Powerful Public Speaking (enhanced)

Today we're talking about three steps to powerful public speaking: presentation, content, and personal connection. Practice is key to becoming a powerful public speaker. Know your material and use acronyms or lists to help remember key points. As a speaker, you are a salesman trying to get your audience to believe in your passion. Dress appropriately for your audience and be aware of distractions. Over-enunciate your words and read your audience's cues. Good speakers often have confidence, engage the audience, are relatable, and have good posture and movement. Many successful speakers are tall and have big hands. Anyway, today we're talking about three steps to powerful public speaking. Public speaking is very important, not just if you're a speaker, obviously it is, but about communicating, communicating with your family, your husband, your wife, your students, your boss, everything about communication. If you're trying to get across a message, you need to know the best way in order to do it. So we're going to go through three steps. The three steps to powerful public speaking are, we'll go through each one separately, presentation, content, and personal connection. I like to use acronyms, you can call it PCP if you want to, or NOTS, because that is also a street driving DC. I'm from Washington DC, I just moved to Israel four years ago from America, I live here in Jerusalem, and I started teaching Asa Torah, and I'm very excited to be here. So I've been building lots of content, and as you see on the page here, I have a podcast called Living in Clarity, it's done very well the last few weeks, and lots of books and lots of information. Okay, presentation. One of the key things to becoming a, basically a powerful public speaker is practice. You have to take every opportunity you have in the world in order to speak, which means if you're going to a Shabbat dinner and someone says, anyone have a Torah? You should raise your hand. Or if you have an opportunity to speak in your classroom where you should make an opportunity, go to the teacher and say, I would like to speak, or give a presentation, whatever, take every opportunity to speak. And I'm telling you, speaking is fearful for many people. Many people rather have a colonoscopy than stand up and speak in front of the audience. It's very scary to speak in front of the audience, but the only way that you can get good at it is you keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it. It's the only way. You need to take every opportunity you can. One of the reasons why, in fact, one of the reasons why I came to Jerusalem, someone have a seat, one of the reasons why I came to Jerusalem is that I noticed that they have these amazing speakers coming out of Asia Torah, and the reason why is because they're all teaching an essentials program, which this is part of the essentials program, and they're giving classes every single day, five, six days a week, for years and years and years. And all these speakers like, you know, Rav Friedman, Yom Tov Glaser, Ken Spheer, all these guys are coming out because they're speaking all the time. Like, man, I've got to get into that circuit. How do I get into there? So I came to Jerusalem four years ago, I asked to speak at essentials, they put me as a sub, and thank God I got in. And that has really, I can tell you, even in four years, it's helped me tremendously to become a better speaker. In fact, in the last year, because when Corona ended, a lot of groups started coming to town, I realized that having all these groups I'm speaking to has really developed my speaking, and I've gotten more confident. I'm not scared to come up here. I love questions and questions be asked. Okay, number two, well, I'm not going to be doing that, number three, presentation. Know your material, know your material. It's okay to use notes if you have notes, if you're doing, I have some people like, I have some people who call it T-note speech, and they have like two or three classes they give and that's it. They know that by heart, because they only have two or three. I have dozens of classes I give, so the class exists, I have to have notes, I can't do it with memory. But I've only used my notes as kind of a guide, right? And I use key words, where on my notes, sometimes there's key words, if you say a certain key word, I know, and that triggers me to say something else, to say something else, to say something else. But you have to know your material. Often the best way to use the know material is to use acronyms or lists. I am very big in acronyms. If you come to my census classes once each, twice a week, very big in acronyms. I'm going to get into them later in the class. And when I, the read is not just for you, it's like, oh, he's taught this word, you know, word repeat, or he taught the word grade, or he taught the word yes, you know, it's for me. Because when I'm giving a class and someone's asking me about, well, how do you know how to pray? How do you know how to pray? I'm like, why? I'm like, well, I'm going to give you a key word. The key word is grade. I use the word repeat, or how do you know how to issue a prayer? I have the word meet, and I go through a whole class based on those four letters. So acronyms are very, very important, for me at least. But it really helps. Okay. You are a salesman. What I'm trying to do up here is to get my, give my, give my passion for you to, I'm trying to get you to believe my passion. I have passion about something, and I want to give it over to this audience. And I am trying to sell you what I have believed. So I'm a sales, that's what I'm doing. I'm a salesman. I'm trying to get you to buy my product. Whether it's software package, whether it's, you know, a course or something, I want them to believe that if you don't have my product, you're missing out on the greatest opportunity. Right? So we're related to sales. When you're speaking about the interview, just giving a lecture over, try to teach something in math, you're selling students this knowledge. Even though it's not really sales, you're still selling something. Okay. Things not to say. Now I gleaned this from watching many, many speakers that a lot of times some speakers say things that I think loses the credibility with them. So for example, I've been in a class where a speaker would say, what do you guys want to learn today? Now from my perspective, this is my opinion, you can completely disagree with this. From my perspective, that lowers the bar of the speaker, which means, because like you're up there, you're in charge, you tell me what you're going to teach me. Tell me that. Don't ask me what I'm going to teach you. Or people will say, what do you guys think about this idea from this class? Or I think the person in charge should act like they're in charge and teach what you're going to teach and don't ask the audience. That's okay to ask questions for sure, but I'm the opinion that there are some things that you lose credibility. And if you want to look at it as an expert, you have to act like the expert, even if you're not. Really, you have to act like it, even if you're not. No one's like Rabbi Noel Feinberg, the founder of this building, HH Torah. He always said, if you know all of it, teach all of it. If you know one letter of the alphabet, you teach it. And I believe anyone can do that. Anyone can get there if they're a teacher. I was not raised to teach. I was not raised to be a speaker. I was on my Jewish journey because I was not raised to be an observer at home. And the rabbi in the Torah class, the rabbi couldn't make it that way because they can only teach the class on the parasha, on the story of the week. And I said, you know, I'll do it. I'm not a rabbi, but I'll do it. I picked up the Torah and I read the parasha and I looked at, you know, Google HH Torah or Chabad, looked at some stories, here's some personal stories of my own life about that parasha, threw them in there, and I taught a Torah class. Anyone can teach and anyone can be a public speaker. Okay. The rest is apart. Very important. If you're going to go for a job, you're going to wear a certain outfit. You're going to try to dress the part that you want for the job. Or if you happen to know the boss likes blue shirts, you're going to wear a blue shirt. So when I'm speaking, I try to dress to my audience. So I'm speaking to a bunch of, you know, eight-year-old college kids who are not observantly Jewish. I will wear like, you know, a black shirt and I won't wear my haredi kippah, my, you know, my hardcore black kippah. I dress the part for my audience because I want to have credibility with it, not, you can say, well, you know, you're selling yourself out, but I'm just bond, just kosher, whatever. I try to dress for my audience. Obviously, I want to have self-respect in the way I dress also. Okay. Distractions will distract. There's two types of distractions when you're a teacher or a speaker. The ones you can control and the ones you can't control. The best speakers in the world, I've noticed, can handle distractions they can't control or can't control. It doesn't matter. It's very simple. When you get up on stage or to give a class, you should make sure that you're dressed in your night. I mean, you should always have a clean white shirt. I always go to the bathroom and take a towel and I try to remember and wipe down my face because you get splatting up here and sticky and it gets oily. So you would start off a leak of a clean face. I always make sure to wash my mouth out so I'm not spilling my tea. I'm sure I have made mistakes and have spoken with tears stuck in between my teeth. That happens to all of us, but I try very hard not to do that. I will make sure that my phone is turned off and make sure my phone is turned on. Hey, how's it going? I'll make sure my phone is turned off. One of the things that's really been bugging me recently about speaking to speakers is bad teeth. I know in America, how's it going? I know in some foreign countries, bad teeth is not such a big a deal. I know there, especially in Israel, you see a lot more bad teeth. But I see a speaker and they have bad teeth. I'm like, it really distracts me. Maybe it's just me. And so I looked and I used to have really good teeth, but as I'm getting older, I just turned 58 last week. So my teeth on the bottom are increpid. So I looked and did the line. Because I want to have straight teeth. But you really spend like $12,000, $14,000. I'm like, I'm not going to spend that now, but I'm going to do for cheap, for really cheap I can buy white strips. Press white strips. I used one yesterday. Because you should have at least, it's funny, we're looking at here at a temple now. The Koenig adult used to run the temple. He couldn't have a move. Like he wasn't allowed to have like lendership because he's standing in front of the people. Now, she's saying like, well, most people should have trust and it doesn't matter what he looks like. Well, it does because there are people who are not that spiritual. And if you're going to be a speaker and get there, you're going to have yellow teeth or cooked teeth and your tie is proprietary and your pants are short, whatever it is, you lose credibility with a lot of people. So it's very important how you dress and how you look your part. And notice things distracting people. Now, there are distractions you can't control. For example, a baby crying on their own. I've seen, I've been in audiences where there's been a baby crying. I've learned from my reverends since Lori Flodden, which I'll say is what this great line, I use it all the time. I do for credit. They say a crying baby is just like a great idea. It should both be carried out. Isn't that great? I love that line. Or somebody's cell phone will ring. I'll say, take a message for me, it's from my mom. You know, like, or someone's calling back. You know, just try to make it life harder. And there's times I've been in classes and people were on their phone and I just have to make this, and I'm talking, and you'll see later, I make sure I look at every single person in the room, that I make sure I look at them as they're on their phone, but generally I have to make the assumption that they're taking notes. Don't make the assumption of not paying attention and send the text. You have to make, because I was giving a class in my house one time in Maryland and someone was texting or on his phone, he goes, Ms. Gayon, he goes, I'm taking notes. I'm like, okay, okay. Because like it was a small little group of people. And then you'll get questions that are, can be, you know, maybe not the right kind of questions, maybe the kind of questions that you really shouldn't be asked, whatever you can say to people, you know, that's a great question, but I, it's a little too involved right now to be deep. I'll answer the question when I'm done with the class privately. And then when you're done speaking, we're out of the room, right? You know, I'm just kidding about that. A little bit. Huh? A little bit. Out of the stretch of the penny. Very important. And I hope I'm speaking properly and I hope that everyone can understand every word I'm saying, but sometimes you need to over enunciate your words. If I'm speaking for a class, a small class like Frost the Hall Essentials, it's not a big deal because it's only 10 or 20 people. It's a smaller room, but when you get to a larger room like this, this is like a kind of a medium sized room or something. Your voice as it travels, loses its pronunciation, falls apart. Your voice, you know, it falls apart. Right? And so when I'm speaking, I want to make sure the person in the last row of the room is understanding every single word I'm saying. So I imagine myself as Tom Brady. I'm throwing a bomb at the big rocks, I'm throwing a gas, I'm bombing some lines all the way over to this nice young lady sitting in the back of the room. Right? So she can understand every single word that I hear without like, what did he say? I said, I'm sure you have been in class or heard speakers and you don't understand everything they're saying. Am I wrong? I can't be wrong. I know, it happens to me all the time. What did he say? Well, she either talks slower, talks faster. We'll get to him in a second. Okay. So I'm going to talk about pronunciation because I made up a word, I used to make up a word and the word, I used two words, enunciate and pronounce. I try to pronounce my words and enunciate my words. I made up the word pronunciate. And about a year ago I was writing and I put the word pronunciate in a book or something and of course my computer said, this is not a word. I'm like, what do you mean it's not a word? Pronunciation is a word. It's not a word. You have to be careful about using words that you made up. I do, I used to make up many more words. My wife told me, you make up a lot of words. I'm not the best English person. It's actually really a miracle I actually written books. But anyway, so speak to the bathroom and over enunciate your words. Greet your audience. You need a lot of information from facial cues. You need to be aware of your time. This is why it's very important that I have a plot or my phone to know what time I do not like to go over. I do not want to steal your time. What happens when you're in a class or a lecture and someone is going over the time, they are stealing your time. What I used to do when I gave a class in my house in Maryland, I would give a half hour class. I would say to the students, half hour is up, it's over, you guys can go home. I stand up, I go grab a coffee. If you want to stay and ask some questions, you can really stay if you want to. And people at that point in time had an option to leave and some people didn't, some people stayed. But I don't want to make someone like trapped, like if I leave I'm going to be rude or whatever. I was in a class one time, it was at the yeshiva next door and the rabbi was giving a one hour class from like 2 to 3. And it was 3 o'clock and he kept going, it was 3 to 5, 3 to 10 and he notices, oh, he says to the class, he thought of me. By the way, all these things are bothering me are one of the reasons why I work this class. He's like, why do you do that? It was 3 to 10 and he goes, hey, do you guys want to go a little longer? Then she said to us, and I'm thinking to myself, no rabbis have something else to be worried about, so that I realized that you were late. I'd like you to shut up now. Like, can I say that? Of course, I'm not going to tell the rabbi to stop talking, but like, I can't tell the truth. It was happening again this week, I came to teach a class in this room about 3 days ago and I was, whatever, my hour class got put down to a half hour and then the yeshiva nace like pushed me off and he came in and he spoke and he gave me 10 minutes left. So, 10 minutes for me to speak to this class, it was a group from Toronto. They're here and they're still here, I'm teaching them Tuesday. And the rabbi out there goes, do you want to teach for only 10 minutes? I'm like, you asked that. I see you're giving me 5 or 10 more minutes. So, you finally get 10 more minutes and he went to the class. I was not in the class, so I did not want to be in there. He goes, do you want Coach Ratton to speak for 10, 20 minutes? They said yes. So, I came up, but they could have said no, they're on a winter trip, they might have Duke's. So, I'm not going to say, hey, do you want me to speak to you guys? No, Coach, we're on a trip, we don't want to hear you anymore. Like, you know, I'm not going to do that. So, don't put yourself in a position where, you know, someone has to lie to you. Okay. So, you have to read your audience. Use your skills. Some people have a blooming voice, some people are funny, some people have beautiful accents. Like the rabbi here, Rabbi Dober Cohen, gorgeous accent, you just want to listen to him all day and everything he says is true because he has a great voice. I've noticed something about speakers, the better speakers, the ones that are more popular. Does anyone realize what kind of skills they have that makes them such a great speaker? And anyone notice anything about? Confidence. Huh? Confidence. Confidence, for sure, that's a given. Audience engagement. I don't know if that makes them a great speaker or not because I've had, I mean, I mean, I'm sure there's lots of great speakers of all ages that have been dead. Go ahead. They're quick, right? They're quick. Anyone else? They're relatable. They're relatable. Let's get physical. Physical. What about them physically makes them a better speaker? Their posture. Their posture and their movement. Their posture. Okay. They're getting closer and closer. They're right. They're funny. We're getting better also. Their emotive. You know, like you're not falling asleep looking at them non-verbally. Okay, I'm not getting the right answers. I'm trying to look. You're all right, all right? I've noticed they're all tall and they're all big. Tell me if I'm wrong. No? I mean, that's something people can't really control. I know. Right. Because they go on runs in the morning. Huh? I said they run first thing in the morning. They do. But I'm not complaining. There are people who I feel like are great public speakers. Of course, small. Of course, look way shorter than me, but big public speakers. But I'm talking about, I'm just looking at the ones that I have a very small sample. I don't watch a lot of speakers. I've watched Tony Robbins make it once for five minutes. Very good. He's humongous. Tony Robbins is humongous. Big teeth. Here's the key. I'm trying to get close to them. I know what I'm saying. Big hands. They have big hands and they use them. I'm serious. So, again, a close rounder especially. You're not going to hear anywhere else. I think that people, and I try to just, for years, I've turned my ear, I've figured this out. I grew up listening to Tony Harari. I would not raise a phone. And so I was left with, Harari, is he a lawyer? That's Ben Bratman. He's a lawyer. Gerald Harari is a lawyer. He's a lawyer. FLSP, you can get that, I think. And I would be watching him like, what makes him so good? I mean, I'll just add to that he's smart, he knows Torah like nothing he should, you know, to be a rabbi is what he ought to do. He uses his hands. And you see, Rob Guth, who's here. Rob's a big guy. He's a big guy. What do I mean, big guy? Lots of the speakers I look at, I look online, they're all big guys. Now of course, some of us little guys, we can't do anything about it. We can take our hands and we can use our, we can accentuate our hands. Which leads me to the next topic, overdo whatever it is you do. Make the smile bigger, make the, make the, but if you're doing a funny sound, make it funny, you're doing a face, make it wider, bigger. Like I am putting on a show. That's the way I look. When I come to, when I teach the centers here, if you come to my classes, I am putting on a show. I am trying to not just, listen, I'm trying to make changes in your life. I'm here for a purpose. Today I'm here for a purpose. I'm here to turn into powerful public speakers. That's my job today. If I don't improve your speaking, I have failed and I don't want to fail. Some of you were late coming in. It's about three parts, presentation, content, and personal connection. Okay, so make, PCP, if you want to pass your PCP. Okay, but remember, the greatest point, use your hands. I've been teaching some rabbis back in Washington this, they've been doing that. It's really helpful. They use their hands when they're talking. It's not too much like this, right, like this, but like I use my hands when I'm speaking. I try to, I only have small hands, but I do my best. Okay, that's what I'm doing. Repeat important point. If you have an important point, when I give, when I do my dating and marriage classes on Tuesday, by the way, every Tuesday, just so you know, I don't know if you're, how you found out about the class, but Essentials is a program here every Sunday through Wednesday from 11 to two. They're walking classes with fantastic rabbis from SPEAK. I'm here every Sunday and Tuesday. My Tuesday classes is going to be all in dating and marriage. And for those of you who know, I think they're fantastic classes on dating and marriage, relationships. And I always give the definition of love and I always repeat the thing twice. Why? Because it's so important. I say it once quickly and I say it once slowly and I give my coach rather kind of like edgy definition of it. But I repeat important points in a different volume and a different tone, which leads me to change your volume and cadence. I've seen fantastic speakers. What comes to mind is a Rabbi Feiner from Wedge the White Shoal, I think in five towns. Have you ever heard of him? I've been to the White Shoal there. How does he speak? Do you know? He's amazing. Amazing speaker. Very, did you tell me? Really fast and very high text, right? Now I first heard him like, oh my God, this guy's amazing. And then we're salivating. And that's 20 minutes. I'm like, I can't handle anymore. I'm like, please, we've got to slow down. You got to calm down. Uh, no. And after a while, it was too much. And one of the reasons why he's not become a world class, and this is my opinion, he's a great speaker. But the reason why he hasn't become, I'm like the speaker of police. That's not it. Yeah. I'm like, you're not doing that. You're not doing, I don't know where it came from. I have no idea. But he's slowed down and lowered his voice, he'd be a world class speaker. I said, is it Ken Spiro? He said, why? Be careful, he said, well, we know him, so why? Right, it's too fast. Ken Spiro, Rabbi Ken Spiro was my house prior to Shabbat. I love Ken Spiro. He's really, he's amazing. Again, if I could like tone him down a little bit, and if I could swap his speech a little bit and have him say less, in fact, I have an acronym in one of my books called SLIM. Sometimes less is more. Ken from going on a tour with Rabbi Ken Spiro, steward of information, slow down, calm down. People can only take in so much information. I'm not going to talk about that because we have limited time. You know what? I'll discuss it with you after the class meeting. I don't know how to do it. Right. Okay. Change your body of intent, which means sometimes not everyone's going to hear you talk really fast and really loud all the time. And it's very important, especially when you get to the end of the class, and you're talking about a very spiritual topic or a very emotional topic. You want to change your body of intent. You want to change your body of intent. You want to change your body of intent. You want to change your body of intent. You want to change your body of intent. You want to slow down. In fact, some of the best classes I've given, I've noticed that I've not been so loud, not so emotional, and I get really quiet. I lean in a little bit like this. I lower my voice. And sometimes you'll see the class just lean in to you to hear what you're saying. And last thing you know, you have them in the palm of your hand. And it's very exciting when you can get to that point as a speaker. You have to change your volume in case. And last part of presentation, no teddy bears. Does anyone know what that means, a teddy bear? What's the purpose of a teddy bear? What's the purpose of a teddy bear? Who said security blanket? What's your name? What is it? It's crazy. It's a security blanket. It makes you comfortable. Now, the first time I ever spoke, I was getting ready to go to class. I was in my office. I was in my office. I was in my office. I was in my office. I was in my office. I was giving the Vartola 18 Torah portions. I had my sheet here and I was like this. I was going back and forth. My friend said, you're nervous. I'm like, yeah, of course I'm nervous. I've never spoke before. And then sometimes I would need to hold my what? My glasses. Why? Security blanket. It's okay. I'm not saying not to have one, but to understand, when you start, you will have a security blanket if it makes you more comfortable. But as you get better and better, the more you do, remember the number one thing when speaking. I never turned down an opportunity to speak. I was having dinner here in Aishul Yeshiva about six months ago. And just because I was tired of cooking and I wanted to eat at Yeshiva. And the rabbis there were running this dinner. I said, coach, do you want to give a Vartola? I'm like, no, I'm lost tonight. I don't have it. I said to myself, you never listen to yourself. I'm teaching this. Don't ever turn down an opportunity to speak. And I said, yeah, I'll do it. I'll do it. I don't really want to, but I'm going to do it because I'm not going to go against when I teach other people. Rabbis take opportunities to speak, especially the Vartola on Friday night because it helps you to be a better speaker. Teddy bears. So it can be your shirt button. It could be your sleeves. It could be your bow and baton, like this. Whatever it is, you can have it. It's OK. Just recognize it. When I did a class at Beer Bazaar about a year ago, it was the first time I've really used a mic. I'm not used to a mic. Right? And some people, you know, have to have a mic. And I'm like, I don't like using a mic because it's like an appendage. I'm not used to like, what do I do with this thing? I got to, you know, like, it's like another body part. And Brandon Fisher, who was my co-host that night, he was not used to it either. He had a hard time. And he kept doing this. He grabbed the end of the mic, kept grabbing his elbow. And he didn't notice it because he was so nervous. At the end of the class, at the end of the event, I said, Brandon, you were grabbing your elbow because I had no idea. I'm so nervous. Just recognize that teddy bear is fine. Just recognize you have it. Yes, we're doing an event, Dan Moyle is doing an event there Monday night. We're DJing. I think I'm speaking. I'm not sure what I'm saying. Yeah. And Brandon Fisher. And Brandon Fisher, yes. That's Monday night at Beer Bazaar. At Beer Bazaar. What time? 8.39? We'll figure it out. Okay, we'll figure it out. Okay, content. Now, part two of this. Content. You're going to get into class. Make it simple. It's easy. Tell them what you're going to tell them. Tell them what you're going to tell them. And when you're done with the class, tell them what you told them. Pretty easy, isn't it? It makes it sound easy. Tell them what you're going to tell them. I said when I came here, I'm going to give you three steps to powerful development speaking. Right now I'm giving it to you. In fact, in the class I'm going to tell you what I told you. I'll give you a little thing. I'll give you a quick preview. You have to be able to clarify what your class is about. I've been to many classes where some teacher is doing a class on some deep torrid insight or something in science, whatever it is, and I have no idea what they're talking about. You have to be able to clarify to someone in a two-word, what am I teaching this class? If I think it's called the elevator pit, what is it I'm trying to teach you? I'm trying to turn you into better speakers. I'm not trying to turn you into good speakers. I'm not trying to turn you into great speakers. I'm trying to turn you into awesome, powerful, pumpling speakers. That's what this class is about. I think I've clarified very easily, and I try to do it for the next three classes in a row that I'm giving you in this High Degree to Career series. And if you can't clarify to yourself, guess what? You will be able to clarify to somebody else. Just like when you write a book, I'm writing books. One of the great things I got to tell you about writing books, it helps flesh out your ideas. It really does, because when I give a class, I'm going to walk home from being in the old city, so this afternoon I'm like, oh my God, I forgot to mention this class. But when you're writing, you can go back over and over and over again and clarify your ideas. I'm writing my book now called Unloved, The 12 Strategies to Cure Low Self-Esteem. I'm on the topic of imposter syndrome. And it's not like something that's so clear what imposter syndrome is. If I'm getting these new ideas, I keep going over it and over it, I'll go this afternoon after lunch today, over it and over it and bring out these new ideas of imposter syndrome in order to help you avoid having low self-esteem. And I'll tell you, my writing has helped my speaking tremendously. I think you've heard me, Ben State. I first got to Israel four years ago, right? I think I've been a speaker now, since I've been writing a lot. Number two, get to the point. Don't get stuck in the weed. Just like I write an email, I make sure it's clear what I want. Many of us, including myself, write an email, hey, how's it going? And you have a question. There's a question. You write the email and it's loaded with other things around the question or a story about the question. And I think, what is the one thing that I want this person to read when they get the email? What is the one thing that I want my students to get out of this class when they come here? And I say, get to the point. You guys only have so much bandwidth to listen to me. And if I get stuck in the weeds with some sort of story that means nothing to the class, I'm going to lose you. And I don't want to lose you. I want you to stay on the point that we're here in order to make you into better speakers. And I'm always improving and tightening my talks. I gave this talk, I gave this talk about three years ago. I keep improving. And this week, this morning, I printed a new copy out because I changed things this morning. I'm always changing and working my class and making it better and better. Make it personal. When you're speaking, the best, the easiest thing for you to talk about is something that you know very well. Stories from your family, a story from your life, a story from your school, whatever it is, try to make everything personal. Use situations that people can understand and connect to. For example, traffic, weather, getting birth, getting married, when you ship, whatever it is, traveling to Israel. Whatever it is, use stories that people can connect to. Life because life itself is a class. You can learn a lesson in every situation you encounter. I have stories from flying. I'm not going to get into it because we'll be here all day. My four out of my, only one of my five children were born in the hospital. So like we have lots of, all purpose, you know, it wasn't like I'm, you know, it wasn't like I don't want to put my pants on and go to the hospital. You know, like I, we, my wife went to have birth at home, I understand. She doesn't want to get birth in a house in a place where all the sick people go to and turn into a wheelchair. She wants to get birth at home, I understand. Like all the men were awesome, some dead lady were yesterday. Like no, she wants to have a good birth at home, I understand. Right? So, but, but I get to hours of stories at birth, they're still amazing, it's unbelievable stories. You know, okay, it was one thing. We literally, not literally, we had a Torah class in her house. We just started learning Torah. We had this Torah class in our house on Wednesdays at noon. And the Revit's and Lori Plotnick said, do you want to cancel the class? Your wife's in labor. I'm like, I'm not cancelling the Torah class. I was really stark. I was really like hard for it back then. I didn't, I wouldn't even observe it yet. I'm not canceling a class. And we had a three level house back in Potomac, Maryland. My wife gave birth and we had five or six women in our basement. I'd be a class. Isn't that funny? I love a story like that. Okay. Use whatever will connect your audience, which means you're speaking to college students, use movies. I have a, I have a, a, um, it was very good knowledge that I used for the plenty with Shabbos is about. And I used to use Barbra Streisand sweater as my analogy. And as I've been giving this class and I have younger students come to my Shabbos table, they have no idea who Barbra Streisand is. And I've seen songs like people, people who need people are the luckiest. And I've got memories I use in my class. I'm like, no one gets it. So now I have to listen to what's her, what's her name? Tiffany. Wait, who's this big singer now? But Taylor Swift. Right. But I'm going to tell us, and I don't listen to music anymore. By the way, she is really good. I have to admit, I was, I was not a movie. I didn't know. I've heard really bad about America. Like, you know, like you shake, shake, shake, shake, shake. I just, because you're in the deal, listen to radio, whatever. And so now I use her story about our music. I listen to radio, you work, I'm not in college, whatever. So I don't know her music. I'm an old guy. Like, so like, I need to learn music. I want to connect to college kids coming to my classes or my house. I got to learn. I got to learn the music. And yet I'm sure I'd know some, I just don't know it all. I can't use Barbra Streisand. So I'm trying to connect to my audience. Okay. I mean, movies, you know, people saw Blinkoff from LA. He's a speaker. He speaks here sometimes. He's in the movie business. He works for Disney and Netflix and DreamWorks and he's movies. Shawshank Redemption, get busy living or get busy dying. Lots of things, movies you can use, you know, show me the money. All right. Make it sticky. This is very important. Let's see what else. 1240. Make it sticky. So I love acronyms and I use it not just for you, but for me. And I've been doing this my whole life and I constantly think of any one acronym or classically. I'm going to use an example. I use one, I eat four three P. I was in a class with my, with Lori Flodd and she was talking about the four steps to prayer. And she uses this as her acronym. R P A T, RPAT. Recognize, praise, ask and thanks. That's the acronym. That's great. It's nice. I can remember it. RPAT, it's nice. I'm like, this is not good enough. I'm good. I got to have something better. So my wife, Ilana, my wife, because that's her name, she came and said, you shouldn't call repeat because repeat, prayer is in the one mitzvah you can do constantly over and over and over and over again. Any time of day, anywhere in the world, anywhere, anytime. So should you, should you do it? I said, you know what? You're right. I'm going to take up the two E's and that's in ego and envy. You can't praise God Almighty. You can't pray to a God when you have ego and envy. So you take those out and you're left with RPAT. And so any time anyone asks me about prayer, I have that in my back book. I came up with another one. This is another one I asked. I asked him, what do we do? Meet. How do you hear prayer as answered? What's your motivation? Make an effort. You should expect God to say yes. Because if you don't, you should get ticked off. Or transform. My wife doesn't like when I use the word ticked off. I used to use, I transformed. I still be too, which one do you use? But what I better have learned again last year is what would be your best in life. I gave a class on five different things. I gave a class on five different things. I gave a class on five different things. I gave a class on five different things. I gave a class on five different things. I gave a class on five different things. I gave a class on five different things. I gave a class on five different things. I gave a class on five different things. 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