Yasir Khan
Appearances
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I'm really excited to be here, Hala. And you might not know how I met you the first time or how I found out about you. It wasn't about LinkedIn. I was looking up how to start a podcast and I stumbled on a speech of yours from MIT from years ago. And I thought it was going to be about how to start a podcast, but it ended up being about your personal story. I watched the entire hour of it.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I've had a change of heart in this. I used to think you have to talk louder to be more confident, right? But then I realized if you're always loud and just talking like this the entire time, eventually it gets really annoying. But if you're always quiet like this all the time and you look timid. So the key is not just volume. The key is variety in volume. So you go up and down and up and down.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And I do this exercise in my workshops where I'll ask people to give me any topic, like on the spot. And I'll just start talking about it. And I'll just tell them, okay, I'm going to vary my emotions and my volume. And you tell me if it sounds interesting. So the best way we can do this is just do it right now. You think you can prompt me with a quick topic? Sure. Okay.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Just give me the most boring topic you can think of in the world, okay? And before you do that, just hold your thumb up like this, just so I can see it on camera. When you do this, I have to be really high volume. And when you do that, I have to be really low volume. And let's see if I can make something boring sound more interesting, okay? We'll do 30 seconds.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Perfect. Ready to go?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Give me the thumb and I'll know where to start. Washing dishes is one of the most exciting things you can do because every single day when I make dinner, It makes me feel present in the moment because I'm there feeling the water on my hands, feeling the warmth on my hands. And I love seeing all the little dirt go off the dishes, down the spiral.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And it makes me think for a moment how grateful I am to have that meal. See what I mean?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So it's the up and down and up and down. That's what makes it interesting. Not just high volume, not just low volume.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Listen, I have ADHD. I have a million thoughts running in my head and all of them want to come out at the same time. So I'm just like you. I want to talk fast. I was once invited to do a seminar on public speaking anxiety. And I've done this seminar a million times. So I show up with my 17 different things to do to overcome your public speaking anxiety.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
When you open your mouth, that is your brand. Because what you say is what is reflected about your business. Emotion creates devotion. And storytelling, that's what makes people feel something.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I present in front of 200 people and immediately people say, wow, Yasir, you covered so much information. That was absolutely amazing. One of the guys says, Yasir, I'm about to go next after you. That's exactly what I needed because I was so anxious in the moment. I said, amazing. So I went out, got some coffee, sat back in the room. I'm waiting for him to pop up on stage.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
He shows up on stage and hala, I can see the notes shaking in his hand in the moment. So he slowly walks onto the lectern. He puts his notes there. He starts speaking, going through his slides and he's stuttering and You know when you have this feeling in your stomach where you know something bad is going to happen? The entire time I'm watching that, my stomach is just churning inwards.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And then eventually he hits this word that he can't really pronounce properly. Oh, God. And he just puts the clicker down and walks off stage. And I'm seeing it and it's just, I can't understand why. So afterwards I see him in the parking lot and I say, hey, what happened? You were just there in my presentation. He said, oh man, I just, I got nervous. I don't know what happened.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You were in my presentation where I talked about the 17 ways to overcome public speaking anxiety. What happened? And he said, three words I'll never forget. I couldn't remember. I couldn't remember. And that's when I realized what's the point of me talking fast, high energy, covering these 17 points when he couldn't remember it when he needed it most. That's when I learned to slow it down.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And then I found you on LinkedIn. And I still remember you had a quote in there. You said something like, At the time, I wasn't young and profiting. I was young and pissed. And it just made me laugh in the moment. And there was a connection I felt. That's why I went and looked you up on LinkedIn. So it's a pleasure to be here.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So my coach has this great saying, Craig Valentine. He says, I'd rather give you three things you remember than 10 things you forget. Three things you remember than 10 things you forget. So I really narrowed down the amount of material I share, but I also try to vary the pace a little bit as well when I talk.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Talking fast builds momentum. Like, okay, we're going somewhere. Come along with me. But then I want you to think about this for a second. then you slow the pace down. And every time you want to make a point, this is one of the biggest challenges people have in storytelling. They skip over the most important part of the story because they're going so fast.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So if you really want people to listen, slow down and you whisper. What happens when you slow down? What happens when you whisper? People immediately lean forward. So if you look at any of my talks, you'll say I'm super high energy. And then it'll immediately drop the energy. And then people feel it in that moment. So you use pauses effectively.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
But you know some people who are trying to be good public speakers, I'm sure you've seen them. They are always trying to talk like this. I have great pauses. And then you're listening to it. You don't sound like a human being. It's just a little too theatrical, too rehearsed for me. So I'd rather you be real and have variety than just try to be this choreographed speaker that everyone wants to see.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Yeah. Memorizing is you putting on a performance on stage. I memorize every single word. I'm here on stage just to say the word so I feel like I did a good job for myself and then I can sit back in my chair. You'll be shocked. Actually, you probably won't be shocked if you've ever been to college. How many people are completely unaware that their audience is uninterested in what they're saying?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If you're ever doing a pitch or a Zoom meeting, the audience has been zoned out for half an hour, but they're still just going on and on because where's their focus, Hala? I need to get the words out. That's it. So when you, instead of memorizing, you internalize, meaning just say the words out loud. And half the time when you do that, you'll realize, oh, that didn't come out right.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
That didn't really sound good. Even I can't understand what I'm saying. Let me rework that. You know the structure and the flow of information, right? but you don't have every single word memorized. So now what happens is if I ask you, tell me what you ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner yesterday. If you remember, you can tell me. You don't have to memorize every single ingredient.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You can just tell me what you had. So when you show up for your speech, you know the sequence. And then what you're able to do is you're able to be in the moment with the audience. And when someone's phone rings or someone makes a comment, you're able to go out of the speech, interact with them, and come back in and be present in the moment.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
That's the difference between internalizing and memorizing.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Well, that depends on the goal. If your goal is to get those specific words in that specific order out, then yes, memorize it. Like your elevator pitch, right?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If the goal is to engage in having a conversation with the audience, which is most of public speaking, then you should not memorize. Imagine having a conversation with someone who's memorized every sentence of their conversation.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So if there is a performance element to it, then absolutely. As long as you don't sound like you've rehearsed every single word.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
At the end of the sentence and pause. when you want to create anticipation. So I try to use it at the end of a sentence, because if I don't pause, usually an um or uh will stick in. And you'll find when most people have ums or uhs, they don't quite know what to say next, and they're afraid of the silence in between. So then they add a little um or uh in there, and that buys them some time.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And it worked. You got my attention.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So that sounds a little bit like this instead. So that sounds like this. Just removing that and being comfortable with silence really helps. And then also what I like to do is whenever I'm making a big point, I'll combine this with high volume and then I will drop the energy and I'll pause. So for example, I was getting this birthday gift. I was so excited about it.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I finally opened the gift and I couldn't believe that it was a pair of socks I always wanted. High energy, pause, drop energy. Can you see how much you felt that in that moment?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
The biggest mistake... or rather I'd say the biggest missed opportunity for most people, Hala, is getting off stage, on stage. Now you might be thinking, what do you mean? If you look at my last keynote, I start the speech on stage, then I get off stage and I start talking to people individually. What happens then? Now they know he's not just gonna talk for an hour. I am in his speech.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
He's going to ask me questions, whether it's raise your hand, nod your head, what comes to mind when I say this word. I'm having a conversation with him the entire time. And you'll notice no one else does that because they come onto the stage, they say their slides, and then they hop off. But the moment you step off the stage, now you're one of them. Now you're having a conversation.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You're not, hey, I'm this mighty public speaker up here. Please listen to me and bow down to me. You talk to them and then you go back up on stage. So every single time I'll talk about something, I'll ask a question, I'll go off stage, have a conversation, bring it back. So for example, in one of my modules, I'll say,
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
What do you think is the number one thing or one mistake people make in their presentations? Shout some words at me as I walk around. I'll get off stage, I'll walk around and I'll collect all the words from them. So I heard this, I heard that, I heard this. All of those are great answers, but that's not the number one thing. And then I will go into my speech. So how are they feeling?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Hey, everything that we said is contributing to his speech. And now it's a conversation and not a performance.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
To answer your first question, do regular check-ins. And regular check-ins are just these quick questions. Raise your hand if I'm on the right track or nod your head if you've seen this before. Just these really, really quick engagement points so you know they're still with you. If someone's on their phone, at the very least when they hear it, they know they have to be sucked back in.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Now, a trick that I use is if I know the people in the room and I want to get their specific attention, I'll call them out by name. So let's say there's 10 people there. So for example, Michael, you remember in our last meeting, right? We did X, Y, Z. So what I'm talking about here is immediately when they hear their name, oh, okay. Right like that.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You have to be attentive to people. Now on Zoom, the way I would do this, if I don't know anyone, I see their names pop up. So I showed up. I had no idea who anyone was in the room. I was really nervous. Hala, what do you think I did in that moment? Exactly. I was really nervous before my speech. So I will just look at their name. I will get their attention. I will place them into my speech.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
That way they feel acknowledged throughout. So if there's 50 people in my Zoom call, I will take many different names throughout it. So every single person feels recognized throughout it. Remind me of your second question.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Yeah. Does it aid the story? Does it aid the purpose? Body language can get very distracting as well. I remember I used to do this entire play with my hands and people had to tell me, hey, relax a little bit. You're putting on this. It doesn't contribute to your story. So if it adds to the story, great. I naturally use my hands a lot.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Verbal communication is how you show up to the world. When you open your mouth, that is your brand. And you'll be shocked, Hala. In fact, you probably won't be shocked with the amount of people you talk to. How many people are not careful of the words that come out of their mouth? Because what you say is what is reflected about your business.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
But in meetings specifically, I've noticed that the more controlled your hands are, the more confident you sound. Because if you ask me a question, Yasser, Are you really a good public speaking coach? Oh yeah, yeah, I'm a great public speaking coach. I've done a lot. You can see all this uncontrolled movement in the moment and that shows you I'm not very confident.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Now, whereas if you ask me the same question and I'd move nothing about my body, you ask me, why are you such a good public speaker? I'm a really good public speaker because I've done this enough. I didn't move my body at all, but that showed stability and calmness and composure. So it really depends on the context. It's not just more or less. It's what's the context?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
What are you trying to communicate?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Yeah.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Well, what happens when we can't see someone's hands psychologically? We just don't know what they're holding in their hands. We don't know if they're holding a weapon or what it might be. If someone's hands are under the desk in their pocket behind their hands, subconsciously, it creates uncertainty.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I can't see his hands or I can't see her hands. I wonder what they're doing. I wonder what they're hiding, right? So similarly, if someone puts on a hoodie in the middle of the night and is walking down the street and you're walking towards them, just because it's dark, you can't see them, they've got a hoodie on, there's uncertainty.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So that's why when you reveal your palms, it shows that you're friendly. It shows that there's a lack of, I'm not hiding anything. So open palm gestures tend to be much easier on the eyes to perceive a message.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Let's do it.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Admit to your own limitations first before you tell them what to do.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So if I said, go vegan, it'll change your life. Your diet sucks. You're probably not going to go vegan. But if I said, man, I love eating meat, but I, for some reason, when I would go to my jujitsu class, my stamina would just run out. Then I met this guy who said, hey, have you tried going vegan? I said, are you out of your mind? He said, I didn't like it either, but I tried going vegan.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
It really helped. So I said, okay, I tried it for a month and oh my God, did it help? My stamina was through the roof. So if your stamina is an issue, give it a shot.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Count the number of things you will share. So if I said, Hala, today I'm going to share a couple of things with you that will help with public speaking. Or, Hala, today I'm going to share five things that will help you with public speaking. Which one sounds more intelligent?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
All I did was number it. And it does so much because it makes you think, oh, this person has thought about it enough that they know how many numbers are tied to that equation. Quick little tip.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So if you knew that, wouldn't you be a lot more careful of what came out of your mouth, what you said, what you wrote? That's why just having that finesse on your words, making sure when you're on stage, people remember you, It's more important than it's ever been.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
It's funny, I was front row in his workshop, so I got to see him live. The one word that comes to mind with him is he's so real and authentic in the moment that because he's real, whatever he says, it goes straight to our heart. It's not a performance. He's not reading off any slides. He genuinely feels anything. And remember this, if they don't feel it, they forget it.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If they don't feel it, they forget it. And every time Alex speaks, he feels. And that's why so many of us remember so many of his quotes.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If you want to transport people somewhere in your story, one of the most powerful words you can use is the word imagine. And better yet, place them in your story with a phrase so they can imagine themselves there. Now, I don't know if you remember this, Hala, but when I told you my story of when I came to Canada, I said, if you were there in the room with me,
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You would have seen me walk to the stage. What are you doing when I say that? You imagine. Visualizing. Exactly. So when you're telling a story, don't just say, I did this, then this, then this happened. Now you're telling a sequence of events. Put the person in the room with you there. Get them to imagine.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I've got a TED Talk on empathy, so I'm going to have to go empathy between the two of them. Sure. I had a run-in with someone who, it was a small town in Canada, and I was doing door-to-door sales. And I knocked their door, and they opened the door, and the first thing they said was, get off my lawn, you effing Hindu.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And that was four months in Canada. Now, you can imagine my reaction. Now, at the time, I was really traumatized by it, but I heard it so much throughout the summer, a lot of this racism that eventually just stopped and asked him, hey, what happened? Where did this come from? And he told me a story about some guy who looked like me who broke into his car and stole it.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And about two hours later, I ended up walking out of his house, selling him an alarm system. And all of that happened because I was able to empathize with someone who just hated the idea of my very existence. So that's how far empathy can take you. And I expand more on that in my TED Talk.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I give you a perfect example. You mentioned Hermosi earlier. I was at Hermosi's workshop and one of the things they do in the workshop is you have these round tables where you sit with one of the people on his team and you've got about 10 people and we have a minute to ask a question and they give you a response and it's the next person. So I was noticing this person next to me
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
He would ask a question. So this is my business and I'm trying to do this other thing. And also, by the way, my wife does this. And so five years ago, he's giving his entire life story and then he gets the answer and he's not satisfied with the answer. He does that two times and three times. And I lean over to him and I say, hey, listen, I don't know what your question is.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I don't know how he knows how to answer your question. Why don't you start by asking your question and then providing the details and see if that helps? So the next round table he had was he said, hey, I have a lot of followers, but they're not converting. For context, X, Y, Z, what do I do? And then he got a good answer and said, man, What happened there? I said, you know what happened?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You hadn't processed your own thoughts. You threw your unprocessed thoughts at the other person. You were hoping they would untangle those thoughts, find the question, and somehow give you a good answer. It does not make you sound intelligent. Instead, it makes you sound lazy. So first think about what you want to ask. Start with a point and then go into the detail.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Yeah, the definition of public speaking isn't just being on stage. It's talking to someone at some time. If you are talking to someone, which I imagine if your listeners are listening, they're talking to people, right? Unless they're locked in a basement somewhere. You are going to do public speaking. And every single time you do that, you are representing yourself and your brand.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So if someone's trying to sound more intelligent, sound like you've thought about what you're about to say first.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Not at all. In fact, when I'm working with CEOs, the number one thing I have to do is simplify everything. I work with a lot of people in the Web3 crypto space and they have so many terms they don't want to throw at people. And one of the clients just yesterday, he was not even two minutes into the pitch. I said, listen, you lost me. I have no idea what you're talking about.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
He said, but these are important. I said, listen, Do the people who are investing in your business, do they understand this terminology? No. Then simplify it. Use analogies, use metaphors, use stories to put me in the room. That's how you get their attention. So yes, simplify it. Don't worry about the vocabulary.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Phrases, analogies, and metaphors. So your phrases would be your one-liner. So if I said, I have a dream, who's the person who comes to mind?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If I said the name Alex Ramosi, what's a quote that comes to mind?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So can you see how the moment you think of a person, a quote comes to mind? The moment you think of a quote, a person comes to mind. That's the importance of having these repeatable quotes. Most people don't have them in their back pocket. So earlier, like I said, purpose over praise. That's a quote. That's a phrase.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So when you repeat these phrases enough times, people associate that phrase with you. So Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Tell me a single word from the rest of his speech or transmission. No one has any idea. Exactly. Simon Sinek, start with why. Tell me a single word. No one knows.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So you have to have these phrases in your back pocket and then you have to have analogies. So for example, I like to tell people, hey, if you're going to speak, start with the gift, then the gift wrapped. The analogy says, don't tell me the 50,000 points without the actual message and takeaway. Tell me what the purpose is and then give me the details. Start with the gift, then find the gift wrap.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So can you see how the analogy and the metaphor helps your understanding? Take a familiar concept and use that to explain an unfamiliar concept. That would be your metaphor and analogies.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If you think about how we learn a language, especially when we're babies, how do we learn? We learn from our parents. We learn from people around us. We subconsciously absorb it. How many toddlers are going to language classes? I imagine not many. Maybe Elon Musk did. I don't know. But we don't learn through courses and classrooms. We learn through exposure.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So similarly, what kind of material are you exposing yourself to every single day? What are you reading? Who are you listening to? If they're listening to your podcast, I imagine they have a very rich vocabulary.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
What do you want people to interpret about you? How do you want them to perceive you? How do you want them to perceive your company? All of that is public speaking. So you want to treat the stage as your entire life. Every single place you go, you're performing. So wouldn't you want to put up the best performance wherever you go? I think the answer is yes.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
The moment you start listening to all these things and they sink into your brain, you won't even realize you start saying things that you've heard in podcasts, but you don't even know you heard it somewhere. Until someone says, oh, I've heard that somewhere. Where did you say that from? Because subconsciously, all of this is sitting in your head.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So you have to really carefully guard what you allow in and what you don't allow in, in terms of your intellect.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
The most important thing that I feel storytelling does is just memorable. People just remember for much longer. So if I asked you, do you want people to remember what you said? Yes. Okay. Do you want to share your message in a way that people remember it? Yes. Then you must do it in a format of a story. How many of your three-hour lectures do you remember from college, Hala?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Exactly. How many movies since you were a child do you remember?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And all of those are stories. I imagine none of those were 30 bullet points from start to finish, right? No. So you have to learn to create imagery and you have to get people to feel something. If they don't feel anything, they will not remember it. And I'll give you a really strange example here. When I was a kid, I had a costume party when I was about seven years old at school.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And I had this crush on a girl and she was going to dress up as Pikachu. So I said, okay, what goes well with Pikachu? I'm thinking of all the best costumes. And for some reason I come up with Bugs Bunny, right? So I show up as Bugs Bunny in the moment and I'm trying to impress her. And she says, oh, Yasser, of course you're Bugs Bunny. Like, oh, how did you know?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Oh, because of your two large, ugly front teeth. And I didn't forget that for 20 years. That one single sentence for 20 years because of how she made me feel in that moment. And the reason I say that is because that story I've told so many times to so many people that, hey, the words that come out of your mouth, they're important. What you say might not be what they hear.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You might say something as a joke to somebody, but they might remember it for a very, very long time. So that's why when you're telling a story, similarly, you can have positive words, positive phrases that people will remember for a very, very long time. For example, Karen, in the first meeting that I ever met her in Toastmasters, she said, it takes one small step to change your life.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Yeah, I was the least likely person to become a public speaker. In fact, if you were in my classroom when I was in third grade, you would have seen me run to the bathroom right before my presentation and you wouldn't see me come back out. And that was the thing. People knew, hey, Yasser's turn, he's not going to show up. And I started failing. So it was really affecting my education.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I still remember that. It's been more than a decade.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
There are three things that I talk about, the three R's to be remembered. The first R is your story has to be repeatable. If I hear the story, can I hear it long enough to then repeat it to someone else? So if you've heard your favorite stand-up comedian, you have this bit that you like. Oh, he has a great bit on dating or great bit on whatever. You can repeat it to other people.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
There are three R's to be remembered. The first R is... So if you constantly need to practice your public speaking just to feel good about yourself, that's not a public speaking issue. That's a self-esteem issue. For a lot of people, the fear doesn't come from the speaking itself. It's how they perceive themselves.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If I can't repeat it, I won't remember it. So first thing has to be repeatable. Number two, does it relay emotion? Do I feel something when I hear your story? I can tell you about how I got into my car and I got gas and I came back home. What's the point? It's a pointless story, but is there a point to it? And you'll be shocked how many things you can make sound emotional.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Like earlier, we talked about cleaning the dishes. And just with the volume, we made it sound a little bit emotional, right? Someone asked me in a conference of 500 loan officers, napkins, and we made napkins emotional. So can you talk about that with emotion? Can you resonate and relay your emotion? And number three, I feel like this is the strongest thing when it comes to storytelling.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Can you reframe an existing belief? If your story tells me what I already know, It's not changing my belief. Can you take me from point A to point B and reframe how I look at the world? That's what a good story does. So three things. It has to be repeatable. You have to relay emotion and it has to reframe your beliefs.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Add one more quarter to that. You said something really amazing there. You said about how they change their belief. A quote that I love, because I created it, is good speakers tell you what to do. Memorable speakers make you question what is true. They make you change your beliefs. And if they don't make you change your beliefs, then you're not going to see the world any different.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I haven't done a great job of that, to be very transparent with you. I'm always talking about tips and tricks and all these things that I never really talked about it much until my clients started telling me, hey, I love that one video you made where you talked about your ADHD. I love how you talk about, oh, that... You mean you actually like that? That's not filler content?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And then I started tapping into that quite a bit more. I don't know what it is with me, Hala. Maybe it's my childhood, but I feel like if I tell people stories where I struggled in the past, it's going to be a downer and people will feel worse off. But I've learned over time, if you share your pain, it's almost always in the audience's gain.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So now I've started leaning into it more and more. So it's only recently that I've been talking about all the mess ups I've had with my clients, all the terrible advice I've given them, how I used to be anxious with my public speaking, and now people are starting to relate to it. So I imagine my following might grow a little bit faster now.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
But to give you an honest answer, I didn't use much storytelling in all this content up until now.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And as I grew up, eventually my parents said, this kid is just, he doesn't say anything in meetings. He doesn't say anything in family gatherings. What do we do? Let's send him to a different country. That'll open him up. So now they spent thousands of dollars, sent me to Canada. The only thing that opened up was their wallet because I did not learn a thing. I came all the way here in Canada.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Emotion creates devotion. And it's hard to relay emotion with tips and tricks. When was the last time you gave your teacher a standing ovation?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Unless they share a story. Never, right? They're giving you tips and tricks, very helpful, but you won't give them a standing ovation. But when someone sings a song with their heart, when someone delivers a performance, hell, I've been in cinemas where a movie ended. There's no one there. People will stand up and clap. Why? Because it's the emotion that creates the devotion.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I was speaking with a coach and I used to listen to his speech and I said, listen, you always get a standing ovation at the end. I'm doing all these workshops and public speaking. I'm so valuable. How come I don't get it? He said, because people don't feel anything. And storytelling, that's what makes people feel something. So try ending with a story. I ended with a story and guess what?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Standing ovation.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I love that. I love that. So, okay, this is going to be a really weird example. I'm going to tell you a really quick story, okay? I spent a month and a half preparing the perfect intro for a keynote I had coming up. Intro. Yeah, just the first sentence of it, okay? And the first sentence was going to be, I have a confession to make.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You might have heard that I've got all these followers, but there was a time that I wasn't very confident. And I was going to go into my speech about my journey, right? And it's going to start on a very somber note. And the night before my keynote, I'm having a dinner with the team, and they noticed that I'm not drinking. I don't drink. They said, okay, hey, Yasir, you don't drink? I said, no.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
They said, oh, I also noticed you didn't drink any coffee in the morning. How come you don't drink coffee? I said, oh, it was because it dehydrated me. And then he said, so what? And I was thinking, okay, how do I explain to them? How do I say this? So here's the thing. I make money with my mouth. So it dehydrates me. But before I could say the dehydration part, everyone started laughing.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I was still introverted, but now I had no friends. So eventually, Hala... You become so lonely and the pain of it grows so much that you become desperate. You're willing to do anything. So I just Googled, how do I make friends? That's what I wanted. I wanted friends. And the first thing that popped up was something called a Toastmasters Club. Have you heard of that before?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And then I realized what I had just said. And they said, that's what you should open your keynote with. I said, are you out of your mind? And they're like, no, no, no. Open with that. So now I've spent a month and a half on that perfect line. And the next day I said, okay, let me try it. And I tried it and it killed. It completely killed. Amazing.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So that was a story of just in the moment how I came up with it because of what happened there. And that was a story, right? It was a quick little anecdote that I pulled into the speech. So every single day, like you're saying, you're going to have experiences that give you a story. Lord, the bar what a story is. Yesterday, I was in line for 15 minutes for some new coffee shop that opened up.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
That was terrible. And I'm thinking, what's the message? Life's too short to wait. That's the message. You can just practice that with everything every day.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Sure. And by the way, this is not my formula. I learned it from Stanford. Oh, okay.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
It's point, reason, example, point. And it's mainly for, let's say you've got an impromptu speech or you want to say something and make sense of it. You give a point of something, you provide an example of it, reason, an example, and then a point. I do PRP or PSP, point, reason, point, point, story point, just because I find that I naturally infuse an example in there.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So why don't you give me a random question, and I'm going to give you a terrible answer, and then we'll try to implement it in there.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Oh man, there's so many reasons I became a public speaker. You know, I always wanted to share my message and there's so many things I'm interested in, like public speaking confidence and reading books and mindfulness. I wanted to share that with people. And yeah, you know, it's always been like a goal of mine. And yeah, that's why I'm a public speaker.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
All over the place. Have you heard an answer like that before?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Nine times out of 10, right? Now what I'm going to do, I'm going to say the exact same thing. I'm just going to structure it differently. I'm going to pick one specific reason, and I'm going to go into that, okay? So ask me that question again.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I became a public speaker to show other people how important their voice is. When I grew up, I didn't speak for 20 years because there was a little girl who made fun of my teeth and I was embarrassed to open my mouth. But when I started practicing public speaking, I realized how many more people were being affected with the words that were coming out of my mouth.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So now it was my responsibility to open my mouth. And I want to show other people through my public speaking that their voice matters as well. That's why I got into public speaking.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Exactly. If you just script three questions one time in your life, it will make you successful in every single network. Just what do you do? Why are you here? Tell me about yourself. That's it. Just script them one time and you will be good for life. But you'll be shocked how many times like, so what brought you here? Oh, you know, my wife dragged me down here. I'm like, oh my God, why me?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And then you have to just move on to the next person. And I've been to conferences where people were representing their company, Hala. I said, hey, what are you finding interesting about the event so far? Oh, I guess it's all right. You know, I'm just here for a couple of hours. Why are you here?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Why did this send somebody else here?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Okay. Well, a kid from Pakistan, I hadn't heard of it. I thought it was one of two things. One, a place where people sit in a circle and make a toast. Or two, a place to get a grilled cheese sandwich. That's what I thought it was going to be. So I show up, I walk in, and there's 35 people all in their mid-50s. And it says, Toastmasters, learn public speaking. No, this is not what I signed.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Exactly, exactly.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If you go to my website right now, and you go to coaching, you will see one video of me that says, I am completely booked. I do not have time. If you want to work with me, here's $2,000 an hour, book a call. That's my funnel. So there was a time where I was doing sales calls. I'm no longer doing sales calls. Fortunately, I have such demand that I can't afford to spend them.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Yeah, it's just, you want it, two grand an hour, right? But when I did have it, I would often find that if someone's in a position where they want to work on a skill that's far in the future, they have no urgency. Yeah, I want to become a good public speaker. Yeah, I say, well, like 20 grand, I'll let you know.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
But if they have a presentation coming up, hey, I'm pitching my product in front of 15,000 people. I've never stepped on stage. I don't care how much you charge. Let's do it. Now it's a lot easier for me. And I just prefer working with people who have a specific end goal in mind because skills take time. There's no urgency around it.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If you've got a specific presentation coming up, it tends to be easy. So I think the sales message here is find a way to add urgency into the process. Full transparency, I'm probably not the best salesperson in general to ask, but my content does a lot of persuasion. So by the time they're on the call, I don't really have to do a whole lot.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I'll leave you with this. I never wanted to implement any of the things that we just talked about today. I've heard them a million times, but I never wanted to do them. Oh yeah, sounds great, right? A woman came to my workshop once and she said, yeah, so I'm not very confident, teach me public speaking. And I got her to speak a little bit and she said, I'm a midwife and this is what I do.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I said, okay. And then she stopped talking after 30 seconds. I said, okay, can you tell me something interesting that happened to you at work? And she said, yeah, as a midwife, I help with delivering babies. I said, okay. And one day a woman came in and she was delivering a baby and she delivered the baby. But when the baby came out, the baby wasn't breathing.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So all the doctors immediately went, they did CPR, tried to resuscitate the baby over and over again. They tried for 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds. Eventually they had to call it. So they looked at her and they said, hey, Mary, it's up to you. We did what we could. I know tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday, you're off, but do whatever you got to do. We'll meet on Monday.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So the doctors left and Mary's standing there in the room. And on one side, you see a mother who just gave birth. On the other side, you're seeing a baby boy who's not breathing. So in that moment, she just goes to the mother and says, hey, can I just continue giving CPR? Can I just, like, what do I have to lose, right?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So she continues giving CPR, continues 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, and the baby starts breathing. And immediately she wraps up the baby in a pink blanket, runs down to the pharmacist and says, hey, I need medication right now to stabilize the baby's condition. And the pharmacist says, hey, you don't have the authority for this.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And she says, listen, this might not be my job, but it's my responsibility. Give me the medication. She signed it with her own name, brought the medication back. Monday morning, all the doctors came in and they see the baby breastfeeding. And they're like, did she deliver twins? What the heck happened there?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I came here to make... No, no, no, no. Public speaking, that's not my... I took the fastest U-turn you've ever seen in your life. But then before I could leave, the woman who was hosting the club, her name was Karen Knight, she saw me. And she said, hey, we've got a new guest. Come on up and introduce yourself. So there I am, new country. I don't know anyone.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And the mom just pointed at Mary and said, that's the reason why my baby's still alive, because she was in the room. She stayed Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday to make sure my baby was still alive. So I heard that story and I asked her, listen, what made you stay there? You were off the weekend. Everyone just made the decision. She said, Yasser, I realized that it was not my job.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
It was my responsibility. So the message I want to give your audience is, it's not your job to rehearse. It's not your job to be prepared. It's not your job to have stories and messages. But if what you're talking about, if what you say and do is important, it is your responsibility to prepare and rehearse for every single time you open your mouth.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Tell the stories they wish they could have heard when they were a child.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Because that's where a lot of our trauma develops. That's where a lot of our needs and wants develops. And we don't really visit them often. If you look at public speaking anxiety specifically, most of it happens because some teacher says something, your parents were really scolding you. So what would that person need to hear?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And then think of the story that that person would need to hear because all the adults in the room you're talking to, they're just grown up kids with the same exact drama. So think of those stories and tell those stories.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I'll leave you with one last piece of advice that my client gave me. Are you familiar with the brand Lumi Deodorant, Hala?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
The founder is a client of mine, Shannon Klingman. She's had the biggest impact on me. In fact, I have her male brand deodorant on my desk as well.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
When she got on a call with me, I didn't want to work with her because I was full. I had no capacity. And she said, whatever it is, just let me know. Let's just work together. I said, listen, I just didn't want to work with her. It's $5,000 a month. I wanted to push her away. And she said two words I will never forget. She said, that's it? What do you mean? It's $5,000? That's it?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
That's all you charge? She was skeptical of me because of my price. I have never in my life heard that. After we worked together, she said, Yasir, I would have paid you $25,000 for the work we did together. What the heck are you doing? I said, listen, I'm a public speaking coach. There's a million of them out there. Why would you pay me 25 grand? She said, you know what made my brand successful?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I have the only full body deodorant in the world. Everyone else has just the deodorant for the armpits. The reason my brand was successful is because I wasn't trying to be better. I was trying to be different. So Yasser, be better at being different. Be better at being different. That's why I went to working just with CEOs. I bought the domain Speak Like a CEO. All of my clients are just CEOs.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
That's how I profited in life. So be better at being different.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And you would have seen me sweating, walking all the way to the front of the stage. To this day, I don't know what I said. I blurt out four words. I sat back down and I said, Yasmin, this is why you never leave the house. This is why you should just get yourself a PlayStation. And that's it. That's your personality.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Speaklikeaceo.com. And if you want to find me on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, it's speakingwithyasa.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Thank you.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
But then Karen came back to the stage and she looked at me and said, Yasir, you're in a new country. You don't know anyone. This is the first time you've spoken in front of an audience. Congratulations. And then everyone started clapping. Now I'm new. So I'm thinking, is this a Canadian thing? I've heard these people are nice, but did they listen to what I said? Because that was pretty bad.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And afterwards, I'm still beating myself up over it. And I'm going to walk out the room, never coming back. And she just catches me right before I do. And she says, Yasser, are you coming back? And what do we say when we don't want to say yes? We also don't want to say no. We're always in the middle. I'll think about it. I'll let you know.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I'll check my horoscope, ask my grandma, check if the universe is perfectly aligned. So I said all those things. And she said, Yasser, when I was your age, I was the exact same. I was really afraid of public speaking, too. But if you come back next week, I think one step at a time, it might change your life. Now, I didn't have friends, Hala. So I said, okay, you're my only friend. I'll come back.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Why not? So I came back the week, the next week, the next week. And eventually she says, Yasser, you're making progress. You want to try out that public speaking contest? Contest? Are you trying to kill me here? I'm just here to make friends. And I won the contest. Wow. And that's where it clicked, Hala, that this is not my personality. It's a skill that I did not have.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If you want to transport people somewhere in your story, one of the most powerful words you can use is...
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Months later, I had done 40 workshops. I became a TEDx speaker. 10 years from that moment, now I'm coaching some of the biggest CEOs in the world. So how did all this happen? Complete accident.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
This is a topic very personal to me, Hala, because a big reason why I got into public speaking was all the rejection that I got in my dating life. I still remember I went on this one date. And first of all, it was extremely hard for me to get a match at all on Tinder. It was just, I could not get. So when I finally got it, I was like, hey, she has two eyes and a mouth and ears. I'll take it.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So I showed up on the date. I'll never forget. She met me. She looked at me up and down and we sat down. Within the first two minutes, she looked at me and said... yeah, this is not really working. Listen, I'm just going to go.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Can you imagine being lonely, not getting any validation and just being hit with that? I was just sitting there by myself the entire day, sinking in on just hating myself, loathing myself the entire time. And I couldn't figure out what it was. And after I got on a lot of the other days, they said, Some of the days I even asked for feedback, believe it or not.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I said, hey, out of curiosity, why don't you want to... Yasser, you sound like you're trying too hard. You sound way too eager. You talk too much. You're trying to impress me with your stories and it's just too much information too fast. Just slow it down a little bit. And when you were talking with the voice, sometimes what happens with people is they're so eager to impress that they talk a lot.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And when they talk a lot, they talk fast, they mumble, they go high pitch, and they're trying to get your approval. And because of that, you could almost sense it and you back off a little bit. Even now, I talk on the faster side, but I've had to train myself, hey, slow it down and be more sure of what you're talking about. Be as sure as you are as the color of your hair.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I used to say things like, hey, so this is what I did. Isn't that interesting? Don't you find that? I'm seeking your approval. But if I said, I went to this thing, I did this thing, and that's how I feel, I'm so sure of the fact that I'm talking about it, I don't question myself. But sometimes you can feel it. You can probably tell me more about your dating experience than I can.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Maybe that's what you felt. Who knows?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Well, think about it like this. Take your favorite song, Hala.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Pull up the lyrics and just read the lyrics. How good will the song sound?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Terrible. But that's what most people do with their voice. They just show up and say the words. They don't use their tonality at all. And they don't realize how annoying it might be until they go on a date with you. And then they realize, hey, why isn't she texting me back? Maybe I'm annoying.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Where do you want me to start? There's all kinds of public speaking anxiety. Most of the ones that I field, they have nothing to do with public speaking itself. They have everything to do with how we view ourselves. One of the most influential coaches I've ever had in my life, he said, a lion doesn't need to sharpen his claws to know he's the king of the jungle. He just knows he is.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So if you constantly need to practice your public speaking just to feel good about yourself, that's not a public speaking issue. That's a self-esteem issue. And I realized this when for four years I'm learning all these public speaking techniques and I'm realizing, hey, I'm on stage. I'm doing well. Why don't I feel more confident? Why do I still feel less confident?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I just have less filler words now. And the missing ingredient was I did not have self-esteem. I didn't have self-confidence. I didn't believe in myself. So for a lot of people, the fear doesn't come from the speaking itself. It's how they perceive themselves and therefore project what other people feel about themselves.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I guarantee you, if someone feels good about themselves, they're not afraid what other people think about them because their opinion about themselves is more important than the opinions of other people. So that's one. And two, it's just a skill gap. If you've never done something before, it's going to be inherently scary. And if you ask the average person, how often do you do public speaking?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Twice a year, once a year. I do one meeting. Of course, it's nerve wracking because we just don't do it.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
One of my ex-girlfriends actually really helped me out with this. I don't know why we're going on this dating direction, but I used to get really, really nasty comments about my teeth in the comments. Like really, really bad. So I have fine teeth now. Thank you, Invisalign. Please sponsor me. But before that, I had these crooked teeth in the front. And all of the comments were just about my teeth.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And they were so disheartening. I would wake up. I would not want to post a video, check my comments. I didn't want to make any content.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And she said, Yasser, are you doing this for praise or are you doing it because you're passionate about it? You have to do this for purpose over praise. Purpose over praise. And that's when I realized if I really want to talk about this stuff, if I'm really passionate, I have to go through that. I have to go through it with grit.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I don't have to worry about getting the praise, getting the compliments. Just do it because I want to do it. And once I became more passionate about it, I forgot about what they thought of me. My message was reaching the right people. That's why I continued on this journey.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I got 2.4 on Instagram. That's my main platform.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Right.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Yeah, that's the other thing. I'm really passionate about talking about content just because I've learned a lot about it. Before we go into YouTube, Hala, my Instagram has 2.4 million right now. I created that account from scratch in May of 2023. Wow. From scratch. That's a year and a half, right?
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And TikTok, I think, was a year and a half. So on YouTube, when I started, I didn't have confidence. I was just vlogging my daily experiences as a student in Canada. I would talk about job searching for a bit. Then I would talk about my journey, eating something. It was all over the place. And that's why I never learned.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And by the time I got to 1,000 subscribers, I had some followers from this topic, from that topic, and it was just all over the place. So I started a brand new channel about four months ago. And because of that one podcast that I told one of your team members about, I was on one podcast. The guy had 4,000 followers on his channel. The highest viewed video was 500. I came onto the podcast.
Young and Profiting (YAP) with Hala Taha
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
It went live two weeks ago. That video has 400,000 views on it now. And that got me 25,000 subscribers just from that podcast. So Hala, I know you're getting excited. Man, I can't wait to upload this video. Who knows? Maybe that same thing might happen. But then now I know how to work social media. So I've reworked YouTube and it's working quite well now.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I'm really excited to be here, Hala. And you might not know how I met you the first time or how I found out about you. It wasn't about LinkedIn. I was looking up how to start a podcast and I stumbled on a speech of yours from MIT from years ago. And I thought it was going to be about how to start a podcast, but it ended up being about your personal story. I watched the entire hour of it.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I've had a change of heart in this. I used to think you have to talk louder to be more confident, right? But then I realized if you're always loud and just talking like this the entire time, eventually it gets really annoying. But if you're always quiet like this all the time and you look timid. So the key is not just volume. The key is variety in volume. So you go up and down and up and down.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And I do this exercise in my workshops where I'll ask people to give me any topic, like on the spot. And I'll just start talking about it. And I'll just tell them, okay, I'm going to vary my emotions and my volume. And you tell me if it sounds interesting. So the best way we can do this is just do it right now. You think you can prompt me with a quick topic? Sure. Okay.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Just give me the most boring topic you can think of in the world, okay? And before you do that, just hold your thumb up like this, just so I can see it on camera. When you do this, I have to be really high volume. And when you do that, I have to be really low volume. And let's see if I can make something boring sound more interesting, okay? We'll do 30 seconds.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Perfect. Ready to go?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Give me the thumb and I'll know where to start. Washing dishes is one of the most exciting things you can do because every single day when I make dinner, It makes me feel present in the moment because I'm there feeling the water on my hands, feeling the warmth on my hands. And I love seeing all the little dirt go off the dishes, down the spiral.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And it makes me think for a moment how grateful I am to have that meal. See what I mean?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So it's the up and down and up and down. That's what makes it interesting. Not just high volume, not just low volume.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Listen, I have ADHD. I have a million thoughts running in my head and all of them want to come out at the same time. So I'm just like you. I want to talk fast. I was once invited to do a seminar on public speaking anxiety. And I've done this seminar a million times. So I show up with my 17 different things to do to overcome your public speaking anxiety.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
When you open your mouth, that is your brand. Because what you say is what is reflected about your business. Emotion creates devotion. And storytelling, that's what makes people feel something.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I present in front of 200 people and immediately people say, wow, Yasir, you covered so much information. That was absolutely amazing. One of the guys says, Yasir, I'm about to go next after you. That's exactly what I needed because I was so anxious in the moment. I said, amazing. So I went out, got some coffee, sat back in the room. I'm waiting for him to pop up on stage.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
He shows up on stage and hala, I can see the notes shaking in his hand in the moment. So he slowly walks onto the lectern. He puts his notes there. He starts speaking, going through his slides and he's stuttering and You know when you have this feeling in your stomach where you know something bad is going to happen? The entire time I'm watching that, my stomach is just churning inwards.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And then eventually he hits this word that he can't really pronounce properly. Oh, God. And he just puts the clicker down and walks off stage. And I'm seeing it and it's just, I can't understand why. So afterwards I see him in the parking lot and I say, hey, what happened? You were just there in my presentation. He said, oh man, I just, I got nervous. I don't know what happened.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You were in my presentation where I talked about the 17 ways to overcome public speaking anxiety. What happened? And he said, three words I'll never forget. I couldn't remember. I couldn't remember. And that's when I realized what's the point of me talking fast, high energy, covering these 17 points when he couldn't remember it when he needed it most. That's when I learned to slow it down.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And then I found you on LinkedIn. And I still remember you had a quote in there. You said something like, At the time, I wasn't young and profiting. I was young and pissed. And it just made me laugh in the moment. And there was a connection I felt. That's why I went and looked you up on LinkedIn. So it's a pleasure to be here.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So my coach has this great saying, Craig Valentine. He says, I'd rather give you three things you remember than 10 things you forget. Three things you remember than 10 things you forget. So I really narrowed down the amount of material I share, but I also try to vary the pace a little bit as well when I talk.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Talking fast builds momentum. Like, okay, we're going somewhere. Come along with me. But then I want you to think about this for a second. then you slow the pace down. And every time you want to make a point, this is one of the biggest challenges people have in storytelling. They skip over the most important part of the story because they're going so fast.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So if you really want people to listen, slow down and you whisper. What happens when you slow down? What happens when you whisper? People immediately lean forward. So if you look at any of my talks, you'll say I'm super high energy. And then it'll immediately drop the energy. And then people feel it in that moment. So you use pauses effectively.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
But you know some people who are trying to be good public speakers, I'm sure you've seen them. They are always trying to talk like this. I have great pauses. And then you're listening to it. You don't sound like a human being. It's just a little too theatrical, too rehearsed for me. So I'd rather you be real and have variety than just try to be this choreographed speaker that everyone wants to see.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Yeah. Memorizing is you putting on a performance on stage. I memorize every single word. I'm here on stage just to say the word so I feel like I did a good job for myself and then I can sit back in my chair. You'll be shocked. Actually, you probably won't be shocked if you've ever been to college. How many people are completely unaware that their audience is uninterested in what they're saying?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If you're ever doing a pitch or a Zoom meeting, the audience has been zoned out for half an hour, but they're still just going on and on because where's their focus, Hala? I need to get the words out. That's it. So when you, instead of memorizing, you internalize, meaning just say the words out loud. And half the time when you do that, you'll realize, oh, that didn't come out right.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
That didn't really sound good. Even I can't understand what I'm saying. Let me rework that. You know the structure and the flow of information, right? but you don't have every single word memorized. So now what happens is if I ask you, tell me what you ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner yesterday. If you remember, you can tell me. You don't have to memorize every single ingredient.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You can just tell me what you had. So when you show up for your speech, you know the sequence. And then what you're able to do is you're able to be in the moment with the audience. And when someone's phone rings or someone makes a comment, you're able to go out of the speech, interact with them, and come back in and be present in the moment.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
That's the difference between internalizing and memorizing.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Well, that depends on the goal. If your goal is to get those specific words in that specific order out, then yes, memorize it. Like your elevator pitch, right?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If the goal is to engage in having a conversation with the audience, which is most of public speaking, then you should not memorize. Imagine having a conversation with someone who's memorized every sentence of their conversation.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So if there is a performance element to it, then absolutely. As long as you don't sound like you've rehearsed every single word.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
At the end of the sentence and pause. when you want to create anticipation. So I try to use it at the end of a sentence, because if I don't pause, usually an um or uh will stick in. And you'll find when most people have ums or uhs, they don't quite know what to say next, and they're afraid of the silence in between. So then they add a little um or uh in there, and that buys them some time.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And it worked. You got my attention.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So that sounds a little bit like this instead. So that sounds like this. Just removing that and being comfortable with silence really helps. And then also what I like to do is whenever I'm making a big point, I'll combine this with high volume and then I will drop the energy and I'll pause. So for example, I was getting this birthday gift. I was so excited about it.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I finally opened the gift and I couldn't believe that it was a pair of socks I always wanted. High energy, pause, drop energy. Can you see how much you felt that in that moment?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
The biggest mistake... or rather I'd say the biggest missed opportunity for most people, Hala, is getting off stage, on stage. Now you might be thinking, what do you mean? If you look at my last keynote, I start the speech on stage, then I get off stage and I start talking to people individually. What happens then? Now they know he's not just gonna talk for an hour. I am in his speech.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
He's going to ask me questions, whether it's raise your hand, nod your head, what comes to mind when I say this word. I'm having a conversation with him the entire time. And you'll notice no one else does that because they come onto the stage, they say their slides, and then they hop off. But the moment you step off the stage, now you're one of them. Now you're having a conversation.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You're not, hey, I'm this mighty public speaker up here. Please listen to me and bow down to me. You talk to them and then you go back up on stage. So every single time I'll talk about something, I'll ask a question, I'll go off stage, have a conversation, bring it back. So for example, in one of my modules, I'll say,
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
What do you think is the number one thing or one mistake people make in their presentations? Shout some words at me as I walk around. I'll get off stage, I'll walk around and I'll collect all the words from them. So I heard this, I heard that, I heard this. All of those are great answers, but that's not the number one thing. And then I will go into my speech. So how are they feeling?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Hey, everything that we said is contributing to his speech. And now it's a conversation and not a performance.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
To answer your first question, do regular check-ins. And regular check-ins are just these quick questions. Raise your hand if I'm on the right track or nod your head if you've seen this before. Just these really, really quick engagement points so you know they're still with you. If someone's on their phone, at the very least when they hear it, they know they have to be sucked back in.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Now, a trick that I use is if I know the people in the room and I want to get their specific attention, I'll call them out by name. So let's say there's 10 people there. So for example, Michael, you remember in our last meeting, right? We did X, Y, Z. So what I'm talking about here is immediately when they hear their name, oh, okay. Right like that.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You have to be attentive to people. Now on Zoom, the way I would do this, if I don't know anyone, I see their names pop up. So I showed up. I had no idea who anyone was in the room. I was really nervous. Hala, what do you think I did in that moment? Exactly. I was really nervous before my speech. So I will just look at their name. I will get their attention. I will place them into my speech.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
That way they feel acknowledged throughout. So if there's 50 people in my Zoom call, I will take many different names throughout it. So every single person feels recognized throughout it. Remind me of your second question.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Yeah. Does it aid the story? Does it aid the purpose? Body language can get very distracting as well. I remember I used to do this entire play with my hands and people had to tell me, hey, relax a little bit. You're putting on this. It doesn't contribute to your story. So if it adds to the story, great. I naturally use my hands a lot.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Verbal communication is how you show up to the world. When you open your mouth, that is your brand. And you'll be shocked, Hala. In fact, you probably won't be shocked with the amount of people you talk to. How many people are not careful of the words that come out of their mouth? Because what you say is what is reflected about your business.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
But in meetings specifically, I've noticed that the more controlled your hands are, the more confident you sound. Because if you ask me a question, Yasser, Are you really a good public speaking coach? Oh yeah, yeah, I'm a great public speaking coach. I've done a lot. You can see all this uncontrolled movement in the moment and that shows you I'm not very confident.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Now, whereas if you ask me the same question and I'd move nothing about my body, you ask me, why are you such a good public speaker? I'm a really good public speaker because I've done this enough. I didn't move my body at all, but that showed stability and calmness and composure. So it really depends on the context. It's not just more or less. It's what's the context?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
What are you trying to communicate?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Yeah.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Well, what happens when we can't see someone's hands psychologically? We just don't know what they're holding in their hands. We don't know if they're holding a weapon or what it might be. If someone's hands are under the desk in their pocket behind their hands, subconsciously, it creates uncertainty.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I can't see his hands or I can't see her hands. I wonder what they're doing. I wonder what they're hiding, right? So similarly, if someone puts on a hoodie in the middle of the night and is walking down the street and you're walking towards them, just because it's dark, you can't see them, they've got a hoodie on, there's uncertainty.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So that's why when you reveal your palms, it shows that you're friendly. It shows that there's a lack of, I'm not hiding anything. So open palm gestures tend to be much easier on the eyes to perceive a message.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Let's do it.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Admit to your own limitations first before you tell them what to do.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So if I said, go vegan, it'll change your life. Your diet sucks. You're probably not going to go vegan. But if I said, man, I love eating meat, but I, for some reason, when I would go to my jujitsu class, my stamina would just run out. Then I met this guy who said, hey, have you tried going vegan? I said, are you out of your mind? He said, I didn't like it either, but I tried going vegan.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
It really helped. So I said, okay, I tried it for a month and oh my God, did it help? My stamina was through the roof. So if your stamina is an issue, give it a shot.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Count the number of things you will share. So if I said, Hala, today I'm going to share a couple of things with you that will help with public speaking. Or, Hala, today I'm going to share five things that will help you with public speaking. Which one sounds more intelligent?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
All I did was number it. And it does so much because it makes you think, oh, this person has thought about it enough that they know how many numbers are tied to that equation. Quick little tip.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So if you knew that, wouldn't you be a lot more careful of what came out of your mouth, what you said, what you wrote? That's why just having that finesse on your words, making sure when you're on stage, people remember you, It's more important than it's ever been.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
It's funny, I was front row in his workshop, so I got to see him live. The one word that comes to mind with him is he's so real and authentic in the moment that because he's real, whatever he says, it goes straight to our heart. It's not a performance. He's not reading off any slides. He genuinely feels anything. And remember this, if they don't feel it, they forget it.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If they don't feel it, they forget it. And every time Alex speaks, he feels. And that's why so many of us remember so many of his quotes.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If you want to transport people somewhere in your story, one of the most powerful words you can use is the word imagine. And better yet, place them in your story with a phrase so they can imagine themselves there. Now, I don't know if you remember this, Hala, but when I told you my story of when I came to Canada, I said, if you were there in the room with me,
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You would have seen me walk to the stage. What are you doing when I say that? You imagine. Visualizing. Exactly. So when you're telling a story, don't just say, I did this, then this, then this happened. Now you're telling a sequence of events. Put the person in the room with you there. Get them to imagine.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I've got a TED Talk on empathy, so I'm going to have to go empathy between the two of them. Sure. I had a run-in with someone who, it was a small town in Canada, and I was doing door-to-door sales. And I knocked their door, and they opened the door, and the first thing they said was, get off my lawn, you effing Hindu.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And that was four months in Canada. Now, you can imagine my reaction. Now, at the time, I was really traumatized by it, but I heard it so much throughout the summer, a lot of this racism that eventually just stopped and asked him, hey, what happened? Where did this come from? And he told me a story about some guy who looked like me who broke into his car and stole it.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And about two hours later, I ended up walking out of his house, selling him an alarm system. And all of that happened because I was able to empathize with someone who just hated the idea of my very existence. So that's how far empathy can take you. And I expand more on that in my TED Talk.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I give you a perfect example. You mentioned Hermosi earlier. I was at Hermosi's workshop and one of the things they do in the workshop is you have these round tables where you sit with one of the people on his team and you've got about 10 people and we have a minute to ask a question and they give you a response and it's the next person. So I was noticing this person next to me
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
He would ask a question. So this is my business and I'm trying to do this other thing. And also, by the way, my wife does this. And so five years ago, he's giving his entire life story and then he gets the answer and he's not satisfied with the answer. He does that two times and three times. And I lean over to him and I say, hey, listen, I don't know what your question is.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I don't know how he knows how to answer your question. Why don't you start by asking your question and then providing the details and see if that helps? So the next round table he had was he said, hey, I have a lot of followers, but they're not converting. For context, X, Y, Z, what do I do? And then he got a good answer and said, man, What happened there? I said, you know what happened?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You hadn't processed your own thoughts. You threw your unprocessed thoughts at the other person. You were hoping they would untangle those thoughts, find the question, and somehow give you a good answer. It does not make you sound intelligent. Instead, it makes you sound lazy. So first think about what you want to ask. Start with a point and then go into the detail.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Yeah, the definition of public speaking isn't just being on stage. It's talking to someone at some time. If you are talking to someone, which I imagine if your listeners are listening, they're talking to people, right? Unless they're locked in a basement somewhere. You are going to do public speaking. And every single time you do that, you are representing yourself and your brand.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So if someone's trying to sound more intelligent, sound like you've thought about what you're about to say first.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Not at all. In fact, when I'm working with CEOs, the number one thing I have to do is simplify everything. I work with a lot of people in the Web3 crypto space and they have so many terms they don't want to throw at people. And one of the clients just yesterday, he was not even two minutes into the pitch. I said, listen, you lost me. I have no idea what you're talking about.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
He said, but these are important. I said, listen, Do the people who are investing in your business, do they understand this terminology? No. Then simplify it. Use analogies, use metaphors, use stories to put me in the room. That's how you get their attention. So yes, simplify it. Don't worry about the vocabulary.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Phrases, analogies, and metaphors. So your phrases would be your one-liner. So if I said, I have a dream, who's the person who comes to mind?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If I said the name Alex Ramosi, what's a quote that comes to mind?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So can you see how the moment you think of a person, a quote comes to mind? The moment you think of a quote, a person comes to mind. That's the importance of having these repeatable quotes. Most people don't have them in their back pocket. So earlier, like I said, purpose over praise. That's a quote. That's a phrase.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So when you repeat these phrases enough times, people associate that phrase with you. So Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon, one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Tell me a single word from the rest of his speech or transmission. No one has any idea. Exactly. Simon Sinek, start with why. Tell me a single word. No one knows.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So you have to have these phrases in your back pocket and then you have to have analogies. So for example, I like to tell people, hey, if you're going to speak, start with the gift, then the gift wrapped. The analogy says, don't tell me the 50,000 points without the actual message and takeaway. Tell me what the purpose is and then give me the details. Start with the gift, then find the gift wrap.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So can you see how the analogy and the metaphor helps your understanding? Take a familiar concept and use that to explain an unfamiliar concept. That would be your metaphor and analogies.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If you think about how we learn a language, especially when we're babies, how do we learn? We learn from our parents. We learn from people around us. We subconsciously absorb it. How many toddlers are going to language classes? I imagine not many. Maybe Elon Musk did. I don't know. But we don't learn through courses and classrooms. We learn through exposure.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So similarly, what kind of material are you exposing yourself to every single day? What are you reading? Who are you listening to? If they're listening to your podcast, I imagine they have a very rich vocabulary.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
What do you want people to interpret about you? How do you want them to perceive you? How do you want them to perceive your company? All of that is public speaking. So you want to treat the stage as your entire life. Every single place you go, you're performing. So wouldn't you want to put up the best performance wherever you go? I think the answer is yes.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
The moment you start listening to all these things and they sink into your brain, you won't even realize you start saying things that you've heard in podcasts, but you don't even know you heard it somewhere. Until someone says, oh, I've heard that somewhere. Where did you say that from? Because subconsciously, all of this is sitting in your head.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So you have to really carefully guard what you allow in and what you don't allow in, in terms of your intellect.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
The most important thing that I feel storytelling does is just memorable. People just remember for much longer. So if I asked you, do you want people to remember what you said? Yes. Okay. Do you want to share your message in a way that people remember it? Yes. Then you must do it in a format of a story. How many of your three-hour lectures do you remember from college, Hala?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Exactly. How many movies since you were a child do you remember?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And all of those are stories. I imagine none of those were 30 bullet points from start to finish, right? No. So you have to learn to create imagery and you have to get people to feel something. If they don't feel anything, they will not remember it. And I'll give you a really strange example here. When I was a kid, I had a costume party when I was about seven years old at school.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And I had this crush on a girl and she was going to dress up as Pikachu. So I said, okay, what goes well with Pikachu? I'm thinking of all the best costumes. And for some reason I come up with Bugs Bunny, right? So I show up as Bugs Bunny in the moment and I'm trying to impress her. And she says, oh, Yasser, of course you're Bugs Bunny. Like, oh, how did you know?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Oh, because of your two large, ugly front teeth. And I didn't forget that for 20 years. That one single sentence for 20 years because of how she made me feel in that moment. And the reason I say that is because that story I've told so many times to so many people that, hey, the words that come out of your mouth, they're important. What you say might not be what they hear.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You might say something as a joke to somebody, but they might remember it for a very, very long time. So that's why when you're telling a story, similarly, you can have positive words, positive phrases that people will remember for a very, very long time. For example, Karen, in the first meeting that I ever met her in Toastmasters, she said, it takes one small step to change your life.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Yeah, I was the least likely person to become a public speaker. In fact, if you were in my classroom when I was in third grade, you would have seen me run to the bathroom right before my presentation and you wouldn't see me come back out. And that was the thing. People knew, hey, Yasser's turn, he's not going to show up. And I started failing. So it was really affecting my education.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I still remember that. It's been more than a decade.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
There are three things that I talk about, the three R's to be remembered. The first R is your story has to be repeatable. If I hear the story, can I hear it long enough to then repeat it to someone else? So if you've heard your favorite stand-up comedian, you have this bit that you like. Oh, he has a great bit on dating or great bit on whatever. You can repeat it to other people.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
There are three R's to be remembered. The first R is... So if you constantly need to practice your public speaking just to feel good about yourself, that's not a public speaking issue. That's a self-esteem issue. For a lot of people, the fear doesn't come from the speaking itself. It's how they perceive themselves.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If I can't repeat it, I won't remember it. So first thing has to be repeatable. Number two, does it relay emotion? Do I feel something when I hear your story? I can tell you about how I got into my car and I got gas and I came back home. What's the point? It's a pointless story, but is there a point to it? And you'll be shocked how many things you can make sound emotional.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Like earlier, we talked about cleaning the dishes. And just with the volume, we made it sound a little bit emotional, right? Someone asked me in a conference of 500 loan officers, napkins, and we made napkins emotional. So can you talk about that with emotion? Can you resonate and relay your emotion? And number three, I feel like this is the strongest thing when it comes to storytelling.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Can you reframe an existing belief? If your story tells me what I already know, It's not changing my belief. Can you take me from point A to point B and reframe how I look at the world? That's what a good story does. So three things. It has to be repeatable. You have to relay emotion and it has to reframe your beliefs.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Add one more quarter to that. You said something really amazing there. You said about how they change their belief. A quote that I love, because I created it, is good speakers tell you what to do. Memorable speakers make you question what is true. They make you change your beliefs. And if they don't make you change your beliefs, then you're not going to see the world any different.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I haven't done a great job of that, to be very transparent with you. I'm always talking about tips and tricks and all these things that I never really talked about it much until my clients started telling me, hey, I love that one video you made where you talked about your ADHD. I love how you talk about, oh, that... You mean you actually like that? That's not filler content?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And then I started tapping into that quite a bit more. I don't know what it is with me, Hala. Maybe it's my childhood, but I feel like if I tell people stories where I struggled in the past, it's going to be a downer and people will feel worse off. But I've learned over time, if you share your pain, it's almost always in the audience's gain.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So now I've started leaning into it more and more. So it's only recently that I've been talking about all the mess ups I've had with my clients, all the terrible advice I've given them, how I used to be anxious with my public speaking, and now people are starting to relate to it. So I imagine my following might grow a little bit faster now.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
But to give you an honest answer, I didn't use much storytelling in all this content up until now.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And as I grew up, eventually my parents said, this kid is just, he doesn't say anything in meetings. He doesn't say anything in family gatherings. What do we do? Let's send him to a different country. That'll open him up. So now they spent thousands of dollars, sent me to Canada. The only thing that opened up was their wallet because I did not learn a thing. I came all the way here in Canada.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Emotion creates devotion. And it's hard to relay emotion with tips and tricks. When was the last time you gave your teacher a standing ovation?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Unless they share a story. Never, right? They're giving you tips and tricks, very helpful, but you won't give them a standing ovation. But when someone sings a song with their heart, when someone delivers a performance, hell, I've been in cinemas where a movie ended. There's no one there. People will stand up and clap. Why? Because it's the emotion that creates the devotion.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I was speaking with a coach and I used to listen to his speech and I said, listen, you always get a standing ovation at the end. I'm doing all these workshops and public speaking. I'm so valuable. How come I don't get it? He said, because people don't feel anything. And storytelling, that's what makes people feel something. So try ending with a story. I ended with a story and guess what?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Standing ovation.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I love that. I love that. So, okay, this is going to be a really weird example. I'm going to tell you a really quick story, okay? I spent a month and a half preparing the perfect intro for a keynote I had coming up. Intro. Yeah, just the first sentence of it, okay? And the first sentence was going to be, I have a confession to make.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
You might have heard that I've got all these followers, but there was a time that I wasn't very confident. And I was going to go into my speech about my journey, right? And it's going to start on a very somber note. And the night before my keynote, I'm having a dinner with the team, and they noticed that I'm not drinking. I don't drink. They said, okay, hey, Yasir, you don't drink? I said, no.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
They said, oh, I also noticed you didn't drink any coffee in the morning. How come you don't drink coffee? I said, oh, it was because it dehydrated me. And then he said, so what? And I was thinking, okay, how do I explain to them? How do I say this? So here's the thing. I make money with my mouth. So it dehydrates me. But before I could say the dehydration part, everyone started laughing.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I was still introverted, but now I had no friends. So eventually, Hala... You become so lonely and the pain of it grows so much that you become desperate. You're willing to do anything. So I just Googled, how do I make friends? That's what I wanted. I wanted friends. And the first thing that popped up was something called a Toastmasters Club. Have you heard of that before?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And then I realized what I had just said. And they said, that's what you should open your keynote with. I said, are you out of your mind? And they're like, no, no, no. Open with that. So now I've spent a month and a half on that perfect line. And the next day I said, okay, let me try it. And I tried it and it killed. It completely killed. Amazing.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So that was a story of just in the moment how I came up with it because of what happened there. And that was a story, right? It was a quick little anecdote that I pulled into the speech. So every single day, like you're saying, you're going to have experiences that give you a story. Lord, the bar what a story is. Yesterday, I was in line for 15 minutes for some new coffee shop that opened up.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
That was terrible. And I'm thinking, what's the message? Life's too short to wait. That's the message. You can just practice that with everything every day.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Sure. And by the way, this is not my formula. I learned it from Stanford. Oh, okay.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
It's point, reason, example, point. And it's mainly for, let's say you've got an impromptu speech or you want to say something and make sense of it. You give a point of something, you provide an example of it, reason, an example, and then a point. I do PRP or PSP, point, reason, point, point, story point, just because I find that I naturally infuse an example in there.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So why don't you give me a random question, and I'm going to give you a terrible answer, and then we'll try to implement it in there.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Oh man, there's so many reasons I became a public speaker. You know, I always wanted to share my message and there's so many things I'm interested in, like public speaking confidence and reading books and mindfulness. I wanted to share that with people. And yeah, you know, it's always been like a goal of mine. And yeah, that's why I'm a public speaker.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
All over the place. Have you heard an answer like that before?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Nine times out of 10, right? Now what I'm going to do, I'm going to say the exact same thing. I'm just going to structure it differently. I'm going to pick one specific reason, and I'm going to go into that, okay? So ask me that question again.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I became a public speaker to show other people how important their voice is. When I grew up, I didn't speak for 20 years because there was a little girl who made fun of my teeth and I was embarrassed to open my mouth. But when I started practicing public speaking, I realized how many more people were being affected with the words that were coming out of my mouth.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So now it was my responsibility to open my mouth. And I want to show other people through my public speaking that their voice matters as well. That's why I got into public speaking.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Exactly. If you just script three questions one time in your life, it will make you successful in every single network. Just what do you do? Why are you here? Tell me about yourself. That's it. Just script them one time and you will be good for life. But you'll be shocked how many times like, so what brought you here? Oh, you know, my wife dragged me down here. I'm like, oh my God, why me?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And then you have to just move on to the next person. And I've been to conferences where people were representing their company, Hala. I said, hey, what are you finding interesting about the event so far? Oh, I guess it's all right. You know, I'm just here for a couple of hours. Why are you here?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Why did this send somebody else here?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Okay. Well, a kid from Pakistan, I hadn't heard of it. I thought it was one of two things. One, a place where people sit in a circle and make a toast. Or two, a place to get a grilled cheese sandwich. That's what I thought it was going to be. So I show up, I walk in, and there's 35 people all in their mid-50s. And it says, Toastmasters, learn public speaking. No, this is not what I signed.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Exactly, exactly.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If you go to my website right now, and you go to coaching, you will see one video of me that says, I am completely booked. I do not have time. If you want to work with me, here's $2,000 an hour, book a call. That's my funnel. So there was a time where I was doing sales calls. I'm no longer doing sales calls. Fortunately, I have such demand that I can't afford to spend them.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Yeah, it's just, you want it, two grand an hour, right? But when I did have it, I would often find that if someone's in a position where they want to work on a skill that's far in the future, they have no urgency. Yeah, I want to become a good public speaker. Yeah, I say, well, like 20 grand, I'll let you know.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
But if they have a presentation coming up, hey, I'm pitching my product in front of 15,000 people. I've never stepped on stage. I don't care how much you charge. Let's do it. Now it's a lot easier for me. And I just prefer working with people who have a specific end goal in mind because skills take time. There's no urgency around it.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If you've got a specific presentation coming up, it tends to be easy. So I think the sales message here is find a way to add urgency into the process. Full transparency, I'm probably not the best salesperson in general to ask, but my content does a lot of persuasion. So by the time they're on the call, I don't really have to do a whole lot.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I'll leave you with this. I never wanted to implement any of the things that we just talked about today. I've heard them a million times, but I never wanted to do them. Oh yeah, sounds great, right? A woman came to my workshop once and she said, yeah, so I'm not very confident, teach me public speaking. And I got her to speak a little bit and she said, I'm a midwife and this is what I do.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I said, okay. And then she stopped talking after 30 seconds. I said, okay, can you tell me something interesting that happened to you at work? And she said, yeah, as a midwife, I help with delivering babies. I said, okay. And one day a woman came in and she was delivering a baby and she delivered the baby. But when the baby came out, the baby wasn't breathing.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So all the doctors immediately went, they did CPR, tried to resuscitate the baby over and over again. They tried for 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds. Eventually they had to call it. So they looked at her and they said, hey, Mary, it's up to you. We did what we could. I know tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday, you're off, but do whatever you got to do. We'll meet on Monday.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So the doctors left and Mary's standing there in the room. And on one side, you see a mother who just gave birth. On the other side, you're seeing a baby boy who's not breathing. So in that moment, she just goes to the mother and says, hey, can I just continue giving CPR? Can I just, like, what do I have to lose, right?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So she continues giving CPR, continues 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, and the baby starts breathing. And immediately she wraps up the baby in a pink blanket, runs down to the pharmacist and says, hey, I need medication right now to stabilize the baby's condition. And the pharmacist says, hey, you don't have the authority for this.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And she says, listen, this might not be my job, but it's my responsibility. Give me the medication. She signed it with her own name, brought the medication back. Monday morning, all the doctors came in and they see the baby breastfeeding. And they're like, did she deliver twins? What the heck happened there?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I came here to make... No, no, no, no. Public speaking, that's not my... I took the fastest U-turn you've ever seen in your life. But then before I could leave, the woman who was hosting the club, her name was Karen Knight, she saw me. And she said, hey, we've got a new guest. Come on up and introduce yourself. So there I am, new country. I don't know anyone.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And the mom just pointed at Mary and said, that's the reason why my baby's still alive, because she was in the room. She stayed Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday to make sure my baby was still alive. So I heard that story and I asked her, listen, what made you stay there? You were off the weekend. Everyone just made the decision. She said, Yasser, I realized that it was not my job.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
It was my responsibility. So the message I want to give your audience is, it's not your job to rehearse. It's not your job to be prepared. It's not your job to have stories and messages. But if what you're talking about, if what you say and do is important, it is your responsibility to prepare and rehearse for every single time you open your mouth.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Tell the stories they wish they could have heard when they were a child.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Because that's where a lot of our trauma develops. That's where a lot of our needs and wants develops. And we don't really visit them often. If you look at public speaking anxiety specifically, most of it happens because some teacher says something, your parents were really scolding you. So what would that person need to hear?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And then think of the story that that person would need to hear because all the adults in the room you're talking to, they're just grown up kids with the same exact drama. So think of those stories and tell those stories.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I'll leave you with one last piece of advice that my client gave me. Are you familiar with the brand Lumi Deodorant, Hala?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
The founder is a client of mine, Shannon Klingman. She's had the biggest impact on me. In fact, I have her male brand deodorant on my desk as well.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
When she got on a call with me, I didn't want to work with her because I was full. I had no capacity. And she said, whatever it is, just let me know. Let's just work together. I said, listen, I just didn't want to work with her. It's $5,000 a month. I wanted to push her away. And she said two words I will never forget. She said, that's it? What do you mean? It's $5,000? That's it?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
That's all you charge? She was skeptical of me because of my price. I have never in my life heard that. After we worked together, she said, Yasir, I would have paid you $25,000 for the work we did together. What the heck are you doing? I said, listen, I'm a public speaking coach. There's a million of them out there. Why would you pay me 25 grand? She said, you know what made my brand successful?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I have the only full body deodorant in the world. Everyone else has just the deodorant for the armpits. The reason my brand was successful is because I wasn't trying to be better. I was trying to be different. So Yasser, be better at being different. Be better at being different. That's why I went to working just with CEOs. I bought the domain Speak Like a CEO. All of my clients are just CEOs.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
That's how I profited in life. So be better at being different.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And you would have seen me sweating, walking all the way to the front of the stage. To this day, I don't know what I said. I blurt out four words. I sat back down and I said, Yasmin, this is why you never leave the house. This is why you should just get yourself a PlayStation. And that's it. That's your personality.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Speaklikeaceo.com. And if you want to find me on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, it's speakingwithyasa.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Thank you.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
But then Karen came back to the stage and she looked at me and said, Yasir, you're in a new country. You don't know anyone. This is the first time you've spoken in front of an audience. Congratulations. And then everyone started clapping. Now I'm new. So I'm thinking, is this a Canadian thing? I've heard these people are nice, but did they listen to what I said? Because that was pretty bad.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And afterwards, I'm still beating myself up over it. And I'm going to walk out the room, never coming back. And she just catches me right before I do. And she says, Yasser, are you coming back? And what do we say when we don't want to say yes? We also don't want to say no. We're always in the middle. I'll think about it. I'll let you know.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I'll check my horoscope, ask my grandma, check if the universe is perfectly aligned. So I said all those things. And she said, Yasser, when I was your age, I was the exact same. I was really afraid of public speaking, too. But if you come back next week, I think one step at a time, it might change your life. Now, I didn't have friends, Hala. So I said, okay, you're my only friend. I'll come back.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Why not? So I came back the week, the next week, the next week. And eventually she says, Yasser, you're making progress. You want to try out that public speaking contest? Contest? Are you trying to kill me here? I'm just here to make friends. And I won the contest. Wow. And that's where it clicked, Hala, that this is not my personality. It's a skill that I did not have.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
If you want to transport people somewhere in your story, one of the most powerful words you can use is...
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Months later, I had done 40 workshops. I became a TEDx speaker. 10 years from that moment, now I'm coaching some of the biggest CEOs in the world. So how did all this happen? Complete accident.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
This is a topic very personal to me, Hala, because a big reason why I got into public speaking was all the rejection that I got in my dating life. I still remember I went on this one date. And first of all, it was extremely hard for me to get a match at all on Tinder. It was just, I could not get. So when I finally got it, I was like, hey, she has two eyes and a mouth and ears. I'll take it.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So I showed up on the date. I'll never forget. She met me. She looked at me up and down and we sat down. Within the first two minutes, she looked at me and said... yeah, this is not really working. Listen, I'm just going to go.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Can you imagine being lonely, not getting any validation and just being hit with that? I was just sitting there by myself the entire day, sinking in on just hating myself, loathing myself the entire time. And I couldn't figure out what it was. And after I got on a lot of the other days, they said, Some of the days I even asked for feedback, believe it or not.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I said, hey, out of curiosity, why don't you want to... Yasser, you sound like you're trying too hard. You sound way too eager. You talk too much. You're trying to impress me with your stories and it's just too much information too fast. Just slow it down a little bit. And when you were talking with the voice, sometimes what happens with people is they're so eager to impress that they talk a lot.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And when they talk a lot, they talk fast, they mumble, they go high pitch, and they're trying to get your approval. And because of that, you could almost sense it and you back off a little bit. Even now, I talk on the faster side, but I've had to train myself, hey, slow it down and be more sure of what you're talking about. Be as sure as you are as the color of your hair.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I used to say things like, hey, so this is what I did. Isn't that interesting? Don't you find that? I'm seeking your approval. But if I said, I went to this thing, I did this thing, and that's how I feel, I'm so sure of the fact that I'm talking about it, I don't question myself. But sometimes you can feel it. You can probably tell me more about your dating experience than I can.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Maybe that's what you felt. Who knows?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Well, think about it like this. Take your favorite song, Hala.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Pull up the lyrics and just read the lyrics. How good will the song sound?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Terrible. But that's what most people do with their voice. They just show up and say the words. They don't use their tonality at all. And they don't realize how annoying it might be until they go on a date with you. And then they realize, hey, why isn't she texting me back? Maybe I'm annoying.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Where do you want me to start? There's all kinds of public speaking anxiety. Most of the ones that I field, they have nothing to do with public speaking itself. They have everything to do with how we view ourselves. One of the most influential coaches I've ever had in my life, he said, a lion doesn't need to sharpen his claws to know he's the king of the jungle. He just knows he is.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
So if you constantly need to practice your public speaking just to feel good about yourself, that's not a public speaking issue. That's a self-esteem issue. And I realized this when for four years I'm learning all these public speaking techniques and I'm realizing, hey, I'm on stage. I'm doing well. Why don't I feel more confident? Why do I still feel less confident?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I just have less filler words now. And the missing ingredient was I did not have self-esteem. I didn't have self-confidence. I didn't believe in myself. So for a lot of people, the fear doesn't come from the speaking itself. It's how they perceive themselves and therefore project what other people feel about themselves.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I guarantee you, if someone feels good about themselves, they're not afraid what other people think about them because their opinion about themselves is more important than the opinions of other people. So that's one. And two, it's just a skill gap. If you've never done something before, it's going to be inherently scary. And if you ask the average person, how often do you do public speaking?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Twice a year, once a year. I do one meeting. Of course, it's nerve wracking because we just don't do it.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
One of my ex-girlfriends actually really helped me out with this. I don't know why we're going on this dating direction, but I used to get really, really nasty comments about my teeth in the comments. Like really, really bad. So I have fine teeth now. Thank you, Invisalign. Please sponsor me. But before that, I had these crooked teeth in the front. And all of the comments were just about my teeth.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And they were so disheartening. I would wake up. I would not want to post a video, check my comments. I didn't want to make any content.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And she said, Yasser, are you doing this for praise or are you doing it because you're passionate about it? You have to do this for purpose over praise. Purpose over praise. And that's when I realized if I really want to talk about this stuff, if I'm really passionate, I have to go through that. I have to go through it with grit.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I don't have to worry about getting the praise, getting the compliments. Just do it because I want to do it. And once I became more passionate about it, I forgot about what they thought of me. My message was reaching the right people. That's why I continued on this journey.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
I got 2.4 on Instagram. That's my main platform.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Right.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
Yeah, that's the other thing. I'm really passionate about talking about content just because I've learned a lot about it. Before we go into YouTube, Hala, my Instagram has 2.4 million right now. I created that account from scratch in May of 2023. Wow. From scratch. That's a year and a half, right?
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And TikTok, I think, was a year and a half. So on YouTube, when I started, I didn't have confidence. I was just vlogging my daily experiences as a student in Canada. I would talk about job searching for a bit. Then I would talk about my journey, eating something. It was all over the place. And that's why I never learned.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
And by the time I got to 1,000 subscribers, I had some followers from this topic, from that topic, and it was just all over the place. So I started a brand new channel about four months ago. And because of that one podcast that I told one of your team members about, I was on one podcast. The guy had 4,000 followers on his channel. The highest viewed video was 500. I came onto the podcast.
Young and Profiting with Hala Taha (Entrepreneurship, Sales, Marketing)
Yasir Khan: Speak Like a CEO, a Masterclass on Effective Public Speaking | Human Behavior | E321
It went live two weeks ago. That video has 400,000 views on it now. And that got me 25,000 subscribers just from that podcast. So Hala, I know you're getting excited. Man, I can't wait to upload this video. Who knows? Maybe that same thing might happen. But then now I know how to work social media. So I've reworked YouTube and it's working quite well now.