S2E9 - Speak So People Listen

This week, McKay talks about how to speak so people listen. He opens up the episode with the story of Ronald Reagan’s powerful speech to D-Day veterans at Pointe du Hoc.  Great speakers, McKay says, ask questions to connect with the audience and help them feel like the message is for them. To remember and map their speech, good speakers break their speech down into manageable chunks, each with important points to get across.  By using chunks, speakers can teach instead of memorizing their lines verbatim. Most importantly though, McKay holds that the key to speaking so that people listen is knowing your strengths and weaknesses.  Then, seek to magnify your strengths.  It’s your strengths that make your speaking memorable.

He goes on to note that, when we try to mimic someone else’s style by playing to their strengths instead of our own, we come off as fake. That’s why McKay says it’s so important to share personal stories; the more an audience relates to you, the more they will listen to you. McKay also shares some speech 'don’ts' - such as using too many jokes to too much focus on the speaker. He draws this episode to a close by sending a heartfelt message to his friend Austin who has recently embarked on a public speaking journey of his own and encouraging all of us to learn a bit more how to speak so people listen.