The Best Speech I Ever Gave and Why It Could've Been So Much Better

It was 2012 and I was honored to speak for Chris Guillebeau at his World Domination Summit. I'd given hundreds of speeches before this point, and I gave several hundred more after it. (Well over 1000 keynotes and a few assorted panels.) But I'll explain why this is my favorite speech, and why also it could've been so much better.

The Speech I Gave

The basic premise of the speech was to teach people that the opposite of fear wasn't bravery. The opposite of fear was surrender. Point being: fear is a very important part of living and thriving.

Here's the Speech. It runs about an hour. Don't watch it yet. Or do. This is your letter.

Here's what makes it great:

• My jokes all hit relatively well. (I have a few I'd fix in retrospect.)
• I stayed on topic, even though sometimes, you can see me stay in the joke mode a tiny bit longer, because I'm getting off on the laughter. (Again, something to fix.)
• I had a plan ahead of time, and I built the speech around the plan. (This is the main point of this point, but let me keep going.)
• I built props - I handed out superhero trading cards and wove those into the speech.
• THIS RIGHT HERE: the AV guys liked what I told them I was about to do, and one of them said, "Hey, uh, we've got these colored lights. You know what would be cool?" Skip to 9:30. And watch BEHIND ME while I'm talking. The guys matched the colors of the characters I was talking about to the lighting.

Here's what makes it bad:

• I didn't practice.
• I said "uh" way too many times because I gave this speech off the top of my head.
• I let my ego get in the way every time I got the laughs.
• The lack of practice made some parts of it clunky.

The people who were there won't ever forget it. (God, that's an arrogant thing to say.) But they won't. Because I handed them all superhero cards. I matched tons of pop culture references with a main and important point. I spoke through a lot of deep human truths by keeping it light the whole way through.

What Separates Me From The Pros (At Least in 2012)

Professional speakers and comics and presenters and entertainers work very hard and practice very much and prepare extensively so that everything FEELS like it just came out for the first time. They demonstrate their precision by making everything feel light and airy.

Also, rewatching this video, I could've said all I needed to say in less than 20 minutes. TED has this element SO right. It's almost always "too much time" if you give an hour speech. Almost every speech in the world can be said in 20 minutes or less. Sometimes ten.

I naturally seem light and airy, but there are so many rough edges. Think about how much more effective this presentation could've been, how impactful, if I didn't "stream of mind it."

And yet.

Here's the last turn in the road. I didn't prep you for this. A lot of what I love about this speech more than any speech I've given before or since is that mix of "things I prepared" with "my ability to lay out an interesting entertainment experience off the top of my head."

I am built for improv. I can't remember lines. But what I *could* do, and what I've spent years perfecting, is saying less. Saying it better. Not feeding my ego.

I woke up thinking about this speech, missing Chris Guillebeau, and wanting to share some of my humor with you.

Chris...