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Just exactly what makes a speech tasty? Sure, you can write a great speech, you can practice a great speech, you might even be able to deliver a great speech – these are all things that relate to the importance of public speaking., However, if you are missing the one ingredient that it takes to turn a great speech in to a powerful and effective speech then you will have created something that nobody really wants to listen to. What is this one ingredient? Why it’s enthusiasm of course.
What Is The Real Purpose Of Any Speech?
Perhaps we would be best served by taking a step back for just a moment and thinking about why we go to the effort of creating and delivering speeches. I’m hoping that we’re not doing this just to hear ourselves speak. Rather, the reason that I believe that we are all willing to go to the effort of creating and delivering a speech is because we want to change the world.
No, probably not in a big way, but we would like to change the lives of the people who are in our audience – at least a little bit. Before they hear our speech their lives are on some particular course. They are traveling in a specific direction. If we do our job correctly, by the time our speech is done, this direction will have been changed at least a little bit.
If we want to persuade our audience to take a course of action that we are recommending, then we’re going to have to find a way to use the greatest persuasion tool that exists. I’m talking about enthusiasm.
What Makes People Change Their Minds?
When they take their seats, your audience has their minds already made up. They know how they see the world and they really are not expecting anything that you say to change this for them. As speakers, all too often we think that if we load our speeches with a great deal of well thought-out logical arguments we can change our audience’s way of looking at their world. It turns out that this rarely, if ever, works.
Instead, audiences can be persuaded to change their minds by seeing just how deep your convictions run. Seeing that you really, really believe in what you are telling them about will do more to change their opinion on a topic than all of the logical arguments in the world.
It turns out that getting your audience to see the world the way that you see it is not about appealing to the rational side of their brain. Instead, it’s about showing them how enthusiastic you are about what you are talking about. This is going to offer them more proof about what you are saying than any stack of facts ever would.
How Do You Become Enthusiastic?
If this enthusiasm thing is so important, than just exactly how can you go about “making” yourself enthusiastic before your next speech? The first thing that you are going to have to realize is that if you don’t believe in what you are talking about, then you’ll never be able to convince your audience that you are enthusiastic.
If you are not a believer, then there is a very good chance that you are not the one who should be giving this presentation. However, if you have to give the presentation (there is nobody else to do it), then you are going to have to sit down and think about your topic. Of all of the things that you’ll be saying, what one thing can you fully get behind? What one thing do you truly believe in?
You also need to take a moment and think about your audience. They are willing to show up and listen to you talk. How much is their time worth? Give this some thought and realize that every minute that you stand before them has a real monetary value. Make sure that your enthusiasm is making what you are saying is worth the time that they are spending listening to you.
What All Of This Means For You
As speakers, every time we give a speech we’d like to change the world — our ability to do this is one of the benefits of public speaking. That’s not asking too much is it? In order to make this happen, we need to ensure that we include the secret ingredient in every speech that we give: enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm is the one thing that will make your audience change their minds about what you are talking about. Forget about overloading them with facts and stats, it’s your enthusiasm that will cause them to change their minds. Before you give your speech you need to make sure that you can be enthusiastic about the topic that you are speaking on.
The good news is that once you know what every speech that you give needs to contain, you can make sure that it has it in it. This is not going to be easy to do – enthusiasm can’t be faked. However, if you can get excited about what you are talking about, then you’ll be able to change some lives every time you deliver a tasty speech!
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™
Question For You: If you actually disagree with what you’ll be talking about, is there any way to convince your audience to do what you are telling them to do in your speech?
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Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!
What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
As speakers, we understand the importance of public speaking and when we are creating a speech we want to communicate an idea or a set of ideas in a way that our audience will be able to remember long after we are done speaking. As simple as this sounds, it turns out that it’s actually quite difficult to do. The good news is that a lot of very smart people have spent time studying this issue and they’ve come up with a number of different ways that we can make this happen.