Why some people seem to be Gifted at Public Speaking 

We have all seen them. Those people who just seem to be able to open their mouths and speak with great confidence and eloquence. Those people who share powerful stories that grip the soul of the listeners and get them to take action. Those people who seem to have the audience in the palm of their hands. 

Those people are the ones who make it seem like they have the gift. Like there are some magical qualities they were born with that makes it easy for them to succeed. These are the ones we would look at as ‘naturals’ at public speaking. 

But why is this so? What causes a person to seem so gifted or ‘a natural’ when speaking? How did they get like this? And can I use this knowledge to my advantage to help me become a better public speaker?

Having spent some time thinking about why some people appear to be ‘naturals’ or ‘gifted’ when it comes to public speaking, here are my observations on how they came to be like that.

Reasons why people appear to be gifted public speakers

1. Giftedness or natural talent - It does seem, from my observations, that there are definitely some people who do seem to have a gift for Public Speaking. It comes with ease, and they haven’t had to work hard to become good at it. They just naturally excel. Maybe it’s a talent, or maybe if they are a Christian it’s a spiritual gift that supports the calling that God has given them (a Pastor or Teacher, for example). I won’t delve any deeper here into the difference between a talent and a spiritual gift, but an excellent article on the topic can be found here.

I think though, that we greatly overestimate how many people actually fall into this first category. There are very few people like this. The vast majority of exceptional speakers would deny that they were born gifted, but instead point to other reasons for their speaking abilities.

2. Positive early experiences - I have previously written about this in the article here, so I won’t go too deep into this, but early positive speaking experiences are a key contributor to people becoming good speakers. In short, positive experiences lead to the desire for these experiences to be repeated again, and so by virtue of the fact that people have plenty of practice as they are growing up, they become quite competent speakers. To become exceptional, a person would need to take their learning and practice further, but positive early experiences certainly help the cause.

3. A supportive environment for success - A third factor, closely linked to the previous point, is a supportive environment conducive to learning public speaking skills. This all starts with parents or care-givers who build a strong sense of identity and self-worth into a child. Couple this with a commitment to raise their child to try new things, and an encouragement to get back up when they fail and fall down, and you have the makings of someone who is going to succeed at a lot of things in life. Then, if public speaking is made an area of priority learning, it is developed far easier, compared to the person who didn’t have the same supportive environment growing up. I think about my 5-year old son William. He loves public speaking (for him, this means standing in front of the class at school and sharing news.) I think about his journey and what has contributed to his eagerness. He has been exposed to public speaking from an early age, having been part of a church environment where I was often on stage speaking, and he was in close proximity to this. (See this cute clip.) 

4. Hard work and diligent practice - Finally, the last reason why people appear to be ‘natural’ public speakers is because they have worked really hard at developing their skills to improve and grow in this area. Many great communicators would say this is the secret to their great speaking success. They have just worked really hard at becoming better. I have previously written about how public speaking is a learnable skill, and the people who truly embrace this concept and get to work can see significant improvements in their performances. There are certain skills that can be acquired by reading books and learning from others, but the most beneficial work you can put in to become a better speaker is to have opportunities to speak and to practice the craft. Then, if you couple that with some coaching and feedback, and a continual refinement as you practice, your growth can become quite extraordinary.

So there you have it. Hopefully this article has demystified the reasons why some people appear like they are gifted speakers, and instead has given you some encouragement to know that you can grow to become an exceptional speaker. 

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