Public Speaking Tip # 29 Ask yourself this question

TRANSCRIPT; Before you start preparing your public speech you need to ask yourself this. What do I want to achieve by giving my talk and what message do I want the audience to takeaway. Without having those concepts in your mind preparing your speech will be like setting off in your car without knowing your destination - you drive around aimlessly looking for someplace you’re not sure about. Likewise not knowing what you want to achieve will lead to a meandering talk with no impact or purpose and a very frustrated and confused audience Once you have decided on the purpose and outcome of your speech you can start building the infrastructure for a compelling and passionate talk. Remember you are at the wheel taking your audience either on a Magical mystery tour or a tour of enlightenment which one is is up to you. If an audience has been good enough to give you their precious time make sure you respect them by giving the best talk possible and that can’t happen without a lot of research and hours of practice. It was Mark Twain who said if you want me to speak for an hour I’m ready today. If you want me to speak for just a few minutes it will take me a few weeks to prepare. Abraham Lincoln once said he had no time to deliver a 5 minute speech but he could go and speak for an hour at any time. The theme being, given time we can all relate a story or build an argument but to do it in a short space time requires discipline to distill the facts ,sifting the wheat from the chaff so a short speech will contain all the ingredients of a long speech but in a more powerful compact package. Preparing a speech is a skill in itself.