I write this as I just found out that Hans Rosling has died. The news hit me like a punch in the stomach.

I have shared the stage with many great speakers, but for many reasons Hans Rosling is probably the one speaker I respect the most. Seeing him present in his very unique and personal style thought me so much about speaking. His approach to life, work and his mission to help people better understand the world thought me a lot about being a human.

In this post I want to honour this great man and great speaker by writing down some of the ways I respected him – and learnt from him – as a speaker. I wish more people working on other important issues would study and learn from Dr Rosling when it comes to the skill of getting a message across.

Because get his message a cross he did. His TED-talk has more than 11 000 000 views (!) and is one of the most watched TED-talks ever. He spoke so that world leaders and the common man on the street all listened.

Here are some things we can all learn from how he spoke:

1) He was on a mission.

Watching Hans Rosliing speak you can tell that he was passionate about he was speaking about and that he was on a mission to educate the world about the issues he cared about.

Passion + Mission is a very potent combination and the audience can always feel which speaker is passionate about his or her topic and which are not.

If you are not passionately on a mission around the theme you are speaking on, then stop speaking or start speaking on a topic that is in line with your mission.
2) He was genuine.

With his Swenglish English and his big stick that he carried around you could tell that Hans Rosling could not care less about what other people thought about him as a presenter. For him it was not about him: it was about people listening to what he wanted them to understand

He did not go up on stage trying to be someone else or to try to play the “guru” or the “keynote speaker”. He went up and was his genuine and authentic self – and the audience rewarded him with their love.

The audience will always prefer a speaker who is who he – or she – is over a person trying to be someone else.
3) He did not try to impress anyone – he just wanted to make an impression.

At the end of his life Hans Rosling was as close to a rockstar as a professor can be, at least in Sweden. But Hans never let the fame get to him. He was humble, curious and always willing to learn. He understood that to get a message across you can not focus on yourself – you have to focus on the message. And he also understood the power of presentation skills in order to make a message stand out and get across.

 

4) He had fun.

Watch any of his speeches and you can tell that he enjoys the stage, enjoys the art of speaking – and of getting people to learn.

Many people hate the act of speaking, and if you hate something you will not enjoy it. But the reverse might also be true: if you enjoy what you do you will start to like it.

Whenever you are asked to speak, try to look at it as something positive – as an opportunity to get your message across and then try to have as much fun as you can while doing it. I can almost promise you that that approach to speaking will make you a better speaker.

 

5) He liked to teach.

In many ways Dr Rosling was the perfect example of the “professor we all wished we had in University”. The teacher who still loved to teach.
And all speakers are teachers – we have a message we want to get a cross and we are teaching our audiences this message.

The question we have to ask ourselves as speakers is: are we teaching it in a style that will make people think about our session as one of their favourite sessions?
6) He was funny.

Ha made fun of world leaders and his students and many others in his speeches but always in a way where you always felt that he would – in an instant – also make fun of himself

Humour – and especially self deprecating humour – is one of the strongest weapons a speaker has in the speaker toolbox.

He was also an extreme optimist with a very positive outlook on life and the world – and this attitude was contagious. People are much more open to a message when it is presented in a hopeful and positive way.

 

7) He did not take himself so seriously – but took the things he spoke about very seriously.

Hans Rosling showed that you can talk about something very serious or complex (world health statistics) and still do it in a engaging and inspiring way. That is a very powerful message there that I wish more speakers would spend more time understanding.

Hans Rosling might be dead, and the world is sadly a more ignorant place. But his hopeful message will continue to spread. And hopefully many speakers will be inspired by him to improve the way they communicate their own messages to the world. I know he inspired me.

Heaven is now a more positive and less ignorant place.

ps. Hans Rosling died at the age of 68. The life expectancy of the world population today is 70. He wanted you to know that.

In one of his most famous speechs Ronald Reagan stood infront of the Berlin Wall on June 12 1987 and said: “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall”.

I do not specifically remember him holding that speech (it’s apparently did not have such a huge impact at the time, but has later been seen, by some, as a speech that helped, in part, push the Berlin Wall to fall.)

I am mentioning this line from Reagan’s speech because today a man came up to me after my speech and said: “Thank you so much for your speech, it was the best one I have ever heard. You were able to break up the barrier between the speaker and the stage!”

Turns out that the man who came up to me was the sound guy …

A man who, in his job, has listened to hundreds, and hundreds of speakers.

I thanked him for his kinds words and asked him what he meant with that part of “breaking the barrier”.

He sighed, and complained about how so many speakers arn’t able to reach out to the audience they are speaking to.

He explained that it was not about the sound (his job was to make sure that they were heard, after all).

But no matter how well the mic is transmitting your words, it will not help unless you, as a speaker is not breaking through to the audience.

I asked him what he thought was the best ways of breaking the barrier between the audience and the stage. He had after all heard so many speakers in his career.

He said:

1) Energy.

So many speakers go up on stage and just say the words that they had planned to say, but without the energy needed to get the audience to feel that they should  really pay attention and listen

2) Lack of purpose.

So many speakers do not seem to know why they are up on the stage to begin with.

3) Drifting away

So many speakers go up on stage, start their speech, but then drift away in directions that they had not planned to go, leading to confusing, non-logical, or scattered messages.

I also asked him what it was in my speech that had made him like it so much, and how I had been able to remove that invisible barrier of distance between speaker and audience.

He replied:

1) Humor

Makes sense, laughter is the great barrier killer after all.

2) Audience participation

Taking cues from things that someone in the audience is saying and play with that for a while is a great way to create a feeling of “togetherness” between the speaker and the audience

3) Making the message simple to understand.

By making the message clear and simple the audience can easily understand it, and spend time on thinking about what your message has been, instead of spending time on thinking about what the message it about.

Lesson: Take it from the sound guy: if you are not able to reach out to the audience you might as well not have a mic at all.

 

 

Every star has the “it” factor, but what is it that gives someone that “it”?

That was one of many conversations I had tonight with dr Boy Abunda over a three hour long dinner.

If you do not know who Boy Abunda is I can guarantee that you are not from the Philippines. In the Philippines he is Oprah, David Letterman and Ellen DeGeneres combined. He is “the King of Talk” and has interviewed everyone from Deepak Chopra to Miss Universe over an almost 30 year long career.

But tonight he was not interviewing anyone, if anything I was interviewing him.

Because a part from being a tv-talk show host he also runs a series of other companies including a talent management company that mangers all kinds of celebrities, from basketball players and actors to a celebrity dentist (!).

And it was from the perspective of both interviewing stars and celebrities, as well as helping to create them (as a talent manager) that I wanted to hear Dr Boy Abunda’s view on what it is that creates the “it-factor” – this elusive characteristic that makes someone have “star quality”.

I asked him to define this “it-factor”.

His first respons was that it can’t be defined. “That’s why it’s called the “x-factor”.”

That, of course, was a correct observation.

But I wanted to get an answer to a question that was not easily answered. I wanted to get closer to the truth. Catch the rainbow around being a star, if you wish.

So Dr Abunda kept thinking.

And then he replied: “It’s what radiates from you.”

“What is it that radiates?”, I inquired.

His answer surprised me and then delighted me.

He said: “Your story.”

He then elaborated: “People who have the “It-factor” have a deeper awareness of who they are. They are comfortable in themselves, in who they are and what they stand for.”

He continued to explain how he told the talents which he managers why no-one should ever try to copy some-one else’s singing style or acting style in an attempt to become a star, because it will never work since you do not have the background that made the person you are copying who they are.

The same is true for speakers.

Look at great speakers, learn from great speakers – but do not copy great speakers.

Instead dig deep into who you really are as a speaker, a person, a human being – as a soul. Then build yourself up as a speaker from there.

(Dr Abunda then added that this radiation that comes from knowing deeply who you are has to be nurtured with the tools of the trade, kind of like how a diamond has to be cut to shine to its fullest potential.)

What does star quality have to do with being a great speaker you say? And I say: A lot.

The ability to walk up on a stage and capture an audience requires a skill that is quite similar to possessing this “it-factor”.

Lesson: So as a speaker, try to dig inside to find your true story, the one that makes you radiate, so that you then can reach out with your message because people are drawn to what you have to say.

Bonus information: I also asked Boy Abunda about all the people he had interviewed and what made someone good to interview, and he replied that some people “have the gift of clarity”.

I found that profoundly insightful – and, I might add, very clear. 😉

The ability to get a message a cross in a way that people easily understand and take to their hearts is perhaps the most important skill a speaker can have. And to have it is truly a gift.

In all the speeches that you give, try to deliver them using the gift of clarity.

And then combine the two messages from Boy Abunda and you will have something truly powerful: A person who radiates while delivering a message that is communicated clearly.

I think you will agree with me that if you heard about a speaker who did that you would rush to get a chance to hear that speech.