Tis the Season for Public Speaking

by Terry Gault

If your holiday social calendar includes group gatherings, you may find yourself confronted with an opportunity to say something to the group.

For example, on Thanksgiving, we have a family tradition of saying aloud what we’re thankful for.  More on that shortly.

If you want to be effective in communicating your thoughts here are 5 simple guidelines:

1. Speak from the heart.  Nothing is more important in public speaking than authenticity.  What’s important for you to communicate to beloved friends and family members?  This quote generally attributed to Carl W. Buechner captured this nicely: “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”
2. Distill your message down to one simple sentence – the “take-away” for the audience.  Make sure that everything you say supports that one sentence.  If it doesn’t, don’t say it.  It does not belong in your talk. 
3. Have a clear structure to your talk with a compelling opening, a central idea or theme, and a satisfying clear conclusion.  Again, all of these points need to support your simple “take-away” sentence.
4. Keep it short and simple.  Follow the advice of Franklin D. Roosevelt who said, “Be sincere.  Be brief.  Be seated.”

5. Have fun!  If you are not having fun, you are not doing it right.

Earlier I promised to come back to my Thanksgiving talk.  This is essentially what I said:

While I was out on my run this morning, I was thinking about Thanksgiving and the things I am thankful for. 

I reflected on the guests that would be joining us at our table today.  (It was my wife’s family – her parents and her brother and his wife.)

There is a saying that blood is thicker than water.  Which I think means that blood family is the most important kind.  I have a different view.

I think some of the most important members of our family are the ones we choose to take into our family.  And everyone at this table is here because someone made a choice to take them into their family.

And, of course, we don’t get to pick our blood relatives.  Those are not choices we get to make.  So, I think that the family we choose matters just as much or more than the family we are born into.

Here’s to the family we choose!

DeFinis Communications' Blog Carnival themed "Public Speaking and the Holidays" >>

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photo credit: basykes