PUBLICATIONS

5 TIPS FOR THE PERFECT SPEECH.

Did you know that we judge whether you’re worth listening to within the first 20 seconds you speak?

Want to know how you can capture and captivate us, so we act on and remember your message? Then read on.

If you think we listen to what you say, because you’re right about what you say – you’re dead wrong.

We listen – really listen – when your message is personal and you show who you are.

When you are authentic and you can prove that you act on what you promise.

When you are honest and you show what you have at stake.

THE MESSAGE WE REMEMBER.

There is nothing more compelling, indeed nothing we remember so well, than when we listen to you knowing who you are, because then you always have something to say – to the rest of us.

The message we always remember is the message that has a built-in truth that hits home in both the brain and the heart: like when Michelle Obama said “If they go low – we go high!”

It may sound like a clever quote – but Michelle Obama made a whole world stop, because she came up with an answer no one else had when the world went Trump last year. And we remember what her message is, and automatically get the need to act on it.

SELF ABSORBED OR AUDIENCE ABSORBED?

If we’re going to hit the mark with the message we are sending, we need to stop worrying about ourselves. Self absorbation is:

How can I seem smart and clever and funny and really put them down?

No, be absorbed with your audience, and answer this question:

What is the most important truth I can bring right now?

As an audience, we don’t need to agree or be solely entertained – first and foremost we need to believe you.

We can’t believe you when you don’t connect well with your listeners, when your voice is strained, when your words are stilted. Ask yourself if you would say things this way to your family, to your neighbour, to your colleague? If not, then why to the audience you are facing?

Therefore: always start by introducing your subject, with a real life case story, an example everyone can identify with.

Then: tell us what you yourself have at stake, what dilemmas you are facing, and why you are committed to what you are talking about?

Think through carefully what universal message-what truth-is so important to you that the rest of us can become genuinely interested?

LET THE TRUTH SHINE THROUGH

If your enthusiasm and belief in your message shines through, then from within it comes as something quite natural, and you show your charisma. That is what’s makes us follow you.

That rushing feeling in your body when you’ve hit the nail on the head. Wow! There is nothing better.

SENDING A MESSAGE THAT IS NOT PERSONAL

Yes, but what about when I’ve been asked – from an employer typically- to deliver a message I don’t believe in?– you ask. Then you find what is the truth for you in what you have to talk about- it’s that simple.

5 TIPS FOR DELIVERING A MESSAGE:

1: Make it personal – tap into yourself.

I have a dream that one day my children….said Martin Luther King, changing America forever, and we still get goosebumps more than 50 years later.

Talk about your own background, your own experiences, your own thoughts when writing your speech. What do YOU have at stake?

2: Be inspiring.

Be open to change, but don’t compromise your values says the Dalai Lama, helping us through the experience of futility as another wave of change washes over us.

What can you speak to that your audience has in common?

3: Set a transformatively ambitious goal

Volvo decided to work towards a future goal called: no one should die in a Volvo car.

That’s how much the carmaker is risking to stick to what it’s known for: the world’s safest car.

What moonshot do you dare to go after that makes the rest of us want to follow you?

4: Be honest – how do you feel?

I enjoy the art where you feel your mind is being expanded. It’s a shame when something only becomes provocative. 

When was the last time you were honest about what you really believe in? Even if you are employed and therefore professionally loyal. Loyalty is not agreeing with everybody in your company. Loyalty is standing up for what you are hired to do, and doing it with integrity.

5: Cut to the chase – what should we remember?

It always seem impossible until it is done said the great leader Nelson Mandela, reminding us that we need something that lifts us up, and makes us believe we have options, have a way forward. Or as the Obama campaign said: YES WE CAN.

So remember to lift us up before you leave with your message, because then you will get us to follow and remember you.