5 Powerful Habits To Build Unshakeable Confidence - Aliénor Hunter (Ultraspeaking)

1. 0:00 – 2:20

   Intro

   1. AHAliénor Hunter0:00

      I have this pet theory that we are looking at speaking the wrong way around. Let's say you're at a drinks. In that moment, it's very easy to think, "Okay, I'm gonna get better at speaking, and the way I'm gonna do that is I'm gonna be so charming and charismatic. I'm gonna learn how to sit up straight. I'm gonna change all of these outside tips and tricks. And then when I have that, I'll be good at speaking."

   2. AAAli Abdaal0:25

      Social confidence and charisma is definitely something that can be learned. It's not necessarily something that you're born with. And today's guest on Deep Dive has a personal story that illustrates this really well. Her name is Aliénor Hunter, and she's a professional public speaking coach, which is interesting because just a few years ago she had debilitating social anxiety to the point that she couldn't even go to the shops to speak to a cashier or speak to the hairdresser.

   3. AHAliénor Hunter0:44

      That's the thing I hated when I was shy, is that, like, the popular people are confident people, and I'm not them.

   4. AAAli Abdaal0:49

      Yeah.

   5. AHAliénor Hunter0:49

      And I'm this strange person, like, sitting on an island looking at everyone else through a telescope wishing that I could be like them.

   6. AAAli Abdaal0:54

      And so in this episode, we talk about Aliénor's journey towards overcoming social anxiety and shyness. We talk about the various strategies that she learned in therapy on how to question her beliefs and how she ultimately got over her social anxiety. And then in the second half of the podcast, we talk more about tips for public speaking.

   7. AHAliénor Hunter1:10

      The problem is not the problem. The problem is your solution to the problem. Do I identify as shy? Can I push back? Could I be something else? Is it hindering my life? I think one of the biggest mistakes that beginners make when they're new to speaking is that-

   8. AAAli Abdaal1:27

      Ooh, by the way, in case you have not yet heard, my book is about to come out. It's called Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You, and it's a book that I've been working on for the last three years. Now, it's being published at the end of December 2023, but pre-orders are actually available. And I know people don't like pre-ordering the book, but if you do pre-order the book and you email me your receipt, you will get completely free access to a live exclusive event that I'm hosting in the first weekend of January of 2024, and this is a live online workshop all about annual planning, goal setting, and reflection. And so I'm gonna be facilitating a group with hopefully hundreds of people from all around the world, and we're gonna be going through how to figure out what to do with our life and how to turn that into goals for the year and how to build systems and how to be consistent with stuff and how to make sure that we are enjoying the journey along the way. That is purely exclusively available for people who pre-order the book as a thank you for our little community. So if you wanna check it out, you can check out the book. You can maybe consider pre-ordering it. The link will be down in the video description. So

2. 2:20 – 4:13

   Aliénor's backstory

   1. AAAli Abdaal2:20

      Aliénor, welcome to the podcast. Um, you've had a pretty interesting experience with social anxiety. I wonder if you can talk to us a little bit about that, please.

   2. AHAliénor Hunter2:27

      Yes. So I, I used to be really, really shy as a kid and as a teenager. I was, uh, so shy that I couldn't really interact with anyone that wasn't a friend or my family because I was afraid of them. So something like going to the supermarket to buy a bar of chocolate was really difficult because I was afraid of the cashier. A, I couldn't find the chocolate, then I'd have to ask them and say, "Where's the chocolate?" Forget that. Let's say I find the chocolate and I walk up to the cashier, and I give them the chocolate bar. Back in the time we didn't have the electric machines, right? And so they'd say something like, "That's £2, please," and I would have to give them the £2, and maybe I didn't have the right change. I don't know. It just felt very, very stressful. Then the machines came in, and you'd have to call over the cashier. That's even worse. So going into something like Tesco would be terrifying. Something like calling up the dentist to book an appointment would be really scary because, uh, I'd be afraid that they'd say, "No, you don't deserve an appointment." And ringing on the doorbell, I remember one time my mom dropped me off to the dentist, and I was not young anymore. I was, like, 15. And she, and she dropped me off and I walked out the door, and I stood in front of the door and she was sitting there in the car. And I was like, "I can't press on the doorbell. Mom, you're gonna have to come and press on the doorbell for me because I'm worried that when..." I don't really know what I was worried of. I think I was worried that when I pressed it, they would open it and I'd have to talk to them and they'd say, "No, wrong appointment. Go away. Your teeth are too dirty for us." [laughs] Like, I don't know. I was just terrified of something. And so for most of my kind of childhood and teenage years, I was okay with friends, okay in school, but, like, day-to-day tasks, anything that involved someone else was terrifying for me.

   3. AAAli Abdaal4:12

      And you, and so

3. 4:13 – 8:47

   The difference between social anxiety and shyness

   1. AAAli Abdaal4:13

      y- you use the word shy.

   2. AHAliénor Hunter4:14

      Yeah.

   3. AAAli Abdaal4:15

      Like, what's the difference between shy and social anxiety? Is it or is it, like, the same thing?

   4. AHAliénor Hunter4:19

      For me, it's like it depends on how you wanna-

   5. AAAli Abdaal4:22

      Yeah

   6. AHAliénor Hunter4:22

      ... define what you're going through. I use the word shy because it feels more all-encompassing. Like, more people I feel can identify with being shy than with being anxious. Feels like a scary word.

   7. AAAli Abdaal4:34

      Mm.

   8. AHAliénor Hunter4:34

      Like, you've been diagnosed with social anxiety and you should go, you know-

   9. AAAli Abdaal4:38

      Yeah

   10. AHAliénor Hunter4:38

       ... get help. Whereas shy just feels it, for me, what, like, what I was going through, but I think socially anxious was also what I-

   11. AAAli Abdaal4:44

       Interesting. Interesting

   12. AHAliénor Hunter4:44

       ... what it ended up being called. Yeah.

   13. AAAli Abdaal4:46

       Yeah, 'cause anxiety has the sort of, uh, uh, anxiety has that aspect of medicalization applied to it.

   14. AHAliénor Hunter4:52

       It has inherently in it, it's a medical term, right?

   15. AAAli Abdaal4:54

       Yeah.

   16. AHAliénor Hunter4:54

       So it just feels, I don't know, scarier.

   17. AAAli Abdaal4:57

       Yeah.

   18. AHAliénor Hunter4:57

       Yeah.

   19. AAAli Abdaal4:57

       And, and I would know, like, I know a lot of people who would identify as shy but who wouldn't identify as socially anxious. Like, I would've said I was shy when I was younger, but I wouldn't have said social, like, I didn't even know, like, what the hell social an- socially anxious meant.

   20. AHAliénor Hunter5:08

       Yeah.

   21. AAAli Abdaal5:08

       Um, but I guess shy is also on a spectrum, right? 'Cause, you know, th- there are people who are more, I guess, shy confident. Is that, is that the spectrum? There are people who have more, more confidence than others. You know, if, you know, I'd, I'd be shy about striking up a conversation with someone on the train next to me.

   22. AHAliénor Hunter5:25

       Yeah.

   23. AAAli Abdaal5:26

       But that's, like, pretty normal in London to not do that. [laughs] Um, but I wouldn't be shy to talk to a cashier. So there's, like, some... Is it fair to say there's some sort of spectrum here?

   24. AHAliénor Hunter5:35

       A massively a spectrum. And I think where it becomes anxiety is where it becomes so debilitating that you can't live your ordinary life.

   25. AAAli Abdaal5:43

       Mm.

   26. AHAliénor Hunter5:43

       But shyness or perhaps some people say introversion is just, like, a lack of desire, I suppose, to want to, to speak to other people. It's not that you can't, it's just that, like, I'm quite happy sitting here having my cup of tea and talking to myself, you know? It's, it's a different way of looking at it, I think.

   27. AAAli Abdaal5:59

       Mm. So do you think being shy is a bad thing?

   28. AHAliénor Hunter6:02

       Absolutely not.

   29. AAAli Abdaal6:03

       Okay.

   30. AHAliénor Hunter6:03

       Absolutely not. I think if we're talking about shyness, uh, as a choice, kind of in terms of, uh, being someone who just likes to, prefers to observe rather than be the one taking the attention, I think it's an amazing thing because so few people listen.
4. 8:47 – 14:42

   Is shyness bad?

   1. AAAli Abdaal8:47

      we were s- we were speaking before the podcast, I asked you-

   2. AHAliénor Hunter8:49

      Yeah

   3. AAAli Abdaal8:49

      ... what would make this a win for you?

   4. AHAliénor Hunter8:50

      Yeah.

   5. AAAli Abdaal8:50

      And you said something to the effect of, "If even one kind of person listening to this is shy and then realizes, realizes that they don't have to be or they can become not shy, then that would be a win." I guess w- w- what I'm getting at is-

   6. AHAliénor Hunter9:04

      Yeah

   7. AAAli Abdaal9:05

      ... yes, there are, there are all these sort of side benefits to being shy, but if someone can become not shy, then at least they have the option rather than being sort of forced into a state of being. And sometimes I worry that, and, like, feel free to push back on this, but sometimes I worry that when people say, "Oh, I'm just shy," it's a st- it's, it's a statement that they believe with, with all their, with all their heart, and it stops them from doing the things that they really want to do. And it's like, "Oh, I'm, I'm five foot six." They, they view it as a statement of fact rather than as actually it's n- it's not like... Being shy is not quite like I'm five foot six. It's, it's not necessarily a thing that you literally can't do anything about. Is that, is that fair to say?

   8. AHAliénor Hunter9:45

      I think that's fair. I think that's very fair. Um, I... The only thing I might have issue with is, like, if you do want to, if you do enjoy being shy, you have no... Like, if I look back to when I was 18, right, and my mom was ringing me up once a week and saying, "Aliénor, you need help. Like, you're... The fact that you can't..." So there was this moment, okay, there was this moment. This is, like, the changeover moment.

   9. AAAli Abdaal10:11

      Yeah.

   10. AHAliénor Hunter10:11

       I'll tell you about this. This was, so the moment at university where everything changed was when I put my duvet in storage. Uh, it was first, first term, put my du- duvet in storage over the Christmas holidays, and I came back in January and, uh, this is like January in the UK. It's cold. It's like minus five, and my duvet is in storage, and I have to email the lady who's in charge of the storage room to have her find a time that I can come fetch it. All my friends do this easily. I somehow miss out on the times that they're going. I could not email the lady. I, I wrote it a few times, and every time I wrote the email it sounded too demanding, too pushy, too... Like I was asking her to open... I just, I couldn't write the email, and so for two weeks I slept without a duvet at university-

   11. AAAli Abdaal10:58

       Wow

   12. AHAliénor Hunter10:58

       ... in minus five degrees.

   13. AAAli Abdaal10:59

       Damn.

   14. AHAliénor Hunter11:00

       And that is when my mother rang me-

   15. AAAli Abdaal11:01

       Yeah

   16. AHAliénor Hunter11:01

       ... and she was like, "Girl, [laughs] like, I, I've gone along with this thing for a while because I've known that you, you're not ready," and she helped me, and she pressed the, the buttons at the dentist, and she called up the hairdressers, and she did a lot of the things that I should have been doing by myself. And it was that moment where she was like, "You gave yourself the flu because you couldn't email someone about getting a duvet out of storage. It's time for you to get help."

   17. AAAli Abdaal11:30

       Hmm.

   18. AHAliénor Hunter11:31

       And I think it's kind of the answer to your question there, which is, like, if you are... If it's really inhibiting your life, if you are having to manipulate yourself in a way to make sure that other people are doing things for you and your friends, you always do things at the same time as your friends 'cause they're the ones who can ask for help-

   19. AAAli Abdaal11:47

       Yeah

   20. AHAliénor Hunter11:48

       ... and not you. If you find yourself, like I, I still do have a lot of extroverted friends because they're the ones that, that can do all the talking and the phoning and you just have to follow along, then maybe it is worth checking in with yourself and saying like, "Do I identify as shy? Can I push back? Could I be something else? Is it hindering my life," basically.

   21. AAAli Abdaal12:10

       Uh, do you think it... So that, that's quite an extreme point to get to before-

   22. AHAliénor Hunter12:14

       Yeah

   23. AAAli Abdaal12:14

       ... deciding I'm gonna do something about this shyness-

   24. AHAliénor Hunter12:16

       Yeah

   25. AAAli Abdaal12:16

       ... situation. Do you think if someone identifies as shy, like to me it feels that just having, having more confidence is-

   26. AHAliénor Hunter12:23

       Yeah

   27. AAAli Abdaal12:23

       ... well is almost always just a good thing to, to aim towards because generally being, if, if we think of the spectrum as being shy to confident, obviously any, any virtue taken to excess becomes a vice. And so we- we're not talking here about arrogance and overconfidence and stuff. But generally more m- more people could do with having a little bit more confidence in their lives. And most pe- I suspect most people would probably say, "Yeah, if I could wave a magic wand and magically become 20% more confident, I probably would." Um, do you think that's fair to say or? Because it's, it's-

   28. AHAliénor Hunter12:50

       Yeah

   29. AAAli Abdaal12:50

       ... it sounds like you're also trying to say that no, but being shy is actually a good thing and it's only when it gets to the point that it's causing you to have the flu that it really, it really becomes a problem. [laughs]

   30. AHAliénor Hunter12:58

       Well, I think so what I'm doing here-
5. 14:42 – 24:27

   Aliénor's journey to becoming confident

   1. AAAli Abdaal14:42

      you know, you were f- freezing in the cold for two weeks because you couldn't send an email. How... And, and now you've become a public speaking coach. So what was the-

   2. AHAliénor Hunter14:48

      [laughs]

   3. AAAli Abdaal14:48

      How did, how did that trans- transformation begin?

   4. AHAliénor Hunter14:50

      So it was very, it was quite slow at first. At first I just got help. I went to see someone for social anxiety. I think at the time she called it shyness to not scare me off.

   5. AAAli Abdaal14:58

      Mm.

   6. AHAliénor Hunter14:59

      But, um, yes, I went to see someone with social anxiety, and we did a lot of work on questioning my beliefs that I had about the world.

   7. AAAli Abdaal15:09

      Yeah.

   8. AHAliénor Hunter15:10

      So I'd made up all of these rules that I had to follow in order to be polite. Things like when you go to someone's house, like today when you offered me tea, the old me would've said, "No, thank you."

   9. AAAli Abdaal15:22

      Mm.

   10. AHAliénor Hunter15:23

       Because I didn't want to inconvenience you. And what ends up happening is that it's, it ends up being ruder 'cause you go to someone's house for a drink and they say, "Would you like a drink?" And you say, "No, thank you."

   11. AAAli Abdaal15:32

       Mm.

   12. AHAliénor Hunter15:32

       "Not even water? No, no, thank you." [laughs] And so we tackled a lot of, uh, rules that I'd come up with to keep me safe. And that took a few years, and I got more extroverted or, or better, more comfortable with myself the more we tackled those rules, because it really was... It was the first time I'd thought, "Maybe I'm wrong. [laughs] Like maybe-

   13. AAAli Abdaal15:56

       Mm

   14. AHAliénor Hunter15:56

       ... maybe my way of seeing the world isn't the right way of seeing the world." So that softened that a little bit. And about, oh gosh, five, five years later, I was working in a normal job as a tech, as a tech, in a tech startup as a data analyst, and I had to start presenting my stuff to clients. And I remember my CEO, he was amazing, he said to me, "When we go to client meetings, you have to ask questions, 'cause otherwise," he didn't say this, "but otherwise if you sit there like a lemon, people are gonna think you're not interested. They're not... They're gonna wonder why you're there."

   15. AAAli Abdaal16:30

       Mm.

   16. AHAliénor Hunter16:31

       And, um, I used to get that feedback at school as well. My teachers used to say, "We don't know if she's doing well or not because she never asks questions." And I always thought it was stupid feedback. But for it to come back when I was, like, 26 years old, I thought, "Okay, this is something I've gotta conquer." So I had this on my mind, and it was lockdown, I think 2021. And you don't know this, but I was... I opened up my laptop, and I was on YouTube, and this little notification pops up and says, "Ali Abdaal is live on YouTube."

   17. AAAli Abdaal17:03

       [laughs]

   18. AHAliénor Hunter17:04

       Right? And so I'm like, "Great. I love Ali Abdaal. This will be good quality content."

   19. AAAli Abdaal17:07

       [laughs]

   20. AHAliénor Hunter17:09

       I click. I click, and you are doing a live coaching session with Michael and Tristan-

   21. AAAli Abdaal17:14

       Mm

   22. AHAliénor Hunter17:14

       ... the co-founders of Ultraspeaking, and they're coaching you in public speaking. And you guys were playing a game called Triple Step, which is a game where you get a random title and you have these words coming up on the screen, and you have to incorporate them in your speaking on the fly, and you were smashing it.

   23. AAAli Abdaal17:31

       Mm.

   24. AHAliénor Hunter17:31

       You, you were incredible. And I was looking at this and I was like, "This is what I need. This, this is... This..." It was like, it was fun. You guys were speaking and it was, it was f- like it wasn't this stressful, overwhelming, you've-got-to-talk-to-client-and-ask-questions. It was finally, like, something that looked really happy and joyful. And so I bought that course.

   25. AAAli Abdaal17:51

       Oh.

   26. AHAliénor Hunter17:51

       You sold me.

   27. AAAli Abdaal17:52

       Damn. [laughs]

   28. AHAliénor Hunter17:52

       You s- you, you sold me and you changed my life, Ali. There you go.

   29. AAAli Abdaal17:55

       That's cool. I don't think, I don't think anyone watched those live streamers back in, back in 2021, but yeah, it seems to have-

   30. AHAliénor Hunter17:59

       There I did
6. 24:27 – 32:54

   Breaking down limiting beliefs

   1. AAAli Abdaal24:27

      and then so what, what sort of benefits did you find in your life as you started seeing the therapist and sort of slowly breaking down these, these barriers over time?

   2. AHAliénor Hunter24:34

      The biggest benefit I saw actually was more empathy because I think in the old rigid structure of my life, there were rights and wrongs-

   3. AAAli Abdaal24:44

      Mm

   4. AHAliénor Hunter24:44

      ... and there was, "This is the right way to live your life and these are the right things to say, and facts are correct." And then as I broke down basically my entire worldview and everything I believed about myself, I realized that, uh, life is a lot more fluid than that. There's no rights, there's no wrong, there's no right way to be. And so it gave me a lot more empathy for all my friends and my family in the ways that they express themselves and the ways that they're struggling, and I think I was just less rigid, you know? And, uh, that probably made me a little bit more open to speak to people as well, a bit more curious.

   5. AAAli Abdaal25:25

      So when you say rigid, so were you thinking that like, uh, people who speak to cashiers are like doing a bad thing or some- something to that effect? Like what, what was the rigid-

   6. AHAliénor Hunter25:32

      Yeah

   7. AAAli Abdaal25:32

      ... belief that you had previously?

   8. AHAliénor Hunter25:33

      Yeah, that sounds, that sounds a bit ridiculous [laughs] when we say it like that. Uh, I think, no, I think you are your own harshest critic. So when most of the judgment was on myself, I wasn't judging other people.

   9. AAAli Abdaal25:42

      Mm.

   10. AHAliénor Hunter25:42

       I was mainly jealous of other people.

   11. AAAli Abdaal25:44

       Mm.

   12. AHAliénor Hunter25:44

       Uh, but I do think, uh... Someone said this to me the other day. When you're judging others for something, it's generally 'cause you're judging yourself for that thing.

   13. AAAli Abdaal25:55

       Mm.

   14. AHAliénor Hunter25:56

       So if I was judging others for being too loud or too dramatic, it's generally because I was really afraid of being loud and dramatic. Those were my fears. And the more I looked for evidence [laughs] to kind of get rid of my beliefs that were really limiting, the more I... the less I judged myself when I was loud and, and dramatic, and the less I judged others.

   15. AAAli Abdaal26:23

       Mm. Nice. And so you said that one of the benefits was increased empathy and then sort of at, at this point, were you at university? Were you, were you, did, had you, had you started work?

   16. AHAliénor Hunter26:34

       I was at university and, yeah, starting work. Yeah.

   17. AAAli Abdaal26:36

       Okay. And so sort of if you hadn't had seen the therapist, how would you have been in the workplace compared to how you actually were in the workplace?

   18. AHAliénor Hunter26:44

       Mm. So the thing with how I felt back then, it wasn't that I couldn't do anything. It was that... It was like being on a, like kind of on a knife's edge. It was like in between b- being between a rock and a hard place, right? Where the rock is the speaking that you have to do to the other person that's scary, and the hard place is the consequence of not doing that thing. So for, in the workplace, for example, uh, the, the rock would be speaking to a client about some project that we're on. That's, I don't wanna do that. I don't wanna ask them questions. But then the hard place is if I don't do that, well, they're not gonna give me other clients and I'll probably get fired. And so I was kind of, I would've been, I think if I hadn't had this therapy, not, it's not that I wouldn't have been living my life. I would've been exhausted. I would've been permanently going to sleep feeling like I'd run a marathon because 10 times a day I had been dancing on this knife edge in between my greatest fear is about losing my job and losing everything that matters to me and my greatest fear [laughs] is about talking to people-

   19. AAAli Abdaal27:55

       Mm

   20. AHAliénor Hunter27:55

       ... the whole time. And so I think the main thing that I found in that therapy was just a bit more like ease and calm and comfort and less exhaustion.

   21. AAAli Abdaal28:04

       Yeah, 'cause it's quite stressful being in that sort of knife edge where sort of the, the mind is in overdrive and the body is sort of trying to be like, "Oh, shit," like there's all these bad things that are potentially happening and you have to, having to sort of straddle those, th- that line.

   22. AHAliénor Hunter28:16

       Yeah. Do you, do you ever get nervous now before you speak?

   23. AAAli Abdaal28:21

       Uh, yeah, if it's like a big podcast or if it's, um, uh, yeah, if it's a talk.

   24. AHAliénor Hunter28:27

       Yeah.

   25. AAAli Abdaal28:27

       If it's a keynote that I'm giving to a conference of, ah, to a conference of real adults. So when I, whenever I'm speaking to people older than me, I feel like I have nothing of value to say to them. [laughs]

   26. AHAliénor Hunter28:36

       Yes.

   27. AAAli Abdaal28:37

       Um, when, when I'm speaking to people younger than me who are like students or something, I'm like, "I'm chill." Like-

   28. AHAliénor Hunter28:40

       Yeah

   29. AAAli Abdaal28:40

       ... I've been through... I'm fairly confident with that situation. If I'm speaking to people who are like beginner YouTubers and I'm doing a session on how to do YouTube, I'm, I'm totally fine 'cause I'm just like very comfortable in that domain. But if I'm giving a keynote on productivity and there are, for example, parents in the audience, I'm just like, "What the hell do I know about...?" Like, I'm just like a freaking like 29-year-old dude like spouting productivity advice and like I don't have kids. It's like I know that changes the, the situation drastically. You know, had a, I had, I was doing a keynote where there were sort of average age of the audience was like 45. They were all like kind of McKinsey partner type people and shit like that.

   30. AHAliénor Hunter29:15

       Yeah.
7. 32:54 – 36:41

   The unrealistic expectations we put on ourselves

   1. AAAli Abdaal32:54

      [paper rustling] There was this conference I was speaking at in, in America a few months ago.

   2. AHAliénor Hunter32:58

      Mm.

   3. AAAli Abdaal32:58

      And so I was g- I was giving the keynote on day two and I saw the guy who gave the keynote on day one and he was, he was absolutely phenomenal.

   4. AHAliénor Hunter33:05

      Yeah.

   5. AAAli Abdaal33:05

      And he got a standing ovation. And I was just like, "Oh my God, this is like the best public speaker I've ever seen in my life," and my talk did not measure up in the slightest. And while I was sitting there, I was enjoying his presentation and I was also just like, "Oh my God, there's like... It's literally impossible to follow this 'cause this guy is literally such a pro." And so I spent the rest of that day just like overpreparing the shit out of my presentation to be like, "Okay, right, I can't compete with him on this front, but like I'm gonna make sure I, I just add enormous value to the audience" and added like 100 more slides to my presentation and just make it as practical and actionable as possible. Um, and so I guess the anxiety was there around like, "Oh, my thing isn't good enough." So I was like, "Right, let me just [laughs] blow them away with value instead of that."

   6. AHAliénor Hunter33:41

      Yeah.

   7. AAAli Abdaal33:41

      Like I... Something about this feels, feels a bit better.

   8. AHAliénor Hunter33:44

      Yeah. So that, that, that moment where you're in the audience and you're going, "Okay- [laughs]

   9. AAAli Abdaal33:49

      Yeah

   10. AHAliénor Hunter33:49

       ... I've got myself into some real trouble here," that I think is the closest feeling I would describe to what I had.

   11. AAAli Abdaal33:55

       Yeah.

   12. AHAliénor Hunter33:55

       But every day all the time with no power to go away and prepare something valuable because I've got to speak right now.

   13. AAAli Abdaal34:00

       Yeah.

   14. AHAliénor Hunter34:00

       It's like that 24 hours a day.

   15. AAAli Abdaal34:03

       Hmm. That's pretty terrifying.

   16. AHAliénor Hunter34:04

       Oh-

   17. AAAli Abdaal34:05

       Or, or rather exhausting. Yeah.

   18. AHAliénor Hunter34:06

       Yeah. It's really, it's really tiring.

   19. AAAli Abdaal34:08

       Yeah.

   20. AHAliénor Hunter34:08

       It's really, really tiring. I would genuinely go to bed every day feeling like I had just like I'd done, like I'd run an iron man or something, you know?

   21. AAAli Abdaal34:16

       Mm. So to what extent is the shyness/social anxiety gone for you now or is it that it's still there but you've found strategies to deal with it? Like how do you, how do you think about it?

   22. AHAliénor Hunter34:27

       Yeah. So my, in my, in my old version of events what I was looking for when I called up a therapist, I was looking to wake up one day... Have you seen the Barbie movie?

   23. AAAli Abdaal34:36

       No, not yet.

   24. AHAliénor Hunter34:37

       You have to see the Barbie movie.

   25. AAAli Abdaal34:38

       Like-

   26. AHAliénor Hunter34:38

       Okay. I wanted to wake up in Barbieland, okay?

   27. AAAli Abdaal34:40

       Yeah.

   28. AHAliénor Hunter34:40

       I wanted to wake up in this world where I was perfect and I never had insecure thoughts and, uh, I would wave at everyone, "Hi, Barbie. Hi, Barbie. Hi," and they'd wave back at me, you know? And I imagined this world of all my friends who I saw who are naturally extroverted, and I imagined that in their head they never struggle, right? Or I see you on YouTube and I'm like, "He never struggles giving big keynote presentations to people."

   29. AAAli Abdaal35:05

       Mm.

   30. AHAliénor Hunter35:05

       "He's super important and people love what he has to say." And so I had this misconception I think that it is possible to feel nothing when you speak, that confidence means feeling nothing when you speak. And in reality I think the most liberating thing I've learnt in this process is not the, is not that confidence means nothing, [laughs] means feeling nothing, it's you still feel the same feelings. You still have excitement. You still have... I'm actually still excited to go on a podcast, but what I have now is that I know that I can do it. I know that that feeling is a good feeling 'cause I'm excited, 'cause I wanna talk to you.
8. 36:41 – 42:40

   The impact of ultraspeaking

   1. AAAli Abdaal36:41

      So then it's 2021. You see this video of me and M- Michael and Tristan doing some-

   2. AHAliénor Hunter36:45

      Mm-hmm

   3. AAAli Abdaal36:45

      ... Ultraspeaking games. W- what happens next?

   4. AHAliénor Hunter36:47

      Mm. So they were advertising their fundamentals course and a new cohort had just opened I think at the end. Uh, they did a very brief plug and you had like a little link, so I clicked on the link. Uh, and the, the standard tier was sold out, but I just des- I was, I was hooked. I was like, "I need this," and so I, I paid for the course and I started. I think I literally started two, two or three days later.

   5. AAAli Abdaal37:13

      Mm.

   6. AHAliénor Hunter37:14

      And it's a, it's a five-week course. Three hours a week. And I remember my first session, and we did a game called rapid fire analogies, where you have to complete a sentence. And I remember I shut my laptop after that first session and I was like, "What have I just done?" Like, this is-- I knew then that this was gonna be something huge for me because it was fun, and because someone had said that I was good at it in the lesson. That was the first time I think I'd ever heard someone say I was good at speaking and actually l- listened and believed it. Because in real life you don't really get opportunities to have people say, like sit you down, listen to you speak and say, "Oh, Ali, you're amazing when you speak." Maybe, maybe you get that. [laughs] I, in my day-to-day job I didn't get that much of that.

   7. AAAli Abdaal38:11

      Yeah.

   8. AHAliénor Hunter38:11

      People never would come back to me and say, "You know, when you said this sentence, it sounded so confident." Or at least I wouldn't hear it, you know? And so it was throughout that five-week course, I had people, coaches, but also just other people taking the course say things like, "That came across really confident. I really like your energy. Wow, you have such a fun personality." And I was like, "I have these things? [laughs] I've had them all along? Why have I been hiding them?" You know? And so, uh, just in those five weeks already, by the end of it, I was a different person.

   9. AAAli Abdaal38:50

      What, what other sort of exercises did they do in the five weeks? And I guess for someone listening to this who-

   10. AHAliénor Hunter38:56

       Yeah

   11. AAAli Abdaal38:56

       ... maybe is in their car or something, is, is, is, are there any, is, is there anything that like someone could, could take away from the course that they can just sort of practice without having taken the course?

   12. AHAliénor Hunter39:06

       Yeah. So the premise of the course is that, uh, you play a bunch of speaking games. Uh, the idea being that it makes speaking fun, but also that the whole, that the only way to get better at speaking is by speaking. And so you get to practice this in a fun environment where you get a lot of feedback and a lot of quick feedback loops. So the main games that we played was this one called rapid fire analogies where you have to complete the sentence, and the idea behind that one is to get snappy. [laughs] To get you out of the overthinking phase, which was my favorite place to live in. Uh, the phase where I would have a thought like, "Wow, that book looks amazing." But instead of saying it to you, I would sit there and think, "Should I say it like that? Should I say maybe something like, 'How long did it take you to write the book? Did you enjoy the process?'" And I would sit and overthink and overthink so long that the conversation had moved on.

   13. AAAli Abdaal40:03

       Mm.

   14. AHAliénor Hunter40:04

       And so that game is about just doing the opposite and training you to start trusting the first thing that comes out of your mouth. Because if you're anything like I was, you're way too hardwired the opposite end. And so if you're listening to this in your car and you don't have access to the games, uh, complete some sentences. The moon is yellow because...

   15. AAAli Abdaal40:33

       Because it's made of cheese. [laughs]

   16. AHAliénor Hunter40:34

       Right? Amazing.

   17. AAAli Abdaal40:35

       Yeah. [laughs]

   18. AHAliénor Hunter40:35

       You know? Um, uh, tables are sharp because...

   19. AAAli Abdaal40:39

       They have legs.

   20. AHAliénor Hunter40:40

       Uh, toes are wrinkly because...

   21. AAAli Abdaal40:42

       They have skin.

   22. AHAliénor Hunter40:43

       Right? Like any-

   23. AAAli Abdaal40:44

       [laughs]

   24. AHAliénor Hunter40:44

       It doesn't matter.

   25. AAAli Abdaal40:44

       Yeah.

   26. AHAliénor Hunter40:45

       It doesn't matter, but like the premise is just s- start thinking, uh, stop, stop thinking, you know? And, and start saying.

   27. AAAli Abdaal40:52

       Stop thinking and start saying.

   28. AHAliénor Hunter40:55

       Yeah.

   29. AAAli Abdaal40:56

       So-

   30. AHAliénor Hunter40:56

       Speak before you think is what they say, uh, what we say at Ultraspeaking. Speak before you think.
9. 42:40 – 50:25

   Change your perspective on speaking

   1. AHAliénor Hunter42:40

      this, I have this pet theory that we are looking at speaking the wrong way around, and that if you are someone who is... Let's, let's take the example of someone shy, and let's say you're at a drinks and you're sitting on the sofa and there's people around you, and they're all chatting to each other and no one's chatting to you. And you start to have these thoughts that maybe like, "Oh, I'm not interesting." And someone tries to talk to you and the conversation doesn't really go anywhere for whatever reason. They get distracted or, you know, you feel like they're turning away. In that moment, it's very easy to think, "Okay, I'm gonna get better at speaking, and the way I'm gonna do that is I'm gonna be so charming and charismatic. I'm gonna learn how to sit up straight. I'm gonna learn how to, uh, use posture, use hands, tell stories, be exciting, uh, get rid of my ums and uhs. I'm gonna change all of these outside tips and tricks, and then when I have that, I'll be good at speaking, and then everyone-- and then I'll be confident enough to speak up at my drinks." And it's kind of this outside-in approach.

   2. AAAli Abdaal43:54

      Mm.

   3. AHAliénor Hunter43:54

      Only when I have learnt all these tips and tricks will I be good enough to talk to people, and right now the reason I'm not good enough is because I don't know how to do these things.

   4. AAAli Abdaal44:04

      Mm.

   5. AHAliénor Hunter44:04

      I don't have those skills. And I think that's the wrong way around. I think it's the opposite. I think that in reality, I heard this, I heard this phrase and, um, I quite like it, "The problem is not the problem. The problem is your solution to the problem."

   6. AAAli Abdaal44:24

      Mm. Nice.

   7. AHAliénor Hunter44:25

      So the problem here is not your inability to speak or your speaking ability. The problem here is you thinking you are a bad speaker or you thinking other people are judging you, and so therefore you protect yourself by not speaking.

   8. AAAli Abdaal44:40

      Mm.

   9. AHAliénor Hunter44:41

      By staying quiet. And that is the problem. [chuckles] And so in reality, rather than fixing it from the outside in of like, "If I do all these tips and tricks, then finally on the inside I'll be good enough," the reality is that on the inside you are good enough. When you speak to your close friends, to your family, to your loved ones, in some situations you're totally free. I think everyone has those places where they're, they're totally free and they can speak. But then in this situation you're not. So instead of learning speaking from the outside in of like, "These are the skills I need to learn and then I'll be confident," we should learn it from the inside out. "I am the way-- me the way I am right now knows how to speak."

   10. AAAli Abdaal45:28

       Mm.

   11. AHAliénor Hunter45:30

       And if I just unlearn all of those beliefs [chuckles] I have about myself about being terrible and, and having no value, then I'll be able-- then I'll be amazing.

   12. AAAli Abdaal45:42

       Um, so back in the day when I was like, uh, sort of early teens-

   13. AHAliénor Hunter45:46

       Yeah

   14. AAAli Abdaal45:46

       ... I would have identified as quite shy.

   15. AHAliénor Hunter45:49

       Mm.

   16. AAAli Abdaal45:49

       In that, you know, I would, uh... Like the, the context in which it, it, it came up was that I u- I used to do this sort of maths tutoring thing at a place called Kumon, like a study center on the side.

   17. AHAliénor Hunter46:00

       My brother did that. Oh, no way.

   18. AAAli Abdaal46:01

       Yeah.

   19. AHAliénor Hunter46:01

       I never had to apparently. Wasn't good enough at maths, so I don't know. [chuckles]

   20. AAAli Abdaal46:03

       Fair play. Um, so I was like one of the, the markers who-- sitting behind the desk 'cause I was, I enjoyed maths.

   21. AHAliénor Hunter46:08

       Yeah.

   22. AAAli Abdaal46:08

       I was marking stuff and helping, helping kids with their homework. And I was like 14, and the, uh, sort of everyone else who was a helper were sort of, were sort of older than me, and a lot of them were girls, so like 16-year-old girl, 17-year-old girl. Like, and I was like, "Oh, shit," like, "I need to, I need to be able to maintain conversation and stuff." And I was, I was very shy in that like-

   23. AHAliénor Hunter46:27

       Mm

   24. AAAli Abdaal46:27

       ... these were like these cool older girls and like they're like gonna-- good at maths as well and like, uh, I don't know.

   25. AHAliénor Hunter46:33

       Fast and Tumblr girls good at maths. [chuckles]

   26. AAAli Abdaal46:34

       Like I, I... Yeah, m- m- no. [laughs] Um, and I would really struggle to kind of hold conversation.

   27. AHAliénor Hunter46:40

       Yeah.

   28. AAAli Abdaal46:40

       And so I found a few strategies here and there, like I was at the time started watching like Gossip Girl and 90210. That's great, great shows.

   29. AHAliénor Hunter46:48

       Love it.

   30. AAAli Abdaal46:48

       And that was a domain in which I was very comfortable speaking about those TV shows.
10. 50:25 – 59:09

    The importance of conviction

    1. AHAliénor Hunter50:25

       confidence?

    2. AAAli Abdaal50:26

       A lot of it was around, um, p- part of it was mindset, and another part of it was strategy. So the mindset part was, you know, to, to your point just now, um, there's this, the, this other magician I used to follow who would... It was, it was really good, but he would, he would specialize in going up to a random group and, like, doing magic with, like, just stuff that was around him. So sort of thinking-

    3. AHAliénor Hunter50:48

       Mm

    4. AAAli Abdaal50:48

       ... on his feet and all this-

    5. AHAliénor Hunter50:49

       Yeah

    6. AAAli Abdaal50:49

       ... kind of stuff. And his whole, his whole philosophy was that confidence is not something that you acquire.

    7. AHAliénor Hunter50:54

       Yeah.

    8. AAAli Abdaal50:54

       And if you have-- if you're thinking of confidence as, oh, I will become more confident over time by doing more of this thing, you've already lost. 'Cause confidence is just something that you can just choose. Like, in, in the moment, y- you can simply choose-

    9. AHAliénor Hunter51:04

       Yeah

    10. AAAli Abdaal51:04

        ... to be confident. And it's almost like, you know, the whole fake it till you make it thing, but, like, you know, in th- in this moment, I'm going, I'm going to act confident. And one thing that he, that he would say is that there is no difference between real confidence and fake confidence.

    11. AHAliénor Hunter51:19

        Mm.

    12. AAAli Abdaal51:19

        Like, broadly, people cannot tell the difference. And so if you're faking confident, and if you're acting as if you're confident in a social s- social situation, generally people aren't thinking about you anyway. The pro- It's gonna fly. Like, it's gonna be all good, and you do that enough times and you realize, oh, I can actually just choose to be confident. I can flip-

    13. AHAliénor Hunter51:34

        Yeah

    14. AAAli Abdaal51:34

        ... the confidence switch in my mind. So there were a few mindset things like that that I found, I found really helpful.

    15. AHAliénor Hunter51:39

        Yeah, and I think, uh, but that's what we learnt in the first week of fundamentals. It was literally that. It was you're saying absolute nonsense, like the moon is yellow 'cause it's made of cheese, and you're saying it... You're choosing to flip that confidence switch, and people weren't noticing that I felt like an idiot. [laughs]

    16. AAAli Abdaal51:55

        Yeah.

    17. AHAliénor Hunter51:56

        And they were saying nice things instead. And I was like, hang on, I feel like an idiot on the inside, and people are saying I don't look like one. There's a disconnect between how I'm feeling on the inside and how others are seeing me on the outside, and if that happens here, maybe that happens everywhere that I feel nervous. And oh my gosh, this whole time I've been thinking people can see it, and they just can't. And I think that's... Yeah, I think that helped me. But that, that moment you said, the, the headmaster's moment where he called you in and he was like-

    18. AAAli Abdaal52:28

        Yeah. [laughs]

    19. AHAliénor Hunter52:29

        ... "You know, you, you, you might not get in. You're doing all the right things," that I feel like I relate to it so much. It's my entire, my entire first 18 years of my existence is like, yeah, you're good at the stuff that we ask you to do, but all of the stuff, all of the speaking around it is gonna hold you back. And I know that there are so many other people who get the same feedback.

    20. AAAli Abdaal52:49

        Mm.

    21. AHAliénor Hunter52:49

        And I think, and I think it's unfair that there are so many people out there who think that they are, like, broken in some way because they get this feedback, because they get told, like you and I were, "You're great at the schoolwork, you're great at your job, but you're never gonna go anywhere because you don't smile enough," [laughs] or, "You're not confident enough," or, "You don't ask enough questions." And the implicit understatement in that is you the way you are is not good enough, and you need to learn some kind of skill.

    22. AAAli Abdaal53:34

        Mm.

    23. AHAliénor Hunter53:35

        And it goes back to the thing I was just saying of, like, you in that situation, I imagine that you had all the skills already. What you were learning was the mindset, the confidence-

    24. AAAli Abdaal53:45

        Yeah

    25. AHAliénor Hunter53:45

        ... right? Like, you, you-

    26. AAAli Abdaal53:46

        Yeah

    27. AHAliénor Hunter53:46

        ... you-- with your mom, you were probably quite outgoing, and you did smile when you talked about medicine.

    28. AAAli Abdaal53:52

        Mm.

    29. AHAliénor Hunter53:52

        And I just think so many people walking around thinking, "I am... Yeah, I'm broken." [laughs] Like, "I'm, I'm an outcast. I cannot speak and everyone else can. Why not?" And it's not true.

    30. AAAli Abdaal54:06

        I would say it's a, it's, it's sort of... Like, for me-
11. 59:09 – 1:05:21

    How Aliénor became a speaking coach

    1. AAAli Abdaal59:09

       Yeah, I find that, uh, Americans are very good at this.

    2. AHAliénor Hunter59:11

       Oh.

    3. AAAli Abdaal59:11

       So I think sort of Brits and Canadians sort of... I've, I've, I've, I've, I've noticed a bunch of Canadians do this as well. Um, sort of we tend to downplay things.

    4. AHAliénor Hunter59:20

       Yeah.

    5. AAAli Abdaal59:20

       Whereas when I spend time in the US, I'm always just like surprised by how much conviction people have for saying stuff, even if I know they actually don't know what they're talking about in that specific context. Like if someone's... If I'm, if I'm at like a conference or something and someone that I talk to talking to me about YouTube, and I've, I've seen their channel and I, I know they've got like 300 subscribers and they've been doing it for like a month. And the way they speak about, about like c- content creation and like growing on social media with such conviction, I'm like, "Wow, I need more of that confidence in my life." [laughs]

    6. AHAliénor Hunter59:48

       Most of us, 99% of us are way too far on the wrong scale-

    7. AAAli Abdaal59:52

       Yeah

    8. AHAliénor Hunter59:52

       ... in terms of conviction. Like pretty much all of us. And then there's a select few who could do with, with dialing it down a little bit. But I think we're also afraid of being that select few, that we dance around the very, very much not enough conviction area-

    9. AAAli Abdaal1:00:05

       Mm

    10. AHAliénor Hunter1:00:05

        ... because we're so afraid of going a little bit too far. And, uh, I would love to see everyone just wake up, go to the office today and go too far just for one day.

    11. AAAli Abdaal1:00:14

        Mm.

    12. AHAliénor Hunter1:00:14

        See what it does, you know?

    13. AAAli Abdaal1:00:16

        Yeah. It's a good experiment almost.

    14. AHAliénor Hunter1:00:17

        Yeah.

    15. AAAli Abdaal1:00:18

        Um, in my team as well, like occasionally I get a, I'll, I'll get a message from someone being like, "Oh hey, you know, sorry about that thing that I said. I think I might have gone too far." And I'm like, "What?"

    16. AHAliénor Hunter1:00:26

        [laughs]

    17. AAAli Abdaal1:00:27

        They did- didn't even vaguely register me-

    18. AHAliénor Hunter1:00:29

        Yeah

    19. AAAli Abdaal1:00:29

        ... because to them they're like, "Oh my God, I, I was too direct with that, that thing that I said," and I'm just thinking it was, it was, it was just totally normal. Like it was so normal to the point I didn't even notice the thing. But they're all in their heads thinking like, "Oh, I s- I said it too directly."

    20. AHAliénor Hunter1:00:43

        Yeah. 'Cause the line is here, right?

    21. AAAli Abdaal1:00:44

        Yeah.

    22. AHAliénor Hunter1:00:45

        And they like, they're usually here and they went here and then, "Oh my gosh, that's way further than I usually go." But the line's, line is here.

    23. AAAli Abdaal1:00:50

        Yeah.

    24. AHAliénor Hunter1:00:50

        You can, you can always do what you just said. You send a message afterwards if you really think you've gone too far. "Sorry I went too far." You'll be forgiven.

    25. AAAli Abdaal1:00:57

        Yeah.

    26. AHAliénor Hunter1:00:58

        I've, it's r- I've rarely heard stories of someone... 'Cause conviction is not an energy that is anger or aggression-

    27. AAAli Abdaal1:01:05

        Mm

    28. AHAliénor Hunter1:01:05

        ... or it's not a negative energy. It might have negative connotations if you're afraid of it, but it's not like-

    29. AAAli Abdaal1:01:11

        Mm

    30. AHAliénor Hunter1:01:11

        ... it's not something that you are aiming at someone else. [laughs] Not like, "You must believe me."
12. 1:05:21 – 1:06:56

    Habit One: Musicality

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:05:21

       I wonder if, um, we can go over the, the various concepts that the Ultraspeaking people or that you guys at Ultraspeaking teach, and if we can just riff on some of these.

    2. AHAliénor Hunter1:05:32

       Let's go for it.

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:05:33

       So we've got, um, musicality.

    4. AHAliénor Hunter1:05:35

       Mm.

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:05:35

       What is musicality as it relates to public speaking?

    6. AHAliénor Hunter1:05:38

       Well, it's similar to, I mean, the reason we use the word musicality, it's similar to in music, what makes it interesting is partly the interpretation of the piece, right? You play, you play musical instruments, don't you? Yeah.

    7. AAAli Abdaal1:05:53

       I dabble with piano and guitar.

    8. AHAliénor Hunter1:05:54

       Yeah. And they have all of these, uh, instructions about how loud it should be and how quiet it should be and how it should sound, and it's the same thing in speaking. If you speak in one emotion, one energy level, one tone, we call that monotone. It's supposed to be not a good thing. Uh, and it can be like being constantly excited [laughs] and you ha- you know you have those people you meet who are like always excitable, uh, or really, really quiet, really, really calm. What we're looking for with musicality is a bit of contrast, a little bit of movement between the energies so that you can express yourself in a way that matches what you're saying, so that when you care about something you can have a bit of conviction about it, so that when you wanna think about something, you can talk about it in a thoughtful and reflective way. So basically it's about matching what's coming out on the outside with how you actually feel about it on the inside-

    9. AAAli Abdaal1:06:51

       Mm

    10. AHAliénor Hunter1:06:51

        ... so that people can understand that's how you feel about it. Yeah.

    11. AAAli Abdaal1:06:55

        Um-

    12. SPSpeaker1:06:55

        That role-

13. 1:06:56 – 1:12:42

    Habit Two: One thing

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:06:56

       What is the, the one thing concept?

    2. AHAliénor Hunter1:06:58

       Mm. This is th- this is an important concept. So the one thing concept is this idea, especially when you're preparing for a presentation, that your audience, after a week let's say, when they go home to their partners and they say, "Oh, I went to this really interesting presentation that Ali gave. It was about..." Right? And they're gonna give their partner a one-sentence summary. And so when you're preparing your presentation, the first thing you wanna think about is what do I want that one-sentence summary to be?

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:07:36

       Mm.

    4. AHAliénor Hunter1:07:38

       And it's the same when you're speaking off the cuff, if you can. What is the one message you wanna get across?

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:07:46

       Hmm. That's good.

    6. AHAliénor Hunter1:07:48

       Yeah.

    7. AAAli Abdaal1:07:48

       That's good. I should do more... I should do that with my keynotes. I'm just thinking that, ah, that would be a good kind of unifying thing to hang everything else off of.

    8. AHAliénor Hunter1:07:59

       Hmm.

    9. AAAli Abdaal1:07:59

       And that just makes it, it makes it more memorable. Hmm. Yeah. If there's one thing I want you to take away from this, it's hmm-

    10. AHAliénor Hunter1:08:06

        It's this. And that-

    11. AAAli Abdaal1:08:06

        That thing

    12. AHAliénor Hunter1:08:07

        ... and you can have all your stories and your anecdotes-

    13. AAAli Abdaal1:08:09

        Yeah

    14. AHAliénor Hunter1:08:09

        ... and your data, and that can be supporting branches off your one thing.

    15. AAAli Abdaal1:08:13

        Yeah.

    16. AHAliénor Hunter1:08:13

        But I think I certainly used to have this tendency to want to fit everything in, 'cause there's so much important stuff-

    17. AAAli Abdaal1:08:19

        Yeah

    18. AHAliénor Hunter1:08:19

        ... and I want everyone to know everything. Uh, and in fact, all that does is it, it, uh, clouds your presentation. It confuses rather than adds. So choose one thing and then s- build it out from there rather than the other way around.

    19. AAAli Abdaal1:08:34

        Yeah. This very much applies to book writing as well, where like-

    20. AHAliénor Hunter1:08:37

        Yeah

    21. AAAli Abdaal1:08:38

        ... you start with the, you start with the hook. It's like what is the one thing that this book... Like, what is-

    22. AHAliénor Hunter1:08:43

        Mm

    23. AAAli Abdaal1:08:43

        ... this book about? And, like, asking an author the question of, "What is your book about?" is, like, a very anxiety-inducing question because a lot of people are like, "Oh, God." Like-

    24. AHAliénor Hunter1:08:52

        Yeah

    25. AAAli Abdaal1:08:52

        ... it's, it's actually surprisingly hard to answer that question, 'cause, like, well, it's about this, it's about this, but, uh... And it's, it's only, like the, the real pros understand that, like, you need to know what your book is about, like that one-sentence hook before you start writing it, otherwise you're gonna go off, off in weird directions. Um, and, like, certainly with this one, you know, it was like the three-year, three-year-long process, link down below.

    26. AHAliénor Hunter1:09:13

        [laughs]

    27. AAAli Abdaal1:09:13

        Um, the three-year-long process of writing this all the way through was this question of like what is this actually about? What is the one message? And for future books, now that I've kind of gone through the process once, I'm like, all right, cool. When I'm... I'm not even gonna begin to write until I know what the one message is.

    28. AHAliénor Hunter1:09:29

        Mm.

    29. AAAli Abdaal1:09:29

        Uh, like what is, what, what is the hook? What is the... Preferably, what is the title as well? 'Cause this title, Feel-Good Productivity, only came like two years into the process. And it kind... Like the title informs the hook and the hook-

    30. AHAliénor Hunter1:09:43

        Mm
14. 1:12:42 – 1:17:06

    Habit Three: Recovery

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:12:42

       What's-

    2. AHAliénor Hunter1:12:43

       Hmm

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:12:43

       ... what if, what happens when you make a mistake when speaking?

    4. AHAliénor Hunter1:12:45

       Hmm. That is, I think, one of the biggest mistakes that beginners make when they're new to speaking, is that if, is that when they make a mistake they let it get to them and they let it affect the way that they speak. So for example, let's say you stumble over some words. If you're a beginner, you might notice that and start apologizing, "Sorry, sorry. Let me start again." Right? And what you're doing when you apologize for the way that you're speaking is you're drawing attention to the mistake that you're making. Uh, and there's lots of different ways to do this. Some of it is literally saying, "I'm so sorry," and, "Uh, can I start again?" Some of it is nervous giggling. Some of it is, we call it breaking character-

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:13:34

       Hmm

    6. AHAliénor Hunter1:13:34

       ... basically. Coming out of the confident conviction version of you and into the apologetic version of you. And What that does is it doesn't allow you to recover from the mistake. It means that the mistake becomes evident, obvious, and then it takes a huge amount of momentum to get back into speaking once you've stopped. I know that for me, like when I'm speaking, it's all going, and the ball is rolling down the hill, and everything's amazing. And then when you stop, it takes a bit of a activation enthalpy or whatever it is to, to get over that, that hurdle again. And so I was watching a... I was watching Simon Sinek start with why at TED Talk the other day, and I just think he's a phenomenal speaker. He has a lot of conviction. And he-- and I saw about five minutes in, or three minutes in, I think it is, he... It's a very small stumble, but he stumbles over the word organization. Like, "Why does your organization exist?" Or something. He says, "Why does your organization exist?" And, uh, it's completely imperceptible because he doubles down on the word exist. Exist, and then he carries on with his message, and he gets even more excited and brings even more energy and even more conviction. But you could equally do the opposite, stumble over the word organization, get a bit in your head, stumble over the word exist-

    7. AAAli Abdaal1:15:00

       Mm

    8. AHAliénor Hunter1:15:00

       ... and, and kind of crumble. And the distinction between great speakers and starter or beginner speakers is not the amount of mistakes they make, although it does reduce. It's the fact that great speakers recover from their mistakes much, much faster than beginners do.

    9. AAAli Abdaal1:15:22

       So what are some strategies for recovering?

    10. AHAliénor Hunter1:15:24

        Hmm. There's a few different ones. One of the ones to recover from a mistake, one of the ways to recover from a mistake is just to up your energy. So like Simon Sinek did in that presentation, you stumble over a word, just bounce into it a little bit more. Up your conviction a little bit more and use that momentum to throw yourself into what you're saying, to double down on it, which might feel scary, doubling down on a mistake. That's one way-

    11. AAAli Abdaal1:15:48

        Mm

    12. AHAliénor Hunter1:15:48

        ... to recover. Another way to recover is take a breath. If you're stumbling, if you're feeling a bit lost, just take a breath. Take two, and then start again from a different angle. Another way to recover, I love these summary prompts. A summary prompt is a sentence that you can use to prompt yourself as you're speaking. So a little bit like we were doing earlier, prompting ourselves with a table is sharp because it has legs. Instead of a nonsensical sentence, it's a sentence that will trick your brain into completing it. So a sentence like, "The important thing to remember about this is...," "The one point I wanna get across is...," "I guess what I'm trying to say is...," "In short," "In summary." And if you ever feel like you are rambling or you're making some mistakes or you're kind of struggling with the direction of your speaking, take a breath. And basically what's important to remember about this is you don't necessarily know what it is that you're gonna say, but you've prompted your brain, and your brain will complete the sentence as you go. And it just redirects you with a little bit more clarity.

    13. AAAli Abdaal1:17:05

        Nice.

15. 1:17:06 – 1:20:24

    Habit Four: Silence

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:17:06

       Silence. What's the role of silence when it comes to speaking?

    2. AHAliénor Hunter1:17:09

       I think there's an obvious role for silence, which is that from the outside it makes you look more confident. I think if you think about really important people, they are not... I mean, they're on their own time, and everyone else is waiting for them to speak, right? And so if you look at someone like Barack Obama, he has-- uses a lot of silence and a lot of pausing. And I think executive presence is something that's very related to pausing and silence, and being the one who has the guts to take a breath. Basically, the important thing about silence is that in that moment of pausing, you are unbothered. You are confident that your message is worthy of listening to and that people should take the time to not interrupt you and let you finish your thought. That's the exterior part of silence. It gives you more confidence. But then I think this is even more fascinating, the impact on your thoughts. Silence, and in particular breathing, is the only time you really have in your speech to check in and renavigate. So silence allows you to take a pause and maybe change direction, maybe discover something new about what you wanna say. So, uh, let's say you are describing why it's important to be productive, and you get halfway through, and you're like, "I'm missing something. I don't know what I'm missing, but I'm missing something." Take a breath. Take a couple of breaths. Maybe a thought comes up to you and you're like, "I don't like that one." Put it aside. It gives you a little bit of time to let the thoughts come, and it gives you a little bit of time to go, "Actually, you know what I just said? That's not the most important thing about productivity. This is the most important thing about productivity." So I think silence is good for confidence externally, but it's also the most important thing you can do to actually navigate your speaking on the fly.

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:19:29

       And I guess we're often reluctant to take pauses because in our-- to, to our mind, a pause feels way more long than it does for the audience.

    4. AHAliénor Hunter1:19:38

       It always feels longer. It's, it's exactly the same as before. Conviction feels louder. Um, you know, confidence feels harder. Pauses feel like hours to you and nanoseconds to your audience. So if you wanna practice your pausing- Pause for way, way longer in your practice than you think you ought to. You can set a timer for, like, 20 seconds and, and watch it go down as you pause. You can hold your hands up-

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:20:05

       Yeah

    6. AHAliénor Hunter1:20:05

       ... [laughs] and count your way through, through the pausing. It feels way longer to, to you than it does to your audience, but also it feels really scary to say something and put it out there and just let that sit.

16. 1:20:24 – 1:24:04

    Habit Five: Self-talk

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:20:24

       Um, self-talk. What's the deal with self-talk?

    2. AHAliénor Hunter1:20:29

       The deal with self-talk is kind of like what we just talked about with the example you were saying of sometimes I just tell people to be 20% more confident or add 50% more conviction and more energy, and it changes the way they speak. Well, what that means is that the skill set in those people is already there. So most people's skill set in speaking is already really good. There are very few people I meet where I'm like, "You have a s- a major skill set deficiency in your speaking." I'd, I'd rarely, rarely ever see that. But for a lot of people, the mindset is the thing that's holding you back. And so a lot of the work that you're doing in your speaking is your skill set is up here, and your mindset is way here. How can we catch that mindset up to your skill set? And that is where the self-talk comes in. If I can simply say to a client, like I said earlier, "That was awesome. People liked it." And then the people in the room say, "Wow, yeah, you came across so friendly. You came across so smart, so intelligent." And they speak again, and they are coming across 100 times better purely because they've heard the words, "You're coming across so smart and so intelligent."

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:21:48

       Hmm.

    4. AHAliénor Hunter1:21:49

       Then so much of speaking is self-talk.

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:21:52

       Hmm.

    6. AHAliénor Hunter1:21:53

       I would go so far as to say 90% of speaking is in the way that you think about yourself rather than the skills you have.

    7. AAAli Abdaal1:22:00

       Hmm. I guess what we're saying is that it's useful to think of yourself as more confident than you feel or, like, more authoritative than you feel?

    8. AHAliénor Hunter1:22:10

       It is. I, uh, I listened to... I don't know if you've heard, there's this clip on YouTube of Michelle Obama talking about imposter syndrome.

    9. AAAli Abdaal1:22:16

       Hmm.

    10. AHAliénor Hunter1:22:16

        And she describes it so beautifully. She says, you know, "It's that, it's that feeling that you have when you feel like you don't belong." And she was saying, "Oh, I've been, I've been pretty much everywhere. I've been in all the biggest rooms of the world. I've, I've met with the most important people in the world, and I've been in all these incredible situations." And at the start she said she used to walk in and feel, like, a bit intimidated, like she didn't belong. And then at some point she looked around the room, she looked at all these men around her, and she said, "No, actually, it's you that doesn't belong. You know, you're the one... I, I belong here. You're, you're s- spouting in a bunch of nonsense." You know? And, uh, just... And that's just a mindset shift, right? That's just her walking in the next day and realizing that actually all these thoughts she's been telling herself about not belonging, not necessarily true, and she has just as much value to be there as anyone else. And so part of it, I think, is, is just treating yourself as if you have more right to be there than you think you do. I sometimes say to myself, "What would Michelle Obama do?" [laughs] I like it. I think she's awesome, you know?

    11. AAAli Abdaal1:23:29

        That's it. Yeah.

    12. AHAliénor Hunter1:23:30

        And I'm like, how would I act if I was... If I had all the experience and the gravitas and the, and the love that Michelle Obama has-

    13. AAAli Abdaal1:23:37

        Hmm

    14. AHAliénor Hunter1:23:37

        ... how would I walk into a room? And I find that helps me just in the moment to perk myself up a little bit more. But the other part of it is the more experience you have doing things that scare you, so speaking under pressure-

    15. AAAli Abdaal1:23:53

        Hmm

    16. AHAliénor Hunter1:23:53

        ... and surviving it, and not only surviving it, but thriving during it-

    17. AAAli Abdaal1:23:58

        Hmm

    18. AHAliénor Hunter1:23:58

        ... the more you will know that you can do it.

    19. AAAli Abdaal1:24:01

        Hmm. Hmm. Nice.

17. 1:24:04 – 1:29:53

    How to start a conversation

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:24:04

       Um, a few more questions from our Telegram community. Uh, so we've got a question from Mylan, who says-

    2. AHAliénor Hunter1:24:10

       Mm-hmm

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:24:11

       ... "How... Do you have any tips to getting out of your comfort zone more and pushing yourself?" Um, they say, "I'm fine when I chat to people, but I won't ever start a conversation 'cause I'm comfortable just doing my own thing."

    4. AHAliénor Hunter1:24:23

       Yeah, I'm fine when I chat to people, but I won't ever start a conversation. Okay. There's a bunch of different things you can do for that. I like your one of you made a rule that I'm always gonna ask a question.

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:24:34

       Hmm. Yeah.

    6. AHAliénor Hunter1:24:34

       You know? I say that sometimes. I say that, uh, whenever you go somewhere, just raise your hand. You don't even know what you're gonna say yet. Just raise your hand, and then you, you gotta say something, right? So make a commitment to yourself, kind of a, a, a commitment to yourself to speak, and it's better if you can do it by tricking yourself, i.e., by raising the hand before you know what you're gonna say, 'cause then you know you gotta say something.

    7. AAAli Abdaal1:24:59

       Hmm.

    8. AHAliénor Hunter1:24:59

       Uh, but if I'm sitting there the whole time... I go to... I went to a talk the other day, and I was like, "I'm gonna ask a question. I'm gonna ask a question. I'm a public speaking coach. I'm gonna ask a question." And I sat there the whole time, and my hands were down, and people, other people were asking questions, and I was... It was getting towards the end of question time, you know? And I was thinking, "Oh, God, I'm running out of time to ask a question. I'm running out of time." And there was a moment where I would've let it go, and I was like, "No, I can't do that. Stick your hand up." You know, force, trick yourself into doing the thing you wanna do. That's one thing. The other thing I would say is, uh, join, join a club. Like, join a toast cl- Toastmasters club, join Ultraspeaking. Go to a place where you can practice speaking in a comfortable environment that is separate from your life, where people care about you and improving speaking and giving feedback and all of that stuff in a way that feels very low risk. Because if you're trying to improve your speaking in the real world with friends that you care about and work that you care about, it can feel like a lot of pressure, and it can feel really, really scary. But do it. But you do need, you do need those reps. You do need to speak In a different way and feel the difference and be rewarded for that-

    9. AAAli Abdaal1:26:08

       Mm

    10. AHAliénor Hunter1:26:08

        ... and go through that feedback loop enough times to have the confidence to do it in the real world. So find a place where you can do that, whatever it is.

    11. AAAli Abdaal1:26:18

        Yeah, I find that, um, you know, when I'm about to stick my head up to ask a question-

    12. AHAliénor Hunter1:26:23

        Mm

    13. AAAli Abdaal1:26:23

        ... or to volunteer something, I'll, I'll, I'll always feel that moment of indecision to be like-

    14. AHAliénor Hunter1:26:27

        Yeah

    15. AAAli Abdaal1:26:27

        ... "Oh, you know, is this-

    16. AHAliénor Hunter1:26:28

        Yeah

    17. AAAli Abdaal1:26:28

        ... even a good que- Is it, is it worth like, uh, I don't know." And then I almost always think that, like who, who is the sort of person I want to be, someone who asks a question or someone who is afraid of asking a question? Then the answer is usually clear. It's like, okay, I mean, even if they don't pick on me, even if they don't like, or even if whatever, it's like, I have... It's, it's a win for me if I put- if I've put my hand up to volunteer the thing. Um, and again, at this conference I was at last week, you know, the person sitting next to me was like confused about something, and she was like, "Oh, I'm not sure if I should ask." I was like, "Yeah, put your hand up and ask," 'cause like, you know, he's, he's asking questions from people during the talk. And she was like, "No, it's, you know, it's, it's probably a dumb question." I'm like, "No, you know, there's no such thing as a dumb question." Like-

    18. AHAliénor Hunter1:27:07

        Yeah

    19. AAAli Abdaal1:27:07

        ... and she didn't ask the question because there was all the, all of the fear and the indecision and the oh, but like, oh, I'm sure it's a stupid question. I'm sure no- I'm sure I'm the only one-

    20. AHAliénor Hunter1:27:14

        Yeah

    21. AAAli Abdaal1:27:15

        ... thinking it, like, who d- doesn't understand the difference between operating cash flow and free cash flow or whatever the thing was. And I was like, "No, it's genuinely confusing. Like, I would love for you to ask that question." [laughs]

    22. AHAliénor Hunter1:27:21

        Yeah.

    23. AAAli Abdaal1:27:22

        Um, but...

    24. AHAliénor Hunter1:27:23

        No, but so this, I struggled with that a lot, especially es- in my journey to becoming a coach. So I went through this phase of when, just when I was in the early phase of my training, uh, I was confident in speaking. I'd done my Ultraspeaking. I could speak to the clients.

    25. AAAli Abdaal1:27:42

        Yeah.

    26. AHAliénor Hunter1:27:43

        But part of being a coach is also being able to, like, figure out what's going on underneath, right? And so I remember I ended this session, and I was being observed by Michael Intrist-

    27. AAAli Abdaal1:27:57

        Mm

    28. AHAliénor Hunter1:27:58

        ... because I was still in coach training. I ended this session, and it was a really underwhelming session.

    29. AAAli Abdaal1:28:02

        Mm.

    30. AHAliénor Hunter1:28:02

        Like, I hadn't got any real meaningful change in, in the client. They hadn't shifted in the way they were speaking, and I ended it. And I remember Michael said, he said, "What were you... What are you looking for? You know, what were you looking for in this client? What was the, the one thing that you think was gonna change their speaking?" And I remember I was thinking, well, they were saying that it was, uh... They were saying that it was about, uh, them, them not speaking up enough at work. You know, they were saying that it was about them not speaking up enough at work, but whenever we did the ret- they were supposed to do, they were doing it perfectly, and I couldn't, like, understand that disconnect. And in that session, instead of asking them a question-
18. 1:29:53 – 1:32:01

    Getting over the fear of judgement

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:29:53

       Um, we have a question here from Molly in our Telegram community as well, who says, "How do you get over thinking that everyone is judging you or thinking that you're stupid in social situations? Um, how do you be yourself regardless of the people that you're with?"

    2. AHAliénor Hunter1:30:06

       Mm. Get over thinking that people are judging you and thinking that you're stupid-

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:30:10

       In social situations. Yeah

    4. AHAliénor Hunter1:30:12

       ... in social situations. It's funny. I wanna say you don't. [laughs] Like, I wanna say it's... Sometimes I do feel like I've said something stupid, [laughs] you know? And, and, and that's okay. It's normal. Uh, so part of it, I think, is getting over this expectation that one day you'll feel perfect, right? Uh, but to answer that question properly, I think it's a combination of pretty much everything we've talked about. So it's gonna be look for evidence of things that you're doing well. Most of the time if you're feeling judged or whatever, you'll notice that you're only picking up on the things where they prove the fact that people are judging you.

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:30:55

       Mm.

    6. AHAliénor Hunter1:30:56

       Look for evidence that people are enjoying time with you. Do they invite you back? Did you get invited? How did you walk into that party in the first place? Like, someone invited you, right?

    7. AAAli Abdaal1:31:04

       Mm.

    8. AHAliénor Hunter1:31:04

       They wanted you there. Uh, and so look for evidence, and every time that you speak, make it a mental framework to pat yourself on the back. "Oh, I did this thing well," and then you can judge all the bad things you did if you want to.

    9. AAAli Abdaal1:31:19

       Mm.

    10. AHAliénor Hunter1:31:19

        But make it a priority to think about the good things that you're doing. That's one thing. The other thing is, uh, actively ask people for good feedback on your speaking-

    11. AAAli Abdaal1:31:29

        Mm

    12. AHAliénor Hunter1:31:29

        ... either by going to, to join a, a, a club where you're speaking in front of them or just in general ask your close friends, "What do you like about me?" [laughs] Like, "What, what-

    13. AAAli Abdaal1:31:39

        Yeah

    14. AHAliénor Hunter1:31:39

        ... what, what are the good things in my personality?" 'Cause so often I will, uh, I, I think 50% of my job is just reflecting back what I see to people.

    15. AAAli Abdaal1:31:47

        Mm.

    16. AHAliénor Hunter1:31:48

        They just come in and they speak, and I say, "Has anyone ever told you that you come across like this?"

    17. AAAli Abdaal1:31:53

        Mm.

    18. AHAliénor Hunter1:31:53

        "Wow, I've never heard that." You know? So ask for it.

    19. AAAli Abdaal1:31:59

        Mm.

19. 1:32:01 – 1:36:33

    Boosting your self-esteem

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:32:01

       Um, another question from Brian from our Telegram community-

    2. AHAliénor Hunter1:32:03

       Mm

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:32:03

       ... uh, is, "My lack of confidence seems to be holding me back from pursuing opportunities and connecting with others."

    4. AHAliénor Hunter1:32:09

       Mm.

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:32:09

       "Are there any specific techniques or exercises you recommend to gradually boost my self-esteem?" Um, and then to follow up, how can I work on challenging negative thoughts and beliefs that contribute to my feeling of inadequacy?

    6. AHAliénor Hunter1:32:21

       Uh, come to Ultraspeaking, I'll help you. [laughs]

    7. AAAli Abdaal1:32:24

       Yeah.

    8. AHAliénor Hunter1:32:24

       But if that's not an option, I think I would say, so what if you're struggling with confidence and self-esteem, the first thing you wanna do is to build yourself up step by step. So I think the main mistake I made when I was first in my kind of socially anxious phase is that I was expecting myself to do everything that everyone else could with the same amount of ease. So for example, we would be sitting at a restaurant with my mother and I would get a dish that I hadn't ordered and she would say, "Aliénor, I'll call the waiter over and send it back." For someone who struggles with shyness, that is basically the end of the world.

    9. AAAli Abdaal1:33:06

       Hmm.

    10. AHAliénor Hunter1:33:06

        Like I would rather, I, I l- I would rather crawl into the ground or sprint out of there, run to Timbuktu. I don't know what it like, you know, I, I can't handle that situation. And I think, um, a lot of the challenges you see online are around that kind of thing of like challenge yourself to do something scary. Go into a coffee shop or ask someone for $100 or something like that. And, uh, if you're struggling with self-esteem, I'd say start small. Start with one tiny little change that you can make in your day and nail it.

    11. AAAli Abdaal1:33:38

        Hmm.

    12. AHAliénor Hunter1:33:39

        You know? Nail it. So maybe it is, uh, using one summary prompt at the end of your morning briefing with your boss and saying, "So the one thing I did this week that's most important is," and say that with confidence and turn up your conviction and nail it, right? And pat yourself on the back and look at the evidence for how well you did.

    13. AAAli Abdaal1:33:59

        Yeah.

    14. AHAliénor Hunter1:33:59

        And then do that again and add something else to it, and then do that again and add something else to it. But just work up there slowly a little bit every day rather than like trying to do something terrifying and it being a traumatic experience.

    15. AAAli Abdaal1:34:15

        Hmm. Nice. I think another thing that I find helpful for self-esteem is to recognize that almost everyone thinks that they're not good enough.

    16. AHAliénor Hunter1:34:23

        Hmm.

    17. AAAli Abdaal1:34:23

        Like literally almost everyone does.

    18. AHAliénor Hunter1:34:24

        Hmm. Hmm.

    19. AAAli Abdaal1:34:24

        It's no- it's no- it's by no means an original thought. Um, and is this... At, at one point, um, my, my brother and I have this podcast that we do on and off and at one point we interviewed, uh, well we, we, we had a guest on who's, who's a friend of mine-

    20. AHAliénor Hunter1:34:39

        Mm-hmm

    21. AAAli Abdaal1:34:39

        ... who was, um, one of the quote cool kids at university in that, you know-

    22. AHAliénor Hunter1:34:44

        Hmm

    23. AAAli Abdaal1:34:44

        ... gym-going, alcohol drinking, socially like extroverted kind of-

    24. AHAliénor Hunter1:34:49

        Yeah

    25. AAAli Abdaal1:34:49

        ... kind of vibe. And th- this was a few years after we'd graduated, so we were, we, we were asking this guy, be like, "Well, like what's it like being one of the cool kids?"

    26. AHAliénor Hunter1:34:56

        Hmm.

    27. AAAli Abdaal1:34:56

        Like what, what does that look like?

    28. AHAliénor Hunter1:34:57

        Love that.

    29. AAAli Abdaal1:34:57

        And you know, he was, he was on the, the sports team and was good at, you know, all of the things that you'd associate with like, you know, a sort of quote cool kid. And it was really interesting 'cause he was like, "Yeah, you know, I'd go to these parties often and I, I'll feel like I don't belong because I, I'm, I'm not, I'm not drinking as much as the next guy."

    30. AHAliénor Hunter1:35:13

        Yeah.
20. 1:36:33 – 1:40:55

    Finding joy in speaking

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:36:33

       Okay. Um-

    2. AHAliénor Hunter1:36:34

       Yeah

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:36:34

       ... I guess final thing to talk about is what, like let's say someone's gotten to the end of this, this podcast. I think we've talked for like over two hours now so, you know-

    4. AHAliénor Hunter1:36:41

       That's okay

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:36:41

       ... they're, they're clearly vibing with-

    6. AHAliénor Hunter1:36:42

       Yeah

    7. AAAli Abdaal1:36:42

       ... the stuff that we're talking about here and they're thinking, "Cool. Yeah, I, I do feel a bit shy. I would like-

    8. AHAliénor Hunter1:36:46

       Yeah

    9. AAAli Abdaal1:36:46

       ... to be more confident. I would like to be better at speaking." What are maybe kind of the top three things, three actions that they can take from immediately after listening to this that they can start applying to their life?

    10. AHAliénor Hunter1:36:57

        Uh, put down the podcast. Listen to all the oth- other episodes first.

    11. AAAli Abdaal1:37:02

        Of course. Yeah. [laughs]

    12. AHAliénor Hunter1:37:03

        Watch all of Ali Abdaal's stuff.

    13. AAAli Abdaal1:37:04

        Thank you.

    14. AHAliénor Hunter1:37:05

        Then put it down. Put down the book and find a situation in which you can speak. You will not improve your speaking without speaking. That's a fact and I'm sorry [laughs] but it's true. So find a situation in which you can speak preferably under pressure because there's no point in practicing a situation that you feel comfortable in and preferably with feedback, right? So that's the first thing you can do and, and there's loads of clubs and stuff online available. So I would say that's the f- that's basically the main tip I would give you. The second tip that I would say is [laughs] so I was chatting to my sister yesterday and she's asking me, "How's your week looking? What are you up to?" And I was like, "Oh, I'm going on this podcast tomorrow and I'm gonna talk about social anxiety. I'm gonna tell them all about my journey about being shy." And she's like, "Oh wow, that's so inspiring. What's the one thing you want them to take away?"

    15. AAAli Abdaal1:37:56

        [laughs]

    16. AHAliénor Hunter1:37:57

        I was like, "Classic sister. Okay." Uh, uh, and I, and I s- gave her this really inspiring spiel about, you know, shy people not being broken and, and it being really, um, uh, a really great thing to be shy and I want people to feel not alone and, and not struggling in that. Uh, and you can overcome it. Just like me, you can overcome it, all of this stuff. And she just looked at me blankly at the end and she's like, "Well, that sounds horrible."

    17. AAAli Abdaal1:38:21

        Mm.

    18. AHAliénor Hunter1:38:21

        "That sounds like a really unpleasant two or five years that you had overcoming your fears. It looks, it sounds like a really miserable time, and I would not... I'm not inspired to do what you did because you're asking me to get up every day for the rest of my life and do something that scares me." And I was like, "Okay. [laughs] I think I've forgotten something really important, which is that it's fun. Speaking can be fun." [laughs] That, uh, look for the ways that it can open up opportunities for you. In this journey, not only have I become a public speaking coach and changed my career, I've also changed my life. I have better friendships. I, um, went yesterday to, I went yesterday to a coffee shop to work to- I was writing out some ideas for a new public speaking course that we're gonna launch, and I was really excited about it. And I opened up my notebook, uh, and I sat and I had my tea, and it was pretty. And, uh, I looked in my bag and I didn't have a pen. So I drink my tea, do some emails, and I decide I'm gonna go to another coffee shop, but on the way I'll stop off at a store and buy a pen. Walk into Muji, dangerous place to go into because that is like productivity central. You feel, I just felt like if I buy 20 boxes and organizers, suddenly-

    19. AAAli Abdaal1:39:40

        Mm

    20. AHAliénor Hunter1:39:40

        ... my life will be better.

    21. AAAli Abdaal1:39:41

        Of course.

    22. AHAliénor Hunter1:39:41

        So I walk in there and I come out with £23 worth of pens.

    23. AAAli Abdaal1:39:45

        Okay.

    24. AHAliénor Hunter1:39:45

        Normal, right?

    25. AAAli Abdaal1:39:46

        Yeah. Of course.

    26. AHAliénor Hunter1:39:46

        All the different colors of the rainbow. Go to my coffee shop, open up my notepad, lay out my pens in front of me and start writing. And it's one of those coffee shops that has communal tables. And this lady about 10 minutes in comes up to me and she says, "Hi, excuse me, excuse me," and I'm thinking she wants to sit over there. Cool. Of course you can sit there. And she says, "Excuse me, do you mind if I sit here and I borrow one of your pens?"

    27. AAAli Abdaal1:40:08

        Mm-hmm.

    28. AHAliénor Hunter1:40:08

        "Because I forgot my pens today." [laughs] I thought, "Oh." So I told her this story about getting conned by Muji and buying-

    29. AAAli Abdaal1:40:15

        [laughs]

    30. AHAliénor Hunter1:40:15

        ... all the different pens and she found it hilarious, and she's writing a book and she was making all these edits in her book. And for me it was just a really wonderful moment of connection with a random human-
21. 1:40:55 – 1:51:17

    Ultraspeaking games

    1. AHAliénor Hunter1:40:55

       [laughs]

    2. AAAli Abdaal1:40:55

       ... I was thinking it would be nice if we can play some of the, some of the games.

    3. AHAliénor Hunter1:40:58

       Mm.

    4. AAAli Abdaal1:40:58

       Um-

    5. AHAliénor Hunter1:40:59

       I would love that.

    6. AAAli Abdaal1:40:59

       So these games are freely available on ultraspeaking.com. Um, you don't need to sign up for the course to play them. You can just play them for free.

    7. AHAliénor Hunter1:41:06

       No.

    8. AAAli Abdaal1:41:06

       Um, and I think the games are really helpful. We do, we do sometimes play them as part of our YouTuber Academy when we're doing sessions on like confidence and things like that. I'll just bring up like Triple Step or Rapid Fire Autocomplete or something like that and, and we'll make it happen. So, um, if you're watching this on the YouTube video, you'll be able to see the screen recording of the iPad as I bring these up. If you are listening to it on podcast players, then some of this will require using your imagination.

    9. AHAliénor Hunter1:41:28

       [laughs]

    10. AAAli Abdaal1:41:29

        Um, but I wonder if we can start with Rapid Fire Autocomplete. Okay, cool. So we've got Triple Step, Conduct a Rapid Fire Autocomplete, Rapid Fire Analogies, Autocomplete with Breath.

    11. AHAliénor Hunter1:41:38

        Yeah.

    12. AAAli Abdaal1:41:38

        The Podcast Game. We can play The Podcast Game.

    13. AHAliénor Hunter1:41:39

        Oh, I'd love for us to take that one.

    14. AAAli Abdaal1:41:41

        Yeah.

    15. AHAliénor Hunter1:41:41

        Yeah. We should've warmed up with that one.

    16. AAAli Abdaal1:41:42

        Yeah, let's do The Podcast Game. Okay, cool. So, um, what like timer one minute, difficulty, let's make it-

    17. AHAliénor Hunter1:41:49

        Let's make it random. We love that

    18. AAAli Abdaal1:41:51

        ... random.

    19. AHAliénor Hunter1:41:51

        Yeah.

    20. AAAli Abdaal1:41:51

        Number of players, there's two of us.

    21. AHAliénor Hunter1:41:53

        Yeah.

    22. AAAli Abdaal1:41:54

        And it's-

    23. AHAliénor Hunter1:41:54

        The more the merrier with this game

    24. AAAli Abdaal1:41:55

        ... oh, it's gonna suggest the title, right?

    25. AHAliénor Hunter1:41:57

        And it's gonna suggest the title. Yeah, absolutely.

    26. AAAli Abdaal1:42:00

        Cool. So we've got two players. And so what's the, what's the premise behind The Podcast Game?

    27. AHAliénor Hunter1:42:03

        So the premise behind The Podcast Game, so the idea is that there's a number of you and you are all talking on a podcast.

    28. AAAli Abdaal1:42:12

        Yep.

    29. AHAliénor Hunter1:42:13

        Uh, and the game is gonna come up with your name and my name-

    30. AAAli Abdaal1:42:16

        Yeah
22. 1:51:17 – 1:53:04

    Final words of wisdom

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:51:17

       Um, any final words of wisdom, word, parting words for anyone who's, who's gotten to the end of this podcast?

    2. AHAliénor Hunter1:51:22

       Yeah. Thank you for getting to the end of the podcast. [laughs] Uh, my final words of wisdom would be everyone's different. Like, take the pressure off being a certain kind of person, like being perfect, you know? Uh, if you're listening and you're thinking, "I struggled with that shyness too. I relate to that moment in Tesco," or, "I relate to that moment, uh, where you were pressing the doorbell at the dentist," then I would say you have strengths. [laughs] And we've been talking about today about, just about the weaknesses, 'cause that's kind of the, the whole point of a podcast is say how to improve your speaking, and if you're bad at this, do this, and if you're bad at this, do this. But, uh, if you listened to the end of the podcast and you're that dedicated to improving your speaking, close the laptop right now and text three friends. Ask them, "What is my strength?" And open up a piece of paper, write them down. Stick that Post-It on your wall, on your laptop, and have a nice day.

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:52:30

       Nice. Thank you very much.

    4. AHAliénor Hunter1:52:31

       [laughs] Thank you very much.

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:52:34

       All right. So that's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you so much for watching or listening. All the links and resources that we mentioned in the podcast are gonna be linked down in the video description or in the show notes, depending on where you're watching or listening to this. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, then do please leave us a review on the iTunes store. It really helps other people discover the podcast. Or if you're watching this in full HD or 4K on YouTube, then you can leave a comment down below and ask any questions or any insights or any thoughts about the episode. That would be awesome. And if you enjoyed this episode, you might like to check out this episode here as well, which links in with some of the stuff that we talked about in the episode. So thanks for watching. Uh, do hit the subscribe button if you aren't already, and I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.

Episode duration: 1:53:04