A Book to Master Your Public Speaking Skills (and why you have to do it as a designer)

Ants shape each other’s behaviour by exchanging chemicals. We do it by standing in front of each other, peering into each other’s eyes, waving our hands and emitting strange sounds from our mouths. Human-to-human communication is a true wonder of the world. We do it unconsciously every day. And it reaches its most intense form on the public stage.

/ Chris Anderson: TED Talks, Official TED Guide to Public Speaking /

According to some research data, for many people fear of public speaking is nearly the same terrifying as the fear of death. For me personally, it’s hard to disagree. My relationship with public speaking is kind of hate-love.

I’m usually super nervous and anxious before the presentation, but once I’m there on the stage, I see people ready to listen and there is no way back, my brain magically switches to “ok, let’s do it” mode and I enjoy it from the second one up till the end. This scenario repeats itself every single time for no matter how many presentations I give.

What does Public Speaking has to do with Design?

TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking got into my hands during the time I was a student at an intensive UX/UI Design course where every Friday was ending with the presentation in front of your teachers and classmates, showing all the work you accomplished during that week. The tension and pressure of competition were so high sometimes that the importance of that presentation was seen as if your life depends on it.

It seemed to you that it was absolutely necessary to demonstrate EVERYTHING you had accomplished during that crazy week, otherwise some of your brilliant ideas would remain undervalued and unseen. But wait, you only have 5 minutes to showcase it all? Doesn’t it sound impossible!? Back then, it really seemed like 😱.

In those 5 minutes you’d better showed perfectly clear and appealing slides as well as perfectly polished, coherent and engaging speech (good luck with that while being scared to death).

That time it was only learning experience, but presenting and defending your ideas and decisions is a part of daily professional life for a Designer. So I thought if I want to conquer this career path, I gotta learn how to handle that pressure and make the presentations right way. Otherwise getting stressed every time I have to speak in front of other people, won’t make me last long.

So what about the book?

The book is written by one of the TED founders — Chris Anderson. It is a compilation of those most successful TED speakers’ experiences; stories of how they prepare their speeches, why they succeed, and, what’s important, why sometimes they fail; revelations about how actually even the most successful speakers are scared of being on the stage in front of hundreds of watching eyes.

The narrative is built around the thought that anybody who has the idea worth sharing is capable of giving a powerful talk.

In the beginning, it speaks about how equally important it is to tell the powerful story and also understand what can be left out; how crucial it is to get personal and walk the audience a little bit closer to the vision of the world you have, by the end of the presentation.

The second part of the book goes more into practical advice answering such questions:

• Is memorising a way to a successful presentation?
• What does it take to make a successful slide?
• And no questions here — rehearsal is absolutely necessary.

For sure reading the book didn’t make my presentation skills immediately better, cause that’s not the way it works. Though, what it definitely did was decreasing my level of anxiety before going on the stage and shifting the attitude towards public speaking from being something scary towards something to be curious and passionate about.

My Highlights

Your goal is not to be Winston Churchill or Nelson Mandela. It’s to be you.

If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

Overstuffed equals underexplained.

Authentic vulnerability is powerful. Oversharing is not.

Your only real job in giving a talk is to have something valuable to say, and to say it authentically in your own unique way.

Be real, and you won’t go too far wrong.

How do you practice and improve your presentation skills as a Designer? Any secret weapons to share? 🙂