OSR 012: Public Speaking Tips

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In This Episode We Talk with:

In this podcast episode I talk to Richard Brundage about public speaking tips. Public speaking is something we all will encounter sometime in our lives. Even if we try to run from it, it will find us. No matter if it’s a birthday party, wedding, or talking to a little league team, you will have to speak in front of a group at some point.

I wanted to publish this conversation because I am currently studying for a promotional exam. In the exam I need to deliver a 15-minute presentation about myself. I need to make sure I am ready to stand in front of two to four people and tell them why I should be selected for this job.

Richard and I met on an airplane about six years ago. That was well before this podcast was even an idea. I kept his business card and when it came time to look for interviews I contacted him. I honestly feel this is a great podcast on public speaking. Most of the comments and ideas are for speaking in front of groups. You can use this information any way you feel fit.

As I have stated before, if you are able to take away at least 10% of the knowledge from this interview, it will be well worth it. If you are not into public speaking I still feel the information contained within this interview will help you in speaking in any area of your life.

Richard Brundage is an award-winning television director, news anchor, and lecturer who has trained some of the world’s top CEOs, high-ranking government officials, celebrities, and sports figures for appearances on such programs as 60 Minutes and Dateline NBC.

Brundage has anchored television news programs, lectured at universities, worked with celebrities, and conducted media workshops for senior executives of major corporations around the world.

He has trained corporate, government, medical, legal, law enforcement, and entertainment executives around the country and the world for more than 20 years. Recently, he was selected by the U.S. State Department to conduct media response training for new U.S. Ambassadors prior to their taking their posts around the world.

His clients include Universal Studios Hollywood, U.S. State Department, Bayer Chemical, American Academy of Family Physicians, National Weather Service, U.S. Coast Guard, and numerous organizations worldwide.

He is also a guest lecturer at colleges and universities.

Here are a few Specific items we discuss in the podcast:

-People arrive where they are in life sometimes on purpose. They arrive by listening to their inner selves.
-If you are passionately committed to what you are doing, it’s contagious.
-Everyone has a fire in his or her heart.
-Quit obsessing over money. Your money is made already. If you are passionately committed, the money will follow you.
-If you chase the money, you will never get there.
-Public speaking is the #1 fear. Death is ranked #3.
-If it comes from your heart, people will listen.
-People need to feel you before they can hear you.
-People make up their minds about you in 5 seconds.
-When you are 30 years old you can decode over 30,000 facial expressions.
-Two things to look for in a speaker or when presenting: be honest and compassionate.
-In your audience, 1/3 think you’re brilliant, 1/3 have made up their mind, 1/3 need to be persuaded.
-We learn by story telling.
-The first words out of your mouth, combined with the way you look when you say them and what other people know about you already, become your image.
-How to outline a speech? Don’t type it out; say it from the heart.
-People that inspire you the most are the ones that are the quietest.
-Number one thing old people say about life: “I wish I would have taken that risk.”
-There is nothing wrong with failure.
-You can get sued talking from your head but not from your heart.
-Don’t take yourself too seriously.
-Everyone has two careers. Your first is to make money. Your second is to give it back.
-Tell the truth.
-See things as they are.
-See it from your eyes, ears, and senses.
-There are 44 muscles in your face.
-Tell that speech to a mirror without words.
-Listen to your inner self and trust your gut.
-If you really want it bad enough, lots of people will help you.
-There are two types of people. The first group says they have to go to work. The second group says they get to go to work.

[spoiler]
You’re listening to Operation Self Reset with Jake Nawrocki. Now it’s time to reset your life.

What is going on, resetters? This is Operation Self Reset, and I am Jake Nawrocki. First off, again, like always, thank you so much for taking the time and listening to this awesome podcast. I hope you guys are enjoying the heck out of it because I am having a blast. I’ve been receiving some great emails from you guys, receiving some great reviews. Thank you so much, and if you guys listening do enjoy the podcast, feel free to go over to iTunes, leave a review for me, and I would really, really appreciate that. Because the podcast is doing really well I’m thinking of doing a weekly podcast. I kind of want to know what you guys think—if you guys think I should do a weekly or every other week. People that listen to podcasts listen to like 50 of them and I personally have numerous, numerous podcasts on my iPhone and my computer, so I just want to get a feel for you guys. If you think every other week is fine, no problems, that would be great or do you guys just love this content so much that you just want me to keep on pumping it out? Let me know. Write me an email: support@operationselfreset.com. And I just want to hear your personal opinion. That’s all. So I think I know a game plan, but I want to see the response that I get from you. If you have a second, let me know if you want it every week or every other week. That would be totally fine. I can’t do it every day. I know you guys want to hear my voice every single day. I can’t do it. I’ve got a lot going on. I’ve got a newborn. I’ve got a job. Yes, podcasting is not only my job.

And while I’m on that subject, I’m actually going to roll into the podcast for today. The podcast is with a gentleman named Richard Brundage, and he has been in the media for the last 30 years and now he does public speaking. The way I ran into Rich, my wife and I were actually going out to Seattle to meet her family that lives out there—from Milwaukee to Seattle—and sitting next to us was Richard Brundage. And throughout the conversation on the airplane, he and I were just chit-chatting about general stuff, the turbulence, the screaming kid behind us and how he keeps kicking our seat. Come on, kid. Stop that. But now, foreshadowing, I have a child, a boy, and I can see him kicking the heck out of the seat in front of us. So, you know what? I’ll let that one slide. Not a big deal. But anyway, like I’ve been talking about in previous podcasts about putting yourself out there and introducing yourself and getting to know other people for who they are. Well, he and I struck up a conversation. We never really talked about business, but at the end of the flight, I just said, “Hey, nice talking to you. It was a pleasure.” And he offered me his card, and I kept that card. And honestly, that conversation or that airplane ride was probably about six or seven years ago and that was well, well, well before even podcasting was a tear in my eye or a twinkle, or whatever they say.

So that’s another reason for you guys to kind of keep hold of connections. Even if you get a business card or a phone number from somebody, make sure you put it in your phone the right way, making sure that you put a little bit about the gentleman or the woman that you met, how did you meet them, the business they work for. Because you never know in any situation you might need to call that person or email that person, just ask, “Hey, I met you a couple of years ago,” a little history on how you met them and what you’re asking for, and guarantee it they’re gonna remember you and they’re gonna reach back to you and respond to whatever it is you need. And that’s what happened with Richard. I reached out to him. I gave him a call, and he was like, “Yeah, I would love to come on the podcast.” Richard Brundage talks about crisis communication, and he goes around the country and he speaks at events. And you’re probably wondering, “Well, what does crisis communication have to do with my personal life and resetting that?” Well, he is a public speaker, and he was never into the public speaking circuit. Back in the day he was actually a media producer. He was on 60 Minutes. He interviewed some really inspiring big businesspeople throughout his time. Then he got into production and things like that. He’ll share his story, so I’m not gonna ruin it.

But anyway, long story short, he does travel around the country and he talks about crisis communication. And the reason why I want to get him on the podcast is because I personally am going through a promotional process. I have an exam coming up end of September and then an oral interview at the end of October. And one of the criterion for the oral interview is I have to sit down and talk about myself for about 15 minutes. Now, I’m assuming there’s only going to be between three and four people in that room judging me and things like that, and when I interviewed Richard Brundage it was actually early on in the podcasting process. This was not one of my recent podcast interviews, so there was no real direct correlation between the promotion I’m currently going through and the interview when I had Richard on Skype and doing all that stuff. So the questions in this interview are kind of basic. They’re not really intense or astounding, but the information is unbelievable. And you can put this towards any part of your life. This could be speaking at a wedding. This could be speaking at a birthday party or promotional exam, just getting out in front of people for maybe a little in-house meeting for your business or whatever it may be—we can all pull away tips from this interview and I was kind of saving this interview for a rainy day, but I decided to fall back on and listen to it because when I received the paperwork it said, “Give a 15-minute presentation about yourself.” And I thought, “Oh, shoot. I remember interviewing Richard Brundage about public speaking. He must have given some really good tips when I interviewed him.” Because when I first started interviewing people on this podcast, honestly, I’m so dialed in on asking the question, I’m not really listening to what they’re saying, and even today I’m just so nervous and I don’t want to screw this up and I don’t want any dead space that I was trying to keep the conversation going. I don’t really listen to their answers. I just listen for the pause or the silence, and then I jump into the next question. So I’m fidgeting, writing down little things. So this interview is kind of all over the place, but it’s very good information and you guys are going to learn a lot about yourselves and how to present yourself in front of a group, big or small, interview or a huge audience, whatever it may be.

So now here’s the interview with Richard Brundage talking about public speaking.

Welcome, OSR community. Today we have a special guest with us. His name is Richard Brundage. He has talked to government officials, medical, legal, law enforcement, and also other entertainment companies about critical thinking, and he has now moved from the news platform to more of the public speaking circuit on critical communication. How are you doing, Rich?

I’m wonderful, Jacob. Thanks for having me on. This is wonderful.

Perfect. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. Before we dive into some more specific questions, I just want to get in touch with you and see how did you get to where you are today with the critical communication?

Well, if you’ve got maybe, let’s see, 32 years. Let me put this in a nutshell for you because I do not think, Jacob, people arrive where they are in life sometimes on purpose. I think they arrive there if they listen to their inner self and what they’re passionately committed in. I’ll start by saying if you’re passionately committed to what you’re doing it’s contagious. And I think we’ve all known that from early teachers you might have. You would go home from school maybe one year in fourth and fifth grade and say, “Oh, man, I’m gonna love math this year.” No, you’re not! You’re gonna love the way Mrs. Tellier teaches math because in the first ten seconds, she built a fire. She made you want to learn, and I think that everybody has a fire in their heart. And I think so many times I run across students in school and they say, “Well, they want to do the same thing that I’m doing and so forth.” Or they want to graduate and get the most money they can for the degree they have. And I tell them, “Quit chasing the money. Chase your passion.” If you’re passionately committed, your money’s already been made for you. I’ve told my clients that. Your money is already made. It’s already out there. If you follow what you’re truly, passionately committed in, the money will follow you. If you chase the money, you’ll never get there. And I think you’ve probably seen that I think some of your listeners have too.

But I don’t think I answered your question how did I get there. Well, I was a pre-med major, and my background was biological science, but I worked my way through high school really. I started on radio when I was 16 and I went to college and I went into television later on and I never intended to do any of those things. I thought maybe I would be a biological science guy and maybe go to med school or something, but maybe in my next life I’ll do that. I don’t know. It all depends on what happens to this affordable care.

Right.

But I think everybody has personal epiphanies in life, and I don’t think I ever knew this was coming. But I worked my way around television and I wound up abut 20 years later anchoring this program and chief correspondence for a program called Small Business Journal which was on PBS back in the 80s. Well, I had taken a trip all the way from Washington, D.C., with my crew to Anchorage, Alaska, to interview the most successful businessperson this year. And it was going to be a great interview, and this guy was so passionate about what he was doing until we wired him up with a microphone and sat him down in front of a camera and microphone and then he became another person. Because public speaking is the number one fear in the United States. Death is number three.

Wow.

I’m not sure what number two is. I think it might be an IRS audit or something.

That could be. That’s very scary.

This guy was so nervous and he was sweating and he was looking to heaven for guidance, and he got the deer in the headlights look, and he was doing all the things that are just an anathema for a public speaker being on television. So I did something I’ve never done before. I stopped the interview. I sent the camera crew away, and I said, “Look, I can’t go back to Washington with a story like this. You’re gonna have about a five minute segment on my program. You’re the most successful businessperson this year in what you’re doing, but, sir, frankly you look like a felon.” And so I unloaded on this guy about all the things that made me feel comfortable in front of a camera, comfortable public speaking. Because I think a lot of people aren’t comfortable public speaking, and he was a quick study and I brought the camera crew back in. I got a great interview from the guy, and I was packing up, getting ready to leave, and he said, “Could you stay one extra day in Anchorage? And I’ll get the city leaders together. Could you teach us how to do this?” And before thinking, I said, “Yes.”

But, Jacob, the epiphany for me was that night in my hotel room the things that I was writing on that legal pad came from here, from my heart, not from my head because I didn’t study journalism. I studied medicine. And the epiphany for me was when I delivered my first seminar the next day was how powerful the message is from your heart and not your head. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. It’s really that simple. And you know what else? People have to be able to feel you before they can hear you. And all of that comes from the heart, not from the head.

And so, I guess in high school, public speaking for me was a little bit easier because I was on the radio and then I was in debate and oratory in college which is really, really helpful. If there are any young people listening to this thing later on and they don’t teach public speaking, they don’t teach oratory much anymore. They don’t even teach argument, [13:22], and debate in law school, I don’t think. But there’s nothing more important than communication. That’s what we do. We do that every day. The way we eat, the way we walk, the way we talk. People make up their minds about you in about five seconds. In fact, there was a recent study done by a doctor—and I can’t remember his name—at Princeton in which he showed two pictures of opposing candidates in a state far away that were running for local congressional races. He showed people these pictures for one-twentieth of a second, and in 70.4% of the time the people who didn’t even know these people picked the winner.

Wow.

And I mean, it’s just absolutely awesome and Malcolm Gladwell in his book Blink really pointed out how we in a blink of an eye make an assessment on the person speaking.

Now, why is that? Do you think it’s more physical traits? Is it more of just the presence, almost like the aura?

Yeah, absolutely. You’re absolutely right. I think that the wonderful thing for me, Jacob, was the combination between studying anatomy and physiology and the 44 muscles in the face and then doing journalism. Because by the time you’re 30 years old you can decode about 3000 body language signals.

Wow.

And you can’t say, “Well, you know, I think Jacob, I think that zygomatic matrix combined with nasolabial fold and that mandibular arch, oh, what it did.” No, we can’t name those things, but we know instinctively. If you’ve got a corner office and you’re watching somebody come across the parking lot into work in the morning, can you tell what kind of day that person’s already had?

Oh, yeah.

Of course you can! You don’t even have to speak to convey a message anymore. So, yeah, is it a physical trait? Oh, absolutely.

So obviously, that kind of launched you in the direction when that gentleman asked you, “Can you talk to the whole community of Anchorage?” That really slingshotted you. Is that when the moment struck, like, “I should do this more often or I should go on out and.”

I think you’re right, Jacob. I think there was a sense of I had arrived. I had paid my dues. I had done what I did long enough to have something to say that might matter to people. And the discovery that this body language thing plays such an important part in how we communicate was something that other media trainers weren’t doing. They were teaching people how to respond in sound byte formats and memorizing things, but what they weren’t teaching them was just to be them, just to be honest and establish empathy with their audience. Because, frankly, the two things we look for in people and speakers are a perfect example. We look for two things: honesty and compassion. And when we find those two things, we’re gravitated towards them. Those were our mentors. We only maybe only had one or two mentors in our whole life, but what we looked for them for was honesty and compassion.

For sure. Now, when you went up there for your first time to do this speech that you kind of knew but you didn’t have exactly a game plan, obviously. The night before you kind of did like a bullet list of things to hit on and stuff. When you went up there and you obviously just said, “I arrived” when you went up on stage. Were you nervous?

Terribly nervous! Terribly nervous! This was a new adventure. Jacob, this isn’t something where you walk in on the steps on the shallow end of the pool. This is when you go out on the deep end and just dive in, you know? And you keep thinking, am I gonna swim or will I drown?

Right.

And then I remembered somebody once told me about an audience. One-third thinks you’re brilliant already. One-third of the audience has already made up their mind, so you’re really only talking to the other third because those are the ones that are waiting to be persuaded.

When you got up on stage you were nervous, you’re probably sweating a little bit.

Oh yeah.

What did you do to capture the audience? Did you start off talking about a joke or did you just hit on the points right away?

I tried to be me, and I just told them, I said, “Look, this is the first time I’ve ever done this. I’ve been doing news. I studied medicine. I didn’t study journalism, so everything I’m gonna tell you is gonna come from my heart today and these are just some things that I’ve learned along the way and I hope they’ll help you, but most of all I want you to have fun today. As much fun as I am having here.” And I did have a lot of fun with them, and I told stories. And that’s I think one of the most important things that a speaker can do. We don’t learn by facts or figures, Jacob. We learn by people who tell us stories because that’s how we thousands of years ago we passed along our clan history, you know, the tribe history and it wasn’t by dates or times it was, you know, “What Olaf did six months ago.” So I always try to tell stories and I tell my audiences, “If you’ve got a story to tell me, tell it to me because it’ll wind up in my next seminar.” If it has a good teaching point, it’ll wind up there.

That’s perfect because a lot of people say to capture an audience you need to come out there and either crack a joke or tell a fact that’s so serious that everybody’s like, “[Sharp intake of breath 19:13], wow.” And it’s so refreshing to hear just be yourself because at the end of the day that’s what it’s about and like you said, when you just present yourself as you are people will trust you more, will gravitate toward you.

Oh, absolutely. And I’ve got my own definition of image, and it’s this and I think it applies to people who want to be speakers. The first words out of your mouth combined with the way you look when you say them and what other people know about you already is your image. You will not change it.

[Unclear 19:48].

You can stand up there and speak for an hour and you’re not gonna change the image people have of you in the first five seconds.

Now, after your first time getting up there on stage and you thought, “Okay, I’m gonna start maybe going in this direction of speaking,” was there any time that you started lacking self-confidence in any way? Were you always so charged up and positive and, “I can achieve this”? You’re being yourself, were you happy with yourself—I don’t know how to describe the feelings, but was there any time that the self-confidence was lacking during the journey?

Oh, sure. I think it naturally is for people. They may appear to be calm and unruffled on the surface like ducks, but they’re paddling like crazy underneath. People can’t see the paddling. I think everybody does that. I think we all live, as someone once said, lives of quiet desperation, wondering what’s around the next corner and often being pleasantly surprised what’s there. I always am the kind of person that if I walk into a room I will just kind of stay in the background and just observe the room. I don’t want to be a show off. I don’t want to be the center of attention, and I think when somebody speaks about something it’s a very narrow vertical window of their responsibilities. You know, if you were to speak about fire control systems or you were to speak about things that you’re intimately familiar with the fireman, that’s what you’d speak about. And I always felt that the reason people invited you to speak is because you’re the expert on your subject, you know? And if you try to keep that in your head that you’re the expert on the subject—and another thing that’s really important, Jacob, people write their speeches. Oh, for heavens’ sakes, don’t write a speech.

No?

Because most people write it [tapping sound 21:58] like this on a keyboard. Okay? You’re writing it for the eye, not the ear, “He said.” It looks good in newsprint, but you write it out loud and then go through your speech and on each paragraph that has a main teaching point, on the left hand side put a trigger word and you will wind up with about 15 trigger words. Put those on a separate page and throw your speech away. And the reason you do this is because trigger words demand spontaneity. They demand you be spontaneous about the story you’re gonna tell or the facts you’re gonna deliver or the incident that you went through and each time you tell it you will tell it differently, but if you read it off a piece of paper it’s not you.

That’s huge. That’s a really good point. You almost want to have a general conversation with them. You don’t want it to be really staged and crisp and precise. You want it to flow naturally and you want to bring up, “Oh,” and then you’re laughing almost before you tell the story so it intrigues people.

Yeah, and if you get your tang tongueled up, that’s okay because that’s the way it works.

Yeah, very true. Now, before getting into the public speaking circuit you met a lot of people throughout your career or even after talking to them while you’re doing your speaking circuit. Was there any one person in particular that you met that really inspired you or gave you some great advice that you have used today and you talk to other people about?

No, I think the people that probably inspire you the most are the quiet ones that instill a confidence in you and simply tell you. They’re the kind of mentor type. They’re the kind that just say, “Brundage, go and do it. You can do it. What are you afraid of?” You know when they did a survey of people in their 90s, one of the questions they asked them is, “What would you do different if you could live it all over again?” And almost all of them said, “I would’ve taken more risks.” And I just tell people, “What have you got to lose?” Steve Jobs was a failure at several things. So was Microsoft, Bill Gates, at several things before they became successful. There’s nothing wrong with failing at all because you learn from that.

No, that’s so true. The people listening to this right now, that’s a big thing that’s going on mentally with them. They have an idea for a product or they want to start a business or a speaker or whatever it may be. There’s so many times in their life that it’s like, “Well, what are my friends and family gonna think of me? What happens if I fail? Then I have to tell them the whole story of how I failed and they’re gonna laugh at me and I don’t even want to do that.” So it’s one of those things. Yeah, that’s a huge point and especially, too, when you’re 90 years old and you’re saying, “I wish I would’ve taken more risks as a younger person,” it’s almost like I need to get out there and we have to do what we need to do to make ourselves happy and find our passion, like you talked about.

Absolutely. Let me take what you’re saying and amplify it a little bit with the human evolution of the body. Our first brain was the gut: the enteric system. And people say, “Trust your gut” or “I have a gut instinct.” Next place it travels to is to the heart, and in the emerging field of neurocardiology, they’ve found neural tissues in the heart that actually communicate with the brain, and it gives off more electromagnetic energy than the brain. So the last place this impulse goes is to the brain and that’s where we get it all screwed up because that‘s where we over think it. And we do exactly the same thing you were thinking, “Well, what are my peers gonna say? Is this a career-ending statement I’m about to make? What happens if it’s the wrong answer? What happens if I look stupid?” And all of these things that I hear from people when I ask them, “What’s your biggest fear of being in the media?” And I hear all kinds of answers from that, so I tell all my audiences, I say, “Turn this off for a minute. Turn your head off for a minute. You’re way too smart for this seminar. Stop thinking. Give me your hearts for the next couple of hours. I’ll give them back undamaged, but I’m gonna fill them with a reconnection of why we communicate best from our hearts and not from our heads.” You can get sued if you talk from your head. That’s where we keep all the plans, policies, and procedures. You can’t get sued if you talk from your heart because that’s where we talk about how we feel about something, and that’s what people are most interested in.

We talk about people feeling embarrassed about getting up in front of a crowd, and you’re right, that’s the number one fear, getting in front of a group of people. Do you have any just quick tips? Obviously, we talked about being passionate about what you’re talking about, being yourself, presenting yourself well, any other little tips that you could suggest to somebody or anybody?

I think one of the things is this self-deprecating humor. Don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself, and be as relaxed as you possibly can and say something right at the very beginning that disarms people. They know I’m a journalist or a former journalist and I would often come out and say, “A journalist is someone who has trouble distinguishing between a bicycle accident and the end of civilization.” Say anything that loosens your audience up. And one of the other things that I think is most important is get away from PowerPoint. Do not use PowerPoint. Just because we have the technology I don’t think we ought to use it. It becomes the presenter. And the second thing is get away from the podium. Go down in your audience. Be amongst your audience. Get your audience to participate with you in whatever it is you’re talking about. Ask them questions and then put the mike in their face. Ask them questions and get them involved, and you’ll find out that you become part of the audience and part of the discussion and not just somebody standing up there with a dialogue.

One of the questions I was going to hit on, during your time of figuring out, really getting [unclear 28:30] on your speech, or thinking of other tips, were there any tools you looked into to help you? Was there anybody that inspired you to become a better speaker? Anybody you looked at to kind of take a couple of ideas from? Did you read any books?

Lots of books, Jacob. I think if you have a narrow window like mine is in crisis communications. I would read everything I could about how people handle crises, from the Exxon Valdez to the Gulf oil crisis to how did they handle them? What did they say? And you develop your own formulas for assisting people through crises. I don’t think I have any specific tips on how to do that. It comes from your background. Jacob, I think the answer to that is everybody has two careers. You’ve got your first career which may last 25 years and that’s where you’re paying your dues, and then you have your next 25 years and I think that’s where God wants you to give it all back.

I realized that what I was doing, and I tell my people this in all my audiences. I travel somewhere in the world about three times a month and speak to groups, and I was reticent at first because I discovered what I was doing was a true ministry. I was reticent to say that, but I found out that what started as a way of teaching people how to just relax in front of my network cameras has turned into a ministry of teaching people how to reconnect with this. And I can’t tell you how many times afterwards, after my seminars, people will come up and say, “I’m sure glad you brought God back into this equation,” because I think everybody has personal epiphanies in their life that change their directions of the way they want to go. I didn’t design this direction, where I am right now, but I think what I’m doing right now is what I’m supposed to be doing is giving away the keys to the reporter’s office, making people more happy when they have to get up and speak in public, and reconnecting them with their hearts. It’s okay to be boys and girls again.

Talking about crisis communication, that’s one of the main points that you speak on. If you wouldn’t mind dialing it down from a big corporation or talking to law enforcement, are there a couple of tips to people that are dealing with a big crisis in their own personal life, ways to extinguish those fires?

Always tell the truth. Always be honest, and then the answer’s pretty simple. See things as they really are and not as you try to make them up in your head. See things as other people and you’ll see the answer. And let me give you a real quick story. I rode cutting horses in competition for years, and I was down in Dodge City, KS, and I bought a horse and I couldn’t get him in this trailer. He was a really nice horse, a nice cutting horse, and I did everything. I put the feed basket in the trailer. I had a rope around the back of him. I tried to walk him in every way I possibly could, and this old cowboy is sitting by the trailer and after about a half hour he says, “Son, could I try something?” And I’d say, “You can try anything. I got to get this horse home.” He came over turned the horse around and backed him in, and he went right in the trailer. And I said, “Wow.” And he said, “See, you got to look at it the horse’s perspective. What he can’t see he’s not afraid of.” That’s the same way with dealing with people is see it from their perspective because, Jacob, people are interested in themselves first and then plans, policies, and procedures.

That’s perfect advice and a great story to go along with that too. Now, there might be times that you, obviously the energy that you get up there is just remarkable, you just feed off the crowd, they’re enjoying it, you’re enjoying it, to get back on the stage night after night or what have you, how do you keep yourself in that state of mind? How do you keep yourself motivated?

That’s a really, really great question. I try not to do that night after night. And that’s why I only go somewhere about three times a month. You give away a tremendous amount of energy when you’re on the stage because not only are you concentrating on what you’re saying, you’re listening to what you just said, you’re saying what you’re saying, and you’re thinking about what you’re going to say. And then the fourth thing you’re doing is trying to respond to what the audience’s demands are. So you give all this energy away up there. And I just came back from a university in Southern California, Azusa Pacific University, and I taught four days in a row. And it was a grueling experience, but it was such an uplifting experience. It was a Christian university and I had a different faculty and staff unit each day I was teaching, so it was absolutely wonderful. If a speaker isn’t tired after they’re done with their speech they haven’t worked hard enough. You should be emotionally and physically drained when you’re done.

Now, with your medical background, I would like to dive a little deeper into that. You gave some really good points—is time okay?

Sure.

Okay. I would like to dive a little more into that. Have you ever talked about or studied about visualization techniques or anything like that, seeing yourself up on the stage, people are enjoying you, it kind of brings your mind in focus and stuff like that? Do you mind diving into that?

Yeah, there’s 44 muscles in the face. And I love to teach doctors because they can name almost all of them, and they have no clue how to use them. And that’s where they put doctors into the suit group or non-suit group is how well they communicate. Using your face is so incredibly important. Actors know how to do it. A lot of actors are very introverted. They don’t like to talk about themselves. They like to talk about who they were in a movie, but they do understand the 44 muscles in the face and how important it is. I tell people if you’re gonna write a speech—Jacob, if you’re gonna write a speech, do it the way I suggested. Put the trigger words down there and then look into a mirror and tell that speech to that mirror without talking. Just use your face and actors do that a lot because they want to see the motivation. Look at Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs. He was on screen about 14 minutes in a 2-hour motion picture and won the Academy Award. What he could do with his face even behind the mask, his eye and his mouth, was absolutely incredible. They understand the power of body language, but it’s something we don’t teach. I’m not even sure I answered your question.
No, that’s perfect though. Well, hey, standing in the mirror and talking to yourself with your face, that is great. I think anybody listening to this, there’s gonna be promotions, you’re gonna find a new job, and with the information you’re providing, to walk into a room know the presence you have to bring in and practicing who you are and what you’re about I think is huge to anybody especially in today’s day and age where it’s tougher and tougher to secure a job and you’re competing against other like-minded people. Really good points. Now, this podcast is about changing the person you are to the person that you’ve always dreamed of. We hit on points of finding your true passion, finding out what you’re meant to be, find your journey in life. You talked about a lot of great points about just understanding your presence that you need to bring in. is there anything else that you can think of that would be beneficial to somebody that’s not liking the journey that they’re on and to change it? Obviously, we talked about the passion. Is there anything else that you wouldn’t mind hitting on?

Oh, sure, sure. Listen to your inner self. I know that sounds kind of shop-worn, but really you have an inner self. Trust your gut instinct. What is it you’ve always wanted to do? Somebody once said, “If you really, really want to do something, the universe will conspire with you to make it happen.” And I absolutely think that’s true. If you truly, not kind of want to do it or, “Gee, I wish I might do this.” No, no, no. If you really, really want to do something, you can do it. There’ll be a lot of people who will help you do it and you’ll refine it in your own mind.

That’s huge. Like we hit on before, so many people are scared of changing careers. The fear of the unknown.

Any form of stasis is preferable to change. People will stay in a miserable job rather than risk the unknown and that’s what those 90-year-old people were talking about, Jacob. Don’t be afraid to risk the unknown. If you’re not happy where you are, go and find something. There’s two different kinds of people: the people who wake up in the morning and say, “I’ve got to go to work.” And then there’s the kind of people who wake up and say, “I get to go to work.” And when you get up in the morning and you say, “I get to go to work,” you’ve arrived.

Well, on that point, I think we will wrap this up. I really appreciate all the information and the tips you have given me and the community listening to this. I can’t say thank you enough. Great tips and just amazing things that I think all of us can pull away some great information.
Good. Jacob, thank you so much. I’ll leave you all too with a quote that I heard a long time ago from somebody that struck my heart. The person said, “Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you can pick the right ones and put them in the right order, you can nudge the world.” And I think everybody can nudge the world if their heart’s in the right place. Thanks for having me on.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

First off, thanks, Richard, for coming on the podcast. You shared some great tips on public speaking. Again, you guys listening out there, any time I bring somebody on the podcast it’s not necessarily exactly what they’re saying. Richard Brundage is talking about public speaking. I’m not trying to say that you need to go out there and start speaking to the masses, but these tips that were provided in this interview is something that you guys can use in your daily lives—no matter if you’re a Little League coach, if you have to give a speech at a wedding, birthday party, an interview, or even walking up to strangers or just carrying on a conversation with somebody you know or you don’t know or whatever it may be. One of the things that Richard really talked about was speaking truthfully, honestly, and compassionately, and I really believe that if you speak from the heart and you speak with those three qualities, people will listen to you and they’ll want to be around you.

Another great point that Richard talked about was within five seconds you’re able to judge a person’s character, their background, and everything that’s about them. And not necessarily are you going to be scanning somebody and going, “Oh, he has torn jeans, so obviously he must be a mechanic. So that means he’s hands-on, blue collar guy, so he probably is stubborn and he doesn’t have any opinions on anything.” No. It’s just stating that within five seconds you’re able to read somebody.

One thing that I want to share with you guys. You guys out there have been great, really emailing me with a lot of questions and stuff, and the stuff that I have been receiving is you guys want action tips that you can use as soon as you put down the headphones or disconnect from the car or whatever it may be. And the one action tip that I want to share with you guys is one of the studies that Richard told us about and that was surveying 90-year-old people. There was a group of individuals that went on out to all these old-age homes. They talked to them for a while and they asked them specific questions, and one question that the study was based off of was asking them, “What’s the one thing you regret in your lifetime?” Now, again, these were senior citizens so they’re older in life. They’ve done a majority of things that you and I are still continuing to go through in our daily lives, and the one thing that they said is, “When risks came into my life, I should’ve went after it or I should’ve done this or I should’ve done that.” That’s one thing I want to really share and hit home with you guys is there’s gonna come times in your life that things are gonna present themselves: good, bad, scary, outrageous, silly, stupid, whatever it may be. The question is when you look back on your life are you gonna regret not doing that? Say, for example, if you don’t like to travel on an airplane but you’ve always wanted to go to Asia and a group of your friends or coworkers or whatever it may be is getting together and they’re chartering a plane and going over to Asia, but you’re freaked about air travel but you want to go bad. When you’re 90 years old, are you gonna look back and think, “Man, I should’ve just jumped on that plane and went.” That’s the question and that’s the answer you’re gonna have to live with for the rest of your life.

So the action step I want to give you guys is when items present themselves take action and do it. Give it a try. Maybe not the extreme of skydiving if you’re uncomfortable with that, but maybe trying new foods, just going out there and experiencing new things. Maybe paintballing or playing pool or just something that’s totally off of your norm and when it presents itself take action and do it. Why not? Life is too short. You don’t want to be 90 years old, sitting in that old age home, talking to other people, and thinking to yourself, “Man, I wish I would’ve done A, B, C.” That’s one thing that when I heard that, I thought, “Man, I don’t want to be that guy regretting that I should’ve done this, that, or the other thing.”

And personally for me, that’s why I started this podcast. I know I had greatness within me, and it was a struggling process of trying to find out how to deliver that message and I obviously am using the platform of podcasting and the website and video blogs and stuff like that to get my message out there. And I am so happy I did because—well, you guys know my story—for the last 5-8 years I’ve always know I had something to say but never really knew how to go about it, and I’m so glad I took action and started this podcast.

So no matter what’s going on with you today in your own, little world. Not to say that meanly, but I’m just saying in your own world just do something that you feel is necessary to do, whatever that may be, and take action on it. And when things present themselves to you, do it! Just as long as it’s not dangerous or it’s gonna harm others or harm animals, give it a try. You would be crazy not to.
So that’s one huge thing that I really want you guys to take action on and the other thing is knowing that within five seconds you’re able to judge somebody and say you want to show everybody that you are a really energetic person. Well, the thing is you need to show that on the outside as much as you want to show it on the inside to yourself. So if you want to present things to people and you want to be outgoing, you want to be happy all the time, you want to seem that you’re always positive and mentally strong, you need to reflect that from the outside. But the key is it has to start from the inside, so you really have to dig deep and you really have to pull yourself together and really believe you are that energetic person or you really have to believe and stay positive every single moment of your life and then that will project on the outside. So when people analyze you, they’ll go, “Wow, he seems like a happy-go-lucky guy. Or “He seems like the entertainer” or “He seems like the wild one” or whatever it may be. That’s something you’re going to have to understand within yourself. So those were some great tips from Richard Brundage.

Again, you guys can get all of the tips that I’ve pulled away from this interview on OperationSelfReset.com/podcast012. There you’ll find a link to Richard Brundage’s website, about what he does—crisis communication—and also all the tips that I pulled away and everything like that. So, guys, again, thank you so much for taking the time and listening to this. Public speaking is scary to every single one of us, but I know the information I was provided today can kind of help you maybe feel a little more comfortable when you get up there in front of others. Remember, just be yourself. Trust your gut and just be who you are. Just be who you are and things should go A-Ok. Guys, thank you so much again. I look forward to seeing you guys and talking to you guys very shortly. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at support@operationselfreset.com. And I’m gonna try to possibly start doing a weekly podcast, so I would love to hear if you guys want me to do that. I’ll try to pump them out as fast as I can. Again, because I do have the promotion coming up, it might take a little bit so they might not be on a specific day. So I don’t want to be committed and say everything Thursday morning I’m gonna have a podcast out cause then you guys will be like, “What the heck, Jake? Where’s the podcast?” And then you guys will fly to my house and start rioting or something. I don’t know. It could get crazy like that.

I want to leave you guys with one quote that I feel is appropriate because we are talking about the number one fear which is public speaking and the quote comes from Peter Abrahams. It states: “There can be no courage without fear, and fear comes only from the imagination.” So if you’re scared of something, it’s only in your mind. So go on through that dark alley, through that haunted house and think to yourself, “It’s only in my mind.” And just push through and have a great time. So there you go. Take it for what it’s worth. Don’t be afraid of standing up and speaking and let people know that it’s from your heart and it’s compassionate, it’s truthful and honest, and people will listen and you’ll feel good about spreading whatever word you have to tell the world. So go out there, stand on your soapbox, and let others know what you have to say.

So there you go, guys. There’s maybe your action tip of the podcast. Last time we talked about water balloon tying; this time we’re talking about public speaking on a soapbox on the corner in your neighborhood, maybe telling the kids to stop screaming in the middle of the night. I don’t know. Have at it. Do whatever you got to do. We’ll talk to you guys in the next podcast. Podcast number 13. Enjoy the day. Make it a great day and remember you are in control of your future, so if you want to reset something, you want to change something about yourself, you are able to do that because you know why? You are the master, the controller, the operator, the one-man show of yourself. And remember, nobody can tell you what to do, only yourself. So make yourself happy. Make yourself believe in you and you’ll achieve whatever you want in this great, great world.
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