WordPress Creator Matt Mullenweg Gives Tips on Public Speaking

I enjoyed watching a video recently from WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg, in which he gave some great public speaking tips. Along with breathing and knowing your topic inside and out, Mullenweg says that one of the best tips he received was to remember that people are there to see you do well. “If you mess up… [the audience is] gonna laugh right along with you, they’re not laughing at you,” he says. That connection with the audience provides him with the energy to keep going, and it removes a lot of his nervousness about making mistakes, “’cause if you mess up, it’s not bad.”

I really think this is a great tip, because the audience sees you as the expert, and they’re interested in what you have to say. They’re probably glad that they’re not up in front, and will be sympathetic of tongue twisters, technical glitches and other fumbles, as long as you keep your sense of humour too. Showing a little bit of your human side can create a bond with the audience, as long as it doesn’t stop you from giving great content.

Mullenweg is the 25 year old founder of Automattic, the company behind the open-source blogging tool WordPress and a handful of other software projects. He travels the world giving frequent presentations to the many users of WordPress, when he’s not coding enhancements to the blogging software. He says he receives the most positive comments when he presents while feeling relaxed, and because he’s lived and breathed WordPress for seven years, he certainly doesn’t have any trouble talking passionately for hours about his favourite topic.

Watch the video here. It’s just over a minute long

Ben Wilson wrote this post from his small room in his small house near the ocean. If you enjoyed this, you might like to sign up for his free communication tips. The newsletter also has less talking in third person.