Total Job Interview Mastery: Words, Body Language, and Presence (In Person or Video)

0:00 We're going to be talking about what I call video interview power skills. How to look and sound like the top candidate. And that's what I want you to understand because when you're in an interview, it is about your entire performance. And I don't think a lot of people understand that when you are in an interview where you are in total sales mode. It is not your answers to your questions to their questions that get you hired. It's your actual stories.

0:27 It's your entire performance. And I want you to think about this. I want to say a couple things up front. I actually want to repeat them just to drive them home. But I want you to think about, have you ever been in a job interview where you thought you were absolutely perfect for that job, but you didn't get it? Right? Has everybody been there, right? If you do enough interviewing, you probably have. And what do I always tell you? If you're in the job interview, you are qualified. Which means if you did not get that job, if you did not get that job offer, you failed as a communicator, not a job candidate. And I want you to think about it. A lot of you and a lot of the people that I coach, you tend to script out your interview answers to commonly asked questions. You want to report your history as if the facts of your background or what actually transpired throughout your history is any reason to hire you. organizations, companies, people do not hire facts, features, and skills. They hire for transformation. Stories sell. And that's what most job candidates have an issue with. And when you script those answers and you're reporting your past, you're actually depleting your performance. And I want you to remember this. Write this one down. You hear what you see. You hear what you see. And so, it's about the entire It's about the entire performance. So, that's what today's going to be about. we've got a fun-filled schedule. I'm going to talk with you about the inhibitors that are totally innate. Just in an interviewing interview itself, whether you're doing it on the phone, on the video, in person, with a panel, makes no difference. There are just some issues that you have when you're interviewing.

2:09 You also have some added complexities. We're going to hit the second thing, which is what does video introduce that's actually problematic. We're going to talk about how you actually get present, the posture, right? Your presence in the video. That'll be the third thing. And then four and five, we're actually going to talk about verbal and nonverbal cues when you're speaking and when you're listening. I'm also going to talk with you about all the mistakes you typically make. And then we're going to cap it off with how to actually practice your performance. I think this is going to be a ton of fun.

2:42 And just so you know that this stuff works. I love this story. I had to do some schedule jimmying yesterday because I have a member on my job search coaching program who absolutely needed a coaching session. He was having an interview yesterday at three o'clock. It was a video interview with an organization. He had already made it through a couple of stages. But this is this is an individual Brian. He's a field marketing manager or director and he has been interviewing and has already had interviews with three or four companies and he makes it past the screen and he makes it past the hiring official. But when he gets when he gets further into it where he starts talking to members of the marketing team, members of the sales team that he'd be supporting, he's been having a lot of trouble. And he said, "I'm not sure what's happening." So we got together and I said to him, "Okay, when you get to that stage in the interviewing process, typically it is about your chemistry and your connection and how they feel about you." So I started to look at what he was saying and what he was doing. And it was very apparent to me that there were performance related and chemistry related issues that were getting in the way of him moving forward. He really he he there were so many things about him that I was able to detect, meaning about him as a person that were not coming through in the camera and that were really reducing his likability. Not that he was unlikable, but just that he really was handicapped when it came to to building that bond.

4:07 And he and I said to him, okay, yesterday, I always say this to every candidate I coach, whenever or client that I coach, whenever you are done with your interview, please send me an email and let me know how it went. So, I want to show you what he actually sent me just as a testament to what you're in store for today. And let's go from the bottom up. He said, "Thanks again. Oop, sorry. Thanks again for time taking the time to meet with me. It gave me confidence in my interview this afternoon. I think the conversation went very well. It was free flowing conversation. The interviewer talked 60% of the time. I focused on smiling posture and camera angle. These are things he and I reviewed yesterday. I it seemed like as I kept nodding, this is a tip I'm going to tell you about later in the discussion today. She kept talking.

4:57 These are nonverbal gestures inserted to elicit a continuation. When you want someone to keep talking, this is what you do. She gave great insights into the company culture after a big merger, how leadership supports the team. She had very few questions about my background after I gave my rehearsed intro and power story, something else we we covered. Hopefully, it leads to the next round. I said, awesome. This is great. can you would you let me share this?

5:24 He said yes. And then he came back a little later and said, I have even better news. The recruiter reached out to schedule the finer round of interviews. You get the idea. So, he changed a number of things that had much more to do with his performance than anything, right? He's qualified. He's getting these interviews. He's getting even past the hiring official. But, but he's interacting with people. What do sales people want? They want the marketing team to support them. Sales people, you got to have a little bit of an ego, right? They love to hear themselves talk. I don't have a problem with that. Get them talking. Keep them talking, right? So, what can we do to do that? So, that's what we're going to be covering today. So, I hope you're excited about it. I'm I am absolutely super stoked. Let's get into this. I want to give you a couple reminders and we're going to dive right in. So, one of the things I said, I want you to remember, write this down, screenshot this, I don't care, share a story. You are not reporting your history when you are in an interview. The reason that you are opening your mouth and words are coming out is to share a story that sells you. It is not to report your history. And much like your resume is not a work history document, it's a marketing document. When you are in a job interview, you are telling stories to sell yourself. Period. Hard stop.

6:42 Okay? Get this down. That's the first thing. The second thing is show of hands here. I know y'all are scripting out those those answers, right? And what do you do? You sit there and you read them like this, right? And then you read them and recite them and you try to remember them, right? But how many of you have actually practiced your performance ever? Ever? I'm guessing that not one single person I don't know how many of you were here in the in the in the little show with me. 174 of you so far. I'm guessing that not one of you has ever practiced your nonverbal mannerisms, cues to make sure that your gestures are in sync with what you're saying. So remember, you are practicing verbal and nonverbal performance. You are not practicing your script. In fact, I don't even want you to write your script out. That's a big one. Reminder, you hear what you see.

7:38 You hear what you see. You hear what you see. This is a big deal. You might hear what you hear, but you hear what you see. And if you don't believe me, don't take my word for it. If you ever heard of Albert Morabian, my guess is you have. Personal code of communication, these principles. Have you ever heard of the 73855 rule? This is in communication. Studies have been done forever and ever. 7% of communications are the word you use. 38 is tone. 55% is body language, which you don't need my nine semesters of higher math to see. That's 93% of communication are not even in the words you use. So, this holds true and it holds true at all times, but it is especially true in a video interview.

8:26 Okay? So, I want you to I want you to keep all that stuff in mind. Who's loving this so far? Man, I'm just in the warm-up set. All right. Let's start talking about some general inhibitors. So, you go to an interview. Forget the video camera for a second. you're in an interview and what do you what are some of the issues that already now I'm talking about this in the context of what depletes your performance okay so I want you to think about this generally you're overprepared or you're prepared for all the wrong stuff right you're rehearsing answers you're trying to anticipate you know like it was chess what what what questions are they going to ask me you're very very rehearsed which makes you sound robotic and you probably have cognitive overload it. And do you want to know if you have cognitive overload? Have you ever typed up an answer to a a question because you wanted to script your story? That is the number one marker for you're going to have cognitive overload because it's very very hard to remember all that stuff. And it's especially hard to remember it under duress, which means you have to burn energy in order to do that. I do not want there to be any obstacles in the flow that is you in an interview. Okay? So, I want you to just I want you to think about those. I just want to call your attention because I don't want to make this the primary thing that we're focused on today. But now, I want you to also think about well, when you get into an interview, a video interview where you got the camera, what problems are just naturally inherent? Well, you got eye contact problems. You got the screen on my screen right now. I I kid you not. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10. There's 11 open windows.

10:07 Okay? There's 11 things in front of me that I have just to see for whatever reasons to make sure the green lights on on the stream. I got Cara in the Slack. I got things I want to show you after I have to chat. I got my audio, the mixer, the sound, all I got all this stuff going on. Maybe you just have Zoom. But regardless, you have a screen and it's going to distract you. And not to mention the camera itself, if you can believe it, because any of you that have met me in person can attest to this, but the camera drains about 30 to 40% of you. Okay? So, I want you to think about that. The camera actually depletes you, your energy, your message, your vibrancy. Okay? So, so you have to think about all these things and you have to actually be mindful that you have to overcome all of this in order to deliver a natural presentation. And as an illustration, have you ever has anybody show of hands? Actually, let me let me slide the chat down here. Has any of you seen Let me bring you back to 2016 where I put out my very first YouTube video. Really, it was the first one that I shot for you about writing a thank you email. And if you've ever seen that video, I leave it up on my YouTube because I will not because my ego is so intact that I will not take it down no matter how nauseous it makes me when I go to revisit it. That's the same guy that you see today. And it's the same material that I teach today. The thank you email that was written in interview intervention that came out in 2012 has never changed. I still teach the same principles, but I want you to see what I mean by what the video camera does. Cuz I had to I had to write I had to look through the camera. You weren't even there. I wasn't even doing it in a live format. I had to remember what I was saying. I had notes up on the screen. I had all these things that were sucking the life out of me and sucking all of the personality out of me. That's 10 years ago. If you think I'm high energy now, you should have seen me 10 years ago, right? So, I want you to I want you to remember that these are all present. I'm just calling your attention to them because I'm going to teach you how to overcome all of this stuff. Cool. All right. Now, next thing I want you to I want I want to talk to you a little bit about posture. Okay?

12:31 And I want you to remember this. Great communicators engineer presence. None of this is natural. I'm a dimminionative guy. I'm 5'6. I'm not very big. Right? And so, but in the camera, I'm set. I'm sit up. I sit up straight. I sit on a Swiss ball. I don't sit on a chair because I just like my posture in order and I want my abs and my glutes and everything working all day. But you get the idea. Now, the way the way that this is set up so that I'm at my best and can keep talking forever. I do I do these things. These four things create this.

13:08 The camera's at eye level. Literally, if somebody was standing to the side of me looking cross-section, they would see that that camera is exactly at eye level. Now, the camera looks above and I'm pointing at it, but that's eye level to me cuz I'm sitting straight up. The other thing is you want to make sure that your torso is in the frame. Why do you want to do this? Because, and I'm going to go through this a little bit later, but I want you to see my hands. I want you to see my gestures. And this here is what's called the power zone or the truth plane or whatever you want, but this is where people want to see your mannerisms. And yesterday when I was with Brian, and I'm going to talk a little bit more about this, much of the session with him, he had his head in the middle of the of the of the frame and he was cut off here. And I said to him toward the end, I want you to take your laptop and I want you to tilt it this way so that you rise in so that I can see you. And then I want to talk for 10, 15 more minutes, whatever we got left. I want to talk and I and so then all of a sudden I got to see his gestures and this looked like a different guy meaning it he didn't even look like the same guy because he was totally stiff because it was like a talking bobblehead but but and super fun relaxed guy but none of that was coming through but so if you are not framed and your torso is not in the picture I can't get there's zero energy coming from you because your hand gestures would have to be up to here and the fact that your hands are not visible is bad. Okay. So, the light is behind you. Now, I have w Now I have windows all the way around me. I have massive bookshelves here, but the rest of my office is it's like all window. It's typically, well, when it's sunny out and you see me, it's jet black dark out right now. It's raining and it's dark.

14:54 There's lights. I mean, there's so many lights behind me, you wouldn't believe how many lights are on me right now. Now, I'm not saying you need a production setup. And mine isn't even that fancy. I just want you to have the light on the other side of the camera facing you. And any of you that have windows, and it doesn't matter if it's a dark day, look out the window. Camera in front of the window facing you is the absolute best light you'll ever have.

15:20 So, you want to be lit up. Sit forward with a with a mild tilt, either straight up or a little tilted. Okay? This will engineer you into the frame. It will give you presence. It will enable them to see you. And we're going to talk about gestures here in a in a wee bit, but I want just from a construct and a posture standpoint. This is what your screen should look like. Okay? We'll talk about the mistakes you'll make. You don't have to have a background like mine. It could be a white wall. I don't care about that. I'm I I care more about this this visual and your presence in the in the screen. Many of you do not have any presence because you got your head cut off. Okay, so show show of hands. How many got their heads cut off in their in their in their in their video? I see Brian's here chatting. Super dude. Hook up with him.

16:15 He'll he's a great guy. Okay. all right, let's talk about let's talk about when you speak the verbal and non-verbal cues. If you're liking this, you know, we're 17 minutes into this or so. Hit the like button. Share it, too. Make sure you subscribe to the station. We don't want you missing any of this stuff. Okay. let's talk about when you're when you're speaking. All right. Number one, you're speaking. You're doing the talking. And we're going to talk about the verbal cues. First thing is, I know this sounds obvious, but very few people do it. Powerful, clear, concise language. Now, if you've never heard of my car technique for answering any kind of interview questions, C A R, I have, I don't know, teen videos on my YouTube channel. I would check them out.

17:01 The car formula is designed to give you powerful language that's clear and concise. If you stay within it, it will be your greatest friend for all the subsequent tips I'm about to give you. But when you talk about language, there's there's, you know, I was working on this project and we had a whole bunch of people on it and it spanned it was a very large project with a big budget. That's not powerful. That's not clear and that's not concise. I don't have any I don't have any visual any understanding of what you're actually explaining to me. I ran this 50 person project with a $200 million budget that spanned five continents and covered these business functions. Right? That's clear, concise, direct, paints a picture. Okay, so number one, verbal has got to be in the packaging itself. That's one. Two, the language has to be confident and direct.

17:54 What do I mean? Well, what a lot of you do, and when I say a lot of you, I mean I coach 500 different people a year, meaning individually, onetoone, just them and me. And most of them do this because they talk about, well, I didn't do that activity and I was involved and I was on a team and I was helping put together the communication plan, but I didn't. No, no. Every word that comes out of your mouth in an interview is told from your vantage point. It's a story where you are the center of the universe. You are. Okay? This is not bragging. This is not being self-centered. It's telling a story from your vantage point and your understanding of what's happening, what you did exactly or what what you might have had help with, but the way you speak in the story is with confident direct language. We put together this communication plan. My job was to oversee it and ensure it had these seven pieces so that when we rolled it out, we were targeting an increase in communication of 30% and a decrease in misunderstandings of 50%. that is clear, concise, and direct language. When I get into a spot where I say, "Well, as a as a marketing manager, you know, we we put we we put the remote control car in a box and then we held the remote control and then we mailed the box to the It's like whether I did that or I had an assistant do that, you're telling the story and the sequence of the actions and what the actions were leading to and the results. I fielded the calls. here's how I turned him into business. It all has to be confident and direct, but you can still articulate this with a with a manner where you are the center of attention. You are the centerpiece and it you are either doing the act or you are instructing the act or you are making the act that somebody else did better. That's it. That's what you're going for. Be very very direct because you don't you don't want to be talking your way around it because then you start getting questions like well what did you specifically do? You knew, you know, at that point if you got that question, you stepped on a landmine. All right. Signal structure with your words.

20:05 Again, everybody who's familiar with my car technique knows that there is structure designed to signal structure in your words because you are literally walking the person who's listening, the interviewer, you are literally walking them through a formula. Step one, step two, step three, step four. So what you want to do is and then the first one and the second one and the third one or whatever but every time you talk you want signals with your words and you can add the gestures that signal structure.

20:36 But remember the the words themsel should signal structure so that you are also giving yourself a chance to insert a nonverbal gesture that emphasizes the structure that are already embodied in the words. Okay. Then the other thing that you want to consider or you want to do all the time is everything that you that you do and say should have warmth and enthusiasm. What do I mean? I absolutely loved working on that project because it gave me a chance to help these starving children. Why did you leave your last company? I loved working there, but there were budget cuts. Right? That's warmth and understanding or warmth and enthusiasm. But a lot of you don't don't use the language. You don't use the language. That doesn't help. Because if you don't use the language, any nonverbal gesture you insert that should be consistent with the language you're using is crossed. Make sense? Makes sense. All right. And then the final piece verbal when you're speaking is you need to tailor the language to the audience.

21:48 What what is what does that mean? Well, you're not talking technical bits and bites with the HR person and you're not talking technical bits and bites with the CEO, right? You're you're talking strategy. You're talking or with the CEO. You're talking culture. You're talking fe you're talking features embodied in the culture adjectives that describe the culture general skills of the best performing people right so you want to make sure that this is tailored and then what you want to do is you want to enhance your verbal with your nonverbal okay so what do I mean here all right first thing is all your gestures should be in the truth plane this goes by a lot of names by a lot of people. Okay. But basically what you're doing is you're trying to keep most of your sorry gestures in this zone from your belly button or your waist to your to your neckline. Okay, give or take to your shoulders, but across your chest.

22:49 This is where you you want the gestures. If you are not in the frame and you know you guys are like down here, then you're I can't see any of that. And there's a reason there's a reason that I want you to have your palms forward because why do I say hold up your hands, right? This is open, welcome, and honest. It's better to have your hand forward- facing with your palm open to them in the truth plane when you're making gestures, especially ones that talk about honesty, integrity, warmth, openness, and so on.

23:22 You want to make sure that all of that is in there and it's visible. And if you are totally robbing yourself, if they can't see it, if you're cut off at the head, the other thing is look through the camera. Okay, so now when you when you're when you have your camera set up, and I'm going to go through mistakes here, but you want to make sure that you're holding eye contact through the camera. Now, I said that I have all these windows open, and I know when you're on a video call, you have all these windows open. First order of business is you got to have the camera in the most comfortable position so that you can look straight through it without straining up and down. The other thing is, and we'll get to this when we talk about some of the the gestures for them, but when you eye the camera and you get it eye height, what you want to try to do is get your computer screen at eye height so that they are immediately below the camera. So when you are looking at them, when they are talking to you, you can concentrate on them through the camera. I'm looking at you, but I can see you in my peripheral vision. Okay? But we'll we'll and we'll talk a little bit more about that.

24:28 then I want you to make sure that you are anchoring your key points with your hands. So, you want to make sure that when you are making a point that the hand gesture nails it. We were we we went all the way to the top. We went all the way to the top. We hit the bottom. We knew it was We knew we had it. We knew we solved it. something like that. And you never never want to stop mids sentence ever. The minute you cut off a key point in the middle or you pause a sentence that should be complete when you're verbalizing anything, it's like you're lying. It's like you're having to manufacture and think. You don't ever want to do that.

25:11 So, when you want to anchor the key points, you want to anchor them at the end of the sentence with a non-verbal gesture. And you never want to interrupt your sentence with a pause ever. So don't ever do that. And you might be saying, "Well, it's a lot to think about." This is why you practice. Okay? But you you get you get you get my point. Okay? On message with the facial expressions. In order for you to have integrity and honesty and for them to interpret it that way, they need to see congruency in your verbal and non-verbal mannerisms. So why did you leave your last company? I loved working there. But they had budget cuts. You follow me?

25:49 That's consistent with my with what I'm trying to convey, right? Or I could have smiled like, "Oh, I loved working there, but they had budget cuts." You follow me? If the if the sound was off, you would have known that I said something positive and then was bummed out. Am I right? You follow me? This has to be consistent. And you might be wondering like, Andy, this is a lot of stuff. Well, you know what? All of these cues are what endear you to them. So, so think about this. Are you doing this?

26:22 Okay, this one you got to get down. Sit tall. This here to here is you want as wide as possible. Do you see me? I can't get I'm not very big, but I you can't I'm backwards on the thing. I can't get any bigger from here to here. That's total confidence. You don't want this. You don't want this. Head tilts are fine, but you're only going to do it for a second and you're only going to do it when they're talking. Okay? So, you want to make sure you're sitting and then you can lean whether you want to make a point or if they're making a great point. We'll get to that in a minute. But this is when you're speaking. Okay. Now, I know that was a lot. That's why this lives in YouTube land forever. Let's go to when they're speaking.

27:13 All right. So when they're speaking, best way here is make eye eye contact as much as possible. So when I'm doing a Zoom session or if I was doing an interview, I would have my camera straight through it, right? Straight eye level. my monitor will rise to the level I need it to and then the Zoom app will be open and their their picture will be immediately underneath it. And then you're going to say, "Well, what if I'm in a panel interview?" Well, I don't care. You got two people on this side and two people on that side. Just keep it high or square them in a box any which way. But that matters because now I can listen to you and then just glance down and catch your expressions. Okay? But I got mostly eye contact. That's when you're speaking. It looks like I'm listening because you hear what you see. Okay. Active listening. So, this is the one I gave Brian. This is the one I gave Brian yesterday. Active listening and facial expressions and nods. Okay. When when you have when you're talking with somebody and even in the greeting. Okay.

28:22 So, I said I think I said this to Brian yesterday. Maybe he'll get a chuckle. I said to Brian, "Hey, when you're walking down the street and you want to say hello to somebody because you're friendly, what do you do?" Morning. Right? Head goes down. That's bad. It's friendly. I understand you're being friendly. What do you do when you see somebody you know? Hey, how you doing? Right? You want to show them your neck. All right? That's warm and welcoming.

28:46 So, when they say hello, say, "Hey, this is great to see you. Great to see you." Okay? But when they're talking, but when they're talking, you want to make sure that these facial expressions and nods are serving their purpose because generally speaking, have you ever been in a business meeting, maybe your boss does this to you and they're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Okay, that means hurry and shut up. Right? I I know where you're going. Stop, stop, stop. Right?

29:08 Well, you don't want to do that in an interview. When they're talking, you want to give them a double or a triple or a quadruple nod like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." that gets them talking. It keeps them talking. Statistics show that they'll talk twothirds longer than they intended to talk. If you just keep nodding as though you're enjoying what they're saying and you want them to continue, that's a cue. So, you need to watch this. So, the active listening, you could be, and I'm going to talk about this in a minute, you can insert a few words here and there that don't interrupt their flow, but they're cues to them that you you are listening and you want them to keep going. These are warm and they're endearing. The other thing is when they're speaking, you don't want to do anything that appears as though you're not listening or you're not totally engaged. So, no slouching.

29:58 When you're cut off at the head, I can't see anything. But when you can see me sitting straight up, you know I'm engaged and I'm present and I'm listening. At least this is more likely to be the case. So, you want to make sure you're open, right? This is still as far as you can. Now, when they're speaking, you also, not only when we're talking about like head nods, but your gesture should be natural. No fidgeting, of course, but the more visible your hands are, the better. Now, don't do this. That's not good. And don't do this whatever you do ever. Don't ever do that because that's closed. This is very closed off. Exceptions for when the air kicks in in the Lasassita house, but you get what I'm saying. You want to make sure that when they're speaking, your hands are visible if possible. It's okay. I get that you get tired and a lot of times I'll put my hands on the table, right? And I'll just make sure, but I'm not fidgeting around and shuffling papers and doing a lot of stuff because I'm I'm listening to them, but they can see much of me still. And that is actually a signal that you're listening even if you're not moving. So, you just want to be you want to be really really careful. And then if you want to give them some verbal cues of engagement when you're doing this like, "Oh, great idea." And that's not going to stop them. Keep going. That's clever.

31:18 Interesting. Right? The the the I squint. That's I'm listening. So you you can you can do that. And just being consistent with what you're you're doing. Really clever, right? Great idea, right? It doesn't have to be don't it doesn't need to be loud and demonstrative, but you you just you want to make sure that you're doing that. Okay. So, those are those are some of my favorites. There's a lot of other cues that you can do. And rather than go totally rapid fire, I wanted to get some of these mistakes in as well. All right.

31:49 So, big biggest mistakes that people generally make. All right. The mic. Okay. If you're doing a lot of Zoom sessions, go out, spend the hundred bucks, and get yourself a microphone. This is a $400 microphone. You don't need this. Okay? And because if you need if you get this, you're going to have to get a mixer and that's going to cost you more money. You don't need that. You can get a microphone that's $100 that sounds like a boss quality and it plugs right into the computer. A USB a USBC or whatever. It'll plug right in right into your computer and you will totally totally take out any of the annoyance with, you know, echoes and all that other nonsense. It'll sound great quality. the camera eye level for the love of all that is holy. Everything goes straight. Everything's in alignment here. Okay. Everything's in alignment.

32:44 Well, I can't stand when people are interviewing and they got they got their computer this way. The camera's over here and they're doing this. Okay. I don't know what you're doing in I'm talking about in an interview. So, don't ever do that. Everything needs to be per perfectly straight and all in one direction. I'm getting ahead of myself. You got to watch your connection. You need to test everything. Every time we do one of these shows, I test everything. Even though the setup is the same, occasionally the mixer and the and the Mac Studio don't connect or something. I need to make sure that everything's working. I test it. I need to make sure there's no ground loops in the in the electric and that there's no hissing or any of that stuff. Just make sure that where you're at in your house, the lo the lights are on the other side of the camera, right? Everything is set up correctly. And as I said, from a postural standpoint, everything in one direction. You do not want any extra motion when you're in an interview. You don't want to have to turn ever, ever.

33:50 And you don't want to sit in a position that's uncomfortable where you're doing that. Okay? Because I I know a a lot of you do this. I'm I'm I'm sure of it. I And I was on with somebody the other day who had multiple monitors. Like, wait, hold on. Stop all that. Is that how you interview? Hey, you got to kick one to the side. Get one, you and me, and because I need you to This is practice.

34:11 You got to practice. You're going to You're going to play in the game like you practice. Get used to it, okay? All in one direction. Do not have a messy or a fake background ever. Do not ever use a fake background because what does that say? I'm hiding something. What's it going to do to your gestures? Oh god, you're going in and out like you're in a I don't know what the hell you'd call it, but like you got hands going in and out.

34:41 It looks ridiculous. Just have something reasonably clean. Okay. Now, unless you have a dachshund, I want you to watch your pets, your phones, your everything. you know, my my phone. I have a a a desk phone. It's unplugged. I have sound. All sound is muted, right? Now, obviously, it's not going to be muted for you, but my point is you want to check everything and make sure that nothing can ring, nothing can vibrate, nothing can distract you because even if your phone is on silent or whatever it like, you know, I have a Mac studio. I have a 27inch monitor in the upper right hand corner. If I don't turn off all the alerts, they'll just keep beeping at me.

35:23 Email, beep, so- and so's texting you, beep, sound on, something's sharing your whatever. Like, get all that stuff turned off, okay? You want no distractions. Okay, now I want to talk practice. I'm going to give you some of my practice tips. And Katherine, no blurred backgrounds. That's what I mean. No fake background, no blurred background. Cuz why? Because you don't get to see any of this. Okay. And and it looks like you're hiding something. Practice tips. Here's what you do. so first thing is y'all got Zoom or y'all got whatever. Turn the dang thing on.

36:02 Get your power story. If you don't know what that is, check the car techniques on my YouTube channel. Get yourself a three or five minutes is better and talk. No stopping. Just talk. Okay? Just talk. Record it. Okay? Then what I want you to do is I want you to watch it. You can have the video and sound on. Meaning, how did you sound? And I want you to look for Does it sound natural? Is that a person I would hire? Do I believe that person?

36:36 How was my cadence? I worked with somebody yesterday and very smart woman but very fast talker. Okay. And and then it was the speed or cadence at which she spoke, but it was also the the the words that were in there. You have to watch what what signal am I sending? Am I I'm trying to sell these features about me that I have this experience and can help transform them in that manner. Does that come through? I'm watching the whole thing and I'm evaluating everything.

37:04 Then what I do is I listen only I want to listen again. Now how do I sound if I can't see me? And believe me without this sense without sight you're going to pick up cues you're going to pick up filler words you're going to pick up those kinds of things you speed. Did I stop in the middle of a sentence? Hang on a second. I need to be able to right get through that. Then I want you to do watch it again and I want you to turn the audio off. Okay? I want you to turn the audio off. Now you've watched it a couple times with the audio on and the video on. Now you know what you're saying. Now I want you to watch it. So here's what I do. Every week this show, when this show's done, I'm going to watch it and I'm just going to enjoy it.

37:56 I'm going to watch the show. I'm gonna take it in like I was you and I'm going to watch it and then I'm gonna watch it again and I'm going to look at the chat and I'm gonna watch all the chat and I'm gonna see were they chitty chatty that means they were bored with me. Were they silent? They probably were paying attention to what I was saying. And I'm looking at engagement. I'll watch it again to to to watch me and the performance. Meaning meaning did I hit the cues where I wanted? Did I drop the bomb where I wanted? Did I forget anything that I wanted to say? Did I sequence it properly? I'm looking at all that stuff if I didn't know what I know, would that make sense? Okay, now I'm doing some of that, but I don't rehearse a lot. Okay, so I just show up and I I roll through it and then I critique a lot. Then I watch I listen sound only.

38:49 So now I'm like four times in. Now, I might not watch the whole thing all the way through, but I might pick sections or like in the Q&A, I might pick one of the questions you ask me. And I'll do this over and over again. And what I'm doing is I'm looking for all of these things so that I can improve this much. Then what I do is I shut the sound down. Then I look, then I say, would I trust that guy? Does that look good? Does he look like he know? Right.

39:20 Yes. And like so I'm looking at all of that and I could tell you what's coming out of my mouth because I've already heard it four times. So now I'm watching it and there are adjustments that I'll make to the way I teach or what I do or the examples I use or the gestures I use. So that's just one tip. Okay, that's one and an analyzing your situation. All right. Next thing is, well, you got mock interviews, you got a friend, you got a SP, you got dear coach Andy who's never going to abandon you if you need me to do that. Mock interviews are a popular request with Coach Andy.

39:55 So, so I would I would do one of these and you know, get my wife, we got a big house. You go in the other end of the house. Just get somewhere else. Let's get on the Zoom if I need to, right? You could do that or you could do it in person. But I do it on video. I'd do it on video because if you could do it on video, you can dang sure do it in person. Okay. one of the things I used to do when I first started doing these shows, every day, five minutes, I would I would teach something off the cuff and I would focus on eye contact and concentration through the camera.

40:30 Now, remember, you don't need to stare through the camera like this. That's unnatural. And even if I was with you, look, I looked away. I mean, like, but most of the time, you want that. So what does that do? Number one, it gets you used to this. It gets you practiced in the position. It gets you practiced in the posture. It gets you practiced knowing that there is somebody on the receiving end of that camera. I concent I'm concentrating.

40:54 It's natural. I know what I want to say. And it becomes more and more automatic for you. So that you are not being drained by the fact that you need to think about what you're going to say at any moment in time. I'm not even thinking about that. I'm just delivering it to you. So, five minutes a day, just talk to through the camera. Pick a power story and talk. Okay? And then listen to yourself and watch your pacing, watch your tone, and watch your fillers. Did the tone go up when it was supposed to? Did the tone go low? What octave of your voice are you using? Do I want to be serious? Do I want to be fun?

41:33 Right? So filler words, right? I have a habit of putting in expressions that I've tried to reduce. Know what I'm saying? Get where I'm going? Know what I mean? Right? Sometimes people are using those as fillers and those are replacing the and the and the and whatever, right? I have other ticks or whatever and I try to work to remove, but you got to become conscious of them. And so practice that and watching and then practice sitting up straight. Mom was here. I know she'd be proud of this one.

42:11 But do you know that this is a skill? This is a skill. I practice this stuff because I come and I see you every week or like tomorrow I have a show and Thursday I have a show. So I would practice that. So, I just I'm not going to recap all of that, but I do I do want you to to I'm going to run through the practice steps again. Record yourself. Watch it. Watch the whole thing. Watch it with the sound off.

42:40 Watch it with the video off. Look to see how you're performing. It'll be eyeopening. Try to get the mock interviews. Okay. Dear Coach Andy's here for you if you if you don't have a spouse who will listen to you. eye contact five minutes a day. Watch your pacing and your tone and your fillers. And lastly, sit up straight. Mom always said mom knows what mom knew what she was talking about. All right. If you enjoyed that, whether you're here with me live or you're watching on the recording, click the like button. Make sure you subscribe to the station. I got lots more stuff like this. 45 minutes.

43:20 I'm living right. That's about what I wanted to do this in. If you're here with me live, we're going to the Q&A.