Easymode Public Speaking: The Technique Nobody is Talking About
Simpler and more effective than any other technique.
“Great” public speakers post well-intentioned articles all the time about “how to do it” but we’re not all great public speakers yet. Ever wondered why that is?
Most great public speakers suck at teaching.
When you’re great at something it’s really hard to teach it to someone because you take so many of your skills for granted. If you asked LeBron exactly how he dribbles a basketball he’d probably fumble the response. If I asked you how exactly you go about breathing you’d have a tough time too. The amount of conscious effort it takes LeBron to dribble a ball is probably about the same as it takes us to breathe.
I’m good at teaching public speaking not because I’m the best public speaker but because I teach it to people a lot. That’s how you get good at anything. But hold it in your mind, teaching and doing are different skills.
Why Your Article Sucks and Mine is Based
I am sorry to pick on James Brooks. I don’t know him personally. He seems fine, although I generally don’t get along with people that smile a lot for photos. Anyways, he’s just who happened to wander into my headlights this time. If it’s not him writing a “how 2 public speak” article that doesn’t land it’s someone else. All of these articles have a lot in common so I’m using his as an indicative jumping off point. I’ll walk you through a few direct counterpoints and then give you my technique for public speakmaxxing that’s super simple and easy.
Don’t Start Small, Just Start
Giving both technical and soft talks in smaller, safer environments was crucial for building my confidence. It proved to me that I had the ability to deliver before the stakes got high.
This is an illusion. Walking on a tightrope a few inches off the ground doesn’t require any different skills than walking on a tightrope between two skyscrapers. It’s a mind-trick that gets you to (falsely) associate size of the crowd with how nervous your should be, he states this in the text clearly as “the stakes got high.” The stakes were never high because you were never walking on a tightrope you were just talking to people and the worst thing that could have happened was you fumbling your talk and everybody forgetting about it 30 minutes later. Literally nobody gives fuck.
Practice is Good Unless it’s Fragile
Even if I’m giving a talk for the fifth time, I practice relentlessly.
If you have to rehearse a talk after you’ve given it five times you have a public speaking skill gap. Actually if you have to rehearse it at all you have a skill gap.
Random shit will always happen when you’re speaking. Once when I was giving a lecture to about 500 students a fucking bird flew in. Instantly 500 students started gawking at the bird as if it was the most interesting thing they had seen all morning (and likely it was, being 8AM). If I stick-up-my ass rehearsed my talk a bajillion times I’d be in a bad spot. I’d have to wait until they calmed down then continue, but, oh crap! I’m 5 minutes off my time now! You see the issue.
In the bird situation I cracked a joke about it pooping on people then started tying my lecture back to the bird sneaking into the lecture hall.
It’s not always a bird. Sometimes you’re in a creative mood and you want to try out a new idea, thinking through it realtime in front of an audience while welcoming counterpoints and questions.
If you rehearse some word-perfect mess a million times I don’t understand why they trotted you out in front of me as a speaker, why can’t I just watch the recording? The in-room live energy is real if you ride it. That’s why a live Jimi Hendrix concert was probably a much more interesting experience than seeing Sabrina Carpenter strip and lip sync to a prerecorded show.
People Want to See You Fail
Nobody wants to see you go on stage and crash out. The audience is rooting for you to succeed.
This is one of the more naïve things I’ve heard recently.
Many people, even ones who don’t know you, want to see you fail want to see something unpredictable and spontaneous.
A bird is ordinary. A bird in a lecture hall is spontaneous.
A pre-rehearsed talk is ordinary. Betting that you can unite two disparate concepts in mid-flight during a talk is spontaneous.
If people didn’t want to see you fail, why is my TikTok feed filled with people falling over, getting in car accidents, and crashing out while doing basic home repair? It’s spontaneous, it’s human. Brooks hedges a bit:
you will ad-lib, or you might reference a previous speaker who gave you food for thought.
but what I’m telling you is don’t stop at ad-libbing or a short reference, see if you can blow your whole talk up mid-stream based on how you’re feeling or what else is going on and see if you can assemble it while people are watching under a time constraint. That is a good time for everyone if it goes well!
How to Public Speak
Reps, reps, reps. Just get the reps in. The more the better. Good, bad, doesn’t matter. Say “yes” to every public speaking opportunity. Speak up more at dinner parties. Volunteer to give demos at work. Make a toast.
That’s it. That’s all you need to do. Everything else will follow. By the 50th or 5000th time you do it you’ll feel in control and like you own the stage but advice like “Own the stage” is misguided: it’s putting the cart before the horse. You need to numb up to the stress of it first, everything else follows. If you fake a bunch of techniques first you’ll feel like a fraud because, well, you kinda are one. You’re like a parrot saying the words without really knowing what they mean.
If you need some specific pointers. You’re saying “but, but DrJ I need a top 10 listicle of tips!!” Let’s go a level deeper.
10x Reps
Reps are the issue. Even if you say “yes” to every public speaking opportunity you’ll be capped at the number of opportunities. Don’t be. Start recording yourself improvising talks. Videotape yourself telling the camera about your day as a story like you’re vlogging. Once you’ve recorded it (you won’t because you’re too self-conscious) I want you to watch it three times and take notes each time. Watch it:
(listen) with the video off. Take notes on your speech cadence, pitch, breathing, everything you hear.
with the audio muted. Take notes on your posture, gestures, facial expressions.
normally. Take notes on the harmony between your sounds and movements.
That’s telling. You do that enough and you’ll start to be very confident very fast. We’re generally our own worst critic so you’ll actually be getting reps in with someone that’s very hard or even impossible to please. Furthermore you can do this any time day or night because you probably have a smartphone that can record and playback video.
Conclusion
It’s not a sexy and groundbreaking article to say “just fucking do it a lot of times and you’ll get better” but it seems like Brooks and anyone else writing these articles seems to have totally lost the thread on how the sausage gets made probably because they’re excellent at doing it but don’t have much experience teaching it.
PS One Hacky Trick
Take water with you.
Absolutely don’t. Drinking water on stage is soï behavior. If you want to be a speaking-Chad do not bring water up on stage with you. As soon as I see someone tote their dumb fucking Owalla travel cup up to the podium I know I’m about to hit the best nap of my life.
If you have dry mouth because you’re nervous (you won’t be if you got the reps in btw) you can use this trick I picked up from a professional flutist. Close your eyes for a second and visualize the juiciest lemon you can imagine. Pluck it from the tree, cut it into pieces, grab a wedge and take a big bite out of it while GENTLY biting the tip of your tongue. You’re now salivamaxxed and good to go. Don’t say I never taught you anything.