Becoming a great public speaker is not like building. It’s like rock sculpting.
Plant this analogy firmly in your mind. It’s the key to becoming a great public speaker.
A great public speaker is not one who has tons of side-splitting jokes, or makes you cry, or delivers amazing ideas, or beautiful turns of phrase, or follows all those rules about signposting and structure from debate or forensics club. None of those things really matter in the end. Neither does your personality, voice, physical appearance, or whether you use your hands, a podium, or slides.
A great speaker is one whose ideas and heart are transmitted directly and clearly to the audience. A great speaker is a genuine person whose unique perspective and personality isn’t obscured by nerves or ticks or anything else.
To be a great public speaker is to allow who you really are to come through.
The Ingredients are Already There
A sculptor can take a hunk of granite and, by removing certain bits and pieces, produce a beautiful statue. The process is not additive but reductive. The hunk of granite already contains the work of art, capable of moving us with its fluidity, beauty, and power.
You already have a great speaker inside you. The problem is all the stuff piled up around it, making it impossible to see. The key to becoming a great public speaker is removing everything that hides what’s already there.
How do I know it’s already there? Think about your close friends. When they are excited about a movie, or recalling an amazing play by their favorite athlete, or saddened by a deep personal loss, what do they sound like? Does their personality come through in their words? Do they have the power to move you?
I’ve never met anyone who can’t communicate effectively in conversation, at least among their close friends. In other words, the great communicator is in there.
The Granite Hunk
Something weird happens when we go from casual conversation to a formal presentation. The sculpted art that represents our ideas, beliefs, passions, and personality gets cloaked in a hunk of raw granite. We stand like a great featureless stone in front of the crowd, struggling and stuttering.
The stuff that collects around us is mostly nerves, fears, and self-doubt. We express it through verbal ticks, weird hand movements, nervous pacing, unnatural inflection, rapid-fire speech, or long pauses.
But all of that is not you. It’s not natural. You are the person who converses with your friends. All you’ve got to do is, one by one, eliminate the things that obscure the sculpture.
There are two ways to go about removing the stuff that blocks you from reaching your audience authentically. The first is to go bit by bit and tweak the small stuff. Internalize the best way to keep your hands at bay, or find a comfortable stance, or slow down your words, or smile. Practice in front of a mirror or a few friends focusing on these details until you get it right.
If you’re persistent, this will work. Your speeches will improve from a technical standpoint and you’ll be less distracting to your listeners. It’s not bad to practice in this way, but you’ll find if you go a level deeper and get to the cause many of these symptoms will fade away on their own.
What’s the cause? Two things, almost every time:
- Lack of practice
- Lack of subject matter knowledge
The first is relatively straightforward, though not easy. You just need to give more speeches. You will get better.
The second is a little more subtle than you might think. Most of us were introduced to public speaking through very unnatural environments like classes where we were forced to present about a topic assigned to us, of which we had little knowledge or expertise. The Geology of Yellowstone isn’t a great topic for a young speaker to really own and speak about from a place of deep knowledge.
You need to know your topic better than anyone in the world. You may think that impossible, but it’s quite easy. What do you know better than anyone in the world?
No one else has your background, brain, baggage, or brilliance. That means whatever the topic, you have an angle that is utterly and completely unique to you. That’s what needs to come out. If you’re giving a talk on marketing you’ll be stressed out of your mind if your content consists of a few hours of studying some expert opinion and reciting it. You’ll be petrified that audience members who know more will call you out or think you a fraud. But take the same topic and build your content around your unique experience and no one will be able to call you out. You’ll be able to connect directly with the audience, probably without notes, as you tell your unique story about marketing and the ways in which you’ve experienced it. You’re not David Ogilvy, and you parroting his information isn’t really unique to you. With a minor tweak, it could be. You describing how you tried and failed or succeeded in implementing his ideas is uniquely you.
Go Find Your Speaker
I’ve run public speaking workshops for hundreds of people, from fortune 5000 execs to high school students, and I can tell you there are as many effective speakers as there are people. Every personality, even the most timid, has a genuine voice. Once the hunks of rock are chipped away it is revealed.
You’ve got a great communicator in you. Chisel away the excess and let it show.