http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3695076 IMO this seemed a strange thing to say: This assumes that the reader agrees that all good speakers are alike. Personally, I am aware of plenty of famous speakers that many people consider to be 'good speakers' that I don't want to emulate. However, I know of some famous speakers that I do want to emulate. The same thing goes for famous writers, in fact. Also, this didn't make sense to me: This is a talk that you are preparing. Therefore, isn't part of 'making it better' spending time on making sure that your ideas translate smoothly via the spoken word? Couldn't you also make the same analogy about editing for punctuation and grammar in a written essay? IMHO, this essay seemed defensive and less developed as many of his previous ones. Also, I don't like how it devalues competence in public speaking. It doesn't really matter if Graham isn't a good speaker. It's not like he has been hobbled by this shortcoming.A few years later I heard a talk by someone who was not merely a better speaker than me, but a famous speaker. Boy was he good. So I decided I'd pay close attention to what he said, to learn how he did it. After about ten sentences I found myself thinking "I don't want to be a good speaker."
If you rehearse a prewritten speech enough, you can get asymptotically close to the sort of engagement you get when speaking ad lib. Actors do. But here again there's a tradeoff between smoothness and ideas. All the time you spend practicing a talk, you could instead spend making it better.
| I tried to imagine what a transcript of the other guy's talk would be like, and it was only then I realized he hadn't said very much...a famous speaker. Boy was he good. So I decided I'd pay close attention to what he said, to learn how he did it. After about ten sentences I found myself thinking "I don't want to be a good speaker."...Being a really good speaker is not merely orthogonal to having good ideas, but in many ways pushes you in the opposite direction| ...as Graham claims. It's just harder. Much harder I think. Graham isn't the best public speaker, and that's ok. I'm sure he's a hell of a lot better than me. I agree, he came of as very defensive, and I am just not buying his defense. Great speaker does not have to = weak content, even if it can do so easier than in writing.
There is something to familiarity that allows for forgiveness. I too have been following him for some time and never considered that this made me see him in a different light. I enjoyed it too