Wellspring
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“If you do the work that you do from a loving heart, then you will always be able to make something beautiful.” —An old Zen koan, cited in Anam Cara (https://amzn.to/2rW1NLo)
It’s wedding and college graduation season, and every year around this time I get a few calls from people looking for help with a personal speech they’ve been asked to deliver. And they are usually in a panic by the time they’ve decided to call me.
Speechwriting (https://thinkitcreative.com/speechwriting-mastery-workshop/) has been a highly profitable business line for me for over 17 years as a business owner and for over 25 years as a creative pro. But I don’t ever write those intensely personal kinds of speeches for people.
It’s not just a matter of my fees. What I tell those panicked callers each time is you don’t actually need me to do this.
Let me explain what I mean.
I don’t just turn people down. Business is about being in service to others. And sometimes that means giving people what they need rather than what they want.
In these cases, they think they want a writer to look after a job for them. What they really need, however, is someone to give them permission to try something that scares them. So I do that.
Here are five things that I tell them.
This only can come from you.
There are three kinds of speeches: ones that comfort, ones that entertain and ones that persuade.
Intensely personal speeches are different from keynote presentations. They are combination of all three speech types. And they work best when you simply stay focused on talking about what you know.
If you’re an invited speaker at someone’s wedding, you know the bride and groom better than most in that room. Better than I ever can. So talk about them from that wellspring of love situated in that deepest place within you. The resistance you feel in accessing it is the sign you’re getting close to it. Keep going.
Everyone wants to see you succeed.
Personal speeches have a unique advantage in that every person in that room wants to see you do well. So you begin with an extraordinary wealth of goodwill. Use that to your advantage, especially if you’re feeling nervous. Because it means that people are going to be more receptive to what you have to say compared to, say, doing an elevator-style pitch to a small group at a business gathering.
Stop trying to be funny
Some people think they absolutely must have funny-one liners in a speech to help break the ice. But most just aren’t that gifted with coming up with good material and delivering it in a way that makes people laugh. So for most of us out there who have a tin ear for comedy, we make-do just by concentrating on telling a story that others can relate to.
Don’t make it about you
Even though you’re the invited speaker, the job is seldom one where you’re expected to focus squarely on yourself (delivering a commencement speech is a notable exception, but that’s a conversation for another day).
The story we tell here is never about ourselves. It’s about others. When we talk about a problem we have encountered in our lives and about how we went about solving it, the story is only relevant to your audience if they can see themselves in it.
Don’t be afraid to give a short speech
Everyone has had the misfortune of having had to sit through a needlessly long speech. And it takes less time than you think to cross into that territory.
Almost no one ever complains that a speech is too short. But brevity doesn’t come from being lazy. When it’s done right, it’s an outcome of having made choices about what to leave out. From figuring out what to condense. And from having worked hard to get at that glowing kernel of truth that forms the essence of your message.
It takes time to be brief. Be willing to do that work.
Very best, Patrick
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