Ask HN: Exercises to think, then speak, more clearly?
I read a quote along the lines of "Next to height, the most unfair advantage someone can have is the ability to walk into a room without preparation and persuade the audience on just about any subject."
At face value, this sounds preposterous but there's merit to what the author is saying. Upon reflection, I've realized that this superpower is a lot harder than it seems and it requires:
- Ability to think clearly - Ability to encode into brain what you want to say - Deliver message
I'm finding it difficult to perform the first 2 steps. Has anyone found great resources and exercises to help with this?
105 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 278 ms ] threadPossibly easier to just hire an actor to deliver your message.
Might depend on the target audience though.
I mean there is some epic outage at your mega corp employer and all eyes are on you to fix the problem sort of pressure. Let’s call this soul crushing pressure coupled with time pressure and doing 3+ things simultaneously. There is no way out. No easy escape. You just have to keep slowly crawling towards resolution with the death stare of everybody on you. In order to creep towards resolution you must be able to talk through the problem as clearly as possible. Less is more and precision is epic.
Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.
When you train your mind to operate in this high pressure context your speech will improve.
When I worked in military SAR, interruptions in service provision (i.e. aircraft breaking down, or lack of crews, etc.) very quickly attracted attention of some very senior brass.
The people who couldn't give simple answers to direct questions, who couldn't articulate a coherent plan to get back in business, were the ones who floundered.
Thinking, with intent to convey that thinking into words understandable by your chosen audience, involves understanding your audience in the first place. You must learn to observe your audience; this is far more important than whatever idea you may want to express; if your audience is not receptive to you, you have lost before you begin. To generalize, listen before you speak.
Once you have an idea about how you may best express your idea, you should give a thought to how you are structuring your idea. For the details, it is generally considered a good idea to read, and read a lot. It is best if you read authors who are comprehensible to you, but have a firm grasp of the kind of style you wish to cultivate in yourself. After a bit of this, you really do have to write a lot - quantity is much more important than quality when you are hoping to improve yourself.
Almost all of what I wrote above can be tied to sources, and I would have liked to add more, but unfortunately I do not have the time to find references at this point in time, or write more.
> About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have 17acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. My time for these exercises and for reading was at night, after work or before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the common attendance on public worship which my father used to exact on me when I was under his care, and which indeed I still thought a duty, though I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to practise it.
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/148/pg148-images.html.u...
In case anyone is interested, the original Spectator is still worth dipping into. Many editions are available at the Internet Archive. For example:
https://archive.org/details/cu31924013337203/page/n361/mode/...
A good place to start may be with the book by Daniel Dennett: Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking https://www.amazon.com/Intuition-Pumps-Other-Tools-Thinking-...
Similarly, it's great to read good science books with careful arguments. One of the best I think is Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Honor-Psychology-Violence-Dir... -- the authors use a variety of independent experiments to make their conclusions.
In general, it's probably worth learning a bunch of psychology too - to understand others better (along with the variety of cognitive biases people have). A classic book in this direction is Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational https://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expand...
For example, consider the adage to “think before you speak.” Some people have told me this is exactly what happens, they internally say something to themselves, edit if needed, then say it out loud. Other people don’t do this at all or say they can’t do it, that they don’t know what they’re going to say until they hear it come out.
The way I think about learning difficult skills, try to find people who do the skill well and try to copy them. If possible ask them about how they do it and see if you gain any insight. But know that most people do most things by instinct, so you have to find someone who is a lot like you and went on a similar journey to learn the skill the hard way, otherwise it’s unlikely they’ll be able to teach you how to do it.
Don't attempt to get things right in the first draft. Make notes and revise them. Have conversations with individuals before groups.
Use note cards or an outline when you speak, if appropriate. Make the note cards and outline anyway.
Practice practice practice.
I'm going to go on a limb here and guess that you are thinking too fast. In everyday life, try to slow down your speech and get in the habit of listening to yourself. It will help you be more deliberate with words and get into the habit of course correcting.
People have a tendency to talk lot faster than they think. Great speakers know how to control this just like how cars speed up or slow down depending on terrain.
I think speed variance is a good tool to have but I wouldn't purposely try to talk slower.
For example John Carmack is someone who I really enjoy listening to talk about any topic. It's like a pure uninterrupted stream of thought without filler words, often times for hours. Lots of folks say he talks too fast but I think his pacing is perfect, it's very engaging.
On the flip side, I'll get disengaged pretty quickly if someone is talking slow or uses a lot of words that feel like they've spoken 7 words to say 3 words of information. I think slowing down to focus on certain phrases is good in moderation but I don't think you should purposely try to turn a 10 minute conversation into a 15 minute conversation.
It will change the way you think about communication, especially in a business context.
Through his communication, he had an uncanny ability to persuade. I mean, he laid everything out in an easy to understand way, and you either agreed or disagreed. It’s easy to agree when a person has seemingly answered all your questions and concerns without you even asking.
One day in his office, I asked him, how did you become so good at communicating really complex topics? He sat back, thought for a beat, and then jumped up towards his book case. “This!” He handed me his copy of the Minto Pyramid Principle scribbled with notes in the margin and all.
Needless to say, after reading that book, I was able to see immediately how those principles applied to him.
Of course it takes lots and lots of practice even after you understand the concepts. But the Minto Pyramid Principle comes highly recommended!
2. There's a diagram
3. It has three levels
The most important thing goes first. If your reader doesn't care about it, they will move on anyways.
It is also a pyramid because the editor is likely going to have to cut it to fit in an allocated space, and as the writer you didn't know where that was going to happen.
Now that I think about, without the physical space restrictions 'modern' internet journalism doesn't have the same concision and I wish it did.
Fix it so that it doesn't terrify you
I think you'll have to practice for it: read a lot, take time to process and respond.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric
You're going to want to familiarize yourself with fallacies and bias, to prevent and counteract your own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
Read the works of great writers and thinkers (E.g. the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditations also I recommend Wendell Berry.)
It's great for developing the skill to figure out arguments, creating a framework for talking etc.
Generally speaking, this whole thing is like a physical skill and you need to practice. The TM meetings give you a place to do that.
Also, don't underestimate the value of looking presentable and confident.
(Besides going to a toastmasters event or reading a summary, not a guide for running/coaching them, on toastmasters.org)
The manuals and the pathways program give you instructions on what each project has to achieve etc.
Some class in college had us do debates taking a side on some legislation that was being discussed in congress. I had just given my argument and the other side came up to ask me questions (like a cross examination).
One of the questions ended up being what I’d consider a gotcha question (though really I should have known the answer). They asked me what the bills name stood for (it was one of those crazy acronyms they like to use). I honestly don’t think I made it a point to remember that because it was a silly name, so I almost froze for a bit. But instead I answered by explaining the “moral implications” of “what the bill stood for”. I think the professor liked that because I wasn’t deducted any points.
Also, I wouldn’t take any credit for thinking on my feet because I’m pretty sure I simply misunderstood the question at the time lmao
This is very important for more technical stuff. You also have to start very slowly, so that you can lay the groundwork for everyone to understand you.
No matter how clearly you think you speak, you have to get feedback from different people.
If you don't have access to that, join an improv troupe, a theater troupe, a local group that tries to educate the public on a political issue you care about, or some other group related to your interests where there are opportunities for discussion.
I do recommend toastmasters if it's something you have access to.