I know that when the Guns N’ Roses’ song “Sweet Child O’ Mine” comes on, your blood starts flowing and the energy in your whole body goes up. But just because it’s happening to you, doesn’t mean it’s happening to everyone else in the room. If you’re not the same age as your audience assume that the music that you grew up with that gets you pumped is not the same music that will get them pumped. And, if you are the same age, it is still possible that the music you rock out to isn’t the same music they rock out to.

Start with the goal first. If the goal is to increase the average level of energy in the whole room, then your job is to find an upbeat song that is going to connect with the most number of people in the room. Even if that song happens to be the one song that just makes your teeth grind. It’s not about you, it’s about them.

Like this one? Check out the rest of my speaking tips.

Looking for a speaking/presentation/keynote coach for your career, job, or upcoming presentation? Email me > tom [at] swiftkickonline [dot] com.

K´naan – Wavin’ Flag

I come from a pretty artistic family where everyone at some point was involved in a musical, play, or band. The need to be artistic is kinda engrained in me. Two things on my bucket list are to perform in a musical and rock a concert with me singing solo while playing piano. Someday I’ll get to them, but for now most of my work is outside the theater world, so when my friend Kevin Daum asked if ACbert and I wanted to help him put together a film for the 48 hour NYC Film Festival, we excitedly said yes.

Since ACbert and I have minimal professional acting experience, our role in the film involved us playing a “hollywood power couple” without any actual lines. There’s a twist to our part, but you’ll just have to wait for the release to see .

After watching the skill level of the other actors, it was probably a good thing we didn’t have any lines, because our inexperience would have easily shown through.

It only took 15 minutes to film our part, but we stuck around the entire day because it was interesting to watch the whole process of putting a film together.

Film making shares a lot of similarities to running a business…

• One person needs to have the clear vision in mind at all times.
• It takes a whole team to actually achieve the vision.
• The last 20% of perfection will kill you, and the clock.
• Consistency matters.
• Too many creative cooks is counter productive.
• Everyone has to have clear tasks.
• Free food goes a long way.
• Someone, besides just the main person, should be watching for quality control.
• Most of the hard work happens before and after.
• Success often involves long nights and early mornings.
• It’s not all creative work all the time.
• Technology levels the playing field.
• Good talent is the real competitive advantage.

If you’ve been involved in making a film or theater production, what else would you add to this list?

A common street scene in NYC is young hip guys trying to sell a signed copy of their newly released music CD to pedestrians walking by. By telling you a sob story about how hard it was to produce and how they spent their life savings to produce it, your empathy button is triggered and some people actually buy one. The trick is the CD is often blank, or the recording is one of a million copies being sold by similar people with similar stories all over NYC.

Today I watched as one peddler upped the game.

It started out as usual by him handing out his CD as if he were giving it away. Then once it was in someone’s hand, he started into his story. Then the twist. Another guy walked by, took a CD, and within a few seconds of hearing the story reached for his wallet and handed over some money. Now, not only is the first person grappling to counter her own empathy button, but now she has to also overcome social proof and go against what the other person is doing and saying. It was fascinating to watch as the CD seller intuitively rattled through the same sales themes I was taught in business school. They also do it better than most sales people I know. Makes me want to write a book titled “The Art of Street Selling.” Someone put that on my list of books to write…

Gregg Breinberg’s work at PS22 continues to show me the impact one teacher can have on a whole group of students. Kudos to him and the work he’s doing with these kids. The Oscars better get ready because I know he and his students are going to rock the house.

In full disclosure, this is my brother who’s written and preformed a ton of amazing music and continues to impress and inspire me with his creativity.

Matisyahu – One Day (h/t @goaltribe)