Confessions of a Public Speaker (17 page)

If you want to know how good a speaker
really is, watch him give the
same lecture twice
. I’ve studied speakers and
comedians, and it’s clear they do the same
routines hundreds of times to get them right. If you want to
learn the secrets of any performer, see his show twice. Then you’ll notice
how much of what seems improvised truly is. Want to see if that impromptu
joke I made was something special or part of the standard routine? You’ll
only know for sure if you see me twice.

I’ve heard your question before
.
If I know my material, I’ve likely considered your question or been asked
it before. The problem is, I can’t answer all the questions my material
might introduce. It would be boring for reasons described earlier in the
book. By the third or fourth time I’ve given a lecture, I’ve heard 70% of
the questions I’ll likely ever hear on the topic. But all questions are
good questions. Just because I’ve heard it before doesn’t mean I have a
great answer yet, so I’m learning no matter how many times I’ve done
it.

I have trouble making eye contact with
friends
. I’m very comfortable speaking to crowds,
but if during the talk I see friends, my brain wants to joke with them;
however, my instincts know it would be self-indulgent to do so. I love
having friends attend my lectures, but part of me freezes when I see them.
Not entirely sure why. You’d think I’d have sorted this out by now, but I
haven’t.

Half the time you
already know what you need to know
. Sometimes
people at my talks know much of what I know. In these cases, my value is
to remind them of an old idea or put it into a new context. I know I don’t
have to have original ideas to have value. Often there’s value in
something that’s been said before
being said again in a different way, or by someone new who
can get away with saying truths insiders can’t. Hearing a message from an
outsider often carries more weight than a team of expert insiders. But I
can’t say this. If I mention that I’m deliberately telling you things
you’ve heard before because you need to hear them again, it would be
patronizing. Yet I know old ideas said well have surprising power in a
world where everyone obsesses about what’s new.

Change only happens when someone does something different,
which a lecture cannot do
. Often I’m hired to be inspirational
and tell people tales of how great innovations came to be. The problem
with inspiration is that it’s hard to take with you. What’s thrilling in
the lecture hall feels awkward in front of your boss. Someone has to leave
the lecture, go back to his everyday world, and take the risk of doing
something different with what he’s learned. No speaker can ensure this
happens. Sometimes I’m hired to preach to the choir when the people who
most need to hear my message are elsewhere. This is fun, but it’s a
problem I can’t solve since I rarely get to pick my audiences.

I’m paid the same whether I suck or
not
. Most speaking contracts have no
performance clauses. Whether I bomb or do amazingly well,
I’m paid the same. I don’t like this. I’d rather be paid less when I’m bad
and more when I’m good. As it stands, there are few performance incentives
at conferences. There should be awards for the best speakers based on
audience feedback, and coaching offered to speakers who don’t do well. The
only conference I know that pays speakers based on performance is UIE’s
User Interface Conference.
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Full-day seminars are misery for teachers
and students
.Most of the research points to 9 a.m.-5 p.m.,
high-volume, short-break, full-day seminars as a bad learning environment.
However, that’s what people are used to, so that’s the way it is. There is
no research that says you learn more in eight hours of continuous learning
than you do in six. In fact, there’s evidence to the contrary.
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Volume does not equal quality, but we’re trained to buy by
volume. Unless it’s highly interactive, has frequent breaks, and is
constructed around real-world situations, not much retention is likely to
happen. Seminars from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. are exhausting; the result of a
great teaching experience should feel energizing. Three 90-minute sessions
or four 60-minute sessions, with many breaks, is my preferred way to run a
full-day experience.

I’m an introvert
. While I love
talking with interesting, friendly people, I’m extremely happy all on my
own. If anything, I think people who are at the center of attention when
working—like comedians, teachers, and lecturers—are quieter than average
off stage. They, like me, exhaust much of their social energy while
working. If you have an interesting opinion, laugh often, and bring a nice
bottle of wine, I would love to talk with you. But all things equal, I’m
extremely happy with a good book and a nice view.

I see everything you do
. I know
when you look at your laptop. I know when you play with your cell phone. I
can tell where you are looking at all times. In a good room with raised
rows, I know in every instant how many pairs
of eyes I have on me. I don’t want you to know this. I like
feedback on how I’m doing. But I can tell who is listening, who is
daydreaming, who gets what I’m saying, and who thinks I’m a jackass. I can
even often guess who’s going to ask me the first question, who wants to
come up to talk to me but is too shy, and who wishes they never came at
all.

No matter how much you hate or love this
book, you’re unlikely to be a good public
speaker
. The marketing for this book likely
promised you’d be a better speaker for reading it. I think that’s true on
one condition: you practice (which I know most of you won’t do). Most
people are lazy. I’m lazy. I expect you’re lazy, too. There will always be
a shortage of good public speakers in the world, no matter how many great
books there are on the subject. It’s a performance skill, and performance
means practice—and that’s one of the reasons I wasn’t afraid to write this
book.

Sometimes I lecture
commando
. There’s an advantage in knowing
something the audience does not, provided that advantage—however
ridiculous it is—makes me laugh. Perhaps I need more therapy, but I find
that doing little things like this makes life fun. And I laugh, so it
works. If not wearing underwear doesn’t make you laugh, then don’t do it.
But find something that always makes you laugh. Whatever I have to do so
I’m having fun is to the crowd’s advantage, even if they don’t know why
I’m having fun. Even if the private joke is on them, they benefit.

I’d rather do
Q&A for an hour than lecture
. This is the
opposite of many speakers I know. I prefer
Q&A because it’s live. Anything can happen. I can’t just
go to the next slide, I have to be responding and thinking. If I have a
lively crowd, or just a crowd willing to ask tough, direct questions, it’s
always a good experience. I hate softball Q&A because not only am I
bored, but the audience is, too. Great Q&A is memorable, exciting, and
has most of the elements people hope for when they come to live events.
But many people demand a show. They feel cheated if it’s just Q&A.
This means giving a lecture needs to be a compromise of satisfying folks
who want to passively hear a lecture, and exciting those who want to get
involved and make it a big, thrilling conversation.

I’m one of the worst students in the
world
. I hate lectures. It is very difficult for me to sit and
listen to anyone lecture. If I see a good speaker, I usually prefer to go
and read his blog or buy his book than sit and listen to his entire talk.
I’d prefer to buy him coffee or exchange email, where the communication is
two ways. If I can’t do that, I’d rather go out into the hallway and have
a conversation with someone else, sit outside on the grass and watch the
clouds, or go for a walk, all active things where my mind can interact or
be free to wander. I find the irony of this endlessly entertaining: I’m a
public speaker who mostly doesn’t like listening to public
speaking.

Paying attention makes things
funny
. If I have any secret to being entertaining, it’s that I
studied improv theater. There I learned how to see and how to listen.
Humor and insight come from paying attention,
not from special talents. After I studied improv, my
speaking skills improved dramatically and my attitude about life changed.
I can’t recommend taking an improv theater class strongly enough.

Making connections is everything
.
It’s preachy as hell, but lovers of wisdom have an obligation to share. E.
M. Forster wrote, “Only connect!… Only connect the prose and the passion,
and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height.” To
love ideas is to love making connections. This is why people who bludgeon
others with knowledge, intimidate with facts, distort intended meanings,
and cherry-pick their examples are so easy to hate. They work against
progress. “Only connect” is great advice. If you don’t know what you’re
connecting through your words, you’re more selfish than you
realize.

The easiest way to be interesting is to be
honest
. People rarely say what they truly feel, yet this is
what audiences desire most. If you can speak a truth most people are
afraid to say, you’re a hero. If you’re honest, even if people disagree,
they will find you interesting and keep listening. Making connections with
people starts by either getting them interested in your ideas or showing
how interested you are in theirs. Both happen faster the more honest
everyone is. The feedback most speakers need is “Be more honest.” Stop
hiding and posturing, and just tell the truth.

If you love ideas, speaking and writing are
natural consequences
. You know about history’s great thinkers
because they either spoke or they wrote. Or someone spoke or wrote about
what they did with or without their permission. I hope to be a great
thinker someday, and I know the way to get there is to speak and write.
Expressing ideas is often the only way to fully understand what ideas are,
and to know what it is you really think. Expression makes learning from
the criticism of others possible, and I’m happy to look like a fool if in
return I learn something I wouldn’t have learned any other way. I’m
fascinated by ideas of all kinds, in wildly different subjects, and I hope
to write and speak about them all. I’m insanely grateful to make a living
as a trafficker of ideas. I hope to be able to do it for the rest of my
life.

Backstage notes