You’re preparing for a speech. How can you stay creative and engaging?

Before every speech, reinforce in your mind why you're doing it. If your purpose truly is to inform your audience everything else falls into place. Integrity of purpose means it's not about self promotion or solely for compensation. Your audience sees into your presenter soul and knows when it's about them and not you. Make it about them.

Find ways to add a bit of humor to a speech, especially when speaking on topics that may feel uncomfortable for some. I'd also suggest having examples of both current and historical events that align with your objectives. It gives a speech balance. Lastly, ask yourself these three questions? "How do I want the audience to feel?, What emotions do I want to invoke?, and What do I need the audience to know?" These are ways I stay creative and engage an audience in public speaking.

Know and be passionate about your subject. Prepare well and project confidence while speaking. Keep it short and to the point and when possible try to engage your audience in the conversation. Try not to read from notes and make eye contact with your audience. I always like to inject a bit of humour, read the room before doing this and always be culturally sensitive. If using slides to emphasise your talk, make sure they are engaging with minimum text and good quality photos. Cut short your speech or presentation if you feel the attention is waning, there is no harm in this. Better to leave on a high note than have everybody yawning.

All good ones. One of my favourite tips is know your audience. What do they know now about the subject of your talk and what do they need to know to take whatever action you’d like them to take after your speech.

TEN PRACTICAL RULES TO BECOME A GREAT SPEAKER I transformed into a keynote speaker on design thinking innovation, all of the world the last ten years. That’s why I like to share with you ten practical rules that made me fly on stage: 1. Understand your audience by knowing what’s keeping them awake at night. 2. Tell stories. 3. Use gestures purposefully. 4. Entertain and use humour to break the ice. 5. Vary tone, pace and volume. 6. Be genuine and share personal anecdotes to humanise your presentation. 7. Be passionate. 8. Exaggerate as a real actor would do. 9. Dress up, fitting your subject and personality to create more impact. 10. Talk to one person (in mind). I wish you lots of success! #keynote #keynotespeaker #speaker #topspeaker

I have a few list of things, I enjoy using during a speech. 1. Data. Have facts and data points on the palm of your hand. If the data is more shocking and contrarian to what the majority believes, even better. 2. Be interactive. Ask questions to the audience. A simple raise your hand session to a question, or interactive session with people on their side will help people be more excited and fresh to listen to you. 3. Add Humor in some ways. A little humor goes a long way. No matter how serious of a speech, there is always space for a positive light hearted moment.

Tell stories. Smile and gesticulate a lot. 80% of communication is unspoken and 20% is spoken. One of the ways to capture an audience is to be relatable. Psychologically story telling helps people find relativity and relativity helps to build trust. When an audience feels like they can trust you they find you easy to talk to.

To stay creative and engaging while preparing for a speech, consider the following strategies, each accompanied by a brief story or example: 1. Incorporate personal anecdotes: Integrate personal stories or experiences into your speech to humanize the content and establish a connection with your audience. 2. Use visuals and multimedia: To enhance engagement, consider incorporating visually stimulating elements such as infographics, videos, or slides that complement your speech. 3. Audience interaction: Plan to engage the audience through interactive elements such as brief Q&A sessions, polls, or interactive exercises.

Personal stories and anecdotes are a surefire way to captivate your audience. A speech becomes engaging and interesting when the attention of the audience is riveted with humorous examples, first hand experience and relatable content. Being creative is yet another facet that you can dwell on. Besides the question - answer session, the audience can be thoroughly engaged in providing feedback of their own. Encourage them to be proactive in the meeting. A two way conversation will speak volumes in an interactive session. Here the speaker is not the only one asking questions. The audience has an equal share in dialogue which peps them up and makes the session interesting. There's never a dull moment with appropriate wit and sassy humour.

Use visuals and multimedia Take the Hook Down the Body of the Speech Work on Your Body Language Use Visual Aids Visual aids such as PowerPoint slides, short videos, or pictures can help convey the message effectively. Instead of only imagining what you are saying, the visuals aid people see what you are saying. If you plan to use any visual aid during the speech, rehearse with them beforehand. Maintain Eye Contact With the Audience

To help create that natural fluctuation, consider underlining the key words in your speech that you want your listeners to really gravitate to. When you see those words underlined, you may start to hear a natural variance in your voice as you read. This can help kickstart a move away from sounding monotone.

Tonality matters in any instance, because it’s not what we say but how we say it. At the start of a speech, I’ll pause a little longer than expected. The patience builds powerful tension. Slowing the pace of getting our point across amplifies confidence. It also keeps the audience on the edge of their seat and hanging on our last word, because it strengthens their anticipation.

I prefer using a presentation with my speeches and am always super intentional with the images I choose to accompany certain talking points. I know that the right image will edge itself into the audience's memory and anchor the point I'm trying to make. But my advice is always to lead visually in presentations and be sparse with words. The visual aids should be a complement to your speech, not the other way around.

I always ask the audience several poll questions relevant to the topic and group at the beginning of any talk to get them listening and focused. You will notice who is paying attention and as you ask your second question - be sure not to rush it. Give the audience time to get in synch with you and each other.

Mastering your delivery is the key to an effective speech. Without purposeful body language and careful emphasis on certain words, your speech may lack wow-factor and prevent listeners from tuning in. Following these simple tips can help you get started with delivering an engaging and memorable speech: .When I make a speech or a presentation to a large group, I try to create analogies to other facets of life or business after I outline the topicsThe most important part of delivery is practice. Rehearse and perfect your speech ahead of time – this allows for more natural flow and confidence during your presentation.

Understanding the audience is key to forming a great question that has an obvious answer. Most can be thrown off in the beginning by raising your hand at the end of the question and asking for those that agree to blink their eyes. Something I learned from Les Brown, is asking assemblies to take a moment for simple task participation (like turning to the right and left, shaking hands or introducing yourself to the person next to you). It’s amazing how many people don’t do that on their own and it supports the 3rd level of social/ human instinctual need, to feel like they belong.

When I make a speech or a presentation to a large group, I try to create analogies to other facets of life or business after I outline the topics. The intent is to get listeners to see the frame from different angles. People respond when they have reference points outside their own subject matter bubble and see a broader purpose. I also look for people who follow closely, have good body language, and ask if I can get their take on something. Speeches and presentations work well when you are not reading a script. Much like my opening and closing statements when I was in private practice, I really on an outline with topic sentences and key words. That enables me to focus on the audience.

Connect with your audience. A youthfilled event should be addressed youthfully. An aged filled event should be addressed with greater respect. Be open to criticisms that you never know it all, that would make your audience engage more with your offer than dominating the entire stage.

I heard some advice once that you should know your speech well enough that you can recite it to yourself if you were to wake up in the middle of the night. Now, depending on the speech and how important the occasion is, I may or may not agree. However, if you've memorized it to the point it comes out of you like running water, you create space for other important things that will make your speech the best it can be: - audience engagement - dynamic expressions - an ability to feel in the audience and pause - body language that will enhance your message Therefore, my advice is yes -- practice, practice, practice!

At least an hour before speaking - and ideally before the event -stop looking at your notes. Seriously - you know what you need to know already. Meet people instead, speak to your audience- you may well find there’s something your audience know or care about that you haven’t thought of yet - this is a chance to make the session relevant to what some of your audience care about. If in your session you can genuinely say - “I’ve spoken to a few of you here and you’ve told me….” then your presentation has added meaning for those you’ve spoken to.

It’s also ok to pause during your speech. In fact, it allows time for you to collect your thoughts and gives your audience a chance to reflect & absorb what was said. It can also be used as a way to emphasize important thoughts in your speech.