Struggle to memorise long speeches?

This approach helped me remember 1 hour talks.

I used to wonder how people could memorise long talks. I tried and I forgot key parts. I got stressed.I was trying so hard to remember that I wasn’t present enough to connect with my audience.

I didn’t want to bore people to death with bullet points on every slide. But the bullet points helped me remember what I was going to say.

The game-changing solution

Then I heard the marketeer, Seth Godin, mention using pictures only for presentations so I gave it a go.

I broke down my speech into a series of images and graphics.

Now instead of a full 1 hour speech. I just had to remember a story about each slide. It was so much easier.

Humans are wired for story. The stories are from my professional and personal life so they are easy to remember.

And they’re more interesting for my audience.

I also use data slides to add facts and a broader perspective. I used to teach maths to many kids with short attention spans. Graphics and data are easy for me to describe and bring to life.

Now that I’m not worried about remembering. I can connect better with my audience.

I sometimes add a bit of text because my friend, Laura, reminded me that people like to screen shot takeaways on their phone.

But generally, my in person talks are designed to be an experience. Not an audience watching me read bullet points they can read themselves.

4 tips to memorise your speeches

So struggle to memorise speeches?

– Use more pictures.
– Have a relevant story for each.
– Put them together in an order that makes sense.
– Enjoy more time connecting with your audience.

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