Building Charisma and Confidence Through Communication

Speaker 1 0:02

You have taste in a way that's meaningful to software people .

Speaker 2 0:07

Hello , I'm Bill Gates . I would recommend TypeScript . Yeah , it writes a lot of code for me and usually it's slightly wrong .

Speaker 1 0:20

I'm reminded incidentally of Rust here , rust . This almost makes me happy that I didn't become a supermodel , cuber and netics .

Speaker 3 0:31

Well , I'm sorry guys , I don't know what's going on .

Speaker 1 0:34

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about large neural networks . It's really an honor to be here . Rust Data topics Welcome to the data . Welcome to the data topics podcast .

Speaker 4 0:45

Hello and welcome to Data Topics Unplugged Deep dive , your casual corner of the web where we discuss all about building charisma and confidence . My name is Murillo . I'm hosting this intro together with Bart . Hey , bart , hi , you know it's been a week already , bart . I don't know if you already can tell I'm going really fast .

Speaker 2 1:06

The light changed yeah .

Speaker 4 1:09

I have some wrinkles now , some gray hairs . This is just an audio-only episode , so people cannot see , unfortunately . Maybe like 2024 , I'll be like all gray right .

Speaker 2 1:21

We're kidding a bit , because we're recording all these intros in one go , indeed , indeed , indeed .

Speaker 4 1:27

So we're still in the roots conf recaps right , so again , if you miss will be the the second one , the second mini episode where merilo interviews uh , one of our roots conf speakers indeed , and if you miss , if you missed last week's episode the roots conf is basically end of year event where we do knowledge , a lot of knowledge sharing , uh , from more employees , uh , some workshops , a lot of cool stuff of day there in a special venue as well . Um , and yeah , throughout the day I also grabbed a few people to talk about their presentations . So , if you're interested , feel free to check out the episode from last week from Tim and Ben Gen AI from Hype to Reality . But that's not what we're going to talk about today or what you're going to hear today . Today , we're going to talk about building charisma and confidence by Bram De Koster .

Speaker 4 2:19

No yeah , I wasn't sure if I was pronouncing his last name , right , but anyways . So cool talk as well . A bit more on the communication part , which I also think is very , uh , I also think is very interesting . I also I also take a lot of interest in the communication part and I also think is a part that is often overlooked when you're thinking of technical skills , but , uh , I do think that it makes a big difference oh , definitely , yeah , I think um , especially in the field that we're in um , which is , uh , consultancy around ai data engineering platforms , um where communication skills are key right indeed , indeed , and I also think that , even for professionals , I do think that the ability to speak well and present well , I think , will also advance your career quite a bit Fully agree .

Speaker 4 3:15

Yeah , the way you come across has a big like . Yeah , I think , in the end of the day is how you impact other people , right , how can you influence ?

Speaker 4 3:21

them and I think , even like , at the very least , being conscious of these things , true , true , that helps tremendously , and I think that is uh one of the things that uh bram talks about indeed indeed , so the talk was also , uh , on the book that he also , yeah , but I'm also shared and you're gonna hear in more detail that he's also someone that wanted to improve his public speaking , so there was also a book that he he read and he was able to extract some insights , like the comfort , presence , power , warmed , as the foundations of building charisma . Also defining charisma like some processes that you can follow to to overcome these things very actionable as well and , yeah , it was very interesting here from his perspective . You know what worked well , what didn't work well . Um , yeah , his perspective . There I think he brought some different point of view that I also very much enjoyed talking to him and with that , I'll let you with the episode . Thanks , y'all , enjoy the listen .

Speaker 1 4:24

Till next time you have taste in a way that's meaningful to software people

Achieving Charisma Through Comfort and Connection

Speaker 1 4:31

all righty .

Speaker 4 4:31

So I'm here with bram still at the roots conf . How are you doing , bram ?

Speaker 3 4:36

I'm doing good . I just completed my presentation , so all the stress today is out . How did it go ? It went very well , or it was very well received , I found . So I've got the cotton . Multiple compliments , so I think I did well , is it ?

Speaker 4 4:51

the first time you do a presentation .

Speaker 3 4:54

Yeah , it's only my second RootsConf , so it is the first time I did a presentation .

Speaker 4 4:59

How was the experience ?

Speaker 3 5:00

How did you find it ? It's very nice because the people are all just your colleagues , so you can make your presentation a lot funnier . You can make it a bit lighthearted than you would with like a client presentation yeah , I also get a .

Speaker 4 5:17

I also did a presentation early today and , uh , I also feel like it's a bit uh , it feels more like you're talking to friends , it's like internal . I think it's a the the pressure is not as high . I feel like , yeah , I don't know . Yeah , that's true At least that's what I tell myself to calm my nerves , you know .

Speaker 3 5:33

I'm like , yeah , it's fine , you have to say yourself something .

Speaker 4 5:35

Yeah , yeah , cause I I tried to do um , uh , like not not I'm not doing live coding , but there was like um so maybe um for people that this is the first time .

Speaker 3 5:56

This is your first time on the podcast , right ? Uh , come on . What's up ? You gotta come more . Yeah , sorry , I always think that I don't have anything interesting to say but I don't know we have . I guess I have to , just to show up show up , that's it .

Speaker 4 6:07

Um well , your first time , so welcome thank you . Would you like to introduce yourself for the people that don't ?

Speaker 3 6:14

know you yet . Okay , so my name is Bram , or Bram de Koster , my full name .

Speaker 4 6:19

You have a lot of Brams at Data Roots , right , thank you .

Speaker 3 6:22

So Bram de Koster is the full name . I've been at Data Roots now for a year and a half , or close to two years if you count my master thesis which I've done at DataRoots . So that was like a joint program between the school and then DataRoots . Very nice , very fun environment to learn , in very fun environment to work . That's also why I stayed , I guess .

Speaker 4 6:46

And who was your mentorship ? Who was your mentor on the internship ?

Speaker 3 6:51

That would be Hans . That was back when there was still like the research team . So yeah , Virginie and mostly Hans was my and you still joined Data Roots after .

Speaker 4 7:01

Nah , just kidding , hans is a good guy .

Speaker 3 7:04

He's a very good guy , very smart , very nice to learn from him . The thesis was on ML Ops'm , mostly on data drift . I enjoyed it , but also not something that I was like , okay , this is what I want to do the rest of my life or something . I always am a person who is a bit more business minded , or that's what I'd like to be more business minded , so mlops is already heavy , heavy machine learning stuff . So that is a bit farther away from what I would really love to do . But up until now , when I started working , I started at EasyFares . Now I'm still at EasyFares and I have amazing colleagues there who can do amazing work and I get a lot of freedom to give my own input , to do a lot of different works to do a lot of freedom to give my own inputs to do a lot of different works and do a lot of different projects . I've actually just this week pushed my first model to production , so that's also a big step Congrats .

Speaker 4 8:00

Let me see if I can get the right reaction . We get the right applause , but you get it . Good job , cool . Everything worked well .

Speaker 3 8:12

It did crash , but the thing is .

Speaker 4 8:14

But if it doesn't crash , it's not really your first , you know .

Speaker 3 8:17

The thing is , one part of the model is to translate free user inputs through an LLM , and we use the Azure OpenAI LLM , so just the Azure version of ChatGPT . But the issue is some of the inputs aren't as clean or as nice words as you would want them to be , so sometimes the inputs just get flagged as like this is inappropriate . I will not translate this word .

Speaker 4 8:46

Really .

Speaker 3 8:46

And then it just ignores it , and then you get a fail , and is it ?

Speaker 4 8:50

too , sensitive .

Speaker 3 8:51

I think it is too sensitive . For example , we do a lot of stuff . For example , it's related to what type of jobs people can have . So let's say you have your own butchery and people call it like I have a slaughterhouse , but the word slaughterhouse is already flagged because it's very violent in the eyes of the , so I'll have to take a look how I'll fix that .

Speaker 3 9:16

I've heard today , actually from another colleague , that you could actually make these content filters yourself a bit . You can adjust them to like how sensitive you want them to be . I haven't looked into that yet .

Speaker 4 9:27

That will be for next week . Okay , cool , cool , cool . Any fun facts , any hobbies , any personal dark secrets you want to share here , just for the internet .

Speaker 3 9:37

Fun facts . So I am pretty good at baking , so it may be more a hobby than a fun fact okay , and how come you never brought anything ?

Speaker 4 9:45

I do bring quite a bit of stuff to the office , just just when I'm not there . I guess .

Speaker 3 9:50

Wow , munya knows that I do bake quite a lot . I also started a new hobby , mainly golf . I tried it out a couple months ago and I've been hooked ever since . It is not the nicest hobby for your bank account , but it is fun to do so yeah cool , very cool so , and you presented at the roots club you mentioned what was your presentation about ?

Speaker 3 10:14

my presentation was on a book I read more than a year ago , I think it's uh , it's called the charisma myth by olivia fox cabane , so it's quite an extensive name . But the book really is about how can you be a more charismatic person and what's the benefits attached to being a more charismatic person . What are the wins you can get out of there ?

Speaker 4 10:35

okay and maybe , uh , do you have like a very tight definition of charismatic person or charisma and all these things ?

Speaker 3 10:46

um , yeah , so the way I put it in my presentation . If you really want a definition , it would be what Oxford , the Oxford Dictionary , just says , which is just like compelling attractiveness to inspire devotion into other people Can you say that one more time .

Speaker 3 11:01

Compelling attractiveness to inspire devotion into other people . Okay , that's a bit there . I think it's true . Right , it's about , yeah , having that charm , having a bit of flow , being able to make people listen to you , make people inspired about what you say . But what I really want to stress a lot with the presentation is that if you want to be a charismatic person , it's not about you being this amazing speaker , but it's just about making the people around you feel like they are very important that's a nice message that the book sends .

Speaker 4 11:34

And then , um , it's interesting to say that because when you first mentioned it , I was thinking that it's probably challenging the assumption that people are just born charismatic yeah , that's , indeed true that's also they also mentioned . So do they give you like tips or steps or anything for you to become a more quote-unquote , charismatic person ?

Speaker 3 11:56

So they do . So most of the book is on how to be a charismatic person . So the first thing you would do is actually just try to be comfortable so that you have a kind of baseline to work on .

Speaker 4 12:10

That is already difficult , I mean I still . People sometimes get surprised when I say this , but I get very nervous a lot , yeah , yeah , I get it um , yeah , so maybe like okay , I understand that's the goal , but how do you get there ?

Speaker 3 12:24

yeah , so , they divide it into like two things . Let's say you have physical discomfort , so let's say there is right in here in the studio , there's like sun shining in your eyes . Of course that's annoying . That's already like it's shutting your eyes . It's making , but not in belgium , in belgium , no , of course . So let's say you're too cold , because that doesn't yeah , okay that is more likely .

Speaker 3 12:44

Then you're , yeah , probably just shivering a bit , closing off . That's already making you not comfortable , making you less charismatic , because you can't hold an open body position that way , so that's bad . Then you want to fix that , either by preventing it , so wearing the right clothes , as they mentioned or you could try to fix it yeah , put on the heating , if you can put on a jacket , or at least say to the people that you're talking to like them it's cold in here that they don't take it personally . If you're very closed off , that's one thing , that's a bit the easy one , the easy thing . But what ?

Speaker 3 13:15

The first time I read the book , what really sticked with me was how they deal with like mental discomforts , which is like anxiety , self-doubt , all of these things , and it's like a whole process of . I can go into the entire process if you want . Yeah , yeah , so they do it in five steps . So the first step would be every time that you have like a negative id . Let's say you're just stressed about the presentation because it's very real for the both of us , I guess , or it was very real the first thing you would do is just try to see it as it is . You're just stressed . It's just a feeling of stress , it's not really reality , it's nothing special . Also , think about it as does the second step . Think about it as a human experience . Everyone is stressed before their presentation . A lot of people are there are so many people on dessert there will be most likely multiple people are at this very moment stressed for a presentation . Then the third step would be to neutralize it . Try to think of a way how you can . Yeah , they like to make it very visual . So , let's say , you could imagine your negative thoughts or your stress is like a radio channel and you could just tune with the knob to another channel . That's the way they see it . There are multiple ways you could do it . Um , you could also zoom out of yourself , if you can do it , and just try to see yourself as this small speck on the earth , and then it feels like a small issue being stressed .

Speaker 3 14:38

The fourth thing would be like trying to put a positive twist on it . So let's say , because I'm stressed , I think of yeah , I think of my presentation a lot more and I think of certain ways to say some stuff and my presentation goes even better because I am a bit stressed that then you're giving it a positive twist and it doesn't stay negative in your mind . And finally , there is this like mental exercise , which you should do , and it's like you could imagine everything that's worried , that you're worrying about . It's like a weight on your shoulder and you can throw this weight to like an all knowing entity of God or the universe or fate , and this really it feels like . For me when I first read , it felt very strange , it felt fairly foreign . But yeah , if you give it a chance , it does help a bit , because it makes you for like maybe a second or two , it takes away all this stress and it makes your mind comfortable again .

Speaker 3 15:33

So then you can focus again on what's important , namely like your presentation or whatever else you have to deal with .

Speaker 4 15:40

Okay , cool . Maybe also one thing that helped me and I don't know if it's healthy , I'll just start by that . For me it was just like just do it , like I get very , I think . For me it's like I would get very nervous and very anxious , but I just do it and like , yeah , after a a while it kind of goes . I mean , it become you , you , it becomes more normal quote , unquote and because of that it like you don't , it's less daunting , right not sure if it's a healthy thing , but uh , I feel like that's also , so you just push through the stress

Speaker 4 16:12

yeah , I just like tolerate the discomfort in general , right , I think it's like , yeah , I , I don't know , sometimes I commit to something and I think I will be more ashamed of like canceling last minute , you know , or I don't know I've done things , but like just kind of saying like the discomfort is there for me . For example , I try to commit to presenting something two days in advance , because then I was just stressed for two days in terms of the week , right , and I'll do it . And then , because then I was just stressed for two days into the week , right , and I'll do it . And then you kind of you know like , yeah , fine , you can move along , right , but , um , true , but I do .

Speaker 3 16:43

I do similar things , like if I'm very stressed , I can be also like , okay , we'll just do it . No , no issue , just don't think about it and we'll push through . But yeah , I guess that's also a bit motivating , I would say , to like push yourself to get through these things .

Speaker 4 16:57

I guess yeah , and I also think that maybe you can also argue that if I can push through it , it's not as like my anxiety is not as severe as someone else's right , yeah you can also make that point .

Speaker 4 17:09

It's not like I'm a superman , right , like if it was . If it was as big of a deal to me as it is to john doe , then maybe I wouldn't have done it as well , right , I wouldn't be able to push through it . But okay , so you mentioned , like , being comfortable ? Um , is that the main thing ? Is there something else ?

Speaker 3 17:24

so getting comfortable is then the baseline . So where you would want to start out it , um , yeah , if you , then if you then continue so you can look into . So how they look at it is that's your charisma , or being charismatic is build up of like three traits , three building blocks which he wants to use . It would be being present , being like focused on the interaction that we're having would be very annoying . Let's say , if we're talking and I'm constantly on my phone looking at stuff , that's not a nice conversation . You want to be a bit powerful , like if you're talking , you want someone to listen to you and to do something with the information you tell them , and you also want to be warm , think about other people's like what they want , what they , what their best or their benefits are , not only think about yourself . So they . You have these three pillars which they build it up on , and then they give you a couple tips , a couple tricks , how to work on each of those pillars okay , interesting .

Speaker 4 18:24

I feel like we I don't know if we have enough time to cover all the pillars , that's true , uh , but it seems it seems interesting . Also , you mentioned um being present . I think it's uh . I noticed that when I get very , very nervous in the beginning , like I remember I would , I would like . That was

Mastering Public Speaking and Charisma

Speaker 4 18:43

uh . When I was in my university in the us , I went to do a speech and I was very nervous also because it was like it was , I think , one of the first times that I was on a stage . It wasn't a lot of people , but like I was on a stage , there were professors , there was the dean of the universities , the colleges , but I just kind of gave my opinion . It was I wasn't talking like , for example , here at roots conf , I'm talking about a subject , right , so it's not really my opinion , it's like I'm just describing a natural occurrence phenomenon .

Speaker 4 19:09

But I think on that speech I kind of had to give my perspective and they didn't give me very like . The guidelines were like like , yeah , just talk about X or Y . And I was like , oh , what should I talk ? Oh , I think you do this . Then I think you should say how this . So it was really like very personal and I remember I was very stressed and I , because I was very stressed and very , very anxious I remember I went there and I gave the speech and I tried to put some like I wrote stuff and I put some jokes in there and I heard some laughter but as I stepped down I was like I don't remember what happened . I was , I completely checked out , you know , like I did it and people couldn't tell . So I think it's interesting you mentioned the , the being present , because to me it links a lot with stress yeah to me as well .

Speaker 4 19:51

I mean , of course , I'm not gonna be on my like , provided that I'm not choosing to be on my phone . I'm not choosing to listen to music while I'm doing this , but the thing is I've done similar things .

Speaker 3 20:00

So , for example , here you learn French quite young and I was always very bad at French . So what I would do is , when I had like an oral exercise , it would be just , I wrote all of the things , I let it be checked by my mom because she's very good at French , and then I would learn everything by heart . So if I have the exercise in front of the teacher , it would just be okay . Start , and in my mind I just envision the text and I just I just read it off as if it's in front of me . That's not a good way to give a presentation , right ? Because yeah , it's true , you're . It's not like I'm not giving the talk , but I'm still not there .

Speaker 4 20:35

I'm just focused on whatever is in my mind I'm not focused on the teacher around me and actually I think that also happened with me on that's the this story that I just told .

Speaker 4 20:43

I remember I I was reading the story , like pacing around in my , my dorm room at the time , um , and I was like rehearsing it a lot because I was , but I think also because for me , a way to cope with being nervous is also being prepared , yeah , so I think it's like if you yeah , I don't know , I mean , there is some logic to it , right like if you , if you , you're not going to be nervous about riding the bike because you , you know you can do it , yeah , true , right , I think it's more the things that you're not confident on your skill , that you may be more nervous , but , uh , but , yeah , interesting , so being so , can you repeat again ?

Speaker 4 21:15

So it's like like being comfortable , being present , being warm and being powerful , and being powerful I think the powerful one is also I think I would also extrapolate a bit more it's just like any presentation , right , like any exchange of any exchange . Like we're having a conversation now and I think there is a if you exchange information , the being powerful , I think it's always a bit of a part of it , right . Like you always . Yeah , like if , if you , if everything you hear now or every like it just kind of gets thrown in the trash , then why are we doing this ?

Speaker 3 21:48

that's true yeah , it is , and it is also is something that yeah feels a bit difficult , because if you say , uh , be powerful , people think that you really have to be gonna go hit the gym . Yeah , be this general type , be very serious , but that's not really what it's about , right ? It's about being confident in what you say , be convincing , being able to add value to whatever you're saying yeah , yeah , indeed , be relevant as well , right , like uh , okay and um so , and be warm as well .

Speaker 4 22:18

I also think it's an interesting one because sometimes I notice that when people are doing presentations , I've noticed that sometimes well , I've noticed some people or some presentations the presentation is very focused on what do I want to say ?

Speaker 4 22:32

yeah but not as focused on what people want to hear . Actually , in the universities and in the lectures , I do feel a lot like that . Like I feel like it's like they have stuff that needs to regurgitate and then that's it right . Like in how , like if you were a student , like putting yourself in the shoes of the student you know how do you want to digest this information , how to make it interesting , how to make it engaging . A lot of the times for me , so for me , it's like if you tell me something , like that's also like if I do a course or a follow tutorial on a new framework , whatever , I have a bit of a hard time to follow through , because to me it's like , okay , I'm learning this now , but when I'm gonna use it ?

Speaker 4 23:17

yeah , right and I think if I , if I'm following the tutorial , because I like , if I'm doing something on my day-to-day and I have an issue and then I said , okay for this , follow this story to understand how to solve it , I'm gonna follow it way differently . I'm gonna be more uh , intentional about it , you know , because I also place a bit yeah , like I said to me , something is valuable if , um , if there's some utility to it , or the more utility the better . Yeah , right , and I think a lot of the times people , when doing presentations , they think a lot on what I want to say and not do . Why , why would someone care about this ? Why people want to hear this right .

Speaker 3 23:51

I think that might be also be a wrong way of thinking about it , because , yeah , like you said , if you have an issue day to day , you want to figure out , you're already looking for a solution . Well , if you're giving a presentation and people don't or they don't really grasp what it's about , you need to convince them , right . And there is where this warmth comes in a bit . It makes people like you more and , yeah , it makes you more convincing , right . If you were more likely , I guess , to believe what our friends will say or what someone you trust more says . And this warmth gives you a bit of trust back .

Speaker 4 24:23

Okay . So , and , being warm , said that it's more like about uh , yeah , maybe , because I I think I know what you mean , but if you were to define , put it in words , how would you ? The warmth yeah , um , if someone is warm , how can you tell someone is warm ?

Speaker 3 24:37

so being warm , I would say it's more about , yeah , making sure that they think about your interests as well , that they put themselves in your shoes . Yeah , the book defines it as compassion , I guess . So putting yourselves in someone else's shoes and thinking about their interests , a combination of those two , that's how they would define it . Cool , but I do agree with that approach . I don't think it's easy . I think it's hard to do with everyone If you have to be compassionate about every person you meet . It's not easy . Think it's hard to do with everyone if you have to be compassionate about every person you meet . It's not easy , right , it is . Yeah , it is something you have to work on yeah , it's almost like indeed , indeed , indeed , indeed .

Speaker 4 25:13

So , um , if you had to sum her up to , to wrap it up , if you had to give someone advice , or you're talking to someone that they have a hard time public speaking , what are the top three or top five things that you would like them to remember ? Or from this conversation , from your presentation , from reading the book , well , what would you say ?

Speaker 3 25:38

so I think so this is also coming from me , because I was someone who had a lot of difficulty with public speaking and presenting in general the first time I read the book . I think , when you actually look up , I think first of all , it's important to work on it and try to figure out , look up some resources on charisma . It can be the charisma myth , the book I read , but it can be anything else and what I think will happen is whatever you need will stick with you . That was that's what happened with me . That's why that five step process that I said before really stuck with me , because I had a lot of stress , a lot of mental , a lot of mental discomfort , so that stuck with me .

Effective Communication and Public Speaking

Speaker 3 26:17

And then , if you're having difficulties , I would just , yeah , first of all think , think about what I said before , like it is just a common experience , it is something you'll get through . Everyone has stress , we all deal with it . And lastly , try to breathe also while you're speaking , because that's something I still struggle with , that you're just talking , talking , talking and you're focused on . Yeah , we don't like the presenting , so we want to get through it as fast as possible , but that makes it a lot worse for yourself and for the people listening .

Speaker 4 26:47

So try to take that pause from time to time time to take time to breathe yeah , true , all righty cool , I think we well , we could dive in more and more and more , but I think that's all we have time for today okay , thank you for having me on thanks a lot . It's very indeed . You have a standing invitation to join us on the other episodes as well . Happy to yes , all right , thanks everyone , ciao , thank you .

Speaker 1 27:14

You have taste in a way that's meaningful to software people .

Speaker 2 27:20

Hello , I'm Bill Gates . I would recommend TypeScript . Yeah , it writes a lot of code for me and usually it's slightly wrong .

Speaker 1 27:32

I'm reminded it's a rust here , rust . This almost makes me happy that I didn't become a supermodel . Cooper and Ness .

Speaker 3 27:43

Well , I'm sorry guys , I don't know what's going on .

Speaker 1 27:47

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about large neural networks . It's really an honor to be here . Rust , rust , rust Rust . Data topics . Welcome to the data . Welcome to the data topics podcast .