Tips to Speak With Confidence

Skill with public speaking is not a luxury. It’s a must for any professional who wants to succeed in the marketplace of ideas.

So, you have no plans for delivering a TED Talk? Okay. But there’s a good chance you have (or will have) lots of opportunities to speak in less visible settings like employee meetings or at community functions. In today’s competitive world, your professional toolkit should include public speaking competence.

Michael Chad Hoeppner can help. He’s a speech coach whose clients have ranged from Columbia University MBA students to prominent attorneys, professional athletes, and executives in multiple industries. Hoeppner’s new book is Don’t Say Um: How to Communicate Effectively to Live a Better Life.

Of all the challenges facing inexperienced and/or ineffective speakers, which two or three are the most common?

Hoeppner says the first and biggest challenge kick starts all the others: speakers believe they should communicate in a minimized way to come across as “professional.” This is so common that he calls it “the mode.” There’s academic mode, legal mode, finance mode, and more. But, he says, they’re all essentially the same: a more limited—and ultimately boring—version of oneself.

“This one crucial error then has multiple knock-on effects,” he says. “Speakers use: less vocal variety (and speak more monotonously); less enunciation (and mumble); less breath (and become metronomic); less gestural freedom (and become static). But the root of all these challenges is the initial misconception that ‘professional’ equals ‘less.’ I don’t mean this in the vein of the popular ‘bring your whole self to work’ adage. I literally mean that speakers should use more breath, more vocal variety, more gestures, more facial expressions, etc. when they speak—not because I generically recommend using more, but because in real life people use more when they’re not trying to ‘be professional.’”

Why are some people clear-thinking and reasonably articulate in everyday conversation but much less so when giving a speech or presentation before an audience?

Hoeppner says the critical distinction is not what, but who. Are they focused on themselves or the person they’re trying to reach? “When speakers are self-focused, their communication skills collapse: they talk too fast, lose words, over-fixate on mistakes, abandon eye contact, and more. Conversely, when they’re solely focused on reaching the other person, their innate communication skill unlocks fluidly and organically. This isn’t just a soft idea of generosity or mindfulness; the single evaluation of effectiveness communication is did it reach the other person? And the behaviors that we think of as ‘confident’ are not arbitrary but rather the necessary outputs of being focused on our audience. As an example, enunciation isn’t essential because of formality, impression, or etiquette; it is essential because without it an audience cannot intellectually or emotionally grasp a speaker’s content.”

Hoeppner draws a distinction between linguistic precision and an extensive vocabulary.

“You don’t need a big vocabulary to say eloquent, articulate ideas,” he says. “’To be or not to be’ may be the most articulate thing ever thought, written, or spoken, and it consists of six words, two of which are repeated, and all of which are monosyllabic. What you do need to be articulate—regardless of the size or heft of your vocabulary—is the ability to choose words. When people get fixated on vocabulary, one of two bad outcomes can happen—neither of which unlocks articulateness. If they’re interested only in demonstrating the dazzling number of words they know, they may in fact share worthless, lengthy, jargon-filled passages that are overly complex and ultimately empty. Or if they’re trying to camouflage their minimal vocabulary, the strategies they employ to hide—like talking faster to avoid the impression of being stumped—actually create more inarticulateness. So, if you want to become more eloquent, instead of pining over a large vocabulary, dedicate yourself to the profound skill of tolerating thinking time. You must give yourself the time needed to choose the best possible combination of words you can find—not those that someone else would find. If you want to increase your vocabulary, go for it! Learning new words and new things is one of life’s joys. But even when you learn those words, you won’t be able to deploy them if you haven’t cultivated the ability to choose the right ones in the right moments.”

When Hoeppner coaches people on this, he uses an exercise he created called Finger Walking, a demonstration video of which can be seen at dontsayum.com.

Filler language, he says, is not a problem. It’s a symptom. He explains.

“Speakers (rightfully) want to make their speech more accurate, elegant, and unencumbered with filler words and sounds. That goal is a valid one—excessive filler both dents an audience’s perception of a speaker and makes comprehension more difficult,” he says. “But focusing on removing filler language can counterintuitively make it worse. By focusing on the thing to avoid, you have compromised your ability to focus on anything else. You must recognize that filler language is not the enemy, it’s the byproduct of being less precise and less specific with your language than you would like. This is why I call filler a symptom. And just like an illness or malfunction or any other systemic challenge, if you want to treat the condition you must address the root problem, not just the symptom.”

Hoeppner says filler language isn’t just like, kinda, or sorta. Any word that satisfies two criteria can count as filler: (1) the word isn’t grammatically necessary; and (2) the speaker is unaware of saying it.

After they’ve given a speech, what can speakers do to evaluate their performance so they can do even better the next time?

It’s simple, Hoeppner says. Speakers should watch and listen to their performances. “This used to be a more challenging question, but technology has made it easy. Smartphones have made instant video and audio analysis possible almost anywhere, anytime. So, the real question is not what can speakers do to evaluate their performance, but what can they do to be brave enough to watch their footage? And there’s nothing magic here. It can be daunting to watch oneself. It’s all too easy to avoid or procrastinate. But there is simply no substitution for the objective evidence of actual footage. So, use your phone for a noble purpose and let it be a tool to drive your improvement!”