Dan Martell - How to Speak Like A Top 1% CEO

00:00:00.000 Speaking like a CEO isn't about screaming at the top of your lungs trying to keep people's

00:00:04.700 attention. It's about knowing how to keep people engaged. So I'm going to give you the five

00:00:09.360 principles of top 1% speakers and show you exactly how I apply them in real life to everything from

00:00:15.780 podcasts to $100,000 keynotes I give around the world. These principles help you become a better

00:00:21.340 speaker today even if you're just getting started. Starting with principle number one, embrace the

00:00:26.660 nerves. Today, I'm giving a keynote here in Kansas City for Advisors Excel.

00:00:35.140 See, I understand public speaking is one of the scariest things for people. Most people would

00:00:40.740 rather be in the casket than present the eulogy on stage. But it doesn't mean that you have to

00:00:46.140 let your nerves get the best of you. Let's go! Let's go! Let's hear it! Come on! Keep it going!

00:00:53.780 anxiety and excitement are the same emotion so what i do is i use that emotion i go to gratitude

00:01:01.020 i always flip it and say how can i be grateful for this opportunity to serve these people see

00:01:05.640 when you reframe your thinking around the nerves that you've got and instead of being like oh my

00:01:10.200 gosh what if i mess up instead you say oh this just means i really care then it makes it less

00:01:15.280 about you and more about how you show up for the audience here's the big idea i'm on a mission

00:01:20.940 I'm trying to rid the world of this problem.

00:01:24.560 I wanna help entrepreneurs build businesses

00:01:26.640 they don't grow to hate.

00:01:28.440 I believe that fear is false evidence appearing real.

00:01:32.020 Are you gonna lose everything you've ever created

00:01:34.000 up to this point if you mess up?

00:01:35.540 No.

00:01:35.940 Is everybody gonna call you out on social media

00:01:38.020 that you're the worst speaker ever

00:01:39.280 in the history of mankind?

00:01:40.620 No.

00:01:41.080 You wanna tell yourself that those feelings

00:01:43.720 are absolutely the reason why 0.98

00:01:46.220 you're gonna kick butt on stage. 0.97

00:01:47.980 There's no motion without emotion. 0.98

00:01:50.480 So the fact that you're nervous

00:01:51.880 means they're gonna feel that energy of excitement

00:01:54.960 and it's why you're gonna be rated one of the top speakers. 1.00

00:01:57.640 Which brings us to principle number two, know your shit. 0.99

00:02:00.780 I would never give a talk 1.00

00:02:02.800 on something I'm not an expert in.

00:02:04.600 Sure, if somebody asks me a question,

00:02:06.080 I'll give them an answer,

00:02:07.220 but I'm not gonna do a disservice

00:02:08.880 to all the professionals out there and the real experts

00:02:11.280 by giving a keynote on something

00:02:12.960 I haven't put 10,000 hours in.

00:02:15.020 It's why I only talk about buying back my time.

00:02:17.600 I only talk about scaling companies.

00:02:19.380 These are things that have thousands of hours of experience in, serving people, doing it myself,

00:02:24.180 and I've studied them. You don't rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your preparation.

00:02:29.720 So people that try to wing it, of course you're going to mess it up. Winging it is for the birds,

00:02:34.160 not the speakers. So these are some of my ideas. When I give a talk, I need to perfect how I start,

00:02:40.360 where do I want to end up, and how do I end. If you get the first minute figured out and you know

00:02:45.640 how you're going to transition everything you shared at the very end so that you can leave

00:02:49.280 them with a clear call to action, that will help you feel so frigging confident. My promise to

00:02:55.580 every person in this room, by the end of this time together, I will give you a framework, a process,

00:03:02.540 a life philosophy that if you apply it, will change the game for you. It'll actually make

00:03:09.640 you feel guilty because you'll be making more money and it's not going to be as hard as you

00:03:14.760 and then i do a visual outline where i sit there and i map out exactly the beats of my stories i

00:03:21.880 don't have to remember everything because i'm telling the story of a life i live i just need

00:03:25.220 to know what the story is what's the metaphor i'm going to use to reinforce that what is the point

00:03:29.700 of that and how do i leave them with a call to action that gets them to make a decision to change

00:03:34.040 something in their life so they can get a result i then use my friends to flashcard me where they'll

00:03:39.260 be like all right what's point number one what's point number three what's point number two's

00:03:42.580 metaphor. And then that way I'm practicing visually in my mind using the visual diagram I created to

00:03:48.240 practice. That way I can go up on stage with an hour to fill and absolutely nail the beats. The

00:03:54.920 other thing is you got to study the grades. If you're giving a TED talk for the first time, or

00:03:59.180 you've been asked to even give a presentation at your work, go look at other people that are

00:04:03.500 presenting. Go look at the best people. Go on YouTube, sort by most viewed, and just get in the

00:04:09.100 energy of the greats. Which brings us to principle number three, tell stories, not facts. I know you

00:04:15.180 have a lot you want to share. You want to add a lot of value, but don't make this mistake. People

00:04:20.080 will not remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel. I have to share

00:04:25.060 with you a quick story. As a child, I went through tough, tough challenges. I grew up in a home with

00:04:33.040 an alcoholic mother. I had a father that wasn't around very much and the second oldest of four,

00:04:37.660 and I got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 11,

00:04:40.540 put on medication.

00:04:41.960 My whole life, I thought I was broke.

00:04:45.240 What's cool about stories is they do three things.

00:04:47.920 Number one is they position you as an expert.

00:04:50.300 When you're sharing your own personal story

00:04:52.240 or you're reporting on something that you read or you saw,

00:04:55.340 you're demonstrating the depth of experience

00:04:57.640 you have around that topic,

00:04:59.080 which makes you the expert in their mind.

00:05:01.400 The second thing is that it creates the glue

00:05:04.060 of their learning.

00:05:05.300 People may remember the action you told them to do

00:05:08.140 based on the story.

00:05:09.100 They're gonna be like, man, I love that cowboy story,

00:05:11.280 but they'll know that cowboy story is a point

00:05:13.620 to actually go for the thing they wanna get in life

00:05:15.920 because you use the feeling of the story

00:05:18.480 to glue in the activity and the action

00:05:20.620 that you wanted them to take.

00:05:21.960 And the third is that it fills time as needed.

00:05:24.320 If I've got an extra 30 minutes,

00:05:25.940 like it happened to me one time

00:05:27.100 when I was speaking at Tony Robbins stage

00:05:28.720 and all of a sudden they said,

00:05:29.700 oh no, you don't have six, you have 90 minutes.

00:05:31.320 And I had to fill an extra 30 minutes.

00:05:33.600 I just decided to tell longer stories

00:05:36.080 to really let the feelings be felt before I moved on,

00:05:39.400 which filled time.

00:05:40.440 And I did that for the three stories

00:05:41.640 and points I was teaching,

00:05:42.720 which added to that extra 30 minutes.

00:05:44.720 And it was great for the audience and for myself

00:05:46.440 because I didn't stress out.

00:05:47.780 And if you don't have a story to tell,

00:05:49.260 use an analogy or a metaphor or a simile.

00:05:51.940 And if you don't know which ones to tell,

00:05:53.640 just hit ChatGPT.

00:05:55.040 Literally, you can say, I need a metaphor for this concept.

00:05:57.860 What do you got?

00:05:58.680 Tell me about it.

00:05:59.440 How would I present it in 10 minutes?

00:06:00.800 It'll give you the talking beat

00:06:02.500 so you can reinforce your point.

00:06:04.140 When you understand stories sell, facts tell,

00:06:07.900 and using stories are gonna be the reason

00:06:09.760 that people are gonna book you for more speaking,

00:06:11.620 give you more opportunities

00:06:12.580 and buy whatever product you might have or service,

00:06:15.000 that is why you need to go all in on storytelling.

00:06:17.240 Which brings us to principle number four,

00:06:19.700 make it about them.

00:06:21.060 My whole philosophy is this,

00:06:22.740 focus on serving the audience, not impressing them.

00:06:26.080 See, the reason why people get stressed out and freak out

00:06:29.000 is because they're worried about how they're gonna look.

00:06:31.940 If you flip the whole thing and make it about pouring into every person and trying to impart

00:06:37.660 some knowledge to serve them, then you don't have time to worry about yourself because you're

00:06:42.140 looking at them to help them. I'm not going to sit up here and do success theater. I am privileged

00:06:46.860 and blessed and I have immense gratitude for Cody and David for having me here, for all of you guys

00:06:51.100 to be here. I don't take your time lightly whatsoever. Here are a few things I do. One is

00:06:55.820 know your room. Know exactly what every person does in that room, or at least the essence of

00:07:01.080 the industry and what they need to learn most based on their specific situation that you can

00:07:05.820 help them with. And through that process, I started to have a vision for the future. And that's what

00:07:12.240 I'm so excited about the theme of this event is getting ready for the future. The other thing is

00:07:18.520 lock eyes on that one at a time. Look in the top right corner, the bottom right corner, across the

00:07:24.740 room. You look at them, you acknowledge them because I'll tell you if they feel like you're

00:07:29.220 locked in they're gonna lock in and the last one is ask them questions to have them ponder so that

00:07:34.340 you can understand if they get it think about it for you i want every person in this room to think

00:07:39.620 to themselves who are the two people they're your rider dies they're your foundation they're your

00:07:44.340 rocking could be your partner i want you to think about it for yourself what are those names

00:07:48.180 questions makes it less about you feeling like you're auditioning for them are you entertained

00:07:52.740 are you entertained and more of what do you think so what i recommend to you when you get on stage

00:07:58.740 get up there and hold space and look around the room knowing that what you're about to share is

00:08:04.020 going to transform their life so you might think they already know what i know why would i say that

00:08:08.740 or they're questioning if that's even true here's what i've learned those people are so impressed

00:08:13.780 you're on stage so understand just by the fact that you're up there and you're communicating

00:08:18.580 and you're loving on them is the reason why they're going to fall in love with you which

00:08:21.860 brings us to principle number five have a primary question at a high level the way i think about it

00:08:28.340 stage presence starts with inner presence. Show up with intention, not tension. So there's this

00:08:35.040 question I ask myself all the time to help me get centered and make it less about me and more about

00:08:40.280 serving the people. And that question is, how can I appreciate even more God's grace and guidance

00:08:45.540 in this moment? I believe I'm here to serve these people because of divine intervention and

00:08:50.880 opportunity. And I ask to be supported in that moment and giving it up to somebody else bigger

00:08:56.600 than me to serve the people in that room calms me down and makes it about them and that's the only

00:09:02.040 way i ever want to show up here's what i've learned 28 years of entrepreneurship i've learned

00:09:07.480 it comes down to two things number one is wake up every day to strive to become your 10.0 self

00:09:13.480 it's like taking all the best moments in your whole life put them into one day stack it that's

00:09:19.240 your 10.0 version if you're a person of faith it's the person that god created you in his image

00:09:24.760 and the other half is to share yourself with the world and if you do those two things i promise you

00:09:31.880 you will live daily in a place of massive fulfillment thanks for having me everybody

00:09:37.240 showing up with that energy of support of giving of abundance of gratitude is felt by the audience

00:09:43.640 that giddy feeling that you've got something that they really need that they don't know yet but once

00:09:48.520 they hear it they're gonna be like oh my gosh that is how you become a world-class speaker

00:09:53.960 Now, if you want to learn the 13 hacks to be 99.9% more disciplined,

00:09:58.880 click the video and I'll see you on the other side.

Dan Martell - May 20, 2025

How to Speak Like A Top 1% CEO

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