Stop giving speeches
I don't typically offer advice on public speaking except to my students, but here is one piece of advice: stop giving speeches. Not only do most people resent it, but most people don't have any idea how boring they really are. The key to any talk/speech/presentation is that you have to be having a conversation with your audience. You never look at someone in a casual conversation and say, wow, they were so stiff/fake/nervous.. but you do say that about someone on a stage. Why? Because they were not taught to have a conversation with their audience. If people would learn how to have an effective conversation with their audience, regardless of size or location, we could almost eliminate boring speakers. What most people do is give a talk or give a speech. Not much is worse than a boring person giving a boring talk. If you watch people, you will see that most people in casual conversations are animated, mobile, and expressive. But put them on a stage and suddenly they develop th...