Welcome to Tectastic, where we navigate the intersection of technology and business, uncovering innovations that redefine our world. Miro Slav Petrovic, welcome to its Ticastic. It is lovely to have you here. Thank you. Lovely to be here, Christian. Your story is interesting for a bunch of reasons. So the first is you were born raised in Yugoslavia before the civil war. Mhmm. And you became a refugee during the war and immigrated to Australia. Yeah. Correct.
You had a center when you were young, and you overcame that. But you had to learn a new language, a new culture, and you're overcoming a speech impediment. And now you're a speaker, speaking at conferences, I imagine, up in front of big audiences, you've given a TED Talk. Right? Yeah. And a best selling book. What's the book about? Similar. So it's called give them goosebumps, utilizing the power of presence to earn the stage of communication.
So it's partially my journey and partially the principles that supported me to find my voice and use it the way do. And beyond that, like, it supports any speaker to grow who they are and what they're capable of on stage. It's like a recipe for how do we keep expanding and growing and not just getting, you know, complacent and consistent. This sounds relevant for me. I speak at conferences. I Hammer podcast and the CEO of a company.
So I I have a lot of time in front of an audience, but I know that there are things I could improve on. Like, why are people thing, why are people seeking out my voice that, it's really important to understand. How do you find that? How did you find it for yourself? And then how do you recommend others find that? For me, it originally came through meditation. So I didn't really want to find my voice.
I didn't want to be a speaker, but been like, I don't know, let's say 20 ish, give or take a couple of years when I started meditating. My first question was like, this is great. I feel amazing. My eyes are closed. Sitting on Lotus's position. I can't do anything, but this feels great. And I started asking the question of how do I feel great while I'm, you know, living the rest of my life.
And what came back quickly was I get to start teaching, and I didn't really want to, and that I kept coming up internally as well. Like, the guy that was teaching you meditation is, like, you're a speaker and a teacher. You need to share the stuff. Friends from high school and stuff were like, hey. Can you start teaching us? And I was like, alright. Just it's it's only me that's in the way here.
And as I started teaching and as the stages got bigger over the years, I found speaking in front of people was a lot like meditation. And that if I could let myself be present, the only thing that would change is there would be more sensation can call it fear if you want, or let's just call it more sensation, like an intensification of of the experience, but also because of the the stage itself, being called to tension of that many people creates a presence in and of itself.
And it's almost like it took less effort than meditation to be present. As long as I didn't get swept up in the Fords they were moving through me. That was some of the the early moments of of finding my voice. Before we kicked off the conversation that we're having right now, we talked a little bit about shared experiences and you were talking about your coming wedding in which you're gonna ride a horse in, and so you're taking horse lessons.
And one of the things you said sounded like you were in meditation on the horse. Like, the act of interacting with the horse and being so present in that moment with the animal that, doesn't speak the same language you do, but it's gonna respond to every single little body action you Hammer. Heck, they respond better to your emotional state than you even they know better how you're feeling than you do. Yeah. That's that's amazing.
Well said, and as you were saying, like, your experience coming into that space reminded me of my own. I I had severe stage fright. I really didn't want people looking at me or paying to me. Even though a lot of the things I do in my life draw attention to me, it was always meant as external, like, I paint and I sculpt in an artist. Right? But that's something I put on the wall, and I can stand back from, and they're not talking and looking at me. They're looking at something that came from me.
And I, you know, I was in bands, but I always played the instruments that I didn't do solos, and I gotta stay in the back. But the day I was at Nike and I was asked to give a presentation on something in front of the vast majority of the company because I was the big brother of the year, and they wanted me to come up and tell Big Builders' big sisters program. They they picked the best mentor to the kids that year, and it's a pretty big deal.
And I had won that, and Nike was big into the program, and so they asked me to come up and present. And I was not going to do it. Like, I I had the hardest time convincing myself to say yes. And then while I sat there waiting to go on stage in front of only maybe a thousand people. What I think of today, it was a small audience, but at the time, it seemed daunting. We had heart rate monitors the early version of a fuel band that never came out.
And I was sitting there, and I was breathing, and I was thinking to myself, okay. You can do this. You got Christian I looked down, and my heart rate was the same as it was if I went bungee jumping or pipe boarding or whatever. Right? It was, it was high. But it was high in a range that I knew. That's a trend line. That's excitement. I see the sound. I love that. And that switch in my head allowed me to just go up, and that was fine.
And then once you're in the moment and you're just literally in the moment. You're just responding to the audience. You're responding to the excitement of being there. It all felt I don't know, like, just the state of calm. Like, it was Zen. It was that moment right after you jumped off the bridge. Completely. And I think there's, like, there's a flow state that if you can meet it in that frame, the slow stage just naturally continues through the door.
It's it's a very long ride down from a bungee jump or whatever. You know, bungee jumps over like this, a talk can go for an hour, and it's like, how do I keep writing this sensation? I've even said it to people. I'm like, unless you're feeling that before the talk, I'm not sure you'd be much to share. Like, that that level of engagement is what's confusing into the audience. For me, I think speaking is a lot like riding a horse. Only you don't have one horse.
You have, like, a massive body, which is continually responding to your mental emotional state, whether they're aware of it or not. And it's almost like instance. It's like that relationship of where the speaker is at internally is continually informing the space, and it's happening unconsciously as well. Just just like a horse. Yeah. That's fantastic. Like, you've got a whole herd of horses. You're riding while you're up on the stage of giving you a presentation.
It's a really good visual for me. One of the nice things, like, especially on a larger audience is there's lights and darkness Like, you're in the light. Everybody else is in darkness. And so you can only really see little bits of the audience at any one time. You don't really see the main body because it's just lights in your face, you can't really see much.
But when you can see and and you look around and you see people, like, excitedly engaged with, you know, what you're saying and they're responding to it in some way. That energy coming back in. It's such a good feeling. And the hard part for me was always like, you know, sometimes you're at a big conference and a lot of the people are there just to talk each other. They're not there to hear you. It's just the main hall was where they were meeting somebody. And so, like, they're distracting.
They're talking to each other, and you've gotta just kinda, like, brush by it and be like, okay, you know, they're in their space. They're doing their thing. That doesn't impact me. It has nothing to do with me. That's about them. I just look for the next one that is smiling and looking and paying attention or frowning. Like, I some of the best interactions I've had where people are like, no. You're wrong. Like and it was like, okay. I wanna, like, I'm gonna dig in on that.
I've been telling you to get that person to be like, yeah. Okay. I gotcha. Like, I'm there with you. I wanna, like, feed off of that. And the more of it I can get that I can if you could say something truly challenging to the audience so that they're in a state of being like, I I'm skeptical, prove what you're telling me. That's fun. That back and forth that can happen, even though they're not talking to you, because they're in the audience. They're not directly interacting.
They are interacting, though. It's just not form of verbal cues. Right? I remember I had I had a student that hadn't done much speaking at one point, and we did some training in her first gig getting up on stage I don't know whether it would have been under a hundred people. She was like, oh my god, Minus. Love, that was amazing. Like, I now get what you were saying when I ask them questions, I felt the motion in the room change.
Like, it was visceral when they went into, you know, dreaming about their future. It's like, I was getting goosebumps on stage. I'm like, yeah. It's like you're working for giant ocean. The the human mind and emotions when you stir it towards, you know, anger or joy or whatever. It's like you put group people feeling the same thing. It affects everyone. And we see that in the bad way as well, like with organism, you know, people get swept up. They're like, I'd never do anything like that.
So it's powerful. It's very powerful. It is. And to put yourself in the middle of it, that was always the it's intoxicating or it can be. And that's where you end up with the demagogue, you know, individual that that's all they do is to put themselves in the middle about that. So one of the things that you talk about is speaking from their hearts and authentic and how that comes across in an audience.
And I've actually spoken to so many people that do a lot of presenting and they're there to sell. And nine times out of 10, the person that's there to sell something, they lose the audience. Nobody cares. Like, they they get lost in it. But that one in 10 that really leaves in what they're selling. And they're really they're sharing what they believe. Those ones are often, like, the most amazing presentations you watch.
They're not selling something that's last outside, them, if they're literally selling something to care about, it comes across, and it's so obvious. One of the things that I've been I meant to ask this as a Christian, whether it is a statement, it I think that anybody who does this enough, you start to question yourself on it. You're like, am I just selling this thing? Is this something I really leave in? How do I know anymore? Because you do it so frequently.
And finding that being able to take a big step back and say, yeah. No. I I I actually do wholeheartedly believe believe in what I'm doing. I I've got a script that I go through now as a shorthand way of getting me there, but I do believe in it. How do you stop yourself from getting lost in that, or how do you find your authentic self when you've lost it? This is a really good pondering, and it's something I think we have to keep coming back to. And I think, like, anything.
I'm gonna dive it to that bit for a moment. The first thing I'm gonna say, when we get automatic with anything, I think it's useful to have periods of reflection. Like, yes, I'm in the grind of this now. I get how to do it. I'm doing it. And then can I stop and reflect and just to tune to is this still a fence for me, is this still what I want to be doing? Have I been swept away by the experts, the industry, what my clients want me to do?
Hammer still on track with serving what what feels authentic for me, like the life that I want to live and build and be happy with when I get to the tombstone. And I I just think that's a continual thing. We Hammer to be in relationship to. You know, like, life is a beast. It's so easy. So that that Tony Robbins, story that he tells is, like, you turn the golf stick 2 degrees, and you're gonna end up, you know, 100 of meters from where you want to be.
And I think having good people around us also helps with that. Like, people to really understand us and what we're about, and that are willing to stand for what they see as possible within us. Like, I really believe in having high quality people who understand And then the second thing, I'm I'm just gonna pepper this in as well, is what I realized at some point is, well, sales and enrollment it's almost the same thing for different word. Right? And we're always selling.
We're always enrolling people when we're on stage. When we're in leadership, when we're in management, we're enrolling people in how we want them to be to do to act to move the company where we want it to go. I mean, we're always enrolling our children and our partners as well. It's just like, you know, Sometimes the ideas are are taking us for a ride. But when I found this, I was like, okay. The thing that I'm enrolling people into isn't changing.
That hasn't really changed for the last 10 or 15 years. The wording around that has changed, which is just the wrapping, but the essence of it hasn't changed, and the products or the services that I am selling on top of that are just a shortcut. It's like, here's here's my offering. Live your life in the truest way you can and recognize that your voice is a faster way to creating the life you want.
Whether it's a date, a relationship, more sales in your business, all of this is gonna come down to speaking. And I'd I truly am wholeheartedly believe It's like our life is a product of the things we've had the courage to say and the things we've avoided, say, the opportunities we've left on the table. So There's a part of me that feels so comfortable in selling that message because even if people never work with me, if they're enrolled in that, they're gonna live the best life they can.
And then if there's a match to work together to support them in that. That just feels like a beautiful coming together. So, Miraslop Petrovich, that was a great way to end it. If people are looking to find your book, connect with you as a coach, lessons, how do they find you? Yeah. Is it? I'm Marisolk Petrovich on on LinkedIn. Murislavp.com is the website, m irouselabp.com. You can find me on any social media. It's murislav Petrovich just reach out, say hi.
I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Christian. So if you're part of his community, I'm sure we're gonna get along. And the books available on Amazon's Spotify, all all the main places you can find it. And that's a wrap for this episode of Tectastic. I wanna thank you personally for joining us, and we'll see you next time. Until then, keep exploring, and stay curious. Thank you for listening. If you are new here and enjoyed the content, please subscribe. It really helps us out.
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