Chapter 111 Putting Your Thoughts Into Your Speech

Does preparing a speech mean writing down some beautiful words, putting them together, and then blurting them out?No, far from it!Is it a collection of thoughts that come up by chance but have no real meaning to you personally?Absolutely not! The so-called "preparation" is to gather your thoughts, your ideas, and your motivation, and you must really have this kind of thinking and motivation.As long as your mind is clear, you will not be short of them every day.They may even appear in groups in your dreams.Throughout your life, there are moments of different feelings and experiences.These things sit deep in the back of your mind, accumulating over time.

To "prepare" is to contemplate, recall, and select the things that most attract your attention, and then embellish them, and arrange them into a shape that becomes the finely crafted work of your own thoughts.This sounds like a difficult plan to implement, but it is not.For a specific goal, as long as you concentrate, think well, and put it into action. Here are a few ways to help you organize your presentation material, and if you follow these steps to prepare your speech, you'll gain the eager attention of your audience. A gentle and refined doctor of philosophy and a bold salesman attended a meeting at the same time.But the strange thing is that in the speech process of this conference, the speech of the small vendor was far more attractive than that of the doctor of philosophy.why?The reason is that although the doctor's speech is gorgeous and concise, gentle and elegant, and his speech is well-organized, his speech is too vague and unclear.The salesman, however, did just the opposite.As soon as he opened his mouth, he immediately touched the core of the topic.The content of the speech is clear, specific and practical, which makes people understand the meaning as soon as they hear it. In addition, his enthusiasm and simple words and sentences make his speech very attractive.

This is not to compare the high and low between a doctor and a salesman, but to make a point: a person's speech can only arouse the interest of others if it is specific and clear. In order to have a successful presentation, you have to be specific.For example, "Martin Luther was 'stubborn and mischievous' when he was a child" would be better than "Martin Luther admitted that his teacher often slapped him on the palms, sometimes 'as many as 15 times in one morning'" It's more interesting and grabs the audience's attention. The ancient method of biographical writing often refers to many general words and sentences with unclear meanings.Aristotle called it "the refuge of cowardly thoughts."This is really to the point, accurate to the extreme.The new writing method cites clear facts, and the semantics are natural and clear.John Doe had "poor but honest parents," says old-fashioned biographers.The new biographical rule is, "John Doe's father could not afford shoe covers, so when it snowed he had to wrap them in sacks to keep his feet dry and warm. But, in spite of his poverty, He never added water to the milk, and never sold a sick horse as if it were healthy." Obviously, the latter statement definitely makes it clear that his parents were "poor but honest," no?Isn't that more vivid and interesting than saying "poor but honest"?

This approach works as well for the modern biographer as it does for the modern orator and each of us who speaks. Once the topic is selected, it is necessary to determine the scope of your speech, and always limit the topic to this scope, do not try to cover all areas. There was a young speaker who was going to talk for two minutes, and the topic he was talking about was "From Five Thousand Years of Civilization to Modern Society".This is absolutely a futile act!He had just finished speaking about the birth of man, and there was no time left.He tried to pack too much into a conversation and ended up getting nothing out of it.

Many speeches are poorly scoped and cover too many points to hold the audience's attention.Why is there such an ending?For the human mind cannot keep its attention on a monotonous series of facts.You won't be able to hold your audience's attention if your speech sounds like a material sheet. This principle applies equally to any topic, whether you're talking about salesmanship, baking cakes, or anything else.Before you start your speech, you must first limit and select the selected materials, narrow the topic to a certain range, and ensure that you complete it within the specified time.

It is said that Luther Burbank, the geek of the plant world, cultivated 1 million species of plants, but he only cultivated one or two superlative varieties from them.The same goes for speeches, gathering 100 ideas around a topic of your choice and discarding 90 of them. It is much easier to give a superficial speech than to dig up the facts.If you choose an easy way, the audience will only get few and shallow impressions, or even no impressions.In fact, one or two points can only be expected to be made in a short speech of no more than five minutes.A slightly longer speech, such as a 30-minute speech, is rarely successful if the speaker tries to cover four or five main topics.

You have to refine and refine the thoughts you want to convey to the audience, and you have to temper them so that you can speak with confidence.