TJ Walker explains why speakers lose their audience's attention: discomfort. If people are cold, hungry, or tired, they can't focus. Adjust the room temperature, schedule breaks around meal times, and time talks to match people's energy, whether you're speaking to hundreds or having a conversation at home.
Chapters
Your audience is made up of human beings with physical needs. And you need to realize that if you want to communicate. What do I really mean by that? I'm not suggesting you have to take every audience member out for an elaborate meal, but if you are speaking to an audience or if you're doing a training for a day and the room is too cold and everyone is shivering, they're not going to be able to pay that close attention to you because they're filled physically uncomfortable. You need to somehow figure out how to get that room warmer. On the other hand, if the room is way too hot, you got to figure how to make it colder. Open a window, call the manager of the building over, call the superintendent. Figure it out. If you've been speaking for an hour and the person before you spoke for an hour and there wasn't a break in between, and you see people squirming a little and a couple people getting up, that's a sign it's time for a bathroom break. It might not be scheduled, it might not be on the agenda, but human beings have physical needs, so you need to recognize that. Same with food. You're going on and on. Perhaps you're doing an all day event, speaking, training, leading a seminar. You're having the time of your life. It's everything is great, but it's 12:30. Perhaps you're used to eating lunch at 1:30. Guess what? A lot of people in the world eat lunch at noon. A lot more eat lunch at 12:30. I personally would be doubled over in pain. I wouldn't even be able to tell you my name if it's 1240 and I haven't had lunch yet. So you need to be aware of the physical needs of your audience. Don't take them past normal times for eating lunch or for that matter, dinner. Ultimately, you want to communicate ideas. You want people to understand your ideas and remember your ideas. But you have to make sure your audience is in the right condition. Now if you're talking to a family member and you're a late night person and this person always falls asleep by 9 o', clock, talking to them about a serious issue and it's 9:05 and they're getting into bed, that's not the best time. You need to be aware of your audience's body clock. Whether it's one family member or 1,000 people at a conference, be aware of their physical needs. If they're tired, cold, hot or hungry, they're not going to focus on your message.
