Breathing Is the Key to Persuasive Public Speaking | Hacker News Reader

Breathing Is the Key to Persuasive Public Speaking

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81 pointsdpflan37 comments

I've never realized how hard it is to speak publicly until I had to do public presentation.

I was so stressed I rushed through the material and I was taking too shallow breaths, too rarely. 20 minutes into presentation I had to make 5-minute pause just to catch some air, I was literally exhausted by talking :)

Few people from our team (programmers, ui designers, testers) had presentations, and we all learnt a lot. It's surprisingly hard.

What was the presentation on? Was it a subject matter you know very well? How have subsequent speaking opportunities gone?

Our company did free courses for university students - I've had a talk about ORMs. The subject wasn't the problem - the public speaking was.

I've had no further opportunities (not that I was soo bad, I just changed the job since).

Thanks for the update.

...did you not learn how to do presentations in school?

Most people don't. Not that they don't give presentations in school, but they are absolutely not either graded or coached on presentation skills, only on content (since most of the time it's presentation of a research project).

We don't really have presentations in Polish schools. Well, maybe now, I've heard on the new college graduation exam (matura) there is sth like this, but when I was in school I didn't have to do any presentations. Usually it's either written exam, test, or oral exam (more like interview than presentation).

Also (at least for me) - presentation to friends is completely different thing - I've been active in students club and made a lot of courses (we had this exchange - everybody taught others about his hobby) - it's completely different experience to give a speach for a few friends over a beer, and in huge hall to dozens of strangers.

I would say the single most important part of public speaking, which should encapsulate everything else is rehearse. It can feel weird and contrived to have three of your colleagues sitting in front of you pretending to be an audience, but it's enough to make it feel real, and let you run into most of your issues ahead of the real thing.

Then you go back, fix what you can, and rehearse again. You want to have some "muscle memory" to fall back on during the real event.

So true. I've made it a habit of asking speakers of really great talks how many times they rehearse, and I was super surprised to here that speakers often go through 15+ iterations of a talk (half a month, once a day) before giving it.

Rehearsing in front of a webcam is also very useful.

Make sure you are standing up in roughly the position you will be giving your talk in, set it to record and then have at it (I find it helps if you can't see yourself while recording).

Then play over the recording, if you use VLC it has a useful trick in that you can speed up playback without affecting pitch (saves time and makes it really obvious at 1.5x if you are talking too fast, you should be legible at 150 percent).

Make notes where you stumbled and/or were not clear then go over it again.

Oh and if you have slides you can run through them on the machine in front of you (instead of behind your or off to the side) which really helps as well.

Rehearsing in front a webcam seems like one step from submitting your rehearsal to a service that can critique your presentation. The service could go through a checklist of fundamental variables that are deemed highly correlated with successful presentations, and you could receive timely and useful feedback. Is there such a service? @noir_lord

Not that I'm aware of but it would be useful, an impartial third party watching your talk would be less intimidating than getting someone you know, hell you could have someone go over the slide deck as well for common errors.

...and now I'm thinking of how you'd build that and how the UX would work, damnit I have enough side projects I want to build ;).

Load the decks and live stream and record the video: Basic screen: [ | ] [-video- | -deck-] [ event_timeline ]

Allow the presenter to move through the deck on the service so there is a timeline of events of video and deck traversal. Then reviewer can highlight key moments on the timeline with notes that are part of an overall critique.

User presentation is the base. Deck critique comes at a premium.

--Edit-- HN didn't like my formatted 'mock' screen.

Indeed, thinking client side, split screen for uploading video and deck with a notes/goal box underneath (things like Target audience, group demographics, expected venue).

On the backside have a review interface with video front and sent and controls underneath, like "Add Note" which pauses the video and enters the time stamp and note into a formatted list, once review is marked completed it transfers that list into the feedback part which also has a notes section for things like body language and such.

Once complete email the user with a link to the review page that has the video and the timeline underneath, make the timeline clickable so the user can jump straight to each note and either accept or decline the review (that way you have a metric of what criticism people respond to positively and negatively).

Handling the deck is more of an issue, powerpoint isn't a problem but you will get all sorts of whacky formats (people using Beamer, javascript based stuff), You can generally get those out in PDF format in one form or another though so maybe accept PDF and Powerpoint (or in the case of the javascript based ones perhaps a zip file for techie audience).

I wonder what you could charge that out at, reviewing a 45 minute talk and slides properly would probably take an hour/hour and half and also what kind of turn around people would want (possibly with increased pricing for a faster turn around).

EDIT: Thinking about it, you could actually have multiple reviewers in key demographics as well for more targeted talks with variable rates.

EDIT: You could also have multiple reviewers (extra charge) so that you can get a different perspective

Hm, interested in sharing some more ideas on this? Like a crappy prototype?

I'm snowed under with current startup, side project and client work (bootstrapping is hard!) but if you do anything with it I'd love to see the outcome, drop me an email at ben@metasoftware.co.uk :)

Understood, thanks for your contact info.

I agree the web cam idea sounds great, but the human intimidation factor is critical. You want to know how well you deliver the talk when you are in front of an audience. The are involuntary physioligical reactions that occur inside your body when real people are in front of you looking at you as a group. Learning to deal with and harness these reactions is an essential part of learning to deliver your talk.

Agreed but the physiological side of it is just one part, going into the talk knowing that someone impartial has already been over it and that you have your ducks in a row would definitely help.

I once had the entire management of a (very large) company I worked for turn up for a training talk I was doing with no notice, I did the talk which went well then went in the toilet and threw up, the nice thing is after that I stopped worrying about public presentations as literally the worst thing had already happened.

Picture a piece of sashimi: a thin slice of fish over a bed of rice.

I think the word you're looking for is "nigiri".

Breathing is generally underrated as the core of everything you do. A lot of people starting out at Kung Fu tend to get bored and quit after dealing with breathing exercises, but without controlling your breath, you can't expect to fully control your body.

Likewise, there is an analogous practice to yoga known as pranayama, the practice the breath (vs the body).

I did my first presentation at a tech-related conference back in 2003. It took me 10 years and speaking at about 100 conferences to get over the "nervousness" that came before I spoke. Now it's easier for me, it really just takes practice.

But it also really, REALLY helps if you know your subject inside-and-out. That way if you start stumbling, you can talk your way through it and 'improvise'.

Good breathing will help but it's not the key. The best starting point for nervous public speakers is: http://seriouspony.com/blog/2013/10/4/presentation-skills-co...

Focus on their needs not your technique. Everything else is artifice.

But without it you would die. So being able to remain conversant and at ease with your topic and audience might also be considered good. Fear of the unknown is what'll get you. I find being nervous helpful in that my habits when nervous are repetitively re-checking my preparations, which usually lead me to finding that key item(s) I might miss if I were more cavalier.

I have a suspicion that "focus on their needs" is good advice for social anxiety in general.

Looking through the comments here really makes me glad I was in the scouts. Putting the long struggle for equal treatment aside for a moment, the scouts did a great job with the public speaking side of things. Most of it was to present to your fellow scouters, and this gave a lot of practice for the young kids. This was especially hard, as most of the people you are trying to teach a knot to are between 11 and 16, not the most disciplined bunch. There were also times when you had to talk to the adults and present your aims and what happened on a raft trip, for example. Though relatively 'lite' in content, my experience was that the adults still expected top notch skill, and then would take the time to build them with you. As such, I always see these tip and tricks pages and think 'Doesn't everyone know that already?'

Still, great reminder and good advice from the OP.

Coursera has a University of Washington public speaking course, Introduction to Public Speaking.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/public-speaking

That's more about organizing a talk in memorable points than overcoming shyness/vocal technique, etc. A lot of it is useful for essay-writing as well.

(To be fair: I must have followed through with a third of it before priorities took over)

You took the course? Was it not compelling enough to complete?

I never complete Coursera courses. That's probably more on me than them.

It's not just you (don't blame yourself!). It's almost everyone: MOOC attrition is high and retention is low. The low barrier to access and the even lower repercussions for not finishing are influential:

1. http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/mooc-completion-and-rete...

2. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-10671-7_4...

3. http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/retention-and-intention-...

I always forget to breathe when I am deadlifting at the gym or whiteboarding in an interview.

I've been a public speaker for 12+ years now. I've come up with my own kit of advice for friends / peers / family members who are going to be in front of an audience. Generalizations can be argued against, but in my experience, not successfully. :)

Every time you get in front of an audience, remember: they came to see you succeed. Nobody (whose opinion matters) goes to plays, presentations or speeches to watch the on-stage talent crash and burn. They want to be entertained, or to be informed, or to experience catharsis. They have no reason to believe you're not qualified to speak, and they're subconsciously rooting for you because it is rewarding for the audience when you do well, and embarrassing for them when you do not.

Bring water. Take pauses every few minutes to take a drink. It helps regulate breathing.

Don't use colloquialisms without crafting a turn of phrase that explains it for those who don't understand. Don't use pop-culture references in presentations. Your audience may know you a little from a speaker bio, but you are even less likely to know their cultural background, and the awkward silence that follows a failed "Mr. Burns from The Simpsons" reference will only force you to get inside your own head. Which brings me to:

Stay out of your head. Meaning: don't present material that you haven't practiced unless your particular brain excels at improvisation or social engineering, because you can't be THINKING about all that info and your presentation skills WHILE you're presenting. Practice speaking slowly, clearly and authoritatively, know your schedule for the talk, and KNOW YOUR SHIT ( a colloquialism meaning that you should be well-versed in the subject matter of your presentation). If you are unpracticed or only superficially aware of your subject matter, you will make mistakes that you will suddenly find yourself analyzing without your own permission. Your brain will put on the brakes, bringing your presentation to a screeching halt, and start to pick apart every little thing that happened and every little thing you're about to do. When someone "chokes" during a public performance, they've gotten into their own head. "Auto-pilot" - being able to perform without conscious step-by-step thought - is your best weapon here; that only comes from an easy comfort with the material and, unless you're already a skilled public speaker, practice.

TL;DR?: Your audience is rooting for you; stop and sip water frequently; don't be a clever wordsmith (or a cunning linguist, if that helps you remember?) unless you know your audience will "get it"; and for the love off all that is good in the world, know the room, know the schedule and know your shit, or you'll choke and that makes a whole room full of people feel much more uncomfortable than you, because when they sat down, they already mentally prepared for you to be good.

Just a some affirmation of the above, as I think many people would be well served to study the guidance.

My background? Both stage performance experience in music alongside academic (National Forensics League) and professional (presentation development and coaching in Fortune-level corporations) public speaking roles. Guitarist for 20 years or so, did public speaking and acting for about 10 counting high school and college, and another 5-6 working in the trenches of B2B sales (RFPs, etc) as a blend of creative / technical / team manager.

To add a bit of side-note, I'd like to point out that humor tends to be so highly subjective that it's best to avoid trying to go there (akin to avoiding pop-culture). Being clever or witty is a way to show off, in such a format, and there's no reason to try and show off when the room is already yours, practically speaking.

To me, it's a large turn-off when such deviations from the plan show up - being competent means being engaging, and through engagement the audience will appreciate the presentation for what it is doing / trying to convey.

Allowing questions during a presentation is not preferred, but if presenting to a potential client, sometimes inevitable. I use the phrase "bus out of nowhere" to try and prepare people to be able to handle a difficult or even insulting question without totally losing footing. It's like a car crash, just let it happen in slow motion, hang on, and don't make any sudden moves to go in a different direction...just get through the question, avoid trying to be clever or witty in response, and get back to the script.

I think Willie Nelson also had a relevant piece of advice regarding performing, in that it's good to get some practice in, but don't over-work something to the point of it being robotic. The performance should have some of that liveliness that comes from knowing something well but walking the line of risking that a mistake could happen...that's what can be so compelling about a great speaker, there's a mix of energy, competence, and human nature that gets people to tune in.

"Bus out of nowhere" - well said. Whenever those derailing questions/comments come out - pretty rare, but worth preparing for - that's great advice to just ... stop. Take a drink. Respond respectfully, punt to post-session conversation if possible, thank them, and move on. The audience won't even know what happened if you smoothly slide back into your routine.

"Picture a piece of sashimi: a thin slice of fish over a bed of rice."

That ain't sashimi; that's nigiri.

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