This week I watched the talk by Dan Gilbert called The Surprising Science of Happiness. I learned that the happiness was not what people usually think it was. Dan explains that when people don’t get what they want, we make up our own “synthetic” kind of happiness. We might think that the synthetic happiness we create is of an inferior kind of happiness, however Dan shows from his studies that people are truly happy with the choice they’re given. Therefore, Dan explains that being able make free choices is overrated.

These are what I noticed from his style of public speaking.

Stories allow people to follow the talk better

Dan tells a number of stories in his talk, most from his findings in his studies. That is a great way to engage the audience and making his points memorable.

Adding liveliness to talks with funny voices

Dan is very good at keeping the audience engaged by his funny sounds adding to tell his stories.

What other qualities do you think Dan has? What would you suggest Dan to do to make his talk better?