Dominic Boenisch

Full transcript: Dominic Boenisch on London Real

0:00 This is London Real, I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Dominic Boenisch, recent graduate of our Speak to Inspire course. Welcome. Great to be here, thanks for having me. Tell us about you. Where are you from, what do you do? Well, I’m from Germany. I run an internet company. We’re doing local job boards. And yeah, I was a recent graduate of the Life Accelerator in the beginning of the year, and when I realised that you put out new courses, I was suddenly interested in the Speak to Inspire course, because I love talking.

0:37 But that’s actually one of my issues. We have a saying at work, the “three sentence Dominic”, where my colleagues are allowed to raise their hands and make a three, to show me that they got the point and I can stop talking. So I thought that’s a good idea, to learn how to speak to inspire. Okay. All right. So that’s why you joined the course. Yeah, basically.

0:58 I mean, I had to really ignore your hard-selling emails in the first place. I knew that I was pressed for work and I just ignored the first 60 of them or so. But then in the last minute, on a Thursday night, there was this, “Guys, it’s 25 hours, now or never,” and this was the first email I really opened up and read. And I was like, okay, let me think about it. Would you want to be able to speak like Simon Sinek? And after five minutes, okay, let’s do it. And then I signed up on the same night, and the course started like two days later, and here we are on this roller coaster.

1:30 Yeah, I love it. And you knew this before, because you’ve been through the Life Accelerator. Yeah. So you know what it’s like. Yeah. And why London Real in the first place? For me, because it delivers results. And as you said, I already have been on one of the courses, and I really like how nobody gets a place to hide. You have to be there and do it.

1:55 And it’s also amazing to learn from the others. The group really works together. The first time and also the second time, there have always been people standing up and helping others. They pick them up, they drag them along the way, they make everybody move, and this is special about London Real. You guys have a really good concept of getting the group to do the work and also to assist you in helping others. And the group energy which gets released in that way is just amazing.

2:23 Yeah, thank you. We’re lucky that way. So tell me about the start of the course. You jump in, obviously this is new material. The first two weeks, I’m throwing out a lot of concepts and structure. I’m asking you to go live on Facebook, record videos. You’ve got 75 people around the world. How does that feel? Well, I mean, it’s uncomfortable, even if you have done it before on the Life Accelerator, posting videos online. This time it was public speaking to your Facebook page, like from the first week on, and you had to open up on topics you normally don’t want to speak on on your public Facebook profile.

3:01 But still, for me, the first weeks were the ones I felt more easy for me, because it was about structure, and I’m a logical guy. I love structure. It was like, yeah, great, give me the speech structure and let me think about what’s really moving me. What are my main topics, my core ideas? And as soon as we left the structure stage, I started to struggle. For me, opening up and getting emotional was a problem all over the course.

3:31 I mean, I needed your kick in the butt in the last workshop call to really step my game up. I tried before, I just couldn’t manage to do it. I was opening up, but I wasn’t. So yeah, this was hard. I knew it would be hard, but it was hard. No way to put it. And what did you end up doing to open up in that speech? What did you end up changing?

3:55 Well, I first asked my girlfriend. I told her, I have this issue that all of the guys keep pushing me in the course to really share these personal things, to get vulnerable. What is it? What are my biggest weaknesses? What would you want me to share right now? And this got me like, really? Okay, now I have an idea. And the whole process of thinking started then. I texted my group, “Hey guys, here’s the structure I want to use. What do you think, is this really opening up?” And then everybody’s like, “Yeah, now you got the point,” and then it all started to fall together.

4:28 Yeah, you were on a mission. So it was the workshop call and I was like, what’s going on, Dominic? This isn’t working. And then you texted the whole structure in the Facebook chat, and then they were like, yeah, yeah, now. Absolutely. Yeah, okay, because you were giving them real emotion and you were getting vulnerable too, right? Absolutely. Yeah, which doesn’t come natural.

4:49 No, I mean, for me, I’m used to being composed all day. If you have to lead a team, they expect you to be focused and not share something which is distracting you in your private life. They just expect you to come in, tell them what to do, be a leader that knows what he wants, get everybody on the same page. And why should I burden them with stress in my private life? So I have to always hide it away, ten hours a day.

5:22 And then when we sit at our dinner table at home, we try to have good feelings, so we don’t talk about the things that lie underneath the surface, at least not all the time. And so I got really used to this mode of being the corporate leader, saying, “Hey, this is amazing. This is our strategy. Come on, let’s do this.” Basically the things you also criticised, like, “Dominic, this is like corporate rah-rah. Give us the real Dominic.”

5:49 It just takes practice. Yeah, and it’s hard, because as a CEO you can’t do that every day. You can’t do that stuff in the workplace. But as a speaker, no one’s gonna connect with you unless you show them something about you and tell them something that’s vulnerable. Because we don’t need another speech teaching me something obvious about leadership, or this or that. But when you can give us a perspective, that you’re sharing something about you, then everybody starts listening.

6:18 And also yourself, you put more energy in it, because now you know, okay, I have to get this good if I share something really personal. I don’t want to just do it like, okay, I did it. Right. So it makes you connect with your own work more. How did it feel getting up last night and giving your speech live at the world headquarters in front of 30 people?

6:41 Yeah, I was second to last, so we had been sitting there for almost three hours, and I was really pumped by the energy in the room. And then suddenly, okay, you are next, and my pulse really went up. I was like, what’s going on here? I started to breathe, tried to calm down, but I really felt like I was a bit shaking. I tried to be composed, but yeah, it made me feel uncomfortable. But it was a good thing to just do it.

7:07 And once I was into the speech, the crowd were really giving you the feeling like, yeah, it’s a great thing you’re doing, and it was so great. I picked that personal topic and talked about how my own family is not coming to dinner, or at least rejecting our invitation, because they have the feeling they need to show us, “You’re only caring about work. Here’s a warning sign.” And I know it hurts them too. I know them. I don’t know why they are going to this last resort, but I received a text from my dad this morning, and he says, “We’re not coming. Go to your mind and think about why we’re not coming. The whole year… So why is Christmas now important when you don’t show up the whole year?”

7:51 What do you think of that? I personally really think it’s unfair, because my brother and our girlfriends were saying, hey, you show up there regularly. It just seems to be not good enough. But it’s only our perspective. Maybe from our parents’ view, it’s like, if you show up, maybe we are hurried, we are rushed, we’re stressed. I can’t understand them. I just feel it’s unfair if you just make the move like six weeks prior to Christmas and tell them, come on by, we will cook dinner for you this year. We are doing the work, not you.

8:21 We had different events planned, one in the morning, one in the evening, one the next day, and I don’t get it. But you could at least show up. We have like some German sausage tradition on Christmas, and even the parents of my girlfriend, my brother, his girlfriend, we invited everybody. Everyone who wanted to join can join, and even that they refused. So it’s not only about that. They try to give us a lecture here, and I think that’s unfair. You could talk about it, and you could at least give me a call or come by.

8:58 So this really hurts, as I said yesterday, and I’m not getting it. Yeah, it’s unfair, but it’s feedback. Absolutely. Again, you can’t see why they wouldn’t do it, but they’re telling you that they feel that way. Absolutely. And look, when you talk about it like now, I mean, this is real talk, Dominic. You know, when you give me a speech and you say, “I have everything in my life, except my parents won’t come over on Christmas. What does that say about me?” And you could say they’re wrong. Who’s wrong? But you’re not together. It’s your extreme ownership, right? Yeah, exactly.

9:30 It’s extreme ownership, and now it’s a great way for you to ask all the entrepreneurs in the audience and all the CEOs in the audience, you know, is your life great, is your success amazing, if you can’t spend Christmas Day with your family? Do you have a life if you can’t do that? And it’s a good question, and I think this is an amazing work-life balance, work-life choices, being present. Because they’re probably, in the Dominic CEO eyes, they’re wrong, but obviously in their eyes, they’re feeling it. So yeah. And they have the right to feel that way. Yeah.

10:04 For me, it’s just so hard. I have these young leaders. They are aspiring to become founders themselves, and if I now tell them, look guys, this is how messed up it could end, I really have the feeling that on the one hand side I could scare them off. But on the other side, I could really give them real talk, as you say. It’s not only about, you have to learn this and be like that and do like this, blah blah blah. You also have to make sure from the first place on that you get your inner circle on board.

10:33 You tell them it will be hard and there will be no time, but then there will be more time again, and stuff like that. I think I have to prepare them for that as far as I could, because in the end it’s a lonely place at the top. You have to fight your struggles on your own. I think you have to find the solution to this, and I think over the next six months, as you find ways of having good relationships with your girlfriend, your parents, your friends, this will be the solution. This will be maybe your book that you write next year, and maybe your TED talk, and maybe this is the way to make the choices as a CEO that allow you to live a life that’s good.

11:10 You know, maybe this is the start of your journey. And I really need to get into a comfortable, uncomfortable situation as well. Yesterday I was talking to a guy from the course, and we both connected on, like, hey, let’s do something together. He’s a Swiss entrepreneur, and we instantly had three ideas we could do together. And I have to really be careful that I don’t start the next thing on the side and have even less time to take care of my private life. But I’m just so energised. I hear it, and within 30 minutes we have like three ideas. Okay, let’s have coffee today and think about what we can do.

11:48 This is just me. I get energy from it. It gets me started. But I really need to find a way to balance that out, and this might be the solution I could then share with the world. Yeah, yeah. Look, and don’t deny yourself. I mean, you have to say, look, this is me, I get energy from it. And if you do get energy from it, and it’s positive and it’s not just about maybe the money or your ego, then great. But at the same time, find a solution, because all the people in your life need to be important.

12:14 And I think you finding this solution out could lead to where this speech goes. And again, I still think we need to work more on the structure, so it really speaks to me, but you made a huge breakthrough, Dominic, so thank you for going there. Thanks a lot. I know it’s hard for you, and for the environment you’re in. Like you said, CEOs can’t really talk about this stuff all the time, but it’s super important.

12:38 What are your plans for the next 12 months with the students in your team? What do you guys want to accomplish when it comes to your speeches? Where do you want to take this speech? Yeah, some of us already set the goal to really become a TED speaker. So I try to help them get there, be there when they struggle and don’t make progress. So that’s, I guess, my obligation as a team member.

12:59 And for myself, I really want to get rid of the teammates saying, “Hey, here’s the three sentences, you’ve gone over it.” I want to become a naturally structured speaker. I mean, if I watch this interview right now, I will see phrases where I could have said it in one sentence, but I didn’t. And this is my first part of the journey to becoming a good speaker: to make it an everyday habit to be a structured speaker, and also to use emotions at the right point.

13:35 But I really feel I want to do a public speech next year, either at a conference representing my company, or at an event talking to young entrepreneurs or to talents all around the world. I don’t know. I just want to spread the word and be on stage and be out of my comfort zone again. And I love what you said about last night. You were nervous and you didn’t know why, but you did it, and that’s so important that you had that experience, and now next time it’s gonna be easier and easier and easier. Yeah. So I’m glad you went through that.

14:09 How are you different? If we walked out on the street right now and bumped into the Dominic that didn’t take this course, how are you different now? I really, really, really got the point that a good speech becomes a great speech once you add the emotions. I thought, yeah, that’s it. A good speech becomes a great speech once you add your emotions and you get your audience emotionally invested and hooked in. It’s powerful.

14:38 Yeah. Okay, last question. Someone’s thinking about taking Speak to Inspire, but they’re on the fence. Too busy, don’t know if they can invest. What do you say? They should definitely really do it, because if you’re on the fence and you have a lot of work to do, my life has been this way all the time, and I would never ever have learned in six weeks what I learned in the course. You need someone who sets the schedule out for you, who sets out the assignments, who gives you a kick in the butt if you get lost. So if you’re really thinking about it and you have a hard time finding time for it, or staying accountable, then you need a course like this.

15:24 Amen to that, Dominic. Look, I love having you in the Academy. I love your energy. When I saw you sign up for this course, I was surprised. I was like, what’s Dominic doing here? But look, you always bring such amazing energy to the group. You totally get the way we work here in the family. I know when you’re coming in, you’re like, all right guys, this is what we’re gonna do on this team, and we’re gonna go there. And I’m really glad to see the rest of the team really give you the feedback that they wanted more emotion from you, so I look forward to your speeches next year.

15:51 I look forward to you figuring out how you can become CEO of a multi-million dollar company and still have relationships with your family and your girlfriend and friends, and still keep up the healthy lifestyle I know you love. I think this journey you go on will be the one that you can tell the aspiring entrepreneurs, and again, give them the real talk, because everyone out there is giving them the “this is all glamour” talk, and no one believes that, and it’s not true. So give them what it’s really like, and I’m looking forward to that speech. Yeah, thanks. Thank you.