An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Learn how to fail and learn from each time you fail. Failure is part of the game however if you keep failing and don’t continue to learn from each time that you do fail that is insanity. The quote I use for this is: insanity is doing something over and over again and not changing the way you do it and expecting a different result.

At some point in our lives, many of us will have to give a talk to a large group of people. What does it take to be a highly effective public speaker? How can you improve your public speaking skills? How can you overcome a fear of speaking in public? What does it take to give a very interesting and engaging public talk? In this interview series called “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker” we are talking to successful and effective public speakers to share insights and stories from their experience. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Krisztian Riez.

Over 10 + years in public speaking roles speaking internationally on the radio to speaking in front of crowds of over 3,000 people to speaking in front of multi national companies. Currently I reside in Canada and working for Condo Control as their PR Consultant in order to help build the companies global brand and public image with its community.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

I grew up in a very Eastern European household in Calgary, Alberta where my grandma raised me while my mother was studying to become a teacher. I remember from a very young age the rules of speaking out of line were instilled me; do not speak unless spoken to type of attitude. However for myself I was very stubborn and rebellious and always got in trouble as a child or teenager for speaking.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

Ever since as a child I always enjoyed speaking to people, I worked for my uncle who owned a ice-cream truck and I would go around trying to sell people on why they should have some ice-cream. I think my career truly started when I took a course in University in public speaking and my professor told me I had a special skill for it: I knew then there was something there I needed to explore.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

I was at a musical festival and a friend of mine had an emcee who pulled out last minute from emceeing at one of the larger vendor music stages. She runs in festival and asks Kris can you help me out I have no emcee and I am in a bind and of course I said yes and in less 20 minutes time from just attending a festival I became an emcee at one which was a really fun experience.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I was emceeing a fitness competition in Australia in front of a couple thousand people. I called out the wrong name ( a guys name instead of the girls competitors name) while the contestant came on stage as I was describing them to the public their attributes. However I just quickly corrected myself and made a joke out of it and kept going with confidence with her correct name. I think when you make a mistake be confident and fix it as soon as possible with confidence. If you don’t have confidence the crowd feels that energy from you which then disrupts the flow of the event.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

To be honest I never really looked up to anyone when it came to help; I guess I made myself really self aware of my weakness and strengths. I can say my best mentor was the mirror lol I practiced Infront of it thousands of times.

You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging and intimidating. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?

I would say be comfortable with failing and what I mean by that is change the perspective of what failure is. To me failure is looking at what I am doing like a scientist: I will try a number of experiments knowing that not all of them will succeed. But when they don’t succeed figuring out why and trying again and again. I think for me being comfortable and changing my perspective with failing along with being persistent has helped me succeed in public speaking.

What drives you to get up everyday and give your talks? What is the main empowering message that you aim to share with the world?

Just being 1% better each day than you were yesterday; my drive is to better myself and my story can be used in multiple speaking arrangement whether it be speaking with a client to speaking Infront of a Corporate team to the public. Just bettering yourself in all aspects is what I strive for.

You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?

Currently right now with Condo Control we are working on some very educational resource based Webinars for our audience; along with some speaking engagements in the future. As a hobby I am passionate about Mental Health and have a podcast that I speak on quite regularly.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

If it is to be its up to me is my favorite quote which I have tattooed on the inside of my forearm. For me if I want to be an amazing public speaker there is nothing stopping me except me.

Ok, thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker?” Please share a story or example for each.

Here are the 5 things you need to know to be a highly effective speaker

-You need confidence because when you are in front of a large crowd the audience can smell when you are not confident in yourself and therefore the whole experience will not as enjoyable to the audience as you may have liked.

– You need to be adaptable; what I mean by this is there are a lot of things that can happen when public speaking such as: you may forget your lines, you have an unruly or intimidating question to having technical difficulties. You need the ability to improvise. This a must needed skill that is under appreciated in public speaking.

– You need to have your own personality when you step on that stage or Infront of people: working on developing your personality is a key component on developing your flow when speaking publicly.

– Work ethic: you need to put in the time into your craft to ensure you are constantly perfecting it and making it your own.

-Learn how to fail and learn from each time you fail. Failure is part of the game however if you keep failing and don’t continue to learn from each time that you do fail that is insanity. The quote I use for this is: insanity is doing something over and over again and not changing the way you do it and expecting a different result.

As you know, many people are terrified of speaking in public. Can you give some of your advice about how to overcome this fear?

It takes a lot of work and step by step like the saying goes Rome wasn’t built in a day. You need to feel comfortable speaking out loud then speaking to a mirror then a small group of friends and family. This base is crucial for your success in helping to over come your fear. Now for whatever reason your fear of public speaking doesn’t allow you to even allow you to speak Infront of a mirror I would then recommend working with a hypnotherapist to help unblock some triggers you are having around public speaking and its fear.

You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I would inspire a mental health movement where people can help each other who have depression and anxiety and start coming together on those fronts for a better future for each other.

Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!

I would love to have lunch Erik Weilhenmayer: he a blind adventurer who has climbed Mount Everest. Why I would like to speak to him is because having perspective on life not using your eyes would be very special. We as public speakers can see our audience and reach out to them when we talk to them but imagine now that curtain is black. Your world changes and that change is something I would love to understand more of.

Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?

You can find me through my projects I am working on with Condo Control by going to their website www.condocontrolcentral.com

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!

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Krisztian Riez Of Condo Control On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.