Before we talk about the solution of how to speak without notes, we got to talk about the problem. What's causing this problem in the first place if people feeling the need to have everything written out in a script or PowerPoint, but you know what if you're absolutely just dying to find out what the solution is, fast forward, or just skip to the next lecture, I am telling it there. But before we do that, I want to delve into the problem before we go to the solution. The problem for most speakers, is they feel they need this crutch of the whole written speech or, you know, six pages, outline notes, or bullet point after bullet point on a PowerPoint because they have a fundamental, Bad idea fundamentally warped idea of what a speech is. They think the speech is an opportunity to tell some audience everything they know about the subject and they end up giving a massive data dump.

That's not how the brain processes information or remembers information. So because of that, people spend all this time gathering, gathering, gathering lots of facts, lots of numbers, lots of data, points, cramming it into a PowerPoint slide, or written speech. That is not at all how human beings speak. Therefore, the speaker has to like have their head down or turning their back to you and looking at the PowerPoint slides. So that's what causes the destruction of eye contact with the audience is we've gone into this with a fundamentally mistaken misguided notion of what a speech what a presentation is out tell you what a presentation is. It's an opportunity to put a spotlight on a few ideas, and get people in an audience to understand the ideas.

Remember the ideas to possibly act on them. And when I say a few ideas, I mean A few. I've been coaching CEOs, political leaders, executives all over the world for 30 years, large groups, small groups giving speeches on the subject. First thing I ask every audience I work with is tell me about the best speaker you've seen in the last year or the last five years. Now. Tell me every message point.

You remember from that speaker. Sometimes people don't remember anything. Sometimes it will teach. I remember this one point, the speaker had passion. And then he went on to really explain every aspect and they give you the point. Sometimes it's two occasionally three, every so often, somebody will remember four points.

And once every six months, someone will remember five key ideas from the best speaker they've seen in the last year, perhaps the last 10 years. And all the years I've asked that question, I've never had anyone remember more than five ideas. And yet, what do 99% Speakers I see professional speakers, people, senior jobs and major corporations. What do they do when they come up to practice their speech with me? They have a speech often a PowerPoint, the first slide, there's 18 bullet points. The next slide, there's four columns.

The next slide, there is a chart with a graph with eight different color coded squiggly lines. I would say the same thing. Well, Jane, you're telling me the best speaker you've seen in your entire life? You remember three points. And now your presentation has roughly 189 points. Do you see the disconnect here?

Well, yeah, but TJ, this audience is different in our corporate culture. Chain. I don't mean any disrespect to you or anyone else here but I don't care about your corporate culture. The only culture I care about is the culture of your audience of what actually works. And that's my challenge to you too, regardless of how you start. Pete, you've got to look at the audience what they need, and what they want, and what actually works for them.

I don't have any evidence whatsoever that getting up and presenting fact after fact, after fact, bullet point after bullet point after bullet point, number after number actually works. And by work, I mean the audience hears it, understands it, and remembers it. Now, you can doubt me, but that's fine. Test your audience next time. See what they remember, if they can't remember your fact your bullet point it didn't work. So before I give you the big, big solution.

We've got to come up with a better structure of our speech. What I have found is the absolute best structure. For 99.9% of the speakers out there The world is brainstorm on all the things you want to say on this topic, narrow it down to five Not five big themes and 27 sub points, or even three step ones, but five big ideas. And then you need to come up with a story, a case study for each one. If you can't think of a single story or a case study to flesh out your major point, stop, be to major, get rid of the point. abstraction is the enemy of your audience.

If you can't flesh out your concept, with visuals with examples with case studies with stories involved in conversations with real people, your audience is not going to remember it. So that's why it's crucial for you to end up with a simple outline, five message points a story or two for each message point. And if there's a number two, let's put that number on the outline. Now I will teach I have to go through every single Number Are you certain you do if you're going through quarterly results, and people really want to know what every single store so every week for the last quarter and you have 2723 stores in the entire world, get that as a handout in advance of the email at two people have it ready to talk about if someone has a question, but you do not have to go through 2000 plus stores.

So that's the next assignment for you right now I need you to come up with a streamlined outline. So you can either look at his previous speech that you wrote, and condense it or come up with a new one, but I need you to come up with a speech that has five message points and the message points should be 10 words or less, ideally, like three or four words something that just gives you a sense of what the topic is. And then an example, a story or two or even three stories. to flesh out that idea, something that gives you a roadmap for this speech and then tell you what to do with this. And it doesn't involve a magical earpiece. And as much as I love technology and every kind of iPad and iPhone, it's not going to involve an app or technology or a cell phone.

It's not gonna involve a teleprompter. I'll show you what it involves in just a moment. But first, I need you to come up with that outline. Do it now.