What Makes a Great Public Speaker?

This is far from scientific, but I’d guess something like 95% of public speakers are actually bad at their craft, 4.9% are good, and .1% are great. What makes someone bad/good/great? Let’s explore.

I was a bad public speaker when I started, as almost all of us are. And it wasn’t because I was nervous, which is a very real and common phobia, but rather because I spoke for myself—the very definition, I think, of what makes someone bad at public speaking. What’s amazing to me, now that I have spoken at hundreds of colleges and attended hundreds more from others, is how often I see this. Even frequently from highly practiced experts. They talk about their expertise. Sounds understandable, right? Why wouldn’t they — isn’t that what we are there to hear? It turns out, not exactly. So let’s look at a good speaker.

A good public speaker is someone who speaks to what the audience needs to hear, not what they want to say. Not necessarily what they know to their core at the most nuanced level or their expertise, but how their expertise translates to actionable steps for their audience. Here’s a great and somewhat short example of a really good public speaker taking a very complex topic and making it both humorous and highly understandable, and in a concise way. The speaker, Doug Lisle, has a book on the same topic, The Pleasure Trap. While the book is likely replete with scientific talk on dopaminergic pathways, the speech is perfectly relatable, and gives actionable steps that are easy to employ. A small number of speakers can do this. They can leave you with concrete things you can do — and may in the short-term be motivated to do — because they can relate to what you need to know.

Which brings us to that amazing .1% — what do they do that the 4.9% of good speakers do not? They can motivate you for life with one speech. Think Brené Brown. Or listen to this podcast interview with Ric Elias, which did precisely that for me. It made me rethink how I wanted to live my life. There’s no roadmap to this rarified group. I suspect there is a great deal of practice — years’ worth — and likely an exceptional amount of sincerity that comes from this .1%. I suspect they all have very high EQs. But I doubt too that there is some E=mc² equation that just pops out. It’s a different sprinkle of pixie dust for each one, the only defined commonality being that they can inspire you to make permanent change.

I’d love to be a great public speaker one day, but to get to “great” you likely need to be “good” for a long while. That, I think, if you are new to public speaking, is a worthy aspiration and very doable. What does your audience need to hear? I hope, if you are new and reading this, that this was something you did need to hear. If so, I’m very content with being good!

– Mike