The Biggest Mistake New Speakers Make

22 Oct 2026 · 1 min

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In this concise presentation, speaker Lori Harder (SPEAKER A) warns new public speakers against cramming too much material into a keynote. She shares her own experience of trying to fill a 60‑minute slot with excessive content to prove expertise, which she admits is exhausting for audiences. Harder advises limiting the presentation to a single, powerful example and distilling the message into only one or two actionable takeaways, ensuring the audience can actually implement them. The core message is that less, focused content creates a more engaging and effective keynote.

Chapters

One of the biggest mistakes new speakers make is trying to put too much in their keynotes. And I was 100% guilty of this as well. Same. Yeah. We think that we've gotta fill the 60 minutes with everything we possibly know on the subject, and we have to convince these people that we know what we're talking about and that we deserve to be there. And so our keynote turns into this like 60 minutes of us just like trying to prove ourselves that we know what we're talking about, and that's exhausting to listen to. They don't need 8 examples on this. Just give one really good example that hits, you know? Let's not give them 10 takeaways that they need to do. It's too much. Just give them one or two that they're actually gonna do. And so I think that's one of the biggest things I see with new speakers is just trying to shoehorn way too much in a keynote from the get-go.