Book Notes for Dale Carnegie’s “How to Develop Confidence and Influence People By Public Speaking”

I’m not the most disciplined reader, but lately I’ve been trying to get into it more by reading about things that both interest me and improve my life. One of my good friends did a book a week last year, and I’m very enviously trying to work up to that. With each book, I feel a compulsion to create highly-detailed notes on the big ideas in approachable, actionable ways so that they can soak into mind and spill out in the interactions I have. This process seems like the best way to do that but is equally time-consuming as it is fruitful, so in order to not waste my efforts on myself alone, I thought I might share it with the world so others can participate as well.

The topic: Communicating effectively is a key skill that everyone should have, and Dale Carnegie (the guru in this field) applies his direct speaking experience with his knowledge of psychology to tell us how to do that not only when speaking publicly, but really in any setting where one must speak, engage and influence. Here you go…

“How to Develop Self-Confidence & Influence People By Public Speaking.” — Summary Notes by Sanjana Bhatia, including quotations / excerpts from the book itself

Four things are essential in this pursuit:

• 1. A strong and persistent desire. Think about why you are doing it, how it will help you (and others). Be all in- focus your mind and keep your heart in it. Be earnest, dedicated and hard-working about your want to improve your public speaking (and self-confidence)
• 2. Confidence, real or fake: “to develop courage when you are facing an audience, act as if you already have it.” Talk like they all owe you money! Take the offensive against your fears- go out to meet them, battle them, conquer them by sheer boldness at every opportunity. (Don’t worry, it’s not as difficult as you think!)
• 3. Knowing thoroughly what you are going to talk about. Know it, reflect on it, form patterns and themes.
• 4. Practice, practice, practice… “The first way, the last way, the never-failing way to develop self-confidence in speaking is to speak.” You “ must, by custom and repeated exercise of self-mastery, get his nerves thoroughly under control. This is largely a matter of habit; in the sense of repeated effort and repeated exercise of willpower.” Persevere when it gets difficult, and be consistent with it. Know what it is that you’re going to do when you speak: “Fear is the result of a lack of confidence and what causes that? It is the result of not knowing what you can really do. And not knowing what you can do is caused by a lack of experience. When you get a record of successful experience behind you, your fears will vanish; they will melt like night mists under the glare of a July sun.

OPENING: How to open a talk; have something that will grab attention immediately.

• Memorise the first and last sentence of your speech.
• Foresee what you’d like to start off with when minds are fresh, and foresee what you’d like to leave them with.
• Be brief…
• Use some local reference, make it light, exaggerate it for humorous effect
• Pique curiosity
• Begin with a visual / illustration — paint a picture in the minds of the audience
• Use an exhibit- have something people can look at
• Ask a question
• Be natural, conversational as much as possible

CLOSING: How to close a talk; be strategic about what you want to leave them with

• You must practice the conclusion of your talk repeatedly- not necessarily in the same words but the thoughts need to be abundantly clear so you leave with a strong message in your speech
• Summarise the main points of your speech
• Appeal for action
• If you can, leave them with a humorous close / sincere and brief compliment
• Close with a poetical quotation
• Remember to stop while the audience is eager for you to go on- don’t go on and on about what you have to say. Make a clean, clear-cut break.

WRITING THE SPEECH: Being prepared (researched & planned) makes you self-confident

• Success comes by self confidence, self confidence comes by being prepared
• Be passionate about what you talk about and you will be effective. It will also be very easy to construct that talk if you’re interested in what you’re talking about. Speak on things that interest you.
• Digest and assimilate all of the information you can on a certain topic- the messages you derive will rise to the surface and your impression of the topic will shine through when you eventually speak on it. So take the time to do your research.
• Experience (the research) + Reflection (taking stock of all the ideas, trimming and cleaning them up) = Successful Speech. The experience and reflection MUST be yours- own and be accountable for that and the speech itself shall be easy
• “Preparation means thinking, brooding, recalling, selecting the ones that appeal to you most, polishing them, working them into a pattern, a mosaic of your own. That doesn’t sound like such a difficult programme, does it? It isn’t. It just requires a little concentration and thinking to a purpose.”
• “Brood over your text and your topic until they become mellow and responsive- you will hatch out of them a whole flock of promising ideas as you cause the tiny germs of life there contained to expand and develop.”
• Also don’t take on too much during a speech- make sure in your reflection you cut down and trim it down to a few key, digestable ideas (that are actionable) that you can speak on. It will be too much to remember for a speech for you as the presenter and for your audience as well. Be thorough on the few ideas you do end up selecting.
• Start early- give yourself enough time to think and ponder over the subjects, especially in your off-time. Discuss it with friends and colleagues. Think about it in the day and night so you yourself can provide new perspectives to your prior ideas. Attack it from all angles so you can tease out what’s real, important, good, valuable for others to know.
• Ideate 100 ideas and discard 90. Then arrange to make it make coherent sense for the audience. Again- be brief but make those few points purposeful, impactful and grand. (That said, your audience doesn’t need to know everything about your topic. You, however, should aim to do so in the time before your speech.)
• Although you shouldn’t ‘memorize’ your speech, it should be planned and structured. (Think of it like an essay- it has to be researched thoroughly, trimmed down, ordered and re-ordered until each sentence’s idea contributes to the resounding theme of the piece. This is how you construct your speech.)
• Conduct affinity mapping with your notes to do this

BEING APPEALING TO PEOPLE:

• You need to remember that people are ultimately interested in themselves:
• Make everything you teach them actionable and applicable to their lives- use your speaking to hold a mirror up to themselves. Either they will be entertained, informed or be compelled to take action because they are the center of the story.
• This is the key to being a good conversationalist- talk about things that interest them, ask them questions! Remember the details of the conversations you have and they will love you for seeing and hearing them. People are selfish and interested chiefly in themselves.
• Just because you pick a topic that interests you, you have to think about how to make it relatable and digestable to an audience. People care about their own lives and interests. Study your audience while preparing, think of their wants and wishes. That is really half the battle
• Tell people stories, don’t lecture them. Humans are wired to intake gossip, so make the speech a juicy story that they can take home.
• “Almost all magazine fiction is based on this formula. Make the reader the hero / heroine, make them long for something intensely, make it seem impossible to get. show how the hero or heroine fights and gets it.
• Make comparisons they will understand
• Avoid technical terms and speak like a lay man
• Appeal to the sense of sight- use pictures, describe things clearly as if you’re showing them pictures
• Restate your important ideas in different words to drive the points home for them
• Be concrete, definite, specific
• Tell something new about the old in order to appeal to them
• If you’re interested, show your passion and they will likely feel that way too! It’s contagious
• To convince people, you first need to find common ground
• Minimize the differences between you first, this will soften the audience and make them more amenable to what you have to say. It makes you seem “fair”

REHEARSE: do this before you speak with an audience and do it where you speak with gusto. Do it often- wherever you can and whenever you can…

• “Rehearse your talk from beginning to end when you have your ideas firmly in your mind. Do it silently, mentally, as you walk the street, wait for cars and lifts. Get off in a roo by yourself and go over it aloud, gesturing, saying it with life and energy. AS you practice, imagine there is a real audience before you. Imagine it so strongly that when there is one, it will seem like an old experience.”
• Practice- that is the simple truth to making rapid progress with self-confidence in speech-giving

CULTIVATE YOUR MEMORY:

• Memory is impression, repetition and association.
• Get a deep, vivid and lasting impression of the thing you want to retain- concentrate on the subject matter
• Say it out loud, familiarise yourself with it, draw images or write notes. Be immersed in it.
• Remember things through pictures- it sticks in the human mind.
• Through repetitive actions of application (talking about it, saying it out loud, writing down words or drawing pictures about it), you will remember it
• Make natural associations, this will help solidify ideas in our brain
• Sit and learn and read for 15 minutes without breaking concentration, and then move on- your brain will lose its freshness to retain more
• “Psychological experiments have repeatedly shown that of the new material we have learned, we forget more during the first eight hours than during the next thirty days. An amazing ratio! So, immediately before a business conference or speech, look over the data, think over your facts and refresh your memory.”
• Of the two men with the same outward experiences, the one who thinks over the same experiences the most and weaves them into the most systematic relations with each other, will be the one with the best memory.

MISCELLANEOUS TIPS:

• Have elaborate notes, but only use them in an emergency. You will speak better without them, just reference them to anchor you to a larger thought (do NOT memorise). If you have them, make them brief in large letters using as much paper you need- glance at them if you must, but try not to make it obvious to the audience that you have them in the first place
• Don’t make disclaimers that your speech will be bad- no-one wants to hear that!
• Don’t memorise. It’s unnatural and if you lose your place or something happens to your notes, you’ll be flustered.
• Remember dates by linking them to dates of other things (2021 was the year Sanjana got into BSchool- it was also the year we got the COVID-19 vaccine…)
• If you suddenly forget, you can buy your time by checking if the audience can hear you properly. By doing so, you can regain your poise and continue on. Another trick is using the last sentence or word and creating a new sentence with it, whatever it may be. This will not add much value but it will buy time- you can do this endlessly, though you shoudn’t 🙂
• Stress important words, subdue unimportant ones.
• Change pitch when needed
• Vary rate of speaking
• Pause before and after important ideas
• Be rested so you can be your best, most relaxed self when you go up before an audience
• Don’t eat too much before you speak because you’ll get sleepy
• Do whatever it takes to maintain your vitality, aliveness, enthusiasm- people will be attracted to your energy
• Be groomed- care about how you look and make sure you dress well- people will remember the things out of place, so if you are well-groomed they can focus on what you have to say
• Don’t play around with your dress- it shows weakness. Be poised and don’t let your audience get distracted by small movements, it shows your nerves.
• Don’t hurry to start. Be relaxed, hold your chest high. If you do this in private, you will naturally do it in public.
• Smile!!!!
• If you can control it, have your audience be concentrated in one area- wide spaces dissipates enthusiasm. If the audience is clustered in a group they will become the group- they will lose their sense of individuality and have a collective feeling towards the areas of action. Huddle them together if you can- crowds are an incredible phenomenon and it is in your best interest to appeal to the crowd mentality to win the collective on your ideas.
• Be on the same level- if you can, don’t be on a platform
• Keep air fresh- open a window if you can, and flood the room with lights.
• Keep the set minimal and de-clutter the speaking area- let them focus on and see you. Don’t have anyone walking around near you or doing anything else- this will DEFINITELY distract your audience.

HOW TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN THIS ENDEAVOUR- PRIME YOUR MINDSET:

• Use any free moment for this pursuit- to learn more about a topic by reading, speak to people about the topic, form patterns through reflection of the subject matter or practice your speeches. There are so many hidden pockets of the day you don’t realise you can use for this purpose. It will make a difference.
• Be patient with the process and your growth. It happens in fits and starts as with any new endeavour
• If you persevere, you’ll succeed and it’ll make you confident that you’ve eradicated a fear. Move with that goal in mind.
• Success is the result of native ability and the depth and strength of your desire. Confidence in speech-giving doesn’t require any magical native ability- it is within all humans to achieve it.
• Attack your weaknesses with gusto. Think success and have a winning, growth mindset. Believe it is easy, believe you will succeed. You will have a renewed sense of faith in your ability to achieve.
• Live your life with passion and excitement, don’t be afraid of being misunderstood and thinking about what other people think. Think clearly about what you want to do and try to find as straight a line as you can to get there. The mindset is absolutely everything- the rest are details.
• Be natural. Speak and gesture to show your own unique intensity, passion and individuality. Cling to your individuality and embrace and develop it!
• It takes practice to be natural in front of audiences. It will take time but it will happen. Remind yourself to be human during the process- it is ultimately a communication, a conversation with the audience.
• Personality contributes more to business success than does superior intelligence
• Personality + Preparation = Successful speech
• Read more. This will improve your eloquence and vocabulary. People will recognise and celebrate it.
• Read at any point in the day- in all those stolen moments waiting around.
• Strive to say precisely what you mean, to express the most delicate nuances of thought. That is not always easy- not even for experienced writers.

SUMMARY OF SPEECH-GIVING: A good speech is…

• Delivered by a hard-working, interested and passionate speaker
• Has a brief but intriguing beginning
• Is not memorised, but flows from one idea to the next, where these ideas present the speaker’s freshness, individuality and unique ‘expertise’ on the subject area
• Appeals to the audience’s interests and utilises pictures and comparisons they would understand
• Doesn’t dawdle
• Has a summary of the key points at the end
• Finishes with a lasting impact and compelling call to action