[patio11]

I will say this in the spirit of somebody who started competitive public speaking as therapy to overcome a speech disorder which would have been virtually disabling professionally: you can hack your way through hesitation noises. A lot of the HN comments suggesting practical ways to do so would be effective. ("Speak slower" and "Use the air gap for a dramatic pause" are my two favorites.) Practice plus directed effort will very quickly make this not a problem for you. It is totally not a given that you will revert to habit when not paying attention, when speaking off the cuff, or when saying interesting and important things. You just need to get into a new, successful habit, just like you long ago cultivated a habit of e.g. not spelling words wrongly.

(n.b. I have issues with hesitation noises myself occasionally. When I have the opportunity I watch / listen to tapes of myself, count influencies, and avoid things that cause that number to spike, because improving on this is a priority for me. For example, the worst I ever did last year -- TwilioConf -- had 1/20th the incidence of my typical performance in middle school, and on good days you wouldn't be able to tell I'd actually struggled with this.)

[P.S. This is going to sound a little fluffy but it is absolutely true: one of the first steps is to stop saying "I am not a good public speaker" and start saying "Some of the speeches I have delivered have had a lot of umms in them", because that identifies a specific issue which can be fixed by an identifiable behavioral change, rather than solidifying an identity around features of past speeches you may have made.]

[tobtoh]

I second this. I used to um and ahh very badly and I started debating in school partly to try and stop myself doing this. I had a teacher use one of the most amazingly effective techniques to help me - she filmed me once as I read my prepared debate 'speech' (filled with ums and ahhs), and then filmed me a second time, this time telling me to consciously be aware of the umming and pause before I did, gather my thoughts and then continue talking.

Watching the first video, I could see how distracting the ums and ahhs were. Watching the second video gave me a stunning insight. What felt like years standing silent as I struggled to suppress the um and continue my speech, actually came across as measured pauses. Not only did the pauses almost always appear 'normal', but they also made it easier to understand the points I was making.

In that one 15 minute session with my teacher, I became comfortable with pausing and that was the starting point for a dramatic decline in my umming.

[patio11]

This is about as close to a pure speech hack as I'm aware of, by the way. It makes you immediately, perceptibly better, and even if I told you "Here's a video of me talking. Hit a buzzer when I'm buffering" you'd miss most of them because they read as dramatic emphasis to the audience. (The umms, stammers, and verbal disfluencies, on the other hand, are instantly perceptible.)

As long as we're on the subject of hacks: pick three people in the audience: one on the left, one in the right, and one a bit off center in the middle. Always make eye contact with them when you are speaking. Rotate every couple of sentences. BAM, perceived confidence goes way up.

[pja]

[P.S. This is going to sound a little fluffy but it is absolutely true: one of the first steps is to stop saying "I am not a good public speaker" and start saying "Some of the speeches I have delivered have had a lot of umms in them", because that identifies a specific issue which can be fixed by an identifiable behavioral change, rather than solidifying an identity around features of past speeches you may have made.]

Not fluffy at all: this is a core part of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) & it's very powerful.

[nodemaker]

>stop saying "I am not a good public speaker" and start saying "Some of the speeches I have delivered have had a lot of umms in them"

Totally agree.

One thing that I have observed in many social activities especially public speaking and sports is that how good you are heavily depends upon how good you think you are.

Interestingly perhaps the converse is true with respect to creative (non-social) activities like writing and programming.

[dennisgorelik]

I talk on Skype with my customers a lot (it has a phone number). Few months ago I installed MP3 Skype recorder plugin, so now all my conversations automatically recorded.

It definitely helps to listen to these conversations and fix umms/ehs, incorrect pronunciation (Russian accent) etc.