Re: how to practice for public speaking?
This is an excerpt from a private exchange. I am sharing it with the permission of my correspondent, without disclosing their identity.
I was wondering how do you have the courage to become who you are today, you know, making speech and talk to different people. I have to do a presentation next week, and I find that even the most trivial presentation would stress me out and ruin my whole week. Is there any tip?
Change takes time. Big transformations are the result of many small tweaks whose cumulative effect eventually becomes noticeable as the new normal. There is this expression in English that âpractice makes perfectâ, which basically means that you become competent at something the more you do it. Though you also have to be mindful of what exactly you are doing. The technique or the method matters, otherwise you are embedding initial errors as second nature, which then makes them harder to correct.
Specifically on the topic of making a presentation, there are two core skills involved. One is the ability to express an idea clearly. The other is to connect with people at the interpersonal level through language.
You can think of âclear expressionâ as a direct path to somewhere. There are no obstacles, no branching sideways, no surprises and distractions: it just goes from A to B. You improve this skill by writingâand you have to write consistently. What you write about does not matter. The point is to pick a topic that you care about and formulate at least one relevant thought that makes sense. For example, you can write about the job you do, the place you live, a book you readâŚ
Write as if you are addressing a stranger. So you cannot say âI like this book because it is goodâ, as that contains a lot of unknown information which may be clear in your head but does not appear in context. Instead, you have to note how, e.g. âI like this book because it taught me about Xâ. Then describe X to someone who is unfamiliar with the given domain of knowledge.
You do not need to publish your writings or show them to anyone. But it is essential for you to imagine that they are open to the public. This helps you have the correct frame of mind to make the thought understandable.
I described clarity as going from point A to point B without any impediments. A common mistake is to overexplain things. Perhaps you do it to prove that you really know what you are talking about. Or you underestimate the skills of the other person. The reason is not relevant though. When you overexplain, you effectively introduce distractions by making the instructions too verbose and thus too difficult to process. The essence may still be âfrom A you reach Bâ, but this âessenceâ cannot be buried under piles of unimportant details.
At this early stage you will not be competent at focusing on the essentials. Just know that there will be lots of âuseless additivesâ in the beginning. As you write, those will gradually disappear. An example is what you have just read. You will notice that up until this point I have been thorough, but not frivolous with my words: I have not mentioned anything unrelated to the point I am elaborating on, nor have I explained every single concept I introduced.
The interpersonal skill is what separates interesting presentations from boring ones. Lots of scientists, for example, are excellent at getting all the details right but terrible at producing an interesting presentation. This is because they do not consider a basic fact about people: we remember big ideas and tend to forget tiny details. I can tell you about a story I heard when I was a kid, but I already forgot the quarterly report I got from the ministry of financial affairs.
Consider that our tendency to grasp the big ideas and forget the details is also a function of time. We might have the capacity to remember some details if they are given to us over, say, 30 seconds, but we will not be able to keep every detail in our head over the course of a 20-minute technical presentation. That is overwhelming.
Understand, then, that you are talking to people and are making a somewhat general point. This is true even in a technical setting. For example, a scientist should communicate their main findings and let their paper go over the technicalities of the data. You want to give them the big picture. It is sufficiently informative, but not too detailed.
People effectively need âbreathing spaceâ. You cannot bombard them with words non-stop. Pace yourself to be slow. Introduce brief pauses in between periods of higher intensity. If something is monotonous, then it is harder for people to discern patterns: they feel they are entering a closed space, with nothing to see, which makes them lose interest. So read/talk with the intent of varying the tones. Then you get them to listen to you because you keep their brain active.
Control your breath so that you can speak properly and think clearly. You do this if you are not rushing to finish your points. Have short sentences. Use commas for emphasis. Again, take it slow. Read this last sentence with a break where the comma is, like âagain STOP take it slowâ. Now read it again without that stop to check how awkward it is.
The ability to pause communicates confidence because you truly are in control of the situation: you are not panicking, you are not showing that you would rather be somewhere else, you are not trying to run away, you are not afraid of the clock.
You get better at this skill by practising speech. Consider recording yourself. Write your presentation in a way that is slow, has pauses, and lets you vary the tones. Then read it out loud and check the recording. Focus on the clarity of the words. If your breathing is correct, then you have air to speak loudly.
With enough practice you will learn to communicate effectively even on topics you are not prepared for, though that is the longer-term result. Similarly, once you get better at pacing yourself, you will be able to work on non-verbal communication: to look around the room, to establish eye contact, to have an aura of perfect balance. Though these come later. Right now your goal is to learn the contents of your presentation: they are not too detailed and they are not monotonous. Then read it properly, as I have outlined here.
Finally, remember that what you are feeling is normal. Everybody is like this because public speakingâand public speaking that is coherent and laser-focusedâis not something we get by default. We become better at it through continuous practice. Try things to the best of your ability. You may not be good right now, but you will improve over time. Even if you are not good at all at doing presentations, you can still write a script for next week that contains elements of what I have covered, such as clear points and viable pacing.
In Greek we say âthere is no âI cannotâ but only âI do not want toââ. Our emphasis is on the honesty of the effort: try it sincerely and only then decide if you can or cannot do it. But do not quit early, as that is your fear or complacency speaking. Of course, there are things we cannot change through practice (e.g. I cannot train to become 3 metres tall), but most things are malleable. Have this attitude and take it one step at a time. The rest will follow naturally.