Ep. 006 — How to Be Great Every Time You Speak

Hosted by Roddy Galbraith

A Maxwell Leadership Podcast Network production

Weekly highlights from The Speaker’s Edge — a Maxwell Leadership Podcast Network production hosted by Roddy Galbraith. Learn how to communicate with clarity, confidence, and impact — in business, on stage, and in life.

Listen or watch the episode:

• 🎧 Audio: Apple Podcasts
• 🎧 Audio: Spotify Podcasts
• 🎥 Video: YouTube
• 📘 Learn more about becoming a speaker or coach: MaxwellLeadership.com/JoinTheTeam
• ▶ Browse episodes & resources: MaxwellLeadership.com/TheSpeakersEdge

This Week’s Big Idea

Your audience deserves your best every single time you speak — not just when you “feel on.” Professionals don’t rely on mood or inspiration. They prepare, rehearse, refine, and then deliver it like it’s the first time. The audience should experience it as fresh, alive, personal, and “for them,” even if you’ve said it 100 times before.

Key Takeaways

• There is no such thing as a “natural speaker.” Great speakers work hard, study, rehearse, and build the skill over time.

• A pro is at their best regardless of what’s happening in their personal life. The audience has paid with money or time — they deserve full value.

• Preparation is how you protect the audience’s time. You’re not just spending 20 minutes of your time. You’re spending hundreds of minutes of theirs.

• You don’t have to wing it to be “authentic.” It’s still you — just you on your best day.

• The goal is to make a practiced message feel like the magic of the first time, every time.

• You only perform at the level you’ve trained. You won’t “rise to the occasion” if you haven’t done the work.

• Reuse stories, but never phone them in. Say them like it’s happening right now, and shape them a little better every time.

• Connection beats perfection. Sound conversational, not memorized. Keep normal human “imperfections,” as long as they’re not distracting.

Quote of the Week

“A pro is at their best regardless.”

Resources & Practice

Try this before your next talk:

1. Write down only bullet points, not a full script.

2. Say it out loud early — don’t just rehearse in your head.

3. Record yourself once. Listen back. Where did you ramble? Where did you light up?

4. Refine. Shorten it. Make the point clearer. Make the story more relatable.

5. Practice again, but deliver it like it’s the first time anyone’s ever heard it.

6. Check yourself: does it sound like you’re talking to a room, or like you’re talking to one person who matters?

Also: Start a story bank. Capture personal stories, borrowed stories (told with credit), public-domain stories, and hypothetical “imagine this…” examples. The more you collect, the more options you’ll have when you build a talk.

Get the companion guide here > MaxwellLeadership.com/TheSpeakersEdge

Full Transcript (Ep. 006 — How to Be Great Every Time You Speak)
Released: April 7, 2025

This transcript was auto-generated. It may contain minor errors.

hey guys welcome back to the speakers Edge podcast the podcast dedicated to
helping you learn from some of the world's very best speakers so that you can master your message and Inspire your
audience every single time you speak I'm your host for this podcast Ry galra delighted that you've chosen to join us
today in this podcast we're going to be talking about the importance of keeping the magic of the first time every time
every time you speak speaking like it's the first time you've said it even if it's not even if it's not so we're going
to look at how you can be consistently great and that's the key being consistent being consistently great
every time you speak creating a unique audience experience for your audience
every time you speak now don't forget to download the companion resources you can go to Maxwell leadership.com
slthe speakers Edge and you'll be able to download those resources and we'd love it if you uh rated or reviewed to
the show liked it downloaded it subscribed whatever you're listening on uh Apple podcasts or spot I wherever you
enjoy your podcast we'd love it if you uh if you leave a comment on a rating thank you very much all right so why do
we need to keep the magic at the first time first of all then why do we need to do this well first of all remember the
the great words of Bill go when he said a pro is at their best regardless a pro is at their best
regardless what does that mean it means that no matter what happens you've got to be at your best you've got to deliver
the audience has paid for you or at least they've paid with their time to hear you and they deserve your very best
they deserve you to deliver the message or the promise that you've you've
promised to them to deliver on your promise so you have to deliver if you're a professional if you want to be paid
like a professional you need to be a professional you can't be an amateur I love the way Steve seabo explains this he says if you want to be paid as a
professional speaker don't turn up with an amateur's performance it's not going to work so forget the idea of a natural
speaker you've got to work hard it's not like some people are born able to add value to an audience and others aren't
everyone that is able to add value to an audience works hard to get to that point so forget the idea of a natural speaker
forget the idea of a natural speaker remember I think it was episode one I quoted Les Brown he said natural speaker
show me a natural heart surgeon we understand that for a heart surgeon they've worked very very hard
for a long period of time don't we in order to get to that point very very hard so natural speaker show me a
natural heart surgeon no such thing as a natural heart Sur no such thing as a natural speaker either are some people more confident
when they're speaking yes but it's not about how you feel it's about being able to add value to the audience remember so
it's about adding value and everyone that can consistently add value to an audience works hard to get to that point
so we're talking about why we need to keep the magic of the first time but first of all we're talking about your job you got to deliver you got to
deliver so how do we consistently deliver value to the audience then well no matter what no matter how you're
feeling whether you're sick whether you'd rather go home and have a duvet day or what do you call that in America or a comforter day doesn't really have
the same ring to it does it you want a day off you want to kind of pull the covers back over your head and cancel
today I'm sure you we've all experienced that type of thing haven't we
so sometimes we have that kind of feeling but we've still got to go and deliver if we're a professional you
can't just kind of oh no I'm not feeling it today so I'm not coming in if you're booked to go and speak to an audience You' got to deliver for that audience
one of the questions I get asked a great deal is how long should I prepare to give a 20-minute talk how much time
should I put into the preparation of a a 20-minute talk because my time is precious time is the most precious
resource for all of us isn't it that's true and so how much of my time should I give this audience well it's not really
about how much of your time we're not talking about your time remember it's all about the audience it's their time
and if there's a hundred people in the audience for every second that you're speaking you're consuming 100 people
seconds for every minute that you're speaking you're consuming 100 people minutes for every hour that you're
speaking you're consuming a 100 people hours at least because they've got to get there and transition and all the
other things and someone's paying them in all likelihood for that time so even
if you're giving your time for free it's not free to whoever is paying these people so it's not about your time so
much is it's about how can you really honor their time how can you treasure every PR precious second of the
audience's time you've got to make the best use of their time so you're going to use your time to make the best use of
their time and that's as long as it takes really isn't it because you have to deliver you have to add value to them
and so it's not a question of how much time you should spend it's what do you need to do to get the job done and it's
not remember just you standing up confidently enjoying yourself talking about stuff whatever kind of Springs to
mine no it's about adding value to the audience it's about adding value to the
audience now I think it's important that we acknowledge right at the beginning because obviously we're we're modeling John Maxwell a great deal and other
great speakers Les Brown Nick voic many others in this program it's important to
realize that when you get as good as them when you look at John when you look at some of the things he does you know there's different rules that apply to
John Maxwell different rules he's very very good he makes it work if you sit and watch him often he's slumped back in
his bar sto he's like chewing on a sweet a lot of the time he's reading off his iPad he says things that you probably
shouldn't say on stage he does things that you probably shouldn't say on stage and he's probably the best speaker in
the world because it works for him he's got very very good so there's two kind of sets of rules if you like there's
there's rules for people who are very very good and and then they kind of they make up their own rules because whatever
works works and may not work for everyone and there's everyone else who the same kinds of things tend to work
for most people most of the time and preparation preparing to add value is a
is a consistent approach it's something that works it's something that I've helped countless thousands of people
with it work for them and it will work for you too making it up as we go along
speaking off the cuff the idea of this natural speaker the idea that there's some secret that you can get or you can
buy and then you'll just be able to make it up as you go along and and add Great Value to the audience it's just not true
it's a myth nonsense just forget that just forget get that I remember I did a
program with Les Brown uh a number of years ago several actually and for one of those programs that we were preparing
for we had a conference call in the leadup to the event and people were asking questions and somebody jumped in the queue we'd been talking about
preparing and practicing for for the event somebody jumped in the queue and said Les I just want to be able to speak
off the cuff like you do that's what really my goal and I want to be able to nail it every time like you do and Les's
just laughed he's like listen nothing is off the cuff nothing off the is off the cuff everything is strategic everything
is strategic now the reason this is difficult for us to understand I think the reason often where we get stuck is
Les Brown's one of the best extemporaneous speakers in the world so we look at him he can just pick up the mic and start talking he's able to do
that but remember different rules apply to people like Les Brown and John Maxwell John Maxwell I interviewed um
similarly in fact six months after Les Brown I interviewed John Maxwell at the
international Max conference on stage in front of thousands of people and um
before that I said to John John I'd love it if during my session you could join me and do a bit of Q&A I'll ask you some
questions and you know we can really add value to the audience he's like that's a great idea Ry I love it what we're going to do and I said well you know similar
to what I did with Les Brown six months ago you know I'll bring you up I'll say as little as possible I'll try and set you up and you'll speak as much as
possible you'll tell a few stories tell a few jokes and you know and they'll love it he says no no that it doesn't work like that what do they need work
out what they need and then we can provide that solution we can provide the value for what it is that they need now
I've interviewed a lot of big big names over the last 20 years a lot and John Maxwell stands out in every different
capacity that you think about it as a guest he was exactly on time fantastic
use of I think it was like six or seven questions every single one the audience loved it was funny it was
heart-wrenching it was incredibly useful it's very insightful shared loads of great information bang on time left went
off audience loved him it was the best one uh that I've done by far all of the other speakers had slightly different
approaches John is a consumer professional he's got sickening work e even at 78 he's always had it he doesn't
seem to show any signs of evaporating or disappearing or weakening at all he works very very hard now John could wing
it more easily than anyone else I think he could stand up and he could you know he could he could wing it and save
himself a lot of time time but he knows he's not at his best when he does that
he knows he's not at his best and so he wants to deliver his best so he wants to work hard to make sure that he does
that if you pay him $125,000 he'll come and give you his best he'll work hard to make sure that
the message is on point if he's coming to speak for you for free the same thing because he's a professional and he wants
to deliver his best and he knows he's at his best when he prepares thoroughly to do that I've worked with many many
pastors over the years and I remember one group of pastors that I was working with I taught a lesson about you know
consistently nailing it even if your audience is changing every week which makes for a lot of work for for pastors
it's different to somebody that's speaking to a different audience every week where they can just use the same material a pastor very often if they're
lucky they got the same people coming back every week and so we were talking about this and then this person joined
the queue and they said I just you know I'm I'm a pastor and I enjoy sharing the word of God and um it's not about me and
I think for me to prepare is putting me in the message and I want it to be less of me and more of of God I want God to
use me and for it to to come through me and for for me to just say what they need in that moment from God not for me
to to try and prejudge what that should be and it's very difficult to argue with
that isn't it what do you say no that's wrong that's the that's the wrong approach so I thought about it for a
moment and I said well is it working and he said what do you mean I said How's this approach working for you you getting the results that you want and he
said well no no not at all I mean you know it's not working at all I'm well maybe you need to try something else
then you know I don't disagree with what you're talking about but the people that tend to be able to do that are people with enormous amounts of experience
they've you know they've done a lot of the hard work first of all look at it this way imagine the piano I think this
is such a good example because most of us have tried to play the piano at some point and we've realized how hard it is
remembering where the keys are moving your hands pedal let alone reading music let alone some
kind of tune trying to do all of these different things at the same time it's incredibly difficult so I said imagine
somebody sat in front of an audience and said I'm going to play from the heart I'm going to allow God to play Through
Me on the piano tonight how's that going to work well we'd say have you had a lot of experience playing the piano and
they're like no not really well how much experience have you had well none I know the scales I know where the notes are
but that's pretty much it what are the chances that it's just going to come out really really well
pretty slim I would think we've got a part to play in that exchange if you
like that exchange of you know being a a pencil in the hand of God or being a a tool for God to use we've got to be the
best tool that we can surely there's a lot of things that we need to develop to play the piano just like there's a lot
of things that we need to develop to drive a car a lot of that needs to be delegated to Habit and it's the same
with speaking there's a lot going on that we need to understand and then delegate to have it so we don't need to
think about everything if we haven't done those things then all of our thinking power goes to thinking about
what we're going to say and then everything else is on autopilot settings which is probably slow and stuttering
and stilted and at best made for conversation developed in conversation
not on stage when we're the one doing all the speaking and the audience is looking at us all the time it's a
different set of skills and if we can develop that skill set then it can really make a difference
really make a difference I've worked with thousands and thousands of people over the last 20 years helping them develop their speaking I know I can
teach people to get better at speaking I know I can teach people show people lead them through feeling more confident
about their speaking I know I can teach people how to overcome common objections and know I can teach them how to connect
with an audience and know I can teach them how to establish their credibility with that audience and now I can teach
them to ask for the business to to make that call to action to encourage Their audience to take the action or think
about the things want them to to think about at the end I know I can do that by moving you through a
process I've seen countless examples of this I've seen it work time and time again but I don't know how to teach you
to just make it up as you go along and do all of those things I don't know how to teach you to just speak from the
heart and by that we typically mean making up as we go along don't we waiting to be inspired and and do all of
those things for you to influence the audience in an ethical way I don't think we can leave it to chance I don't know
how to do that I don't know anyone that can do that and I don't know if anyone can do that consistently unless they're
in the Les Brown John Maxwell or at least a great deal of experience where they have a great deal of information
internalized ready to draw upon people who can who can do those things people who can speak extemporaneously people
who can just play a tune on the piano they typically have been playing for years and even then John's example he
knows he's not at his best even though he can do that he knows that he's not at his best when he does
that and even if it is possible even if it is possible is it reliable is it
reliable can we be consistent a friend of mine um who died
a couple of years ago sadly uh he was about to be introduced to go up on stage in front of thousands of people his
phone rang while he was waiting he looked at it it was his mom he took the call and his mom told him that she'd
been diagnosed with cancer as he's being introduced to go up on stage and he has to so I'll call you
back Mom and um and hang up and go on stage and deliver and still deliver because a pro
is at their best regardless he's got to deliver like a professional now it probably wasn't a you know a 10 out of
10 but it was very good that unless you'd seen that presentation once or twice you wouldn't know it was any
different if you saw that for the first time you'd say it was amazing remember as Steve seabold said I
quoted him earlier you can't expect to be paid like a professional if you're going to turn up with an amitive performance and and you can't just turn
up and say nothing you can't say oh sorry you know I'm not really feeling it today and so you know do you mind if we
skip it you got to deliver you got to deliver now there's all kinds of great
quotes isn't there around this idea of preparation I think the difficulty is not in buying into the the idea that we
need to prepare it's it's accepting that it applies to speaking too it's not the
will to win everyone has that it's the will to prepare to win that really makes a difference that was be Brian wasn't it
it's this idea that if we're going to we're going to win we got to prepare MSI the samurai 400 years ago he said we can
only fight the way we train we only fight the way we train so we've got to train the way we expect to fight it's
the same with speaking you can only present the way you prepare you can only speak the way you practice so if you're going to speak out loud don't practice
in your head if you're going to speak words out loud don't spend all your time crafting the perfect script on paper
it's not going to work we can only play at the level of our practice that was one of the the Great American coaches
wasn't it Sports coaches we can only play at the level of our practice who's the guy from um Atomic
habits James Clea he said that uh we we won't rise to the occasion we're full to the level of our systems we're full to
the level of our habits well I think for speaking we can say you'll do your best of course but your best isn't going to
be good enough if you haven't done the work so we won't rise to the occasion if it's beyond our ability is we full to
the level of our training so if we want to rise to the occasion we need to train to the occasion first of all anyone can
do their best when Everyone's Watching but if you haven't done the work your best isn't going to be good enough it's as simple as that isn't
it so why do we need to prepare then hopefully we'll come back to this actually in a number of different ways
when we talk about can I use notes do I have to memorize it etc etc different lessons coming up but for now let's just
look at some of the ideas we've touched on as to why I think it's a really good idea for you to prepare number one if
you prepare if you give time to your message and your audience in advance in your delivery you can do the research to
make sure that your message is on point so you can research in advance number one number two you can think in advance
you can move some of your ideas on you consider them from other perspectives from this particular audience's
perspective maybe so number one you can research in advance number two you can think in advance number three you can
then prepare in advance you don't want the first time you say something in here it seems like
a good idea when it comes out you see whether it actually is a good idea and often it's not it's much clearer in here
than it is when it comes out it needs work so we can prepare in advance and we can test in
advance testing in advance is huge when you think about it we can test our ideas
and see if they work see if it's as good or idea in somebody else's mind when
when we explain it to them as it was in ours and if it doesn't work we've got time to change it and if it does work
great then we can test it somewhere else and test it somewhere else and we can build up confidence in our solution and
then we can use it when the stakes are high when we need to be at our best so number one we can research in
advance number two we can think in advance number three we can prepare in advance number four we can test in advance and number five we can
experiment in advance we can try different things unattached to whether they work or not because we're
experimenting we're in training it doesn't matter if they work or not we can push the envelope and find some things that work better in the safety of
the lab if you like so we can experiment in advance and then by doing that number six we'll discover better ways of of
making our point or making it more memorable we can do that in advance so
that number seven we can grow in advance before we get there they the audience
deserves us at our best and we'll be at our best if we grow as much as we can before we get there and growth
incorporates everything doesn't ex so we're talking about our thinking better thinking we're talking about our feelings changing the way we feel we're
talking about our actions maybe even symptoms in the body we're talking about developing more skills knowledge and
experience so that we can be at our very best when we get there on the day of the show now incidentally I've talked a
little bit about the Maxwell leadership certified team as we've gone through uh this message so far if you're interested
in being a speaker a trainer a coach you want to learn more about leadership teaching John's great material or if you
just want to help in your career to develop your career to get a a promotion or maybe a a pay rise to to leave and
get a better job the Maxwell leadership certified team can really help with all of those things so why not check it out
I've been working on the maxw leadership team um with John and Mark and the Chris
and the team since 2010 is when I first got involved working on the first speaking curriculum I've been working
with John on the max home of the speak speaking for for years and years and years now there's nearly 60,000 coaches
worldwide in 160 different countries around the world the max leadership certified team is immense I can't
explain it to you now I can recommend that you speak to someone that can though but I can say if you're
interested in developing your speaking there's nowhere better to go there's no one better to model than John the Maxon
method of speaking is 5060 years of Jon's very intentional growth as a speaker distilled down into a system
that you can use the best place to learn that is in the Maxwell leadership certified team so why not fill out the
form you'll see the link on the screen or in the show notes and book a call with the program advisor they can
explain the program to you it's no obligation as I said it could be the best decision you've ever made as I said
there's nothing like this if you're interested in developing your speaking so I highly recommend that you check it
out and if it's not for you it's just cost you a few moments of your time all right so let's move on now to the next
piece which is understanding the problem with everything I've said it's a great idea to prepare it's a great idea to be
overprepared it's a great idea to work hard to add value to your audience but there's a problem with this and it's a
big problem a big problem number of years ago uh some Maxwell leadership certified team members were chatting to
me at an event and they were talking about how much they'd enjoyed this particular comedian they'd seen a week
or two before and so they were in New York and they saw this comedian advertised and so they went to see him
and they said that it was unbelievable it was so good it was such a great experience he was just jumping in and
out with the crowd he was like speaking off the cuff and talking to all these people and sharing these incredible
stories it was just like magical to watch absolute genius that he was able to do that and then they said we enjoyed
it so much we decided we saw that he was like 20 mil down the coast he was speaking the next night so we thought we
got to go and see him again we got to go and see him again so they went down and went to see him they went in and sat there and with in the first minute they
realized it was exactly the same set that he'd done the night before exactly
the same all of the jokes everything all of the impromptu things everything was
exactly the same as they'd seen the night before it was just different people different names you know some of
the details were changed but everything else was exactly the same and they were so disappointed the magic was ruined
people don't want to see behind the curtain and so it ruined it for them it ruined it for them so I I am encouraging
you to work very hard to be at your best to be at your very best to prepare to over prepare to practice to experiment
to discover the best ways of saying things the best things to include find out what works and what doesn't so that
you keep getting better and better and better so I am encouraging you to work very hard so that your audience sees you
at your best but the audience must never know that you put that amount of work in
they must never know because they want to believe it's just you being great they want to believe it's you creating
this special one-off experience for them they don't want to think that you you're reciting a memorized speech that doesn't
work at all that kills Rapport dead so what do we need to do what's the antidote to what I'm talking about there
we're going to do the preparation but we want to avoid this Pitfall what do we do well we've got to keep the magic of the
first time every time we've got to keep the magic of the first time every time
every single time we speak we've got to keep the magic of the first time every time we prepare we've got to keep the
magic of the first time we don't want to be internalizing bad habits so keep the magic of the first time every time even
when you're training when you're experimenting don't rush through because you're short of time don't race through
because you're sick to death of your own story keep the magic at the first time
then it will be there for you in the future John says there's no shame in using the same story again if it's with
a different audience particularly then there's no shame in using your story again but make it a little bit better each time think about it each time try
and shape it for this particular audience for this particular Point make it a little better each time and make
sure you say it like you've never said it before it needs to seem like you're just making it up as you go along now
you know you've got the reliability of sharing information that you know works but you also need to make it sound like
you've never said it before it's still you there's nothing inauthentic about this people get this idea that you know
I I want to be authentic and if I'm going to be authentic I mustn't I mustn't prepare because that's inauthentic no I think that's very
authentic it's very authentic to do your best to add value to the audience it's still you remember but you on a good day
it's still you but you at your best so it's still integrous to do that I think it's much more integrous than just
making up as you go along there's a high likelihood that you're going to bomb if you do that and that is not honoring
your audience that's not honoring your audience so John breaks all the rules he's in a
different category we're talking about the vast majority of other people and a process of developing your your talk
your message so that you can add value to your audience whether it's a one person in front of you or a large group of people in front of you whatever it is
that you're talking about if you work on it think about it in advance then you you're going to be better you're going
to be better now one of the things that comes up a great deal is people talk
about ums and rs and fillers and they're somewhat vilified and I think for for a lot of people they are very distracting
so I think the the the rule here is in conversation we do tend to Umar but it's
it's not there's not too much of it it's when we're fighting for time when we're thinking or we're going in the wrong direction or we're just kind of correct
ourself we do that in conversation and so the the the type of intimacy that we're trying to create with our audience
is that conversational intimacy so having some of those imperfections of speech is not a bad thing as long as
they're not distracting as long as they're not distracting so we're not talking about
memorizing a script and then delivering It Word Perfect People don't talk like
that that doesn't work it doesn't feel right it feels off to the audience and they can't quite put their finger on it
or they think you're just reciting something you memorized that's insulting to the audience it definitely kills
Rapport and it might be irritating for them as well so we don't want to do that I'm not talking about memorizing a
script and recite reciting it you can do that if you want to if it's helpful for you to do that if it's helpful for you
to script it all out in advance and then learn it then recite it then you still
need to go through the process of making it sound like you you're making it up as you go along but you'll be very tied to
that script it's very fragile actually I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend that we we don't want the audience to
think anything else other than this is just us being us it's like when you watch a good film if you watch a good film when the acting is really good you
don't even think of them as actors do you you see them in that role your solders them in that character it never
enters our mind that they're acting unless it's bad acting and then we're like this is bad acting they're not very
good at this so we don't want the audience to feel like we're reciting something that we've prepared we don't
want that we want the audience to feel like it's just us being us sharing this great information with them but for us
to be at our best we need to have thought about that a great deal before we need to have shaped that message a
great deal before give you another example again with um the actor Michael Kane many of you will have heard of
Michael Kane he married I think it was Shakira he talks about it in his um his biography about marrying this lady
Shakira I believe he's still married to Susan shared a um an article that she' written about him uh a couple of years
back and she said life with Michael is knowing that no matter what you're doing he is reciting the lines for his next
film in his mind all the time if we're on vacation and we're walking down the beach holding
hands looking at the C and chatting I know that somewhere in there he's rehearsing the lines for his next film
it's just what he does and he does it so that when he steps in front of the camera for the first time to shoot that
scene he said those lines over a thousand times each from every different perspective he's thought about it from
every different way so that he's internalized them he's become the role and then he's sharing it in front of the
the camera isn't that great when you see Michael Kane acting and all great actors we don't don't think that they're
sharing lines we think it's just in fact we're just lost in the in the story aren't we we're just swept along with
the film so forget the idea of reciting a script we want to have much more flexibility than that which is why I
don't recommend that you have a script and you memorize it I think it's better to work from bullet points personally but either way you want to work on the
the delivery as well not just the words you need to work on actually saying them so where do we start then to work on
keeping the magic of the first time every time well I think it's a great idea to practice and experiment but you
need to keep the magic of the first time while you're practicing and experimenting then we internalize the
magic at the first time it becomes a habit if we're rehearsing or discovering or preparing a message keep the magic at
the first time every time so that it becomes a part of you in lots of different ways it's you drawing on
information that you've thought about and experimented with perhaps but it's coming out of you as if you're saying it for the first time it's different from
from reciting something you've memorized Carrie Grant apparently said I acted
like Carrie grant for so long I became him that's great isn't it now remember
we talked about this a couple of episodes back connecting with your audience is your primary objective it's
your primary goal every time you're speaking connecting with your audience so a conversation or delivery where the
audience feel like they're getting to know you is a great way to do that if they get to know you then they can like
you then they can feel like yeah I I trust you I trust you so connecting with the audience is our our first job so if
you know your material well so that you're not tied to thinking about the words but you can be yourself your
personality comes out again you at your best your personality comes out and then
the audience can connect with you then they can feel like they know like can trust you because it's you but at your
best so they feel like they know you then they can trust you this is great for connection
if they feel like you're reciting a script or you're really thinking about what you're saying and so your
personality is nowhere to be seen it kills Rapport dead doesn't work at all
so here's your cheat sheet then how do we keep the magic of the first time how do we we kind of implement this well six
things that you can do that will make a big difference to keeping the magic at the first time remember number one every
time you speak job number one is connecting with the audience so we got to keep that in mind we need to connect with the audience number two
conversational delivery is a great way to do that John Maxwell epitomizes this when he says my name is John I'm your
friend it's like he's talking just to us we feel like we know him we like him and we trust him because of the way that he
talks to us so number one connecting is our first priority number two a conversation or delivery is a great way
to connect number three keeping some of the imperfections of conversation is a great way for it to seem conversational
we don't want it to be word perfect cuz no one talks like that no one talks like that so we need you need to keep some of the imperfections but number four it
can't be distracting so connecting conversational keep the imperfections make sure it's not distracting number
five our goal is to sound like this is special it's a one-off just for them so we want the imperfections of
conversation but without it being distracting in a conversational way and then number six the best way I think to
get there script it all out if you have to if you're comfortable doing that but keep in mind a better way to do it once
you get comfortable is just to put down some bullet points and then freestyle from those bullet points and you'll
gradually find different ways of saying the same thing some will be better than others and you'll settle on the best way
of saying it whether you start from a script or whether you start from bullets the advantage of using bullets is you
start speaking it out loud much sooner which is really going to help you seem comfortable and confident in front of an
audience so one more time then number one connecting number two make it conversational number three keep the
imperfections number four make sure it's not distracting number five our goal is to make it sound like this is a one-off
it's special just for them so we want it to be imperfect but not distracting and
conversational and number six I think the best way to get there is jot down some bullets and just start practicing
out loud before you think you're ready that's it for this week thanks for tuning in don't forget to download our
companion guide Maxwell leadership.com slth speakers Edge if you want to do that remember Communication in my humble
opinion is the most important skill you can develop and it is a learnable skill so keep learning so that you can learn
to master your message and Inspire your audience every single time you speak
thanks for listening today I look forward to seeing you in the next episode lots of love take care bye-bye God bless