Translator: David Hsu Reviewer: Ellen Maloney
I haven't always been a public speaking coach.
Believe it or not, I'm a scientist specialized in conservation biology,
which is the science of protecting wildlife and wild places.
Six years ago, I was sitting in an auditorium
that looked a lot like this one,
listening to a string of presentations given by colleagues
who had just returned from field missions
involving the conservation of various plant and animals species.
One after another, the presentations were unbelievably...
awful,
mechanical,
monotones,
unrehearsed,
soulless.
For me, they were BAD, which stands for "broken and dysfunctional."
They were ticking off every single box
of what not to do while speaking in public:
speaking too fast - tick;
saying too many "ums" and "ahs" - tick;
spending more time looking at the screen behind them
than at the audience in front of them - tick;
I felt numb, disengaged,
and totally uninspired.
Looking around me, I realized
that I probably wasn't the only person in the audience who felt this way.
No, my fellow audience members were busy doing all sort of things:
some were taking power naps;
others were crossing their arms and legs tightly like this
and looking up at the ceiling, thinking about who knows what;
and others were shifting uncomfortably in their chairs looking ill at ease.
You know what this feels like, right?
All you have to do is to remember the last BAD -
broken and dysfunctional presentation -
to know what this feels like.
And I'm willing to guess that you probably don't have to think back very far
to remember this presentation,
because the kind of presentation that I'm talking about
is ubiquitous, it's happening everywhere.
In boardrooms, classrooms, and auditoriums - except this one.
All over the world, all the time.
In presentation, after presentation, after BAD presentation,
and most of the time, we, as the audience,
just sit there, politely listening,
watching, waiting, wanting more.
longing for movement and laughter, and human connection.
Why do we accept such a low standard for public speaking?
Why is it okay to deliver BAD presentations?
These are the exact questions that I was asking myself,
as I was sitting in the audience, listening to my colleagues,
drone on and on and ooo-n about their subjects.
And I started to feel irritated.
And then that feeling changed to anger.
I got angry.
I was angry that such precious information was spilling
so carelessly from their lips,
like gold dust draining from one's hand.
Gone.
Public speaking is one thing.
But conservation is a crisis discipline.
Species live or die based on presentations like these.
Critical funding, global support and awareness,
community consciousness;
all of these things rely in such a large part
on how conservation professionals are speaking about the issues.
And then, it happened.
I was hit by a lightning bolt idea.
"What if," I thought to myself.
"What if I could put together
all of my experience as a conservation biologist,
with all of my experience as a performing artist?"
Because I've been dancing and doing theater for 20 years as a hobby.
"What if I could put those two things together
in order to fix this speaking problem?"
What if
I could help to promote conservation through effective public speaking?
And that's exactly what I did.
Today I live to disrupt
the broken and dysfunctional status quo for public speaking.
And I'm working, not only with the conservation community,
but with anyone who's willing to put in the elbow grease,
the sweat, and yes, sometimes even tears,
to learn the magnificent art of effective public speaking.
That's right, you heard me say "art"
because I believe that public speaking is a performing art,
like theater, and dance, and music.
A speaker's art is the effective delivery of the spoken word.
In order to be successful, the speaker has to both create compelling content
and perform that content in front of an audience.
Performance is what makes your presentation interesting,
so that people pay attention.
Performance is what makes your presentation memorable
so that people inhale and absorb your message.
And performance is what makes your presentation stirring.
So that guess what? People give a damn.
In short, performance is what makes your message matter.
And by the way, I'm not talking about the kind of performance where
you go all out on stage in front of the audience
and act like somebody you are not, uh-uh.
I'm talking about the kind of performance where you stay authentic to who you are,
but you have polished, and honed,
and refined those elements,
which I believe, constitute the performance of public speaking.
There are four such elements:
The first one is appearance; this is all about what you look like,
from the outfit that you are wearing -
because what you are wearing's a part of your performance -
and it goes on to include how you walk into the space
and what presence you radiate.
And then, there is voice; your voice is an instrument,
and your job as a speaker is to play it, and play it well,
creating melody that the audience wants to listen to.
And then, there is body;
when you are speaking, you are not only speaking from your mouth.
No, what else are you speaking with?
You're speaking body language, of course, your dancing body language.
As a speaker, you need to be fluent in this language,
understanding what gestures and positions mean
so that you know which ones to use, and which ones not to use.
And then there is audience connection, of course.
This is all about creating a relationship with the audience
so that you form bridges between yourself and them.
And this begins by you doing your homework
so that you know who the audience is in the first place.
That way, you can take on their needs and interests, and speak to them.
Those are the four elements that constitr the performance of public speaking.
And those are the four areas that your job as a speaker
is to enhance and polish like a diamond.
Now, I'm sure that you can imagine
that doing all that polishing takes a lot of effort and time.
But just as with any skill,
whether it's learning how to bake the perfect lemon meringue pie,
or reciting Shakespeare, or skiing moguls, like Edgar did,
public speaking is no different: it requires practice.
And then more practice, and then more practice after that.
But the good news is that it can be mastered.
And as George Leonard said in his book called Mastery:
"Mastery is available to anyone
who is willing to get on the path, and stay on it."
So there is hope.
But there is one method that is a little bit easier to take on
than all of the stuff that I've just described here.
This is one of my favorite methods to teach because it's sort of a short cut.
It prevents you from having to go through the hoops of fires of these areas,
and it allows you to switch on
the performance of your public speaking, right now.
I call it putting on a new hat.
You see, hats have a magical power.
Hats can make you imagine things, and believe things,
and most impressively, to do things.
I first tuned in to the illustrious power of hats back at university
when my best friend and roommate Sarah and I
had a whole wall of our student apartment dedicated to silly hats.
There were big ones, and blue ones, and tall ones, and small ones.
A hat for every occasion.
Sarah and I would use these hats to help us to do stuff.
So when it came time to study for exams, I had a favorite study hat.
It was my Dr. Seuss hat, which was tall, with red and white stripes.
You may know it from "The Cat and the Hat."
This hat, I believed, I had a responsibility when I wore it.
And that was that I needed to fill its tall column with knowledge.
So I studied harder.
And then after the exam was over,
I'd put on my other hat which was my relaxed hat,
my floppy, velvet, lovely hat that made me chill out.
You get the point.
Hats have a magical power, but the really neat thing besides that,
relating to hats, is that they can be invisible.
People who are broken and dysfunctional speakers
are wearing an invisible hat that says,
"I'm a boring presenter,"
in big, bold, tattered letters on the front.
This ugly hat, it makes them give dull and unremarkable presentations
that are neither interesting, memorable, nor stirring.
In short, that are not performances.
You can choose to wear a hat like this too if you don't care about your subject
or the audience,
or whether or not your message is memorable.
This kind of hat, it works everytime.
Or, if you do care,
you can choose the kind of hat that I am wearing right now.
Do you see what it says in big pink letters on the front?
If you can't read it from where you are sitting,
it says, "I'm a performer!" Exclamation point!
This magnificent moss green velvet hat,
shaped like the Matterhorn mountain,
with a crooked tip, and a peacock feather sticking out at the top,
this sublime hat gives me magical powers.
It gives me permission to take up space on this stage,
and to be a larger version of myself.
This hat allows me
to take risks and experiment with how I use my voice.
And how I use my body so that my messages can come alive.
And this hat gives me courage so that I can interact more with you,
so that we can have a more meaningful connection.
I love this hat.
And the good news is that you can have one too.
All you need to do is to imagine it, believe in it,
and then the most important part is you need to surrender to its powers.
Make a ritual ceremony out of putting the hat on.
Begin by imagining the hat.
What does it look like?
Design it. Create it.
Make it peculiarly you, like Jeremy said.
And then slowly put the hat on your head.
When it touches your head, poof!
You transform into a performer! Exclamation point!
Let that energy take over.
Enjoy yourself and be present in the moment.
If more people wore hats like these,
and if more people regarded public speaking
as the performing art that it is,
then I believe, that broken and dysfunctional presentations
would be a thing of the past.
And we would revolutionize how we speak.
Thank you.
(Applause)