I want to deliver a speech, but the problem is I don’t know what I should speak about? Or I don’t have a unique speech topic?
Do you also face this roadblock in your public speaking journey?
Don’t worry you are not alone. In fact, most of us go through this dilemma.
So what’s the most obvious thing we do while searching for a topic?
You are absolutely right, we google it. And what we find there is a list of unique speech topics, then we realise almost all the topics are common and we want to deliver a unique speech that has an attention-grabbing speech topic. In the end, we end up with speech topic paralysis and delay delivering the speech or perhaps cancel it.
To help you out of this dilemma
Here are a few steps to shortlist or discover unique speech topics.
1) Reminder: The purpose of speech is to serve your audience.
As a speaker, one of the most fundamental things is that your speech should serve your audience. It may be to entertain, information, persuade, etc in the end your audience has to be benefitted. This is one of the secrets to being an impactful speaker.
2) Be authentic: Deliver a message in which you truly believe in
Before you deliver the speech make sure you are comfortable with the message you are trying to convey. The message or purpose of speech should resonate from within. For example, if you find it difficult to wake up at 5 AM, please don’t craft a speech to persuade your audience why waking up early at 5 AM is good. You should live and follow the message or at least you should be in that process. Your audience can read you like a magazine if you are not authentic. So always be authentic because the secret is “The speech and the speaker should be inseparable”. Being authentic is one of the most powerful ways to connect to your audience. You might be someone who is petrified of public speaking, when you are on stage you may tremble with fear or you may not know any techniques of public speaking, yet by being authentic you can make a huge impact on your audience.
3) It’s not always about the message, it’s how you tell it.
Watch these short videos
These 2 videos might have motivated you or perhaps made you feel good. But have you noticed the similarity between these 2 videos? Their message is the same “Don’t Give up”
I am trying to make the point that even though the message is common or overused, the way you craft your speech makes it unique.
4) Do you want to know how to make your speech unique?
Share your personal stories. Everyone’s experience is unique, so by including your story your speech will be unique. Now the immediate response from you might be, I didn’t experience anything big in my life. I didn’t achieve something great like Miss Universe etc etc.
This is where you need to revisit the first point, the purpose of your speech is to serve your audience. You need to trust us in this, there are so many things happening in our day-to-day life that can impact others, but we have unknowingly conditioned our minds only to focus on extraordinary things.
This incident which Simon Sinek shared is so simple that we do or it happens in our day-to-day life, yet it makes an impact on your audience. Now your task is to recondition the way you see simple things. So find ordinary incidents, add public speaking techniques, and make it extraordinary. You don’t have to wait for an extraordinary event to happen in your life, take an ordinary event and find extraordinary in it.
Example video:
You can skip this if you want
The above video may help you to see the world with a story lens ON.
5) Keep the message or theme simple
KISS (Keep it Simple Silly)
Before you start writing a persuasive speech make sure you can define the message in one line. If you are delivering a humorous speech or trying stand-up comedy make sure you can define the theme clearly to yourself. It will help you to get more clarity and help you to craft a great speech.
Answer yourself “What I am trying to convey?” or “What is my purpose of this speech?”
Bonus Step
6) Rephrase the message to make it unique
If you are someone who wants your speech to stand out, then take the core message and try to rephrase it.
Example:
The core message in one of Roel’s speech was “Don’t delay your dreams” He restructured the message to “If you snooze you never what you lose”
Saying the same message differently. He utilized sound writing techniques to craft the core message.
These techniques will help you to find an attention-grabbing speech topic.
Note: This blog is not a bible for public speaking. These steps are most widely used by creative speakers. If you have your own process which you follow, do share it with us in our comment section. If you have any queries or thoughts to share, do leave a comment below.
Declaration:
Place your hand on your heart and say “I am unique , I will discover uniqueness in me”
Place your index finger on your forehead and say “I am a confident and powerful speaker.”
