 Hey everybody, Aloha. Welcome back to the Think Tech Hawaii studios. We've got a, I think, going to be a really fun episode of security matters today and we're going to sneak some security in, but we're going to talk a lot about communication. I'll give you the story about how we got here after we met our guests. Steve DeSims is with us today. Steve is an author. He's an entrepreneur. He's super accomplished guy and I'm really, really happy that you agreed to join me here today, Steve. I appreciate it. We will get into the title, we'll tease the audience just a little and we'll let them meet you first. Some of my audience, people I know from industry, sent me pictures with your book. So they, so you are known in the security industry for sure, but for those who may not know you, I'll let Steve give an intro of himself and what he's been up to. And you know, on social media, we don't give it all the way these days, Steve. So as much as you want to share with our audience, have at it and let them get to know you. Thank you. Wow. Thanks for throwing me in the deep end there. Really appreciate it. I'm the guy that I suppose known for doing, well Forbes called me the real life Wizard of Oz and I was also called the Make-A-Wish Foundation for people with really big checkbooks. So I'm the guy you called when you wanted to do something a little bit special, a little bit exciting. I've had people ask me to get a married in the Vatican by the Pope, a drum lesson by Guns and Moses, sing on stage with our favorite rock band, closed down museums in Florence, set up a dinner party for six people at the feet of Michelangelo's David. And then just for shits and giggles, I had Andre Bicelli come in and serenade them while they were eating their pasta. So I'm the guy that got people to do some pretty, pretty cool things to increase their cocktail stories. Nice. And that takes a lot of communication, I'm sure. So I want to give a little background. So I pulled a quote on LinkedIn and it said, don't be easy to understand, be impossible to misunderstand. And so I grabbed it. Fortunately, I credited Steve for his quote in my LinkedIn post, which he saw. And because our insecurity communication is so critical, and there's a quite a distinction between being easy to understand and being impossible to misunderstand. I immediately, the thing that came to mind to me was like a stop sign. And then I was in Wyoming and I saw one that said, whoa, like W-H-O-A on the stop sign. I thought, well, now that's a little unclear. But anyway, let's get into communication. And let's talk about the first piece, because I said, here's the thing about simplicity. And then I used your quote, don't be easy to understand, be impossible to misunderstand. So let's talk about being easy to understand and what some of the problems or misconceptions can be between the like the sender and receiver when it's supposed to be easy to understand when we're talking about something like negotiating dinner at the feet of David or whatever it may be. So let's break it down. First things, and we can very easily, I work with a lot of people in security. I've worked with a lot of the military and I'm very honored to have actually even spoken to three-star generals in the Pentagon. So I have a little bit of an idea of the battle that you guys have with the communication. But the first mistake anybody makes in communication is you. It doesn't matter what you are saying and what you believe you are saying. All that matters is how the recipient is receiving the message you're giving. Okay. You may be thinking, well, this is crystal clear to me, buddy. I know exactly what I'm saying. Why the hell aren't you getting it? But if they're having a bad mood or if they're in a stressful situation, which a lot of security, especially the police, if you've been pulled over the blue lights going on, oh my God, what's happened? Maybe you've had one beer in you. You're panicking. You're not thinking straight. So you're in a heightened level of stress. Your reception is clogged. It's misty. So now and today, and we can take it away from the military, we can look at the media. The media is giving us a lot of information. The media is throwing a lot at a sort of regular basis. You know, we're in a world today of mass distortion and distraction. We've got to be clearer. You joked about that whoa and that stop. Communication is brevity. The beautiful thing that I can now be thankful is beautiful about my past is I never overthought and I never overtalked. So I would say, hey, I want this studio at 10 o'clock on Tuesday. How do we make it happen? And that'll be it. I would be so crystal clear. When I had a client contact me and he said, hey, I want to have an amazing dining experience in Florence. In my past job, which was a high-end concierge firm, I always thought, well, how miraculous can I make it? How ridiculous can I go for? How stupid a gold can I go for? And then I would go to those people and I'd say, hey, I need this Wednesday night to do this, this, this. How do we make it happen? And my conversations were so short, so direct, so open, because notice one thing about my question. I never asked, can I? I said to him, how do we make this happen? What needs to happen for me to be at the feet of Michelangelo David on Wednesday? If you were to turn around and went, no, you'd look like a moron that couldn't understand the English language because it doesn't make sense. So it's through them. So I realized ages ago, if you don't like the answer, you're probably asking the wrong question. And once I understood that, I got really, really good at asking questions where I stood no liability. If I turned around to you, I said, hey, Andrew, beer tomorrow night, eight o'clock. Now, you may be in a good mood and you're thinking, going out for a beer with Steve tomorrow night, yeah, that's pretty good. Let's just say for argument's sake, on your way home, you got a flat tire. Let's say you got home to an email from I'd know the police that your accountant had been doing something wrong with your books and you were now in trouble. And a relationship you had had suddenly started defaulting you of your copyright material on these, but you're in a bad mood. My eight o'clock beer now suddenly represents a demand. What does Steve think he can demand me? The guy's always demanding. You know, so in which case you may turn around and go, 815, I can do it at 815. Because you've received it in a different mental state. Therefore, my message, while it was conveyed with directness and simplicity, was altered by the recipient's mood. And that is because today we've got too much noise going on. So I think and part of it, so we don't get off of the sender too much at first, because they are, they do need to have some, we hear, I think our emotional intelligence is kind of the word that gets kicked around. I need to make sure that you're ready to receive maybe the information that I'm sending or maybe need to check in with you a little bit first. I know my wife would say, I'm terrible at that, right? So she'd be like, what did you say? And I thought it was super clear and super simple. But obviously, she wasn't in a mood to even hear what I was trying to communicate. So, you know, how do we check in or how do we train ourselves to be aware of, you know, other and, you know, when we're trying to send some information to keep it so that it is simple, perhaps, or so that at least it's received in the way that we meant to send it. So if you've ever spoken on a stage or for any of you out there that speak in public, there's a common statement out there that it says, know your audience. Okay? If you're talking to a bunch of, I don't know, vegan people, you're not going to go in there and start talking about me. Okay? So know your audience and you can communicate with, how's your day going? Just a simple question like that. How's your day going? Oh, I'm sorry to disturb you at a moment, but I had a couple of questions. You're okay if I ask those questions. The response is going to give you a temperature of the recipient. Okay? Again, we used an example of being pulled over by the police, the blue light, the stress, the one beer in you, you're hiding. Hey, sorry to kind of disturb you evening. How's your evening going for you? You're just something to just check the temperature of the recipient before you engage in putting out your message. Yeah, critical piece. I think, you know, don't be easy to understand. Maybe that first part of that statement does come from the perspective of the sender. More so than the receiver. You know, you shed some light on this idea that the receivers in a circumstances or a situation that we may just not perceive. And therefore, what we think is the simplest thing to communicate is filtered, muddled, walled off, whatever it may be. I don't even know. There's a lot of stuff that happens in between there for people, insecurity for sure. What about in other relationships? So just say, let's just say, kid, I like the audience, the one for, you know, public speaking. I've been on some stages where you just dropped dead and I've been on some stages where you get everybody engaged and it's really fun. And I oftentimes don't understand what was different, right? It's the same information. It's the same type of people. They don't know this. They should be interested in it. But maybe I thought it's just me. I'm just boring today. I don't know. What do you think about the temperature of the sender as far as is the loudness? Is it the expansiveness? Is it the big words versus little words? How does the sender keep what they want to say simple? I love your idea of posing a simple question. What if we need to send a little more? So you're going to put your dog in the bathtub to wash him. What's the first thing you do before you put your dog in the bathtub? Right out the towels. What do you do focusing on the bathtub? Yeah, turn on the water. No, you just check the temperature and make sure it's not too hot for the dog and it's going to boil him. No, you just throw the dog in. All right, okay. All right, don't ever have a dog. Good point though. Yeah, the point is, and that's the same, when I speak to someone, I just gave you a couple of examples if you were in the security industry and you were meeting someone in a stressful environment. When I go on stage, I have about six to maybe eight one-liners, openness. Okay, and I'll go out there and I'll fire three. Okay, I'm going to fire three low hanging, okay, I've seen how you've responded. Now me and you, we got onto this podcast ahead of time, didn't we? Yeah, I do that with every single podcast. Why? Because I want to check the temperature with the host. You know, what is his tone? Does he want me to be all like this? Or does he want me to be really, really quiet? You know, I spoke on Sunday, Sunday morning to a group of women that home-based industries in a Catholic environment. So it was a religious group of home-based businesses. Now my personality there was different to the personality when I'm speaking to a young men's entrepreneurial group. So all you do is you get in there and you go, okay, well, I'm glad to be speaking here today. And I promise you I won't tell any dirty jokes. And all you've got to do that. And if they sit there and they're like, well, that's good. You know, okay, temperature check done. But if they turn around and giggle, then you know all that little sourcing as they liked. Now I can go down that path. So all you've got to do and this is where it gets silly. This isn't complicated. This isn't hard to grasp. Temperature check, everything. If you're in a bar and I'm a big fella, I've been in my share of bar fights. If I'm in a bar and someone's growling, now I'm too old for that crap. You know, when I was younger, maybe it would have been great. It's a hardy night. Let's play. But now I don't want to be doing all of that. So my head's going, where is he? Where is he? Is he having a bad day? So you might just turn, there's a guy staring you out thinking, oh, he's going to roll. You can turn around and go, sorry, man, sorry for staring at you. But I saw that shirt. Really loved that shirt. Where'd you get the shirt from? You know, throw him off. And just can I really, hey, sorry for apologizing. Just love the shirt. You know, just, oh, okay. Temperature check how the recipient is. Temperature check it by lobal questions, lobal jokes, bit of humour. Humour is always good to check out the, to kill a bad or diffuse a stressful situation. There's so many people done temperature check. You talk about, you talk about speakers dying on stage. I've seen speakers that, as you said, have done the exact same word for word speech and died because they were focused on the messenger. They were not focused on the recipient. If they, it just twisted it at the beginning and gone, hey, who's ever seen me speak before? You know, who's ever heard me speak about this, this and this? And they got a few people going, yeah, we saw that twice, mate. You know, well, you're in for a third time. So this may show you're going to get really good at it. You know, just anything like that. But the amount of people that don't take the time to do the temperature check and then sit there scratching the head going, how come this failed? You failed at the beginning. I love it. I love it because I had opened up my comment about this was, here's the thing about simplicity. So see, it's not simple. It's not simple. It really requires a little bit of interaction to start to ensure that our communications are going to be understood. Hopefully easy to understand, but it takes a little bit of effort on our part before we send it out. I love that point, Steve. I'm going to yeah, yeah, a little bit. Yeah, I got you. I got you. So we got to take, we're going to pay some bills. So we got to take a one minute break and we'll be right back with Steve Simms. So stick around. Aloha. I'm Dan leaf. I go by fig because I was an Air Force fighter pilot for 33 years and you have to have a nickname. I get to host on Think Tech Hawaii two shows figments, the power of imagination and figments on reality. The power of imagination introduces you to some of my incredible friends and their life experiences astronauts, war heroes, Hollywood writers, you name it, they're on it and you'll be inspired and entertained. And on reality, I'll give you something hard to find non political commentary on today's events. That's right. Non political because the vitriol doesn't help folks. So figments, the power of imagination, figments on reality, both on Think Tech Hawaii. Hey everybody, thanks and welcome back. We're talking with Steve Simms. Let's plug the book just for a minute, Steve, author of blue fishing, the art of making things happen. Tell us a little bit about the book and what we can learn if we pick up a copy. Will we get good at making things happen? That's what's important. I've got a copy here. So thanks a lot for doing a shallow plug there. I did a morning program this morning and we were running through chapters. That's why I have a copy here. I got to tell you straight off the bat, the book was a bit of a joke. I actually was at a party and someone said, oh, you should do a book. And they turned out to be a senior at Simon and Schuster. So they were deadly serious. I thought they were joking. So when they actually came back to me a week later with the contract, I was like, bloody hell, they really want me to do a book. Now when I spoke to them, I said, I don't want to write a book on just naming all the famous powerful people I deal with, because if I did that, bottom line of it is I'll be dead before cocktail hour. But I'm very happy to show you how a 15 year old from school who grew up as a bricklayer in East London is now working with Sirot and John Elon Musk, Richard Branson, and the Vatican. That's the book that I would write. So we went through the simple, impactful, stupid steps that I take to be able to reach and communicate with the most powerful people in the planet. And for me, as I'm going through it, and I was working with a ghost rider, the ghost rider would be like, I never thought of doing that. And I'm like, why? It's so easy. And that was the thing. When you don't fully understand what you're talking about, you have a tendency to overcomplicate it. How many times have you ever spoken to someone and gone, can you explain that to me? And they've said something like, it's pretty hard to explain. You know, no, I've been in the rooms with Ray Kurzweil. I've been in the room with Peter D Amandis. I've been in the rooms with Elon Musk. And you know, when you need something explained, these guys are superb at explaining. I've had artificial intelligence explained to me by Ray Kurzweil, who was the guy that designed Siri before there was even a platform for it to go on. And he's been able to explain it to me. Because when you know, you can explain it. When you don't know, you overcomplicate it, and you get this client, it's going to take too long for me to explain. I guarantee you, a genius can explain splitting the atom to you in less than a minute, and you'll get a basic grasp on why that's so important. Yeah, I've had that before, you know, and you feel somewhat dismissed when someone says that, right? Or skeptical at least that they, why did they bring it up? Or why are we entertaining the topic even like really? Okay, so I get your point there. So the last part of what we were unpacking today was being impossible to misunderstand. And I know the clarifying question, obviously, you know, does that make sense to you? Or there's those ways of confirming with someone. But how do, and if it's, if I'm asking for an action, for example, police say halt, a guy looks at them and runs, right? Obviously, there's no time to ask the question that we've got a problems developed. What's a, what's a kit? Can we be impossible to misunderstand at the onset? Or does it, is it going to require some back and forth? You know, is that, is that sender? Can I, can I make sure? Again, the problem is, and we've got two answers here, sadly. For one, I've got to ask, I've got to go against your confirmation question. You know, does that make sense to you? Are you understanding this? This is a get out. How many people turn around and go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got it. No, no, no, you're absolutely, and they have no idea what's going on. So if you ask them a slightly different question and say, can you see how this would apply to you and explain to me what you would do with this? Now you're giving them ownership of the education you've just given them to see how they can put it into a context that can help them. You're asking them to qualify it. You know, if I say to you, well, okay, I've spoken with you for 20 minutes now, what are you going to do with this? You've, you're now on the back foot to qualify them and go, well, you know, you talked about this and I'm really focused on the recipient side, Steve. So that's one thing. So never ask, never ask a question which can be a basically a costumed or cloaked dismissal of runaway. I love it. I love that. So that's one thing. Secondly, and this is where we get back into the halt by the police, all right? It's a highly stressful situation, highly stressful. Before the police officer, as it, and for a start, I take my hats off to all the police. I had a great supporter. Thank you for doing what you're doing and allowing me and my family to relax. Big supporter. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. But you're scary somewhere because you've come home for the night, you missed out on that red light. And I've done it. We've all done it. You've missed out on that red light. The mileage was, you know, just suddenly got decreased in a little street area and you didn't see the sign and the blue light goes and as I say, you've had a beer in you and you think, oh my God, did I have one or did I have 21? You know, you now start to go through all of this and it's the street. You've now got a heightened, elevated position. Now, reverty is the key to all clarity, which you can't get clearer than stop. You know, you can't get clearer than that. But again, temperature of your audience, if I'm suspicious, if I'm scared or worse still, I've got something to hide, then those are the kind of people that make stupid decisions. Those are the kind of people that think, I'm going to run, you know? For a start, you should never question if you've had one or 21 beers when you're getting a car. You should know for a fact, you've only had one at the tops. But many things go through your head and you get a little bit disk and the car, the light, it's a scary situation. But that's when sadly, again, it's up to the officer. And I apologize, but it's up to the police person to actually try and not defuse the situation, but quickly get a temperature of the recipient. How's your evening going? I didn't want to disturb your night, but we've got a little problem. Just something like that would kind of put me in a little bit of, okay, what is the problem? Are you aware that the streets are now 25 miles an hour and you were going through at 35? And just something like that, you know, would kind of like defuse it because the problem with the security side from that level, and from that platform, is the anticipation that you've done something wrong and you don't know what it is. It's that kind of, what happened? What's wrong? You know, if you woke up to me and you go, are you aware you were doing 35 and I'm 25? I'd be like, oh no, but now, funny enough, I'm relaxed. Why am I relaxed? Even though I've done something wrong, I'm relaxed because I know what the problem is. It's the anticipation. I've actually been with very, very famous people and people walk up to them and as they're walking up to them, the person I'm next to is suddenly kind of straightened up that back a bit. They've started to go a little bit paler. They've started to kind of like restrict their facial mode and they've kind of got a bit more on guard. And it's because the person that's walking up to them, they don't know if it's a fan. They don't know if they're going to want a selfie. They don't know if they're going to hit them up to be in that next movie. They don't know it. It's the anticipation. Who is this person? What do they want? Do I know them? Do I not? And for me, I've worked with very famous, powerful people. This is what I do. I walk up to every famous person I know and I go, hey, how are you? My name's Steve Simms. You don't know me. And then I get into my pitch. But you know, the first thing that happens is they go quiet. How many times have you been at a business event, a wedding, or some kind of group location and someone's come up to you and they've got Andrew? And for a split second, you're thinking, do I know you? Have we met? Are you my second, third removed? Were you on my podcast? Are you trying to get on my podcast? And then they turn around and they go, I love your show, man. Well done. It's good to finally meet you. And then you go, oh, so I didn't know you. But now I know what you want. Now I can get in the conversation. So is that anticipation that restricts you from making a logical decision? So the best way to do it, as I say, if I didn't know you, Andrew, and I wanted to be on your podcast and I saw you in Australia, I'd be like, hey, you think tech away Andrew? I've seen you, you know, know me, but I've seen your show and I love it. How relaxed would you be the second I informed you you didn't know me? Yeah, it's good. It's, yeah. 100%. Yeah, so try that. So if you're in a situation where you know you are the stressful element of this, you know it, own it, do a temperature check. Now again, sadly, folks, you guys are going out to keep people like me safe. And I appreciate you. But we also know that some of those situations you're going into can be harmful. So get a temperature check really quick to find out how that person is. So to understand very, very quickly, are you in a safe place? Are you in a safe position? Is this person a guy that's just made a mistake and is going to be grateful that you pointed out what it is and he takes a ticket and he goes home and he enjoys the rest of the night? But more than anything, make sure you're safe by checking the audience, checking the temperature of who you're going to be talking to. I love this. This is so awesome. So it is simple. Take the test first. Make sure the receiver is in a mode to hear you so that you can be impossible to misunderstand. This is great advice, Steve. Final takeaways for our audience. Any other thing you want to share about observations on communication that maybe we didn't get to? You're up against it. You know, we're in a planet now where for the past 10 years, we have outsourced our communication to things called social platforms. In the old days, when you had a baby, you'd phone up your mates and buy them over for cigars and show them the little baby and go, there you go, I got one. Now what do we do? We shove it on Facebook and try to count the likes. Oh, we've only got 20 people that like my baby. We're not getting any better at communication. Marry that to the fact that we've gone through COVID where more people are not communicating with each other. And then on top of that, add up to the fact that we are all in an uncomfortable position because of, well, we've got to be careful what we say because of racial tension, because of religion, because of politics. There's so much going on now that's causing us to be apprehensive about talking. So what do most of us do? We stop talking. Doesn't that alienate the problem? The bottom line of it is, I would rather ask a stupid question than to remain ignorant. 100%. So I urge you today, keep focusing on communication. It is a dying skill set that we need to bring back. I love that. There you go, folks. Keep focusing on communication for security, for relationships, for all aspects of your life. It's super important. And pick up the book while you're on the way, Blue Fishing, to get out of making an impact. Steve, thank you so much for being here today. We will talk again soon. Sir, appreciate you. Have a great day. Hello, everybody.