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.