Want to become a better public speaker?

Here are 11 public speaking techniques from the world's greatest speakers: 1. Create an alter ego

As a writer, I’ve always been most comfortable writing in silence. Not speaking on stage. Not appearing on video. Not moderating panels in front of hundreds of people. My job was to put other people in the spotlight.

But I was hyper-aware that those were skills I needed to gain if I wanted to have a career in media. The problem was that the mere thought of an on-stage interview in front of a live audience gave me heart palpitations.

As I was preparing, I had a memory of my high school acting teacher saying, “Before you step on that stage, you have to get into character. You’ve got to talk like that person, act like that person, and feel the emotions that person feels.”

Fast forward 10 years, I was sitting in my apartment determined to try the same technique. I watched countless videos of journalists and talk show hosts interviewing people in front of an audience. They were larger than life, they had open body language, they made jokes, and they had loads of energy. They seemed like an exaggerated version of themselves.

So I decided that I would step into a similar character when I was on stage. I wouldn’t be me — I would perform as someone so confident that nerves couldn’t phase them. That shift in mindset changed my voice, my posture, and my confidence level.

I had never found the right language to describe this phenomenon, but here’s how Beyoncé put it: “That moment when you’re nervous and that other thing kind of takes over for you.”

“That other thing” is often referred to as an “alter ego.” Believe it or not, early in her career, Beyoncé was shy and reserved, which is antithetical to the powerhouse we saw on stage.

That’s because she created an alter ego she called ‘Sasha Fierce’ that allowed her to perform with a level of confidence she herself didn’t yet have. “I’m not like her in real life at all,” Beyoncé said. “I’m not flirtatious and super-confident and fearless like her.”



Research supports these mental tricks we play on ourselves. Adopting an alter ego is an extreme form of “self-distancing,” a psychological tool that helps people reason more objectively and see the situation from a slight distance.

As you can imagine, Beyoncé doesn’t need the crutch of an alter persona to get through her performances anymore. She’s become confident just being herself. “Sasha Fierce is done. I killed her,” Beyoncé told Allure in 2010. “I don't need Sasha Fierce anymore, because I've grown, and now I'm able to merge the two.”

I’ll leave you with this quote from actor Cary Grant: “I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until, finally, I became that person. Or he became me. Or we met at some point along the way.”

I spent the last month reviewing hours of interviews conducted by the best of the best to draw out highly specific techniques that make for an exceptional interview.

Here are 10 interview techniques from the world's best interviewers: 1. They know the first question sets the tone for the entire interview

The first question matters because it’s the question that builds rapport between the interviewer and the interviewee. It’s also the question that sets the tone for the entire interview.

Imagine you’re the interviewer: What is the first question you would ask Meta/Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg? How about Osama bin Laden?

Many people would go straight to the obvious — but that may not be the best approach.

When Tim Ferriss interviewed Zuckerberg on his podcast, his opening question had nothing to do with privacy or data or social media addiction. It had to do with … fencing.

Ferriss says, “In the course of doing research for this conversation, I chanced upon fencing … Now, fencing, I had seen in connection with your name, but I had no idea that you had been as competitive as you had been. Could you just describe your background with fencing and how you ended up competing?”

It’s a question designed to get Zuckerberg to open up because it’s something that no one ever asks him about, and from his response, you can tell he’s delighted to tell the story of his competitive fencing days.

Zuckerberg says, “This is probably one of the more interesting places to start an interview that I’ve ever done.”

The question immediately wins Zuckerberg over and puts him on Ferriss’s side. From here on out, it’s easier to ask tougher questions because the opening set the tone that it would be more of a conversation than a grill session.

For a grill session, you can watch Kara Swisher’s infamous interview with Zuckerberg during which he sweated through his hoodie. The first, second, and third questions of the interview were about privacy. Of course, there’s a time and a place for a bare knuckled-interview approach, but it’s one that risks burning a source. Zuckerberg didn’t speak to Kara Swisher for eight years following that interview.

Larry King, the man who conducted 60,000 interviews during his multi-decade career, knows a thing or two about the art of building rapport.

Fellow writer Adam Tank shared this clip with me, in which King talks about what he would ask al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden if he got the chance to interview him.



King says, “Nobody evil thinks they’re evil. Osama bin Laden didn’t comb his hair in the morning and say, ‘I’m a bad person.’ Hitler didn’t say, ‘I’m a bad person.’”

So King often starts an interview to understand his guests’ perception of themselves — no matter how evil we may perceive them to be. So what would be the first question he asks Osama bin Laden?

King says:

“The first question would not have been, ‘Why did you bomb 3,000 people on 9/11?’ My first question would’ve been, ‘You grew up in one of the richest families in Saudi Arabia. Why’d you leave?’“He probably hasn’t thought about it in years. It makes him think about things. It also puts him a little on my side. He’s expecting this [King puts up his fists as though ready to fight] and I’m going with, ‘Why’d you leave?’ And I’m sincere because I have no idea. I wouldn’t have left.”

During the course of the interview, of course King would’ve asked about the events of Sept. 11, but that’s not where he would’ve started. He would’ve began by trying to understand how bin Laden sees himself, in hopes of gaining some insight into the mind of a person capable of committing such acts.

Building rapport is an art, and the best interviewers know it starts with the very first question.tiktok.com/@barry_katz/vi…

Leymah Gbowee was 17 years old the first time she saw a dead body. She was so traumatized that she froze.

And then life as she knew it turned upside down.

"By 31, it was a natural occurrence for me, and no group of people should live like that," she says.

This is her story 👇 In 1989, General Charles Taylor led an armed uprising against the government of President Samuel Doe.

Following Doe's execution, Taylor gained control of a large portion of the country and became one of the most prominent warlords in Africa until he was elected president.

At 21 years old, Amaryllis Fox was recruited into the CIA.

By 22, she was one of the youngest female officers assigned to “non-official cover,” which means she conducted operations abroad but had no diplomatic protections as part of the most top-secret CIA unit.

Her story 👇 Fox was assigned to ops around counter-terrorism, which means she was sent to infiltrate terrorist networks in remote areas of the Middle East.

When she was invited to join, she says it’s “the scariest invitation I’ve ever been given & the one I’ve most wanted to receive.”

There were some really great longreads in yesterday's edition of @ProfileRead

👇 49ers legend Joe Montana won four Super Bowls and retired as the undisputed greatest. But what happens when the greatest ever is forced to watch someone else become the greatest ever? A must-read. (@espn)

espn.com/nfl/story/_/id…

Twelve-year-old Tanitoluwa (Tani) Adewumi wants to make history.

And in some ways, he already has.

This his story: With dreams of becoming a chess grandmaster, Adewumi has taken on the world of chess in a determined and fierce way that mirrors his playing style.

Bernard Arnault passed Elon Musk to become the world’s most wealthy person last month.

Let me tell you about Bernard: Known as the "lord of luxury," Bernard Arnault is the world's richest man.

Arnault & Jeff Bezos have been neck & neck for No. 1 on the list of richest people. As Fortune put it: "One makes rockets, the other makes handbags."

As the best-selling author in the world, James Patterson is a hitmaker. He knows how to capture a reader’s attention — and hold it — for hundreds of pages.

This is his story 👇 Patterson is as much a writer as he is a business.

He has published more No. 1 NYT bestsellers than any other author in history & he’s sold more than 300M copies worldwide.

In 2010, he became the 1st author to sell 1 million ebooks.

His net worth is estimated at ~$560M.

What were the most popular @ProfileRead columns in 2022?

Check them out below 👇👇👇 1) I invited the readers of The Profile to submit their questions for me.

They asked about making mistakes, generating ideas, growing a newsletter, building daily habits, reading memoirs, and more.

One person even asked if I had plans to retire …

theprofile.substack.com/p/polina-ama-h…

With the holidays coming up, there's no better gift than a book.

I've compiled 30 recs from some of the world's most successful people.

Here's the book list to end all book lists 😅:

📚📚📚📚📚📚📚 1) JEFF BEZOS:

The Remains of the Day: Bezos says, "My favorite novel. Teaches pain of regret so well you will think you lived it."

Built to Last: Bezos says, "My favorite business book."

Creation: Bezos says this book "was influential in the creation of AWS"

.@Cristiano Ronaldo is often considered the best footballer that’s ever lived.

Ronaldo, who plays for Manchester United, holds the record for most goals in a single EUFA Champions League Season, and he’s one of the top scorers of all time.

Here's his story: It’s not Ronaldo's athleticism that he believes is his greatest differentiator. “I think I’m good, but I think my main strength is my mind,” he says. “It’s my strongest point.”

That’s because Ronaldo had to develop a certain level of mental strength from an early age.

Want a great read?

Check out the profiles in this week's edition of @ProfileRead👇 If anyone was going to save this world, it was Kevin Cooper. At age 14, he had just published a book, he was expanding a 450-acre farm, and he was saving $ to buy a house for his disabled parents. And then the unthinkable happened. A must-read (@Deseret)

deseret.com/2022/8/22/2330…

A fellow comedian once asked @JerrySeinfeld, “Where do you go after having the most popular show of all time?”

The answer?

On stage, behind the mic, doing stand-up comedy.

That’s b/c Seinfeld is simultaneously a comedic master & a lifelong student of his craft.

His story 👇 Seinfeld says:

“Standup for me is a surfboard. It’s just you. You paddle out, and you try and catch the energy and you’re all on your own. You can do it and go home, and nobody but you really even knows what happened.”

As a magician, Derren Brown’s job is to mislead the human mind into believing something false.

But Brown says he’s simply using magic as a tool to show us just how powerful our minds are when used with purpose.

Here's how 👇 Instead, he uses techniques that we can all apply to our own lives — subliminal suggestion, hypnosis, and body language reading.

Inspired by Stoicism, he mixes elements of identity, purpose, and contentment in his acts.

A few years ago, I compiled 10 thought-provoking questions that will spark conversation at the dinner table.

I hope you enjoy 👇 1. In something he calls the “theory of maximum taste,” columnist David Brooks says that each person’s mind is defined by its upper limit — the best content that it habitually consumes and is capable of consuming.

How did you improve your "content diet" this year?

Ukraine. Afghanistan. Iraq. Darfur. Lybia. Syria. Lebanon. South Sudan. Somalia. Congo.

Over the past 15 years, war photographer @lynseyaddario has covered every major conflict and humanitarian crisis on the planet.

This is her story 👇 She’s had a number of close calls on the job — she has been kidnapped in Libya, abducted in Iraq, and injured in a car accident in Pakistan.

But the one consistent thread throughout Addario’s career is that she never puts the camera down — even in the face of extreme danger.

I've written hundreds of in-depth profiles of people with fascinating stories.

But without exaggerating, @francis_ngannou's story blew. me. away.

Here's what I learned 👇 Francis Ngannou is the heavyweight champion of the world.

In mixed martial arts circles, he’s known as “the baddest man on the planet,” and that’s for good reason.

The power of his punch is unmatched.

.@LewisHamilton didn’t buy his way to Formula 1. He earned it.

Unlike many of his peers, Hamilton came from humble beginnings and his racing career started with remote-control cars.

Here's his story 👇 Hamilton was only six years old when he won his first two trophies for remote-control car racing.

As you can see in this video, he has a laser-sharp focus paired with impressive hand-eye coordination.

Readers often ask me: "What does your writing process look like for one of your Profile Dossiers?"

The Profile Dossier is a comprehensive deep dive on a person that I publish every Wednesday.

Here's a detailed account of my process👇 This week, I'm working on Jerry Seinfeld's Dossier.

I take 2 to 3 days to completely immerse myself in his world.

I read interviews, watch documentaries, and listen to podcast episodes.

I jot down notes and observations as I go.

While no one was looking, Melanie Perkins (@MelanieCanva) built Canva, an online graphic design business valued at $40 billion.

Canva is one of the world's most valuable private companies & the most valuable female-founded & female-led company.

This is Melanie's story 👇 Based in Australia, Canva CEO Perkins and her co-founder (and now- husband) Cliff Obrecht recently raised a whopping $200 million in venture funding from investors including T. Rowe Price with Franklin Templeton, Sequoia Capital Global Equities, and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Will Storr says there’s one game in life that you can’t opt out of: The status game.

As humans, we’re programmed to seek, crave, and reach for status, and we do it in the most irrational ways.

Here's how 👇 Storr, a journalist & novelist, explains that humans are storytelling animals.

“Humans are extraordinarily imaginary creatures who use almost anything to symbolize status: money, Twitter followers, literary tastes, power, the brand of a watch or the shape of a stomach,” he says.