Hi everyone. My name is Patrick Akio, and for today's episode, we go over. Why people do the things they do, we touch on the psychology behind it and go over effective communication as well as storytelling. Joining me today is the founder of mine speaking as well as the author of the book. People skills, for analytical, thinkers Hilbert. I collabo, I'll put the links to socials in the description below.
And with that being said, enjoy the episode Testament to the amount of quality and Work you put in right? Because obviously if it's not great, people are just not going to follow it. People not going to like it as much actually, but if it is great, people will follow you eventually. It's just about staying consistent absolutely putting up stuff. That is actually interesting to a lot of people. Hmm, exactly. And to do that, you need to know really well, who your audience is right here.
We are talking to trying to talk to, or trying to reach and what are the challenges and how it can help them solve those challenges. And I think The value of social media is not so much about selling stuff. Of course, there are a lot of benefits on the commercial side. What I believe is that there's way more value on getting feedback and building something. Yeah getting direct feedback from a large-scale people which is otherwise very difficult to reach especially in the non digital age.
You needed to you know, find people in your neighborhood that are interested in your topic. Yeah. And then get feedback from them and annoy them with surveys while they're I'm waiting for that. But now you can reach people that are interested in that anyways and are happy to contribute. Yeah, yeah. I completely agree. I thought it was more kind of stature I guess or I think maybe stature that be the word, that's why I never was on social media,
right? I never wanted to put a picture of me on vacation and other people would like that. It just didn't interest me. I also didn't read look at other people's stuff because I was like, I know these people, I don't have to see the best version of them, 100% of the time I still want real people. So I was never on that that much. It was always strange.
That I said, I don't have a Facebook and I have an Instagram. One of the only reasons I have Instagram now is because I actually have a YouTube channel that does Instagram stuff. So then it makes sense that on Instagram, but I completely agree with you. When you say, it's a way to engage with the community that otherwise wouldn't exist, right? If we didn't have social media that niche of people because it is, sometimes still a niche,
doesn't matter whatever. It's if it's a movie, it's a bigger Niche but that Niche all of a sudden comes together. ER, and there's collaborations conversations discussions opinions and you can make use of that. You can throw something in the fold and either positive or negative. It is feedback which you would otherwise not have. Absolutely. And that's what makes this so much fun as well.
Yeah, having you also had a lot of international guests on a podcast which otherwise might not be able to fly to the Netherlands and have this conversation, right? And we're living in the same city actually, not just the same country, but yeah. It's graded, the ability to connect with other people all over the world for me is a big big plus of the current age. We live in. Yeah it makes the world feel a lot smaller hmm which is so
weird because the world is huge. And then all of a sudden, if I'm speaking from personal experience, I have someone in Hawaii, which the time difference is 12 hours to Holland I'm like, oh, what time is it? There is like 10:00 10:00 in the morning. I'm like at standing the in the evening, but we're still having this. This conversation exactly. It's quite cool. So I looked you up online and I didn't expect this but you were actually professional poker
player before any of this. Yeah, that's right. So what I saw this all started when I was a student and I was 18 years old, I was studying in my strict in the very south of the Netherlands. Yeah. And I was visiting a friend and he was playing poker online and to me it was this game of cigars and whiskey and Casino. Yeah, but I've always been interested in games board games and other type of games. So I was very curious to learn more about it and this friend taught me the rules.
Just the basics of Poker. Yeah, because I had no idea and then I started playing online just for play money. Just for chips that are not worth anything. Not even a dollar. Yeah, just to try out the game and I, I lost, and I lost and I lost. And at some point I got a little bit better. And what you could do is Some point, you could you have a lot of those free chips, you could sell them, if you have a million of them, some people buy them for $10.
I still don't know why, but I sold them for 10 bucks and I did it a few times and then I started playing on the the lowest tables of 12 cents right with the, I small amount of money and beginning, I still lost because now it's a bit more serious. Not just for free money. And eventually I started to learn a lot.
I started to both on forums to understand how it could improve because I'm pretty focused and determined always on improving myself and in games, how to be become better at it and slowly that grew and yeah, at some point after one and a half years of mostly having fun, I decided to have a conversation with my parents about it because it was everything online up until that point almost everything I had some experience playing because
he knows, but then you're only able to Play one hand at the same time. Yeah. And also people don't really talk on the on the poker table. It's a kind of a table like this and it's pretty big and people are very focused on themselves. I for me it was not very much fun. Yeah because one there was no conversation no connection between people. Yeah and to do was barely any poker playing because you could only play once every ten hands or something. Yeah. And online you would, how would
you do that? Would you have multiple tabs open? If I'm game yeah with play six to eight tables at the same time owed. And yeah what made it interesting for me is that I bought all the data every month. Yeah certain website that mind all the data of the all the poker games on that website. Yeah and I could Upload that or use that in my database and that helped me every time I joined the table I could see all the
different players. Yeah. And their playing Styles, if they're aggressive and they clicked on one of the players like I saw like a hundred statistics that told me know what to do Dooley. How to determine my next best action. Yeah, and that made it interesting for me because poker is a game about a game of mathematics. And yeah, statistics and that's what I loved about it.
Because if I understand you correctly, That's kind of my the contradiction I had initially because if you're saying everything is online, I would be like a man. There's not a lot of information to get from that, right? I played poker in real life as a kid and a guy had a tell. His knee started shaking when he had a good hand then obviously, I know he had a good hand so I would fold. But oh my, you don't have that. No one's virtual knees going to shake. That's true.
But what you said is you had historical data that you import it into a database and then you would see kind of statistics on the players, you were facing indeed and And next to that, you could pick up some some light psychological cues, like the people that instantly, for example, it might be because someone is tilting, you know? Someone is very emotional. Yeah, and it's just getting frustrated. Here are all the chips in the middle?
Yeah, I don't care anymore, but mostly it's all about, you know, this quantitative analysis from from the data that you have available interest. And that that's what I loved about it. Yeah, so that that also helped
me to grow Go slowly. And at some point, I had this conversation with my parents was not really looking forward to it because because my plan, my plan was to share with them what I have had been doing and also that I wanted to quit my studies for some time because I was making winnings and it was not you know, just a hundred bucks per month for me was like okay I want to take this opportunity so I wanted to discuss with them. I was not looking forward to the conversation but They were quite
supportive. That's cool. Yeah so I'm very happy. So I'm maybe also because I could show okay this is this is not just one month but consistent winnings and of course it goes like this but yeah, some variation variants but yeah but I really enjoyed that and at some point I I did not enjoy it as much anymore. Yeah, because it was kind of a crossing point k a decision point. For me. What will I do? Will I move on with poker? Some of my friends they moved him all tough to play there for
a year full time interesting. Yeah it was quite tempting because they had a nice apartment and beach and everything. Yeah. But yeah for me the poker world was quite quite narrow as well. It is a lot about poker and you don't add any value. The only value you gain is money from other. Evil. Yeah, you take down. Exactly. You take value. And part of it goes to the house. A very commercial organization. Yeah. To the company, that is hosting the poker game.
So to me, it was a bit empty or something. If people were talking a lot about poker, and for me, I wanted to grow more as a person, and there's so much more to explore. And we talked about Barcelona, we've both in there and for me, travel is the opportunity to explore and to find out new things and Also, the poker world is so small, there's so much more to explore in the world and that's why I decided to quit. Yeah, that makes sense.
I mean, if I, if I would boil it down poker to me, is exactly, as you say, you take the value, right? Even if you have a standard job, people would say salaries, not the number one priority, right? Its growth personal earnings opportunity experience environment, the people you work with stuff like that already contributes and it Nothing to do with salary. Sure. Salary is an important factor, right?
It's a livelihood and use the day-to-day, but in poker would be, I would say the money plus the psychology, because I do think that is interesting, right? Why people do the things they do? I didn't even think about when you said, when people throw in over, make a bet, I don't know poker. So if I'm missing of the terms, that's because of it.
But if people are making a bet and they're doing it quickly, that might be because they're tilting, it might be because they're emotional, that might be because they're worse. That stuff like that goes into that as well. Mmm, absolutely. It's kind of a combination between the data and and also a bit of psychology.
Yeah. I think the more you play online or online, compared to the live world, is more more about data even because you have more statistics, you have more and you have less information about the psychological part, right? If someone takes a sip on the poker table, that might tell you something. But you don't see that on. Yeah yeah that's crazy. Yeah. Did you then because you left pocket behind at some point?
You still continue with the psychology part like is that still kind of a thread in what you do now? Yeah, absolutely. I like a question. Yeah. It's because I've always been interested in Psychology. My background is in, I studied Behavioral Science and behavioral economics. And I really like that because it's about how people make decisions right there. Yeah. Very much related to Poker exactly.
And also to the business world, how people make decisions because Data is supposed to help other people make better decisions, right? So the better, you know, how people make decisions currently the better, you know how your data cancer can support to make faster or more confident decisions? Yeah, and I've read a bunch of books about psychology, I cannot get enough about it, sometimes I tell myself, hey I want to read more novels, right? Because I generally enjoy them as well.
Yeah. But then at the end of the year, when I look back what Books. I've read then. It's mostly about psychology that a personal development as well. So that combination this, you touched upon why people make the decisions. They do. I struggle with this because I think a lot of who you are as a person is, how you were brought up, right? It's the kind of nature versus
nurture discussion. I still don't know where I lean on that, but I do notice a lot of things that happened in my past were either of influence and that I subconsciously do now. Right. And even that realization isn't always there because I probably do a lot of things that I got learned in the past or that I saw in the past and I don't know how much of it is in control or out of my control basically. Well, what's your thought on
that? Do people consciously make decisions or is a lot of it influenced by kind of your upbringing in your nature in that way or nurture it will be nurtured. Yeah, so Almost everything is unconscious almost all our Behavior. There has been some research by a professor Saltzman from Harvard University. Yeah. So he mainly researched purchasing decisions. So decisions about buying something and he found that 98% of the purchasing decisions are actually mostly influenced by
the unconscious mind. Yeah. Which shows that, you know, even though we sometimes think that we make decisions on a rational, Isis. We want to provide more evidence more effects, more data, more about the technology, the details actually. Most people make decisions more on more based on other things, on intuition and emotions. Play a big role as well.
Yeah, and yes, I think you can still become more aware of all your behavioral patterns, and how you make decisions, but it requires practice, and even, even if it, you've built better and in the Your youth or very long ago, you can become more aware of it, but it probably requires a lot of, you know, either journaling or meditation asking for feedback and looking looking at yourself from an outside perspective, which is very difficult because we're in our own world, we consider what
we're good at very normal. And we appreciate, you know, things that are that other people are very strong at, we appreciate that and we see that, wow, I would love to have that
as well. Even though those people might think the same about themselves thinking, you know, this is normal for me, it's very easy to make decisions or to be confident or to give a presentation while someone else says, wow, it's I find it so difficult to give presentations or I get nervous, but maybe that same person is very, very self-reflective as a lot of patience, as a great ability to
ask questions. Yeah, I think by becoming more aware of your own behavioral patterns or Seems as I call them all the, all the behavioral patterns that you've built either in the very past or in the last week's. Yeah. You can become more aware of them and also change them. But as I said, it's very tricky. Yeah, I can imagine, and when you lay it out like that, I just don't think we talked a lot about that stuff. Right. In a day-to-day.
Exactly, as you say, you're in your bubble, you have to step out of it to kind of see. Okay. This is my day to day. This is my bubble and for me usually that's Conversation where I'm like, okay can you have give me feedback or an actual reflection moment that I've planned and scheduled and that I don't move forward because sometimes I also skipped those but that helps a lot the
most. I think the most knowledge I've gained is when I have a conversation with someone one-on-one and it can be on, anything can be on them, sharing their experience or me sharing mine because if I'm sharing my experience, all of a sudden I'm saying things Of how things happened. And I've never said those things out loud, while internally process, a lot of things and saying them out loud. I mean you're thinking process kicks in and you're like hot. This is interesting actually,
right? Yeah. What is something? You have found maybe recently or more further in the past about yourself and inside that you gained through these conversations, you've had with other people. Yeah, so I went to a training and it was called inside an influence. So very much, you do a lot of role playing. I know the training, you know, the tide of my probably exactly. I love the training first and foremost, but you learn about giving arguments towards us. Topic.
You actually have to take a stand point and be like, okay, this is my point of view. Now, I have to argue against whatever else is there. You have to show appreciation in a positive way in a negative way. Finally, I struggle very much with giving positive appreciation. I didn't know that about myself.
I'm very direct and I can give critique in a way that people understand and they can do something with, but then I have trouble giving it in a positive way because if I would do that people would have to both sides, right? They would see. Okay, this is what I'm I'm doing great and this is what I can improve, and I usually give them the things I can improve, because that's apparently what I focus on. Hmm. And when I drill down in my past, I think that's also what I
got from my parents. I have a pretty stringent upbringing, the first of my family to graduate or go to university stuff like that and it was always kind of critique that I would get and then I would also give so then I'm like okay is this my intuition like is this who I am as a person or is this kind of kind of result of the environment I grew up with? Mhm.
Yeah yeah. It's an interesting question and I think I think it's always possible you know to change things but the the further back they go the patterns the the more difficult it gets yeah. Listening to your story. I think I can learn a lot from you because for me it's very natural to to show appreciation, to be very concrete about what I see in the impact, it makes on me, you know, to to tell what I
love about the work of others. Or I shared at a lot of very natural but for me giving critique directly and straight. Yeah, it's more difficult. Yeah, I sometimes beat around the bush a little bit, I became more aware of this in the in the last year's. So maybe we should team up and and learn from each other in that area because we sound very complimentary. And yeah, I think we could both benefit from that conversation. Exactly. I mean that realization that I because I am straight as an
arrow. Like I'll give it to you. Insulted. I don't think of that. That's an English is fresh might be a bad translated Dutch one, but I'll give it to you straight, right? And it's, I don't know where it comes from, but that realization that not everyone is like that. That had to be a realization. I have to be around people that did beat around the bush and because they beat around the bush. I was like, well, why aren't you saying what you're thinking
like, why why don't you say it? As it is exactly? And I think it's so, so valuable to know, not just in your personal life, but also in business because So if you're about to walk into a meeting with a person and you were trying to trying to set up a collaboration, you work on a project together and you present a problem, right? So some of the people so if you have a very direct person who likes to focus on action, right? Let's go.
Go go. That person and it's probably better to walk in that meeting saying, hey I have a problem. Yeah, these are some ideas that I have to move forward. What do you think instead of, you know, if that's your Your nature. Walking in that meeting and saying, hey, I found a problem. What do you think? The other person might think. Hey, this is this guy doesn't know anything, right? Yeah, he has no idea while that
person. Well, you might just want to, you know, open a conversation and have a ever open discussion because that's, that's that that wouldn't be my Approach if I would not think at, all right. I say we have this problem. What do you think to have kind of a cool collaboration and discussion around it? But Something I had to learn especially when talking with more direct and action oriented people to also include some, like recommended next steps.
And this is what we can do. These are your options? Or these are our options. Yeah. And that helped me a lot to understand no different personalities. Know why have I do? I have in front of me instead of just sitting in my own head you know worrying about a lot of things. Yeah you know when when you realize that because I completely understand what you're saying, aye I also have
that realization, right? Who's my audience, who am I talking to is the in a boardroom in people that have barely any time for me. Then we got to speed up. Okay, is it exploratory? All right, are we brainstorming? Then it's a different vibe, different different conversation. I didn't used to have that. I thought as a meeting that's a meeting. I didn't care about the people that were there. I'm like, okay, I'll probably attend now. I'm like, should I attend? Can I add any value here?
What's the goal? But those realizations I don't know when they exactly came, but they are there right now. Do you know for you when it kind of clicked in that way? There was one moment that that I still remember well and that was when I was doing a presentation, it was a beginning of my career was 2014, was doing a presentation for the management team and it asked me to present some Data Insights. Yeah, so I had opportunity to dive into the data, make an analysis, and present the insights.
So I was excited and I was pretty, you know, confident about the recommendations, and I did all the work, but then in that meeting, everything went wrong. And there was one thing I forgot about and it was one obstacle. I overlooked. Yeah. And one person I neglected. And that person was was too funny. Okay. And he was, he was an Italian man part of the management team. And in that meeting, he bounced off all my ideas, really, it really didn't work, but I didn't think about it.
I'm right. Or who's my audience and what do they find important? As mostly considering? Okay? What is the analysis that I've made? What are the recommendations? What? What are? Maybe a bit too detailed to focus on the technology to focus on the data? Instead of what am I trying to improve here? That is improving revenue and and Customer Loyalty. So instead of talking about that, I was focusing too much on the data, you know. So that's why I exactly and that's why this Giovanni They he
didn't really. Yeah, it was not really receptive for my head. Yes. But it's a lesson that I had to learn. Yeah. And it's interesting that you say, I took a lesson from that, because I know a lot of people that will be like God, you've only doesn't like me. That's, that's why, that's how I felt in the meeting on, honestly, like I Giovanni. Why, why is he not listening Zion? He's he's he's messing up the meeting and yeah. In fact I was messing up the
meeting myself. That's what I realized later. Yeah, I mean you were in control, right? A lot of people are like, ah, it's Fall or they don't like me and everything pointing and being like God, everything except me. But I love that you say, well actually I should have done X y&z. I should have done it differently or should have
communicated it differently. But so I come from a technical background, not even that technical because I don't have a computer science degree, but nowhere in there is that communication aspect. So, prevalent you only worry about it. Kind of in a day-to-day going to business setting that everything that translate doesn't matter what you're doing. If its Technical and non-technical the way we communicate, right? We mentioned it. A bunch of times who is our
audience, what do we say? How do we introduce a problem or even what is their personality are they straight as an arrow? Do they kind of beat around the bush so they are they afraid of Confrontation, then don't be confrontational, right? Meet them in their playing field and then you'll probably more be more effective in, whatever, you're communicating, whatever you're trying to do here. Absolutely nowhere. Is there kind of a focus on. Okay, how do we grow cooperate?
Either within a team or a business setting? Absolutely, I think that is, It's from Simon sinek. If you a hundred percent of the Customers are people in hundred percent of the employees are people and under percent of everything is people. So yeah, if you don't know about people, you don't know about business.
Yeah. And I totally agree with that and I think there's so much to learn and if we take a more conscious View and taking a step back from the from all the work we've done and even even though people as a working in technology or in a daytime you might be very proud of your work, you've worked very hard. You might want to include everything in there, you know, to show All the work you've done that probably the executive is not doesn't care about that, you
know. Yeah, you should have built the trust that you are the right person for the job before the meeting. And then in the meeting, focus on, you know, what's the next step? What's your recommendation? And how will it contribute to that person? And I think it's so important to step back and understand, okay, what version do I have in front of me? What is his or her personality, the goals, and the challenges and if you have that clear
everything will be easier. ER yeah, I completely agree when you said kind of the executive is not doesn't really care for how you did it. It brings me back into when I was kind of a junior engineer where I really started out that was my first job I was very much focused on okay how do I make it work? How even do I do this thing that I need to do and then once you're comfortable with that you move on to the what right? Do we actually need to do this
but what are the other options? Can we do XYZ instead and then you focus on the why when you're a bit more mature? We doing in this in the first place. Should we do be doing something else? If this is actually our goal. Then we should be doing these things and I think the bigger your sphere of influence is the more you're thinking about that, why right? It's very much vision and very much vague.
And then what needs to happen and how it needs to happen, is kind of on a smaller scale, smaller, sphere of influence in that, as well. Absolutely. And some people tell me that they are not interested in becoming a manager or director level, right, which is totally fine. You know, you can stay as a individual contributor and become more an export role and that's, that's totally fine. But still still in that
position, you know? If you don't work on your communication skills, only collaboration and understanding, you know, how you can best communicate your message, then your impact is probably quite limited and all the hard work that you've put in. Yeah. It's going to be not visible or little little impactful and that's that's the biggest complaint or - thing that people talk about, you know, people are not using my work and they're just putting it in a drawer somewhere.
Yeah. Or if it stays in the inbox on the bottom of the of the page. Yeah, to me it's of course I can relate to it because I felt it myself as well. Yeah. But to me there's a way out, you know, there's a way to improve and for sure the way to improve is not to to blame other people and tell them that they're mistaking. But look at yourself. Hey, what can I do to improve the situation? And for me, that's a big lesson that I learned from the seven habits. I think it was one of the books
that is behind you. Yeah, absolutely. That's one of the first books that I read in that genre. And when I picked it up was, before I started my first job at cognizant. I went to Cuba for three weeks and I took that book. I think my mom gave, it gave it to me nice. And I thought it was a book of more about business because it talks about, or the title, says, effective people. Right? Yeah. But in fact, it helped me so much to Think about what my life should look like.
Real know the bigger questions. You know what? When I am, I happy when I when I pass away. What what type of Life do I want to have? Yeah. And how, what can I do today to get a little bit closer? And yeah to me it's a fantastic book and I think people don't do that enough, take a step back and it's so easy to get into the race of doing things and yeah, just living your life without knowing where all this is going. And we do A little bit more reflection and taking a step
back. Yeah, I think you can design your life that is closer to you, right? Because everyone enjoys something differently and yeah it's really something. I would like to contribute to. I'm thinking a lot about this, how I can help other people live life. That is more true to themselves. Yeah. And it's it's maybe less focused on business but maybe this is all in 10 years or something. Yeah, I mean you want to be happy, right? To know what makes you happy in the Lace, I think a big part.
What you also mentioned is people want to work on important stuff, right? If you work on something, you put your heart and soul into it and it's not being used rights on the bottom of the page somewhere. No one sees. It that leaves. Kind of this empty thing that that is not fulfilled, right? You were hoping for it to be kind of a grand thing because you put your heart and soul into it and then it leaves you on fulfill. That is, that was quite sad.
I think everyone wants to work on the important things. The thing is not, everyone does that. But everyone does, or is able to influence that, right? Because the only thing you need to do is ask yourself those questions. If you don't know, the answer seek for the answers with your colleagues, or your manager, or whoever is involved in there, if they cannot explain it to you, then are you doing the right thing? Yes, or no. It's pretty obvious in that way.
Absolutely. But I think, I think we need to have more conversations. I think that's good. Let's go to the thing because when you mentioned kind of think about your happiness, right? And the life you want to live, that time is finite. And I think it flies the fastest for me when I'm in a routine where I'm not doing anything new, I'm doing the same thing day in day out. Sure there's no changes here and there but then time flies and all of a sudden I'm like oh we're a month further.
We're two months further, okay? When I pick up something new, when I experiment, when I'm like okay we're going to try this thing out. See if it works, and I'm learning. That's one time. All of a sudden slows down and I'm enjoying it more and more in the day-to-day more in the thing that is new or in the experience in that way as well. Absolutely.
I recognize that the more I'm in a routine, the more at the faster time passes by and yeah and it's a shame because if you can make time, you know, passed by less quickly. Yeah. You probably enjoy it more. You have more memories, you have more. There's a, there's a book by Matthew dicks. Old story worthy, you know it. No, I don't know. That's it's a book about storytelling, but it's very even if you're not so much about storytelling.
It very fun book to read because it's bunch of stories by someone who can tell story very well thanks and one of the exercises you mentioned in the book. It's pretty famous as a TED talk about this as well, it's called homework for life, okay? And the idea is that every day at the end of the day you write down what was the most story worthy moment of that day.
And even if it's very boring you know you just write it down because what he says is that a few things happen, first of all you get kind of a new lens or a new Focus for story. So you see more stories in your own life. Yeah. That you're otherwise not able to see and and second is what most most interesting is that he says life slows down because if I ask you, what did you do a lot two weeks ago on a Tuesday? You might not be able to reproduce what you did. Absolutely not.
But if You write it down, there's a more like bigger likelihood that you actually remember. And that's why you have all these memories that you're at more actively storing in your Consciousness and you can also relieve them. So, I've been trying out this this exercise, I've not done it for a long time, maybe week. Yeah, but it's also something I tried to do, you know, these new things and, like, experimentation and see what I can change from my routine because I agree with you.
If you do that, then life slows. Down. Exactly. Right. I mean because time is finite everything that slows down a little sudden, you're like, oh we have more time, right? Wouldn't you want to have more time to do? Whatever it is to live your life to experience, why not? Right. Exactly. You don't want, I mean as a kid I want a time to speed up because I wanted to be an adult but now that you're there you're like, Slow Down, slow down. Exactly so fast.
That's also what I recognized with my business. I started my business two years ago. Yeah. First next to my job at Cap Gemini and then more. And then for Four days a week, three days a week and then I quit my job. Yeah. So first part time, then I'll full-time entrepreneur. And I've been very stressed in the last year's because I'm very I can be very action-oriented, especially with myself. I can be very hard on myself,
you know. I need to do more because I really wanted to make mine speaking. My company work? Yes, I put a lot of effort in it and always, let's look at okay, what can I do extra to to, to move forward? Exactly. But to me, the gift also gave a lot of stress, I love, and it was a lot of uncertainty and now I'm way more relaxed time. I work less, and I am more in nature and doing sports, like
squash at 11 a.m. Yeah. So so much fun and I, you know, doing less and really focusing on what really matters really looking at trying to cut out all the meetings that are unnecessary or things that don't really contribute to to, to the business or to what I think is fun or to what I Is important in the world. Yeah, there's so much more, much more joy and less stress, and also less time slows down as well. Yeah, I think it's important for everyone.
No matter what type of job you have to look at your calendar, you know, once a week and look at her. What do I actually want to achieve in this week and what contributes to that? And what can I maybe kick out so that you're not focusing, so much a wasting so much time on things. So you don't enjoy or are not really contributing to the to your organization. Yeah. That makes sense men.
So when we spoke over the phone, this is actually the first time we're sitting here face to face, but when we spoke over the phone I was like this guy's pretty chill. He's very Zen and even in person, your app you come across very Zen. So when you said I was really stressed, yeah, that doesn't really translate right. But I do think the people that are kind of high Achievers, or overachievers put that, put that kind of pressure on themselves, right? Absolutely.
I think even worse is when you're kind of perfectionist because nothing's ever going to be perfect. So then you're striving towards something that is very hard to attain, or even impossible in some cases and then you get stressed out, right? Because that is, that is not necessarily something you can travel control. Hmm. I lost my house. My breath, their control, your breath. Yeah, exactly. But so you mentioned mine speaking, when, when did you start this up?
Was it like two years ago during the past two years ago? And I make what a kind of the learnings you have had along the way. So this Is one thing, right? Slow it down. And think about the business and enjoy the ride. Don't put too much pressure on yourself, and things will happen in fall into place. Just need some time. But what is something else? Yeah, some of the things. There's so many things things, I
learned. So one of one of them in the beginning, I focus more on B to C. So, to giving training to, to data scientists and analysts who could register themselves 50 website, buy a ticket and then join the training. Now, Focus only on B2B this makes my life much easier because, you know, there are bigger budgets there, a lot of groups in this and at the same time. Yeah. So that's one learning, but maybe it's not too relevant for other people, especially if you Another Printer.
But also be also going, even maybe even more about on self-awareness and discovering yourself. What am I, what am I strengths? You know, how can I contribute to to an organization? What am I good at? And what am I not, not so good at what can I? So I work with the team in the Philippines. They take over all the tasks. I don't really enjoy that are simple, or that I do enjoy, but I'm making a bigger impact with other tasks. That also enjoy the. I tried to Just as much as possible.
Yeah, that's also something I have learned and to take more time, maybe it's related to the other one, but also if I schedule meeting no back-to-back, meetings always breaks in between interesting, so things like that to slow down more because actually, it will make me go faster. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. I mean, you mentioned it might not be interesting but when you said B to C or B to B, I think, focus in whatever you're doing
is it is very sense. Yeah, I wasn't I watch a lot of Shark Tank. And where they come in, they pitch a business idea. And they get either shit on and they get an investment and people like you're all over the place, right? What do you what is actually your business? What are you focusing on?
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and it's also something I've learned working on my proposition and what I'm going going to sell because first I book was people skills, friend, little thinkers still quite broad for all people more, technical more. I let cool. Yeah. Now my trainings are just for data scientists and analysts and that helped me a lot because I
know exactly what those people. What their challenges are, right and that Focus really really helped and it also helps helps with everything because it Narrows your your your your focus and you see things that you all otherwise never never see. I try to not work on too many things at the same time. Yeah, some people are very good at it. I think I'm not so good at it. If I've always have a lot of things on my mind, it seems a big projects. I try to focus.
Just on, you know, one training program. Yeah, for us, it's the same program for Or a few companies. And then next chapter is creating an online course instead of trying to do it every all at the same time. Yeah, there's made me a bit more stress than I can the mouth. Not focused not productive as well. Yeah. How do you learn? Because you said kind of learning about what your strengths are and probably also weaknesses.
How do you gain that knowledge? Like, do you ask for a lot of feedback, do you do a lot of reflection about? So I what what helped me is reading because I constantly think, okay, what? What does it mean in my own life? The ant podcast also made me discover a lot of things about myself and what I want to do and business ideas. Yeah, feedback is really important because it is something to podcasts or also
coming on both actually. Yeah, sometimes like this question, you know, sometimes people ask questions that make you stop and think, hey, what is actually the answer to this question? Because I don't really know
nice. So that also helps, you know, to get on podcast and now, and now I have my own And I so then when I'm on the other side in this is also a great learning experience because all of a sudden, you know, you need to make the conversation interesting, you're hosting the podcast but like you, you're an expert in to me is making the podcast spontaneous, right? Just a conversation on the bar, just the beer is missing, right? Yeah.
And to to make it very spontaneous and in the first few episodes I was too focused on the you know what, okay, what will be the storyline, what? The topics I will talk about yeah but the more I let go of that more. I got focused on you know what what what should I talk about? What should it gets talked about less. I did that the better the episodes want and to me you're you're very strong this thanks man.
Yeah, I was not like this in the beginning, the problem is everyone watches the first episode, the first episode, which is then going to be the worst one. But yeah, it how did you how did you get? I'm curious to dive a bit into into that because all creators. Yeah, absolute have faced, some fear, right have to pay. So I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do this but how people respond or how, how was that for you? It was so I don't make things a huge thing and I don't look too much in the future.
When I said yes I want to be a podcast host. I didn't think about. Okay, what is this going to look like next year? I thought it seems fun as do it and I saw it as kind of an experiment. I told myself was going to be experiment if I don't like listening to myself, is never going to fly because no one else is going to listen to it. But then I had the conversation and first of all which is very personal.
I learned a lot, I love being part of the conversation because I used to listen a lot to podcast but then you can never ask questions. Right now I'm in the driver's seat and I'm like, what about this? Or what about that? Or what are your thoughts on this thing and pure? Like good question. And I'm like, yeah I thought so and then I get the answers. But like you I was very much It's in my head when someone was talking, I was like, but what is the next question going to be?
Because when that silence Falls after have a next question, right? That's what I host does. But no, I don't think that's what a host does. I think the host takes time to think themselves as well. Takes that kind of moment of breath because I think sometimes the audience also needs that to be like, huh? Okay, and then we continue. I think that's way more natural. That's also why I wanted it to be an unedited authentic, right? I think a lot of the content we have is edited down.
Whether it's a Via YouTube video YouTube videos like Bam, Bam, Bam, Bam, Bam, you lose your audience, audience retention. And I'm like, man, I love doing a podcast in this kind of sometimes owning up. I'll just just skip back 30 seconds. We listen to them and go through it again and have those kind of aha moments because that's what a podcast is about to me. Absolutely, yeah.
I like what you said and I think it's also a great lesson for everyone listening, even if you're not hosting a podcast, because I think many people have the tendency to fill space. It's right to spell feel silence. Yeah. And I think it's great to just sit with the silence even if it feels uncomfortable because it's not uncomfortable. If you don't make it
uncomfortable, right? If you make it, if you don't make it awkward, I think in many in conversations if we just Be more relaxed than and keep the silence there. Then there's, there's nothing bad about it. In fact, it only strengthens the connection and it makes sure that people get the time to reflect and think about what where the conversation is heading next.
Exactly, if you make a point and then you're quiet, while people are thinking probably because you just made that point if you make a point and then start doing some small talk, then the remaining what's going on. Exactly. They probably want to think about what you said. Impactful. But if you go on, they, they also want to click you listen to that. So, you lose it. Yeah, absolutely. You've touched upon storytelling kind of previously, and I'm getting more and more fond of it.
I was talking to Toby, Toby Ali Wali. I found them on LinkedIn, and he does a lot of stuff on salary and so forth and stuff like that. And he told me when he does an interview, or when he does mock interviews. Because he trains, people also, it's all about storytelling, right? When it when someone asks, you tell me about yourself You're not like I'm responsible for I go well with autonomy know you talked about your story, right? Where do you come from and and
how did you get to this point? Basically, what are you learning along the way? Because through a story, I think people make their own conclusions and that is so much more powerful than giving them the conclusions I think, in whatever we're doing now, whether it's a presentation or just talking to someone else, stories are very powerful. And I think I always underestimated them. Absolutely, I'm related to what you just said. I want to see the conclusion. There's, there's one guy is a
filmmaker. So what he said, don't give the audience for, but give them two plus two. It might be a bit abstract, but if you think about it, this, it's that's how it works, right? Also, if you make a joke, you don't tell everything. You let people, you know, put the two and two together and then it's funny and works the same with stories that you'd only see. You should not give everything. And I think that's why that's a reason why many people working in daytime technology struggle
with straw. Retelling because they focus too much on giving too much detail and trying to give the whole picture. Yeah, instead of just high-level story and make just include the most important pieces. Yeah, I'm trying to get better at storytelling but I don't know how. So the thing you said about writing down the story of your day, I'm going to try that. Yeah. But do you do a lot with
storytelling as well? Yeah, I try to, I don't think I'm a natural Storyteller. Some people told me you're a great Storyteller. I don't know. I've practiced quite a lot and a few books helped. So His book by a match, your dicks. If you're working in date I definitely look. Look at the brand Dykes book. Yeah, data storytelling. It's really really good. So how to communicate your data or your Tech insights even into a story?
Yeah, so I've done a lot of reading but of course storytelling is about practice as well. You can read a lot, but you need to put it in practice. What I've also done is join a public speaking Club. All those monsters. A nice. Yeah. It's right about it. Yeah, it's really good. So It's a it's a club that comes together every week or a few times a month where every time a few people get the opportunity to present. Yeah, about a certain topic, sometimes they're practicing the
introduction. Sometimes as a whole or internation and other people give feedback. So the idea is that you usually don't have so many opportunities to practice. Yeah, but only when it's really it's really important, right? Or on someone's wedding or so or a big presentation for your company. So it's a The opportunity to practice and I joined some meetings and they're definitely took away a lot there, how to
tell a story. And also, my presentations that I do for companies and in my trainings, I include a lot of stories and I see that it works because people people love story. They, they did a lot of research on the brain when telling stories and they actually see that the audience is brain synchronize.
If you tell a story instead of just throwing facts that the brains are all over the Place, if you make a scan and also, if you want to be persuasive, you need to focus more on the, you know, the emotional brain, the emotional part of the of the brain. And the decision making is really influenced by emotions as we as we talked about.
Yeah. So when you, when we talk about, when we talk through a story then we actually become less defensive and we become like child sees this listening to the story like we were as a four-year-old. Yeah. And That's how executive become as well. Of course, they have less time but if you include little stories that it's so effective. So it's something I'm always practicing and it's a powerful skill, man. You know, if you master it and I mean, you never Master it right to me.
It was become better and better and better and there's always room to improve. Yeah, yeah I love that because when you said okay, I'm I practice it. I never thought like when would you get feedback? But if that's kind of kind of an incubation room and Point is to practice and get feedback, that's the best, right? Because I can't think of another place when you would do a speech or kind of you would speak in public and you get feedback
either. People would say pretty good and they wouldn't really give you the truth or you would actually be good or would be like is actually quite shit. And you would never hear which points were not as good. That's true. It's very hard to get honest feedback. Yeah, what worked for me? The only thing that works for me is to emphasize before the presentation happens. I want Feedback. I want to add have at least two points for improvement.
Okay. Now you want and I want you to be completely honest and direct because that helps me grow. If you sugarcoat it doesn't help me so please don't do it. Yeah so that that's the only thing that helped me and what another thing that he'll also help me is use voice message more on WhatsApp. Okay. So instead of typing, yeah, I sometimes use voice messages. So, if someone ask like, how was your weekend? First of all, I don't like typing because I don't want to
be in my On the whole day. Yeah, takes a lot of time and I think it's more fun and a way to practice your communication skills and your storytelling skills as well to make a little story from it, then you can listen back, right. It may be crazy in the beginning, but if you listen, back to yourself, you can see, how did you start? And how did you end up to include stories? Or mostly about facts? Did you say?
Hey, I did nice weekend. I played football, then I went to the beach and I went to my parents. Yeah, it's very Boring, or do you tell a story about, you know, how the football match went or what happened? And focus more on the the tension and the conflict in the story instead of just The bullet points with and in between yeah, when you sent me a voice message and I would have never thought I was part of this house. Yeah. So it's all part of the experience.
I like that. Actually, if you can incorporate a little experiments in your kind of day-to-day and you can learn from that and that that I think would bring a lot of Joy. I might do that. I never had a reason to do voice messages. I call a lot. Maybe that's also because of it. I don't like task texting as much either, but then I noticed You sent me a voice message? I probably replied in text, I didn't I didn't send you a voice message back and I don't mind. I did.
I did get feedback from from a good friend who's very action-oriented, you know, and he says, you know, I'm at work. Yes. I cannot really listen and then I tell them there's no rush, right? Otherwise, I would call you. Yeah. Exactly. Or I mean, sometimes I sent him a text. Yeah, instead of voice message, but sometimes I also think, never mind. It is the way I want to communicate. Exactly do with it. You're the only man. I I call a lot. That's usually my go-to, right?
I like having a conversation, that's direct synchronous, and if it's not direct, then yeah, text is fine. But a text can be interpreted in so many ways. That is a problem. Absolutely, that has been also a problem. That's, yeah. Do you have a specific example? I mean, I did. So my girlfriend, when I met her, we had a month in Amsterdam and then she moved to London to do her master's. So, that was half here in London and yeah, we texted a lot and Stuff sometimes got misinterpreted.
All you're not actually mad. Oh no, how'd you get that? Oh yeah, I thought X y&z well that that's not there, that's all in your mind and then you have to be like, okay, that is actually a hole in my mind and it doesn't actually say that but that's the only thing we have, right? Plaintext is a reason why we like communicating and we don't like talking to a screen and being like on a zoom call because there's a lot of nonverbal that stuff.
There's a lot of intonation I can look you in the eyes and be like this is really important and you don't really have that in a Zoom call, right? Absolutely. All the stuff goes into communication and text is like the most basic version we have. Absolutely. And the challenges. The more tension is in a certain situation or if you are in a conflict people, some people they tend to, you know, send an email or text instead because it's safer. It's less vulnerable.
Yeah. They don't want to face the conversation and what's happening but of course it makes it worse, right? Thanks get is interpreted. There's a lot of assumptions. And everything. Yeah, and everything goes wrong. So that's what, that's what I've learned to always have a conversation.
Now, when when I have a problem with something that someone said or did or I feel the conversation or the collaboration is not going, well, yeah, for me now is very easy to say, let's talk and have a real conversation. Exactly. Of course, sometimes I feel bit of tension because I think, okay, I'm not sure what's going to happen. Yeah, but I'm very determined and it helped me a lot, I think. Like I told me to, to always have the conversation and address, what's, what's on the
table? Even though people don't mention it. So I will, I'm always do it first one to say, let's talk about it. I like that. Yeah, I think that is very effective, right? I salt and I go from client to client when I'm like, okay, their communication is email. I try it. If it's not effective, the second is not effective. Like that's jumping a call because I've sent one email to emails.
I've had enough because I don't want to go back and forth and then days, go past them, like, set up a date. Discuss this and let's be effective together at people. Usually are open to that. It's just sometimes they don't take initiative. Sure. Yeah man. I love how this conversation flowed man. We kind of went when all over the place a lot to do about psychology and why people do the things they do. And I love learning about your
stuff man. I could do this for ages but I think I want to round it off here. Is there anything you still want to share with the audience? Now, I think one message I would like to end with this, even if you're have a more analytical profile, if you work in technology and you're more interested in in Tech and data, that's totally fine. And don't forget about, you know, the other side because I really will help you to make a bigger impact in your organization and any your life
as well. I mean, we're communicating the whole day, the whole year. Yeah, with friends, family, everyone, you meet even with when you The coffee at the bakery. Yeah, you know, you can practice in those little things and become a bit more aware about your default State and how you can experiment. And I mean, it's so much fun, right? You can. It's your, you can experiment in the wild and see what happens. Yeah, I have a little fun. Yeah, I 100% agree with that one.
I'm going to do a little experiment. I'm not gonna tell people about cool here. What I call a bomb, I'm gonna put all the links to socials in the description below. And with that being said, we'll see you on the next one.