The big news at YouTube: Whilst Psy’s Gangnam style is rapidly approaching 1 billion views, one of my uploaded videos achieved 50,000 views today.
50,000 video views today
Celebrating 50,000 views of my YouTube vid: 1 way, only 1, to achieve Excellence as a Speaker. http://t.co/3h4uH2Qh
— Conor Neill (@conorneill) December 5, 2012
The top demographics are: “Male, 45-54 years”, “Male, 35-44 years”, “Male, 25-34 years”
So, whilst Psy’s video Gangnam style is reaching 1 billion views, I am dominating the “Male, 45-54 year” category… hehe.
What is the Most Important thing you can do in the next 10 days to Improve Your Speaking?
Transcript of “Improve Your Speaking”
Thinking… What’s the most important thing you can do in the next 10 days to improve your speaking?
and for this Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book 3 years ago: “Outliers”, “Los que Sobresalen” [in Spanish]
What does it take to achieve World-Class?
What does it take to be truly Excellent?
As a musician?
As a sportsman?
As a speaker?
and he looked at multiple different cases…
Is it talent?
Do Irish people just have this inmate knack that they can be great public speakers? and people from Chile will never get there?
The answer is “No”.
What is it that leads to excellence?
in programming?
and the answer:
10,000 hours of practice.
No matter where you start from,
no matter how talented a kid was in school
it’s the kid that practices 8 hours a day that’s now playing as a soloist with the top orchestras of the world.
Leo Messi wasn’t born with a better right knee and a better left foot than anyone else in the world.
It’s what he chose to do every day after school
every weekend
that means he is where he is today.
The most important Commitment you can make to yourself …you can listen to all of this and if you don’t do this it’s a waste
so, as you are considering that €6,000 that you’ve mentally paid and you are thinking “how do i get a Return on Investment?”…
Every laptop comes with a webcam. I want each of you to decide that you’re gonna spend 3 minutes every day for the next 10 days.
You can call them workdays so you don’t have to do it at the weekend.
for 3 minutes every day, start a little program that records
and explain a product…
explain your CV…
explain your vision…
explain what is a good life…
One speech that i get my students in IESE to do towards the end “A Value You Would Share with a Child as the Basis of A Good Life”
So, Day 10 that’s your challenge… 3 minutes: your answer to “What value would you share with a child as the basis for a good life?”.
So, nothing I can do here is going to turn you into a great speaker. No amount of watching YouTube videos of Bill Clinton is going to turn you into Bill Clinton
No amount of reading is going to turn you into a writer
only by speaking… that you turn into a speaker
But there are people who are fifty five years old they’ve been in more than 10,000 hour’s worth of meetings and they’re crap at meetings; the 23-year-old who started yesterday is better at making meetings run effectively
So it’s not just about 10,000 hours…
it’s about:
deciding that it’s important
deciding you can get better
and the video allows you the feedback that you can watch and see
Here, there was a pottery class in the United States. Ceramics. Making pots.
And the teacher took half of the class and she said at the end of this term your grade will be given on the weight of pots that you create. Here is a weighing scales, at the end of the class whoever’s total production of pots weighs the most will get the highest grade; to the other half of the class she said you’ll be evaluated on your one most finished piece of pottery.
The group that were told “sheer weight”: what was their way of carrying on everyday?
They produced 5,6,7 pots
they tried random experiments
they tried weird things
they try different ideas
but their hands were on clay from the first moment.
The group that we’re told that they would be evaluated on the most finished pot
they read…
they thought…
they talked about concepts
they talked about philosophical ideas
they read more…
then went to galleries to look at other people’s pots
and the first time they touched clay was about 3 days before the end of the class.
All of the best pots were made by the group that focused on weight.
So, your way of being in the pottery group that was measured on weight is get the webcam going every day if you do it for 10 days you’ll get a lot better if you keep it going…
3 minutes doesn’t get you very quickly to 10,000 hours
10,000 hours…
8 hours a day is 5 years
4 hours a day 10 years
2 hours a day 20 years
but… we will all still be alive
20 years from now
even 30 years from now
Imagine.
if you set a target of really practicing, trying… trial…
and the greatest musicians when you listen to them practice: it’s horrible
when I play piano I play the pieces I know
the greatest musicians when they’re practicing are trying things they don’t already know. They are trying experiments, they are trying random things
So with the webcam don’t just give your perfect speech, try random things because no one else has to see it. It can be deleted rather quickly. but just be careful that no one gets to your PC while you’ve got all the silly ones left on the desktop
so the first Answer is…
This is a waste of time if you don’t decide to dedicate 3 minutes for the next 10 days to put into practice,
to experiment with some of the ideas.
Celebrating 50,000 views of my YouTube vid: 1 way, only 1, to achieve Excellence as a Speaker. http://t.co/3h4uH2Qh
— Conor Neill (@conorneill) December 5, 2012