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Good Jobs #73: Public speaking

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Good Jobs #73: Public speaking

You want me to talk coherently for 20 minutes in front of all these people? Yeah... nah.

Sep 30, 2022
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Good Jobs #73: Public speaking

www.goodjobs.report
Photo by Bogomil Mihaylov

In both high school and college I took public speaking classes. Not by choice.

Stand up in front of a room of 28 strangers and give a contrived speech on some famous person or a personal hobby for 10, 15, even 20 minutes. Truly miserable.

The thing is, I knew I wasn’t a great public speaker. I also knew that format wasn’t making me any better at public speaking.

Fast forward to 2016. I just started a new job. A couple of coworkers are joining an improv 101 course. I sign up mostly because I like the idea of making people laugh.

The “funny” part of improv is in fact just part of it. The instructor, Sean Hancock, taught me about storytelling, taking my time, listening, responding, and not overthinking things. It was a blast.

Fast forward (again) to 2022. I’ve now been doing improv for 6 years, taken multiple classes, performed in dozens of shows in front of hundreds of people. I’ve given presentations to executives at big uppity companies and spoken at conferences and meetups.

Am I an amazing public speaker? No, but I’m way better than I was a decade ago and I’m not as scared of it anymore.

To summarize:

  1. There is more than one way to get better at something

  2. You should try improv

Thank you for coming to my TED talk,

Loren Morris

P.S. The 1st annual Boise Improv Week is happening in a couple week. I’m running a session on Tuesday 10/11. You should come. It’s free. Sign up here

Schedule for Boise Improv Week

DEV

Senior Software Engineer at Slack

Remote | Full-time

DevOps Engineer at Scentsy

Meridian | Full-time

iOS Software Engineer at Square

Remote | Full-time

Network Engineer at Boise State University

Boise | Full-time | Salary: $89K

Network Security Engineer at Simplot

Boise or remote | Full-time | Salary: $95–110K

Engineer at LEGO

Denmark | Full-time


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PRODUCT, DESIGN, RESEARCH

Design Manager at Code for America

Remote | Full-time | Salary: $128–157K

Senior Product Manager at Khan Academy

Remote | Full-time

Designer at Discourse

Remote | Full-time

Senior Product Manager at Vacasa

Boise | Full-time | Salary: $125–145K

From last time: Product Designer at Stripe

Remote | Full-time


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SALES, CX, MARKETING

Sales Representative at ConvertKit

Remote | Contract | Pay: ~$118K

Still hiring: Business Journalist at TextExpander

Remote | Full-time


ZEN

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Good Jobs #73: Public speaking

www.goodjobs.report
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