How did you get good at speaking and fluency? Do you think about talking to yourself?

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How did you get good at speaking and fluency? Do you think about talking to yourself?

I'm going to try that approach - thinking of speaking as talking to myself - and see how it goes. Thanks for the tip.

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Related answers

How have you improved your speaking skills? Clearly it's a strength of yours — any advice?

I don't really have a straight-line path here beyond just talking constantly. I used to do door-to-door sales for a long time, where being perceived as articulate mattered a lot. I did tons of sales in the years after, cold calls, cold emails leading to booked meetings, and my Upwork application strategy required recording a large number of videos daily where I had to speak clearly on camera. I wish I had a clean two- or three-step program to give you, but in reality the vast majority of this skill just came from doing it a lot, to the point where my brain is just wired to talk in a way that seems reasonably put together.

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How can I improve my speaking skills?

I recommend reading more than speaking to become a better speaker. A huge vocabulary doesn't automatically make you a better speaker - in fact, it can hinder understanding if the words are too obscure. The trick is using enough variety to express yourself clearly without alienating your audience. Read widely, especially fiction, and consume lots of stories; storytelling is a key skill that improves both your speaking and your ability to connect with people.

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How do you get articulate like you? How can you improve your voice?

I became articulate by talking a lot—years of door‑to‑door sales forced me to repeat the same offer hundreds of times a day. Articulation is a skill that develops through massive practice, not overnight. Don’t compare your early efforts to my years of experience; just keep speaking, and you’ll improve.

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Have you always been able to speak so fluently on camera, or did you develop it through deliberate effort? Does it have anything to do with the books you read, or did you have to adjust when you first started recording?

Massive action is the real answer. I went door-to-door for about 15 months, talking to 50-80 businesses a day — roughly 20,000 conversations spent articulating a need and then solving it, which is really just the perception of value. Before that I raised money for a child-sponsorship charity, talking to all kinds of people on the street, which forced the same articulateness. That volume of reps built the skill; reading books didn't really make me more articulate. When I first got on camera there was a real “what the hell is going on” period, since there's no person in the room to talk to. But I've come to realize a lot of people talk to themselves out loud when they think no one's around — being on camera is basically the same thing, just seen by tens of thousands of people. Once you stop treating the camera as anything other than talking to yourself, it becomes natural after enough reps.

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