Public speaking is hard. Yes, it can be terrifying, but it’s also very difficult.
One of the critical (and well-known) keys to being a good public speaker is: know your material.
Know it cold, inside and out, backwards and forwards so that you can recite it while drunk and hung upside down from a crawler crane. You should be so familiar with your material that you own it.
“Well, duh,” you think to yourself. “Obviously if I’m going to tell an audience something I need to know it.”
Right. But it’s not only important to not screw up your story, or presentation, or whatever it is you’re doing. Knowing your material essential to entertaining your audience.
Why?
Telling us something you don’t know well isn’t interesting because we’re watching you remember words. It’s about as gripping as you reading a phone book, but without the phone book right in front of you.
I’d rather watch one wrestler.
When you know your material well, however, you have an opportunity to do something magical. If you know it so well that you don’t have to remember it, we can actually watch you have an experience.
That’s what’s interesting. No matter what the material is, if you experience it vividly, we’ll be enthralled.
You reliving a personal story is interesting. You digging into the yoga position you’re teaching is interesting. You being deeply touched by a historical event is interesting.
You musing over names in the phone book is interesting. No kidding, it really is. Watching a human being go through an experience is fascinating.
Know your material so well that instead of remembering it, you can live it.
And we’ll be eating out of your hand.