Mike argues that speakers should prioritize connecting with audiences over delivering information. Self-deprecation and humor work best: they make you relatable, lower the audience's guard against perceived superiority, and let you keep authority without alienation. He's tested this in his own talks.
For me, public speaking, we have a few responsibilities. It's to transfer information, but first there's to transfer connection. And I find, at least for me, the greatest way to build connection is self-deprecation, humor, where people say, "This person's relatable and they get me." It's actually to take ourselves off a pedestal. When you or I walk on stage, you literally are on a pedestal. You're literally standing above people. They're looking up at you. And I think that's a very difficult position to be in because you have instant authority over the audience. There's good things to that, that people are more apt to listen to someone they think has authority. But we're also resistant to someone who thinks they're greater than thou. I gotta rip off that bull right away and clear that out. So I use self-deprecation. As I'm doing public speaking, I test things out and say, oh, that's self-deprecating, that worked.
