week 11. public speaking. done.

this week: 100 people, no slides, 30 minutes at Italy Nomad Fest in Palermo.

so here's what happened.

the talk

I walked on stage with nothing. no clicker, no notes, AND a pink guitar.

just the story of a guy who woke up one day and decided to learn 53 skills in 52 weeks and the positive impact of that decision.

and something clicked.

the moment I stopped trying to teach and started just telling a story.

it was the best talk I've ever given. and i've never been LESS prepared on paper.

BUT the talk isn't what people will remember.

after 30 minutes of storytelling, i did something risky. I picked up the guitar.

a skill we learned in week 6 of this project if you remember, and I got the entire room to sing “Stand by me” :)

not a presentation. not a networking moment. a human moment. strangers sitting together, making noise, laughing, connected by something that no slide deck or bullet point could ever create.

that moment is the entire thesis of 53skills in one scene.

The unusual lesson: skills compound

I went into this week thinking public speaking was about delivery. pacing. eye contact. structure. and those things matter.

but the thing that made the biggest impact wasn't a speaking technique. it was a guitar i learned to play 5 weeks ago.

skills don't just add up. they multiply each other.

the guitar made the speaker more interesting. the speaking skills gave me the confidence to pull out a guitar in front of 100 strangers. neither would have worked alone.

this is what most people miss. they think about skills in isolation. "i want to learn guitar." "i want to get better at speaking." but the magic is in the overlap. the compound effect.

10 weeks in, my skills are starting to combine with each other. and that changes everything.

the #1 thing I learned about public speaking

stories beat information. every single time.

I used to think a good talk meant sharing useful data, frameworks, and takeaways. giving people "value."

But value isn't information. information is free in the age of AI. it's everywhere. your audience can google anything you're about to say.

what they can't google is your story. the specific, embarrassing, honest version of what happened to you and what it changed. that's what holds a room.

if you have a talk coming up, a pitch, a job interview, anything where you need people to actually listen, start with a story. not a fact. not a statistic. a moment. something that happened to you.

something true. then build from there.

3 tactical takeaways from this week

1. ditch the slides if you can. slides split attention. the audience is reading your screen instead of reading your face. if your content can live without slides, ditch them. you'll connect 10x better.

2. rehearse the structure, not the words. I practiced the arc of my talk but the skeleton, not a script. the audience can feel the difference between memorized and real.

3. pause is a secret weapon. when i said something that mattered, i stopped talking. just for 2 or 3 seconds. the silence felt eternal to me. to the audience, it felt like confidence. the pause gives your words room to land.

your turn: pick week 12

i want you to choose what i learn next. three options. all of them scare me in different ways.

reply with A, B, or C:

A — woodworking. build a chair from scratch in 7 days. physical. tangible. a skill from a world before screens.

B — magic tricks. learn to create moments of wonder and be memorable

C — comedy. the skill of making people laugh on purpose. the hardest and most vulnerable form of connection there is.

reply with one letter or your idea, you decide what I suffer through next week :)

Here is also the master resource I built with NotebookLM from Google to help you with public speaking:

»»» HERE «««

Proof:

If you missed the previous weeks and unusual lessons, check them out HERE:

Reply to this email with all your questions, comments, or tips, I will answer.

Or share with friends who want to join and grow.

- Alex