From Fear to Fascination: Transforming Public Speaking and Virtual Communication with Evgeniy Kharam

Tim Newman [00:00:05]:
Welcome to Speaking with Confidence. The podcast is here to help you unlock the power of effective public speaking. I’m your host, Tim Newman, and I’m excited to take you on a journey to become a better public speaker. Throughout his career, Evgeniy Kharam has worked with some of the largest enterprises across Canada, the US, and Europe, including time spent working alongside industry leaders like like Robert Herjavec. As a cybersecurity consultant, he helped major companies tackle complex technical challenges, but along the way, he re realized that success isn’t just about technical know how. To truly make an impact, you need to connect with people, whether they are customers, teammates, or executives. In his book, The Art of Soft Skills in Technical Sales, Evgeniy shares his insight to help professionals combine technical expertise with human connection, making them more successful leaders and communicators. Evgeniy, welcome to the show, bud.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:01:01]:
Thank you very much. I’m very, very happy to be here today, and thank you for the invite.

Tim Newman [00:01:05]:
Oh, sure. You know, it’s it’s it’s really good to talk with people, at least from my perspective, outside of the industry that I come from. And what you know, kind of what I found is, you know, there’s there’s a lot of, professional speakers who are come from that technical background, I think primarily because it’s so technical and you have to find ways to communicate with people that don’t have that don’t have that technology background. And and and I think you all are some probably some of the the most thoughtful in how you go about doing that. So thanks for joining us.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:01:38]:
100%. You’re absolutely right. I cannot joke around if you put a developer and the accounting person in the same room and tells them to speak in the same way as they speak with their friends, they’re not gonna have to communicate.

Tim Newman [00:01:51]:
Right.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:01:51]:
But if you tell them, hey. Pretend it’s somebody that is outside of your team, outside of what you do. How would you explain this to your spouse? How would you explain it to your child? How do you explain this to somebody else on the street? What do you do day by day? And you’re probably like, oh, yeah. I’m gonna use an analogy. Oh, I’m gonna use the metaphors. I’ll change the language I understand. I’ll watch to the cubes. I’ll watch the language.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:02:18]:
I will understand if they understand me or they’re rolling the eyes or they’re going on the phone. It’s very, very, very dynamic. We cannot just think that if we have a magic way to explain something, it will work for everyone.

Tim Newman [00:02:33]:
Right. Exactly. And we we talk all the time about knowing your audience. And that that’s really all you’re that’s really all all you’re doing is is knowing who you’re talking to and how to communicate that message. And and that’s yeah. I I you talked about the you said analogy was the first thing. You know, that’s probably the the the best analogy in in knowing who your audience is. So so where exactly did your public speaking journey start, and what are some of the highlights of that journey?

Evgeniy Kharam [00:03:03]:
You know, we’re gonna go all the way back, like, 20 years ago.

Tim Newman [00:03:07]:
Oh, gosh.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:03:07]:
And I do a shit show, excuse my French. Uh-huh. Because I did something stupid when I was in the Navy. And as a punishment, as they told me and it’s funny because it’s related to cybersecurity. While I was still within cybersecurity, I was kinda still fidgeting around. And I found a password on the computer. I was trying to not hack, but I was trying to guess the passwords. And after, like, 5, 6, 10 attempts, I had a call phone call from IT.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:03:33]:
Like, dude, what are you doing? So as a punishment, Dolly, you’re gonna now do a speech to the entire unit about how bad it is to do something. You don’t understand what you’re doing and how bad it is to try to guess. Let’s have a hackathon. I was terrified. Even so, I knew everybody in the room. My hands were shaking. I was all sweaty. I didn’t know how to even build the speech.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:04:01]:
I didn’t know what to say. I will mumble a lot. I’ll speak fast. Like, the good part is it was all the people I knew. So the moment I started talking, it kinda went okay ish after 5 minutes. I was able to relax and slow down, but I still remember this weird, vivid I don’t know if it’s a dream, but moment. And the other part, I remember later on, I was in the general office, and one of the majors was presenting. And the major was basically had a slide with different bullet points, and he was reading the bullet points.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:04:40]:
And the general told the major, dude, I know how to read. Only something new. So this example also stuck to me for a long time. Later on, when I moved to Canada and I started to work with for our Gorjevic or a company called Horacevich Group, I started to speak to customers. I needed to explain what is the solution does. I needed to explain why we’re choosing this box and not this box. Why are we going class and not going right? So slowly, it came from 1 person, 2, 3, 5, whatever need to come to a room. There’s 15 people and present.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:05:17]:
And in one point, this bug almost was like a challenge to myself. I know I have issue with speech. I know I speak fast. I know English is not the first, not the second language for me. So I wanna get to the point when I will able to present and people will be inviting to present. I always like to allow games on computers, but it was almost like a game to me. Like, what can I do? Where I can build it? So slowly slowly, I started to go to conferences, submit different speeches, explain my views, explain what I’m thinking, still mainly in cyber. But I was always playing and trying to do it.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:05:59]:
How can I make people interested in what I’m saying? How I can connect to people? I kind of learn very quickly that the more energy, the more excitement I put into my words, the more connection I will get. The more people will commentate, thank you. We didn’t really know this topic, but now we understand. Oh, I missed this part before, but now you kind of you connected the dots. So this excitement connected with fear because every time you’re going in the bigger stage, you have this fear in you. And I learned that I’m okay with this fear because fear mean I’m doing something new. We can talk about fear a bit later because I think it’s a very important topic that people don’t use a lot. But it’s definitely was connection to me.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:06:48]:
Okay. I’m kind of afraid because I didn’t do it. I joined this call. I was not afraid. I’m still excited, but I did more than 50, 60 appearances on a podcast. I have my own podcast. You got your own podcast? It’s some

Tim Newman [00:07:02]:
yes. Mhmm.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:07:03]:
Actually, I do. And this was the next evolution of speaking. With the moment I started to record myself, analyze my voice, edit my own videos, and none of the people I know lags their own voice in the beginning. You probably know what I’m talking about. I do. Yes. And this is one of the one of the things that I tell everyone. If you gonna go to public speaking, if you’re gonna go selling online, it doesn’t matter what you do because we work online so much, so we end up speaking so much, record yourself, analyze your voice, and kinda jump ahead because we can talk about the situation.

Tim Newman [00:07:40]:
What what well, I think you’re actually transitioning right right into what I wanna talk about because, you know, in in your book, I’m a fast talker, normal. I mean, that’s that’s just how I am. I’m a fast talker, and I use self deprecating humor. And when you combine that with my public speaking, that’s my persona. That’s what I do. You know, you talk in your book that you really kind of embraced you you came to embrace your, accent. How how did that come about? And and how did you get to that point where, you know, you you you tell people to record your voice and have it analyzed? You know, kinda talk about that and why that’s so important. Yeah.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:08:16]:
Yeah. I think it’s an amazing and interesting topic. For the longest I remember myself in Canada, so let’s say, like, 14 years, I was trying to go to this course, to that course, to analyze my accent because people told me accent accent accent. Then when I started my podcast and I did more public speaking, I kind of wanted to do different challenge, and I wanted to know how to sing, how to do rap. I don’t do rap yet. Okay? Let’s do it. We’ll not gonna rap today. Maybe in 5 years.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:08:52]:
But I followed an amazing teacher that he’s teaching piano and and and voice improve and singing and voice. And he is the one that helped me to understand first that I have a high pitch, very, very low one, and then missing a part in between. And we’re doing a lot of embarrassing exercises to actually have the entire spectrum of the voice. So this is helped. And we will do actually practice of my speeches when I present to him, and he will help me with breathing. He will help me where to pause, when to breathe, when not to breathe. Like, yeah. You’re having too much air.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:09:30]:
Don’t forget to breathe. You you’re gonna lose yourself. So this all held. And then in one poem, he told me something very, very interesting that basically changed and helped me accept who I am. He told me, Evgeniy, if you lose your accent, you will become another Canadian person. Not good, not bad, but you’re gonna just have another individual. Right now, with your lower voice and with your accent, the moment the moment people will hear you, they will remember who you are. So don’t change your voice.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:10:06]:
Work on pronunciation. Work on slowing down. Work on transitioning from filler words to pauses. But keep your identity. And this actually helped me. As you say, you talk fast. You’re making jokes. It helped me.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:10:20]:
So I was okay. I can be fast. I can slow down, but this is my voice. This is who I am. I still like to joke. I still like to be silly. And this really, really helped me to learn who I am. Now I’m not telling people that listening, do that.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:10:35]:
And tell them, probably telling, go. And if you’re passionate about it, do voice training. Understand who you are. Mhmm. Understand how you speak. As my trainer used to say is your voice is not a dog on a leash that you drag behind you. You can work with it. You can change it, and you can do a lot with this.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:10:59]:
So this has definitely helped me. I also did Toastmasters before, and Toastmaster was an eye opening for the filler words. Yeah. It’s probably, in my mind, one of the best training for public speaking. I mean, like, money wise. You know, for the amount of money you pay, Toastmaster is just phenomenal. Mhmm.

Tim Newman [00:11:19]:
Well, it’s it’s a very good point in in that I’m I’m a big believer, and we have to be authentic. We have to be ourselves. And that’s one of the things that really makes you be able to connect with your audience. Because if you stand up on stage or if you’re in front of a group of people and you try and be something that you’re not, they’re gonna see right through that. And the

Evgeniy Kharam [00:11:41]:
I

Tim Newman [00:11:41]:
I think another one of the biggest pieces of of the puzzle is we’re so much in our head that people are judging us, and then when we nod ourselves, that’s when we be that’s when we get judged because they see it. Just be yourself. You know? Yes. Yes. We need to work on some certain things, like you say clarity, enunciation, volume, those types of things, but be yourself.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:12:04]:
If I may add, this is an interesting point because when COVID came and we moved to present online Mhmm. I didn’t know what to do. I like to speak to people. I like to feel the energy. I like the live show. Even if it’s not physical, even if it’s live, but I know it’s live, then I don’t have a way to stop it. But the moment you tell me you get a record your presentation, send it to us, and we’ll air it live, like it’s live, They’re just different. So what I decided to myself is when I need to record a presentation, I’m not gonna stop.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:12:45]:
Right. So basically, I’m start to record. If I didn’t make any stupid mistake in the first 20 seconds, I’m moving on. I am pretending that I am speaking to the live audience and there is no way for me to stop and record again. And if I make a mistake, I’ll say, oopsie, I made a mistake. I forgot the slide. Or I actually made a huge mistake. Let me explain to you again.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:13:09]:
But what it forced me to do is I knew there is no way back. And I knew I have to continue, and I need to own my mistakes. Right. What I think is happening, and it kind of connected the odds of 2 dots, is when I listen to someone that is perfect, I really don’t connect to this person. Like, oh my god. This person is amazing, but it’s not somebody I can be. Why? Because when I watch Hollywood stars, you know, they’re just at a different level. Right.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:13:41]:
But when I see someone making mistake, laugh about it and continue, like, oh, I pick into this in the future. I couldn’t believe 10 years ago I can do it, but now I know I can. So by making a mistake, by being human being, as you say, I’m actually probably attracting more people to me versus being completely, completely perfect.

Tim Newman [00:14:01]:
Right. I I I agree. And and it’s because that they can relate to it. Right? Just like you said, we we we can’t relate to to perfect because that’s not that’s not normal life. And, you know, you you said it yourself when you know, 20 years ago, you did something stupid. And I I tell my students and the people I’m coaching, I say and do something stupid every day. Every day, I say and do something stupid. It’s it’s how we react to it, how we how we clean it up, and how we move forward, and and hopefully not make or say that that same, stupid thing or or stupid mistake again.

Tim Newman [00:14:37]:
And and it’s it’s important for people to see that, especially in this type of environment. And so up until about maybe, I’d say 3 months ago, Vinnie, I I couldn’t I can’t take a selfie because I don’t know where to look on the camera. Right? So when you so so so now we’re we’re going to to Zoom a couple years ago, and, you know, my my, you know, my my setup here, obviously, the camera’s right in my face. But when I go to take a selfie, I’m I’m looking all over the place. So, you know, it’s it’s stepping out of that comfort out of your comfort zone and and learning new things and becoming proficient and better at it. And having people see us go through that process is really, really important.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:15:22]:
And when people ask me, where do I start? What is the biggest soft skills I need to start? I’m like, wait. Wait. Wait a second. I can tell you what I think, but it’s not gonna be you. So, yes, probably curiosity is the entire idea to learn something new will be fundamental. Probably vulnerability to open up will be fundamental. But from there, you need to analyze yourself. You need to ask your friends to help you analyze the true friends that will tell you what they think.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:15:54]:
You maybe need to find a mentor. And this is when you learn what you need to work on. I am working right now on couple of quizzes that will help people to understand where they need to spend more time and where they need to start. But just by talking to you and tell you what’s the most important soft skills for you, it’s gonna be impossible. It’s gonna be something that you need to learn. And you mentioned video. I was talking to someone. He’s like, Evgeniy, how is the video set up related to soft skills? And my answer was it’s not related to soft skills as, like, it’s not the soft skills to organize your video, but I’m using my soft skills in a video call.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:16:37]:
And if my video setup is not done good, I don’t have the option to use the soft skills. Right. If I have several screens and I’m looking on the wrong screens, so then for everybody that watching us on YouTube, you will see myself turning left. I still see Jim, but team see, my face. Why? Because I use a teleprompter that’s nearing to my laptop. And I use a teleprompter because I want this direct connection to the audience. And we have many people on the calls that are watching somewhere else. So, yes, you have a video, but there’s no way you’re gonna have a connection because there’s no icon.

Tim Newman [00:17:16]:
Right. Right. And and we talk a little bit more about that because, you know, since COVID, we’ve really we have really truly transitioned from, you know, in person meetings, in person conferences to this to this video setup. And in a certain sense, we we lose some of that that personal connection. What were some some of your other strategies to to make sure that we maintain that as best we can?

Evgeniy Kharam [00:17:40]:
You’re absolutely right. Before COVID, when you will go to the office or to the meeting room, you are able to read body language. You are able to understand what’s happening. People will not be on the phones or the laptops all the time. Right now, even when I’m moving my hands, you don’t even see my entire hands because they’re going out of the frame right now. So when you’re on a video call and there are 2, 3, 4 people, you’re basically gonna see little icons. And the more people they are, the harder is to see. Yes.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:18:13]:
What’s happening that you pretty much, I think now, against the destruction of the people this by destruction, I mean, because they’re distracted because they have another screen, because they have LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube running there. So if you can connect if you can connect with them on a personal level, if you can interest them in what you’re talking or find something in common like a hook, then they will tell you a story. Now they will not be so distracted. So we focus on you. And there’s a couple of ways to do it. 1, and probably fundamental, what are the hook? Can you find something related or not related to the main conversation to start the conversation? Whether game yesterday, we we probably all know about these ideas. But you can not just use their background. You can go on LinkedIn.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:19:08]:
You can go on Facebook. You can see what they’re writing about. Do a bit of research to understand what they’re actually doing to find this hook. But we shouldn’t stop there. You can create a reverse hook for them as well. Like, for example, behind me right now, I have a green screen. So sometimes, I join calls just with a green screen. And people are like, hey, Evgeniy.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:19:33]:
What’s up with the green screen? It’ll give you an opportunity to talk about my media work. People may have Legos. People may have picture of the kids, guitars. Whatever is representing you could be a conversation opener for somebody else. So definitely suggest to be strategic how we can use this hooks and reverse hooks to talk to people. This is one part. We can use virtual background or real background. So if you have a real background, you can put styles that represent you.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:20:09]:
If for a variety of reasons, you cannot use a real background, I cannot use a virtual background. Ideally, I have green screen. It looks nice. And you can put some stuff on the virtual background. It’ll be cool as well. Right. Because there’s different ways. We definitely will have a good microphone, good video, maybe some lights as well to have a good lighting on yourself.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:20:32]:
All this create a persona. All this create your image. With the conversation, is I called building blocks. So in the book, I show the book again, you see in the bottom, there is blocks. Blocks. Right. So this little piece is every chapter of the book. It’s a building block.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:20:51]:
Voice, fear, video, questions, lack of listening, empathy. It’s all building blocks that create you and represent you as a brand, as an entity, as a human being. At the end of the day, it’s a human being. Why would we say soft skills? They’re not so soft. You need to get out of a comfort zone, and we need to do stuff that in some cases are not easy to do. And we are very dynamic human being. Before we record, we would joke about the idea that if I ask ChargeGPT, how are you doing? How are you doing? How are you doing? ChargeGPT will always say the same. If I ask Tim, how are you doing? How are you doing? How are you doing? You probably don’t punch me in the face.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:21:33]:
After the face. You know?

Tim Newman [00:21:35]:
Exactly. And it’s it’s such a good point, you know, in in that there’s we call them soft skills for for whatever reason. But number 1, it’s hard work. And to get better, you have to work. It’s work. You have to practice. It’s it’s and again, I come from the sport background, sport industry. No team goes out and doesn’t practice and then just goes to play a game.

Tim Newman [00:21:59]:
You know? The the the the hard work goes into the the practice time leading up to the game. And then when they step on the field or in the quarter, on the ice, or wherever the sport is, that’s when you when they have to be good. Just like if you’re gonna go to a to a team meeting and you’re presenting or or you’re staying on the stage presenting, that’s that’s game time for you. All the work is done leading up to that, and you have to do the work if you wanna be good at it.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:22:25]:
A 100%. And if you’re going public speaking, you know, there’s different ways to dodge. People say, you have to realize until you remember everything. You have to know all the slides. I’m a bit more relaxed. I want to know every slide. I know what I’m talking about. But you get to the point when you don’t don’t need to remember word by word what you got a job.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:22:46]:
Right. Because then I’m more focusing on what I need to remember versus actually delivering what I need to say. But this is me. It doesn’t mean it’s gonna be you. So I want to know what I’m gonna talk on each slide, and I want to know their flow. But I’m gonna stop there. In the beginning, I was so under the stress that I resend it 10 times because I was so stressed I’m gonna be forgetting something. Now I learn to walk with my stress.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:23:13]:
I learn to slow down. I learn how to control my breathing. I’m doing box breathing before I go on stage if I need to, if I was still under pressure. So I can lower my heart rate. I can lower my amount of breath after a minute and go to the slow. And I already know how I’m gonna react. I know I’m maybe potentially will be a bit stressed when I start talking, and then I’m gonna go inside and talk. I already learned how my voice sound.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:23:39]:
I already know the piece. So just think that it’s like riding a bicycle. You cannot ride the bicycle on the VR. You know, you have to ride the bicycle.

Tim Newman [00:23:48]:
Yeah. And pedal. Right. So so are those some of the some of your your strategies to reduce your your anxiety?

Evgeniy Kharam [00:23:56]:
Yeah. So let’s talk about this part.

Tim Newman [00:23:58]:
Okay.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:23:59]:
I did scuba diving, scuba diving in my life, and I’m really passionate about breathing in general. So if we do a bit of research on breathing, our human body will do from 10 to 12 breaths per minute, usually. K? If you’re gonna be under stress or maybe panicking, you go to 15, 20, 30, and more. So now you’re really, really stressed. That’s why we give people the back to breathe and many other things to kind of calm themselves down. But what if I give you a technique not invented by me, the bill automatically reduce the stress and put you in a zone? One of them called box breathing. Navy Seawless used to do it. If you just type box breathing in Google, you find gazillions of thirsts.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:24:48]:
And the way it’s done is you inhale for 5, for example, seconds could be 4 or 3. You hold for 5, exhale for 5, hold for 5, and then repeat. So your cycle right now is 20 seconds. It’s mean that we now have 3 breaths per minute. So we just move from 10 to 12 to 3. Think what’s gonna happen with your heart rate. You will slow down. Slow down.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:25:20]:
Your heart rate will slow down. It will automatically force your body to slow down, and you will become much less stressed. And it’s not so hard to do. You can put a timer on your phone for 3, 4 minutes and just repeat this. I used to go to a washroom, sit down and stare and do it in the beginning because I know it will help me. There’s also physical exercise, like body rotation. If you rotate, it’s hard to show right now. If you rotate around yourself with the body, it will show it will basically create a mechanism to your body to kind of self calibrate and also review the stress and calm yourself down.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:26:00]:
Because there’s variety of stuff. If you do speak it for a long time, you probably have other stories or friends’ stories when they put music or they do something like a ritual to get themselves into the flow.

Tim Newman [00:26:11]:
Yeah. Yeah. So I I use a a walk up song that either is either playing out loud or I play it in my head. And I’ve got I’ve got 3 that I that I choose depending on the situation, you know, what what whatever it is. And and for me, that’s something I’m always excited to get out and talk to people, but for me, that really puts me in the in the mindset to make sure that I’m I’m bringing the energy. Like you said like you said at the beginning, the more energetic you are when you when you come out there and you start, you know, talking to to to the audience, they’re more engaged. And the more excited and and the more energy you bring, the more energy they give back to you. So that that’s for me, that’s something that that I do.

Tim Newman [00:26:53]:
And especially for somebody that talks fast, it also slows me down. It slows my my voice down initially going out there so they can understand my opening statements.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:27:06]:
There’s another part of the thing that’s important in connecting. There is, the science called NLP, the the related to psychology. And in NLP, they say that the human body can do 3 to 7 things in the same time, not multitasking. Right. You can drive your car. You can shift. You can be on the phone. You can watch your surrounding and stuff like that.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:27:27]:
So if part of you need to present and big part of you is focusing on being afraid, it’s mean you’re taking off the focus point on watching you breathing, watching you slides, thinking about the delivery, watching the people around you because part of you is focusing on being afraid. So if you replace this fear with excitement, then you now have more focus point to understand what’s happening with your surrounding and potentially adjust your delivery as well.

Tim Newman [00:28:00]:
And and and then be able to engage the audience. Right? Because an adult’s attention span is like 3 to 5 minutes. Let let alone, you know, a a younger person that is, like, 15 seconds. And so we have to make sure that we’re we’re bringing them back to our message, you know, at at any at any given point in time, whoever it is in the audience. So we have to to make sure that we’re we’re paying attention to that. And we can’t pay attention to that if we’re worried about our slides. All worried that somebody’s gonna be judging us just like you said. Focus needs to be on the audience.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:28:37]:
Yep.

Tim Newman [00:28:39]:
So let let let’s get back to the do to the whole idea of, communicating with with, from your perspective, nontechnical stakeholders. What what are some other techniques that you, use or would suggest? Because, again, to me, it comes back to not just from a technical perspective, knowing your audience. How do you what would you suggest that that that people some techniques people use to to be able to communicate with somebody who’s outside of your your industry? Let’s just put it that way.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:29:11]:
We mentioned about the research, but let us do and talk about something else. We all consume information differently. Some are audio, some visual, some can be static. So if you come and say, k. Let me show you slides or let me show you a diagram or let me do a demo, or let me you can go in touch, and I’ll explain what you’re doing. It’s a different way for people to learn. So one of the option is to provide options to people. We need to talk about this particular idea.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:29:42]:
We can do 3 or 4 different things. I can show you the slides. I can show you how it’s working. I can talk to you about this or maybe have a different way. So you kind of give them some choices, but still putting a guardrail to them. Right. So now they can potentially choose. Assuming they care, assume they want to learn, they’re gonna tell you what they want.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:30:05]:
This is 1. If you’re explaining and you see it’s not resonating, it’s not going anywhere, this is the time to ask for guidance and be guided. This is important part of soft skills is can I ask for guidance, or can I guide you as well? So asking my guidance, you can say, if there’s a better way to explain? If there’s a better way to do it? I know that certain people like to repeat what I explained to them, and they say, let me try to explain to you what I learned, and you correct me if I’m wrong. Usually, it’s the audio people because they wanna hear themselves. Right? I think it’s amazing because this way, you know if you hit the hit the jackpot or not. But not everybody doing this. Not everybody’s going with it. Sometimes people kind of afraid, or they don’t wanna look stupid because they’re not gonna ask and say, Mhmm.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:31:05]:
Yep. Yep. Yep. But if you see if you open up and you say, you know what? Sometimes I know I am explaining stuff too technically, and I think it’s helping if people tell me what’s the better way to do it. Yes. Or in some cases, I remember somebody was explaining you something else. Maybe you referred to the industry, and I didn’t understand. And then I told them how I consume information, and they were able to change how they explain.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:31:34]:
So you’re kinda showing them up that they can guide you as well, as they can explain, they can tell you in the ways they understand. Definitely helping. Definitely good. Repeating the same words all the time not gonna help. You need to understand what’s drive the other person and ask for guidance. I don’t understand. Do you understand if there’s a way for me to do it differently? I’m here for you. I have the time.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:32:01]:
We’re not gonna rush.

Tim Newman [00:32:02]:
Right. Right. And and that’s that’s so important again to to make sure that they understand. And and one of the things I found is a lot of people won’t won’t say they don’t they they understand. They’ll say, yes. I understand, but they really don’t. And I again, from my perspective, I think we we have to do a better job to make sure that they understand what how we question them or how we, you know, verify or, measure their level of understanding, especially if if we’re if we’re trying to sell them a product and they don’t understand the tech the technical aspects of what their product can actually do, and they say yes, and then they don’t buy because they don’t understand. That, again, that that hurts the bottom line right on down the road.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:32:48]:
Great. Is there

Tim Newman [00:32:51]:
is there anything else we didn’t talk about that you you think our audience should know about public speaking?

Evgeniy Kharam [00:32:57]:
Yeah. The thing is if you’re presenting with a friend, not by yourself, you want to reverse and understand how will you the people. How would you transition from you to him to her? And in my view, when you’re presenting to someone, you don’t wanna be stuck for a long time, just you talking. By stuck, I mean, 2 minutes probably maximum that you wanna talk about yourself. Only if it’s a presentation when you do half and the other person doing half, that’s a bit different. But if you’re actually doing a fireside chat, then analyze and understand how it’s gonna be done. Usually, when people are mature, they kind of know the excuse, and they’re not interrupting each other, or they know when to interact. But if not, it’s a good practice to understand what are the signs.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:33:51]:
How are we moving from 1 to 1? That is also good. If you’re on a panel, it’s mean you’re part of several speakers, then it’s a bit different. You wanna be as concise as possible because it depends on how many questions. You definitely wanna stick to a minute or 2 minute. And something happened with my camera. Yeah. That’s very interesting. Yeah.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:34:14]:
This has just changed.

Tim Newman [00:34:14]:
You just switched it up?

Evgeniy Kharam [00:34:17]:
No. It just did it by itself. This is very interesting. K. I guess it is what it is.

Tim Newman [00:34:24]:
That’s alright.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:34:25]:
We’re not yeah. I mean, cameras cameras, we’re gonna just we’ll look all the way up, and we’ll go from a zip right now.

Tim Newman [00:34:33]:
That’s fine. There you go. So

Evgeniy Kharam [00:34:38]:
Yeah.

Tim Newman [00:34:41]:
You know, you I I saw your website. I I do wanna mention this before we talk about your book for a second. You do 2 really interesting events. You do a a bike a bike conference and a skiing conference. Tell me about that because I I’ve done a a crew I’ve been on a cruise conference before, which I think is great. Tell me about those those two conferences that that you put on real quick.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:35:01]:
So the skiing snowboard conference was, in a way, the beginning of the book. I did a snowboard trainer snowboard instructor training, and I really like the communication between the people during the training. So I got this idea. What if we do a ski slash slash snowboard conference for cybersecurity? Why? Because in a traditional conference, when you see someone, you may afraid to speak to them. When you’re going to a ski and snowboard event or if you just go on a mountain, it’s relatively easy to ask, hey, team. I see you have these keys. How do you like it? What’s your favorite mountain? And stuff like that. It will automatically transition to talking about business and cybersecurity.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:35:51]:
So the idea was if we do such event, we’ll add food and beer and leave the people alone. They’re probably gonna be doing quite okay, and it was actually true. So we don’t even call it a conference. We call it more a networking event. About 200 people show up from, like, plus and minus for all the events. We did 2 in the winter. We just did 1 in the summer because people want to have something in the summer as well. And not not everyone likes the winter.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:36:20]:
We’re doing a 4th one in the winter in February. Definitely interesting concept, definitely good crowd, and to get a variety of people from a c level people to students Mhmm. To communicate. Because everybody in a ski gear or snowboard gears, there’s really no level of sea. Just talk to anyone and talk to everyone. Very, very relaxed atmosphere as well.

Tim Newman [00:36:42]:
Yes. And I I I agree with you. I I like the cruise conference that I went went on and I’ve been on a number of times. I liked it so much better, because of the personal connections that you make, and you you have some time to to to truly interact and get to know people outside of, you know, that that normal, conference atmosphere. So so where can people buy your buy your book, the the art of soft skills and technical sales?

Evgeniy Kharam [00:37:11]:
So the easiest way is to Amazon. Go to Amazon, whatever you believe. I might well, put my name, e v g a n a y. Last name, Kharam, k h a r a m, Evgeniy Khram. I’m kind of blast to a relatively unique name. So there’s gonna be no other one Evgeniy Khram on Amazon. I promise you. The other one is go to soft skills tag.ca or soft skills tech.com on the website, and you can put that as well.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:37:37]:
So maybe Tina can put it in show notes later on. You could click on this as well. This is the 2 easiest things. If you wanna find me, go on to LinkedIn. You can go to LinkedIn right now when you’re listening with my name. As I mentioned before, you’re getting a cramp and find me as well and feel free to connect. I’m relatively accessible. I’m also doing workshops for teams to help them with soft skills and public speaking as well.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:38:02]:
So this is probably the easy way the way to find it.

Tim Newman [00:38:05]:
Well, I’ll I’ll put all those links in in the show notes for for everybody, so that they have them. Evgeniy, thank you so much for joining us. I I really do appreciate it. You’ve given our our listeners some some really good tips and information. I appreciate it.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:38:18]:
Thank you, Tim. Tim, I do have a question if I may.

Tim Newman [00:38:20]:
Yeah. Sure.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:38:22]:
Is there anything you learned that was new for you for the last 45 minutes?

Tim Newman [00:38:29]:
The actual way to do the box technique, I’ve heard of it. I did I didn’t didn’t realize that it was 5 seconds, so you so you took it like, say you take it down from from, 10 reps to 3 in a minute, which to to me, you know, I I just think about, you know, my breathing as you as you were saying it. And I do know how to control that heart rate, but trying to trying to get that down to to 3 breaths in a minute, I think that’s gonna be a a a big game changer for me in in a number of different situations. You know, because you and I have talked, I I like I like to golf. And to be a good golfer, you can’t have a high heart rate. You you’ve gotta keep it as as low as as possible. You need to keep your your breasts, you you know, your your breast per minute low. And if you think about it, if you’ve ever watched Tiger Woods play when when he was in his heyday, he would walk really, really fast until he got about 50 yards from the green, and then he would slow it down.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:39:32]:
Slow it down.

Tim Newman [00:39:32]:
And that would and that and so by the time he got to the green, his heart rate was was back down. And and, to me that that in in terms of anxiety and helping being able to help students in a different way is is gonna be very beneficial, at at least for me from from a coaching perspective.

Evgeniy Kharam [00:39:55]:
Yeah. And by the way, you don’t have to go 5. You can do 4 in 3 seconds when you start, and then gradually move to 5 as well.

Tim Newman [00:40:01]:
No. I’m just gonna go right to 5 then. I mean, we just would I mean, for me for me, I just go right at it. I mean, we we, you know, we we just do it. But again, thank you so much. So everybody,

Evgeniy Kharam [00:40:13]:
Thank you.

Tim Newman [00:40:14]:
Be sure to visit speakingwithconfidencepodcast.com to join our growing community and register for the formula for public speaking course. Always remember, your voice has the power to change the world. We’ll talk to you next time. Take care.