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Presentation Rockstars and the ROR: Return On Relationships with David Thomas · Authentic Living

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Welcome to authentic living with Roxanne, a place where we have as conversations about
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things that really matter in our lives.
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And now here's your host, Roxanne Derhodge.
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Hey, everyone.
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It's Rob Sandra.
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How are you again today?
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So glad everybody's tuning in today.
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I have David Thomas, and you said you're based in Halifax, North London.
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Is that what it's telling you exactly?
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The the north of England.
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North of neighborhoods here in London.
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I just I just took what you said.
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So he is an expert.
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Now, you're talking a bit about, your background.
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Is it that you you're a memory expert?
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Is that what I read?
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Something to do with memory.
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So so tell me about that.
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I was reading a little bit about your background, and we'll talk a little bit about
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what we're gonna chat about today.
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Well, my background is that I had a a troubled child that never went to college got kicked out
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at school, working in a factory for, like, $2 an hour.
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And then I joined the fire service.
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And when I was in the fire service, I had trouble passing my exams.
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And one day, I saw a guy memorized Packer playing cards on TV, bought his book, taught
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myself how to do it.
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8 months later, I went to the world memory championships came forth, found a just study
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gift.
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And then everybody's like, how do you do this memory stuff?
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And I thought it's just that easy.
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It's a few techniques, and they gotta teach me the techniques.
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And so back in February 9 1997, they gave me first talk.
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For the following, and then very soon after that, I'll have to fire service Roxanne this
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record.
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And then and then that was for 15 years.
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And then in 2000 and 11, somebody came out of an audience and just said, would I show them
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how to improve their presentation skills?
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I said, I don't do that.
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That's not my bag.
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And she said, I want you to do it.
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And I said, why?
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And she says, because you are brutally honest, and you are a fantastic speaker, if you can
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reverse engineer what you do, then I think you can show me how to be a better speaker.
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I said fantastic.
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I'll do anything, mate.
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I'll have a go at anything once.
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Right?
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Just pretty much anything.
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And I said, right.
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We'll have a go.
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I said, if it's rubbish too, apparently.
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And even to this day, I've got the a video testimonial, and she said this was great.
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So then I moved away from the brain training, the memory mind mapping, and so on.
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Moved over towards the, all pretty much all towards presentation skills, mainly working
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with C suite, middle to senior management, and about half of what the work I do is with the
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boss.
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Amazing.
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So let's back up because I'm curious about the memory stuff.
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So What gift did you realize you had?
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Like, is it is it mnemonics?
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What is it that you're doing?
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That helps you have such an exceptional memory.
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Well, you know, I say I've got I say I've got a gift.
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I'm not really quite sure, but it was mnemonics.
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It was all book.
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It was all techniques in a book.
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All the stuff that's been around all literally for thousands of years, mind palace, put in
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stuff in rooms.
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And everybody goes, I get that, and I go over the last one.
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I did.
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But what I found is that I was able to apply it at a very high level.
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To give you an example, in 1998, I broke again his record for a site in pie, which Almost
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everybody on on the podcast will know from school because we all learn it then forget it,
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but it starts 3.14.
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We all learn it in maths.
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Yes.
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And, you know, and I recited it to 22,500 digits from memory in 4 a half hours to break a
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Guinness record that stood for another 2 decades.
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The thing is I know it was just purely techniques.
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I know that it was just a question of taking a technique drilling down honing that technique,
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adopting, adapting a shedload of practice.
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And I got to the stage where I was one of the best that had ever been Is that a gift?
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I don't know.
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I mean, I've got work ethic and ambition.
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The one thing I have is resilience.
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I just I'm like a dog with a bone.
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I just never let go.
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And, you know, I my self belief is very, very high.
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I believe in myself.
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Well, it's it's interesting.
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Right?
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Because like you said, you haven't gone to formal education.
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Probably you would have had you gone on?
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You probably would have realized that relatively quickly.
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Right?
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But not until you tried it.
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No.
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No.
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No.
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Realize because, like, I mean, in university and stuff like that.
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It's all rote.
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Right?
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You're trying to something like me.
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I hated memorization.
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I didn't.
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I I didn't like it.
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I was like, oh my god.
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Here we go again.
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I have to kind of memorize this.
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So
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Oh, may may maybe I would have found out later, possibly, I would have done I I I'm not so
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sure.
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I mean, I do know a guy who discovered memory techniques in university because they needed to
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learn of a luminous amount of information, but I'm I'm not so sure.
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I mean, honestly, I I I was sitting fire service exams.
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These are not this is not difficult.
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It is just list off the list.
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The 13th is on a fire extinguisher.
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The 6 things you need to remember when you go to a fire call as a senior officer at Chemical
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incident, and it was just list off the list, and I couldn't do it.
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So it's not like I was learning quantum physics or you know, the relationship between
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characters in Shakespeare.
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It was literally just basic lists.
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And I didn't buy the book thinking this is gonna be great.
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I'm gonna be a memory guy and pass my exams.
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I was just sat there going, well, you know, let's just give it a go.
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It's 6, you know, it's ten bucks for a buck.
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What can go wrong.
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And all of a sudden, I found I could do this.
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And so, I mean, yeah, I could have been exposed to it earlier, and it might have made a
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difference, but I don't know.
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Well, we can't go back there other than you've you've found you found it out along the way.
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Now let's let's talk a little bit about.
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So, for everyone listening, and David teaches, leaders how to be Roxanne stars on stage.
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I'm gonna use that word.
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How do you capture the moment?
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And, like, with every one of this thing, you know that I talk about authenticity and how
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that impacts your capacity to connect.
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And when you connect, you're able to do some amazing things with people around you just by
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the delivery of what you're able to do.
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So that's what David does in his world now.
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So did the memory thing translate over into what you did with present in any way, or was it
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a completely different kind of, subset of things that you were doing?
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Well, there was almost no crossover.
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If you look at the there was this tiny little thing in the middle called memory.
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What's interesting now is that when I do a a day's, you know, coaching with a client,
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memories part of the process.
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I have a 22 stage process I go through.
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A memory is one of them, but now even though I'm a memory guy, and even though I can see the
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benefit of being able to memorize his speech, actually, when it comes down to it, I always
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say to the client, to be honest, the choice is yours because by the time, you know, successful
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speaking and being a presentation Roxanne is as much about skill as it is about talent or
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charisma or whatever you wanna call it.
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And I take people through a process that that improves them very significantly.
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But there's a lot of moving parts.
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Definitely learn how to walk and talk, you know, whether it should stand still.
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They need to know how to have great eye contact, how to use cadence, how to use pauses,
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all the traditional basic stuff that I teach is basic stuff, but it works as long as they do
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it.
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And then on top of that, I said, oh, and by the way, you've got to memorize your speech.
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They got, really?
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And I got, no, not really.
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But if they want to, they can.
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Right.
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And I've got the plan to do it.
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So I worked with a guy over here called Martin Factory once, a side So if that's just sadder,
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he's a a major brand of it in the UK, and he, I worked with him.
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And the one thing he said he wanted to do, when I said, what do you want to achieve when you
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speak?
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He says, well, I'm gonna speak at the British houses of parliament to the lords and MPs.
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I'm gonna get the law changed in my industry.
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I want to be able to do it really well.
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I said, what's your desired outcome is is I wanna speak without notes.
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Because I've been coming to these meetings with my family, you know, my dad and my granddad for
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years.
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And every time somebody stands up and does it, they do it with notes.
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I wanna be the first to do it without notes.
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And so we all understand the impacts have been speak without notes because there's maybe 5% of
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non professional speakers speak without notes, only 1 in 20 so that I immediately improves you
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just by being able to do it.
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But you know what state?
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When I'm coaching people, I say it's your choice.
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If you want to learn how to do it, I'll show you.
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And if you think that you've got too much on your plate, then that's something further down
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the road.
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So let's let's talk about What are the some of the core fundamental blocks that you find, when
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leaders want to communicate?
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Do you find that people coming to you have some basics?
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Like, some basics kind of in that they can, you know, move a room.
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They can speak.
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They can articulate.
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They can get a message across generally, or are they coming to you kinda, they are in a
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position, but they're not able to speak very well to connect?
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It depends what level they are.
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If I get a chief executive managing director, the boss in front of me, they've already done
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it that many times that they can speak.
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And when they come to me, they walk through the door, they're going.
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I don't know what good looks like.
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I can kinda see it in somebody else.
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But I just don't know what to do.
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I don't know how to make myself a rock star, and they they all formed me up and got met me a
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rock star.
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Right.
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They don't fall up and say, can you show me how to be a little bit better than I like?
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Because, you know, the ego of a chief exec is enormous.
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Imposter syndrome is also enormous.
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Right?
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They all have a superiority complex, and they're all sat there waking up at 3 in the
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morning crying and think it's gonna crash on the show that day.
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Right?
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So they're they're all kind of crazy, chief execs, but they all have an ego.
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So feeding that ego is not particularly difficult.
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If I go one level down, even just into the senior management team, right, CA or CT or CFO
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and so on, fear.
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You can smell it when they walk through the door.
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That panicked the nerves.
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I had a management team last week in a in a Internet provider in the UK.
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And and I just said to them, there's nine people.
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And I said, right, by the way, we're gonna start with a quick exercise.
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I'm gonna get you up at the front.
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I'm gonna give you a topic.
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You're gonna speak on it for one minute.
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Aren't gonna get different topics so you can't prepare.
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And literally do it.
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I think just honestly, they were nearly diving under the table.
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Seriously, I was like, really?
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And they're like, yeah.
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Because they don't do it that often, and they found themselves.
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What what happens with managers is they'll kinda put her along doing a few team talks and
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they might do the odd little presentation here with it.
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Then all of a sudden, they'll go up just one level, and they'll go from presenting maybe
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once a month to once a week.
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Or twice a week.
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And then all and it becomes really important, very, very quick.
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So when it's chief execs, they just say, I don't know what good looks like.
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I don't know what what is perfection in speaking.
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Tell me.
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Show me.
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And I go, this is a process.
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And I get them up and go through it.
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And I got, you're strong in this area.
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You weaken this area.
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This is the area that we either need to go around or improve.
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And but then when it comes to the guys, 1 or 2 levels below, you're starting from scratch.
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So you're starting with helping them manage their fear?
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Is that what you where you start with the ones, Laura?
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So what kind of things do you do with them?
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Like, because, like, I mean, most people, like, they say, well, you know, are petrified.
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Like, you speak, I speak, and I I was an executive before I went on to professional
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speaking.
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So I was accustomed, but some people are Like, they'll do anything but speak.
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And even though they're at that levels, they're like, okay.
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I can talk to my business units or I can talk to different people within the organization,
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but just the thought of being front and center that, you know, scares a lot of people.
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So what kind of things do you What do you do with them to help them with your fear?
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Well, the this kind of 4 different areas.
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First of all, it's carrot and stick.
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So I stand there and I go, right.
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If you'll learn how to present real, really today, if you engage in a full day, I can
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promise you're gonna be better about the time you spend some time with me.
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Therefore, when you walk out of here, that will make you more valuable in the marketplace.
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And I said to them last week, I said there's 90 of you in this room, but if you go one level
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above, maybe there's 3 jobs, Therefore, out of the 6 out the 9 of you, 6 are not gonna get a
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job if you go to the next level.
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You're gonna you're gonna have to be better than the other people in this room.
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Understand it's not fair.
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It's, you know, and it's a game.
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You've just gotta be better than play the rules better than anybody else.
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So that's the carrot.
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The stickers are turned around and go.
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Mark, the boss, has told me that has sent you on this course because he thinks you need to
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speak better.
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I said, therefore, if you don't, or if I go back and say that you didn't engage or whatever
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and I give him feedback, etcetera, guess what?
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He's not gonna be happy.
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You've got a choice.
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You either engage in the day and make it work for you so that the boss is not unhappy with
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you because, again, This is this is how life works.
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You've been given a position of extreme responsibility as a senior manager in this
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company.
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It is your duty to learn how to be uncomfortable and improve your skills.
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So I do all this in the same day.
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Right?
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So I'll do carrot or do stick.
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The other two side of it is number 1, just basic techniques.
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So there's loads of techniques you can use.
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So there's a great study came out of Harvard University.
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And what it said was that people who suffer from nerves when they when they're speaking,
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there is nothing you can do to remove those nerves.
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But what you can do is suppress them by putting a layer of positive self talk over the top.
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Now I'm a straightforward working class guy.
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I don't do much voodoo stuff, right, at all ever.
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I'm not that's not me.
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I understand how powerful it can be for many people.
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But it's not me.
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Right?
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I'm I'm ultra practic practical, you know, I'm all about process and strategy and really
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almost nothing about psychology.
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But this was great because what it said was what you do before you speak is you stand on
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the sidelines, and you just go, I'm gonna deliver a great speech today.
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You gotta say it out loud apparently.
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They did the test.
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Halver did the test.
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And they said, and the audience really want to hear what I've got to say.
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Mhmm.
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And I've practiced, and I'm gonna be amazing today.
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And what it does is it doesn't get rid of the nerves, but it suppresses them.
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So there's loads of little technique, smile at an audience, If I smile at you
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Yeah.
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It helps us.
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You want to be first thing you do is smile back.
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Right?
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You know, we we
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I will smile back.
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David.
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I will because I want the psychological edge when I
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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5000 miles away, and you still smile back, right, for staff with me?
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You just do it.
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So there's almost no audience in the world.
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If you smile at an audience, they'll smile back.
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You relaxed.
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They're in for a bit of fun.
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So the thing is, there's all those little techniques.
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But the last thing that is the most important, which I never really legislated for, is that
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what people have said to me after spending the day with me, is that by learning what is best
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practice that has taken away a really big chunk of the nerves, because they just didn't know
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what they were doing.
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I think most of us on this, I mean, and even a business school or whatever, like, Okay.
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I'm a psychologist.
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So I, I mean, my craft is about really, really, you know, listening, learning how to
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communicate.
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Most people haven't learned that to be able to go to school doing it.
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Right?
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But even in business school, are they teaching people these skills?
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They're not per se teaching them.
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So most people I would say that they they try their best.
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They go apply for a job and, you know, IT or either director or whatever, and then they gain
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the skills as they go.
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But I would say for the most part, you don't think about, you know, how do I communicate,
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right, when you're starting a job and you're kind of entry level, you're just kinda trying
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to do the job and getting better as as you go.
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But as you might like to your point, as you go up every level, There's more responsibility
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where you have to deliver more information.
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And in turn, then at that point, you're seeing probably the gulf faces where people aren't
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getting what you're saying.
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So I would say that's makes sense that, some of the skills you're talking about, people, they
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need to learn it.
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They they really do.
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But if you don't know any better, you'll just carry on doing what you've always done.
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Right.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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I mean, I'm I'm I'm a gym monkey.
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Right?
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So I'm a competitive border builder.
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And I was in the gym about 3 weeks ago, and I saw a guy and he he was on the he said, I I
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remember you.
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And I went, where from?
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And he said 35 years ago, you and I worked on a car maintenance course at the local college
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for, like, like, night school for 2 weeks.
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And it was like, I remember.
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Anyway, I said, how are you doing?
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He said, yeah, I'm alright.
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I'm 54.
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He's like 56.
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And I said, oh, how are you feeling?
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And he said, you know what?
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I've got a bad back.
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And I said, well, just just sit.
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I'm just gonna say something out loud, Dennis, because I never offer advice in the gym because
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all the people do is punch you in the face.
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Nobody wants advice, right, even in the gym.
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Even when they're doing something dangerous, they don't want advice.
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But I said to him, I said, Dennis, well, while you mentioned it, you know when you're doing
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the pull down so the machine, it goes yes.
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Said, what you do is you go in like this and then pushing you back, then you kind of shaking
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your back to get it down.
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And he went, really?
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And I said, yeah.
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I said that's why you're hurting your back.
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And so what you need to do is go back, like, you know, 25 degrees.
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You pull it down to your sternum.
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You keep completely still.
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Only pulled down the way you can.
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If you do that, your back will get stronger, you'll be fine.
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He said the reason you do it is because what happens is you, you know, you start pulling it
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down, you know, 30 years ago, then you just got a bit stronger.
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So you start getting a bit more, then you couldn't get it down.
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So you start shaking, and then eventually that became to have it.
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And the bad habit became the thing you did every time.
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And he went, right.
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Yeah.
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I'll I'll have got that.
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2 weeks 2 weeks later came up to me and he said, Dave, Thanks very much, my back's a load
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better.
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What?
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The problem the problem is is that you start doing a bad habit, but you don't realize you
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just carry on doing the same thing because you don't know any better.
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So the guys that walked through the door with me, they can have all kinds of bad habits.
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It can be the way they look.
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I mean, either chief exec class week.
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We were doing half a day coaching.
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There was about 6 of them in the room.
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And his and his designs were like that all the time.
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He just couldn't keep his eyes still.
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I said, do you realize you're doing that?
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And he goes, no.
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Oh.
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And this this was interesting as well.
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I said, I said, right.
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We've got 3 major problems.
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You're doing that.
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Your start is terrible.
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You need to do this.
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You've listened this.
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And he said, mate, you need to get this stuff sorted.
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And he looked at me and went, I'm glad I met you.
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And I said, why?
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He said, because my I be I always ask my team.
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Oh, I see.
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I always lost my team while I'm doing them.
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They got, yeah, you're doing great, boss.
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Yeah.
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You're doing great.
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Because he's just dead.
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You're asked for feedback from your team and what, you know, I've I've heard you know, so
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many people share those things, David, when they talk about, oh, you know, we did this
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this, you know, external consultant came in and everything is good.
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But everybody at the senior team is like they're falling like flies, but they're telling
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the CEO that everything is fantastic.
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Right?
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Because people are afraid to you know, tell the person that say is running the organization or
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the senior leader what what really is wrong.
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Right?
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So I think your approach as much as it's direct, it must work for some people because
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you need to hear what you're not doing well.
20:08
And how often might they get poached to be able to get told that?
20:13
I mean, I I don't get work.
20:15
Blind.
20:16
Pee people I get referrals and recommendations or people come back and use me often again.
20:22
I I you know, I don't get work.
20:23
People know what I'm like.
20:25
And I'm I'm never aggressive.
20:27
I am never rude.
20:28
I am never obnoxious.
20:30
I don't swear at my clients.
20:31
I don't embarrass them.
20:33
I don't make them feel small.
20:34
But I am bullet straight.
20:36
And every chief exec loves it.
20:39
Male and female, 50% of my clients are female.
20:42
They love it because they just don't get it anywhere else anywhere else at all.
20:47
The share, you know, they could be running a company and have a board of directors, and
20:50
they'll sit in front of the board of directors.
20:52
They then have to leave the room while the board of directors talks about them.
20:55
I mean, you know, that that's why being a chief exec is the best and worst job in the world.
21:00
Because you've just you it's completely isolated.
21:04
You really you know, if you tell if you if you look weak, if you're asking for advice from
21:08
your subordinates, and and and yet, how do you improve?
21:12
And if you do, there's always a line.
21:14
It don't I mean, it's the same in any relationship.
21:16
You know, I have you know, Karen, my soulmate.
21:18
Right?
21:19
We live together.
21:20
And, you know, she she's she's everything to me, but there really is very little the the the
21:29
I'll I'll rephrase it.
21:30
There really is only so far I can go with Karen before she would just break down in a heap on
21:34
the floor.
21:35
And it's not very much.
21:36
She's softer than, you know, a Labrador puppy dog.
21:39
You know what I mean?
21:40
She's just softy.
21:42
Me, I'm, like, honestly, I love brutal honesty.
21:45
I love I love humor that's pitch black.
21:48
There's almost nothing you could say to me.
21:50
You'd nothing you could say to me to upset me.
21:52
Or offend me, but Karen, she's really soft.
21:56
So everybody has a line over you which you can.
21:59
You won't cross.
21:59
And everybody says the icon to stay, but they don't.
22:02
They're like their version of honesty.
22:04
Right.
22:05
Absolutely.
22:05
And, you know, with the my my new book, I do an assessment of the qualities that it takes for a
22:10
leader to be more resilient within him or herself so that he but they're doing an
22:15
assessment on themselves, but their team's doing it on them as well.
22:19
And oftentimes, what do we do?
22:20
Right?
22:21
A lot of people, they have blind spots, right, because they don't wanna kinda see it.
22:25
We're very good at seeing her positives, but not so good at being vulnerable enough to see
22:30
our negatives.
22:30
But when the team does the assessment and then the leader does the assessment, we collate both
22:35
of both of those things.
22:36
That's when the leader really sees Wow.
22:39
I'm thinking I'm really good with, say, recognition or I'm good with communication, but
22:44
my team's saying, I'm giving myself, say, 80% of my team's saying, I'm 20%, there's a
22:49
disparity, obviously, that at that point is showing the leader that he or she needs to
22:53
start looking at what they're not doing well.
22:55
They to Again, getting out of their subjective world and getting into the objective world of
23:00
the people that they're leading around them, and what do we need differently from them?
23:04
So it's it's interesting that you say that about, with some of these senior leaders.
23:09
Who's who's telling them what the reality is about what they're not good at?
23:13
Not many people to your point.
23:16
Right?
23:17
So let's let's talk about I'm a leader I come to you.
23:23
And, what are you how are you assessing my capacity, to see how I communicate what I'm
23:32
good at, what I'm not good at.
23:33
So do you tailor, your kind of way you work one to one with individuals, or is it like a rote?
23:39
Like you said, a 22 step process.
23:42
What what do you do with someone?
23:44
Well, about 80% of my work is is guys who come to me, people who come to me male, female,
23:51
everybody, and they have a specific talk they wanna give.
23:55
Okay.
23:56
So, like, tonight, I've been working with a guy.
23:58
He's got a talking Barcelona in 2 weeks, and it's 50 minutes long, and he's like, how do I
24:05
make this amazing?
24:06
And we go through it bit by bit.
24:08
And so the going through the 22 stages is not necessary.
24:12
What I do is I sit there and I go right.
24:14
You you've got 60 seconds to grab the retention.
24:16
What's your one lightning rod theme?
24:18
What is your one theme?
24:19
You can only have one.
24:21
I don't care if you're speaking for 15 minutes or 15 hours, you can only have one.
24:24
What is your one lightning rod thing with the gut?
24:26
Right.
24:27
Okay.
24:27
So what it does is it focuses their mind.
24:29
And then I sit there and I go, what are the three areas that you would like to cover in
24:32
your talk that feed up into that one lightning rod theme?
24:35
And that's what we do.
24:37
So, you know, with this guy, the one lightning rod theme is unity.
24:40
So it's got 16 different units across the world.
24:42
It's bringing them together into one section.
24:44
So it's about unity.
24:45
That's that one lightning rod theme.
24:47
The three things that go underneath it are motivation strategy and resilience.
24:53
And so what we've done is we worked out, you know, so the first five minutes is talking
24:56
about motivation, how they're doing really well, what the numbers are, and, you know,
25:00
success strategies about how they're gonna implement, bringing everybody together, and
25:04
resiliency you know, you know, how it's gonna work in the long term and how they're gonna
25:08
work in terms of the leadership.
25:10
And so what I do is we do that and we go through it bit by a bit.
25:13
But the fact is that I'm in a place now where I've been doing this for 12 years as a coach,
25:19
and I've never found So far, I've not not had anybody who's been able to present as well as
25:24
me or who's been able to write a script as well as me.
25:28
So instantly, the moment somebody gives me a script to go, well, actually, if we did that so
25:32
I'll give you a quick example.
25:33
So tonight, he said to me, I've got seventy four people in the room.
25:37
And we've got about maybe 14 or 15 of the demo leaders.
25:41
And what I want them to do is stand up.
25:44
And, you know, and I want them to be recognized in the room.
25:46
I said brilliant.
25:47
So, yeah, I want you to stand I'm gonna stand him up, then I'm gonna spend a couple of
25:51
minutes talking about what we're gonna do with these guys as leadership.
25:54
I said that's a terrible idea.
25:55
And he says, why?
25:56
I said, would you wanna stand up for 2 minutes in silence while everybody is looking at you?
26:01
And he went, no.
26:02
I says, then that's not what we're gonna do.
26:04
We'll get them to stand up.
26:05
You say who they are, and they're amazing.
26:07
Everybody has random applause, then they sit down, then you do the 2 minutes.
26:11
He went, that's brilliant.
26:13
Mhmm.
26:13
That's the dip.
26:14
That's my 25 years, half a million people, 60 Countries.
26:19
Drilled into me watching other people, being a speaker, every audience you can imagine.
26:24
I understand that.
26:25
And he's a he was he's a brilliant speaker going working with, actually.
26:30
Mhmm.
26:30
But he wants to just be is is a nana at 10, but he wants to be 10.
26:34
He wants to be a rock star.
26:35
And so that is, you know, that was a simple example.
26:38
And it's a so sometimes he's already got a speech like that.
26:41
We go through it line by line, and I changed what needs to be changed.
26:45
So do you find that a lot of the keynotes so it's a keynote speech at that point, or is it
26:49
just like a speech to, a company So do you do different types?
26:53
You do keynotes.
26:54
You do it was, leadership speaking at quarterly meetings, board meetings, every type, all types
27:00
of speaking, David.
27:02
It's only important speaking because I won't pay my fee for a small for a small talk.
27:06
I mean, why would you?
27:07
You know, you know, I charge a fortune.
27:09
So they're not gonna pay that.
27:11
They're not gonna pay that for, you know, it has to have a level of importance.
27:15
Right.
27:15
Besides which, you know, by the time you get a get a boss who's a chief exec, He's done a
27:21
million team meetings.
27:23
Right.
27:23
Right.
27:23
For sure.
27:24
But he he's maybe only done 2 board meetings.
27:27
Mhmm.
27:28
And, you know, honestly, I could go on forever, but, you know, there are big talks.
27:33
It's people who've who've got a talk to giving Budapest like I had earlier this year.
27:38
And it's, you know, it's Budapest.
27:41
She's she was, she's taken over the family firm.
27:44
They've got a new new product.
27:45
If it doesn't work, it's gonna go under.
27:48
You know, she's nervous.
27:49
Right?
27:50
She's nervous, but excited, but she needs to nail that talk.
27:53
She needs to nail it.
27:55
And so we sit there and we're working on that's an important talk, you know, Edigate who is in
28:01
Monaco, and he we spent 2 hours last week because he's just, he's just he wanted just a
28:07
bit of an assistance on the small talk, actually, that he's given a monthly meeting but
28:12
we've worked together before, like, 14 to 15 times.
28:15
And he just said, you know, I need a bit of help, Dave.
28:18
I'm I'm not really sure what to do with this.
28:19
So it shows me a few slides, and then I say, right.
28:22
But it's an important meeting because his staff have doubled in a in a year from 250 to 500.
28:28
Over the next year, it's gonna be 500, maybe a 1000.
28:31
It's had 10 years.
28:32
It's entirely possible a guy is gonna be a billionaire.
28:34
It's just He's just insane what they're doing.
28:36
It's a privately held company.
28:38
And he started it he started it at 14 on his bedroom table.
28:42
So the thing is that the the the, you know, sometimes it's a single very, very important
28:49
talk.
28:50
Or in his case, it's getting to the stage where he's got so many members of staff.
28:54
That spread all over the world that every time he even does something like a monthly meeting,
28:58
it has a massive ripple across the company.
29:01
So, therefore, it's still important just in a different way.
29:05
This was such a great interview that we decided to turn it into a 2 part series.
29:09
Be sure to tune in next week for part 2 so you don't miss out on the amazing content.
29:15
Thanks for tuning in to authentic live with Roxanne, creating the space for positive
29:21
healthy change.
29:22
Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach to work with Roxanne, visit
29:29
rocksandirhaj.com/blueprint.
29:32
We'll see you next time.
29:34
On authentic living with Roxanne.