Public speaking deep dive - Simon Pritchard speaks with David Julian Price

Let's talk about public speaking. I mean, why would people want to learn more about that?

Well, look, I have a mantra, Simon, and my mantra is a very simple one, but it's really powerful, and it's this: nothing will move you further and faster in your career than the ability to speak confidently and persuasively. And I have a bit of fun— lawyers are a really good example for this. Lawyers think they're pretty hot stuff. But the reality is with lawyers, you can get lawyers who are really good at speaking, and you get lawyers that aren't quite so good at speaking. But they're both good lawyers. But the interesting thing is the people who listen to them will judge the one who can speak well according to the law, not according to their speaking ability. Does that make sense? So a lawyer who can really speak well, people think, is a better lawyer than one who can't speak quite as well. And it's exactly the same with every profession and every industry— engineers, scientists, accountants, whatever. People who are listening judge people unconsciously or subconsciously on the basis of how well they speak more than what they say, usually, because what they say is nearly always fine, you know, which within their profession they know what they're talking about. Everyone knows that. But the way they say what they say is really important.

And how— what really differentiates the great speakers from the mediocre ones?

Oh, lots and lots and lots of things. So people often think speaking is, is something that you can pick up relatively quickly. And some people are born, some people are naturals, but most people They learn the skills, and there's lots of skills. I do a lot of work on presence, executive presence, so that when people speak, they own the room. And, and you will have gone to functions where someone stands up and they, and they, they start speaking and the whole room is instantly quiet. They own the room. And there's others who have to go and tap a teacup and, and do all sorts of things before they get to the point where the room is Ready to listen to them. So a lot goes into just that. It comes into how they walk on. It goes into how they stand, how they use their voice, how they pause, their volume, their intonation, their gesture, even the way that they hold their body. One of the classic things that a lot of people do which works against them is that they walk around. And the reason they're walking around is usually they're nervous. But the walking around will— you'll never see a master speaker You ask me how— what sets the really good ones apart from the mediocre. The really good ones never move. They stand still. Now, they may move a little during their presentation, but they don't wander. And that's a skill. So standing still is a higher level of skill than the people who wander. And the people who wander never own the room. So they may be the top of their profession, But they don't get their message across with the gravitas or with the charisma. Most people in technical professions prefer the word gravitas. Charisma, they think, is more fluffy. And it doesn't really matter. It all amounts to the same thing. It's having presence. And people with presence communicate significantly more effectively than people who don't have presence. And then there's a whole range of other things that go into it. It's not a— someone asked me just the other day, how long does it take to learn to become a great speaker? And I said, well, 40 years. And they laughed. And of course, I didn't necessarily literally mean that. But speaking is like a sport. In fact, this is the best analogy I can give you. If you wanted to go and learn to play golf— let's use golf— it doesn't just happen. You don't go to the golf course, pick up the golf club, and suddenly you're a great player. And in fact, in terms of golf, the 40 years probably is a good idea, because even great golfers will say, oh, I'm still learning. So let's take squash. If you wanted to learn to play squash, you go and you learn how to hold the racket and you learn the rules and you learn how to hit the ball and so on. But you're not a great player in weeks. You're not even a great player in months. You might be a good player or an okay player. It takes years for you to become a real master at squash. Speaking, presenting, public speaking is exactly the same. It's just like a sport. You need to Learn the skills, learn the techniques, get coaching, and literally lift your game in that way.

Well, what are the quick wins? Because some of our listeners may not have the 40-year patience. But let's say, what are your top 3 tips to own the room?

Okay, so the top 3 tips to own the room would be: stand still. The second tip would be to use the power of pause, or the power of silence. The great speakers speak relatively slowly, relatively slowly, steadily is a better word to use, they speak steadily. But within that they pause. And the power of silence is just enormous. And the other is they learn how to use their hands and how to use gesture. And there's so many techniques. One of the greatest techniques is simply use open-palmed gestures. Because open-palmed gestures have a significantly different impact on the audience. So there's a whole body of knowledge Just about nonverbal communication. I was on watching television just the other night, and one of the politicians was speaking, and he was speaking like this, and and it was clear that he was speaking about COVID and it was clear that there was information that he wasn't telling us. And then the premier came on, and the premier had open palms, and it was much more believable. So there's, but they're the top three tips: stand still. Pause and use gesture effectively.

And you mentioned it's like a sport where, you know, you need to practice and improve. So, so what's the journey people need to go on?

Well, using the sporting analogy, people who, who become good at the sport they choose get a coach. So you need someone who is Probably better than you. It's just like— the only way to— well, squash is a good example. The only way to be good at squash is play with someone who's better than you. You never get better if you play with someone who's the same as you or has less skill. It's the same in speaking. You need a coach from someone who is competent, confident, and has the runs on the board, I guess. So the coaching is important because people don't know what they're doing. They need someone, an outsider, to look in. And that's the same in almost all aspects of business and commerce. You know, someone from the outside sees things through a different perspective. Speaking is exactly the same. You need an external person who knows what they're looking for. And that's really an important point because a lot of people just ask their friends or their family. And the friends and family, with all the best intentions in the world, don't necessarily know what they're looking for or how to coach. So it's a bit like me. I don't know a lot about football. I couldn't coach a I know nothing about football. But I could certainly— I've actually been asked to coach footballers in how to do their speech at the end, their thank you speech. But I know nothing about football. So it's no different with speaking. You need a coach who can see what needs to be improved and needs to be worked on. And then the important bit is they know how to improve that. And that comes from experience.

Now, of the people you've coached, what's the biggest speaking disaster that's ever happened?

Oh, the biggest speaking disaster? I think of the people I've coached, there's been no disasters. But before I coached them—

Of course.

Before I coached them, well, I'll tell you a story. There's a media personality in Australia, and I won't name her for obvious reasons. Lovely lady, and I got on really well with her, which will become obvious when I tell the story. And we'll call her Cheryl. Her name was not Cheryl, so don't go thinking who are the media people with the name Cheryl. It wasn't, that wasn't her name. But she was doing a presentation at a function one day, a conference, and I happened to see her just before she went on. And I said, so Cheryl, how you going? She said, oh great, I've got my notes, I've done everything you told me to do, but I just had to keep my notes. I know you told me not to have notes, but I kept them. And I said, oh, can I look at them? And she said, sure, here they are. And I looked at them and I tore them up. And the look of horror on her face, it was just unbelievable. Now I wouldn't have done that if I had not known what the result would be. I hasten to add that there's no way I would have done it if I wasn't 100% confident. She went up terrified initially, because her notes were gone, and she was brilliant, because the notes didn't get in the way. And she said to me after, I could have killed I could have killed you when you did that. She said, now I just want to hug you, because now I know I can do it. And she's never used notes since. Now, that doesn't mean— please don't read into that that you don't need notes. You do. But there's a way of structuring notes. And that again is just, you know, there's a whole body of knowledge just about notes and how you prepare notes. So there's a huge amount of information. So that wasn't a disaster, but it But it sort of goes towards answering your question.

And the other big one is fear, right, with public speaking?

Yeah.

Because people say they fear it more than death.

That's right.

And how do you deal with that?

Well, look, over the years, and I've been doing this for 40 years, I've been coaching people for 40 years, 41 years this year. And I've seen people where the fears manifest themselves from people throwing up, from people needing to rush to the toilet, and everything in between. And so the fear manifests itself for different people in different ways. What I work on with people is, if they are— if fear really is their problem, if they really are lacking in confidence, then I really work on helping them understand what's driving that fear. And if we drill down, it's just like drilling a core, When we drill all the way down, the bottom, when we get to the bottom, it's a fear of making a fool of yourself. They don't want to look silly or look stupid or look foolish. The reality is, and I always use this example with people, in your adult life at business or work functions, how often have you actually seen someone make a fool of themselves? And most people say never. Some people say, oh, one or two. You know, I've been working for however long they say, 15, 20, 30, 40 years, only ever seen one or two. And when we drill that down, it always comes down to those people they do know who made fools of themselves, hadn't prepared. They got in front of an audience and they winged it. And some people can wing it, and some people can't. And some people can wing it some of the time. But not all of the time. So there's different ways of preparing. Now, if I can get inside people's heads, which is what I try to do, to get them to understand that fear, then what— and build the confidence, then that enables me to do something else. Because there's, if you like, there's 2 ladders, Simon. There's the ladder of confidence.

Mm-hmm.

And that's about what we've just spoken about, the fear. But then there's the ladder of competence. But it's not competence in their area, because they know it. You know, if they're a scientist or an engineer or an accountant or a lawyer or whatever, it's not competence in their area. It's competence in the ability to speak or to present whatever they need to present. And so the most dangerous people that I've come across are the people who have heaps of confidence, but they don't actually have competence in speaking. And if you sort of analyse their thinking, they think because they're confident that they're competent, and they're not. Well, I'm generalising obviously, but the people about whom we're speaking, some people have confidence, but we need to build the competence. And that's a body of knowledge which is in many ways as big as whatever they are— an accountant or an engineer or a scientist or whatever. There's this huge body of knowledge about speaking, and that's what makes the great speakers.

Thanks, David, for joining me today.

Oh, it's my pleasure, Simon. I enjoyed it.

Till next time.