Would you like to know how to become a more confident speaker faster?
Many speakers struggle with slow progress, long gaps between speeches, and lingering anxiety. The cycle repeats: a speech is delivered, adrenaline spikes, nerves take over, and afterwards, there’s a crash—often followed by avoidance.
But what if there was a way to accelerate growth, build confidence faster, and make public speaking feel second nature?
The answer lies in ultra-learning—an intense, high-repetition, feedback-driven approach to skill mastery. By applying ultra-learning principles to Toastmasters, years of progress can be compressed into months, and speaking skills can be transformed exponentially.
What Is Ultra-Learning?
Ultra-learning, as Scott Young defines it in Ultra-Learning: Accelerate Your Career, Master Hard Skills, and Outsmart the Competition, is a self-directed, aggressive, and strategic approach to mastering complex skills quickly. It focuses on immersion, high-frequency practice, and rapid feedback to accelerate skill acquisition.
Key ultra-learning principles include:
- Meta-learning – Learning from others. By Observing speakers we admire, we learn a lot by imbibing their skills.
- Focus—Awareness of what we want to speak and why we want to speak. This awareness helps us focus on gathering specific knowledge on the topics we want to discuss.
- Directness: Learn by doing. The fastest way to improve public speaking is to speak—frequently and under actual conditions.
- Rapid Feedback: Frequent evaluations provide immediate, actionable insights for improvement.
- Drill and Experimentation: Every speech should test a new technique—delivery, storytelling, technical tools, or audience engagement.
- Repetition and Retrieval: Repeated exposure under pressure makes skills stick and reduces performance anxiety.
Instead of practising in isolation or making slow, incremental progress, ultra-learning compresses the learning curve through intense, deliberate effort.
Ultra-Learning in Action: A Toastmasters Success Story
Toastmasters offers the perfect environment for ultra-learning because it combines structured learning, real-world practice, and immediate feedback.
One of the most compelling examples of ultra-learning applied to public speaking is Tristan de Montebello. When he started, he had almost no experience in public speaking. But instead of taking a slow, traditional learning path, he immersed himself fully, speaking as often as possible, seeking aggressive feedback, and analyzing his performances. Through this ultra-learning approach, he became a finalist at the 2017 Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking in just seven months.
Similarly, I unknowingly applied many of the same ultra-learning principles in Toastmasters. Instead of speaking occasionally, I made radical decisions. I joined eight Toastmasters clubs and made sure to speak every day. Doing so, I delivered 48 speeches in one year and completed 11 Pathways levels. I also visited over 50 Toastmasters clubs and provided dozens of evaluations.
This level of immersion forced me to adapt quickly. The fear and nervous energy that once drained me had no time to take hold. Speaking became a daily practice, not a high-stakes event.
Tristan’s success, alongside my own experience, reinforces a powerful truth that becoming a member of Toastmasters is an ideal testing ground for ultra-learning, and those who embrace it can fast-track their progress.
Embracing Growth: Transforming Fear Into Speaking Mastery
One of the biggest barriers to improvement is infrequent practice. Most Toastmasters members give speeches only once every few weeks, leaving too much time for fear to build up between speeches.
Increase Speaking Reps to Reduce Fear: The nervous system adapts faster when speaking opportunities are increased through multiple clubs, additional roles, or frequent practice. Repetition reduces fear, and speaking often normalizes what once felt daunting.
Turn Every Speech into an Experiment: You can turn every speech into an experience. See it as an opportunity to refine your skills by making each speech a controlled experiment. By testing one of these elements per speech, you will see your progress compound.
- Technical mastery: Experiment with microphones, clickers, Zoom features, PowerPoint, or Canva.
- Delivery techniques: Adjust vocal variety, pacing, gestures, and eye contact.
- Storytelling refinement: Test different hooks, narrative structures, and emotional pacing.
- Audience Engagement: Play with rhetorical questions, humour, and interactive elements.
Master Evaluations to Refine Speaking Instincts: The ability to give high-quality evaluations directly improves speaking skills. Evaluating others trains the brain to recognize patterns, analyze structure, and understand what makes a speech effective. A strong evaluator doesn’t just identify what worked and what didn’t—they can pinpoint the gap and offer actionable insights. The more refined the evaluation skills, the sharper the speaking instincts become.
Embrace Discomfort: Growth happens outside of the comfort zone. Ultra-learning requires a willingness to lean into discomfort. Instead of avoiding nerves, the goal is to increase exposure until fear fades. This is the core shift: speakers build confidence through repeated exposure instead of waiting for confidence to appear.
The Exponential Growth Effect of Ultra-Learning
Applying ultra-learning to public speaking leads to exponential improvement:
✅ Fear fades. Speaking becomes a habit, not an event.
✅ Skills compound. Rapid iteration leads to faster mastery.
✅ Confidence skyrockets. Repetition removes uncertainty.
✅ Speechwriting becomes effortless. Frequent practice sharpens preparation skills.
Most importantly, public speaking stops feeling like a high-stakes performance and starts feeling like a natural, repeatable skill.
How to Apply Ultra-Learning in Toastmasters
To accelerate speaking growth, integrate ultra-learning principles into Toastmasters:
✅ Try to learn the skills from speakers who inspire you. Their methods will help you map what is needed to become a successful speaker.
✅ Read a lot about the topic you want to speak. Knowledge about the topic gives you confidence.
✅ Increase Reps: Speak more, join multiple clubs, take on more roles, and shorten gaps between speeches.
✅ Experiment Relentlessly: Every speech should introduce a new skill or technique.
✅ Master Evaluations: Learn to analyze, deconstruct, and improve speeches.
✅ Seek Frequent Feedback: Visit different clubs, work with mentors, and refine based on diverse perspectives.
✅ Stay in Motion: Don’t let fear stall progress. Keep speaking, keep iterating, and keep improving.
Toastmasters is already designed to support growth, but ultra-learning supercharges the process.
Final Thoughts: The Ultra-Learning Mindset
Confidence doesn’t come from waiting until you’re ready—it comes from action. The fastest way to improve as a speaker is to remove the waiting, increase the reps, and experiment relentlessly.
Ask yourself:
➡️ What if you doubled your speaking opportunities?
➡️ What if every speech was a deliberate experiment, not just another speech?
➡️ What if you treated evaluations as a masterclass in great speaking?
Ultra-learning in Toastmasters isn’t just about improving—it’s about transforming your speaking ability in record time. Choose courage over comfort, and watch what happens next.
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About the Author
Traca Savadogo is a member of the Balboa Park Toastmasters and Managers Meet Toastmasters clubs. She is a professional speaker specializing in neuroscience and connection. She is pursuing the Accredited Speaker designation through Toastmasters and shares her expertise with audiences worldwide. Her TEDx talk, Why You Should Regularly Talk with Strangers, has been featured on TED.com, translated into 15 languages, and continues to inspire global audiences.