#380: Command Attention. - Can You Hear Me? And Are You Listening?..

We turn a tough political banquet into a playbook for presence. Two questions reshape the room: can you hear me and are you listening, with practical fixes for sound, engagement, and momentum.

• ocean and surfboard metaphor for crowd energy
• hearing versus listening as separate checks
• why sound checks and backup gear matter
• when crowd work fails and how to qualify targets
• laughter and silence as contagious signals
• shorten setups to fit noisy venues
• how to redirect focus toward willing listeners
• after action reports for accountability and growth
• parking lot encore to repair missed connections
• simple script to set boundaries without snark

Check me out. Peace.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Surfboard And The Ocean
• 2:10 Hearing Versus Listening
• 4:35 Crowd Work Hits Friction
• 6:50 Sound Check And Accountability
• 9:50 Political Event Dynamics
• 12:30 Backup Gear And Adaptation

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Commanding presence. You know, I had a uh valuable lesson last night. I did a comedy show, and um, you know, the way that comedy really works, and this is just me speaking out loud, in my opinion, is that the crowd is kind of like the ocean, and my microphone is like a surfboard. And the only way I can ride that wave, the only way I can make everybody laugh is I need everybody's attention, and uh they have to be receptive, which are two different things. Okay, if you're paying attention, but you're not in a relaxed mood for me to be able to uh absorb the information. It's like have you ever tried to have a conversation, a serious conversation with somebody who's uh thinking about something else or they are uh angry. Uh try to try to have a conversation uh with your girlfriend or wife or whoever you may have in your life or boyfriend, husband, whatever, uh, about one thing when they're mad about something else. They're probably not going to be in the listening tone. Um and uh I try to find accountability in anything that I can make better, because that's really, again, in the army, we would call a uh after action report, which means basically things that you do good, things that you get bad that you did bad, even if you did awesome. And the whole point is to recognize what you accomplished and to also figure out what you could have made better, even if, even in a win, right? So without getting caught up in too many details, I realized that there were people in the room when I first started speaking. Uh, I like doing crowd work. I like crowd work a whole lot. And if I call on somebody and this is valuable time and they're not interested or they're not paying attention or something like that, okay. Um, if they don't respond back, I can't respond to them because then it becomes like a sidebar conversation. That was one problem that I was having. I was doing crowd work and uh certain people uh, you know, just they they didn't want to respond. So what do you do? You adapt and overcome, right? Apparently, there was another part where uh people were telling me after the show in the back that they could not hear me at all. So the lesson that I had learned is very simple. When you get on stage, or this could be me, regardless, just figure it out if it's in your own life, even better. But two separate questions. Uh, and it's kind of like uh a trigger and pulling the trigger. And what I mean is this the first question is, can you hear me? That's number one, that's a trigger for getting their attention. Number two, are you listening? Because listening and hearing is two different things. If I would have asked that, I would have known immediately who my audience is in a crowd, and this was a corporate event uh in a crowd, and that could have worked to my advantage instead of trying to get people that are not hearing, not listening, not interested to participate. So that's my lesson. Um now the interesting thing is that uh I I met a lot of great politicians uh or potentially great politicians, and I noticed that um from I noticed that from uh the silence and the messages that they were trying. So let me back up. This was a um uh political, a political event that was also supposed to have some levity to it, some humor and stuff. So I was the levity. Um and I'd say maybe there was like crowd was like about there was about like a hundred of them, uh not politicians, but just attendees at this event. And there were different politicians saying why they should be voted for and stuff like that. And um, I had one of them contact me last night, and uh, and I had another politician tell me um directly after the show that he couldn't hear me, which is coming around full circle, um that you need to fix that situation. And how could you fix that situation first off when you're talking in a microphone about not being heard? Well, first off would be um do a sound check before I failed to do that. I did not do that, and um, that was a learning lesson, and that's important. So I'm gonna do that from now on because I am a professional uh and I aim to always please. I can't trust somebody else's equipment, which is why I also have a backup speaker. There could have been adjustments that could have made to that speaker, maybe, maybe not, but I have a backup speaker that's stay charged, it's portable, it's Bluetooth, I have wireless, I have two extra microphones, I am ready to play ball. But that's not going to help at all if my second problem, people can't hear me, okay, or those that can hear me aren't listening. And it's also not a bad thing to actually have this group that was sitting um at this nearby table of when I started, um, with their backs turned, having a conversation and carrying on. You know, that whole example that I gave about about the ocean is that if the ocean is flat, if there's no waves, how am I gonna surf? You get what I'm saying? So if if I'm trying that's what's fun about a comedy club, but I think, and this was not a comedy club, uh, but I think what's great about not doing not doing comedy clubs is that you get these lessons of different, it like it multiplies your stage presence and your ability to work through problems and stuff like that, that a comedy club doesn't have with its perfect, you know, scenario and all the chairs are facing to the audience. This had a lot of dinner tables and they were uh turning different directions, but the ones that wanted to listen all turned, okay? Um, but it's still important to I feel like laughter is contagious, but also silence is. And um, if you ever had a situation where there was like a group of individuals and they said, Does anybody have any problem with this? If somebody has a problem with it, it only takes one to like raise their hand. Okay, and then two, and then if there is a problem, they might do it. But the thing is, until the the pressure of being able to um raise your hand is a lot less when a lot more have already raised their hand, unless you're that first one, right? Um, and my point is that silence and laughter, it's kind of like that too. Um there's something that's kind of infectious that happens when you have a group of people at a comedy show uh who are just uh not laughing, and sometimes silence can even be disruptive. But people, if they pay to be there, or and this is just my advice and also a learning lesson for myself, they're just talking out loud, at least acknowledge to the crowd that if these people aren't participating, that's fine. But we're going to have a great experience without them. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You know what I mean? Because you're really just separating uh the listeners from the non-listeners, but they need to know that these people aren't laughing, not because what I'm saying isn't funny. They're not laughing because they're not listening. You know, which and also getting back to the uh physically hearing, which is different than um uh uh interpreting and understanding the information, comedy is also something where if you what I love about one-liner jokes is that they're they're short, they're fast, it's begin and end, done. Very simple, right? However, the longer a joke goes, the more you have the crowd has to listen to, which is why I try to have all my jokes be very short now. Um but the more the longer the joke is, typically speaking, the uh you you have to listen and pay attention to it, to like the setup and what's leading into it, because otherwise the punchline is not going to make sense. So if you've ever had somebody watch stand-up comedy, uh if they were checking their phone while listening to jokes, they might look up periodically and be like, well, that's not that wasn't that funny. Maybe. Um, but I'm a big believer that your um your attention is where you're looking. Meaning, if if I was having a conversation with somebody, if they're looking at their phone while I'm talking to them, they're not listening to me. And that is two big distinctions, which is why I come back to my first point hearing versus listening, right? Um find out if your crowd can hear you. And if they can hear you, find out if they're listening. Okay, because you need to know when you're talking to a group of people, uh, if they can actually hear you. Uh and for those that can hear, if they aren't hearing you, you gotta fix that problem. And number two, again, fix that with a little uh sound check before. And number two, um, uh listening. If somebody doesn't want to, if they can hear but they're not listening, okay, you need to find out uh, do you even want to listen? Because if not, you can direct your attention away from them and towards the people that want to hear you more. There are these tables that I was making laugh consistently, and there was also like some conversations going on in the back, and I guess that that's a default as a result of uh uh not being able to hear me. Um so what I try to do is after the show, I tried to um uh for the people that were telling me they couldn't hear me, uh I did like an extra 10 minutes outside in the parking lot, and they really liked it, and I was making them laugh, and it was like a good time and stuff. Um but uh yeah, so um my my biggest dissatisfaction is um not being able to um fulfill over over deliver and fulfill in what I feel like I was obligated to do um just by the means of knowing that people couldn't hear me, uh, but the people that could enjoyed it, the people that were listening. Uh and I take full accountability for um, you know, part of getting better is trying to find accountability in things that you could have got that you could have made better, right? Um because that also means it's in your control and it's in your control to to improve, right? So um, yeah, my biggest lessons learned from that experience was to find out uh if everybody can hear me, how can you resolve that microphone check before you go on, do it well before, like an hour or two hours before. That's number one. Uh number two, if they're listening, if they're not, uh you have to find that out by uh talking to those people that are just having a sidebar conversation and to being distracting to others or um or not paying attention at all, just so they're at least cut away from the group to know that hey, they're not a part of this group, you know, if it could be a public area or something like that. So um, yeah, if I could just wrap up and simplify that, that would be the biggest lessons that I learned. Um, those sidebar conversations. Have you ever been in a classroom and you're trying to listen to teacher and some guy behind behind you or beside you or church or whatever the circumstance might may be is having a sidebar conversation. It's very distracting. Um, especially when there's supposed to be one talker and everybody else listening. Um, yeah, those two distractions can be uh silence from people not paying attention, okay, when they should be laughing. Uh, because again, they're just turned around, uninterested. You try to do crowd work, you try to do anything with them, just like a teacher trying to call on a student if you ask them a question and the student doesn't want to participate. Well, that that kind of throws off the teacher's um uh rhythm a little bit. But again, you have to adapt and overcome. So, can you hear me? Correct that with a microphone check. Are you listening? Okay, and separate those people that either aren't listening or that are having cyber conversations. And you do that by calling them out individually, asking them to please be quiet or to pay attention. If they're not going to pay attention, now you know those people that can't hear you are not listening. It may sound like what I'm saying is repetitive, there's a lot going on, but there's a lot of good information, I think, in what I'm saying. And uh, as always, I'm leaving an imprint not just for me and myself and my progression, but if anything that I'm saying to you applies to you, even better for everybody. We all get paid, we all win. So thank you very much for listening. If you've made it up to this far, I do appreciate you. And just remember, if you are giving a public um speaking engagement of any kind, you need to correct make those corrections before they before you waste your time and their time as well. Okay. Um can you hear me? Are you listening? Two separate questions. Very profound, very simple, very easy, and very informative. I'm Benja well done. Check me out. Peace.