0045: How A Physicist’s Methods Can Make You A Better Performer

Raw transcript:

one of my favorite historical figures
was also one of the most famous
physicists in the world ever
and his name was richard feynman
and he had a way of teaching
that i want to share with you today
because the dirty little secret about it
is was it was the best way he would
learn about things as well it’s called
the feynman technique
and we’ll talk about that and how to use
it in your career as a performer here in
this episode of the vo heroes podcast
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i know richard feynman’s name is spelled
f-e-y-n-m-a-n and so you might think
it’s pronounced feinman but it’s
actually pronounced
feynman there are many many
examples in history of him pronouncing
his name and so we know that to be the
case so once and for all that’s how to
pronounce richard feynman
he was without a doubt one of the most
famous physicists
in the world
and
he was also one of the best teachers in
the world
i have a friend who actually attended
some of his lectures at caltech
and he had nothing but amazing things to
say about him he was also somewhat of a
jerk
but i think
most people would look at how he led his
life
as a very logical outgrowth of the way
he looked at the world
and one of the ways he looked at the
world was how to learn things he was
constantly soaking things up and in our
business in the world of performance
there’s always something new to learn
we always have a new technology or a new
approach or better skills or a different
strategy or a new website or a new piece
of tech or a new
piece of gear or a new approach to a
character or a new approach to
auditioning thank you michael kostrov
so he had a simple four-step approach
for teaching oh and by the way learning
about everything that he found out about
in life
he was lucky because
he was
a college professor
so he had plenty of opportunities to
teach
but he looked at those opportunities as
ways of strengthening his learning so
let me let me share this with you first
of all when you take on a new topic
these four things will be very useful
the first one is to write down
everything you can either you know with
technology in a text or
uh you know with a document or whatever
but even on you know index cards you
know you want to write them down write
down everything you possibly can about
the topic that you know
and that you gather
so you’re taking on a new way of using a
microphone or a new microphone and
you’re learning stuff about it
immediately go to step number two once
you’ve written this stuff down and teach
it to somebody
teach it to somebody
say things out loud
about the
product or service or concept or
idea or process or strategy or tactic
tell someone else
i am really fortunate because i get to
teach all the time
and so when i find something out i want
to share with people almost immediately
because what that does
is it not only burnishes it for you
because you’re saying it out loud and
you’re hearing it there’s nothing quite
like hearing something out loud as
opposed to just the thoughts rolling
around in your brain
but it takes us to number three which is
as you teach
this whoever you’re teaching it to
likely will have questions
and so you get to learn things about
what it is that other people are
concerned about or
what prompt them about this object or
subject or process or whatever
how to do that better
things that maybe
were obvious to you but might not be
obvious to them so as you teach them
that third step of accepting questions
knowing that you can either answer those
questions if you have
the information or say gosh i don’t know
that’s a great question let me go find
out
that’s the best part because that
deepens your knowledge when you do go
and find out about things
and the fourth step
is
something that people kind of think as
uh of as an afterthought but it’s really
really important
and that is to simplify what you’re
doing not complicate what you’re doing
simplify the use of the microphone
simplify the process of creating a
character
so that you can make it easier to teach
those people and there will be either
fewer questions or different questions
but those four steps write down
everything you know then teach it to
somebody else
take their questions and answer them or
use them as research to go find out and
then simplify
what you
say when you talk about that microphone
do you have to get into the fact that
it’s a 45 degree angle on the back axis
hypercardioid pattern
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probably not you could simplify that and
say it picks up the sound that’s in
front of the microphone and rejects the
sound that’s behind the microphone
because of the way it picks up sound
that’s the pattern right
i just find it fascinating and it’s what
i try to use every time i teach a new
concept about voiceover or a new concept
about business marketing or a new
concept about anything that i teach to
people i try to get into teaching
something about it as soon as possible
it’s
it’s kind of the dirty little secret
about
why i do these podcasts
because it’s helping me
understand it’s helping me
learn
now my question for you is
is this something that you’re familiar
with is this something that might be
useful for you
is this something that you may have used
in the past but not really put it all
together in this particular way
is there something about this that was
an aha moment for you
ask me questions about the feignman
technique the feynman technique right
i’d love to know what your thoughts are
on this
richard feynman was someone who
just changed my life in terms of how he
would present things and when i found
out that this was his technique man that
was just
it was just a joyous day in my life and
i hope it helps you as well i’m david h
lawrence the 17th i thank you so much
for watching and for listening
and i will see you in the next episode
of the vo heroes podcast
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you

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