Exercises to think, then speak, more clearly?

I used to take the Chicago Metra and ride in the vestibule to exit the train quickly. The same 8 people would always be there every day but this gentleman, "Gary", would always carry the conversations.

People were just drawn to him and I was in awe of how he captivated us with his stories. I was able to study him for a couple of years and came up with a list of how he was able to hold our attention:

1) Gary spoke loud (he had to since we were in the train entryway) but did not shout.

2) He adjusted his tempo of speaking to match the urgency of his story. Just like a good song, he had noticeably different ways of expressing himself.

3) Just as he adjusted his speaking, his hand movements and facial expressions also supported his story telling.

4) He was older (maybe early 60s) so he had a lot of life experience.

5) He was not condescending or patronizing. He was very empathetic with his audience and the stories he told. You could tell that he really cared about the subjects of his stories and how we could relate to them.

6) He knew everyone's name. So when he talked to you he would use your name a lot.

7) He always was to the point. He didn't meander or deviate from his train of thought. Every story had a build-up and a conclusion.

8) He was very funny without being mean. Sort of like Cosby before we found out what Cosby was really like.

9) He was always happy. He loved his job and his family and he was nearing retirement (he told us this). His happiness was infectious.

10) He was always asking questions. Sometimes, I'd get to the train early and it would just be me and him. He'd always ask about my day, any interesting projects, etc. He would then comment on what he had for lunch ("Have you ever had the Chicken Vesuvio?" he asked) and go on about an experience he had at an awesome restaurant.

After two years I had to stop taking the train, but I'd sometimes hear about Gary from a friend. He did retire a couple of years later and moved somewhere warmer. I've always read articles about excellent speakers, but then I always think that I was fortunate to learn from Gary.

The steps outlined don't go far enough in my opinion. They stop at 'deliver' as if that was the goal.

I've had several roles that involved a lot of presentations and public speaking. I've also been subjected to hundreds of terrible talks.

I think I'm reasonably good at it, and my best advice is to start from a place of "think of the audience first".

Clarity of the message isn't just an ordering of facts, but people's brains expect a story. I don't mean padding, or a made up narrative with characters. You need to set the stage, deliver your message in a way that engages, and you must have something compelling.

But if you can put yourself in their shoes during the preparation and presentation you will find it easier to chop out unnecessary content, change the dynamics, and engage.

You are there for them; they may or may not be there for you.

This is a tangent, but ... tangents are your enemy. The people I struggle the most to understand never complete a thought they started. That clarity of thought and speech comes from knowing the objective of the next sentence you say, even if you don't know what words you are going use just yet. If even you don't know the point, no one else will either.

Try taking a public speaking class at a nearby university.

I'm going to go on a limb here and guess that you are thinking too fast. In everyday life, try to slow down your speech and get in the habit of listening to yourself. It will help you be more deliberate with words and get into the habit of course correcting.

People have a tendency to talk lot faster than they think. Great speakers know how to control this just like how cars speed up or slow down depending on terrain.

I’ve thought a lot about this and discussed with a lot of people. One thing I’ve learned is that people have widely varying different internal experiences forming thoughts and speaking them. What works for one person may or may not work at all for another.

For example, consider the adage to “think before you speak.” Some people have told me this is exactly what happens, they internally say something to themselves, edit if needed, then say it out loud. Other people don’t do this at all or say they can’t do it, that they don’t know what they’re going to say until they hear it come out.

The way I think about learning difficult skills, try to find people who do the skill well and try to copy them. If possible ask them about how they do it and see if you gain any insight. But know that most people do most things by instinct, so you have to find someone who is a lot like you and went on a similar journey to learn the skill the hard way, otherwise it’s unlikely they’ll be able to teach you how to do it.

Toastmasters meetings have something called "table topics" where you need to give a short talk on a topic with only fifteen or so seconds of preparation.

It's great for developing the skill to figure out arguments, creating a framework for talking etc.

Generally speaking, this whole thing is like a physical skill and you need to practice. The TM meetings give you a place to do that.

Also, don't underestimate the value of looking presentable and confident.

I find that trying to write a persuasive essay is a good exercise for clarifying thought. If you share what you write with people who are bound to find flaws in it (e.g. by posting it to HN :)), you start to develop a “voice of the reader” and predict in advance what their objections will be to strengthen your argument.

I highly recommend “The Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing and Thinking” by Barbara Minto.

It will change the way you think about communication, especially in a business context.

An important part of the first step is to add the distinction _under pressure_. I don't consider myself to be an expert persuader by any means, but I have found the ability to find clarity under pressure.

Others have mentioned getting experience through public speaking classes or Toastmasters events. That kind of direct experience is great, and I think there's also a benefit that comes indirectly from formal meditation practice. In my experience that means committing to sitting for a period of time, holding my attention on the sensation of my breath, and returning it there whenever I'm distracted. Those distractions include thoughts and feelings, but also environmental stimuli like loud noises. It develops the ability to rest in discomfort and to maintain concentration.

I've found meditation to be the ultimate tool for enhancing metacognition all-around. It's definitely a long-term investment though, in my experience.

I do not know what would work for you, but the following worked for me.

Toastmasters - helped me speak clearer, and with constructive, honest feedback.

I write down the points I want to make so I do not wonder aimlessly in my stories.

I repeat my (succinct) point(s) I want to convey before I go down the details, then repeat it again at the end.

When asked, I write the questions down so I do not wonder aimlessly in my stories.

I repeat questions asked before I go down the details, then repeat it again at the end, asking if I answered it.

I ask a lot of questions as it provides me reference points I can verbalize to the listeners.

if I have not had time to prepare for a conversation, it is not unusual for me to close my eyes and speak with eyes closed. This helps me to reduce distraction, and turn inward. I do this only with known people so they are not surprised. They know that I am ruminating to on the words, stringing them together. Works well in phone/conference calls with no video.

For me the best training exercises to learn to speak better are high pressure events. I don’t mean crowds where you are fending off stage freight. Solving for stage freight is implicit to solving for high stress generally.

I mean there is some epic outage at your mega corp employer and all eyes are on you to fix the problem sort of pressure. Let’s call this soul crushing pressure coupled with time pressure and doing 3+ things simultaneously. There is no way out. No easy escape. You just have to keep slowly crawling towards resolution with the death stare of everybody on you. In order to creep towards resolution you must be able to talk through the problem as clearly as possible. Less is more and precision is epic.

Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

When you train your mind to operate in this high pressure context your speech will improve.

Benjamin Franklin describes a good one in his autobiography, excerpted below from Project Gutenberg:

> About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have 17acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. My time for these exercises and for reading was at night, after work or before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the common attendance on public worship which my father used to exact on me when I was under his care, and which indeed I still thought a duty, though I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to practise it.

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/148/pg148-images.html.u...

I have found (academic) analytic philosophy to be a great way to slow down and think clearly. So I propose exposing yourself to well-thought-out arguments to see the kinds of "moves" people make.

A good place to start may be with the book by Daniel Dennett: Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking https://www.amazon.com/Intuition-Pumps-Other-Tools-Thinking-...

Similarly, it's great to read good science books with careful arguments. One of the best I think is Culture of Honor: The Psychology of Violence in the South https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Honor-Psychology-Violence-Dir... -- the authors use a variety of independent experiments to make their conclusions.

In general, it's probably worth learning a bunch of psychology too - to understand others better (along with the variety of cognitive biases people have). A classic book in this direction is Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational https://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expand...

Several things come to mind at once.

Thinking, with intent to convey that thinking into words understandable by your chosen audience, involves understanding your audience in the first place. You must learn to observe your audience; this is far more important than whatever idea you may want to express; if your audience is not receptive to you, you have lost before you begin. To generalize, listen before you speak.

Once you have an idea about how you may best express your idea, you should give a thought to how you are structuring your idea. For the details, it is generally considered a good idea to read, and read a lot. It is best if you read authors who are comprehensible to you, but have a firm grasp of the kind of style you wish to cultivate in yourself. After a bit of this, you really do have to write a lot - quantity is much more important than quality when you are hoping to improve yourself.

Almost all of what I wrote above can be tied to sources, and I would have liked to add more, but unfortunately I do not have the time to find references at this point in time, or write more.

Can't underestimate the power of practice. Perhaps find low stake venues where messing up does not have much consequences and present your thoughts. Maybe attend townhalls, local seminars, university talks and present your thoughts on the topic. See what worked and what did not. Improve iteratively.

While you could probably learn to bullshit better with a few self-help reads or some time in Toastmaster’s, its no universal superpower.

A room full of persuasive bullshitters is loud and tedious and unproductive, and many disciplined, talented people are very quickly turned off by that kind of character and refuse to trust them or cooperate with them.

Rather than trying to become somebody else, it might do you more good to focus on things you already have a knack for (you have many): figure out how to hone them, figure out where they’re especially beneficial, and figure out how to get yourself in those environments.

Your confidence will soar and you’ll feel like yourself rather than an imposter. And you’ll almost certainly become a more natural communicator simply by way of that confidence.

On the topic of improving your thinking:

1. Leslie Lamport: "Learning to write well will improve your thinking." Link to resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnY5iJea5ww

2. Paul Graham: "Work on hard problems and talk to smart colleagues." Link to resource: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1553711250382524416?s=20&t=...

I found the problem with most tools to build these skills is that they're either books (very low touch) or 1-on-1 (very high touch) with not much in the middle. Over the years, I've come up with three types of tools to help me and others get better at communicating:

1) Journaling app

2) Live role-playing of conflict scenarios

3) Audio reflection/communication drills

The app is currently defunct, but its basic format was just answering "How do I feel?" and "What's happening?" in the moment, practicing getting better at articulating to ourselves how we actually feel, being really honest.

I haven't run many live workshops lately, but the idea is to role-play a particular conflict you're struggling with and practice responding to it in real-time.

I'm currently testing a web platform for the audio drills, which are mostly a series of questions helping us practice responding to questions/prompts quickly, and in a way where we don't have an audience.

If you're curious about any of those, you can find my contact info in my profile, I'd love to chat more about them in general, I really geek out over creating such tools to improve communication.

A big factor is practice.

Typically, when someone has a crisp response / point, it is something they’ve honed, battle tested (even subconsciously), or heard from others and it resonated (memetic).

When you listen to presentations/lectures/speeches by effective orators, you’ll often hear the same phrases or concepts tuned over time. I can give lots of examples but a recent one was David Sedaris where he told a story on MasterClass in a way more compelling way than the exact same story he delivered years ago in a late note show.

I think I'm accidentally good at this by having speech therapy in school a million years ago because I spoke way to fast as a child. Also they gave me a starter book on rhetoric which helped a lot.

Key things I'd say are:

- Prep what you're going to say in your mind before you say it.

- Where to load infomation in a sentance and then paragraphs is crucial. Like if it's a joke keep the key piece of info at the end, that is like how jokes work. If it's a story, pepper info throughout to keep interest. If it's work and you're trying to communicate big ideas, cover key topics at the start and build on them.

- Smile, be what you imagine a charming person to be like, and then act like that and you'll be a charming person, sounds silly but that's the way to do it. I wave my hands about a lot too, which seems to help.

- Taylor your vocabulary to your audience. I love using big words, but they're pointless if the person your talking to doesn't know them or more importantly may feel alienated by not knowing the words. Unless of course this is work and you need to teach key terms to people to understand the concept you're on about.

- It's difficult to say "be funny", that's so subjective. What I would say on that is do what makes you laugh, make yourself laugh at your own jokes, and if people enjoy them than that's good. Don't try and make other people laugh. If you view their laughter as an accidental by-product of making yourself giggle then that's great.

Most important thing of all - practice. Just keep chatting away to everyone and try and be better and better at it, it's one of those things that takes time to refine.

> persuade the audience on just about any subject

I think I'm like most people here that are happy to argue to correct someone's factual mistakes. The hard part for me is to persuade someone on a grey area, or more importantly to get them to do something that directly benefits me with no benefit to them. Ie "use my app its just what you want", when I know there are a bunch of better or cheaper options.

Most people are incredible boring speakers. Learning even some basics around how to engage folks while speaking will make you a better X.

Toast masters and improv classes are the two that exist in pretty much every community and can be done a 1-2 nights a week to help with this.

Learn how to speak in front of people. Learn how to speak in front of people and get them to actually give a shit about what you are saying.

"Next to height, the most unfair advantage someone can have is the ability to walk into a room without preparation and persuade the audience on just about any subject."

A lot of the people I know who can do this are people that prey on people who either can't think well or are afraid to be assertive. Essentially, think car salesmen.

I don't know any people who can do it for "any subject" without preparation.

With that said:

1. Understand exactly what it is that you are saying, including all the words/phrases you use. As an example, I was going to use "Sword of Damocales" today in writing and then I realized that I don't know ALL the context, so I googled (and also corrected my spelling - Damocles!)

2. Practice speaking - watch your parasite words and phrases. Recording yourself speaking is painful, but useful. If you are average, you also likely have annoying deep speech patterns (tone of voice, pace, etc). Anyone who tells you that you can fix these without a ton of time or a ton of time and a speech pathologist is lying.

In short, practice, do little things, but if you want to be a world-class speaker, you better make it a routine like working out.

I can compensate by memorizing whole speeches when I need to speak in front of hundreds of people, but it's a painful process.

The worst is memorizing half-way - you try to use clever phrasing, then forget something, and it all falls apart.

For context, memorizing a six minute speech (about page and a half) takes me multiple days of 2-4 hour walks and just grinding paragraphs.

I only use this a few times a year if I need to present to the whole company or something. Otherwise I just get a brief outline and wing the wording.

Unfortunately it comes (mostly) from knowing your audience. You can get into training design and it will help a fair bit, especially if your setting allows for interaction with audience, which lets you check if they 'know' something. It will not, however, do as much as practice.

Unfortunately again, knowing your audience comes from talking to them a lot. Best public speakers tend to be saying the same thing for years (hundreds of hours of saying a specific story, for example).

There is no objective encoding. Cultural component tends to be bigger than expected.

Your model is, largely, wrong. Firstly you want to be able to model minds of your audience, secondly you want to be able to provide information that shifts that model into a model that you want them to have. Only then 'thinking clearly' comes in.

Your model could work for teaching people known well agreed upon steps in a field they know nothing about and one could get better at it with practice. Unironically get on twitter (or tiktok, I guess) and practice delivering one specific message.

The art of Rhetoric is one of the oldest and most venerable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric

You're going to want to familiarize yourself with fallacies and bias, to prevent and counteract your own.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Read the works of great writers and thinkers (E.g. the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditations also I recommend Wendell Berry.)

The "persuade" and "just about any subject" part set combine to basically be the opposite of expertise on a topic, so I'd guess confidence, practice speaking, height and other monkey brain things probably help more than clearly marshalling thoughts.

Possibly easier to just hire an actor to deliver your message.

Might depend on the target audience though.

Make it clear why you are speaking. Are you speaking to inform or motivate? Think about what would actually motivate your audience.

Don't attempt to get things right in the first draft. Make notes and revise them. Have conversations with individuals before groups.

Use note cards or an outline when you speak, if appropriate. Make the note cards and outline anyway.

Practice practice practice.

I think the "ability to think clearly" is a bit too vague of a concept.

* Is it really important that the whole process of thinking is "clear" or do you wish for a more structured outcome in the end?

* Why do you assume that having a more "clear" process of thinking leads to better results? Based on the research I know in pedagogical psychology, "clear" thought processes are only a thing for persons of mid-seniority. Actual experts don't explicitely construct solutions to problems in their heads but rather recall/recompose them: They can just extrapolate a solution. But to add a caveat: Actually the peak performance of mid-seniors is sometimes better and one explanation is that they actually (need to) think about what they're doing. Experts get a bit more sloppy on single tasks but are more productive overall.

The psychologist Robert Cialdini has written at least a couple of good books on the topic of persuasion that are worth checking out. (Influence and Pre-suasion)

The comic writer Scott Adams has done some business books and many very approachable podcasts on the topic as well, and might be worth looking into.

Just practice incessantly and understand that silence is a tool.

In HS, I did debate and speech competitions, and my favorite was extemporaneous speaking. There'd be a few rules around each round, but the gist of it was you'd pluck a topic from a broad range from a hat, and you had 5 minutes to go back to your desk, and do anything you wanted to prepare to deliver a speech on it -- you could glance at materials that you brought (magazines, newspaper clippings, etc) and write down up to 10 words on a little index card. Then you just walked into a room and delivered your speech to a judge who had absolutely no context about what you were going to speak on.

After enough of this, the biggest change I noticed was just the feeling of confidence, and believing that yes, in fact, I could do it. The other unexpected lesson I learned is the power of silence. Even the best of speakers will, at any given time, not have the right words or phrases come to them immediately. The REALLY good ones allow themselves the gift of silence when that happens. One example which immediately comes to mind is the steve jobs q&a where the guy says he doesn't know what he's talking about. While he is thinking about how to respond, the complete silence that steve allows himself, the sip of water, is just so powerful. You are watching him incessantly, and are sure to be hanging on to every other word he says. I'd contrast this with Elon Musk who, despite brilliant, is not a very compelling speaker at all, at oftentimes will mumble his way through to an answer instead of pausing before offering a full coherent thought.

Edward de Bono, Serious Creativity: How to Be Creative Under Pressure and Turn Ideas into Action (Paperback). March 5, 2015 https://www.amazon.com/Serious-Creativity-Creative-Pressure-...

The book cited above is to help with 1. and 2. in your list.

YouTube video: Edward de Bono 'How to have a beautiful mind' at Mind & Its Potential, 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbsKQQGwsMg

The video above features Dr. Edward de Bono talking about the thinking processes and creativity.

Talking with real people is underrated, especially in-person. It can also help you think when you're alone.(Because you'll often think twice and put more effort into thoughts for the upcoming talk, given that the discussion is of interest, of course)

Join toastmasters. It's an international club created for the purpose of helping members become better at public speaking. There is some theory and coaching, but a lot of it is just giving regular small and large opportunities to speak within a structured environment.

If you don't have access to that, join an improv troupe, a theater troupe, a local group that tries to educate the public on a political issue you care about, or some other group related to your interests where there are opportunities for discussion.

I do recommend toastmasters if it's something you have access to.

>> think clearly - Eat whole, nutritious food. Get good sleep and plenty of it. Exercise regularly. Make and keep social connections. Have an aim/goal/purpose, maybe more than one. Have/make healthy habits/rituals.

>> deliver message - Join toastmasters. Send voice messages instead of texting and listen to yourself talk. Practice talking more with others. Practice persuading more, if that's what you want to do. Study the psychology of people and how they react when you say things. Listen as much as you speak.

I recently came across this series on Coursera, Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking Specialization: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/logic-critical-thin...

I haven't started yet, but the syllabus for each course seemed interesting and covers off on the thinking part. You can take the classes for free if you audit them though the website throws the payment option at you.

They don't call it the "gift of the gab" for no reason.

Socrates in Plato's dialogues is one of the most influential teachers on this topic. The conclusion was that it is a stupid goal to have: outright self-destructive. His student Aristotle would under the influence of Plato's teachings discover Logic.

Have you considered that it is indeed an unfair superpower to be able to persuade anyone of anything? Most of all to you, but also to your audience?

Don’t think about what you want to say. When you think about what you want to say, you stop listening.

Instead listen openly, mirror to get more information on anything you’re unclear about. People love being mirrored (repeat the last thing they said but as a question- Chris Voss writes about this in ‘Never Split the Difference’).

Get enough information until you understand the gist of what the speaker is trying to say from their point of view. Stay curious. Refrain from making assumptions or assigning any judgement. It’s easier to persuade when you deeply understand their view and why they have it

You can practice getting the gist in conversations you observe but aren’t part of. Then in group settings you’ll start finding yourself saying, what I think so and so meant was… Added benefit is when the other person feels heard and you help advance the conversation for all participants, you’ll be seen as a great conversationalist

Remember it’s not about what you want to say. It’s about how you want the listener to feel during the conversation. Make them feel heard, earn their trust. Earn their trust, persuade them of anything

One fast way to get good at speaking is to video record yourself AND watch the recording and then repeat.

I wrote "fast" instead of "easy" because this is very painful. Most people quit after a couple of iterations.

Toastmasters and the like are slower but arguably less total pain because other people are nicer.

You have to adjust your speech to your audience, so the "without preparation" bit is dubious.

This is very important for more technical stuff. You also have to start very slowly, so that you can lay the groundwork for everyone to understand you.

No matter how clearly you think you speak, you have to get feedback from different people.

It helps to have 3 key points that you want your audience to take away from your speech. Not more. And then tailor everything to drive home those 3 points. One of my favourite speakers who's really good at this is Larry Lessig, see his talks on YouTube, some of them are absolute classics.

I believe firmly that comedy improv or acting classes can help you build all of these skills.

Here's a blog I wrote about this awhile back:

https://jondouglas.dev/improv-your-life/

IF you only have a couple minutes, this video actually sums up a lot of the comments present here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIho2S0ZahI

That's how Narendra Modi fooled 1.5 billion people and became prime minister of India.

- write out your thoughts as often as possible (I don’t do this nearly enough, but whenever it does, it helps sooo much)

- record yourself talking. Do a mock ‘podcast’ with a friend or whatever. Watch it back. Edit out the embarrassing parts. Rinse, repeat.

People who have this kind of ultra BS ability definitely don’t follow that process. For them it’s more instinctual. And probably not learnable. For the rest of us … well if you can’t think clearly maybe you need to study basic logic.

For me, the problem has been Step 2 and Step 3. It has been a constant challenge and often frustrating. Although I have thoughts sorted out very well in my brain, it all starts falling apart when I try to explain them to others.

One problem you are facing is that you are missing 2 important steps:

4) Gauge the reaction 5) Go back to Step 1

Nobody just comes up with a persuasive message and delivers it in one-shot. These people are good at iterating conversations towards a goal.

Set aside some 10 percent of social situations as a test lab / playground. Do stuff you don't think will work or you are sure will fail. Discuss Harry Potter, try a new persona... Go for it.

I haven't found many resources to impart this particular skill. However, two activites come to mind: 1. Read. Extensively. 2. Write. Learn to put thoughts into words as frequently as possible.

Listen to recordings of your own speech, and then course correct

> Ability to think clearly - Ability to encode into brain what you want to say - Deliver message

I think you'll have to practice for it: read a lot, take time to process and respond.

I usually write in a quiet place while I’m thinking. Then read again, edit, etc. Then practice out loud what I’ve written a bunch of times

It may sound stupid but I started playing kendama a couple of weeks ago and my attention/focus has clearly gone up since then.

Join a toastmasters asap. The public speaking exercises will get you want you want

What do you mean unfair?

@24435

toastmasters?

following

therapy