Ryan Foland speaks with Kit Pang, the founder of BostonSpeaks. He is also a Public Speaking Anxiety Expert, a Harvard Business School Speaking Coach and a Cat Dad!
In this episode of our podcast series, Ryan and Kit talk about maintaining a positive mindset even in a challenging situation and viewing challenges as opportunities for growth.
Tune in for an interview packed with ideas and tips on embracing mistakes, fostering a positive mindset, and perfecting your public speaking skills with authenticity, adaptability, and memorable storytelling.
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Welcome to the World of Speakers podcast brought to you by SpeakerHub. In each episode, we interview a professional speaker and reveal their very best tips and tricks. You'll learn to improve your presentation skills, keep your audience engaged, and learn how to grow your business to get more gigs and make more money.
Here's your host, Ryan Foland.
Ryan Foland: Ahoy, everyone, and welcome to a very special episode of the World of Speakers, a podcast that stemmed from my curiosity to learn from others who love to take the stage. Now, this is a particularly interesting show since it has been decided to not have any edits. So everything that happens here is in real time. Any flubs or flaws or mistakes or banana slip peels happen. And if you are just listening to this, I want you to know that I'm blue. Not that I'm like blue and sad, but physically I'm blue right now. I'm looking at myself as a ginger smurf. I'd be more comfortable if I was orange or bright red. But somehow the world has delivered a blue face to me. And I'm pretty excited about just rolling with the punches. The larger lesson here is to ditch the act. And if this were a professional keynote where I'm getting my top honorarium, I would likely still roll with it like this because rolling with the punches is a key part of how you can be comfortable continuing to put yourself out there on the stage. And remember, you're always on stage.
I have a very special guest here today, Kit, who apparently we've crossed paths in the past. And more recently, I was a guest on one of his Boston Speaks where I had a chance to hang out with some aspiring speakers and some other well-established speakers. Kit, welcome to the show.
Kit Pang: Hey, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. For the people that's listening on the podcast, they can't see you blue, unfortunately. Hopefully, they can find a video because this is amazing.
Ryan Foland: Yes, actually, if you are, this would be an interesting experience for you to stop listening to the podcast. Hard for me to say that. But go find this video. We'll make sure to link to it in the show notes and yeah, together we'll all be blue.
Kit Pang: Yeah. I'm excited to be here, Ryan. Let's jump into it.
Ryan Foland: Let's do it. Well, tell me the top three things that people need to know about you. As in you are a blank, blank and blank. What's the top level? That's my bio.
Kit Pang: Yeah. Top level. I help people with public speaking anxiety who's tried everything. I know people listening to this podcast. You want to be starting or growing your speaking business. I've been there. I want to help you as well. That's not the main thing that I do, but I can give you certain tips. And number three, I'm a cat dad of three lovely cats.
Ryan Foland: Wow. Meow. Happy holidays seeing your cat family. Very cool.
Kit Pang: Yes. Yes.
Ryan Foland: Well, let's jump in as you say. And I want you to bring us to a moment in time that is a story which shaped you. If you look back and you're like, oh, it's been such a great life. But there was that one moment that just changed me or moved me. Like what would that be?
Kit Pang: Yeah. And so, piggybacking off of this, you know, we're talking about the blue, you being blue here. So, I'm picking backing off of ditching that. This is a story that, I mean, it's not the biggest, most extravagant story, but it's the first thing I thought about talking today. So I used to host a lot of events in person. I would put them on Eventbrite and meet up and, you know, like do ads and get people there. And so one day I had, you know, one event at 12 p.m. and I think I got like, I don't know, like a hundred people signed up coming in person when I was getting all the signs ready to go down to the lobby and put the signs up. One person asked me, Hey, Kit, where is this kind of like art of storytelling event? I'm like, what are you talking about? That's tomorrow. I made the same event on the same day. So I had two events at the same time. There were around like 60 people signed up for that and there was 100 people signed up for my current one. So I double booked that event on the same day at the same time. And so in my head, I was like, what the heck, what the heck am I going to do?
Ryan Foland: And can you explain what are the two different topics? You said the art of storytelling. What was the other one?
Kit Pang: Yeah, the art of storytelling and the other one was about like public speaking, confidence, anxiety.
Ryan Foland: Okay.
Kit Pang: And so I had the two events at the same time and I had around like 10 minutes, right? I was getting all the signs. I'm like, what the heck am I going to do? And I immediately thought to my, well, first of all, I was like, Holy crap. I've never been in this situation. Second, I was like, this is a very good situation for me to be in because now I can decide how I want to act in this opportunity.
So I think it's a mindset talking about ditching the act.
I think when it comes to opportunity, I'm using the word opportunity because I didn't see this as, as a negativity. I saw this as, Oh, unfortunately it happened. How can I use it to make it better? How can I use it to make it better? So what I did was I told everyone, Hey, I made another sign. I said, I told everyone to go to the other room, to the main room. And at the beginning, I told everyone exactly what I'm telling you all now. I was being human. I said, Hey, I double booked an event, but let's combine the event and even make it better. And then people was like, it didn't seem like they even cared at all. But that event, not this event, but events like this shaped me events when I messed up, it shaped me. So, this is just part of a small event of many bigger mess ups to help shape the speaker that I am today.
Ryan Foland: All right. Let's deconstruct this a little bit. I heard you say a word, which I'm going to spin back to you, which I think you can probably use and run with. And when I talk with you in 10 years, you're going to be like, dude, I keep using that. You said, you know, act in the opportunity, which is cool. And then you said it was really an unfortunate situation. But if you look at unfortunate and you take the un away, it's super fortunate. So it's like in that word, that whole like I can, I can't kind of thing. You literally are talking about a very unfortunate situation, which happens to all of us, like showing up on zoom blue. But if you take the first, if you can get past the first two letters, the rest of it is super fortunate. And I would say more memorable. This is I've had, you know, over a hundred, I think there's a hundred and eight or a hundred and nine episodes. There's not one where I've showed up blue and it's on, but if I make it past those two letters, it's actually pretty fortunate. Like this is kind of a fun experience. I'm looking at myself. I'm like, you look very smurfy today, not as ginger, but what do you think about that? The unfortunate, you just get past those two letters.
Kit Pang: Uh, no, I think that's great. You know, like I think many people talk about, you know, uh, from impossible to possible and they did have other words, but with the unfortunate, I actually never heard that one until you brought it up.
Ryan Foland: I haven't either. Yeah. I wrote it down.
Kit Pang: I was like, yes, I think that's what I'm going to use that. I'm going to use that one in the future. And actually when you became blue, in my mind, I was like, definitely go with it. Actually makes it more memorable and different. And after like two seconds, everyone said, okay, you're blue, whatever.
Ryan Foland: You know what? And a side story I might weave in later, but this morning I got trapped in a room with red lights, which is now ironic that I'm blue, but we'll save that story for a little bit.
Kit Pang: Yeah. Oh, well, I liked hearing about it. So, whenever you want to drop it, I might have some questions for you. The audience will love.
Ryan Foland: Well, it's actually on topics as far as something that's unfortunate. And I think if we tap into this idea of memorable, I want to go back to this story, do you remember, or can you share with us if any of those people, the 160 that showed up, are you still in touch with some of those people? Have they still connected with you? Did they become your clients? Are they still part of your community?
Kit Pang: Uh, number one, I have to be honest. I don't know. I don't track everything. So some of them, if, if, if some of you are listening or maybe you're buying, have you done a bunch of events? Most people would not connect with you or become friends with you. Does it come and go? Some people they might stick on and say, Oh, what's the next thing that they do. But I think it's the human experience that makes it so much more memorable. So I would say, yeah, there are some people that left. There are some people that loves it. There are some people that don't care at all.
Ryan Foland: Yeah. And one thing, this is another great piece I got from somebody else. And, you know, truly when we can sort of like take what we've heard and, you know, upcycle it, I think it's super important to continue to think about things in a new way, but the reality is that, okay, let me, let me take a step back here. I was listening to an entrepreneurial panel and I was just in the audience and somebody asked a question that perked my ear because I've heard it every single time, which is what's the most important piece of advice that you could give your younger self as an entrepreneur? And it's like, Oh God, here we go again. But the person who decided to take the question looked and said, well, let me ask you a question first. How many dots does it take to make a line? So I'll ask you that kid. How many dots does it take to make a line? The minimum number of dots.
Kit Pang: Two.
Ryan Foland: It is two, right? It's not one because one is just a dot and then two becomes a line. We think back to our geometry class. We're like, Oh yeah. Well, he said that the best advice I can give you is that life, entrepreneurship, relationships, growth, success is all a series of dots. And the thing that people mistake is that they mistake a dot for a line. And so this makes me think to here, like the people that went to that event, that was a singular dot and my question was saying, have they continued to put dots up on the board? And I know based on just being on your show, you continue to put dots up on the board and whether people join in or not, it's just whether they're one dot or whether they jump on the line with you. So when you talk about events or things going wrong or things that are unfavorable or favorable, the fact that you have a dot up there, that you put an event on, that you've got that one podcast out there, that you gave that one pocket speech, that you asked that one question when nobody else did, that's not as important as the second time you get up on stage is the second time you ask that question is the third time is a fourth. And so, your story makes me think of an unfortunate situation could have totally stopped you in your tracks and been like, oh, damn, this is too much and all I messed up and everybody's you could have, it could have created a rupture, could have been unfortunate, but you made it fortunate and you saw, I was blue and said, let's roll with it. And the energy you had in your call was like, Hey, we're just rolling with it. And so, I do see how that story has shaped you. And I have a feeling that you're the type of dude that just rolls with it and keeps throwing the dots up on the board.
Kit Pang: Well, well, as you're talking about the dot, what I think is interesting, I'm going to use that in the future as well. I think that when people have the dots, if they turn it from an unfortunate event to a fortunate event, the next dot actually becomes bigger. It's kind of like more like a domino effect now.
Ryan Foland: The domino dot effect.
Kit Pang: Yeah, the domino dot effect. So I think it really depends on how people view the situation. Maybe they think of it as a negative dot. Maybe the dot remains the same or becomes a smaller dot. So I just, I just saw that when you were saying that.
Ryan Foland: No, I, I like that.
And actually, I'll take your dot theory and up it a little bit of a tweak. Imagine if everything goes as planned, let's assume that the dots are on a horizontal line, right? You have a line that is going along the single, like along the horizontal access and that, you know, that'll get you traction, but ideally you want to, like, you want to increase, you want to grow. You want those dots to go up. So it gets towards that exponential. So, if you have the first dot, like wherever it is, that's where you're starting. And then it is very unfortunate. You don't see it right. Then like your next dot, if you don't have the confidence or you're not right, it's going to go down and then you're like, you're in a downward slope. It's a negative slope. But if you turn that frown around and the unfortunate becomes fortunate, then I would say the next dot is a little bit more up on the Y axis. And then you might get hit with something. You might stall out, you might go down again. But it's this perpetual throwing dots on the board and having them increase on the Y axis. And that Y axis for you could be another position in your job. It could be starting that side hustle that you want. It could be the confidence that you're giving people when you're speaking. And, and it's, it's just fascinating to me how much of what we desire. As a result of how well we communicate that it's either our desire that we wanted, or even chasing after it. Like it's the ultimate game changer. And yet still it's such a challenge, such an issue. People are not letting themselves be the strong communicators that they could be, I would think.
Kit Pang: Yeah. Yeah. And of course, you know, in our profession, there's a lot of, I think there could be a lot of down dots, you know, it's like, there's so many things.
Ryan Foland: Well, there are, there are people who are coming into the game. The people who would listen to this podcast, they're, they want to become professional speakers. They want to, they want to increase those dots. They want to get them up on the board. But, you know, as much as I, it's, it's hard to keep throwing those dots. It's hard to keep them going up. Things go wrong.
Kit Pang: Yeah. I mean, things go wrong and there's too many things like people want you on social media, people want you to contact this person, do all of that, do this, do that, do that, do that. And then plus by the end of the end of that, I mean, anyway, I'm going off.
Ryan Foland: No, no, I like it. I like it. And I'll say something here and we'll transition to the next. Cause this is where we're rolling with it on the idea of ditching the act. And one thing that I've learned personally in my journey and something I just try to share so it can shortcut it. People are less concerned with your story of success. So in this case, you had two events. They're less concerned that like the events themselves are successful. People are more interested in seeing themselves in your story. And the moment you're like, Hey everybody, I kind of messed up. I'm human and let's all do this together. And they're like, Oh, okay. Let's kind of roll with it. So when we have this thought that only things that we can share have to be good, or that has to be the, you know, the share worthy that we think we miss out on all the opportunities of things that are like relatable and things that go wrong, because more people don't win the lotto. More people don't get the job there. And like, there's a way to commiserate and find that you're more like others, even if you have blue skin.
Kit Pang: Well, I got a question for you, Ryan. So let's say people are listening, right? And they're like, yeah, I know how good it is to ditch the act and be human and be myself, like I know all of that, but why can't I just do it? When, when I'm in the opportunity or in the moment, like, why do I revert back to my old self, I guess, what is the current mindset or self if people know that, right? Why is it still, they can't kind of like ditch the act? Do you think?
Ryan Foland: You know, I'll go to my dentist who I'm seeing tomorrow for some inspiration here. He has a sign on his wall that says you don't have to brush your teeth. Only brush the ones you want to keep. And to your question, imagine I go back to you and I'm like, Hey, Kit, people know they should floss. They really know they should floss and you should floss every day, maybe two times a day, but why do they not do it? Why don't they floss? So many people don't floss. And like I floss every time I brush and each time, like I fish something out and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm so glad that I floss today. So I'll answer with that and I'll break it down into just, I think maybe the top reason is that they don't have the door cracked in their brain for it to go into practice. And number two is for them to practice and have those unfortunates turn into fortunates. And then three is just as I shared on your show, practice the process of practicing. I tell people thoughts become words and words become things. So think the thoughts you want. And when I ask somebody, you know, are you a public speaker? Most of the people say, well, no. OK, well, if you speak in public, then you are a public speaker. It's a scientific fact that you cannot argue either. You just spoke in public. And so I just try to kind of catch people in that trick and say, if you think that you're not a public speaker, no matter how much somebody says you should floss, maybe you just won't fit it into your routine. So speaking is just like brushing your teeth is just like flossing. And I know you said ditch the act. So I could even replicate, you could even substitute speaking for ditching the act.
We know it's better to be honest and upfront with people. We know it's better to be transparent. We know it's better to be honest, because then you never get caught in anything. We know these things, but we're human. It's tough. We think that we're going to judge us and we don't know how to do it. We don't have a safe environment. And then maybe the one time you do ditch the act, somebody does judge you. And then you're like, that's it. I knew this would happen. And the dot goes down. It's unfortunate. And you stop throwing dots up on the board. And then it's out of necessity when you're at your lowest or your rock bottom and you don't want help from anybody because you don't want anybody to know that anything's wrong. And then you have a breakdown. You're like, oh, things suck. And then every your friends are like, but we love you. Thank you for finally sharing. We've been waiting for you. And then everybody hugs and time goes on and people support. So it's like sometimes you if you think about it, you know, people, I had this rock bottom and then I came back. Well, like the rock bottom was because you probably didn't share along the way that you needed help until you were literally stranded on a rock by yourself. And then everybody was like, dude, you keep saying something's not wrong, but like, tell me what's wrong. And then you go, there's a drone. And then it gets off your chest. Then you move on. That's a long answer to your short question. I don't know.
Kit Pang: Yeah, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see exactly what you mean. I have some thoughts, but I don't want to take it that way.
Ryan Foland: No, no. Give me your quick thoughts. And we're going to transition into your tips for the art of speaking. And this is all this is all on point. We're still in this in this first section here.
Kit Pang: Yeah, I don't think that depending on what question we want to solve, I don't think it's practice that people need. I think that's the slowest and most ineffective way.
Ryan Foland: Well, that's the third. I said you have to open up the space in your mind.
Kit Pang: Yeah, I agree. Yeah.
Ryan Foland: You have to work through the situations where you're not that good because nobody's good in the start. I have people all the time that want to start a podcast. And they're like, they get so obsessed about the first few episodes. I'm like, 90 percent of people don't make it past the first seven. So just like, that's true. Just go. So for me, it's give yourself the mental space for really for cognitive dissonance to see the data that supports what you want to do and then give yourself some grace as you try to do it. And then for me, practice is number three, just at bats swinging to the fence.
Kit Pang: Yeah, I just want to make that clear. And I think you said I think it's the it's the inner game that runs the outer game.
Ryan Foland: It starts the inner game. Thoughts become words and words become things and things that speak the thoughts you want. So if you don't think you're a public speaker or you don't think you can ditch the act or you don't think blank, maybe you don't like cats. That's what you say. But as soon as you say that, you look for all the data that supports it.
Kit Pang: Yeah.
Ryan Foland: Even if some cats really cute and cuddly. But you're like, wait a minute, I said I don't like cats. So it's not like that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, not love that. Love that. So as we've learned here in this first part, something will go wrong technically or with an event or something in your life and your ability to see the fortunate through the and we probably should make a word for you and end like, I don't know, like unfortunate. But we could probably use the you and end to come up with a word or a phrase. It's unnecessary. Unnecessary, isn't that one word, though? I guess, yeah, yeah. Unnecessary nonsense. No unnecessary. OK, here's a question for you. What do the two letters you and stand for in unfortunate?
Kit Pang: Now you got the word unnecessary stuck in my mind.
Ryan Foland: I know. Maybe if it's hyphenated.
Kit Pang: Yeah.
Ryan Foland: OK, we're going to come back to that.
But by the end of the show, we're going to come back and we're going to talk about whether you're blue in the face or not, literally or figuratively. You're going to encounter unfortunate situations. But if you look at the first two letters, it stands for now.
Kit Pang: You got me thinking under under.
That's that's the word. First one.
Ryan Foland: Yeah. Under under under notion, under numb under. Well, let's think about let's think about the outcome, which is this idea. It's so unfortunate. Things go wrong. Nothing goes the right way. You're under pressure. But are you really under nothing? Or are you uniquely narrow minded? What about uniquely narrow minded?
Kit Pang: Oh, I like that. I like that. I like that. I was thinking underneath fortunate because that's
Ryan Foland: that's another one word.
Kit Pang: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ryan Foland: Oh, actually, so it could be you could use you and as underneath or unnecessary.
Kit Pang: Well, we're getting somewhere. Maybe maybe I'll listen. I will come up with something. All right.
Ryan Foland: We'll come back to it. Let's take what we learned here, which is things are unfortunate. But what shaped your life is removing the unnecessary elements of what was unfortunate, focusing on the fortune, moving on. The dots increase as you go along.
Kit Pang: Yeah, that's it. That could that could have been. Oh, so we got it.
Ryan Foland: We got it. Let's print that in blue ink. I feel like if I just scraped the wall, I would end up like scraping something blue. All right.
Now it's time for you to tell us, what are your best, most nuanced tips for the art of speaking? And please don't say no to your audience. Please don't say this. Please don't say that, because the top stuff that comes to your head, I'm not going to accept them and a drill down because after doing this a hundred times, we know you need to know your audience. We know you need these things. But what are some of the weird little nuanced things that you find are so helpful?
Kit Pang: Well, I don't know. I'm on a theme of piggybacking off of everything we're doing today. So I'm going to piggyback. So I believe that there are no one best tip. Everyone has a tip that works for them. But let me segue into this. Classical piano players are more anxious than improv piano players. The reason being classical piano players, they know what they need to play. And second, if someone in the audience knows what they need to play, therefore, if they hit a wrong note, oh my God, someone knows I'm wrong. However, the improv piano player, there is no wrong note because everything is coming up along the way. So the key insight is this. Everything is usable. Everything is usable. Like everything that we're doing today, Ryan, we're using one thing from another and we're using one thing from another and we're making it better.
Ryan Foland: Right. This is improvisation at its best. And there are many podcast hosts who might be like super stressed out that they're blue. Or there may be many guests who are like, I can't believe he's doing this. He's blue. This is ridiculous. But we're sort of going with it. We're rolling with the flow or throwing dots on the board.
Kit Pang: Yeah. Yeah. So I would say if you want to get better as a speaker. Yes, it's good. I'm not saying it's bad to be a classical piano player and not to memorize and practice stuff, but also have that mindset that everything that happens can be used for anything else afterwards.
Ryan Foland: Yeah.
Kit Pang: You mess up, you use it. You know, there's a saying, I forgot to say, I turn your mess into your message, but it's everything is usable.
Ryan Foland: Yeah.
Kit Pang: And you just you just use it and make it better. And then and then in your brain, now you're finding the opportunity and say, oh, let me see how I can use that. So I used to be a hip hop street dancer. I used to be a break dancer.
Ryan Foland: You do. Aren't you always like you lose it?
Kit Pang: OK, yeah, I don't do it anymore. So I guess I would say I'm still a dancer. But anyway. OK, OK, OK. Back then, I was looking up to my, you know, my mentors taught me dance. And whenever someone kind of like messes up their dance, they always looked up to the people who can transition out of the mess ups, the best. So what I'm saying is the best dancers are not the one that have the perfect routines. The best dancers are the ones that messes up and makes that mess up even better. I'm like, I'm like, wow, they just messed up and they turn it even 10x better. Man, that's a skilled dancer. That's good. That's like those are the those.
Ryan Foland: So a skilled speaker is somebody who piggybacks off of the environment, the weather, a heckler, the stage set up, the technical difficulties. I will say and I won't say where, but I attended an event where there was a keynote speaker and he was hell bent on having his PowerPoint. And his PowerPoint actually was something like 30 gigs or something insane because he had all these videos that were embedded. And so at this event, every time that he tried to push it to the big screen, it just froze and it broke. And I was thinking to myself, this is very much on what we're talking here. I was like, dude, just roll with it or like, like, go without your slide. Like, I'm here. And it was 10 minutes of everyone awkwardly waiting for the tech to do it. Then they stopped because he wanted to try it at a different station. So now the audience were like sort of breaking. And then he goes back to do it. Get this. He sees that it's live. And then he goes and he launches right into his memorized thing, which was a sort of slam poem to the images. But the images weren't going. And so he awkwardly was just looking at his PowerPoint, like on his computer and like at the audience, doing this full like, full like, oh, this is so creative and everything. But people are like, dude, your slides aren't still showing. Should somebody tell him? And then it literally he was like, oh, and then it stopped again and restarted. He finally got it going. But by that time, everybody was so disinterested. And then he was away over time and the whole event was over time because of it. And I talked with the organizer afterwards. They're like, yeah, that was that was terrible. That totally like just ruined everything as opposed to, gosh, rolling with the punches.
Kit Pang: Yeah. So, you know, I think what's more interesting is figuring out and discovering the mindset of what keeps people from rolling from the punches, because I think people they've heard again, like, yeah, we know we need to roll with the punches. But for some reason, it's hard for us to do it, even though they know it.
Ryan Foland: OK, let me ask, though, before today, I've never been faced with this type of blue situation.
Kit Pang: Yeah.
Ryan Foland: If this was like my first podcast episode, not 100 plus. And if this was my first guest and this was like, like situationally super important, it could be like like super unfortunate. And my question to you is that in order to learn to have this mentality to roll with the punches, do you actually have to have things go wrong first to get the experience of what to do with?
Kit Pang: That's a great question. So you're asking that something have to go wrong. Well, no, it's in your mind that you think it goes wrong. If you didn't think it was wrong in the first place, how can it go wrong?
Ryan Foland: Yeah, but I'm physically blue right now when I'm not blue.
So we're talking like your microphone doesn't work. We're talking your PowerPoint slides don't roll. We're talking that the speaker doesn't show up and you have a chance to sort of be there, do that. I like what we're doing here. We're going into the mentality of what stops people from your best advice, which is just roll with the punches and piggyback off of everything. But I'm fascinated with the technicality of experience because experience is what you get just after you need it.
And you and I have experience. I have three podcasts and I've done hundreds of episodes. I had a live radio show for three years. Like, there's nothing that does not intimidate me that I can't like piggyback off of and then I make up a word for it and it's fun. And that's what I'm known for. But you and I can tell people we can work with clients. We have people come to us to help us all the time. And we can say, you've got to piggyback. You've got to roll with the punches. This is my experience telling you. But just like the high schooler teenager that their parents and everybody says, do or don't do this. And it's only until they hit the wall, get a brick in the face, get that F. Something happens and then they learn from it. And then they're less likely to do it again. So like, do people is it our responsibility as coaches and speaker trainers to give people a safe environment, to have those experiences?
Kit Pang: Like, for my view, I will say. You have to go to the mindset first, then give them the experience. So let me give an example of this. I want to go back to what you're saying. Yeah. Because when you're talking about experience, are you also talking about kind of like exposure to messing up?
Ryan Foland: Yes.
Well, wait, wait, we'll try to work within this framework of the technicalities. Experience is what you get just after you need it. And so it could be a good experience or a bad experience, but like, somebody can tell you all day what to do and the mindset to have. But sometimes people have to fall on their own or like actually have that experience and afterwards they're like, Whoa, I'm so glad that happened because now I'm never going to double book an event.
Kit Pang: Yeah. But would we say that experience now I'm just turning the, the word experience into a situation in life. And it's our perception of the situation that makes it an experience.
Ryan Foland: Like the person who does a dance move wrong, but nobody notices is what you're saying.
Kit Pang: No, no, what I'm saying is a person that does the dance move in our mind, we thought we did it wrong. So what I'm saying is when the situation happens, it's still our perception of the situation.
Ryan Foland: True. And half the time people don't know you've made a mistake and I've given four TEDx talks, I've done all kinds of keynotes and there are places where like, I know I've messed up and then did that dance transition, like just transition into something else. But there's still that experience that I've had multiple times at practicing that to have that like thick skin with it. So how do we help change the mindset and translate that to more confidence and less anxiety, but like that, the lack of confidence and anxiety is what stops them from really having that true.
Kit Pang: Well, I don't think it's having more confidence or even having less anxiety, it's really helping us remove the danger of what we found dangerous there in the first place.
Ryan Foland: So is it putting a net, is the mentality in net saying like, look, you're going to be on this tight wire, but we got a net for you. You got to have the mentality, no matter what you do, even if you fall, it's okay.
Kit Pang: Well, I want to give another example. I want to see if you can use this to tie back into this. I want to get your rolling of the punches over here. So let's say we're eating chips, right?
Ryan Foland: Can they be jalapeno?
Kit Pang: No, barbecue. Okay. I'll pick you up. You could have the jalapeno. I can't think.
Ryan Foland: We can mix barbecue and jalapeno together. That would be really good. Why don't they have that flavor? They should have that flavor. Lessons to be learned in consumer goods when it comes to rolling with the punches. Keep going.
Kit Pang: Okay. Anyway, we like to eat chips because I'm going to say me personal because it tastes good, right? It tastes good. And we all know that chips are bad for us. Like everyone knows in the world that the majority of people knows that junk food is not good for us.
Ryan Foland: Yes.
Kit Pang: That's why the people still eat them. Even though we know what I'm saying is we have to investigate. If we don't have chips, then we could be losing out on good tasting food. If we don't have chips, then we're not going to enjoy life as much. If we don't have chips, then we're going to eat bland food and that's going to suck in our lives. So what I'm saying is even though everyone knows the good side or whatever the good advice, what I'm saying is that what's that mindset that's keeping us from having it, which I'm just using as an example from chips.
Ryan Foland: Can we go a little deeper and think of the different personality types? So it's funny because literally I saw a big bag, like a family size bag of jalapeno chips that I know are not good for me. And I was thinking to myself, I know these aren't good, but I know that I go to spin class a whole bunch of times and I work out, do a hot platter. So like in my own mind, at least this version of the person, I was like, I'm going to have some chips and I had some chips and it was amazing and it made my day great, but at the same time, I was like, I'm like, this is not good for me. So there are some people that like, like deal with that and they'll, they might have some chips, but they know there's the other person that just maybe never had exposure to chips and there's tons of stuff nobody's had exposure to, but you don't know if you like it or not until you try it, but how does the mentality change? I mean, you know, you should floss, but you don't always, you know, that you should stand up when you speak, but you don't always, you know, that we know these things, but if you and I can figure out the gap between establishing the mentality and helping people go out there to gain their own experience while still learning from best practices, like that's the golden goose, but you have clients that, that, yeah, this is a really interesting point here. How do you get them to identify that maybe they're missing the mentality, the mentality is different, and then are you providing them certain ships or certain situations, certain ships?
Kit Pang: Well, what do you think the solution is based on what we're talking about with the mindset and experience?
Ryan Foland: Thoughts become words and words become things. So think the thoughts that you want. And I think that is the trick because there is a real scientific proof around cognitive dissonance. As humans, we are biologically set up to believe what we think. It's just evolutionarily. Like, I think that that's too high for me to climb over. And I look at the data and I'm like, the data supports what I think. But if I looked at that and I was like, I think I can climb that. Then I'll look at the data and I'll probably decide that I can make it. So there's always two sets of data. And I think that what we are open to will allow us to see the data set that supports what we want to do. And when it comes to speaking, and we can even say ditching the act. So it's on topic for both of these. The fundamental biggest thing I think people can do to move the needle is to answer the question in their head. Aligned with what they want for their future goals. And so, Hey, maybe you're not like a professional public speaker, but when somebody says, are you a public speaker? You say, yeah, it's something I'm working on. I'm really excited about working on that. And if you leave the door open, I think that that is the mentality that will allow you to reach over and maybe grab one of those ships, because you said it makes your life better. All I've been focusing on is that they're bad for me. And so like, if I can say, you know, chips are bad, but they also taste really good. There's two sets of data. I'm going to maybe try one. And then that process now can make you a fan of the most famous mix of barbecue and jalapeno chips that makes your life amazing.
How's that for an answer?
I'm trying to be straight with it, but sticking to what, what I see.
Kit Pang: I like that. I want to give a take on this. So there were two books that I've read that completely changed the way and I, how I help people with public speaking anxiety, two, three years ago, the first book, and I'll try to relate it back to this.
Ryan Foland: Is Ditch the Act. No, wait, what?
Kit Pang: The first book I actually learned from the book, Atomic Habits. It's not that book, but in that book, they had two sentences and they said, this book called Alan Carr, the easy way to stop smoking was the Bible to help people stop smoking people like Ellen DeGeneres, Richard Branson, Ashton Kutcher. They read it. They read the book and they stopped smoking. Now, am I saying this book works for everyone? No, I'm not saying this books for everyone, but if you go on YouTube, Reddit, you guys can do the research later. People on the comments says, I read the book. I've been smoking for 50 years. I lost my desire to smoke after reading the book.
Ryan Foland: Have you read the book? Are you still smoking?
Kit Pang: I have all his books. Easy way to stop smoking, good sugar, bad sugar. Anyway, hold on. That was the first book. That was the first book.
Ryan Foland: Okay. Okay.
Kit Pang: So I'm like, what the heck? They don't need to do any exercises. They just need to read the thing and they're good with it. I'm like, what the heck? What the heck is it? What does this do going on here? At the same time, I'm like, what else is like that in the world? So there's another book like this, completely different topic. It's called Dr. Sardineau, Healing Back Pain. Howard Stern is a big proponent of this guy. People have been through surgeries. They've been through physical therapies. When they read the book, they have no more back pain. They don't do any exercises.
Ryan Foland: We need to stop. I need to go to Amazon right now and do a couple anyways. I had a major back injury in college and it put me out for like a couple of years. It's terrible. And like, so like there is this desire. So you read these two books and what did it shine the light on when it comes to mentality and stopping you from what you want to do?
Kit Pang: So let's say the chips example.
Let's say, let's say that you finished reading the book. There's no more desire to have the chips. So if no desire, doesn't matter what experience you have. You don't even want it later on.
Ryan Foland: Desire. That's a good one. I have a way of looking at things as polarized. So like I had recent blood tests that came back and the doctor's like, we're not going to put you on meds for your cholesterol, but like you need to work on these two things. And so all I hear is butter is bad. And so I think to myself is butter is bad. That's it. There's no good butter. It's just butter's bad. I don't need butter. Don't give me any butter. And so like, I'm an extremist like that because I feel the only way for me to like not sneak in and grab that is to be like, it's bad. It's bad. And I just don't touch it or avoid it kind of thing.
Kit Pang: Yeah. Well, have you asked yourself this, right? Aren't there junk food that's on the shelf, but you have no desire for it. You don't even want them.
Ryan Foland: No.
Kit Pang: Like my wife drinks soda. I'm like, I don't even want them in the first place.
Ryan Foland: We have so much candy and treats. I had somebody, I work for a company and you know, I'm like an ambassador for them, so they send me all this cool stuff. It was this basket of like all these amazing treats. And so we're just like eating all this candy. I'm like, but I don't want any more chocolate right now. I'm holidayed out with the chocolate. So do you have to read a book or do you have to eat enough to be unhealthy for your doctor say to not have something like, what is the conclusion here? What, what do we do?
Kit Pang: So what I'm saying is going back to experience when you have to write mentality and you go in the situation again, the situation of course is different because the mentality is completely different about the situation. So I don't think you actually need to experience later on because you have a different way of looking at it. It comes to a different experience anyway.
Ryan Foland: So here's where I'd push back a little bit. And this is because of the self-help book industry and the self-help industry and the coaching industry that is just trijillion. And it's like, I don't know, I feel like, I feel like we kind of know the foods to eat and what we should do and how to stay healthy and stuff like this. And even if we have the mindset and we know, and even if we give somebody else our gym bag, like at the end of the day, I find a lot of what helps bring people across the line is that like, not just them, right? Maybe it's a book, maybe it's a person, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a loved one, maybe it's a doctor, maybe it's a, but like, I feel like there has to be that experience component because I can't imagine a world where you, you know, you quit smoking without even knowing what it is. And maybe that example is that you never start in the first place because you weren't exposed. And it's like a slippery slope. I love how philosophical we're getting here, by the way.
Kit Pang: Yeah. What, what does, who really knows in the, in the world? So I'm saying that, well, I'm going away from experience. I don't know what I'm not saying experience is not important, but how do you talk about people who have near-death experiences and they change the whole mindset afterwards and then all the other things are, are you saying because they have a, okay, what book are you looking toward there?
Ryan Foland: I'm looking for my book. Have you read this?
Kit Pang: Big wrong.
Ryan Foland: Yes. Let me do a little screenshot here so we can see it. This I picked up. My wife had it for like a psychology class in college. And I was just like looking for books. I'm like, Oh, that looks kind of fun. Like the target is, Oh, like they hit the wrong spot.
Kit Pang: Yeah.
Ryan Foland: It's a study of wrong ology and bro, we're all wrong. Always all the time. It's just a matter of time until we find out. Like we think the world is flat. I mean, no, we would think the world's run. I mean, no, we think that's not, no, I mean, we think it talks about like where the scientific method started to happen. Everything else before that was just like unreliable data and gut instincts and what, what we think. And then the scientific method created a process that was duplicatable, but they didn't even like, it just amazing. So I am so inspired by reading this book because in all these conversations, I got to check that out. All these things that I have, it's like, I'm probably not right, but I feel so right. And to your point about these dear near death experiences, they give all these amazing stories about individuals and they talk about change happens. You find out that you're wrong in two ways. One that is so slow. You don't even know it happens. You're totally different than when you were a break dancer, like, but it wasn't like an instant. It just kind of happened over time. You stopped going to class and it was, you changed the person. The other is where there's this crazy life moment or like, you know, there's a crazy physical vibe or somebody died. Like there's something crazy and it happens like that. But a part of being wrong is admitting that you're wrong, which is in conjunction with everything that you hold true is your identity.
And it's such this crazy political market now.
I don't get political, but there are a lot of people on both sides who are wrong. And it's just like unbelievable how much people trench in. And the research shows, I'll just share this because I love this. I love this book. This gives an example of our default reaction to being wrong. If you, my friend Kit, don't believe what I believe, first assumption is that you're just ignorant. It's totally cool. You haven't had the chips before. Let me give you some of these mixture of jalapeno and barbecue chips. And then you're like, I'm not. It's not that good, Ryan. I'm like, what? It's not that good. Now I'm going to go to the idiot assumption. I mean, you're an idiot. Your taste buds are everything. This is you. How can anybody trust you if you don't like these chips? And then if you're like, but Ryan, they're not good. Then you jump to the evil assumption. This kit, he's got it out for me. He's trying to undermine the greatest chip combination ever. He's evil. Don't listen to him. You know, troll him and attack him for what we believe in. But it's like, and this could be for religion. This could be for politics. This could be for barbecue chips. We go through these assumptions and we're all wrong.
Kit Pang: Yeah, I mean, I got to get that book. Being wrong, being wrong, being wrong.
Ryan Foland: And it's The Adventures in the Margin of Error by Catherine Schultz.
Kit Pang: Yeah. Well, you know, back to our conversation, I feel like we can go on about our conversation. But when it comes to the mindset experience, I feel like I understand. But like, we got to kind of like have it all. But I want to take this back to communication.
Ryan Foland: Yes.
Kit Pang: I really believe those who can communicate the best really shapes other people's identities and what they think is being right, not as an evil way. But the best communicators know how to shift how other people think, feel and act.
Ryan Foland: Yeah, influence, influence.
Kit Pang: And I think that's the power of communication and helping people see how they were wrong and adapt these different ways, not because we're evil, but because that's the power of communication. It is. I love talking about influence.
Ryan Foland: I got all kinds of influence stuff for days. And the two components, no matter how you define it, is that you have to change the way people think and you have to give them a chance or allow them to take action. Otherwise, it's just another book that they read with stuff that doesn't change the mindset, that doesn't do anything.
Kit Pang: Yeah. Yeah.
Ryan Foland: All right. Kit, this is so fun.
Let's transition. This smurf is going to ask to transition to the final part of the show, which is.
Kit Pang: What kind of smurf are you? Have you ever smurfed?
Ryan Foland: I'm ginger smurf. I'm the one ginger smurf. I'm the one smurf with freckles.
Kit Pang: I love it. All right. So I'll cut you off.
Ryan Foland: No, it's OK.
The last part here are your thoughts on building a speaking business. Now, I'm not the person who's like, you know, I'm going to help you speak 10,000. Like, I just hate speakers who just prey on people's want to get paid high honorariums. We're talking about like building a business could be gaining the ability to speak at a board meeting or speaking at your local club or church. Like for me, building a speaking business is not always about the money. It's just really about your wanting to get those dots on the board, get more stages, more opportunity, eventually inbound. Maybe it's it's how you get your experience. Yeah. If you've got the right mindset and you're growing. So you work with a lot of people who have this anxiety and they overcome speaking. But like for those that want to gain more experience, gain more practice, possibly get paid to do what they're doing. What do you see works in this current environment? Like what?
Kit Pang: Sure.
So let me remind my rewind my career, kind of like 10 years back. I actually got into what I'm doing now because I saw speakers out there. I mean, how the heck are they getting paid to speak panels, keynotes, XYZ? I wanted to do something like that. And so at the beginning, I didn't know who to talk to. I didn't know what to put into Google XYZ. But I would say the most powerful thing, I'm just sharing a story to give the give the tip now, I think the most powerful thing that I did was form my own mastermind of other speakers who were better than me. So I was listening to the Grant Baldwin podcast, you know, and then I heard there was this one speaker, his name was Josh Dreen. And when they interviewed him, he was a speaker that gave like 150 events a year.
Ryan Foland: Are you sure it's not Josh Linkner?
Kit Pang: Josh Dreen, Josh Dreen. I mean, how the heck is he giving like 150 XYZ? So I contacted him at that same time. I said, I got to surround myself with people who was already doing it. I contacted two other people. Another person's name was Alan Stein Jr. He gives keynotes. And another person was Adam Wilber, great magician and speaker. And I emailed all of them and I said, hey, I'm going to get together a group of professional speakers for a mastermind. I have I'm thinking of Josh Dreen, Alan, Alan Stein Jr. and Adam Wilber, are you interested? And you know this, no one knows what the heck they're doing anyways, eventually as we go. And everyone says, yes, everyone said yes. And when I got into the group, their knowledge blew my mind. So I'm saying no matter what your level yet, your beginner, middle, advanced. How can you surround yourself with people and create the opportunity yourself and get into a group of people that it's doing better than you and give them in some kind of incentive for them to want to be there? That is what I would because all the advice is on Google nowadays. You know, everything's on Google and your podcast. Everything's already there. Yeah. What's missing? What's missing? Get yourself surround yourself with the five people that you want to be like. It's not the first time you heard this, but I would say that's the best thing that helped me.
Ryan Foland: Yeah. Well, it's funny because it's pretty spot on with what I did, where I had done a TEDxLASalon project called the City of Speakers. And I'm fascinated with people's voice. So I interviewed 386 individuals, took all of their answers, put it on one track, gave a talk over about the power of your voice. And my goal was to expand that and just continue this experiment. And somebody out of Brussels saw it. They're like, this is really cool. I'm starting this platform called SpeakerHub, and we want to start a podcast. We love this idea, but we have to be international. And I was like, OK, well, what if we call it the World of Speakers instead of City of Speakers? And I was like, this gives me a chance to have a platform to reach out to people who are doing great things and successful what they're doing. And every episode I say, what's a story that shaped you?
Give me your best speaking tips. And how do you build your speaking business? And it's kind of inception that your advice is what I've done. And I completely agree with it. My question to you is, how might someone approach it? Because there is an intimidation factor. And if maybe you don't have a podcast or if you don't have the traction that you want, you said, find some way to either add value or make it worth their time. Can you give some examples of what that would be if somebody reached out to you and asked you to be part of a mastermind, like what you would be looking for or what you think works? Like, how do we equip people with the right mindset and the tools to actually go out there and do this piece of advice? Because I think it's powerful.
Kit Pang: Yeah, trust me, I think it's scary. But second, if someone, let's say this complete newbie out there, Ryan, this started day one, but he got all the top people in the world. And he said, Ryan, these other people are going to be in it. Do you want to be in it as well? It doesn't matter if that person's a newbie. You want to surround yourself with the other people. They're like, yeah.
Ryan Foland: OK, so this one strategy is the old like, have you seen Dumb and Dumber?
Kit Pang: Yes, a long time ago. This is I love the movie.
Ryan Foland: It is there's one moment where, you know, they're eating on the road and then they go up to the bar or go up to the waitress. They're like, hey, like put our whole tab on Samson over there. And he's like, that guy Samson is like, yeah, Samson. And he Samson eventually buys the whole bar tab. It's this idea of like, well, hey, Kit, would you like to be involved? Who's there? It's just you versus asking multiple people and getting like one can. Oh, I'm asking these that like using one to get the other, to get the other, to get the other. That's the tactic there, right?
Kit Pang: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, so actually, let me go a little bit back. There was a story that I heard on a podcast. I think they were talking about like the 1940s or some kind of like not pandemic, but world crisis happened and everyone was out of a job. And then everyone was looking for a job. So they would go to like the business owners and hey, can I have a job at your grocery store? Can I have a job at your car place? However, there was this one person that did things completely different. He went to that grocery store and said, hey, are you having marketing problems and getting people in the door? Let me see how I can help you with that.
Well, he went to the other person and said, hey, car person, what do you need help of? Right. Most people are looking for a job. However, if you go on the other side, but people at top, they're still looking for help anyway.
Ryan Foland: So finding the individuals who you think would be great to have in a mastermind and that brand halo learning from and really thinking about how you could provide value could be a marketing aspect, could be it could be media, it could be publications, it could be shout outs, it could be all these things. But it's a value based approach, not necessarily, hey, I got this guy and this gal you want to be in. It's more of a by joining this group that I'm gathering. Here's how I can help you versus give me a job.
Kit Pang: Yeah. What they will get out of it. If they will get something out of it with them, with them.
Ryan Foland: What's in it for? What's in it for me?
Kit Pang: Yeah. Yeah. So I would say that's the tip. But I love how you draw out more of like the thoughts that I have. It makes it more clear after you ask the questions.
Ryan Foland: Well, you're very articulate. And, you know, we're just piggybacking off of what each other says. And that's actually a trick for building. Well, for me, building business, having a podcast is piece of it. And with so much experience and things having gone right and wrong, where I love interviewing is basically listening to what you're saying and asking a question based on that and having this kind of like plunko adventure. We have no we had no idea where this was going to go.
Kit Pang: Yeah.
Ryan Foland: But it started off very unfortunate. But when we realize how unnecessary it is to actually be your regular color and that it's fortunate to be an environment with a guest where he can wear a pizza hat and I can be a ginger smurf. And I still get super philosophical and geek out about books and talk about theories and mindsets and all these things.
Kit Pang: Yeah, I love it. Great, great conversation today. So, thanks for having me.
Ryan Foland: Well, if somebody does enjoy your vibe and wants to find value in your community, like what's the best entry point? I know you've got these Boston speak series. I know that you rarely double book anymore. So, people don't have to worry about that. But how do people get in touch with you? What's the way to get into your channels? Yeah, I would say you can visit bostonspeaks.com
Contact go on the contact page there. Make it easy peasy. All right. #easypeasy. I like it. Easy peasy.
Ryan Foland: Well, Kit, do you know what SpeakerHub is?
Have you heard of SpeakerHub before?
Kit Pang: I've had heard of SpeakerHub. You can tell me more about it if you want.
Ryan Foland: Well, it's basically a place to be found as a speaker, to have a splash page as a speaker, to have a call for speakers, to search for events who are looking for speakers. And it's on an international platform. And we've got quite a few thousand on both sides of the fence. And if you are interested, I can hook you up with a VIP package so you can put it there and see. I've gotten gigs there. I've gotten paid gigs there. I've met a lot of other speakers. And this podcast for the last five or six years has been sponsored and powered by SpeakerHub. So I'm super excited. And what's really cool is if you're just starting, right? We love to talk about this just starting. And I think both you and I share passion for being excited about new speakers and the ability to communicate at a level that influences people in a positive way to just start and not have a website, not know what to do and not anything like it's kind of intimidating. But you can go to a platform like SpeakerHub, create a profile page, point people back until you get your full website, search for speaking opportunities, put yourself out there so that you can find more ways to piggyback and roll with the punches. So we'll get you hooked up with that if you want to be there. It's one more place to be found. But shout out to SpeakerHub.
And for those who like my ginger Smurf energy, I would love to help you on your speaking journey and take what I've learned and the experience and help you understand the mindset, suggest books and hold you accountable and be somebody there to help see you succeed. You can learn more about me. It's a very complicated URL. ryan.online. So if you want to find me online, it's ryan.online. I used to tweet a lot, but I've sort of stopped tweeting. And you can probably find some stick figures and personal slice of life on Instagram and LinkedIn. I share a lot of things as well.
So, Kit, I hope this is one of the actually this is our second. This is our third dot. We had initial dot we didn't know.
Kit Pang: Good thought. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ryan Foland: We had another dot, another dot. So, like, let's continue to throw dots up on the board. Let me know how I can help support you.
Kit Pang: Hey, Ryan, thanks for today. It was amazing.
Ryan Foland: All right. Well, in true fashion here, that's it. If you're a listener, don't just be a listener. Be a subscriber to this podcast. Go easy peasy style and check out bostonspeaks.com. And remember, if you want to learn more from those who've been there, done that, you can go back from episode one and binge about 100 and you will know exactly what I know and build upon that information's out there. It's about you taking action and rolling with it. So this is going to be an easy episode to edit.
It was fun hanging out with you, Kit. I'll leave the final word to you. How do people get the right mindset to basically use communication to help influence the world in a positive way? What do you say?
Kit Pang: What I would say is to, you know, just block some time out of your calendar and really take time to reflect, even though we all need no need to do that. Just put 30 minutes in your calendar and start doing that today.
Ryan Foland: Boom. All right. I will try to practice what you're preaching. And I think we could all use 30 minutes of reflection. I'm reflecting back. This is great. Let's take a couple of quick screenshots. So we have some proof here of my, of my. Yeah, there you go. All right. I look forward to this getting out there. And look at that. Zoom actually recognize that you are raising a hand and using AI to raise your hand.
Kit Pang: Yeah, yeah, that's pretty popular. There's some bubbles popping up on Zoom nowadays. I think when you put a hand up or something, I don't know.
Ryan Foland: Crazy. We'll have to do another Zoom talk later on Zoom. All right, everybody. My name is Ryan. This is Kit and we are out.
Kit Pang: Yeah, later.
A bit about World of Speakers
World of Speakers is a bi-weekly podcast that helps people find their own voice and teaches them how to use their voice to develop a speaking business.
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