Transcript of Communication Coach Vinh Giang Interview: On Purpose Podcast

That’s all that it is.

The Four Stages of Learning

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I’ve always loved that model of unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence. And for anyone who doesn’t know it — four stages, right? The bottom stage is unconscious incompetence, when you are unconscious of your incompetence. You have no idea what you’re doing wrong. You probably don’t know that you try and fill every pause, say “like” at the end of every sentence, whatever it may be.

And we all have an unconscious incompetence, especially in the way we speak. And that’s when we have this mindset that you’re saying where we think it’s our voice, but actually it’s just practiced behaviors. And then above from that, which is what I love — this is what you do so phenomenally well when you’re with your audiences — is conscious incompetence. You’re helping people become aware of how our body language, our voice, our tonality, affects us. And then above that, for everyone who doesn’t know the model, is conscious competence.

VINH GIANG: Correct.

JAY SHETTY: Where now you know why you move your hand that way, and why you choose to lower your voice or lower your pitch, or whatever it may be.

VINH GIANG: And that’s kind of a frustrating part for people to be at, stage three, right? Because they go, “I know it, but then I still have to think about it.” So when they do it, it’s really interesting because I see my students do this all the time where they go, “Hello everybody, it’s great to be here.” And then they go, “Vin, this feels so fake, it feels so phony.” But I’m like, you have to go through that stage to get to stage four, which is unconscious competence, which is mastery.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: And a lot of people aren’t willing to push through that because they go, “No, it doesn’t feel natural, so that means it’s not right.”

JAY SHETTY: Let’s talk about that. I think that’s one of the biggest challenges, because I think we’re both sitting here as people who’ve trained, worked hard at our craft, worked hard at our art.

VINH GIANG: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: And now at this point, it does feel like unconscious competence.

VINH GIANG: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: But a lot of people say, well, no, but if you had to learn it, then it’s fake, it’s unnatural, it’s not real, it’s phony. But what’s the difference between developing a skill versus faking it? What’s the difference?

Home Is the Familiar

VINH GIANG: I love your definition of home, where you say home is the familiar, right? And to me, the way you currently communicate, you have a home. And that is because those behaviors you’ve been repeating for the last ten, twenty, thirty years, right? So that feels like home to you.

Whereas what people don’t realize is — and I don’t mean to take a long explanation for this, I think it’s important — when you used to ask me what my home was when I was young, I would say my suburb. So I’d say Salisbury Downs. Then as I got older, I started to explore my city — I’d say Adelaide is my home, South Australia, right? And then as I explored more of my state, then I would say South Australia is my home. Then I explored more of Australia — Australia is my home. Now I’ve lived in LA and Southern California — oh, I kind of feel like America is my home too. And then as I travel more of the world, I go, oh, the world is my home.

The same thing with your communication skills. You have access to this incredible instrument, but your home is such a small part of that instrument. Say a piano has eighty-eight keys, right? Right now, home to you is five keys, because you’re only familiar with those five keys. But as you start to realize you have access to this incredible instrument, you start to play the other keys. Home becomes the entire piano.

Whereas the struggle that people have is the moment they do something that they’re unfamiliar with, instead of labeling it as unfamiliar, they label it as fake and phony. And what happens the moment you do that? You stop exploring your instrument, and now you are limited to the five keys you’ve been playing with your entire life.

And I think there’s an overattachment to the familiar which keeps us the same. Because when you think about this, most people change the way they dress, they change their glasses, they change their house, they change their car, but they never change the way they talk. They never change the way they communicate, because we are way too attached to the familiar.

And I say to my students this all the time: don’t be so attached to who you are in the present that you don’t give the future version of you a chance. There’s a future version of you where the world is home. There’s a future version of you where you can play all eighty-eight keys.

The Top Problems People Bring to Vinh Giang

JAY SHETTY: I love that concept of we change our hair, we change our glasses, change our clothes, but we don’t change the way we communicate. And I was going to ask you, when you have so many people coming to see you speak, what are the top three things, the practical problems that people are coming to solve when they come to you? So when someone comes and says, “Vin, I need your help,” what are they trying to solve in their life? The top three things that you hear?

VINH GIANG: First thing would be they want to get from stage one, unconscious incompetence, to — “you’ve made me aware of one thing, how can I start to become aware of more things?” So again, self-awareness. So the first thing they say is, “How can I become more self-aware? I’m now awake to the problem of my communication. How can I begin that journey and become more aware?”

And when they ask me that question, I share with them a very simple technique: record and review. The only way to become more aware is if you see yourself. And most people hate watching themselves on video. Most people hate listening to themselves on audio. So that means they’ve been going through their entire life avoiding the two most critical things you need to develop self-awareness with your communication. And they hate this process.

So the process is: record a video of you speaking for five minutes. And then when you review and reflect on that video, leave it for a day so you’re less critical of yourself. And once you’ve left it for a day, the first time you grab your phone to review the video, put it on mute and just look at yourself. And as you’re looking at yourself, take notes. What am I doing with my hands? How are my facial expressions? What am I doing with my legs? How am I moving? Do I have any visual tics? So you take a whole bunch of notes — that’s the beginning process of self-awareness.

Then after that, turn the volume up. Just listen to yourself now — turn the phone around, play, just listen. And as you’re listening, listen to the vocal qualities. What do you like about your voice? What don’t you like? How’s your rate of speech? How’s your volume? What’s your melody like? Do you hear the passion? If you’re passionate about something, you’ll take so many notes when you do this. What are your filler words, non-words? You get all of that down.

Then the last step is get it transcribed. So once you transcribe it, now you can see the way you communicate from a completely different perspective. You might notice you speak in circles — “I repeated the same thing four times, what am I doing?” And you’ll see different things. If you just go through that process once, you’ll get a list of five to ten things.

That’s how you begin your journey of self-awareness. Yet people will resist that because it’s too uncomfortable. They’ll record it, but they won’t watch it. But the ones that do, Jay, I immediately get a DM after. Shock. “I can’t believe I do X.”

And it’s crazy, because I think of one of my students right now where he said, “For six years I’ve been held back in my career because my managers and my leaders say that I lack clarity, I lack authority, and I lack confidence. And they give me this feedback, yet they don’t tell me what I need to improve.” And you know what I realized, through doing this record-and-review process? The one thing that had robbed him of six years of progress was his umming and ahhing. He couldn’t believe umming and ahhing had held him back. And he was so frustrated. And I remember I had to tell him, “Look, I get your frustration, but at least it didn’t hold you back for twenty years and you realized it now.” But something as simple as umming and ahhing held him back for that long and destroyed his perception of being a great leader. It’s kind of crazy.

Why People Get Interrupted in Meetings

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, that’s what I wanted to get to. That’s the problem — I feel someone may see your work and they’ll say, “Well, I don’t want to be a public speaker.”

VINH GIANG: That’s right.

JAY SHETTY: That’s not the point. The point is there’s a promotion that you’re not getting because you don’t have authority. Or the challenge is you’re not able to ask out the person on a date that you really want to take out, because you don’t feel that confidence. Or there’s the challenge of you’re in a team meeting and you feel like your voice is never heard — people always overlook your opinion, they don’t hear you. What are some of those stories that you’ve heard of people that have had those types of challenges that are coming to you and saying exactly like the one you just told us?

VINH GIANG: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: They’re like, “Oh, Vin, this is actually solving a daily issue for me.”

VINH GIANG: The big one: people keep interrupting me. Not only do they not listen to my ideas, they interrupt me, and then my turn is gone now, and the idea that I was going to share was one that was going to be able to change the course of the meeting. But because they interrupted me, now I’m invisible. And that keeps happening to me.

And when they ask me, “Why do other people interrupt me? Why does it happen?” — the reason is something that I don’t think you’d expect, because it comes down to vocal presence and physical presence. And when I see them in the situations where people interrupt them, the reason is because their vocal presence is low and their physical presence is low.

So, for example, everyone’s sitting around a meeting table, and I go, “Look, send me an example — a big Zoom meeting, if you’re allowed to send me this — let me see what’s happening.” And when you see it, everyone’s sitting down, and the way she would bring up the question — it was a woman who asked me this — the way she’d ask it is very low volume: “Look, I’ve just got a quick idea I would love to share with you all.” Very small body language. And if I was talking to you like this right now, it is so easy for you to interrupt this version of me. So easy.

Whereas imagine instead I said, “Take control of this — stand.” They go, “Oh, I feel a little bit weird.” Well, just prime the reason. Just say, “Look, I’ve been sitting all day, do you mind if I stand for my part of the presentation?” “Oh, great.” All right, then you just stand. If you stand now, all of a sudden you’re in a position of more authority. And if you use larger body language, stronger volume — this version is infinitely more difficult for you to interrupt.

JAY SHETTY: Absolutely.

VINH GIANG: It’s infinitely more difficult because you’ve got more authority, you’ve got more credibility. But again, because a lot of people in those situations fall victim to a lower default volume, a slower default rate of speech, smaller body language, all of a sudden people interrupt them.

JAY SHETTY: Absolutely. Or talk over them.

VINH GIANG: Yes.

JAY SHETTY: Completely ignored.

VINH GIANG: So I often say to my students, the reason people interrupt you is because you’re easy to interrupt. Create a bit of that friction. Create a little bit of that authority. And then, again, they try it — it feels a little bit unfamiliar, again they say fake and phony, but I’m like, reframe it, reframe it, it’s just unfamiliar. And then they start to do it. They go, “Oh, it felt really unfamiliar.” But the moment they do it, they go, “Wow, people like — just from standing alone, Vin, I felt like I stood. I just had a bit of volume. I didn’t even use my body language, but already people are not interrupting me.” So again, it just goes to show that how you use your instrument and your voice lets other people know how they can treat you.

Do Introverts Have to Communicate Differently?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, that’s such a great point. It’s so true. And I hope everyone who’s listening and watching right now, I want you to rewind back, right? Go backward the last five minutes, everything that Vin said from the point of self-awareness through to just now, and practice it in your next meeting. Listen to yourself in a meeting, even record yourself while you’re in a meeting as you normally would, and then go listen back to that and apply what Vin was saying.

Because it’s so interesting to me how daily our communication is impacting our lives, and we think we’re not getting promoted because we’re not networking or we’re not technically brilliant, or whatever it may be. Or maybe you’re sitting there going, “Jay, I’m actually one of the best in the company when it comes to XYZ,” but now you realize that it’s your ability to coach people, guide people, because you have that influence.

I wanted to ask you, how does an introvert get the courage to do what you just said? Because I’m sure there’s a lot of people listening right now who are introverted naturally. Do you even believe in introverts, or is that also a practiced behavior?

VINH GIANG: Well, there definitely is a difference, obviously. I asked my vocal teacher the same thing. I said, “What’s the difference between an introvert and extrovert?” And she goes, the key thing is just how they get energy. Are you introverted or are you extroverted? I know I’m very extroverted — I get energy from being around people. But she goes, introverts, they lose energy once they’re around people. So she goes, “Look, that’s the key difference.”

“Now let me ask you a question. A pianist, if they’re an extrovert, would they play differently to an introvert?” I had to think about that for a while because I thought, surely this is a trick question. And I said, “Yes.” And she goes, “No, you’re an idiot. There’s no difference. You will not be able to tell who is an introvert and who is an extrovert if you listen to a pianist. Great music is great music. Your voice is an instrument. Great music is great music.”

She goes, the only difference is introverts have to be highly strategic with when they play their instrument. Extroverts can play their instrument all day. It’s more difficult for an introvert because you have to be highly selective when you play your instrument. It’s an excuse that I think some of my friends who are introverted used to give, where they say, “Oh, because I’m an introvert, I’m not going to play my instrument well at all.” And it’s like, no, you still have energy. You just have to use it much more strategically, and you have to be highly aware of how you can rejuvenate that energy.

It’s harder for introverts to acknowledge that. However, if you’ve got great ways to better rejuvenate your energy — good “menu items,” things you can go and snack on to recreate some of that energy — you still have to learn how to play your instrument well. Otherwise, you will become that person — and the majority of my students are the person you described — the “I’m way smarter than John, I’m way smarter than Sarah, but why did they get the promotion, why didn’t I get it?”

Well, it’s because if you are technically ten out of ten, but your communication skills are a three out of ten, do you think your organization perceives you to be a ten out of ten or a three out of ten? You are only as good as you can communicate. So as you improve your communication skills, you start to shine your light more brightly in the world. Whereas a lot of my students tend to think, “Oh, but it’s my boss’s responsibility to see the brilliance in me.” No, no, it’s not. It’s your responsibility to shine brightly, not their responsibility.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: So when you take it upon yourself, things change. Filler words as well — “and so, like, do you know what I mean?” — we do that because we don’t understand the power of the pause, whereas the pause allows people to process what you’re saying.

If there’s one thing you do, if you listen to this episode, it’s record a video of yourself, and you’ll thank Jay and me later, because you’ll see things that you didn’t realize. The reason we hate the sound of our voice is because when we hear ourselves on a recording, that’s not how we sound to ourselves. And the reason you have a different-sounding voice to yourself is that when you’re speaking, the vibrations go through your bones and your muscles, and then it hits your ears.

Taking Ownership of Your Growth

JAY SHETTY: There’s such a need for ownership and accountability for our lives, because, like you said — and I, for a long time, believed that someone was going to come and spot my talent and see it and nurture it and help me build it up, and I realized no one was coming, and that no one could see it because they were too busy in their own lives. It’s not that they were bad people, or they were bitter, or they were wrong, or they were not able to spot talent — everyone was busy. People were just busy in their day-to-day. They don’t have time to spot your skill and your talent and nurture it.

If someone’s listening to this right now and they’re saying, “Vin, I love what you just said. I’m an introvert, I agree with you, there are times when I can and can’t perform, or can’t bring it out. How do I hold energy? How do I create energy if I have a meeting coming up today? If I’m going to be on a Zoom call today, what do I do in order to make sure I’m at my best?” Because right now I’m going from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting, Zoom call to Zoom call, I’m just exhausted.

VINH GIANG: First thing is you have to learn how to protect your energy. For example, yesterday I was doing a couple of different podcasts while I’m here in LA, and I didn’t leave the hotel room. The podcast wasn’t until four o’clock. I didn’t leave the hotel room at all, to the point where my videographer freaked out and knocked on my door and said, “Are you okay? Are you still all right?” I’m like, “Yeah, I’m conserving my energy.” I’m a fairly high-energy person, so I have to conserve my energy. So all morning — I didn’t talk to anyone that morning. I had to wait to talk to you, because if you don’t conserve your energy and you just give it all the time everywhere, then you won’t have any.

So that’s number one — you’ve got to conserve your energy. And then the second thing is: have go-to “menu items” that you can quickly reach for. One that I love is Wim Hof, the breathing technique — the guided bubble breath. Two cycles of that before a meeting, my brain is oxygenated, my body feels good. I feel revitalized.

JAY SHETTY: Can you break the pattern down for us, just in case?

VINH GIANG: Okay, so if people don’t know — it’s thirty deep breaths in and out. So thirty of those. And then after that, at the end of the thirtieth one, you breathe out and then hold your breath. And you’ll be shocked how long you can hold your breath for. The first time I did this, I couldn’t believe I could hold it for a minute and a half, two minutes. I thought I was dying. And then at the end of holding your breath for a minute or so, as long as you can, after that, just take a deep breath in, hold for fifteen seconds, and release.

And that breathing technique alone has energized me even when I am doing Zoom calls at three in the morning, because I work with some US clients. Two or three cycles of that — incredible. I was not a believer in that at all when I first learned. I was like, “Yeah, surely that’s not going to work — breathing? I do that every day.” Changed my life.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I agree.

VINH GIANG: My go-to technique to energize myself. The next one for me is a snack — something healthy. I love blueberries, raspberries with a little bit of cream. A light meal, I love it.

JAY SHETTY: Right.

VINH GIANG: And then, favorite beverage — my go-to is coffee. I don’t know, I feel like some people are going to tell me it’s going to kill me, but I love it. So have your own go-to.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: Have your own routine. I have a playlist of videos that crack me up. Have you seen videos that made you laugh?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, absolutely.

VINH GIANG: Save them.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, save them, because they put you in a great mood.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, put you in a great mood. I’ll give you one last one — I also love orchestral war music. Like Hans Zimmer-esque.

JAY SHETTY: Yes. Yeah, I love it.

VINH GIANG: And if you’re listening to Interstellar, Hans Zimmer, while you’re doing Wim Hof, as you take a sip of coffee — oh man, I’m going to try that.

JAY SHETTY: I’m going to give that a go.

VINH GIANG: It’s an intoxicating mix.

Finding Your Routine on the Road

JAY SHETTY: I love that. My routine’s a lot more simple, but you’re right, everyone needs one. I went on my world tour two years ago now — we did forty cities across three to four months around the world. Got to come to Australia, a place that I absolutely loved. It was my first time there. I didn’t get to come to Adelaide — I hope I do next time.

VINH GIANG: I know, we’re offended, by the way.

JAY SHETTY: Oh no, gosh, please don’t be. We did Sydney, Melbourne. And honestly, there was something about the Australian people that stuck with me. There was this banter — I would banter with people on stage, little quips and things, and they’d come back at it, and I loved it. And the other thing was everyone was so grateful. Everyone would just say to me, “Thank you for coming all this way.” And I was like, wait a minute, you came to see my show, I should be thanking you. I was so grateful that people turned up in the thousands. It was just amazing. Everyone was so grateful, there was such a great energy.

But the reason I brought it up is I realized that my tour schedule was extremely different from a keynote, because the keynote is I’ve got to do it once and then it’s done. This was every night, if not every other night — sometimes in Australia I did two shows back to back on the same day, because we were at the Sydney Opera House for two days, where we did two shows in one day, one show the next day. So three shows across two days, and then went to — I think it was Brisbane or Melbourne that was last.

And so my tour schedule was different, but I realized I had to stop eating at noon. My show was at eight PM. I had to stop eating at noon. I’d have a protein bar around five or six PM to give me that little bit of boost of energy. I’d have a sparkling water because I preferred that just before I went on, and then I’d get off stage at ten, do a meet-and-greet for two hours, and then I’d eat at midnight every day.

Now, that’s not my normal schedule at all — that’s completely against my normal schedule. I sleep at nine, nine-thirty every night, that’s when I’m in bed. So for me to be eating dinner at midnight is so abnormal. But I found there was a different routine. I also didn’t go out to any noisy places before or after the show, because I had to be on vocal rest — I knew I’d lose my voice if I went to a restaurant or whatever. So for three, four months, I didn’t go to a restaurant while I was out in all these cool cities. Everyone’s like, “Oh, did you go to this place?”

VINH GIANG: Did you—

JAY SHETTY: I was like, “Nope, I didn’t go to any of those places, because I would have lost my voice and then I wouldn’t be able to perform.” And I think that’s the important part of the craft — there’s a dedication and a surrender to “this is what matters,” and therefore some of this other stuff is going to have to fall by the wayside.

VINH GIANG: And what you just said made me think of the importance of finding what works for you. I feel like people have this misunderstanding that they should just have this energy naturally.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: Back to your original question, right? “I should just have it naturally, and if I don’t have it naturally, there’s something wrong with me.” It’s like, no — you had to not eat for eight hours to get yourself into the right state. And I think that fasted state helps us think more sharply and helps us be more on point. It takes work to show up with energy, intention, and purpose. Whereas I think people have this illusion in their minds that it should be easy.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: And if it doesn’t feel easy, there’s something wrong. It’s like, no, no, no, there’s a craft to it. Even preparing for a Zoom call — some people go, “Oh, is that a bit much?” But that’s how you show up for three Zoom calls back to back — structure it with fifteen minutes in between, you have to reset. Even for me, doing these podcasts, traveling overseas, I’m exhausted. But then again, if I choose to give this energy, I need to conserve it. I need to have ways to rejuvenate it, and I have to go through the process. You have to commit to the craft, you have to commit to that discipline. Whereas if you one night did eat at six PM, well then that show wouldn’t be as great, but you were dedicated. And I think that’s what people have to really understand — there are ways to do it, but you’ve got to take yourself through the process.

Why We Hate the Sound of Our Own Voice

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, absolutely. For someone who’s listening to their voice now, listening to us, they’re like, “Vin, I’m going to listen to this,” they start listening back to their voice and they cringe at their voice — because we all have this strange feeling, and by the way, we all have it, I have it too, I want to say that here. No one likes listening to the sound of their own voice. There’s something uncomfortable about it. First of all, do you know where that comes from? And then what do we do about that when you’re listening back and your whole body, your face, everything reacts?

VINH GIANG: It’s not just listening — it’s when you look at yourself on video too. And there’s a reason for that. The reason we hate the sound of our voice is because when we hear ourselves on a recording, that’s not how we sound to ourselves. The way you sound to yourself, you have a deep, rich, Barry White voice, right? And the reason you have a different-sounding voice to yourself is that when you’re speaking, the vibrations go through your bones and your muscles, and then it hits your ears. The vibrations of the sound are going through a more dense medium, which creates a lower-pitched sound. So when you hear yourself via an audio replay, that’s going through the airwaves, so your voice sounds thinner and higher-pitched. So you immediately go, “No, no, no, I don’t sound like that, I sound like this.” And they freak out. So that difference in the medium in which you’re receiving the sound causes people to immediately reject it, because it actually does sound different.

The reason why people don’t like looking at themselves on video is because it’s flipped the other way.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: They go, “Oh, I don’t look like that,” because you look at yourself in the mirror every day, whereas on camera it shows the way other people see you. Whereas when you look at yourself in the mirror, it’s flipped. So your entire life you’ve seen yourself a certain way — unless your face is perfectly symmetrical — so you go, “Oh no, I don’t look like that.” So immediately people go, “I look weird, I sound weird.”

So the thing you need to do there is desensitize it, mate. Just listen to yourself over and over. Do you listen to a podcast now and do you still freak out about your voice?

JAY SHETTY: Not anymore. Not anymore.

VINH GIANG: You’re right, because you’re desensitized. So what happens is a calibration happens. What you hear in your head and what you hear on an audio replay — the calibration starts to close that gap, and then gradually you can’t hear the difference anymore. And then when you look at yourself enough on camera and also in the mirror, the calibration starts to happen. You go, “Oh, that’s me. That’s just me.” It’s painful.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: But if you go through that, you get over it.

Growing Up in Public Speaking Training

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, it’s all that discomfort in the beginning that we all need to go through. I was really fortunate, because when I was eleven years old, my parents were so scared that I was so shy and so insecure that they forced me to go to public speaking school. My school had an extracurricular activity with the London Academy of Music, Drama and Arts. For seven years I had about three sessions a week of two to three hours each. It was fairly rigorous, and you’d have to take exams, and the exams were pretty rigorous too.

So every year you’d go to this exam, you’d turn up, and the examiner would be in a room. Before you even meet the examiner, you could take a book — any book you wanted — but they were going to pick any page and ask you to read it in an emotive, dramatic, and powerful way.

The next part of the test was they would give you a topic fifteen minutes before. You’d be in a library — this is when we didn’t have the internet — well, there probably was internet, but they wanted to keep you away from all of that. You’d have fifteen minutes to prep a talk about the dangers of smoking, or whatever the topic was. You had to structure the talk, and it had to be five minutes long.

The third part was you had a prepared presentation with visual aids — this is when we still used projector screens and slides.

VINH GIANG: Classic.

JAY SHETTY: And then you were tested on that, including the visual aids you used. And I’m sure there were a couple of other things as well. And then you’d get graded. And it was uncomfortable — we’d be sitting in a class, and remember, we’re all young teenagers at this point, so everyone’s even more judgmental. You get into the class and you’re all making these weird faces to try to warm yourselves up, and they’re telling you to enunciate and pronounce all the letters differently, and you’re doing all these silly things, and your friends are laughing at you.

And it’s exactly what you’re saying — the reason I brought it up is that it was years of discomfort. It was just years of looking silly, looking stupid, sounding bad, giving a bad talk, giving a bad presentation, walking into a room, to then all of a sudden that discomfort changed to confidence.

And I find that for most of us, especially as you get older, going through that discomfort becomes harder. For example, I tried to pick up a sport a couple of years ago in the pandemic — it was much harder for me to learn a sport at this age than if I’d played it in my teens. So when you’re meeting people who are in their twenties, thirties, maybe forties, fifties, and they’re trying to change their instrument, change their voice, that discomfort is so much harder than when I started at eleven or whatever age you started at. How do you encourage people to sit with that discomfort, to go through that, because it is harder?

VINH GIANG: Such a beautiful insight that you shared there. The reason it was easier for you at eleven is because you were new to a lot of these behaviors.

JAY SHETTY: Completely.

VINH GIANG: The behaviors hadn’t been ingrained in you yet, whereas when you’re forty now — and I’m thirty-eight, so—

JAY SHETTY: I’m thirty-seven, so yeah, okay.

VINH GIANG: So once you’re forty and you realize this, you’ve done forty years of repeating one behavior, two behaviors, a series of behaviors over and over and over again. That’s why it becomes harder, right? And all of a sudden it becomes way more difficult, because now you have to unlearn something that you’ve been repeating for that long. So I think that’s really difficult.

One other point I wanted to mention — you said you went through years of discomfort. A lot of people have this idea that it should just be a quick process, and if I’m struggling for a period, then something’s not right. It’s like, no, no, no, struggle is good. It means you’re in the process of change. You’re going through the process of change, and you have to be willing to put in that effort, go through the struggle.

And I think the thing that people are resistant to is failing, because I believe — and I want to ask you this question — did you learn more from your successes in those public speaking exams, or did you learn more from your failures?

JAY SHETTY: Failures.

VINH GIANG: People don’t want to fail now. “I don’t want to make a video, put it out on Instagram where I’ve made a fool of myself” — but that’s how we learn. “I don’t want to do a speech where I forget what I’m going to say” — but that’s how you learn. You have it happen, then you go back and you go, “Okay, why did I forget? Oh, it wasn’t well rehearsed. Why did I forget? I didn’t know how to deal with my nerves. Now I need to learn how to rehearse. Now I need to learn how to manage my nerves.” So all of a sudden, if you don’t fail, you don’t know where your weakness is, and then you don’t know what to work on. So you’ve got to pay the price. Back to your original question.

JAY SHETTY: No, that’s great, I am so glad you brought that up.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, it’s so important, because I think people now are resistant to failing, yet we learn far more from our failures than we do from our successes.

JAY SHETTY: For sure.

One Behavior at a Time

VINH GIANG: So for the person who’s forty — “Oh my God, Vin, what do I do, am I doomed?” No, no, you’re not. It’s just that when Jay was eleven, he was able to work on three or four different behaviors at the same time, because you’re so elastic at that age — there’s so many things that could change about you. But when you’re less elastic in your older years, you just now have to focus on one thing at a time.

So I’ve coached a few CEOs of some pretty big companies here in the US, and it’s so funny, because when I map out their coaching program and show it to them, they get upset, because they’re like, “Wait, you’re making me work on my volume for four weeks, and that’s all we’re doing? This feels stupid.” And in those moments, I just had the courage to go, “Well, look, then pick somebody else. It’s okay, get a refund, pick somebody else.”

Because I kind of said to them, “You’re fifty, and you’ve been speaking with a very default quiet volume for fifty years. Do you expect to be able to change that in forty-eight hours?” Because I get them to send me a video every day. And every time they send me a video, I go, “Watch what you’re doing” — for the first seven days, even though we’re working on volume, your default volume is like a four out of ten. And that’s when they go, “Oh, far out, I keep defaulting back to it.”

So the older you are, you’ve got to realize — one thing at a time, one thing at a time. But it drives people crazy. “I want to do seven things, man — I want to do hand gestures, I want to learn how to storytell, I want to use volume, I want to add pitch and melody, I want to do all of it.” But that’s also what leads to no change. That’s why most people never change the way they sound, because they’re not willing to sit and be patient and do one thing at a time.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. A good example is thinking about it like driving. How many bad driving habits have we picked up in the last twenty years because we haven’t been tested, we haven’t reviewed it? Scary, right? I recently had to redo my driving test because of moving here and getting a state ID and all that kind of stuff, and I realized just how many bad habits you pick up. Now, I believed myself to be a safe driver and a good driver and a responsible driver, but still — the fact that for twenty years no one’s watched me and checked on my driving, you lose that. So that’s twenty years of driving, which is something we do every day, similar to speaking. You’re doing it every day, but no one’s — you’re not recording yourself driving and sending it to someone.

Unconscious Competence and the Path to Mastery

VINH GIANG: You just made me think of something when you said driving as well. When you think back to the four stages of learning we talked about before, and you talk about unconscious competence — to give people a sense of what’s possible once you really go down the path of mastery of communication skills, think of an area in your life where you have achieved unconscious competence. It’s driving. Whether we’re good or not is another thing, but most people, I would dare say, are kind of unconscious when they’re driving because they’re so good at it — you’ve done it every single day of your adult life, so you’ve gotten to a point where you are unconsciously competent.

And then people always ask me, “When you communicate now, are you thinking about gesturing? Are you thinking about storytelling?” No, I don’t. Because, like with the car — when you want to go to the grocery store, do you have any thought now into, “Oh, I need to open the door, I need to check my blind spot, I need to adjust my—”? No, it’s all automatic.

So the reason I try to inspire my students to improve their communication skills is because I say to them, that means in the very next conversation you have with a client, a customer, a family member, you can just think, “I want this outcome, I want to be able to help them in this way,” and your skills and abilities will just take you there. And that’s why you come across in these podcasts, and the professional people who do this, it’s so natural. And when people are sitting there going, “I want to be that natural,” it requires a dedication to mastery.

Practiced Spontaneity

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, and that’s the point that I really want people to get. I remember sitting and watching one of my favorite comedians, who became a friend, and he was just brilliant. He would have the audience laughing and in raptures, in the palm of his hand. But everything looked and felt completely off the cuff. He’d literally just turn up on stage — it wasn’t like he was in the flow. Sometimes you watch a comedian and you can tell there’s an arc, you can tell there’s a story, you can tell it’s planned. This guy would literally come up and be like, “Hey, has anyone read any books lately?” And someone would name a book, and he’d be like, “Oh yeah, I read that,” and make a joke out of it. And then someone else, “What’s your favorite song right now?” And it’s all a conversation — brings out a song, “Oh yeah, I can’t believe he said that lyric,” makes a joke about the lyric. And it was unbelievable to watch.

I spoke to him afterward and said, “Who did you learn that from? Where did that come from?” He said, “I’ve practiced it so much that it looks spontaneous, but it’s completely trained.” And I think that’s what everyone wants — everyone wants it to look spontaneous.

VINH GIANG: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: But that took years of discomfort, courage, failure, training, mastery. When I’m telling a story or hosting a podcast, I’m not trying to sound like anything.

VINH GIANG: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: Because your voice has, for so many years, become that way. And I’m at a point in my career where — I was asked to give, I just gave three keynotes in the Middle East in January, and in Dubai, and I said to myself, “I’m going to walk into these and just channel.” I just wanted to go in there and just be. I had some notes, I knew what I needed to talk about, I knew the title of the talk, but I was just going to be. And I had so much fun there. It seemed like the feedback was great from the audience, whatever, but it was just so much fun for me because I was like, I just want to feed off the energy in the room.

And my friend, one of my best friends, he came with me, and he was like, “Jay, every talk was different.” He said, “At the one billion dollar summit, you were hilarious, it was like watching a comedian.” And then, “At Mindvalley, it was really deep and philosophical.” And then at the other place, the corporate event, it was very professional. He said there were three talks in three days and they were all completely different. And I was like, because I was just feeling the energy of the room, and I love that.

Walk me through how many hours, how much time, how many years have you seen people take to get to a point where they feel that sense — not of mastery, because that can take many years, but a sense of comfortability where it’s flowing and they don’t feel phony and contrived anymore. What have you seen?

VINH GIANG: It depends — your shortest, longest?

JAY SHETTY: What have you seen?

VINH GIANG: I’ve seen unbelievable change within six months. And this is someone who has become “problem aware” — that this thing has been destroying my relationships, destroying my career growth. And when that pain becomes that great and you become problem aware, I can’t believe how quickly some of my students have been able to change. And then I’ve seen it take as long as three or four years.

JAY SHETTY: And they’re still great, though.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, exactly. And I’ll get an email three to four years later and they go, “I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to email you, I almost feel a little bit ashamed.” I’m like, “No, no, because it took me ten.” So that’s amazing, that’s incredible, right? Because it ranges so much depending on the intensity of the pain they feel and the realizations they have.

I have to bring it back to what you said before, about you going to three events and just going with the flow. I know the people listening to this right now, while you were saying that, they were clenching their butt cheeks, because they were like, “Oh, that’s so freaky.” And I wanted to speak to that, because what you just described to me is one of the ultimate benefits of mastery in this arena, and it’s freedom. You were free in each one of those speeches. You were free to go where the audience wanted to go. That’s one of the things I rarely ever get to even talk about, because I don’t often get to speak with others who are so proficient at this skill set.

That’s ultimate freedom, Jay. When you feel something, you think something, and you’re immediately, in the moment, able to articulate it with clarity and make people laugh at the same time — that is so powerful, man.

JAY SHETTY: I’m getting shivers just you saying it. It’s like goosebumps.

VINH GIANG: And to know you’re going into that, being able to do that — it’s achievable for you listening to this too.

First Experiences on Stage

JAY SHETTY: What I love about it is that there was so much discovery for me on that stage, and that’s what I do it for. I don’t do it to show off, or be like, “Oh look, I don’t need to prepare,” or be lazy, or not respect my client. I do it for discovery. And what I mean by that is when I don’t plan to a hundred percent, I now have the opportunity to find and discover in the moment. So there were so many things that I said in those three keynotes that I’ve never said in my life, and that’s where I get joy.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, you create.

JAY SHETTY: And I said that first because I wanted to take it back and ask you about your first experience of public speaking. I want to ask you about yours. Mine was around seven years old — my mom always wanted me to be on stage and do things like that, and I didn’t want to. It was a religious assembly, and I was dressed as people from my culture. I was asked to go and sing and speak on this prayer in front of my class.

Now, I grew up in London, in an area where there weren’t a lot of Indian people like me. I’m now on stage dressed in traditional garb — basically me wrapped in a sari, if you’ve ever seen that.

VINH GIANG: Yes, I have.

JAY SHETTY: And my mom had even put some makeup on me, probably to try to make me look more the part. It didn’t help. And then I’m on stage in front of all my friends — I’m seven, eight years old, something like that. And I stand up there with this prayer that I’m not that well-versed in or practiced, and I start singing it. I have a terrible singing voice, and that’s not humble — there’s a difference between a speaking voice and a singing voice, I can’t sing to save my life.

And I start singing, and the whole audience starts laughing immediately — literally all my friends are rolling on the floor laughing. And now I’m starting to cry because I felt really embarrassed. And I looked down because I forgot the words, and now I can’t see the words because my tears have blurred them on my paper. So I’ve lost the notes, and I also don’t know the words. And then, to make it even worse, my teacher walks on stage, puts her arm around me, and walks me off, which is the most embarrassing thing in the world.

And so I go from that at eight years old — and this is why I love what you’re doing for the world, because you’re showing and proving you can build this skill, it is a muscle — and that was my first experience of public speaking. A few years after that, after all the training as well, I was probably speaking to rooms of zero to five people and pouring my heart out into just five people. And even now, when I look back, I loved it, because I just got to be so proficient and practiced. So when someone’s saying, “Oh, do I have to do this for four weeks?” or “Only five people are showing up,” those are actually really beautiful moments.

I wanted to ask you, what was your first time public speaking? What was the first ever experience on stage?

VINH GIANG: Have you recovered from that experience?

JAY SHETTY: I have now. I have now. But even though I started getting trained when I was eleven, I probably didn’t get half decent until I was like seventeen or eighteen. That’s why when you said you can get people there in three to four years, I’m like, that’s pretty good, because if I started at eleven, I probably got half decent at sixteen to eighteen. I wasn’t good when I was like twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

VINH GIANG: All those years — it’s such a common story among many of the students that I coach. There usually is some kind of event when they were younger that has led them to believe “I’m terrible at this thing” because there wasn’t the right support. You were thrown into that, you didn’t even practice, you didn’t even learn the words. So you were set up to almost fail. And a lot of the oral presentations that we do when we’re young — that’s what they’re called — we’re set up to fail.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: When you’re eleven and you have to do this presentation in front of your class — do they teach you how to use your hands? Do they teach you where to put your notes? Do they teach you how to summarize notes and not write the whole thing on cue cards? No, they’re setting you up to fail. So this is such a common story, because our school system — the entire year, there’s one day: “Well, we have to go in front of the class and do it.” And guess what happens that day? “I’m sick, Mom, I can’t go to school.” Then you miss the one day of training. And if you do the training, you’re all set up to fail.

So every person has a version of this. My version is a little more dramatic because I was older. I was in university, and we had to do a presentation for accounting, and I was so nervous — I remember going to the bathroom ten, twelve times, so nervous. And then I got up on stage, and I had a sniffle, so I kept touching my nose. And then I got a nosebleed. I didn’t realize I had a nosebleed because I thought it was just boogers, so I just wiped it. Blood comes across my face — I don’t know I have blood on my face while I’m speaking.

A blood vessel had gone — I was so nervous, everything was going crazy. And I didn’t realize it was blood, and I was still talking, and then people started laughing, and then I tasted blood. And the moment I tasted blood, I looked at my hands — there was blood everywhere. I started freaking out, I didn’t know what to do. The teachers didn’t even know what to do either. Do you know what I had to do? I finished the talk — it was only a five-minute presentation, but I finished it, because I didn’t know what to do and I panicked. And it was just the worst presentation I’d ever given.

From that point, I just thought, “Yep, I’m going to avoid this at all costs. I’m never going to do it ever again. This is the worst experience of my life.” And then I walked off — I’m glad there were no videos or photos back then.

JAY SHETTY: Oh, there’s no—

VINH GIANG: Yeah, that’s so traumatic.

JAY SHETTY: Wow, that is traumatic, man, to actually bleed, to be that nervous, to be that stressed.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, that’s how stressed I was.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, to experience that.

Accents Are Not the Problem

JAY SHETTY: I love that that’s where you started. And now, when I watch your videos, I’m like, this guy is a genius. And it’s one of the things I was thinking about as we’re doing this, and I’m really trying to put myself in your audience’s shoes, my audience’s shoes, the community that struggles with this. One thing that I’ve definitely seen as I’ve traveled, and we both have international audiences, is this fear that people have around their accents.

VINH GIANG: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: And that can often make people quite unconfident.

VINH GIANG: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: And it’s really interesting, because obviously when I moved to the States, people really enjoy listening to a British accent in the States. But where I was growing up in London, to me, the smartest people sounded like they had American accents — professors, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford. When you heard these professors do TED Talks or whatever it was, it was always in an American accent. And it’s almost like in England, we grew up on American rap music — you grow up in such a culture that our feelings are skewed toward certain accents. And so if you’re from a country — or a state, or anywhere, even in the United States — you may feel like your accent isn’t well received. How does someone deal with that kind of pressure?

VINH GIANG: I just believe accents are rarely a problem. It’s really the articulation and the pronunciation that lets people down. Because I just feel that accents are beautiful. I’ve got students from all over the world, and I love listening to the accent because it tells a story, it tells me who you are.

Where it lets you down is — like when I first came to the US, I didn’t realize I had so much Australian slang. Australians shorten all of our words. It’s like, “Yeah, man, I wanna—” “Yeah, maybe I won’t, you know.” I didn’t realize I was doing so much of that. And people go, “Oh, Australian accent is awesome.” Yeah, if I talk for a sec, you won’t even understand what I’m saying if I don’t articulate and pronounce my words correctly.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: So I really believe that. And I have this happen all the time in my in-person classes, where someone will come and ask that very question, and they’ll have a Polish accent, or maybe an Indian accent. And then the moment I just get them to over-articulate and practice, all of a sudden it completely changes how they sound.

And here’s where it happens: I learned the Vietnamese language, so I learned a set of Vietnamese mouth movements. My big mistake was when I learned English, I used the same set of mouth movements from the Vietnamese language to speak the English language.

JAY SHETTY: Fascinating.

VINH GIANG: Right? So all of a sudden, when I speak English, my accent wasn’t the problem — the problem was I wasn’t articulating correctly, so people didn’t understand me. I used to not pronounce my Ts. British people are good with this, but Australians and even Asians, I didn’t do it. So I’d say things like, “I can’t” — I wouldn’t pronounce that properly. And my Ts, I would say “free” — “Oh, can I have free of those instead of three of those?”

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: And what people were associating with low levels of intelligence was not so much my accent, but that I didn’t articulate my words well. And this can happen in any culture, with any accent. I’ve heard people with Chinese accents, Indian accents, Polish accents, Russian accents, but when they articulate their words beautifully, it’s like you get to listen to a different genre of music. Otherwise, imagine everyone sounded like us.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: There’s no flavor.

JAY SHETTY: There’s no personality.

VINH GIANG: Personality. Again, I do not believe accents are a problem — I believe the problem lies in your ability to articulate and your pronunciation. And here’s a quick activity that can help.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, go for it.

The Pen Exercise

VINH GIANG: One of the greatest things I learned that my speech pathologist made me do was, first of all, grab a book, and every single day, grab the book for five minutes — four times a day if you want to take it seriously, every time for five minutes. Read the book and overdo your lip movements, overdo the tongue movements. And if you want to take it to the next level, put a pen in your mouth. Because if you put a pen in your mouth, you’re forced to over-articulate and do it out loud.

And by doing this — and record yourself while you’re doing it too — you’ll start to learn, “Oh wow, I struggle with this sound, this consonant, this vowel.” And as you bring a little bit of awareness to it, you go, “All right, I need to change the way I’m shaping my lips, I need to change—” and just going through that process alone, I remember doing that for three months.

JAY SHETTY: Wow.

VINH GIANG: And I had to do that when I came here to the US, because I slurred my words a lot. In Australia, you fully understand me fine, mate — no dramas with that, eh? But over here, all of a sudden — I still remember speaking in Texas for the first time, it was so sweet, they’re like, “I love the guy, but I ain’t got no idea what he’s saying.” And it was this weird thing where I literally had to go see a speech pathologist even later in my life, because in Australia it wasn’t a problem, and I didn’t realize it. But when I slurred my words that much, it made people think I wasn’t smart.

JAY SHETTY: Right.

VINH GIANG: And this is why people in the world think the British are so smart — is it just the accent, or is it because they articulate extremely well?

JAY SHETTY: Right, right.

VINH GIANG: So you can sound smart in any culture, with any accent.

JAY SHETTY: Should we get a couple of pens? Just so that people realize and see what it is, and that we also need to do these. I’m probably going to contact you straight after this and say, “Vin, I’m not kidding, I mean this, thank you so much.” What type of pen? Does it matter?

VINH GIANG: Oh, it doesn’t matter.

JAY SHETTY: It doesn’t matter, it could be a Sharpie.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think the more challenging the pen is, the better.

JAY SHETTY: That one, I think I’ve already chewed off. Let’s not give you one that I’ve already— Thank you, there we go.

VINH GIANG: This one does not have bite marks.

JAY SHETTY: No, no, no, exactly. Look, you can see what I’ve done with this one. Wait one second.

VINH GIANG: We’ll do this for a segment.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, but what I was saying was, as soon as we finish this podcast, I’m probably going to message you and say, “Vin, can you please critique all of my—” I’m going to send you a speech and ask you to help me get better. Because I think the mistake is that once you get there, you think you don’t need these techniques anymore.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, yeah.

JAY SHETTY: Or that you don’t need to improve and that you don’t need to work on it, practice anymore. I think about it all the time. So anyway, let’s—

VINH GIANG: Can you see how difficult this is?

JAY SHETTY: Very difficult.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, all of a sudden, right? And I want people to think about this — who can you understand better right now?

JAY SHETTY: I’m not sure.

VINH GIANG: You’ve got to give me more than that, Jay.

JAY SHETTY: Okay, so Vin, how are you today?

VINH GIANG: Feeling a little bit jet-lagged.

JAY SHETTY: Okay.

VINH GIANG: Because I came all the way from Australia.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I just got back from Mexico yesterday.

VINH GIANG: Oh, that’s great.

JAY SHETTY: And I went to a friend’s wedding, and we had a really good time.

VINH GIANG: Oh, that’s beautiful.

JAY SHETTY: I’m really happy for him.

VINH GIANG: Oh, so happy for you. It’s in doing these things that all of a sudden — now that I speak, I feel like, “Oh, I’m so sharp.”

JAY SHETTY: Totally, I can feel it too.

VINH GIANG: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: Even just from a few moments.

VINH GIANG: Because you’re forced to stretch your mouth so much bigger to make the shapes, to be able to create the sounds. Whereas the biggest problem — and this happens in the English language — when you think about the European languages, the Asian languages, we actually don’t have to drop our jaw a lot to speak those languages.

JAY SHETTY: Interesting.

VINH GIANG: Because when I speak Vietnamese, I can do a lot of it with my mouth closed. I barely have to move my jaw. English is one of the very few languages where, when you consciously think about how you’re speaking, you have to drop your jaw so much to speak the English language well. Whereas again, the Asian cultures, European languages, you don’t have to.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: Again, each language has a different set of mouth movements. So by doing that simply, alone, you felt it straight away.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I felt it.

VINH GIANG: You had to move your jaw so much.

JAY SHETTY: Totally. I can actually feel like we’ve worked out — that’s what it feels like.

VINH GIANG: And that we did it for thirty seconds.

JAY SHETTY: Absolutely. And you can keep that pen.

VINH GIANG: Oh, thank you. Yeah, I didn’t think you wanted it back.

JAY SHETTY: I genuinely feel the difference from such a short period of time. And I could tell if I did it for longer, it would make an even bigger difference.

VINH GIANG: Well, imagine you did that for five minutes and started dedicating yourself to that. My goodness, within a week, you’ll notice your mouth moving differently, and you’ll notice yourself sounding more clear. Accents are not a problem — you’ve got to stop thinking that. People always go, “Oh, I hate my accent.” That tells a story. It’s your culture, it’s your history, it’s what makes you unique. I always love to think of it as different genres of music.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, yes. And that’s what we’re seeing in music in the world right now anyway — you’re seeing languages pour in through different artists and people, and there’s such a need for that.

What You Say Versus How You Say It

JAY SHETTY: I wanted to ask you something, because this was a big evolution point for me. From eleven to eighteen, I went to public speaking school, I got the tools, is how I like to see it. But it was only when I met the monks and started to learn about Eastern wisdom and philosophy that I felt I had something to talk about. And I wanted to ask you, how much do you weight the balance between what you have to say and how you say it?

VINH GIANG: Both equally important. I see some books where they go, “No, what you say is more important.” And then some books say, “No, how you say it is more important.” And I think they kind of have to say that sometimes because they’re an expert in one particular arena. But I believe the answer is not “which one,” it’s both — both are just as critical.

Same with me. I think until I found the purpose and the fulfillment from teaching public speaking, I didn’t really have much to talk about.

JAY SHETTY: Right.

VINH GIANG: I didn’t. And until I found that, then all of a sudden I started creating content, and the content started to take off. I think it’s because — I love how you’ve positioned what you do here, it’s “on purpose.” When I found that purpose, and I had the tools, and I was able to use my instrument, then all of a sudden the world resonated with that.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: Whereas before, I did make YouTube videos back in 2008, 2009, just for fun, but they didn’t really go anywhere, because even though I had decent access to my instrument, it just didn’t go anywhere, because I wasn’t aligned. You could hear it — it wasn’t on purpose.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, no, I’m glad I brought that up, because I think a lot of people are struggling with either-or. Someone may come to you, they may learn all the tools, but then they’re going to have to find what they use it for. And like you said, there may be someone else who actually has lots of knowledge—

VINH GIANG: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: —but then they don’t have the tools to share the wisdom or the insight.

VINH GIANG: And that’s generally the student that somehow discovers me. It’s the one that has something to share with the world, but for some reason, every time they share it, people misunderstand them. Every time they share it, it doesn’t get the impact they desire. And it’s true — because you could have the greatest piece of music written by Beethoven, but if you play it poorly, is it the greatest music?

And it’s so interesting, because I understand my students so intimately now, where I know what they’ll say. They say things in their life like, “I’m just going to let my work speak for itself.” Why not speak for your work too? Why can’t we do both? Why are we so linear?

JAY SHETTY: So good, right?

VINH GIANG: And when they realize that, they go, “Oh, okay, right.” It opens their mind to the whole idea of “I kind of have to take responsibility to shine my light, I can’t wait for someone else.” I remember we have a mutual friend, Mel Robbins, right?

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: Mel helped me with my speaking career. At the start of my speaking career, Mel used to flick me the gigs that couldn’t afford her. I didn’t know that — I became the cheap Mel Robbins for a period.

JAY SHETTY: I didn’t know that.

VINH GIANG: She was amazing and so gracious — well, because she couldn’t do those gigs, or maybe she was busy as well, and she flicked them to me. That’s how she started my career here in the US.

JAY SHETTY: That’s awesome, I didn’t know that.

VINH GIANG: And she was one of the people whose content I saw early on, where she said, “No one’s coming to help you, no one’s coming to save you.” That’s when it really hit home for me too. I went, “Okay, I’m going to have to go do this myself.” And you take ownership for that, and when you take ownership, you step into your power. When you blame others, you kind of lose all of that.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

Slowing Down and the Power of the Pause

JAY SHETTY: What about someone who comes to you and says, “I talk too fast”? How do you teach people to slow down? Because I think we’re all scared of pauses — everyone’s always trying to fill the gaps. Even if you’re in a conversation with someone, we don’t like pauses. I’ve, for years, had to practice the ability to say, “It’s okay if I need to look away, if I need to think, if I need to reflect, if I actually just need to take something in,” whether I’m on a podcast, on stage, or in a private meeting. How do we get comfortable with slowing down and pausing rather than trying to fill all the space, because that’s such a natural thing to do?

VINH GIANG: The first thing I would say — if you speak really fast, well done for being aware that you do. Most people are not aware of it. A lot of it has to do with your mindset and the state of mind that you’re in. When do you think people speak really fast? When they’re feeling what?

JAY SHETTY: When they’re nervous, scared, anxious, etc.

VINH GIANG: So you kind of have to address it at the core. What you need to do is identify when you’re speaking fast — in which situations. “Oh, it’s when I’m in a job interview.” “Oh, it’s when I’m going in for my quarterly review.” Well, great — now you know in these isolated situations, the triggers are high-pressure situations. That means before you go into those situations, you need to still your mind and your body.

Again, it comes back to breathing. I couldn’t believe it, but there were workshops I was invited to, and I did some of them — I couldn’t believe we could spend three to four days on breathing. And then I found out there was a seven-day workshop on breathing. I went, “Seven days?” There’s so much profound wisdom in the breath, and I did not understand it until I started learning more about it.

So again, breathing before you go in — go with the Wim Hof breathing, and that will slow down your mind and slow down your body. And then all of a sudden it slows down your speech.

The next thing is adrenaline also causes you to speed up and speak really quickly. So before you go into a presentation or something that’s making you nervous, get rid of the adrenaline — some brisk walking, do a couple of push-ups, do some star jumps. I know you call them jumping jacks.

JAY SHETTY: So do a couple of star jumps in England.

VINH GIANG: Oh, you do? Yeah, the Americans have it wrong — who the hell is Jack? So all of a sudden, do twenty star jumps, and when you do that, you get rid of all the adrenaline. The adrenaline is what makes you shake and also what makes you speak really quickly, because when you start to shake, it’s sending signals to your brain that you’re nervous. Now you start to think you’re nervous, and then when you think you’re nervous, now you’re speaking really quickly. So again, these things help slow you down.

Now, those are things you can do before you go in. One last thing you can do before you go in is address what makes us really nervous: being self-conscious. But you can only be self-conscious if you’re thinking about yourself. So stop thinking about yourself, and realize it was never about you. If you’re going on stage, it’s not about you — it’s about every single person you’re going to serve.

And I’ll be honest with you, coming here I felt a bit nervous, but then I thought to myself, “Well, it’s not about me, it’s about me trying to add as much value as I can to Jay’s audience, and it’s about Jay, I want to connect with Jay.” And the moment I made it about you and about the audience we’re about to serve, I had no cognitive capacity left to be nervous, because I’m not thinking about myself.

So, to me, these three small tools — the breathing, getting rid of the adrenaline, and the mindset shift — help calm you down. And now when you go in, if you find yourself racing, then pause and take a deep breath. That’s how you can remedy it. Because if you go in like, “Oh, I’m here, I’m really excited,” you take a deep breath and then continue speaking, and right after the deep breath, it’s going to slow your speech right down. Even when I did it just there, I all of a sudden feel more relaxed now.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: The reason people aren’t comfortable with the pause is because they don’t know what the pause is for.

JAY SHETTY: Right.

VINH GIANG: And when you think the pause is useless, that’s why you develop the behavior of filling the pause — always talking, filler words, “and so, like, do you know what I mean?” We do that because we don’t understand the power of the pause, whereas the pause allows people to process what you’re saying.

Think about it now, listeners — as you’re listening to that, the moment I paused, you just did it again, you had a moment to process the things I was saying. If I just talk really quickly and don’t pause at all, all of a sudden everything I said has no clear points, because you didn’t have any time to process anything I’m saying. Everything after a while becomes mumbo jumbo — it just becomes nothing.

JAY SHETTY: A hundred percent.

VINH GIANG: Whereas pausing gives people time to process. Pausing gives you time to breathe, so that you can relax, so that you don’t speak too quickly. There are so many benefits to it. Think of music again — I love using music analogies — the most important note in an orchestra happens after a crescendo, which is what? Silence. They’ll build to the peak, the musicians will play and play, get to this peak moment, and then — nothing. And the audience is in awe of what they just experienced.

JAY SHETTY: You speak about it so powerfully, and it’s so convincing. I’m like, this has to hit, because I’ve applied that even in Zoom calls, meetings, everything. I think it’s so important not to feel that the person who talks the fastest is the one who will get their point in. And I think that’s sometimes the thing of, “Hey guys, I just really want to share this with you, because if we just did this, this would solve everything, this is the thing” — and it’s almost like you’ve actually lost all importance because of that pace.

VINH GIANG: Also because there’s no clarity.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: If people don’t process anything you say, there’s no clarity.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: You have to think about communication as not what I just send, it’s how it’s being received. It’s not, “Oh, I’ve sent it, it’s done, it’s out there,” and then, “What do you think?” “I don’t even remember what you said.”

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: And I think that’s a big mistake. People often do that because they don’t understand that the way you deliver has an impact on how others receive.

Meeting People Where They Are

JAY SHETTY: Yeah. I really appreciate your switch to “audience consciousness” versus “us consciousness,” because it seems really small, it seems really obvious, it seems, of course, that makes sense — but it really is everything. Because all of a sudden, if you’re thinking about being impressive, that’s a really hard place to live from, because now you’re judging every word that comes out of your mouth, judging whether it’s impressive, whether it’s powerful, whether it’s profound, whatever it is. And now you actually have no thinking space to actually be profound, impressive, and all those things you wanted to be — it’s just not possible.

Whereas if you were thinking, “What’s that person in the audience struggling with? What are they really struggling with? What’s their challenge?” — and that’s how we started this conversation, I asked, “What’s everyone worried about when they come to you?” Because to me, that’s the most important thing. And if I know that what they’re worried about is their accent, their voice, whatever it may be, now all of a sudden I can address that, I can speak to that, and I can make them aware that I’m aware of that.

And that’s the same in a meeting. I think if someone said to me in a meeting, “Jay, I know that you really want the podcast to be a special place for people to really learn, grow, and heal, I know that it’s a big priority in your life, I know it’s something you’ve put your heart into for six years — this is how to make it better,” all of a sudden I’m like, “I’m all ears,” because I feel like you actually get where I’m at and where I’m coming from. Whereas if someone said, “Hey, I’ve just got this really great idea I want to share with you all,” I’m like, well, I don’t know if it’s a great idea or not, because I don’t even know if we’re on the same page.

I wanted to ask you to walk me through some of the ways people can establish, by what they’re saying and how they say it — you did this beautiful video, you’re on stage — I loved it, I absolutely loved it, and I realized I do it unconsciously, and when I saw you explain it, I was like, “There you go, that’s why you’re such a great coach and such a great teacher.” It was that idea of meeting people where they’re at. You were saying that when people come to you and say, “Oh Vin, you’re amazing on stage, you were great,” and they speak really quietly, and you come back at that and go, “Yeah, what did you like about it?”

VINH GIANG: Yeah. Or even worse, like, “Oh, thank you so much,” because sometimes you bring that stage persona straight down.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, oh yeah.

VINH GIANG: And how did I learn that? Because that’s what I started with, and you see them just — and then they freak out.

JAY SHETTY: But that’s what I wanted to ask you — so how do we do that in a meeting? How do we do that in our daily life?

VINH GIANG: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: Where sometimes what we’re saying, but also how we’re saying it, we’re not even giving it the importance it deserves. How do we establish more authority and influence when we are sharing an idea, when we are proposing a method?

VINH GIANG: You’ve heard a lot of body language experts say you match and mirror people — to build rapport, to make it about them, to build a connection, you match and mirror their body language. But what a lot of people don’t realize is you can also match and mirror their vocal foundations.

So when you think about the voice and divide it into five different categories — rate of speech, volume, pitch and melody, tonality, and the pause — now all of a sudden you have these five factors you can start to think about when you’re talking to people.

So if someone comes up to you and they’re naturally speaking a little bit quickly because they’re nervous, and they’re speaking a little bit lower volume, and the melody doesn’t have as great a range, and you notice these things, then you match and mirror where they are with their voice too. And people immediately feel like, “Oh, you’re approachable.”

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: And it’s not that we stay there — some people go, “Oh, but that’s inauthentic, that’s not right.” No, no, that’s you being a great and dynamic communicator. That’s you going, “Hey, I’m going to meet you where you are to make you feel comfortable, to build connection, to make it about you.” Meet them where they are, and then slowly you take them back out. You go, “Hey, thank you for coming up and saying hello, but can I just ask you quickly, what did you really take away, what was the key thing you took away? Oh, you took that away? That’s awesome. I’m so happy that you came up and had a chat with me.” All of a sudden, once you’re in rapport, you can take them to where you want to go.

And that’s something you can take onto a Zoom call — you meet them where they are. If someone’s really excited about an idea they want to bring to you, you can meet them there with that excitement to show them respect. As opposed to a lot of the times previously in my life, someone would come to me really excited, and I have one gear — I’m just one gear. I’m like, “Oh, that sounds really cool, yeah, that’s great, awesome man.” And I didn’t realize that made them feel less important.

Whereas now I’ve learned that when someone comes to me with a peak emotion, even if it’s frustration, I will mirror that for them, to show them that I feel them. “Ah, man, that sucks.” So it’s not just in the words that I use, I deliver it in a way so they can hear that I’m with you, I’m on the same page.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: It’s one of the fastest ways to build rapport with people.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I think that’s so important, because you could start up a Zoom call and someone turns up and they’re in a really sad, low mood.

VINH GIANG: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: And in your head you’re thinking, “Come on, bring more energy,” right? And then you get frustrated, and now you feel you’re dragging them up a hill. Whereas if you were like, “Hey, I just want to check in with you, are you all right? How’s it going?”

VINH GIANG: You lower your volume too.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: You meet them where they are. “Hey, I noticed on the other call you weren’t yourself, are you okay?” And all of a sudden, people are way more likely to open up if you used your instrument in that way, as opposed to, “Oh mate, what’s going on? Come on, look at the weather outside, it’s amazing today, what’s going on?” They’re definitely not opening up to that person.

But I didn’t have that sensitivity growing up. I didn’t know why so many of my relationships when I was young would fail. I remember one of my partners, when I was really young, I would say to her on a Friday night, “Hey, I know we’ve got dinner plans tonight, but the guys are doing a LAN party, we’re going to go play CS:GO, can I go?” And she’d go, “Yeah, fine, just go then.” And I thought, “You are the most amazing girlfriend, I thought you would have said no.” And then the next day she broke up with me, and I’m like, “Why? She said yes.” And that’s when I went through that era where I was like, “Women are so confusing, it doesn’t make sense, you said I could go.” And it was because I wasn’t listening to the emotion in the voice. I didn’t even have that gear, man. I just thought, “What people say, that’s it, I take you for what you said, so it’s fine.”

JAY SHETTY: And we justify it. Yeah, we think, “No, but you did say that.”

VINH GIANG: But you did, yes. I know I did, but that’s not the point. And then, yeah — but again, having sensitivity now, I’ve got so many different gears now, Jay. And that’s the analogy I love to use — a lot of people feel like there’s only one version of me, and I’m this version of me in every situation. That’s like having a car with one gear. We are so much more dynamic than that as a human being.

I get my students to think about this all the time. Think about when you’re angry, you use your voice differently, you use your body language differently. When you’ve done something wrong — like when I’ve stayed out with the guys too late one night, I come home and I talk different to my wife, I’m like, “I know, I’m sorry,” and I’m very sheepish. You’re different when you’ve done something wrong. We use our instrument differently in every single one of those situations. But when we don’t consciously think about it, sometimes we can default to just one gear. We show up to the interview the exact same way we show up everywhere, and we show up in just one rigid gear, and we go, “Why am I not standing out? Why don’t I get more attention? Why don’t I get that promotion that I deserve?” You’ve got to learn to be more dynamic.

Being as Big as the Room

JAY SHETTY: I’m really glad you made that point, because I was saying that to you earlier — when I’m on the podcast, I’m a certain way because it’s a conversation. But when I’m on stage, I get the license to be funny and banter with people and bring people in the audience into that conversation, because I can.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, you’re a bigger version of you.

JAY SHETTY: Totally. I always say that when I’m on stage, I’m the 360 version of myself, because I get to be all things to everyone I want to be. Whereas here, I’m having a one-to-one conversation — this is kind of what I’m like when I’m having a one-to-one conversation with a friend, a family member, whatever it may be, because that’s my natural way of being. And then if I’m making a video where there’s no people, I find that’s the most minimal version of me.

VINH GIANG: Oh really?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, because to me it’s all about energy exchange. So if I’m in a room full of ten, twenty, thirty people, maybe ten thousand people, there’s so much energy to play with — it can be fun, it could be this, it could be that. When I’m with you, we’re matching each other’s energy. And then if I’m on my own and there’s just a camera, I can think about who’s going to watch it, but really I’m only letting one percent of me be me — for me, I’m saying, I’m not saying that’s the way for everyone.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, no, but it brings up a really important insight that I learned along the way, and it’s: be as big as the room.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: And you notice how sometimes people do this incorrectly, and I used to be one of those people.

JAY SHETTY: Tell me how you do that incorrectly.

VINH GIANG: Well, because when I first learned about all this, I went, “Oh wow, this is amazing, I’m going to bring this,” and then people are like, “Ah, it’s a little bit much, don’t you think?” And I used to do that because I had no sensitivity — I just thought, “Oh no, this is really good, I should be like this all the time.” And then I realized, no, no, no, just that simple rule of “be as big as the room.”

Again, the version of you — I’m assuming, if you’re in front of ten thousand people, and we went out and said, “Oh hey everyone, it’s great to be here,” it won’t work — unless you’re Eckhart Tolle, then it’s totally fine, that’s on brand. Whereas all of a sudden, you need to bring a much bigger version of you. But you have to develop that sensitivity.

Whereas I see sometimes, when my students who are new to communication skills miss the mark, more often than not, they’re too small.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: They have this fear: “I’m going to be too much.” No, no, no — the danger is not that you’re too much, the danger is that you’ve been living way too small. For me, it’s always about pushing them up. But the fear they have is, “But it’s too much.” I’m like, no, no, no, it’s too little, you’re playing too small. So again, that sensitivity is important to develop. When you’re with thirty people, it’s a different version of you, and it’s okay, because you have to be a bigger version of you to be effective in that medium. Otherwise, it can come across like you don’t care.

JAY SHETTY: It’s such an art. And what we’re talking about is obviously the spectrum of expertise, the mastery, all the way through to the challenge. And it does blow my mind that public speaking comes out as the number one fear in the world, and seventy-five percent of the world’s population is scared of public speaking. And it’s something we have to do every single day.

Learning from Creators

VINH GIANG: And people think, “But I’m not on stage.” Yeah, but anytime you open your mouth in public, that’s public speaking. You’re publicly speaking every single day. And that also shows an opportunity, Jay — if seventy-five percent of people fear it, that means only one in four people actually do it. So if you can get good at this skill, you now have a competitive edge.

One of the greatest things I’ve noticed is why creators become such great communicators. Watch creators — why do they become such great communicators? It’s because they film themselves every single day, and they watch it back, and they notice behaviors that serve them and behaviors that don’t serve them, and then they remove the behaviors that don’t serve them.

One of the things I always ask a lot of creators is, “So what formal communication training did you do?” And they’re like, “What are you talking about?” I’m like, “I had to learn for so many years.” And that’s why I want to bring it back again for the listeners — that simple process. If you just committed to recording yourself once a week, you will now have one of the competitive edges that all creators have. They’re impeccable communicators.

And why do you keep going back to the creators that you love every single week, why do you keep watching every video? It’s because they’re able to form a connection with you. What skill are they using to form that connection? The ability to communicate and articulate ideas with clarity. So all of a sudden you see the hidden secret there.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: It’s about they just keep putting in the reps.

JAY SHETTY: I never even put two and two together — it’s such a great point that they’re actually practicing that exact method. And that videoing yourself — I did it when I left the monastery and got a job at Accenture. We had someone come and do public speaking training while we were at the company. I wish it was you, it wasn’t.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, I would have been terrible at it at the time.

JAY SHETTY: No, but they had us film ourselves, and it was really interesting to me. I believed at that point that I was — I wouldn’t say I was a seasoned speaker, but I was a very experienced speaker, because even as a monk, I gave three-hour lectures every day. There was a lot of speaking involved in teaching from scripture, wisdom, and the literature we had.

But it was really interesting — as a monk, I would sit and speak. You’d sit on a low bench, called a vyasasana in the Indian language, I don’t know how it would be described. It’s a very low, small seat. You’re sitting cross-legged, lotus position, and your hands are usually resting. You may use some hand gestures, but generally they’re resting, and it’s a smaller group. I would stand and talk if I was giving a talk to university students, which I did while I was a monk as well, and maybe there’d be a circle of people.

But then we videoed ourselves, and it was really interesting — I found myself in that video just doing this the whole time. And then I watched that video back, and I found that that’s all I did with my hands at that time. And it was so powerful to see how — and it looked so cringe, but every time I made a point, I’d do this, and then come back to here. As a monk, our palms would naturally be resting in meditation, whatever. And it was so interesting how I’d taken that habit right into my work life. And I was giving a corporate talk at the time. But what I’m saying is I’m reiterating the point of needing to film yourself speaking — I stand by it fully, and I think you’re spot-on making people do it.

VINH GIANG: It’s so cool to geek out on this, because you’ve had so much training in this arena. Even as you listen to this, you already know what great communication looks like, because you’ve been to a conference and a speaker walks out on stage — within ten seconds, you now make a decision whether you’re listening or you’re not.

JAY SHETTY: A hundred percent.

VINH GIANG: And you make a big decision whether you’re going to go to your social media feed or not. So there are certain cues that you recognize as being engaging — “Oh, the way they’re using their voice, I’m in. The way they’re using their body language, oh, I’m in.” So you already have all of that information in your mind. But here’s where it gets interesting — you’ve never applied any of those ideas in your head to yourself.

So you’ll be shocked, because again, when you all of a sudden watch yourself, you go, “Oh no, I come across like Barry” — oh no, sorry to the Barrys out there, just picked a random name — but again, they go, “Oh no, I come across like Barry.” But that’s because you’ve been avoiding this your entire life.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: And the reason I wanted to bring it up again — I’m so glad you brought it up — is because if there’s one thing you do, if you listen to this episode, it’s record a video of yourself, and you’ll thank Jay and me later, because you’ll see things you didn’t realize. You have so much beautiful knowledge already in your mind about what makes a great communicator, because why are you drawn to a certain YouTube video and a certain creator? You already have these internal references in your mind of what great communication is for you.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

Becoming Yourself: The Chef Analogy

VINH GIANG: And all of a sudden now you get to apply the same list of things to yourself. Do you know how cool that is? Which brings me to my next point, where my students ask me, “Well, how do I become myself, though? How do I find my—” because I always talk about this present version of you, and you’re way too attached to it. Let go of the present version of you, give the future version of you a chance. And they go, “Well, how do we make that transition?”

I say, “Look, first of all, just record yourself.” But then, as you begin this journey, I view the journey of becoming a great communicator like the journey of becoming a great chef. How would you become a great chef? You would go out and look for a great chef, look for one of their recipes, buy the recipe book, and copy their recipe. At the beginning, you copy the recipe almost exactly, and then you start cooking it and eating it, and you go, “I don’t think that’s what the chef was intending.” So you copy a little closer, and you go, “Oh well, I did the method wrong.” And as you copy closer, you go, “Oh wow, that tastes amazing.” And as you cook it a few more times, you gain the confidence to go, “You know what, I’m going to add a little more chili — I think the chef didn’t put enough chili.” You add a bit more chili, a little lemon, a little more garlic, onion, everything, and now you make it your own.

Same thing with communication skills.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: If you want to get some inspiration, go look up your top five communicators.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: And then sit down, watch the video, break it down — what are they doing that you love so much? Try those behaviors on. Now you have an ocean of different behaviors to play with.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: And you’ll try some of them on and go, “That’s not me.” Same with me — when I first started speaking on stage, I admired Anthony Robbins so much, because I read his books and they changed my life, and I was like, “I’m going to try to be like Anthony Robbins.” And I jumped up and did it, and it felt so wrong, because I was like, “This is not me.” But that was okay — I had to have done that to know it wasn’t for me. I had to have eaten that dish to know I didn’t like the flavor. But too many of us judge it before we try it.

JAY SHETTY: Absolutely.

VINH GIANG: “I’m not even going to try that dish.” No, try it — that’s how I discovered some of my favorite dishes in my life, I resisted it, I tried it, I loved it after that. So again, start looking up a list of five communicators that you love, and just pick a few different things from them and try it on. It’s all right.

Studying the Greats: Derren Brown and Steve Jobs

JAY SHETTY: We share one of our favorite communicators, which is a bit more obscure — most people may not be aware of him or see him as a communicator. It’s Derren Brown.

VINH GIANG: Oh, I think Derren is absolutely — Derren is my favorite person on stage to watch.

JAY SHETTY: Showmanship — everything from the humor to the pacing to the body language to when to sit, when to stand.

VINH GIANG: Showmanship is a magician’s fancy word for communication skills. Unbelievable showmanship, stagecraft mastery. It makes you want to give up magic when you see someone like that, because you go, “He’s too good.”

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, for sure, for sure.

VINH GIANG: I remember doing a trip to the UK — my wife likes Derren Brown, not — she doesn’t love Derren Brown.

JAY SHETTY: Same, same, same, same.

VINH GIANG: We followed him to three cities.

JAY SHETTY: Wow.

VINH GIANG: To watch the same show. My wife couldn’t stand it anymore by the end of it, but I watched the same show three times, and I loved it even more the third time. What you talked about before, his ability to execute what they call “planned spontaneity” is unbelievable. That is such a skill — like your comedian friend.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: Even though it happens nearly every night, people think it’s random.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: But it happens every night — planned spontaneity. He made it look spontaneous every single time, and I appreciated every moment of that. I was like, “How did you make that look even more fresh than the first two times?” It’s incredible.

JAY SHETTY: But that’s what it is — I love hearing that story, that you went there three times even though you knew what trick he was going to do.

VINH GIANG: It’s the same thing.

JAY SHETTY: That’s what you’re doing, you’re studying the art of what worked. And the other speech that I love, probably my favorite speech of all time, at least the one I’ve listened to the most, is Steve Jobs’s Stanford commencement speech.

VINH GIANG: Oh wow.

JAY SHETTY: And it’s a really interesting speech, because there’s no body gestures, no use of hands, nothing — it’s potentially even monotonous, I think he speaks at the same volume pretty much the whole time.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JAY SHETTY: But there’s something just so profound — his voice is phenomenal. Talk me through why that works, why do so many people love that speech, apart from it being Steve Jobs?

VINH GIANG: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JAY SHETTY: Because I don’t like to just say, “Oh, it was a good speech because it was Steve, everyone loved it,” no, no, no, there was still something.

VINH GIANG: I mean, the content’s insane, but again, think of it from the perspective of music. There are times that lyrics can be so powerful that the way you play that song is irrelevant, because the lyrics speak to your heart.

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: It’s so strong that it doesn’t matter how you play, it hits you. And that’s where you can lean into the content. There is some content that is just so powerful that regardless of delivery, it hits, because of the profound nature that exists within the lyrics.

And then I’ve seen pianists play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” and I was flabbergasted — one of the most basic songs you’ve ever heard, and the way they added chords to it and the rhythm, I’ve never heard “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” like that. So you can take something basic and use delivery to make it amazing, or you can take something truly profound and have no delivery, and it’s just as amazing. That’s the beauty of music, the beauty of poetry and art. And you just have to determine for you, with what you’re currently doing, does it have that level of profoundness, and can you keep that level of profoundness consistently throughout your life, where you can just forget about delivery? And if you can, good for you.

JAY SHETTY: That’s amazing, yeah, if you’re Steve Jobs.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, if you’re Steve Jobs, that’s incredible, and everything you say is that potent, then you don’t have to worry about your communication skills. I’m sure you get this too, you get trolls, but I always have trolls on my content saying, “Oh yeah, but what about Elon Musk, he doesn’t have to work on his communication skills?” And I always say — I shouldn’t ever respond to these, but sometimes I get a bit cheeky and I do — I go, “Listen, mate, if you’re as smart and intelligent as Elon Musk, forget about communication skills, just get us to Mars, make us a multi-planetary species, forget about it, please save the human race. But if you’re a mere mortal like me, then you probably should work on this skill.” But you know what I mean?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: So again, sometimes you’re right — sometimes when you have something that profound, you also want to let go of some of the bells and whistles.

JAY SHETTY: I agree.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, you want to let go of some of that. It’s a delivery choice, a delivery style.

JAY SHETTY: A good balanced one that I’ve seen is Matthew McConaughey’s Oscar speech when he accepted for Dallas Buyers Club. It’s like that perfect balance — he’s got an amazing voice, phenomenal orator and communicator, and at the same time the content’s so profound. So you see a great marriage of the two in that one — there’s showmanship, there’s performance, and there’s potency.

VINH GIANG: Yeah.

JAY SHETTY: And you’re right, I agree with you, I only brought up the Steve Jobs one because — and I love the way you explained it, I’m so glad I asked it — because that idea of the lyrics just being so profound. Really, he literally read it off a piece of paper, and you’re listening to every single word — it’s so powerful.

I was going to ask you, people can sense when something feels inauthentic. What are we sensing?

Learning to Play a New Instrument

VINH GIANG: Misalignment. However, when it comes to communication alone, it’s usually people trying something out that they haven’t really ironed out yet. And I hope this isn’t nauseating and people aren’t starting to feel sick at the back of their throats at this point — so when somebody first plays the saxophone, how does it sound, Jay?

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, not great.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, I have one of those neighbors — it’s fine, it’s fine, I find it very sweet as a young kid learning how to play. And do you ever sit for a moment and think, “That is the most inauthentic saxophone player I’ve ever heard in my life”?

JAY SHETTY: No.

VINH GIANG: “What a fake saxophone player” — no, you go, “That person’s learning.” And I’m just making it communication-related.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, I love it.

VINH GIANG: So when I have my students try out things for the first time, and they’re doing things like — they first learn volume, they go, “Oh, I’ve been speaking with a low volume my whole life,” so then they try to talk louder. And I’ve just learned hand gestures, so I’m going to try to — people immediately look at that and go, “Inauthentic.”

JAY SHETTY: Yes.

VINH GIANG: “You’re doing something that’s not authentic to you.” No, I’m like, stop — that is someone just starting to learn how to play the saxophone. And the moment you call them inauthentic and fake, do you know what happens to them? They now revert to the same behaviors they’ve been repeating for the last thirty years of their life.

It’s such an intricate moment for someone when they’re choosing to play their instrument in a different way, that you’ve got to help them move toward the future version of them. And that’s what we sense — that inauthentic part where we go, “Oh, this person, I feel like they’ve been inauthentic.” You don’t know the backstory. Maybe this person is trying to be heard because their entire life they’ve been invisible, and the way they’re trying on this new way of speaking is because they’re just testing out the instrument in a different way, and you just caught them on a bad day — you just caught them when they were playing poorly. And I think we need a little more of that compassion, a little more of that empathy, because I’ve made those judgments before myself too.

But I’ve also been through that messy middle, when I spoke again, I was like a robot. I knew that people were judging me, but if I didn’t have the courage in that moment to push through, then I’d still be the same version of me from fifteen years ago. So I feel that, from a communication context, when you’re trying to improve and people sense that in you, it’s just you learning how to play the saxophone. It’s okay.

So all you’ve got to do is this — before you start to play with your voice and your body differently, and you start to improve the way you communicate, prime your conversations. Say to your partner, say to your neighbor, before you learn the saxophone: “Hey, listen, I’ve been inspired by listening to Vin and Jay on the podcast, and I want to change the way I use my voice. I’ve been quiet my entire life, I want to give you and the kids more energy. If you see me speaking with more volume, can you encourage me? Because I want to give more.”

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: All of a sudden, if you give that context, the next time you’re like, “Hey honey, I’m home,” she’ll say, “Oh, it’s so good to see you trying.” Now, with that context, they support you. Without the context, if you just immediately come home like that, they’ll say, “Why are you doing that with your voice? Why are you doing that?”

JAY SHETTY: Yeah.

VINH GIANG: And it’s because — something my vocal coach used to say too, she used to say, “Your voice is your personality.” And I used to be like, “What?” And she said, “No, no, your voice is your personality, Vin. When people compliment you on your personality, the literal thing they’re complimenting is how you’re playing your instrument.”

JAY SHETTY: Interesting.

VINH GIANG: Because that’s how we perceive personality — we perceive personality through the use of the instrument. Personality comes through music. That’s why you can listen to a soundtrack. I do this experiment with my kids and my students — I love doing this experiment where I just play a piano track and get them to listen to it, and I go, “What words come to mind?” And it’s crazy, they’ll say things like, “Oh, I hear complexity, I hear drama, I hear pain, I hear misery, I hear nostalgia.” And I always wake them up to it and say, “Do you know there were no words in that? None whatsoever. Yet you got a world of meaning from that.” People get a world of meaning just from the sound of your voice and how you use your voice. So if you pay no attention to that, that means you’re putting no intention into how you’re coming across.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, and I love that point, man, I love your heart for saying that too — that so much of the time when we think someone’s inauthentic, it’s really just inexperience.

VINH GIANG: They’re trying something new.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, they’re trying something new.

VINH GIANG: They’re exploring.

JAY SHETTY: And we always look at it and judge them, and think, “Oh, they’re fake,” when half the time it’s just someone trying to figure something out.

VINH GIANG: And then what we don’t realize we’re doing is we give them negative feedback that immediately puts them back into the same patterns of behavior that have been causing them pain, because we’re not as compassionate. We see what they do, we don’t see why they do what they do. I think it was Carl Jung who said that — again, we see what people do, we don’t see why they do what they do.

Closing Thoughts

JAY SHETTY: Vin, it’s been such a joy talking to you, man. You are — you’re brilliant. You’re not just a brilliant communicator, you’ve got a great heart too, and it comes across in the way you want to help people and see them grow, and the amount that you’ve thought through the challenges, the trip-ups, all the blocks that we run into. It’s really beautiful, and I really thank you and commend you for your amazing work. It’s very special, so thank you, man.

VINH GIANG: Jay, thank you for giving me the opportunity. I’m from Adelaide, South Australia — I never thought that I’d ever be able to connect with you in person and hang out with you, Jay. This is unreal, man. Thank you for the opportunity.

JAY SHETTY: No, I’m a fan, so it’s easy. We end every episode of On Purpose with a final five — these have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum.

VINH GIANG: Are you serious? This is my kryptonite.

JAY SHETTY: So you can’t — I’ll probably break it for you because you’re such a good explainer, I’ll let you do it.

VINH GIANG: Sure, sure, sure, sure. No, no, I won’t, I’m going to try to stick to it — hey, rules are rules.

The Final Five

JAY SHETTY: Okay, all right. The first question: what’s the best piece of communication advice you’ve ever heard or received?

VINH GIANG: Your voice is an instrument. Play all of the songs that are trapped within you. Don’t die with all your music trapped inside.

JAY SHETTY: That was a great sentence.

VINH GIANG: It’s a long sentence.

JAY SHETTY: It’s a great sentence, long sentences are fine. Second question: what’s the worst communication advice you’ve ever heard, received, or given?

VINH GIANG: If you’re nervous, just look over their heads. I was literally given that advice.

JAY SHETTY: What are you meant to do instead? You can expand.

VINH GIANG: Well, again, you want to look at people, look them in the eyes, because the advice was “look over their heads, they won’t be able to tell.” This was the first piece of advice I was given when I was going on stage, and I started looking over people’s heads, and it just looked like I was arrogant, because I was like, “Oh, hey everyone, good to see you,” and I wasn’t looking them in the eyes.

JAY SHETTY: And also you get no feedback, you have no energetic exchange, you don’t have a clue.

VINH GIANG: Well, the worst thing is that, and then you look like an arrogant person.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, that’s interesting, I never thought about that. Question number three: why does our body and our hands shake when we’re nervous?

VINH GIANG: It’s the excess adrenaline, and you have the remedy to that in this episode already — star jumps.

JAY SHETTY: I love it. Question number four: what’s something that you used to believe was true about communication but not anymore?

VINH GIANG: That I was stuck with the sound of my voice. It’s just a series of behaviors — if you change the behaviors, you change the sound. Example: when I told my dad I wanted to leave accounting to become a magician, I remember what he said. He said, “What the hell, you want to be the Harry Potter?” Literally what he said to me. I just changed the way I moved my mouth, I just changed a series of behaviors, and I changed the sound I was able to create. It’s just behaviors.

JAY SHETTY: Walk me through that conversation.

The Conversation with His Parents

VINH GIANG: Yeah, so my mom and dad are refugees from Vietnam, and they cling to safety and security because of fear — they’ve known fear all of their lives. So I remember coming home and saying to my mom and dad, “I really want to quit university.” And obviously they wanted me to fulfill the Asian prophecy.

JAY SHETTY: Same with your parents, I’m sure.

VINH GIANG: Yes, I’m sure. I had this really heart-to-heart conversation with them where I said, “Mum, Dad, why did you escape the war?”

JAY SHETTY: Why?

VINH GIANG: And they said, “We escaped because we want to find a better home for you.” And I said, “Yeah, yeah, but why? Why was Vietnam at the time not a good home? Why is Australia a better home?” And they said, “Freedom.” And I said, “Oh great, so you made the decision to flee to Australia for freedom — then do you want to force me into a career that’s going to create misery for me? Is that what you want? And I know why you’re doing this, it’s because of love, Mum and Dad, because you’re so afraid. But we’re not in Vietnam anymore, we’re in Australia, and we’re free. And I know that the reason you came here is to give me the freedom to do what I love.”

And I was able to wake them up from fear, and remember the main reason why they came here in the first place. Because their lives were driven by fear of not enough, of “we’re in danger,” and they still carried all of that fear, they didn’t realize it. And when I woke them up to that, it was such a beautiful conversation, because it was almost like my parents were reminded — they said, “No, no, thank you for reminding us, wow, we’ve been so driven by fear our entire lives.”

Because I said to them, “I did work experience at an accounting firm, and Dad, do you know what they all do on a Friday night? They go drinking, because they’re drowning their sorrows in something they don’t like.” And I’m sure people love accounting, it’s just where I did work experience, they didn’t love it, they dreaded every day. And I said, “That’s me, that’s going to be me, that’s the path I’m walking. So I already know that’s not the path.”

And then the most beautiful thing my dad said to me, after realizing all of this, he goes, “You still owe me one thing though, boy — in this life, you have to jump as high as you can, and as long as I’m alive, I’ll forever be your net.”

JAY SHETTY: Wow.

VINH GIANG: And I needed that net a lot of times.

JAY SHETTY: Oh yeah, I tested that net many times.

VINH GIANG: And I share this now in a long answer because, Jay, I’m sitting here having achieved things I’ve achieved because of my mum and my dad. Without that net, without their support, without their love, without their guidance, I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t have been able to do this. And I think this is true for those listening too — you would not be where you are if it wasn’t for whether it’s the families we choose or the families we were born into. If it wasn’t for them, we would not be who we are, we would not be where we are.

JAY SHETTY: They must be really proud now.

VINH GIANG: Yeah, they still—

JAY SHETTY: And then you quit magic.

VINH GIANG: The first time my dad came and saw me speak, at the end of it, the funniest thing — he comes up to me and goes, “They pay you for this?” And he was so mind-blown, because he said, “I wouldn’t.” He was just so shocked, he couldn’t believe that professional speaking was a career path.

But it’s so beautiful to see their mind open up. And the most beautiful thing my dad said to me recently, this was maybe in the last five years, he came up to me and said, “Thanks for not giving up on me.” Because there were a lot of conversations at the time in many different Vietnamese families where the kids would give up on their parents — it’d be like, “If you’re not supporting me, forget it, I’m out.” Whereas I really didn’t give up on my parents.

I remember my first magic gig, I made like $1,500 for performing for an hour — this was outrageous, this is a week’s worth of work. And I brought home the cash and I was like, “Dad, look, I got this in an hour.” And I celebrated that moment with him. I made him a part of that, because I knew I had to slowly show him what’s possible. I couldn’t all of a sudden go, “Dad, refugee, been through the war,” and immediately say, “Magician” — to him, it’s like, “What is that? That doesn’t make sense.” But as I slowly shared my wins with him on my journey, I was able to open my dad’s mind. So my dad got to be a part of the journey with me and my mum. And when he thanked me for that, it was one of the sweetest moments, because he could have very easily given up on me. And now we have this beautiful relationship, and it’s one of my most important relationships.

JAY SHETTY: Yeah, that’s beautiful, man. Thank you for sharing that.

VINH GIANG: That counts as one word.

JAY SHETTY: No, no, no, I wanted to hear it. Fifth and final question, we ask this to every guest who’s ever been on the show: if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

VINH GIANG: Use your instrument to spread more love, kindness, and compassion.

JAY SHETTY: Vinh Giang, thank you so much, such an honor having you here. I hope I get to do this many, many more times together.

VINH GIANG: Thank you, Jay.

JAY SHETTY: If all of you are listening and watching, if you don’t already follow Vinh on social media, we will put all the links in the comments — go and follow him across TikTok, Instagram, all platforms. I really hope that this episode makes you a better communicator to your partner, your parents, in your profession, in all areas of your life. It’s such a key skill that’s needed.

And I would love to see on Instagram and TikTok the clips, the moments, the parts that really stood out to you — tag us both so we can see what you’re practicing. If you do a video of yourself every day and start posting or practicing, tag us in it, I want to see it, I really, really want to see it, it would be so awesome, I’d love to be able to interact with you all and see how much you’ve grown. And again, Vin, you are welcome back to On Purpose anytime you want, so thank you, I hope you’ll come back and we’ll see you again.

VINH GIANG: A hundred percent.

JAY SHETTY: Thank you, man.

VINH GIANG: Cheers, brother.

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