410 Become a Master Speaker and Wow Your Audience with Sekou Andrews

"You are still your most important audience of all." - Sekou Andrews If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/410 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 410 with Sekou Andrews.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  If you want to learn how to become a better communicator, a better speaker onstage, a better performer, then this is the episode for you. Sekou Andrews is an incredible person that I met, I think about four or five years ago. I saw this individual speak onstage at an event called Summit Series, and I was captivated from the very first word to the very last. His performance had such a profound impact on me that I remember going up to him afterwards and saying, "I've never wanted to hire a speaker coach before until I met you. I want to learn everything you know about public speaking and connecting to an audience."

• 1:13Lewis Howes?

  Now Sekou Andrews is an actor, a musician, and a National Poetry Slam champion, an entrepreneur, and now award-winning poetic voice. And on any given day, you may find Sekou presenting an original talk for an international marketing executives, giving a keynote speech at a leadership conference, or performing pieces for Obama or Oprah. His work has been featured on ABC World News, MSNBC, HBO, Good Morning America, Showtime, MTV, and BET. And he has performed privately for people like Maya Angelou, Larry King, Hillary Clinton, and so much more.

• 1:54Lewis Howes?

  Some of his corporate clients include Nike, Time Warner, Cisco, eBay, Microsoft, Google, LinkedIn, Express, PayPal, General Mills, NBA, NCAA, and so much more. He teaches corporate leaders how to perform better in the boardroom and more. Some of the things we covered today are the best ways and worst ways to open any speech, how someone can become a master speaker, no matter what level you're at. Also, Seku performs a part of his piece, Voiceful, which is extremely powerful, so you can see how he performs and delivers. We talk about the key to good audience management from the stage, and Seku's advice to people who are terrified of public speaking.

• 2:39Lewis Howes?

  Guys, if you want to learn to be a master communicator, if you want to learn how to master the stage, this is one of the best in the world at teaching this and performing it. I've only seen a few people really captivate me the way Seku does, but he does it in such a unique, distinct way that no one does it like him. You're in for a real treat. Make sure to share this with your friends, lewishouse.com/410. Watch the full video interview on the link there as well, or you can go right to youtube.com/lewishouse to watch it, as you'll get to experience his performance style on video, more so than in audio, and this is an incredible one, so make sure to share it with your friends.

• 3:20Lewis Howes?

  And without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only, Seku Andrews. All right, welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness Podcast. Very excited about our guest, Seku Andrews in the house. Good to see you, man. How you doing? Good, huh? I'm, uh, super pumped about this. I remember watching you for the first time at Summit Base Camp, uh, where was it? Tahoe? Uh, Reno, yeah. Reno, is that where it was? Yeah, about four years ago, maybe, three, four years ago. Yeah, somewhere around there. And I, I saw you for the first time, and I was just like, wow. I came up to you afterwards, I don't know if you remember this, but I was like, I want to learn how to speak like you. Oh, yeah. I don't know if you remember this, but yeah.

• 4:03Lewis Howes?

  I remember that, but literally up until now, I didn't make that connection that that was you. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah, and I remember hearing you speak, or I watched you speak, and I was just mesmerized. It was like this magnetic pull to your style, your approach to not speaking, but performing, and... You know, everything which is what you call poetic voice, correct? That's which is your style of public speaking.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:28Lewis Howes?

  And can you tell us a little bit about what that actually is? What's poetic voice mean?

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, so poetic voice is basically the seamless blend of inspirational speaking and spoken word poetry. So if you imagine, you know, if you're listening to a speech that's being performed, and it gives you the same sort of energy and dynamic range and emotive power of a performance, and you lose track of where the business content ends and the storytelling begins, and the rhyming begins, and the theater ends, and the comedy begins, and it just becomes sort of this one seamless experience. Because I would see a lot of poets or artists that were that were speakers, and they would do sort of a set speech, you know what I'm saying? Where you'd be like, okay, I'm gonna do my poem, and then I'm gonna, you're gonna applaud, and then I'm gonna talk about it.

• 5:12Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  And then I'm set up the next, I'm gonna tell you some stories, then I'm set up the next piece, then I'm perform, and then I'm, you're gonna applaud.

• 5:17Lewis Howes?

  But it wasn't seamless.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  It wasn't seamless, it was like this. And I wanted it to be this kind of constant leaning in effect where you were like, wow, that's great business content, is he rhyming? Wait a minute, that's, is this a story? Like, I don't know where we are right now, but I'm along for the ride, you know?

• 5:30Lewis Howes?

  Interesting, man.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:31Lewis Howes?

  And you, and you used to be a teacher, is that right?

• 5:33Speaker 01

  That was the last job I had before I started working for myself. Fifth grade teacher.

• 5:37Lewis Howes?

  Fifth grade, man.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Fifth grade teachers out there, what up? Hala, hala.

• 5:42Lewis Howes?

  Dude, when was this? How long ago?

• 5:44Speaker 01

  This was fourteen years ago.

• 5:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow, man.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  I've been a full-time poet for about fourteen years, and I was, that was the last job I had. I was actually on the law school track.

• 5:53Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Out of college, because you know, your mom hears you got the gift of gab, and she's like, she doesn't say, you should be a poet. She says, you should be an attorney, you know?

• 6:01Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  So I was on, I was working at a bunch of law firms in LA after I graduated college, and um.

• 6:06Lewis Howes?

  You from here?

• 6:06Speaker 01

  I'm originally from the Bay Area.

• 6:08Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Um, I'm a Berkeley baby, so I did Berkeley, went to middle school, high school in DC, and then came out to LA for college instead. Went to Pitzer, Pitzer College out in Claremont. And graduated sociology and was gonna do, you know, pre-law, working in law firms. And then I was like, dude, law, I was, so law wasn't supposed to be my backup. Entertainment law wasn't gonna be my backup to being an entertainer. And then you kind of look up and you're like, you know, first of all, law is not really a backup. It's kind of a commitment, you know? And then I was also like, I'm not trying to be that bitter entertainment lawyer that's negotiating deals I wish I had. Sure, yeah, yeah. Like, check out my demo though. So I was like, let's, you know, let's try teaching.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  And I ultimately knew that as much as I love teaching, I couldn't give the kids my all that they deserved if I was out pursuing entertainment at night. Yeah. And so I decided to just take the leap of faith, you know? Interesting. How long were you teaching for? About four years. Four years? And you were doing your like side, like gigs or? Yeah, I mean, you know, initially during that period, I was chasing hip hop. That was, that was my route to spoken word came from hip hop and acting. I was pursuing Hollywood, pursuing record deals. And then somewhere along the way, I was going to open mics to build a fan base for my music. Cause I was always kind of too poetic for the record labels and they would, you know, the, the execs would be like, dude, I love your joints. I, I listen to it every day on the way to work.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  But it's not like, you know, bling, shooting mop hoes, you know, to like sell to the man next to the man. And so I started, all right, well, I'm gonna do it myself. Entrepreneurship kicked in. It was like, I'll start my own, you know, record label, Blind Faith Records, baby. You know, that was the joint. And, um, and I started going to open mics to build a fan base for my music. And I accidentally fell in love with spoken word poetry. That wasn't the plan. And then it was kind of like, well, damn, now what do I do? You know, like there's no industry for this. Right. So then part of me started getting more excited about, about pioneering new trails in spoken word than being sort of tossed into the sea of demos and headshots out there competing for the same crumbs, you know? Wow. And so when did you do the national poetry slam championship? So, um, during the.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Four year period when I was teaching was when the transition happened. I went in thinking I was like, you know, pursuing hip hop, trying to get a record deal, pursuing acting, and then that transition of falling in love with spoken word happened. And so then it was like, okay, I started building my name up on the scene and my name built up pretty quickly. The spoken word scene. Yeah, spoken word. What, just locally, nationally? Primarily locally, here in LA. Shout out to DPL, you know, the Poetry Lounge was my home venue and still is. And then, right after I quit, you know, I always, it was, it's a pretty powerful story of like, you know, I decided I was gonna quit my job, I took my taxes, my tax return

• 9:01Speaker 01

  money, I upgraded my studio to Pro Tools, I was like, I'm gonna record my album. I had a double CD I recorded. The CD wasn't out the day I was supposed to have my CD release show, right? So I quit my job on a Friday. That Tuesday or Wednesday or something, I had the CD release show. I was freaking out, like, I don't have my CDs in my hand. Finally, the guy in Carson that was duplicating them was like, were they done? Come pick them up. I shot down to Carson, I picked them up, I rushed back, I ran to the stage, dude was like, what took you so long? It was Flight Poet Showcase, if you've never been, you need to check it out, one of the dopest shows out here. And he was like, you're on to 20 minutes. And I'm backstage panting and sweating, and I go onstage, I do one of the best sets of my career at the time.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  I step out onstage afterwards, surrounded by audience members, and I make my rent in CD sales that night. Wow. And I remember like, when the crowd cleared, I just looked up at the sky and I was like, damn, I can do this. Like, it was the most powerful moment of, I can do this. And then, the next day, I took off to DC where my girlfriend lived at the time, so I could do like, a safe tour, you know, meaning I had a place to sleep. For free? Some bread in the fridge, you know? And I toured for about a week and a half, came back with a wad of cash about, you know, a few weeks later, went to Atlanta, came back with a wad of cash after about a week and a half. Sold CDs. Right, selling my CDs. And then, a couple of weeks later, is when I won the National Poetry Slam Championship. And so then that made me the number one slam poet in the country, which then gave me the eyes of the country.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  So now I could go anywhere and my name preceded me, and that helped with that, you know, it was like, almost scaling myself, right? Well, how many people compete in the championship? Uh, so the National Poetry Slam Championship is probably about, uh, about, I don't, I don't necessarily know exactly what it is now, but when I was competing, it's probably grown since then. Um, it was about sixty to sixty-five teams from around the country. Three hundred poets, you know, converge on a city. The city bids for it like the Olympics, you know, and they get chosen as that city. Um, and then the poets converge for about four or five days.

• 11:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  And, you know, ba- different bouts going on around the city, semifinals, finals. And at that time, the team competition and the individual competition were on the same night. And I won the individual competition.

• 11:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  And then two thousand and three, the following year, I then went back and I won the team competition. So that's why I says two ti- two-time national champion.

• 11:23Lewis Howes?

  Have you not gone back since?

• 11:24Speaker 01

  After that, you know, I Jordaned it, you know what I mean?

• 11:26Lewis Howes?

  Dr. Mike.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Right, you know what I mean? Like, I was just like, what else is there to do here, you know?

• 11:30Lewis Howes?

  Five-time champion.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Right, like I set my sights on other stuff, you know?

• 11:33Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, okay. What was that like for you, going through that process and winning and?

• 11:39Speaker 01

  It was amazing, dude, I mean.

• 11:40Lewis Howes?

  How many people were there, like the final one? It's like the M and M, eight mile.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 11:47Lewis Howes?

  It's like, let's go, you're all there, you're like, how?

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Right, my palms are sweaty. Um, it's probably about a thousand to two thousand folks maybe in the theater, you know? Like it sells out. Um, we were on, I remember in Chicago, two thousand and three, it was Navy Pier. Um, and it was a theater out there and it was, it was huge. And I remember like the, when I won nationals, actually in Minneapolis, uh, the individual, I just remember this amazing feeling of like, as soon as I finished and, and, and the scores were announced, like my whole team and community ran on the stage and bum rushed me.

• 12:20Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, like everybody just came in, it was like this real sense of community love. Cause we had like, at that time, we had about five teams out here from LA. It was LA, Hollywood, Long Beach, Inland Empire, you know what I mean? San Diego, and so it was a heavy community battling against each other, but at the same time, still family, you know?

• 12:40Lewis Howes?

  That's cool, man.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  So it was an amazing, amazing experience. And then after that, I mean, like I said, I, I would just show up at spots and it was like Sekou the Misfit. Sekou the Misfit was my name back then, you know? So, you know, that was my hip hop name.

• 12:51Lewis Howes?

  All right.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  So it was like Sekou the Misfit's here, you know? And so, um, it just helped with me being able to turn this into a career, you know?

• 13:01Lewis Howes?

  Crazy, man.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:02Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so can we hear one of the poems?

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Well, yeah.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  So I'll do one of, I'll do a poetic voice piece. That actually is, it'll give you a sense of the, the sort of blend

• 13:16Speaker 01

  of the inspirational speaking side and the spoken word side together. And this is a piece, I keep debating on which joint to do. I think I'll do this piece, Be Voiceful. Okay. Which is when I, when I last saw you at the, at the saying, saying event, that was the piece that I shared in, in its more sort of extended, you know, 20 minute keynote form, but the, and that's actually a, it's actually a 45 to 60 minute keynote that I do, all about finding your voice, the power of finding your voice. But it's sort of based on this, this sort of self-contained piece, so. Cool. Be voiceful, alright. It is quite simply a magical place.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  A universal womb that births each of our days with an act shared across this planet's face. From the moment the nylon curtain is raised and you step butt naked onto your porcelain stage, your hot and cold background singers engage. You lift that soapy loofah microphone to your face and let your mighty bellow set this world ablaze with. And I will always love you. And every single human on the planet, each shares a singular, universal truth.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  I sound freaking amazing in here, right? There is a science to why we all sound good in the shower. It's in the echo. Something about the compact quarters of porcelain metal and wood that reverberate, sound waves erupting from our throats, transpose them into major chords for minor notes, as if the walls themselves join in on your song, like the bathroom just agrees with you and sings along. I sound freaking amazing in here, sound freaking amazing in here, sound freaking amazing. And with your talent now affirmed beyond all reasonable doubt, you settle down, towel off, suit up and step out into this.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Buzzkill of a world and it's comments on your skills. Something about nails on a chalkboard, whatever, and a cat being killed, whatever. And you not quitting your day job. And so you don't. Instead, you quit your daydreams. You abort your purpose. You divorce your passion. You call off the search for your power. You quit believing you sound good outside of the shower. And that is not actually to say, Lewis, that you can sing. Okay, let's just be clear. It is entirely possible that you, my friend, are never ever supposed to be singing in the shower, ever.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  But rather dancing or drawing or designing. Maybe you're supposed to be designing an event that will shower your community with leadership. Right? Or, or creating a new product to bathe your company in liquid gain. Or crafting a new strategy to wash away your greatest fears. Or creating a new magic trick for your kids using bath beads. Finishing the final chapter of your book on clean water. Right? Uh, designing and inventing a new cutting edge tile that can heat an entire room

• 16:53Speaker 01

  with clean, sustainable energy converted from the bold sound waves of bathroom singers worldwide. Maybe what you are supposed to be doing in your daily sound booth is reaching down into your throat for the sound of your truth and pulling out the proof in the echoes of a story.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  A post, a blog, a pirouette, a poster, a strategy, a slogan, a vote. There's so many viral building blocks that drive the building blocks of a voice.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Creative voice, right, to enroll the world into your vision. Or a catalytic voice that accelerates your mission. An authentic voice that grants your future access. A poetic voice that narrates your passage in the lexicon of your life. Helping you to say you, how you want to be heard. When you don't have the clarity, when you can't find the words, when the cacophony in your head drowns out the symphony of your heart with a bed of white noise saying,

• 18:07Speaker 01

  it's not that you can't hear your voice. It's not that you can't hear your thoughts. It's that none of them sound like you. You don't recognize the sound of your own voice. Can't believe your words, so you bathe your throat in silence, waiting for your throat to clear.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  Like a shotgun cock. A door unlocked. A needle dropped onto a whirlwind of thoughts.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  This way. This is the full expression of what you were born to do. This is the how to do it that is uniquely you. This is the how to say it with this voice, these words. This is the how to live it, to be joined by those you serve as the voice of your customers or your community or your cause. But you are still your most important audience member of all. If your truth calls in the middle of life's forest and you ain't even there to hear it, it will not make a sound, a mark, or a difference. So what is the point of showing up to life if you don't announce you're there? What's the point of having a story if it never gets shared?

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Because you're too scared to talk your walk. Own what you do different. The first step to having, to finding your true voice is to listen to voices other than your own. Then print your edition. Let the similarities help you define your divisions. Then say you to the world. And when met with resistance. When they tell you talk is cheap,

• 19:49Speaker 01

  you tell them silence is unaffordable. Be voiceful because you are what you say. So don't say what you do until you do what you are. Only when your actions move with your words, will your words move others to action. Maybe it's time to hit the showers like vocal booth and climb back in until your your future recognizes your voice and it unlocks your doors wide. Your fate's GPS speaks in your voice and announces, you have arrived. And you step outside into life's voice booth of earth and seas and skies

• 20:34Speaker 01

  and prove your voice sounds just as freaking amazing as it did inside as you announce to this world, I am here.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Right here.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  And I'm finally the right me. And it echoes off everyone around you till the universe responds, I agree. And your future clears its throat for good and joins in on your song. And your voice becomes an anthem. And the whole world sings along.

• 21:19Lewis Howes?

  I got the chills.

• 21:22Lewis Howes?

  I just got the chills. That was great, man. Holy cow.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Appreciate it.

• 21:26Lewis Howes?

  So, so teach us how to do that.

• 21:30Lewis Howes?

  So what, so what, what you just did, it was, I mean, everyone needs to go watch this. If you're listening to the podcast, go watch youtube slash Lewis Howes. You can see the performance side of this as well.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's so weird, like performing at a table.

• 21:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you're not standing. You're much more animated when you're standing.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  I am, but I, you know, also like that's, I'm a big proponent of like be mighty on any stage, no matter what it is, you know, like people. Get so wrapped up in, but I'm in a boardroom. I'm at a podium. I'm at a, I'm on a, in a camera frame. I'm like, tell Meryl Streep, she can't be powerful in a tight camera frame.

• 22:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  You know what I mean?

• 22:05Lewis Howes?

  It was more your facial expression.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  You have to use what you have. Like literally your body becomes chest up. So very little was happening, obviously down here because there's nothing to do, but I'm, I'm still connecting with you. I'm still connecting with the room. This entire room is my stage. My face is my vehicle. My, my body, my arms, my fingers, everything is my instrument. And you know, I tell people all the time when I'm, when I'm doing something on video or for webinars, whatever. I'm sure you can, you know, like you can relate to the fact that you can be dynamic on a webinar. Like that's your whole business is like saying, I'm gonna bring the party to my webinar.

• 22:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  And it's like, no matter how tight that frame is, you go, okay, so what do I have to work with? Eyes, nostrils, hair, you know what I mean? Like lips, I'm gonna use all of it.

• 22:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Amazing, man. Do you feel like there can ever be too much performance? If you're, let's say you're speaking on stage, for example, or in front of a boardroom, can you have too much performance?

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:59Lewis Howes?

  And is there ever a time where you should be more, I guess, hands down and not as expressive or what do you?

• 23:05Speaker 01

  So let me say this.

• 23:06Lewis Howes?

  The TED Talk styles, you know.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  It's not too much performance. It's, it's the wrong performance.

• 23:12Lewis Howes?

  It's not the timing of it, right?

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Well, so a Broadway actor, a Broadway actor has to be big, right? That's why Broadway actors are like, it's Hollywood time. You know what I mean? Like they're big because you have to reach the, the person in row 50 has got to still be able to feel the emotion. So a film actor doesn't have to be big. If you bring a Broadway performance to film, then it's the wrong performance. It will feel like too much performance when it's not actually that it's poor performance. It's that you didn't perform right for your particular environment.

• 23:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  And that's why I'm really big on, you know, know your audience, know what the environment is, know what your camera frame is, know what the mic, the mic situation is. Know what your parameters are and then you decide how big you want to fill up the space that you have to work with.

• 23:58Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. What is something that everyone could use more of when they're speaking on stage?

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Connection.

• 24:04Lewis Howes?

  What's the best way to connect?

• 24:06Speaker 01

  The best way to connect with a human being is to be a human being. So you stand on stage, you you you're not speaking to business cards, you're not speaking to titles, you're not speaking to technology, you're speaking to the people that run technology. You're speaking to the people whose names are on the business cards. And so you find those universal connections, those universal threads and stories that we all share. You you know, you you you you undress yourself, you know, you peel off your layers, you show yourself, show your humanity, and you make sure that you become a masterful storyteller. So that it feels like I just sat up there and watched you talk about your humanity and your stories and your life, and yet I somehow I'm going, but I'm walking away with amazing business takeaways,

• 24:49Speaker 01

  incredible sense of what the data is that he delivered, all the stats, all the numbers, all of that I got. It was unrecognizable, but yet unmissable. And that's the power of really you becoming a powerful storyteller.

• 25:02Lewis Howes?

  So is there a framework to this? Do you have like a structure to a speech, say a 30 minute speech or any timeframe doesn't matter, but you want to get some data points across or lessons or bullets? How do you know when to weave in story and vulnerability and connection and intimacy and reveal yourself? How does someone?

• 25:23Speaker 01

  If you think about, again, you know, I always go back to performance because I have a successful speaking career and I was never trained as a speaker, right? I was trained as a performer. So I'm always bringing what performers do to mesmerize an audience into speaking. And if you think about, you know, going to a concert or a dance recital or a comedy, you know, an hour long comedy routine or whatever, right? It's it's an act and an exercise in energy management. You're always trying to harness the audience's energy, right? And so you, you always juxtapose highs and lows. You always juxtapose different energies. You always juxtapose, if you look at a film, um, the most powerful films are the ones that make you laugh and cry.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Um, and so you're always figuring out, how can I put these, these, uh, diverse energies together in a way that creates a journey and creates a crescendo? And so, you know, if I'm looking and I'm in a tender moment too long, then I know the audience is going to need the valve to be released on that. Right, right. You know what I mean? Some humor or something. Right, something, humor, a point, a powerful takeaway, uh, um, uh, an inspirational message that puts the stamp and the seal on that tender moment and gives me a sense of why I'm experiencing this and what to do with these emotions. And then I'll move you into a different place. The real trick to, um, energy management and to audience management is to never let the audience get ahead of you. You know, and that's what happens.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  A lot of times we get up there, we got our slides, the slides say what we're gonna say. We just repeat the slides, you know, or you do things like, I'm gonna tell you a story now. You, you forecast every single thing that you do and the audience after a while, you know, here's the three things I'm gonna talk about. And they go, great, well, I got that, so let me check, let me check my Facebook now. You know what I mean? And so they check out because they go, I understand what this is about to be. But if you can create, um, if you can create an experience where they never understand, quite get their, their, their, their grounding. And you know what I mean? They never quite get a firm foothold, so they always feel like, I don't know what's about to happen next and I kinda wanna know, so let me pay attention. You know what I mean? And then, or what at the end, would you wrap it all up and say, well, this is what I told you, or this is what's...

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no, you don't wait, you don't have to wait till the end for that. You know, like you can deliver those, I deliver my takeaways all throughout, just like any other speaker. You just don't see them coming. Right. You know, I have one, um, one of my most popular keynotes is called DIY Innovation. And it's all about how innovation starts with yourself. You innovate yourself. It's like, you know, the HGTV version of innovation, right? It starts with you. You have your hammer and your screwdriver in your, in your hand and you have to, if you're going to be a leader trying to inspire a culture of innovation, you need to, you need to walk that innovation talk, right? And so one of the things, you know, I have lots of different takeaways and one of the takeaways that I make fun of is I want you to go Tom Hanks and big yourself, right? And then I stop and they always look at me like, and I go, that's right. I just said that.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  That just happened. You know what I mean? I'm a poetic voice. I don't, I can, I can innovate the takeaways of my choice and I choose to tell you to Tom Hanks and big yourself, right? And then I go through the movie and how we've all seen the movie and they raised their hand and you know, I'm like, he was sitting there and I, and I go through the whole point of Tom Hanks in that mo, in that moment, saying, I don't get it. We have, as a toy company, have lost our sense of purpose in why we're creating toys. And then I tie that into how you as a company can't, don't transform yourself from a robot into a building as a company. You know what I mean? Make sure that you transform yourself from a what to a why, transform yourself from a product to an experience. So I then go back right in that moment and give them the takeaways. Right. But if I can tie it into a little bit of wonderment at the beginning. Sure.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  They, people never forget Tom Hanks and big yourself. Yeah. And they will forget, you know, you are the master of your own innovation or whatever. Like they'll forget some other standard takeaway, you know? And then they, and then it's delicious for them and then they share it. And then it, you know what I mean? It has this sense of like, yeah, Tom Hanks, we gotta tell our team to raise our hand and say, I don't get it. And they all have this collective experience and that's what you want in a speech. Yeah. What would you say is the best way to open a speech? Uh, so I teach something called. What's the wrong way to open a speech? I'm sure you've seen all sorts of people. Oh gosh, there's so many wrong ways, so many wrong ways. Um, I would say one of the classic wrong ways to open a speech, I, I think forecasting is just the wrong way to open a speech. I think. Tell people what you're gonna.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think telling, telling, spilling it all and just letting them get that. So here's what I'm gonna do. Forecasting everything. I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk to you about this, but before that I'm gonna tell you a story and then I'm gonna do, you know, no, just take me along on the, on the journey. Um, I think one of the other wrong ways to start a speech is, um, so what I was gonna say is I, I teach these things called communication calibrators, right? And and it's the principle that that in the first two minutes of any speech, you can engage any audience, right? So and you can do that with these calibrators that allow you to learn two things or allow you to to to create two effects. One is you can learn who your audience is and you can let them know who you are as a speaker.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  And then you can calibrate within the first two minutes of any speech, right? And so some of the calibrators are things like one of the probably most speaker one on one calibrators is is state change, right? You hear a lot of speakers will use a state change. How's everybody doing? Something that makes you respond. Who's here to to talk about money, you know? And all right. And a lot of times the state changes are kind of like, you know, who wants to make a million dollars? Ah, me. It's almost like you're forced to answer, you know, and you hate it. And you just don't want to be a jerk because you feel like the guy's looking at you. But there's nothing that compelled you to respond. So I always feel like the state changes should come from inside if I'm going to do that, you know? And or they should be funny or unexpected. And then I'll use things like I'll use humor.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  I'll use audience acknowledgement. I'll use host acknowledgement. And again, host acknowledgement is one. These can all be used poorly and well. You hear a lot of people that will use host acknowledgement. Thanks, Lewis, for for bringing me up here. It's an honor to be on this stage with you all, you know? Okay, great. But what if instead you told a really funny story about the about the first time that you met? Or what if you told a story about something that Lewis just said to you backstage? Right. You know, you tied it in in some way that was just unexpected, felt natural. You know, if you if you acknowledge the audience, why not acknowledge them in a way that's, you know, you paid attention to the fact that the speaker before you just did a dance?

• 31:58Speaker 01

  I remember I was doing a I was a or or no, a perfect one. I was doing a speech where the they had a prayer done. And the reverend that did the prayer before dinner, it was a it was a dinner speech. He he rapped his prayer, right? So my audience acknowledgement was to get on stage and make this whole joke about how, you know, thank you, you know, Pastor Pastor Johnson. And I appreciate that amazing prayer. I just have one thing to say, can I keep my job? Because you know, you coming after, I'm supposed to do the poetry up here. You know what I mean? And you, I didn't come over to your table giving the prayer. Can you back off my, you know, so a great moment acknowledges what happens, but actually ties it back into my speech and then I move on. So everything that you, that you're doing should be to create the desired effect that you want.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  And not just as if you're following speaker rules one on one. And a performer always thinks when I, if I'm going to get you to say, oh, or scream, or put your lighters up, I'm going to create that effect and harness that energy so that you want to do it. Nobody ever is forced to put their lighters up at a concert, you know what I mean? Like you do it because you're having a collective experience and that's what speakers need to bring into their speeches.

• 33:06Lewis Howes?

  Man, what do you tell the people that are just like terrified of speaking in the first place? What should they, you know, I'm terrified to get on stage. When, when I started speaking, I was terrified and I did Toastmasters for a year. And every week I showed up and I learned principles and just practiced in front of a group of 20 people who gave me positive feedback and what I could work on and how I could improve. And it gave me props and allowed me to use props and different tools and techniques to try to just get out of my comfort zone, get behind the podium and in front of it. And what would you say to somebody who's like just terrified? It was like, all these things, things sound great, but I don't even think I can stand up.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, so Toastmaster, there's so many great speaker programs out there. And what even to me, the, the worst ones or the most basic ones, I should say, are still good because we all are at different places. Like you said, with our public speaking, like if you're just like, I just need some tips to just be able to get out there. Then it's great to, to just get out there, you know? Something like Toastmasters is great to actually just force you to start getting on stage and just being in front of people. And you know, they'll do things like, you know, count your ums, you know, have a clicker, all that kind of stuff. And it's, it's, it's meant to stop you from the behavior that is debilitating for you, right? To me, the problem is then we stop there.

• 34:27Lewis Howes?

  Yes, there's nothing after that. There's no advanced.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Right, and even when there is advanced training, it's a continuation of the same mindset, right? So it's still helping you to suck less, basically. You know what I mean? And I'm going, like, my goal is like, I want you to move from sucking less to being, instead of just focusing on eliminating your mistakes, to be able to be mightier than your mistakes, to be able to be Beyonce that falls and trips on the stairs and gets up and is still amazing. Everybody's like, "That's the best concert I've ever seen." And yeah, the fall may go viral on YouTube, but you know, you wrap that into your press and positioning and you get more record sales from it. Sure, sure. But it never stops you from being mighty on any stage. And I think it's a mentality shift, you know?

• 35:12Speaker 01

  It's a, so say for example with someone that has, I'm actually working right now with an executive who has debilitating nervousness, had a really bad experience and needs to be able to get over that so that he can be the voice and the face of his company. And one of the things that I have to remind people is that your nervousness has a source. Your nervousness is coming from the fear that you will not execute something well. So people a lot of times will attack nervousness and that's it. And you have to do that because it is a physiological response. And you know, simple, I mean, the most basic things, breathing and visualization and mindfulness and all these kinds of things that we work on that are performance techniques. But you have to recognize that there's an equal ratio with nervousness and confidence.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  So the more that you are building your confidence in being able to execute powerful techniques, the less nervous you'll be. Right. Because part of your nervousness is- Is confident now. Right, you're not confident. You don't think that you're gonna be able to stand out. You think your jokes are gonna bomb. You know, when I work with people to say, give them improv training, you know? Improv training is to make you distraction-proof, right? An improv artist- Doesn't matter what happens. No matter what happens, I can turn any disaster into delight. If you walk on the stage with an improv artist's confidence, nervousness goes away. Because you're like, "Come on, bring it at me, whatever you got, you know, throw it at me." I can take anything the room can throw at me. My slides are in the wrong order, somebody laughs, door slams. I've had fire alarms go off. I've had stages collapse.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  I've had lights and music blare in my speech. I will turn all of it into an amazing moment because I think like a performer, like an improv artist. So even though I do get nervous, and I believe nervousness is good. By the way, I believe that that a certain amount of nervousness is good to keep you present.

• 36:58Lewis Howes?

  Keep you focused.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  To keep you focused, to keep you alert, right? So you never want to eliminate it because then you look like that robot on stage that's going to the speech that you've done a hundred times.

• 37:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  But if you can keep enough nervousness so that it keeps you focused and alert, then it turns into the zone, it turns into flow, it turns into adrenaline, it turns into all those things that keep an athlete in the zone.

• 37:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Keep a singer in the zone, you know what I mean? And then literally everything begins moving in slow motion and you just are masterful. And the audience watches you not only deliver, but they watch you recover masterfully. And people love a good recovery, whether it's a business story, in reading somebody's book, whether it's the hero's journey in a movie, or whether it's watching you on stage face incredible odds and overcome them and recover. They love watching that.

• 37:45Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:48Lewis Howes?

  So what are the things we can do to be masters then? As opposed to, you know, we go through the basics to not suck.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:56Lewis Howes?

  Then how do we, do you tell people to do improv then? Is that something everyone should do if they're going to be a speaker?

• 38:00Speaker 01

  I think that you, um, you getting outside of your, your box, inside, outside of your comfort zone, you moving yourself outside of the mentality of just a speaker. I think that you have to do both. It depends on where you are in your level as a speaker. So if you are just starting out, then I think you want to, you want to learn from as many sources as possible, you know? Um, all of them are going to give you great tips, great techniques. As you become more advanced, or even as you're starting off, um, parallel, you know, in tandem to learning from speakers, learn from outside of the speaking industry.

• 38:32Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  You know, I'm big on learn from outside of your industry to stand out within your industry. And we do it in our businesses.

• 38:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  We do it in, we, you know, I'm, I'm working with corporations all the time where it's a healthcare company that's learning. How to eliminate medical error from the airline industry. You know what I mean? Like, we do that in our businesses, but we don't think to do it in our, in our communications, our personal communications. Sure. So who are the people we can learn from? Actors, singers, musicians? So, so I'm big on if you want to learn how to be more graceful on stage, then why not learn from a dancer? Right? Dancers tell entire stories with their bodies and no words. So if you think that your content is so dry, imagine if you had no content and you still had to deliver that, that story and there was no verbal content, right? How could getting into your body help amplify your storytelling? If you want to learn how to create infectious speeches

• 39:24Speaker 01

  that leave your audience remembering them for years, learn how to write your speech like a songwriter instead of a speechwriter. How many times have we had, uh, because I'm happy in our head? Or hey, soul sister, or any of those hooks from the summer that we are singing and we can't get out of our head? I had a woman that, um, was giving a TED Talk and as soon as we began recrafting her speech like a song, we realized that she had like 12 hooks in it and nobody's gonna have, listen to a song with 12 hooks and she had to restructure it. And this is the, the chorus, this is the A verse, this is the B verse, this is the, the repetition, this is the crescendo, this is when the curtains pull back and the gospel choir is revealed and just stage dive into the audience, you know? And it was that sense. And so if you want to learn how to be authentic in your skin, why not learn from an actor?

• 40:09Speaker 01

  You know, if Jamie Foxx is playing, uh, Ray Charles, he's studying a human being and playing him flawlessly to where you can't tell the difference. But what if Lewis was studying Lewis? What if offstage Lewis, uh, sorry, onstage Lewis was studying offstage Lewis? And saying offstage Lewis is, is charming and infectious and confident. And then I get on stage and my body betrays me. So I'm gonna begin to study what it is that, that my character does offstage so that I can begin to play that role and give an Oscar winning performance of that role onstage. So you learn from these performers and it cracks your mentality open in terms of what your power can be onstage. Right. And did you do improv yourself then or no? Um, yeah. You did for a number of years? Do you still do it every now and then? Every, every now and then. Really? And I bring it into.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  I bring it into all the speaking that I do and you know, I mean, it's almost like, you know, think about like a freestyle hip hop artist, you know? Have you ever seen like an amazing freestyle artist dude?

• 41:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Like Derrick.

• 41:05Lewis Howes?

  Eminem.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 41:06Lewis Howes?

  I mean, I've seen the videos of him.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. It's unbelievable. Oh, my God, it's ridiculous.

• 41:09Lewis Howes?

  Next level.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Like, like his ability to deliver complex rhyme structures and you can just be like, hold up a cup and a book and a glass, he just goes. Like, what if you could wire your brain like that to be able to handle anything that is thrown at you, you know? And so training like a freestyle artist or an improv artist helps to connect, to get those types, those synapses firing, you know what I mean? And connect those, make those connections in your brain that allow you to think like that. And we just, you can't build those muscles if you're only, you know, it's like, if you're just doing pushups, you're never gonna train the small muscles, you know what I mean? Like, and people are just doing speaker pushups. And I'm trying to get them to train, like, you know, like the, the, the, the movies where the dance troupe or the cheerleaders learn from capoeira and kung fu, you know what I mean?

• 41:55Speaker 01

  It's like that.

• 41:56Lewis Howes?

  Sure. How important is it to memorize certain parts of a speech or performance? Cause you have memorized stuff and non-memorized, right?

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Yep. So here's one of the things that people rarely know about me. I am probably on teleprompter about 90% of the time and no one ever believes.

• 42:13Lewis Howes?

  When you speak?

• 42:14Speaker 01

  When I speak.

• 42:14Lewis Howes?

  Oh, you are?

• 42:15Speaker 01

  So including the person that's in the front row, sitting next to the teleprompter, still does not, they're like, you did, you were not on teleprompter. Like, how, how do you memorize that? It's probably one of the questions that I get asked most often.

• 42:28Lewis Howes?

  You're usually on the teleprompter.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  And I'm usually on the teleprompter. Now, so, so what that says is two things. One, I'm always 40 to 60% memorized, even when I'm on prompter. Cause I created it and it's in your blood, you know, you know your work, right? Sometimes it's just personal stories, anecdotes, and then the reason why I'm on prompter, just so I'm clear, is because of the nature of poetic voice. The poetry aspect, we're very, very specific about each word, each syllable, you know? So it's not just a free flow talk the whole time. I seamlessly weave in and out of the poetry and I have to honor the structure of the poetry that I wrote. And poets, you know, we can agonize about whether the word should be yellow or canary for like an hour, you know, so after we decide the perfect word and the perfect structure and symmetry and

• 43:14Speaker 01

  so forth, you want to honor that. And then I'm, I'm constantly repurposing work. So I'm diabetes on Monday, cloud computing on Wednesday and shoes on Friday. So I have to make sure that I'm, you know, I'm making sure that the work is applicable to the industry that I'm in and that I'm honoring the structure. But that said, I'm always moving in and out of the parts that are memorized and the parts that aren't. One of the techniques that I teach, I teach a lot of different techniques on how to memorize dense amounts of content very quickly. And one of the quick tips that anybody can use is just, again, so much of this stuff is like we've been taught it, but we just don't use it. Muscle memory. Muscle memory is one of your best assets to

• 43:57Speaker 01

  memorizing something quickly. The first time that I had to memorize that phrase, learn from outside of your industry to stand out within your industry. If you remember that when I first did it, I did this gesture, right? Because I had to memorize that phrase as part of something that I had memorized basically overnight, like less than 12 hours. And it's, you know, a lot of my stuff is tongue twister, you know, it's, it's play on words. And so it gets confusing verbally, and I kept messing it up. Learn from inside to mess out to, what is it again? And so I just forced myself to go learn from outside your industry to stand out within your industry. And so what happens is, right. And so I point to my head, I point out, you know, learn at, I

• 44:38Speaker 01

  point to my head at learn, point outside at outside, point, you know, stand, and I point to my feet for stand, and then I, you know, make a gesture like it's coming from out of me for the word within. And what happens is, you get to that part.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Your brain will blink. Your brain will go, what's the next line? But your body is already doing this. You know what I mean? And so then your brain looks at what your body's doing and your body's going, hey, hey, here's the line. You know, and then your brain goes, all right, learn, because we're pointing to our head. And then next thing you know, you're back on track. So if you can begin to use like, this is the part that I go down. This is the part that I reach up. The more you use a technique that I call body telling in your storytelling, in your speech delivery, then you also give yourself a powerful memorization technique.

• 45:26Lewis Howes?

  That's powerful, yes. So you don't have to just memorize everything. You have to more memorize the cues.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 45:30Lewis Howes?

  The body language.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  The body is, the body is the stage manager off, offstage in the wings.

• 45:35Lewis Howes?

  Telling you the lines. I like that.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 45:38Lewis Howes?

  Amazing, man. This is powerful stuff. And you've got a program, correct? That, that helps people become better speakers. What's it called?

• 45:45Speaker 01

  It's called, uh, StageMite. StageMite, yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a course that I've been teaching, you know, CEOs, C-level executives, on down to entrepreneurs, on down to people that just want to be more, a more powerful attorney or a more powerful mom at the PTA meeting, you know? And just saying like, I want to be a more dynamic communicator and influence people in a more powerful way, whoever they are.

• 46:11Lewis Howes?

  And where, where do they get that at?

• 46:13Speaker 01

  So I do typically, um, you can get it on my website, sekuandrews.com. And, you know, you can also make sure you go to rockstarspeakersecretss.com. And that's where I'm actually, that's where you can, that's where I'm just training. That's where I'm just pouring, you know what I mean? Like, I'm literally just going to spend an hour or so on a webinar, just literally teaching as many of these types of techniques visually for people as possible. This really came from, I, I didn't, I didn't have a desire to be a speaker trainer. Like, I'm a successful speaker, I'm good. You know, like this came. From me getting tired of not having an answer for how do you do that?

• 46:52Lewis Howes?

  For everyone else.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, cuz you were doing a lot of one-on-one training with people, right?

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Well, even before I was doing the one-on-one training.

• 46:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  Like, I was just getting the CEO of the company that I spoke for going, "How can I connect with my audience the way you just connected with my audience?"

• 47:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  You know? And I was just kinda like, "Well, that's just my gift. It's my magic. I don't know," you know? And as I began to dissect that process, I was like, "I'm not bringing in speaking stuff. I'm bringing in performance stuff." And once I realized that, I was like, "That's the difference." Is all of them are trained as communicators and speakers. None of them are trained as artists and performers. And they all think, "Well, I don't wanna train as a performer cuz I'm not trying to be a performer." And I'm like, "Well, yeah, it's not to be an improv artist, it's not to be a singer. It's to bring Beyonce into your boardroom." You know what I mean? It's to bring Marlon Brando into your book tour. It's to bring the rock star secrets into your public speaking.

• 47:43Lewis Howes?

  I love it, man.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, man.

• 47:44Lewis Howes?

  Rock star public secrets.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Rock star, you know, you got me messed up. Rock star speaker secrets. Rockstar speakers secrets dot com.

• 47:53Lewis Howes?

  And sekouandrews dot com, right?

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, sekouandrews, S-E-K-O-U dot com.

• 47:57Lewis Howes?

  There you go. This has been great stuff, man.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Thank you, dude.

• 48:00Lewis Howes?

  What's the thing you're most proud of in your life that most of us don't know? Or most people don't know about you?

• 48:05Speaker 01

  What is the thing I'm most proud of? Wow.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  I would probably, well, if you're talking about, so you said specifically something that people don't know about me?

• 48:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, something you're proud of that most people don't know about.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  Gosh, when your life is this public, I have to remember what people don't know.

• 48:26Lewis Howes?

  Maybe not a lot of people know.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 48:30Lewis Howes?

  Or just thing you're most proud of.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  I would say, I mean, honestly, when I think about the thing that I'm most proud of, it really is being able to say, "I'm a full-time poet." Like, there's just...

• 48:42Lewis Howes?

  It's pretty cool.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? Like, there's not, there's a handful of people.

• 48:44Lewis Howes?

  There's you and Adam and Q.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Right, Q, right, Steve Connell, Prince EA.

• 48:49Lewis Howes?

  It is underway.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  Right, and most of them are my boys, you know? And Q's my fam, Steve, you know? A lot of us came up on the same scene out here. And there's very few of us that could say that, and that's a real... Point of pride for me to just be able to say like this is, you know, I always joke how I left. When I stopped pursuing hip hop and acting, I stopped pursuing multi billion dollar industries to pursue like a multi hundred dollar.

• 49:11Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  And to figure out how to pioneer it into a multi at least million dollar industry.

• 49:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you've turned your passion into your profession.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I'm, I'm, I'm very proud of, very proud of that.

• 49:20Lewis Howes?

  That's cool, man. Yeah, it's a gift. And I think there's a lot of people listening who can be inspired by that where they might have a passion for something that is even small, that is a, is a bigger niche than yours. Yours is a much smaller niche than theirs. But they feel like, um, I'm passionate about surfing, but I don't know if I can pursue it or pursue the industry or whatever, you know, whatever it may be. Or they're passionate about singing, but they're not going to be a professional singer, but there's always a way in the industry that you could create something from.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Tom Hanks and Biggie's though, baby.

• 49:48Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Tom Hanks, you're big yourself.

• 49:49Lewis Howes?

  Innovative. I like it. I like it. What's the thing you're most, uh, most grateful for in your life?

• 49:57Speaker 01

  I am most grateful for today.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Like, you know, it's, it's a constant.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  It's a constant gratitude outdoing of itself in my life, you know? I, uh, I woke up yesterday, you know, I've been, you know, trying to sell my house and buy a new house and, you know, I woke up, we had a, we had a offer on a home that we really, really wanted and we were gonna have to, you know, move out of our place and and if we didn't get this offer and get a temporary place until we found the perfect home and all this, and the offer didn't come through and my wife and I just were just crushed. And, um, I, I woke up that morning and one of the students in my stage mic program had sent me an email that I had, um, an email basically saying that, um, in the Louisiana floods recently, she lost everything.

• 50:53Speaker 01

  And she was asking for donations and I donated very quickly because sometimes I can wait to send the most powerful emotional message and then I forget to do the thing that she needs immediately, you know? And so I donated right away, but I never got back to her and I just sent her an email and was just like, you know, like. Your story reminds me of how much that I have to be grateful for that not only can I help you in this particular situation, but also like, what am I tripping off of? Like, you know, whether, you know, people, I always say like, my, my daily prayer is, is that I thank God for my problems, because I got good problems.

• 51:31Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, man.

• 51:32Speaker 01

  I got fantastic problems.

• 51:34Lewis Howes?

  Living in Los Angeles, you got a good life, man.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, I got the best problems in the world, and I have the, the ability to solve them. I have the resources, I have the community, the love, the faith, the persistence, the endurance, the wealth, the skills, all of it, to solve any problems that I have. And so, it's a daily act of gratitude for me.

• 51:51Lewis Howes?

  That's cool, man. That's cool. This is a question I ask at the end called the three truths. And if this was the last day for you, many, many years from now, and you only could leave behind three truths of lessons or inspiration that you would pass on to your friends, family, and the world, you got a piece of paper, you get to write down the three things you know to be true about life, what would you say your three truths?

• 52:15Lewis Howes?

  This is all they would have to remember you by.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  The three truths would be, the first would be, you are enough.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  You are beautiful enough. You are strong enough. You are mighty enough. You are powerful enough to accomplish what you're trying to accomplish, to do what it is that you set out to do in this world. So, remember that you are enough.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  The second would be on a sort of more overall human, like, you are enough is personal. And then I try to think of, okay, so what would be more communal? And I think it's see yourself in everyone. You know, find yourself in everyone, right? I think empathy is just...

• 53:07Speaker 01

  Probably one of the biggest solutions that we have to so many world problems that is not being utilized, is not being taught, is not being active, engaged and activated in our, in our lives. And just finding yourself in everyone is just a powerful truth to, to, to help, you know, your challenges and the world's challenges, you know, and to bring us closer together.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  And then if I was to do one for sort of my, my career legacy,

• 53:38Speaker 01

  and people that are inspired by my story,

• 53:45Speaker 01

  it would probably be

• 53:48Speaker 01

  when you get tired of trying to break into the industries of the world, create your own industry and make the world try to break into you.

• 53:58Lewis Howes?

  That's a good one. I like that one.

• 54:02Lewis Howes?

  Is there any question that you would like me to ask you before I wrap up the final question?

• 54:11Speaker 01

  Good question. Any question that you would like me to ask you, that you would, I would like you to ask me?

• 54:22Lewis Howes?

  Or any question you wish people did ask you?

• 54:25Speaker 01

  I wish people asked me.

• 54:30Lewis Howes?

  That's a good one.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  God, there's so many. I'm like, it's like you got one, you know? You're about to die. Every, every question is like final stakes, you know?

• 54:41Speaker 01

  I would say probably,

• 54:46Speaker 01

  what's favorite superpower?

• 54:49Lewis Howes?

  What is it?

• 54:52Speaker 01

  I don't know why that just came to me.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  I don't know why that just came to me.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  It's not necessarily a question that I wish everyone would ask me, but it is a question that in the, you know, standing in the room of greatness.

• 55:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  You know?

• 55:07Lewis Howes?

  What's the superpower?

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Well, you know, it's funny because as a kid, I always wanted to have telekinesis. Always, always wanted to have telekinesis. And I just thought it was the cool, you, you remember the, uh, the movie, uh, Zap? Did you ever see that movie? It's a long time ago, dude. It's like, it was Scott Baio or somebody and he was like, you know, he was like lifting skirts with his mind, you know? And of course, like as a middle school kid, you're like, yes, that power.

• 55:36Speaker 01

  So I always want to have telekinesis and um and then when I was creating the uh opening piece for you know Jim Quick, I was creating the opening piece for Jim's uh superhero you conference and I was trying to think of you know what my approach to be superpowers would be and it and I always there was this book called the girl with the silver eyes that was my uh that was like my favorite book of a girl whose parents who uh who was born with these silver eyes and she could move things with her mind and do the dishes while she was laying in bed and you know that was really dope. And uh as I was crafting this opening piece for him, the the realization came that I have built my career moving people with my mind. And it was like, I have telekinesis.

• 56:19Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 56:20Speaker 01

  That's dope, you know? And I was like literally saw it now. It's like I always tell people, well, I'm a telekinetic, like I can move anything in this room with my mind.

• 56:27Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. I like that. Nice. Okay, any other questions?

• 56:32Speaker 01

  Uh, what's your superpower?

• 56:35Lewis Howes?

  Uh, I would say I'm really good at creating a vision and bringing it to life, either for myself or for anyone else. And either figuring out the way myself or showing others how to get to the vision they want.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. So I always say um a vision is only as powerful as as your voice, right? Um, a story is only as great as your ability to tell it greatly. So how could your voice be more powerful for your vision? In what ways would you love to make your voice more powerful to bring your vision to life?

• 57:13Lewis Howes?

  I think like understanding timing and performance and uh improv more and having those tools and techniques would be extremely powerful. But I also think the work that I'm constantly doing for myself, just diving deeper into my own understanding and awareness and I'm going to India for a month to do a meditation facilitator workshop to learn how to teach it to other people. So learning new skills, developing myself, mastering everything that's curious to me, like leaning into it, my curiosity and mastering that skill.

• 57:45Lewis Howes?

  To use with my voice, you know, when I think about myself seven, eight years ago, when I was on my sister's couch with a cast after a surgery for six months, after losing my dream of playing professional football, I didn't have many skills. And so I just started to be very curious about what is this thing? What is that thing? And started developing skills. Which then I would use, package it in a way and use it with a webinar or on stage or performing something else. And so for me, I think it's developing more

• 58:17Lewis Howes?

  specific and powerful skills to use with my voice.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's range, it's vocal range for your inner voice.

• 58:25Lewis Howes?

  That's it. Hitting multiple octaves.

• 58:27Speaker 01

  That's right. You have to stretch yourself to get to those octaves.

• 58:30Lewis Howes?

  That's it. So it's doing the stuff that's scary, doing the stuff that's challenging. It's revealing things that are uncomfortable. It's, you know, when I first did Toastmasters, it was freaking, I didn't want to do it, you know, it was terrifying to me to stand in front of 20 people. And I sat there behind a podium and read word for word without looking up because I was so terrified of what people thought about me at 24, 25, whatever it was. And so I was doing the things that I'm, it's becoming Batman. It's becoming the bat in every area of my life. Whatever the fear is, it's like, oh, if that's what I'm afraid of, it's time to go master it.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 59:07Lewis Howes?

  I'm afraid of that? Oh, time to go do that now. Oh, this, you know, okay, it's time to lean into the fear and become the bat in everywhere, everywhere that I can. So maybe my superpower is being a Batman. I don't know. Embracing the fear.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  That's right. That's dope. I love it. I love it. That's powerful.

• 59:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Thanks for asking.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 59:26Lewis Howes?

  Thanks for asking.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 59:27Lewis Howes?

  Before I ask the final question, I want to make sure to do something that I always do, which is acknowledge my guests. So Sekou, I want to acknowledge you for your incredible voice and how you inspire the world and you move people with every word and story you tell. It's one of the first moment I saw you, I was mesmerized, like most people are, and you moved me. There's, there's a reason you're here now. It's because you've always been on my mind to having you in this room with me to connect. So I can learn from you because of the way you, you showed me what's possible for myself. Because I was able to see it in you. You showed me what's possible for me to stretch into becoming more of that for myself. So I acknowledge you for

• 1:00:09Lewis Howes?

  your incredible gifts that you've worked extremely hard to, to master over the years. I acknowledge you for your incredible heart for seeing people and for being able to bring them to life. And I acknowledge you for your ability to push your limits to continue to show us what's possible for our limits.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  I appreciate that. I receive that.

• 1:00:31Lewis Howes?

  Of course, man.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  Thank you, brother. Absolutely. That's what's up.

• 1:00:34Lewis Howes?

  One final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  My definition of greatness? My definition of greatness is the ability to see, to see yourself bigger than what you thought was possible. Pursue it and achieve it. I think greatness by definition is outside of the range of what we think is possible. And when we think about people that have greatness, they like you just, like you just got finished describing, they are pushing themselves beyond the range of what is supposed to be possible. What is good? What is good enough? You know,

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  we, we live as a society and this is good. This is good enough. You've done good. You've done well. And those that are great have pushed themselves beyond that. And whether that's, um, living in a, a, a, a great life, a, a, a, a life that, that achieves great things politically or socially, you know, a, a Mandela type life, you know, or whether that's, um, being exceptional as a parent, or whether that's being an exceptional learner, but it's, it's, it's an ability to say my parameter, my, my, uh, my circumference, you know, is, is beyond what most people consider possible.

• 1:02:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  And I think once you, once you see that, once you pursue that, and once you achieve that, you land in greatness.

• 1:02:15Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Thank you. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate it, brother. Thank you.

• 1:02:20Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, LewisHowes.com/410. This inspired you, moved you, or you learned something in a different way, then make sure to share this with your friends. Post it on your Facebook page, on Instagram, on Twitter. Let your friends know. This is some powerful information, guys. We've got to get this message out there. We've got to share the message on how to become better communicators and better speakers. And Seku has such incredible wisdom and information that he charges a lot of money for this information, so make sure to share this with your friends. LewisHowes.com/410, or go to the YouTube/LouisHowes link and share that video with your friends as well on social media.

• 1:03:03Lewis Howes?

  I remember just starting out as a speaker, feeling terrified of my voice, not having any control, not having any confidence in myself that anyone would actually listen to what I had to say. And I'm telling you, it doesn't matter where you are at in your communication level right now, on your speaking level. If you're a beginner, if you're terrified, if you're mid-range, or professional, there's so much you can learn to become a better presenter. And I look at myself, a guy that could barely stand up in front of five people without being trembling and terrified to speak, and terrified of what people would think of me, to now performing in front of thousands of people, getting paid $35,000 to speech. It took time. But listen, it's possible.

• 1:03:47Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't matter where you're at, as long as you're dedicated and committed to creating something unique for yourself, to becoming better as a speaker. You all have the power to become better, but you must make the decision to start right now and start developing your skills as a presenter, as a speaker, as a communicator. You have the power. You just have to make the decision to move forward today. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.