Embrace the Unknown: Interview with Ivan Wanis Ruiz, Author of End Boring

I recently went one on one with Ivan Wanis Ruiz. Ivan is a public speaking coach and the author of the new book End Boring.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. ​How did you get here? ​What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?

Ivan: I took a very practical logistical look at trying to develop a training business. Here’s the thing: I’ve worked in finance, sales, HR, and a non-profit sector, and in all of those positions I was never that good at them because I hated those positions. But, for some reason, I was always known as the guy who was good at talking so, after so many failures, I decided to stop fighting it and just try and see if I could make a career out of public speaking.

For the first several years, I made no money at all.  My goal was to get experience and some sort of social proof. I got a Distinguished Toastmaster designation, I took the Dale Carnegie course and became a certified High Impact Presenter, and, at the same time, through my Toastmasters club, I was doing free workshops for anyone and everyone who would listen.  It was through one of these free workshops that I actually got my first paid client.

Something else that I did that was a little different was, instead of trying to create a product for a general audience, I tried to create customized product for individual organizations and, to this day 95% of my work is working internally with company staff. 

Adam: What do you hope readers take away from your new book?

Ivan: I believe that being charismatic, being impactful, is not something you’re born with. It’s a series of physical actions that can be practiced in the same way you practice hitting or throwing a ball. The more you do it, the easier it gets. The big problem with most soft skills training is that they focus on general ideas without any tactics for execution. I made everything in this book to be physical tactics so that people can practice.

Adam: What are your best tips on how to communicate effectively in a virtual setting?

Ivan: The biggest thing to remember is that it’s not necessarily harder keeping people engaged virtually than in the real world. The big difference is that, virtually, I don’t have to be polite. Virtually, I can be checking my email the whole time you're talking, and no one would ever know. In the real world, I am equally bored and disengaged but checking my e-mail or looking at my phone the whole time would be rude and everyone would notice. 

Here’s a question to consider for anyone reading this: if you’re doing all the talking, how do you know anyone is listening? One great tactic is trying to get your audience to do something every 30 seconds to a minute. That can be writing things in the chat, commenting via audio, giving a thumbs up via video, or any variation of those things. Variety is the secret. If you get people to simply comment yes or no in the chat, then the more they do it the less engaging it is; however, if you can vary what they write in the chat, even that level of diversity will help to keep people engaged.

Adam: What tips do you have to those giving virtual talks or presentations?

Ivan: Another great tactic is to jump back and forth between sharing your screen and sharing your video. Microsoft labs did a research study: they found out that, after a few minutes of staring at slides, most people stop processing information and go into hibernation mode. If, however, I can change the visual and jump back and forth between my slides, then every jumping back and forth I do is a moment of re-engagement, because I am changing the visual.  The ratio I like to do is 70% me, 30% my slides. Another fun one is, if you are using Microsoft Teams, while the presentation is running push the ‘B’ button.  See what happens.

Adam: More broadly, what are your best public speaking tips? What can anyone at any level to do become a better public speaker?

Ivan: Here’s one great tip: start with an opening that seems unrelated to your topic. Most people will start off by saying their name and what they’re there to talk about, and that’s probably what’s on the slide that everyone is looking at, so right away you start off with disengagement. If you start with a question or a statement that seems completely unrelated to your topic, that’ll get people thinking and trying to figure out what the relationship is between the title of your presentation and the thing you just said. It’s actually founded in neuroscience: there’s a part of your brain called Area 47 that tries to predict what is going to happen next and regulates dopamine to help do this.  Dopamine generally is the “feel good” neurotransmitter.  When you ask a question like that, it activates area 47 and causes a dopamine response.

Adam: What are the keys to crafting an effective pitch?

Ivan: I don’t believe in rules, I believe in tools. There’s no one right way to approach communication. Instead, there are tactics that you can throw at a problem until one of them sticks. Think about Batman’s utility belt. Batman is prepared for anything; when he tries out one thing and it doesn’t work, he’s got five other things he can try. That’s the way I teach pitching.

That being said, one great way to start a pitch is by using what I call a “what if” story, and here’s how it works. In the first person, in 2-3 sentences, describe a problem you experienced, and then literally say “what if” and describe the solution, also in the first person, in 2-3 sentences. This is not only a great tactic but a great exercise to help you identify the core of your pitch’s value statement.

Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?

Ivan: Allow me to propose a concept, which you may or may not have heard of, called “The Hippo: the highest paid person’s opinion”.  Essentially, when you look at the research into meetings and meeting effectiveness, typically the decisions of the meetings, as they go on, lean more and more towards the opinion of the highest paid person. In other words, everyone just agrees with the boss.

How can you avoid this? How can you get sincere feedback and ideas from the people you’re working with? The simplest tactic is that the leaders should always speak last. Don’t start off a meeting with what your goals are, what you want to do, and what you think the best ideas are. Instead, have someone else start the meeting, and don’t state any of your opinions or directions you’re leaning towards until everyone else has spoken. This is something I’ve been doing in my life and it’s amazing how well it works!

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?

Ivan: If we’re talking about communication, it’s all about how you prepare.  There’s no such thing as overcoming nervousness, and nervousness is what tends to impede people and prevent them from really being themselves, from sounding “real.” Therefore, you have to build calluses to nervousness. And you do that by practicing with the stress of being watched, and you can do that in three ways.

1. Ask a family member, significant other, or friend if you can run parts of a presentation by them, or parts of a pitch, or explain something to them. They have to say yes. They might do it hesitantly, which is even better because then you’ll get more nervous and you’re guaranteed to stumble. Do that in front of the same person a few times and it stops becoming hard, then find someone else and do it again.  The very first thing I ever had to do for Toastmasters was tell a joke, and I spent two days trying to joke in front of people. The first five or six times, I ruined it, but by the 11th or 12th time, it was like I could have been on stage.

2. Sneak parts of your speech into your conversations. If you do this and no one notices and the conversation keeps going, you know you have a delivery that is working and that is a natural. If people stop and then patiently and professionally listen to what you’re saying, nodding their heads, then they know you’re doing something that isn’t natural and they’re trying to be polite.

3. Practice outside where other people can see you. Even if no one’s around, you’ll feel the same nervousness you’ll feel when you’re having to do it for real in front of other people. When I’m not teaching communication, I’m also a working actor, and very recently I was hired to do a bunch of voices for an upcoming video game for Xbox. You better believe that I was walking down the street running my lines because I wanted to replicate the nervousness I would feel in the sound booth. Was I self-conscious and nervous doing this? Yes! And that’s the point!

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Ivan: The fear of the unknown is greater than the fear of being unhappy. Most of us will settle for unhappy because we know what that means. You see it with our jobs and our relationships. That “What if I can’t find something better?” feeling. 

If you feel like you’re treading water, then do something drastic. There’s been a few times in my life where I didn’t feel I was moving forward, and that’s when I decided to sell everything I owned and move to a new place to see if I could make it. Every time it’s always been a positive experience. It doesn't have to be that dramatic for you but, if you're treading water, make a change. Embrace the unknown.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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