How can you become a strong public speaker? According to communications coach Carmine Gallo, the key lies in learning to “talk like TED”—in other words, applying nine principles of effective public speaking that frequently feature in successful TED talks. The first six principles address the content that you should include in your speech or presentation. The final three address the logistics of preparing and delivering an effective talk.
Make sure that the subject you’re going to talk about is something you feel enthusiastic about. For example, if you’re asked to give a presentation about one sale you’ve made this month, discuss the sale that excites you the most.
Choosing a topic you’re passionate about is important for three reasons:
Sometimes, you may be forced to speak on a topic that you don’t feel passionate about—for instance, if your boss asks you to give a presentation on a prescribed subject. In such situations, don’t try to fake passion. People are good at discerning whether passion is genuine or not, and when they realize you’re faking, they’ll distrust what you’re saying.
Instead, frame the topic in a way that does excite you and appeal to your passions. For example, if your passion is bringing added efficiency to your workplace, and you’re asked to give a presentation on a piece of dull accounting software that you don’t really care about, focus your presentation on how efficient the software is.
Incorporate at least one of the following three types of stories into every speech or presentation you give:
Including stories in your speeches and presentations is important for a number of reasons:
Make your story exciting enough to keep your audience listening by incorporating these five attributes into the narrative:
“New” content can take two possible forms:
Presenting something new to your audience capitalizes on the human brain’s love of learning new things. According to neuroscientists, when we learn something new, the brain releases dopamine—a hormone that makes us feel good. Because this dopamine rush is so pleasurable, people constantly seek out ways to replicate it: In other words, they look for sources of new knowledge. If you provide this knowledge during your talk, you’re more likely to keep people interested in what you’re saying.
Likewise, because what you’ve said has made your audience feel good, they’re more likely to be receptive to you and your ideas. They’ll link what you’re saying with feeling positive, and they’ll respond with positivity in turn.
Sometimes, it’s necessary to include widely-known facts or opinions in your presentation—for instance, to provide background information before you move on to your main idea. To avoid boring your audience, add novelty by packaging the information in a fresh and innovative way. For example, an executive at SanDisk packaged old information (specifically, data about the popularity of high-capacity storage cards) in a new way by incorporating it into a story about his love of photography and need for such storage himself.
A “shocking moment” is an event that your audience doesn’t anticipate, but which surprises, impresses, or moves them. Including a shocking moment in your presentations will benefit you in various ways:
First, identify the most important point you’re going to make during your talk. Since this is the point that you most want your audience to remember, it makes sense to make it the subject of your shocking moment.
Next, devise a surprising way to communicate this important idea. Here are six possible methods you could implement:
At some point in your presentation, try to make your audience laugh (or at least smile). Incorporating humor into public speaking is important because, according to research, it increases your likability. Ultimately, the more your audience likes you, the more likely they are to listen to and support what you have to say.
Incorporate these four types of humor into your speeches and presentations:
Meanwhile, avoid doing these four things when trying to make a talk humorous:
Aim to trigger a combination of the senses of hearing, sight, and touch when making a speech or presentation. It’ll help your audience to remember what you’ve said: Research has shown that multisensory experiences are much more memorable than single-sense experiences.
While you may assume that you can trigger this sense simply by talking to people, remember that just because you’re talking doesn’t mean that people will actually listen. To truly trigger your audience’s sense of hearing, you need to make your speech interesting enough to grab their attention. There are three ways to do this:
Method #1: Be highly descriptive. For instance, if you’re talking about how you created a product, discuss every detail about the moment you came up with the idea—where you were, who you were with, even what the weather was like that day. By painting a vivid picture with your words, you’ll immerse your audience in your topic and pique their interest.
Method #2: Repeat key points multiple times. For example, if the main argument of your talk is that “your product is unique,” make this point in almost every sentence you speak. The repetition will signal to the audience that you’re making an important point, thus encouraging them to listen to what you have to say.
Method #3: Incorporate other people’s voices into your speech or presentation. For instance, if you’re making a sales pitch, play a video in which happy customers give verbal testimonials. The brain starts to lose interest and “switch off” when it hears the same person’s voice for a long period of time. Incorporating other people’s voices into your talk, even briefly, circumvents this issue and keeps your audience engaged.
The easiest way to trigger this sense during a presentation is to create a visual aid to accompany your spoken words: in other words, presentation slides. When creating slides, minimize the amount of text you include. Your audience will struggle to both read a block of text on a slide and listen to you speak, meaning they won’t fully take in your ideas.
A better approach is using a combination of short phrases and pictures on your slides. Research has demonstrated that people are more likely to recall visual information if it’s presented in this way, rather than just in written form. Likewise, other studies have shown that people will remember 65% of the information presented to them if they both listen to it and see a related image at the same, compared to just 10% of the information if they only hear it.
Sometimes, it’s possible to trigger this sense directly. For example, if you’re pitching a product, you could pass a prototype around your audience.
However, if you’re talking about an idea rather than an object, there may not be a suitable prop for you to hand out. In such cases, you can stimulate the sense of touch by asking people to imagine how it would feel to touch or be touched by something. For example, in a 2011 TED talk on chronic pain, Dr. Elliot Krane asked his audience to imagine how it would feel to have someone touch your skin with a blowtorch.
Whenever possible, you should limit your presentations to 18 minutes—the length of a TED talk. Doing so is important for three reasons:
One way to keep your presentation brief is to follow the Rule of Three, which states you should only communicate a maximum of three ideas in any one talk.
Following this rule will naturally reduce the time you spend speaking since you’re setting restrictions on the amount of information you’re going to communicate. It’ll also increase the likelihood of your audience absorbing everything you say. Research suggests that the maximum number of ideas that the brain can process at once is three: Add any more ideas than this to your talk, and your audience simply won’t remember them.
Effective planning involves working out exactly how you want your speech or presentation to unfold. Your talk is much more likely to run smoothly if you have a clear idea of what you want to say, rather than making your points up as you go along.
One planning tool you could use is a message map: a one-page summary of everything you want to include in your talk. Creating a message map involves three steps:
Once you’ve fully planned your presentation, practice it again and again. If you don’t rehearse before you speak, you won’t know your talk’s structure or content very well. As you present, you’ll spend all of your mental energy contemplating logistical issues such as when to move on to the next slide and what’s actually on the next slide. Consequently, you won’t have the focus required to state your ideas clearly and smoothly.
There are three specific elements of your presentation that you should practice:
Let your true personality shine through as you speak. For example, if you’re a naturally enthusiastic presenter, don’t tone down this element of your personality because you feel you need to be “serious” in professional situations.
Being yourself is important because, just as people can tell when you’re faking passion, they can also tell when you’re pretending to be someone you’re not. When they realize that you’re faking, they’ll start to distrust you, and they’ll be less willing to accept your ideas.
Part of being yourself during a speech or presentation is allowing yourself to be emotionally vulnerable: giving yourself permission to express your true emotions as you speak. For example, if you tell a personal story during a speech, be honest about the emotional impact of the events you’re relating.
Many professionals resist doing this. They worry that showing emotion will make them seem “weak” and result in judgment from their audience. However, allowing yourself to be emotionally vulnerable is important because it shows your audience that you’re a human being who has feelings, just like them. Your listeners will relate to the emotions that you express and will feel connected to you. When you develop a connection with your audience, you increase the chances of them listening to and agreeing with what you say.
Being a strong public speaker is one of the most powerful talents you can possess. Effective speakers can captivate their audience with new ideas and concepts, inspire people to try new things, and even influence people’s opinions.
On the other hand, failing to speak persuasively and confidently can limit your capacity for success in the working world. For example, you won’t convince people to buy your product or service if your sales pitch is lackluster. Likewise, if all of your presentations are tedious and unconvincing, you’ll struggle to impress your colleagues and superiors.
According to communications coach Carmine Gallo, the key to becoming a good public speaker is applying nine principles to your talks. The first six principles relate to the content that you should include in your speech or presentation:
The final three principles relate to the logistics of preparing for and delivering an effective talk:
Gallo formulated these principles after analyzing more than 500 TED talks. At TED conferences, speakers give short presentations on a topic related to technology, entertainment, or design—hence, “TED.” Gallo noticed that the most popular and engaging TED talks all incorporated at least some of the above principles. He deduced that anyone can replicate the success of these TED talks if they apply these principles—in other words, if they learn to “talk like TED.”
In this book, we’ll explore why these nine principles are so effective at boosting your public speaking skills, and how you can apply them at your future speaking events.
(Shortform note: We’ve reordered and reorganized some of the book’s chapters to add coherency.)
Being able to speak persuasively and confidently can increase your capacity for success in the working world. Before we learn about the principles of good public speaking, rate your current speaking skills, and reflect on what you hope to gain from this book.
Describe the last speech or presentation you gave. (For example, did you give the talk at work or in another situation? What specifically did you speak about?)
List three things that you think went well when you gave the talk outlined above, and three things that you think didn’t go so well. (For instance, did you speak confidently, or did your nerves take over? Did your audience seem interested in or bored by what you were saying?)
Out of the three things that didn’t go so well about your last talk, which one do you most want to improve next time around? Why is overcoming this stumbling block important to you?
The first principle of becoming an excellent public speaker is picking a topic that you’re passionate about. For example, if you’re asked to give a presentation to your colleagues about one successful sale you’ve made this month, discuss the sale that excites you the most.
Choosing a topic that you’re passionate about is important for a number of reasons. First, if you deeply care about the subject you’re about to talk about, you’re less likely to feel nervous about your presentation. You’ll be so excited about getting to share your passion with the world that the idea of your speech going wrong won’t even cross your mind.
Second, when you’re passionate about your topic, you’re likely to speak enthusiastically. You’ll therefore be more interesting to watch than a bored and lackluster speaker. People are more likely to actually pay attention to you and what you’re saying, and your message is more likely to sink in.
Finally, studies have shown that feelings are contagious—they spread from person to person. Therefore, if you speak with passion, your audience will feel your excitement, and they’ll listen intently to what you’re saying.
TED Talk Example: Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor
In 2008, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor gave a TED talk about a severe stroke she’d suffered 12 years earlier. She described in detail how she slowly felt her brain function deteriorating as the stroke progressed. Taylor also discussed the spiritual awakening that her stroke triggered.
The response to Taylor’s TED talk was overwhelmingly positive. It was the first TED talk to go “viral” online, quickly accumulating millions of views. In the aftermath of the talk, Taylor’s book detailing her stroke and recovery process became a bestseller and was translated into 30 languages. TIME magazine named her as one of the top 100 most influential people of 2008.
Gallo argues that the key to Taylor’s talk’s success lay in her true passion for her subject. She was fascinated by and enthusiastic about the topic, not only because it related to a transformative experience in her life, but also because she was a trained neuroanatomist. Even before her stroke, Taylor’s life’s work and passion had been studying the brain and its workings.
This passion shone through as Taylor gave her TED talk. Her enthusiasm and energy were infectious, and the result was a speech that captivated millions of people worldwide.
If you’re an entrepreneur, it’s important that you’re able to speak passionately about your product, service, or idea for two reasons. First, research has shown that you’re more likely to secure funding from investors if you speak passionately about your business. In one study, investors ranked passion as the third most important criteria when deciding whether or not to offer funds to a business leader.
Second, if you can’t muster passion when discussing your business idea with your employees, they won’t feel passionate about the business either. Consequently, they won’t care about the business enough to work hard on their daily tasks. It’s likely that your company’s performance will suffer as a result.
To ensure that you consistently speak passionately about your business, make sure you genuinely care about the product or service you’re putting out into the world. Lots of people pursue a business idea not because they’re really passionate about it, but because they think it’ll generate a quick profit. Don’t fall into this trap. If you do, you’ll struggle to recruit the people who really matter: committed investors and dedicated employees. Without them, it’s unlikely you’ll get your business off the ground, let alone make a huge profit.
What if you’re not passionate about the topic you have to speak on? For instance, what if your boss asks you to give a presentation on a prescribed subject? Is it acceptable to fake passion just to keep people interested in what you’re saying?
In short: No. Research has demonstrated that people are astute at discerning when passion is genuine and when it’s false. When the people you’re talking to realize that your passion is fake, they’ll see you as a “phony,” thus making it unlikely that they’ll listen to you or take your ideas on board.
So what should you do if you’re asked to speak on a topic that you don’t feel that passionate about? The best option is to frame the topic in a way that does excite you and appeal to your passions. For instance, if your passion is bringing added efficiency to your workplace, and you’re asked to give a presentation on a piece of dull accounting software that you don’t really care about, focus your presentation on how efficient the software is.
Sometimes, we all have to publicly speak on topics that we don’t really care about. However, by framing these topics in a way that appeals to your passions, you can ensure that you captivate your audience.
Think of a time you had to give a presentation on a topic you weren’t that passionate about. What was the topic? Why did you have to talk about it?
How did your audience react to your presentation? (For example, did they seem captivated or bored?)
If you had to give a presentation or speech on the same topic again, how might you link the topic to something that does interest or excite you? (Try to frame the topic in a way that appeals to your passions.)
The second principle of becoming an effective public speaker is telling your audience stories. Incorporate at least one of the following three types of stories into your presentations:
Type #1: A story from your own life. For example, in a speech about your career, you could tell a story about the biggest challenge you’ve overcome so far. In a presentation about an amazing sale you recently made, you could tell the story of how you secured the deal.
Type #2: A story about someone else. This “someone else” could be someone you know personally, a famous person, or a historical figure: anyone who’s had an experience that relates to the topic you’re discussing. For example, when giving a presentation to your colleagues about a new management style you’ve read about, you could tell the story of the person who created the management style and how it worked for them.
Type #3: A story about a product or brand. In some situations, this may involve telling a story about a product or brand that you’ve created. For example, if you’re making a speech to launch your new product, you could tell your audience the story of how you came up with the product’s design.
Other scenarios may require you to tell a story about someone else’s product or brand. For instance, if you’re giving a presentation about why your marketing team should adopt a new brand strategy, you could tell them a story about how a competing brand successfully implemented the strategy.
Including stories in your presentations is important for four reasons. First, stories are much more likely to engage your audience than other methods of sharing information. For example, imagine you’re giving a speech to potential customers about the effectiveness of your new product. Telling a gripping story about how your product has already helped an important client will be much more exciting than listing statistics about the product’s efficacy.
Second, people are more likely to understand a concept if you tell them a story about how it works in the “real world.” For example, imagine you’re giving a presentation about a complicated new sales process that you’ve been testing out for a while, but that your team has yet to adopt. Your team members will probably understand the new process much quicker if, rather than bombarding them with the dry theory of how it works, you tell them a story about a sale you’ve made while using it. You can use your story to guide them through each step of the new process, thus illustrating how it works.
Third, stories can serve as “proof” that the claims you’re making are legitimate. For instance, if you’re making a sales pitch that details how great your new product or service is, potential customers will want to see evidence that backs up your claims before they become willing to part with their money. Real-life stories about how your product or service has already benefited customers will provide this evidence.
Finally, stories can influence your audience’s thoughts and emotions. Studies have shown that when people listen to a story, they experience identical brain function to the person telling the tale. For instance, if the storyteller experiences increased function in the area of the brain dedicated to emotion, so does the listener. This neurological connection allows speakers to “plant” certain ideas and emotions in their listeners’ minds. For example, if you want your audience to feel excited about a new product, tell a story that makes you feel excited about it. The audience’s brains will automatically mimic your emotion.
Make your story exciting enough to keep your audience listening by incorporating these five attributes into the narrative:
1) Detail: Make the story so detail-rich that your listeners feel like they’re experiencing it themselves. They’ll become so immersed in the narrative that they can’t help but stick around to find out how it ends.
2) Unexpectedness: Make the story take a turn that the audience didn’t anticipate. For instance, you could tell what seems to be a story about how you designed an incredibly successful and innovative product, then suddenly reveal that the product failed. Unexpected twists like this shock people into paying attention to what you’re saying.
3) Mystery: Keep your story’s outcome unknown for a large portion of the narrative. People crave the closure of knowing how a story will end and will keep listening until you make the “big reveal.” Therefore, it’s in your interest to keep the story’s conclusion mysterious for as long as possible.
4) Heroes and villains: Give your audience some characters to root for and others to dislike. They’ll become engrossed in your story as they wait for the satisfaction of the hero triumphing and the villain getting their comeuppance. Your heroes and villains don’t necessarily have to be people: For example, the hero of your story could be your product, and the villain could be the issue that it tries to solve.
5) Adversity: Make sure that the main character of your story overcomes adversity at some point in the narrative. For example, they could start off in a difficult situation and then slowly improve their life. Alternatively, they could start off in a good place, lose everything, and then gain it back. Either way, your audience will be inspired by this battle against misfortune. They’ll keep listening to your story to find out whether the main character ultimately prevails.
Note that if you’ve included heroes and villains in your story, your example of triumph over adversity is ready-made: the hero finally defeating the villain.
TED Talk Example: Dan Ariely
In 2009, professor and author Dan Ariely gave a memorable TED talk on why people predictably and consistently make irrational decisions. He began his talk with a gripping personal story about his experience in a hospital burn unit.
As a teenager, Ariely suffered severe burns to 70% of his body. When the time came for the nurses to remove his bandages, they decided to rip them off quickly, theorizing that this would minimize his discomfort. Ariely begged the nurses to go slower, as he felt it would make the pain less intense. However, the nurses argued that since they were medically trained and Ariely wasn’t, they knew better than him. Years later, Ariely discovered that taking the bandages off slowly would have reduced the intensity of his pain. The nurses’ decision had been totally illogical—yet they’d persisted with it anyway.
Ariely’s story was effective at gripping his audience for two reasons. First, it was detailed—sometimes graphically so, especially when he described the different methods of removing bandages from burns. This immersed Ariely’s audience in his story, keeping them hooked until the very end.
Second, the big reveal of Ariely’s story—the fact that he was right and the nurses wrong—was unexpected. Most people would expect medical professionals to know more about the correct way to remove bandages than their patients. The fact they didn’t in this case shocked Ariely’s audience into paying attention to the rest of his talk.
(Shortform note: To learn more about Ariely’s theories on irrational behavior, read our summary of Predictably Irrational.)
Telling a gripping story will engage your audience, help them understand your topic, and reinforce it.
Think of a topic you’re passionate about that you’d like to give a speech or presentation about. Describe this topic and what you’d say about it if given the chance.
Now, think of a story you could tell that relates to your chosen topic. Outline the main events of this story and its overall message. (Remember: You could tell a story about yourself, about someone else, or about a product or brand.)
How can you ensure that this story is gripping to your audience? (Remember: Gripping stories are detailed, unexpected, and mysterious. They also feature heroes and villains, and involve a character overcoming adversity.)
The next principle of becoming an effective public speaker is using your talk to present something new. This new content can take two possible forms:
1) Information that was previously completely unknown to your audience—for instance, a little-known fact about your area of specialty.
Make this information as niche and unexpected as possible to maximize the chances that your audience hasn’t heard it before. For example, if your area of expertise is space, present new information based on cutting-edge research that the general public probably isn’t aware of yet.
2) An innovative new solution to an old and well-known problem—possibly even a fix for an issue that previously seemed unsolvable. For example, when Albanian politician Edi Rama gave a TED talk in 2012, he presented a novel and unorthodox solution to the long-standing issue of crime in Albanian cities: painting previously dull and gray Soviet-era buildings in bright colors.
(Not only was Rama’s TED talk a success, but his approach to tackling crime was, too. As the buildings in the Albanian city of Tirana became brighter, crime rates began to fall.)
Presenting something new to your audience capitalizes on the human brain’s love of learning new things. According to neuroscientists, when we learn something new, the brain releases dopamine—a hormone that makes us feel good. Because this dopamine rush is so pleasurable, people constantly seek out ways to replicate it: In other words, they look for sources of new knowledge. If you provide this knowledge during your talk, you’re more likely to keep people interested in what you’re saying.
Likewise, because what you’ve said has made your audience feel good, they’re more likely to be receptive to you and your ideas. They’ll link what you’re saying with feeling positive, and they’ll respond with positivity in turn.
TED Talk Example: Robert Ballard
Robert Ballard is a deep-sea explorer who’s best known for finding the wreckage of the Titanic. In 2008, Ballard gave a TED talk about the oceans, incorporating the things he’d learned from more than 100 deep-sea explorations.
During his talk, Ballard presented the audience with numerous little-known facts about the underwater world—for example, the fact that the Earth’s longest mountain range is under the sea. He also surprised the crowd with the knowledge that the deep seas are teeming with life, despite being cloaked in near-perpetual darkness.
Ballard challenged people’s perceptions of underwater biology and geography. His talk gripped the audience, who ultimately gave him a standing ovation.
Sometimes, it’s necessary to include widely-known facts or opinions in your speech or presentation—for instance, to provide background information before you move on to your main idea. To avoid boring your audience with this old information and consequently losing their attention, add novelty by packaging it in a fresh and innovative way.
For example, an executive at SanDisk packaged old information (specifically, data about the popularity of high-capacity storage cards) in a new way by incorporating it into a story about his love of photography and need for such storage himself. This approach was so novel that his audience either failed to recognize they were being presented with old information, or didn’t mind. Most of the audience members graded the presentations they viewed that day as either “very good” or “excellent”—including the executive’s.
TED Talk Example: Hans Rosling
In 2006, Hans Rosling gave a TED talk that used statistics to debunk various myths about the developing world. The talk ultimately went viral, with everyone from Ben Affleck to Bill Gates lauding Rosling’s ideas.
At the heart of Rosling’s TED success was the fact that he presented statistics in a novel way. For example, when discussing population trends in the developing world, he decided to present his statistics on an animated graph. On the graph, each country was represented by a “bubble” that grew and shrank according to changes in life expectancy and birth rates over time. This novel approach put a new spin on the old discipline of statistics, enthusing both its original audience and online viewers.
To ensure that you have a constant flow of new information to include in your speeches and presentations, consistently seek out new perspectives on and facts about the world. For example, read books and articles on a variety of topics. Listen to talks by diverse speakers. Meet new people and listen to what they tell you. Visit new places and encounter different cultures. The more information you seek out, the more likely you are to discover something that will excite, surprise, and inspire not just yourself, but the audience of your next speaking event.
The fourth principle of effective public speaking is incorporating a shocking moment into your speech or presentation. A “shocking moment” is an event that your audience doesn’t anticipate, but which deeply surprises, impresses, or moves them.
Including a shocking moment in your presentations will benefit you in three ways. First, the unexpectedness of the moment will grab your audience’s attention. They’ll become totally focused on what you’re saying and doing, and are therefore more likely to absorb your ideas.
Second, shocking moments get people talking. Your audience will rush to tell everyone they know about the surprising thing they just heard or witnessed. In the process, they’ll spread information about your talk and the ideas you communicated.
Finally, shocking moments are memorable: They frequently stick in an audience’s mind after your presentation. The more your audience thinks about the shocking moment, the more they contemplate the idea you were trying to get across—and the more likely they are to act on that idea.
According to neuroscientists, shocking moments are memorable because they’re “emotionally charged”: Our emotions are heightened.
Research has shown that when the brain recognizes we’re experiencing an emotionally charged event, it begins to perceive things more vividly. We internalize even the tiniest details of what’s happening around us. Therefore, the memories we create of the event are much more comprehensive.
For instance, if you think back to the morning of September 11, 2001, you probably remember everything from where you were, to who you were with, to how those people reacted. Because you were experiencing an emotionally charged event, your brain absorbed all of these details. In comparison, you may sometimes struggle to recall where your keys are. Since putting your keys down wasn’t an emotionally charged event, the details of what you did with them failed to stick in your mind.
Other studies have shown that emotionally charged events are memorable because they cause the brain to release dopamine. This is a hormone which, as well as being associated with pleasure, has the secondary effect of aiding information processing and helping to create memories.
To create an effective shocking moment, first, identify the most important point you’re going to make during your talk. Since this is the point that you most want your audience to remember, it makes sense to make it the subject of your shocking moment.
Next, devise a surprising way to communicate this important idea. Here are six methods you could implement:
Let’s look at each method in more detail.
Props are generally good at clarifying ideas that are too abstract to understand if only described verbally. For example, an audience is much more likely to comprehend what your product is if you show it to them rather than just telling them about it. However, if your prop is unusual, it can also be used to create a shocking moment.
Take the example of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. During her TED talk on her stroke, Taylor wanted to explore the idea that the brain is split into two hemispheres: left and right. To demonstrate this fact, she brought out a real human brain. Crowd footage shows that many people were disgusted by Taylor’s prop. However, the shock of seeing a real brain grabbed their attention.
This method is particularly useful if you’re presenting a product. Give a demonstration that clearly showcases all of the item’s unique selling points and functions. Your audience will be shocked by how impressive the product is, and will probably be encouraged to buy it.
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was particularly adept at using this method. For example, in 1984, Jobs pleasantly surprised his audience by demonstrating the new Macintosh computer’s most unexpected features: its ability to play movies, and its ability to read out messages in a digitized voice. The crowd was enthusiastic, and the speech helped to generate buzz about the new product.
Statistics usually serve the purpose of backing up your arguments. However, if they’re particularly surprising, they can also be used to create a shocking moment. For example, when giving a TED talk on psychopathy, author and journalist Jon Ronson revealed that one in every hundred people is a psychopath—a shockingly high figure that grabbed his audience’s attention.
To make a shocking statistic even more compelling, explicitly state how it relates to your audience’s lives. People are generally self-interested: They’re more likely to care about what you’re saying if you somehow make it about them. For instance, Ronson followed up his initial statistic on psychopathy with the revelation that based on that data, it was likely that 15 members of his current audience were psychopaths.
This method is simple: Find a way to include a shocking photo or video in your talk. The more unusual and surprising the image or clip you use, the better. The visuals you pick could be shocking in a harrowing way. For instance, if you’re discussing the horrors of war, you could include images of war-torn communities to shock your audience into recognizing the pain that conflict causes.
Alternatively, the image or video you include could be shocking in a positive, awe-inspiring way. For example, in a 2013 TED talk, artist Raghava KK pleasantly surprised his audience by showing them a totally new art form: a digital portrait in which the subject’s facial expression changed to mirror Raghava’s mood. Raghava was wearing a headset that reported his brain activity back to his computer. The computer then interpreted this activity to figure out how Raghava was feeling and amended the mood of the portrait accordingly. The audience was amazed—they’d never seen anything like it before.
Creating a sound bite means distilling your main argument into a short, snappy, and memorable sentence, and including that sentence somewhere in your speech or presentation. You can transform your sound bite into a shocking moment by making it particularly emotionally charged.
Here are a few examples of TED speakers who effectively crafted shocking sound bites:
In Chapter 2, we discussed the importance of storytelling to public speaking. Stories play a crucial role in engaging your audience. However, stories that are particularly dramatic are also effective at shocking listeners. Nothing surprises people like a plot twist, and nothing shocks them like a harrowing tale of someone’s life struggles.
For example, during his 2013 TED talk, university president Freeman Hrabowski shocked his audience by telling the story of how, as a 12-year-old, he was inspired to take part in a peaceful civil rights demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama, after hearing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speak. Hrabowski ended up being arrested and sent to jail for his role in the demonstration, despite his young age. While he was incarcerated, he and the other young people in the jail received a surprise visit from Dr. King, who reassured them that their actions would benefit future generations.
TED Talk Example: Bill Gates
Bill Gates’s 2009 TED talk arguably contained the most shocking moment in TED history. Gates’s speech discussed various global issues, including the threat that malaria-infected mosquitoes posed to some of the world’s poorest communities. Partway through his talk, Gates revealed a surprising prop he’d brought along: a jar of live mosquitoes. He then released the insects into the auditorium.
The mosquitoes weren’t infected with malaria, and therefore posed no risk to the audience. However, the act of exposing people to these potentially deadly insects was enough to shock both Gates’s audience and the world’s media, who reported on the incident extensively. Gates’s speech quickly went viral, and has now been viewed more than 5 million times on the TED website.
Shocking moments grab an audience’s attention and make talks memorable. Consider how you could incorporate a shocking moment into a speech or presentation.
Think of a presentation that you’ve given recently. Briefly outline the main point or idea of this talk.
During this presentation, did you incorporate any shocking moments? If so, what was this moment? How did your audience react?
If you had to give the same presentation again, how might you incorporate a shocking moment (or a second shocking moment, if you already featured one)? (Remember: You can use props, demonstrations, statistics, photos and videos, sound bites, and stories to create a shocking moment.)
The fifth principle of effective public speaking is using humor. At some point in your presentation, try to make your audience laugh (or at least smile).
Incorporating humor into public speaking is important because, according to research, it will increase your likability in various ways:
Ultimately, the more your audience likes you, the more likely they are to listen to and support what you have to say.
There are many different types of humor, from telling knock-knock jokes to making sarcastic comments. However, only four forms should be incorporated into speeches and presentations:
1) Sharing an anecdote: Telling a short, amusing story about an experience you—or possibly someone else—had. For example, during her TED talk about her stroke, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor related a humorous anecdote about her thought process when she realized that she was unwell. First, she couldn’t stop thinking about how “cool” it was that she—a neuroscientist—could study her own stroke. Then, she realized with annoyance that she was far too busy to be having a stroke.
2) Making an analogy: Humorously drawing attention to the ways in which two different things are similar. For instance, in a 2012 TED talk, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt compared two different situations that had similarly bad consequences: attempting to run Congress without encouraging social relationships between its members, and to trying to drive a car that doesn’t have any motor oil.
3) Quoting someone else’s humor: This “someone else” could be anyone from a friend, to a famous person, to a stranger you met on the subway. For instance, the author Carmen Agra Deedy added humor to her 2005 TED talk by quoting some of the witticisms of her mother. Quoting is an easy way of using humor because you don’t have to spend time devising your own funny comment or anecdote.
4) Showing a funny video or picture: This could be a picture or video you’ve produced yourself, or—to make things even easier for yourself—one created by someone else. For example, when Kevin Allocca—YouTube’s Head of Culture and Trends—gave a TED talk on why videos go viral, he played his audience a number of amusing viral clips.
Now that we’ve covered the types of humor that you should be using when speaking publicly, it’s time to address what you shouldn’t be doing. Here are four common mistakes to avoid when adding humor to a presentation:
Is it acceptable to use humor if the topic you’re speaking on is serious or upsetting—for instance, if it addresses an issue like war, famine, or illness? Gallo believes that using humor is not only appropriate in such situations, but it’s also arguably necessary. Including light relief alongside distressing information will stop your audience from becoming so upset by what you’re saying that they feel unable to continue listening.
For example, in a 2013 TED talk, journalist Rose George explored the upsetting topic of poor sanitation in third-world countries. She discussed its devastating consequences, showing the audience a photo of a father mourning his baby who’d died from severe diarrhea. To stop her audience from becoming overwhelmed, George included some light relief in her presentation—specifically, a slide about the fact that diarrhea is often treated as a joke in Western society. She displayed an amusing stock photo that depicts a woman trying to hold in diarrhea. The audience responded with relieved laughter.
A caveat to this principle is that you should use humor judiciously. If you make the audience laugh too often, you risk permanently distracting them from the severity of your topic. You only want to give people a brief reprieve from the upsetting information, not make them forget about it completely.
TED Talk Example: Sir Ken Robinson
In 2006, author and education expert Sir Ken Robinson gave a TED talk on how the American education system stifles creativity. Despite his topic being fairly heavy, Robinson managed to inject a lot of humor into his talk. He made witty comments about everything from how seriously teenagers treat their romantic relationships, to how—in his eyes—Shakespeare must have been an annoying child.
Robinson’s talk has been lauded as the most popular TED talk of all time. He received a standing ovation, and his speech has since been viewed more than 66 million times on the TED website. Gallo believes that one of the main contributing factors to Robinson’s talk becoming so successful was his masterful use of humor.
Consider how you might use humor in a presentation to increase your likability and get your audience on your side.
Think of a presentation you’ve seen that made you laugh. What did the speaker do that was so humorous? (For example, did they relate a funny anecdote, show a funny photo, or quote someone funny?)
Now, imagine you’re preparing a presentation on a topic you’re passionate about. What’s your chosen topic? How could you incorporate the types of humor you described above into your talk?
Which types of humor did the other speaker not use that you feel you could include in your presentation?
Do you feel confident that you could successfully incorporate humor into your next speaking event? Why or why not?
The next principle of effective public speaking is presenting content that triggers multiple senses. For instance, give your audience something to look at—such as PowerPoint slides—as well as something to listen to—such as your voice.
Triggering multiple senses is important when making a speech or presentation because it’ll help your audience to remember what you’ve said. Research has shown that multisensory experiences are much more memorable than single-sense experiences. For instance, in one study, students were more likely to recall information from a lesson if that information had triggered two senses—sight and sound— rather than just one. Their brains created both visual and auditory models of the information, making it much easier to recall in the future.
You should aim to trigger a combination of the following three senses in your speeches and presentations (the more the better):
Let’s look at how to trigger each sense in detail.
Hearing is a sense that you need to trigger in every presentation you make. After all, in these situations, getting people to listen to you is your main method of imparting information.
While you may assume that you can trigger this sense simply by talking to people, remember that just because you’re talking doesn’t mean that people will actually listen. To truly trigger your audience’s sense of hearing, you need to make your manner of speech interesting enough to grab their attention. There are three possible ways to do this:
Method #1: Be highly descriptive. Go into such vivid detail about your topic of discussion that people can clearly picture it in their minds. For instance, if you’re talking about how you created a product, discuss every detail about the moment you came up with the idea—where you were, who you were with, even what the weather was like that day. By painting a vivid picture with your words, you’ll immerse your audience in your topic and pique their interest.
According to neuroscientists, verbally describing something in detail can be just as memorable as showing someone a picture of the thing you’re describing. The brain’s visual cortex can’t actually differentiate between reality and imagination—in other words, something it’s actually seen, and something it’s only imagined seeing. So if your audience can imagine the thing you’re describing clearly enough, they’ll feel like they’ve actually seen it.
TED Talk Example: Janine Shepherd
Janine Shepherd is an Australian former skier whose burgeoning Olympic career was ended by an accident that left her partially paraplegic. Shepherd was biking along a path in the Blue Mountains near Sydney when she was struck by a truck.
In 2012, Shepherd gave a TED talk about the accident and her life since it occured. She described the accident in vivid detail: the beautiful weather that day, the sun shining on her face as she cycled along, the feeling of the cold mountain air in her lungs—and the moment when everything went black.
Shepherd didn’t use a single visual prompt when describing the incident: She showed her audience no slides or pictures. Instead, she immersed her readers in her story by painting a picture with her words.
Method #2: Repeat the key argument of your talk multiple times. This will signal to the audience that you’re making an important point, thus encouraging them to listen to what you have to say.
This method was famously used by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. Dr. King included this titular phrase in eight sentences in a row, a use of repetition that grabbed people’s attention and made them want to listen to what his dream actually was. The phrase became one of the most memorable and oft-quoted phrases in modern history.
Method #3: Incorporate other people’s voices into your speech or presentation. For instance, if you’re making a sales pitch, play a video in which happy customers give verbal testimonials. When giving a work presentation, invite a colleague to briefly give their perspective on your topic.
The brain starts to lose interest and “switch off” when it hears the same person’s voice for a long time. Incorporating other people’s voices into your talk, even briefly, avoids this issue and keeps your audience engaged.
The second sense to trigger is sight. The easiest way is to create a visual aid to accompany your spoken words: in other words, presentation slides. You could create these slides yourself, if you have faith in your ability to avoid common design mistakes—for example, spelling errors and overlapped text. Another option is to hire a professional to create the slides for you.
When creating presentation slides, minimize the amount of text you include. Professionals often cram presentation slides with written information—on average, 40 words per slide. This is problematic because the audience can’t read the text and listen to the speaker at the same time. They don’t fully absorb the information being presented, and therefore struggle to recall it in the future.
A better approach to creating slides is using a combination of short phrases and pictures. Research has demonstrated that people are more likely to recall visual information if it’s presented in this way, rather than just in written form. Likewise, other studies have shown that people will remember 65% of the information presented to them if they both hear it and see a related image at the same, compared to just 10% of the information if they only hear it.
The two main types of images used in presentations are photographs and charts (for example, graphs). It’s always a good idea to include lots of photos—the audience is unlikely to get sick of seeing them. However, they will get sick of seeing slide after slide of charts, meaning you should limit the number you show.
If you absolutely have to include lots of charts and graphs in your presentation slides, use cleverly-placed photographs to keep your audience engaged. For example, during his 2013 TED talk, Bono showed the audience various graphs to support his argument that progress was being made in tackling extreme poverty. However, he interspersed these charts with photos of children whose lives had been saved thanks to anti-poverty drives. These photos stopped his audience from developing data fatigue.
TED Talk Example: Al Gore
In 2006, former vice president Al Gore gave a powerful TED talk about climate change and the risk it poses to the planet. As Gore spoke, he frequently displayed relevant pictures on his presentation slides. For instance, when discussing pollution, he showed a photo of plumes of smoke being released from factories. When discussing the light waves emitted by the sun, he displayed a graphic of the earth, the sun, and arrows representing the transfer of light waves from the latter to the former.
By displaying images during his talk, Gore triggered a winning multisensory combination: seeing pictures as well as listening to words. Gallo believes that this is one of the reasons why Gore’s talk was so memorable.
The final sense to evoke in your speeches and presentations is touch. Sometimes, it’s possible to trigger this sense directly. For example, if you’re pitching a product, you could pass a prototype around your audience.
However, if you’re talking about an idea rather than an object, there may not be a suitable prop for you to hand out. In such cases, you can stimulate the sense of touch by asking people to imagine how it would feel to touch or be touched by something. For example, in a 2011 TED talk on chronic pain, Dr. Elliot Krane asked his audience to imagine how it would feel to have someone touch your skin with a blowtorch, explaining that sufferers of a condition called allodynia experience this burning sensation on a daily basis.
Note that Gallo doesn’t advise trying to trigger the senses of smell or taste when speaking publicly. He takes this position purely due to ease: It’s difficult to directly trigger these senses in a presentation (unless your talk is about something like perfume or food, and you give your audience samples to smell or taste).
In some circumstances, it may be possible to evoke these senses indirectly by encouraging your audience to imagine what something smells or tastes like. Just as imagining what something looks like tricks your brain into thinking you’ve actually seen it, imagining what something smells or tastes like fools your brain into thinking you’ve experienced these senses, too.
For example, in a 2009 TED talk, water treatment expert Michael Pritchard discussed a product he’d created that can make even the filthiest of water drinkable. During the talk, he brought a small tank of dirty water on stage to demonstrate how the product worked. The audience’s sense of taste was indirectly triggered as they were left to imagine how foul this water’s flavor might be without treatment.
The seventh principle of effective public speaking—and the first that relates to the logistics of your presentation—is keeping things brief. Whenever possible, you should limit your presentations to 18 minutes—the length of a TED talk.
Keeping your talks and presentations brief is important for three reasons:
1) It prevents your audience from becoming too tired to listen to you. Research has demonstrated that the brain uses up a lot of glucose as it absorbs information, thus making listening to a speech or presentation incredibly tiring. If you talk for too long, you risk depleting your audience’s glucose levels to the extent that they simply don’t have the energy to keep listening. In contrast, if you only talk for a short time, your audience will hopefully not only have enough energy to take in your ideas, but extra energy left over that they can then use to share and act on your ideas.
2) It takes the pressure off your listeners. Studies have shown that the longer a speaker talks, the more anxious their audience becomes as they realize just how much information they’re being expected to absorb. In extreme cases, this anxiety becomes so overwhelming that the audience simply stops listening and disengages from the speaker’s ideas entirely. By keeping your talk short, you can avoid this situation.
3) It promotes discipline as you craft your talk. If you know that you only have a limited time to speak, you’ll put more effort into only expressing your key ideas and cutting out “fluff.”
Sometimes, you can’t avoid speaking for a long time—for instance, if your manager orders you to give a one-hour presentation to your colleagues. In such situations, every 10 minutes, take a “break” from the complex ideas of your talk. For instance, you could play a light-hearted video that’s still relevant to your topic, but is less mentally taxing to comprehend than the facts and statistics that are the main “meat” of your talk.
Including breaks will give your audience’s brains a rest from listening to you, making it more likely that they’ll have the energy to take in the rest of your talk. Likewise, it’ll briefly remove the pressure on your audience to take in complex ideas, thus preventing them from becoming overwhelmed and mentally “checking out” from your presentation.
To make your talks brief, follow the Rule of Three, which states that you should only communicate a maximum of three ideas in any one presentation. For example, if you’re asked to give a presentation on your sales successes in the last quarter, pick just three transactions to discuss.
Following the Rule of Three will naturally reduce the time you spend speaking since you’re setting restrictions on the amount of information you’re going to communicate. It’ll also increase the likelihood of your audience absorbing everything you say. Research suggests that the maximum number of ideas that the brain can process at once is three: Add any more ideas than this, and your audience simply won’t remember them.
TED Talk Example: Neil Pasricha
Neil Pasricha is a writer who came to prominence through his popular blog, 1000 Awesome Things. Each blog entry discusses a different simple thing that can make you happy or enrich your life—for example, Christmas Day being snowy, or your birthday being on a Saturday.
When Pasricha was asked to give a TED talk on his blog, he knew he couldn’t mention all 1,000 “awesome things” in 18 minutes. So he limited himself to discussing just three things: having a positive attitude, indulging your inner child, and being authentic. Pasricha’s talk was a great success and has now been watched online by millions of people.
A version of the Rule of Three that’s used in many TED talks is the three-story framework. This involves telling three distinct stories to explore and back up an overarching point. The framework is beneficial to your public speaking efforts in two ways: Not only does it harness the rule of three, but it also incorporates the benefits of storytelling that we discussed in Chapter 2.
A notable proponent of the three-story framework is urban renewal expert Majora Carter. Carter’s 2010 TED talk was about the benefits of local eco-entrepreneurship: people developing business ideas that not only met the demands of their neighborhood but also addressed and prevented social or ecological problems. To demonstrate how powerful this form of entrepreneurship could be, she told stories about three inspirational people:
Carter probably could have found and mentioned dozens of heartwarming stories of eco-entrepreneurship. However, she limited herself to three in order to keep her audience’s attention—and it worked. Her talk was a success.
The next logistical principle of becoming an effective public speaker is planning and practicing. First, plan your presentation in enough detail for you to know exactly what you’re going to say. Then, rehearse so many times that when the time comes for you to speak, the words flow easily.
Effective planning involves working out exactly how you want your presentation to unfold—for example, the points you want to make and the supporting evidence you want to use. Your talk is much more likely to run smoothly if you have a clear idea of what you want to say, rather than having to make your points up as you go along.
You could use a message map as a planning tool. A message map is a one-page summary of everything you want to include in your talk. Creating a message map involves three steps:
Step 1: At the top of a sheet of paper, draw an oval. In the oval, write a short “headline” that summarizes the main point of your talk—the message that you most want your audience to remember. Be as concise as possible (Gallo advises keeping the headline below 140 characters). For instance, a short and simple headline might be “Buying Our Product Will Improve Your Life.”
Step 2: Next, draw three arrows pointing down from the oval. At the end of each arrow, write a sub-point that will support your overall argument. For example, if your overall argument is that buying your product will benefit customers, write three reasons why this is the case. Don’t include any more than three sub-points—this would break the Rule of Three discussed in Chapter 7.
Step 3: Below each sub-point, write all of the supporting material you’re going to include when discussing it. For example, are you going to tell a story that proves your sub-point is valid? Are you going to include a humorous anecdote in this section of the speech or incorporate a shocking moment?
Remember, you’re trying to keep your plan to one page, so don’t feel the need to write stories or anecdotes out in full. Summarize them in just a few key words that will remind you what you want to say.
After completing the three steps, your message map should look something like this:
Once you’ve fully planned your speech or presentation, practice it again and again. If you don’t rehearse before you speak, you won’t know your talk’s structure or content very well. As you present, you’ll spend all of your mental energy contemplating logistical issues such as when to move on to the next slide and what’s actually on the next slide. Consequently, you won’t have the focus required to state your ideas clearly and smoothly.
You might think that the most important element of practicing your presentation is memorizing its content. This is undoubtedly important—you don’t want to get up on stage only to find that you can’t remember what you’re supposed to be talking about. However, there are three other things you need to practice as well. These are:
Verbal delivery is how you say the words you’ve prepared. It involves many factors, such as how loudly you speak, the pitch of your speech, and how often you pause between points.
However, Gallo focuses on the one element of verbal delivery that he believes is crucial to success: the speed of your speech. Speak too quickly, and people will struggle to understand what you’re saying. Speak too slowly, and your audience will swiftly become bored.
So, what speed is “just right”? After analyzing many TED talks, Gallo has concluded that the optimal rate of speech when giving a talk is around 190 words per minute. He argues that this is a conversational speed—for instance, the speed of speech you’d adopt if you were talking to a friend about your favorite TV show. Therefore, it’s a rate of speech that seems both natural and authentic.
There are some exceptions to this 190-words-per-minute rule. For instance, it’s acceptable to vary the speed of your speech to reflect the tone or content of what you’re saying. For example, when photographer Lisa Kristine gave a TED talk on modern slavery in 2012, she slowed down her rate of speech when she made the important point that despite slavery being illegal worldwide, it still exists almost everywhere. Making this point slowly added emphasis and gravitas to Kristine’s words.
Meanwhile, when Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor gave a 2013 TEDxYouth talk on how the brain changes throughout puberty, her speech reached the rate of 220 words per minute. She decided to speak this quickly to emphasize the swift nature of the brain’s transformation at this time of life.
Rehearse holding your body in a way that suggests you’re sure of yourself and your opinions. If you fail to appear confident in your convictions, your audience will trust you and your opinions less. After all, why would they believe or agree with what you’re saying if you don’t seem certain of it yourself?
There are a number of things you can do to exude confidence through body language:
If you’re not sure which of these confident actions you’re taking already and which you aren’t, video yourself making a speech. Then, watch the video and identify where your problem areas lie.
If you’re already feeling confident about your speech or presentation, confident body language will likely come naturally. However, if you’re feeling nervous or insecure, you may doubt your ability to hold your body in a way that’s contradictory to your emotions.
If you’re in the latter situation, don’t be afraid to “fake it ‘till you make it.” In other words, keep practicing confident body language no matter how insecure you actually feel. Studies have shown that doing so can actually make you feel more confident. Standing in a confident position increases your levels of testosterone —a hormone which, amongst other functions, increases your confidence—while simultaneously reducing levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
Researchers claim the so-called “power pose” is particularly effective at boosting confidence levels. This involves stretching your arms as wide as possible for two minutes.
As well as ensuring that your body language is confident, you also need to make sure that it’s not too boring. A common mistake that speakers make is staying still and rooted to the same spot for the entirety of their presentation. Such rigidity will make you seem dull and unenthusiastic about your topic. Instead, continually walk around your presentation space or stage, moving from one end to the other. Your constant movement will keep your audience engaged and make you seem more dynamic.
As you speak, don’t simply hide your hands in your pockets. Instead, use gestures to add emphasis to what you’re saying. For example, if you’re talking about how much a problem has grown in size, create a small circle with your hands and expand it. If you want to emphasize that you’ve personally experienced this problem, point at yourself.
Using hand gestures has a number of benefits:
Tip #1: Don’t use gestures too often. They’ll lose their impact and may become overly distracting. Only use gestures to punctuate crucial points of your presentation—for example, your main argument, or the conclusion of a story you’re telling.
Tip #2: Only use gestures that feel comfortable and natural to you. In particular, don’t try to mimic another person’s gesturing style—for example, that of a politician or famous speaker—if it’s out of your comfort zone. The gestures will seem forced and you’ll seem inauthentic.
Tip 3: Don’t overthink which gestures to use. Settle on those that feel the most natural and appropriate to the situation.
Tip #4: Keep your gestures within the “power sphere.” This is the area of the body from the eyes down to the navel. Placing your hands any lower than the navel suggests a lack of confidence and energy.
If you’re struggling to come up with appropriate hand gestures to use in your speech or presentation, consider applying the ‘eager nonverbal’ strategy. This is a three-pronged strategy that involves:
Research has shown that using the eager nonverbal strategy can persuade others to act in the way you desire. For example, in one study, shoppers were more likely to buy candy from salespeople who implemented this strategy than from those who didn’t. In the case of a presentation, using the eager nonverbal strategy may help you to persuade your audience to adopt your idea or agree with your point of view.
Remember: As noted in the tips above, you should only implement someone else’s gesturing strategy—including the eager nonverbal strategy—if it feels natural and comfortable for you.
TED Talk Example: Amanda Palmer
When musician Amanda Palmer was preparing to give a TED talk in 2013, she practiced relentlessly—especially in front of people who could provide feedback on her progress. She practiced in front of friends, family, students at an art school in Boston, and even a total stranger in a bar. She practiced on the plane on the way to the TED conference and continued to do so right up until the moment she gave her talk.
As Palmer practiced, she became more and more comfortable and familiar with all elements of her talk—her words, her verbal delivery, her body language, and her gestures. In the end, her talk was the most discussed presentation at the conference. It was praised for being both gripping and authentic.
According to Carmine Gallo, the ideal rate of speech when giving a presentation is 190 words per minute. Discover what your current rate of speech is, and consider how you might get closer to Gallo’s ideal rate.
Read the following sentence out loud, and time how long it takes you to do so: “Talk Like TED is a book about learning how to be an effective public speaker. It contains nine principles that you should follow if you want to improve your public speaking skills.”
The above sentence is 32 words long. If you were to adhere to Gallo’s ideal rate of speech, it should take you 10 seconds to read out. How long did it actually take you to read? Are you speaking too slowly, too quickly, or at just the right rate?
Now, read the sentence out loud again, bearing in mind your reflections from the previous question. Did you manage to get closer to the 10-second ideal this time? Why or why not?
Learn how to plan a presentation by creating a message map.
Imagine you’re creating a message map for a presentation on a topic you’re passionate about. Write the “headline” summarizing the main message you want to communicate in this talk. (Remember: Gallo advises keeping your headline below 140 characters.)
Now, outline three “sub-points” you’d make to support your main message. (For example, write three reasons why you believe your argument is correct, or three reasons why people should buy the product you’re promoting.)
Finally, outline the “supporting material” you’d include when discussing each sub-point. (For instance, would you tell a funny anecdote to entertain your audience? Would you tell a story that backs up your sub-point?)
Looking back at your completed plan, do you feel confident that you’d be able to give an effective speech on this topic? Why or why not?
The final element of successful public speaking is being yourself. Let your true personality shine through as you speak. For example, if you’re a naturally calm and measured speaker, don’t go on stage and fake being exuberant. Likewise, if you’re a naturally enthusiastic presenter, don’t tone down this element of your personality because you feel you need to be “serious” in professional situations.
Being yourself is important because, just as people can tell when you’re faking passion, they can also tell when you’re faking your personality and pretending to be someone you’re not. When they realize that you’re faking, they’ll start to distrust you—and they’ll be less willing to accept your ideas.
Part of being yourself during a speech or presentation is allowing yourself to be emotionally vulnerable: giving yourself permission to express your true emotions as you speak. For example, if you’re giving a presentation a product that you’ve created, don’t be afraid to let your audience know that you’ve poured your heart and soul into the product and deeply care about its success. Likewise, if you tell a personal story during a speech, be honest about the emotional impact of the events you’re relating.
Many professionals resist showing their true emotions during a presentation. They worry that doing so will make them seem “weak” and result in judgment from their audience. However, allowing yourself to be emotionally vulnerable is important because it shows your audience that you’re a human being who has feelings, just like them. Your listeners will relate to the emotions that you express and will consequently feel connected to you. When you develop a connection with your audience, you increase the chances of them listening to and agreeing with what you say.
TED Talk Example: Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor
In Chapter 1, we explored how Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s passion for her subject helped to make her 2008 TED talk about her stroke a great success. Gallo believes that another factor behind the success of Taylor’s talk was her vulnerability.
Throughout her talk, Taylor was honest about how her stroke made her feel. She related the anguish she experienced when she realized she was unwell. Likewise, she discussed the surprising peace that she felt when the left hemisphere of her brain shut down.
Taylor described this sensation of euphoria as “finding Nirvana”—an evocation of spirituality that Gallo argues most logic-loving scientists would be reluctant to bring up. He believes that Taylor’s willingness to be vulnerable and put this spiritual awakening into words is what made her presentation remarkable.
It’s easy to be yourself during a presentation when that “self” is a gifted public speaker. But what if you feel that you’re not naturally talented in this area? You might think that your only options are to be yourself and give mediocre speeches, or to pretend to be a strong speaker and come across as a “phony.” Neither choice will impress your audience.
In reality, most people who believe they’re intrinsically bad at public speaking simply lack confidence. They have all the skills they need to be a strong speaker: They just need to overcome their nerves to let these talents shine through.
If you struggle with anxiety around public speaking, Gallo advises forcing yourself to do it anyway. Practice speaking in public again and again until you prove to yourself that you can do so successfully. Likewise, work hard to implement the nine principles discussed in this book. You’ll find that people will respond well to your presentations, which will give you the confidence boost you need to overcome your fears.
(Shortform note: For more tips on public speaking for introverts, read Chapter 5 of our summary of Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts.)