Here’s something I HATE about being a speaker coach: so much of the public speaking advice online is garbage.

It’s no wonder so many people hate public speaking – they’re made to believe they’re actors, and that their voice, hand gestures, movement, and physical body is what matters most. That degree of physical self-awareness could drive anyone to madness – just ask the almond moms of the 1990s & 2000s, and the Ozempic girlies of 2023.

The most important thing about any public speech is WHAT you say.

HOW you say it matters, but it is secondary.

Don’t believe me? Stand on stage and deliver the dictionary from memory, with perfect posture, pitch, and movement. Let me know how it goes.

But for now, I’ll redirect my rage into something more productive.

Let’s debunk 3 of the worst public speaking tips online:

1) “Practice your speech in the mirror”

Literally nothing about the real experience of public speaking involves a mirror.

It’s like telling an Olympic swimmer to practice their race on a trampoline. Practice is better than NO practice, I guess?? But you won’t encounter a trampoline underwater and you won’t have a mirror on stage.

The real problem with practicing in the mirror is that this real-time instantaneous feedback gives you a false sense of what you’re like on stage. It’s the difference between seeing or not seeing yourself on Zoom. When you see yourself on Zoom, you sit up straighter, you smile, you laugh, you nod enthusiastically, you’re hyperaware of your body language & background.

Hide your Zoom window and you’re suddenly slouching, chewing, and grimacing – because you’re no longer self-policing your behavior!

Instead of rehearsing your speech in the mirror, I recommend recording your rehearsal on your phone – back camera only. No selfie mode.

That way, you’ll forget about the camera and deliver your speech how you’d ACTUALLY deliver your speech in front of an audience. You’ll be surprised to see what you’re actually like when you watch the playback. It might be better than you expect, and it might be worse.

Either way, it’s the truest representation of what you’re actually like speaking on stage, second only to a recording of your speech!

2) “Plan your hand gestures in advance!”

OMG, the obsession with hand gestures online.

If it’s really true that hand gestures matter this much, let’s skip the 6-camera shoot and just have one single camera filming a close-up of each speaker’s hands. We’ll post it to YouTube and everyone’s hands video will get 1 trillion views!!!

The reality is that hand gestures are the icing on the icing on the icing on the proverbial cake.

Who cares if your hand gestures are great if your speech sucks?? And conversely, nobody gives a sh*t about what you’re doing with your hands if what you say changes their life.

I’ve coached 300+ TED & TEDx Speakers with 200M+ views online. Do you know how much time I spent working with them on their hand gestures? In most cases – a total of 0 minutes.

My advice: stop obsessing over your hands & spend all that time & energy working on the speech itself.

• Is your message clear?
• How’s the hook?
• The conclusion?
• Storytelling?
• Case studies?
• Examples?
• Is it clear you’re a credible expert?
• Can people take action on what you say?

Unless you’re 1000% confident in the answers above, let’s worry about your hands another day.

3) “Engage the audience!”

Okay, on its face, this isn’t bad advice, but what follows is usually some sort of gimmick like:

• “Raise your hand if…”
• “Stand up if…”
• “Repeat after me…”

Have you seen this in a Top 500 TED Talk? No. Yet speakers continue to do it because they think “being engaging” means using cringe-worthy introvert-repelling tactics that force the audience into action during your speech.

In reality, the most engaging TED & TEDx Talks are engaging not because of cheap tricks but because the content itself is fascinating.

So I’ll reiterate what I said before: forget about the theatrics and spend all that time on your SPEECH instead.