In his first Democratic Presidential debate in 2019, Andrew Yang talked fast. I mean really fast. 7.2 wds per second fast. Wanna see how fast? This fast:
The debate performance didn’t go so well.
So his campaign engaged GK founder Michael Chad Hoeppner to coach the candidate.
Over the next two weeks they broke down how rate of speech actually works. Telling someone to “Slow Down” is not just worthless, it’s actually harmful. That instruction only puts the speaker’s focus on two places: THEMSELVES (rather than the voters!) and the THING THEY ARE BAD AT (speaking more slowly). Anyone who has ever tried to stop thinking about that terrible mistake you made that cost you everything and robbed you of your dreams can relate to this wisdom:
So instead they examined:
- What determines speed:
- It’s the amount of T I M E speakers take withinnnnnnnn wordzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
- It’s the pauses in between words.
- It’s the power and specificity of arTiCuLatioN and ENuNciatioN
- What the costs of rapid speech are, in terms of audience impression and comprehension.
Most of all, they used GK Training’s suite of kinesthetic learning tools to rely on embodied cognition to learn how to speak more slowly in a physical and repeatable way, using drills like this: