In the 1980s, psychologist John Sweller ran a study to understand how people learn best.
One group of students got a diagram with a spoken explanation.
Another group got the same diagram with written text instead.
Which group learned more?
The ones who listened rather than read.
Why?
Because the brain processes visuals and sounds differently.
A diagram and a voice – that works.
But written words and spoken words go through the same mental channel – and that creates overload.
It’s the expectations we attach to it.
In her book Connect, Carole Robin shares a helpful way to think about fear: it often comes from False Expectations Appearing Real.
Most speaking fear comes from stories we tell ourselves – that it should feel easy, that nerves mean we’re not ready, that we must deliver a perfect performance.
Those expectations aren’t real.
Fear is natural.
Every speaker feels it.
What matters is not eliminating fear but stepping up despite it.
Conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla led the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1.
Critics praised her command of silence – how she used long pauses to heighten the impact of what came next.
Reviewers focused on the music and the tension in the quiet moments.
They described how her use of pauses shaped the performance – how even the rests felt alive.
When you pause during a talk, it feels uncomfortable.
Carpenter and boatbuilder Douglas Brooks apprenticed under one of the last surviving traditional boatmakers in Japan.
The craftsman, in his eighties, demanded that Brooks follow one rule: no writing, no sketches. Just observation and repetition.
Brooks spent weeks watching, copying, failing, adjusting – absorbing a way of thinking.
In the process, he said he found something rare: a deep sense of craft.
He went to Japan to preserve a skill. He left with something more – the joy of doing the work well.
Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Barbara Fredrickson studied how people remember experiences.
Their research revealed something simple and powerful: we don’t remember everything. We remember two parts – the peak and the end.
This is known as the peak-end rule.
It matters in public speaking.
You already know the importance of a strong conclusion.
But your audience also needs a moment during your talk that stands out – a peak.
It’s a moment that might surprise or delight your audience. But most of all, it sticks.
Skill builds confidence.
Confidence encourages action.
Action builds more skill.
That’s the loop.
At the start, you don’t feel confident.
So you practise. You improve. The task feels more familiar. Confidence grows a little.
Because you feel more confident, you raise your hand more often. You take on bigger challenges. You speak up. That gives you more experience.
More experience builds more skill.
More skill strengthens confidence.
The loop reinforces itself.
World-class violinist Joshua Bell played incognito in a Washington, D.C. subway station. He wore jeans and a baseball cap, standing by a trash bin as he performed some of the most complex pieces ever written.
Over a thousand people walked past. A few stopped. He made $32.
Just days earlier, Bell had sold out a concert hall where tickets cost hundreds of dollars. Same musician. Same music. Different setting – completely different response. That’s the power of context. And it’s the same with presentations.
I studied English for fifteen years before moving abroad. But on my first day in Ireland, I understood almost nothing. In all that time, I’d never actually had a conversation in English. (The Irish accent didn’t help either.)
That experience taught me something: learning happens in real situations.
You can read books, attend workshops and watch expert speakers. All of that helps – but only to a point. The real progress starts when you stand up and speak in front of an audience.