Can anyone become a great speaker? I get asked that question surprisingly often. And people struggle with the answer I give them: yes, if you’re willing to do the work. I think what they want to hear is, no, it’s something you’re born with (or not). Because that latter answer would let them off the hook.
So what is involved in becoming a great speaker? If you’re serious about it, you have to think about taking five difficult steps. No shortcuts, no jumping the queue, no fast lane to the top. Just hard work every step of the way.
1.First find your audience and get inside their heads. Most would-be speakers want to start with themselves, or their speeches. But the right place to start is with your audience. First of all, you have to find them – and they may not be who you think they are. Who are the people who will listen to you speak on the subject you care about? Where are the banjo players, or the yak fanciers, or the football-playing knitters? Where do they hang out? And when they’re hanging out, what do they talk about?
The Internet has made identifying your audience easier than it used to be, but the work of getting to know them, deeply and personally, is just as important and difficult as ever. What are their hopes, their fears, and their dreams? What have they been through and where are they headed?
Until you know these things about your audience, you’re not ready to talk to them – or anyone.
2.Now craft your speech from their point of view. Your speech – that first draft – was written from your point of view. Now think about it from that audience’s point of view. You’re telling your stories now the way they happened to you. That’s not as interesting as it needs to be. The chronology of your experience is not the best way to relate it to others. Start with the high point, the climax, the middle of the action. Work out from there. Tell your audience the most interesting thing first, then the rest. Don’t save your best moments for last. Start with them, and then create something even better.
3. Next take a personal inventory of your own strengths and weaknesses. Once you’ve got the speech re-cast from the audience’s perspective, then it’s time to look honestly at yourself and figure out what you do well and what you need to do better. Most of us would rather skip this step, but on the journey to being a great speaker, it’s important. Maybe your voice needs work, or you need to work on your shyness. Whatever the issue, it’s going to show up bigger and brighter than ever under the stage lights, so you’d better know what it is first.
4.Then go to the heart of your humanity. So you know your pluses and minuses. But underneath those is your worst fear, which somehow is almost certainly the inverse of your biggest strength. It’s that flaw, that thing that you hate to look at, that gets to the heart of what makes you interesting and unique. Until you’re willing to deal with that honestly and fully on a daily basis, not just in therapy, not just once a year at Burning Man or Burning Woman, you’re not ready to get up in front of others and be human. Because that’s what we demand as an audience. That thing about yourself that makes you cringe – that’s what will make you real for everyone sitting out there in the dark. Not because they have exactly the same flaw, but because they’re hiding something, too, and they need to connect.
5.Finally, forget yourself by putting it all, unselfconsciously and freely, into service of your show. If you’ve done the previous steps with integrity, then actually giving a great speech is an act of freedom, not tics. You do all that work, not to present us with agony on the stage, but with transcendence. You reveal your humanity, not because the revelation is the big deal, but because you’re ready to put it in service to your connection with us, the audience, sitting there in the dark, longing to find authenticity and connection.
That’s what it takes to become a great speaker.
Nick, I’d have to agree with you here. At age 26, I wanted to try to public speaking for the first time so me and some friends founded a Toastmasters club in Tokyo where I was living at the time. My first speech was awful. I wish I had a video of it. I did every single thing wrong!
Since then, I’ve “done the work” – 6 years of Toastmasters, a bunch of talks while I was a corporate executive, and in the past 6 years or so working with you and speaking on average once a week at paid gigs.
Now I’m usually the highest rated speaker at the events I keynote and I’ve presented to audiences in the many thousands of people.
Thanks for what you do because with your help, yes, anyone can become a successful speaker. I’m proof.
Thanks, David, for your great comments and reflections on your stellar career. Your harrd work has certainly paid off!
Thanks, David, for your great comments and reflections on your stellar career. Your harrd work has certainly paid off!
Your third step, for years, I’ve called an ‘Internal Inventory’. I’d tell salespeople consider this an honest, unemotional fact-filled audit of ‘You.’ Where do you need to restock skills? What awards are collecting dust from your past? What have you solved, that you believe no one could’ve solved? What experiences have you had that your potential client may be having? Here’s the tough one: If you were a hiring manager and your doppelgänger were sitting in front of you as a candidate, what skills you you insist that he improve?
This ‘Internal Inventory’ for salespeople is tough – I’ve seen million dollar salespeople laugh out loud- remembering their achievements and weep – remembering their failures, while doing their ‘Internal Inventory’. However, as a speaker this raw, honest look at ourselves, our skills and our life’s experiences, with the goal of becoming an even greater speaker? Wow!
Nick, your suggestions are powerful. This third one must not be skipped.
Thank You!
Damien, thanks so much for your insightful comment — the parallel idea is most enlightening.
Before I became a presentations skills coach. I was a TV journalist.
I was very inspired then by the late Neil Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death. In a speech to journalists once, he talked about information, knowledge, and wisdom.
Information is the facts, nothing but the facts ma’am. Then we make sense of the facts to give our viewers knowledge. But ultimately we need to have our knowledge reveal universal wisdom and truths.
Your blog is saying much the same thing to me. Go beyond the superficial facts of creating your speech.Do the hard work. Dig deep into yourself and reveal your truths honestly and without expectations.
Thank you for an inspirational blog. I enjoy all your blogs.
Thanks, Halina, for the words of wisdom!