Localization Academy

On Public Speaking For Introverts, and Learning Agility – Dave Ruane From XTM International

•      Was this content helpful?

Was this content helpful?

In part 2 of our interview with Dave Ruane from XTM International, we discussed about public speaking for introverts and the importance of learning agility.

We also got a bit more personal and talked about getting outside of your comfort zone, content creation and the difference between management and leadership.


Andrej Zito 

So that’s about it about innovation in general and about PIC. So I want to go to the final round of questions, which are more personal. For you. I’m wondering, since you are living in this world of let’s say innovation, what are you personally curious about right now?

Dave Ruane 

One area, which like kind of is somehow related to the PIC is in the whole area of personal development, you know, and growth, you know, and mentorship and coaching, whatever words you want to apply to this, but where people are finding ways to develop their skills, to be able to do stuff that may have been outside of their comfort zone. And whatever that may be, invariably could be stuff like, you know, the pet one of mine, that I speak to people about public speaking, you know, we’re, there’s just a fear that has built up, that that isn’t for me, you know, I can’t do that I have great ideas, I know that I can talk with a small audience, but I cannot go out there and speak publicly, you know, it just doesn’t. It’s not something I can do. So I think things like that are very interesting for me to understand, you know, how people if they want to, and that’s the first kind of requisite breakthrough, and that those kinds of barriers if you like, because invariably, when you do, and you look back, you’re kind of, you know, you’re just gonna say, what was I thinking? You know, that was, that was straightforward enough, you know, there, there’s no problems. You know, a lot of this is drama that we build up. And in creative kind of reasons that our can’t do it for whatever, you know, umpteen reasons that come into the handbook. So that’s a real area of interest for me. And I think, when you can free up those things, and enable people to push through and do the thing they fear the most, if you like, and then make it happen, then it really enabled lots of other stuff and enables growth and joy, and, you know, all of those things, and it’s easy for me to speak about it and people to hear of hurdle before but it is an area which I just think is fantastically interesting. And for you know, there’s lots of resources out there for anyone who’s interested in

Andrej Zito 

what have you discovered in that area? Like if I came to you and I say, Dave, I feel like I want to be talking to a bigger audience because I have a lot to share, but I’m afraid what would you tell me

Dave Ruane 

Well, you You know, we’ve all heard some of these kinds of, you know, structures like the five why’s, right for trying to understand what the root cause of something is. And, you know, that that’s what I would probably start with, as I said, Well, you know why you have that blockage? Like, is there something you can pinpoint to. And sometimes, that doesn’t get you much in that the person may decide I’m just not gonna let you in on that, because that’s an emotional thing that I’m just not going into. And, but if you can understand the root cause, in particular for the person, then they can actually start to visualize where they can go to their work on that, you know, or what steps they can take, when you understand the problem. And, and really understand it and know what’s the right problem, then your solution can maybe solve that. But invariably, it is easier to jump to solutions. And think that, oh, that’s going to solve my problem. You know, if I move from this town to some other country, that’s going to solve my problem. And in cases, that’s not actually the problem. That’s just a solution that seems good. That may be solving a symptom, but the root causes elsewhere. And so if you can get to the root cause, then you have a fair chance of being able to move through. And then Aside from that, it’s the transient for doing the experiential, doing rough trends here, where you actually have to try stuff. And bit by bit, you know, if you have a fear factor or comfort zone that you’re attached to, then you don’t want to jump too far outside of it, because you’re just going to go straight back, then maybe even deeper. So what you want to do is take a step outside and step outside and continue that process. And for some people, they’re bigger steps and others there. We run an event A couple of years ago, where we had a group of people that we basically got into a workshop, and we wanted to basically help them work through comfort zones, and fear factors. And it was very interesting, firstly, to see that our advertising of this session, this workshop, attracted the people were hoping that we would, we would see, in fact, the person I ran this with is Milan Harmon from the blue deco group, based in Holland, and Milan, and I, we developed out this workshop to really help people break through comfort zone issues. The head fake, of course, was we were going to give an opportunity to people to do some public speaking in this case. So we gave them an S. Lawler was involved in this as well. But we gave them tables that they could work on, come up with ideas. And then one of them had to communicate the solutions, those ideas to some localization problems that they brought up as a group they brainstormed. And so that one person spoke about the ideas gave a summary of what they had figured out. And then what we said at the end of it was this is a gala, which is quite a big conference in the industry. We said, Okay, well, each of the spokes people who spoke for the group, well, you now have an opportunity to speak in front of all of the gala audience tomorrow at the morning plenary session. And of course, the room went silent. And people knew apart from you know, size and hours and deep breaths been taken. And it was quite amazing. So we’ve done a bit of setup to, you know, build a session, people liked the session, and then we gave that opportunity and it’s really, it got people thinking, can I take that step? I’ve taken a couple of steps at the session. Am I able to take the next step? We gave me the opportunity. So what happened we had six people who went on stage in front of three 400 attendees a gala. And you know, it was a proper stage it was up was a podium was people sitting down looking at you as people you know, people you didn’t know You know, all these things start to go through your head? And you’re right. And and then you can look around and say, oh, there’s the senior person. What do they think about me? All right. Imagine that situation. So what we basically did was we got them in platform, we introduced them, we gave them a minute on stage, because our feeling was that, you know, what a minute, some what you can do wrong with a minute. And if you’re quiet for a minute, sure, that’s grounds, isn’t it. So all of them had prepared that some of them had sleepless nights the night before, but all of them did a fantastic job. They took their stage took their opportunity. And I just think that is the kind of stuff that can happen, you know, you can create environments like that, simply, with a little bit of thinking. You know, it’s just back to your original question helps people understand how they can correct true. And more than that, if you can do with something like that, you’ll be able to apply that thinking to bigger problems in life.

Andrej Zito 

So what is outside of your comfort zone? that you’re working on right now? Taking step by step slowly?

Dave Ruane 

Yeah. It’s a good question. I think it’s a continual, you know, one of the things that I really like, another thing I like is this idea of competency, right? And competency, meaning that you know, a certain amount about a subject. And we don’t like to think we know a lot about stuff that we do sports or activities, or whatever. But there’s a nice bit of research done by David Dunning, who says that, in order to be competent, to be really competent to know, who’s the top expert in an area, then you need to have a particular level of competence in that subject matter, right? So, you know, imagine we’re talking about soccer. And you say, other players, fantastically good. And then I say, I know he’s not, he’s not good. He’s okay. Maybe I have more confidence in soccer, probably doubtful. But, and I’m able to say that, because I understand what a really, really good player looks like. And, you know, you can bring that up into any subject matter, you know, that somebody who really knows code can tell a really good coder from not a really good coder. But someone who doesn’t know code would not necessarily be able to do that. And so that whole idea of competency, of course, the, the opposite of that is also true, right? That if someone really hasn’t a clue about something, they may lack the competence to know, they have no clue about that subject matter, which is kind of ironically, funny, but also part of the so what’s my point? Well, there’s plenty of things that I like to think I know a bit about it. But I have learned that I probably don’t, and I just have to keep going on that journey. And whether it’s public speaking, or developing content, or whatever it is. So I’ve kind of learned to realize that and I think that’s the best thing you can do somebody’s just gonna laugh at your ability or lack thereof, and something and assume that you’ve still got a way to go and just keep going.

Andrej Zito  

Is there one area that you focus on?

Dave Ruane 

Learning agility? Yeah. So by that, I mean, the ability to continually learn. And I think a lot of it’s easy to take for granted, I certainly did. But the just having enough, really smart concepts run by you regularly, whether it’s reading Forbes magazine, or your favorite taught later, or whatever it happens to be, and doing that regularly enough and absorbing yourself in really Smart Insights regularly and different perspectives, like the things I do from time to my right panels. And I always like to have a balanced panel of experts, you know, because with a balanced panel, generally, you can cover all of the bases, all of the things that the audience is interested in, because, frankly, a panel is about two things. It’s giving the audience fantastic insights on subject matter and given the panelists The ability to shine. And that’s it, you connect the audience with the panel. And so it’s very important to have a certain amount of balance in those things. And I think having that balance in the type of information you absorb is important as well, because he gets different perspectives. And with different perspectives, too, you can have a more balanced view of a particular situation. But yeah, it’s learning agility. And if you do, well, you know, everyone can figure that out, whether whether it’s through YouTube videos, whatever your preferred media is, or reading books. And personally, I mix it up, but I do a fair reading on business development books. And the I tend to read in that area quite a lot books and innovation books on leadership. And you know, you, you’ll find lots of stuff that you just say, That’s not me, or don’t agree with that, or, no, I don’t see the purpose of that. But you’ll find plenty of things, and you can apply and use

Andrej Zito 

something that people seem to misunderstand about you.

Dave Ruane 

I’m an introvert.

Andrej Zito 

So that’s what they think. And that’s the misunderstanding or

Dave Ruane 

the misunderstanding. No, they don’t? Well, generally, they don’t. But yeah, it’s something which, if I could go and hide in a in a corner somewhere, I probably do. Invariably, try and bring your fly fishing rod with me. And find some is often a river or a lake or seaside. But yeah, it’s it’s one that trips people up, sometimes. But yeah.

Andrej Zito 

So how did you then as an introvert break into these, like, moderate panels do public speaking.

Dave Ruane 

And because of, I felt I had a message, and I had a voice that I wanted to share. And that was stronger than the fear to not do it. And what I didn’t have, like, when I was starting off my career, this whole idea of mentorship, coaching was very ad hoc, or just didn’t exist, you know. So you could get lucky with maybe a manager or somebody in an organization who gave you some guidance, or teachers if you’re an education. But apart from that, you kind of had to learn through trying and failing or trying and succeeding and failing, or, you know, whatever it is. But yet, there was a thing that said push true was true, was true. And, eventually, opportunity arrived, where I couldn’t let it go. And I have to do the best job I could do. So preparation, like what when you’re trying to do something like that, you’ll over prepare, because the fear of failure will get you to over prepare. And then if you prepared for like a nine out of 10. Maybe you get to an age, but that’s good enough. You know, and that’s how I look at it, that you’re over preparing these things, practices. And then, you know, you’ll do just fine. One big thing I learned was this primacy principle. And, you know, if you’re standing on a stage, if you’re about to speak to a room, if you’re engaged in a conversation with someone as a reception, just primacy principle is just an innate rule that we all apply. It’s the first 30 seconds first trade, let’s have a presentation, that is this presentation is this presenter, going to be worth my attention for the period of time, whatever it is. And normally, what they say is, you’ve three minutes to build relevance of a presentation. And that’s it. So your first three minutes, your most important after that if you manage to build relevance to the vast majority of the audience that buys you 20 minutes of attention. So this whole idea of, you know, starting well, and everyone’s saying that, well, I invest it in ensuring that the first thing that I’m about to present, or panel, the first thing that we say, is catching, it’s interesting, it’s relevant. And invariably, it’s easy to kind of go and say, Well, I’d like to present my panel today, A, B, and C and, you know, senior experts and laugh from this company. You’ve just lost 30 seconds. You haven’t told the audience anything relevant to the topic at hand. And for me, it’s kind of a bit of a pet boat that when that When you look at presentation, normally we’re all sitting down and we’re, we’re anxious for the presenter to do well, we want the presenter to do well. So if presenter then doesn’t give us something not, you know, half decent in the first two sentences, or if the preparation wasn’t as good, and they’re kind of fumbling with notes. And let’s face it, you know, nerves will do crazy things. But, you know, it may just seem you’re unprepared when you may have spent days and hours and weeks preparing. But, you know, something gets to you. And it just seems that way you drop some notes. And sorry, just a second, the whole thing kind of starts to unfold a little bit, just because of that first, minute, and treatment. So that sort of I would say to anyone who’s interested in this stuff, work on left, when I’m preparing for these things, I’ll make sure that the first minute is, is very clear, the ideas are clear. They’re plain, simply, they’re explained slowly, with pauses. And then once you catch past that point, you can then start to build up more of a rhythm. But yeah, focus on the first one to three minutes.

Andrej Zito 

So that gets me thinking, what do you think should be the first few minutes of a podcast or our interview? Because you know, like, just FYI, in that tree, if you listened to any of the past episodes that I did, but so we record this part, but then I also separately include, like an introduction to the interview where I see, I try to try to focus on the value for the people. So I say like, hey, in this episode, I talked to Dave Rubin. And this is what you can learn in this episode, I try to put up the values upfront. And then I cut into the interview, like when we say like, hey, Dave, how are you? What would you change?

Dave Ruane 

Well, I can give you suggestions. I mean, whether you think they’re a value or not, is up to up to you Andrej, but what I would what I tend to see now, look, we’ve got an attorney of choice, when it comes to prayer, we get our content, right? We absolutely are lambasted by the amount of content we’re getting. And that’s just going to continue, there’s nothing to say that’s going to turn off. So what becomes more important is how content resonates? And how, you know, easy it is to absorb, and how relevant is it. So the values of the content certainly get a lot more focused. So anything you can do to increase the value of content early on, is right, because that will attract people in you know that there’s, there’s a reason why Hollywood put certain stuff into teaser trailers for films, because they are trying to attract people to go to the box office. And so they’re not going to put, you know, the boring sequences between two characters where they’re in a car, something like that there’s going to be action sequences, there’s going to be storage location on the plot with some, that might not be exactly where it’s going, you know, so they’re trying to build intrigue, and tease people in and I think that’s part of the answer to your question, then, if you are able to provide a teaser to the content, and tell people exactly what they’re going to hear about at the first two sentences. Suddenly, people go, Oh, that sounds pretty cool. You know, yeah, I want a bit more of that. And Apple, very smart, and other companies. But certainly Apple were one of the leading companies with this approach where they follow that kind of rainmeter, I’m going to tell you what I’m going to tell you, then they tell you, and then they tell you what they told you, right. So it’s that kind of structure of there’s a reflection repetition in the information, but it’s done slightly differently. So you don’t feel like repeated information. And that’s kind of the idea. So I’ve started to put kind of some of the key takeaway points early on into some of the stuff that we create. Because, you know, let’s face it, you’re helping the reader or the attendee, depending on the mode to take the information that’s of interest to them, and then say, Oh, yeah, that’s kind of cool. That’s a nice insight. Maybe there’s more of those I’m going to read on and that’s kind of, I think there’s a kind of a false understanding that if you give us to forget the star people won’t read on No, no, the contrary is true. You’ve given them the little nuggets of interest in information and insights. And they’ll say, oh, if that’s what’s here, I’m in. I want to listen to the rest of their podcast. I don’t know if that helps you.

Andrej Zito 

No, no, no, it does see this? Yeah. I think like, I’m trying to do it. Maybe I didn’t do it within the first two sentences. I still feel like I have to say like, Hello, Andre.

Dave Ruane 

But do you? You know, but do you and I’ve done it. And this is experiment. I’ve experimented with this. And I’ve done panels where I haven’t introduced the panelists. And I’ve talked on topic as if you’re joining, you know, you go into a room and people are talking, and you’re kind of, you don’t interrupt, and you’re kind of listening. And you catch up on the conversation, and then you get involved bit by bit, right. But you don’t want to break up and go, Oh, Hi, I’m Dave, you know that. And then suddenly, their conversation stops. So similarly, if you can create that situation in podcast, or, you know, content like that. People will say, Oh, this Hold on, I’ve got a Listen, I’ve got to get there in the middle of the conversation. All right. And so you get on topic quickly. And then, you know, paragraph two or three, you can go, oh, by the way, I’m talking here to Bob Roberts, and john and Mary, this quick introduction, then back on topic. Amazing with Epic, you know, that’s the, that creates energy in the dynamic field that you may want, or may not. But what I found during the process innovation challenges, we went on namic and fast, and it worked. And people, you know, people sit in there for an hour, and will say, I don’t like this innovation that much. It’s not me. But I know there’s five others that maybe I’m gonna like. And that’s what happens that people spend the seven minutes listen to one and say, yeah, next one, give me more. So there’s always that kind of them. You know, many years ago, the Flash Gordon, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the black and white Flash Gordon episodes from the 50s. But at the end of each episode, there will always be, you know, the, the scene where Flash Gordon, the hero was almost killed, and the audience thought he was killed. And then the episode is over, of course, and then the next time around. At the start of the episode, he wasn’t actually killed. He’s okay. It was the creating the tension. If you like that, there’s something has happened. And it just keeps your interest. At the process innovations, we have that kind of tension, fear tension, because they will they want to see the next one. Or maybe the next one will be brilliant. You know, let’s, let’s stay for the next one. So I think if you can create those little snackable chunks of structure and say, Oh, that was Okay, enough, too bad. Let’s see next. Oh, that was great. Oh, that’s it. So if you construct or things like that, to be snackable create teasers. I mean, that’s, that’s good content.

Andrej Zito 

My notorious question, what do you think is wrong with our industry?

Dave Ruane 

You know, I think any industry is, is, is a work in progress, evolving in different directions. What I’ve seen in this industry is solutions are challenges that have been solved 20 years ago, that take a new form now, like, I worked in software localization. And we automate a lot of stuff back then. Now that automation, is happening with other formats nowadays, and it’s almost just following through the same process. So you go back to the same thing, again, to certain degree Anyway, you do have to continually move on. And now there’s technology stacks, that are enabling lots to do to be done lots of automation to be done, the integration of AI technologies, and all of that, I think there’s a sicker cyclical thing to our, our industry, in any industry, I think our industry, there’s been maybe a lack of standardization around process and technology. And, you know, there have been bodies that have done great work in that, but not, I think, penetrating deep enough across all of the industry. And so you have some leading companies on the service side who have built up great technologies, great processes, but then there’s a siloed approach to how to do business right. So They will do business for their customers, and continually increase the value of their IP and their technology stacks. So that kind of sharing between technologies and having independent technologies and integration within technologies wasn’t really in the industry. Now it turns to be forced into the industry, because buyers are asking for that. So the ability to integrate wasn’t necessarily there, because this is a siloed approach, you know, we’ll do our stuff. Thanks very much. We don’t need to know about anyone else, we’ll just stick down this channel. Now, the whole integration mindset is required. Because that’s what the end buyers are looking for, is that the best of breed solutions to be able to integrate them into each other. So I think that’s something which is evolving. Guess what’s wrong with the industry, I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong, I think that’s just a legacy approach that has been manifested in the industry. And now, what customers are looking for is dictating, there’s a bit more what’s being built. So customers want access to great solutions, lower cost, incredibly fast time to market, which is just getting faster. And so that that’s dictating the solutions that need to be put in place. And that needs to integrate two together,

Andrej Zito 

Dave what are the things you change your mind about, like something fundamental, let’s say young they versus the if today, you have a different perspective or approach to some things, and then you change it,

Dave Ruane 

I think lead rather than manager is a big one. Whether you tried to manage your body of management, if you want to bring a team along, you need to lead, find a way to live, you know, find your way too late, but fundamentally, then by example, is going to get you kudos is going to get new traction is going to get people to follow the lead, and, you know, you’ll be able to build build teams around that. You know, so that whole area of leadership, you know, there’s umpteen models of leadership, anyone could follow, whether you’re a fan of Steve covi, or you’re more into g approach, which our culture any of those folks who’ve written about leadership, or you look at servant leadership as an area to go, which is really been the servants as leader, you know, serving the team that you’re working with. And so not being seen as a manager, but actually enabling them to get stuff done. And, you know, I think that’s very much important lesson that I learned, at least partially, and one that I think is an important tickler, as a lot of the manual tasks that we have done and do in the industry, get some level of automation, then we’ll How do you differentiate and add value? And I think being able to lead, being able to communicate effectively, are key things and we’ll just continue to be very important things in this industry.

Andrej Zito 

Can you pinpoint the one thing that has been behind the mind shift? For this, like changing from managing to leaving, like that you read some book, or some somebody talk to you? Or was it more like an evolutionary process, like step by step?

Dave Ruane 

I think there was a certain aspects of all of those things. I think, learn the true mistakes on one side, on the other, it’s reading the right kind of material to give that resonates with you and says, Ah, that’s, I get that. I can see how that could work. I’m going to give it a go. And, you know, being willing to move out of the comfort zone of thinking one way and wondering, oh, why did things that work patients ask me Well, well, what’s the root cause of that? You know, what, what? potentially could that be? And and then, understanding all of those things having under Look, there’s plenty of approaches that people can learn from. And I think having a level of mindfulness will really help us, you know, so, whatever gets you your mindfulness, whether it’s flyfishing are doing Tai Chi Archie guns or whatever it happens to be. And that will just facilitate the process as well. And I guess open up a little bit the the learning channels for understanding about leadership if that’s if that’s the area that you want to focus.

Andrej Zito 

Still not sure if I’m clear on the distinction between managing and leading, one of one of the key key distinctions that are remember is that managers manage differences among the people that they’re managing and leaders, they’re focused on the similarities. Like, let’s say, you’re a leader with one vision, and you want people who have the same vision. But as a manager, you deal with, let’s say, different personalities, and you want to get the best out of them. But it’s your definition of leader versus manager, or leading versus managing people.

Dave Ruane 

Yeah, I wouldn’t disagree with what you said, I think leadership is about alignment. And, you know, it’s about other stuff as well. But alignment is is a core part of it. And we mentioned top down bottoms up earlier, but if you have a very clear strategy as a leader, and you align that within the organization, and then live that every day, and be consistent, then you will have people who follow the lead and take leadership themselves. I think the management is, I think different, it’s more task oriented, in my view, now without being anywhere near knowledgeable on these things apart from my own experience, but it’s about managing tasks, managing effort, it’s a Resource Based activity. And it’s, you know, if you look at cultures a little bit, I live in Spain, and the, the a typical manager of a company, the CEO of a company here has a very hierarchical approach to management, they make all of the decisions, still, in the vast majority of these companies, all of the decisions will have been there, and there will be little or no ownership allocated out to subordinates. So, you could it’s quite a strict hierarchy, a managed organization, does it build leaders? No, it builds people to follow and the bulk of the the general manager CEO, and so people who follow what the person is looking for, will grow in the organization. And folks that don’t well may not or may just stay where they are right. And so that’s how I would kind of define it a bit as well, that you, you can have one extreme over there. Another extreme is where there’s no leadership in an organization. Well, is their strategy pinpointed enough that everybody is rowing in the right direction, not just in the same direction, which there may be, but is it the right direction? Is the question. So I think somewhere in the middle is probably an easy answer for me to give. But you need to have a good strategy, align the teams to that. And then draw measure things, support the team in achieving them. That’s my view. And many organizations get fairly close to the but there are physicians who just don’t and and for different reasons.

Andrej Zito 

Can you share with us some of the absurd or stupid things that you do?

Dave Ruane 

Put, I double check things. I think just out of whether it’s entering numbers, or checking of the door, or stuff like that, I might just check it again. It’s not that absurd, I guess, if that is not

Andrej Zito 

Yeah. It’s like, like, what would constitute an officer thing is like, I don’t know, like you share something when like, most of the people in this world would look at you and be like, what do that you know? I think like double checking things like it’s, to me, at least to me, it’s normal. Maybe we’re both doing these absurd things. And that’s why it sounds normal to us.

Dave Ruane 

Yeah, I can’t, I can’t really I’m sure other people who know me will tell you straightaway. And to me, it’s all pretty The normal and I think that’s a good kind of way of looking at things, your own perspective point of view. And it’s important to get very insulted because, you know, invariably, as much as you might think you’re right, and without that kind of perspective of, you know, wearing someone else’s shoes as Harper Lee another constraint, their famous book, one said, to walk a mile in man’s shoes to really understand, right, the person and what they’ve been through. And I think that’s key and critical to, to do. So I don’t know, what other people think that I do is, probably before I speak, people can’t find me, if I’m presenting. I’ve had situations, not normally I’m quite good on time. But I’ve had situations where papers that were saying, We’ve, you know, five minutes before the, you know, the presentation, whatever it happens to be. And invariably, I’ve gone off to quiet corner in the facility, and I’ve just kind of just reflecting on the first couple of minutes. And, and not really visualizing, but just kind of thinking, you know, getting calm and relaxing and yeah, dealing with any nerves and stuff like that, of course, of nerves. And, but it’s kind of where he goes. He was here a minute ago.

Andrej Zito 

And it was your introvert time, right?

Dave Ruane 

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it’s that time, it’s the common time, it’s the understanding of, you know, what this is, it’s the process. And then, so when I’ve met people in that time, and I’ve had people say to me said, I couldn’t touch you, you were, you were somewhere else you were in, you know, your client, you were completely, you know, you reserved, I thought something happened. And I try to plan so No, I’m just, I’m in this prep place, and I need to be there. And it’s better if I just go up and do that. And then once that’s done, and then come on stage, and then it’s ready to go, let’s rock, bring the energy, bring the bring everything else, you know, it’s whatever works for people. I suggest, like I remember, a friend of mine a number of years ago, and did have that challenge of speaking in public and I was doing a session with him at an event. And you know, we’re tapping away. And before the event was happening, it was a kind of a room of 40 people sitting around a large round table setup. And it was like kind of a round table session. And, you know, I just caught him grabbing a coffee cup it was before so you got everything ready to go looking forward to it. And he was just a bundle of nerves. You know, it’s all good. Man, it’s good. It’s all good. It’s good work on the ground. You don’t see me join together as though. And then I just said, Ah, I didn’t expect that. To help. I knew he was a bit nervy. And anyway, we got up on stage at the front of the area. And we’re about to start. And I just, I feel a whisper in his ear. And I say they’re all naked. And he burst out laughing. Because and he couldn’t hold themselves back. So people were looking. And so then I immediately start, he’s laughing, his whole demeanor has changed. He didn’t even because he had to focus on something else. You can focus on the nerves or anything else. Right. So changing your focus point is brilliant. But, you know, that worked for him. It might work for everybody. But yeah, it’s one way to do.

Andrej Zito 

I heard a tip already. Yeah, that like imagine your audience is naked. I don’t know how it helps.

Dave Ruane 

I think it’s changing your focus perspective, isn’t it? It’s, it’s just getting you to think on something else for a second. And it you know, I dare you, if you do think that your audience is naked, for you to hold a straight face, you know, immediately you’re going to be so it’s maybe that’s the most you know, just getting you to, as, you know, people in that area and coaches and psychologists will say you know, visualize something else and move into that space, but whatever works for you let us know, you have to try things, I think and then see what fits well.

Andrej Zito 

Right Dave final words from you. If you could speak to the minds of everyone in the industry, what would be your message to them.

Dave Ruane 

Yeah, I think the whole technology I suppose the flux of technology, that change of technology is a continuing thing within our industry, right, and it’s going to continue AI is going to play a bigger part. Now, neural machine translation has reached a sort of a technology saturation point. So there’s other technologies, Ai, some of which we’re working on our company, others are working on as well. So you’re gonna have a continuance of technology, development and growth. So it’s really understanding that that is your playing field, then well, what can I do to enhance to do stuff? To bring my game into that new world? What? What tweaks Do I need in my room? How will an eye roll adapt? And then what skills do I need to take? And I think most people have seen that sometimes it just takes a bit of time, you know, to see, oh, this is really happening, you know, so you kind of go through the five steps of recovery from something. to, to know that, yeah, I need to take action. This is what I’m going to do. Here’s my plan. Here’s how I’m going to make my business work in this new reality. And I think every business owner, every person who’s involved in the industry, whether it’s freelance, wherever you are, should be cognizant of that, you know, there’s change, coming. You know, if you look at any of these grace, sort of product development approaches, when you look at disruption and things like that, you look at books written by Geoffrey Moore, are Christians and when they talk about innovation and disruption, and, and the various technology adoption, life cycles, you know, this stuff just continually is going to go through chain. So try and get yourself in the innovators group, as much as you can, you know, be part of that early group, because disruption and change is just inevitable and the speed of it, I think, will pick up so i think it’s it’s more no fair on this. It’s more to reality, kind of get to figure out how you can get on with it. And make it work for you.

Andrej Zito 

All right. Thank you, Dave. This was a nice interview.

Dave Ruane 

Thanks so much, Andrej. It’s been a pleasure.

Andrej Zito 

See you next time. Bye Bye.

Dave Ruane 

Take care.

We’re always creating new localization content

Make sure you don’t miss anything. Join 3722 other professionals on our mailing list and be the first to get our upcoming newsletter. 

If you enjoyed that, you’ll love these…

Why hello there!

Enjoy 10% off

on your first course when you join our mailing list.

* All information collected will be used in accordance with our privacy policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.