Edge Newsletter #30 - The most important skill to your success according to MIT

What I’m reading

I’ve decided on a change of pace and started reading some T.S. Eliot. It brings me back to GCSE English Lit lessons. For me, it’s difficult to understand a lot of it, I feel like there’s a lot of buried meaning behind the poetry that I’ll probably need to youtube at some point.

Resource of the week

I’ve been using https://www.make.com/ for a while now, it’s a piece of software designed to automate tasks between different apps. For example, pulling info from emails to google sheets, or syncing my google calendar to Notion, it’s got a high level of compatibility. I use the paid plan but they also have free ones. I have no affiliation with the brand, just a happy user.

Quote

The prisoner who had lost faith in the future-his future -was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay.

Viktor Frankl - Man’s Search for Meaning (Experiences in a Concentration Camp)

Thoughts

Had a couple of little setbacks this week. On the property front, my solicitor’s rudeness and how long the conveyancing has dragged on for is laughable. I’m considering complaining but not sure if it’ll do any good. Will keep you guys up to date.

I haven’t forgotten the TikTok class I said was going to be released today, it has technically finished, but Skillshare decided to hold the class due to sections of the class needing to be updated to be in line with their guidelines. If all goes to plan it should be live by next week.

On a more positive note, I’ve been invited to my first live in-person property speaking event! I’m very excited and a little nervous to be honest. It might look like I talk relatively smoothly in my TikTok videos but that’s the power of editing. The raw footage is something else…

I’m actually very much looking forward to it, as over the years I’ve picked up and collated bits and pieces of tips about public speaking, it’s one of those things that most people have a phobia of. Now I’ll get a chance to brush up on everything and actually put it to use. So hopefully in the run-up to the event, I’ll share with you all the resources and discoveries I find.

The first step for me is to go back through the videos on YouTube I’ve watched in the past and see how to apply those in my case. The first one that comes to mind is ‘How to Speak’ lecture released by the official MIT channel. The opening by the professor has stuck with me. He says all students should learn how to speak because our success in life is determined largely by the following three things:

The ability to speak
The ability to write
The quality of your ideas

Specifically in that order too. A lot of the things in my TikTok videos, Skillshare classes etc, I thought I ‘intuitively’ do but actually, it’s things I’ve retained from excellent videos like this one and not even realised. For example, an ‘empowerment promise’: telling people what they’re going to know that they didn’t before the talk. It’s a long video at over an hour but it’s pure gold. It’s quite amazing that you have access to resources like this for free.

For a long time, I've appreciated the importance of this skill. I largely agree with Professor Winston’s view. Whether it’s a university presentation, to pitching your idea in a corporate environment, to selling a startup idea to venture capitalists, being able to communicate and public speaking well is one of those things that will come in handy for nearly everyone.

A big challenge for me, having made well over 200+ TikTok videos that average around 60 seconds in length, to now having to keep an audience engaged for a lot longer. Also, of course, interaction hasn’t been a factor. I’m very used to talking to my phone camera, which I’ve easily talked to more than any human being over the last year! My phone doesn’t get bored or stops paying attention while I ramble on. Doesn't ask me difficult questions either. There will be a lot of new things to incorporate.

So these are just a few things I’ll be working on and I’m sure some things I’m not aware of right now. So stay tuned for more updates and expect more content on communication and public speaking here in the coming weeks as I prep for the event.

If you have any feedback, thoughts, or questions, hit reply otherwise have a good week!

Hans