Then I go back and finish up the talk on my own, sometimes checking back in, but sometimes not if the talk or piece is now resonating well.
4. Think more about God and your audience than you think about yourself.
Most of us naturally over-focus on ourselves.
Will I deliver this well?
Will people laugh at my jokes?
Will I knock it out of the park?
I have those thoughts too. But when I focus on them, I tend to do less well than when I focus on two other elements: God and my audience.
A sermon is not really about how you ‘did’ as a communicator; it’s about God’s interaction with his people.
A talk isn’t about how you ‘did’ as a speaker; it’s about whether you helped your audience.
Ditto with a book.
Put a filter on your thoughts about you.
For sure, you need some personal elements in your talk … some stories, and maybe even some humor. But even while those elements are about you, they’re not. They’re about God using you and about your audience.
When you take the focus off of yourself, your insecurities lessen their grip. You begin to serve God and serve your audience through your communication, and you find you actually help people far more.
5. Focus on understanding your message, not memorizing it.
This one’s for speakers.
How do you memorize a 45-minute talk?
I have no idea. But I regularly give 45-minute talks without using notes.
The best piece of advice I’ve ever received on how to ‘learn’ a talk is this: Don’t memorize your talk, understand it.
Think about the next conversation you have today at work or with your family. You don’t memorize what you’re going to say before you say it. Instead, you understand what you’re trying to accomplish (I need to talk about the third quarter results, or what we’re doing for dinner).
A talk is obviously more complex, but not much more.
I think of my talk as having four or five larger components:
Introduction
A story or bridge of some kind to get to the main point
The main point
Application
Conclusion
If you do this, all you have to remember is the big idea of what fits in each part of the talk. Sometimes it’s as simple as thinking, “How do I get to the main point again? Right, the story about last summer’s vacation!”
Personally, I will write out some stories and key phrasing in detail, but I don’t write a full manuscript any more.
I just write enough so I understand what I’m going to say.
That takes the pressure off of you as a communicator, because if you forget something the only person who knows is you. And the talk is shorter, so everyone wins. I wrote more about this subject in the post How to Deliver a Talk Without Using Notes.
Don’t memorize your talk. Understand it.
