 Did you think about your last goal that you have set for yourself? Did you achieve that goal? Or did it never happen? Not yet. Not yet. Not too bad. Two years ago I had a goal. I wanted to become a better presenter, a better speaker. So I signed up to give a talk. I had two months of preparation and in the end that talk never happened. Because I got cancelled. Cancelled by my glorious self. I made a decision to run away from my own fear to speak in front of people. I'm really bad about that. Until I run out, it's not just my own fear. Speech anxiety applies to 75% of all people. What come of it? Almost nothing. This made me feel not that bad anymore. Two other great things happened after my cancellation. First, I discovered an interesting tool known as empowerment evaluation that can help you to overcome the famous obstacles of speaking in public. And second, I came up with a new goal. I wanted to know how speaking works. I knew I need to build a new skill first before I ever get on stage again. The good news is, since it is a skill that we cannot learn, we just take the right approach to get there. And here comes the empowerment evaluation plan. It is a tool to monitor and evaluate your own progress and development towards that. So this helped me tremendously and many other people in the audience come home. For example, it has been used at Stanford School of Medicine to transform its entire curriculum. It was used for a $50 million project by a student pecker called Digital Village to improve the inclusion of Native American tribes into society. And for a tobacco prevention project in Arkansas to keep kids away from tobacco with a social and financial ROI of $84 million. Or you take the entire substance of an empowerment evaluation and bring it into the field of speaking to improve your skills on stage. Now these are just some cases where empowerment evaluation led to great results. So let's see what we will have within the next 15 minutes. First, if we would quickly jump into the main definition of an empowerment evaluation then we need to understand the theoretical background behind it which is super interesting because it will explain some parts of our human behavior. Then we have a look at the main tool with its most important principles and from there we jump into the actual three steps of application and how you can use it to become a better speaker or if you have any other current goal feel free to use it there. The concept of an empowerment evaluation was developed in 1993 by Professor David Federmann at Stanford University. According to his definition, an empowerment evaluation about improvement and self determination. By the use of evaluation concepts, techniques and findings. Now to get more clarity about this free generic definition we first need to cover how we, beautiful humans, behave because how we behave inspired the concept of an empowerment evaluation. Talking about human behavior, I want to share a little insight. Too many times in my life I learned something new and I said, yeah, this is exactly what I'm going to do and in the end I have never did it. And I asked myself, just think about what you have missed in life already because you never did it. It made me think, sad and angry. Before I get too emotional, let's start with a really simple example of what we started to say about that. This is Thomas. Thomas is a manager working for a big company and he just went through one of those famous trainings on leadership skills. One of the things he learned in this training is conflict management. If you asked Thomas, how would you manage? Thomas has the right answer and he says, well, first I will listen and then I will facilitate. However, some days later there is an actual conflict in Thomas' team that he needs to solve. For some reason, Thomas now manages the entire situation completely different. But the use of formal authority and power without any encouragement. The question is, why does this happen to Thomas? And the story is not very unusual because we do not behave as we intend to. In fact, researchers say that our behavior has two components. Behavioral knowledge on the one side and behavioral practice on the other side. Then what does it mean? When Thomas is asked how to behave in a conflict situation, he has behavioral knowledge. I will listen and I will facilitate. However, when it comes to the real conflict, his main actions are different and that describes his behavioral practice. The use of formal authority and power. Now, the mismatch we have here does not necessarily say that Thomas is intentionally dishonest. Rather means he is not aware of his real life action. I want to say it again, it happens to all of us. Now, let's get back to improvements as a speaker on the goal you currently have. If we want to achieve something more effectively, we need to allow our behavior in terms of our knowledge and our practice. Now, do you see the common sense and do you think, this is so rare? Yes, it is. Somehow, it is still not easy. You might have heard this statement before, before we get really into the clichés of the topic. Sometimes there is a message to get in this statement. You won't say what you do and what you actually do. And exactly here comes the empowerment evaluation to play to help you close that gap. And before we jump into the main process with these three steps, we need to cover the most important principles by which the entire evaluation unfolds. And for that, we create a little flower. It's just three leaves. And the first leaf is my favorite, a critical thread. Now, what is a critical thread? It is true French. The concept of a critical thread originated in educational research. It is someone who gives you hardship. Because this is where the development happens. Now, imagine the following situation. You have a presentation coming up. You prepare the presentation, practice over and over again, until you feel confident to be delivered. However, in that process of preparation, you never had someone who gave you an outside perspective of what you do. Until the day of presentation arrives, and you realize my message. Now, that critical thread will help you as a trusted person, someone who asks you to promote and request shoes and offers a critique. As for your work as a friend. And this is so important. Ideally, this friend has a higher level of expertise in your field. And this brings us to the second week. We've heard this before. Ownership. It may sound abstract and cliché. But ownership of your own performance is a crucial part for your development. It means becoming aware of our real-life behavior, including the mistakes we make. Now, do you remember Thomas, the manager? He did not own his performance when it came to dealing with that conflict, even though he had the right intention with this knowledge. He was not aware of his main actions. Now, the interesting part comes in of the impromptu relation. What will happen if we would have asked Thomas to assess his own performance? Two great things. First, Thomas will understand that his behavior is different according to his knowledge about the situation. And second, he will get in charge. And then he will be able to change his behavior. And now you might wonder, what is the role of the critical friend to you? The critical friend is important for you to exactly gain that ownership of your actions. Because he will help you to assess your performance and might question your perspective. Alright, critical friend and ownership. The third thing is what a magic happens. In the process of an employment evaluation, you create data by the use of a worksheet, which can be a simple table like this one. And this is how it works. First, you list all your activities that you need to achieve your goals. Second, you choose a certain time frame for your activities to work on. For example, days, weeks, months, some seconds for most people. And then you start writing your activities on that time frame at a specific scale that fits the context of the purpose. In this case, we have a scale from 1 to 5. One means you're in a developing state. Two equals you can taste the development already as it emerges. Three, you have the first thing of accomplishment, which is by far not enough. Because from there you start to excel in those goals, which is number four, to eventually reach the level of excellence, which is number five. And you might have heard my favorite quote by William Durand. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence therefore is not an act, it is a habit. And this applies beautifully to an employment evaluation because it will help you to create that habit. And the data gives you the evidence of where you are. Now let's move from the three principles into the actual three steps of an employment evaluation so that you can use it for yourself. The first step starts with one simple thing. Your desire to change something. What is that thing we are trying to reach and accomplish that is a mission? The second step is we need to take an honest stock of our current position. Where are we right now in terms of that mission? It can be painful sometimes. And most evaluations just finish step number two by assessing status quo, trained and left alone. An employment evaluation takes a third step into account and that is planning for the future. Now what does planning for the future mean? You will monitor and reflect your entire development. And this is it. This is all what we need to know, the three principles and the three steps. And now we can take that to become a better speaker. So let's go back two years ago and I answered my speech. At that time I had no pretty friend. I had no sense of ownership when it came to speaking and I didn't even know that I could use data to improve myself. Now one day I had a deep self talk and I said to myself and that's what I did. Another six months after my cancellation I went on stage and I bombed it. I failed my speech and that was the bad thing that could have ever happened to me. Now luckily I spoke in front of people that were all willing to help me. And once I was done I did not only have one pretty good friend, it was an entire community. And I was so beautiful. Now my failure made me really ambitious to learn more about speaking. And I found out I need a structure. I need a system that can help me in my development and I found the power for the path manipulation. I started implementing it and it worked. So let's see how my data looked like. I set up a table and I asked myself what do I need to know about speaking to improve myself on stage. And I came up with knowledge about speaking. I need black holes where I can speak. And my experience is really important which will revise my knowledge. Now the second step is taking the honest talk of my position. When I started I had nothing in terms of knowledge. I didn't speak on any platform. No experience at all, three times zero, that's not even on the scale, but a great stuff to start with. Because from there we start planning for the future. Before we do that we need to prioritize that one activity which is most important to start with. Otherwise it might be too much in complex and we have a reason to give up. So I prioritized much on speaking. I took that, I broke it down into components and I started educating myself. What do I need to know about the use of the stage? My voice, my body, etc. From there you start taking interventions and you increase your rating on your scale. Moving from a zero to a one, a two. The enlightening moment comes in when you take another stock of your original worksheet of your main goals. And this is how it looked for me after. In the meanwhile I have gained a solid knowledge about speaking. But when it comes to speaking on different platforms and growing my experience, I'm still far away from what I want to achieve. Just the knowledge won't make me any better. Now do you see the powerful moment here? You clearly see all your deficits without getting lost. Do you remember the principle of ownership? You will become a lot more confident throughout the entire process of going back and forth to see your law and your development. And don't worry about being too generous on your rating, you still have that critical friend, lucky me a community, that might question your expertise. What can we do when we start planning for the future from this stock? Growing the platforms. Well, go online, do some research about speaking events. There are so many these days and sign up for a 15x4 event here. This is the truth how I got here. And you cannot imagine how grateful I am for this opportunity. At the same time I can share something that is hopefully helpful for as many people in the audience since I believe this tool is simple and banal. And will bring you great results in many other fields if you have the courage to use it. And I would be super curious what do you think about an empowerment evaluation and how could that work in an entrepreneurship, I think there are many in the audience who are living a healthier life, who wants to need to work out a little bit more. And so, what's there? Just pick one and try it if it works for you. To wrap it up, it is a simple model. Pick up the desired outcome. You go into the process with a critical friend, you take that ownership and you reflect on your data until you have achieved your desired outcome. Now this being said, I honestly believe my speech won't change but an empowerment evaluation. And if you want to do me a favor, give me some critical feedback. Show up, do your thing and try it. Is it not very different? Oh my god, raise your hands. Are there any questions? Another example of what you've done except your speech. Then you showed me the license. You mean talking about the knowledge, how I raised my rating? The question was what else you did to get to that point, right? What else was part of your evaluation, which points? Did I get the right? I hope I got this question right. For example, you want to live a more energetic and healthy life. What are the components you need to get a little bit more of a performance in your daily thing? You're talking about this and what are the activities? What do you need for a healthy life? You need to sleep, good diet, you need to work out, break it down, what you have there and track yourself. You might get a body who kicks you out of bed 6am in the morning to get that workout in before you go to the office and sit the whole day and in the evening Netflix is good. The thing is about the activities, this is not a quick fix. I had so many, I tried improv theater, people said, try this one, it didn't work for me. I started writing because I know when I can write I can speak a little bit better, so I incorporated that. So there are activities going back and forth. What did you say? People just say it, I think there are shortcuts, it depends. From my personal belief, we all form with a certain constitution and we have a call to do something. And I don't need always 10,000 or 100 million hours to get where I want to go. I just need to know what I want to do and I can skip a big part of that. So it's a common thing, people will say it has an excuse. I believe in a comedy relation and nothing happens. I hope this answers your question. Okay, one more question on this side. Yes? How do you break down your goals? Because I think that's the hardest thing of the whole thing that you're making sound pretty easy. The question was how do you break down your goals? How do I break them down or how do I find them? I think you can... So this is again a personal approach. I do a lot of tasting. I try different stuff. I'm not this type of guy. So I rejected my first job offer. I didn't want it because I'm too young. I want to feel alive and I try so much. And whenever there is a feeling where I feel a lot of energy and enthusiasm I will stay there. And if not, I keep moving. So this is where I feel like home a little bit and then the work starts. And then I break it down. What do I need to do? Does this answer the question? How do you find my goals because I think most people break it down too big of a challenge. Break it down. Like prioritize. What I said, I want to become a better speaker. It's not about getting on the stage and start talking. It starts way in the back. And this is the thing when people see someone on the stage. He has time. No, it is hard work. And this doesn't matter if you want to become a speaker or you want to put your business in a healthy light. It is work in the background. And that's what we do not want from here. So break that down and prioritize that one thing and do that one thing over a certain time of time frame when you think, I can move on. And whenever you feel stuck, this was my point. I said, I have so much knowledge, but I'm stuck. I need to do something else. I said, I have no platform. Okay, I think time for one more question. Can I ask a question now? Yeah. My question is about how do you get it? Because it sounds quite subjective to be honest about a critical friend. Because he's still a friend. She's still a friend. And the way you evaluate yourself, it's kind of like self-tracking. So isn't it a bit subjective? So where do you get this objectivity part where you can actually rely on those relations you get? I love the question. I hope someone will ask that. So you talk about bias, I guess. Cool. There is always some bias because I ask myself the same question. What is an empowered outcome? And that's bias. I looked into research and there is empirical evidence that this approach can bring empowered outcome. I have some numbers in the pocket. Someone is interested where I can forward this paper from the American Evolution Journal. It is quite interesting, but the critique is, of course, the discussion. How do you bring an empowered outcome on the paper? And personally, talking is a feeling. And there is a lot of stuff out there. There's an American Evolution Association. They run conferences about this stuff and they discuss how can we minimize this bias and this is the true thing. Does this answer some of the question? I mean, it is a tool and in the end it can work for you or not. And research and empirical stuff is a different thing. But yeah, subjective and objective. I'll talk to you later. Yes, that's what I just wanted to say. Speakers are still here. Thank you very much.