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Ivan Wanis Ruiz is a communications expert and a guest lecturer at several top universities across Canada including both Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia and the Rotman School at University of Toronto. When he is not teaching how to speak, he is doing it. He has travelled across Canada twice as the official spokesperson for both the PanAm Games Toronto 2015 and The Invictus Games 2017. Ivan is also author of the book “They Don’t Have to be Naked: A new approach to public speaking.”
Unconventional ways to practice your talk
Ivan claims that nobody gives you strategies on how to practice a talk. He thinks that you have to practice to build the calluses. Stand up comedians practice a lot, even in almost-empty bars, that’s how they build calluses. A few ways to do this:
- Run part of your next presentation sneaked into a conversation with your friends.
- Go to the busiest intersection in your downtown and practice your talk in front of every passerby.
Tactics from wrestling to public speaking
In wrestling there are faces (the good guys) and heels (the bad guys). Before introducing a new face the show hosts introduced a heel. They made the audience dislike a heel a lot, and they introduced the new face right after. People liked anybody who would come next to beat the heel. You can use the same tactic to convince people on an idea.
Present a series from alternatives, each one with pros and cons. The first solutions have largely more cons than pros. The third one (your idea) has more pros and very few cons. Thus you make people believe the other ideas are bad.
Phrases to put speaking ideas into practice
Ivan recommends using the Goal Opportunity Statement to present an idea: By doing [ACTION] we achieve [BENEFIT] in [TIME]
Ivan believes that the goal of a presentation is not to inform, convince, or sell. It’s curiosity. You make your audience curious about something, so they think where can I find more?
Related: Bring Humor to Your Talks
Favorite quotation
“The two words ‘information’ and ‘communication’ are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through.” —Syndey J. Harris
Recommended book
Brain Rules by John Medina
Routine to Shine
Practice stand up comedy
Links
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Kind of a refresher to the course of yours I did in July.
Hi Ivan Wanis Ruiz this is me Nigel Picardo from India (Mumbai). You are a wonderful trainer, learning many new techniquies of communicating in person and in virtual world. Thank you so much for this great opportunity.