Disrupting public speaking | Laura Penn | TEDxEcoleHôtelièreLausanne

How do you become a great public speaker?

Laura Penn's speech will teach you what it takes to improve your public speaking skills in order to take your speaking to the next level. Her dynamic talk will reveal the origin of her fire and will dig into the nuts and bolts of this exciting approach, leaving you with some of the tools that you need to try out for yourself.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

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)