Year In Review

How to Speak

Okezue’s Learnings from 2020

As someone who’s been cited as a good speaker, I’ve found that speaking is an art. One of my biggest soft skill is speaking. I’m good at influencing, informing, and persuading in a way that is engaging. At the same time, I can debate, dramatize, and reflect in my speech. How?

I think of speaking more like music; unforced, guided, but still authentic. It’s very interesting, but different tones should come about naturally. When doing something like debate or oratory, you amplify your own characteristics (debate), or you mimic someone else’s (typically oratory, can depend of category of oration).

When you can do either of those 👆🏾you can start to become a good speaker.

But the art of speaking doesn’t lie in either of these tricks. I almost never use scripts. Orating my speech in debate or at an oratory competition is typically my extent of prewriting. If you told me to stand up and give a talk on some technology, or just something, I could.

There’s an algorithm to speaking, which I’ll get to in a second.

But the most important element of your speaking is how much confidence and knowledge you actually have. I’m guilty of speaking too fast when I’m talking, but when I speaking, I convey ideas and emotion.

When I talk, I demonstrate control over what I’m talking about. When you’re speaking, ask yourself if you are doing this. When you’re…