Why most public speaking advice is wrong—and how to finally overcome your speaking anxiety | Tristan de Montebello (CEO & co-founder of Ultraspeaking)

**Tristan de Montebello** (0:00)
People tend to get into a public speaking voice. We'll be in a class, and they'll be chatting normally and look super normal, and then we'll say, okay, now just a timer, I'm just gonna give you a speech, just speak for 60 seconds so we get a baseline. And I click play, and suddenly they say, the important part about doing this, and they enter into a different version of themselves, a professional version, whatever that would mean. It's so much more freeing, powerful, connecting, and effective to speak conversationally. So, the cue I often give people is...

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:36)
Today, my guest is Tristan de Montebello. Tristan is the co-creator of Ultraspeaking, which is the best public speaking workshop I have ever come across. In 2017, Tristan became the fastest competitor to reach the finals of the World Championship of Public Speaking, and based on that experience, built a very unique course that helps you quickly build the skills to become better speaker, and to become more comfortable speaking in public, and especially speaking on the spot. I like to spend time on this topic on this podcast because becoming a better speaker is such an accelerant of your professional life, and in this episode, we delve into a bunch of tactics and also misconceptions about how to become a better speaker, and to make it even more fun and interesting, we go through a few of the exercises that Tristan and his team have developed live on the podcast. He goes through them, I go through them. It was a lot of fun. I'm excited to hear what you think. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes, and it helps the podcast tremendously. With that, I bring you Tristan de Montebello.
Tristan, thank you so much for joining me. Welcome to the podcast.

**Tristan de Montebello** (1:49)
Thanks so much for having me.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (1:51)
So I took an abridged version of this speaking course that you teach called Ultraspeaking, and it immediately made me feel more comfortable public speaking, which I have never felt doing any other course. Public speaking is something I just like is very scary to me, as it is for a lot of people, but it's just something I really dread. Like even doing these podcast episodes, every time I get nervous before doing these things, as much as it may not seem that way. So this is not my natural habitat, speaking, being in public. Like it may not seem that way to people, but it's true. And the way you approach this stuff is so unique, and worked for me. And because of that, I thought it'd be awesome to just bring on this podcast and basically try to teach people the stuff that you've learned about how to become a better public speaker. I know we're not going to do your course here, but just like what are some very tactical things people can immediately start to apply? And also, I want to make this super interactive, so actually do some of the exercises that you use in your class. So that's where we're here for, how does that sound?

**Tristan de Montebello** (2:53)
That sounds exciting. I'm in.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (2:56)
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