Secrets to Master The Art of Public Speaking Guide

The purpose of this guide is to explain how the miracle of powerful public speaking is achieved,and to equip you to give it your best shot. But one thing needs emphasizing right at the start.

There is no one way to give a great talk. The world of knowledge is far too big and the range of speakers and of audiences and of talk settings is far too varied for that.

Any attempt to apply a single set formula is likely to backfire. Audiences see through it in an instant and feel manipulated.

Indeed, even if there were a successful formula at one moment in time, it wouldn’t stay successful for long. That’s because a key part of the appeal of a great talk is its freshness. We’re humans. We don’t like same old, same old. If your talk feels too similar to a talk someone has already heard, it is bound to have less impact. The last thing we want is for everyone to sound the same or for anyone to sound as though he’s faking it.

So you should not think of the advice in this guide as rules prescribing a single way to speak.

Instead think of it as offering you a set of tools designed to encourage variety. Just use the ones that are right for you and for the speaking opportunity you’re facing.

As a leader—or as an advocate—public speaking is the key to unlocking empathy, stirring excitement, sharing knowledge and insights, and promoting a shared dream.

Indeed, the spoken word has actually gained new powers. Our campfire is now the whole world.

Thanks to the Internet, a single talk in a single theater can end up being seen by millions of people.Just as the printing press massively amplified the power of authors, so the web is massively amplifying the impact of speakers. Suddenly an ancient art has global reach.

This revolution has sparked a renaissance in public speaking. Many of us have suffered years of long, boring lectures at university; interminable sermons at church; or roll-your-eyes predictable political stump speeches. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Done right, a talk can electrify a room and transform an audience’s worldview. Done right, a talk is more powerful than anything in written form. Writing gives us the words. Speaking brings with it a whole new toolbox.


What is more, we can enhance these skills in ways the ancients could never have imagined: The ability to show—right there in beautiful high-resolution—any image that a human can photograph or imagine. The ability to weave in video and music.

The good news is, these skills are teachable. They absolutely are. And that means that there’s a new superpower that anyone, young or old, can benefit from. It’s called presentation literacy. We live in an era where the best way to make a dent on the world may no longer be to write a letter to the editor or publish a book. It may be simply to stand up and say something . . . because both the words and the passion with which they are delivered can now spread across the world at warp speed.


So the purpose of this guide is not just to describe how to give a TED Talk . It’s much broader than that. Its purpose is to support any form of public speaking that seeks to explain, inspire, inform, or persuade; whether in business, education, or on the public stage.

We think the principles that underlie them can act as a powerful basis for a broader presentation literacy.

So you won’t find specific tips on giving a toast at a wedding, or a company sales pitch, or a university lecture. But you will find tools and insights that may be useful for those occasions and,indeed, for every form of public speaking.

That is a tragedy. At a time when the right idea presented the right way can ripple across the world at the speed of light, spawning copies of itself in millions of minds, there’s huge benefit to figuring out how best to set it on its way, both for you, the speaker-in-
waiting, and for the rest of us who need to know what you have to say.
Are you ready?

Let’s go light a fire.