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The Passionate Speaker
"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."
-Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)A Newsletter for Speakers By Michael Landrum March 12, 2003 — Number 51 Begin With the End (Long-time readers may recognize this essay from the early days of TPS.) In my dog-eared copy of Steven Covey's book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (an eighth habit would be consulting this terrific book!), one of my favorite chapters is titled Begin with the End in Mind. Covey uses this 'habit' to discuss the importance of working from a 'Principle Center' and developing personal and organizational mission statements. 'Begin with the End' is also an important practical suggestion for someone who is sitting down to write a speech. It seems to me that the first thing to think about when writing a speech is how it will end. What do you want the audience to take away with them? What is the bottom line, the summation, the single most important thing you have to tell them? If the meeting planner rushed up to you at the last minute and said you only had 30 seconds rather than the thirty minutes you had prepared, what would you say in that short time? Vincent Van Gogh once said that in his art he was working to paint "everything that was essential and nothing that was obvious." That's a good motto for a speaker considering what to say with the final moments of a speech. What's essential? What is the point of information; what do you want to persuade them to do? Once you have that firmly in hand, you can begin to elaborate and illustrate with examples, anecdotes, quotes, humorous stories and so on. In other words, the second thing to write after the ending is the middle. Here is the place to take the essence of what you want to say and develop it as a composer might make variations on a theme. Turn your idea in different directions and look at other facets and ramifications. Plumb the depths of your subject and explore as many of the funny, the mundane and the profound aspects of your idea as occur to you. Finally, pick out the best four of these stories, quotes, examples and metaphors you've come up with. Of these four, choose the one with the strongest impact and let that become your opening – phrase it in such a way that it becomes a 'grabber.' The remaining three stories, quotes, statistics or examples then become, with the addition of smooth transitions, the body of your speech. See if this simple method shortens your preparation time for your next speech – and frees you up for a bit more rehearsal! A Thought to Ponder "Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible." - Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning ©2001-2003 Michael F. Landrum |
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