Why you should captivate your audience in the first 7 seconds of your speech

Human Beings attention span is lesser than that of a goldfish. Yes, you heard it right. So if you cannot hook your audience within the initial 7 seconds then it will take more efforts to captivate their attention.

What is an attention span?

Attention span is the amount of time you can focus on a task before getting distracted. In the year 2000, the average attention span of humans was 12 seconds.

Currently, it is 8 seconds.

Do you know what is the attention span of a goldfish?

The attention span of goldfish is 9 seconds.

This is why hooking your audience within 7 seconds is very crucial for a speaker or a presenter.

If you cannot hook them, you cook them to boredom.

Why is our attention span decreasing?

We are living in the world of information. Unfortunately, information is abundantly available now. Abundant information leads to information overload. Every second information is literally bombarded into our mind. Due to this, Whenever we see something common we instantly judge by saying “Oh,I think I know this” and your attention diverts to something else.

Secondly, we have trained our mind to distract itself subconsciously.

Every time we decide to give our focused time on something important. “BEEP BEEP” Notifications pop up. We tend to glance through our phones every now and then. When we do this on a regular basis, our subconscious mind will take it as “cue”. Unknowingly our mind is programmed to distract us from our tasks after a few minutes.

Your audience won’t have patience to listen to you if you are not engaging enough.

Ask yourself, have you watched any advertisement on YouTube which did not grab your attention in the initial 3 seconds?

The most common answer will be a “BIG NO”

So always, make sure your opening is powerful to hook your audience.

Step by Step: Guide to public speaking

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