 Welcome to Out and About on the Think Tech live streaming network series. I'm your host David Tosaka and delighted you are joining us today where we explore a variety of topics, organizations, events and the people who fuel them in our city, state, country and world. As a disclaimer, any views or opinions expressed by me are strictly my own and not connected with any organization. Joining me in the studio today is Willie Jones. Willie Jones is a world traveler enjoying many cultures and customs in many lands. A Magna Cum Laude graduate of Park College, Parksville, Missouri, Willie holds a bachelor science degree in business and human resources. He is a professional speaker and trainer. In August 1997 Willie reached the pinnacle of success in the world of public speaking. He was named the world champion of public speaking by Toastmasters International. Willie travels all over the United States, Europe and Africa conducting seminars, workshops and motivating audiences with his unique keynote addresses. While not traveling the world speaking, training and consulting with groups large and small, Willie can be found doing volunteer work for local community organizations especially the elderly and special needs children. Willie is a private pilot who enjoys flying airplanes around the Hawaiian islands. He also enjoys building computers and teaching others how to use them. Welcome to the show Willie. Well, thanks for having me David. I'm glad to be here. What is your bliss in life? My bliss? Well my bliss in life is making life better for people and this planet one day at a time. I do it on a constant basis. I do it professionally. I do it in my personal life. I believe that my task is to leave the world a place, leave the world better than I found it. Great. Tell us a little bit about your growing up years. Oh okay. Well, my dad was in the military in the army. I was born in Alabama and so I was a war baby and I grew up all over the world. I lived in 11 foreign countries and I've lived in seven states. So at the age of 16 I graduated from high school and joined the Air Force at the age of 17 one week after my 17th birthday. Spent the next 20 years traveling around the world in the intelligence business. I went to Vietnam for two years and retired as a master sergeant in the United States Air Force and finally once I became the world champion of public speaking I launched a speaking workshop and seminar career that I've been enjoying now for the last 20 years. Okay. All right Willie, tell us about some of the things that you've done recently that gives your life some exciting and motivating energy. Wow, well not just recently but my life is motivating all the time. I tend to be an adventurous person and as I said I enjoy speaking to people, I enjoy doing workshops and seminars but I mostly enjoy trying to understand and to help others understand the whole process of communications. I found that in the world that we live in today we communicate less and less face to face. We communicate on social media, we communicate via device, we communicate via text and so communications is one dimensional. All we know is what we are able to read, we are unable to pick up the emotional part of it, the body language and all of those things that are often times much more important than what it is that we are reading or what it is that we are looking at on a text. So my goal as I continue my own journey is to help people understand that we need to maintain our ability to meet and talk face to face. It's absolutely essential I believe to our survival as human beings, as human beings who are empathetic, human beings who are sympathetic and human beings who are kind and decent because in order to employ those emotions you really have to feel, you really have to see, you really have to touch other human beings. It can't be done sitting behind a computer or staring at your cell phone. That is quite a interesting litany of words. I can see that you have speaking down to a science. I know that you coached me on my journey and I had a speech that you said, don't give that speech, you're going to lose. So I had to change it at last minute and you were right, I won with the new speech. What happens in the world of communications is often times people believe that when you see someone and you say something to them, a communication has occurred and often times you say something to someone but they don't understand what you mean. You think they do and then conflict begins. The whole point about communications is there's a lot of things going on. Let me give you an example. So I walk into a room. Now if you look at me, I'm an African American man, I'm rather large. So someone sees me coming to the room and they already have a bias against African American men, for some reason let's say they have a bias. So immediately their subconscious mind is going to start saying danger, danger, danger even though I'm not dangerous. That is already a judgment that they have made and it's something that I, if I want to communicate with them effectively, I need to overcome that. But I don't even know that they're feeling that way. So I have no reason to believe that they have a bias against me. So I approach them as I normally would. During the whole process, this may take two seconds. And I'm now standing close enough to the person to speak with them. And I would soon notice that they're a little bit uncomfortable. Now if I don't notice they're a little bit uncomfortable, I'm probably not going to get much done. But if I understand communications, I'm going to put the person at ease in some way and hope that we get to a place where we can start to communicate as we both drop their bias. Let me add that I may also have a bias when I see the person that I walk into the room. Let's say the person is seven feet tall. I may have something that I think about seven people, people who are seven feet tall. So we both approach each other already having made judgments about each other and communications is very difficult at that point. The person who understands communications in that diet will be able to fix it quickly and move on to having a productive communication session. That's how communications work on that level. It gets even more complex. However, it is something that we have to do in terms of being relating to each other as human beings. We have to communicate. We have no choice. Tell us about how you came to be a pilot. Oh, you know, when I joined the Air Force, I wanted to go to the Air Force Academy, but for reasons that no one ever told me, they did not allow me to take the test and go to the Air Force Academy. I have my own thoughts about that, but let's let that aside. But I never lost the desire to fly airplanes. And the way I got that desire is as a child, I would sit on the step and I'd watch airplanes flying overhead. And I would wonder, why is that airplane flying? Why isn't it falling down? And I would think about that, but I had no answers. So I would wind to my dad and ask him to take me to the airport so I can watch airplanes. And he'd say no, and I'd say, OK, I'll wash the car if you take me. And so I'd wash his car and he'd take me to the airport. So I had it in my mind as a young boy. So I spent 20 years in the Air Force. And a couple of those years, I was on flying status. So I was a crew member on an airplane. And as I was on that airplane, it just drove my desire even deeper. And I knew everything about that airplane. I truly believe, although this is not true, I'm sure, in real life. But I'd sit on the airplane and I would say, if the pilot gets sick, I can fly this airplane because I know the checklist. I know where all the levers are. I know all of this. And I'm not afraid. Of course, that never happened. I'm glad it didn't. But that was a fantasy that I had. So I retired from the Air Force, got a job in real life, was driving by an airport in Oakland, California one day. And I saw a sign that said, learn to fly here. And I pulled into the parking lot, walked inside and asked the guy, what does it take? And he said, well, it's going to take about $3,000, $4,000. And well, that was way back in the early 90s. So that was a lot of money. I didn't have that kind of money. I said, so what does it take for one lesson? So he told me the price was one lesson. So he took me up. I flew in one lesson, and it was everything that I thought it would be. It was exhilarating. And so I said, OK, I'm going to do this. I went to the bank. I borrowed some money. I started taking flying lessons. And I started in 91. And I didn't get my license until 98 here in Hawaii. I didn't train all the way through, but I'd run out of money. So I'd run out of money, and I had to go back to work and make some more money. And I'd take more flying lessons. However, it culminated right here in Honolulu. In 1998, I jumped in an airplane with an FAA examiner, went up and flew up near Wheeler Air Force Base up the H2. I did some maneuvers for him, landed at Kalailoa Airport three times. And he said, take me back to Honolulu. This was about a 45-minute test that you have to do. I landed in Honolulu not knowing whether I had passed the test. And he got out of the airplane, and he shook my hand and said, congratulations. You've got a pilot's license, so that's how I did it. And I haven't looked back, although I can't fly jets. Well, they won't let me fly them. I can fly them, I'm sure. Not really. I have a friend who's my flight instructor here when I first arrived here. He is now the senior pilot for Hawaiian Airlines. So every time I talk to him, I make him tell me things about flying the Airbus and flying the Boeing 767. So I still have some contact. However, remote, I still have a little bit of contact with flying the big jets like I wished I could. Tell us about your win at the World Championship of Public Speaking. Well, you know, winning the World Championship of Public Speaking, I lost the World Championship of Public Speaking in 1983. I was in the contest in the final nine on the stage, and I didn't win. I didn't place. I didn't show. And I didn't know why I didn't win. I knew why the winner won, but I didn't know what he did either. But he did something. During his speech, he did something on the stage, and the wave of energy came over my head, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. And the audience embraced him in an emotional way because I could feel the energy. At the time, I didn't know it was energy. I didn't know what it was. I just knew something different had happened. And he won the contest, and I said to myself, this was in 83. I said to myself, if I learn what he did to win the contest, I can win this contest. And so for the next 14 years, I set about to learn it. And what did I learn? I learned that in order to be a great speaker, the first thing you have to do is you have to, first, know your audience. Secondly, you have to pick a topic that the audience is probably familiar with, or they're going to enjoy, or they're looking for information on. There are different reasons you talk to people, but it always has to be in a way that they're going to get something out of it. Thirdly, you have to be able to use your voice, your body, gestures, and all of the things other than words in order to manipulate. I say manipulate. It sounds like a harsh word, but you're actually moving the emotions of the audience around and get them to love you. Basically, it's what you're doing. So I learned all of this. And in 1997, I said I'm going to try again. I never tried between 83 and 97 because it wasn't ready. In 97, I said I'm ready. And I started the process. And there is a five level speech contest. You have to win five different levels in order to get to the final stage. And so I won all of those levels. I got to the final stage. And it never even entered my mind that I would not win the contest. Never crossed my mind. That must have been really exciting for you. It was exhilarating. And I think that the key thing, though, is that I talk to people when I coach them about public speaking is you have to put in the work. You can't just declare yourself a great public speaker and don't put in the work. It looks effortlessly when I do it, but it's not because it is effortlessly. It's because I worked on it for years in order to get to a place. It's like watching pro athletes. I watch pro athletes. And I said, wow, that looks easy. You see Tom Brady throw a touchdown pass. And you think it's easy. You don't really think it's easy, but it doesn't look that hard. And you have to think about it for a minute. He is by head and shoulders above all the other professionals that play the same position. And you listen to him talk. And he says the same thing, you have to put in the work. You put in the work, you get good results. So I believe that the whole point about winning anything or being a champion in anything is understanding the basics of it and then perfecting your own unique style. I'm not a facsimile of any other speaker on myself. And I don't want to be less brown. I don't want to be Tony Robbins. I want to be Willie Jones. And I want people to say my name, not say he sounds like someone. Although people tell me I sound like James Earl Jones and I don't mind that. What are some of the things that are coming up for you in your path of really being a speaker? Right now I'm working on a seminar on two things. First, I have been so concerned about ethics over the last almost decade. You don't hear the word ethics used in our daily conversations anymore. You don't hear anyone on TV talking about ethics. And I believe ethics, again, in a civilized society, you need ethical people. You need people who do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, not for any other reason. And I believe that in the corporate culture, I can go into these corporations and I will help the corporation and its workforce understand how critical ethics are. Because most of the time, if you're working for someone, there's no one there watching you. There's no one there holding you accountable until something goes wrong. Well, we don't want anything to go wrong. We want to minimize it. And I believe that a person's word should be their bond. I know you remember that. I remember that. I remember when you could shake someone's hand and you could take it to the bank. I want, and people may say that's old school, but I think it's essential to our society. So I'm working on a seminar in a workshop and talks about ethics. I'm working on things about workplace conflict, conflict in the workplace. I'm working on things that has to do with race relations because when I was in the military for four years, outside of my being in the intelligence business, I talked race relations. I talked about women's issues. I talked the military people about those social issues that are bubbling up again in our society today. And at the time, this was in the late 70s, or the late 60s and 70s, when all of these things were in turmoil in our society. And so the military had a need to have a stable workforce, a stable military force. So the Pentagon put out the orders for everyone to attend these seminars. I happened to volunteer and got chosen to do these seminars and I had to do a lot of research, but I learned a lot. And as I look around today, it seems like many people didn't learn anything because here we are again talking about these issues as if they're brand new and they've been around for a millennia. You've helped a lot of people in your career. What kind of things would you recommend to a person who is thinking of perhaps embarking on speaking as a career, speaking in the workplace, speaking as part of their job? What are some pointers you can give to our viewers? Number one, have something to say. Let me say it again. You have to have something to say. Oftentimes a person is a boss or a person is a supervisor or a person is chosen to stand up and say something and they stand up and they'd really have nothing to say. And so if you're going to be a deliberate person who's going to present yourself as someone who is imparting information, then again, you have to prepare, you have to have something to say. The second thing is you have to believe what you're saying. I'll say that again. You have to believe what you're saying. I'll tell you a story. I was had a publicist and they were telling me that I could become famous and get on the Oprah show if I allowed them to brand me and they wanted me to focus on a certain area in our society and they wanted to label me an expert in that area, write a book with my picture on the cover, have people endorse it and all of those things I could give them a check for a 15,000 and we would be on the road and they said, you'll have the 15,000 back in no time. Well, I thought about it. And the reason I thought about it is because at the time I wanted to get on the Oprah show and I didn't know how to get on the Oprah show and this seemed like a conduit to do that. But as I thought about it, the thing that stopped me that this may sound simple to a lot of people but it'll help you understand me, I was one night I was thinking seriously about it and I asked myself this question, what would my mother say? If she saw me on television talking about something that did not represent me or the values that she taught me or if she saw a book with my picture on it and I didn't write the book and I could not find a reason how I could possibly explain that to my own mother. And I said, nope, can't do it. So I didn't do it. So I would say to someone believe, to have something to say, believe in what it is you're going to say and finally have confidence. I think that more than anything else if you can instill confidence in a person or if they can find confidence in some way. And you know, confidence, we all begin with confidence. If you look at a two-year-old, a two-year-old is the most confident little thing in the world. You know, they're fearless, they'll do anything. You take your eyes off them for two seconds, they're gone. So the confidence is there by DNA. So where do we lose it? We lose it by people around us telling us we're not good enough and pushing us down. So these things that shape us as we grow up, we lose our confidence in our own self-worth and we become smaller in our own shell. Well, if you're going to be on the world stage or on the stage talking to other people, you got to walk tall in your shoes. So you have to be willing to stand out there and take the risk that you have something to say and it's worth whatever it is feedback you're going to get. So if you're going to be a speaker, find a coach, someone who's going to challenge you, not someone who's going to cheerlead, someone who knows what they're talking about when they tell you about the technical aspects. When they say to you, don't go to the left because you should go to the right, have them give you a reason for it. I was talking to someone the other day who was a student of mine. They said, why do you always insist that I tell you why I'm moving a certain way? And I said, well, if you are a speaker and you're on a stage, everything you do should be, have a reason. You shouldn't wander around the stage. If you're going to go to the left, why are you going there? And so I said, it's all choreographed and once you choreograph it and you practice it and you get it down pat, it won't look choreographed at all. It'll look like natural movement and it will be natural movement because you've incorporated it into your whole persona that day. So it's confidence, it's knowing what you're talking about and having something to say are there three things that I would start with. There are other things, but those are the three biggies. What do you do for fun, are they? Oh, fly airplanes. And I live on an island here in Hawaii. And trust me, I love this island. I'm never going to leave. So I'm adventurous. So how do I get adventure on an island? Well, there's hardly a road on this island that I haven't driven on. And I will, and when I find a road, the other day I was at Wheeler Air Force Base and I had to go out on the base to look for something. And there's a lot of roads on Wheeler that I've never driven down. I spent half a day driving down roads that I had never driven down just to see. I drive around the island. One day I had a visitor here from the mainland and I was doing the island tour like we all do. We got to a place and she wanted me to stop. I didn't know what was there because I'd never stopped there before. It was a place that sells orchids on the other side of the island. And so I don't know anything about orchids, but she did, obviously, so we stopped. So she and the person at the orchid nursery, a farm, whatever it's called, started talking and it was like two old friends started talking and they were talking orchid talk. And I'm listening to what they're saying, not understanding pretty much anything, but they spent two hours talking about orchids. And so when it was over, I said to her, I never knew, I knew this place was here. I didn't know orchids had a life like this. I didn't know orchids had a world wide following. I didn't know orchids could be expensive like. So she said, yeah, there's a whole world out there about orchids. I went home with my adventurous mind and started reading about orchids. I never bought myself an orchid because I've killed cactus plants, so there's no way I'm gonna buy an orchid. But I learned, so I'm a person who's curious. I've been curious all my life. So if I see something I don't know anything about and I see that often, I'm the one that's going to spend time figuring it out and figuring it out to my satisfaction to where I can say, okay, I know a little bit about that, I can move on. You're such a pro at speaking. I didn't have to speak at all in this program with a gun forward. Oh, I thought we were just starting. Ah! Ah! How about giving us a couple thoughts that we can take away from your life? Well, I think that we are, we're in a curious time in our country. I lament the fact that we're not building the 21st century in the United States, that we don't have, in China they have trains that are running 400 miles an hour right now. They're using new materials, building buildings. All of this new technology that's coming out of the world, China has the money to buy it, so people are investing in this stuff in China. That bothers me. It bothers me because we ruled the 20th century. You know, America was king of the mountain and although we keep seeing that in the 21st century, we're not, you know, it's not true. And so I want us to climb that mountain again. And so when I go out and believe me, just as I'm saying this to you with the amount of passion, I say this to people and I want us to, I want us to be, I want us to be this great country we keep fantasizing about. We have to know how. We have the ability. All we have to do is say, just like Kennedy said, we're gonna do this. And then let's do it. You know, let's quit all of this squabbling, you know, and let's get on this train in the 21st century. Can you imagine a train leaving Los Angeles and traveling across the country to New York and almost nothing flat? Why isn't that going on? You know, and I keep, every time I ask the question, of course people look at me like I'm strange, but I'm used to that. And what I say to people is, you know what? When Kennedy said we were gonna go to the moon, they laughed at him and guess what happened? Well, we're here today with Willie Jones, my good friend, mentor, super nice guy and everything. I truly appreciate you coming out and sharing your ideas about everything. I appreciate you having me. We're at the time and we're out of time and we'll have to wrap it up. I'm David Tosaka. This is Out and About on the Think Tech Live Streaming Series. We've been talking to Willie Jones, business owner and professional public speaker. Thanks for tuning in and we welcome your feedback. Thanks to our broadcast engineer Ian Davidson, our technical producer, Ray Sagalang, our floor manager, Robert McLean, and to Jay Fidel, our executive producer who puts it all together. I'll see you here every fourth Monday at 3 p.m. for more of Out and About on the Think Tech. Aloha everyone.