Jasky Singh: Disarm Anyone in 10 Seconds & Own Any Conversation
Talk to strangers without sweaty palms
I just sat down with Jasky Singh AKA Mr Sikkant.
Street interviewer who’s recorded over 5,000 spontaneous conversations across Australia and beyond.
In this episode you’ll learn
Disarm anyone’s ego in ten seconds using low‑status cues
Silence unlocks deeper stories than smart questions
Master one micro‑skill to jump 90 % ahead in conversations
We dive into the details later in the conversation.
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
05:12 Presence hack
10:55 Handling rejection tactics
16:18 Mirroring explained
20:18 Power of silence
25:28 Comedy lessons
32:30 Crowd work tips
36:40 Navigating charged environments
44:04 One‑skill weekly challenge
Listen
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Here’s the full transcript:
Speaker 2 (00:05.87)
Jaski, you’ve become known for raw unfiltered chats with everyday people, over 5,000 of them on the street by now. So right off the bat, what’s the biggest secret you’ve learned about confidently talking to absolutely anybody coming from a shy engineer who built what you see today, one interview at a time?
Very good. Good summary in a very short 30 second snippet. think you got to meet people where they are. That’s obviously the most important thing. Like you can’t, for developing quick rapport, coming across a stranger and trying to get them to go to where you are, emotionally, energy-wise, conversation wise, all of those things are really, really challenging.
right, because you’re now trying to increase your status or your power and you’re trying to pull someone. Okay, so to get a little bit more like detail the way I think of it. Now I’m not saying this is for everyone because my type of interviewing is very different to probably anyone else’s interviewing, right, then most people either in a formal setting, in a podcast setting, in a seated setting where the other person has agreed
to enter that conversation. They actually have a meeting. They’re like booked something, right? So there’s already like a level of a lack of resistance because you’re not meeting strangers. But in saying that, if you’re someone who wants to network, you want to build connections with people, you want to go, hey, I would love to have the skill of how do I disarm that person? Because I have to disarm them in...
in 10 seconds. Like that’s my rule. I have to get them in 10 seconds, otherwise they’re gone. And everything’s kind of layered into into three segments in my head. You don’t think about this because you don’t it’s just got to be intuitive. But initially, I used to think about it is nonverbal is everything, right? Now, how do you build? How do you build a character or a perceived persona that lets anyone really talk to you? Not anyone like there are going to be people that just are repelled by
Speaker 1 (02:22.73)
that’s okay. Those are the people you want repeal you want polarizing. So it comes down to how you dress. Right? Like it comes down to and again, I was going to get into specifics, but we’ll leave the specifics for later. It’s also how you approach someone your body language, the usual whatever the status 78 % of communication is body language, whatever that thing. Then there is like mannerisms, then there is what they immediately perceive.
Now that all sounds like a lot, but all you’re trying to do is create a character, which is, I ask you, say Adam, you’re out in the bar somewhere, what type of person do you think would be the easiest to speak to?
Like a fun, silly Golden Retriever style approach.
Yeah, precisely. if you’re at a bar and you got like some charismatic, whiz-bang, like smooth-talking guy, you’re like, fuck off, like I’m not interested, right, you’re weird. Whereas that slightly aloof, little bit like, could be partially tipsy, you know, talking a bit of like smack and seems like a little bit lost, that kind of character disarms.
as many people as possible. So then it’s like, let’s reverse engineer that how do you build that person. So if you can be that person, that’s what’s allowed us to essentially disarm virtually anyone is they it’s low stakes. This, this person is a little bit of an idiot. This person could potentially be a little bit drunk, right? And that’s okay. You the little bit drunk person is generally is disarming. Highly drunk person is avoid.
Speaker 1 (04:08.686)
So you got to the line quite, quite fine. So yes, it comes down to dressing casual hat, t shirt, jeans, you know, looking at no big logos, no whatever, because that’s already a little bit weird, like that puts you into a category. There’s a cricket reference, so cricket people will understand it. I think of myself as a side screen, meaning you’re there, you make everything visible, but you’re not in anyone’s face, right? And casual is normally casual, conversation is casual.
Next step is the body language is to come across a little bit like, Hey, what’s going on? Like, you know, you’re like a bit of a weird fucking dude. And that’s okay, because people talk to a weird dude, they’re not going to talk to real seriously. Hello. It’s weird. And then then it’s like, okay, then now once you disarmed, you just got to keep them comfortable and keeping them comfortable. Obviously, many layers, but we’re sticking to nonverbal. Nonverbal is like head nod.
like what they’re saying you’re kind of responding to. Because if you’re talking and I’m just staring at you, after a while they’re like, there’s no response here. And normally you think, what I’ve said hasn’t landed. So now I’ve got to change what I’m saying. Which again is a tactic. Sometimes you want them to think that’s not landing and you maneuver to something that you want them to talk about. And then you start nodding because you want them to go down that path. And then
Hmm.
Speaker 1 (05:36.012)
My aim is a whole time I’ve got to bring my status as low as possible because a lower status person is the least disarming person in most conversations because how do I put it into an example? Let’s say you’re walking and you see someone in a full on suit walk out of a building with a lanyard and they’ve got like three or four people taking notes behind you. You walking up to that person is kind of Olympic pole vaulting of conversation. You’re taking a big
Big gamble, that person looks like a high status person. Already your perceived notion is they’re to tell you to get fucked. They’re not interested. And that whole thing. Whereas, you know, you see someone who’s just come out of a cafe, they’re, I don’t know, wearing a chilled hat. They’re like, I don’t know, kind of just hanging out, looking around. They seem maybe a little bit touristy. Hey, what’s going on, dude? Like, what are you up to? Very easy. It’s low stakes conversation.
And I’m not talking about status and hierarchy in net worth or position or whatever. That’s not what I’m talking about. Status is generally perceived status, right? You got to bring that down. Anyway, it’s a very long.
No, it’s great. There’s so many different points I want to take, but I want to dig further into when you’d walk up to a complete stranger, what goes through your mind in those first few seconds? How do you physically and mentally set the stage so don’t immediately put their guard up?
You have to get to a point that nothing goes on in your mind. Like I can’t actually be thinking of something, right?
Speaker 2 (07:09.966)
Really? So you’re just in the flow.
You have to be, you have to be completely, because once you’ve got all this stuff, the thing is it’s like, again, I’m gonna butcher the example, but it’s like, if you are going to go and try and hit a personal best in deadlifting or whatever you’re into, right? Let’s say deadlifting, you wanna hit your personal best. You’re not actively going, I better make sure that my arms are locked in this position and my legs are here. You’ve just,
done that that prefacing like like behavior so many times and that’s just it’s just got to be automatic that part’s got to be automatic. Yeah, trying to just be as present in the moment as possible. And now again, I use a worst example because in that moment, you’re not communicating with anyone you’re lifting a bar. So you’re obviously present, but you’re thinking of whatever the hell you’re thinking of. don’t know, because I can’t lift heavy bars. So right person to comment on. But in my case,
All that is practice to go into that and that just ends up happening. I hunch immediately because even though I get roasted for it, that’s a lower status move. It gets people to already disarm a bad posture person, easier to talk to. I don’t know why, but it is what it is. Then there is like the way you walk and all, it’s all done. Like that’s all done. I’m not thinking of it. That’s walking up to the person. That’s already part of the whole thing.
And it happens as soon as I grab the microphone. It’s like you got to have a A trigger activates that personality. and this, this sounds more grandiose than it is. It’s just things that I’ve trained and that’s just what I do. Thereafter is I have to hear every nuance of that conversation. And the only way I can, I can get into that is I now have to be as present as I can. And that is fucking hard because a lot of the times you’re like, what do I ask next? Where am I taking this? How do I make this funny? And
Speaker 1 (09:07.394)
And you got to switch that off because it’s got to come down to intuition. You’ve done it so many times, but if you miss a string, you’ve missed the best part of that whole conversation.
So, how do you get to a place of presence? Because that’s a skill that you need to cultivate. We spoke on the rapid fire about the power of now. So, I’m guessing you have some expertise in some of those techniques, but I’d love to hear it in more detail.
Yeah, it’s a good question. So I used to meditate quite a lot and I used to regularly try and do like a practice to get myself into the present. It’s fallen off the rails and I’ve gotten really bad at it since having kids and I’ve not really should be taking more seriously. So it’s probably more of an intervention for me to have to do it more. But it’s
think you’ve integrated that though now just because you’ve done it so much.
I used to think that no, I don’t think so. I feel like I’m not present much at all until I get into the conversation because all
Speaker 2 (10:08.194)
You used to be more present with the regular meditation techniques. Interesting.
Definitely. I used to do it daily. used to do walking meditation when I’m walking to a place I used to take moments out between activities to use that as a as a way to re reintegrate everything used to try and keep a part of your presence in your body. So they’re obviously like going from zero baseline to like say 80 % where I was, I’m probably still at 10 like you keep something there right?
You really think it’s gone? So where’s the, you just don’t see the value in it anymore?
I do see the value is just like I just feel like I don’t prioritize it as much anymore because having having kids having work responsibilities having that it just personal things for by the way, they just don’t happen and And then it’s like well if I start meditating what bloody time to have to get up to do this now Whereas I’m already getting up to like okay. What’s more important meditation exercise exercise about exercise the meditation can you know eat a dick for a minute, so
But yeah, it’s bad. And I do need to do it. Now the kids are getting older, it gives you a bit more time. So it is something that I want to do. But to answer your question, I think everyone gets into a very present state when there is that flow state, which is you’re doing something that requires everything to be on in that moment. Otherwise, it’s not going to go well. So let’s say you’re skydiving. Let’s say you’re skateboarding. You’re doing
Speaker 1 (11:40.734)
even even news you play music like you know you just have everything has to switch off even that heavy lifting of a bar you have to be present so what it does it it kind of forces you at that moment it forces you to be on but you’re right like a meditation or a practice that builds a level of presence will probably make me even more present so
Okay, interesting. No, no, I mean, it’s all useful. So I think at this point, it sounds like you’ve developed the initial meditation practices and that’s gotten you to be able to semi tap into it in very specific settings that maybe would be a lot harder for you to do plus just doing the reps of what, you know, over 5,000 interviews now. How did you initially handle
rejection, especially on the street. Were you always pretty confident and you didn’t give a shit or was there a bit of a sting? Because I’ve been doing street interviews in New York and goddamn, some of the people can give you daggers in this city. It’s anxiety inducing over here. You get like this hot girl that walks by you and you ask them and they’re just like, nah, it’s just, ugh.
yeah, it is really special.
Speaker 1 (12:46.978)
Yeah, yeah. And that’s to be honest, the hot girl is the is the hardest one because that’s not because of any other reason aside from the fact that they can there is a level of like, interest that you’re already showing that is hard to like break down and let them be disarmed. So you’ve to now play that other character that the more that you know, low status disarm kind of guy but whereas if you come across in any way that hot girls
probably like, man, I know what this guy wants, right? And it’s that is that is the hardest one to do. So anyway, that’s a that’s a side point. No, it was very challenging. I don’t know if we talked about it last time. But the first couple of times I did it, I literally was like, this is this is the most depressing thing on page of this planet. Like, legitimately.
was with my camera guy who’s the producer videographer, like my mate that we do the channel with. We went up to get a drink and we’re on the balcony having a drink and I was like, I think I just want to jump off this balcony right now. It’s the worst. But the thing that made it easier is over the years, I know the pattern of what it takes to like kind of get good at a thing. Having done sales for so many years, rejection is...
is more often the norm than getting like any sort of like positive reaction. Sales is essentially the same method of doing this where you’re approaching a stranger and trying to get them to take the next step. It is a little bit more of a controlled setting. But yeah, it’s doing that. It’s having to do public speaking. It’s, you know, years of speeches and all that kind of stuff that you get used to it. But this is
next level of like, rejection, difficult, nerve wracking. What other bloody synonyms can I use? Just sweat inducing, like, you’re like, pre thinking everything going, who do I pick? And then you see a person and you go, you just kind of fucking walk past them. So there’s a lot of that and
Speaker 2 (15:08.104)
Does it get easier? Is it still the same every now and again? You’re like,
No, I’ve got I’ve got to the point now that it really doesn’t bother me who I talked to. Right. Which is which is what I knew like it was it was with sales the first two three years I still had that I would look at the number I would look at the the the title of the person and then I would run the script through my head then I run every possibility of what they’re going to say. Then I’ll sit there ruminate and go, okay, let’s do it. And then I’ll dial the number and we’ll take two three minutes. And then I knew you get to a point where
someone would just go, can you call this person? You literally pick up the phone, you’re dialing the number and looking at the notes while dialing the number. And it’s just being immune to the process.
think he’s the difference between the two energies from then and now.
Well, it’s uninformed and informed confidence, right? Uninformed confidence is you can look in a mirror and you can just hype yourself up going, I’m the best street interview in the world. I’m the best. I’m going to crush this and fucking the secret. Yeah, I’m the best. And then you go out there and it’s like, dude, you’re sweating and you’re eating a bag of dicks and it’s not going to change. Informed confidence is, dude, I’ve done this 3000 times. I’ve had so many rejections. been in that situation. I’ve talked to the hot girl. I’ve talked to the...
Speaker 1 (16:20.75)
the crackhead, I’ve talked to the serious person, I’ve talked to the professional, I’ve talked to the dangerous person. There’s nothing like it’s all done. Like you’re gonna, what’s gonna happen? Nothing, you know, and you just walk in, you’ve just, it’s a builds that confidence inside of you. And it’s leaning on information as opposed to, I don’t know, affirmations and random.
I like that information instead of affirmations. Pretty good.
Thank you guys, thank you.
Yeah, I get that. I you see, I think it’s all the iterations, right? All the different reps lead to different slight outcomes. And then you build a mental map of what’s going on around.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you just got to. And the thing is, like, then the question people ask is, how do you develop informed confidence in a new venture, a venture, like say, you’re saying I’m doing street interviews for the first time, for example, I don’t have anything to lean on. That’s not true. You still have something to lean on. Don’t lean on the fact that you’re like I said, you’re going to stare at yourself and say, I am the best interviewer. It doesn’t it doesn’t work. You’re you’re
Speaker 1 (17:24.083)
internal response is to reject that nonsense. You can say it as much as you want. It’s not going to change anything. But if you go, okay, I have a level of confidence in the fact that I can call someone because I did sales and I can call someone and I can get them to be interested in a meeting. Okay, I’ve done that about 1000 times. And I did that when I was speaking to that kind of professional and this and then then it builds that inside of you like a little bit of informed confidence. Then you can borrow that into this new
thing that you’re doing. Whereas you’ve got to look at things you can point at. And there’ll always be some even approaching a hot chick and you’re like, how do I I don’t have any confidence. I’m so nervous. But you’re like, well, I, you know, once at a family gathering, there was that girl who was there and I was introduced. I was in Tasmania and I met that girl and then we got married. So you can you can kind of lean on
He’s your cousin,
Speaker 1 (18:24.131)
something and you got to find those some things and you stack enough of them you’ll get the confidence
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I want to jump into mirroring a little bit. So one of our other podcast guests, Chris Voss uses this a lot in his book, Never Split the Difference. yeah, I’d love to understand how amazing book, amazing book. I’d love to understand how you use mirroring in conversation. What does mirroring accomplish for you? And what’s a simple way that somebody could practice mirroring in their next conversation?
Yeah, it’s probably the things I’m to say is probably things that everyone knows, because it’s just common knowledge that most people say how to mirror people. And it’s, you know, it’s pacing, it’s tonality, it’s movement, all those things are, are things you can try and mirror in, in what someone is doing to try and again, disarm them a little bit.
So what’s an example of those? Like how would you play that out an example?
Well, I was going to say is it’s I don’t feel it’s necessary. I used to try and do that. I don’t do that. What I’m saying is people think that’s what you got to do is if if someone’s standing in an open stance, their shoulders are back, they’re a little bit more relaxed. Slowly, you get into the same position and you feel like you’re on the same wavelength. I don’t actually think it’s necessary. I try and lean more into acknowledgement as opposed to mirroring.
Speaker 1 (19:52.898)
Okay, maybe maybe two steps, right? Mirroring in pacing of speech is very important. And as you know, I always gear towards a little bit on the faster side. And so I have to scale it back like even while I’m talking to you, I’m actively trying to slow down a little bit, because your pace of speaking is slower than mine. So if I’m going off the rails and super fast, we’re never we’re gonna kind of be out of sync a lot. Right? So
And that’s always going to be a bit jarring if you’ve met someone and they’re just like, Hey, bro, how’s your day? What’s been happening? How’s your weekend? Man, I just did this and I went skydiving and then we went shopping man. was you’re like,
So they’re the methods.
And I’m out. And they’re like, this is too much. And you just go, or you meet someone which we do at work meetings all the time. And it’s the most painful thing is, ladies and gentlemen, today, we’re really excited to discuss the next part. And I’m like, bro, please, I’m gonna die by the time fucking sentence. So you got to
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:04.398)
The pacing tonality tonality also means hey, what’s going on? Like that can be irritating. You’ve to try and get so these are the basics, right? Get the basics on par, where you kind of sit in like, mirroring how fast they talk, where you sit in, in up and down. Infections, infections and tonality, whatever. Don’t be too expressive. If someone’s not as expressive, someone’s a bit more chilled back, do that. Okay.
But I think what’s more important is the acknowledgement. Like people want to be acknowledged for what they are saying. They want to be like us versus the world kind of scenario where it’s like, and I said that a couple of times early in the conversation, because again, it builds a level of rapport where I was like, man, a lot of people don’t do this. A lot of people are not having conversations with one another. They’re either Snapchatting, texting. So it’s like, Adam and I are together.
It’s us, we’re the regular people and it’s not everyone else. And even it’s a fictional everyone else. And that already helps you develop a level of connection. And the acknowledgement of when someone’s talking, yep, you’re not saying yep, because that’s annoying. You’re just nodding, kind of assuring them that you’re on the right path. Or you’re letting it pause for a minute because you want them to continue and giving them space. If you share something deep like, man, I...
lost an important family member in my life, you’ve got to let that breathe. You’ve got to let them have that moment.
So, yeah, I agree. want to that goes on to my next point, which was talking about pausing. So, you’ve you did this a lot. You kind of ask a leading question and you just kind of sit there. have you ever watched Nardwa? He does the same thing. So, how do you silence as a tool when you’re talking to somebody, maybe maybe with an example of how letting somebody speak for a little bit longer revealed something much deeper?
Speaker 1 (22:53.442)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:08.726)
And how do you get comfortable with that silence?
Yes, great question. And, and it is something I used to be very bad at. I struggled to allow something to breathe and I talk over the silence because it makes it’s made me incredibly uncomfortable in the past. And same with sales, same with conversations, same with when early on in the days I used to try and work on this pick up the game and whatever is when you try and approach.
girls and try and have conversations. just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. So I’m setting the stage of that I’m really bad at it. And it’s to be worked upon. So shows that you can work upon it. And no one here am I that good at it. I’m still learning. Okay. What what I think of is, if you’ve asked a question where you want more information at that moment, or it needs to just breathe to give them a chance to think
silence is the most most important thing. So that’s one. Number two is if you are like now, like I just paused for a second, it allows you feel a little bit of disconnect. Like parts of this conversation, I felt little bits of disconnect because I’ve gone off on a tangent or something or I’m like, I don’t know where my thoughts are.
you just stop for a second like that. And you’re now a little bit more connected. I don’t know what the fuck it is. I have no idea what it is. You just go, okay, we’re off sync a little bit. All right, cool. And then you’re back. I don’t know what it is, but it just does that. Okay. You can’t do it too early in a conversation. That’s fucking weird, right? So it has to be has to be while you’ve already got rapport, right? Now an example of how that worked was
Speaker 1 (25:02.274)
Now, there’s two that come to mind. One that I just did for one we just put out and it’s probably because it’s just gone out that I remember it, is there was a lady who claimed she died at the age of 11 and she was clinically dead or something and then God came and visited her and then she was re-entered the world and I met her like a few weeks back and now she’s like 80 or something. So this was a long, time ago. But she was smoking the whole time, right?
And I knew the question. I always think of, and we haven’t got into like the semantics of what, what’s the words we use to get those things. So I’m probably going into that. But the reason I’m doing that is because I’m like, I always try and ask, what is the question that I should be asking if the audience was watching this? And they would get pissed off. They’re like, why do you have the opportunity of speaking to this person and you didn’t ask this question? Which is what happens to me with podcasts a lot of the times, especially Joe Rogan.
He’ll have someone on and I love Joe Rogan and he’ll go, so, know, MMA, you know, if you want to grapple someone and I’m like, dude, the guy’s like the the director of whatever. Can you ask him that question? I don’t need you to now go into MMA. So I always think of, okay, what’s the question to ask is in that situation, she was smoking and she said she’d been reborn and given a second chance and now you’re smoking. So I said,
I asked, I’m like, why are you smoking? Right? But obviously did it with a little bit of a laugh to soften it, da da da. And she didn’t give me much of a response. She said, oh, because it’s my choice or something. So I didn’t respond. I just let it sit. And then she said it again. She was like, oh, well, my lungs are okay. I’ve tested them recently. And then again, I just laughed and let it breathe. And then she was like, well, I’ve done it for 60 years and I’m okay. So.
You build into the information that you want because that is the question you want to ask and you need to. If I stepped in and said something, it would have fucked that whole thing up. Right. The other example, which is a lot more powerful is when someone says something and you know that that’s not the true thing that they wanted to say, giving enough silence will let them kind of feel like you’re hoping for the actual answer. Right. Could be at a moment of vulnerability.
Speaker 2 (27:03.32)
Mmm.
Speaker 1 (27:24.59)
could be in a moment of someone lying, could be in a moment where they haven’t got as comfortable. So there was a young kid and his parents got divorced and he moved from one part of Australia to another and I met him randomly and I could tell he didn’t want to, he wanted to talk about it but he didn’t want to talk about it, right? So I said, he said, I went through a really tough moment in my youth and I was like, yeah, like if you’re comfortable, what was it? He’s like, yeah, it was really tough.
And I didn’t say anything. just didn’t say anything for like 10 seconds or whatever. And then he was like, you my parents got divorced. And then it was like, cool, now he’s open to talking about this. And then I let it go and he then just like unleashed all that information where this is how it felt to me. This is how it feels like to be a child of divorced parents. How did my relationship with my sibling take place and all that kind of stuff.
I was thinking before when you said you can’t be silent without rapport. I wonder if rapport is basically the ability to be longer in times of silence with another person. So the more rapport you have, if you have years and years of rapport, you don’t care if you’re sitting there silently with somebody. I never thought of it that way. It’s quite an interesting tie into one another.
Yeah, you’re probably right. The more rapport you have, the longer you can not have to say anything.
Yeah, fascinating.
Speaker 1 (28:50.04)
side by side and you know what the other person is thinking.
Yeah. Yeah. I, you’ve done more about a decade in standup. Is that about right?
Probably, I would say five years. Okay. took a few years off and then did bits and pieces, but five active years.
got it and you did an unscripted show. Yes. how did live comedy shape the way you now interact with strangers?
Yes.
Speaker 1 (29:15.47)
It was it was everything. The reason it happened is because of comedy. When I was doing stand up quite aggressively, quite regularly, I would say five to six times a week, and sometimes multiple shows are doing, you know, eight to 10 sets a week. I was obsessed with it. And the reason I pulled back is because I at that point, I had kids and evenings became very difficult. And you don’t want to just be out and about in the evening and you’ve got
little kids, it’s not, it’s just not the most suitable. You know, it’s not the most cohesive activity to having children. So the thing that I was always, I found myself was the biggest weakness was crowd work, meaning being interacting with the crowd when you’re in a stand up setting. And I kept speaking to my producer. Now in this this channel, he he was an incredible crowd worker me his next level.
probably one of the best in the country. He’s so good. And he was like, well, the only way is to get practice dude. And I’m like, yeah, but I can’t go to an event and practice because then they think I’m shit and they don’t book me again. already limited and now I’m
Yeah.
and mics, would that have been a better way to approach it?
Speaker 1 (30:31.51)
Yes, but the problem with open mics is the audience is limited. your open mics are designed to be able to test material to a smaller audience. And now if you’re doing crowd work to four people, it becomes really alienating for them, especially if you’re not able to bring them on board. And everyone else is like, dude, you just burned the room and now we’re having to use. it’s not, it just not working. And I was like, well, how do I try it? And then we came up with this idea of like, let’s go.
walk where there’s already people, so there’s already an audience, try what you think crowd work is, we film it so you can watch it back, and then we put it out so people can give you feedback, so it of like enforces you to get better. And that was the genesis moment of the channel. then thereafter, like now 360, two and a half years later, we did a live show, which was 100 % crowd work.
which was nothing but crowd interaction.
So what were the skills that developed through the on-street crowd work?
So many, so many, but I think the main one is to know that you’ll always find something.
Speaker 2 (31:47.938)
You think so? Regardless of the audience?
Yeah, and we did how many shows? Like, I can’t remember how many. We did like, I don’t know, 10 shows or something. And I always, and you know, couple of them were average, were incredible, amazing. And you you go, you’re always nervously pacing, you’re like, what’s gonna happen? What if I can’t do come up with whatever? And then again, you go back to the informed confidence of like, on the streets, we’ve been able to manufacture conversations from nothing for years now.
And now I don’t worry about that. just know it’s going to happen because you build the skills, you work on your skills and you do the thing. And obviously you haven’t done crowd work in a live setting ever really prop for a hundred percent of the, the, the, the show, but it does like, yeah, you, you bash yourself against it sometimes and then you have to maneuver, but you built the skill to maneuver. So it’s like, well, you worked on the skill now just trust the fact that it’s going to happen and it, and it does. you just, it’s all about getting the informed confidence.
which if I had three years ago, I could have already done it.
So what do think the actual specific techniques of good crowd work is?
Speaker 1 (32:59.758)
I never actually thought of that. What are the specific techniques of crowd work?
Speaker 1 (33:06.254)
I don’t know if there’s any specific techniques that I use. I’m sure other crowd work comedians have specific techniques. but I guess I look there’s a few things that always work and you can always resort back to them. Now I know how people do crowd work is they’re not actually doing crowd work, right? So I try and stay away from it is they will ask a leading question. Knowing that leading question is
is cushioned by a punchline that they already have, right? Hey, Adam, are you in a relationship? Oh, no, it doesn’t matter if you say yes or no. Oh, yeah, I am or I’m not. Oh, cool, man. How did you get into a relationship? Oh, yeah, whatever. You know, relationships to me are like, and then it goes, oh, it sounds like this. And you already got the punchline in your pocket and you’re pretending you’re masking it as crowd work. But it is based on that you are just now using as a lead in to a bit, right? So.
course, that’s the best tactic to have. And that’s probably a tactic you should have when you start up, right? Because that’s you don’t want to go full without scaffolding and try and build a building. It’s like it’s wild. Whereas I think the things that I always try and do is speak to someone. And, and I’m always just trying to search for someone who’s just interesting enough. I’m still looking for that aloof, little bit outspoken, little bit different.
always searching for the unique point of view, like even with street interviews, unique point of view could be unique point of view on the world, unique point of view on a topic or whatever, you find that person, right? Then when you’re reaching into a new person, and even if you’re digging, and you’re like, fuck, this is not going anywhere, you’ve always got that first person to bring back to a shoulder some of the way, right? Like if this person like it’s not going anywhere, man, that ish, what about him? Like he maybe he can jump in and then you’ve got
an easy jump off point, and that can start something. So we call it the triangle, you have a you have basically to set up people and you’ve got a third person. And if that third person can be moved in with the triangle of the other two, it lets you build crowd work just from the fact that two people already got some story, right?
Speaker 2 (35:23.745)
Yeah, I use that a lot actually when I was talking to a friend of mine, she was like, how do I just make friends? I’m like, actually one thing that one technique I specifically use all the time is if I’m in a room full of people I don’t know, I strike up a conversation with one person that is in a group. And then I go, oh, so how do you guys know each other? And it starts, it starts to bring in the other people. And the next thing you know, you’re in a circle and there’s like three or four people and they’ve all kind of accepted you into that conversation because they’ve all
at a moment where each of them has spoken in regards to one another, but to you. And I found it works a ton. It’s really, really useful. So it sounds exactly like what you’re saying there.
Yeah, you build a rapport with someone, the people already know who that audience member is, you’re kind of integrating them into the conversation. That’s always a great skill. I don’t know, I’m just trying to think of other things that I have in like a tool chest of ideas that we use.
Take as much time as you want. We’ve got plenty of rapport here.
I’m gonna sit in silence for a minute. I don’t know. It’s a lot of it just comes, I’m thinking about like a lot of it just comes back to like the intuition of what you’re gonna say in that moment. And it depends on, again, just listening to what that person is saying, and then being able to respond in an appropriate, actually, one thing is, is very important. This is not a, this is not a tactic. It’s more of a, like a mentality thing when you’re doing crowd work.
Speaker 1 (36:56.372)
is the first response doesn’t have to be funny. In fact, leaning towards interesting over funny is easier and it works equally as well. Meaning, if someone says something like, hey, I drive a Ford F50 and then you’re like, okay, where’s my punchline? You might’ve missed something that’s really, really valuable here. You can go in, okay, man, that’s a...
And again, you can now describe that’s a bogan car dude, you know, you’re deciding to, you don’t look like you don’t look like the part, but let me guess you might be in that you’re a minor, like, you kind of you kind of building, right? You let it go, let it go. It can take two, three, four goes and you think, oh, the audience might be annoyed here. But they’re more interested. And the funny can come. And even money doesn’t come the interesting keeps going. So that is actually that’s probably the most valuable tactic that I use, I just go
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:56.31)
Let’s find the interesting and again, it’s searching of the point of view of the person that is unique and everyone has that.
So basically just like try not to, you know, ejaculate too early. Hold it in for a second longer.
Well, if someone did that in a crowd work show, think that would be a ten.
Tell me, I don’t think I’ll come to that show when you do it, but let me know how you go afterwards. God, come to my, Jesus Christ.
Come
Speaker 1 (38:28.788)
I don’t forget another one is dynamics, right? People don’t do it, we have the liberty of doing it because we’re not a, we don’t set up a show as a stage standing on the stage performing crowd work. I literally walk through the crowd, which then allows me if anytime something isn’t working, I can just get movement. Movement is funny. People sitting, that wall of people being seated and listening in a passive manner. Just get them up. you said you’re a
You know, you said you’re you’re great at sewing. Like, how about you come up and show me your skills with your hands and then that’s it. That was already funny. It doesn’t matter where that goes, right? And we did that with every show. At the end, I brought up people who said they had a special skill and then we merged two or three people together and just got them to do crazy shit. And that was hilarious.
Yeah, great. I love that. I went to Tony Robbins’ date with Destiny recently and one of the things was he was constantly keeping everyone moving, never static. Like you’d be sitting for an hour, you’re like up, everyone’s moving, jump around and he just even in the middle of nowhere, he’d make everyone move. And I feel like there’s a lot of commonalities in this. Have you ever been to any of his shows? Yeah.
Yeah, he’s a
Speaker 1 (39:41.774)
One day one in Sydney some time ago. It was I forget what it was called. But yeah, it was his next level man. He just Energy to where he talks and gets people on and he’s just pumping and jumping smashing his hands hands for like hours hours
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:58.878)
Yeah. Just quickly though, I love doing this podcast. If it’s positively impacted you in some way and you would like to support us, please subscribe. By subscribing, it allows us to build a much bigger base of listeners, which results in better guests, better production, and a better show overall. Alternatively, please take a look at the affiliate links of the products that I use and love in the comments below and consider purchasing using those links.
They’ll give you a discount and they’ll also provide the podcast a small kickback. These are two very easy ways for you to support us as we continue to grow the podcast that we absolutely love doing. Thank you for your support and I’m back to the episode. Building rapport is really, really important as we’ve explored so far, but there’s something that I want to jump into, which is when you waded into the pro-Palestine march to strike up conversations. So how did you navigate approaching?
such a charged emotional environment with people who are already in an aggressive state without it blowing up? And what techniques can you use to handle people like that in future?
Unfortunately, it did blow up. don’t know if you’ve saw the videos in Melbourne. yeah, this was this was a few years ago. We maybe I don’t know, post COVID to 2022, 2023. I can’t remember the year. And we went, sorry, the wars have been happening for a year and a half. So it would have been at the start of that. So let’s say, you know, 20, early 2024, potentially. And we went to
A couple of them, yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:40.142)
Melbourne State Library, they were holding a huge protest, thousands and thousands of people. And we’re going in to try and extract information of what people are thinking. I don’t have a bias, even if I have a bias, the bias has to be left behind because that’s, that is counterintuitive to anything. Because as you will notice, every time I try and eliminate any bias, it does pop up sometimes. And sometimes it’s important to challenge someone’s opinion.
But anyway, so I was going there, I was just going to talk to people. And I’ll answer your question after explaining the story. So what ended up happening is I was there just having doing interviews and getting people’s thoughts of what they think and why they’re here. Why are you here? Why you taking time out to be here? Right? That is my main question. That’s a question people want to ask. Why is it so important to you to take a train to catch an Uber?
make the sign to dress up in Palestinian representative clothing and really actively protest in a peaceful way. And so asking those questions, and then these typical woke, melman freaks came out of nowhere. And they just started blocking me. They created a blockade.
One of them will keep pushing back into me and it played on for 20, 30 minutes. I asked the police to get involved. Police told me to get fucked without any research into the incident. It became a really hilarious.
Yeah. I think that they’re the kind of worst case because that’s not even interaction whatsoever. That’s just straight aggression.
Speaker 1 (43:27.01)
Yeah, and it was made no sense because I’m someone who’s here trying to do what you’re doing. And I’m doing it more effectively than you because I’m publishing it to more than one person, right? Yeah, even one interview is going to at least more than one person. So I don’t know, they maybe thought I was against it or whatever. And that’s that’s their opinion. But to do that at a protest where you’re now making it about yourself was crazy. And I thought
This is a gold mine. Let’s play with it because this is hilarious. This is exactly what I would hope these type of people would do. And it became a very, very viral video, got onto like news and all that kind of stuff and had millions and millions of views. so how do you disarm those people? Or how do you go into a very like hostile charged environment? Nothing different to what we’ve talked about. It’s all the same.
If you are going to go in as a troll, then it’s very different. Now I don’t do that. So I can’t speak on that, on that mentality of trying to go in there and troll them as a Israeli pro Israeli person going to a pro Palestine protest. you’ve got a clash like rebel news, I’ll be your many, which I think a lot of people confuse me for and hence why they have that reaction. look up to the rough. He’s a jack military guy. The only thing we have alike is our skin color. Everything else is different.
So you the thing is, yeah, so that’s all it takes is if you’re going in again, are you going to be like, provoking them? It’s very different. You’ve got to play that in a different way. But if you’re going there, and you’re just asking their opinion, you’ve got to do the same disarm body language, nonverbal cues, acknowledging that using silence to let them breathe and then eventually wherever you want to take that conversation, take it.
I think that was a really good one that you did a while ago. was a guy, he was probably, he was a slightly overweight, white dude, very, got very emotional. I can’t even remember exactly what you spoke about, but he had a very articulate point, like about, I don’t remember, and it went, it went quite viral. Do you remember the one I’m talking about?
Speaker 1 (45:42.358)
What did he do?
I can’t remember. I can’t remember. just remember him. Basically, he told you that he didn’t want to talk to you initially and he was handing out leaflets.
Speaker 2 (45:57.954)
I had a good conversation and he made quite a good few points and he’s like, you know what, I’m done now. And you’re like, okay. And that was it. That was a good video.
Yeah, that was, I would disagree with the fact that he made any good points. thought that was just crazy because we, but again, that’s, that’s just me being honest. Like I’m not into it. Is, we were at Australia day protest and I had spoken and I saw this, this guy had an Australia day protest wearing a pro Palestine scarf and already I was like, so now you’ve kind of made it about yourself. What has this got to do with.
That’s right. That’s right.
Speaker 2 (46:31.893)
Yeah, yeah.
Australia Day protest and then the dude went on on a tirade of like random stuff like we’ve got to cancel socialism we’re going to cancel capitalism
I’d go on this, you know, read Marxist philosophy and all kinds of tangents. And I, and I said, Hey, look, you know, what’s, what’s your thoughts on Australia Day? And there was no thoughts. It was just to be there and use climate change and Palestine and everything as words to get the attention back, which I sometimes feel bad for the person. Cause I’m like, that person not getting attention? Because that’s probably what it is. So it’s kind of sad. So sometimes I’m like,
that’s probably not
Speaker 1 (47:15.81)
Me speaking to this person might be helpful, but then when they go off on a tangent and start getting angry and then just berating me for no reason, was just asking questions and then filmed off.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think you still handled that pretty well. I forgot the details of it, but now it’s come back very clearly. But, I think you handled it quite well and you were able to at least have a reasonable conversation with him for as much as the talking points of the same talking points, they all spout. It’s none of the, it’s nothing new, but the fact that you were able to have those conversations at any point was, was, was pretty solid. Um, what do you think?
helped that conversation even begin.
That was a bit more of a hostile situation where like, I don’t think he was that interested in sharing. And in those situations, it takes a level of persistence. You’ve got to the first no is not a no, you’ve got to allow go, hey, what can I what can I ask you that you’d be okay with? Like you got to kind of now break their resistance down. And obviously, your nonverbal hasn’t done it there. In that situation, something might have been off like the appearance.
might be in contrast to that appearance. Had I been on Palestinian staff or something, I would have been on par, right? But no, was persistence, giving them time, going again. Now, come on, please, what is it? I’m interested because why are you here with that as your message for a completely unrelated cause and then letting it go, go, go. And sometimes you just have to persist. And in that situation was pure
Speaker 2 (48:31.094)
Maybe he was racist.
Speaker 1 (48:58.222)
persistence until we got something out of it.
Hmm. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So look, wrapping up, because I’m conscious of time for you. What’s what’s a practical challenge somebody listening now that would want to be better at conversations could do this week?
Well, aside from doing more conversations, would be that would be 100 % the most important thing to do reps, do as many, but not just pointless reps, reps and working on one thing, right? One thing you’re working on, you can’t work on many things, because you can’t isolate the thing you’re working on. So let’s say for you, confidence is an issue, right? You want to build confidence and confidence again has many layers like what is confidence, but confidence in the sense that you
Let’s just take the fact that you find it difficult to start conversations, right? That’s just the confidence thing. You just can’t go to someone and just start a conversation. Write down an opinion, write down a question that’s, that’s trying to extract an opinion. They’re always the easiest, right?
What’s an example of something like that?
Speaker 1 (50:03.948)
Yeah, like, hey, where’s the nearest train station? Right? It’s a very normal question to ask, right? And, and it’s a question that most people will be okay answering even the top 10 supermodel if you’re approaching them saying, hey, where’s the nearest train station? Amazing. You could leave it at that, right? That’s okay. But you have to get better. So let’s say do that for the first five if that is all you want to do if that’s where you’re starting at. But if you’re like, man, that’s fucking easy. I can do that to anyone. Okay.
Maybe then make the opinion a little bit more challenging. Hey, Adam, I just wanted to get your opinion. You know, I was talking to my mates and we can’t decide whether like, you know, we should go to Bali or maybe we should go to like Tasmania. Have you been to either of these places? I just want to see what people think, right? That’s a little bit harder. You’re getting someone involved and you’re talking about something. So these are words, right? If you want to make your words easier, have them done, but then work on your nonverbal. That’s what we always...
have talked about in this entire conversation. There’s one thing you can get away from this conversation is if you can do enough reps and work on one thing about the way you approach someone in a conversation, do that until you feel like I’ve nailed it. Don’t move to the next thing. Don’t go, I’m gonna start with bringing my body language down while I’m doing one thing and just do it enough. And that one thing will make
You 90 % better than fucking everyone. Literally, one thing. You just do that.
Do you have any books or resources that you like on working on nonverbal or getting some techniques around it?
Speaker 1 (51:45.066)
not necessarily books there are I’ve read a ton of books. But you take little bits and pieces and you got to read the whole book to take bits and pieces. I think there’s been really good podcasts recently that have talked about it. think Diary of the Sea Diary of a
Yeah, I know the one you’re talking about. There’s a chick that was on there that was like just dropping hammers the whole time.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:05.678)
Vanessa Van something right so body language and that podcast that was a really good one. He had another lawyer who’s who deals in court cases and he talked about communication skills. Another great one here that Aussie Vietnamese guy who’s quite popular as well Jian Hing or something he was on there. those podcasts because there’s a condensed bit of information and you’re not having to read the whole book. You can get a few great tips and implement them.
If you search.
Speaker 2 (52:35.148)
Yeah, great. Great. Jaski, is there anything you’re excited about at the moment you’d to let the listeners in on?
we are working on some really cool YouTube stuff. So our YouTube starting to really go places, which I’m really excited about because it’s taken a long time to get there. So if there’s one place you’d like to see, I’d like you to go to where we’re really putting in a lot of effort to make really, really good entertaining content. It is it is our YouTube, which is Mr. sick hunt with a double K. And at the moment, we’ve got a video that’s going to be coming out where
we go and investigate some of the most extreme cults. And there are some that you just would not expect even exist that do exist. And that took this skill to the next level to have to go and disarm people that maybe are getting that level of backlash, but then to allow them to open up.
You’re gonna be next generation Louis Thoreau at the rate you’re going. I love Louis He’s great.
Well, that’s my inspiration, man. love. So I’m like, if I can even do 10 % of what he did, man, it would be so good.
Speaker 2 (53:42.508)
Yeah, nice man. And you mentioned it for YouTube, but where else can people find you if they’re interested?
Just just type in Sikhan double K, A and T, S I double K, and T anywhere. The Instagram, TikTok, whatever, all of the stuff, but YouTube’s YouTube’s a place where we’re really putting our best foot forward.
Awesome, awesome. And speaking of that, if you’ve enjoyed the episode, please go to YouTube, search that one time without a met while it clicks, subscribe, like the video and leave us a comment. Thank you, Jessica. Appreciate you for coming on again. Let’s do it again in another year.
Amazing, man. Thank you. It was pleasure talking to you. Really good questions. You asked some stuff that actually made me think and things that I haven’t thought of in a while and you know, you’re getting better and better. wish you the best of luck at the same time and it a pleasure chatting. Thanks,
Thanks my man. See you next time.
