Vinh:

I never got any attention when I was young. I couldn't get attention from people even when I wanted it. I remember doing a magic trick once. And then one of the girls that I really liked at the time... I did it at school. And she said these very words. She says, "Wow, you are amazing. Dude, that melted my heart." I never had a girl say that to me alone, just ever, let alone this girl that I adored, at the time I had a crush on. And that was it, man. The addiction began.

Chris:

There was this period in time when I can't tell you how many people that are my circle, who are messaging me, "You got to check out this guy Vinh." I'm like, "Guys, if we just calm down a little bit. Just calm down." And I don't know when it happened, but you were going stratospheric on social. And I'm watching you, and I'm watching you. I'm like, "God, I want to hate you. I really just don't want to like you at all. You're smart. You know magic. You have command of the stage and your voice. And you're dropping just gold. And we agree." And I'm like, "You can't even be that old. I just don't like you." But here we are. Ugh. I dropped into your DMs. And I said, "Can you come on the podcast?" And the way the internet works, we're connected across great distances, across time and space. And I know who you are. I've watched a bunch of your videos. But for people who don't know who you are, can you introduce yourself? And tell me how you say your last name. And tell me a little story about you. And then we'll just go from there.

Vinh:

The last name is pronounced Giang. I'm as excited to be here as you are too. Yeah. And I love the introduction you just gave me, a more hairy version. And then just thank you for that. I appreciate that, because, actually, this is my mustache, Chris. This is six months.

Chris:

This the sixth end of it. Yeah,

Vinh:

It's six months, brother. It's six months to grow this, and it looks like bum fluff for those who are listening, so just bum fluff. But look, an intro to who I am... Look, I think we're all multi-dimensional. And I think to give you a very distilled version, I teach communication skills. I teach people how to use their instrument. I believe your voice is an instrument. And I teach you how to play the instrument. And then I teach you how to write great music, which is, again, metaphorically used for storytelling, metaphors, analogies, similes. How can we use all these different devices that are available to us, for us to become more engaging, more influential, and how we can use our communication ability to drive the outcomes we desire.

And I learned that from the world of magic, from the word of keynote speaking. I used to run a production company with one of my best friends. So I learned it from a cinematographer's point of view, a director's point of view. So I've kind of taken all of that, from all those different areas, and kind of combined it into the classes that I teach and the classes that I run on communication. And thank you for saying I'm massively successful. My mum still doesn't love me. She's still not proud of me. So yeah-

Chris:

[inaudible 00:03:08].

Vinh:

... join that club and hate me, Chris.

Chris:

This is just the tough love of Asian parents. That's just the way it's going to be for a while.

Vinh:

It's going to be a therapy podcast about how I express.

Chris:

Maybe.

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

There are so many things I want to talk to you about. But I think from a timeline point of view, the thing that I always like to ask people about is, when did they realize... How old were you? Where were you? What happened when you said, "You know what? I'm going to teach people how to use this wonderful instrument that they have to be more effective and powerful communicators, because this is the glue to everything that we do"? When was that? Where were you? What happened?

Vinh:

Oh, I remember it. It's almost if we planned this question. I was pitching my online magic business. I had this idea where I wanted to build an online school to teach magic tricks. And I created it. It was called Encyclopedia of Magic. And at the time, we had about three or four thousand users on there. And I took it to a group of venture capitalists. And I remember that evening, Chris. I walked in. I was one of five other entrepreneurs. I did my pitch; it was okay. And then I watched four other entrepreneurs go on and do their pitch. And the most painful part about that evening was that I was the only entrepreneur in that room that was post-revenue. I'd made about 85 grand that year, which, to me, that was huge money. And all the other four entrepreneurs were pre-business, pre-revenue. They hadn't even created their business yet. And the saddest part was the other four got funding, or they got advice; I walked out with nothing.

Chris:

Oh my God.

Vinh:

Yeah. Oh, thanks for laughing. Yeah, that's nice. That's lovely. Didn't know it was one of those.

Chris:

Oh my god. [inaudible 00:04:52] this is-

Vinh:

No, no, just...

Chris:

So you have an idea, you have a business model, and you can't get funding?

Vinh:

I couldn't get funding. And I remember in the-

Chris:

How come?

Vinh:

Well, man, I remember that evening. I've got the video of it, and I play it in my class. If I had it here, I'd play it for you. But then, I raced through it. I didn't look at the audience. There was no storytelling, no emotive journey during my presentation, nothing, just someone who was shy, awkward, couldn't express the value they had inside, nor did I properly portray the value within my business. And then I walked away that evening. I remember sitting in the car with my wife. My wife's name is Pei Wen. And I was pissed, man. I was swearing in the car to the max. I was saying, "Fuck them. Fuck this. Fuck that." And I was so upset with the world, and I was so angry.

My wife leaned over and said something to me that I'll never forget. She's a boss. She's a savage. She goes, "No, no, no. Maybe it's not about fucking everybody else, and it's you. You're the problem, because you keep blaming all of these other people. And what I saw tonight was you not being able to show how good you were. That's all that it is. When you blamed everyone, you're just giving away all of the power that you have. What if you took some damn responsibility? What if you are the one that is not doing the business justice and your self justice?" And I remember that brutal conversation, which I did not take very well, of course. I want to tell y'all that's the moment I transformed. That's the moment we got into a full-blown argument.

So what happened that evening to me was it was a moment where everything in my life pointed to one thing. And it was that I was invisible. And I've been invisible for the longest time in my life, up until that moment, as a kid, not many friends, not many girlfriends, et cetera. Just always led to one thing, invisible, invisible, invisible. And at that point, Chris, I just decided, "I don't want to be invisible anymore." And that's when I went down the path of... Wise words of Rihanna, I wanted to shine bright like a diamond. I wanted to learn how to shine, man. I was sick of being invisible. Yeah.

Chris:

How old are you at this point?

Vinh:

25, 26.

Chris:

25, okay.

Vinh:

Yeah, it's been 10 years, oh goodness.

Chris:

Okay. So up until this point, you've been doing magic. You've developed a product. You have a community. So what I'm having a hard time reconciling my mind is how does a person, who's a performer... I mean, this is what magicians do. They're in the spotlight quite literally. And so how could you be invisible as a magician?

Vinh:

Because in the world of magic, you can lean on your technical slight of hand to astonish. And you can do this as designers. You can do this as an engineer. You can do this as a doctor. You can become, at times, so technically good at what you do, you can lean purely on the technical side of it. And I've been able to get away with mediocre levels of success as a magician, because I leaned purely on my technical ability. I didn't work on... I mean magicians, we call it showmanship, fancy word for communication skills. But I was completely underdeveloped in that area. I over-indexed on technical skill.

Chris:

Hmm.

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

Okay. So this person, who didn't want to be seen at that point in time, leaned in on the craft, the skill, the repetition. So you had a lot of technical skill, but you didn't really work on the person behind the skill, not quite ready to be seen that way.

Vinh:

You just made me think of something really interesting.

Chris:

What's that?

Vinh:

I used to only be able to talk to people, during that period, when I had my packet of cards, My confidence was so attached to the playing cards that I remember one day I went to university, and I just forgot my playing cards, and I panicked. And I went to a local news agency to try to find cards. It was almost like an addict who needed their drugs. I couldn't talk to people that whole day, because I couldn't find a packet of cards. And it was freaky. I just remember that being so freaky, because that day I realized I was contextually confident. I was only confident when I had my cards. When I didn't have my cards, zero confidence. It's crazy.

Chris:

Hmm, so the cards become part of your crutch?

Vinh:

Oh, definitely.

Chris:

A prop, quite literally, that, without them, you didn't have an identity. And there are a lot of parallels. The reason why maybe I don't like you, because I'm like, "God, this guy's just like me. What is going on with the two of us?" Don't want to be seen. I see myself as a graphic designer. When I'm outside that context, I'm nobody. I'm nothing. And there's not a lot of places where you can go around talking to people about graphic design. At least you had cards to work with. And then you hit some low point and you realized that, "I'm tired. I got to do something different." But before we get there, to tease us out a little bit, because I'm interested in the transformation journey, is you mentioned you went to college.

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

The career choice of being a magician is not an obvious one, especially one of Asian descent from strict parents. I mean, how did this go over with the family?

Vinh:

Yeah, they definitely wanted me to fulfill the prophecy, Chris. And I didn't, nor did you.

Chris:

[inaudible 00:10:01]. We failed.

Vinh:

We're just saying right now. We're on the same team, brother.

Chris:

We are.

Vinh:

We're on the same team. Yeah. It's funny. The way you phrase questions makes me think of moments that often don't come up. When I was 18, I wrote the first choice, Chris, that I wrote down, was teacher.

Chris:

Oh.

Vinh:

Right. But because, in my family culturally, we looked at it as, "Oh, teachers don't make that much money, the status." And then I literally had to ask my teacher for a new form. And then instead of teacher, I wrote pharmacist, which I didn't get enough points to get into. Then after that was commerce and law. And then I got enough points to get into that. So I did that. But I just still remember, again, just super sad moments. But the moment where I wrote down teacher, and I kind of scrunched it up and went, "No, I can't do that. Mum and Dad wouldn't be happy. And maybe my friends will even laugh at me, because everyone wants to be a doctor. Everyone wants to be a lawyer or an accountant, et cetera. I better write what's honorable, reputable." And then I wrote that down. And then I got into commerce and law, so I did commerce and law at university.

Chris:

So what part of you in your childhood made you think teacher would've been a good choice for you? What were the clues early on?

Vinh:

My dad was a teacher. During the Vietnam War, my dad was a teacher. He taught people in the mountains of Vietnam, because the Viet Cong pushed them out of their businesses and into the freaking jungle. And Dad growing up would tell me about all these stories, how he taught, basically, in the jungle and the things he would teach. And I was inspired really early on in life with my dad. And yeah, it's interesting, because... I don't know if we have time for the story, but my dad now in his life... Four years ago, my dad came to me and said, "You and your brother ain't getting the inheritance."

And we're like, "What the hell? Can we negotiate this?" And he said, "No."

And he said, "Mum and Dad are also no longer going to be mum and dad."

And I was like, "What the hell? Are you getting a divorce? What the hell's going on?"

He goes, "No, no, no, just shut up, son." And my dad said, "Son, I've been a devout Buddhist for the last 15 years. Your mum and I want to become monks."

And I was like, "WTF? What are you doing? What are you telling me? You want to become a monk?" My dad's now a monk. He gave away all of his possessions. My mum's traveling to India later this year in November to become a monk herself. And my parents have always been teachers, and now they're formally teachers in their lives in their own way. And that was a part of my DNA growing up. I just didn't feel that I had the freedom to do what I wanted to do, because of the cultural pressures, the society pressures. So I kind of went into commerce and law. But that teacher DNA, it's in my family, through and through, even to now what my parents are doing. It's fully a part of my DNA.

Chris:

I'm not that familiar with what one has to do to become a monk. But do you renounce everything you've done, give up all your possessions, disavow your children? Is that what being a monk is?

Vinh:

Yeah. Well, Mum and Dad are no longer married. They denounced the marriage. They gave away everything they owned. We didn't get any. That's okay. It's all good. My dad did say, "Look, what you did get is the opportunities to fail, the safety to grow, the comfort of doing what you want to do. That's all you need." So yeah, my dad gave away his wealth to the Palm Village Association. And you should see him now. I've never seen my dad more happy, because my dad told me he was suffering. He said, "Son, I'm suffering. And I'm suffering from a lot of first-world problems, in that your uncle just bought a new BMW. I feel like I need to buy one now too. Son, we have a boat. I don't even have a boat license. None of us do in the family. Why do we have that? I'm playing the material game. I'm trapped in the material game. I don't want to play these games anymore. I'm suffering." And I mean, it's quite dramatic way to do it to become a monk, but that was my dad's way. And I respect that. I honor that.

And I've never seen him more happy. He's got a big block of land right now, and he teaches people how to meditate with their hands in the garden. And it's just amazing how he can take someone who comes to him who's so frazzled and stressed, and, within just four or five hours, he can just unwind all of that through different types of meditation. And I see him so happy, Chris. Sometimes, I slightly envy that because I'm still playing some of the games that he was talking about.

Chris:

Wow. Okay. So I understand the motivation now. Your dad's a teacher, and maybe your mom's a teacher too. But your dad was a professional teacher, right? And now he found his life calling his purpose. And you were inspired by these stories about how he transformed lives. And so, you wanted to fall in those footsteps, but you wouldn't give yourself permission to do that, wasn't quote/unquote respectable enough to do that. And you're going to have a life of suffering. So you temporarily put those dreams on hold. You get into commerce and law. I still don't understand where magic comes into this, because that's even crazier than teaching.

Vinh:

Magic came into my life, because I never got any attention when I was young. I couldn't get attention from people, even when I wanted it, specifically from the girls, because, when I was young, one thing I wanted, Chris, was a girlfriend. One thing I couldn't get, Chris, was a girlfriend. Are you laughing, because you relate or was it always easy for you?

Chris:

I relate. I relate.

Vinh:

Oh, okay, okay. Good, because I was like, "Now my turn to hate you."

Chris:

No, no. Yeah.

Vinh:

And you know what, man? I remember when I was in my mid-teens. I remember doing a magic trick once. And then one of the girls that I really liked at the time... I did it at school. And she said these very words. She says, "Wow, you are amazing. Dude, that melted my heart." I'd never had a girl say that to me, alone, just ever, let alone this girl that I adored at the time and had a crush on. And that was it, man. The addiction began. I was like, "This is my... " And I guess that's why I often say that magic is the most fraudulent way to get attention, because I realize that now I had this tool that I could get attention anytime I wanted. So that started way earlier on in my life. And it was kind of in the background. It was that thread that was in the background, that thread that kind of ran through my entire life. That started in my mid-teens. And I only got into it, because... It wasn't even because I had this pure love for magic. In hindsight, I only loved it because of what it helped me get, which was attention.

Chris:

Fascinating. So you became really curious on magic, because it got you what you wanted, which is the attention from people, not to be invisible in that way.

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

It takes you for another seven years until you're about 25. And then you pitch your business idea and are shot down, and double-shot-down because you expect some love and comfort from your wife, your partner. I feel your pain here too. And there's something. Is your wife Asian?

Vinh:

Malaysian-Chinese, yeah.

Chris:

Malaysian-Chinese.

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

There's something about Asian women that [inaudible 00:16:54] they ain't got no time for BS. My wife's Taiwanese, get in the room. And I say this to people, if your ego can handle it, you need a truth-sayer in your life.

Vinh:

Oof.

Chris:

You need it. Because other people are like, "Yeah, you're doing great, Vinh. They don't deserve you anyways." And they will just keep allowing you to create that narrative that doesn't allow you to grow. But then she turned it on you and said, "You know what? Maybe it's you. Maybe you need to stop blaming people. I don't know. I'm just throwing that out there as a question." And I've heard similar things, not those exact same words, but same concepts from my wife, which it kind of at first is anger, bitter. You're bitter; you're resentful, like, "Stop that. Can't you just be on my side for once?" But then, however long it takes you to get out of your cave, and you're like, "It's time for me to look myself in the mirror, and like Michael Jackson, make that change."

Vinh:

Yeah. Sometimes, I just wish he had a little bit of time for a little bit of... Instead of always just tough love, just sometimes just squishy TLC. But my wife's like, "I don't do that. That's not why you married me." I was like, "Oh, okay. That's cool. We don't need to compromise. Your way is the best."

Chris:

You know what that is? That's like post-rationalization after abuse. I'm going to just tell you right now.

Vinh:

Yeah, I know.

Chris:

That's what that is.

Vinh:

I know.

Chris:

You need a little sandwich here. You know the sandwich critique? Give me a little bread on the top and the bottom.

Vinh:

Sandwich? [inaudible 00:18:11].

Chris:

Hit me with the meat at the middle. Yeah, sandwich technique.

Vinh:

I like a bit of bread. I do like my carbs.

Chris:

Just a little bit.

Vinh:

So, hmm.

Chris:

Yeah, to make the meat go down a little bit easier. Okay, okay. So now I get it. Now you want to be visible. You start to have to learn how to tell stories that connect and resonate with people.

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

What is the journey like? Because this is where I would like to spend the rest of our time, because, look, we can talk about life stories, but I want to help lots and lots of people. You have a gift at teaching. You have a gift of distilling down complex ideas into ways that are highly relatable. You're very humanistic in your approach and affable, all those kinds of things. So let's learn how to be better communicators moving forward here.

Vinh:

Sure.

Chris:

How did your journey begin in discovering the skill and then how it translates into a career doing this?

Vinh:

There's a motivation behind it that I've got to share quickly too. And the motivation behind it is that, once I started to get better at it, I got exposed to this thing called a keynote speaking profession. I've never heard of that before, because, again, growing up, what the hell is a speaker? You talk, all you get is a bottle of wine. I mean, no one's going to live off that, right?

Chris:

Right.

Vinh:

Then I started to see, at the same time, while I was trying to improve, I go, "Oh, what's this keynote speaking thing? This is amazing, where you could speak." My creative brain just went crazy. I thought, "Oh, I could do magic, and I could bring it all in. I could tie points in. I could teach at the same time. I could make medicine taste good." And then I got obsessed. I got obsessed about this career path that I've never discovered ever before in my life. I couldn't believe that it existed. And that was the fire that fueled even more so the desire to be seen was the desire to be able to walk down this career path. So then I remember telling a couple of my mentors here in South Australia. I said, "I'm going to become this thing called a keynote speaker." And the first thing one of my early mentors said to me... David Griggs, one of my early mentors, is he said, "Well, then do the world a favor, young man, and go do theater classes and do vocal classes, because you are terrible." First clue that I've ever been given. Is that right? Okay. I need to learn how to use this instrument, the voice. And then I also need to learn how to use this instrument called the body.

So then I went and I did years of vocal classes, Chris. And I did that without the intention of becoming a singer. No, I just wanted to learn how to use my voice well. And then I also did that with a theater coach. I did improv classes. I did theater classes. And again, not to become an actor, but rather to free my body language and learn how to use my body to support the things that I say. And I spent years playing in these two arenas before I ever became this keynote speaker thing. From a foundational point of view, I started to learn the importance of the human voice, how we use it, all the different strategies in which we can use our voice to make it more pleasant for other people to listen. And then the lessons of how you play the instrument will also dictate how others receive the information. And I never thought [inaudible 00:21:07] before, because I just thought, "Oh, talking's just talking. Words are the only modality for communication. That's it." I didn't know delivery mattered.

So again, then I went down that rabbit hole. So those are the two arenas that I had to first master quote/unquote, because I feel you never truly master something. You're always a student. So I started to go down that rabbit hole in those two different arenas.

Chris:

I'm still having a hard time figuring out, here you are a magician, who's got a product and you've made some money, but yet you have a mentor, and you have the ability to disappear for a while and do theater and vocal training. Quickly, just explain to me how that's happening, because I know people are like, "Wait, what? Doesn't he have to support a wife and pay the bills?" Well, how are you doing this?

Vinh:

You see, this is where I bring up my wife a lot. My wife's a pharmacist. And my parents loved her, because the proper profession that you should be doing in my family. And my family also owns pharmacies, so they loved her. She was my sugar mama. She looked after me during that period. I kid you not. I've never really said this before, but it is what it is. It's the truth. My wife paid off my credit card multiple times during that period.

Chris:

Oh, I did this all wrong.

Vinh:

Oh, your wife didn't pay for any of your expenses?

Chris:

No!

Vinh:

Chris!

Chris:

I was wondering where do people find these women to take care of things. I don't understand that.

Vinh:

Well, maybe people look for a sugar daddy, but there's such a thing as sugar mamas.

Chris:

Dang it, I love this.

Vinh:

I love this. You're going to reveal me as a fraud. I'm just a gold digger, and I love it.

Chris:

It's the hair and the magic. You work the hair and the magic and the charisma, and you rope the girl in. You're like, "You know what? You're going to take care of me, baby, while I develop myself."

Vinh:

But, dude, that's what happened. Man, I was living in one of my mum and dad's investment properties at the time. And I couldn't make rent. So I had bring in two of my best friends, encourage them to move out of their mum and dad's houses, because, Asians, we live with our parents till we're 50. And I said, "Hey, come live with me. It'll be more fun." Had to influence them to come out, so they would pay some extra money, so I could make rent. And then my wife paid for my part.

Chris:

It's diabolical.

Vinh:

I had two of my best friends move out. I had my cousin move in, because we had the four bedroom house. And then I shared a room with my wife, and my wife paid for my part on top of paying for all this debt that I had as well.

Chris:

Wow.

Vinh:

And then that's the thing is that... And I reluctantly share these things often, Chris. And I really haven't shared with it on a public medium, because I think then people go, "Oh, well, that's how you've made it." But it's the truth.

Chris:

Right, right. I like that though. It's part of your story.

Vinh:

Yeah, it's part of my story.

Chris:

I love that. And one of the things I try to encourage people as much as possible is it's your truth, and whoever wants to judge you, get in line. And you know what? Whatever happens, happens. You have some things going for you here that-

Vinh:

I do.

Chris:

... allow you to do this. And we all make different choices. You can say you're lucky, or maybe that's a residue, good timing, whatever it is. That's fine. Okay.

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

So you have someone who's going to support you. You have parents who can afford to support you too, but they don't choose to, but that's okay.

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

And then you spend however years, a good period of time, in theater doing improv and vocal training. Now, I have to ask this question, because there's some cognitive dissonance for me here, which is there's this guy who seemingly is somewhat shy, socially awkward, doesn't have high self-esteem, and to seek improv and vocal training seems like the worst possible choice for a person of that composition. Talk me through your mindset, your beliefs, what's going on in your head.

Vinh:

That's why I wanted to frame it with a keynote speaking career. From an entrepreneurial standpoint, I learned at that point, because I got asked to do one speech, and I did it and it was terrible. So I got asked to do one speech. It was for a building association in Sydney. And that's when I didn't understand what keynote speaking was. My first exposure to it was CEO of the company reached out. He saw some of my magic shows, and he goes, "Oh, come speak to my company. And I'll pay you two and a half grand to speak for an hour."

Chris:

Wow.

Vinh:

Okay. My entrepreneurial brain at the time, because of financial scarcity and everything that went with it went, "For 60 minutes, two and a half thousand dollars? Who's paying? Am I paying for the... You're paying for the flights and accommodate... " My entrepreneurial brain at that point went crazy. I've never heard of ROI like that before per hour. So my brain went into overdrive mode. That keynote was awful, because I didn't understand the importance of linking things. I just did a magic trick and a random point, a magic trick and a random point. And at the end of it, I remember the CEO walked up to me. He said, "Have you done this before, young man?" And I felt sick. I remember feeling sick from euphoria of being paid something so crazy that would take me a month to make, to then just complete low, "I should never do this again." But the taste of that in that moment was so intoxicating, because it was teaching magic, performance, everything at the same time for me, and even the money component to call that out.

That drive was so strong, because I had tasted it now. I didn't care what it took. The fact that I knew that this was now a viable career path, that desire for that now was far greater than the fear of what needed to be done. The desire was so strong. And then again, I just do have to take one step back as well. I wasn't just 100% a gold digger. I was about 75% gold digger, 25%... I was working at a petrol station, and I was also working at a takeaway store to try to continue that online business, so I could afford Google AdWords to find more users. Yeah.

Chris:

Okay.

Vinh:

So, yeah, it wasn't 100% gold-digger mode.

Chris:

[inaudible 00:27:00] percent deadbeat.

Vinh:

It was 74%.

Chris:

You did do some manual labor. You tried.

Vinh:

Just a little bit. Yeah.

Chris:

Yeah, yeah.

Vinh:

It was a little bit, yeah.

Chris:

I like that.

Vinh:

[inaudible 00:27:07].

Chris:

And I actually recommend people that want to pursue something creative, don't do a job that sucks all of your creativity, because you have nothing left in your own tank. So if you're going to do something to kind of make ends meet or to pitch in, even if it's 25%, even if it's 5%, doesn't matter, do something that's not going to rob you of that creative spark, because now not only are you making any money, you've left nothing for yourself. Okay. This is fascinating. And I love the level of transparency that we're having here.

You're intoxicated by this feeling, though you bombed. And I don't know very many speakers who the first one nailed it. It's always like, "Oh, I could barely recall that story without throwing up." Right?

Vinh:

Oh.

Chris:

Because the feeling of the guilt and the shame and letting yourself down, letting them down, okay, all that stuff... So you do go down this path and you're motivated by capturing this feeling and going down this path, pretty remarkable stuff. Now, you shared a story. I think I saw it on Instagram. Maybe it was on Facebook. You are in my feed all over on Facebook, so it's probably Facebook. And you said something. And I'll tee you up, and then you finish off the story, okay? You said that you approached, I think, a psychologist or a therapist and said, "Teach me everything you know. Whatever your price is, I want to hire you." And this points to a mindset that you have. So pretend I didn't say that. Set up that story and tell us, because I want to dig deeper there.

Vinh:

What I've learned in my life is that I used to think that I have to learn everything by myself, and I have to know everything in order for me to be an expert. And then I'll never forget reading... I can't remember which book it was now, but it was Henry Ford, and how when Henry Ford does a presentation, he will go into that room, and in that room he'll have his engineers with him behind him. And then people would ask him a question about how the motors work or whatever, and then he would just divert to, "Oh, James, you got this one, mate." And then people kind of came to him and said, "You don't know anything. You're stupid." And he goes, "Well, no, it's not that I'm stupid. I just hire smart people." And I remember that. That just kind of resonated in my brain, and I couldn't stop thinking about that.

So I thought to myself, "Well, why couldn't I do the same thing, but hire brilliant people to teach me and be my teachers?" But I had such a bad relationship with education that I never looked at teachers as something I wanted in my life, almost to the point where I found learning nauseating. I just didn't want to learn. So Chris, I teach communication for many reasons. But one of the main reasons, which people don't know, because genuinely I just don't say it... But the reason why I hired a therapist at the time, the reason why I hired a speech pathologist, my son has autism. My son is five. And when we found out he had autism, man, my world crashed. It didn't matter how much money I had, man, didn't matter how much success I had, didn't matter this definition of who Vinh Giang is and whatever, whatever.

It all, like a tide in the ocean, just pulled out, gone, caught naked. And I freaked out. And the only thing I knew at the time was, "I need experts around me." So I didn't care. I was in Southern California at the time. I looked up the most credible people I could find in that realm. And I was desperate. And I remember just asking them, "What do you charge for a month of your time? I'll pay you that in a day. Spend time with me. I'm in trouble. I'm a father who needs help." And in doing that, Chris, something so powerful happened, because these people would distill information for me and teach it to me in a way that I've never been taught before. And I remember them sharing with me insights about autism that I had read three to four to five books on this topic within discovery of my son's autism that I did not find anywhere.

And there was insight and depth to these communications, because with a book, I can't ask questions while reading. But while they were dispensing these incredible pieces of knowledge, based on the five books that I've read on the autism, I was able to ask them about, "So what do you mean about this? What do you mean about that? Why does light become an issue for kids with autism? I don't understand how sound comes into that." And I learned more than I've ever learned about communication in those moments where I spent time with these incredible experts.

It's funny. You asked me the year before why I teach communication. It's a job. It's all that it is. It's a job. It paid really well, and I enjoyed it. But it's funny, because after that with my son, this is no longer just a job. It's become a calling, because one of the biggest struggles my son will have in his life is communication. It feels weird to say it out loud, because I don't talk about it.

Chris:

Mm-hmm. Well, thanks for sharing that.

Vinh:

Yeah, it's okay.

Chris:

I guess when I hear your stories, and this is the beautiful thing about social media, and one of the benefits of learning how to communicate, and then also being able to distribute that across social channels, is you get asymmetric communication and getting to know people before they get to know you. It's a powerful thing. So I'm getting to know you before I get to know you. And I hear the story. I'm like, "That guy's smart, so smart." This is what entrepreneurs do. They spend their money to buy time. And then what they do with that knowledge and the time that they save is they go make a ton more money, or they make a lot of impact, or they're able to build stronger relationships.

So when you shared that story about the therapist, I, too, have had some brilliant moments with my therapist as well. Saw a family therapist, and I said, "I felt like that was the best money I've ever spent in my life." And I didn't do it the way you did, which was to condense it down today. I saw my therapist, Joan, every once in a while for an hour. And I think it was only a hundred bucks an hour. It's not even a lot of money. But what I got was I got help, but I got to watch a therapist work, diagnose the problem, and help me to see the answer in the most efficient way possible by just asking really beautiful Socratic questions, challenging my logic, and allowing me to discover the answer.

So when you told that story before on social media, I'm like, "This guy gets it. This is what you're supposed to do." And then I think there are people in this world, and there's probably more than two, the kind of people that's like, "You know what? Nobody can just teach me anything. I'm going to just learn it myself the hard way, the old-fashioned way, because that's how my dad did it. And my grandpappy did it, and his granddaddy did it. And that's how we do it." And then there are other people who are like, "Is my money better used for something else?" And in the story you said, it was kind of shocking, because when you approached the therapist, "How much would it cost?" "It's too much." And you're like, "No, no, just try me." And then it's like a day. And what? And then you said the amount of work they put in, in preparation for that day, was incredible. And you got a lifetime's worth of knowledge and experience in a day. And I think you said it was like nine grand?

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

Or something like that?

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

It was a bargain.

Vinh:

And I did that out of desperation, because of the situation that I was in, Chris. It was out of desperation. Please don't think I'm this crazy intelligent person, because I'm not. I did that out of desperation. And then in doing so, I couldn't believe that person spent a month preparing. So it feels like I paid them nine grand for a day, but they prepared for a whole damn month. And I remember when they came, it was this folder. And I got a folder at the end, and things were tagged. I did not expect that. It was by chance that it occurred. I mean, look, surely I may have done this with someone, and if I picked poorly, they would've just came along and said, "Okay, Q&A time, what do you want to know?"

But I shared with them my situation, and then they came prepared. And I walked away. And again, we met for many days after at a much cheaper rate, mind you. And after that, we developed this beautiful relationship, and they pointed me to amazing therapists, who came and started different forms of therapy with my son. My son has progressed immensely. Again, it's a powerful strategy, but, far out, for me as a father, I was able to have early intervention for my son, which has made a world of difference. And I think we all need early intervention. Maybe your children don't have autism, but maybe there's a problem in your life. And I love how you're framing it to make it valuable for the listeners. Goodness, knowledge is so valuable.

What I got out the most out of that, Chris, was their way of thinking. What I found powerful was not the answers that they gave me, because that almost came to easily, but then asking them the question, "But how did you come to that? What was the path? How did you navigate from X to Y?" And then you learn their way of thinking, not only the answers that they share. And again, that to me is the brilliance, is the thought process required to get to certain destinations. I thought that was fascinating.

Chris:

It's not studying the answer, but studying the thinking behind the answer that reveals the real value.

Vinh:

The operating system they had to have developed to be able to execute that program that created that result. It's like I'm more fascinated by the sitting and being able to interact with that operating system at that level. That was the coolest experience ever, because it's almost like you feel like you're a monkey trying to... It was a super cool thing, because, if they're great teachers, they go down to monkey with you, and then they take you up to human, which is really cool.

Greg Gunn:

Time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.

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Greg Gunn:

Welcome back to our conversation.

Chris:

Somewhere along the way here. And help me with the timeline, the year, the age, that you start booking regular speaking gigs, teaching people how to be a better communicator. Where are we in the timeline?

Vinh:

I'm in my late 20s at this point, around 29 years old. It took me about three to four years to start to really hone my craft as a speaker. I then started to get these keynotes globally, and the career was going pretty strong at this point. I've abandoned the online business with magic at that point, because it no longer really was an interest of mine. We continued to do well and well, but I Thought, "My heart's not in it anymore." I didn't really want to teach magic. I just enjoyed being a teacher, but it wasn't in the art form of magic. I started to have a negative relationship with magic almost at that point, because it helped me, then it harmed me, and then I was kind of weird with it. So I had some weird years with magic. And then the career started to flourish as a speaker.

And then I remember my friends go, "Wow! All of a sudden you just become this charismatic speaker on stage, and you're not nervous anymore." It was a good four years of work, but they just didn't see me during that period. So then that happened. And I'll never forget, one agent reached out from Canada. And she goes, "Hey, you're good. Speak at this event for me in LA." And then I spoke at an event in LA, two and a half thousand people, whoo, without taking my humble pie hat off for a second, crushed it, full standing ovation with two and a half thousand people. That manager of mine, her name's Karen Harris. And then she also brought another couple of speaker agents along in the US. And then Chris, boom, this crazy speaking career started to happen. So then I moved my family from Australia to the US to pursue this speaking full time, wasn't teaching communication at this point. Right now, I'm very zoned in on the craft and doing it. That was very kind of locked into it. I was still learning a lot of it.

Chris:

You uprooted from Australia, moved to... Is it LA that you moved to?

Vinh:

Yeah, yeah. I moved to LA. Yep.

Chris:

Did your wife, your sugar mama I should say, did she give up her career as a pharmacist now? It's like, "Now take care of me, sugar daddy"?

Vinh:

Yeah, yeah. No, it was. It was. This is where it turned. This is where it turned. This is when she said, "Okay, your turn.

Chris:

Right. I did my part. I put in my investment. Now time for me to collect the dividends here.

Vinh:

She calls me Vinhcoin, Vcoin. She goes, "I'm so glad I invested in Vcoin nice and early. I cashed in." So she totally cashed in on it. Yeah, she's expensive, because like a VC, she takes half, so she's... Whoo, it's an expensive deal, but it was worth it, truly worth it.

Chris:

Right. Okay. So I'm doing my math here. You're 29. Is it 2014, '15, '16, something like that?

Vinh:

Yeah, yeah, around 2016.

Chris:

Your career starts popping?

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

Okay, 2016.

Vinh:

Yep.

Chris:

All right. And you're doing this thing, and you're doing keynotes.

Vinh:

Yep.

Chris:

If you don't want to answer this question, what kind of money are you making as a keynote speaker at this point in front of 2,500 people?

Vinh:

Oh, so the start of my career, that was about $13,500 per hour for the keynote. So at that point, and, again, at this point, it was completely intoxicating now, because, A, I love it, Chris. It was so fun. To me, I finally, in my life, was able to find work that feels like play. I didn't believe that that existed before that. Being rewarded financially so damn well, and then you get off stage, and people come up and shake your hand and say that you've changed their lives and you're inspiring. I mean, nothing more intoxicating than that, I think. It was euphoria. And at the time, it was kind of crazy.

I know we've spoken about things a little bit out of order, but then my son was two months old at the time when we were about to move to the US. So my wife not only had to give up her career, which was a very... I'm very grateful that she was willing to, on a whim, believe me that we're going to get more than one gig. We're going to get paid this more than once, I promise. So she left her career. My son was two months, and then we moved to the US. So it was crazy. Off the back of this one standing ovation, two and a half thousand people. It wasn't even locked in. But from what my manager told me at the time... And she was right. She was like, "Look, you did it. Come here, and we're about to light this on fire." And then we went, and she was right. It just went crazy after that.

Chris:

Hmm. What is the basis of what you're able to teach? If I look at this, you're doing magic. We don't talk too much about your commerce and your law pursuits. And you do the improv, the vocal training. What does Vinh know about teaching communication to 2,500 people? Where is this information coming from?

Vinh:

I wasn't teaching communication at the time. Okay?

Chris:

What were you teaching?

Vinh:

So they booked me as a keynote speaker, because I'd won some awards with my online business at the time, Young Entrepreneur of the Year here in Australia. And then I got these opportunities to be invited to speak. And then I would speak about our journey. I was sharing our story.

Chris:

Ah, I see.

Vinh:

This was the inspirational keynote, where I spoke about our story, "Here are the three lessons that I've learned." And what I did there, Chris, was I infused the keynote with entertainment, education, and also inspiration. So I combined those three together. So I would speak about the importance of collaboration and how that led to a big part of my success online. And then, I would do a piece of magic that represents collaboration. And then I would do one on, again, your environment matters. And then I would kind of do a piece of magic that kind of displays that. And it was more about me showing my story. And I did that for a good three to four years, five years. And then COVID.

Chris:

Oh.

Vinh:

And then, as it happens, as we kind of see the timeline, then my son around two, we suspected he had autism. And then that's when I went down that communication rabbit hole.

Chris:

I see.

Vinh:

And then again, at that time, I was starting to teach as well. So it's just kind of all happened around that time. Yeah.

Chris:

Yeah. All right. It doesn't sound that different to me from that first talk that you did for 2,500, where you bombed. You said basically, "Magic, random point, trick, random point." Now it was point-

Vinh:

Relevant magic.

Chris:

... relevant trick.

Vinh:

Yeah. Yes, simple thing.

Chris:

So it's a small tweak. And this is what I want entrepreneurs to know out there. Everybody thinks that the silver bullet that's going to change your life, your career, your relationship, is some massive change. And it's not, at least in my experience. It's actually very small changes that you just can't believe will work, so you don't do it. But you apply that thing. It could just be waking up an hour earlier or writing for 30 minutes every day. It's something so small that you can actually do these very small steps. And I heard you talk about this. It's not trying to get an entrepreneur, who's like 10, 20 years ahead of you. It's just the thing that you can do in the near term and executing on that.

Vinh:

I've seen countless other speakers say to me, "If only I had magic," and then they add magic to their repertoire. And it doesn't work, because they're not doing the 5% move of linking it, making it relevant. And I love what you just said, because, as entrepreneurs, we obsess over the magic thing. The magic, in the word of entrepreneur, might be this new piece of software, might be this new camera, might be this new computer. No, no, no, it's-

Chris:

Whatever it is.

Vinh:

Whatever it is, right? It's the finesse. It's those moves. It's not just that. Sometimes it is that, but it's not just that.

Chris:

Yeah. Side tangent, random, maybe not even connected, but like Kevin Smith in his movie Chasing Amy, they're chasing Amy. They're chasing something that they think they need in order to achieve what they want. And it's usually not that.

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

Almost never. Tell me something, though. When you talk about collaboration, you're making a point about collaboration, what's the trick that brings collaboration to a point?

Vinh:

So I do this piece of magic, and you all have to just believe it's amazing, while I describe it with words.

Chris:

Okay. We're going to visualize this right now, so [inaudible 00:47:40].

Vinh:

Visualize this.

Chris:

Visual storytelling here, everybody. Lean in.

Vinh:

So I bring a volunteer on stage, and I sit he or her onto the chair. And then I have a piece of tissue in my hand. And I'm able to make this tissue disappear three times in a row. And the person that's watching it on stage in the chair is freaking out. They're thinking, "How the hell are you doing this? This is amazing." The rest of the audience is in laughter. They're just holding their bellies laughing, because they can see how the trick is done. And I've created a moment, what in magic we call a dual-reality moment, where there's two realities occurring at the same time. And magicians use this a lot. And what I did there was I'm just throwing the tissue over the person's head. But because they are so focused on my hands, because of a certain series of gestures that I've made, their focus is so zoned in here that they can't see the solution to the problem, because a magic trick is just the problem you can't solve.

And then that's when I highlight, "Why is it that this person here can't solve it, yet all of you can? It's because you have a different point of view. You have a different perspective." This is the reason why collaboration is so important. Other people can see things in you you can't see in yourself. And then I use another illusion to really tie it in. Then I fool the whole audience. And then they don't see it. And they're like, "What the hell?" And then I show them again. They're like, "Oh." And then I go, "That is why we need to collaborate. Marketing, accounting, sales, you all need to come together, my friends, and take over the world." And then cue standing ovation, like-

Chris:

Right, right.

Vinh:

And then I take my check, and I go home. And my wife takes off. So it's-

Chris:

That's my agent. My name is Vinh. Goodnight, everybody.

Vinh:

Yeah, my name is Vinh Giang. Book me here. Like, subscribe and share. Oh, it's revolting. When you pull it apart like this, Chris, it's really gross. It's really gross. It's really gross when you dissect the frog. It's not nice for anyone.

Chris:

I love it. Man, what a great way to bring it all together. What a beautiful illustration.

Vinh:

And I just got really good at this, right? And then I just started writing keynote after keynote after keynote, bringing these things together. And then the career just kind of going boom, boom, boom. And while doing this, I got better at the craft, and better and better and better. So it got timed really well with the teaching of it all, because then I drew upon all the knowledge from the past, of theater, vocal classes, as well as my career that I was building. And I went, "Huh, for the first time in my life, I feel like I'm teaching something where I'm not a fraud." I didn't fall victim to imposter syndrome, because I felt like I'm doing it and I'm teaching it. "Oh, this feels really cool." And then I started my first stage class. It all happened quite rapidly, Chris. It happened around 2017; I started my first class. And again, I just want to give clarity here. I taught communication without even knowing that at the time my son had autism. And then a year later, he was diagnosed with it. So it's like, "Shit, sometimes things happen for a reason in life." It's crazy.

Chris:

Right.

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

Hearing your story, first of all, beautiful by the way. If you want to study what Vinh just shared with us, it's like stories with a point, points with stories. I think Les Brown says, I'm like, "Don't make a point without a story, and don't tell a story without a point." And don't do a magic trick on stage without a point.

Vinh:

Yes, I've learned that lesson well.

Chris:

Right. And I'm sitting here thinking, "If only I knew magic, Vinh." No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding, everybody. I'm just kidding, [inaudible 00:51:02].

Vinh:

For $9,000 a day, you can hire my services, Chris.

Chris:

I too want to practice the art of misdirection and slight of hand. No, I have to lean in. And here's what I want everybody to think, because you're thinking, "It's too late for me. I'm not going to learn magic." The point of this I don't think is for you to learn magic.

Vinh:

No.

Chris:

The point is to figure out what your gifts are, to use that in conjunction with your voice, your instrument, and become the teacher you were meant to be. So here I am, me, trying to unpack all this stuff and making it gross. Okay?

Vinh:

Mm-hmm.

Chris:

You wanted to be a teacher. You put that on hold. You then thought you should be a pharmacist. You weren't smart enough. The grades weren't good enough.

Vinh:

I married one though, so it's fine.

Chris:

That's fine. That's consolation prize.

Vinh:

I still win.

Chris:

And then you wanted to do magic and got shut down. But then you found a way to bring magic, teaching, and discovered communication along the way to serve yourself, to serve your community, but also to just help your you to be a better father and a parent. Now here's the part that I think maybe everybody already sees, which is... And you package powerful lessons in a very digestible way, much like a pharmacist would, and giving you life medicine, trifecta. I'm starting to find my calling too, and I keep thinking I found it. And then two months later, I'm like, "No. Now I really found it," and it just keeps evolving.

So here's my thing. I thought my mission and my purpose in life is to be a teacher, just like you. But I think what it is it's meant to awaken the superpower that's latent inside each one of us, that we carry that mutant X gene, homo superior, and I'm Professor X and Cerebro, and I see you, but you don't see it. And I have to go visit you and tell you do you have this thing. You don't need to be like the other person or follow anyone else's plans. You can be your thing. And you clearly have found your thing, quite early on in your life, at 29, 30 years old, you found your thing. And what a beautiful thing, because that point forward your life is different. And some people will go to their grave having never even asked themselves, "What is my thing?", or having been able to discover it.

It's a beautiful thing. And when I see it's like somebody told me that namaste doesn't mean what people think. It's like the light in me salutes the light in you. And so when I see someone who's found their thing, I'm just here in admiration and inspired, respect that you found your thing. And it's a very magical thing to see. I mean no pun intended with the word magic there.

Vinh:

You just painted this incredibly beautiful picture. And metaphorically now, I need to take my paintbrush and just put a really terrible stain on it, to share with you the transparency behind it, because same thing that happened with magic happened to me with speaking. As beautiful as it was, Chris, that it seemed like I found the trifecta, at the peak of it all, in 2019, I was doing 80 events a year. It meant that I was on the plane 200 days and away from my son and my wife, doing this thing that I thought was my life's calling. That was exactly what I wanted to do. Found myself in a New York hotel, depressed, called one of my best friends, Ali, and literally called him in the middle of the night and said, "Shit, I think I'm in trouble. I've never felt like this before."

And bless my mate's heart, he said, "Ah, okay, never heard you sound like this before. It's Wednesday, I'll see you Friday. I'm flying over. Stay in New York. Don't go home. Pull yourself together. I'll be there." He flew over. He spent two weeks with me in New York, pulled me together. It was so weird to have created something that you love so much, and yet it didn't make you happy. I felt guilty. I felt bad. I felt stupid. I felt ungrateful. I felt like, "How can I complain when... " At the peak of it, Chris, it was, yeah, 30, 40, 50 grand a talk. I wasn't allowed to complain in any environment that I was in, because people would just call me, "You're an idiot. You're stupid." But I'd created something that made me severely unhappy. And it was weird, because then COVID happened around the corner, and it took all of it away.

And I was able to reset and rediscover what my next journey was going to be. And that's when I started to commit to teaching way more than I do keynotes. I do less than ten a year now, maybe eight. So I think I really connect with what you're saying, because I think we are forever evolving. And to think that we have one destination and one only, I think is... We're not thinking deeply enough in those moments. Maybe it's the only destination we can see for the time being. But once you climb one mountain, you might realize, "Oh, there's another one over there. Oh, that looks fun. Let's go over there." And I think giving ourselves permission to recreate ourselves at different points in life is so important, because the sunk-cost fallacy, right? "Oh, I moved my family overseas. I should stay in this career. I should milk it for another 10 years, Vinh. Come on. You've worked so hard for this." And many of the people who work [inaudible 00:56:24], some of my agents were saying, "Hey, you're going to commit career suicide if you just stop."

I was like, "Yeah, but I think I'm destroying my happiness as well if I don't stop, for my sanity." And again, then COVID happened, which I know awful for many people. And just in my context in my life that saved me, man. Shit, it saved me. So I didn't mean to take away from that beautiful picture. It's just, again, transparency, reality. Once again, something that I love so much had become something that I resented.

Chris:

Hmm. You resented it, because you achieved exactly what you thought you wanted, but when getting it, it took you away from the things you cared the most about?

Vinh:

Yes. And in hindsight, in thinking about it, Chris, it's because, by the time I achieved the thing that I wanted, which was four or five years, I'd become somebody completely new. And I didn't recalibrate my actions and my goals to the person that I currently am now, or in that moment. So I'd achieved the goals of a previous version of Vinh.

Chris:

Hmm. The current version had evolved, but the accomplishments was from an old plan.

Vinh:

Yeah, that's what was confusing. Yeah.

Chris:

Yeah. Okay. I don't think you've painted it with a dirty brush yet, because I still think my perception of who you are and what you're doing is still the same. But we'll cross that bridge in a second here. I just want to take a moment to point out that, in your story, in these pivotal moments, there have been really important people in your life that have taught you lessons, your parents, your wife saying, "Hey, shut the front door. Its you. It's not everyone else. Stop blaming people." And then to have a friend who would drop what they're doing to fly in to just like, "I have my own problems, but right now, your problem takes precedence over it," and drop what they're... I mean, that is a testament and a half there, so props to Ali.

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

Right? So we want to acknowledge the people in our lives that help us, because you would've probably figure it out, might've taken you longer.

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

But it's good to know that you have these great pillars within your support group that you can always count on. And maybe some of us are a little bit braver, can take more risk, because we know that net will always be there to catch us. And we have dark days. We have the days in which we question what we're doing. The results aren't lining up, and we're getting hated on because something we said or did just received well, and we need that support network. And I love that. Okay. Now, you're like, "This isn't working. I need to change my life. I need to reorient myself." And then COVID happens, which is like the world is going to basically collaborate with you and conspire with you, because nobody's speaking anywhere.

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

Right. And I think magic, you can't pull the handkerchief virtually on Zoom the same way you can on a stage. It's a different kind of trick. Okay. Where are you now? You're 36, and we're 2023 here. What is your current plan? And what are you executing on today?

Vinh:

I spent seven days every year trying to reflect on the previous year and how I've lived. And I looked through my journal, and I try to gain some clarity there. What were my up moments? What were my down moments? And it always gives me clarity, so that you review how you lived, so you can act out or you can live out a better year the next year, hopefully more refined and a little wiser. And I spent a lot of time thinking about this. And to me, I know I teach communication skills. A big reason why I teach it, Chris... This is very selfish, and I want to give myself a little bit of space to be selfish here just for a moment. And the reason I teach it, from a selfish standpoint, is when you teach something, you deepen your knowledge in that craft.

I'm deepening my knowledge in this craft for one main reason: my boy. He's going to need me one day, man. And when he needs me, my only hope is his father will be very ready and prepared to help him take on the challenges that he's going to face in his life. And I'm very singular in that. I'm a new father; I'm only five years in. And I know that me teaching helps other people as well. But deep in my heart, man, if you ask me why I'm doing it, that's why I'm doing it. And this wonderful byproduct that exists, as a result of me doing this, is I get to teach people from all over the world this wonderful craft. Yeah, it's weird, because when I kept asking myself, "Why? Why? Why?" that was at the end of a list of questions. It was just that. Yeah, I'm being shaped a lot by fatherhood. And a lot of what I do now is I try not to do as much traveling anymore. And I know I'm saying that, but this Sunday I do do a one-month tour in the US.

Chris:

I saw that.

Vinh:

Yeah. But then that's it. It's just one tour a year, no more.

Chris:

Where are you going to be touring?

Vinh:

I am going to Seattle, Austin, California, and then Vegas.

Chris:

Okay. So that'll be your speaking tour?

Vinh:

Unfortunately, it's the corporate thing, so a lot of people on my Instagram say, "Oh, can we come?" I'm like, "Ah, they don't let people in. I'm sorry." [inaudible 01:01:39]-

Chris:

Oh, these like private speaking events?

Vinh:

Corporate, yeah. It's companies that have a conference and then you keynote speak for them. You open or close the conference.

Chris:

Right. But I know you're doing workshops too, because I saw that on your website.

Vinh:

Well, something that's interesting here is that COVID broke a lot of rules for me. I had all these rules, Chris. To be a keynote speaker, I have to be with you in-person where you are. So during COVID, before COVID, COVID with lockdowns were about to happen, I went to a video store, and I bet I bought everything I could in that store. And I said, "What's the refund policy?" And they said, "30 days." I'm like, "Great. I'm going to experiment with virtual setups." So I bought all this gear. Then the lockdown happened, and then I experimented with a virtual studio. I was one of the very few keynote speakers on the books of the speaker bureaus where I was one of the first out of the ranks to do virtual keynotes. I'm still doing them.

So the reason I bring this up is because, during COVID, I realized that it was the travel that I disliked. It was being away from my family that I disliked. So now all of the things that I do, I do... I'm running a class right now, and it's all through my studio. We've got people from California. We've got people from France. We've got all over the world. I'm doing it in my garage.

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Vinh:

So it helped me really understand the quote behind Tim Ferriss, and I love this quote so much, where he says, "Reality is negotiable." Whereas I didn't believe that pre-COVID. I had very fixed rules. I was playing within rules that other people had set, and I thought, "No, no, it's not negotiable. I can't just do a virtual thing." Now I can. So I bring that up again, because I do my workshops. I do them virtually. So it doesn't matter where you are; you can be a part of it. And then the only place I do them live: in Australia. And this last class, crazy, someone came from Austin, Seattle, London. Outrageous, I couldn't believe that came from that far. Couldn't believe it. I was like, "I almost feel like you shouldn't have, but this is crazy."

Chris:

Right. I love that. It's a testament to the impact you've made in the world and to the power of your teaching-

Vinh:

Ah, thank you, man. I appreciate that.

Chris:

... that people would relocate themselves for a period of time to learn from you in-person. Talk to me about when you started making content on social and how that exploded.

Vinh:

Man, I've been creating content for eight, nine years. When I started my journey in the US in 2016, I hired a full-time videographer,, because I wanted to be like Gary Vaynerchuk. And I said, "Film everything that I do." And then we turned all of that into content, and we got nowhere from 2016 to 2021. And I was like, "Damn you, Gary. Damn you, D'rock."

Chris:

This'll work.

Vinh:

"None of this shit works. What is this? I've spent so much money, flights, hotels, everything for this videographer." He was my best friend, so it doesn't... Not best friend, one of my best friends. Craig, he's my videographer. I didn't understand. I couldn't understand why nothing was working. In 2021, around April, I had 12,000 Instagram followers. And I'd been creating content for years before that, man, and what I felt was pretty high quality video.

Chris:

Right.

Vinh:

And then during the pandemic, I learned I had to say no to things, so I could create space for things that are more important and impactful. So I said no to creating content in 2021. I didn't create anything. And I remember just one day sitting there staring at a pile of hard drives, where we had 50 plus terabytes of content that we'd captured all these years. And I just said, "I'm going to give it one last crack." And then I hired a content distributor, hired a video editor, and I said, "Here's 50 terabytes of content. Make stuff. And can you post them on a regular schedule, because I'm not very good at doing that. And can you post one piece of content per platform per day? Go." And then something happened. I don't know. One video went viral, and then it just caught on fire.

And honestly, I wish I could sit here and tell you the strategy behind it, but there really wasn't. It was just, "Here's a bunch of hard drives. Create. Throw paint at the wall." And we just kept throwing paint at the wall. And at the end of every month, we'd sit down. We'd go, "Hey, why did that piece of paint work really well? What about that really worked?" We went, "Oh, it was about... Okay, so maybe when I used metaphors, it really engages with people. Oh, when you list things out in steps." And we just learned baby steps. We just learned as a team what worked and what didn't work. And then when we thought we knew what worked, it doesn't work. So we're like, "Okay, great. Let's just throw more paint at the wall." So again, by no means, do we have a formula or a pathway.

I think the most valuable thing I learned about that experience was having an archive of footage is extremely useful, because, out of those 50 terabytes, we maybe have used 5. My team could continually create content, even if I passed away, for the next 5 to 10 years. And we are mixing in old content with new content, and we are just doing that. And with the new content, it's more strategic, because we're using lessons we're learning. And old content is just throwing random things out there to try to learn from, and then the new content is created very strategically.

Chris:

Okay. So here's the actionable part of our podcast together.

Vinh:

Okay.

Chris:

Three tips... You can do this rapid fire style. You don't have to go too deep if you don't want to.

Vinh:

Okay.

Chris:

Three tips on how to be a more effective communicator, how to use that voice, that instrument that you're talking about. You can pick any... For people who are going to listen to this, who don't know about you, you're obviously hooked at this point. We'll include the notes and the links in the description. So make sure you check that out and follow Vinh. You're going to see all the tips. And you don't have to just power through just three. Okay? So Vinh, three, public speaking communication tips.

Vinh:

The first thing is self-awareness. And the way you develop self-awareness is the following. Record a video of yourself speaking for five minutes. It's going to be excruciating. Do it. Once you've recorded this video of you speaking for five minutes, then you're going to review it in three different ways. But here's the tip, leave it for a day. Don't watch it straight away. If you watch it straight away, you are too damn self-critical. Leave that video for a day. Then you're going to review it in three ways. The first time, turn the sound all the way up, press play on your phone, turn your phone around, and just listen. And listen to the qualities of your voice. What do you like? What don't you like? And it's okay. It's okay to like some parts and not like others. And just take notes. Pay attention to yourself vocally. What sounds are you making unnecessarily? Here's the self-awareness process, but it only happens when you isolate things.

Second time you review it, turn the sound off, press play, and just look at yourself talk. What do you like about the way you move? What do you feel needs to be improved? Are you expressive with your face? Do you move your hands when you talk? Is there anything non-functional about it? Just take notes. Write it down. This is, again, self-awareness. And then at the end of that, just get that video transcribed, whatever transcription service you want to use. And then key thing here, leave in the non-words and the filler words, non-words being the sounds we make to fill the silence, filler words being the words we use to fill the silence. And then when you get it transcribed, use a red highlighter and highlight the key non-functional behavior or non-functional sounds or words that you make.

This one move alone will completely transform how you come across. You'll be shocked how many of my students, just by getting rid of their ums and their ahs, increases their clarity and increases their authority and credibility dramatically, just from removing one damn thing. It's crazy. People get held back from promotions, because people will say things like, "You seem unsure about your ideas. Your leadership style, you're not assertive enough." And when I review it, just because a lack of clarity, too many ums and ahs. The first thing I would do.

Chris:

Very good.

Vinh:

Second thing I would do... And I've got a lot of people who follow me who are ethnic, and I want to share a tip that helps my ethnic viewers and listeners here. Grammatically, if you speak, and you work with a lot of people in the Western culture, and you have a lot of grammatical errors, this robs you of authority and credibility very quickly. Record yourself speaking for 20 minutes. Then once you've got this, get it transcribed. Send that video and the transcription to an ESL teacher, English as a second language teacher, and say, "With my current language in which I speak with... " Again, what do I talk about in these videos? Improvise, because we're trying to tease out the behaviors that are non-functional. So what's your favorite food? What's your favorite location? Talk. Then that ESL teacher will zone in on the key areas where you need to improve with your grammar. You do this one move; it's going to cost you a couple hundred bucks. They'll send back 80% of the key phrases you use all the time that is grammatically incorrect. Boom, enhances the way you come across dramatically, dramatically.

And the third thing I'll say is a mindset thing, is to fully understand that the way you speak is just a series of behaviors. And these behaviors are either serving you or they're not. And behaviors can be changed. These are just a series of behaviors. And this is what I'd say to my students all the time. Don't be so attached to who you are in the present, that you don't give the future version of yourself a chance. Don't be so attached to a series of behaviors. Behaviors can be changed. You can change. You can transform, you can evolve. You're not a stationary being. You're forever evolving, forever growing, so should your ability to communicate. It should grow with you.

Chris:

Love it. I'm going to ask you a question quite selfishly.

Vinh:

Okay.

Chris:

Voice is a tricky thing, the quality of one's voice. And as a person who's very self-conscious, introvert, shy, not wanting to seek the spotlight, I'm talking about myself here, I've never liked my voice. I had to get used to it. I tolerate it. And eventually, I'm okay with it from a vocal point of view, just to get your brain in on it, what do I need to do? What are the lessons that you've learned that can be applied to me, in terms of my voice, and what I can do to be a better effective speaker? Feel free to say anything. I have thick skin.

Vinh:

Thank you for the opportunity to be able to share some thoughts here. Thank you for your vulnerability as well. There's something really interesting in the world of communication, where it's about energizing your sentences completely. And energizing your sentences completely means that you start the sentence with the same energy as you complete the sentence. And when I listen to your talk, one of the things I notice is you start your sentences extremely energized, but at the end of your sentences, you fall into vocal fry. Right? And vocal fry is that part of our voice where, when we no longer energize it, it falls into that state of... Vocal fry is what vocal coaches will call it.

So to me, one of the things I would work on is to ensure that I energize my complete sentences. And the way you start the sentence is the way you end the sentence. So that way the full sentence is energized. Otherwise, what people tend to do is they tend to run out of breath. They talk till they run out of breath. And at the end of their sentences, they just run out of energy completely. And that's what I noticed happening a few times. And I think it's because your thought processes, they happen very fast. And your voice is trying to keep up with the thought process. And we don't think about taking another breath soon enough. So to me, the simple tweak there is to take regular breaths, and energizing the sentences from beginning to the end.

Chris:

Perfect. I love that. Thank you for that analysis, because I wanted people to listen to the kinds of things that you're saying and see a real world tangible benefit of someone who has mastered their voice, and who can coach other people to do the same. One of the things that I tell one of my friends is he ends his sentences always with a rising intonation. It always feels like he's questioning me, and he's [inaudible 01:13:49] saying that. And I think it undermines his authority. It's melodic to listen to. But I would say to him, "Are you asking me a question or are you making a statement?" So we can notice these things. And I think this exercise that you've given, these three things that you're talking about, especially if English is your second language, you're going to benefit from tremendously. I've heard you say this before. And I was thinking, what a brilliant exercise, so simple that no one would would think to do it. That's how powerful it is. That's how you know someone knows what they're doing. It's so obvious you wish you thought of it yourself.

Vinh:

The last hack is this. That same video that you recorded for 20 minutes that you're sending to an ESL teacher, send it to a speech pathologist also and have video on it, because where people go wrong, who have English as a second language... And I have a lot of love for this, because English was my third language. A speech pathologist will look at your mouth movements. And the reason our articulation suffers is because often we are speaking our native language, and we are speaking English with our native language mouth movements. So for example, what creates the Vietnamese accent, and sometimes a lack of clarity, is I'm speaking English with Vietnamese mouth movements. So when you send that same video, this is one-stone, two-birds move here, is that you're able to get the speech pathologist to say, "Oh, the way you say this word is you're not moving your mouth correctly." I used to say the number three as free, "Can I have free of those?", where it's, "Can I have three of those?" And it was through working with a speech pathologist that I learned, "Oh, the tongue comes out? What the hell? I didn't know that. So three. Oh, wow!" And then all of a sudden, in many situations, now I have more respect, I command more authority, I have more confidence, and I enhance clarity in that communication. Sorry, I had to throw that one in there. It's just-

Chris:

I love that.

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

Absolutely. I think in one of your videos that you talk about how to get rid of your accent, you say over-enunciate, exaggerate every single word. And then soon your mouth will start to learn the way it's meant to be said, right?

Vinh:

It doesn't get rid of your accent. It lightens it, and it enhances articulation.

Chris:

And I got to tell you, when you say, "Oh, vocal training," all that kind of stuff, I'm scared of that stuff.

Vinh:

Really?

Chris:

I am. I really am. It's like, "Oh, improv, I'm just going to do it the old school way. I'm just going to practice and make a fool of myself until I get better."

Vinh:

Start here. Just get a book called How to Set Your Voice Free by Roger Love, and just do the vocal exercises from that book five minutes a day. That's it.

Chris:

Done.

Vinh:

You can share this if you want to, but what I'm hearing as well, Chris, is the projection doesn't come out as much, because you're not dropping your jaw enough. As you drop your jaw more, when you speak, more of your voice will come through. And the vocal exercises will help you develop, again, just kind of... There's lots that that book will solve through a five-minute exercise daily.

Chris:

I hear you. I'm going to start practicing that. And now I know this, because I don't like to speak for a long time in my life, so my mouth wants to be smaller and tighten up. And I can see that in my videos. I'm like, "Dude, open your mouth. What are you doing?"

Vinh:

Yeah.

Chris:

So I'm not used to that. I don't want to open my mouth, so I have to work against that instinct. And you said in your thing, series of small habits we can do this.

Vinh:

That's all that it is. And they're either serving you or they're not.

Chris:

Vinh, it's been a real pleasure. I'm so grateful that you've given us this time to share your knowledge, not just with us, but with the world and the way that you do it.

Vinh:

Thank you.

Chris:

You're one Vietnamese brother who has more followers than me, and that bothers me a little bit. I'm going to work on that. How could I let this young whipper-snapper smoke me like this? And I got to work on it, but I'm going to.

Vinh:

You tell me what do, man. We'll cross pollinate. I can't, dude. Honestly, the moment I started tuning into your stuff, I went, "Wow, how's this guy smarter than me with no hair? This is outrageous." So we feel the same level of [inaudible 01:17:43]-

Chris:

How [inaudible 01:17:43] do that? [inaudible 01:17:44] no hair.

Vinh:

[inaudible 01:17:45] doesn't even have hair.

Chris:

I know. I know. It's good.

Vinh:

Doesn't even have hair, and he's clever.

Chris:

Yeah, yeah.

Vinh:

All right. But I know. That's the Professor X thing.

Chris:

[inaudible 01:17:51] thicker glasses. Yes.

Vinh:

Professor X thing, I get it. You're [inaudible 01:17:53]. But dude, I want to amplify what you do.

Chris:

I appreciate that.

Vinh:

I learned so much from sitting and watching your snippets that I feel terrible about not radiating that out to the world. So please let me know how I can do that in a way that's meaningful, because, far out, seeing someone like you do what you do and become successful as you are, it's so inspiring, man, because I never saw anyone like this growing up in my community. Props to you, man.

Chris:

Thank you.

Vinh:

Well done. It's amazing.

Chris:

Well, Vinh, it's been lovely talking to you. I just want to make sure that everyone who's excited, who's turned on by what we're talking about, and I think how could you be, if you're a fan of the channel and fan of what it is that we try to do... How can people find out more about you? Where do they need to go?

Vinh:

I think my Instagram's a great place, so askvinh, A-S-K-V-I-N-H. Feel free to follow me on there, and it'll be great to connect with you through the internet.

Chris:

Wonderful.

Vinh:

Thanks, brother. My name's Vinh Giang, and you are listening to the Futur.

Greg Gunn:

Thanks for joining us this time. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app, and get a new insightful episode from us every week. The Futur Podcast is hosted by Chris Do and produced by me, Greg Gunn. Thank you to Anthony Barro for editing and mixing this episode, and thank you to Adam Sanborne for our intro music.

If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by rating and reviewing our show on Apple Podcasts. It'll help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. Have a question for Chris or me? Head over to thefutur.com/HeyChris, and ask away. We read every submission, and we just might answer yours in a later episode. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefutur.com. You'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and creative business. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time

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Speaker 7:

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