re534: Bradley Live and On Stage in Metz, France!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I think evaluations are sort of like the secret weapon of Toastmasters. Why Toastmasters work so well is we have evaluation. So you don't just give a speech and say, thanks, bye, bye, you get evaluated. And I believe that YouTube is in a weird way, one of the best evaluators you can get because it's, by the way, it's not easy. I'm not saying this is easy. And no, hey, this is a piece of cake for everyone because most people, even speakers, even Toastmasters, they don't like seeing themselves on camera or they don't like seeing themselves speak because they see all their mistakes and say, oh my God, do I really like picking my ear so often? Do I, do I rub my eye all the time? And so YouTube is a mirror. And for better or worse, I think it's the best evaluator that we have. This is Bradley Schrevenow. I'm hosting interviews of the workshop leaders for the upcoming Mets conference, the Toastmasters District 59 conference, May 15th, 17th, 2026 down in northern France. And usually I'm the one interviewing the interviewee, Lee, the workshop leaders. But today, Aram Arian Sheridson has, has agreed to interview me for my workshop because I am one of the workshop leaders in France. And so I'm going to turn over the mic to Arjon and let him interview me about my workshop in France. So thanks for doing this, Ariane. [00:01:39] Speaker B: You're welcome, Bradley. Well, it's interesting, of course, Bradley, you're also a workshop leader. So show you not only this series, so you're really walking your talk by recording the series and doing this project and you're really showing and exemplifying what your workshop is all about. So what is your workshop all about, Bradley? [00:02:02] Speaker A: So my workshop is, it's YouTube for speakers, which of course is again, not coincidental that I'm going to be publishing this on YouTube. And I, I should add that my workshop will be in Dutch. And so the workshop title is YouTube for spreakers. YouTube or speakers. And it's, it's a, it's interesting because it's about YouTube, but it's not really about YouTube in the sense of the, what you might think of YouTube. And so it's, could you guide us [00:02:37] Speaker B: through what speakers really need to understand about YouTube and what changes it into their speeches? [00:02:45] Speaker A: Yeah, so the reason that, the reason I'm doing this workshop is, I think without giving away too much of my talk, it came to me very clearly once there are three different settings on a YouTube video. There's private, unlisted and public. And I think this sort of solidifies or clarifies the speaker's perspective on publicity. So just briefly, private, only you see it. Right. And if you have to share it with like an email address. So that is. Would be an example of a talk that is only for you. You don't want anybody in the whole world to see it. So this is good for your own practice of you getting in front of the camera. The second option is unlisted. Unlisted is you need a link that that link can be shared and only that group that has the link can see it. So this would be an example of I want to share it with my Toastmasters group or I want to share it with the topic of the conversation. And so I can control who sees it. And that's also good practice for that audience. And then finally there's public, which is open to the entire planet. And that's just a different level of confidence. Of course. [00:04:14] Speaker B: So what was really, what was her moment when you realized speakers really needed it? This your workshop? [00:04:24] Speaker A: I. This came when. So if, if you're watching this, maybe you're a toastmaster. If you're a toastmaster, then you know how important evaluations are. I think evaluations are sort of like the secret weapon of Toastmasters. Why Toastmasters work so well is we have evaluations. So you don't just give a speech and say, thanks, bye, bye. You get evaluated. And I believe that YouTube is in a weird way one of the best evaluators you can get because it's, by the way, it's not easy. I'm not saying this is easy. And no, hey, this is a piece of cake for everyone because most people, even speakers, even Toastmasters, they don't like seeing themselves on camera or they don't like seeing themselves speak because they see all their mistakes and say, oh my God, do I really, like pick in my ear so often? Do I? Do I rub my eye all the time? And so YouTube is a mirror. And for better or worse, I think it's the best evaluator that we have. Yeah. [00:05:36] Speaker B: Yeah. I definitely can relate that people struggle a lot times to even have a camera on them and tell us stories. [00:05:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:45] Speaker B: Even though they are Toastmasters, which always surprises me, actually, even seasoned toastmasters can sometimes have that. [00:05:53] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, they do for sure. [00:05:56] Speaker B: So is there, is there one thing in your workshop that you can get people over that point? [00:06:04] Speaker A: Yes. So YouTube has kind of like Toastmasters full on videos. You know, one minute or three hours or Whatever. And then it also has shorts. And my challenge, even to Toastmasters, who are supposed to be, you know, not too scared of going up on stage, my challenge is to record a 15 second short of yourself and again, put it on private. You don't have to share it with the whole world, but the practice of that and do it. If you want. My real challenge, it's do that every day for a month. A short 15 seconds every day for one month. And I can almost guarantee you it will improve your speaking abilities. [00:06:52] Speaker B: So what will get, what would I get out of that? [00:06:58] Speaker A: The big answer is confidence. Because through practice, if you do 15 seconds every day and then you're called up on table topics at your Toastmasters meeting, for example, you say, well, I've been doing this every day for 30 days, I got this. Or if you, if you advance more and you're doing more YouTube recordings, and again, put it on private, put it on private, it's fine. But the practice of having a camera, I'm on camera. And then, as painful as it is, watch your recording and you'll learn from it and you'll become a better sleeper. [00:07:39] Speaker B: Is that the biggest takeaway that people get from your workshop? Building the confidence by doing the challenge or even do the mini challenge? [00:07:47] Speaker A: I think so. The word confidence is an interesting one because it's hard to measure. How do you measure? Like if I. If easy to measure is money, I have €10, I have €12. €12 is more than €10. But if I say, oh, I have more confidence, well, how do you measure that? And so I. My goal for you at the end of the workshop is that you have confidence, more confidence so that I can now blank. So I want you to be able to measure the confidence. Before I was too scared or self conscious to talk in front of my team at work or have a mini presentation for my fellow students at school, or stand up at Toastmasters. And now after the workshop and after maybe doing the 30 day challenge, I have confidence so that I can do xyz. That's what I want you to walk away with. [00:08:58] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think confidence is trust within yourself. So, yeah, trust within yourself leads usually to saying yes to bigger opportunities in life. [00:09:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, there you go. [00:09:10] Speaker B: And going there. But also for me, it's about congruence that you really put behind your message, your, Your soul and your voice, but also your emotions behind what you're saying. [00:09:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. [00:09:28] Speaker B: What is one idea of technique people can try immediately? So the video, would you recommend somebody else, something else from YouTube. [00:09:38] Speaker A: The simplest is the 15 second the. If you want to. I, I talk about evaluations a lot. And here's a fun thing you can do. Immediately record yourself in 15 seconds. Ideally you're in the camera and then there's a couple steps you can do. Number one is you can press play and turn the phone over so all you do is you hear your voice, not see anything. That's number one. Number two is you turn the sound off and you just watch your 15 seconds. You watch your body language. And then number three is to turn on the volume and look at it and to see the full package of your mini 15 second presentation. So that would be my quick trifecta little three step process to improve your speaking by turning off the screen and then turning off the volume and then looking at both. [00:10:42] Speaker B: So it's interesting that you talk about YouTube and how you can leverage it from different vintage points. Yeah. But why should a toastmaster definitely come to your workshop and who is it for or who should stay away? [00:10:58] Speaker A: I, I did a version of this workshop in Las Vegas at the largest writer conference in the world. And I had hundreds of people in the room record a 15 second video live. That and most of them said they had never done such a thing. And most of them said they were scared to death. And remember, those were, those are writers, toastmasters, their speakers. They should not be as scared of this. And still people are still scared. I mean, I'm not scared anymore because I record shorts every single day. So I challenge you to come to my workshop and get out of your comfort zone. And we're going to record a 15 second video live. Not live like it's public to the world, but we're going to record an actual video so that you can then know the process. And you have already done it one time. And am I guaranteeing that it's going to be fantastic? No. In fact, I can probably guarantee it's going to be terrible. And that's perfectly okay because another benefit of the workshop is getting over yourself, getting over your perfect, amazing, perfect presenting self. And learn how to bomb and fail and do a terrible job and then watch it and improve. That's my goal. [00:12:21] Speaker B: So do you have also practical steps or techniques that you get people over their fear of recording or working with YouTube? [00:12:31] Speaker A: Yes. And one of them, the, the biggest one is accountability. So, and that's what we're going to do live in Mets in France on May 15th and 16th and 17th, live in person, together with a bunch of other people who are doing exactly the same thing. Because then your. Your mind thinks, well, if everybody in this room is doing it, I guess I could do it. Right? We're all. I'm not. I'm not publishing it live to YouTube or anything. I'm just going to do this one little thing and, you know. And then what? I. What? My hope, my little secret hope is that you share it with a neighbor, like. And I do. Okay. I don't want to give away big secrets, but I'm going to get you out of your comfort zone. I want you to be a little scared. I want you to. I'm just going to say worry. I want you to worry about the workshop, but I want you to sleep well at night. But I'm going to scare you a little bit. And I think that's where we really learn, that's where we really get better, is when we get over our fears and just do it anyway. [00:13:42] Speaker B: Yeah. For me, it's one of the proudest moments when I felt the fear and did it anyways. [00:13:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:47] Speaker B: I knew that I grew out of it, or at least I faced it. And then sometimes it's perfectly imperfect. [00:13:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, perfectly imperfect. You know, you just said I had the fear and I did it anyway. I think that's like one of the definitions of courage. [00:14:05] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. [00:14:06] Speaker A: Yeah. So I like that. That's great. Courage. Courage. That's good. Another good word. Yeah. [00:14:12] Speaker B: It's the one thing about this topic that people might be surprised by. [00:14:21] Speaker A: So one of the questions I get is, why don't I just record it on my phone? What's the difference? You know, I have. I have a phone, I have a camera, I have a microphone. I can do this on my phone. And in my humble opinion, I think the idea of putting it on YouTube, the idea that with one little switch, you can go from private to unlisted and one more switch from unlisted to public, I think there's like this psychological jump that you have to take that's different from, I just have it on my phone. I just have it on my phone. You know, nobody knows. So I think that those three, the private, unlisted, and public, I think that's this the sort of my little secret recipe, if you will, of YouTube and how for speakers. By the way, this is not a conference about how to be a YouTuber, how to be an influencer, how to do better videos or whatever. Nope, this is really. It's a practice tool that is just a little different from just your own phone. And those three elements, those three status of the video. Think that makes a big difference. [00:15:40] Speaker B: So how want, how. What do you want? People, how can people use this tool and leverage this for their own speaking? [00:15:50] Speaker A: Their own speaking? It's a, again, levels of confidence. And I see the levels of confidence. And again, I'm back to private, unlisted, public. And so when you get to unlisted and share it with maybe a group that you didn't previously dare share something like this with, that's, that's already a big jump in confidence. So that's where I want to get you to. I'd like to get you to unlisted and then share something you did. Right now from this conference back in November, I'm still getting emails and comments saying, hey, I, I just did the 30 day challenge. I walked and took pictures and took little videos of flowers in the forest. Great. It doesn't matter even what you're doing. It's more about the practice. I want you, my goal is for you to get into practice. Practice of creating video and ideally with you as a speaker. Ideal, it's you speaking in the video, maybe not even the camera. Right. Take a picture, do the video of flowers. That's fine. Doesn't have to be your face because I know that's also a thing. Right? You on camera is a big deal. So it's again, I'm back to confidence. I want you to build confidence so that you can then blank and what [00:17:07] Speaker B: is one sentence you want to leave people with. [00:17:20] Speaker A: That YouTube isn't about YouTube. [00:17:27] Speaker B: That's an interesting piece. I think we should leave it at that. YouTube isn't about YouTube. I'm gonna back the microphone to you, Bradley. [00:17:35] Speaker A: Okay. Hey, thank you, Ariane. That was great. And it's interesting because you're putting me on the spot and I have to come up with, of course, you know, little sound bites about my own talk. And that's, that's good. So that's a good, good example of, of talking to walking the talk, because here I am, we're going to publish this on YouTube and are we going to edit it 5,000 times to. Did we rehearse 14 times? No, we did the job we have right now and we're going to publish it on YouTube. And by the way, it's going to be public. And could it be better? Of course. But that's also part of it. It's just putting it. This is the best job that we can do today. If I want to spend 40 hours editing, that's one thing. I don't have 40 hours to edit. So this is the best job we can do today. And then if we do another recording in six months, ideally it's better, but you won't be able to compare if we didn't hit record that first time for sure. So that's sort of. There's another one of my takeaways. So thank you, Ariane. Thank you for turning the tables and taking over the mic and interviewing me for the mets Conference District 59 in Metz, France on May 15th to 17th, 2026. And Arion and I will both be there. You can watch another video of me interviewing Arion about his upcoming workshop, Storytelling with Impact or and the Dutch title is Verhale Met Impact. Fratella Verhale. That's going to be Arjon's talk in Met. So I hope to see you if you're watching. Hope to see you if you're in District 59 or if you're not in District 59. I don't know. I think Jesse be a toastmaster to come to the conference. I think so. I don't know. I'm not sure. I don't even know. I'm not sure. Okay. Well, if you are so inspired by our talk here that you joined Toastmasters and you are welcome to come to France in the middle of May 2026. So I hope to see you there. Ariana and I will be there. Thanks for watching and check out the rest of the interviews in this series. They will be here in this playlist. All right, Bye for now. Thanks, Ariane.