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There are two major problems with public speaking: 1. Many do public speaking for the sake of public speaking. To prove themselves something. That they can pub

There are two major problems with public speaking: 1. Many do public speaking for the sake of public speaking. To prove themselves something. That they can publicly speak. This is wrong. You need to have a clear goal. Your speech is an enabler. E.g. you want to attract new clients, employees, funding, whatever. Even just to strengthen your personal brand doesn't work either. Behind this semi-goal must be again a clear and meaningful goal. E.g. increase personal brand because you want to sell x or position yourself as expert in field y. If you have this clear gloal your speech will fly by itself. If not you will utterly fail and you feel it every second of that speech. 2) The bigger problem is that people heavily learn their speech before. Just learn the first five minutes. Then try to speak to the public like you would speak to a good friend. Don't learn sentences. Just have a rough outline of the speech in your head. The best speeches usually come when you didn't prepare at all (but this never happens).

indogooner 9y ago
Definitely agree on 1. Having a clear goal makes it a much better experience by soothing the nerves esp. for someone like me who doesn't speaks often in public. The more clarity I have about my content more confident I feel while speaking. I would like to try 2) and see how it goes.
patcheudor 9y ago
Yes! I've found that public speaking has become almost second nature to me over the years only after becoming an absolute expert in my field to the point I generate unique research and can bring new things to the table. As a result, I may prepare a slide deck ahead of time and am usually still working on it just before I speak. The slide-deck itself are breadcrumbs. It's there to keep me on subject but in terms of preparation, I don't prepare because I don't need to thanks to how well I know the subject matter.
Vinnl 9y ago
> Then try to speak to the public like you would speak to a good friend. I think this works better for some people than for others. When I speak to a good friend, often I'm rambling and not articulating clearly, and I often lose track of the point of my story. It happens far more often than I like that I fail to capture someone's interest, and I definitely don't want that to happen on stage.
- BoorishBears 9y ago
  That's why you learn the first 5 minutes, you'll have captured their attention and you're free to ramble slightly
  - Vinnl 9y ago
    Yeah the point is, it's not slightly - I even lose my friends' interest, and will fall silent 5 minutes later.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  That's something to work on. Structuring your thoughts and thus speech a little bit. Next time you feel like explaining something to someone, try to be mindful of the points you're explaining, and proceed in a recursive way: first an outline, then the details, one at a time. Because good public speaking does indeed work very much like talking to a friend (with some small differences in style and tempo). Maybe a writing exercise would help? Try and write an article on a topic, and get someone to comment on its structure (I'll be happy to help).
  - Vinnl 9y ago
    I actually consider myself to be pretty good at writing. I think it's mostly that it costs a lot of time and energy for me to articulate properly, to maintain social cues, etc., which leaves little for properly structuring a story. I hope/expect this to get better over time, but it definitely doesn't come naturally unfortunately.
watwut 9y ago
> Then try to speak to the public like you would speak to a good friend. I don't have that long monologues in front of friends. If I would learn just outline, the audience would ended up hearing just that.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
I strongly agree. In 1) you provided examples for talks that are meant to convince people / win you something. But the very same advice applies in the other kind of public speaking - the one in which you want to give something valuable to your audience. You have to have a clear idea of what you're trying to explain to people. That necessarily involves first understanding it. After that - and this is a step I see some smart people struggling with - you need to think through how to structure that understanding, recursively, from the expected level of your audience upwards. Then the public speech is pretty much like executing a pre-order traversal on a tree (with root node being your talk outline).

indogooner 9y ago

Definitely agree on 1. Having a clear goal makes it a much better experience by soothing the nerves esp. for someone like me who doesn't speaks often in public. The more clarity I have about my content more confident I feel while speaking. I would like to try 2) and see how it goes.

patcheudor 9y ago

Yes! I've found that public speaking has become almost second nature to me over the years only after becoming an absolute expert in my field to the point I generate unique research and can bring new things to the table. As a result, I may prepare a slide deck ahead of time and am usually still working on it just before I speak. The slide-deck itself are breadcrumbs. It's there to keep me on subject but in terms of preparation, I don't prepare because I don't need to thanks to how well I know the subject matter.

Vinnl 9y ago

> Then try to speak to the public like you would speak to a good friend. I think this works better for some people than for others. When I speak to a good friend, often I'm rambling and not articulating clearly, and I often lose track of the point of my story. It happens far more often than I like that I fail to capture someone's interest, and I definitely don't want that to happen on stage.

BoorishBears 9y ago
That's why you learn the first 5 minutes, you'll have captured their attention and you're free to ramble slightly
- Vinnl 9y ago
  Yeah the point is, it's not slightly - I even lose my friends' interest, and will fall silent 5 minutes later.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
That's something to work on. Structuring your thoughts and thus speech a little bit. Next time you feel like explaining something to someone, try to be mindful of the points you're explaining, and proceed in a recursive way: first an outline, then the details, one at a time. Because good public speaking does indeed work very much like talking to a friend (with some small differences in style and tempo). Maybe a writing exercise would help? Try and write an article on a topic, and get someone to comment on its structure (I'll be happy to help).
- Vinnl 9y ago
  I actually consider myself to be pretty good at writing. I think it's mostly that it costs a lot of time and energy for me to articulate properly, to maintain social cues, etc., which leaves little for properly structuring a story. I hope/expect this to get better over time, but it definitely doesn't come naturally unfortunately.

watwut 9y ago

> Then try to speak to the public like you would speak to a good friend. I don't have that long monologues in front of friends. If I would learn just outline, the audience would ended up hearing just that.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

I strongly agree. In 1) you provided examples for talks that are meant to convince people / win you something. But the very same advice applies in the other kind of public speaking - the one in which you want to give something valuable to your audience. You have to have a clear idea of what you're trying to explain to people. That necessarily involves first understanding it. After that - and this is a step I see some smart people struggling with - you need to think through how to structure that understanding, recursively, from the expected level of your audience upwards. Then the public speech is pretty much like executing a pre-order traversal on a tree (with root node being your talk outline).