Don’t Eat the Marshmallow Yet!
During this presentation, there will be moments where I will stop presenting and give advice by using examples of how to improve your own presentations. Here are three tips, before I begin, that you should consider when giving your own presentations:
- Create a sense of urgency: why is your topic important right now?
- Include the audience: the only way they’re going to stay with you is if they’re invested in what you’re saying.
- Give interesting information to inspire change in the audience: this makes the talk more relevant and adds a personal interest to the audience.
The Gazelle and the Lion
Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning in Africa, a Lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn’t matter whether you are a Lion or a Gazelle, WHEN THE SUN COMES UP, YOU BETTER BE RUNNING.
What Does This Mean Today
- There are huge opportunities out there, both for the Gazelles and the Lions of the world
- Now we can all compete on the same level, on an even playing field
- This is a new way of life – it wasn’t always this way
- Economies are cycles
- Find what to do in the right moment during the correct moment of the cycle
- Whether you are the Gazelle or the Lion, there is always a way to find your ideal cycle
- Always make the audience laugh
- The predator now has to think “What do I do differently?” because the prey is thinking differently
- How is your target audience thinking differently?
- “I need to be more effective and learn something new”
“Hire slow, fire fast”
- I believe if someone is not doing great from the beginning in a position they love, I need to find someone else
- How can you spend 33% of your life (the amount of time you spend working) not doing something you love?
- When you think about that person, you must think: “Here you have failed, so you must go and find your passion”
- Don’t waste your life
- You may know someone who doesn’t love their job but is doing well. To that I say: sometimes in life, you may not be that good – but you may be lucky
- Sometimes, luck will carry you but you cannot depend on luck because if you depend on it, it goes away
- Even a broken clock will give you the right time twice a day
Sir Francis Bacon
“Knowledge is power.”
“Applied knowledge is power.”
“If you know and don’t do… you don’t know.”
People don’t care what you know. They care about what you do
- What results can you bring?
- You used to be able to get away with a lot of activity but few results
- Now, activity is not as important – results are what really matters
- We only care about results, not if our workers are at the work in our building
- No one has an office
- There is just an update of wherever people are
- Sign: “If you leave anything here, it will be thrown away.”
The Three Frogs
Three frogs are floating down a river on top of a leaf.
One decides to jump in the river, how many frogs are still on the leaf?
Answer: Three. Because deciding and doing are two different things.
One simple idea, applied, can change your career.
Results
When I come into a company to consult, there is a usually a problem with bad communication/communication breakdown
- Understand what the other person is saying
- Communicate what you really mean
- Example: German coastguard video
- “We are SINKING.”
- “What are you THINKING about?”
My Favorite Principle
“Don’t Eat the Marshmallow Yet”
- Self discipline
- Motivation
- Success
- Trust
- Influence
- Find different ways to communicate your point in your presentation
- Cute things that help your message – look at your audience
- Do things that please the audience and will leave a memory for the audience
- “Guess what happened?” (PAUSE) – the Pause is one of the most important tool a speaker has
- Kids often lack willpower. So, in order to beat that flaw, that lack of willpower, they will focus their attention on other things in order to remove the temptation of eating the marshmallow right away
- 100% of the kids who had not eaten the marshmallow right away were successful
- They got 230 points higher on entrance exams, great grades, doing well socially, good relationships with teachers, good future ahead of them
- The ones who ate the marshmallow early were: broke, didn’t go to college, crime and addiction was higher, dropped out of college, or had bad grades, etc.
- Whatever you’re born with, it can be changed – you can be taught emotional intelligence and taught techniques to have patience, to look long-term, to help be successful
- Anyone can be successful but the ideal is to find what YOU’RE good at and where YOUR strength is
- Some people are not motivated by money BUT you should always save 10% in order to live well
- My book was translated into 20 languages and my TED talk was translated into 29 language
The question you need to ask yourself:
How will you be a benefit to someone? Society? A company?
- Don’t go into a situation thinking how much money you’re going to make
- Make a decision with your heart
- Better if you have it translated into different languages
- Think international
Some ideas for you to write a book
- Devise a strategy and THEN write
- Think it through before you start
- Look at your world, market, and identify a hole/need that you can fill
- What angle is not being covered?
- What new perspective will you add? Why should this book be written?
- What is your differentiator, why will they buy your book?
- Provide a service
- The book is not about YOU – no one cares about YOU
- Who is my audience? (Most important)
Why be less, when you can be much more?
Principle One: Applications of the Marshmallow principle
Verizon example: Sales
- If you give your clients exactly what they asked for and then leave, you are eating the marshmallow right away
- Learn about the headache before you throw in the aspirin
- What is it that your client really needs? Not just what they say they need
- Create the headache first before giving the aspirin, because then the aspirin has worth
- Help make others successful and it will come back to help you later
- Companies: Investing in employee development
- Customer service: look at the relationship, not the transaction
- How much can I make here?
- No – look at the whole relationship, years on the road, how much can BOTH of you make?
- Everyone in this room is one applied idea away from a smashing success, a quantum leap
The Marshmallow Decision
“Go through the pain of discipline or later on in life, suffer the pain of regret.”
- You cannot rely on technology
- The speech must go on
- Principle Two: Letting go of the elephant
- Sports analogy
- Swimmer of Panama
- 14 year old with the genes to be the best swimmer
- She needed the genes first
- THEN the motivation
The Trapped Elephant
When elephants are very young, they are tied to a wooden pole. They are so small at the time, that even if they try to escape they cannot. They try and they try, but it’s no use.
Finally, one day, they say: “I will never ever escape, so I will never ever try to escape again.”
This is why, when you go to the circus, you will see a full grown elephant, massive and powerful, kept immobile by a tiny piece of wood in the ground. Because of the fear that was ingrained in them when they were small. It is this idea that holds you down, even in a place you do not want to be when you are strong enough to escape.
I add a humorous slide at this point in the presentation to help people get out of that strong moment of reflection that the Aileen/trapped elephant story inspires
Group exercise: What is the big elephant’s anchor in your life? What is a big obstacle that deep down you know you must get rid of? Divide into groups of three to discuss and get some ideas on how to pull free.
Principle Three: Successful people are willing to do things that unsuccessful people are unwilling to do
NBA superstar example
- A player (Larry Bird) comes early to the games in order to study the court
- He knows that in order to be successful, he must prepare himself for all situations, including something as simple as which direction the ball will bounce on an uneven floor
- You must love what you do
- Your mind will not allow you to put in all that effort if you don’t love what you do
- The only exception to this rule is when you have a long-range goal to reach that which you really want, and the only way to get there is to suffer a little along the way
Example: if someone goes through a year of waiting tables in order to pay for school so that they can graduate with a degree in something they love
Group exercise: What could be one thing that you would be willing to do for your clients that others are not willing to do?
“I am honored that you have invited me to speak in your country. However, in your country there are groups and people in need who need someone to motivate them. As my thank you to you for hiring me, I will do a session for any charitable group in your country at no charge – you will pay for a session for those people but I will not charge you myself.”
I get to help those who need me, the company I work with looks great because I am making them look good, and the charitable group gets help that I can give them. Everyone wins. I get booked year after year because of this.
Principle Four: In uncertain times, everyone must assume responsibility
- Arun Gandhi
- Never lie
- Assume responsibility
- If you are not responsible for anything, you can’t fix it
- If you are responsible, you can do something about the problems around you
Principle Five: Teamwork
- No one can do it alone
- None of us is worth more than the sum of all of us
- When I was training in Puerto Rico, I went to a psychiatric facility and saw people with severe mental disorders. One of the orderlies seemed calm among the chaos so when I approached him, I asked him why the people around him didn’t frighten him. He said: “The crazies are the least of my worries. They are all involved in their own problems, in their own heads. They will never work together. There are a hundred separate crazy people, not one group of one hundred.”
- One person can make a bank fail, a memo can’t work, may lose you a client
- That one person DOES matter
- You must get people to work as a team
- Find the strength of each member of your team and encourage them to do better
To consider
DECIDE TO BE FAMOUS
It must be a conscious decision. If people know my name, they will hire me. It will take steps, work, and persistence to reach that stage.
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