“How can I find more interesting things to say in my speech?”
I hear this all of the time from clients. Often, they are looking for a quick fix, like a web site or a reference book. Sadly, these are useless to most speakers.
Most people have interesting content i.e. stories that they use in real life conversations all of the time – they just don’t realize it. Part of becoming a better speaker is constantly being on the prowl for interesting stories, analogies, explanations and vignettes that you or other colleagues of yours use. When you hear them, make a mental note; better yet, make an actual note on paper or a computer screen.
One basic phenomenon in life is that people find what they are looking for, whether they realize it or not. If you are looking for an alcoholic violent spouse because your parent was a violent alcoholic, you will probably be successful.
When I was in 6th Grade, I was bussed across town to an inner city school. The ride was 40 minutes each way. My friends and I played a game where we counted Corvettes along the way. (That was our favorite car). After a while, the number got higher and higher. We knew where every Corvette was parked. We knew what streets might have one poking out of a garage. When we started the game, we found fewer than half a dozen cars. But after a year, we never found fewer than 40 Corvettes on the way to school. Where there suddenly more Corvettes on the streets of Charlotte, NC? No, we had just trained our eyes to look for them better.
You must train your eyes and ears to be on a constant lookout for interesting and memorable examples and stories to make your speech and presentations stand out.
If you look for them, they will eventually standout and allow you to capture them.
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