If you prefer video content over text, I explain this material with fun, musical examples in my YouTube video.
Having a good message isn’t enough. To encourage your audience to remember that message and act on it, you need to repeat it.
In this article, I break down the proper and improper ways to use repetition in public speaking:
What Not To Do
Imagine a speaker says this:
“There are four regrets: foundational regrets, boldness regrets, moral regrets, connection regrets”
Would you remember that in 5 minutes? No.
Because brains are like rocks. One ocean wave passing by will not change a rock’s shape. Only wave after wave after wave will smooth the rock into something new. According to neuroscience, robust memories form when the same neurons fire over and over again.1
What To Do
Check out how Daniel Pink, bestselling author of “The Power of Regret”, uses that neuroscience principle to make his message memorable:
Daniel says:
“People kept expressing the same four regrets. Around the world, there are the same four regrets that keep coming up over and over and over again. So what I want to do is just quickly tell you about these four core regrets, because I think they reveal something incredibly important and interesting. So the four core regrets that I’m going to cover…[He then goes on to talk about all four regrets]”
5 minutes from now, what phrase are you going to remember?
Four regrets.
And notice that idea doesn’t feel overworn. Instead of tediously, pedantically repeating “four regrets”, Daniel weaves it purposefully and artfully throughout his delivery so you see it from many different perspectives.
By the end, you can’t wait to hear what the “four regrets” are.
Summary
Aim to distill your message to a short phrase or keyword, and sprinkle it throughout your talk.
That will make it the one thing your audience remembers when they walk out the door.
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I’m writing a book on thinking quickly, speaking clearly, presenting convincingly, and supercharging your executive presence. My current focus: a section on the musicality of speech. This will be a deep-dive into organizing sentences to grab and sustain your audience’s attention.
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Sources
1 National Library of Medicine, “Physiology, Long Term Memory”
