Don’t Let Overconfidence Keep You From Connecting With Your Audience

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We are all above average. At least, the studies show that most of us think we are above average. This psychological marvel, known as “illusory superiority,” shows up in a wide variety of human activities, including driving ability, health, memory, and IQ. In fact, 93 percent of us think we are above-average drivers.

I’m assuming that you recall enough high-school math to know that we can’t all be that good. Alas, we are more average than we think.

For speakers, this feeling of superiority is particularly dangerous, because adrenaline heightens certain of our sensory responses, leading to above-average feelings of exultation when we’re done. The sweet feelings of relief to be off the stage start to combine with our adrenaline to give us a post-speech buzz that makes the whole experience feel more significant to us than it possibly could to the audience.

One of my first speech assignments as a Governor’s speechwriter at the start of my career was to a group of farmers in the southern part of the state. I was very excited for the speech (in a second-hand way) and after it was done, I went buzzing up to audience members to poll them on their feelings. The very first person I talked to gave me a cold dose of reality in response to my excited questions about this or that policy point…