How to Prepare for a Speech

Welcome to the Charged Life. This is Brendan Burchall. Hey, everybody, it's Brendan. I'm always asked, how do you plan for your speeches? Like, how do you get ready for the big speeches, the big talks that you give? As many of you know, I'm blessed to do my own events each year where usually it's 900 plus people from 40 countries around the world. For four days, I'm on stage, you know, often from, you know, nine to 10 to 12 hours per day, to going out and speaking for major corporations, major nonprofits and associations where there might be, you know, 200 people to 10,000 people. My thought process for speech making and preparing for the speech is really very similar for all of them. And I think they're kind of common sense. They're just not common practice for a lot of people. So hopefully these will help you when you're planning for your next speech. Speech, obviously, I begin with the end in mind, you know, at the. When you think about the end of a speech, there's really only two things that typically matter in a speech. One is the emotions that they felt during the speech, and two, the key messages or the takeaways that they walk away with the message of the speech. So you really have the emotions they experience and the takeaway, the message that they walk away with. Those are the two primary outcomes of every speech. You want to make them feel something, you make them feel, think something, or decide to do something. And knowing that I gear all of my other preparation activities around those two things. Obviously, it begins with research. You never should speak to an audience without understanding that audience incredibly well. So I'll call the promoter, I'll interview them pretty in depth, asking them lots of different questions about who's in the audience, why they're there, do they have to be there? Where do most of them struggle with? What do they desire of life? What's the next level of ambition or achievement for them? What is it that the host wants to be communicated in terms of a theme or a message? But what is it they think that also somebody in the audience would love to feel or experience that might be different than others? I asked all sorts of questions, questions of tell me about your favorite speaker you've ever on stage and what made them your favorite one at your event? Who's been the worst? You don't have to tell me their name, but what did they do that you thought that was just the wrong speaker for our audience? I asked to interview somebody who's going to be in the audience from somebody who's new in their organization to somebody who's more experienced. And I have to spend a tremendous amount of time with them often. 20 to 30 minute conversation, just a couple questions so I can get some key messaging, Key understandings of that audience is really going to serve me. Most of the research then comes from that is now I've got my idea of what they want. I've got the topic in mind. I understand the people. Now the real research begins. I'm gonna go out and look for philosophy, best practices, case studies, examples, stories from my own life, from other people's lives, from just information that I can bring in that speech to make sure I hit those messages and hit those goals. The research is in everything. The second part, then, after the research for me, is developing the rhythm of that speech, the rhythm of that conversation. How do I want it to feel? When do I want them to laugh? When do I want them to, you know, feel connected with each other? When do I want them feel connected internally or spiritually? When do I want them to feel like they're. They got to jump out of the chair and go do something? You know, I really think about that rhythm. When do I speed up, when do I slow down? When do I sound more joyous, when do I sound more deep? Those types of thoughts in our mind. Because a great speech, it's gonna go like this. It's gonna be a little bit of a roller coaster of emotions, of speed. You're gonna adjust your melody, your tone, your pitch, your cadence so that there's a movement to that speech, right? That rhythm of just the sound of what you're saying is important. But then I also think about the rhythm of my movement, right? What am I. How am I moving on that stage? I'm not gonna stand behind a podium ever, even if they ask me to. Mr. Burchard, could you stand behind a podium? I don't like to stand behind a podium. I'm going to move. Well, you know, it'd be better if you could stand behind the podium. Is it a requirement? Yes, sir, it is. Oh, man. I will move from the podium every time because it's just not how people are meant to talk to each other behind a podium. So I'll find that movement, the rhythm of my movement when I'm going to move. How could I animate any of my stories? How could I physically gesture or move? I'll be thinking about that. I'm not a perfectionist in terms of I don't really rehearse every move like a choreographed person. I Just think about it in advance and visualize it to try and think about how can I make this feel alive and, you know, and moving and gesture at this particular part, slow down at this particular part, speed up at that particular part. It's very much on my mind, and it should be on your mind, too. Especially. Especially in those last four minutes of your speech, your last four minutes. You don't need to know everything you're gonna say, but you should have a destination in mind of the key takeaways and the emotions you want them to experience. What I tell most people is if you really want to leave an audience in a healthy, great, buoyant place, you want to really ramp up and crescendo your speech. You know, a lot of people today, they like to prove that they can make people emotional, and they want to end that speech with people. People are crying, and they're just like, oh. And I'm like, you know what? Let's not leave them there at a conference, because they might not have the opportunity to go and reflect and chill out and experience the depth of that. You can do that in the middle of the speech, but your job is to leave them in a good place, to lift them towards that end, where they're almost going to lift out of their seats with excitement or some kind of charge in mind. They're going to get something done. The last piece for me is thinking about role modeling. What is it that I want to convey to the world? You know, if I could be a role model for something, what do I want to convey? What's my message? What's my mission as a speaker? Beyond what they asked me to speak about, beyond how I can entertain? What do I want to leave to this world? What messages do I really want to wrap in there? What energy do I really want to put into it? So the audience leaves away and they say, not he's a role model, because that's my goal, but because I thought through it. You know, what's your message to the world? What do you want to convey? What do you want the world to feel because of your presence? Knowing your values, your messages, what you want to impart to the world, that's vital for every speaker. After I've done all that, now it's the day of the speech, and I got to think about really preparing that singular day to make the speech awesome. So the first thing I'll do is I'll get up and I'll go for a run, or I'll do a significant stretch or significant cardio Session in my room. Because the most important thing you gotta do is open up your lungs so you can go and deliver a great speech. You cannot fool yourself and think, oh, I'll just have some coffee or a Diet Coke, and I'll let the caffeine ride my energy into the speech. People who do that are always relegated to being amateurs and will never reach their full potential as a speaker. To really move the needle for that audience, you gotta get up and you gotta get energized in your body before you ever hit that stage. It is an absolute must if you're ever gonna be your best. Look, some people can get by by just showing up and walking in. But you know what? We don't need more people living at their level of mediocrity. We need more people on stage who are role models, who we look up to and say, wow, that person, they stretched themselves, they prepared themselves, they brought themselves, you know, so. So after I stretch or I do my cardio and really I'm opened up, I'll go down to the room where I'm gonna give my speech and I'll do a sound check. I'll get on stage, I'll fill out the stage, I'll go into the audience, I'll shout a bunch of things from the stage and from the audience to find the dead points of sound in the room as much as I can, Just to feel the energy of the room and then to visualize where I'm gonna be and how. I'm gonna visualize myself up on stage, walking back and forth, getting alive, getting alert. I'll visualize the audience giving and amazing standing ovation and feeling the energy from. Just try and imbue the room with energy right there. Really feel it and sense it. Before I ever get on, I'll get up on stage, one last walk back and forth, look at, get comfortable. And then, boom, I go, I get dressed, I get ready. It's time to go. I'll go back down. Then I get backstage. Backstage, I'm constantly bouncing in place. I'm stretching, I'm getting ready. I'm not thinking too much about the speech. I'm just thinking about my body and. And opening up my meridians, opening up my energy. Just doing some bodywork backstage so that when I hit the stage, I feel loose and stretched and capable. And from there, it's trust. It's trusting in myself. It's not that I don't get anxiety or nerve, but my nerves are more like butterflies, like levels of excitement to go deliver for these Folks, because I prepared, I know it. Even if it's a big audience, I still get sometimes a little bit of anxiety or nervous real fast. And that's cool. I just now aim that energy into productive ends which is serving that audience. So I never get. If you're always, you know, a lot of stage fright, watch a lot of my other training out there because I got training for that. But stage fright is really just an obsession about self. You're paying attention to the wrong thing. It's all about you, you, you, you. To get over stage fright. You focus on service, you focus on helping the other people. You focus on having real conversations with individuals and just having conversations with the individuals in the audience. Really connecting with people and delivering something that you believe in, something that's important to you, not something you're reporting out because you're supposed to, but because this is a chance for you to role model, to inspire people to make your difference. I hope that serves you. It's one of the greatest qualities of living the charged life is being a great communicator, knowing that you've left the world with a positive feeling and a positive set of messages. It's what my entire life has been about. I hope you feel that through all these videos. You feel it when you see me on stage or out there on television or doing any of my work out there. I feel it. I'm excited to do this work all the time. And I know that you can share your voice equally as well. If you'll practice, you'll rehearse, you'll think about the rhythm, you'll do the work on the day of the speech to get you in the best possible place. And you'll focus on serving those that you're blessed to speak with. Doing all that helps you live the charge life. Hey, it's Brendan again. Did you notice something in today's episode? Yep. No ads, no sponsors, just a positive message to improve your day. How do I do it? How is it that you listen to all those other podcasts and they have minutes and minutes worth of lame ads for underwear or other websites they're promoting? Hey, I don't judge them, but I choose to focus on you in this podcast. And personally, when I listen to other shows, I just skip those long winded sponsor pitches. Anyway, I can only do this because you share my podcast with so many other people and enough folks end up looking me up online and buying my books or taking my online courses that I can self fund this entire effort. And you know how hard it is to do all this and that's why I appreciate you guys so much. I heard that you even helped me break a record too. The longest running top 10 self help show without a single sponsor or product pitch or ad. So if you like this podcast ad free and sponsor free, do me a favor. Tell a friend today you know you should listen to the Charged Life, Brendon Burchard's podcast. Just help spread the word, share why you like my show, or tell people to go to podcast.brendon.com it would sure help and I'd appreciate it. And I'm sure our community would too. I look forward to talking with you again soon, my friend. Until then, go out there every single day of your life. Live fully, love openly, and make your difference. Today.