A SMALL INVESTMENT IN THE RIGHT PLACE
How I went from an analyst to manager to senior manager to director in 3 years
(Warm-up) Who went back to China in 2012? 2010? 2008? I went back to China in 2008. I went back to Beijing . The city hosted Summer Olympics! Beijing had changed a lot! Everywhere I went I saw a lot of signs in Chinese and English. When I put Chinese and English together, some of them were very funny. I went to this park … you don’t want to be there … it’s the “Racist Park” (“民族园”). Inside the park there was a fish pond. Beside the fish pond there was a sign: “Please don’t feed fish with your private ... part” (“请不要私自喂鱼”) I went to this jewelry store, expensive jewelry store, very expensive. There were signs everywhere … and they all said the same thing: “Please don’t touch yourself … let us help you.” (“不要自行试戴, 请营业员协助”) I went to this grocery store, there was a sign: “If you want to abuse a plastic bag … you need to pay 2 Yuan.” (“滥用胶袋每个交费２元”) Halfway through the day, I was hungry. I went to this restaurant. It was packed with people. The floor was wet and slippery. There was a sign on the floor: “Please slip … and fall down carefully.” (“小心滑倒”) I sat down. A waitress came to my table: “What would you like to order, Sir?” “Hmmm … how about a chicken with no sex experience” (“童子鸡”) “OK. What would you like to drink, Sir?” “What do you have?” “We have orange juice, lemon juice. We also have strange juice.” (“奇异果”) “I want some strange juice … never had it before.” 5 minutes later, she came back: “Here is your strange juice, Sir. And here is the sucker.” (“吸管”)
(Q&A) You may think this is a little strange but I am gonna start with your questions. You came here with questions, did you not? Questions like
- “Who are you?” “What are you doing here?”
- “What do you do?” “What do you teach?”
- “What can I benefit from this class?”
- “Do I need a huge vocabulary in order to take your lessons?”
(Who are you?) Well, I’m you … (you’re sitting there like: what do you mean you are me. Well, let me try this again) I was you … (The guy is talking to his wife: I don’t think he can teach. He doesn’t even know the high school grammar. Well, let me try this one more time) I was like you.
Yeah, I was like you. I came to
Why is this information important to you? That I worked my first 7 years as an analyst … and then, all of a sudden, I went from an analyst to a manager to a senior manager to a director in 3 years? You notice my career was a flat line between 2002 and 2008 and then I got a big bump every year in 2009, 2010, and 2011. There was once a chain holding me back. But somehow I broke the chain. What’s your next question, Sir?
(What happened?) Would you like to know? It all started with this job. It’s a manager position with Scotiabank and I really, really wanted it. You have to understand this job was almost made for me and it fit me almost perfectly. I wanted this job so badly that I was willing to do anything. But do what? I didn’t really know. I only knew: if I want to be successful this time I can’t continue doing what I’m doing. I need a new strategy.
Then I met a very wise man, Clive Smith. I asked: “Clive, what can I do to make the hiring manager want to hire me?” Instead of answering my question, he asked me a question: “Eric, why do you speak?” Why do I speak? Why do you speak? You say to express yourself? That’s what I said. You say to communicate? That’s what I said. To inform … convince … persuade? That’s what I said. Clive looked at me, with a big smile on his face: “These are all good answers, all wrong, but good answers. They are not wrong. They are just not the no. 1 reason why you speak. The no.1 reason is you speak to satisfy the audience!” … Did you even think about the audience when you speak? No. I’m too busy speaking. Well, do you know the audience is important? Because without the audience there is no need to speak.
Then he went on to explain the difference between left brain and right brain; how people think with their left brain and feel with their right brain; how left brain is closed, cautious, and stubborn and right brain is open, receptive, and emotional. Most importantly, right brain is the “department” that makes the decision.
Here’s a true story. October last year, I went on a day trip with 2 friends to see some fall color. On the way to the North, they started to argue … about religion. You need to know these 2 friends of mine, one of them is Christian and the other one has no religion but – this is an important but – he’s got a PhD majored in religion. What does it mean? It means the second guy knows a lot about something he doesn’t believe. Can you imagine that debate? That was the worst debate I have ever seen in my lifetime. I kid you not, by the time we came back, they were enemies, they stopped talking to each other. I realize people are amazingly stubborn. You can’t tell people what to think and how to feel. Because they want to think and feel for themselves. If I speak to your left brain and try to convince you with facts and statistics, you argue with me in your left brain with your own facts and statistics. So you can’t tell people what to think and how to feel. What you can do, though, is you can cause emotions in people and emotions will make them think and feel the way you want them to think and feel. As I speak to your right brain, you hear me and you see me … the words and gestures, the sounds and images, the vibrations and movements … they touch your 5 senses … hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch … they touch your 5 senses and create emotions inside of you … and emotions make you want to laugh, cry, dream, hope or give money to strangers.
Then next question is how to read people in 60 seconds? What are you, Eric, a psychic? I realize even if you’re only 2 meters away from me I don’t know you, and I don’t know what you are thinking. I look at you and I wonder: what is going on in that little brain of yours, what are you thinking, what do you need, what do you want, what worries you, and what makes you happy? If I know what you want, then it’s pretty easy, because I know what to say to satisfy you. But if I don’t know what you want, it’s going to be challenging because I don’t know what to say.
The next question is how to read the hiring manager’s mind before you even meet him? That’s impossible! Have you heard of the “6 degrees of separation”? If you go to
So back to the job. I realize I must work on the hiring manager’s right brain because that’s the department that makes the hiring decision. And I must find out what he wants from me and say exactly what he wants to hear and satisfy him. But how? First, I need to figure out what kinda person he is: what’s his name … man or woman … short or tall … fat or thin … any children … pets … what’s his credit card no. … and password? I have a friend who works for Scotiabank. I sent her the posting and she found me the name of the hiring manager: Thomas Faust. What kind of last name is Faust? I Googled: German, it’s a German last name. In my imagination, I saw a serious German, 6 feet tall, cranking German sausages. I went on LinkedIn.com, I saw his picture, work history, and education. I talked to someone who worked with him. I felt like I knew him before I even met him. I predicted 7 questions he may ask me and I wrote down 7 stories to satisfy him.
The interview was not a test, it was an emotional ride. We were attracted to each other even if we were both men … and married. I noticed Thomas spoke English with an accent. I was sure he was an immigrant just like me. So I asked: “Thomas, what made you come to
(What do you teach?) What do I teach? I teach small talk and big talk. You’re like: what’s small talk? Well, small talk is useless talk (废话). That’s interesting, why should I learn something that’s useless? Well, it’s useful, too. It’s useful, useless talk (有用的废话).
I used to work for GE in Meadowvale,
I could never forget Kevin and the story he told me about his last interview. It was 2-hour long. Both he and the hiring manager were a bit tired. Both felt that he was a strong candidate – he can do the job, no problem! The job was up there for his grab. The hiring manager was cleaning up her desk, she looked through the window and said something like: “Alright. Let’s call it a day and go home. Thank God this long winter is almost over.” Poor Kevin, his mind was all on the job, he felt that he should say something, without thinking, he said: “I don’t think so!” He felt, there was a moment when the oxygen left the room: 完了！完了！Did he get the job? (Shaking head).
Small talk is easy if you’re willing to learn. My secret is to focus on my conversation partner, make him feel important, and let him talk most of the time. Isn’t it easy, let your conversation partner talk most of the time? I was talking to an old lady, I asked her a simple question: “How did you meet your husband?” and I got her talk for an hour, if I don’t stop her.
The trick is to say, “Really? Wow!” Say it! Say it! “Really! Wow!” “You work in sales? 您做销售的？Really? Wow!” “You have 8 children? 您有８个孩子？Really? Wow!” “You wrestled with a cow? 您和一头母牛摔跤？Really? Wow!” The real trick is you have to say it like you mean it. If you are truly interested in people, you can just talk about them. Most people enjoy talking about themselves. So if you ask a question and listen … and say the 2 magic words in every 30 seconds: “Really? Wow!” you can master a conversation. No problem!
(Canadians vs Chinese) Canadians think out loud. What does it mean? They think as they speak or ... sometimes they don’t even think … they just speak. I mean, if you pay attention to what they say, a lot of it doesn’t really make sense, but hey! They all look very confident. Which makes you wonder where is that confidence coming from? What about Chinese people? We think twice (no, three times) before we speak. The problem is … if you think twice, Canadian people already changed the topic (too late!) The real problem is … if you think twice, you’ll never speak, you’ll change your mind, you’ll think the words and sentences you put together are not good enough.
加拿大人能想出声来。什么意思呢？他们边想边说。.有的时候他们甚至想都不想，张嘴便说。如果你留意他们说的话，很多是没有意思的。可是他们看起来都非常有自信，使你禁不住琢磨，他们这份信心到底来自何处？我们中国人强调三思而后言。问题是，待你三思之后，加拿大人已经改换话题， 太迟了！真正的问题是，待你三思之后，你会改变初衷，觉得自己组词造句不够好，从此永远闭上嘴巴。
(Academic vs Natural English) The academic way is you use a textbook: you start with vocabulary and grammar (words and rules). Then you try to put words together to make a sentence before you actually say it. This process may take weeks, months, years … or it may never happen. The natural way is you learn by listening and repeating, the same way you learned to speak Mandarin when you were little: you heard adults talk, you copied them, you picked it up … You know, you just picked it up. Which way is easier? Which way would you prefer? Would you like to pick up English without trying – I mean without consciously trying and thinking about it? You pick up English unconsciously!
学术英语使用教科书：从词汇和语法开始，然后学习用词造句，每次说话之前先造句。这个过程可能需要几个星期，几个月，几年或许永远不会发生。自然英语是你在听和重复中学习。用你小时候学习母语的方法学习英语：你听成人谈话，模仿他们，不知不觉中把英语捡起来。哪种方式更容易？你会选择哪种方式(George Carlin – “Fart Joke”) Question! Did you ever have to fart on a bus, or an airplane, or in some public place? But you hadn’t been farting all that day! So you didn’t really know the nature of the beast (the smell of your gas – what does it smell like? Good or bad)! You only knew there was lots of it! In a situation like that, what you have to do is to release a test fart! You have to arrange to release, quietly and in a carefully controlled manner, about 10-15% of the total fart, in order to determine if those around you can handle it!
(Use words to make a sentence. Use words to make a sentence…… Use words to make a sentence?) Did this ever happen to you? You have an idea (sometimes you think you have better ideas than your Canadian friends) but you just can’t find the right words to say what you want to say. We were taught in school on how to use words to make a sentence. But it’s so hard to do it in a hurry. I mean, you’re in a hurry during a conversation, right? You search your brain, you open your mental drawers and closets, you find a few words, you put them together to make a sentence, you arrange them and re-arrange them, still not sure if it’s any good, (get a reading of wristwatch) but you’re running out of time so you say it anyway, 9 out of 10 people can’t hear you, the only person who can hear you is the one sitting next to you, but he says: “What do you mean?” … You want to kill yourself. Folks, I did what you did – use words to make a sentence – it doesn’t work! It never works! I realized I can’t use words to make a sentence. I said to myself: gee, there’s gotta be a better way to do this! So I stopped making sentences. I started copying my Canadian friends. Because I find same idea, they can always say it better. Why do I have to make my own? I can just copy them. It’s easier that way!
你有过这样的时候吗？你有一个想法（有时你觉得你有比加拿大人更棒的想法），可就是找不到合适的词，表达自己的意思。我们从小学习用词造句，可这在日常生活中太难做到了。英语对话中你有不足一秒的时间准备下一个回合要说的话，一秒钟内你能干什么？你搜索你的大脑，你打开里面的抽屉和壁橱，你找到几个词，用它们造了一个句，编排一遍，重新编排一遍，还是觉得不好。但时间不多了，想想但说无妨，十个人有九个听不清你在说什么，坐你旁边那个是唯一听清你说什么的人，可他回了一句：＂你什么意思？＂你自杀的心都有了！我做过你们做过的事：用词造句－－－ 完全不灵！它永远都不会灵！我意识到我无法用词来造句。我对自己说：这世上肯定有更好的办法！于是我停止用词造句，我开始模仿我加拿大朋友。因为我发现同样的想法，他们总是可以说得更好。我为什么要自己＂造＂呢？完全可以照抄他们，这样不是更容易吗？没过多久我就发现不管我想说什么话，这世上已经有人说过了，我需要做的就是找到那句话。
(I teach you how to find the right words to say what you want to say) Let me break it down for you:
Listen. I find a big part of speaking is listening. So I listen. I listen carefully. It doesn’t take me long to realize whatever it is I want to say, somebody has already said it. All I need to do is … find it.
Collect. When I listen to my Canadian friends, I take mental notes. When I hit my desk, I write them down. Not just words and sentences, I write down the whole stories – stories my Canadian friends use in different situations and for different situations.
Speak. I try the same stories on real people in my real life. I need more opportunities to practice storytelling, so I come to
Write this down please: nothing is said that has not been said before! The following are some exmples:
[Whisper when gossiping] She’s a control freak. She micro-manages me. I feel like I’m in her hands. She pushes me and pulls me and never let go of me. I’m like: I’m not your yoyo!
This morning I didn’t hear the alarm go off. When I left my house, I was caught by the rain. The, the train was late. I went in the office at 10 AM and my boss was right there waiting for me … I know, it’s one of those days.
How old is your boy? 13. Oh, he’s turned into one of those … [teenagers]. Life isn’t always beautiful. Life isn’t always sunshine and roses. Sometimes life sucks. And shit happens. [He’s taking notes: s-h-i-t h-a-p-p-e-n-s. You don’t have to take notes. You can only learn so much from this presentation. Come to my class, I’ll show you all the good stuff.]
The scope of the project is too broad. Are you trying to boil the ocean?
I don’t see the benefits in your business case. Show me the money! [Jerry Maguire, 1996, Tom Cruse]. How come the city does nothing about the homeless people living on the street? Because there is no money in that problem.
What do you mean we are volunteers? We are paid salaries. Yeah, salaries can only get our hands to work. We volunteer our hearts. Remember: if this [pointing to heart] is empty, this [pointing to brain] doesn’t matter. [Jerry Maguire, 1996, Tom Cruse].
“Auditors are coming.” “Oh, not again!” You see people immediately think audit is a bad thing. Auditors check my work, they point fingers, air my dirty laundry in public. I was sitting next to my boss. I said: “I think it’s a good thing [Silence. People are looking at me like I’m nuts]. Well, we all have a messy backyard or basement. Sometimes we need a little motivation to clean it up. I thought if you need motivation to clean your house, you can invite your friend over.”
There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance. And Ingrid Bergman is low maintenance [When Harry met Sally, 1989, Bill Crystal] [What kind of language is this? Who said car language? You realize a lot of good analogies come from everyday life].
There are four kinds of employees: low maintenance, low performance; LMHP; HMLP; HMHP. Which one are you? Most people work hard enough not to get fired and get paid enough not to quit the job. It’s not fair. How come the caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the glory.
(What’s your story?) My friend is a very negative person: Gee, the economy is not getting better. I need my job, man. Unemployment rate is 8% high. I’m so worried, man. I’m so scared. I said why? Why are you so scared by a statistic? You need only one job, I repeat, you need only one job. You know for people who can tell a good story, it’s a seller’s market – always has been and always will be. So what’s your story? Do you have any story? Of course you do. They don’t have to be big. They don’t have to life changing. They don’t have to be all inspiring. They can just be simple, little life moments. You know the greatest speakers use the smallest stories to make the biggest points. That’s what we are gonna learn in this workshop.
(How?) Write down everything you have to say and try it on real people in your real life. Write down your script, word for word. I write down my script before I go to a meeting, pick up a phone, or give a presentation.
- I teach you how to write – 1/3
- I teach you how to speak – 1/3
- You write at home, you speak in class – 1/3
This little notebook has saved me:
[Elevator] “Oh my God, I missed my floor.” “Don’t worry! What goes up must come down.”
[Elevator, you ran into your boss] “You know, Lily, you really look nice today. Do you have an interview or what?” (You lower your head, look at your shoes, and answer him lamely) “No ……” “Oh … I’m sorry, Lily. It’s supposed to be a joke. I’m so sorry. I don’t know that you can’t take a joke.”
[Elevator, you ran into your boss] “You know, Lily, you really look nice today. Do you have an interview or what?” “Should I? Do you know anything that I don’t?” (What a nice comeback!)
[Cubicle] “Boss, can I talk to you for a second?” “I’ll give you two seconds.” I felt embarrassed. Why did I ask for only one second? What can I achieve in one second? …… “Ingrid, I know we have a meeting at 10. Can you give me 5 minutes to go downstairs and get a coffee?” “I’ll give you ten.”
[Emergency room at a hospital] My daughter was sick on New Year’s Eve. She had cough, fever, headache, runny nose, sore throat – all symptoms of a serious cold. I thought I had to take her to hospital. The emergency room was packed with patients waiting to be treated. We waited with them: 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours … A father and a son had been waiting for 4 hours. The son was sick. The father looked grumpy. The son asked the father: “Dad, how long do we still have to wait?” The father said: “I don’t know, son. That’s why they call us patients.” For a moment I was laughing uncontrollably. I felt immediately relieved. A sense of humor has saved me!
(What do I need?) 600 words, are you kidding me? No I’m not. Every time people ask me do I need a huge vocabulary in order to speak? I say no you don’t. That’s because we follow the comedian way. Did George use a word that sent you to a dictionary? No, a comedian uses extremely simple words and short sentences. A comedian makes a living by making you laugh. A good comedian makes you laugh 7-8 times a minute. If you don’t laugh, they are dead meat. So they can’t afford even the smallest possibility of confusion or misunderstanding. It would be a disaster if it happened. So many people focus on the wrong thing like spending hours and days trying to memorize words. That doesn’t help. Those words are not yours. They are not your friends. Because when you need them, they are not there for you.
But the fear of speech is real. By the show of hands, how many of you enjoy speaking in public. If I ask you to come up here and give a speech, how many of you go: pick me, pick me. 选我！选我！No. Most of you say I’ll do it but I am not gonna enjoy it, right? Most people fall into this category. Most people don’t feel comfortable speaking in public. That’s normal. That’s why you are here.
We come here to lose face. There are 2 ways to save face. One is remain faceless (you don’t even have a face to lose). The other one is lose it first, learn from the experience, and get better. Once you realize this is a safe, supportive, and encouraging environment, you feel comfortable … you loosen up … you get up in front of the audience and speak. All my students start speaking from lesson one, from “laughing at yourself” (Lesson 1) to “enjoying yourself” (Lesson 10). In this room, behind closed doors, I guarantee you no matter how badly you screw up, we still love you. And we show our love through clapping. I guarantee you if you can get up here and say anything at all, we will clap our hands until they hurt. We’re professional clappers.
I can’t stress the importance of acting like … you want to become a manager, you have to act like a manager. You want to become a good speaker, you have to act like a good speaker. You want to become a confident person, you have to act like a confident person. After you act like one long enough you will become one. What’s confidence? Confidence is a feeling. You can’t wait for the feeling to come to you, but you can create the feeling by acting like the one you want to be. You have to fake it ‘til you make it!
("Did you get one?") I want to introduce you to this lady. She came to
(Get professional help) My cousin is taking a speech course at
(It’s a problem!) Here’s what my student Vivien wrote to me: How do I get people to respect me and take me seriously? My co-workers talk about a lot of things I don’t understand but I don’t bother to ask. I never participate. I never join their conversations. Guess they got used to it over time. Eventually, even if I was there, they automatically ignored me ...... I feel work is only stress, no fun … I feel I’m an outsider … I feel lonely. My co-worker Vanessa and I were the same age, long hair. People often mistook us for each other. But we didn’t even look alike! At first I thought it was funny. After 6 months, as it happened over and over again, I found it was really annoying. I told myself something is wrong. It’s a problem that people don’t notice me and recognize me.
Isn’t this a problem? It’s a serious problem … and I have a solution for you.
A SMALL INVESTMENT IN THE
- The Story ………... Make a point, tell a story
- The Way …….……Write your routine, word for word
- The Topic ………… I’m Chinese, I’m Canadian
- Research …….…… Listen, Watch, Read, Analyze
- Research …….…… Borrow it, use it, internalize it
- Writing …………… When writing, write freely
- Editing …………… Google’s my teacher
- Speaking …….…… How to carry yourself
- Speaking …….…… Fake it ‘til make it
- The Humor ….…… Everybody needs to laugh