Presentation Book Club: Ivan Wanis Ruiz is re-writing the rulebook

Mikey Mioduski (00:00)
Presentation thinkers were back believe it or not Ivan Juanes Ruiz is here again

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (00:27)
Bravo, bravo, Mikey, bravo.

Mikey Mioduski (00:30)
Kinglab.com

author and Ivan, know like last time we had you on, you're like, you don't have to plug my stuff. We don't have to talk about my book. But Molly and I afterwards, we both listened to the book and we were like, this book is so good that we would love to have another show where we can actually like talk about the book and boring.

Molly Geoghegan (00:50)
Sometimes you just gotta book club it. So welcome to the book club part of presentation thinking, Ivan. We're happy you're back.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (00:56)
I'm so happy to be here and I'm, you can't tell, but I am blushing with the kind words. So thank you so much. I'm so glad you enjoyed it.

Molly Geoghegan (01:04)
No, seriously, it was a very fun and it's like a like not necessarily quick, but just that we've read a lot of short about public speaking. And just to just to back up here, what book are we talking about? End Boring, a Tactical Approach to Public Speaking and Communication by Ivan Juanes-Ruiz is seriously one you got to put in your cart, you guys, because it is definitely turning quite a few of the public speaking approaches that Mikey and I have.

kind of listened to, put into practice, and preached a bit as well, turning them on its head. And so I am first curious, what started your curiosity around, there's a whole bunch of public speaking advice out there, and what started your frustration and curiosity around, need something different to write this book. What came up?

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (01:53)
And it's funny because I know you can, I can always tell when people have read the book when they, cause they bring up frustration. Cause literally the first chapter is like, why everyone is wrong. It's that me, you know, why I was so frustrated with it. And you know, what's funny when you were talking about this, Molly, I was thinking about in my fourth year of university, you know, I had all these experiences and my fourth year of university, I was just about to leave and I had kind of been known as the guy who's really good at public speaking. And one of my teachers said, Hey, could you come in? I'll give you an hour.

and do some public speaking training to everyone in the room. And I remember having no idea how to formally do it. Like I was like, I don't even know what I'm doing. Like I don't know how to like say what I'm doing. And I remember that always has stuck in my head because since then I think about that periodical when I formalized tactics. And I guess the biggest frustration came for me because everyone was like me at that point. No one gave me solid ideas. Everyone had generic kind of like advice.

And so much of it was based on like a personal experience that you couldn't translate it into your own world. when I took Toastmasters, I remember it's like, I was like, this is good. I'm learning public speaking. But if you've ever been to a Toastmasters, like, these guys are so, I'm sorry, Toastmasters like nerdy formal. You know what I mean? It's a little, it's nerdy. It's very traditional. It's very formal. It's pure learning.

Molly Geoghegan (03:09)
Yeah, it's traditional.

We can say that, we can say that.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (03:16)
You know, if you're a Toastmaster, please write your angry comments on the YouTube comments below or in Spotify.

Molly Geoghegan (03:23)
We're provoking engagement.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (03:25)
Yeah, provoking engagement. You know, and I am, I did, I did the whole toast master system. And then I remember going out and trying to use like the toast master system in like corporate worlds to try and like develop my, my career. And it was just, wasn't translating because so much of it didn't apply to people's day to day. People say like, yeah, so how would I use this in like my meeting? And I'm like, that's a great question, dude. I don't know. And that was always the answer. And then when I did Dale Carnegie, I will still remember this. There was a big.

Mikey Mioduski (03:27)
Yeah.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (03:54)
back and forth discussion about what you should do with your hands. Everyone wonders, my gosh, what should I do with my hands? And like 20 minutes of just anecdotal evidence and the answer just kept changing. And what it came down to was no one actually knew. I swear to you, the person, the teacher said, just keep your hands on your side like this, touching your thighs. And I remember.

Molly Geoghegan (03:57)
Mm.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (04:20)
This is like 10 years ago, wasn't that long ago. And I remember going like, that's it, I quit. There's nothing. There's nothing these guys can teach me. I learned from it's not that they were wrong. I learned lots of great things from them. I still use some of them. But that one thing I was like, so no one had the full piece of the pie. And then I'd be like, watch like I stand, I'd watch go like Bill Burr or someone. And he's going, ⁓ geez, they're not not using transition using filler words like David Letterman was the same thing. He'd sit there. So, ⁓ yeah, I mean, what else is going on?

They would, because that's what real conversations are like. And even just recently, I watched the podcast with like some big communication guy and he was talking about not using filler words. And this is this old traditional host master system that is great for fundamentals, but doesn't apply to the vast majority of what we do. So that's where the book came from. So I started my journey.

Molly Geoghegan (04:53)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (05:12)
You remind me of that skeptical kid who asks the teacher, but why? But why? But why? Not just taking it for face. Well, because I said so. And I feel like that's, I loved the book for that reason. You're challenging widely accepted norms and commentary that's just kind of become dogmatic a bit. you're saying like, yeah, but like, is that how we really talk? And is that actually effective? It's good.

Molly Geoghegan (05:39)
Mm-hmm.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (05:40)
Mikey never cross your arms, but isn't this just like super normal? Just super normal.

Molly Geoghegan (05:46)
And fairly comfortable.

Mikey Mioduski (05:47)
kind of like know the rules so that you can break them and you're kind of it you're kind of liberating the rule system a bit which I loved about the book again so like it's not even a year out is that right like coming up on one year in November what

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (06:02)
Yeah, what happened was I actually published it in 2020, but from 2020 to 2024, I realized there was so much missing from it. So I added like another hundred pages of experiences and content and then the whole virtual part I had to add because that was a development of the virtual training. And so I published the second edition, the new and improved.

Mikey Mioduski (06:24)
That's awesome.

Molly Geoghegan (06:25)
Yeah, very cool. Oh, that's cool. And that was one of my favorite parts, which we can get into a little bit here. But I just want to finish commenting on what you are presenting here, which is like I think a lot of listeners would relate to that wanting to obviously implement that professional and polished advice of there's a difference between, you know, having filler words as a constant crutch and you're not prepared and you're not familiar with your stuff versus also just communicating something really well. Because when we talk about storytelling on the podcast,

It's about telling like it does end up being like it's related to a good conversation with a friend or someone like if you remember something from whatever whether it's work or a movie you go on and the ability to retell the story is a sign of a good story or a good presentation. And so being able to relate those back to mediums that are much more familiar and normal in the day to day world not necessarily Ted talks or professional keynotes like with Steve Jobs or something.

It really helps to kind of put that into perspective. I'm like, yeah, the most memorable things are people that are kind of just relating in a much more human and almost friend level. And if when that's translated to a presentation, you can, you can tell. And, and that's the difference for me.

Mikey Mioduski (07:40)
Yeah.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (07:41)
And Molly, let me jump in on this and give you a little, a yes. And one of the other things that I've always noticed is when people try and tell you why something is bad, they always present it as a hyper exaggerated version. So for example, I recently watched someone telling me why filler words are bad and they, use the example. like, if I like. Constantly like, you know, like use filler words, like, you know, like, and yes, there are a very minority of people who talk like that, but the vast majority of people do not.

Molly Geoghegan (07:44)
Yeah.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (08:08)
So the occasional filler word doesn't matter. It makes me look normal. And all you have to do is that I did this one. Okay. Go watch, you know, Ronaldo, the most famous soccer players. Yeah. Ronaldo. I can't remember his last name because it's Ronaldo. I was watching a bunch of stuff. I'm not into it at all, but was Cristiano Cristiano Cristiano Ronaldo. So watch the difference between a panel discussion and a speech and you will see

Molly Geoghegan (08:19)
Yeah, yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (08:28)
Okay, okay.

Molly Geoghegan (08:29)
it.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (08:36)
that during the panel discussion, people are always more casual, they're more real, and they use occasional filler words versus the speech where they're always more formal and it's harder to listen to them. And so Rinaldo, who was not a speaker, I was watching, he did this one where he did a speech and I was like, password, password. It was just standard, like right away, okay, okay, yeah, I got it. And then he did another one where he did a panel and he was a totally different person.

Molly Geoghegan (08:59)
cool. And you think, do think he's a good speaker? Do you think?

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (09:03)
In the

panel he was, yeah. In the panel he was like seeing thought provoking questions and responding with like another question to make him think. During the speech, it was just like the most generic kind of thing. And I'll be honest with you, I didn't listen to most of it.

Mikey Mioduski (09:15)
Yeah, it's kind of a presence thing too. Like, like, is he just being himself? And what, what is that? What? Why? Where did that come from?

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (09:17)
Right?

And then again, Mikey, to your point, during the speech, he was like, hello everyone on the podium, da da da da da. During the panel discussion, he was moving, was crossing his arms, he was kind of like scratching his face, he was kind of moving, you know? And it was so normal.

Molly Geoghegan (09:38)
It feels easier to intake like because you're just listening to maybe that's I mean, I don't know. Maybe this is a tangent, but is that why people love conversational podcasts? Right. Like, is that why we like the ability to feel like we're sitting down on the couch with our favorite comedian or pop star who are just talking to each other? There's something there.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (09:57)
Potentially, yeah, because conversations are great. And let me throw one other thing out that stillness is not natural. And when people are using doing presentations, they become very slow. They're like, they talk, you know, but watch anyone, everyone listening right now, like even in this moment, look around to other people talking around you or think about me the next time someone you're you're watching people talk with people watching. We move almost every one or two seconds.

Mikey Mioduski (10:10)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (10:25)
Mm-hmm.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (10:26)
Just in our conversation now, you guys have all constantly moved. Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (10:29)
I'm at the standing desk floating around.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (10:31)
And but you're changing your way, you're moving, your hands are going. The only time you're still is when you are afraid. And let me prove it to you.

Molly Geoghegan (10:38)
Yeah.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (10:40)
Go watch Beautiful Planet or whatever the nature documentaries. Every time the deer gets afraid, what does it do? Gets real still.

Molly Geoghegan (10:47)
Yeah, yeah.

Mikey Mioduski (10:49)
yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (10:51)
It's true, don't be the deer in headlights on the press.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (10:54)
Yeah, and that's

still because stillness isn't natural.

Mikey Mioduski (10:58)
So if you probably can't go through life without observing how people carry themselves at conferences, you're watching best practices. Tell us about the writing process for this. Like what informed these chapters? How did you decide on the specific, what you wanted to include? What were the best case studies? Yada yada. Like, how'd you create a book? It's crazy.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (11:18)
So

I think that the methodology of book writing is very interesting. And there's a couple of things I did that I don't know are at least when I did it, it weren't the standard way of doing things. But now I think it's a very accelerated way of doing it. So I had been training, doing training for a few years before this. Right. And so these ideas were there and people would always come up like, hey, where can we find out more? And I'd be like, you can't. Can't now get out of my sight. That's just kidding. How dare you speak to me now?

Well, if you, and I had nothing. So the idea of a book kind of was percolating, but I am not a writer. Not only am I not a writer, I'm not a, a, a typer. I was, I remember starting the book out and just like three sentences in, like, I'm done. I'm done. I can't do this. Yeah. what I did instead is I just, I basically hired someone. I decided I was going to voice dictate the book and I did it in like a couple of hours. And I just, then I did a, uh,

Molly Geoghegan (11:57)
Mm-hmm.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (12:18)
I did two things. One, I voice to texted it into a big word document. And then I hired an editor to say, okay, here's the text document. Here's the actual audio. Please formalize this with titles and everything like that and send it back to me. And then we iterate it until we had it. And then the case studies was, yeah, the case studies was interesting because when I started writing the book, what I did is I put out a call to all my old students because a lot of old students of mine will connect with me on LinkedIn.

Molly Geoghegan (12:24)
Mm-hmm.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (12:47)
And I said, Hey everyone, I'm writing a book. Has anyone had experiences using the tactics? Please send me a message. And I had maybe a hundred people send me messages. Some of them just send me a message and said, here was my experience. Other ones were like, I had to call them back and we had a bit of a conversation. And then I said, Hey, if I keep your name anonymous, can I use your experience? That's brilliant. And they said, yes.

Molly Geoghegan (13:07)
Smart.

Yeah. Oh, I love that. Yeah. And you didn't have to go far for that kind of research because you had your audience built already. Yeah. That's something I was curious about. you've been, you you founded Public Speaking Lab. You've been helping people with public speaking for a long time. What was it kind of a mixture of like your students going through things and then not having the resources that you wanted that you were like, I got to write a book about this, even though, as you said, you're like, I'm not

gonna love sitting down and typing that out.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (13:39)
Well, you know, we know it's funny is the whole idea of the book was as there was two like from a professional perspective and also from a legitimacy. Sure. So I thought if I really want to get to the next level and I want to have extra legitimacy, legitimacy for people who don't know me, a book adds a little bit of legitimacy. You know what I mean? He's an author. It's published. People have bought it. That gives you a sense of legitimacy. The other reason I had it was like that kind of like leave behind flash promotional elements.

Because then I can say, and this is from a professional perspective, people would say, do you have any follow-up? I'm like, yeah, I do actually. Here's my book. I can send you things. But then at the same time, what was also interesting is that the book was never meant to be a revenue source. I never thought of the book as a revenue source. I thought maybe it's going to be a small revenue source. And that's been so far the case, but it was predominantly, that's a little embarrassing that they, mean, okay. Do you guys remember grade 10?

Molly Geoghegan (14:23)
Mm-hmm.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (14:38)
Remember grade 10? Do you have any teachers from your high school year that stood out to you?

Mikey Mioduski (14:45)
Yeah.

Molly Geoghegan (14:46)
I fun

quirky ones. I have a few I was like, I'm friends with on Facebook, weird.

Mikey Mioduski (14:51)
Thank you.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (14:52)
Yeah. ⁓ really? Okay. there it looks. Yeah. Bravo. So I remember a teacher named Mr. McGee and he gave us this like he was this one of these guys that he'd been a teacher for a long time. And so the fucks were not at zero, but almost at zero. And he threw this thing up to me once and he says, Hey, listen, when you die outside of your immediate family and friends, who's going to care? And then he just stopped and the whole room was like,

Molly Geoghegan (14:57)
haha

to him.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (15:24)
And I still think about it. And I always joke that I want to be that guy that in whatever the podcast is in like a hundred years from now, they're going be like, there was this guy way back in the 2000s, really, you know, when in podcasts, they find some like long Ross bigger. And it was kind of like to keep a legacy. As I I'm almost 50 now, believe it or not. And because I'm getting to you, start seeing time go faster and you start seeing the end like, like this. And I wanted to have something that is.

Molly Geoghegan (15:41)
Yeah, yeah.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (15:53)
when I die, more than just my immediate family and friends will maybe care about.

Molly Geoghegan (15:58)
think that's embarrassing at all. It's the impression. I mean, you said it in your first chapter. was like people remember 2 % of what you said and a general impression. So people will maybe remember a little bit about what you said and the general impression of you in your book. And I think that's amazing. Yeah. And it really is, I think it's such a one of a kind.

Mikey Mioduski (16:00)
That's amazing.

Molly Geoghegan (16:18)
book and I appreciate what you said as well of like as a speaker and wanting to level up in that way. Like talking about a what better leave behind is a book, you know, like are you sending the slides is like, actually here's my whole ethos, my worldview around this. So that's even better. ⁓ But can you talk a little bit about, you know, a few, I love all the chapters. ⁓ The first one kind of starts out with a bang. You say, are you a liar? You talk about like body language on stage. ⁓

know, yeah, like you said earlier, when people are scared, that's when they're actually still. So it doesn't make any sense to not move on stage. And yeah, well, you talk a bit about how you kind of prioritize those some of those messages and we can get into more specifics. ⁓ And I'm very curious about like the research you did for this. talked to comedians, buskers, like you talk about wrestling announcers. You don't you're not referencing like these big speaker names in the business world. So I really appreciated those quotes you bring in as well. ⁓ Yeah. How did you prioritize those messages?

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (17:13)
Well, the first thing I thought about, you know, I ended up reading a book that talked by Janine Dreyer that's called You Can't Lie to Me. And it was about lie detection. Now, if we're very honest, the quote unquote science of lie detection is not actually a science. It's like a pseudoscience and it's rarely and every time it's been studied, it has been shown to not actually be that effective more than chance. However, there are things that she brought up about physicality that I was like, I wonder if that's true. So

Again, I decided to start my journey and it took me like almost a year. This was so long. This was, I'm talking, this is like 2008, 2009. Like this is long, long time ago that I started writing what is the RCMP, which is the Canada's FBI. There are federal kind of policing force. And it took me about a year to get in contact with people because, you know, they're, they don't want me like, Hey, I'm doing some research on a book. We were like, go F yourself. You know what I mean? Like it was a lot of.

Mikey Mioduski (18:10)
That.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (18:11)
But

I managed to talk to two different interviewers, interview specialists, is what they call them. And they were like people who developed, who were kind of there to train other RCMP, other police officers in train in lie detection and interviewing and interrogation. Right. And one of the discussions we had was, so what are you looking for physically? And they said, see, the trap is when you try and find one thing, that's the trap. It's not one thing. It is a pattern or a consistency.

So what is a pattern and what is a consistency? So a pattern is when people keep doing something, when you ask them questions and if they change doing it. So for example, if we're having a normal conversation and you start asking me questions and every time you ask me questions, I just want like that little like sign of frustration. If I do that once or twice, it's nothing. Okay. Just doing it is nothing. Doing it consistently shows me something. That's a pattern. Now the consistent part is remember when I talked about how stillness isn't natural. So there's

Molly Geoghegan (18:50)
Mm.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (19:09)
putting your cross in your arms or putting your hands in your pocket or whatever isn't inherently bad unless it's the only thing you're doing. So if I see here and I'm chilling like this, right? If we're chill like this and the whole time I'm like this and I don't move for like 30 minutes, that is very weird. That consistency, that stillness is very weird, right? know, it is very, it's very weird. But if I do this a little bit and it's again, we're moving constantly every few seconds and I go back, it's nothing.

So when people did something consistently without changing their physicality, they were like, at health with something, doesn't tell us they're lying. It tells us discomfort. there's the, and there is the difference. There's an interesting lie detection and physical signs of comfort and discomfort. Like it's not that I put my hands together and rub them a little bit. It's if I did the whole conversation and the whole time I'm doing this, then, that's a pattern. That's a consistency right there. You see.

Molly Geoghegan (19:54)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (20:05)
And probably right now you guys are probably can't listen to what I'm saying because.

Molly Geoghegan (20:09)
Well, I know, it's like, that's so, that'd be so interesting.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (20:13)
Yeah, and we're making great audio right now, guys. We're great audio.

Molly Geoghegan (20:16)
It's true. It's so true. Yeah, ⁓

Mikey Mioduski (20:17)
a little color comment.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (20:20)
So you're

follow them on YouTube. If you're listening right now on Spotify, go to YouTube right now. Can you plug the YouTube channel?

Molly Geoghegan (20:27)
Of course, yeah, act ghost ranch PPT.

Mikey Mioduski (20:30)
It's happening.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (20:31)
One more time a little bit.

Molly Geoghegan (20:32)
at Ghost Ranch PPT, everybody. We're officially putting out our video feed. Get it. So that I can see, I mean, I have like fidgets galore. So it's funny. I'm thinking about how I am implementing that, like as you're talking and not to like, yeah, not that moving isn't unnatural, but sometimes I'm like, has to like, I want a place for my movement to go so that I'm not just doing this, throughout a podcast or rubbing my hands together like little praying mantis or something. ⁓

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (20:34)
Ghost Ranch PPT everybody.

Molly Geoghegan (21:01)
Yeah, that's really interesting. ⁓ Mikey, what, as someone that, Mikey just did a great talk last week in San Francisco. ⁓ shout out. So I, how did your like interpretation of some of his like building the college, like how did, how did it feel?

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (21:14)
My style.

Mikey Mioduski (21:17)
Yeah,

go for it.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (21:20)
totally

buried the lead just now. You totally we were going off the rails. Mikey, tell me about this.

Molly Geoghegan (21:26)
Out of book club and into the...

Mikey Mioduski (21:28)
Molly

took a leap by calling it a great presentation. I gave a presentation and I did show up early the day before. like, I'm kinda, I get a little worked up and, ⁓ and then they told me I was going to be the lead, the lead off, like the first morning keynote, you know, 30 minutes, ⁓ which is great. So SF San Francisco, the Hyatt Regency airport hotel, you know, you gotta build for earthquakes out there. And so there's these like ridiculous.

Molly Geoghegan (21:44)
Good slot.

Haha

Mikey Mioduski (21:58)
pillars that split up the room, you know? Like I'm sure you've been to spaces like this to where like I really had to crank to make, it was a wide room, two screens. And so like people were either like right in front of the screen or like tucked behind a pillar. It was awkward. ⁓ And so I think what I, what really stood out to me is you have a chapter on what is a stage, you know? And you kind of talked about how you'll like work the extreme angles and corners of what is or is in a stage.

to keep people kind of engaged in a little bit on their toes to be like, oh, is he coming at me? Do I need to? Yeah. You know, so I did try to without short of like pacing, I tried to move to hit every corner, far corners of each of the stage to feel like this side of the room is getting a little love and then, and so on. yeah, that staging element was, was really interesting. So that was kind of top of mind for me throughout the last.

Molly Geoghegan (22:57)
Yeah, I love that joke.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (22:59)
time

you have to do one, call me. I would love that. you want, call me and let's go. Let's spend a half an hour and I'll give you some stuff to try.

Mikey Mioduski (23:05)
Yeah. And you had one note about a student who had to cut early, like she got up. so a lot of things stood out to me in the book. One is we think we're practicing. I'm such an introvert that I really, I can go to sleep. I'm thinking about what I'm going to say. I say it to myself. And then the difference between saying it to yourself and saying it out loud in front of people, I need to build those calluses. I love the chapter title about preparation and literally having to do it.

in uncomfortable situations in front of people. I need to embrace that. I also ran out of time. And so, but I didn't want to be the guy, the lead off guy going over. And so I, cut my talk short. Fortunately, I kind of knew how I wanted to summarize it, but I left a little meat on the bone. I was, was bummed that I didn't time it out, you know, as well, or leave any time for Q and a each one's a big learning for me. yeah. So the timing ⁓ and talking out loud would have, I think helped, helped me a bit.

I have some questions on that if you have, if you're willing.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (24:07)
Well, Molly, you were just about to jump into something or we can jump into that.

Molly Geoghegan (24:10)
No, no, keep going. This is too good.

Mikey Mioduski (24:12)
Molly, I've probably expressed this to you as like, when I'm rehearsing, I'll get through the first 10 minutes over and over and over, right? And it's like the back 20 or the back 15 that I'm like, shit, this is kind of new territory. Cause like, hardly ever get here, you know? Cause I always get on some tangent. I'm like, I need to fix this little thing in the first 10. So do you break it up? Do you recommend rehearsing one chapter or one like segment at a time? How do I get past those first five or 10 minutes?

Molly Geoghegan (24:26)
needs a little more.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (24:42)
Yeah, it's a really great question because it's, it's something you, you, you've experienced Mike. And I think a lot of the listening audience has experienced you're rehearsing. And what you find out is most of your rehearsal ends up being like the first five to 10 slides or the first five to 10 minutes, because then you've already picked up all these other things you want to change. then like, ⁓ and now it's tomorrow. I'll just wing the rest. Yeah. So what happens in those situations? How do you practice in those situations? So for me, there's a couple of things. One is.

Molly Geoghegan (25:01)
Yeah.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (25:11)
And the way you said, you know, a good walk away message, I will summarize my presentation into one, two or three walkaways. For me, I talk about the goal opportunity statement or the visceral statement. If you have a presentation and there's three big things, you need to have those three visceral statements. That way, if you do run out of time, you can be like, listen, gang, we're out of time. So I just want to leave you these two big ideas, idea one and idea two. And I've already talked about this idea. Great. And if you have questions, come and see me later.

Molly Geoghegan (25:41)
It

it easy to fast forward and kind of like synopsize a bit.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (25:44)
100%. And I always tell people, you know, what is the goal? Like what, and I talk about it in the book, what's the goal of a presentation? And everyone always says to inform, to convince, you know, to entertain these kinds of things. But I always, then I'd say back, you know, Mikey, you know, what are the odds that every single person in that 400 people in that room are all going to remember everything you said? What are their odds they're all going to be convinced by everything you said? Yeah. Very low. So for, for me, if you, so if you think about it, and this gets me every time, you think about it,

Mikey Mioduski (26:06)
It's.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (26:13)
Everything we've been told about the goal of a good presentation has been setting yourself up for failure. And everyone experiences that failure. I ran out of time. I didn't get to cover everything I wanted to do. Right? So alternative, and this is, goes back to the visceral statement or the goal opportunity statement. The sign of a successful presentation is none of those things. It is curiosity. If you can make people curious that like all of sudden you have 30 people that want to talk to you at the end, that's successful presentation.

If you can make it so that people are like, yo, I'm actually going to watch this video afterward. I'm actually going to read that book. That's it. And that relates back to the visceral statements in that those walk away messages are all people want. And if you can make those walk away sent messages like dude, what does that mean? Then I got you homie. I got you now. I don't need more time. another way to say this presentations are for curiosity, not for information.

Mikey Mioduski (27:00)
That's our curiosity.

Molly Geoghegan (27:07)
Yeah.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (27:08)
Presentations are to make people curious, not to inform. That's what classes are for. And in our natural day to day now, that's what me by myself in my office is for. You know what I

Molly Geoghegan (27:22)
That's what the is follow up for that information.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (27:25)
Yeah. Sure. And then the other thing about practicing, how do you practice? There's two other things I would tell you. One, and I think it's, yeah, it's in the book is that when I talk about the 24 seven challenge, when you practice your presentation, you have to always practice the full presentation, not parts of it. But when you practice your full presentation, if it's 20 minutes and you do it and you get through your 20 minutes, great. Now I got to do that whole same presentation with all the things I want to cover in 10 minutes. I love that in five minutes. Yeah.

Then I have to summarize it into five sentences, 30 seconds, one sentence. And what you will notice, a tweet, because what you will notice is as you start practicing with decreasing amounts of time, you will realize how much of your presentation isn't as important as you think. And that's going to make, and so for me, when I have a 20 minute speech, I prepare a 10 minute presentation. That allows you, yeah, that allows you to go off topic and still cover everything you want to cover.

Molly Geoghegan (28:00)
tweet.

Mikey Mioduski (28:16)
So smart.

Molly Geoghegan (28:22)
He's excited about it. And Mikey, want to actually, I've seen Mikey speak a couple of times, so I just wanted to pat him on the back because what I think Mikey does really well in his talks is that relatability factor. think you're so good at not being overly polished. think you come across super conversationally. And, Ivan, there's a big piece of your book that talks about notes, leaning into notes and not just writing your presentation verbatim, word for word.

because that will restrict you because if you do lose your place, you're gonna kind of panic and not know where to go. So it's much easier to just like have those, just a few lines of like your ideas match. And Mikey does that super, super well because you know your stuff so well and you're so passionate about it. And as always, your visuals are incredible and your transitions are great. But yeah, wonder. Yeah, exactly. They're great. No, they're so fun. I mean, it's so strange. Mikey's a great designer himself.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (29:01)
Yeah

Molly Geoghegan (29:19)
But I think, yeah, in the content prioritization, when you do find yourself running out of time, to be able to reiterate that goal opportunity statement would help wrap up that end part that you share that you struggle with.

Mikey Mioduski (29:32)
⁓

And I think it was, I think it's in that building calluses chapter about standup comedians, comics who they look so natural on the stage. And I think you talk about, yeah, they, it's not like they just came up with that joke right then and there, right? It's about, ⁓ they've, they've tested it so many times and they know the material. They're not looking at note cards that it just comes off as way more conversational and natural. Right. And then maybe is it something about like knowing your material so well that only then do you.

Can you actually add lib or like go a little off script and it's sensical?

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (30:07)
It comes to like, if we look at standup comics and this is the good old days, some of you may remember the DVD, the blu ray. It was a magical time where you own something and you can. My dad used to have a like wall of DVDs, right? Like the wall. And he's like, well, now I got to get them all for blu ray. So you get a wall of blu ray. know, now I used to love watching the director's cuts and the outtakes and the audio, cause every DVD would have a audio commentary kind of section.

Molly Geoghegan (30:19)
Yeah.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (30:38)
So when you watch, if you can find them do this, watch standup comedy specials on DVD and then read the con, listen to the commentary afterwards. And what you will see is that in this close to your point about practicing, Mikey is they will all go up there. And two things really stood out to me. Number one, they would practice it poorly in front of an audience. So it was very normal. And if you lived in LA and you go to the laugh factory in LA at like Monday at 10 PM, you might see like Jerry Seinfeld and Dave Chappelle.

Just like, Hey, can I do five minutes? Can I do 10 minutes? And they will bomb. They will go there when there's four people in the theater, but just so they can do it. And what happens is as they're, they would do that like 10 Mondays in a row and they do that same joke potentially. But through that figuring it out while people are watching you, they will figure out the exact words to use so that it looks off the cuff and natural. The second thing that they stood out to me is a lot of them. And actually John Belushi was very famous for this.

So John Volusci was famous for he would write down two or three words on a piece of paper. And he's like, I don't know what this is yet, but I'm going to talk about this because what he did is he would write in reminders and some, so most stand up comics won't write like, hello everyone. Uh, when was the last time you had a wet socks on crazy, right? What they'll do is they'll write wet socks, uncomfortable, but I like it or wet socks. like, and they'll be like, yeah. So, um, and here's what they'll do. be like, yeah. So, um,

yeah, wet socks, they'll write in reminders and then they'll practice it off the cuff. And every time they forget something, and this is what I tell you, this is the secret of notes. If you practice like walking down the street out loud in the cafeteria, in a meeting room with the door open, just that is an anxiety, right? Without notes. Every time you forget something, you look at your notes and that's the only thing you need to write down. And then you practice again. And if you were, if you, if you stop forgetting it, you remove that note.

And then wherever you get stumbled, you're like, Oh God, what was the thing that was next? That's the only thing you write as a note and you write it as a reminder.

Molly Geoghegan (32:39)
Yeah, yeah. I really like, while we're in this little tip section, not to give away all of your tricks from the book, but I really like what you said about the notes where you need to be putting them in a larger font and just a few words per point. And then like, yeah, as you said, just quick little reminders and only one piece of paper or like even a big enix card or something, because otherwise you're like flipping around. Like there's no need, there's no need for that because then you're going to be so distracted by how you're being perceived flipping your paper around.

That's, yeah, I I enjoyed that. I also loved when you ⁓ called out, you know, the age old advice of like picturing the audience naked and you're like, that would be really weird. Like you don't have to do that. Yeah, weird. Like get that out of your head. Like I thought that was really funny. ⁓

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (33:19)
training on that.

What's actually really interesting about that is the so much of the visualization advice doesn't make sense if you take a moment to think about it because right before your speech and during your speech you are trying to remember what you're gonna say. So trying to visualize things actually is a distraction technique that prevents you from remembering. If you're too busy trying to visualize the audience you're like, what was the first sentence? wait no I have to visualize. You can't have those two thoughts in your head at the same time. So when you think about it

It's sort of useless advice.

Molly Geoghegan (33:56)
It's using two different parts of your brain. We've heard this piece, I forget what kind of study it was, Mikey, but you know, when you're like, when someone is in an audience, they can hear what you're saying and they can see what's behind you, but they can't read at the same time. that's the walls of text. And so if you're visualizing something while also sharing something like storytelling, then it's going to be really hard to do both of those at the same time. You're having two different parts of your brain fire that are competing. ⁓

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (34:23)
Molly, what you said, think is so profound and not, and I want to say it again. want to highlight it for me. Reading requires privacy. Reading requires me by myself. So when you make slides that I have to read, it's exactly what you, there's not a person listening who's ever read a slide during a presentation. You've just stared at it and maybe picked up one or two words and that's it.

Molly Geoghegan (34:46)
I think that's really, it helps differentiate because it can't all be the same like storytelling. Yeah. Ivan, I kind want to put you on the spot here ⁓ in that, you you talked a lot in your book about creating a goal opportunity statement. we were talking about couple of those value statements to make sure that you can distill your talk, your story, your presentation down to a few lines. ⁓ What would you say to someone listening that might be interested in your book? What is the goal opportunity statement of your book?

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (35:12)
The goal opportunity statement of the book, using tactics can make you more dramatic within five minutes. How about that? Let me give you another one. Teaching tactics that can be applied seconds after reading.

Molly Geoghegan (35:26)
teaching tactics that can be applied. love it. I mean, it kind of aligns with your subtitle, tactical approach. Like there's so many good tips in here to public speaking communication. And I would say just to add, I think it's like ⁓ really tactical to make you more impressionable very quickly, more memorable.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (35:42)
Thank you.

Mikey Mioduski (35:44)
And

that's in the title maybe like what what's so bad about boring Ivan these days? ⁓

Molly Geoghegan (35:50)
There

we go

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (35:51)
There is an epidemic of boring in this world. Dude, go to every cool restaurant and club and you'll see a bunch of bored people looking around for something interesting. Every fun event and here's what you'll see. I guarantee you. And again, awesome audio. We're making awesome audio right now. this. This is you see.

Molly Geoghegan (36:02)
Go, check.

Yeah, people, Ivan's bobbing his head along. Yeah, looking at his around the room, looking at his phone. ⁓

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (36:17)
Dude, is like, stimulation is so rare. What do we do when we watch TV show? Right? There's an epidemic of boring in this world. And the crazy part is this. here's let me, let me make it like real real for everybody for a minute. It is because of boring. We have so little stimulus that actually activates our adrenal system. And you can say, no, all the stimulation. Yeah. But stimulation, we're not just, it's all normal. Like a high adrenal system is all normal. Adrenaline system. know what saying? So.

Molly Geoghegan (36:22)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (36:46)
The people who are becoming more more influential aren't the most knowledgeable, aren't the smartest. They are the people who seem the least boring to listen to. Whatever you think about Donald Trump, man, that guy's you're like, what's the crazy coming next? Do you know what I'm saying? But let me take it to a next level. Like, why are we listening to dudes with beards on testosterone ranting in their cars so much like the bro verse? Hey, listen, man.

Mikey Mioduski (37:13)
⁓ huh.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (37:15)
And some dude in his car, like, listen, I've done my research. Forget this guy who's a Nobel Prize winner. Okay. And we listened to them. Why? Because the Nobel Prize winner is like, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Today, I'd like to present some of the advice you got to use the dark side. And that's my next book. We've got to be all about the dark side of communication, how we can use the dark side for the good. Because once you understand these things, the things that con man pyramid out pyramids, scheme founders do.

Molly Geoghegan (37:22)
Hmm.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (37:45)
You know what saying? Once you find out the ways they communicate, then you can start using them for the opposite reason.

Mikey Mioduski (37:50)
I love that. Kind of a player versus game sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are you, have you, have you started dictating this one?

Molly Geoghegan (37:56)
of communication.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (37:58)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I am still in my research phase, so no dictation as of yet, but funny enough, that is going to be how I write it.

Molly Geoghegan (38:10)
Yeah, yeah, make sense.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (38:11)
Right

Mikey Mioduski (38:14)
Not an inflation mob mafia bosses, that'd be cool.

Molly Geoghegan (38:17)
Yeah, I'd to see the Venday.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (38:20)
I'll be honest with you, I went to some pyramid scheme, like multi-level marketing seminars.

Molly Geoghegan (38:25)
Interesting. I can't wait. That'll be so fun. I think that's really interesting communication for people to learn from.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (38:31)
You know who I sent? I sent an email between us. Okay. I sent an email to the lawyer of Bernie Madoff, the father of the Ponzi scheme. Yeah. You figure out, mean, there's, there's already lots of books. There's lots of books about Bernie Madoff and everything like that. But I was seeing if there's some way I could find out more, get a more real slice. So I do, I do do random things like that. I wrote the guy actually, you've been put into the guy who started.

Molly Geoghegan (38:35)
Us and our listeners.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (38:58)
in Vancouver, British Columbia, Trillium or Trillium. He's the guy that convinced all these celebrities to put his brand on their bodies. Wow. And he got a bunch of like, I would say B-list celebrities to start following.

Mikey Mioduski (39:09)
There's something there.

Molly Geoghegan (39:11)
Yeah, there's something there. would like to see. Yeah, the Venn diagram of like cult leader like influence and these kind of like potentially dangerous influencers that are like cropping up, right? There's definitely a there's an overlap. And if we're not learning from the way that they're communicating the dark magic of communication, we've heard it called on Chris Cummings, Ted Talk. ⁓ But I think that's there's something to learn there for sure. For sure.

I think we're well into the spice cabinet, Let's keep that open. Yeah. Let's pop that open because we wanted to hear about what we were working on ⁓ and tell listeners as well where to get the book. Where's the best place to support you and get into.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (39:49)
Wherever fine books are sold. So if you want to go on Amazon, ⁓ we just published right now. We just are in the process of getting the audiobook available on all platforms. So it's on Barnes and Noble, on Amazon, pretty much every ⁓ Google Books, Apple Books as well. And then I'm currently working on a system to get it into more independent bookstores as well.

There's a few providers that kind of like support independent bookstores and you can like go to your bookstore and order it from them directly.

Molly Geoghegan (40:20)
Yeah, I love you know, I always I as you were saying that I Googled, I always plug Bookshop.org as an alternative and your book is there. So I wonder. But I don't know. Maybe they link to I don't think they link to Amazon because Bookshop is like specifically for independent bookstores. But cool. That's awesome. So I'll link that one and and keep us posted when you get it into the small bookstores.

Mikey Mioduski (40:40)
Besides Bernie Madoff books and any other books that you're just like, you're tearing apart right now or like, you've always recommended to students and professionals.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (40:52)
So there's a couple of books that aren't what you would think of as communication books, but they're thought provoking. And like I said, I like to research things outside of what is traditional communication books, right? So the Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan, I think I've read it four times just today. And I think about it constantly because the big part of the Demon Haunted World, and I don't know if it was written in 95, if you guys remember who Carl Sagan was, he was a science communicator. Yeah.

He's was that what member that show that Neil deGrasse Tyson did? Yeah. yeah. The so that was actually a risk. Yeah. That was actually a remake of Carl Sagan, who did it in the late 70s, early 80s, the exact same kind of thing. ⁓ So I was just thinking about it he talks a lot about ⁓ thinking and communication and the ways we think and how they affect communication in the book. And the idea is like, you know, why did we use how we, you know, for example,

Molly Geoghegan (41:28)
History of the Universe.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (41:48)
Why did we used to believe in demons, but we don't, some people have transitioned the concept of demon to alien in terms of things that scare you and how that played in the zeitgeist. ⁓ and then I, I recommend two people that I loved. can just listen to them all day long. Okay. And they're not your typical people that you would listen to. One, may sound familiar. James Baldwin. ⁓ James Baldwin was a civil rights activist. ⁓ in the book, I talk about like the, you say something, you pause, and then you say it again.

And I've done that actually, if you've noticed a couple of times today to make some sounds, it makes them sound like really important. ⁓ Part of the inspiration of that was watching James Baldwin. This dude is the definition of intensity in a call, but he's so calm and his argumentation is beautiful.

Molly Geoghegan (42:34)
love. I've read some James Baldwin, but I've never listened to him talk. So I really didn't realize that. That's so cool. Yeah.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (42:42)
Go on YouTube right now and watch James Baldwin and he'll sit there and he'll do that like, he'll look at you, he'll be like, I really mean it. I really. He'll do that. He'll do it. And you'll be like, yes, I believe you. And then the other non-typical source, because I think it's always important. ⁓ I'll give you two and one, one I know the name, one I can't remember the name off the top of my head. And I was actually trying to find it real quick. So Gil Scott Heron, if you've ever heard the statement, the revolution will not be televised.

Molly Geoghegan (42:48)
Yeah, he's very intense.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (43:11)
That was a spoken word poem by Gilston Herron, was a musician and a poet. And look up anything he said, because he has...

such a casual delivery that it, and he speaks in so much ⁓ analogy and he stopped revoking. I take a lot of like, in the book, I talk about like your slogans and stuff like that, the way he would slogan. And I'll give you one example. He does this whole one about history. And I'm going to give away the spoiler alert, because this is the last thing he says. And he talks about, ⁓ he transitions how like, you the West and how like, you know, white men have basically created the map that we live in.

And the end, and he talks about all it in this very cool way. And then he says, and that's why we call it is story. And I was like,

Molly Geoghegan (43:56)
Mm-hmm.

My heart. My Yeah. You're like, get it. get it. Yeah. There's a couple that I've didn't realize attributed to him that I've like seen around and just very like relevant. it's interesting when someone has a line like that that lives beyond, like you said, totally a legacy. You're like, it's cool to trace that back and be like, oh, that was you. Like, that's pretty. Oh, yeah. That's your powerful storyteller.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (44:02)
Watching on YouTube is fantastic.

And then the last one I'll leave you is this, because from this, you'll be able to find many people who practice it. There is a very, very famous book called 13 Steps to Mentalism. And if you guys know any magicians.

Molly Geoghegan (44:33)
We had a couple on the cast. just Jimmy Gibbons.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (44:36)
They

shut up. yeah, he's great. ⁓ They will 100 % know Corinda. Okay, Corinder, Flinder Corinder wrote like over 100 years ago. I can't remember the exact date. 13 steps to mentalism. And it is the foundation of every mentalism trick to this day. It's everything. And there is a video like his book 13 seconds great, but there is a video of a magician in Los Angeles, a very famous magic house in Los Angeles, where like you have to

You have to reserve, you have to dress up to be there. It's a very private little small audiences. It's a beautiful experience. And he does, it's an, it's an instructional video, but it's first you show, he does the trick for everybody. And then he shows you how he did the trick based on Carinda's writing. He is a great example of non-formal communication where he uses filler words and he presses arms and he's not formal in any way. It commands a room and he looks like, honestly, he looks like a computer nerd.

But he's so good at demanding attention from the audience. And I highly recommend you watch the video because in his delivery, and you'll do it, you'll do the things, you'll do the, you'll cross his arms and be like, so, ⁓ is there like, ⁓ I don't know, maybe, ⁓ does anyone have a pen or something? Like you'll have all of that and it's part of the delivery. It's how he looks normal. Maybe those are some things to check out.

Mikey Mioduski (45:54)
I wanna watch that.

Molly Geoghegan (45:57)
I got it. Yeah, well, link them all. This is really helpful. ⁓ I think we asked last time and I'm I will have to because I really yeah, what's the walkout song for the book? Like you're coming out to talk about the book and what do you want playing? Is it the John Cena?

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (46:11)
Yeah, the first thing, honestly, when you said it, I don't know if it's the right song, but it's the first thing I thought of because it's super hype. Yeah. It's about like it's now or never. dude, the way we speak now is going to affect the world we live in tomorrow because technical skills don't matter. They're automated. Information is automated. It's available to anyone and has no value. But the way we communicate now, the way we change people's minds literally will create the world we live in tomorrow.

Mikey Mioduski (46:41)
Mic drop. We got the sound bite. Thank you. That's so good.

Molly Geoghegan (46:49)
soundbites. ⁓ Ivan, I'm really excited for your next book. I'm excited for people to go listen to this book. I think it's kind of like that kick in the ass, if you will, for the presentation world that kind of can get a little bit stale and maybe has been stale for a little while. ⁓ Mikey and I are certainly trying to bring it to life as well. And so really excited. Yeah. As we keep implementing some of these tips and tricks, we'll keep plugging your name on the cast and

I know I Appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. Really, really fun. Any parting words for the presentation nation, the product marketers, the unexpected public speakers that are listening that are like, I hate this, worst thing ever. What do you have to

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (47:30)
There's two, there's a couple of things I want to say, if I may. One, thank you both for having me on the show. It's always a fun conversation. You guys have the great, not only do you have the right energy, but you have the right mentality. You guys are leading a new wave. And I so respect that you're challenging, which is something that I think is super important. Not forgetting the past, but challenging its rules, I think is very important. So I really appreciate you guys having me the show. Like I said, I listen to the podcasts. I love what you do. I love your style. ⁓ The second, ⁓

The second thing I'll say is follow me on Instagram. I'm a failed influencer. I post every day. Nobody cares. It's a speaking lab, public speaking lab. And I'll give you one more because I forgot to mention this as one more really crazy read. Read the book. It's from like 1950 something propaganda. It was written by what's who's the father of psychology now? ⁓ No, not Darwin. Not Carl Young, German guy.

Molly Geoghegan (48:27)
⁓ Nietzsche?

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (48:29)
No, no, you'll see the book is literally called Propaganda. Yeah, Edward Bernays. Yeah, but he was actually the cousin of the guy who thought that we all have mom issues. can't believe I'm blanking out. Right. was Freud's, he's Freud's cousin. he's actually part of the reason why Freud is the reason why Freud is actually a household name. And it is all about marketing before there was marketing and the influence of the masses. And it was the foundation for Joseph Goebbels.

Molly Geoghegan (48:32)
Bernays.

⁓ Sigmund Freud.

Okay.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (48:58)
It's is my dark side communication stuff. And he's this guy, Mr. Bernays has been forgotten to history. ⁓ But his book, you'll read it and you'll be like, my God. my God. Like he's talking about everything we do now. Anyway. Follow them on YouTube. Follow them on YouTube. All right.

Molly Geoghegan (49:01)
I love it. It's coming out.

Yes, seems right.

Yes, we'll plug our YouTube. We're going to plug your Instagram and follow Ivan on LinkedIn. You've got good content.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (49:24)
All that good stuff. speaking lab everywhere.

Molly Geoghegan (49:27)
Public

Speaking Lab, reach out if you need help. Thanks so much for joining, Ivan.

Ivan Wanis Ruiz (49:32)
My pleasure, thank you guys so much for having me.

Mikey Mioduski (49:34)
So good to see you. Keep it up. And until we meet again, everybody.

Molly Geoghegan (49:38)
Keep on pitching.