SEASON 2 - EPISODE 124 - SEPTEMBER 25, 2024

Progressing in Public Speaking

It’s been reported that up to 75% of the population has a fear of public speaking. This week, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, co-founders of 37signals, recount some of their previous speaking engagements and share a few tips for building the skill. They discuss the styles of successful speakers and their thoughts on being over prepared.

Watch the full video episode on YouTube

Key Takeaways

00:47 - Jason recalls his first speaking gig
02:30 - David shares his preferred style of delivering a talk
06:48 - Preparing for talks, podcasts, and Q&A sessions
08:15 - Preparing for keynote speeches and speaking with authenticity
13:05 - Examples of great public speakers who are authentically themselves on stage
14:43 - Being comfortable improvising a bit on stage

Links & Resources

Transcript

Kimberly (00:00): Welcome to Rework, a podcast by 37signals about the better way to work and run your business. I’m Kimberly Rhodes and I’m joined as always by the co-founders of 37signals, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. Well, I think it goes without saying that Jason and David are great public speakers and this week I want to chat a little bit about some of their techniques and processes that they use, especially since we have some conferences coming up. David, I know you’re speaking at Rails World. I’ve seen a lot of check-ins from our colleagues saying that they’re working on their Rails World talks as well. So I thought this would be good timing to kind of dive into it. But before we get started, I read a statistic that 75% of people in the world have public speaking as one of their fears. So I’m curious, have you guys always been comfortable speaking publicly?

Jason (00:47): The first public talk I ever gave, I was terrified. My knees were shaking, my hands were shaking. It was like a three or four person… for those of you who are really old, we used to do this thing called a Enormicom, which was this fake website where we were a fake branding agency that made fake logos and fake names and fake taglines, and we were asked to present as Enormicom at this conference. It was me, Earnest and Matt way back in the day. And it was like a skit. It was like everything I’m bad at. It was like first speaking gig and like a skit and it worked out okay I guess. I don’t know, but I was fucking terrified. Since then though, I’ve been fine. But you know what it was, it was the first time, but there’s something deeper in it. I wasn’t confident in what I was doing.

(01:34): I didn’t like this idea of doing a skit. I thought the whole thing was kind of stupid. And at least for me, when I go into it feeling like I don’t believe in the material or whatever, it’s a lot harder. When you go into something knowing that you know what the hell you’re talking about, it’s a lot easier for me. And I think one of the reasons people have a hard time with public speaking is they end up having to say things they don’t really know, they don’t really believe in. They’re asked to give a talk about something and they’re not really that well-versed in the topic or they sort of kind of are, but don’t really believe what they’re saying. They’re speaking on behalf of a company and having to present talking points. I think all that makes it really uncomfortable in a way that they wouldn’t have a hard time if they were talking about their dog at home who they know and love and have had for nine years. I think there’s a lot to it, even though it’s still people get nervous about getting up on stage. I think there’s something deeper, like understanding the material and really feeling the material. That’s where you can find a lot of confidence.

Kimberly (02:29): David, what about you?

David (02:31): It’s interesting because it’s almost like a weird paradox. My favorite form of public speaking is when I walk in cold, have not discussed the topics at all with who I’m speaking with and don’t know what the fuck I’m going to say. That is my ideal just sort of freeform freestyle riffing because in fact I often end up coming up with really, to me at least, interesting ideas or interesting takes or interesting ways to say the material as Jason says that I wouldn’t have developed otherwise. And I have a far greater problem with material I’ve really prepared. That’s actually when I get nervous, when I’ve spent a long time coming up with a complete talk, like I gave one at Rails Conf, I dunno, four years ago where I wrote out the whole damn thing, 55 minutes worth of material on this one abstracts theme of comparing a capitalist versus communist way of approaching open source software.

(03:41): And you know what? A lot of it was thoughts I’d had and I could have been comfortable talking about those thoughts in a looser context, but when I had to present it as this final thing, I did get a little nervous. So it’s really interesting, this idea that almost jumping without a safety rope feels more natural. I don’t know if that’s the same for everyone, but it has certainly arrived at that point that that’s the only kind of talk outside of a few very select opportunities that I do any other way. I only do the fireside chat, which is basically, let me just riff on something where I know, I know the material, as Jason says. We’re always talking about the same thing. I mean there’s some of that confidence that just comes from, alright, do you know what we’re going to be talking about topics

(04:23): I’ve literally sunk thousands of hours into. So as Jason says, I’m familiar with the material you’re going to ask me about entrepreneurship or how to learn a new skill. I mean I could do it blindfolded, so that’s sort of nice. But the reason I am still interested in doing that is exactly because I’m not repeating a set of talking points that were written down. This was one of the things I’ve found out very early on when Jason and I started doing public speaking together, we did this series of workshops called The Building of Basecamp, and I could do the same script twice and if you really twisted my arms three times, no fucking way I’m doing it four times. I cannot repeat myself according to a script four times without boring myself, brain dead. It just doesn’t work like that. I need some novelty of I don’t know if this material is going to work.

(05:18): I don’t know if this way of presenting the material is going to work. So either I’m going to just shake the dice and it’s going to come out how it’s going to come out because I haven’t practiced any of it, that’s novel, that’s potentially interesting, that could be fun. Or I got to write a new script every time. And that’s where we sort of ended up with those Building a Basecamp, we do the same show like two, three times and then we just like, all right, we got to take a break or we got to reformulate or we got to materially update and then do it in a different way. But I also do think there is some personality to it. For me, it has never been a top one fear for me to speak in front of other people. And I know there’s lots of people you just quoted that stats where that’s true and do you know where I noticed this?

(06:02): I noticed this with my kids. So I have three kids. The oldest rebels in this idea of getting up on a stage with a fucking half-ass preparation of something to say, and I could just see that he really enjoys that. And then the other two not so much, right? There’s far more of a hesitancy. I got to prepare, I got to be ready. So I do think there is some DNA toggles there that either makes it easy for you or not, but history is also full of people who didn’t like doing it at all and who ended up being amazing public speakers because they just had the discipline to stick with it, practice it like a skill, which it is and get good at it. So even if you do have those DNA toggles in the way that it terrifies you, there’s plenty of precedence for getting good at it.

Jason (06:48): I’ll add too that I don’t like to prepare for talks. The more I prepare, the less prepared I feel. And part of that is because you end up trying then to memorize and recite, then you can forget a line and it throws you or you set it wrong and now you’re off your script. I prefer to totally just free wheel it. Again, I got to know the material and I do know my material, so I’m comfortable there. But I also, when I go on podcasts, when I do interviews, they want to send me the questions ahead of time. I never, ever want them. I always delete them. I tell them I’m not going to look at them. I don’t want to know what people are going to ask me. I don’t think I perform as well when that’s the case, then I’m just reciting this thing. I’m remembering what I want to say versus what do I really want to say now, what am I feeling right now? So I’m with David on that.

Kimberly (07:33): I was actually going to ask you about that, about q and as and how you prepare if you do at all.

Jason (07:38): I hate knowing. It’s like when you have a conversation with someone, they don’t tell you what you’re, let’s say you go out with a friend, they don’t send you the questions. You’re going to talk about a coffee,

Kimberly (07:46): Here’s the agenda for our coffee date.

Jason (07:48): You just talk to a human being. That’s what I want to do. I want to talk to somebody. They can prepare their questions if they want to do that, that’s their style, their method, that’s fine, but I don’t want to know them. I don’t want to know them. And people are always surprised like, wow, you don’t want to, no, I don’t, don’t want to know them. And they, they’re shocked. I guess most people do want to know what they’re being asked. They don’t want to go off script or say the wrong thing or they don’t want to look like an idiot. I don’t really care about any of those things. So yeah, everyone is different for sure in that respect.

Kimberly (08:15): Well David, what about when you have a keynote? I know you have Rails World coming up, I’m assuming you have to do more than just wing it. If you’re putting together a slide deck and that sort of thing, how much preparation are you putting into something like that?

David (08:27): It depends on whether I’m trying to develop a novel, abstract concept, an argument, an essay in spoken form. I’ve done that several times and you know what? Nothing reminds me more of school and homework than that. It reminds me of though I’m prepping for a fucking exam and I remember thinking when I was in school, I can’t wait to be done with this shit. I can’t wait not to have homework anymore. I can’t wait not to have exams anymore. Now lots of what we do, you could consider homework, we’re doing all this prep, we’re making a product. That’s a kind of homework. No, no, it’s not. I’m not doing it in this shape for someone else to judge in this immediacy way. So I actually hate it and this is why I don’t do it anymore really. I mean the Rails conferences, like one time a year I go, do you know what?

(09:23): There’s a very good odd that I’m going to be cursing my commitment to appearing at this conference by the time I’m like one week into my preparation and I go like, why did I sign up for this? But this year it’s a little different and last year it was also a little different because there was just so much concrete material to talk about. This year there’s like five new frameworks and libraries and up the wazoo so I can talk about a lot of concrete things. I’m not making some broad abstract thesis that I’m presenting and trying to defend, so that’s not so bad. But like Jason, this idea that you show up cold and why that works, I liken it to songwriting and recording. So I fell in love with this Fleetwood Max song called Dreams about two or three years ago and I think it was some TikTok on a guy on a skateboard drinking grape juice

Kimberly (10:17): with cranberry juice?

David (10:19): Just really a vibe as they would say, right? And that the song would not leave my damn head for three weeks. I probably listened to it, I dunno, 200 times. I still like it. And then I looked into the origins of that song and especially the original cut and you know what? At least the story I’ve read, I mean rock and roll history, there’s about 500 different stories and who know which one’s true, but that the cut that made it was the original one. It was the first one. It was when they just sat down and they tried for three days I think afterwards to recreate that with more preparation. Now we know all the chords, they couldn’t hit it, they couldn’t beat it. The original take was the best take. And I think there’s something very true about that level of art, that art requires a nerve, it requires some novelty, it requires just some spur of the moment lightning strike to really be right.

(11:16): And I mean that’s, we’re talking about Dreams here. One of the all time greatest songs, I’m not comparing any of our shit we say on stage to any of that, but there’s some of that in it, that quality that it usually comes off most authentic, most inspiring, most invigorating when it is fresh and when it just rolls off. And this was something I tried for a while to beat around. I thought, do you know what? I really don’t like this half preparation step, so I’ll just do the full prep thing. And I had two keynotes where I wrote out the whole thing. I literally read the keynotes and I liked the certainty of the material. Then I was sure when I was going to present, but I hated how it came out. Even the words sound different. I can’t read from a script the same way I can speak to you.

(12:05): You need to be a very good actor or actress to be able to do that I think, to memorize a set of lines and then deliver those lines authentically. This is why most people are not good actors at all and it’s when they’re trying to recite something and pretend something. A lot of people like Jason would say, they can talk that way persuasively about their dog or some other topic that it’s just off the cuff and it feels natural and most people would much rather listen to that. They don’t want to listen to a script. Anytime you feel like you can sense or smell the script, you can smell the talking points. You go like, eh, do you what? You know what that smells like? Smells like bullshit.

Kimberly (12:45): Okay. My question for you is are there things that you’ve taken as an audience member, meaning you’ve watched someone else speak and you’ve been like, that is something good, I want to take that and reuse it. Are there any tips like that where you might be able to share things that you’ve seen work really well or also on the other side, things that don’t work well for public speaking?

Jason (13:05): I mean I’ll just say one of the best public speakers I’ve ever seen is Gary Vanerchuk and part of the reason why is because he just is himself.

(13:13): He’s so much, and I know him personally, so I know he is the guy on stage, but even if I didn’t know him, I would go, yeah, this guy is exactly who he is. He just is himself. How he dresses, he doesn’t put on airs. He just is. And I think every time I’ve ever seen someone who’s like that, it’s better than anything compared to people who have to play a role unless they’re extremely good actors like David is saying. But most people are not. I was at a conference recently and there was someone up on stage, she was an attorney for some company talking about some new tax implication thing and she didn’t want to be there clearly. She wasn’t a good public speaker, clearly. She was acting, maybe she was very corporate, but I actually met her afterwards. I was a speaker too.

(14:01): And so we hung out in the lounge for a minute. She was a lot looser and then she went up on stage and she was not that and she was trying to play the lawyer role, maybe her boss was in the audience. The closer you can just simply be who you are and be very comfortable with that regardless of how good or how bad you are, the better off you’re going to come off. People then will empathize with you or cheer for you or feel for you. If you’re just who you are. The further away you are from that, the harder I think it is for everybody. Unless you’re again, an extraordinary actor who’s literally legitimate actor who could perform on stage at Broadway or something like that where they can really pull off a character. If you are trying to play a character and you’re not a character actor, you’re in trouble.

David (14:43): One thing this reminds me of, and I don’t know anything about jazz, so maybe I’m talking out of my ass, but this idea that very good jazz musicians, they can improvise and they’re very good at that, but that improvisation is born from high technical skills. They know the material, as Jason would say, they know their instruments so they’re comfortable getting up and just riffing with another band. And that’s a big part of the magic of that form of music. My illustration of that that’s most vivid is also a Gary V story. We invited Gary V to talk at our Rails Conf I think in the mid 2010s or something. And I remember talking to Gary before and I was like, so what are you going to talk about? I was like, I don’t know. And it was like, what do you mean you’re going on stage in five minutes?

(15:30): And he was like, do you know what? When I get out there I’ll think of something. He walks out there and literally just races the roof, just an absolutely mind blowing performance. And you go like, that’s a jazz musician at his highest level of skill. He’s like, I’m just going to go out there and jam. I have the things in my fingers and I can jam it. And it’s amazing to look at that. So I very often, I have a Gary V image in my head when I try to do these fireside charts, I don’t know what I’m going to say. Let’s hope it comes out well. I know my instrument like where I’m going to play something. On the other end of the spectrum, well, I don’t even know if it’s on the end of the spectrum. Another character who’s very un-Gary V like in their public persona, but I have been absolutely blown away is Jim Rohn.

(16:19): And Jim Rohn was a public speaker for I think about 40 years. He was a mentor to Tony Robbins and a bunch of these other people you would think of today. When you think of public speaking, you think about someone like Tony Robbins. Well, Jim Rohn was sort of the original and I found him through TikTok and I got some of those clips from seminars he gave in the eighties and the nineties. And what’s amazing about it’s the quality is really poor and they zoom over to the audience and everyone is wearing puffy shoulders and all of that just fades away because I have never listened to anyone deliver life advice, business advice with that cadence and rhythm and precision and control of their pace. And I listened to Jim and I’ll listen to the same clips over and over again because not only is the material great, I can totally relate to the things that he’s talking about, but I can also just listen to a master at work and I don’t have to hear the words to hear how he speeds up, slows down, repeats, emphasizes, is animated with his hands, leans on the podium, and you just go like, this is incredible.

(17:34): I didn’t even know all of these little micro movements mattered that much. But you see them perform by someone like Jim Rohn and you just go like, this is incredible. In fact, after watching him talk, I always go, do you know what? I talk too fast. I should talk more like Jim Rohn. I should pause when I really want to emphasize something. Now that’s not my natural style. So in fact, even though I’d like to do it, I can’t do it now, I’d be playing Jim Rohn and I’d be a bad imitation of Jim Rohn. I got to be, me and I talk pretty fast. I want to get a maximum amount of material out. So it doesn’t work to do that. But to see someone in their element, it’s incredible. And I think that’s actually perhaps one of the reasons why some people do fear it because it feels like we can all do it to some extent. You can get up on the stage and you could talk, but there’s still quite a difference between that and then delivering a Jim Rohn. So I dunno if that’s part of it. But anyway…

Kimberly (18:34): I also think part of the fear is you’re so vulnerable when you’re up on stage. It’s just you in front of people staring at you. I think there’s a vulnerability to it as well.

David (18:45): I mean a lot of people are afraid of being humiliated and there is some sense of humiliation. If you’re standing up there in front of a thousand people and you suddenly lose your train of thought and you can’t catch it again and now you’re going gah, gah, gah, right? No one wants to do that. So I totally get where that’s coming from. I’m sure that has a straight evolutionary line to being ostracized from the cave because you’re idiot it and no one wants to sit around the fireplace with you. So that makes sense. But I’ll also say, I mean you can work up through these things and I’ve seen, I’ve watched in the technical community, people who start up being quite bad at it and they start at a small venue and then they work their way up and you see ‘em a couple years later and you go like, hot damn, how did that happen? Well, it happened through practice. Think a great example or parallel of this is watch famous comedians.

(19:35): If you can find some of their early clips and you go like, are you kidding me? This is what they used to sound like. I would’ve walked out on Louis C.K. episode of whatever he was doing. I mean maybe he was always great. But I’ve seen those evolutions and I think actually standup comedy has a lot of parallels to this kind of, you have some material, you know the material, but you also got to improvise. You got to adjust your pacing to the audience. You got to focus things and so forth. So in either way, I think it’s a fun skill to learn. It’s a fun thing to get better at and you absolutely will get better at it if you do it more. And I think maybe this is one of the areas where the fact that there’s about 5 billion gazillion podcasts is actually helping level people up in this way so that they can use some of those speaking skills in person and get that exhilaration because it is also that. You stand up in front of hundreds of people, even dozens of people, and you deliver something that they like. That’s a rush. You can see how rock stars get addicted to playing stadiums in front of 50,000 people. It is a rush, and the rush is directly comparable to the fact that you’re also afraid of it. If there was nothing, you’re probably not going to get the same rush.

Kimberly (20:50): I love that. Well, thank you. With that, we’re going to wrap it up. Rework is a production of 37signals. You can find show notes and transcripts on our website at 37signals.com/podcast. Full video episodes are on YouTube and Twitter. And if you have a question for Jason or David about a better way to work and run your business, leave us a voicemail at 7 0 8 6 2 8 7 8 5 0. You can also text that number or email us at rework@37signals.com.