Public Speaking Advice that Makes You WORSE!

Today I break down three of the worst offenders to avoid at all costs.

There’s a LOT of public speaking advice on the internet.

Some of it is useful, some of it is wildly oversimplified… and some of it makes me shudder in horror.

I come at public speaking from a slightly different angle because, alongside spending more than 20 years in marketing, I’m also a professional singer and vocal coach.

So when I hear advice about how to use your voice that is either badly explained or sometimes even anatomically impossible, it drives me slightly nuts!

Then there are the quick hacks videos:

• “Pause more!”
• “Speak from your belly!”
• “Hold eye contact for five seconds!”

They sound useful because they give you something immediate and concrete to DO. Which is fabulous for a 30-second social media video, but alas, human communication doesn’t really work like that.

Follow enough of these little rules and instead of becoming a better speaker, you sound robotic and just like everyone else. #Cringe

So today I’m putting three of the biggest offenders on trial and I’ll show you what to do instead.

MYTH #1: Just add a ‘pause’ to sound like a better speaker.

This is one of those pieces of advice that isn’t exactly wrong. It’s just extremely incomplete.

Because it’s not pausing that makes you more interesting to listen to.

It’s CONTRAST.

A pause is one way to create contrast, but so is speeding up, slowing down, getting louder, getting softer, changing your pitch, stretching a word, or shortening another one.

If all you do is add pauses because somebody told you they make you sound more authoritative, eventually we all start sounding like the same slightly constipated TED Talk.

In singing, we have a word for shaping a passage using all these different elements: phrasing.

Good phrasing doesn’t come from looking at an individual sentence and randomly sprinkling vocal tricks over it, you look at the whole song.

What does it mean? Where is it going? What should the listener feel here? Which words actually matter?

Then you use your voice to communicate that meaning.

Speaking works the same way.

So before worrying about where to insert your next ‘Very Important Pause’, understand what you’re actually trying to say first.

Then use pace, pitch, volume, emphasis, silence and rhythm to help your audience experience it.

The pause is useful.

It’s just one tool in a much bigger toolbox.

MYTH #2: “Speak from your belly”

Oh, your belly  talks now, does it? (Insert eye roll)

Your voice is produced in your larynx aka: your voice box.

Air travels up from your lungs and passes through your vocal folds, causing them to vibrate. That sound is then shaped by your vocal tract (your larynx, upper throat, mouth and nose) into the voice people actually hear.

Your belly is not doing the talking.

So why do people keep telling speakers to “speak from their belly”?

Because they’re trying (badly) to explain something that is important: breathing.

Your breath is the engine powering the whole operation, but your belly has nothing to do with it.

Your diaphragm is the major muscle involved in breathing. When you inhale, it contracts and moves downward, allowing your lungs to expand. This can make your belly appear to expand too.

Hence all the ‘speak from your belly’ talk.

But your voice isn’t coming from your belly. And yelling “USE YOUR DIAPHRAGM!” at somebody who has no idea what that actually means isn’t exactly helpful either.

Breath technique is something you learn and practice until it becomes second nature.

When I have a new singing student, we can easily spend the first few lessons working specifically on breathing, with practice in between.

Why?

Because changing the way you’ve been breathing and using your voice for decades isn’t something you magically master because somebody on Instagram told you to stick your stomach out.

For public speaking, good breathing can absolutely help you support your voice and avoid running out of air halfway through a sentence.

But give yourself time to learn how it actually works.

MYTH #3: Hold eye contact for 4–5 seconds

Want to make a complete stranger feel super uncomfortable? Then stare directly into their eyes for five seconds.

I keep seeing public-speaking advice telling people to make eye contact with individual audience members and hold it for four or five seconds.

Four or five seconds is a REALLY LONG TIME.

Go and try it on someone.

(Actually, don’t.)

Depending on the situation, prolonged direct eye contact can feel intense rather than warm and engaging, and in a larger venue, this advice becomes even more ridiculous because you may not even be able to see individual audience members properly.

I’ve performed on plenty of stages where the lights are blasting directly into your face.

You can see the first couple of rows.

Then… blackness.

You’re not emotionally connecting with Margaret in Row 17. You can’t even see Margaret!!

If you’re speaking somewhere smaller and you can see individual people, then yes, connect with them… but gently.

Look at someone. Let your expression be warm. Give them a little moment of acknowledgement (ie 1-2 seconds max). Then naturally move your attention somewhere else.

You don’t need to count:

One Mississippi… two Mississippi… three Mississippi…

Because the second you start consciously performing “good eye contact”, you’re no longer properly communicating with the person in front of you anyway.

Great communication isn’t a checklist. It’s a creative act.

This is the bigger problem I have with a lot of public-speaking advice.

It turns communication into a collection of behaviours you’re supposed to perform correctly.

• Pause here.
• Put your hands there.
• Look at this person for four seconds.
• Stand like this.
• Lower your voice now.
• Smile.

Congratulations! You have successfully downloaded your personality from ChatGPT.

I’d rather start somewhere completely different.

• What do you want this audience to feel?
• What do you want them to remember?
• What do you actually mean?

Once you know that, then you have an enormous creative toolbox available to you.

Your voice. Your body. Your words. Your timing. Your clothes. Your slides. Your stories. Your humour. Your personality.

All of it contributes to the experience you’re creating for the people listening to you.

And that, to me, is what great public speaking actually is.

Not performing a checklist of things that supposedly make you look like a good speaker, its creating an experience people want to listen to.

Nicola x 

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