Ask HN: What are some resources to improve speaking skills?
I get nervous very easily and my heart starts throbbing when it comes to speak to anyone. It is affecting my career. How can I fix it?
What are the resources to improve speaking skill?
What are the resources to improve speaking skill?
73 comments
[ 0.14 ms ] story [ 137 ms ] thread1. Prepare
2. Practice
- Toastmasters (or similar group) is a good way to practice
- Meetup groups will ask for speakers if toastmasters is not available
- You could also record yourself, and revise
So accept every opportunity you get to practice.
* Training * Practice * Feedback * Show up and do it over and over again
Toastmasters provides all four of these ingredients.
Same here. The time investment is quite small compared to what you can get out of it. my main regret is that I didn’t learn about toastmasters when I was 18. My life could have gone quite differently.
The meetings are structured with an agenda, the toastmaster for the meeting makes sure the agenda is followed and stays on topic.
They've made the program more dynamic. I don't know the new details very well and not sure how I feel about it. It used to be everyone received a workbook on how to deliver ten short speeches about varrying topics, but now you can customize it and I think they use an online website/program to keep track of that.
Everything at a meeting is always explained to everyone, and everyone I've met at Toastmasters meetings have been very nice.
You can use the website (https://www.toastmasters.org) to find a meeting near you and usually just drop in, but it's always polite to give them a head's up that you'll be visiting.
Most times you can just attend a local chapter speech for free, and if you like it, you can sign up for a membership. There have been plenty of great tips on giving great speeches, and more importantly, this is all hands on!
And you can speak freely without worrying about sounding imperfect, and nobody judges you, because everyone out there want to learn and improve themselves.
- Relax and meditate
- Practice a LOT. Everyday. Even two minutes helps.
- Learn to breath properly
- Record yourself speaking aloud at home with your phone. Make notice of all the nuances of the voice
- Prepare your material very well
- Visualize you are explaining the stuff to a friend at home. It will help you sound more natural.
Getting nervous is normal and part of the game.
This. Better yet video yourself. REALLY painful but REALLY helpful.
All your advice is great, but (from personal experience) it's not enough to overcome phobia-level tension.
I think many people don't understand what phobia-level tension even looks/feels like. My own worst moment: presenting an architectural diagram to a VP, I started panicking, and repeated the phrase "...and we're going to build an abstraction layer..." three or four times in a row, in a slow monotone voice, until someone in the room snapped me out of it. Embarrassing is an understatement.
I'm very good at conversational speaking, and I think that it mostly comes from listening to a ton of podcasts. This has helped me gain curiosity across a wide range of topics, but has also helped me learn how to dig into those topics via conversation. For this, pick topics you're interested in (perhaps some in fields that you're not fully interested in yet, to broaden your ability to converse across domains!). Also, while listening, look for traits that you admire in conversationalists, and try to practice them when speaking with others (this is a similar approach that can be used to learning anything, really).
As for public speaking, from what I've heard, Toastmasters is as good as it gets. They provide a learning and training environment. Then it's up to you to try it out "in production" (at work, weddings, etc).
Remember that it's a learning experience, and it will only get better with time via analysis, practice, and persistence!
https://www.amazon.de/Agile-Presentation-Design-innovators-p...
This is what I've done - and though the first time is incredibly nerve-wracking, especially if it's a longer presentation, it only gets easier from that point on. But you do want to make sure that you know your material very well - the goal is to be as knowledgeable as possible of the topic on which you are speaking. Be prepared for questions.
Personally, I've found that presenting the topic to a friend or family beforehand helps immensely. Writing and reading your PowerPoint (or equivalent) is one thing, but learning how to transition naturally from point-to-point and from slide-to-slide is something else entirely. You'll also find, while presenting, mistakes that you didn't notice simply by reading through it and you can correct those mistakes before they serve to embarrass you publicly.
I recommend staying away from coffee before presentations and instead, drink an herbal caffeine-free tea to calm your nerves (chamomile works wonders for me).
Since then volunteered recently to speak at tech meetups, etc. Organizers are usually very happy to find more speakers! Still get the heart rate increase, sweaty palms, etc but apparently it no longer affects my speaking :)
One of my engineers had almost crippling anxiety speaking in front of even small groups. After the course, she had the confidence to speak up and lead meetings.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/04/can-you-treat-st...
I pop 4-5 of this 1 hour before a big meeting or presentation. I've also used them at private gatherings when I'm speaking in front of a larger group. Works really well. Tell your DR about your public speaking fears and he/she will more than likely prescribe you a beta-blocker.
They obviously did help you, so anyone else just be careful, biology is complex.
I was garbage at public speaking until I had to teach an ed. law course in graduate school. Now I'm exceptional at it.
It also helps if it's a subject you're super knowledgeable about. That helps.
It feels like going into a country without ang knowledge of the language. You can be there for years and never learn anything. But once you have a foundation then learning is possible.
I joined the committee and I was my job to stand up and announce the next weeks events, I used to imagine putting on circus masters top hat to get over my nerves.
I ended up going to various conferences run on formal lines and speaking at those.
I have also gone to a large number of "political" conferences run on formal lines (think roberts rules) both as delegates and standing order committees - which organize the formalities of business.
I was on may way to a meeting and bumped into John Bercow on his way to the house of commons, unfortunately I did not have my copy of Citrine other wise id have asked him to sign it.
Simon Lancaster has a good book on a mechanics of rhetoric and speech writing
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Simon-Lancaster/e/B005NAQX8U/ref=dp...
If you're in a reasonably sized city, there are probably dozens of tech meetups looking for content. Just start hanging out and you'll start seeing opportunities to talk. Take them.
Also, when you're just starting out, stick to topics you know inside out. Only write enough notes to remind yourself of what you want to talk about. And then just talk to everyone. Don't make it a "presentation". Too much detail and you might get worried about sticking to the material. Just wing it.
Every public talk will improve your skillset a bit, so you need to just do it!
- Take a breath before you begin speaking. Often I'd find that I'd start speaking too quickly and my voice wasn't "ready" which ends up making you sound squeaky or out of breath or just generally flustered. This tip also helps a bit with the tendency to speak way too fast.
- If you have room to move around, don't be afraid to walk back and forth across the stage/platform/front of the room etc. Don't over-do it, but I find it's way easier for me to speak while I'm moving.
- At least for myself, I've found that moments where I feel like I really stumbled over my words, or spoke too quietly/loudly, or "forgot a line", actually end up being very noticeable when I later watch the video recordings.
- Public speaking is very opinionated and some people have some pretty pedantic rules. For example toastmasters is really aggressive about chiding you for using the word "umm". Now there's perhaps some truth to it - the role of a word like "umm" is to indicate that your brain is searching for what to say but still produce sound thus "holding your space" (so that no-one else cuts in), so in one sense I get why it's recommended against because when giving a talk there's no risk of someone cutting into you; your audience is captive (usually). However in another sense, "umm"-ing helps keep a certain rhythm/tempo to your speech which can actually help keep things smooth when you're searching for what to say.
Similar to the above, virtually every "rule" of public speech can be broken if you have the fundamental principles right. Barack Obama says "uhh" quite frequently, yet most people consider him charismatic. You could certainly argue that he's charismatic in spite of saying "uhh" rather than because of it, but in any case just remember not to miss the forest for the trees. Follow the principles - measured speech, don't be afraid to use space, try to talk more or less naturally - and you'll be a great public speaker.
Lastly, public speaking is a skill. It takes practice. If you can find a room to yourself, practice giving a talk a bunch, and make sure to record yourself. You'll likely be very surprised in the difference between your perception of yourself and how you actually come off, and having recorded videos is a great way to identify any tics/odd habits you have that you might want to work on.
First, practice what you are going to say RIGOROUSLY. You should be able to recite your full speech / pitch / presentation / whatever with no use of visual aids. Basically, you should memorize it. I always assume that I will be ~20% worse while performing than while practicing, so if I can do the whole presentation without visual aids while practicing then the visual aids will be sufficient to save me if I get in trouble while presenting. Most people rely on their visual aids as a huge crutch during practice, and as a result they forget what they want to say and end up staring at their PowerPoint or notecards during the entire presentation as opposed to engaging with the audience. They come off as nervous and unprepared. Further, using your visual aids as a crutch incentivizes creating verbose slides as an insurance mechanism which is why most PowerPoints you see are shit.
Second, realize that public speaking is fundamentally about telling a story. A good story and a good presentation should share the same elements: they should be amusing and engaging (always work in some humor and audience interactions to engage the audience, many of whom probably don't want to be there and will fall asleep otherwise); they should be concise (don't go on tangents); key take aways should be clearly stated and there shouldn't be a data dump; there should be a natural flow and verbal transitions should be employed as if you were speaking to a friend; etc. Finally, know your audience. What do they care about / want to see? What do they already know? How can they be persuaded or amused?
Third, as other posters have mentioned, the only way to get better at this is to practice. Go find opportunities to practice. It only takes a few good presentations to shake the fear of being a bad presenter / acquire the rep of being a good presenter.
Finally, realize that the stakes are pretty low normally. Most of the presentations I sit through are awful (even those from C suite people who basically present for a living) and most people can't speak or convey information well. As such, I rarely remember when people bomb as bad performance is the norm.
- Focused Observation / Listening (insanely important, this)
- Ability to Deal with the Unexpected
- Empathy / Emotional Intelligence
- Negotiation (If you've played being on both sides of the table, you know what the other side wants)
- Cooperation
- Banter
- Storytelling
- Emotional Endurance
- Interpersonal Relationship Creation and Maintenance
- ...
In addition to these skills, I've also found myself a lot happier, being able to engage in a creative activity within a supportive community which offers something completely novel each time I attend.
When I moved cities, I started a new improv troupe in that city, because it means that much to me.
Check it out. :)
I was debating between improv and toastmasters and picked improv since I thought it would be more fun.
Firstly, I should say, that depending on what your definition of "witty" is, you might be focusing on the symptom, rather than the cause. The appearance of wittiness, is fundamentally linked to an advanced ability to listen carefully to what is happening right now, both in your physical/social/(other domain) surroundings, and within your own mind/body. The ability to do all this is itself much more fundamentally important than I first realized when I started improv -- which I should mention, I also started because I wanted to be wittier :)
In essence, I would recommend that if you are looking to have a witty comment, you first focus on really learning to listen carefully and pay attention to what is happening right now. The skill of observation. You will notice some people in your class are not as good at listening. Perhaps you will offer a concept, and it is totally forgotten with the next sentence they say. Notice that these people always seem to be thinking of things ahead of time, rather than listening truly to what their partner just said, or was trying to convey with their body language. These people will not be able to make good scenes, because a "good scene" has created a temporary universe which -- even if it has ridiculous laws -- is internally consistent. If you are not listening you will miss when these laws & state are established, and you will cause contradictions in the universe you're making. If this happens the audience will be completely thrown off, and will find the scene distasteful, though they may not know why. The audience LOVES to see you care about made-up details of the universe.
I could ramble on about the subject... email me if you're interested in talking about it further... but here are a few other tips:
- Learn to agree with others. The best improvisers I know will agree with even the silliest of premises. Denial kills scenes. This is the fundamental rule.
- Learn to add details.
- Learn that not every sentence needs to be funny. The humor comes from the building of the self-consistent universe. I promise you will get the opportunity to say "the funny, laugh-getting line" eventually, if you build a self-consistent universe, and you and your partner care about its details.
- Be okay with silence, on that same note.
- Make bold character choices, but again, make your character have a believable internal consistency within the rules of your universe
- Anything is possible in the universe of the scene -- but once a "law" or "truth" has been established, you cannot re-establish it.
- The previous rule does not mean that your character and universe cannot grow and change -- character growth is something to be desired -- but there must be a reason in the universe for the change to have come about. Again, internal consistency.
- Do not worry if it takes some time to come up with a response. It is more important to prioritize listening and fully understanding what has been communicated by your partner, than it is to prioritize the speed of your next move. New improvisers will, almost without fail, prioritize the speed of their response over their response's quality. Don't fall into this trap.
- At the same time, don't overthink it. You can do this by making sure that you're measuring the quality of your response purely based on the fact that what you're saying is (1) listening to what your partner said, (2) saying yes to some component of what they gave you, and (3) adding some new information. That's it. If all you're trying to do is meet those three criterion, you have a very solid bedrock.
- Improv maxims and teachings can be notoriously cryptic at first; and in many ways it's still an art that is difficult to succinctly & fully communicate in English. Don't get discouraged if you don't understand your teacher, or th...
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