Introduction: We’ve All Gotta Talk

Would you rather jump out of an airplane without a parachute or sit next to someone you’ve never met before at a dinner party?

If your answer is 1, don’t feel bad. You’ve got a lot of company. Even though talking is something we do every day, there are lots of situations where it can be difficult and situations where we could do it better. The road to success, whether it’s social or professional, is paved with talk. If you’re not confident as a talker, the road can be bumpy.

That’s why I’ve written this book—to make it smoother. I’ve been talking for a living for thirty-seven years, and on my radio and TV shows I’ve had conversations with people from Mikhail Gorbachev to Michael Jordan. I also regularly give speeches to groups that range from sheriffs to storm-door salesmen. In the following pages I’ll tell you what I have learned about how to talk, whether you’re speaking to one person or a hundred.

To me, talk is one of the great pleasures of life, something I’ve always loved to do. One of my first memories of growing up in Brooklyn is standing on the corner of Eighty-sixth Street and Bay Parkway and announcing the makes of cars driving by. I was seven years old. My pals called me "the Mouthpiece." I’ve been talking ever since.

My best friend from those years, Herb Cohen (who is still my best friend), tells people about how I used to root for the Dodgers at Ebbets Field. I’d sit in the bleachers by myself, roll up my scorecard, and "broadcast" the game. Then I’d come home and tell my pals everything—and I do mean everything—about the game. Herb still tells people, "If Larry went to a game at Ebbets Field and the game lasted two hours and ten minutes, so did Larry’s description of it." It figures that Herbie and I met each other for the first time in the principal’s office when we were ten. I walked in and there he was. Today we can’t really remember why we were sent there—but talking in class would be a good bet for both of us.

But as much as I enjoy talking, I know why people can be uncomfortable with it. There’s the fear of saying the wrong thing, or saying the right thing in the wrong way. As one writer put it, "It is better to remain silent and be presumed a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." When you’re talking to a stranger, or to a lot of other people at once, the fear is magnified.

I hope this book will help take away that fear. One thing I’ve learned is that there’s nobody you can’t talk to, if you have the right attitude. After reading this book, you should be able to approach any conversation with confidence, and you’ll know how to get your message across effectively in a professional setting. You’ll be talking better and enjoying it more.

The chapters here cover the waterfront, with tips and real-life examples that cover talking in a variety of situations, from your cousin’s wedding to a black-tie dinner party to a speech to the PTA. I’ll tell you what you can learn from the guests I have talked to on the air and how you can use my own lessons—you’ll see that some of them came the hard way—to help you.

Talk is the most essential form of human communication, the one that distinguishes us as a species. In fact, it’s been estimated the average person speaks eighteen thousand words a day, and I don’t doubt that figure at all. (It’s probably more in my case.) So why not develop our skills to become the best talkers we can be? Let’s start right now. Just turn the page.

Hey, Herbie, listen up!

Larry King