What do I Talk About In a Speech?

The following chapter is from the Speaking Wizard ebook.

Isn’t it funny that when we talk to our best friend, we never worry about what to talk about?

But when it comes to meeting a stranger, that is when we start thinking a lot.

When we talk to our friend, the process of dialogue feels tension free.

But when we are talking to a stranger, the dialogue is tension full.

This is a similar phenomenon in the world of public speaking.

Sure, we speak all the time.

But very rarely do we do it in front of a live audience.

Since we are doing a new task, this will cause us to use our thinking faculties more.

Sort of like the difference between driving on a road that we always drive on vs. driving on a new road that is in an unfamiliar location with jagged streets.

Sure, it’s still driving, but the context is different.

From the very get go, I want to give you a sense of understanding that will make your public speaking journey much easier.

YOU are the star of the show.

I don’t say this in a motivational sense.

But I say this more so in terms of a practical sense.

Enthusiasm is a currency in the public speaking world.

You can be talking about straight nonsense at times.

But if you are enthusiastic, the crowd will WANT to listen to you.

Enthusiasm also combats speech anxiety as well.

You feel like you are doing the other person a favor for teaching them about the concepts that you genuinely love.

You feel like you’re letting them in on a secret.

What you think matters:

Words & grammar
Making them think
Making them like you
Focusing on being perfect

What really matters:

Enthusiasm
Making them think & feel
Seeing if you like them
Focusing on providing value

So, in the beginning stages, you will have a lot of surface level understanding.

When your understanding is surface level, you are externally dependent.

When you start to gain more knowledge, your focus starts bringing you WITHIN.

Once again, a lot of this may seem motivational.

But it isn’t.

Public speaking will get you more in touch with your spiritual side or sense of a higher purpose.

The more speech experience that you gather, you realize that YOU literally embody the question, ‘what do I talk about?’

When you start realizing that you are the main content piece for your speech topics, that is when your paradigm starts shifting.

Now do not get me wrong, I’m not telling you to only talk about yourself.

But I’m telling you to talk about YOUR understanding.

True understanding makes technical speeches easier

As a practicing engineer for many years, I had to lead a lot of technical presentations in my roles.

Sometimes, the topics were so stale and dry that it was difficult to get enthusiastic about it.

Yet still, I knew that my speech centers around me.

If I just collected a bunch of facts and data, then that wouldn’t be a true speech.

It would just be a recitation of facts and data.

My rule is to understand the subject so well that you don’t even consider needing index cards.

That’s like someone saying it’s cool for you to use index cards while talking about your childhood.

You’d think, ‘for what?’

I lived MY childhood.

Therefore, even if you are dealing with technical subjects, you need to get to a point where you UNDERSTAND your topic on a PERSONAL level.

One of the technical presentations I had to talk about was PowerShell.

PowerShell is a scripting language to automate certain tasks.

This seemed very boring to me.

Yet, I had to give a presentation to the new interns on the significance of PowerShell for the company.

From there, I learned PowerShell on a very intimate level.

I envisioned how this can serve a practical use in terms of MY life, not the company’s.

So, after learning more about PowerShell, I thought about how cool it would be if I created a robot down the line who could handle busy work in my house.

PowerShell used correctly can automate some of that busy work & then you can gain your time back.

From there, I PERSONALIZED the use of the scripting language.

And that is when I was able to understand the subject.

When I delivered the talk, it was from my subjective experience rather than objective facts.