One Question Friday: What Does It Take To Be An Ace Public Speaker?

Well, I would say first, public speaking is a skill. So a lot of people think, well, I speak all the time and I speak in public, therefore I'm probably going to be decent at public speaking. That doesn't really work that way. So public speaking, some people are talented and they are just better at it. Gary Vaynerchuk's like that. I think he's just better than everyone else. But for most people, it's a skill. So I highly recommend like reading a book on it or like Googling like how to be better at this. It's a skill set. And so there are tricks. I don't think that this is like the best time for us just to say like all, all the tactics are, but a few of them are just like on storytelling. And it's very similar to standup comedy, which again, some people are just born better, but a lot of people you just have to learn and try.. And so buy a book on it. And, and I think that's actually the, the easiest first step.

Yeah, I think Storyworthy was awesome. That I had a bunch of takeaways from that. And then Speak Like a TED Talk or something like that. It's called like the TED Talker, TED Talk Speaker's Guide or something like that. That's quite good. But the Storyworthy I actually thought was, pretty phenomenal.

So I'm gonna tell you what I told him. I said, um, uh, and by the way, he had also said, he's like, I wanna bring that showmanship that you guys talked about. So I think he was picking up on, on what we, we talked about. So I said, all right, 3 things. I said, number 1, um, be in peak state. It's very easy when you're nervous to go kind of like inward. You're kind of low energy, your mouth's a little dry, your shoulders hunched over., like fundamentally, as soon as you walk out there, people are gonna read your body language. They're gonna read your energy and they'll start to respond to it. When somebody comes out and they're electric, you could feel that they're excited, that they got a, like a bounce in their step. You're paying attention cuz you wanna know what they're all about. I said, so just make sure before you go out there, do some pushups, go run a wind sprint, do some jumping jacks, do whatever you gotta do physically to literally just get blood flowing and be in a like more, uh, like high performance state. I said, think about it, an athlete doesn't go on the field until they're warmed up, until they're ready. A singer or a dancer or performer, they're not gonna go on the stage until they're warmed up and they, they're feeling loose and warm. It's the same thing if you're gonna go talk, you wanna feel loose and warm, both in your voice, but also your body. So that's the first thing. Just do the physical, get the physical part right. The second is, remember, this is the, this is the first of many. You'll do this 500 more times. So this might feel like a big deal now, but a year from now, this will be an afterthought. You'll just, you won't even really remember how it went. Um, just treat it as a practice rep. One of 500 times you're gonna do this. It's a chance to experiment with some things that'll depressurize this moment for you. And it'll teach you to remember that like, this is just pr— it, like you said, it's a skill. You gotta get good at it to get good at any skill. You need practice reps. I said the last one, I said storytelling. I said have a back pocket story, right? So what's a back pocket story? It's, it's like you started the podcast, uh, that we just recorded. With the, um, dude, I gotta tell you this funny story on, you know, this something that happened to me today before we do this. I was walking through the park and these nannies were getting attacked by this guy and I'm in there in my fanny pack and me and the fanny and the nannies, we all fought these guys off. Basically it was like this funny story and it doesn't need to be a hilarious extreme story like that. It could be anything. It could be like, let's say you're at a conference. Um, you might be like, I, you know, before we start, I just talked to this guy in the back and he asked me a really interesting question. I wanna ask you guys this too. Because I honestly, I think we might be really split on how we answer this question already. You really wanna know what, what it is. And I've taken control of the scenario and I've made it already an interesting talk before we jump in and say, hi, my name is this, I'm from this, and today I'm here to talk to you about blah, blah, blah. Um, so have a, have a story in your back pocket. It could be fun, interesting, controversial, whatever, something that's gonna, gonna get them. And the trick is, I said, just you need to be excited by it. If you're excited by it, they'll be excited by it. Remember the, um, the lesson that, what's her name? Miss Excel, that, that woman who was, she basically teaches you how to use Excel better, but somehow that's like going viral on TikTok. And why is something as boring as Excel tricks going viral on TikTok? Uh, one of the reasons is she like comes out with this crazy energy. She seems really excited by this stuff., and it's just enjoyable to watch her do it. Even if you're not even gonna use Excel that day, it's just enjoyable to watch somebody do that. And she says this in her interview, she goes, content is the transfer of emotion. I gotta get myself into the emotion of being excited about something if I ever want you to be excited by it. I have to get myself to be fascinated by something if I want you to be fascinated by it. And she's like, I just get myself into that state, then I run to the phone, click record, and I start to, start to do my thing. And it's like, that's actually what it is. Content is the transference of emotion. And so what most people try to do is they think about what they're gonna say, which is intellectual. That shit's words. People don't remember the words that you said. Um, they will remember if you had some emotion and some energy behind you, and they'll, they'll remember the vibe. They'll remember how you made them feel, and they'll take away just a few nuggets out of what you said. Most of what you said, 90% of what you say will go in one ear and out the other.

Our software is the best. HubSpot, grow better. And that's a thing I was— I tell people all the time. I told you this when you were early on, when I was maybe 6 months ahead of you in terms of content. You're like, I want— how do I write these articles? And I was like, it's not really about what you want to teach, it's about what you want to make someone feel. And oftentimes when people give presentations, they think, well, I'm talking about this like I'm talking about like mosquitoes and how they like cause malaria in Africa. And this is like a really serious thing. It's like, yeah, it could be serious, but you need to weave in some stories and you need to do some crazy shit. And it's no different than a comedy show or a play where you capture attention. Yes, you're doing it about something important and isn't just entertainment, but you have to weave that in there. One of my favorite tricks I've saw is when they brought up malaria is when Steve— Bill Gates or someone let— talked about malaria and mosquitoes and he goes, I wanna show you why this is an important deal. And he opens up this jar and mosquitoes fly out all over the place. He goes, I'm gonna tell you about how many people die from malaria, which comes from mosquitoes just like this. And like, so people like are like, you know, that's showmanship. And so it's the same way with any talk you're doing. You don't have to do something that extreme, but it starts with the story. It starts with an emotion. And then I would say the last thing is you have to treat people, your audience, regardless if they're smart, you kind of gotta treat 'em dumb. Meaning a lot of people, what they do is they put way too much emphasis on the slides. And in my opinion, most talks should be able to be like at least a B level without any slide. The slide maybe makes it go from a 9 to a 10, but the slides to me, um, it's kind of like when you are in, when you're in a band, it's about how do I make this song great? It's not how do I make this one little guitar solo awesome? It's like, no dude, the guitar solo exists to make the song great. The song doesn't exist to make that solo awesome. It's the other way around. Right. And so it's about my, my, it's, it's about my performance. And it just so happens that this PowerPoint is just one piece of that. And I need to treat people stupid and assume that they're not gonna read the small text. And it's up to me to use my words, my body language in order to make them feel something. And the, the, the, the slides are just an extra added effect.