to continue, but that is a small talk, and it's very difficult for me to do. Small talk's the worst. Seriously. My next question, how do I continue? Yeah, well, a thing that I like to do is I just like to keep asking people questions until I hit on a thing that they are like in love with, and then it's a lot easier to have a conversation when the other person feels like 100% comfortable, therefore you feel the same way. It's another thing that you guys can spend the next, you know, a year or two just practicing. Active listening is harder than talking, but you can do it, I promise. I have a slight indecency of video on small talk. Okay. I'm not from here, so I'm not native. You need to be, sorry. I'm not a native English speaker, and when I came here to live with a student five or six years ago, I was much more shy when I needed language than I could. And actually, if I go back to France, I'm not nearly as outspoken in French as I am in English, because of small talk. These French people don't like small talk that much. They just like, I don't know what to do. And you know, small talk was in supermarkets in Florida, where I wish I had conversations with random people with so many varied backgrounds, and then in practicing listening, because I didn't really care about what I was about to say, because I didn't have no agenda for what was in that meeting. And so it's kind of freeing to just be like, and or to make them repeat something when I wasn't sure something. I screwed up so much in small talk that I didn't have to play the talk with people I actually cared about later. You've single-handedly changed my opinion on small talk. But yeah, but that's awesome. And again, it takes a lot of practice to be able to do this on the go, but you guys are all very, very intelligent, so I know you can make this work. Go ahead. Yeah, well, in the beginning, it is going to be uncomfortable, because every conversation kind of has its own wavelength. And so in the beginning, it's going to be weird, because you haven't figured out how the balance is going to be and how the flow of the conversation is. And so it is going to be awkward, but the goal is to have the other person feel valued and as long as that happens, then everything is okay. And we're going to talk a little bit more about getting your points across in a couple of minutes. If we have time, then we do. Yeah, go ahead. Alright, so it's going to come in, it doesn't always have to be equal. Some people like to talk more and some people don't like to talk to themselves. And so considering how much I'm talking up in this talk, it don't believe me, but in a conversation that's typically how it goes, and I like it when the other person carries more of a conversation. So that can be okay. Yeah, again, it's a really great point. Go ahead. It was nice that it was under your direction when you spoke to these other people, because that's when the most awkward part of your small talk, I would never talk into the audience before and not instruct them. And I think you could follow us all around. And that happens, and in your personal life, okay, great, I never have to talk to this person again. Professionally, you have to make a way. So even if it's awkward and even if it's like, I really don't want to talk to this person, you have to, even then, even more value them because you need them, right, in order to get things done. I was going to give you questions, but I'm like, no, it'll be way more fun for them to come up with their own, because it'll be like a real life thing. So, yeah, what kind of questions did you guys ask each other? If you don't mind saying that. What is your passion? Oh, wow, just out the gate. What is your passion? Let's get real. Yeah, that's a great question. It is. Because it immediately has the other person talking about a thing that they are just like, I can talk about this for hours. And then they want to talk to you more and they think you're charming because you, and that's exactly how you have to play it. You have to make it easy for the other person, especially in a professional way. Like you have to make things easy. Anybody else want to share a question? I asked how long it would take for a YouTube that says what I'm curious about. Okay, yeah, that's a good question. And that can turn into an open-ended one where you guys could talk about a lot of things as a result of that. So, yeah, that's a good question too, especially at a place like this. Anyone else? Go ahead. What did you get last night? They did. We found out we were playing in the balls. Not last night. You played last night. I played in the balls. There's some good questions. You threw me into an answer. Yeah, I had to. Well, okay, yeah, good. Another great question. I've actually never asked that question. I'm going to try that one next time. I'm curious. Really? What did you do last night? Hey, there is nothing wrong with like eating Thai food and watching Netflix. That's what I did last night. Go ahead. That are not what? Sorry, I'm so far from it. Yes or no replies? So I can't, I don't have to ask the question that's just a, oh yes. Yes, that's perfect. Yeah. Yeah, because those conversations can end really quickly. Are you having a good time? No. Okay. Bye. Like, that's it. I mean, I'll follow that too. I talked to my son a lot about what he does at school. So I say, hey, how was school today? Oh, school was good. What was good about it? You sound like my mom. No, but it works. But it works. That's another good one. Yeah, always ask more questions. Anybody else? I asked what technique do you use to keep on, to keep learning and keep learning all the the latest and greatest things about rails and development? Good one. And I think she asked me, what do I like most about rails? Yeah. Those sound like great questions. I don't know anything about, I don't know anything about, those sound like great questions. I don't know anything about development. So I'll take your word for it, but that led to great places. All right. Well, again, like, awesome questions. The whole goal, like, overall goal is to just have it be a lot easier to build a relationship very quickly. All right. And so if anybody else has anything to say, no one, cool. We're going to go into the last part and this will be quick, because we only have 20 minutes. So, yeah, now I want to talk to you guys about just building a relationship and how to shape your own message. So I know that I've talked about vulnerability and I've also talked a lot about marketing. And I know that you guys were probably thinking that this doesn't have anything to do with the workshop. And actually it does, because marketing is talking to people. It's about connecting with your ideal audience and talking to them in a way that will compel them to take action. All right. So how do you compel a person to take action? How do you shape your message? All right. And a lot of us, founders are pretty good at this on their own and they didn't even know what to do. Right? Because if you talk to a person who has a start-up and you ask them how it came to be, they always have a story to tell. And I had an idea and so I decided to create Twitter. No. I was at my house and I had this problem and I was trying to find a solution and there wasn't a solution and so I went and created it. Right? And that way is compelling because it encourages whoever is... Listening to hang around and hear how the narrative ends. All right? And that's how I want you to view building a relationship. It isn't about trying to sell a person on yourself, but it's about presenting yourself in a compelling way so that people on the receiving end will hang around. Right? It's about being... It's about asking questions. And then at the very end, it's about telling your compelling story. And it could be a lot like mine that vulnerability has made me stand out for better or for worse. It could be that you have an idea that will change how other people do things. Right? Just remember, it's all about how you present it to another person. Okay. So we don't really have a whole lot of time left. So this... After this workshop... Whoops. After this exercise, you guys can just head out. Or if you wanted to head out early, I understand because we only have about 10 minutes left. But the next thing that I want you to do, either today or tomorrow, is anytime you talk about your company or your hobby or your passion or anything else, I want you to consider how you are for framing it. Right? So here's a hypothetical. You have a technical issue that you are trying to explain to a non-technical person. And so a way that you could do that is to explain how that technical issue helped another person. And in turn, how helping them could help the person that you are talking to now. Does that make sense? I don't know if I explained that very well. Not really. Okay. So who can I use as an example? Who wants to come up here and explain to me what they do? Just a hobby. All right, come on. You've already been up here once. Lies. Nobody else wanted to come up here. Okay. Hi. Okay, so we've already talked before and you're awesome. So thank you for coming up here. Okay. So what do you do for a living? Oh, and you get a microphone. I am a developer at onsite.com and we do online leasing for apartments. So apartment communities that want to screen their applicants and do background checks, you sign the leases, make everything electronic, get rid of all the paperwork. I'm a developer there and help make things go. You help make things go. Okay. Do you have any hobbies that you like? Yes. I should have asked what hobbies do you like. Not taking my own advice here. Interesting, unique hobby. I guess nowadays anyway. I've been a dance dance revolution a lot. How'd you get started doing that? A long time ago, I had a friend who had it at his house and we played more terrible. And then one day I went to the arcade and saw how people really danced. And then I was able to copy that and get a little bit better. But then since then I've been in competitions. A lot. Some of them. But anyway, so I've got a dance arcade set up at my house now. That's my regular exercise. So it's fun. Okay. He's not a fair example for a lot of reasons. One, because he works for a company that is obviously very needed. But two, dance dance revolution, like I'm never going to forget that. There's competitions, you guys. I did not know that. Not many anymore. Yeah. So if you were going to tell a person about dance dance revolution, like how would you explain it to them? Okay. So yeah, maybe everyone doesn't know that game. It's a video game with music and arrows coming up the screen that you're supposed to dance to the beat to on a panel on the floor, four buttons up, down, left and right. Except I play with all eight two players. So it's more like this. Does that, is that good? Yeah. Well, so, okay. So how you talked about it, like it was obviously something that you are extremely interested in and extremely involved in. And now as a result, like I didn't know anything about dance dance revolution. I had heard of it, but I didn't really care about it. But now I'm like, okay, this is interesting. And me being the type of person I am, I'm going to go online and find out about these competitions and see the winners. Are you on the internet? Like, is your picture and stuff? Not for dance dance. I'm going to YouTube you. I'm Nielbus online and I'll be us, but I was just going to say if you want to try dance dance, you might want to try it with either. Wait, what am I saying? You know, it might be slightly embarrassing the first time you try it because it's not easy, but it just have fun and don't be shy. They have them at some hardgates. That is very cool. You actually did tell us a story about you. If you realize it, we talked about how you found it. We talked about how you were bad at it. We talked about how you became good and that you do competitions and that you do eight. Four players, eight players. Two players, eight buttons on the floor. Two players, eight buttons on the floor. Yes. Now you've also invited us to play. This is actually a really good example. You actually told us everything about this one part of your life in a compelling way. Does that make sense? I just realized you're right. This is being recorded on IM on YouTube. Oh, no. That's all right. That's okay. I'm on YouTube too. It's for a good reason. It's for a good cause. All in good fun. Yes. So is this a thing that you guys think that is doable sometime? I mean, even right now, if you want to try to do it now for something that you are really interested and passionate about or just tie the end of the conference, I want you to be able to just have an entire conversation and then also at the very end to what he just did, which was very brave. And thank you for coming up here. All right. So you can either hang out now and do the workshop. We don't have too much time left or you guys can go. And I just want to say that this was awesome. This was the only time I've ever done a workshop like this. So this was a very nerve-wracking experience. And you guys were really patient and awesome and empathetic. And I hope that you all learned something and that you feel a lot more confident and empowered to go up to a new person and know that you can build a relationship with them pretty quickly. So thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.
 Hi everyone. Oh, wow that is loud. I'm not used to talking on a microphone so this is  going to be interesting. Okay, so I am Sharon and I'm going to be presenting this workshop  today and I'm just going to go ahead and get started. So a great thing about the tech  industry is that there is a ton of disruption and innovation. Unfortunately, there isn't  a lot of that happening on the communications end and I am as guilty as the next marketer  and communicator of falling into the right and true methods to get my points across.  As you can tell, I have a speech impediment. I stutter and it has made a lot of choices  for me in my own life. I chose to be a writer because I was a lot more comfortable with  the written word as opposed to obviously talking to people. I chose to be a freelancer because  any time I would go to a job interview, I would become just engulfed with so much anxiety  that I wouldn't be able to get a word out, even my name as you guys could tell a couple  of seconds ago. And I chose a lot of times to be sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy  silent even though I knew I could add value to the conversation. And value is a word that  I am going to be talking about a lot today. And I am also going to be talking about marketing  as well. These are key points and they are going to make a lot more sissy sissy sissy  sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy  thinkers as a writer with about eight of them in the his and his and his marketing capacity.  I have learned a couple of things about what companies sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy sissy  think they need to do to get their eyes on their brand. They talk a lot about mobile  strategy and SEO, hashtags and social impacts and of course Facebook and Twitter. And also  branding. The problem with that word is that a lot of companies have trouble seeing themselves  and exposing their flaws as I am doing right now. Think about it. When was the last time  when you had an idea for a marketing plan and you scratched it off the list because it exposed  a weakness? It probably happens a lot more often than you think especially when you are  in an early stage company and you are working with limited means. You stick with what you  know. Today I want to challenge you to abandon your strengths and explore the things that  you consider to be a weakness. So often we consider weakness and out as negative. They  walk hand in hand that those feelings aren't necessarily a bad sissy sissy sissy sissy  think. The Italian intellectual and I am probably going to butcher his name, you, that  is creative because it allows for alternative ways to see the world. What if you applied  that to your company's brand or even your personal brand? I love to read and one of  my favorite authors is Haruki Murakami. He actually uses a form of weakness in his writing.  The Atlantic actually wrote about him and talked about how no other writer writes as  many bad sentences as he does. If you have read any of his books you will understand  that. His writing is compelling because of the storytelling and that is another concept  that will be a talking a lot more about. The plots take you from supernatural to reality  almost in the same paragraph. It is often written properly or long winded. But it works.  He is marketed himself by using poor sentences to his advantages. Now he is one of the great  writers of our time. That is another tip. You can stand out by being unequivocally and  imperfectly who you are. Always remember that sometimes your greatest vulnerability can be  your most valued asset. And Kevin Plank, who is the founder of Under Armour, he understands  this incredibly well. The first rule of his formula for innovation design is to do one  specific thing really well. And that is what he did. For the first five years of Under  Armour they only had one product. It was their compression t-shirt. For me in my hisness it  was writing in all forms. I covered editorial and then I went over to hisness and then I  ended in marketing. That builds credibility. And once you have that under your belt you  can begin to grow from there. For you it could be a voting time to a couple of platforms  that you know will work and then disrupting and innovating from there. My personal disruption  was doing this. It was speaking. I began speaking about a year ago as a way to break out of  my shish-sh-sh-sh-sh-shell. I was terrified to talk to people one on one. And obviously  I was even more terrified to do anything that compared to what I'm doing now. So once I  put myself out there my biggest fear, my strongest vulnerability and my greatest out I realized  that I was connecting with people in a real way. It's a lot easier to connect with your  audience whether it be a larger group like this one or in a one on one conversation. If  they know that you are s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-a-lod as well. So the question that I'm going  to pose to you today is what's your disruption? What is the one thing that terrifies you that  worries you, that makes you vulnerable. What challenges you at the point of being  afraid? That's where your sweet spot is. That is what is going to capture your  target audience and then make you stand out. People are probably going to tell  you that you need to be the strongest communicator to succeed. But sometimes  the truth is that you have to be the most transparent one. Alright so now we're  going to get into our first exercise. I want you guys to pair up. I think  there's probably enough people to do this in pairs. I want you to talk about  an area in your professional life that you consider a weakness. I can give you  some examples of that. It could be like talking to a toss about something. It  could be trying to connect with a co-worker or it could be trying to  explain a technical concept to a non-technical person. After you've  talked about that, also talk about a time when that weakness kind of overcame  you and caught the test of you. So you're gonna do this in pairs. Preferably with  the person that you don't already know. So you may have to kind of, I don't know,  probably around the room a little bit in order to make this work. So I'll give you  guys like 10 minutes. Alright so we're gonna wrap this up. This exercise. Okay so  how did it go? Talking about a thing that you don't consider to be positive. How did  it feel? Go ahead. You know I found that conversation to be a lot less shallow than  most of my conversations. Really? A little more deep because like you said it kind of  helps open up a little bit. It helps to relate to someone else who is also weak in areas.  And Matt here pointed out, you know, in the tech industry we all tend to feel  somewhat inadequate in some and not many areas. So I thought that was great.  Who needs church? Anyone else?  Yeah we're kind of joking. It's like that's quite nice right here. It's like, you know,  if I go out with you it's a terrible act. Right? You know, not like, oh where are you from or whatever.  But it definitely was like, oh it's actually not real. Yeah like a real, like, have a real  conversation with someone. It's crazy. Well that's awesome. I mean that's a really good  job. I mean I don't know if I would be able to do this exercise after being in a  workshop for 10 minutes and I'm presenting the workshop so lucky me. But  yeah that's, oh go ahead. Yeah well it's actually a good  segue into the next part. And hopefully you'll be able to talk to your team  easier about anything after this. That's the goal. How to talk to humans. So yeah.  Before I go on, does anybody else have anything that they wanted to add? We're all  friends here now. So good. Good. Okay. So the first thing that you guys have to  know about communicating with other people is that everybody is exactly  like you. Right? Like everybody wants to be liked. Even right now I like I want  you guys to think I am awesome. That I'm interesting and that I'm funny and  that I'm the coolest person here. Like yeah like that's just who we are as  people. Our terrains are wired to connect. We, it's how we've gotten this far in  evolution is the through group egg sisi sisi sisi sisi sisi sisi sisi  sceptance. So if you go back to the exercise as you were talking about the  thing that made you vulnerable, you even at that moment probably attempted to  present it in a way that still kind of puts you in a positive light.  But what you're forgetting in your own insecurity is that the other person has  the exact same n-n-n-n-n-n need as you. As you were opening yourself up to them,  they too needed you to like them as well. And I understand this very well because  of shi-ysi-国喘如果 you don't understand the words of processing  tends to feel like I am in a position of weakness here.  All of you guys actually hold all of the power.  You know, like all of you guys could just aside,  like okay, I'm over this and all of you guys  are just gonna walk out and leave.  And I feel like okay, well I'm up here  and you guys can choose like by Sharon  and that would be kind of the end of that.  And in situations like this one,  where there is a communications power and talents,  our insecurities about how we communicate  with each other always kind of come to the surface.  An example of this would be when you are talking  to an angry investor.  They have given you hundreds of thousands of dollars.  If you're lucky, they've given you millions of dollars  and they have to have these answers immediately  about how you are spending their money.  So what types of physical reactions do we have?  Here we have, anytime we feel like we are in a situation  like that, I can give you an example.  I was running late this morning  and I immediately started us,  sss, sweating, which I know is a very attractive thing  to think about right now.  But yeah, we get hot and a lot of us tend to speed up our speech  or we have problems articulating ourselves.  We have these reactions because we perceive the other person  as holding all of the power.  But again, you have to always come back to the fact  that the other person, and it doesn't matter the role  that they play, they still have that case of need for you to like them.  Because that's who we are at our roots.  We are people who have to be accepted by everyone else.  So when you do have moments like that,  just remember that everyone in every sss,  sss, social situation is a little bit vulnerable  because our case, human instinct is always going to kick in.  So now that we know that the other person is exactly like us,  we need to know how to use this to our advantage.  So there are two types of communicators.  There are the intelligent informers and the sss,  social relators.  Again, they both want the same thing,  but how they go about it is completely different  and one of the ways is always going to trump the other ways.  So I'm going to begin with the intelligent and former.  This is a person who is going to try to sss,  show you how awesome they are by trying to impress you.  An example of this, and I don't want to offend anyone,  I have done it before and it's awesome and it's great,  are the people who do CrossFit and who absolutely love it.  They talk about it incessantly.  I have abs, I can run a mile in two minutes,  I can live blah blah blah and it's like that's really great  that it's helping you, however, how is this going to help me?  How is this going to add any value to my life?  How is your love of this one thing going to help me?  It's not, right?  That's the problem with this approach.  It's a very me-me-me-me-me-me-me-me-me-me-me-foc-ed approach to it  And it can crack fire for obvious reasons,  but mainly because you aren't  the valuing the person who is on the receiving end.  And that brings us to the social  relator.  And their goal is to make the other person  feel valued, right?  They try to learn about other people,  they try to support other people.  And the bottom line is,  they listen.  I actually read a really great quote about Richard Branson.  It was by a person who has spent a lot of time around him.  And he says that he always listens a lot more than he talks.  When you think about a person who a lot of people  consider to be charming and charismatic,  I'm sure that the first thing that comes to everyone's mind  is how they talk to people.  That's actually not how they're presenting themselves.  They actually,  so at valuing the listener,  they look into your eyes when you speak.  They use their,  they respond to the silent cues that you give them.  And they, here what you have to say,  and they only interject when they,  no, no, no, no, no know that they can add value.  And,  we call this empathy.  If you want to know the basis of how  to talk to another person,  Empathy is it.  I mean, all of you guys have a lot of empathy  vroom vroom vroom, vroom vroom vroom right now  because you are here hearing everything that I have to say,  even though I am at times having a really difficult time,  actually, ss-sss-sss-sss-sss,  saying it.  Okay, so now we're going to get into the next exercise.  Okay, I want you to find another person in,  in, in, in the room who you haven't talked to yet.  And then, I just, uh,  want you to ask them a couple of questions.  And it can be about anything.  But if you wanna make it, you know,  like his-ness-like, then you could ask him about like,  you could ask him about like,  their job or their company.  And you could also like,  ask them about their favorite part of their job, okay?  And the goal here is truly to just talk to a new person and kind of keep in mind how you are  talking to them and listening to them, all right?  So I'll give you another eight to 10 minutes.  And then we'll come back and we'll talk about it.  All right, so how did it go?  Did you enjoy this?  Was this weird?  You did, you enjoyed, yes.  Does anybody have any comments about what they, go ahead.  I was trying to listen to this person.  I find that while listening to what he has to say,  in the middle of it, I'm trying to come up with my next thing to say instead of listening.  I'm trying to put myself off, but it's kind of hard to concentrate.  Maybe my OCD.  Yeah, well, it's a lot easier when you,  we're always telling people about ourselves and we're always  giving other people clues about us.  And so if you just kind of like, take the information that he gives you,  and then you can turn that into questions,  like there's always more things to ask.  Yeah, well, while I'm digesting the information,  I'm not listening to his next thing and then I'm like, oh, what?  Oh, wow.  Oh.  It takes practice, you know, lots of practice, but I'm sure that you'll get it.  That happens to me a lot too, but especially when someone's talking to you,  you're just like, oh, I'm going to be in the press,  and then you forget where the conversation is,  and then the press is actually on your screen,  and you lost your spot, and then your fear has come into actuality.  It's just like, damn.  I'm telling you, I'm trying to, for me, it's easy talking about technology  or something, because I always have something to add.  How to continue, but that is a small talk,  and it's very difficult for me to do.  Small talk's the worst.  Seriously.  My next question, how do I continue?  Yeah, well, a thing that I like to do is I just like to keep asking people questions  until I hit on a thing that they are like in love with,  and then it's a lot easier to have a conversation  when the other person feels like 100% comfortable,  therefore you feel the same way.  It's another thing that you guys can spend the next, you know,  a year or two just practicing.  Active listening is harder than talking, but you can do it, I promise.  I have a slight indecency of video on small talk.  Okay.  I'm not from here, so I'm not native.  You need to be, sorry.  I'm not a native English speaker, and when I came here to live with a student  five or six years ago, I was much more shy when I needed language than I could.  And actually, if I go back to France, I'm not nearly as outspoken in French as I am in English,  because of small talk. These French people don't like small talk that much.  They just like, I don't know what to do.  And you know, small talk was in supermarkets in Florida,  where I wish I had conversations with random people with so many varied backgrounds,  and then in practicing listening, because I didn't really care about what I was about to say,  because I didn't have no agenda for what was in that meeting.  And so it's kind of freeing to just be like, and or to make them repeat something  when I wasn't sure something.  I screwed up so much in small talk that I didn't have to play the talk with people I actually cared about later.  You've single-handedly changed my opinion on small talk.  But yeah, but that's awesome.  And again, it takes a lot of practice to be able to do this on the go,  but you guys are all very, very intelligent, so I know you can make this work.  Go ahead.  Yeah, well, in the beginning, it is going to be uncomfortable,  because every conversation kind of has its own wavelength.  And so in the beginning, it's going to be weird, because you haven't figured out how the balance is going to be  and how the flow of the conversation is.  And so it is going to be awkward, but the goal is to have the other person feel valued  and as long as that happens, then everything is okay.  And we're going to talk a little bit more about getting your points across in a couple of minutes.  If we have time, then we do.  Yeah, go ahead.  Alright, so it's going to come in, it doesn't always have to be equal. Some people like to talk more and some people don't like to talk to themselves.  And so considering how much I'm talking up in this talk, it don't believe me,  but in a conversation that's typically how it goes, and I like it when the other person carries more of a conversation.  So that can be okay.  Yeah, again, it's a really great point.  Go ahead.  It was nice that it was under your direction when you spoke to these other people,  because that's when the most awkward part of your small talk,  I would never talk into the audience before and not instruct them.  And I think you could follow us all around.  And that happens, and in your personal life, okay, great, I never have to talk to this person again.  Professionally, you have to make a way.  So even if it's awkward and even if it's like, I really don't want to talk to this person,  you have to, even then, even more value them because you need them, right, in order to get things done.  I was going to give you questions, but I'm like, no, it'll be way more fun for them to come up with their own,  because it'll be like a real life thing.  So, yeah, what kind of questions did you guys ask each other?  If you don't mind saying that.  What is your passion?  Oh, wow, just out the gate.  What is your passion?  Let's get real.  Yeah, that's a great question.  It is.  Because it immediately has the other person talking about a thing that they are just like, I can talk about this for hours.  And then they want to talk to you more and they think you're charming because you, and that's exactly how you have to play it.  You have to make it easy for the other person, especially in a professional way.  Like you have to make things easy.  Anybody else want to share a question?  I asked how long it would take for a YouTube that says what I'm curious about.  Okay, yeah, that's a good question.  And that can turn into an open-ended one where you guys could talk about a lot of things as a result of that.  So, yeah, that's a good question too, especially at a place like this.  Anyone else?  Go ahead.  What did you get last night?  They did.  We found out we were playing in the balls.  Not last night.  You played last night.  I played in the balls.  There's some good questions.  You threw me into an answer.  Yeah, I had to.  Well, okay, yeah, good.  Another great question.  I've actually never asked that question.  I'm going to try that one next time.  I'm curious.  Really? What did you do last night?  Hey, there is nothing wrong with like eating Thai food and watching Netflix.  That's what I did last night.  Go ahead.  That are not what?  Sorry, I'm so far from it.  Yes or no replies?  So I can't, I don't have to ask the question that's just a, oh yes.  Yes, that's perfect.  Yeah.  Yeah, because those conversations can end really quickly.  Are you having a good time? No.  Okay.  Bye. Like, that's it.  I mean, I'll follow that too.  I talked to my son a lot about what he does at school.  So I say, hey, how was school today?  Oh, school was good. What was good about it?  You sound like my mom.  No, but it works.  But it works. That's another good one.  Yeah, always ask more questions.  Anybody else?  I asked what technique do you use to keep on, to keep learning and keep learning all the  the latest and greatest things about rails and development?  Good one.  And I think she asked me, what do I like most about rails?  Yeah.  Those sound like great questions.  I don't know anything about,  I don't know anything about,  those sound like great questions. I don't know anything about development.  So I'll take your word for it, but that led to great places.  All right. Well, again, like, awesome questions.  The whole goal, like, overall goal is to just have it be a lot easier to build a  relationship very quickly.  All right.  And so if anybody else has anything to say, no one, cool.  We're going to go into the last part and this will be quick, because we only have 20 minutes.  So, yeah, now I want to talk to you guys about just building a relationship and how  to shape your own message.  So I know that I've talked about vulnerability and I've also talked a lot about marketing.  And I know that you guys were probably thinking that this doesn't have anything to do with the  workshop.  And actually it does, because marketing is talking to people.  It's about connecting with your ideal audience and talking to them in a way that will compel  them to take action.  All right.  So how do you compel a person to take action?  How do you shape your message?  All right.  And a lot of us, founders are pretty good at this on their own and they didn't even know  what to do.  Right?  Because if you talk to a person who has a start-up and you ask them how it came to be,  they always have a story to tell.  And I had an idea and so I decided to create Twitter.  No.  I was at my house and I had this problem and I was trying to find a solution and there  wasn't a solution and so I went and created it.  Right?  And that way is compelling because it encourages whoever is...  Listening to hang around and hear how the narrative ends.  All right?  And that's how I want you to view building a relationship.  It isn't about trying to sell a person on yourself, but it's about presenting yourself  in a compelling way so that people on the receiving end will hang around.  Right?  It's about being...  It's about asking questions.  And then at the very end, it's about telling your compelling story.  And it could be a lot like mine that vulnerability has made me stand out for better or for worse.  It could be that you have an idea that will change how other people do things.  Right?  Just remember, it's all about how you present it to another person.  Okay.  So we don't really have a whole lot of time left.  So this...  After this workshop...  Whoops.  After this exercise, you guys can just head out.  Or if you wanted to head out early, I understand because we only have about 10 minutes left.  But the next thing that I want you to do, either today or tomorrow, is anytime you talk about your company  or your hobby or your passion or anything else, I want you to consider how you are for framing it.  Right?  So here's a hypothetical.  You have a technical issue that you are trying to explain to a non-technical person.  And so a way that you could do that is to explain how that technical issue helped another person.  And in turn, how helping them could help the person that you are talking to now.  Does that make sense?  I don't know if I explained that very well.  Not really.  Okay.  So who can I use as an example?  Who wants to come up here and explain to me what they do?  Just a hobby.  All right, come on.  You've already been up here once.  Lies.  Nobody else wanted to come up here.  Okay.  Hi.  Okay, so we've already talked before and you're awesome.  So thank you for coming up here.  Okay.  So what do you do for a living?  Oh, and you get a microphone.  I am a developer at onsite.com and we do online leasing for apartments.  So apartment communities that want to screen their applicants and do background checks,  you sign the leases, make everything electronic, get rid of all the paperwork.  I'm a developer there and help make things go.  You help make things go.  Okay.  Do you have any hobbies that you like?  Yes.  I should have asked what hobbies do you like.  Not taking my own advice here.  Interesting, unique hobby.  I guess nowadays anyway.  I've been a dance dance revolution a lot.  How'd you get started doing that?  A long time ago, I had a friend who had it at his house and we played more terrible.  And then one day I went to the arcade and saw how people really danced.  And then I was able to copy that and get a little bit better.  But then since then I've been in competitions.  A lot.  Some of them.  But anyway, so I've got a dance arcade set up at my house now.  That's my regular exercise.  So it's fun.  Okay.  He's not a fair example for a lot of reasons.  One, because he works for a company that is obviously very needed.  But two, dance dance revolution, like I'm never going to forget that.  There's competitions, you guys.  I did not know that.  Not many anymore.  Yeah.  So if you were going to tell a person about dance dance revolution, like how would you  explain it to them?  Okay.  So yeah, maybe everyone doesn't know that game.  It's a video game with music and arrows coming up the screen that you're supposed to dance  to the beat to on a panel on the floor, four buttons up, down, left and right.  Except I play with all eight two players.  So it's more like this.  Does that, is that good?  Yeah.  Well, so, okay.  So how you talked about it, like it was obviously something that you are extremely  interested in and extremely involved in.  And now as a result, like I didn't know anything about dance dance revolution.  I had heard of it, but I didn't really care about it.  But now I'm like, okay, this is interesting.  And me being the type of person I am, I'm going to go online and find out about these  competitions and see the winners.  Are you on the internet?  Like, is your picture and stuff?  Not for dance dance.  I'm going to YouTube you.  I'm Nielbus online and I'll be us, but I was just going to say if you want to try dance  dance, you might want to try it with either.  Wait, what am I saying?  You know, it might be slightly embarrassing the first time you try it because it's not  easy, but it just have fun and don't be shy.  They have them at some hardgates.  That is very cool.  You actually did tell us a story about you.  If you realize it, we talked about how you found it.  We talked about how you were bad at it.  We talked about how you became good and that you do competitions and that you do eight.  Four players, eight players.  Two players, eight buttons on the floor.  Two players, eight buttons on the floor.  Yes.  Now you've also invited us to play.  This is actually a really good example.  You actually told us everything about this one part of your life in a compelling way.  Does that make sense?  I just realized you're right.  This is being recorded on IM on YouTube.  Oh, no.  That's all right.  That's okay.  I'm on YouTube too.  It's for a good reason.  It's for a good cause.  All in good fun.  Yes.  So is this a thing that you guys think that is doable sometime?  I mean, even right now, if you want to try to do it now for something that you are really  interested and passionate about or just tie the end of the conference, I want you to be  able to just have an entire conversation and then also at the very end to what he just  did, which was very brave.  And thank you for coming up here.  All right.  So you can either hang out now and do the workshop.  We don't have too much time left or you guys can go.  And I just want to say that this was awesome.  This was the only time I've ever done a workshop like this.  So this was a very nerve-wracking experience.  And you guys were really patient and awesome and empathetic.  And I hope that you all learned something and that you feel a lot more confident and  empowered to go up to a new person and know that you can build a relationship with them  pretty quickly.  So thank you.  Thank you so much.  Thank you.
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