All Speaking Is Public Speaking

We are all familiar, or perhaps even a bit tired with memes and jokes surrounding the fear of public speaking. The oft-repeated one? You would rather climb into a coffin, than be on stage, swaying an audience. This adage was examined by two researchers from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and their findings refute the notion that the quivers associated with public speaking overtake those of death. Nonetheless, in their study, public speaking is cited as one of the top three student fears – old-fashioned death still ranks at #1.

In “Don’t Say Um”, Michael Chad Hoeppner suggests that the phrase “public speaking” is a tautology. Even if you’re just speaking to your partner, or parents, or kids, you’re always addressing a “public.” His book aims to improve all forms of speech, “from the picayune to the profound, the mundane to the monumental.” His techniques, he avers, can help you on a first date, on ordering coffee from a barista, on fending off an authoritative boss or persuading an angsty teenager. After all, slightly modifying Descartes’ statement, we can agree that in our linguistically-shaped modernities, “We speak, therefore we are.” Hence small corrections to speech can lead to amplified rewards.

Don’t Heed the Don’ts

Hoeppner who carries impressive teaching credentials – he has upped speaking chops at the Columbia Business School (MBA & PhD programs), Major League Baseball, World Wildlife Fund and some of the world’s biggest law firms – starts by rubbishing traditional coaching methods. Let’s say you have a tendency to mangle your first lines or gesticulate wildly. If some bright-eyed mentor says, “Don’t mangle your first lines” or “Don’t gesticulate wildly,” that is exactly what your brain will insist on redoing. Similarly “Justs” are equally unhelpful. If Ms. Know-It-All says, “Just be confident” or “Just be casual,” your stage jitters will prod you into doing the opposite.

There’s a reason why “Don’ts” in particular backfire. Research shows that thought suppression leads to the ironic recurrence of the very thought you’re trying to suppress. Try ridding yourself of a bad habit, and you will relate. Hence, as Michael puts it, don’t listen to coaches who start your training with a never-wracking “Don’t.”

It’s Not in your Heads

One of the problems with old-fangled approaches, notes Hoeppner, is that they recommend mental contortions for what is, in essence, a physical act. Speech – unlike thoughts – is a whole body performance. Perhaps you would do well to think of yourself as an actor on stage (aren’t we all, as the Bard put it, actors in any case?). While speaking, your facial expressions, your gestures, your tone and volume et al – have as much impact on the listener – as your content. Michael is clear that this book does not aim to elevate your content. It intends to reshape your delivery to be a more effective communicator.

An objection that Hoeppner frequently fields as a coach are trainee perceptions that the new behaviors do not feel “authentic.” But if you have, over the years, accumulated a series of bad habits – like speaking too fast, or too loudly, or with too many fillers – should you stick to a poorer ‘authentic’ version? After all, authenticity assumes an unchangeable core self, whereas all learning is premised on the opposite.

Flex Your Talking Muscles Differently

If we agree with Michael that speaking is a physical act, rather than a cognitive one, how does he suggest we elevate it? He offers a few techniques that would deliberately decelerate our runaway brains. Like finger walking, wherein you walk two fingers across a flat surface, as you practice your lines. Or a Lego drill, where you express a thought, then place a Lego block, express another thought, stack another Lego block on top etc. All these bodily exercises insert pauses and silences, giving your brain “time and oxygen.” He suggests finger walking every day, for two to five minutes, to force you to dwell on linguistic precision.

He also persuades us to attend to the “Five Ps” – pace, pitch, pause, power & placement.

• Pace: has to do with how fast or slowly you speak
• Pitch: with how high or low
• Pause: with how many silences you insert and how long they are
• Power: another word for volume, how softly or loudly
• Placement: where the voice is placed in body

Ideally, you have to ensure enough variation in the Ps, to achieve a seductive, charming, charismatic or persuasive “vocal variety.”

More Words Won’t Do

Writers or academics who, by virtue of their professions, already possess vast vocabularies and a certain enviable verbal fluency do not necessarily make for better speakers. Hoeppner, for instance, has worked with Deans and Professors, including a sociologist who was able to present her research more effectively, landing herself an elusive job.

Do his techniques work? Um, I guess you have to adopt his suggestions behaviorally rather than just take his written or spoken word for it.

References

Michael Chad Hoeppner, Don’t Say Um: How to Communicate Effectively to Life a Better Life, Ebury Digital, 2025

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271993200_Is_Public_Speaking_Really_More_Feared_Than_Death