Give Your Speech, Change the World: How To Move Your Audience to Action

INTRODUCTION

The Only Reason to Give a Speech Is to Change the World

THE ONLY REASON TO GIVE A SPEECH IS to change the world. An old friend of mine, a speechwriter, used to say that to me. He meant it as a challenge. It was his way of saying that, if you’re going to take all the trouble to prepare and deliver a speech, make it worthwhile. Change the world.

Otherwise, why bother? Preparing speeches, giving speeches, and listening to speeches—each of these activities is fraught with peril. The opportunities for failure are many, and for success correspondingly few. An oft-quoted study suggests that executives would rather die than speak. Of all their fears, public speaking is number one, and death comes much further down the list, just before ...