a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by blackbootz
blackbootz  ·  2619 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: January 25, 2017

I've been recently interested in the Dale Carnegie course for public speaking.

Have you or anyone else had an experience with it? Of all people, Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, spoke about it very highly. Granted, it's taken with a grain of salt, but the idea of relishing every moment of public speaking -- that's cool. I'd like that.





goobster  ·  2619 days ago  ·  link  ·  

ANY speaking course - Carnegie, Toastmasters, voice training, improv theater, whatever - is going to improve your public speaking.

It was improv that flipped the switch for me, from being nervous in front of people, to being comfortable on stage, alone, with nothing but a microphone in my hands.

In the end, people think confidence comes from knowing the material well. I can say from experience that knowing the material is the smallest part of being confident on stage. There are no real "tricks" to it (imagining the audience naked, for example), it is simply a development of your own internal thinking processes and resources.

Practice is the key. And improv. That helps, too.

blackbootz  ·  2618 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'll certainly keep an eye out for opportunities to practice. Which reminds me...

Wow. Yep. So I just checked one of the classes that sounded vaguely interesting to me that I registered for. "Creating Communities of Action" wherein: "Explorations and exercises in structured and improvisational theatre games to empower students as facilitators in a variety of fields to build classroom, work-related and community-based ensembles for enhanced learning and productivity outcomes."

That sounds perfect. I'm really excited now.

snoodog  ·  2619 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I took it. Its pretty fun, and its mostly just practice public speaking and making short speeches/presentations with a sprinkling of truisms and bullshit.

If work was offering it for free Id say its worth the time. If you actually have to pay for it, just go to a couple toastmasters sessions.

kleinbl00  ·  2619 days ago  ·  link  ·  

A boss was big into Dale Carnegie. It definitely changed the way she did stuff; prior to the course, she did her thing. After the course, she did her thing and said that Dale Carnegie made her do it.

The book is undoubtedly available at your local library. You could do worse than read it. Then decide if you need the course.

blackbootz  ·  2618 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yea, people love to talk about having attended. It seems that the experience of the course was as meaningful to people as any improvement in public speaking. I mean... from the Scott Adams article:

    He asked us to write a brief compliment on a piece of paper for every other student. Keep in mind that we didn’t know each other. Coming up with a compliment for each of 25 strangers is no easy task. You had to dig deep. Perhaps you noticed how well someone dressed, or how much progress he made in the class, or her cheerful disposition. We each wrote our compliments and handed them in. The instructor sorted them by student and mailed them to our homes a few weeks later.

    I remember opening my little package of compliments. Like everything else in the Dale Carnegie course, it seemed silly at first. How much impact would a bunch of mandated compliments from strangers have on me? Surely they would seem insincere to the point of humorous. I started to read them, one by one, and they blew me away. It was a powerful experience, and that was the point of the exercise. When we compared notes later, we all had the same experience. Compliments are powerful things, even from strangers who barely know you.

That sounds fun. Speaking of compliments from strangers, everyone here is so darn smart.

snoodog  ·  2618 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Maybe the early/celebrity iterations of the class had really top notch motivational folks. We did the same exercise and mostly you get the same generic compliments. Smart, bold, confident etc people aren't particularly creative in this regard. I can't remember any of mine

kleinbl00  ·  2618 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Dale Carnegie wasn't a speaking coach. He was a life coach. Some people are into that shit.

veen  ·  2619 days ago  ·  link  ·  

As someone who went from 'nervous the entire day leading up to The Talk' to knocking a presentation out of the park with not much more prep than bullet points, I agree with goobster in that there is no trick out there. There's practice, in the case of public speaking practice really makes perfect.

I do recognize the flipped-switch feeling. For him it was improv that did it, for me it was a debating course. What I think is key to getting comfortable is having some kind of structure that really works for you. Essentially, you're telling a story, and there are many tools that can help you do that. Find the tools that fit you.

For me the most useful tools to enhance my speaking abilities were debating methods like "tell, tell, tell", articulation / manner guidelines. I realized that when I have my presentation's core arguments / structure nailed down, I can just explain / improvize what I want to tell around it. I'm guessing goobster found a bunch of useful tools in his improv classes.

Genuine feedback and constructive criticism was also an eye-opener to me; other people are way better at pointing out your idiosyncrasies than you think.

goobster  ·  2618 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    when I have my presentation's core arguments / structure nailed down, I can just explain / improvize what I want to tell around it

Wow, you and I have the same methodology, I think.

I have a bullet list in my head of the talking points I want to hit, or the key phrases I want to use.

Then I just stitch together a store live, in front of the audience, that links these bullet points together into a single, cohesive narrative.

That way I don't get wound up about remembering the exact wording of a paragraph of text, or whatever. I know what I want to say. I can see if the audience is glazing over, or if they are engaged. And I adapt my story as I go along, and get a feeling for how the audience is receiving it, and how quickly I am getting through my points.

Sounds similar to your process?

veen  ·  2618 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    Sounds similar to your process?

Almost identical! I approach the audience as if I'm explaining or telling a story to a friend. The exact words or sentences don't matter most of the time as long as you can get the point across. I also love to intertwine earlier discussions or news events in my story on-the-fly. Especially in a smaller group I've found that people listen better when my story is less isolated from the rest of the day.

A while ago a professors of European Studies did an even better version of that technique: instead of bullets, his presentation slides were simply a bunch of seemingly unrelated photos. Each photo fit the story he wanted to tell or the concept he wanted to explain. It was impossible to study his lectures unless you were there and had notes on the stories. (That pissed off a lot of students.) When I have the chance, I now also use photos as slides, with my bullets as presenter's notes.

goobster  ·  2618 days ago  ·  link  ·  

My friends developed a tool - HaikuDeck - that constrains you to making these kinds of slide decks. Great images. Simple text.

It really is an elegant tool, and forcing yourself to use such a think can REALLY have a meaningful effect on your entire presentation.

This is cool... glad to know we share such a similar methodology!

blackbootz  ·  2618 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    When I have the chance, I now also use photos as slides, with my bullets as presenter's notes.

And how does that technique work for you? When I think about it, I can't recall the contents of a single slide I've ever seen.

veen  ·  2618 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah, it's remarkable how unremarkable presentation slides have become.

It works quite well but it doesn't fit all types of presentations. I gave a presentation to my department last week and a bunch of the slides still had bullet points on them. Formal situations don't lend themselves well to creative presentations.

blackbootz  ·  2618 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    As someone who went from 'nervous the entire day leading up to The Talk' to knocking a presentation out of the park with not much more prep than bullet points, I agree with goobster in that there is no trick out there. There's practice, in the case of public speaking practice really makes perfect.

I agree that there's probably no amount of practice that makes any high-stakes public speaking event not a little bit nerve-wracking in the anticipation. I hear that even seasoned stand-up comics, the few hours before the show are the worst. It's the "c'mon, c'mon" killing time part. It tends to disappear on stage, but the waiting is the difficult part. Sweaty hands.

The genuine feedback piece is very true. It's humbling to find out that the things you believe work don't, and people don't even care about your acne or high-pitched voice, and that they instead love the things that you didn't even consider highlights.