Awesome book on public speaking, recommended by Derek Sivers, and one of the best I read on the subject so far. It’s full of practical advice, anecdotes from life of a public speaker, as well as full of references to other great books on different sub-topics (fighting anxiety, lecturing, writing well, preparing slides, etc). Here are my notes on “Confession of a Public Speaker” by Scott Berkun.
I can’t see you naked (on mistakes)
- ==If you’d like to be good at something, the first thing to go out the window is the notion of perfection==. Every time I get up to the front of the room, I know I will make mistakes. And this is OK.
- “Stop being perfect because obsessing about perfection stops you from growing” (Tyler Durden, “Fight Club”). You stop taking chances, which means you stop learning.
- I don’t want to be perfect. I want be useful, I want to be good, and I want to sound like myself. Trying to be perfect gets in the way of all three.
Good speakers usually find when they finish that there have been four versions of the speech: the one they delivered, the one they prepared, the one the newspapers say was delivered, and the one on the way home they wish they had delivered.
– Dale Carnegie, “Public Speaking for Success”
- The audience want to be entertained. They want to learn. And most of all, they want you to do well. Many mistakes you can make while performing do not prevent those things from happening. It’s the mistakes you make before you even say a word that matter more. These include the mistakes of not having an interesting opinion, of not thinking clearly about your points, and of not planning ways to make those points relevant to your audience.
The attack of the butterflies (on fear)
- All the fun, interesting things in life come with fears. Want to ask that cute girl out on a date? Thinking of applying for that cool job? Want to write a novel? Start a company? All good things come with the possibility of failure, whether it’s rejection, disappointment, or embarrassment, and fear of those failures is what motivates many people to do the work necessary to be successful. That fear gives us the energy to proactively prevent failures from happening.
Many of the same mechanism that cause you to shrink in horror from a predator are also used when you are having sex – or even while you are consuming your Thanksgiving dinner. To your body, saber-toothed tigers and orgasms and turkey gravy look remarkably similar. An aroused physiological state is characteristic of both stress and pleasure.
– Dr. John Medina, “Brain Rules”
==Confidence, not perfection, is the goal.==
The secret is obvious – practice, practice, practice. Most people don’t do it because:
- It’s not fun
- It takes time
- They feel silly doing it
- They assume no one else does
- Their fear of speaking leads to procrastination, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of misery
Do not eat the microphone (on preparation)
As you plan your talk, start with the goal of satisfying the things listed below. People come because they:
- Want to learn something
- Wish to be inspired
- Hope to be entertained
- Have a need they hope you will satisfy
- Desire to meet other people interested in the subject
- Seek a positive experience they can share with others
- Are forced to be there by their bosses, parents, professors, or spouses
- Have been handcuffed to their chairs and haven’t left the room for days
(p. 60) To prepare well, you must do four things:
- Take a strong position in the title. All talks and presentations have a point of view, and you need to know what yours is. If you don’t know enough about the topic to have an opinion, solve that problem before you make your presentation.
- Think carefully about your specific audience. Know why they are there, what their needs are, what background knowledge they have, the pet theories they believe in, and how they hope their world will be different after your lecture is over. ==Points are claims. Arguments are what you do to support your points. Every point should be compressed into a single, tight, interesting sentence==.
- Make your specific points as concise as possible. If it takes 10 minutes to explain what your point is, something is very wrong.
- Know the likely counterarguments from an intelligent, expert audience. If you don’t know the intelligent counterarguments to each of your points, your points cannot be good.
With a title and list in hand, you now have a strawman: a rough sketch of what your talk might cover and the points it might make. Show it to coworkers, friends, or event potential audience members, and ask them how to make the list better.
(p. 67) …by working hard on a clear, strong, well-reasoned outline, I’ve already built ==three versions of the talk==: an elevator pitch (the title), a five-minute version (saying each point and a brief summary), and the full version (with slides, movies, and whatever else strengthens each point)
The science of not boring people (on delivery)
(p 85 – on providing easy-to-follow rhythm) I can say, ==”I have 30 minutes to talk to you, and five points to make. I will spend five minutes on each point and save the remaining time for any questions.”== That takes about 10 seconds to say, but for that small price I continue to own the attention of the room because they know the plan.
(p 87 – on attention and building curiosity)
You can entice, inspire, cajole, stimulate, or fascinate but you cannot make anyone listen to anything. ==Embracing this fact up-front lets us focus on what we can do. We want to create curiosity.== We want to catch and hold someone’s attention… Influence is a function of grabbing someone’s attention, connecting to what they already feel is important, and linking that feeling to whatever you want them to see, do, or feel. It is easier if you let your story land first, and then draw the circle of meaning/connection around it using what you see and hear in the responses of your listeners.
– Annette Simmons, “The Story Factor”
p 88 – “Play the part: you are the star”
You are not playing the role they expect – that of a confident, clear, motivated, and possible entertaining expert on something. ==You do not have to be perfect, but you do need to play the part.==
In other words, ==be bigger than you are==. Speak louder, take stronger positions, and behave more aggressively than you would in an ordinary conversation.
p 89 – “Know what happens next”
The biggest advantage I have over every crowd, no matter how smart they are, is that I know what will happen next. (…) I could know half as much on a subject as my audience, yet still amaze, surprise, and entertain them by how I weave my stories together.
Get the audience involved
- Ask for a show of hands.
- Ask trivia and let people shout out answers.
- Give them a problem to solve.
Lessons from my 15 minutes of fame (on presenting for a remote audience, tv, podcast, youtube)
- …television, radio interviews, YouTube videos, podcasts… are simply ==different kinds of performances==.
- Imagine your listener Howard Stern talks to his audience as if he were having beers with his buddies, which is why people tend to love hime or hate him. (…) It’s art of making the unnatural seem natural.
- The secret to speaking to an audience without one actually present is to forget the studio and ignore the cameras. Go to a place in your mind where you remember the last time you spoke to a live, friendly, interested group, and match that style of behavior and enthusiasm.
The things people say (on appearance and superficials)
(p 117) From experience at failing to do it, I can say that keeping an audience entertained and interested for an hour is quite difficult. Anyone who can deserves respect. But this is not the same achievement as teaching a skill or telling an inspiring story. ==The best teachers use entertainment as a way to fuel teaching, not simply to make their students laugh.==
- Credibility comes from the host.
- Superficial count (appearance)
- Enthusiasm matter.
Was the audience inspired or motivated? This may matter more than how much they learned.
Expert feedback you can get right now
- Grab a video camera (webcam)
- Open your notes or slides for a talk you know
- Videotape yourself presenting it.
Five minutes will do just fine. Imagine you have an audience on the wall opposite you, who you should be making eye contact with, and go for it. Then sit down, and watch.
Despite how each this to do, most people, even those who say public speaking is important and want to get better at it, aren’t willing to do it. It’s just too scary for them. To which I say, you are a hypocrite. If you’re too scared to watch yourself speak, how can you expect your audience to watch you?
The clutch is your friend (on teaching and lectures)
(p 131) …the necessary shift is to switch from a teacher-centric to an environment-centric model. Most teachers focus on their lesson plans: what to include in their lectures (…) The teacher is the center of the universe. By contrast, the best teachers focus on the students’ needs. They strive to create an environment where all the pieces students need–emotional confidence, physical comfort, and intellectual curiosity – are present at the same time. ==The teacher has to get out of the way== (…)
(p 132)
“If you want to teach a behavior skill, at some stage the student should practice it. If you are training athletes to run 100 meters, at some point in that training they should practice running 100 meters…. You might think this principle is obvious. And so it is to ordinary people. But it is quite beyond some of the most intelligent people our educational system has produced.“
– Donald A. Bligh, “What’s the Use of Lectures”
Books recommendations on teaching:
- “What the best college teacher do”, Ken Bain
- “Games Trainers Play”, Edward Scannel and John Newstrom.
(p 136)
Good teacher listen as much as they talk, improving their material based on what they hear and studying to see if it had the positive effects they hoped.
Confessions (misc lifehacks)
(p 138)
- “Half the time you already know what you need to know”. (…) I know old ideas said well have surprising power in a world where everyone obsesses about what’s new.
- Full-day seminars are misery for teachers and students. (…) Three 90-minute sessions or four 60-minute sessions, with many breaks, is my preferred way to run a full-day experience.
- Making connections is everything. (…) If you don’t know what you’re connecting through your words, you’re more selfish than you realize.
- The easiest way to be interesting is to be honest. If you’re honest, even if people disagree, they will find you interesting and keep listening.
How to make a point (on arguing and rhetorics)
- The most useful inventory of rhetorical tactics ==”Than You for Arguing” by Jay Heinrichs==.
- The best reference on rhetoric never before offered in a public-speaking book is the ==movie “Animal House”==.
- Emphasis: emphasize, emphasize, emphasize.
- Being silent makes your points. Filler sounds (umm, uhh) –> practice to stop using fillers and change it to moments of silence.
What to do if your talks sucks
Why your talk might suck
- This is your fist time. “No one wants to have his brain surgery performed by a rookie”. ==Solution: Practice until it feels good.==
- You make sex boring. “Anyone can kill a topic by speaking in monotone, looking disinterested, picking uninspired examples, and behaving like he doesn’t care about what he’s saying.” ==Solution: Take an interesting angle from the beginning. Force a point of view into the title, and let it grow into the points you make.==
Bibliography
Fighting Anxiety
- Toastmaster.org
- “Conquer Your Speech Anxiety”, Karen Kangas Dwyer – workbook + CD
- “The Francis Effect”, M.F> Fensholt
Storytelling
==First-person narrative has powers to connect and teach, which stuffy third-person writing never can==
- “Kitchen Confidential”, Anthony Bourdain
- “Down and Out in Paris and London”, George Orwell
- “Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir”, William Zinsser
The best advice on becoming a better storyteller is to dive head first into listening to great stories:
- NPR’s This American Life
- The Moth (www.themoth.org), 10-15 minutes stories
- StoryCorps
- “The Story Factor”, Annette Simmons
Presentation design
- “Presentation Zen”, Garr Reynolds
- “Slide:ology”, Nancy Duarte
Work on paper until you figure out what you want to say and how you might say it. Starting with presentation software nearly always makes you think slide-centric and not story-, point-, or audience-centric.
Studying comedians
- Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, Henry Rollins, George Carlin, and Chris Rock
- Documentary “Comedian” with Jerry Seinfeld