So let me reveal some important trade secrets that I probably shouldn't even tell you, bad for my main training business, but I do want to share it with you. Here's how I start every media training I do. Whether it's with a world famous politician, a billionaire CEO, or just a 20 year old who's getting ready to be interviewed by a college newspaper, it's exactly the same way. They come into the room. And before we've exchanged pleasantries before we've had coffee, I just say, Hey, can I ask you a few questions? I turn the video camera, the light right on them.

I stick a microphone in their face and I start asking questions. Now it's not confrontational. It's not do you beat your spouse or did you steal this money? It's just asking them questions about what they do. And it doesn't matter about the audio quality, the video quality. In fact, I'll just have a mic that's not even attached to the camera.

Memorize a prop, just to give them a sense of Oh, this is really happening. So I'll do that for a minute or so sometimes a little longer if it's one on one. If I'm working with a dozen people in a day, I may only ask them one or two questions for 20 seconds. They don't have the person Sit down. And I'll ask another couple of questions, and I sit down, then, here's the interesting part that you'll find incredibly useful if you do it. I turn the light off on my camera.

I put the mic on the floor. I sit back and I say, Ah, so How'd that feel when the cameras on? Yeah. That's when they come alive. Like, oh, DJ, that was awful. I don't think I did well at all there.

And I'm rolling them recording it the whole time. Then, and that's for maybe 15 2030 seconds, then I say Okay, one last question. We'll turn the light on, pick up the mic straighten up. And I'll say what do you want to get out of today? What has to happen today in this training session for you to consider this an incredibly worthwhile use of your time. That's how I start the train in the whole thing may only take 90 seconds.

Sometimes it could go five minutes. Then I tell the person Okay, we're gonna watch this. I want you to be a harsh critic of yourself today. But I want you to be a fair critic. And a fair critic points out not just weaknesses, flaws, but also strikes. So I want you to watch this, get out a clean sheet of paper, put a column down the middle, talk about what you like, don't like.

But again, I want something on both sides of the column. Okay, they agree. So then I play the video. They're watching it. Typically you see looks for the first day One and then it goes right to the CD one, then it goes to the secret one. Now quite often there's a little bit of laughter So I didn't know you were recording and then the final one, then I stopped the video, have the person stand up, turn the light on.

I said, Okay, now Give me your critique. But here's the catch. I only want to know what you liked about how you came across. I don't care about the substance yet. I don't care about your messages. I just want to isolate what you're doing well, and forgive me.

I'm letting you know right now. I will be rude. I will rudely interrupt you. If you start talking about things you don't like. Because the first thing we're trying to learn here is how to correctly Watch yourself critique yourself to figure out what your strengths are so we can build them. People think the real value is learning What not to do and the real value is learning what to do what to do more of.

Now sometimes people say, Oh, I didn't like anything. But quite often they'll say, Well, my voice was okay. I guess my speaking speed was okay, I wasn't shaking. There's always something. Now, occasionally, they won't see it. But others in the room, if you are doing a group training or rehearsal session, if it's just you working with one client or one customer, they may say, I hate everything.

It's gonna be up to you to isolate what they're doing. Well, this is critically important. I believe most trainings are flawed because the trainer wants to show how smart he or she is. So they do a longer interview up front. And then they'll tell the person 73 things they're doing wrong. And technically they're correct.

They are doing those things wrong. So the client, the colleague, the CEO, the executive, thinks, intellectually, boy, I'm learning a lot Wow, this trainers really smart. But boy, oh boy lesson I learned is I'm horrible I should jump out a window, or I should never do interviews. That's the lesson they learn emotionally, you've destroyed them, they want to go kill themselves practically. So my recommendation never, ever, ever say anything negative. The first time you're looking at them again, we're going to do a dozen videos during a training.

So if you have a longer day, even if you just get 15 minutes on the way to an interview, I'd recommend you do three or four interviews and perhaps this one you you shrunk down to just one short one. So that is the first important step is you got to record them in these different situations. And then you have to force them to just isolate the things that they like and for you to say what you like. You've got to build a sense of a base. You got to give people a sense of hearing my core communication strengths, absolutely critical before you do anything else.