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A book “confessions of a public speaker” has quite a few very nice and useful anecdotes and tips. And a random personal anecdote: I had a really difficult tim

by ay 7y ago

A book “confessions of a public speaker” has quite a few very nice and useful anecdotes and tips. And a random personal anecdote: I had a really difficult time even at toastmasters dealing with my Uhms and Umms. Having someone count them somewhat works, but I decided to experiment by just watching my daily speech to be the same “quality” as public speech, and try to suppress the garbage words even during no-stress moments. It took maybe half a year of practice, but as a result I started to speak slower and (probably :) clearer in the day to day life, and this during the public speaking too, with zero effort. Edit-append: the most useful exercise is taking the projector, presenting in an empty room as if for the crowd, recording this “from a seat” and watching yourself. Extremely weird at first, but you very quickly see the areas to focus on. And since you must rehearse any talk anyway several times (at least that is the case for me), it is a zero-cost and high return activity.

callumprentice 7y ago
Sounds like great advice - thanks. I did have to give a (kind of) public talk recently and it wasn't great but one of the things you mentioned helped me a lot - namely, slow down. I felt like I was talking much too slowly at first but slowly realized it was okay.
- ay 7y ago
  Happy if it will be of use! There are two things at play with being too fast: first, you know what you are talking about (thus are giving a talk) - and tend to want to give as much info as possible. the second, and more important one, is the adrenaline rush that every performance gives. It probably is this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachypsychia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachypsychia Consequently rehearsals help (they remove the worry about what to say) Also one thing that helped me a lot is taking “dominant” poses five minutes before getting on stage. I can’t find the study that claimed it to work - but it did. Later I have read the research that had claimed it didn’t work - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/28946020/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/28946020/ is one of the studies I could find quickly, but for me this technique still works, so maybe it’s the power of the placebo :)
ghaff 7y ago
Video has helped me to calm my hand motions down. And editing podcasts makes me ever so aware of the verbal tics that I (and my guests) tend towards.
makr17 7y ago
My High School debate coach loved to sit in the back of the room during practice with his hand in the air counting the number of "Uhmms". Disconcerting at first, but then you start actively trying to keep the count from increasing, which backfires for a while, and then you get past it.

by ay 7y ago

callumprentice 7y ago

Sounds like great advice - thanks. I did have to give a (kind of) public talk recently and it wasn't great but one of the things you mentioned helped me a lot - namely, slow down. I felt like I was talking much too slowly at first but slowly realized it was okay.

ay 7y ago
Happy if it will be of use! There are two things at play with being too fast: first, you know what you are talking about (thus are giving a talk) - and tend to want to give as much info as possible. the second, and more important one, is the adrenaline rush that every performance gives. It probably is this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachypsychia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachypsychia Consequently rehearsals help (they remove the worry about what to say) Also one thing that helped me a lot is taking “dominant” poses five minutes before getting on stage. I can’t find the study that claimed it to work - but it did. Later I have read the research that had claimed it didn’t work - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/28946020/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/28946020/ is one of the studies I could find quickly, but for me this technique still works, so maybe it’s the power of the placebo :)

ghaff 7y ago

Video has helped me to calm my hand motions down. And editing podcasts makes me ever so aware of the verbal tics that I (and my guests) tend towards.

makr17 7y ago

My High School debate coach loved to sit in the back of the room during practice with his hand in the air counting the number of "Uhmms". Disconcerting at first, but then you start actively trying to keep the count from increasing, which backfires for a while, and then you get past it.