[00:00:00] Hala Taha: Yeah, fam, welcome back to [00:01:00] the show. And today we are focused on public speaking. Now communication, in my opinion, is the backbone of entrepreneurship. Whether you are on stage in the boardroom or simply on a zoom meeting. You really got to know how to communicate if you want to be a successful entrepreneur.

[00:01:17] So joining us today to talk about this is Yasser Khan. 

[00:01:20] He's a public speaking coach with years of experience in helping individuals and organizations improve their ability to connect, persuade, and influence. Yasir Khan is the founder of Speak Like a CEO. Speak Like a CEO. And he's going to give us a masterclass on how to be a more effective speaker. 

[00:01:35] We're gonna learn about pacing volume, storytelling, body language, and so much more. I can't wait to dive into it. So without further delay my conversation with Yaser Khan starts now. 

[00:01:47] Hala Taha: Yasir, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. 

[00:01:50] Yasir Khan: 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 [00:02:00] 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.

[00:02:12] I watched the entire hour of it. 

[00:02:15] Hala Taha: Oh my God. 

[00:02:15] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:02:30] So it's a pleasure to be here. 

[00:02:31] Hala Taha: Oh, wow. What a compliment. I mean, from somebody who's such a great public speaker, the fact that you listened to a whole hour of my speech, that's amazing. That was one of my first. Speaking things that I ever really did in front of a lot of people. 

[00:02:44] Yasir Khan: And it worked. You got my attention.

[00:02:45] Hala Taha: Thank you. So Yasser, you are an expert on public speaking, and this show is all for entrepreneurs. And in today's age, a lot of our communication is written. So we're writing in text, we're writing in emails, we're writing in [00:03:00] DMs. Why is verbal communication still so important, especially for business owners now?

[00:03:07] Yasir Khan: Verbal communication is how you show up to the world. When you open your mouth, that is your brand. And you'll be shocked how, 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.

[00:03:25] 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. 

[00:03:38] Hala Taha: And aside from speaking on stage, because entrepreneurs.

[00:03:41] Not all of us are really going to be on stage, but there's transferable skills when it comes to public speaking. Can you talk to us about that? 

[00:03:49] Yasir Khan: 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?

[00:03:59] Unless they're [00:04:00] 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. 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.

[00:04:14] 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. 

[00:04:24] Hala Taha: I was really surprised to find out. Because you come across very confident. I was very surprised to find out that as a child, even as a young adult, you were really introverted.

[00:04:35] You were really shy. You really struggled making connections and relationships. And it wasn't until your adulthood that you actually cracked the code when it came to public speaking. So talk to us about how public speaking is not something you're necessarily born with and share your story about how you became a public speaker.

[00:04:55] Yasir Khan: Yeah, I was the least likely person to become a public speaker. In fact, if you [00:05:00] 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. 

[00:05:07] And that was the thing, people knew, hey, Yasser's turn, he's not going to show up.

[00:05:11] And I started failing. So it was really affecting my education. 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.

[00:05:32] I came all the way here in Canada, 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 Toe Smashers Club.

[00:05:52] Have you heard of that before? 

[00:05:53] Hala Taha: Yes, of course. Of course. 

[00:05:55] Yasir Khan: Well, a kid from Pakistan. I hadn't heard of it. I thought it was one of two things. One. A [00:06:00] place where people sit in a circle make a toast or two a place to get a grilled cheese sandwich That's what I thought it was gonna 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.

[00:06:13] No, this is not what I signed I came here to make for 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 Kara Knight, she saw me. And she said, Hey, we've got a new guest, come on up and introduce yourself.

[00:06:30] So there I am, new country, I don't know anyone. 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 blurted out four words. I sat back down and I said, Yasir, this is why you never leave the house. This is why you should just get yourself a PlayStation and that's it.

[00:06:47] That's your personality. But then Karen came back to the stage and she looked at me and said Yasser, 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 [00:07:00] clapping. Now, I'm new so I'm thinking is this a Canadian thing?

[00:07:03] I've heard these people are nice, but Did they listen to what I said? Cause I was pretty bad. 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 Hala, 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.

[00:07:24] I'll think about it, I'll let you know, I'll check my horoscope, ask my grandma, check if the universe is perfectly aligned. So I said all those things and she said, Yasir, 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.

[00:07:41] Now, I didn't have friends, Hala. So I said, okay, you're my only friend. I'll come back. Why not? So I came back the week. The next week, the next week. And eventually she says, yeah, so you're making progress. You want to try out that public speaking contest contest. Are you trying to kill me here? I'm just, I'm just here to make friends and I won the contest.

[00:07:59] Wow. [00:08:00] That's where it clicked. Hala that this is not my personality. It's a skill that I did not have. 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. 

[00:08:16] Hala Taha: And you just shared how awesome your storytelling capabilities are, because I was thoroughly engaged in that story. So we're going to pick your brain on that later on. So something I just wanted to talk about is the importance of somebody's voice, right? I am dating right now and there's literally people where I'll hear their voice and I'm like, uh, I can't, I just can't deal with that.

[00:08:39] You know, their voice is not something I'm attracted to. So talk to us about how People can actually be attracted to one's voice. 

[00:08:49] Yasir Khan: 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 [00:09:00] was extremely hard for me to get a match at all on Tinder.

[00:09:03] It was, it was just, I could not get it. So when I finally got it, I was like, Hey, she has two eyes and a mouth and ears, I'll take it. So I showed up on the date, and 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 said, yeah, this is not really working.

[00:09:22] Listen, I'm just going to go. 

[00:09:24] Hala Taha: Wow. 

[00:09:25] Yasir Khan: 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. Transcribed 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, I said, hey, out of curiosity, why don't you want to, hey, Yasir, you, you sound like you're trying too hard.

[00:09:51] 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 [00:10:00] 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. And when they talk a lot, they talk fast, they mumble, they go high pitch and they're, they're trying to get your approval.

[00:10:12] 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. I used to say things like, Hey, so this is what I did.

[00:10:29] Isn't that interesting? Don't you find that it is, 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, I don't question myself. Sometimes you can feel it. You can probably tell me more about your dating experience than I can.

[00:10:43] Maybe that's what you felt. Who knows? 

[00:10:45] Hala Taha: Yeah, 100%. Some of it is just like the tonality. Right. I don't want to listen to that voice forever, you know what I'm saying? Like the tonality, like all of it. I just feel like people don't realize how much voice impacts attraction [00:11:00] and Your perception of somebody's confidence and all that stuff.

[00:11:03] Yasir Khan: Well, think about it like this. Take your favorite song, Hala. 

[00:11:06] Hala Taha: Yep. 

[00:11:07] Yasir Khan: Pull up the lyrics and just read the lyrics. How good will the song sound? 

[00:11:11] Hala Taha: Not great, no. 

[00:11:12] Yasir Khan: 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?

[00:11:23] Maybe I'm annoying. 

[00:11:25] Hala Taha: Okay, we got a little sidetracked. But let's talk about some of the common fears and anxieties that people have with public speaking. 

[00:11:32] Yasir Khan: Where do you want me to start? There's all kinds of public speaking anxiety. Most of the ones that I feel, they have nothing to do with public speaking itself.

[00:11:40] 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. So if you constantly need to practice your public speaking, just to feel good about yourself, that's not a [00:12:00] public speaking issue.

[00:12:00] 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? I just have less filler words now. And the missing ingredient was I did not have self esteem.

[00:12:19] 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. 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.

[00:12:40] 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? Twice a year, once a year, I do one meeting. Of course, it's nerve wracking because we just don't do it. 

[00:12:56] Hala Taha: So how did you yourself get better at public speaking?

[00:12:58] What were the steps that you [00:13:00] took? 

[00:13:00] Yasir Khan: 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 Univisalign, please sponsor me.

[00:13:15] But before that, I had these crooked teeth in the front. And all of the comments were just about my teeth. 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. And she said, Yasir, are you doing this for praise? Or are you doing it because you're passionate about it?

[00:13:34] 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 that with grit, I don't have to worry about getting the praise, getting the compliments, just do it because I want to do it.

[00:13:50] 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. 

[00:13:58] Hala Taha: And I'm glad that you continued on this journey [00:14:00] because now you have over a million followers on TikTok, which is really, really impressive.

[00:14:05] You seem surprised about that. Did you not know you made a million followers on TikTok? 

[00:14:09] Yasir Khan: I've got 2. 4 on Instagram. That's my main platform. 

[00:14:12] Hala Taha: Oh, got it. 

[00:14:13] Three million across all platforms. Three million across all platforms. So I was checking out your TikTok before.

[00:14:19] That's why I knew that number. So you're crushing it on social media, but I was really surprised to find out that it took you five years to get your first 1, 000 followers on YouTube. 

[00:14:29] Yasir Khan: Right. 

[00:14:30] Hala Taha: So what changed? What happened? How did you go from TikTok? 

[00:14:38] Yasir Khan: Yeah, that's the other thing. I'm really passionate about talking about content just because I've learned a lot about it.

[00:14:43] Before we go into YouTube, Hala, my 4 million right now. I created that account from scratch in May of 2023. 

[00:14:51] Hala Taha: Wow. 

[00:14:52] Yasir Khan: From scratch. That's a year and a half, right? 

[00:14:54] And tikTok I think was a year and a half. So on YouTube, when I started, I didn't have confidence. [00:15:00] I was just vlogging my daily experiences as a student in Canada.

[00:15:04] I would talk about job searching for a bit. Then I would talk about my journey. Eating something or it was all over the place. And that's why I never learned. And by the time I got to a thousand 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.

[00:15:21] 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 is 500, I came on to the podcast, 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.

[00:15:42] Wow. 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. 

[00:15:53] Hala Taha: Oh my gosh, yeah, you are doing an incredible job, 

[00:15:56] [00:16:00] 

[00:16:00] So let's get into some actionable advice, some fundamentals when it comes to public speaking. Let's talk about volume. Thank you.

[00:16:11] Hala Taha: What do we need to know about volume when it comes to the way that we talk? 

[00:16:15] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:16:25] 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. 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.

[00:16:41] 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, Hala, the best way we can do this is just do it right now. You think you can prompt me with a quick topic? 

[00:16:51] Hala Taha: Sure. Okay. Just any topic. 

[00:16:52] Yasir Khan: Just give me the most boring topic you can think of in the world, okay?

[00:16:55] And before you do that, just hold your thumb up like this. Just so I can see it on camera. [00:17:00] 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. 

[00:17:07] Hala Taha: Okay. Washing dishes.

[00:17:10] Yasir Khan: Perfect. Ready to go? 

[00:17:11] Hala Taha: Yes. 

[00:17:12] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:17:36] And it makes me think for a moment how grateful I am to have that meal. See what I mean? 

[00:17:44] Hala Taha: Yeah, I love that. 

[00:17:45] Yasir Khan: 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. 

[00:17:51] Hala Taha: Yeah, and speed is another one where I think we need variety. Now, I have my own perspectives on speed.

[00:17:56] I am a fast talker. I do a lot of [00:18:00] workshops and trainings. And my business partner, Kate, and I love her. She's not such a fast talker. And I really truly feel that I'm more engaging in terms of my enthusiasm. I feel like people are just awake when I'm talking and I can have like an eight hour session and keep everybody engaged the entire time.

[00:18:21] And I think a part of it is talking fast. But I do feel like when public speaking folks come on, they often say, Slow it down, you know, so what do you think? 

[00:18:32] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:18:39] 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. I present in front of 200 people and immediately people say, Wow, Yasser, you covered so much information.

[00:18:55] That was absolutely amazing. One of the guys says, Yasser, I'm about to go next after you. That's [00:19:00] 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. He shows up on stage and hala, I can see the notes shaking in his hand in the moment.

[00:19:14] 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're, 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 And then eventually he hits this word that he can't really pronounce properly.

[00:19:35] 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. You were in my presentation where I talked about the 17 ways to overcome public speaking anxiety.

[00:19:56] What happened? What happened? And hala, he [00:20:00] 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.

[00:20:16] 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.

[00:20:31] Hala Taha: So same thing with volume. You also want to vary your pace. So what does talking slow do versus talking fast? Like what does it portray when people are listening to you? 

[00:20:42] Yasir Khan: Talking fast builds momentum. Like, okay, we're going somewhere. Come along with me. I'm, I'm going. But then, I want you to think about this for a second.

[00:20:51] 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 [00:21:00] story because they're going so fast. So if you really want people to listen, slow down. And you whisper. What happens when you slow down?

[00:21:09] 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 I'm not. And then it'll immediately drop the energy and then people feel it in that moment. So you use pauses effectively, but you know some people who are trying to be good public speakers?

[00:21:23] I'm sure you've seen them. They are always trying to talk like this. I have great pauses when I, and then you're listening to it. You don't sound like a human being. It's just a little too, 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.

[00:21:42] Hala Taha: And speaking of being authentic and real, I know one of the things that you say is that you shouldn't really be memorizing your stuff. You should just know your stuff. So talk to us about that. 

[00:21:53] Yasir Khan: Yeah, memorizing is you putting on a performance on stage. I [00:22:00] 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.

[00:22:07] You will 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. If you're ever doing a pitch or a zoom meeting, the audience has been zoned out for a half an hour, but they're still just going on and on because where's their focus, Hala?

[00:22:25] I need you 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. That didn't really sound good. Even I can't understand what I'm saying. Let me rework that.

[00:22:41] You know, the structure and the flow of information But you don't have every single word memorized. So now what happens is if I asked you how to 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. You can just tell me what you had.

[00:22:57] So when you show up for your speech, you know, the [00:23:00] 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.

[00:23:12] That's the difference between internalizing and memorizing. 

[00:23:15] Hala Taha: I feel like that works in many, most situations. But sometimes, like, for example, I do this. presentation called the IAB upruns. It's like the biggest podcast advertising event. And I just have 10 minutes. So for every other speech, I just know my stuff and it's really natural.

[00:23:37] But for the 10 minute timed one, I need to memorize it so that I can get every single point that I want to cross. And I just memorize it and just do it and try to be as engaging as possible. What are your thoughts on that? 

[00:23:50] Yasir Khan: Well, that depends on the goal. If your goal is to get those specific words in that specific order out, then yes, memorize it.

[00:23:57] Like your elevator pitch, right? 

[00:23:58] Hala Taha: Exactly. 

[00:23:58] Yasir Khan: If the goal is [00:24:00] 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. 

[00:24:09] Hala Taha: Oh yeah, that's, you could tell that in a sales pitch and you're like, Oh my God, this guy is just so Exactly.

[00:24:14] Yasir Khan: 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. 

[00:24:20] Hala Taha: Exactly. Okay, cool. Glad you're aligned with that. Pauses and breaths. How should we think about them? 

[00:24:26] Yasir Khan: At the end of the sentence and 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.

[00:24:36] 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. So that uh sounds a little bit uh like this instead. So that sounds like this. Just removing that and being comfortable with silence really helps.

[00:24:59] [00:25:00] And then also what I like to do is whenever I'm making a big point, I'll combine this with higher 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, I finally opened the gift and I couldn't believe that it was the pair of socks I always wanted.

[00:25:21] High energy, pause, drop energy. Can you see how much you felt that in that moment? 

[00:25:25] Hala Taha: Yeah, So let's talk about working the stage, right? How can we, first of all, tell if people are unengaged and engaged? And what are the ways that, aside from what we're saying, that we can engage people?

[00:25:39] Yasir Khan: The biggest mistake, or rather I'd say the biggest missed opportunity for most people, 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?

[00:25:59] Now they know he's [00:26:00] not just gonna talk for an hour. I am in his speech. 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.

[00:26:17] But the moment you step off the stage, now you're one of them. Now you're having a conversation. You're not, hey, I'm this mighty public speaker up here, please listen to me, 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.

[00:26:36] So for example, in one of my modules, I'll say, what do you think is the number one thing or the 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 started, I heard this.

[00:26:52] 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? Hey, everything that we said [00:27:00] is contributing to his speech. And now it's a conversation and not a performance. 

[00:27:04] Hala Taha: So, let's say this is a meeting or an investor's pitch. How can you tell if people are engaged or not? And also, talk to us about hand gestures, like what can we do to make it more interesting? 

[00:27:15] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:27:24] 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. 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.

[00:27:39] So let's say there's 10 people there. So for example, Michael, you remember in our last meeting, right? We did XYZ. So what I'm talking about here is, immediately when they hear their name, oh, okay. Right, like that. 

[00:27:50] Hala Taha: I love that. 

[00:27:50] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:27:58] So I showed up, [00:28:00] 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 would just look at their name. I will get their attention, I will place them into my speech. That way they feel acknowledged throughout.

[00:28:13] 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, how long 

[00:28:21] Hala Taha: Your body language in general. Hand gestures, body language, what do you recommend? 

[00:28:25] Yasir Khan: Yeah. Does it aid the story? Does it aid the purpose?

[00:28:29] 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. It doesn't contribute to your story. So if it adds to the story, great. I naturally use my hands a lot. But in meeting specifically, I've noticed that the more controlled your hands are, the more confident you sound.

[00:28:51] Because if you ask me a question, Yasir, are you really a good public speaking coach? Oh yeah, yeah, I'm a great public speaking coach. I've done a lot. [00:29:00] You can see all this uncontrolled movement in the moment, and that shows you I'm not very confident. Now, whereas if you asked me the same question, and I'd move nothing about my body, you'd ask, why are you such a good public speaker?

[00:29:13] 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? What are you trying to communicate? 

[00:29:28] Hala Taha: And I also heard you say the power of showing your palms. 

[00:29:33] Yasir Khan: Yeah. 

[00:29:34] Hala Taha: What does that do for us psychologically? 

[00:29:37] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:29:51] Hmm. 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 [00:30:00] 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.

[00:30:08] 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. 

[00:30:21] Hala Taha: Okay, so we're about to do a fun little segment. It's a quick fire segment. It's going to be getting tips on delivering our content better.

[00:30:28] I'm going to rattle off a word like intelligence, and then you can tell me how we can sound more intelligent. I might even rattle off a celebrity name or something like that. Okay? 

[00:30:38] Yasir Khan: Let's do it. 

[00:30:39] Hala Taha: Persuasive. 

[00:30:41] Yasir Khan: Admit to your own limitations first before you tell them what to do. 

[00:30:44] Hala Taha: Give me an example. 

[00:30:46] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:30:58] Then I met this guy who [00:31:00] 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. 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.

[00:31:13] Which one was better? Loved that. 

[00:31:14] Hala Taha: The second one for sure. Okay. Intelligence or smart? 

[00:31:19] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:31:31] Which one sounds more intelligent? 

[00:31:32] Hala Taha: The five things. 

[00:31:34] Yasir Khan: 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. 

[00:31:46] Hala Taha: Love that. Alex Hermosi. 

[00:31:49] Yasir Khan: It's funny, I was front row in his workshop, so I got to see him live.

[00:31:53] The one word that comes to mind with him is, he's so real and authentic in the moment. That [00:32:00] 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. If they don't feel it, they forget it.

[00:32:13] And every time Alex speaks, he feels. And that's why so many of us remember so many of his quotes. 

[00:32:18] Hala Taha: Mmm, love that. Imaginative. 

[00:32:22] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:32:35] 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, you would have seen me walk to the sta What are you doing when I say that? You imagine. Visualizing, yeah. Exactly. So when you're telling a story, don't just say, I did this, then this, then this happened.

[00:32:53] Now you're telling a sequence of events. Put the person in the room with you there. Get them to imagine. 

[00:32:58] Hala Taha: Okay, last one. Compassionate [00:33:00] or empathetic? How can we be more compassionate? 

[00:33:02] Yasir Khan: I've got a TED Talk on empathy, so I'm going to have to go empathy between the two of them, but. Sure. I had a run in with someone who, it was a small town in Canada.

[00:33:11] 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. 

[00:33:20] Hala Taha: Oh my god. 

[00:33:21] Yasir Khan: 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 I eventually just stopped and asked him, Hey.

[00:33:32] 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. 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.

[00:33:50] So that's how far empathy can take you and I expand more on that in my TED Talk. 

[00:33:54] Hala Taha: Amazing. So I'll stick your TED Talk link in the show notes. Let's double tap on intelligence. [00:34:00] I think people get a lot of things wrong when it comes to trying to sound intelligent. Can you talk to us about how we can make really complex things easier to understand?

[00:34:11] Yasir Khan: I give you a perfect example. You mentioned Hermozi earlier. I was at Hermozi'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.

[00:34:29] So I was noticing this person next to me. He would ask a question. Hey, 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.

[00:34:47] And I lean over to him and I say, Hey, listen, I don't know what your question is. I don't know how he knows how to answer your question. Why don't you start by asking your question [00:35:00] 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.

[00:35:09] 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? 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.

[00:35:29] 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 details. So if someone's trying to sound more intelligent, sound like you've thought about what you're about to say first. 

[00:35:43] Hala Taha: And then how about using big words?

[00:35:45] Is that helpful at all? 

[00:35:47] Yasir Khan: 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 web three crypto space, and they have [00:36:00] so many terms that they don't want to throw at people. And one of the clients just yesterday, he was, he was not even two minutes with the pitch.

[00:36:06] I said, listen, you lost me. I have no idea what you're talking about. 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.

[00:36:22] So yes, simplify it. Don't worry about the vocabulary. 

[00:36:26] Hala Taha: I know you have this great technique called the PAM technique to help people understand and simplify concepts. Could you break that down for us? 

[00:36:34] Yasir Khan: Phrases, analogies, and metaphors. So your phrases would be your one liner. So if I said, I have a dream.

[00:36:41] Who's the person that comes to mind? 

[00:36:43] Hala Taha: Martin Luther King. 

[00:36:44] Yasir Khan: If I said the name Alex Ramosi, what's a quote that comes to mind? 

[00:36:47] Hala Taha: Focus is more important than anything. 

[00:36:50] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:36:59] Most [00:37:00] 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. 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.

[00:37:15] 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. 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.

[00:37:36] 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. 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.

[00:37:56] That would be your metaphor and analogies. 

[00:37:58] Hala Taha: So one other tip that you give [00:38:00] is actually listening to smart things, listening to other smart people. How does that help us, especially in day to day communications? 

[00:38:08] Yasir Khan: if you think about how we learn a language. Especially when we're babies. How do we learn?

[00:38:13] 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 in classrooms. We learn through exposure. So similarly, what kind of material are you exposing yourself to every single day?

[00:38:33] What are you reading? Who podcast, I imagine they have a very rich vocabulary. 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?

[00:38:52] Because subconsciously all of this is sitting in your head. So you have to really carefully guard what you allow in, and what you don't [00:39:00] allow in, in terms of your intellect. 

[00:39:01] 

[00:39:01] 

[00:39:05] 

[00:39:10] Hala Taha: So something that I want to talk to you about in detail is storytelling, because I feel like storytelling is so important even when it comes to relationships.

[00:39:19] We were just talking about dating. I think being a good storyteller just makes you more engaging, more interesting to people. What are some of the ways that storytelling helps us in our communication? What does storytelling do? How do people feel when they hear stories? 

[00:39:33] Yasir Khan: The most important thing that I feel storytelling does is just memorable.

[00:39:39] 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, Ella? 

[00:39:55] Hala Taha: Like none.

[00:39:56] Yasir Khan: Exactly. How many movies since you were a child do you remember? 

[00:39:59] Hala Taha: [00:40:00] Plenty. 

[00:40:00] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:40:13] 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. And I had this crush on a girl, and she was gonna 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?

[00:40:29] 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. I'm like, oh, how did you know? 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.

[00:40:51] 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. [00:41:00] What you say might not be what they hear. You might say something as a joke to somebody. But they might remember 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.

[00:41:14] For example, Karen in the first meeting that I ever met her. In Total Smash, as you said, it takes one small step to change your life. I still remember that. It's been more than a decade. 

[00:41:24] Hala Taha: So talk to us about how we can become better storytellers. Like, how can we start to infuse stories in the things that we do and get better at it?

[00:41:32] Is there a formula? Or like, how should we think about it? 

[00:41:36] Yasir Khan: There are three things that I talk about, there are 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.

[00:41:51] Oh, he has a great bit on dating or great bit on whatever. You can repeat it to other people. If I can't repeat it, So first thing has to be [00:42:00] 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.

[00:42:09] 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. 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.

[00:42:27] 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. 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?

[00:42:48] 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. 

[00:42:54] Hala Taha: It's so true, stories really trigger our own emotions, we feel more [00:43:00] relatable to the person talking, and to your point, it helps us question our own beliefs, and that's the point.

[00:43:06] Especially with social media, gets people commenting and giving their thoughts, they're agreeing, they're disagreeing, and it causes a lot of engagement. 

[00:43:14] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:43:24] Memorable speakers make you question what is true. They make you change your beliefs. And if they don't make you change your beliefs, you're not going to see the world any different. 

[00:43:33] Hala Taha: So I know we were just talking about how you grew a great personal brand on Instagram, on TikTok. How do you infuse storytelling to get people emotionally attached to you?

[00:43:45] Yasir Khan: 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 A DHD. I love how you talk about, [00:44:00] oh, that you mean you actually like that.

[00:44:01] That's not filler content. 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, 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.

[00:44:21] Hala Taha: Oh, yeah. 

[00:44:22] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:44:38] But to give you an honest answer, I didn't use much storytelling in all this content up until now. 

[00:44:42] Hala Taha: I love that you're being honest about this. Now, I also am very similar where I'm always giving entrepreneurship advice and interview clips of other people. Now, whenever I replay something like my MIT speech that you mentioned, where I'm giving my own personal story, I get 10 times [00:45:00] more, DMs where people go out of their way.

[00:45:03] Hey, I heard that and oh my gosh, I totally relate and I just want to say you're doing such a great job. So much more actionable things that people do, like aside from just commenting, they really go out of their way and I get so much more engagement. So it's so important for you to share your story. It makes people feel like they know you better, you're an old friend, and then they support you more because of it.

[00:45:24] Yasir Khan: Emotion creates devotion. 

[00:45:26] Hala Taha: Mmm. 

[00:45:27] Yasir Khan: And it's hard to relay emotion with tips and tricks. When was the last time you gave your teacher a standing ovation? 

[00:45:33] Hala Taha: I don't know. 

[00:45:34] Yasir Khan: Unless they shared 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.

[00:45:46] People will stand up and clap, why? Because it's the emotion that creates the devotion. 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 [00:46:00] come I don't get it?

[00:46:00] He's like, 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? Standing ovation. 

[00:46:10] Hala Taha: So I've got some advice for you. I teach personal branding and I help influencers grow on social media and LinkedIn specifically.

[00:46:17] And one of the things that I tell my students is to create a story journal. So everybody has 10, 20, 30 stories, milestones that have happened in their life. They got fired. They had a transformation, they were an intern, then they became a CEO, somebody died.

[00:46:34] Everybody has big milestone stories, but the problem is that when you tell them to share their stories online, they're like, why didn't, I don't have any stories, but everybody has stories. You got to write them down and then you've got to say them in a million different ways. So what are your thoughts about that?

[00:46:51] Like how can people prepare their storytelling and anything to add there? Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:46:55] Yasir Khan: I love that. I love that. So, okay, this is going to be a really weird example. I'm going to tell [00:47:00] you a really quick story. Okay. I spent a month and a half preparing the perfect intro for a keynote I had coming up. I wanted to get the, yeah, the, just the first sentence of it.

[00:47:08] Okay. And the first sentence was going to be, I have a confession to make. You might've 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.

[00:47:25] dinner with the team and they noticed that I'm not drinking. I don't drink. They said, okay, you ask her, you don't drink. I said, no. I 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 dehydrates me. And then he said, so what? And I was thinking, okay, how do I explain to them?

[00:47:41] How do I say this? I make money with my mouth, so it dehydrates me. But before I could say the dehydration part, everyone started laughing. 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. [00:48:00] Open with that.

[00:48:01] 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. 

[00:48:08] Hala Taha: Amazing. 

[00:48:10] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:48:18] So every single day, like you're saying, you're going to have experiences that give you a story. Lower the bar on what a story is. Yesterday I was in line for 15 minutes for some new coffee shop that opened up, that was terrible, and I'm thinking, what's the message? Life's too short to wait. That's the message.

[00:48:34] You can just practice that with everything, every day. 

[00:48:37] Hala Taha: Yeah, and I love what you're saying here, because you're saying stories don't have to be like long and complicated. Stories can actually be simple, right? You've got this prep formula. Can you go over what that is and then maybe can we do some role playing related to that?

[00:48:52] Yasir Khan: And by the way, this is not my formula. I learned it from Stanford. Oh, okay. 

[00:48:55] Hala Taha: So Stanford's formula, but we're learning it from yes. 

[00:48:58] Yasir Khan: It's point, reason, [00:49:00] 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, you reason an example and then a point.

[00:49:10] I do PRP or PSP, point, reason point, point, story point, just because I find that I naturally infuse an example in there, so why don't you give me a, a random question, and I'm gonna give you a terrible answer, and then we'll try to implement it in there. 

[00:49:25] Hala Taha: Why did you become a public speaker? 

[00:49:28] Yasir Khan: Oh man, there's so many reasons I became a public speaker.

[00:49:30] 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, uh, yeah, that's why I'm a public speaker. 

[00:49:45] Hala Taha: Pretty bad.

[00:49:46] Yasir Khan: All over the place. Have you heard an answer like that before? 

[00:49:49] Hala Taha: Oh yeah. 

[00:49:50] Yasir Khan: Nine times out of ten, right? Yeah. Now, 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 sentence. And I'm going to go into that. Okay. So ask me that [00:50:00] question again.

[00:50:00] Hala Taha: Why did you become a public speaker? 

[00:50:03] Yasir Khan: I became a public speaker to show other people how important their voices. Hala, 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.

[00:50:20] Or being affected with the words that were coming out of my mouth. 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. 

[00:50:31] Hala Taha: I can imagine this could be really helpful to prepare for networking events.

[00:50:35] Because everyone's going to ask you the same questions. Like, what do you do for a living? And what are you passionate about? 

[00:50:40] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:50:51] That's it. Just script them one time, and then you will be good for life. But you'll be shocked how many times, like, so, [00:51:00] Uh, you know, my wife dragged me down here. I'm like, Oh my God, why me? 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.

[00:51:10] 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. 

[00:51:18] Hala Taha: Why are you here? Yeah. You're fired. 

[00:51:22] Yasir Khan: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. 

[00:51:24] Hala Taha: So I know that you are coaching CEOs now, and I imagine that you are taking sales calls and closing and pitching these CEOs.

[00:51:32] What advice do you have for the entrepreneurs tuning in for how to handle a sales call and some communication tips around that? 

[00:51:38] Yasir Khan: Hala, 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.

[00:51:51] Book a call. That's my funnel. So, there was a time where I was doing sales calls. There, I'm no longer doing sales calls. [00:52:00] Fortunately, I have such demand that I can't afford to spend them. 

[00:52:01] Hala Taha: Yeah, content marketing is working for you. 

[00:52:02] Yasir Khan: Yeah, it 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.

[00:52:14] Yeah, I want to become a good public speaker. Yeah, I'll say, well, like 20 grand. I'll let you know. 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 chart, 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.

[00:52:33] There's no urgency around it. 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.

[00:52:51] Hala Taha: Yasser, this has been such an amazing conversation. Do you have any last bit of advice for entrepreneurs related to their communication and public [00:53:00] speaking that you feel like you didn't get a chance to share?

[00:53:02] Yasir Khan: I'll leave you with this. Thanks. 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, I said, I'm not very confident. Teach me public speaking.

[00:53:16] And I got her to speak a little bit. And she said, I'm a midwife and this is what I do. I said, okay. And then she stopped talking after 30 seconds. So 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.

[00:53:31] 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. 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.

[00:53:47] Eventually they had to call it, so they looked at her and said, Hey Mary, it's up to you. We did what we could. I know tomorrow's Saturday, Sunday you're off, but do whatever you gotta do, we'll meet on Monday. So the doctors left, and Mary's standing there [00:54:00] in the room, and on one side you see a mother who just gave birth.

[00:54:02] 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? Like, can I just, like, what do I have to lose, right? So she continues giving CPR, continues 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, and the baby starts breathing.

[00:54:19] Hala Taha: Wow. 

[00:54:20] Yasir Khan: 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. And she says, listen, this might not be my job, but it's my responsibility.

[00:54:34] 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? 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.

[00:54:52] She stayed Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday to make sure my baby was still alive. So I heard that story and I asked her, [00:55:00] listen, what made you stay there? You were off the weekend. Like it was every, everyone just made the decision. She said, Yasir, I realized that it was not my job. It was my responsibility. So the message I want to give your audiences, it's not your job to rehearse.

[00:55:15] 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. 

[00:55:27] Hala Taha: Oh, my gosh. So good. And such a great example of storytelling and good storytelling.

[00:55:32] Thank you, Yasser. I end my show with two questions that I ask all my guests. The first one is, what is one actionable thing my young improfiters can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? 

[00:55:44] Yasir Khan: Tell the stories they wish they could have heard when they were a child. 

[00:55:48] Hala Taha: why when they were a child, specifically?

[00:55:50] Yasir Khan: 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 [00:56:00] some teacher says something, your parents were really scolding you. What would that person need to hear?

[00:56:05] And then think of the stories 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. 

[00:56:14] Hala Taha: And what is your secret to profiting in life? And this can go beyond business, beyond the topic of today's episode.

[00:56:20] What is your secret to profiting in life? 

[00:56:22] Yasir Khan: I'll leave you with one last piece of advice that my client gave me. Are you familiar with the brand Lume deodorant, Hala? 

[00:56:28] Hala Taha: Yes. 

[00:56:28] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:56:37] Hala Taha: Love it. 

[00:56:37] Yasir Khan: 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.

[00:56:54] She said, that's it. What do you mean? It's 5, 000. That's it? That's all you charge? [00:57:00] She was skeptical of me because of my price. I have never in my life heard that. After we worked together, she said, Yasser, I would have paid you 25 grand for the work we did together. What the heck are you doing? I said, listen, I'm on public speaking codes.

[00:57:10] There's a million of them out there. Why would you pay me 25 grand? She said, you know what made my brand successful? 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.

[00:57:26] So Yasir, 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. That's how I profited in life. So be better at being different. 

[00:57:41] Hala Taha: Yeah. So you dropped so many gems. I feel like everyone learns so much.

[00:57:45] Thank you for your time today. Where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do? 

[00:57:49] Yasir Khan: Speak like a ceo.com and if you wanna find me on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, it's speaking with Yasser. 

[00:57:55] Hala Taha: Amazing. Thank you so much. 

[00:57:57] Yasir Khan: Thank you. [00:58:00] 

[00:58:02] Hala Taha: Well, Yap Gang, I hope you gained some valuable insights into the art of public speaking from my guest today, Yasir Khan. Like he said, verbal communication is literally how you show up to the world. The words that come out of your mouth reflect on you and your brand every day and can have a profound impact on your success.

[00:58:21] Yasser shared some great practical strategies that can transform not just only how you communicate, but also how you connect with your audience, whether that's in a boardroom or on a stage. Here were some of my favorite pointers. First, varying your volume and pace is essential for capturing and maintaining your audience's attention.

[00:58:40] Slowing down your speaking pace allows your audience to absorb information more effectively, while fluctuations in volume can emphasize key points. Next, make sure your body language and hand gestures help the story that you're telling. Otherwise, it could just be distracting. Often, the less that you use your hands, the more confident and in [00:59:00] control you appear.

[00:59:01] Also, when it comes to the words that you use, internalize what you want to say, don't memorize it, and avoid big words and overly complex language or jargon. Keep things simple and use analogies and metaphors to help others understand concepts. By mastering basic techniques like this, you can ensure that your message resonates long after you've finished speaking.

[00:59:22] 

[00:59:22] Thanks for listening to this episode of Young and Profiting Podcast. If you listened, learned, and profited from the public speaking insights of Yostar Khan, then why not let somebody else do the same? And if you did enjoy this show and you learned something, then please take a couple minutes to drop us a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to this show.

[00:59:43] I don't think anything makes me happier than getting a new review. I read them every single day and they always make my day. If you're looking for me, you can find me on Instagram at Yap with Hala or LinkedIn by searching my name. It's Hala Taha. If you like to watch your [01:00:00] podcasts as videos, You can find all of our episodes on YouTube.

[01:00:04] And finally, a quick shout out to my production team here at Yap Media. You guys are all absolute rock stars. Thank you for all that you do. This is your host, Hala Taha, aka The Podcast Princess, signing off