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Comment by omginternets | Hacker News Reader

I was lucky enough to get paid for this but I'll say it anyway: learning to speak is the only thing of lasting value I have gotten out of startup accelerators.

I would have gladly drop a few grand to acquire that skill. In fact, I'm considering hiring a speaking coach to improve.

I've historically been a strong written communicator, but it turns out that speaking is very different from writing. In fact, I had thought of myself as a pretty strong speaker due to my experience giving scholarly presentations ... how wrong I was. Academic talks are a different beast altogether.

If you haven't seen Patrick Winston's How to Speak lecture [0], drop what you're doing and watch it now. I'll leave you with a (paraphrased) quote from his lecture: your ideas are like your children and you don't want to send them off into the world dressed in rags.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY

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Have you heard of Toastmasters?[0]

I haven't done this myself but I plan to, as I've heard good things about it, and if you live in a big city or metro area there is probably at least one group you could join. Also in many cities outside the US, for example I think Bangkok has several different ones, I know Budapest has at least two. And it's really cheap, AFAICT, in case that's a factor.

It's got a bit of a self-help sheen to it but I knew a couple guys in SF who were involved and they said it was just about public speaking. At which they were much better than I am.

[0]: https://www.toastmasters.org

I was part of Toastmasters for a while. My observation was that the pedagogy is indirect: the premise is that you are thrown into the deep end and start to speak from day 1 and get feedback from others. The problem is, depending on your cohort, you might or might not get useful feedback. Not everyone knows how to help you improve -- they can only supply perceptions. You might get an experienced Toastmaster in the chapter who is also a good teacher, but you also might not.

I found direct pedagogy to be much more useful for me personally. I took an in-person storytelling class and received feedback from an instructor who was also a practitioner. It's much more expensive, but it's still learn-by-doing (had to tell a new story every week for 8 weeks, and classes were 3 hours long each week, and like a workshop, I got real critique (positive and negative) -- so stressful) but I actually learned real technique (stuff like aspects of physical presence, using hooks, different forms of narrative arcs for different genres, etc.) The difference for me was professional feedback, and that difference was appreciable.

This may just be exactly what the doctor ordered. Thanks!

I watched this talk as it was posted on HN a while ago, though I have to say, surprisingly I wasn't very impressed with it for whatever reason. Maybe I have to revisit it to see if I can get more out of it.

I took your advice, dropped everything, and spent the last hour watching Patrick Winston's lecture. What a master class in public speaking! I'll be revisiting this lecture to take in-depth notes.

I'm really glad you enjoyed it :)

It's funny, I had the same reaction as you. I watched it once without taking notes (because it's so damn engaging!) and at the end of it, I suddenly realized that I would need to take notes if I wanted to learn this stuff!

I really don't understand why I wasn't taught this in school. It's borderline criminal.

P.S.: the "fencing in the idea" is something I do all the time now.

May I recommend my newsletter if you're looking to improve technical communication skills : http://tinyletter.com/suyash

You may! Thank you so much -- I'll be following this religiously.

I just watched this video and wanted to return to say thanks for the great suggestion. What an unexpectedly delightful lecture

I’ve just watched this lecture and I can’t thank you enough. It was one of the most useful talks I’ve ever seen.

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