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Your number-one mission as a speaker is to take something that matters deeply to you and to rebuild it inside the minds of your listeners.
The only thing that truly matters in public speaking is not confidence, stage presence, or smooth talking. It’s having something worth saying.
You can only use the tools that your audience has access to.
A good exercise is to try to encapsulate your throughline in no more than fifteen words. And those fifteen words need to provide robust content. It’s not enough to think of your goal as, “I want to inspire the audience” or “I want to win support for my work.” It has to be more focused than that. What is the precise idea you want to build inside your listeners? What is their takeaway?
You will only cover as much ground as you can dive into in sufficient depth to be compelling.
Introduction — getting settled, what will be covered Context — why this issue matters Main Concepts Practical Implications Conclusion
An issue-based talk leads with morality. An idea-based talk leads with curiosity. An issue exposes a problem. An idea proposes a solution. An issue says, “Isn’t this terrible?” An idea says, “Isn’t this interesting?”
If we can’t feel content here, today, now, on our journeys, amidst the mess and the striving that we all inhabit, the open loops, the half-finished to-do lists, the could-do-better-next-times, then we might never feel it.
we find it hard to remember what it feels like not to know something that we ourselves know well.
“Make everything as simple as it can be. But no simpler.”
A picture is worth a thousand words (even though it takes words to express that concept).
Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes imperfection livable.
