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The Passionate Speaker
"Most plans are organized and communicated according to marketplace logic. But people don't listen for marketplace logic; they listen for meaning and purpose.... The role of a leader is to create an experience that will inspire people to take action. "
- Bill Jensen, author & consultantA Newsletter for Speakers By Michael Landrum February, 2004 - Number 60 Better Beats We proceed on any journey by steps, and the more stimulating each step, the more rewarding the journey. So, we pay a great deal to walk through DisneyWorld while we would gladly pay an even greater sum to avoid trudging across Death Valley. A speech may be compared to a journey for it too, is composed of “steps” - and will also succeed or fail depending on the interest each of those elements provokes in the audience. An actor approaches a role by breaking the script down into “beats.” A beat in a play is a mini-scene with its own objective or intention. It is usually a short scene that lasts until a small objective is resolved or the tactic changes. For an actor, the intention is always to serve the dramatic needs of the play, to have a specific effect on the other characters on stage. For a speaker, the intention or objective is always to have a specific effect on the audience. Each beat will be a story, anecdote, set of statistics, a PowerPoint slide or whatever serves the purpose of the speech. One of the best ways to practice a speech is to work on each beat out loud until you feel confident with it. In doing so, you’ll find ways to improve the beat, make it more complex, and give it new layers of meaning. Pay special attention to the verbs and action words in your speech. These are your clues to the subtext, or unspoken message of the beat. Find the objective or intention of each beat, which should have a relation to the overall intention of the speech. Choose an active verb to describe that objective. In telling this anecdote, are you sharing a personal experience? Perhaps you are winning their rapport, providing an example, teaching a lesson, convincing them to take action. Other powerful verbs to use might be igniting, persuading, exhorting, charming, enticing, commanding, imploring, etc. Not every verb you choose should be spoken. Use some just to describe the purpose, the tactic of each beat to yourself. So you may say inwardly: “Here, I’ll flirt with them a little,” or “Now it’s time to whip them into a frenzy of enthusiasm.” By couching your tactics in such strong action language, you guarantee that each beat will be vivid. During a speech you may need to change tactics 20 or 30 times in order to win your audience over. The more aware you are of your tactics the more effective they will be. Variety is compelling. A variety of tactics makes the speech interesting. We often strive for ‘vocal’ variety, but that can be superficial and tedious unless it arises from a deeper intention. Find the specific intention of each beat of your speech. Energize it with a powerful verb and a deeply felt objective. The more variety in your verbs, the more variety in your feelings and your voice and the more your audience will want to listen to you. By breaking your speech into beats and getting more specific with your intentions, you can structure your message more effectively. You’ll make the speech easier to rehearse and easier to remember for you and your audience. Energize your subtext with strong action verbs and your message will invigorate your audience. A Thought to Ponder "A human being is a part of the whole called the "universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection of a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in all its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security." - - Albert Einstein ©2004 Michael F. Landrum |
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