If All the World's Our Stage - Why are We so Unrehearsed?

William Shakespeare said it best,

All the world's a stage, and men and women, merely players.

So why are we so unrehearsed?


Those of us who make it our business to speak to groups of people at a time, in presentations, public speeches or other formats of conversation, often dive head first into the amount of time given to us and excessively overspeak. We rattle on and on, sometimes rambling away from our topic, other times simply giving detail far too frequently and excluding the need for questions or conversation from our listeners.
We overspeak - because we failed to plan our content. Research confirms this is counter-productive.

Can you relate? Recall the last time you were a day or so away from another presentation gig and you ran out of time to plan your content. Maybe you told yourself you already are familiar with the material, or you've given this talk countless times and no longer need to review or rehearse.

You convince yourself that one of the joys of creating a "template" speech is you no longer need to rehearse it. Oops. Wrong thought. That's the day you'll fall on your face with embarassment because you forgot a handout or failed to provide the correct transitions and you found yourself all of a sudden at a loss. Or you failed to discover how much time you were to take and launched forward into cramming it all in, anyway.

Two common complaints of audiences about speakers is they 1. Try to share too much information 2. Deviate from the message

Take action now in 3 simple steps:
1. Plan your content
2. Prepare your strategy of influence
3. Practice the message, on your feet.

We need to have a strategy to hone our message, to come across with focus and clarity and to be able to influence. This really means, we need to think, get strategic and practice our message.

Stay tuned to how to Plan your Content in my next post.