Why do you think so many people—women in particular—have such a fear of public speaking?
I can’t speak for everyone, but as a communications coach, I hear from a lot of people—men and women—that they’re worried they might say something wrong or say something in a “wrong” way. I encourage all speakers to focus on the effort to try and not the fear of saying the wrong thing.
Why is it important to become a better public speaker?
Public speaking skills give us the power to influence others, at work, in our communities, even among our family and friends. We live in a complex world: the kinds of challenges and problems we face require people to share knowledge and different perspectives and to work together. Ultimately, it’s about making a human connection.
What is the process of training someone to deliver a polished TED talk?
That’s a trick question! We don’t aim to “polish” our speakers’ talks, we aim to make them as powerful as they can be. “Polish” suggests we smooth things out, take away edges and personality quirks and emotion, when really, we encourage our speakers to show their humanity, not hide it.
We usually start working with our selected speakers three or four months before the event, providing each speaker with a professional coach and an experienced volunteer from our team. Together, we help each speaker explore all the facets of their topic, what fresh perspective they can share, and what they want the audience to do with it. It’s a messy and exciting time, and speakers often come out with something different than the idea they auditioned with.
We also help them find their delivery style—practicing in places as crazy as Tamar Park on a busy Sunday afternoon, in the middle of shopping malls and in front of our committee. Our speakers don’t get to take notes with them onstage and there is no teleprompter, so they spend a lot of time not just memorising their talks, but going beyond that to really get the story “in their bones”. That means on event day, they’re not delivering a prepared script, they’re able to connect with the audience and enjoy the interaction as they share their story.
What’s the greatest advice anyone ever gave you with regard to public speaking?
“It’s not about you.” Having a platform as a speaker is an opportunity to serve others—to share knowledge, experiences and insights. It’s not about proving how clever you are.
What are the most important things people should remember when delivering a talk/public speaking?
Be human. Connect with the humans in your audience and share something of value. Don’t turn them off by trying to prove how smart, how funny or how important you are. Whether or not your audience is speaking out loud, they’re having a conversation in their heads. Make it a conversation with you about your idea, not about you.
Do you have any advice on the things people say/how they should say them?
Say it like you mean it. You won’t be able to persuade anyone if you don’t believe your own words. People often ask about grammar, accents, style—none of that matters as much as caring about the ideas.
What advice do the speakers you have worked with usually find most useful?
I asked this year’s speakers, and not surprisingly, what each found useful was different. Here are some their answers:
- It’s you that touches the people’s heart, not the fancy slides or sound bites
- To communicate a really big idea, you have to distil it to its essentials—as such, it's been invaluable to go through an editing process, cutting out any extraneous information to reveal the big idea in its purest form
- A speaker needs to think about how they are going to shift mindsets—don’t just share information, but think about what stories, what feelings and even what words will resonate with this particular audience
Is there one challenge that many of the people you work with struggle with (for example, the use of fillers such as “you know”, “um”, “like”) and how can this be tackled?
I don’t think it’s a worthwhile endeavour to scrub out every filler word. Spoken language includes “ums” and “ahs” and pauses and incomplete sentences. However, you don’t want so many filler words that they distract your audience from your main message.
Often, the issue is that the speaker is speaking faster than they can comfortably process their ideas, which means the audience can’t process their ideas either. You’re much better off taking a relaxed pace, and using pauses between ideas. Not only does that help the speaker prepare for what they want to say next, it helps the audience digest what they just heard. How do you know if you’ve got too many fillers? Record yourself. Watching your recordings with a critical eye is really uncomfortable, but invaluable to really gauge what kind of experience you’re giving an audience. I can only watch my recordings back a few minutes at a time before I start squirming, so it can take me days!
Do you have any stories of transformation that you can share related to your work for TEDx and helping speakers with their talks?
Every talk is a story of transformation as it develops, but I’ll share a couple.
In 2021, we had a speaker, Cynthia Cheng, who told me on Day 1, “I hate public speaking!” We had encouraged her to audition because we were fascinated by her community project interviewing Hong Kong shift workers. On the day, she got up on that stage, smiled at the audience, and said, “Welcome to my nightmare. I hate public speaking, I hate networking, and for the longest time, I hated talking to strangers.” The audience laughed, and immediately, they were on her side, as she delivered a gem of a talk.
Another memorable talk comes from 2018, with Dr Rossa Chiu, who talked about her cancer research. She was already a confident speaker at medical conferences all over the world. She could talk about technical details and data analysis, but on the TEDxTinHauWomen stage, she shared an intimate and emotional story that revealed her deep personal purpose behind her work. That made a powerful impression no data table could match.
What do you enjoy most about working with people to help them become more confident speakers/better communicators?
Dramatic, intimate, passionate, comedic—every speaker and every talk has a unique style. Seeing people work through our TEDxTinHauWomen experience to find their voice and the confidence to reveal themselves onstage—to a live audience of hundreds and a global audience online—is such a rush.
