6.22 /// The sound of confident silence...

I walked into a communication course thinking I was already pretty good at talking. A few hours later, I realised I’ve been doing the classic thing: speaking at a pace that feels comfortable to me while the meaning gets buried under speed, tangents, and way too many words. If you’ve ever finished a meeting, a presentation, or even a voice note and thought “that’s not what I meant to say”, you’ll recognise this straight away. 

I am no expert but I want to share my immediate takeaways from that day and share how one day has evolved my speech.

I get into the very learnable and practical communication skills that translate directly to public speaking, chairing meetings, and podcasting: slowing down until it feels mildly uncomfortable, choosing a clear structure, and focusing on what the audience actually needs. I also share why pauses are powerful, how filler words like “um” and “er” can quietly weaken confidence, and how changing tone, volume, and delivery makes a message land without turning you into a stiff robot. 

One of my favourite takeaways is about storytelling and hooks. Instead of starting with “this is boring”, lead with a reason to care. I talk through my own example from railway operations, trying to explain railway interlocking, first in the dull company-minded way, then again using a hook based on real consequences. The difference is immense, and it’s the kind of shift in speech that you can use anywhere, from presentations to YouTube to everyday conversations. 

If you want clearer presentation skills, better workplace communication, and a podcast that prattles with a bit more purpose, hit play. After listening, share it with a mate who speaks at 140 words a minute, subscribe, and leave a review with the one speaking habit you’re trying to break.

Transcript

Quick Welcome And Premise

Stephen 0:04

Hello, welcome to Infinite Prattle. And on today's episode, I talk about relearning things you thought you already knew about yourself. And just about trying harder, maybe? And listening to advice. I'll try and cover all other subjects. Whether I will or not, who knows? Stay tuned. Hello and welcome to Infinite Tradle! Until Uninfinite Travel on Everything. Hosted by me, Steven. Welcome back to another hopefully great episode of Infinite Prattal. Thank you for joining me if it's your first time. Check out the video version of the podcast over on YouTube if you're listening on audio. And if you're listening on YouTube, there is an audio only version on YouTube and wherever you find podcasts. Today's hat is parental advisory explicit content. A Shein special. It's actually not bad, to be fair. Ernot as breathable as would like, that's anything. Good old uh man-made fibres and all that. Um Yeah, so basically I've had another week of training, well, one day of training last week, uh, for my role. Um and it was a bit of a revolu revelation, if I'm honest with you. And I think that revelation could really help this podcast. Um because podcasts are all about sound, they're now about visuals, because I'm now filming them, and they're about how I get a message across. If I ever manage to get a message across. Because let's face it, the whole idea of the podcast is that I prattle on about something that I don't sometimes even know what I'm gonna say, but I would like that content to be somewhat coherent. So you might notice from now on that I'm taking extra care to kind of think about what I'm saying, try and slow the pace down, and that's not to change me, that's to make it better for the user experience. And that comes out of the training that I had this week. So I've never really been scared of standing in front of people and talking. And I never really am out of anything to say. So it's kind of a good combination, if that's managed correctly, I suppose. So the course I was on this week was to do with all things communication, chairing meetings, how you come across, and basically just telling the story of what information you're trying to get across to someone, and understanding what they want out of the conversation, or meeting, or conference, or you know, talk. And it was really enlightening that even though I know a lot about the thing I know about at work, which is railway operations, sometimes it all gets a bit clouded in your brain. And that leads to, let's say, my brain working faster than my mouth, or my mouth working faster than my brain. And that doesn't lead to clarity, and I wanted more clarity at work, want to get my message across to people. I'm more believable, maybe, more um what's the word? I'm trying to think of the word. More concise, and that gives people more confidence in me and what I'm saying. Kind of my statement would carry more weight, maybe. And I don't think it's that people don't believe what I'm saying. Sometimes maybe my point gets lost in the myriad of words that I use. And I think sometimes that happens in this podcast, and the fact that I talk a lot, and my brain goes off on a tangent quite a lot, which I don't want to lose, I don't mind the tangents, but I also don't want to say four million words and then lose the thread I was on in the first place. Um I don't want to lose that loose end. So the communications course I was on this week is by far one of the best courses I've ever been on. Um and I I won't embarrass the people that did the course, I won't promote them or anything like that. Um if the chap listens to this podcast and hears it, feel free to comment, Hugo. Um I'm erring. So basically the communications course was basically about getting up in front of someone, thinking about what you're gonna say, which is difficult for this podcast, I must admit, because 98% is done completely on the fly, sometimes with notes, and it's rarely scripted. Well, it's never scripted, but there's sometimes there's parts that I've thought about more than others. And the whole idea of that communications course was basically think about what your audience wants to listen to, pick out them points, make it interesting, change the tone of your voice, change the volume of your voice, use hand gestures if you're talking, you know, open postures, and don't be afraid to pause, don't be afraid to slow down your speech, um, and don't go don't go um uh silence is good. Use words like and however, but it's really hard to do. It's really hard to do. But amazingly, uh just in a short flu hour a short few hours of this coaching, I think I went from thinking I was pretty good at the start of the course to realising I'm not as good as I thought. But having known my failings probably anyway, and like a lot of things in life, it just takes someone to point something out to you. So I knew I was confident, didn't really like the confidence, but knew I was a rambler, knew that why use one word when tens uh you can use ten, you know, and that's how I am. Uh but I am very knowledgeable. And as much as I wanted to make it fun for the audience, sometimes I'd focus on maybe being a bit too blasé, making it a bit too much fun. And one of the first things we had to do was we had to pick a subject and basically give a little talk about it. So we had to start sat down, then we were told to stand at a certain point. And the first thing I said was, I'm gonna talk to you about a really dry subject. So basically told the audience straight away, this is really boring. So probably would get a laugh in a room full of railway workers, um, because they would know the subject, but it's still not probably very good for a wider audience who would just think, hang on, they're gonna talk about something really boring. Why am I listening to this? So and I I suppose I know that when I point it out, but I'm more of the sort of thing, well, does that really matter? Because I'm gonna have to do this, and I think that's the problem. You know you have to do it, but you don't have to do it in a certain way. And keeping the speech to about 120 words a minute, so my arm gestures were quite all over the place, and from that the trainer thought that my speech would be a lot faster than it was. But weirdly enough, my speech was faster than it should have been, but slower than he thought because of the arm gestures. Um going forward, um, we just looked at different techniques, basically just slowing down is the biggest one, and just some notes, some planning, and just thinking about what the audience are after. What do you want to say and what do you want them to take away? And I suppose when you think about it, when you put yourself in the shoes of an audience, like I probably should do that a lot more with you guys. I should probably sit down and think three seconds before I start filming, what do I want my audience to take away today? And generally it's just I just want you to have a good time. I just want you to listen to something that you may find interesting and might give you food for thought, or that you can relate to. And I think I generally tick them boxes, hopefully, because most people can relate to other people. But should I be a bit more deep than that? And I probably should be trying to put a message across. So the episodes where I am maybe trying to say something, and it makes you think because all the times that I present at work and make comments on things, I could have been doing this. And to my view, maybe was to a degree. But it just changes the whole dynamic when you just change these few things in the way you talk. You come across more confident, more knowledgeable, you don't have to be stiff as a board, you can still be really animated and impactful, and you can be funny, but it's m at a more sedate pace, it's not as hard for the listener, it's not as hard on the eyes, uh, and a lot of stuff that we do as visual, that's kind of the one of the reasons I wanted to start a video podcast. One, because it gives me something to look at, so I felt like I was making engagement with an audience, but it also gave me something to kind of play to, and that's really difficult when you're talking down a microphone, and I think that kind of makes you speed up as well because you're just barreling out down a microphone, recorded it, got it in the bag, but I think maybe doing the video podcasting has made me slow down. If it hasn't, let me know because it you don't know you're doing it. Because when I was asked how did that feel to you, how did your speech feel? And I said it felt comfortable, and instantly I was told it was too quick. Um and it feels comfortable because that's what I'm used to. So one of the tips was slow down to the to the point it feels mildly uncomfortable. Which I think is good advice. And that's what I'm trying to do. So hopefully you're hearing a difference. Maybe you don't like it, maybe that's maybe that's weird, maybe it's calm, Steve, it's strange, maybe you like the erratic 140 word a minute uh steam train than I am. Apparently your 120 words a minute is like dead on for kind of speech and what we should be aiming for. Um I think in day-to-day chatter, when you're relaxed with someone, it speeds up, and probably when you're excited it does as well. I think the whole idea of the session was you know, when you public speak or when you're doing a presentation, your nerves kick in, you know, you know, you're a bit anxious, maybe, you're scared of making a mistake, and a lot of people just barrel through it because they just want to get out of the public eye, they don't want to be in front of people, and I get that, I completely get that. Um I for all my confidence of standing in front of people, and I've literally done last-minute presentations, I've literally gone to a meeting, we've been going through the agenda, and then my name's come up on the board as having a spot. I think it was the first spot, and I was like, hang on, and they were go, yeah, we haven't told you. Can you just do a chat about this? Okay, so I've been thrown in the D pen like that, and come out okay, and it's never as bad as you feel, I think. But these tips that I was given over that day were really good. So slowing down is a is a huge one, and it automatically kind of makes you pick your words a lot more clearly. You can use words that you didn't think you were gonna use, and it enables you to pause a lot easier. So I'm finding it better already for just getting my brain in order and just slowing everything down. Pauses. Don't use er and um and er and all them things to fill in sentence. I've done it a few times already on this podcast, and if I would it dozens and dozens and hundreds of times through the hours of podcasts that I've uploaded. And it's okay to do that to a degree, but it doesn't really convey convey a confidence, doesn't really make you seem like you know what you're talking about. And I think f for my efforts on this podcast, it's probably okay because I don't really I'm not really conveying anything that's life and death. It's not like I'm at work and I'm having to speak and give feedback on something that is going to be built or designed, or is being built and designed, or talking about some safety uh related items. So it's probably not as critical on this podcast, but I still want to kind of bring some of this learning in in into the fold a little bit. Because I think it's really beneficial. And I think it'll make the podcast better. I hope it will. Again, let me know what you think about that. So yeah, the day was the day was really kind of fluid. We had to start off and basically write everything down we thought was wrong with us, well not wrong with us, you know, what our fears and what we wanted to improve. Mine was definitely structure of things. Uh brain running at million miles an hour, mouth run at million miles an hour, and I'm not syncing up really, so brain fast, mouth fast. No, hang on, can't even get that right. Brain fast, mouth slow, mouth slow, brain fast. Is that right? Is that the same? Oh my god, my brain has just died. So basically, if I'm talking too quick, I can't my brain can't keep up, and if my brain's really quick, my mouth can't keep up, so everything just gets jargon. I think that was the right way around. I might have said it right the first time, but I don't even know. So one of the best things that I think I got out of the day was just writing them things down and acknowledging them. And from that point on, I probably could have improved myself to a degree. But it's nothing there's nothing better than someone that's an expert in their field just simplifying something for you in in the most basic terms, or watching yourself. So what we did, uh one of the first things after we we the the little presentation thing was recorded, and that's what the feedback was given on. And it was all about you know, hand movements, keeping your arms up. You can't really see my elbows in this video, but keeping your arms up, engaging, you know, changing the tone of your voice, changing the volume of your voice, you know, bring it down a little bit, then bring it back up again. Um so yeah, a lot of a lot of stuff like that. Um, really, you know, just really making sure that you're using dynamics, headlines, and telling a story with the next thing. So what we lot we did, we were very much in the mindset of the company. So I have to tell you this information, this is how I'm gonna tell it. Lots of facts, lots of figures, uh, technical details. So another thing we were told is think about the audience and channel it to you want to get grab their attention. So kind of like what YouTube does on social media, so a tagline, start a story, and get them hooked. So you need a hook. And that's where you can use the stats. So mine was a the importance of railway interlocking, which is a boring subject if you don't work on the railway. It's a complex subject. If you don't work on the railway. So my few minutes was just to try and explain why railway interlocking, what it is, and why it is so important within the rail industry. And I just went kind of straight into it, basically told everyone it was a boring subject. Uh went straight into it, kind of explained what it was, and did an alright job. Got good good reasonable feedback. Uh, was told I was good, you know, good in my hands, good, good stood up, um, reasonably good eye contact, looking around the room. But it was a little bit too quick, and we all did the similar thing where we were like in the mindset of the company, and this is what we must produce, and this is what we must deliver. And that that's boring, basically, it's boring. So we did some other techniques, we chatted about stuff, we we talked about other you know, personalities, the personality person you're delivering to, your own personality, and how your own brain works. All the while thinking about the slowing down, the structure of everything. And uh at the end of the day, we we redid the same um same speech. Well, we're allowed to write another one, but we all pretty much did the same one, and I chose to do the interlocking thing again, so I wanted to hook, so I chose an accident that was related to interlocking failure, uh, and the deaths that came from that and said, you know, these many deaths, this many injured. This is why the railway interlocking is so serious, so so important. Um and it actually helped me. I didn't script anything, made a couple of notes, didn't look at them, didn't look at them in the first one, didn't look at them in the second one. Um, but I remembered my notes because I was slower, because I was more precise. Uh, it enabled my brain to think this is what you want to talk about next, and it flowed better. And it was really incredible because with a few small conversations during the day, a small bit of review, small bit of reflection, you wouldn't have told the difference, like you wouldn't have believed the difference between my first delivery and my second delivery. And I think I'm quite a good person of of I think I'm quite a good person Um in that area of delivering things and talking to people and keeping people's attention. So hopefully I'm like an expert at it now. So yeah, I I just really enjoyed the course. It's it's up there with the previous previous one I enjoyed uh immensely, which was a few years ago when I did like a management course and went into it with really, really clouded, clouded judgment, and and didn't really want to be there, and that turned out to be the best course that I'd ever been on. Uh, partly because of the or mostly because of the trainer, and the same for the same for this week really, the the the communications course trainer was was an outstanding chap, really, really easy to talk to, funnily enough and an excellent communicator, and it was just super super fun. And I can use that in everyday life, I can use it in every part of my life, I can now mentally think about what I'm saying, I can slow myself down, try and get my message across, be more impactful, and not frustrate myself after the fact of this is what I actually wanted to say, and I didn't get to say it. So if you ever get to go on a communications course and the guy is called Hugo, you know you're in for a good time. Um yeah, it was just really it was just really good. And Hugo, if you are watching this and you want to leave a comment of of your link to your business, feel free, I don't mind. Uh I just didn't want to seem like I was promoting anything within this podcast. Um yeah, really, really good times. This is that was the middle of the week for me. It was a long day because I had to travel down to Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes! I can't say Milton Keynes without saying that it in that way after the Bill Bailey um was it part troll that you did it in. I can't I can't do it. It's it's just a thing I have to do. And it's ridiculous. Anyway, that's a weird thing to end on. Uh thank you very much for tuning in. If you give us a like, that'd be ace. If you give us a subscribe, that'd be acer. If that's even a word, it is now, sod it, who cares? Thank you very much for listening. Uh take care of yourselves, and remember to keep on prattling. Thanks for listening to InfinitePrattle with your host Steven. Follow me on social networks at InfinitePrattle and don't forget to subscribe. Thanks very much.