Always the Season for Giving

The presents have been unwrapped and the packages ripped open, all too often to polite smiles, rather than joyous peals of laughter

Looking back, we know we should have gotten to our shopping earlier, but we didn’t. Instead, we rushed around at the last minute, looking frantically for gift ideas, grabbing anything that seemed the least bit appropriate, dressing it up with shiny paper and hoping the person we gave it to didn’t think to deeply about it.

Doesn’t that sound a lot like the way we all too often approach speaking. We cobble together a few ideas cribbed from other presentations, steal marginally relevant slides from various slide decks and try to wing it on enthusiasm and false confidence, hoping our audiences don’t realize that we really have nothing of import to say.

It’s possible, mind you, to go a long way with confidence and razzle-dazzle. In the end though, we will succeed or fail to the extent that we are giving our audience something of value; the information they need to feel comfortable with their decision, a solution to the problems that keep them up at night or the motivation to keep on fighting for the goal. The truest essence of effective public speaking is not in what we say. It is in what the audience receives.

So next year, take the time to figure out what the right Christmas gifts are for the people on your list. And make the time to get them what they really need and will enjoy.

Take the time, also, to figure out what the people in your audience would most benefit from hearing. And make the time to prepare and to deliver that message with clarity and impact.

After all, ’tis always the season for giving.