Mastery of Public Speaking

"I have custom software that I've written that will say, 'Okay, here are the points at which the audience laughed.' Actually audibly laughed. That's the only way it counts. And this actually... and it comes down to this metric that standup comedians use called LPM laughs per minute."

"I just froze. I couldn't remember what I was supposed to say. It was the first ever time in my life I'd rehearsed a talk word for word. Usually, I have talking points and I'd ad lib and things get mixed around and it's kind of informal."

"Visualization is a really useful technique and you see yourself not just in the moment of speaking, but getting up to the stage, seeing it being well received, thinking about how you step off the stage. We see athletes do this kind of thing all the time, and there's good research to say that this desensitizes people."

"You actually have to prepare to be spontaneous. And that's counterintuitive, but when you think about it in athletics or jazz music, it's like of course you would prepare and practice."

"Strive for connection over perfection by daring to be dull. Just answer the question. By doing that, you dial down the volume of self-evaluation, freeing up resources that can be used to really help you succeed."

"It's a moment of either transformation, meaning I'm telling you a story about how I once used to be one kind of person and now I'm a new kind of person. Or more common is realization. Which is I used to think something and then some stuff happened and now I think a new thing."

"Because to be a storyteller means you have to separate yourself from the herd, and in their mind, that risks them getting picked off, right? Getting picked off by some predator. But the alternative is you're in the herd, which means you're forgettable."

"The day I understood that speaking was a subconscious flow-oriented process and not a conscious process, completely changed the way I approached it. So instead of thinking tactics and frameworks and adding more to the outside of the things I need to think about, when I realized when I speak best, I'm actually not thinking about speaking."

"If instead you switch that up and you start thinking up. I think up into the right, but you can think in any direction you want, but as long as you're looking up, you actually look thoughtful by default. So suddenly you're looking thoughtful."

"Well, your practice has to be enjoyable as well because otherwise two weeks in, you're going to quit just like a shitty fitness journey or diet. Right? You have to find joy in it and it has to be structured in a way where it rewards you as well, so that you get more energy and you get more enjoyment while you do it."

"People tend to get into a public speaking voice. We'll be in a class and they'll be chatting normally and look super normal. And then we'll say, "Okay, now just a timer, I'm just going to give you a speech. Just speak for 60 seconds so we get a baseline," and I click play, and suddenly I say, "The important part about doing this," and they enter into a different version of themselves, a professional version, whatever that would mean."

"The root cause of having lots of filler words or racing in your speaking, is that you probably struggle to feel comfortable slowing down, relaxing, or even pausing when your mind is racing and you feel pressure. Solve that, and not only do the filler words take care of themselves, but the racing takes care of itself and you suddenly have more mind space."