Sarah Archer argues that previewing your whole speech at the start kills engagement. Instead, open with a contradiction: confront a belief or myth your audience holds. This creates curiosity and tension that keeps them listening.
Most speakers think their job at the beginning of their talk is to explain what they're going to talk about. It's not, because if you tell the audience everything upfront, there's no reason for them to want to continue listening. The tactic we're going to play with here is called the contradiction. We're going to start with something that challenges what people think they know about your topic. You're disrupting an assumption, a myth, something they believe about the problem or even the solution that they're currently using. And when you start to challenge those thoughts and create that curiosity gap and tension, they will start to lean in.
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