Biography-

My journey started when I was 19 years old. I was hired by the Attorney General’s Office of British Columbia and spent two years travelling the province; speaking to youths from 5-18 about racism and violence. I might be speaking to 60 kindergarten students in the morning and 4 at-risk teenagers (in a youth detention centre) in the afternoon. It was here where I discovered my first insight: People learn best by doing. In every situation we saw an increase in attention, energy and retention when we had volunteers! That is why my workshops are always highly interactive involving individual, partner and group work.

While at the Desautels School of Management at McGill  I was selected as one of the top 4 students in the program and as such travelled nationally and internationally representing the university in case competitions . From Copenhagen, to Dallas to Singapore this is where I had my second insight: Your presentation starts before you say a word. How much communication is supposed to be non-verbal? We make decisions in fractions of seconds based on what we see and we rarely remember what people say but we will always have an opinion about the speaker.  

Before I graduated professors started asking me if I might teach their students how to present. That is when my love of teaching was born, but it was to take a back seat as I entered the corporate world. 

I also turned a love for dancing into my first business.  A dance academy which at it’s peak had 4 locations. It was here that I started experimenting with teaching techniques and discovering that so much of what is taught doesn’t work!

Fun facts about Ivan-

• He is a top-rated instructor on Coursera with over 100,000 learners
• He is a top-rated instructor on Udemy with over 50,000 students
• He was the official host for the Invictus Games in 2017 & PanAm Games in 2015
• He was co-founder of the Vancouver International Salsafestival
• The largest crowd he ever spoke in front of was 30,000
• He wrote a book called "End Boring: A Tactical Approach to Public Speaking"

Social Media Handles-

Instagram-  @salseroruiz
Facebook-   Ivan Wanis Ruiz
Website-      www.publicspeakinglab.com


Don't forget to subscribe to her podcast and leave a review!