Confessions of a Public Speaker

Chapter 5. Do not eat the microphone

There are many stupid people in this world, and I’m sure you’ve met some of them. George Carlin, one of the brightest minds of our time, once observed that the average person isn’t that smart—and worse, half the population is dumber than that average person. More interesting perhaps is whenever I ask a room full of people, “Who here thinks they’re above average intelligence?”, more than half the room always raises their hands. If you are truly smarter than those around you, your superiority should make you feel good; but then again, even the smart among us do stupid things. Einstein flunked his college entrance exams just as Julius Caesar overlooked the pointy knives in his friends’ robes. I’m sure Mozart spilled coffee on his piano and Julia Child burned Thanksgiving turkeys now and then. All considered, given the vast number of stupid people—and bright people doing stupid things—in the world, some public speakers will seem less than smart. There is no way around it. No amount of training will make a man with two brain cells seem anything but dumb, as the problem is not his ability to speak, it’s his inability to think. It’s rarely said, but some people will never be good public speakers. Unless they find someone to do their thinking for them, they only have, at best, half the tools they need.

Even for many smart people working on a presentation, ...