called a hook or a grabber.
I don’t want to close my eyes; it makes me feel awkward and exposed to be in a group of people with my eyes closed. Because of that, I keep my eyes open. The problem is when I keep my eyes open, I feel like some sort of horrible nonconformist rebel. I feel awkward with my eyes closed and I feel guilty if they are open. Either way, I just feel bad. Besides, half of the time when speakers tell audience members to close their eyes, they forget to tell us when we can open them. If you are wanting me to imagine a story, just tell me to imagine it, don’t make me close my eyes (rant over).
You should plan your opening to be intentional and with power. “Can everybody hear me” is a weak and uncertain statement and this is not the first impression you want to leave. Do a microphone check before the audience members arrive and have someone stand in different corners of the room to make sure you can be heard. Don’t waste your valuable speech time with questions that you should already know the answer to.
You should know that before you begin. Even if the presentations for the day are running over and you are the last speaker, you should ask the MC before you begin. Always plan your first words with power.
You should make your slides big, really big. Test out your slides in advance of your speech, walk all around the room and make sure you can read them. Have a friend check them out as well. You should know they are big enough because you planned for it and tested it.
People really hate having things taken away, not to mention that your audience may want to take notes on their devices. Chances are you are speaking to adults, let them determine if it is appropriate to have out their technology.
Stop apologizing! Stop making excuses! While these lines may be true, they just come of as excuses and can make the audience either feel like you don’t want to be there, or they just feel sorry for you.
Talking about your nervousness will make you more nervous and will make them look for signs of your nervousness. Just start your speech.
Do not start with hesitation. Plan the first words, memorize the first words, practice the first words. Do not start with “Ok, so um, now I’d like…” Plan strong and start strong.
Do Not Discuss Your Business with People Watching…Really! I Mean It! Many of us are giving and listening to presentations in an online format. I have attended numerous presentations this year through Zoom where I have to sit and watch while the organizers engage in personal small talk or deal with the details of the presentation. This is how the speech I recently attended began. “Donna, you are going to share your screen, right?” “Yes. I have my PowerPoint ready to go. Will you push “record” when I give the signal?” “Sure. Where did you say that button is again? Do you think we should wait five more minutes, I think we had more who were coming? Dave, what was the total we were expecting?” “Yeah, we had 116 sign up, but the reminders went out late so this may be all we have. We can give them a few more minutes to log on.” “Donna, How is your dog? Is she still struggling with her cone since her spay surgery? My dog never would wear the cone –she tore her stitches out and broke her wound open. It was terrible. Well, it looks like it is about time to begin, thank you everyone for coming.” If you are organizing an event online, hosting a speech online, giving a presentation online–please keep it professional. Most platforms will allow you to keep the audience in a waiting room until it is time to start. If you have a business to deal with, keep the audience out until you have everything ready to go. Once the audience is in the meeting, you should engage the audience in group-type small talk or you should just start the presentation. In professional settings, you should start the meeting on time. Why punish those who showed up on time to wait for those who aren’t there yet?
I asked my long-time friend, Bill Rogers, to write an excerpt to add to the book. I met Bill when he was the Chief Development Officer for a hospital in Northwest Arkansas and I met him again when he was reinventing himself as a college student getting a Master’s Degree in the theater. He would love to share a symbolic cup of coffee with you and give you advice about public speaking.
Perfect morning for a walk, isn’t it? Join me for a cup of coffee? Wonderful. Find us a table and I’ll get our coffee.
There you go; just like you like it. There’s nothing like a great cup of coffee on the patio of your neighborhood coffee shop, is there?
Now that you’re settled in your favorite chair, take a sip, and let that glorious caffeine kick in and do its stuff. Okay, let’s talk.
So, you were asking me about public speaking.
Well, let’s see. Where do we begin?
One of the first pieces of advice I ever received was to imagine that every member of your audience is sitting there in their underwear! Yeah, right. That never worked for me. I tried it once with a local civic group of community leaders both male and female. If the intent of that tidbit is to make you relax, it certainly didn’t work for me. It just made me more self-conscious…and more nervous. I not only got distracted, but I also lost my train of thought, I started sweating, and, of course, imagined myself standing there without clothes. Needless to say, that speech was a disaster and I’ve never used it again. I suggest you don’t either.
In the early days, I also relied very heavily on my typed-up speech. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that unless you find yourself reading it word for word as I did. Nothing is more boring nor puts an audience to sleep quicker than a speaker with their nose down reading a speech. There’s no connection and connection with your audience is key.
As you know, I love theatre and I’ve done a bit of acting over the years. Early on, I learned that the quicker I learned my lines, the more I could play, experiment, and shape my character. It relaxed me and gave me enormous freedom. It led me to find a mantra for myself: “With discipline comes freedom.” This freedom will allow you to improvise as your audience or situation dictates while still conveying the core message of your presentation. That discipline and its resulting freedom apply to public speaking of any kind and, I think, will serve you well.
Another old adage we’ve all heard is Aristotle’s advice. You know the one. No? Well, roughly, it’s to tell your audience what you’re going to say, say it, and then tell them what you just said. That’s the basic formula for public speaking. And it works as a good place to start.
However, effective speaking is much more and, to me, it starts with a story or even a simple sentence.
You know the feeling you get when you read the first sentence of a good book and it just reaches out and grabs you? That should be your goal with every presentation. One sentence to capture your audience’s attention. Something that causes them to lean forward. Something that sparks their imagination.
It doesn’t have to be all that profound either. It can be something very simple. A personal story that relates to your topic. A relevant fact or statistic that defines or illustrates the issue or subject matter at hand.
A couple of classics come to mind. The first is Alice Walker’s, “The Color of Purple.”
“You better not tell nobody but God.”
And the second one is from my favorite novel, “To Kill A Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee.
“When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm broken at the elbow.”
Both sentences hook you immediately. A few simple words speak volumes. After reading or hearing those words, you naturally lean in. You want to learn more. You want to find out what happens next. Every effective speech or presentation does the same thing.
Of course, make sure that the first and last thing you say to your audience is both relevant and appropriate. I share this out of an abundance of caution. I once worked for an internationally recognized and well-respected children’s research hospital and I was given the privilege to speak at a national educational convention. The room was filled wall to wall with teachers. I thought I’d be cute and add a little levity. I opened my presentation with this line, “You know, I’ve had nightmares like this…” Instead of the roars of laughter, I was expecting, a wave of silence ensued. Not only was the line not funny, but it was also wholly inappropriate and I immediately lost my audience. Not my best day. Learn from my mistakes.
Finally, let’s touch on the importance of approaching a speech as a conversation. You and I are sitting here enjoying our coffee and having a friendly, relaxed conversation. Strive for that every chance you get. You may not always have that luxury. Some speeches and presentations simply demand formality. But even in those cases, you can usually make it somewhat conversational. I always try to write my speeches in a conversational style. Like I’m talking to a friend…or trying to make a new one.
So, to recap: tell a story, learn your lines, hook your audience with a simple sentence, close with a question or call to action, use repetition, keep it conversational, treat your audience as a friend, and give yourself permission to relax.
Above all, be yourself. Allow yourself to be as relaxed as you are with those closest to you. If you’re relaxed, if you try to think of your audience as a friend, then, in most cases, they too will relax and they will root for you. Even if they disagree with what you are telling them, they will respect you and they will listen.
How about another cup?
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Advanced Public Speaking Copyright © 2021 by Lynn Meade is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.
1. choosing the right opening line.
Finding the perfect opening line for your speech is important in grabbing your audience’s attention. A strong opening line sets the stage for the points you want to make and helps you establish a connection with your listeners.
1. Start with a question
Engage your audience from the very beginning by asking them a thought-provoking question related to your topic. This approach encourages them to think, and it can create a sense of anticipation about what’s coming next.
2. Share a personal story
A relatable personal story can create an emotional connection with your audience. Make sure your story is short, relevant to your speech, and ends with a clear point.
3. Use a quote or a statistic
Incorporate a powerful quote or an intriguing statistic at the outset of your speech to engage your audience and provide context for your topic.
4. Make them laugh
Injecting a little humor into your opening line puts everyone at ease and makes your speech more memorable. Just make sure your joke is relevant and doesn’t offend your audience.
5. Paint a mental picture
Draw your audience in by describing a vivid scene or painting an illustration in their minds. This creates an immersive experience that makes it easier for your audience to follow your speech.
Sharing a personal story can be a highly effective way to engage your audience from the very beginning of your speech. When you open your talk with a powerful, relatable story, it helps create an emotional connection with your listeners, making them more invested in what you have to say.
Think about an experience from your life that is relevant to the topic of your speech. Your story doesn’t have to be grand or dramatic, but it should be clear and vivid. Include enough detail to paint a picture in your audience’s minds, but keep it concise and on point.
The key to successfully using a personal story is to make it relatable. Choose a situation that your audience can empathize with or easily understand. For example, if you’re giving a speech about overcoming adversity, you could talk about a time where you faced a seemingly insurmountable challenge and overcame it.
Make sure to connect your story to the main point or theme of your speech. After sharing your experience, explain how it relates to the topic at hand, and let your audience see the relevance to their own lives. This will make your speech more impactful and show your listeners why your personal story holds meaning.
Starting your speech with a shocking statement can instantly grab your audience’s attention. This technique works especially well when your speech topic relates to a hot-button issue or a controversial subject. Just make sure that the statement is relevant and true, as false claims may damage your credibility.
For example, “Believe it or not, 90% of startups fail during their first five years in the market.” This statement might surprise your listeners and make them more receptive to your ideas on how to avoid pitfalls and foster a successful business.
So next time you’re crafting a speech, consider opening with a powerful shocking statement. It could be just the thing to get your audience sitting up and paying full attention. (Try to keep your shocking statement relevant to your speech topic and factual to enhance your credibility.)
Humor can be an excellent way to break the ice and grab your audience’s attention. Opening your speech with a funny story or a joke can make a memorable first impression. Just be sure to keep it relevant to your topic and audience.
A good joke can set a light-hearted tone, lead into the importance of effective time management, and get your audience engaged from the start.
When using humor in your speech, here are a few tips to keep in mind:
When you want to start your speech with a powerful quote, ensure that the quote is relevant to your topic. Choose a quote from a credible source, such as a famous historical figure, a well-known author, or a respected expert in your field. This will not only grab your audience’s attention but also establish your speech’s credibility.
For example, if you’re giving a speech about resilience, you might use this quote by Nelson Mandela: “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Once you’ve found the perfect quote, integrate it smoothly into your speech’s introduction. You can briefly introduce the source of the quote, providing context for why their words are significant. For example:
Nelson Mandela, an inspirational leader known for his perseverance, once said: “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
When you’re incorporating a quote in your speech, practice your delivery to ensure it has the intended impact. Focus on your tone, pace, and pronunciation. By doing so, you can convey the quote’s meaning effectively and connect with your audience emotionally.
Connect the quote to your main points by briefly explaining how it relates to the subject matter of your speech. By creating a natural transition from the quote to your topic, you can maintain your audience’s interest and set the stage for a compelling speech.
In our resilience example, this could look like:
“This quote by Mandela beautifully illustrates the power of resilience. Today, I want to share with you some stories of remarkable individuals who, like Mandela, overcame obstacles and rose every time they fell. Through their experiences, we might learn how to cultivate our own resilience and make the most of life’s challenges.”
Opening your speech with a question can be a great way to engage your audience from the start. This strategy encourages your listeners to think and become active participants in your presentation. Your opening question should be related to your core message, sparking their curiosity, and setting the stage for the following content. Here are a few examples:
When choosing the right starting question, consider your audience. You want to ask something that is relevant to their experiences and interests. The question should be interesting enough to draw their attention and resonate with their emotions. For instance, if you’re presenting to a group of entrepreneurs, gear your question towards entrepreneurship, and so on.
To boost your question’s impact, consider using rhetorical questions. These don’t require a verbal response, but get your audience thinking about their experiences or opinions. Here’s an example:
After posing your question, take a moment to let it sink in, and gauge the audience’s reaction. You can also use a brief pause to give the listeners time to think about their answers before moving on with your speech.
When starting a speech, you can acknowledge the occasion that brought everyone together. This helps create a connection with your audience and sets the stage for the rest of your speech. Make sure to mention the event name, its purpose, and any relevant individuals or groups you would like to thank for organizing it. For example:
“Hello everyone, and welcome to the 10th annual Charity Gala Dinner. I’m truly grateful to the fundraising committee for inviting me to speak tonight.”
After addressing the event itself, include a brief personal touch to show your connection with the topic or the audience. This helps the audience relate to you and gain interest in what you have to say. Here’s an example:
“As a long-time supporter of this cause, I am honored to share my thoughts on how we can continue making a difference in our community.”
Next, give a brief overview of your speech so the audience knows what to expect. This sets the context and helps them follow your points. You could say something like:
“Tonight, I’ll be sharing my experiences volunteering at the local food bank and discussing the impact of your generous donations.”
What are some effective opening lines for speeches.
A powerful opening line will grab your audience’s attention and set the stage for the rest of your speech. Some effective opening lines include:
Different speech styles will resonate with different audiences. Some styles to consider include:
Establishing a connection with your listeners is key to delivering an impactful speech. Some ways to connect with your audience include:
To maintain a friendly and professional tone in your speeches, consider these tips:
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One of the hardest things about public speaking is knowing how to start a speech. Your opening line is your first impression. It’s how you capture attention. It’s how you captivate the audience. So how do you make sure you nail it every time?
The best way to know how to open a speech is to look at what has worked in the past. When we examined the top speeches of all time and the most popular TED talks of all time, we found some interesting speaking patterns.
Time has identified the top 10 greatest speeches of all time. They are:
#1: Socrates – “Apology”
#2: Patrick Henry – “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”
#3: Frederick Douglass – “The Hypocrisy of American Slavery”
#4: Abraham Lincoln – “Gettysburg Address”
Opening Line: “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
#5: Susan B. Anthony – “Women’s Rights to the Suffrage”
#6: Winston Churchill – “Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat”
#7: John F. Kennedy – “Inaugural Address”
Opening Line: “We observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom — symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning — signifying renewal, as well as change.”
#8: Martin Luther King, Jr. – “I Have a Dream”
#9: Lyndon B. Johnson – “The American Promise”
#10: Ronald Reagan – “Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate”
How do all of these historical greats start their speeches? Is there a difference between these and some of the more modern top TED talks?
Before we dive in, let’s recap with some critical do’s and don’ts when opening a speech:
Here are the opening lines to the top 10 Ted Talks of all time according to view count:
#1: Sir Ken Robinson – “Do schools kill creativity?” Opening Line: “Good morning. How are you? It’s been great, hasn’t it? I’ve been blown away by the whole thing. In fact, I’m leaving.”
#2: Amy Cuddy – “Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are” Opening Line: “So I want to start by offering you a free, no-tech life hack, and all it requires of you is this: that you change your posture for two minutes.”
#3: Simon Sinek – “How Great Leaders Inspire Action”
#4: Brene Brown – “The Power of Vulnerability” Opening Line: “So, I’ll start with this: a couple years ago, an event planner called me because I was going to do a speaking event.”
#5: Mary Roach – “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Orgasm” Opening Line: “All right. I’m going to show you a couple of images from a very diverting paper in The Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine.”
#6: Julian Treasure – “How to Speak so that People Want to Listen” Opening Line: “The human voice: It’s the instrument we all play.”
#7: Jill Bolte Taylor – “My Stroke of Insight” Opening Line: “I grew up to study the brain because I have a brother who has been diagnosed with a brain disorder: schizophrenia.”
#8: James Veitch – “This is What Happens When You Reply to Spam Email” Opening Line: “A few years ago, I got one of those spam emails.”
#9: Cameron Russell – “Looks Aren’t Everything; Believe Me, I’m a Model” Opening Line: “Hi. My name is Cameron Russell, and for the last little while, I’ve been a model.”
#10: Dan Pink – “The Puzzle of Motivation” Opening Line: “I need to make a confession at the outset here.”
What can we learn from these opening lines? There are some patterns that can help us. First, let’s start with what you shouldn’t do. Have you ever made one of these cardinal speaking sins?
Anything technical! This is a big mistake people make when they have not done a tech check ahead of time or are feeling nervous. Never start with these openers:
Your nervousness. Many people think it is vulnerable to start with how nervous they are about speaking — you can mention this later, but it should not be the first thing. Why? People will then only be looking for signs of your nervousness. Don’t start with:
A lackluster or non-believable nicety. It’s great to be grateful to the person who introduced you, but it’s not a great way to include the audience. It’s ok to thank the audience for being there—but do it at the end (not as your opening line). These are all too boring:
Boring, shmoring! I have an exception here if you can make it funny. Ken Robinson started with a nicety and then turned it into a joke. He said, “ “Good morning. How are you? It’s been great, hasn’t it? I’ve been blown away by the whole thing. In fact, I’m leaving.”
Get even more public speaking tips with our related resources:
A story. The absolute best way to start a presentation is with a story. There is nothing better to capture the imagination and attention of an audience. Try to use these speaking openers as fill-in-the-blanks for your speech.
In his talk, “The lies our culture tells us about what matters,” David Brooks started off with a great opening line AND a story. He said, “So, we all have bad seasons in life. And I had one in 2013. My marriage had just ended, and I was humiliated by that failed commitment.” Makes you want to watch right…
And if you need help on storytelling basics, be sure to check out some of my top 5 favorite speakers .
A BIG idea. Sometimes you want to share your big idea right up front. This can be helpful because it is intriguing and gets people clued in right away. All TED speakers try to integrate their big idea early.
I love how Stacy Smith starts off her talk with her big idea framed in an interesting way. She said, “Today, I want to tell you about a pressing social issue. Now, it’s not nuclear arms, it’s not immigration, and it’s not malaria. I’m here to talk about movies.”
Special Note: Be very careful to NOT deliver your one-liner by re-reading your title slide. You also want to position it as exciting and intriguing. For example, don’t say, “Today I am going to talk about body language.” Instead say, “Today I am going to teach you the single most important thing you can do to improve your charisma… and it starts with your body.”
A quirky one-liner. If you can use humor — do it! Humor or curiosity is a great way to start a speech on a high. You can get creative with these! Think of an interesting fact about you, your audience or your topic that can lead you into your content.
When I gave my TEDx London Talk I started off with a quirky one-liner that immediately got a few laughs. It was “Hi, I’m Vanessa and I am a recovering awkward person.” It worked so well it is also the first line of my book, Captivate .
II love the way Eve Ensler opens her speech with an interesting one-liner: “For a long time, there was me, and my body.”
This is a great tip from Conor Neill. He says that it is great to start with a question that the audience is asking themselves or would be very curious to know the answer to. This might be phrasing a pain point or worry for your audience.
See Cono Neill’s examples here:
Did you know…? Any interesting factoid or curiosity is bound to intrigue your audience. This is great if it leads into your content or a story. I like to start with did you know… Here are some that I use. You will have to fill in the blank for your audience:
Jamie Oliver does this amazingly in his TED Talk. He starts with this mind-blowing fact, “Sadly, in the next 18 minutes when I do our chat, four Americans that are alive will be dead through the food that they eat.”
Hopefully these opening lines will give you some ideas to use to open your speech.
Do you know how to end on a high? Leave a lasting impression in your presentation? Science tells us that the first and last parts of your presentations are the most important. Get our FREE download to get our closer guide.
20 thoughts on “how to start a speech: the best (and worst) speech openers”.
Love your material
didnt help me but still good stuff
Thank you Vanessa. I’ve been a public speaker for 25 years and I’m impressed with your content here. Thank you. Looking forward to a deep dive into more of your material. With gratitude.
Found these examples super informative. Can’t wait to mix match the examples to see which one will work best for my presentation!
I am preparing to make a presentation on Public Speaking and came across your article. This is very instructive and timely too.Many thanks.
Comments are closed.
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Ask a million people how to start a speech with a bang and you will get a million different answers.
While some prefer to start their speech with the good old charm of a quote, others prefer to put on their hats of creativity to discover new ways to capture the attention of their audience.
So, yes! There’s not just one best way to start your speech with a bang but you have a whole spectrum of ways- each unique on its own!
Sit back, grab a cup of coffee, and relax as I highlight 50 Powerful Speech Opening Lines from some of the World’s Most Influential Speeches along with guidance on how to use each of these techniques in your next speech/presentation.
Alright, let’s dive in!
The attention span of your audience is at its peak at the very beginning of your speech. Shouldn’t you use this to your advantage? Of course, yes!
A strong opening remark captures the attention of your audience, sets the theme of your speech, and most importantly, instills curiosity for the remainder of your speech in the minds of your audience.
Before we analyze each of these speech opening lines, let me provide you with a quick list of techniques (all of which we are going to discuss in great depth!) for you to start your speech/presentation:
3. the power of a prop, 4. quest of a question, 5. hint of humor, 6. share a story, 7. surprise, surprise, surprise, 8. foster interest with facts.
11. activity for the audience, 12. element of fear, 13. invite them into your imagination, 14. quintessential quality of a quote, 100 best speech opening lines (the ultimate resource), 1. don’t just “say” sing a song.
Now, you must be thinking that I’m crazy to even suggest this but hear me out.
Doing something entirely different on stage just makes you stand out from the usual crowd. Because let’s admit it, we expect the speaker to simply start talking and when the speaker does something different, it surprises us and makes us intrigued for the remainder of the talk.
Having said that, singing is any day a safer bet since we all love to swing by the music.
But, if you are not at all confident about your singing skills, don’t go for it! Instead, you can try channeling the power of poetry, something very similar to singing but still light on your vocal cords. Don’t be confused! We’ve written an entire article on Getting Your ‘Wordsworth’: Poetry in Public Speaking , just for you! Do check it out.
Step 1: Pick a relevant yet famous song related to the theme of your speech/presentation
Step 2: Choose how you wish to use the song to present your point. Do you wish to agree with the lyrics? Or disagree with the lyrics?
Step 3: Pick a few lines (not more than 2-3 lines) that suits your theme the best
Step 4: Craft a statement to explain the connection of the song with the topic of your speech/presentation
Step 5: What are you waiting for? Go ahead, warm up your vocal cords, and start singing
1. it is okay not to have a plan by mithila palkar.
(Sings the Song) “Some of you must have seen the video of this song online, and I’ll tell you the story of how I made it.” Mithila Palkar
Budding Indian Actress and Singer, Mithila Palkar started her TED Talk by singing a Marathi Song, a song that went viral on the internet and made her famous.
Instead of simply talking about how she marked the transition from a viral singing star to a renowned actress, she made her audience live her journey by singing the exact same song.
Two things happened here:
No matter how much we deny it, humans are judgemental beings!
We have expectations for every single thing on this planet and when someone challenges these expectations, we’re left shocked.
And as a result, they’ve all our attention. That is exactly my mantra here, “Shock the audience to get their attention!”
Step 1 : Ask yourself, “Who is my audience?” Look for the basic information on their average age, level of education, pre-conceived notions, and cultural background. Still confusing, right? The Importance of Knowing Your Audience When Delivering a Speech is an article that carries the step-by-step guide, just for you.
Step 2 : Based upon this audience analysis, figure out their set expectation regarding the topic you are about to deliver your speech on.
Step 3 : Shred that expectation by challenging that set expectation in your opening remark. Remember not to be offensive and play by the rule of your moral compass
1. grit: the power of passion and perseverance by angela lee duckworth.
“ When I was 27 years old, I left a very demanding job in management consulting for a job that was even more demanding: teaching “ Angela Lee Duckworth
When using this strategy in your speech, it’s critical that you do your research so that you can come up with an unpopular viewpoint on the subject.
Present that unpopular viewpoint as your introductory words, and then gradually (it must be a progressive process) lead your audience to the realization, which is your speech’s main goal. Just like this speaker did!
Visuals overpower our auditory senses! Why not use it to the best of our advantage?
As our immediate reflex, we first see and then, listen. Bringing a unique prop/placard onto the stage would intrigue the audience even before you “actually” start speaking.
Without any further delay, let’s discuss the steps to use props/placards the right way.
Step 1: Prepare a list of props/placards that resonate the best with the theme of your speech/presentation. Don’t just bring anything on the stage!
Step 2: From this list, remove the generic options. For instance, if you are delivering a speech on environmental conservation, bringing a plastic bag on stage is too generic and won’t instill curiosity in the audience’s minds
Step 3: Now, out of all the relevant props/placards, which one do you think is the most convenient and affordable to bring on the stage? And, you have your answer!
Step 4: Once you have decided on the prop, craft a statement to establish the connection between the prop and the theme of your speech
1. why i live a zero waste life by lauren singer.
(brings a jar filled with waste and speaks) “This is all of the trash that I’ve produced in the past 3 years!” Lauren Singer
When you witness the speaker, Lauren, showcasing a jar filled with all of the trash that she has produced in the past three years, you can’t help wonder, “Is this for real?”
Because even the packaging of all the junk food items that we consume every week can easily overflood this jar.
Taking advantage of this embedded curiosity, Lauren structured the rest of her talk talking about all of the steps that she takes to lead a zero-waste life.
(stands in front of a mirror and speaks) “You are bold, you are brilliant and you are beautiful. There is no other woman like you. You are capable…” Ashley Graham
Breaking the norms of a traditional speech, Ashley Graham, instead of staring at the audience, stares at a mirror and speaks a few lines on self-affirmation.
Let’s admit it, most of us are critical of our own bodies, and standing in front of a mirror, we tend to focus upon all the possible flaws.
To set an example of positive self-affirmation, Ashley Graham takes upon herself to set an example with the help of a live exercise.
*does chemistry experiments* Andrew Szydlo
Watch this TED Talk and I’m sure you’ll find all the presence, of all those chemical equipment on stage, fascinating!
When the audience witnesses the efforts you are taking to deliver your talk, they are impressed and trust me, you are halfway there at capturing the attention of your audience.
Now, of course, it doesn’t mean that you put all your heart and soul into getting that perfect prop on stage.
If it’s not feasible, don’t! But if you can, that’s a great way to win your audience!
*smells flower* Dananjaya Hettiarachchi
In the previous example, we saw how bringing a grand prop captures the attention of our audience.
But the power of a prop goes WAY beyond this!
When a simple prop is connected with a meaningful yet unique message, the impact manifolds.
In this TED Talk, the speaker uses a rose to explain how each individual is unique in terms of his personality. A powerful message is delivered with the use of a simple prop.
A tried and tested trick that psychologists swear by to awaken the distracted minds is to “shoot a question”.
You could do that too in your next speech/presentation.
Step 1: Think of all the questions that can help you to set the theme of your speech
Step 2: Make a point to not include close-ended questions and questions that are simply TOO GENERIC
Step 3: The last element that your question must include is the element of curiosity. The purpose is to make the audience curious enough to listen to your entire speech looking for answers to that question. But while you are at it, make sure you don’t overpromise and your speech does have the answers to that question.
1. every argument against veganism by ed winters.
“So, when I say the word ‘Vegan’ to you, what do you think of?” Ed Winters
Just by hearing this question, our first thought is to run all the possible definitions of veganism and the audience of this speech did the same.
This question is very clever and I’ll tell you why. So, every time a definition would come into the mind of any audience member, the speaker would be presenting his arguments against veganism forcing the audience to align their thoughts with his thought process.
Without any possible digression, the speaker Ed Winters presents his thoughts on Veganism in a convincing manner with the help of the rhetoric of questions.
Now, this type of question sends the audience on a possible quest for answers but that’s not the only purpose that this technique serves. Next in order, let’s look at how questions set the theme of a speech.
“What is the best type of cheese to use to catch a bear?” Michael “Vsauce” Stevens
In this TED Talk, the speaker uses this technique as a rhetorical question and answers this question with the help of a cheese pun.
Moving ahead, he goes on unearthing the science behind asking questions. So, it only made sense for him to begin his speech with a question too to set the overall vibe and theme of the topic.
“So from a glance, do I look like marriage material?” Nina Donovan
In this TED Talk, we shall discover the strength of an interrogative remark in generating curiosity regarding the theme of your speech.
Since time immemorial, society has been setting “so-called” norms to determine if an individual is a potential marriage material (mostly, in the case of women).
To fit under this category of “marriage material”, one has to behave as per the so-called expectations of the society, and anything that defies the norm fails to fit in.
With the help of her powerful voice, the speaker here challenges the notion of this concept of “Marriage Material” and highlights the importance of individuality.
And by asking if the audience perceives her as marriage material, she surprises the audience while cultivating a sense of curiosity in them.
“So how do we learn? And why do some of us learn things more easily than others?” Lara Boyd
Admit it or not- we’ve always wondered why some people learn things better than us. What exactly is their secret?
And when you throw this question at the audience, they become intrigued to know this very secret with the help of your talk.
Curiosity is what makes us stick to the remainder of any talk. So, it’s high time we channelize it!
“Do you know the people that are asked the most questions? Have A Guess!” Karen Maeyens
An open-ended thought-provoking question like this forces the audience to activate their minds in the search for answers.
As they become more active, they listen better and focuses better on what you have to offer.
When Karen asked her audience who are the people that are asked the most questions, different minds pondered different answers and when she herself answered the question, those who thought of different answers were intrigued to listen to her justification and as a result of this, they stuck by!
“How would you like to completely silence your mind?” Anthony Metivier
We, humans, have restless minds- always pondering over something or the other.
So, what’s likely to happen when someone asks us if we would like to silence our minds? Ironically, we’ll be restless to know the answer. That’s what the speaker did through his TED Talk.
The next time you are giving a speech, you can consider opening it with a question that would result in a similar effect of restlessness in the minds of the audience.
For this to truly happen, make sure that your question is not generic. Otherwise, all your efforts will be in vain.
Ain’t we tired of listening to the phrase, “Laughter is the best medicine”?
I’m sure we all are but the reason why it’s still so prevalent is because of its universality.
Of course, laughter is the best medicine to an opening remark too. It makes your audience laugh and who doesn’t love a good laugh? We all do!
Humor puts the minds at ease and makes you sound more human, because of which, the audience perceives you as a credible speaker.
Step 1: Know your audience well. Your joke must resonate with them so as to make the desired impact. For instance, if you are addressing a school crowd and you make a joke about workplace communication mistakes. It won’t make the audience chuckle, would it?
Step 2: Puns? Self-deprecating humor? Or Funny Anecdotes? Identify the types of humor and figure out which one suits your personality in the best way. If you are not sure what types of humor are there and wish to seek a step-by-step guide on including humor in your presentation, make sure you read A Guide To Using Humor In Your Speech . Remember to choose the type of humor in alignment with your personality otherwise, it will look forced and won’t result in the impact you desired
Step 3: Step out and do a pilot survey! Try out the opener on a few folks who are similar to your target audience. Examine their reaction and, if required, adjust the joke
Step 4: Keep in mind that once you begin your speech with a pinch of humor, your audience will be expecting a few moments of laughter throughout the rest of your speech too. So, make sure you save 2-3 jokes (not more than that) for the remainder of your speech to meet those expectations
1. thoughts on humanity, fame and love by shah rukh khan.
“I’m a movie star. I’m 51 years of age. And I don’t use Botox as of yet.” Shah Rukh Khan
This TED Talk right here is the perfect case in point for you to witness all the four steps to humor (as discussed in the previous section) in action.
Known for his great performance in doing justice to a number of family roles in Bollywood films, the actor Shah Rukh Khan, in his TED Talk used the power of humor to make himself sound more human to align his talk with his perceived personality.
A humorous take on the drug, Botox, not only relates to the speaker’s professional credibility but also established the relatability quotient.
“It’s been a tough couple of days for us. It has been raining. We’re fine. Thank you for your prayers.” Ellen DeGeneres
Two lessons on humor can be perfectly drawn from this talk:
Since Ellen DeGeneres was hosting the Oscars Opening Ceremony, nobody expected her to be all serious in terms of her talk. The audience is expecting a more relaxed and chill vibe from the speaker.
So, starting her talk with a piece of humor not only sounded like a safer bet but also the most effective one.
What’s the thought that comes to your mind when you listen to the name, “Ellen DeGeneres”? I’m sure for most of us, it’s someone who’s great at presenting her opinions in a convincing manner with the help of comedy.
And that’s what you expect from her personality: Humor!
“Do you know when brown kids get slapped? Every brown birthday party.” Hasan Minhaj
The element of surprise won’t work if your audience is familiar with what you are about to tell them.
So, make sure that you are addressing the right element of surprise to the right audience to make them chuckle. And Hasan Minhaj did it absolutely right!
In this TED Talk, Hasan Minhaj told a piece of surprising cultural information about Indian teens to the American Audience and not the Indian Audience (because they will be familiar with it and it won’t be a shock).
“A tourist is backpacking through the highlands of Scotland, and he stops at a pub to get a drink. And the only people in there is a bartender and an old man nursing a beer. And he orders a pint, and they sit in silence for a while. And suddenly, the old man turns to him and goes, “You see this bar? I built this bar with my bare hands from the finest wood in the county, gave it more care and love than my own child. But do they call me McGregor the Bar Builder? No.” Points out the window. “You see that stone wall out there? I built that stone wall with my bare hands. Found every stone, placed them just so through the rain and the cold. But do they call me McGregor the Stone Wall Builder? No” Points out the other window. “You see that pier on the lake out there? I built that pier with my bare hands, drove the pilings against the tide of the sand, plank by plank. But do they call me McGregor the pier builder? No. But you fuck one goat…” Andrew Stanton
When humor is combined with effective storytelling, a great laugh is expected from the intrigued minds sitting in the audience.
Remember how we used to tell small anecdotes as kids while telling any joke? That’s what needs to be done here.
Build up the curiosity with the help of a story and end that story by bringing in an element of surprise to make your audience chuckle. Unexpected humor is always welcome!
We’ve all grown up listening to bedtime stories.
As we approached our teenage years and adulthood, we switched to narrating anecdotes from our lives to our friends, family, and colleagues.
In a nutshell, it’s the stories that connect us and will continue to serve this very purpose.
Hence, it’s only fair for us to channel this magic of storytelling into our public speaking events as well.
Step 1: Pick a story from your life or narrate something that happened to someone you know or simply form a gripping story. Whatever it might be, just make sure you are not exaggerating to come off as a relatable speaker. Most importantly, the story you choose has to be related to the theme of your speech
Step 2: Now that you have the story in mind, pick a narrative to design the structure of your story. Wait, don’t know what storytelling narrative structures are? Read 9 Storytelling Approaches For Your Next Speech or Presentation to know different ways to effectively narrate a story
Step 3: Use simple language while writing your story and be descriptive enough to help them imagine. Keep in mind that your audience should relate and it’s possible only when they can understand your story in its truest sense
1. life begins at the end of your comfort zone by yubing zhang.
“It’s a cold and foggy winter morning and I’m standing on the world’s tallest bungee platform. The platform I’m standing on is so tiny that I’ve to stand on my toes and balance myself against the wind…” Yubing Zhang
While highlighting how stepping out of one’s comfort zone is crucial, the speaker narrates a personal anecdote of her bungee-jumping experience.
To form a connection with the overall theme, she goes on to narrate how one bungee cord leap taught her the biggest lesson of her life.
Through the remainder of her talk, she then focuses upon sharing her lessons and guidance on how one can step out of his/her comfort zone to facilitate personal growth.
“It was 2:45 pm on a rainy friday in Los Angeles. My dad was just brewing a cup of coffee in the kitchen when he answered a call from an unknown number…” Ashley Stahl
While the previous example on storytelling taught us to build a connection with the overall theme of our speech, this TED Talk by Ashley Stahl teaches the significance of body language and voice modulation in effective storytelling.
Observe how she narrates this story with effective pauses and uses inflection to create a sense of drama and suspense.
That’s something we all should keep in consideration while narrating any story.
Storytelling is only effective when conveyed properly with the help of facial expressions, body language, and vocal tonality. This is all done to appeal to the sentiments of the audience because eventually, it is what will make our talk all the more persuasive.
“My story starts from a small, sleepy village of Madhya Pradesh with a population of barely a thousand people…” Surabhi Gautam
You don’t necessarily have to focus all your energy on writing your story with a proper build-up.
If you are using a story to build your credibility as a speaker as well as intrigue your audience, one simple way could be to just begin your speech with something as simple as, “My story starts from…”
Just like this speaker did!
Nothing fancy, nothing over the board but still manages to captivates the interest of the audience because of the following reasons:
“Panic. Embarassed. Exposed. No, that’s not how I’m feeling right now. Those are the feelings I had when I was a fourteen year old boy…” Matt Abrahams
Let’s be honest for a moment- we all have been through the feeling of “Panic, Embarrassed, Exposed” (just how Matt puts it) when asked to speak on stage.
By narrating a story that most of the audience members can relate to, Matt won the hearts of a majority of his audience members and established his credibility as a speaker.
“Two years ago my life changed forever. My wife and I welcomed our daughter Lela in the world…” Josh Kaufman
“This has been the turning point of my life”
How do you feel when someone says something like this to you? Intrigued to know more?
This is the power that the speaker used here. He narrated a story of how being a parent changed his life and eventually, relates this experience to the topic of his speech, which to be honest, is fascinating to witness!
“When I was seven years old and my sister was just five years old, we were playing on top of a bunk bed. I was two years older than my sister at the time — I mean, I’m two years older than her now — but at the time it meant she had to do everything that I wanted to do, and I wanted to play war. So we were up on top of our bunk beds. And on one side of the bunk bed, I had put out all of my G.I. Joe soldiers and weaponry. And on the other side were all my sister’s My Little Ponies ready for a cavalry charge. There are differing accounts of what actually happened that afternoon, but since my sister is not here with us today, let me tell you the true story –“ Shawn Achor
A descriptive story narrated using stylistic language has the strength to move the audience and immerse them into a fictional world.
In terms of storytelling, this technique is by far the most effective yet simplest way.
It’s commonly used while giving out persuasive speeches as it helps the speaker to align the audience’s thoughts with the speaker’s point of view. That’s what Shawn did through the help of his childhood story.
Of course, we all love surprises. Who doesn’t, right?
So, here’s a crazy idea! Why not surprise your audience with your opening remark?
Here’s how you can do so.
Option 1: Go up on that stage, say something totally unexpected and blow the minds! Now, your job doesn’t end here. Once you are done speaking your opening remark, provide your audience as to why you said what you said and what more are you going to offer through the rest of your content. Look at the first example in the next section to see its application.
Option 2: Another thing that you can do is to tell your audience something completely unknown related to the topic of your speech. Something that would make them go like, “Wait, what?” You can either present a shocking piece of information, an unknown taboo of that culture, or even a shocking habit of that cultural population.
Option 3: Tell something unknown not about the culture you are talking about but about yourself. We as humans are always attracted to gossip about other people’s lives. Of course, the audience would be interested in knowing something shocking about your life. But through the content of your speech, do remember to build that connection with your speech.
1. how to start a speech by simon lancaster.
“Who wants to get high? Yeah, you up for some? Should we really get this party started?” Simon Lancaster
Who comes up on stage and asks the audience, “Who wants to get high?”
It’s purely unexpected and shocking!
But in this TED Talk, as the speaker focuses upon highlighting the steps to crafting a strong opening remark (just like we are discussing at this moment), he took it upon himself to use this very element of surprise to capture the audience’s attention.
“The last time I used a flip phone was 3 hours and 24 minutes ago.” Ann Makosinski
Now, after listening to her opening remark, do you want to know why is she still using a flip phone in the 21st Century? (At least, I do)
And that is the strength of a strong opening remark.
After generating this needed curiosity in the minds of her audience, the speaker focused the remainder of her talk telling these reasons to the audience, one by one.
So, yes! We can safely say that starting our speech with an unpopular opinion is an elegant yet simple way to kick-start our speech.
“I can control your emotions and influence your behaviour without showing you anything, without touching you and without saying a word to you.” Dawn Goldworm
Hearing this opening remark is not just shocking but scary too!
I’m sure, just like me, you wish to unearth this secret to control and influence behavior so that you can control minds too.
It’s natural for you to listen to the remainder of the talk for this sole reason.
This way, capturing the attention of her audience was made easy for the speaker, Dawn Goldworm.
“I’m a professional troublemaker!” Luvvie Ajayi Jones
Listening to this opening remark, “what is your reaction?”
Are you thinking how exactly is she a troublemaker just like me? If yes, then the speaker has successfully inculcated this curiosity in us.
But what we all are also wondering is what does that have to do with the theme and the speaker does establish this connection in her follow-up statement right after her opening remark.
So, make sure the next time you are out there presenting a shocking remark, do follow it up with context, always.
“Okay now, I don’t want to alarm anybody in this room, but it’s just come to my attention that the person to your right is a liar. Also, the person to your left is a liar.” Pamela Meyer
While delivering a TED Talk on “How to Spot A Liar”, Pamela begins by spotting a few liars from the audience itself making everyone think, “How did she do that?”
And naturally, with minimum efforts, she lured her audience in to listen to her entire talk as she unfolds different ways in which we all can spot a liar.
“So, the chances are you have looked in at least one mirror today. You’ve had a shave or you combed your hair or maybe you checked your teeth for spinach after lunch, but what you didn’t know is the face that you’re looking at is not the face that everyone sees.” Caroline McHugh
A shocking way to surprise your audience is to simply begin with some obvious observations and follow them up with a unique observation about the very same things- leaving them surprised by catching them completely off-guard.
To get better at this technique, draw some inspiration from this TED Talk by Caroline McHugh as she does a similar thing.
It is so far the easiest way to start your speech with a bang!
Present a fact to elicit the shock value in the minds- be it positive or negative.
But incorporating the right fact in the right way is an art in itself. Let’s dive right into it!
First things first, make sure that your fact is not too generic. It has to be shocking in one way or the other to grip the audience’s attention.
Step 1: Present the fact using simple language. Avoid using technical terms here.
Step 2: Take a pause, give the audience a moment to ponder over it (But don’t wait for TOO LONG!). Next, present an extension of that fact, if you have any, or simply break down the fact by telling the audience how does this fact affects them. Give them the reasons.
1. can we not let our breakups break us by tasha jackson.
“I want you all to know that you are loved because today we can be surrounded by so many people but feel profoundly alone. 68% of Gen Z feels like nobody knows them. An average American has only one close friend and one in four feels like no one.” Tasha Jackson
While presenting facts, it’s important that we go from covering a larger umbrella to the smaller one
This way, the audience knows the exact way in which they are getting affected by this piece of information.
That’s exactly how the speaker, Tasha, rolled her TED Talk.
Once the audience was aware of the intensity of how breakups are affecting each one of them, they were all the more intrigued to know how they can not let breakups affect them to such a drastic extent.
It is this incentive that made the listeners pay attention to her talk as she unfolded all the solutions to this, one by one.
“In Sweden, where I come from, we have 40 thousand marriages a year and each year we have around 20 thousand divorces.” Jonathan Ljungqvist
Create the illusion of an audience poll with your piece of fact, just like this speaker did in his TED Talk.
After highlighting the drastic extent of failed marriages in Sweden, Jonathan took a pause to let that information sink in and in his follow-up statement, he started shooting a few questions at the audience.
After waiting for a few seconds (2-3 seconds is the ideal time duration to wait), Jonathan answered and highlighted the problem at hand.
This made the audience respect and agree with his fact, all the way more.
Through the remainder of his talk, he then went on highlighting the steps to increase love in any relationship.
“I read a recent survey, and what Americans fear most is public speaking and dying.” Dr. Christopher Kerr
How do we perceive death as an individual? It’s a question that most of us have a unique answer to.
In an attempt to establish the relevance of his topic, the speaker uses a fact that highlights how feared death is.
It’s what capitalized the attention of the audience and forced them to listen to what different perspectives he had to offer on the topic from a medical standpoint.
“Saudi Arabia has been engulfed in a massive diplomatic crisis over the gruesome killing of Washingto Post Journalist Jamal Khashoggi” Hasan Minhaj
Now, stating facts doesn’t mean that you just go on telling statistical figures. It also includes different pieces of information, particularly news events!
In this talk, Hasan Minhaj recalls one such news event to set the theme of his talk.
Recalling news events makes our talk relevant while establishing the context. It signifies that as a speaker you are up-to-date with the information that you have to offer. So, the audience looks forward to hearing a talk devoid of redundancies.
We live in a world where dating is the equivalent of buying a new pair of shoes.
Very often, with each dating experience comes the trauma of heartbreaks. As the speaker in this TED Talk rightly said, “breakups break us”.
But how to overcome it has always been a flaming question, particularly among the teens.
But to bring to light the intensity and ever-increasing prevalence of the situation, the speaker took the help of the statistics.
“ Sadly, in the next 18 minutes when I do our chat, four Americans that are alive will be dead from the food that they eat. “ Jamie Oliver
Here, while throwing light upon an alarming issue (hunger), the speaker considered presenting harrowing stats to get that desired ‘concerned mood’.
Similarly, when you wish to highlight an opportunity (say, the positive side of social media), present positive stats showcasing the success of people through social media.
Visuals are always gripping and easy on our minds.
Show respect towards your audience by giving them a needed break from the monotony of “just listening”.
Be a respite and engage them through the power of visuals for a change. Here’s exactly how you can do this.
Step 1: Get in touch with the tech team of your public speaking event and see if the needed technical support is there to facilitate the screening of an image/video.
Step 2: Now, find a visual interesting enough to arise the curiosity but not too generic to make it too predictable for the audience- all related to your theme.
Step 3: Craft a short, concise, and to-the-point follow-up statement to explain the relevance of that visual using simple language.
1. don’t believe everything you think by lauren weinstein.
*shows picture of an elephant.* Lauren Weinstein
In this TED Talk, Lauren draws a beautiful comparison between elephants and the nature of humans by showcasing a few visuals.
She does this through the use of storytelling. Narrating how despite all the strength an elephant has, it doesn’t attempt to break its chains of captivity.
After establishing this, she goes on to connect this act with the thesis of her speech, that is, how one should not always believe everything they think.
What we can take away from this TED Talk is, when visuals are effectively supported by storytelling and the rhetoric of drawing comparison, the impact increases manifold.
*plays a video about scrambled eggs* David Christian
In this unique TED Talk, David Christian explains the origin of the history of our world through the video of a scrambled egg. Unique, isn’t it?
That is exactly what we need to learn here.
We don’t necessarily need to find a visual that directly relates to the theme of our speech. Instead, we can go for a visual that we can use as an aid to explain a similar topic, that is, the theme of our speech.
*shows image of himself in the sea* Ruben Meerman
This TED Talk right here is an example of how you can establish a direct correlation between the visual and your topic- all through the use of storytelling.
Ruben Meerman began his speech by showing a few pictures of himself to talk about his health transformation.
When the audience witnessed the transformation right in front of their eyes, they were curious to know the secret behind it so that they can apply it to their respective lives.
That’s the power of a gripping visual!
YES! You read it right.
No matter how shallow it sounds but the outfit is the first thing we notice every time a speaker walks up that stage.
And if you are dressed differently than the rest of the speakers, you naturally capture the eyes of your audience.
By this, I don’t mean that you go to a branded store and buy the most expensive outfit from there and wear it for your event. What I mean is to put serious thought into deciding what to wear for your event.
Ideally, one should go for an outfit that is unique yet related to the theme of your speech but doesn’t hurt the dress code of the event too. Here’s how.
Step 1: The most basic step is to check with the admin if there is any particular dress code that the speakers need to adhere to. If not, feel free to put on your hat of creativity by following the next steps
Step 2: Pick an outfit that connects with the theme of your speech but is still unique enough for the audience to go like, “Wait, what outfit is this?”
Step 3: Go on the stage wearing that outfit, take a pause, let the audience wonder. After a meaningful silence of 2-3 seconds, start speaking. Open up by telling the audience the significance of the outfit that you are wearing
1. we are all different- and that’s awesome by cole blakeway.
(comes on stage weaing two different pair of socks and shoes) “Hi, my name is Cole and over the next few minutes, I’m going to teach you that it’s okay to be different. Since a young age, I’ve worn different colored socks and two different shoes.” Cole Blakeway
Fascinating opening remark, isn’t it?
Something as simple as wearing different pairs of socks can instill curiosity and help the speaker make his point, “we all are different”.
Since biblical times, we as humans try to fit in different situations. Be it a workplace, college, or even a social gathering for that matter.
In this TED Talk, Cole attempts to shed light on the lesson of embracing our true selves and how there’s nothing wrong with being different.
The tone of such a powerful talk was set just by wearing different pairs of socks.
(switches to a different outfit and speaks) “This is the first outfit change on the TED Stage, so you guys are pretty lucky to witness it, I think.” Cameron Russell
Of course, the traditional way to pull this technique off is to come on stage wearing a unique outfit.
But Cameron Russell finds her very own unique way of a live outfit change wherein she brings a wrap-around skirt and wears over her dress to make a simple point that appearance is not everything, it goes way beyond that.
Seeing a model by profession mark this unlikely outfit transition made the audience trust her thesis all the way more.
They say that communication is a two-way street.
Yet, more often than not, we forget to keep this in mind during all the public speaking events.
We tend o go on speaking and speaking. While sometimes we manage to keep the audience interested, the rest of the time we simply bore the audience to sleep.
To save you here, an easy bet is to organize an activity for your audience towards the very beginning of your speech.
Step 1: Familiarize with your audience. What’s the average age of your audience? What’s their educational and work background? Getting these basic details will help you structure an activity that would ensure maximum participation from them. For instance, if you are addressing a bunch of school students, your activity can involve more physical exercises and less mental exercise. Also, ask yourself, “What is the size of my audience?” This will help you decide on the extent of interactivity.
Step 2: Find an activity that is not too basic. Your activity should make the audience curious about your content. Something that makes the audience wonder, “What does this activity have to do with the theme?” But then they are left amazed as soon as you begin to connect the relevance of the activity with your speech.
Step 3: Don’t make it TOO LONG! Keep it short and sweet.
Step 4: Write a vivid description of the steps involved in the activity so that the audience is not left confused about what to do.
1. are you a giver or a taker by adam grant.
“I want you to look around the room for a minute and try to find the most paranoid person here and then I want you to point that person out for me. (waits and then says) Okay, don’t actually do it.” Adam Grant
Given that Adam’s audience was comprised of more adults, he made them perform a mental exercise as it’s most likely for them to participate in a mental exercise rather than expecting them to move up their seats to do something.
And that’s what happened. The audience participated! Because all they had to do was simply move their heads around to find out a paranoid person.
Most importantly, the activity wasn’t too generic for the audience for them to predict its relevance. So, it made them curious enough to listen to the remainder of Adam’s TED Talk to witness him unravel its relevance.
“Okay, I need a favor. I need all the girls who are between the age of 17 and 24 to stand up.” Courtney Ferrell
Audience Matters! I know, I’ve been saying this A LOT but it’s the key to a great speech opening.
Even in this TED Talk, the speaker made all the girls between the age group of 17 to 24 stand up since she knew that more than 50% of her audience would stand up.
It’s a win-win situation, I’ll tell you how.
When Courtney confessed that she’s about to tell the secret to channel the creative spirit of women and how to empower them.
Those who stood up felt directly connected to the theme and the rest were curious enough to know the secret to see if it can benefit them or someone they know.
“Alright, real quick- say your full name and then say the way white people say your name. So, my name is Hasan Minhaj. I would get a Ha-sen Min-haj-a” Hasan Minhaj
Two important lessons here, my friends!
Since Hasan was addressing a comparatively smaller crowd of around 7 teens, he could incorporate an interactive activity, giving each of his audience members an opportunity to speak.
Before asking each of his audience members to speakers, Hasan himself initiated the act of participation from his end.
This way, the audience was all the more thrilled to speak.
Because when you participate, your audience sees it as an incentive and feels more confident to participate seeing that you as a speaker are making an effort too.
“So, I have a little test for you. Don’t panic, I’m not here to judge you…” Ricardo Lieuw On
“Awaken the competitive nature of your audience members!” This should be your motto here.
But first, make sure that you are clear with the explanation of the rules so that it’s easier for everyone to follow.
Look how the speaker has introduced a competitive activity here to awaken the minds.
This serves two purposes:
Do you remember all the times when your mom used to make you eat green vegetables by instilling some sort of fear?
Be it the fear of dull skin or even poor eyesight for that matter, it eventually made you take that action.
Isn’t this aim of public speeches too? To persuade the audience to take some action after your speech ends? A hundred percent, yes!
So, let’s jump into how we can incorporate fear in our speech opening to make our audience listen to us.
Step 1: At the fear of reiterating myself, “Begin with analyzing your audience”. The Best Guide to Audience Analysis is an article for you to help you do just that.
Step 2: Done with analyzing your audience after reading the article? Now, make a list of their potential fears related to the theme of your speech.
Step 3: Figure out that one fear that is not too triggering. Here, ask yourself, “If I were to listen to this, would I be triggered to a huge extent?” If the answer is yes, leave that fear and choose one that is slightly less triggering but
1. why the secret to sucess is setting the right goals by john doerr.
“We’re at a critical moment Our leaders, some of our great institutions are failing us.” John Doerr
While highlighting how important it is to set the right goals for development, John Doerr begins his speech by pointing at how the institutions are failing their citizens by setting the wrong objectives.
When you are told that someone is failing you, you feel a sense of disappointment, and you are naturally drawn to know the reason behind it to figure out if there’s something you can do to improve the situation.
This is the exact feeling that we are going for here!
In this technique, we are looking forward to getting our audience to daydream without boring them.
This art of imagination works the best for persuasive speeches. Here’s how!
While delivering a persuasive speech, our aim is to align the audience’s thoughts with our thought process but there needs to be a bridge, right? A bridge that the audience can take to step into your thought process.
This bridge is the art of imagination.
Step 1: Decide the emotion that you want your audience to feel. Do you wish to go for a negative emotion or a positive one? My suggestion for you would be to go for a negative one since negative emotions overpower the positive ones, psychologically speaking.
Step 2: Once you have decided on the type of emotion, craft a descriptive outline for the piece of imagination that is related to the theme of your speech.
Step 3: Using simple yet descriptive language, write down your piece of imagination. Remember to write in a chronological order detailing each and every step otherwise your audience won’t truly immerse in that imaginary world. To explain to you in simpler terms, if a few steps are missing from the bridge, you cannot walk to reach the other side, can you?
Step 4: Focus the rest of your speech telling the audience what to do to avoid the situation (in case of a negative imagination) and what to do to reach the situation (in case of a positive imagination).
1. the barrier between us by tvisha bandhu.
“Picture this. You’re in the MRT, you’re scrolling through your phone, and you take notice of this lady walking through the cabin saying ‘hello, hello.'” Tvisha Bandhu
This speech is the perfect example of how one can kick start his speech through the power of closed imagination (one wherein you provided step-by-step details on what to imagine).
Look how the speaker, Tvisha Bandhu, uses her body posture and gestures to emote every sense of feeling encompassed within that imagination.
It works perfectly in sync with her descriptive writing. It’s so descriptive that she has even written the exact dialogues for the characters involved in her imagination such as “Hello, Hello” for the lady who walked through the cabin.
Descriptive writing backed by powerful body language and vocal tonality can increase the impact manifold.
“If I ask you to come on the stage right now & deliver a speech, think what kind of excuses would you come up with.” Pratik Uppal
The second example is of an open imagination.
You don’t necessarily need to provide step-by-step details for the audience to make them imagine a situation
One easy way is to simply tell them to ponder over their reaction to a particular situation and then, go on providing a brief of what exact situation they are put in.
In this TED Talk, the speaker asked the audience to imagine all the excuses that they can come up with to dread a public speaking event. Now, pause! Even you think! I’m sure you too can come up with many without anyone telling you what to imagine exactly.
This is what we call open imagination. Widespread usage of this technique can be seen in movies with open endings wherein the end is treated as possibly the beginning.
“Imagine if you could take your brain and turn it inside out and then have access to the information to be able to virtually solve any problem. It sounds pretty cool, right?” Collins Key
In the previous sections, we discussed the examples for two commonly-used types of imagination- open and closed.
Here, we shall discuss an example of how you can ask the audience to imagine something out of the world.
If you are a Potter-head, you know the strength that this technique entails. The entire series is based upon fiction encompassing a world where everything goes larger than life, even life itself but you still can’t seem to snap out of it because you are that engrossed.
In this TED Talk, Collins opened up his talk with one such piece of imagination wherein he asked the audience to imagine how would they feel if they could simply take their brain out and turn it inside out to find a solution in the blink of an eye instead of spending hours overthinking for it.
Fascinating, right? This intrigued the audience to listen to the rest of his speech in the search of a secret to solve their problems in the quickest way possible.
“Imagine it’s Wednesday 28th of August, 1963 & we’re in the United States Of American, specifically Washington DC.” Mark Robinson
Imagination is only effective if you catering the right piece of imagination to the right audience.
Now, take the example of this TED Talk. Had this TED Talk been delivered to an audience who is not aware of the significance of the person being spoken about, Martin Luther King Jr, his speech would have been totally ineffective.
So, make sure that whatever piece of imagination you have to offer is within the understanding of your audience.
This technique doesn’t require any fancy introduction.
For the longest time, great orators have been starting their respective speeches with one quote or the other to persuade their audience through the art of rhythm.
But the inclusion of this technique as an opening remark is easier said than done. Make sure you follow the steps in the next section.
Before we begin, remember not to use a quote that is too common. Use a quote that is less heard of!
Option 1: The easiest and safest bet is to use a famous quote related to the context of your speech. If the propounder of that quote is associated with the topic of your speech in one way or the other, it’s even better since it establishes the credibility of the quote.
Option 2: The other effective way is to make a quote of your own instead of relying upon someone else’s quote. It’s simpler than it sounds. An easier hack is to use alliteration (occurrence of similar sound at the beginning of adjacent words in a phrase) in the phrase you wish to highlight as your opening remark. For instance, even the title of this section, “Quintessential Quality of A Quote” uses this technique. Read Getting Your ‘Wordsworth’: Poetry in Public Speaking to know how exactly you can write a quote using alliteration and similar techniques.
1. increase your self-awareness with one simple fix by tasha eurich.
Tennessee Williams once told us, “There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is what you’ll ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors.” Tasha Eurich
To see the application of the first alternative in action, watch this TED Talk by Tasha Eurich.
While using someone else’s quote, attribution to the speaker is necessary. You can do so by simply saying something like, “As NAME OF THE SPEAKER rightly said…” Nothing too fancy, simplicity works the best.
Talking about the credibility of the original speaker of the quote, since this TED Talk is focused upon “Self-awareness”, it made Tennessee Williams who was a great playwright in Hollywood, a credible speaker to trust.
“Man makes mistakes & mistakes make the man.” Mathew George
Now, let’s talk about making a quote on our own. Shall we?
The most basic step we discussed under the “how-to” section was alliteration and that’s what the speaker, Mathew George, used in the creation of his opening remark too.
Alliteration provides a rhythm to your speech opening line and makes you sound persuasive naturally.
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We hope that you have found some value here in your journey as a public speaker!
If you wish to know about more such amazing speech opening lines, make sure you check out 15 Powerful Speech Opening Lines (& How to Create Your Own) .
Not just that! We’ve written a similar article on 50 Speech Closing Lines (& How to Create Your Own) l The Ultimate Guide . Make sure you read that to END YOUR SPEECH WITH A BANG!
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What you’ll learn:
“ Well begun is half done” – Mary Poppins.
A killer speech opener will make the difference between a presentation that makes you soar or your audience snore .
I’ve researched the whole web to find nine killer speech openers to make your audience lean in and listen rather than tune out and daydream.
You’ll see how masters of the craft have used them, and how you can too.
Number seven takes chutzpah to pull off. Ready for the whole list of killer speech openers?
One of the best ways to open your speech with a buzz is to startle or shock them.
You can shock an audience in many ways, but they all rest on the major senses of V.A.K.S:
We don’t want your audience tasting your talk, but it should leave a good taste in their mouths.
Changing Minds suggests asking if the audience is awake after appearing from a flash bang and a cloud of smoke, and this might work for you if you’re a magician or playing some kind of character for your speech like a genie.
Suppose you aren’t going for the magic angle.
In that case, you can shock them on a psychological level instead, as Conor Neill recommends, and tell your audience a surprising fact or statistic that makes them question their thinking or beliefs.
“Did you know that half the water on earth is older than the sun?”
Questions like these will shake an audience awake and turn on their critical thinking nervous-system.
Don’t take my word for it; you can see an incredible demonstration of the shock opener in Mohammed Qahtani’s speech, The Power of Words .
Qahtani opens by taking out a cigarette and placing it into his mouth before trying to light it. The audience is so shocked that they gasp and tell him to stop.
Remember, if your audience is shocked, they are listening.
Your audience doesn’t always have to be jolted to attention with a shock opener, though you can use a more subtle approach to grab their focus.
The story opener.
You can set the tone of your speech instantly with a story .
In Hollywood, filmmakers and directors use an ‘establishing shot’ to set the tone and theme of the entire film.
When creating your speech, think of a short story that sums up your talk.
Maybe you tell half the story to begin with, and then the other half at the end.
The important thing is your tale must be relatable . If your audience can’t imagine themselves in the story, they won’t be engaged.
We all experience very similar things in life:
We are all cut from the same cloth, so it’s good to be reminded that others are going through what we face or think as we do.
Bryan Stevenson does a stellar job of recounting his mischievous grandmother in his TED talk, We need to talk about an injustice .
The best thing is, you can combine a story-opener with any other speech opener in this list.
It’s truly versatile.
One of my favourite speech openers is next, though.
I love this speech opener.
What better way to hook your audience than to intrigue them with mystery or a juicy secret?
Have a look at Daniel Pink’s TED Talk The puzzle of motivation . After he begins, Pink, looking like a guilty man sent to the gallows, tells his audience:
“I need to confess something, at the outset here. A little over 20 years ago, I did something I regret. Something I’m not particularly proud of”.
Wow. How intriguing, right?
You have to admit; you want to know what he’s about to confess.
Choose every sentence, every word, and every mark of punctuation to increase the tantalisation temperature.
Whether it’s a secret or confession, the Intrigue Opener piques just enough curiosity in your audience to keep them from checking WhatsApp.
As humans, we need closure.
We do not like open loops.
That’s why it is both enthralling and aggravating when someone plays on our need to be sure.
Just as we cannot stand an open loop, we are instantly engaged when someone gives us a puzzle to solve.
You’ll notice the best speeches, books, TV shows, and films do not spoon-feed you all the information.
I’ve always liked the way Malcolm Gladwell writes his non-fiction books, because they contain puzzles that you solve as a reader.
This puzzle needs to be related to the speech or presentation you’re delivering, of course. It cannot be a random puzzle and will ideally be impossible or extremely difficult to solve at first.
After the speech begins, and the puzzle is revealed, you should slowly drop hints on how to solve the mystery.
Up next, speech openers that use a physical object to create curiosity in the audience’s mind.
One of the most potent ways you will captivate your audience is to use a powerful prop in your opening address.
What better way to capture an audience’s imagination than to show them a mysterious or beautiful object?
If you’ve never seen the Prop Opener done well, then have a look at one of the greatest speeches of all time:
Dananjaya Hettiarachchi’s, See Something .
Danajaya enters with a simple rose in his breast pocket, takes it out, gazes at it nostalgically, smells it and then begins to speak.
This same prop appears again right at the end of his speech to end his talk with a flourish.
There are many different props you can use.
JJ Abrams used a Mystery Box to absorb the audience’s attention, and used the box as a metaphor for his entire career.
If you think the prop opener is just for TED Talks and Toastmasters Final Speeches, remember that most company product launch centre around one or more props.
Steve Jobs revealed his new products in ever-innovative ways.
Still, while the last two speeches I’ve mentioned opened with physical items, most of Jobs’s presentations built intrigue through the sight of the product.
So remember, you can use an object, or tease your audience with the absence of a prop, but make that prop integral to your talk.
You don’t always have to use a prop, of course.
A more minimalist approach to opening your speech uses the best audience reaction a speaker can receive: laughter.
Using laughter to win over your audience is the golden ticket to immediate rapport with your audience.
Jack Schafer, PhD at Psychology Today, said that People Will Like You If You Make Them Laugh , which seems obvious, but at least you know we have scientists on the case.
He also mentions that constructing humour requires and projects a high level of intelligence .
Of course, laughter is subjective, but it is also infectious, and if you get enough members of your audience to titter, it will spread across the whole group.
If you want to see just how quickly you can win an audience over with humour, have a look at Ken Robinson’s subtle but delightful ability to raise a chuckle in his speech Do Schools Kill Creativity?
Ken’s ability to speak conversationally to an audience of thousands is genuinely remarkable.
If you break down his humour, it is easy to see how you could include similar content in your presentations.
Whether you can pull it off as well as Ken is another story.
Not everyone feels like they can be a comedian, though; I get that.
Well, that’s alright because there are other ways to open your talk that play on other strong emotions.
You can inspire your audience, too.
One of my favourite ways to help beginner speakers to open their presentation is with a quote.
A quote acts like a story in that it sets the tone and theme of your speech, but it takes much less effort and even less skill.
An effective quote is usually only one line long and supported by the credibility of the original author who uttered those words.
Watch the way Clint Smith opens his TED Talk The Danger of Silence .
Using Martin Luther King’s voice to start his speech gives Clint what psychologists call the transference effect .
Just by citing someone else, especially someone admired and famous, you redirect the emotions an audience have towards that person onto yourself.
One caveat to using quotes, though:
Fact check them . I cringe whenever I see someone incorrectly quoting someone.
Have you ever heard the quote by Albert Einstein:
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results”?
A great quote, isn’t it?
But Albert Einstein never said those words .
A quick check on Reuters will help you add more credibility to your inspirational opener.
Finally, try to use a quote few people have ever heard. Inspiring words have been filling the archives of history for millennia. Seek out something that has been left dusty on the shelf, rather than the same recycled iterations.
Next, let’s look at a type of bold speech opener that take real chutzpah to land well.
A powerful speech opener that will take confidence is the perspective shift opener.
This opener will lead the audience in one direction before changing direction and setting a new pace for the speech.
Cameron Russel does a fantastic job of controlling the frame in her TED Talk, Looks aren’t everything. Believe me; I’m a model.
Russel takes to the stage dressed in a skimpy dress and begins to tell the audience about her career, but then does a rapid wardrobe change on stage in front of the entire audience.
This change of dress sets a new tone, feel, and direction for the speech.
If you can change the audience’s perspective or frame of reality, you are in the driving seat.
One of the best things you can hope for as a speaker is moving hearts and changing minds.
If you aren’t a confident speaker, start small.
Vanessa Van Edwards suggests never mentioning how nervous you are.
It’s distracting and makes the audience pick up on all the subtle nervous energy and cues you give off. Control the frame instead and act cool and confident: they will buy into it.
Another great way to hold frame control over an audience is by using the power of silence .
Silence is a valuable commodity in today’s noisy and distracting digital world.
Creating silence at the beginning of your talk can profoundly affect your audience and their focus.
Did you ever have a teacher at school who used silence effectively?
When my English classmates were noisy, our teacher Mr Rylance would hold up his hand for silence.
Slowly, we would settle down and focus on his raised hand.
A few would giggle, but that would peter out until we all sat in a hypnotic stillness.
If you want to see an example of how to use silence, then look at Neal Glitterman’s speech The Power of Silence .
You can see how much gravity silence can have , especially as a speech opener.
The final killer opener I want to introduce you to is the big promise opener.
I believe that all speeches and presentations should contain a big promise, as it tells your audience why they should keep on listening.
Ideally, your big promise will be your speech title or phrase that pays, which is a recurring foundational phrase you will use throughout your presentation.
A big promise is your way of making a deal with the audience : you listen to me, and you’ll get something in return.
Creating a big promise at the beginning of your speech is like adding a teaser trailer to the beginning of a TV show. It suggests a reason you should stick around.
When Arthur Benjamin introduces his talk Faster than a calculator by announcing:
“I am a human calculator!”
You know that proof is on the way.
Remember the essential rule of the Big Promise Opener: make it big, and keep your promise.
I hope you feel that I kept my promise of sharing nine killer speech openers to start a presentation.
Did you notice any other speech openers at the beginning of this article?
Don’t forget; these openers can be mixed and matched.
You can include a number of these speech openers in the same presentation to create more impact.
Let me know which of these killer openers was your favourite, and let me know if you have any more you’d like to share.
To your public speaking success,
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May 2, 2024 by Brian Tracy --> Public Speaking
You’ve heard the saying, “First impressions are lasting; you never get a second chance to create a good first impression” — right?
The same is true when talking about how to start a speech…
The truth is, when you start your speech, you must focus everything on making a positive first impression on your audience members (especially if you are doing the presentation virtually ). Capturing the audience’s attention from the very beginning is crucial to prevent them from being distracted, losing interest, or forming negative opinions.
The introduction is the formal greeting for speeches, so let’s be sure to get this right to hook the audience. Understanding the importance of speech openings can significantly impact making a strong first impression. Planning and delivering the first words with confidence and relevance is essential, as they set the tone for the entire presentation and ensure you deliver a professional start, free from hesitation or irrelevance.
Here are 15 different ways to start a speech as well as 2 extra BONUS tips at the end.
You can start by thanking the audience for coming and thanking the organization for inviting you to speak.
Refer to the person who introduced you or to one or more of the senior people in the organization in the audience.
This compliments them, makes them feel proud and happy about your presence, and connects you to the audience like an electrical plug in a socket.
A presentation tip at the start is to tell the audience members how much they will like and enjoy what you have to say.
For example, you might say:
“You’re really going to enjoy the time we spend together this evening. I’m going to share with you some of the most important ideas that have ever been discovered in this area.”
Remember that speaking is an art, so be an artist and take complete control of your performance,
You can begin by complimenting the audience members sincerely and with great respect.
Smile as if you are really glad to see them as if they are all old friends of yours that you have not seen for quite a while.
You can tell them that it is a great honor for you to be here, that they are some of the most important people in this business or industry, and that you are looking forward to sharing some key ideas with them.
You could say something like:
“It is an honor to be here with you today. You are the elite, the top 10 percent of people in this industry. Only the very best people in any field will take the time and make the sacrifice to come so far for a conference like this.”
Use a current event front-page news story to transition into your subject and to illustrate or prove your point. You can bring a copy of the newspaper and hold it up as you refer to it in your introduction.
This visual image of you holding the paper and reciting or reading a key point rivets the audience’s attention and causes more people to lean forward to hear what you have to say.
For many years, I studied military history…
Especially the lives and campaigns of the great generals and the decisive battles they won. One of my favorites was Alexander the Great. Standing in the symbolic shadow of such historical figures can provide a powerful and engaging start to any speech, especially when drawing parallels to contemporary challenges.
One day, I was asked to give a talk on leadership principles to a roomful of managers for a Fortune 500 company.
I decided that the campaign of Alexander the Great against Darius of Persia would make an excellent story that would illustrate the leadership qualities of one of the great commanders in history.
I opened my talk with these words:
“Once upon a time there was a young man named Alex who grew up in a poor country. But Alex was a little bit ambitious. From an early age, he decided that he wanted to conquer the entire known world. But there was a small problem.
Most of the known world was under the control of a huge multinational called the Persian Empire, headed by King Darius II. To fulfill his ambition, Alex was going to have to take the market share away from the market leader, who was very determined to hold on to it.
This is the same situation that exists between you and your major competitors in the market today. You are going to have to use all your leadership skills to win the great marketing battles of the future.”
You can start by quoting a well-known person or publication that recently made an interesting or important statement.
One of the subjects I touch upon regularly is the importance of continual personal development.
I will say something like:
“In the twenty-first century, knowledge and know-how are the keys to success. As basketball coach Pat Riley said, ‘If you are not getting better, you are getting worse.’”
Start by telling a story about a recent conversation with someone in attendance.
For instance, I might say:
“A few minutes ago, I was talking with Tom Robinson in the lobby. He told me that this is one of the very best times to be working in this industry, and I agree.”
You can start your talk by making a shocking statement of some kind.
For example, you might say something like:
“Here’s a startling fact: According to a recent study, there will be more change, more competition, and more opportunities in this industry in the next year than ever before. And 72 percent of the people in this room will be doing something different within two years if they do not rapidly adapt to these changes.”
Click here If you want to learn more techniques to wow your audience.
You can start by quoting a relevant, recent research report.
One example is:
“According to a story in a recent issue of Businessweek, there were almost 11 million millionaires in America in 2018, most of them self-made.”
The French philosopher Gustav Le Bon once wrote, “The only religion of mankind is, and always has been hope.”
When you speak effectively, you give people hope of some kind.
Remember, the ultimate purpose of public speaking, is to inspire people to do things that they would not have done in the absence of your comments.
Everything you say should relate to the actions you want people to take and the reasons that they should take those actions.
Bill Gove used to walk onto the stage after his introduction if he had just finished talking to someone on the side and was breaking off to give his talk to the group.
The audience got the feeling that his entire talk was one continuous conversation, devoid of meaningless filler words .
Bill would often go to the edge of the stage and then drop his voice in a conspiratorial way, open his arms, and beckon the audience members to come a little closer.
He would say, “Come here, let me tell you something,” and then he would wave them forward as though he was about to tell a secret to the entire room.
The amazing thing was that everyone in the room would lean forward to hear this “secret” that he was about to share. People would all suddenly realize what they were doing and break out in laughter. It was a wonderful device to get the audience into the palm of his hands.
You can open by making a positive statement and then pose a rhetorical question to engage your audience and set the stage for your presentation.
Try something like this:
“This is a great time to be alive and in business in America. But let me ask you, what does it truly mean to be self-employed in today’s economy?”
Raise your hand to indicate what you want people to do. I have used this line, and after a moment of thought, I then say to someone who looks intrigued in the front, “How many people here feel truly self-employed?”
Invariably, someone will say, “We all do!”
I then compliment and affirm the answer: “You’re right! We are all self-employed, from the time we take our first jobs to the day that we retire; we all work for ourselves, no matter who signs our paychecks.”
Similarly, a 17-year-old science fair winner effectively engaged their audience with a question at the beginning of their TED Talk, showcasing the power of this technique.
You can start with a problem that must be solved. If it is a problem that almost everyone has in common, you will immediately have the audience’s complete and undivided attention.
For example, you could say:
“Fully 63 percent of baby boomers are moving toward retirement without enough money put aside to provide for themselves for as long as they are going to live. We must address this problem and take action immediately to ensure that each person who retires will be able to live comfortably for the rest of his or her natural life.”
Introducing a new idea at this point can be a powerful way to engage your audience further, by promising a solution that is both innovative and beneficial.
You can start by making a strong and powerful statement and then ask a question. You then follow with an answer and ask another question. This gets people immediately involved and listening to your every word.
Here’s an example:
“Twenty percent of the people in our society make 80 percent of the money. Are you a member of the top 20 percent? If not, would you like to join the top 20 percent or even the top 10 percent? Well, in the next few minutes, I am going to give you some ideas to help you become some of the highest-paid people in our society. Would that be a good goal for our time together today?”
You can start your talk with a personal story. Some of the most powerful words to capture the complete attention of the audience and make a personal connection are, “Once upon a time…”
From infancy and early childhood, people love stories of any kind. When you start off a presentation with a personal anecdote using the words, “Once upon a time…” you tell the audience that a relatable story is coming. People immediately settle down, become quiet, and lean forward, eager to hear how your experience might mirror their own or offer them new insights.
When I conduct full-day seminars and I want to bring people back to their seats after a break, I will say loudly, “Once upon a time there was a man, right here in this city…”
As soon as I say these words, people hurry back to their seats and begin to listen attentively, connecting with the story on a personal level.
Incorporating a personal story is very effective.
In fact, it’s probably one of the best public speaking tips I’ve learned to this day.
Very often, I will start a serious speech or presentation to a business, sales, or entrepreneurial group by saying:
“I started off without graduating from high school. My family had no money. Everything I accomplished in life I had to do on my own with very little help from anyone else.”
It is amazing how many people come up to me after a talk that began with those words and tells me that was their experience as well.
They tell me that they could immediately identify with me because they too had started with poor grades and limited funds, as most people do. As a result, they were open to the rest of my talk, even a full-day seminar, and felt that everything I said was more valid and authentic than if I had been a person who started off with a successful background.
Building a bridge like this is very helpful in bringing the audience onto your side.
You can ask people to turn to the person next to them to discuss a particular point.
For instance, you could say:
“Tell the person next to you what you would like to learn from this seminar.”
Whatever you ask your audience members to do, within reason, they will do it for you. Your commands and your thought leadership will easily influence them, as long as you ask them with confidence.
By following any one of these tips for starting your speech, you are sure to grab your audience’s attention every time. How do you start a speech? Let me know in the comments.
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About Brian Tracy — Brian is recognized as the top sales training and personal success authority in the world today. He has authored more than 60 books and has produced more than 500 audio and video learning programs on sales, management, business success and personal development, including worldwide bestseller The Psychology of Achievement. Brian's goal is to help you achieve your personal and business goals faster and easier than you ever imagined. You can follow him on Twitter , Facebook , Pinterest , Linkedin and Youtube .
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Starting a speech can be nerve-wracking. In a matter of seconds, you have to grab your audience’s attention and set the tone for what’s to come. So how do you kick things off with impact? Whether you’re addressing CEOs, entrepreneurs, or students, nailing the opening is crucial. In this article, we’re diving into practical tips on how to start a speech that captivates your listeners right from the get-go.
You might think it’s all about having an amazing hook or dazzling them with stats. While those help, there’s more at play here—like understanding your audience’s needs and aligning your message accordingly. That’s why we’re going to explore various techniques—from sharing personal anecdotes to asking thought-provoking questions—to make sure you hit it out of the park every time you step up to speak.
When preparing a speech, it’s crucial to identify your target audience. Consider factors such as age, background, interests, and expectations. Understanding your audience helps you tailor your message and connect with them effectively.
In addition to identifying your audience, you’ll also need to clearly define the purpose of your speech. Are you aiming to inform, persuade, inspire, or entertain? Having a clear purpose guides your content and helps you stay focused throughout your speech.
To identify your target audience, ask yourself questions like:
Answering these questions will give you a better understanding of your audience, allowing you to craft a message that resonates with them.
Your speech’s purpose should be clear from the outset. Are you trying to:
Knowing your purpose helps you select relevant content and structure your speech effectively.
Once you understand your audience and purpose, tailor your message accordingly. Use language, examples, and anecdotes that resonate with your audience. Consider their knowledge level and adapt your content to ensure clarity and engagement.
For example, if you’re speaking to a group of experts in your field, you can use industry jargon and dive deeper into technical aspects. However, if your audience is more general, it’s essential to break down complex concepts and use relatable examples.
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Your opening sets the tone for your entire speech. Accordingly, aim to create a memorable first impression that captures your audience’s attention and makes them eager to hear more. Use strong body language , maintain eye contact, and speak with confidence to establish a positive connection with your listeners.
There are various types of attention-grabbing openers you can use to start your speech. For instance, you could
Whether you go with a question or a statistic, ensure your opener that aligns with your topic and engages your audience from the start.
As any speaker knows, your first few seconds on stage are critical. In order to create a memorable first impression,
Remember, your nonverbal communication is just as important as your words in creating a positive first impression.
Engaging your audience from the very beginning may sound easier said than done, but it is possible! Use techniques like addressing the audience directly, asking for a show of hands, or encouraging them to imagine a scenario. By involving your audience early on, you create an interactive atmosphere and keep them invested in your message.
For example, you could start with a question like, “Have you ever faced a challenge that seemed insurmountable at first?” This prompts your audience to reflect on their own experiences and establishes a personal connection with your topic.
Remember, a strong opening is your opportunity to capture your audience’s attention and set the stage for a powerful and engaging speech. By understanding your audience, crafting a memorable first impression, and using attention-grabbing techniques, you’ll be well on your way to delivering a speech that resonates with your listeners.
When you’re up on stage, ready to deliver your speech, you want to capture your audience’s attention right from the start. One of the most effective ways to do that is by sharing a relevant anecdote or story. Of course, when you start your speech with a story, it can’t just be about anything. Rather, ensure that your opening anecdote is relevant, concise, and ties in with your main message.
The key to using an anecdote effectively is to choose one that’s relevant to your topic and resonates with your audience. It could be a personal experience, a client success story, or even a hypothetical scenario that illustrates your point.
For instance, if you’re speaking about persistence, lean on personal stories. Describe a time when you encountered an obstacle, but found a way around it through hard work and perseverance. This type of story not only engages your audience but also boosts your speaker credibility , demonstrating that you actually have experience overcoming obstacles, not just talking about them.
While stories can be powerful, it’s important to keep them concise. Remember, your anecdote should serve as an introduction to your main message, but if the story goes on for too long it will overshadow your main message instead. Aim to capture the essence of your story in just a few sentences, focusing on the key details that support your point.
If you ramble on too long, you also risk losing your audience’s attention. Think of your anecdote as a teaser that leaves your audience wanting more. Keep it short, sweet, and to the point.
Once you’ve shared your anecdote, it’s crucial to tie it back to your main message. Explain how the story relates to your topic and what lessons or insights your audience can take away from it.
Let’s go back to our perseverance example. After sharing your personal story, you might say something like, “Just like in my own journey, each of us will face challenges on the path to success. But if we stay focused on our goals and refuse to give up, we can overcome any obstacle that comes our way.”
By connecting your anecdote to your core message, you reinforce your point and make it more memorable for your audience.
Another great way to kick off your speech is by asking a thought-provoking question. When you pose a question to your audience, you invite them to engage with your topic on a deeper level. Not only does it get their wheels turning, but it also encourages them to think critically about the subject at hand.
To make your question effective, it should be open-ended and encourage reflection. Avoid yes-or-no questions, and instead, ask something that prompts your audience to consider different perspectives or challenge their assumptions.
For instance, if you’re speaking about the importance of work-life balance, you might ask, “What would your life look like if you prioritized your well-being as much as your career?” This question invites your audience to imagine a different reality and consider the benefits of making a change.
Asking a question is also a great way to encourage audience participation. You can ask your audience to raise their hands, share their thoughts with a neighbor, or even invite a few brave volunteers to share their responses out loud.
When you involve your audience in your speech, you create a more dynamic and engaging experience. It helps break the ice and establishes a sense of connection between you and your listeners.
In addition to asking questions that invite a response, you can also use rhetorical questions strategically throughout your speech. These are questions that don’t necessarily require an answer, but serve to emphasize a point or encourage further reflection.
For example, you might say something like, “Can we really afford to ignore this problem any longer?” This question isn’t meant to be answered directly, but rather to underscore the urgency of the issue and encourage your audience to consider the consequences of inaction.
By peppering your speech with thought-provoking questions, you keep your audience engaged and encourage them to think more deeply about your message.
Whether you choose to start with an anecdote or a question, the key is to select an opening that resonates with your audience and sets the stage for the rest of your speech. So take some time to brainstorm different options and see what feels most authentic and impactful to you. With a little creativity and practice, you’ll be able to craft an opening that truly captivates your audience from the very first moment.
When you’re crafting your speech, one of the most powerful ways to grab your audience’s attention right from the start is by sharing a surprising fact or statistic. However, it can’t just be any old statistic. It needs to be something that’s truly shocking, attention-grabbing, and most importantly, credible.
So where do you find these golden nuggets of information? It all starts with research. While it’s tempting just to Google a few keywords, push yourself to take this step seriously. Dig deep and find reputable sources like academic journals, government databases, or well-respected organizations in your field. These are the places where you’ll uncover the most impactful and trustworthy facts and statistics.
Once you’ve done your research, it’s time to sift through all that information and select the facts or statistics that will really make your audience sit up and take notice. Look for data points that challenge common assumptions or reveal something unexpected about your topic.
For example, let’s say you’re giving a speech about the importance of employee engagement. You could start with a statistic like this: “According to a Gallup study , only 23% of employees worldwide are actively engaged in their jobs.” That’s a pretty startling number, and it immediately sets the stage for why your topic matters.
Of course, you can’t just drop a shocking statistic and move on. Once you’ve shared the statistic, you need to provide context and explain why it matters. In the employee engagement example, you might follow up by saying something like, “Think about that for a moment. 77% of the global workforce is either not engaged or actively disengaged. That means they’re just going through the motions, or worse, they’re actively undermining their company’s success. As leaders, we have a responsibility to change that.”
By providing context and explaining the implications of your chosen fact or statistic, you help your audience understand its significance and connect it to your broader message. That’s what makes it such a powerful tool for grabbing attention and setting the stage for a memorable speech.
Another way to start your speech with a bang is by using a powerful quote. A well-chosen quote can add credibility to your message, inspire your audience, and set the tone for the rest of your presentation. But just like with facts and statistics, not just any quote will do.
The key to using quotes effectively is to find ones that are both relevant to your topic and impactful in their own right. Look for quotes from respected figures in your industry, thought leaders, or even historical figures whose words have stood the test of time.
For instance, if you’re giving a speech about leadership, you might start with a quote like this one from John Maxwell: “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” That quote perfectly encapsulates what leadership is all about, and it comes from someone who is widely recognized as an authority on the subject.
Of course, whenever you use a quote in your speech, it’s important to attribute it correctly. That means mentioning the person’s name and their credentials or background, if relevant. This not only gives credit where it’s due but also adds weight and credibility to the quote itself.
So in the John Maxwell example, you might say something like, “As leadership expert and bestselling author John Maxwell once said, ‘A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.'”
Finally, just like with facts and statistics, you need to explain why your chosen quote matters and how it relates to your overall message. Don’t just drop the quote and move on—take a moment to unpack its meaning and significance.
For the John Maxwell quote, you might follow up by saying, “Think about that for a moment. True leadership isn’t just about having a vision or giving orders. It’s about walking the walk and leading by example. It’s about inspiring and guiding others to follow your lead. And that’s exactly what I want to talk to you about today.”
By choosing a relevant and impactful quote, attributing it correctly, and explaining its significance, you can use the power of other people’s words to elevate your own message and connect with your audience on a deeper level. So don’t be afraid to let someone else’s wisdom shine—it just might be the perfect way to start your next speech.
When it comes to giving a speech, humor is one surefire way to engage your audience and keep them entertained. But before you start cracking jokes, there are a few things to keep in mind.
For one thing, you need to understand your audience’s sense of humor. What might have your college buddies laughing might not land so well with a room full of corporate executives. It’s all about knowing your crowd and tailoring your humor accordingly. So whether you’re a seasoned speaker or new to the speaking game, always do your homework on who you’ll be speaking to.
Another key aspect is keeping your humor appropriate and tasteful. You want to avoid anything that could be seen as offensive or insensitive. Stick to lighthearted jokes that avoid making anyone feel uncomfortable. When in doubt, err on the side of caution.
Finally, it’s important to strike a balance between humor and your main message. While a well-placed joke can do wonders for keeping your audience engaged, you don’t want it to overshadow the purpose of your speech. Use humor as a tool to enhance your points, not as a crutch to lean on.
One great example of this is Sir Ken Robinson’s famous TED Talk . In his presentation, Robinson masterfully weaves in humorous anecdotes and witty observations throughout his talk, but never loses sight of his central theme about creativity in education. It’s a perfect balance of entertainment and substance.
The bottom line? When used effectively, humor can be a powerful way to connect with your audience and make your message stick. Just remember to keep it appropriate, know your audience, and use it to complement—not overshadow—your main points.
Another way to grab your audience’s attention right from the start is by posing a problem or challenge. It immediately gets them thinking and invested in what you have to say. But how do you go about identifying and presenting that problem effectively? Let’s break it down.
The key to this particular strategy is relevance. You want to choose a problem or challenge that your audience can relate to and feel a sense of urgency around. It could be something they’re currently facing in their industry, a common pain point, or even a broader societal issue.
For example, let’s say you’re giving a speech to a group of small business owners. You might start by saying something like, “Raise your hand if you’ve ever struggled to keep up with the constantly changing landscape of digital marketing.” Chances are, most hands will shoot up, and you’ve immediately got their attention.
Once you’ve identified your problem, it’s crucial to present it in a way that’s clear, concise, and easy to understand. Avoid jargon or technical terms that might go over people’s heads. Instead, use plain language and concrete examples to illustrate the issue at hand.
After you’ve laid out the problem, it’s time to give your audience a glimpse of what’s to come. Hint at potential solutions or the overall purpose of your speech. This creates a sense of anticipation and keeps them engaged, wondering how you’ll address the challenge you’ve presented.
You might say something like, “Today, I’m going to share with you three strategies for overcoming this obstacle and taking your business to the next level.” Or, “In the next 30 minutes, we’ll explore how this issue is impacting our community and what steps we can take to create meaningful change.”
By posing a problem or challenge right from the start, you set the stage for a compelling and impactful speech. Just remember to keep it relevant, clear, and forward-looking. Do that, and you’ll have your audience hooked from the very first sentence.
You’ve crafted a strong opening that captures attention and sets the stage for your presentation. But even the most brilliant opening falls flat without practice and refinement. The key to delivering a powerful opening with confidence is repetition. It’s not enough to write it down and call it a day. You need to rehearse your opening until it becomes second nature.
Just like any skill, nailing the opening of your speech takes practice before you can master it. Set aside dedicated time to practice your opening. Stand in front of a mirror, record yourself, or grab a friend to listen. The more you rehearse, the more natural and engaging your delivery will become.
Practicing on your own is great, but getting feedback from others can take your opening to the next level. Share your opening with colleagues, friends, or family members who will give you honest and constructive feedback.
Ask them questions like: Did my opening grab your attention? Was it clear what my presentation is about? Did I seem confident and credible? Their insights can help you refine your content and delivery.
Once you’ve received feedback and reflected on your own performance, it’s time to make adjustments. Don’t be afraid to tweak your opening based on what you’ve learned. Maybe you need to cut out a sentence that doesn’t land or add a pause for emphasis.
The beauty of practicing and refining your opening is that it’s an ongoing process. Even the most seasoned speakers continue to improve and adapt their openings over time. So embrace the journey and watch as your opening becomes stronger and more impactful with each iteration. By investing time and effort into practicing and refining yours, you’ll be well on your way to captivating your audience from the very first word.
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How do you start a speech.
To kick off your speech, start with a bang: ask a thought-provoking question, share an intriguing fact, or tell a compelling story. This grabs attention and sets the stage.
“Let me tell you about the time…” works well for many speakers. It promises an interesting story and instantly draws listeners in.
A solid intro hooks your audience right away. Combine humor with curiosity or drop in an unexpected statistic to keep them on their toes.
“Imagine” opens up endless possibilities. It invites listeners into your world, setting up for engaging storytelling or powerful points ahead.
The beginning of any speech sets the stage for everything else you’ll say. It’s where you capture interest and build connection. Accordingly, investing time and energy into your introduction is well worth it. Whether you go with an engaging story or a surprising fact, you have the power to make your introduction unforgettable. And remember—it’s not just about what you say but also how confidently you deliver it.
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Do you wonder how to start a speech here are some cool tips to captivate your audience.
Public speaking is an essential skill for leaders, educators, and professionals across various fields. It is a powerful tool for sharing ideas, influencing others, and building a strong personal brand. While many people find it intimidating, mastering the art of public speaking can be achieved with the right techniques, practice, and mindset. One of the most crucial aspects of delivering a successful speech is nailing the opening, as it sets the tone for the entire presentation and can make or break audience engagement.
Whether you are a seasoned orator or a novice presenter, starting a speech effectively can be challenging. After all, first impressions matter, and the first few minutes of your presentation determine whether your audience will be engaged, bored, or indifferent. To help you captivate your audience from the start, we have compiled a comprehensive list of 27 key tips to consider when crafting your speech opening. These tips, combined with relevant examples, will guide you in creating an impactful and memorable introduction.
Understanding your audience, identifying the purpose of your speech, and maintaining a clear structure are all essential elements to consider. However, the true magic lies in the delivery. It is important to practice and refine your skills to ensure a confident and captivating performance. The following tips have been meticulously curated to provide a roadmap for success, enabling you to transform your speech from ordinary to extraordinary.
This blog post aims to provide you with a wealth of knowledge and examples, empowering you to overcome your public speaking fears and conquer the stage. By implementing these tips, you will be well on your way to delivering a powerful, engaging, and persuasive speech that leaves a lasting impression on your audience.
The art of starting a speech effectively is a skill that can be honed with practice and dedication. By incorporating these 27 tips into your speech preparation and delivery, you can set the stage for a captivating and memorable presentation. Keep in mind that each audience is unique, and you may need to adjust your approach depending on your listeners’ needs and expectations. Nevertheless, these tips will provide a strong foundation for you to build upon, ensuring that you make a powerful first impression.
As you continue to refine your public speaking skills, remember that the key to success lies in engaging your audience, being authentic, and delivering a message that resonates with them. By doing so, you will not only captivate your listeners but also leave a lasting impact that goes beyond the stage.
In conclusion, delivering an exceptional speech begins with a strong and engaging opening. With these 27 tips and examples, you now have the tools to craft a compelling introduction that will set the tone for an unforgettable presentation. So, embrace your inner orator and step confidently onto the stage – your audience awaits!
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Practical Media Training and Public Speaking Tips
We don’t want to break it to you, but you don’t really have all that much time. As a public speaker or presenter, you have but a scant few moments to open a speech or presentation with a powerful hook. Here, we offer 25 great ways on how to open a speech.
But first, a quick note about the two elements any speech opening should possess: it must be engaging and on message . The way you open a speech gets them in the door and your main point, or message, keeps them in their seats.
Notice that we said engaging and on message. A funny opening joke may engage the audience, but if it’s not directly related to your presentation’s main message , your audience may only remember the joke. There’s nothing funny about that.
What does it mean to be on message? First, you need one. As part of our public speaking workshops , we encourage our clients to themselves a simple question: What is the one thing, more than anything else, I want this audience to remember from my presentation six months from now? That one thing typically is your overarching message .
Some examples:
“Our nonprofit organization’s donations are surging and have more than made up for the dip in last year’s contributions.” “This program for at-risk youth is as beneficial for the overall community as it is for the actual participants. “ “My new product may look like many others, but what it delivers is unlike anything else on the shelf.”
Your messages are meaningful, but they become memorable when you frame them within the context of your open.
Just as a storefront business owner draws customers with their window display, or a publisher gets a sale because of an eye-catching book cover, your speech opening hooks your audience and keeps them in their seats.
The first few moments of your presentation are vital for its success.
For that reason, your presentation opening speech needs to be as engaging as possible. Niceties, such as introductions or thank-yous, or relevant (but uninteresting) logistical information are impediments to getting your audience immediately invested in your topic. We show you all about the three parts you should have in your presentation open here .
The opens that follow allow you to leap directly into the heart of your message and convey your main takeaway points quickly, creatively, and effectively. Your audience’s attention is precious. Give them an open that convinces them their investment of time will be worth it.
These opens, from our book 101 Ways to Open a Speech , represent a mix of styles and methods. You can open your presentation speech with a third-person anecdote or share your own story. You can be persuasive or utilize the element of surprise. Some speech openers tell a story, others frame a topic, and a couple rely on modern technology. There’s a way to open a speech that is right for you, that reflects your personality, and that serves your specific goals and topics.
1. The Common Ground Open – Is there a gap between you and the audience? Perhaps you’re a 70-something speaking to some high school students, or a conservative Republican addressing a group of left-leaning advocates. If you have any chance of succeeding in sharing your message, you’ll need to close the gap quickly. Opening with a shared story, statistic, goal, or interest, and doing so with humility and grace, is an excellent way to bring the audience closer to you and to show them they have something to gain by listening to you. Imagine that a CEO of a large investment company is about to talk finances to a group of entry-level employees at one of your many locations. Here’s how she could start:
“You may not think I know what it is like to struggle, but at your age I was scraping for pennies, working two jobs, and still barely managing to pay my rent. It got easier when I learned to make my money work as hard as I was. It’s a lesson I plan to share with you today .”
2. Descriptive Open – A school administrator is talking to teachers about a new approach to student test prep. He could say:
“With your help, we are going to implement new lessons that reduce the rate of failure by increasing students’ opportunities to experience success.”
Are you still awake? Abstract concepts like “rate of failure,” “opportunities,” and “success” don’t exactly rouse an audience. When words are vivid, messages gain power and pop. Concrete and descriptive words, as opposed to abstract concepts, put the audience in the middle of the action. This version would be better:
“No one wants to see that big red ‘F’ on a test – not a student, not a teacher, and not a parent. With our new approach, and your help, we’ll be able to hand out a lot more ‘A’s’ and ‘B’s’—and the students would have worked hard to earn them.”
4. The Third-Person Anecdote Open – Stories are great ways to communicate the human condition. Therefore, choose a story or anecdote you’ve heard along the way – or pick one out of the local newspaper or online news story – and use it to reinforce your presentation’s main message. However, don’t start by saying, “I’d like to begin with a story.” Just start with the action:
“Three years ago, Walt Harris had his dream job, dream spouse, and dream home. He worked out five days a week, ate well, and mediated on weekends. Then he received a diagnosis from his doctor that changed his life. In the past three years, Walt lost his job, lost his home, and is close to facing divorce. Unfortunately, almost all of this was preventable.”
5. The Show of Hands Open – How many of you think this way to open a speech is overdone? How many of you think it could be done better? The question you pose should challenge conventional thinking, lead to a counterintuitive conclusion, or add a dose of unexpected humor. Likewise, this strategy works well if you are trying to sway the audience to reconsider previously held positions or beliefs. You must be quick on your feet to transition from the audience’s answers to the point you are trying to make:
“So, you think the sky is blue? Well, I’m going to tell you what happens on those days when it appears to be green.”
6. The Fable Open – Do you have something to preach but don’t want to sound preachy? If you lead off with a fable, or one of its literary cousins (allegories and parables), you can delve into moral lessons and insights about human behavior, all without sounding too heavy. In her book, “The Story Factor,” Annette Simmons writes that stories provide a more accessible route. A story, she says, is a “more dynamic tool of influence. Story gives people enough space to think for themselves.”
7. The Contrast Open – If speeches were boxing matches, you’d use the contrast open every time. This technique showcases the difference between diametrically opposed concepts, positions, ideas, or words. As a result, this approach is useful if you want to persuade others to change their perspective or embrace something new. Here are some of the themes that work well:
8. The Information Gap – You know you will be facing a crowd of people who are quite knowledgeable about your subject. That’s OK. As it turns out, people who know a lot about a topic are still just as interested in learning about the parts of the topic they don’t know, according to American educator and economist George Loewenstein . If you can find a kernel of knowledge that exposes the gap or looks at the topic in a different way, you’ve given your audience ample reason to stick around to the end.
9. The Unexpected Definition Open – Dictionaries obviously do their jobs and do them well. However, there are times when a word gains more power when it is redefined. Say you are a valedictorian and you want to share how much your fellow students mean to you. Here’s a start:
“The dictionary defines classmate as a member of your class, but I define you all as so much more than that. We were each other’s friends, confidants, mentors, and guides. As worthy opponents, we challenged one other on the field and in the classroom. We were each other’s keepers and cheerleaders. And, we now can define ourselves as fellow graduates.”
10. “This Day in History” Open – This day in history you learned there were 25 ways to open a speech. That is a historical fact, but not a great citation. Fortunately, there are plenty of worthy, significant, thought-provoking, and interesting events you can find – a simple online search yields thousands – to illustrate your main point.
11. The Incorrect (or Ironic) Quote – Back in 2004, Microsoft’s Bill Gates told the world, “Two years from now, spam will be solved.” Oh yeah? Hindsight is 20/20, but that doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from the trove of ill-considered observations and incorrect assumptions about the future. Leading a presentation with an incorrect quote can help you transition to many powerful points, including the risks of false assumptions, the dangers of being slow to change, and the speed of evolution.
“We’re going to go on a dive to the deep sea. Anyone that’s had that lovely opportunity knows that for about two-and-a-half hours on the way down, it’s a perfectly, positively pitch-black world.”
When combined with a series of video images featuring bioluminescent sea creatures, the open transported the audience deep into the world of ocean exploration all from the comfort of their hotel meeting room.
13. The Bookend Open – Like the inseparable friends that they are, the Bookend Open must go with the Bookend Close, no ifs, ands or buts about it. Consequently, the theme, story, example, joke, theme, or fact that you offer in the open must return – in some fashion – for a visit in the end.
14. Rapid-Fire Statistics Open – A dietician wants to warn her audience about the dangers of gaining weight on a diet rich in fast food meals. She could start like this:
“Between 2013 and 2016, more than 1 in 3 American adults took a turn through the drive-thru or approached the counter to grab a fast food meal on any given day. For children and teens, a fast food diet has been associated with higher caloric intake and poor diet quality. That double whammy is a reality that more young people face, as studies have found caloric intake from fast food on the rise for children aged 2 to 18. The industry itself shows no signs of slowing. The fast food industry is a $198.9 billion business in the United States. It’s expected to grow by more than $20 billion by 2020.”
This data stacking is less about individual numbers and more about the broader point she is trying to convey. The main takeaway is this: Society’s propensity for fast food is growing and affecting the health of children and teens.
15. The Mystery Open – They fill bookshelves and dominate television listings. What are they? Those mysteries, psychological thrillers, and police procedurals readers and viewers can’t seem to get enough of. A mystery works fine for an open, too. Here’s one way to do it: Pose a single question at the start of your talk and then answer it piece by piece during your presentation – leaving the big reveal for the close.
16. The Multiple Choice – It’s better than the tests you remembered as a student or the online surveys you are asked to take. That’s because it’s your multiple-choice test and it’s the way you can draw your audience to your topic. This open is tailor-made for a talk with multiple perspectives about an issue or different solutions for the same problem. Here’s an example:
“As a company, we have several directions we can take in terms of growth and increased sales. We could a.) buy up smaller companies to diversify our portfolio of services, b.) cull some of our services and move resources to focus on only a few or, c.) we could opt to franchise. I’m going to spend some time on each and then offer the option that I think is the way for us to go.”
17. The Challenge Open – Challenges spur audiences to act or deliver on a goal. You could open a speech with a challenge if you are seeking legislative change, raising money for a project, looking to increase sales, or asking for volunteers. The main objective is motivation. The audience not only needs to buy-in to your message but take the actions to manifest it. Here’s one way to do that:
“Dreamers see possibilities where others see obstacles. I am here today to call upon my fellow dreamers to encourage those who are hesitant about the project to look past the stumbling blocks we face in the construction of this community playground and consider giving kids a chance to play.”
18. The Skeptical Audience Open – A doubting audience is a difficult audience – there is no getting around it. They may be untrusting of your ideas or against what you are proposing. Perhaps they have been disappointed in the past or are simply stuck in their ways. The more “hostile” the crowd, the faster you need to address the gap. While every open needs to be a blend of your goals and audience needs, this one requires careful consideration. Here’s the formula:
19. The Rhetorical Question Open – Do you think opening with a question engages audience members? Yes, it does. This method engages the audience from the get-go. A CEO might pose this question:
“We offer great services. We have a loyal customer base. And, we make improvements every year. So, why are we not No. 1 in our market?”
21. The Activity Open – Of all the 25 ways to open, this one triggers the most immediate engagement. Use it during training sessions and workshops when you are trying to teach a specific skill. When an audience engages in an activity right from the start, they recognize the benefits of listening to the rest of what you have to say. Make sure the activity is challenging, however. If they breeze through it, they’ll spend the rest of the workshop twiddling their thumbs.
22. The Self-Effacing Open – Remember the speaker who offered a joke, only to have that become his message? Well, in this way to open a speech, humor also must be deftly handled. Modesty and humility are the hallmarks of people who can laugh at themselves – which are both traits that can attract an audience. If you are planning to laugh at your own expense, just make sure it’s not at a cost. Stay away from jokes that question your credibility or diminish the topic of your speech. And make sure your self-deprecating humor doesn’t sound too self-pitying (“I hope, like my receding hairline, you won’t similarly retreat for the exit before I am done.”). You don’t want the audience thinking about your weaknesses or paying undue attention to them.
24. The PowerPoint Open – Ahh, the PowerPoint presentation … when used correctly it is a highly effective tool for the audience. When used incorrectly, it induces a snoozefest. Overly literal slides typically fall flat, while conceptual (and eye-catching) images make your words even more memorable. If you plan on using technology front and center, you should pick an image that captivates and intrigues, and forms a segue into the opening you want to tell. For instance, you are presenting a talk on how to create a stunning painting. You could begin with a slide that shows a big, bold, and colorful painting. You say:
“This painting is the manifestation of dozens of choices and decisions the artist made along the way from concept to completion. We only see the final product, but the real art is the way it all comes together.”
As you proceed, you show slides in reverse, moving from final product to blank canvas. Along the way, you bring the viewer through each step.
25. The Study Hall Open – Some presenters are faced with the dilemma of sharing data-heavy charts and graphs. To rely solely on PowerPoint is potentially ineffective – just too much data at once. So, take your audience back to school and to all those handouts. Edward Tufte , an expert in data visualization and a professor emeritus at Yale University, suggests using the “study hall” method. At the beginning of the session, distribute the handouts and ask the audience to read them. Following their review, you are off to the races. Your task is not to repeat what they have read but offer context and meaning. “
Back in 1973, a horse named Secretariat ran the Kentucky Derby in 1 minute and 59 seconds – breaking the two-minute mark for the first time in the then 99-year history of the race. His record still stands.
It doesn’t take a lot of time to do something great. The way you open a speech may not break any records, but it can have a long-standing effect on your audience. From the very start, you have an opportunity to influence others, establish rapport, and exhibit creativity. When done well, such effort is rewarded. Your audience not only connects with you during your talk but also remembers what you said long after your speech is done.
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A compelling opening is crucial in public speaking as it sets the stage for your presentation or speech.
You grab the audience’s attention and establish a connection in the first few moments, making them eager to hear what you say next.
The success of this initial interaction can influence audience engagement throughout your speech.
By starting strong, you captivate your listeners and build the momentum needed to carry your message effectively.
Therefore, mastering the art of the opening is essential for any successful speaker. It ensures that the audience is engaged and receptive right from the start.
The opening of a speech serves as the foundation for what’s to follow, crucial for grasping the audience’s attention from the get-go.
Its main objectives are threefold: first, to captivate the audience, ensuring they are fully engaged and eager to listen; second, to establish a connection or rapport, making the audience feel involved and valued; and third, to set the tone of the presentation, providing a clear indication of the speech’s direction and mood.
There are many ways to craft a memorable opening. Here are 13 strategies with examples: Use a startling statement
Begin with a fact or statement that surprises your audience, prompting them to keenly focus on what you’re about to say.
For example:
“Last year, over 60% of small businesses faced cyber attacks, yet only a fraction were prepared.”
This statistic is likely to grab attention due to its unexpected gravity and relevance.
Stories are universally compelling, tapping into emotions and creating a human connection.
For instance, if addressing the importance of resilience, you might start with a personal anecdote:
“Three years ago, I stood at the brink of bankruptcy. Yet here I am today, sharing my journey toward rebuilding what I lost.”
This approach draws in listeners and establishes a rapport as you’ve let them into a part of your life where you felt vulnerable.
Engage your audience’s curiosity and invite them to think deeply by starting with a thought-provoking question.
For a speech on innovation, you could ask:
“What if the next product you invent becomes a staple in every household across the globe?”
Such a question stimulates the audience’s imagination and encourages them to consider their own potential impact.
Opening with a pertinent quote can lend authority to your speech and anchor your message within a broader conversation.
For example, in a discourse on leadership, starting with Nelson Mandela’s “It always seems impossible until it’s done” sets a tone of aspiration and endurance.
This method not only lends credibility to your speech but also aligns your message with the values embodied by the quoted individual.
Rhetorical questions don’t need a response. Still, they prompt personal reflection and get your audience in the zone to engage with your topic at the right energy and emotional levels.
“How many of you have laid awake at night, pondering if your hard work is truly making a difference?”
Hypothetical scenarios thrust the audience into a thought experiment. Similar to a rhetorical question, they prime people for a discussion on the topic you’re about to speak on.
“Imagine you wake up tomorrow in a world where every piece of technology you rely on has disappeared.”
Starting with a light-hearted joke can disarm the audience, making them more receptive and creating a friendly, engaging atmosphere.
For example
“They say the best way to avoid a parking ticket is to remove your windshield wipers. But seriously…”
These provide a sensory-rich context that enhances your message.
“Picture a vast forest, its canopy ablaze with autumn colors, a gentle breeze whispering through the leaves.”
Clearly articulating your speech’s goal from the outset establishes a clear direction and intent, helping the audience focus on your core message.
“Today, I’m here to talk about how we can revolutionize our approach to education.”
Directly addressing the audience acknowledges their importance and role, creating a sense of inclusion.
“You, the future leaders of tomorrow, are the architects of the next great era.”
Challenging a widespread notion piques curiosity and sets the stage for a persuasive argument against said common belief.
“We’ve been taught that failure is the end of the road, but what if I told you it’s just the beginning?”
Linking your speech to a timely event demonstrates relevance and urgency, encouraging the audience to engage with the present moment.
For example:
“In light of the recent global summit, let’s discuss why sustainable development is the clarion call of our times.”
Presenting a critical issue engages the audience’s intellect, prompting them to consider the complexity of the topic at hand.
“How do we ensure our planet remains habitable for future generations while advancing economically?”
The openings discussed here differ in style and delivery–but they all have three things in common.
It’s paramount that your opening is clear and understandable.
Clarity ensures that your audience grasps the core message right away, setting the stage for everything that follows.
Ambiguity or complexity at the start can lead to confusion, diminishing the impact of your speech.
Being direct and straightforward in your opening helps anchor the audience’s attention and understanding.
The opening must be directly tied to your main topic, providing a seamless entry point into the heart of your presentation.
This relevance confirms for the audience that they are in the right place and prepares them for the content to come.
An opening that strays from the central theme can mislead or disengage listeners, making it harder to draw them back in as you progress.
An effective opening is also succinct, delivering its punch without dragging on.
Lengthy introductions risk losing the audience’s attention before you’ve even reached the core of your message.
A concise opening respects your audience’s time and patience, creating anticipation for deeper exploration. It should intrigue and invite, not overwhelm or bore.
When crafting the opening of a speech, it’s crucial to avoid certain pitfalls that can undermine its effectiveness:
Beginning your speech with a cliché can quickly disengage your audience, making your message feel stale and unoriginal.
Audiences seek fresh, thought-provoking content, and starting with a cliché can set a tone of predictability, reducing their interest in what follows.
To maintain the audience’s attention, opt for original, impactful openings that resonate and leave a lasting impression.
An effective opening not only captivates but also sets the stage for the audience, providing a roadmap of what to expect.
Neglecting to give a preview can leave listeners disoriented, unsure of the speech’s direction, or the key takeaways.
By clearly outlining the main points or objectives at the beginning, you help the audience follow along more effectively, enhancing their engagement and retention of the information presented.
Tailoring your opening to the specific audience in front of you is paramount.
A generic opening risks missing the mark, failing to address the audience’s unique interests, concerns, or context.
Consider the audience’s demographics, their familiarity with the topic, and their potential expectations or biases.
Customising your approach demonstrates respect and consideration for the audience, creating a stronger connection and increasing the likelihood that your message will resonate.
Practicing your opening and receiving feedback are critical to honing your public speaking skills.
Regularly rehearse your speech’s introduction in front of a mirror, with friends or family, or even record yourself to self-assess.
Seeking feedback is invaluable; consider hiring a communications coach for professional advice. Additionally, enrolling in an online public speaking course can offer structured learning for busy professionals. By integrating these practices, you’ll refine your opening, making it more impactful and setting the tone for a successful speech.
Good luck! And if you want to hear more from me, you can find me on:
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Last updated on June 7th, 2024
These days, most of the audience prefers an informal approach in presentations, but at the same time, it must sound professional. When people prepare for any type of presentation, they often face this dilemma: how to start a presentation? What should be the opening speech? How much time should we take for the introduction part?
The first three minutes of your presentations are crucial to get to your audience with an engaging message and make the overall presentation effective. With the proper opening speech for your presentation, you can hook your audience, win the audience’s attention and get them audience interested in what you have to say. Check out some speech introduction examples to get familiar with this topic. Undoubtedly, if the beginning of your presentation is solid and exciting, the chances of success of your presentation increase. Opening your persuasive speech entirely depends upon your style and choice because when you are giving a presentation, you are required to be yourself and avoid putting artistic elements. So, choose something with which you are entirely comfortable.
If you are looking on how to start a speech then this article can help you to get some ideas. Here is a list of opening speech examples that you can use to prepare your presentations with a persuasive speech that convinces the audience. Find useful starting lines of speech, phrases and strategies to make your presentation a success:
This is the very basic, common and important step in which you need to greet your audience by wish them good morning/afternoon or evening (as per the time of session in which you are giving presentation). How to start a speech? Check out some of the examples below including a simple but effective speech introduction greeting example.
Example of Opening Greetings
Hello, everyone. I’d like, first of all, to thank the organizers of this meeting for inviting me here today.
Another example of opening Greeting speech.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am honored to have the opportunity to address such a distinguished audience.
Secondly, just after wishing greeting to your audience give them compliment and choose some words which show that you are delighted to see them there.
Example:
It’s great to see you all, Thank you for coming here today.
How you introduce yourself during a presentation is important. There are many ways to introduce yourself. Here we will see some examples on how to introduce yourself in a presentation. First of all, give your introduction start from telling your name. You can show some casual attitude by telling your short name or nick name, and then tell the audience more about your background and what you do.
For example, a good way to start introducing yourself could be:
My name is Louis Taylor, friends call me Lee sometimes.
Then introduce yourself professionally and give quite information about what you do and why are here today. For Example:
I am a software engineer by profession and working in ABC Corp. Today, I am here to provide you some exciting information about new technology, which is going to be very beneficial for you in future.
Another example of self-introduction speech:
For those of you who don’t know me already, my name is Louis Taylor, and I’m responsible for the software department at ABC Corp.
Using a self-introduction template and slide in your presentation, you can support your speech while presenting the information about you in the projection. You can also visit self introduction speech examples to find out some examples on how to introduce yourself and download self-introduction templates for PowerPoint & Google Slides.
Next is the part where you introduce the topic of your presentation or speech. Here are some examples of good opening speech for presentations examples on a specific topic.
What I’d like to present to you today is…
Or here is a simplified example of a good introduction for presentation in which we try to get the audience’s attention over the screen where you are presenting the content of your PowerPoint or Google Slides presentation.
As you can see on the screen, our topic today is…
Put all your information in front of them and then put your proposal and its related information and key point by which you can implement and utilize that idea effectively. Now let collect these points to make a summary and concise illustration. Here is an example of presentation starting speech that you can use:
“Good afternoon every one, it’s great to see you all here, thank you for coming. My name is Louis Taylor, friends call me Lee sometimes. I am a software engineer by profession and working with ABC Ltd. Today we are here to know about new software so that we can take most of it. Firstly, we will look how it work, next we will discuss where can we use it, then we will learn what are its advantages and finally we will discuss what precautions are required to kept in mind while implementing it.”
An effective opening speech is not just about presenting information or stating facts; it’s about forging an emotional connection with your audience. Building this connection can make your presentation more engaging, relatable, and memorable. Here are some strategies to achieve this:
Storytelling: One of the most powerful ways to establish an emotional connection is through storytelling. Sharing a personal anecdote or a relevant story can evoke emotions and draw your audience into your presentation. Make sure your story aligns with the overall theme of your presentation and adds value to your message.
Example of speech opening:
“Good morning, everyone. When I was a little boy, I used to watch my grandfather work tirelessly on his old typewriter. The clacking of the keys was a lullaby that lulled me into dreams of creating something impactful. Today, I am here to talk about the evolution of technology and its effect on communication, from typewriters of old to the smartphones of today.”
Relatability: Find common ground with your audience. This could be based on shared experiences, values, or aspirations. Doing so helps to humanize you, making it easier for your audience to relate to your message.
“Like many of you, I too struggle with maintaining a work-life balance in this fast-paced digital world. Today, I’ll share some strategies I’ve discovered that have significantly improved my quality of life.”
Utilizing Emotions: Use emotions like humor, surprise, curiosity, or inspiration to engage your audience. Different emotions can be used depending on the tone and purpose of your presentation.
“Did you know that the average person spends two weeks of their life waiting for traffic lights to change? That certainly puts our daily commute in a new light, doesn’t it?”
Remember, authenticity is crucial in building an emotional connection. Be yourself, share your experiences, and speak from the heart. This helps to gain your audience’s trust and keeps them engaged throughout your presentation.
Visual aids are a potent tool in any presentation, particularly in your opening speech. They can grab your audience’s attention with a visually appealing cover slide, support your message, and make a lasting impression. Here are some ways you can utilize visual aids in your opening speech.
Images: An image is worth a thousand words, they say, and it’s true. An impactful or relevant image can pique the curiosity of your audience and set the tone for your presentation. Ensure the image aligns with your topic and contributes to your overall message.
“As you can see on the screen, this is an image of a barren desert. It may surprise you to learn that this was once a thriving forest. Today, I’ll be talking about climate change and its irreversible effects.”
Short Videos: A short video can be a great way to engage your audience. This could be a brief clip that illustrates your topic, a short animation, or even a quick introductory video about you or your organization.
Example of a presentation opening statement:
“Before we start, let’s watch this brief video about the incredible journey of a raindrop.”
Infographics and Charts: If you are sharing statistical data or complex information, infographic slides or charts can simplify and clarify your message. They are visually engaging and can help your audience understand and remember the information.
“Take a look at this chart. It shows the exponential increase in cybercrime over the last five years, a topic that we will delve into further today.”
Slides: A well-designed slide can provide a visual structure for your opening speech. It should be clean, easy to read, and should not distract from your speech. Avoid cluttering your slides with too much text or complex graphics.
“According to the infographic on the screen, we can see the three core areas we’ll be focusing on in today’s presentation.”
Remember, the goal of using visual slides is to enhance your message, not overshadow it. They should complement your speech and provide visual interest for your audience. Always test your visual aids beforehand to ensure they work properly during your presentation.
A rhetorical question is a powerful tool you can use in your opening speech to provoke thought and engage your audience. By posing a question that doesn’t require an answer, you can pique your audience’s interest, make them think, and steer their focus towards your presentation’s key points. Here’s how to use rhetorical questions effectively in your opening speech:
Spark Curiosity: Use a rhetorical question to spark curiosity about your topic. This question should be thought-provoking and relevant to your presentation.
“Have you ever stopped to wonder how much of your life is influenced by social media?”
Highlight Key Issues: A rhetorical question can help highlight the key issues or problems that your presentation aims to address. This will help your audience understand the importance of your topic.
“What would happen if our natural resources were to run out tomorrow?”
Encourage Reflection: Encourage your audience to reflect on their personal experiences or beliefs. This will make your presentation more relatable and engaging.
“How many of us truly understand the value of our mental health?”
Set the Tone: You can also use a rhetorical question to set the tone of your presentation, whether it’s serious, humorous, or contemplative.
“Is there anyone here who doesn’t love pizza?”
Remember, rhetorical questions are meant to stimulate thought, not to put anyone on the spot. Make sure your questions are relevant to your topic and are appropriate for your audience. With the right questions, you can grab your audience’s attention, keep them engaged, and guide their thinking throughout your presentation.
Using statistical data in your opening speech is a powerful way to capture the audience’s attention and lend credibility to your message. Surprising or impactful statistics related to your presentation’s topic can instantly make your audience sit up and take notice. Here’s how you can incorporate statistical data effectively in your opening speech:
Relevant and Interesting Data: Choose statistics that are directly relevant to your topic and are likely to pique your audience’s interest. This data should enhance your message and provide valuable context for your presentation.
“Do you know that according to the World Health Organization, depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, affecting over 264 million people?”
Simplify Complex Data: If you’re presenting complex or dense data, make sure to simplify it for your audience. Use percentages, comparisons, or visual aids like infographics or charts to make the data easily understandable.
“Look at this chart. It represents the staggering 80% increase in cybercrime incidents over the past five years.”
Credible Sources: Always ensure your data comes from credible and reputable sources. This not only adds legitimacy to your presentation, but it also boosts your credibility as a speaker.
“According to a recent study published in the Journal of Environmental Science, air pollution contributes to 1 in 8 deaths worldwide.”
Shocking or Surprising Data: If you have statistics that are surprising or counter-intuitive, they can be an excellent way to grab your audience’s attention and spark curiosity about your presentation.
“Can you believe that, according to the United Nations, we waste approximately 1.3 billion tons of food every year, while one in nine people worldwide go hungry?”
Using statistical data in your opening speech can help to highlight the significance of your topic, draw your audience in, and lay a solid foundation for the rest of your presentation. Remember to present your data in a clear, accessible way, and always cite your sources to maintain credibility.
Anecdotes and quotations can be a powerful tool in your opening speech, serving as hooks that draw your audience into your presentation. They can provide a human element to your topic, connect with your audience on an emotional level, and add depth to your message. Here’s how you can effectively incorporate anecdotes and quotations in your opening speech:
Relevant Anecdotes: Sharing a relevant anecdote, whether personal or related to your topic, can make your presentation more relatable and engaging. Your anecdote should be brief, interesting, and serve to illustrate a point related to your topic.
“When I was a teenager, my family’s home was destroyed by a fire. That experience ignited in me a passion for safety measures and awareness, which brings us to today’s topic: fire safety in residential areas.”
Inspiring Quotations: A well-chosen quote can add depth and perspective to your topic. It can inspire, provoke thought, or set the tone for your presentation. Presenting it with a visually appealing quote slide increases the chances to make a lasting impression. Make sure the quote is relevant to your topic and from a credible source.
“Albert Einstein once said, ‘The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.’ This leads us into our discussion today on the importance of mindset in personal development.”
Humorous Anecdotes or Quotations: Depending on the formality of the setting and the topic of your presentation, a funny anecdote or quote can help to relax the audience, making them more receptive to your message.
“Mark Twain once said, ‘I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.’ As a fellow writer, I can relate to this sentiment, which brings us to our topic today: the art of concise writing.”
Remember, your anecdote or quote should serve to enhance your message, not distract from it. It should be interesting, relevant, and appropriately timed. With the right anecdote or quote, you can create a powerful hook that engages your audience from the outset.
Storytelling is a compelling method to make your opening speech memorable and engaging. A well-told story can create a strong emotional connection with your audience, making your presentation more impactful. Here’s how to effectively weave storytelling into your opening speech:
Choosing the Right Story: The story you tell should be relevant to your topic and capable of illustrating the point you’re trying to make. It could be a personal experience, a case study, or a historical event.
“Years ago, I worked on a project that, at the outset, seemed destined for success. But due to a lack of clear communication within the team, the project failed. Today, we will be discussing the importance of effective communication within teams.”
Creating Suspense: Build suspense in your story to hold your audience’s attention. You can do this by posing a problem or a conflict at the beginning of your story, which gets resolved by the end of your presentation.
“One day, as I was walking through a remote village in Africa, I came across a scene that profoundly changed my perspective. But before I reveal what it was, let’s discuss the issue of clean drinking water in underdeveloped countries.”
Showing, Not Telling: Make your story more vivid and engaging by showing, not telling. Use descriptive language and paint a picture with your words to make your audience feel like they’re part of the story.
“As the sun rose over the bustling city of Tokyo, I found myself in a small sushi shop tucked away in a quiet alley, experiencing what would become a pivotal moment in my culinary journey.”
Relatable Characters: If your story involves characters, make them relatable. Your audience should be able to see themselves in your characters, or at least understand their motivations and challenges.
“Meet Sarah, a single mother of two, working two jobs just to make ends meet. Her struggle is the reason we’re here today, to discuss the issue of minimum wage in our country.”
Storytelling is a powerful tool that can bring your presentation to life. A well-told story can captivate your audience, making your message more memorable and impactful. Be sure to select a story that aligns with your overall message and is appropriate for your audience.
Involving your audience from the get-go can make your presentation more engaging and memorable. By integrating interactive elements into your opening speech, you can foster a sense of participation and connection among your listeners. Here’s how you can do it:
Audience Polling: Modern presentation software often includes real-time polling features. You can ask your audience a question related to your topic and display the results instantly.
“To start, I’d like to ask you all a question. (Show poll on screen) How many of you think that Artificial Intelligence will significantly change our lives in the next ten years?”
Questions for Thought: Pose a thought-provoking question to your audience at the beginning of your speech. It can stimulate curiosity and get your listeners thinking about your topic.
“Before we delve into today’s topic, I want you to ponder this: what would you do if you had only 24 hours left to live? Keep that in mind as we discuss the importance of time management.”
Physical Engagement: Depending on the formality and size of your audience, you can incorporate physical engagement. This can range from a simple show of hands to engaging activities.
“By a show of hands, how many of you have ever felt overwhelmed by the amount of information available on the internet? That’s what we’ll be discussing today: information overload in the digital age.”
Interactive Quizzes: Quizzes can be a fun and interactive way to engage your audience and test their knowledge on your topic. It can also serve as a hook to introduce your topic. You can use a free Quiz PowerPoint template to ease the job of creating a quiz for your presentation.
“I have a quick quiz for you all (show quiz on screen). Let’s see who can guess the most common fear among adults. The answer will lead us into our topic of discussion today: overcoming fear.”
Remember, the goal of incorporating interactive elements is to engage your audience, so it should be relevant and add value to your presentation. Tailor your interactive elements to suit the needs and preferences of your audience, and you’ll have a winning opening speech.
As we mentioned earlier, the first minutes of your presentation are crucial to hook the audience and let them pay attention to the message you want to convey. This will depend on the type of presentation (if it is persuasive presentation, informative presentation or a presentation for entertaining the audience), but in general terms, when presenting we need to:
Barack Obama started his speech in the White House Correspondents’ Dinner saying: “You can’t say it, but you know it’s true.”
In same cases, humour can be a great companion for your speech. If you can use humour in a positive way, then getting a laugh in the first seconds of a presentation can get your audience hooked. It is a great way to open your speech.
Try to make habit of starting your presentation this way, it will sound great. You may come across several more opening speech examples for presentation but, once you implement this you yourself will realize that this is the best one. Alternatively you can learn more on quotes for presentations & speech topics to use during your presentation in PowerPoint, learn how to close your presentation , or find other relevant speech introduction greeting examples.
thank you very much
Hi Kavishki, we hope the article was useful for you. Will be great to learn more about how you have used the speech examples. If you need more speech ideas, I’d recommend you free Persuasive Speech topics .
hi,good morning all of you.i’m shadi.now i’m going to do a panel discussion.we want some informations from you we believe all will support us.
Hi Kavishki, good morning. Can please provide more information about the Panel Discussion needs and if it involves a PowerPoint presentation? We’d be happy to be of help!
This was very useful to me! But i need more speech ideas!
Being a content person myself,i’ve gotta be honest.Now this was assisting,you bet…great stuffow.
Thank you so much. It’s very helpful. Keep it up.. Good luck <3
plesae i would like u my pleasure to help me with some opening celebration word,s specially greeting to the audience
It would be appreciable if you share more speech about this.thank you.
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I do thank you for the tips you provided me with on how to make speeches/presentations.
a very gud thanks for such tips
Thank you for the information. Very good tips.
thanks you for the great ideas. this can help me to improve my presentation skill.
this information very nice to me.i get many new thing after i read this article.this information can help me to make a good presentation later.thank you.
I think this article is very useful for me to make presentations. Thank.
I think it is true.Keep it up.
What a good infomation.It very useful thank u
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It is helpful for my presentations.
i hope someone could teach me present more effectively. i would appreciate it
Thank you for the information.i can learn about the article/speech with simple and easy to understand..
this is useful tips
Good tips on how to start a presentation.
Thankyou for this. This really helped me a lot.
This tips makes me more confident . Thank you very much and break a leg guys !
Hi, I’m Gayathiri. I would like to thank you for giving such a helpful tips. I will defenitely use this tips in my speech/presentation.So, I hope my friends also use this tips for their presentation.
it was a good tip for us newbie on how to make a speech without any worries.
Thank you for your note and tip… It can change me to be a good student..
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this all very useful tips…can boost my confident during the presentation.thank you so much….
it’s very use helpful..thank you!
I need to view ths document
This was a good read. Thank you for the information.
Thank you for the information about the introduction during pesentation.Truely,i really need to study lot about how to start my presentation so that the audience are interesting to hear what i want to talk about and do not feel bored.
it’s is very usefull article that can use as our revision in upcoming for the next presentation.Thank you..
Thank you miss because of this article, it can help me on my next presentation.
thank you for this article,it’s useful to improve my presentation tasks.
this article has many tips for prepare to our presentation.thank you for sharing this article.
Thanks for the useful information. Can I ask how can I improve my self-confidence so as not to be embarrassed when presenting? Any idea? Thank you.
thank you..i’ll try to use those information for my presentation so i’ll be the best presenter in my class
this information very nice and useful to me.i get many new thing and tips after i read this article.this information can help me to make a good and better presentation later.thank you for useful information and meaningful for me
first of all, thank you for the help. there are a lot of great idea for me to use for my next presentation
Hi please i would like you to help me write an introduction for a speech about myself to my teacher
It’s help my presentation
Thank you so so much I will tell this at the UNIVERSITY presentation
please i really love your speech but can you please throw more light on the introduction
Hi every body I have entretien to USA Ambassi.
I need good presentation.
thank you so much for such a beneficial tips.
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"Be a voice not an echo." - Albert Einstein
Want to move audiences? Develop a powerful opening! Here is how to start a speech, including 12 foolproof ways to grab audiences in public speaking.
Let's talk about how to start a speech. When it comes to persuading, inspiring, or influencing an audience, your opening is by far the most important moment in your performance.
So how do you begin a presentation in ways that will get an audience on your side and start you on the road to speaking memorably?
Learn this skill and 101 tips and tricks for more successful speaking in my Public Speaking Handbook, How to Give a Speech . Also available as an Amazon bestseller!
Let's imagine that you're finally pitching to that audience of decision makers. It's the high-stakes opportunity you've been waiting for, and you've put together a killer presentation. There's just one problem: how do you start the thing off with a bang? Remember, anyone can give an ordinary presentation. It's your job to stand out from the crowd for career success.
Your Opening Sets the Tone of Your Presentation
You probably already know you need to begin with power and purpose. You're just not sure how . . . or for that matter, exactly why.
The answer is that, when it comes to influencing listeners in speeches and presentations, two concepts explain why your beginning and ending need to be particularly strong. I'll discuss both concepts here, then provide some powerful tools for your opening gambit: your speech Introduction .
Ready to set your audience on fire?
This article is available as a free PDF . Click here to download "How to Start a Speech - 12 Foolproof Ways to Grab Your Audience!" Learn and practice starting out powerfully!
Your Introduction and Conclusion Need to Be Strong
The two concepts concerning why you need to start and end strongly, are primacy and recency . Primacy states that people remember most vividly what they hear at the beginning of a speech. Recency says those same people will strongly recall what you say at the end. In terms of public speaking, this translates into your introduction and conclusion. And you really do need to start early. Here's how to create an opening your audience will remember .
In more practical terms, there are three specific reasons why your introduction needs to be engaging and interesting immediately :
(1) Audiences make judgments about you and your message in the first minute. After that point, you'll be able to change those opinions about as easily as you can change a hamster into a ham sandwich. So here's how to be strong in the first 60 seconds of your speech .
(2) Your opening sets the entire tone of your presentation (including whether you'll be interesting or not).
(3) This is when you introduce your message and tell the audience why they should listen.
Sound like a tall order? It isn't, if you use the seven key components of successful presentations . Your audience needs to be both fully engaged and predisposed favorably toward you and your message. Neither will happen unless you can grab their attention, so they're onboard when you spin your verbal magic. Keep reading to learn how that's done.
Ready to boost your influence with stakeholders? Grab your copy of my book, Speak for Leadership . Learn an executive speech coach's secrets! Get it today here or on Amazon .
Achieving the objective of a 'grabbing' opening takes thought, a bit of imagination, and yes, a little creativity. The good news is that since you know your topic well and you're psyched up for the big game (it's an audience of decision-makers, remember?), you should be well positioned to succeed.
Primacy won't have much of a chance to operate, though, if you use what I call the 'Today, I'm going to talk about . . .' opening. This is boring! Be on the lookout instead for something that will pique the interest of your listeners, and perhaps surprise them. And here's something else you absolutely need to know: 20 ways to connect with an audience for lasting influence .
A few minutes of focused thinking should be all you need to know how to come up with an effective opening. And remember to avoid that I call introducing your introduction. That sounds like this: 'Let me start out with a story . . .', or, 'I heard a very funny joke the other day . . . ' Or even the inexplicable 'Before I begin . . . ' since you've already begun!
Just tell us the story, the joke, or the in-the-know reference that will delight your listeners. But if you signal your effect beforehand, you water down its potency and its power to surprise.
So how can you be completely focused and on your game?
As a springboard to launching your presentation with verve and originality, here are a dozen rhetorical devices you can use. Each of them is an effective 'speech hook that you can use to start any speech or presentation:
You could literally think of dozens more from your own experience or that of your audience. Remember, the best grabbers engage an audience immediately, both intellectually and emotionally. Interestingly, these same devices can be used to conclude in a way that keeps your audience thinking about what you said. It's all part of my six rules for effective public speaking .
Coming up with an exciting grabber and clincher involves some work on your part. But the rewards if you're successful more than justify the effort.
How about a few examples? Here are four great openings that illustrate some of the grabbers listed above:
Jesus , Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." — Startling statement.
Bill Clinton , 1993 speech in Memphis to ministers (after having heard himself introduced as "Bishop Clinton"): "You know, in the last ten months, I've been called a lot of things, but nobody's called me a bishop yet. When I was about nine years old, my beloved and now departed grandmother, who was a very wise woman, looked at me and she said, 'You know, I believe you could be a preacher if you were just a little better boy.'" — Humor
Jane Fonda in her TED Talk "Life's Third Act": "There have been many revolutions over the last century, but perhaps none as significant as the longevity revolution. We are living on average today 34 years longer than our great-grandparents did. Think about that: that's an entire second adult lifetime that's been added to our lifespan." — Statistic.
Steve Jobs , 2005 Commencement Address at Stanford University: "Truth be told, I never graduated from college, and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it, no big deal—just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why'd I drop out? It started before I was born." — Story, with a seamless transition into his speech.
Like historical mysteries? — Discover my Dr. William Scarlet Mystery Series!
A haunted young artist. A trail of bodies. What is terrorizing London? Scotland Yard surgeon and psychic Dr. William Scarlet pursues a serial killer in Red Season ! Also on Amazon .
You should follow me on Twitter here .
Gary Genard is an actor, author, and expert in public speaking and overcoming speaking fear. His company, The Genard Method offers live 1:1 Zoom executive coaching and corporate group training worldwide. He was named for nine consecutive years as One of the World’s Top 30 Communication Professionals , and also named as One of America's Top 5 Speech Coaches . He is the author of the Amazon Best-Sellers How to Give a Speech and Speak for Leadership: An Executive Speech Coach's Secrets for Developing Leadership Presence . His book, Fearless Speaking , was named in 2019 as "One of the 100 Best Confidence Books of All Time." He is also the author of the Dr. William Scarlet Mysteries . Contact Gary here.
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There have been many articles, even here on Best Delegate that talk about making speeches. However, none have been focused directly on the much feared “opening speeches.” A little bit about me – as the President of the General Assembly at THIMUN Singapore X (2014), I had the privilege of listening to at least 160 speeches from member nations and other non-governmental organization. Here are some definitive tips to use when making an opening speech:
Writing the Speech
1. Know the details
At some conferences, only the General Assembly delegates make opening speeches. In others, all committees have their own speeches. Make sure you know that you have to make a speech. In addition, make sure you know how long your speech needs to be. If you don’t know, stick to 50 seconds to one minute, though speeches in specialized committees are known to last from 1:30 – 3 minutes.
2. Focus on one topic only
We all don’t prepare a resolution for each and every topic to be debated at a committee. Focus on the issue that matters to your member nation the most and how that relates to the topics to be debated at the conference. When trying to get people to listen, depth is more important than breadth.
Some may argue that the purpose of an opening speech is to show your knowledge on everything – but for me, an opening speech is there to impress, to establish yourself as a leader and a good orator, which is something all committees love and need.
3. Word limit and time
We’ll talk about pacing later, but many people ask how many words is a good guideline for a one minute speech. If you are talking at the proper, slow pace – 150 words maximum is a good idea. It’s important to practice your speech before you deliver your speech, but you can bet that 150 words for one minute is a good idea. Remember, it’s about impact and depth, not breadth.
4. Formatting
Choose a font that you are most comfortable with, preferably Times New Roman or Arial, and make it 16 size font, justified, and 1.5 spaced. This could apply to other speeches you make as well. If you need to do so, bold, underline, or make notes after printing to make sure you know which words to emphasize or be careful in pronouncing. This format allows for you to be able to read everything clearly in the confusion of nervousness or unexpected events.
5. Make it interesting, but not too “interesting”
It’s always nice to hear a speech that does not start with “Good afternoon fellow delegates, esteemed Chairs, and distinguished guests.” Be creative with your entry by introducing the topic straight out.
Example: December 26th, 2004 is a day every expert in this room will never forget. 283,000 people were killed when an 9.1 magnitude earthquake caused one of the largest tsunamis in human history.
By introducing the issue with a “slammer,” you will gain everyone’s attention.
Most Chairs, including myself find it extraordinarily cheesy when someone makes another donut, mini-skirt, or Gandalf reference in their speech. Don’t be pretentious, cheesy, or vain in your speech, the opening speech isn’t the occasion for that and will make you look bad.
Delivering the Speech
1. Practice and be prepared
Make sure you practice at least one day in advance. Print your opening speech – it’s unprofessional to use an electronic device! Timing is especially important. You don’t want to work hard on your speech only for the Chair to ask you to “come to your closing remarks.” Make sure you have necessary items, be it your glasses or a reading light if necessary.
2. Body Language
You aren’t expected to make full eye contact during the speech nor are you expected to be as comfortable as the late Steve Jobs presenting the iPad. However, make sure you spend at least three quarters of the time looking at your audience.
If you’re unsure about what to do with your hands, put them on the podium. If you’re feeling more comfortable, use hand gestures. Never ever put your hands to your side or in your pocket.
3. Tone and Pace
I always tell Chairs I am training and delegates I’m helping that when they speak, they should be able to speak clearly and slowly enough for somebody to be able to copy what they have said word by word on paper. If you’re done saying 150 words in 30 seconds, you need to speak slowly. Speaking quick is not a speaking style – it’s distracts from your message and makes you seem like you want to end the speech as soon as possible.
Make sure you are talking into the microphone if there is one, and projecting your voice outwards. This does not mean shouting nor does it mean talking to yourself qualifies as making a speech.
4. Be confident
When the Chair calls your nation’s or organization’s name, walk up to the podium with confidence. Shoulders back, back straight, and walk at a good pace with confidence and preparedness. It definitely makes a difference seeing a confident speaker walk up and ready to make a speech rather than a scared speaker scurrying up to the podium.
5. Let mistakes happen
If you have taken all these things into consideration, you should be fine. If you speak too quickly or speak too slowly and get told to come to your closing remarks, that is fine. Take a mistake and don’t do anything with it. Move on.
Do not cringe to yourself or gesture that you’ve made a mistake, most people don’t even realize.
An opening speech is a small task that requires a lot of thoughtful planning. Stand out in the crowd and don’t make a speech someone else could have made with their eyes closed. Think about it and deliver it well, and the committee you’re in will be impressed and want to get to know you.
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by Allison Shapira | May 12, 2016 | Writing Tips | 0 comments
The first and last sentences are the most important sentences in your speech. The first sentence grabs your audience’s attention and sets the tone for the entire event. In fact, the audience forms its first impressions of you as soon as you walk on stage – or, in a meeting, when you walk into the room. The first sentence can make the audience sit up and take notice or, as commonly happens, finish up those last few emails on their digital device.
Before you write your opening sentence, you have a few things to do:
Identify the context of your speech. What time of day will it start? What will be the audience’s state of mind? Who will speak before you? The answers give you valuable data as you decide on your speech opener.
Identify the emotion of your speech . How do you want people to feel after your speech: Inspired? Outraged? Excited? Your opening should build towards that feeling.
Leave the Thank You’s to the end. Many people start with acknowledgements, which may be a generally accepted practice in your organization, but it’s not a good way to capture people’s attention. I like to include my acknowledgements toward the end so that I can start with content rather than formalities. Of course, you can always thank the person introducing you.
Write your speech first . I write the opening and closing sentences only after I’ve written (or drafted bullet points for) the speech itself. That way, I make sure that the opening/closing sentences reflect the content of the speech.
With that in mind, here are some powerful speech openers. You’ll notice they are similar to the speech closers I recommended last month.
A few other tips:
Connect with your “Why you?” before you begin. When you are passionate and authentic, you are fulfilling your potential as a powerful speaker. Before you begin, ask yourself “Why you? Why is this subject important to you?” That sense of purpose will naturally infuse your energy, presence, and intensity throughout the speech.
You are “on” before you walk on stage. Don’t wait to get on stage to look at the audience and smile. Put yourself in the speaker’s frame of mind before you get up out of your chair or before you walk into the room. Before you enter the room, do some breathing and stretching techniques to center yourself and give your voice strength and resonance.
Smile, pause, and breathe before you begin. You can take a moment to look at your audience and smile before starting to speak. Silence at the beginning of a speech is better than trying to “fill” the silence with filler words. Avoid phrases like, “So…yeah” or, “Um, OK;” these words detract from your message and credibility.
By using the above techniques, you will create a powerful first impression from the moment you step on stage, into the boardroom, or even right before you speak up on a conference call. You will capture people’s attention and they will listen.
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The World's Best Book Summaries
This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "TED Talks" by Chris Anderson. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
Like this article? Sign up for a free trial here .
What’s the best way to open a speech? What can you do or say to grab your audience’s attention from the very beginning?
According to Chris Anderson, the author of TED Talks , you only have about 60 seconds to keep your audience’s attention once you begin your speech. If you fail to engage them from the get-go, they’ll listen half-heartedly for the rest of the talk.
Here’s Anderson’s advice for opening a speech.
Your speech opening sets the tone for the rest of the talk, so even if you choose not to script your speech, you should carefully plan how you’ll open.
Here are three ways you can grab your audience from the opening of your speech:
1) Say something dramatic: Anderson says you can never go wrong with a powerful opening line—or at the very least, a powerful line within your first paragraph. Don’t think of your speech as having to be sequential. He recommends you take the heart of what you’re going to talk about and come up with one statement to use as a teaser to the audience.
(Shortform note: The opposite of saying something dramatic is to say something humorous—something that many TED speakers do to open their speeches. The most famous TED talk of all time is by Sir Ken Robinson, and he makes his audience laugh 10 seconds into his speech, “Do schools kill creativity?”)
2) Show a fascinating image (or object): Sometimes, the best way to get an audience’s attention is to show them something stunning, confusing (in an intriguing way), or hilarious. Once you delight the audience, you have their attention.
(Shortform example: About 30 seconds into her TED talk, “10 things you didn’t know about orgasm,” author Mary Roach shows an ultrasound image of a male baby masturbating in the womb .)
3) Pique their curiosity: Sparking curiosity is the easiest way to grab and hold a listener’s attention. Anderson says you can ask a question explicitly, or you can make a counterintuitive statement. If what you say challenges the audience’s prior knowledge, it will intrigue them even more.
(Shortform example: Apollo Robbins, said to be the greatest pickpocket in the world, opens his TED talk, “ The art of misdirection ,” with the question: “Do you think it’s possible to control someone’s attention?” Ironically, by asking this question, he instantly has his audience’s attention.)
(Shortform note: Besides getting your audience’s attention, a strong opening should reveal your speech’s purpose (the “what”), explain why the audience should care (the “so what”), establish your credibility, and preview the major points.)
Anderson warns that a spectacular talk can be ruined by a bad ending. The way a talk ends is the way the audience will remember it . Avoid boring endings, asking for money , or alluding that there was more you couldn’t get to.
Instead, Anderson offers these five strategies for ending your talk on a high note:
Anderson says whichever way you choose to end your talk, a short and simple “thank you” (followed by a pause for applause) before walking offstage is always successful.
Like what you just read read the rest of the world's best book summary and analysis of chris anderson's "ted talks" at shortform ..
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Darya’s love for reading started with fantasy novels (The LOTR trilogy is still her all-time-favorite). Growing up, however, she found herself transitioning to non-fiction, psychological, and self-help books. She has a degree in Psychology and a deep passion for the subject. She likes reading research-informed books that distill the workings of the human brain/mind/consciousness and thinking of ways to apply the insights to her own life. Some of her favorites include Thinking, Fast and Slow, How We Decide, and The Wisdom of the Enneagram.
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Maybe you know this: you may or must give a speech, but how do you start? Whether you’re giving a speech as an employer or to your colleagues, or you’re an external keynote speaker, the principles are always the same. Likewise, your preparation is not much different: whether it’s a keynote at a kick-off event , the festive speech at the company Christmas party , a motivational speech at a team event or even a laudatory speech at an awards ceremony – the search for the right begining should not be left to chance.
How do you get your audience’s attention so that they want to listen and can follow you easily? How do you sound interesting? In this article you will get the necessary tips for your ideal start for your next speech to inspire your audience. I have collected these speech introductions and examples in my work in the field of public speaking as a presenter and keynote speaker in front of over 5 million people.
Why is the beginning, i.e. the first few minutes of a presentation, so important? This is where the first impression is being made. Your audience intuitively decides within a few seconds whether they like the speaker and want to follow. After that, you still have up to three minutes to pick up your audience with the content of your speech.
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There’s a saying that goes, “ There’s no second chance for a first impression. ” It takes between 100 milliseconds and 7 seconds for your audience to get the same impression of you. If you as a speaker fail to make that first impression, no matter how impressive your speech, it will be very difficult to pick up your audience.
US comedian Jerry Seinfeld , one of the most famous American comedians of the 90s, said that his fame only gives him a starting bonus for the first three minutes – at the latest then he has to deliver. If you don’t enjoy the celebrity bonus in your speeches, that means you have to deliver right from the get go to win over your audience.
Before you can wow people as a speaker and give any thought to content, you need to set the stage. If you want to give a good speech and move your audience from A to B, two things are essential: you need to know where you want to go and where your audience is coming from .
If you don’t know in which direction you want to move your audience, then no amount of tips will get you there. So before you tinker with the ideal introduction, you need to be clear about what your outcome is .
What feeling do you want the audience to have when you leave the stage? What impression do you want to convey as a speaker? Even more public speaking tips you can find here.
If you want to catch a fish, you have to use a bait that tastes good to the fish, not to the fisherman . The same applies to presentations: who decides what is a top speech? That is, of course, in the eye of your audience. Therefore, it is all the more important to know who the people are, listening to your speech.
An American proverb says that your audience doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Your audience won’t pay attention to you until they see that your speech is relevant to them. As a speaker, do you bring examples and tips and answer questions in your main points that matter to the audience? Do your main ideas strike a cord?
Tip: Try to find out as much as possible to know in advance what moves your audience and why people are here today. If you have the opportunity, use the time for successful networking and listen to their needs.
Only after you know your outcome and your audience you can focus on how to start your presentation, because now you know as a speaker in which direction your ship should sail. If you want to give a speech, you need to get your audience interested in you and your main points. For this to happen, you need the attention of your audience.
Speaker Tip: First create attention , then develop interest in your message and your main points to make it worth listening for your audience.
Now let’s look at tips and examples of how you as a speaker can inspire your audience. These tips should give you a guideline from where you can successfully transition from your chosen introduction to the main part and final part of your speech.
An elegant way to begin a speech is with a question . The goal is to engage your listener directly in your opening and generate interest. In order for the question to be effective, it must be tailored to your target audience. The question may be provocative, surprising or even make you smile, but it must be relevant.
For example, if you’re speaking to a group of retirees, a question like “Which one of you went to a disco last weekend?” would be just as out of place as asking a group of Wall street brokers “Which one of you has been involved in stocks?”. Your audience needs to feel like you know who you’re dealing with.
“Who remembers what they did last Saturday night?” was an opening I chose many years ago when giving a speech. Of course, after that, there was a story about my Saturday night that fit right in with the theme of my speech. People were immediately involved and everyone was thinking. Because just about everybody did something last Saturday and so it was relevant… even if many didn’t even remember it.
With questions that fit the topics, you are sure to get the attention of the participants. However, always pay attention to what you trigger in your audience with a question and, if requested, also provide the appropriate answer.
Another speaking tip: When you ask a question, give your audience time to respond . Whether out loud, with a show of hands, or silently, people need time for what you say to have an impact. Of course, questions can also be used during your speech.
Using the words of another person in your speech is a proven way. The art of building a good speech is to pick up your audience where they are. A pointed quote that gets to the heart of your ideas or the occasion is the basic premise for choosing someone else’s statement as your lead-in. If people are familiar with the name of the person you are quoting, it gives you added credibility as a speaker.
Very similar to a quote is using a proverb to start your speech. Again, there is often a deeper wisdom behind it. Link this to the idea of your speech and you have a great introduction.
Again, I’ll give you an example from my own experience when I was asked to give a presentation on the topic of corporate mission statements many years ago. I decided to start with a quote, but the number of quotes on this topic are manageable. However, the corporate mission statement compares very well with the soul for people, and so on this occasion I found a quote on the subject of the soul and then drew the analogy with the corporate mission statement. “Outside the box” solutions are also the speaker’s friend.
A particularly powerful way to start is to share a story or personal real life experience with your audience at the beginning of your presentation. With a personal story, you create compelling moments and build an emotional connection with your audience. However, this is also where the biggest danger lies: your story must absolutely correspond to the facts and at the same time should have a connection to the topic of the event. The audience has a good nose for it, if you serve them a “suitably made” story.
Of course, storytelling is not limited to stories you have experienced yourself. You can also draw on a current or even historical event. Important, as mentioned above, is the connection to the goal of your presentation. Also, make sure that you start right in the relevant event and do not begin with Adam and Eve. Especially extroverted people like to get into narration and then it can happen that you lose the drive to your actual presentation and your audience is no longer on the point.
One of my stage coaching clients, for example, took his audience into a situation right at the beginning of his speech when he was at the start of his first triathlon. He immediately built up a tension, because he put his audience directly into it instead of talking about preparation and planning for the triathlon. Because he also found the right tone, the speech went down great. Bonus tip for your speech: Stories absolutely need to be rehearsed and tailored to your audience and the occasion. This does not mean, as already mentioned, that you add things, but that you leave out unnecessary things. Don’t just tell from memory, but really practice.
Starting with an open loop is something like the supreme discipline. Here, you start with a story, but don’t finish telling it until the end of your speech . This type of introduction is certainly a bit unusual and, in my opinion, more suitable for experienced speakers, especially to keep the tension high.
You start with the open loop in the same way as with storytelling and take your audience along until the point where the tension is at its highest. Instead of the resolution, you lead into the topic of your speech and then come to the main part, where the content is presented with further examples. Only at the end do you pick up the ball of your introductory story again and close the open loop.
As an example, I start one of my keynote speeches with such an open loop: I take the audience on my experience at the New York City Marathon. Since my preparation for it was far from ideal due to injuries, I wasn’t sure until the start how far I would run that day. My speech started with the thoughts going through my head at the start, with my uncertainty but also anticipation. The start of the marathon was then the Open Loop, which I only resolved at the end of the speech.
A parable is a very short to short story which might not even have a plot of its own. While a parable can be told with action, as if something has actually taken place, it can also be about something hypothetical: “Imagine…” or “Suppose…”. In both cases, the point is that we want to make a connection to the content.
The purpose of parables is to pick up the audience as they enter your presentation and provide an emotional experience that immediately introduces them to the topic through your words.
The FFS introduction is particularly useful if you have facts, figures or statistics that are not familiar to your audience and are also unusual. In addition, it must of course fit your topic and possibly support your thesis. A personalized statistic works best to meet your audience’s needs.
When we were designing the outline for one of my Executive Legacy Coaching clients’ investor pitch, we made a conscious decision to start with a number that would probably come as a surprise to many listeners. To back up the pain point that his product solves, he asked the panel how much they thought that an unhappy employee costs a company per year. Starting with that number was so effective because the audience’s estimates were all substantially lower than the true number, creating an a-ha effect.
Another way to start your speech is with a look back . This variant is particularly suitable if you are to give a speech on the occasion of an anniversary or birthday. In your preparation, you should pay special attention to who is sitting in your audience: what connection do they have to the person or the company or the occasion and, above all, have they experienced the period themselves.
Some time ago, I had the privilege of being on stage at a company’s 20th anniversary. In order to give the audience as emotional an experience as possible, I first had to find out who was in the audience. Have people lived through these last 20 years, and are they likely to remember the moment from 20 years ago? Since my audience was mostly over 35 years old I assumed that was the case. Thus I dove into the world of 20 years ago: how did the world look and what moved people at the time? Immediately the people were in the emotions of the memories and from that I could then draw a bow to the company anniversary: “much has changed, but one thing has remained the same…”.
Jokes are for comedians.
There are talented joke tellers and there are those who always flub the punch line. If you feel uncomfortable in the role of the joker, don’t do it. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t spice up the introduction with a little humor. Humor arouses positive emotions and loosens the atmosphere. A humorous introduction, which also works without a joke, signals to the participants that the event will not be dry as dust and that it is worth staying for.
Bonus tip: Humor is different in different regions and works best when you approach your audience with respect and humility.
A provocative introduction is like riding on a razor blade: very dangerous. You have to have an incredible ace up your sleeve to win your audience back. As a rule, I would strongly advise you not to use provocative introductions. If your audience perceives you as an unsympathetic person, no matter how ingenious the content of your speech, it will not bring the desired success.
Some insecure speaker starts his speech with an apology for his insecurity or God knows what else. Please don’t do that. For one thing, the audience usually doesn’t notice it anyway, and for another, it immediately takes something away from your first impression. You might get sympathy for it, but in the rarest cases you will get the attention for your speech.
One of the most important tips I once received was that your audience wants you to win . That’s right, you read that correctly. Your audience wants you to be good. No one sits in the audience hoping for a boring speaker to come on now. Your audience wants you to do your job well. If you feel anxiety on the way to the stage, keep reading.
The key to a perfect introduction lies not only in the preparation for your speech, but also in the emotional preparation in the moments before public speaking. Especially if you are nervous or even feel speech anxiety , it is even more important that you, to present convincingly, are in an ideal state.
Take a deep breath just before your performance, send positive emotions to your audience and off you go. Many speakers also like to take index cards with their notes to be prepared in case of an emergency. The phrase for the introduction as well as for the conclusion I would always write in full. For the main points, keywords are enough here.
When you finally arrive on stage, at first be aware of your audience . Before you begin, start with eye contact and confident body language to radiate stage presence . Only then, when you feel the attention of your audience, you start to talk. This confidence will automatically boost your credibility.
Bonus tip: if you’re unsure about your voice, a little voice training will help.
Of course, the principles for your ideal start also apply at virtual events. So if you hold a webinar or a virtual presentation or are on stage at a hybrid event , nothing will change in the structure of your preparation. The main point in the virtual space is that you have to speak in front of the camera and this should be practiced. The specific elements of structuring your presentation stay the same.
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In this article you have learned how to start your speech in an ideal way. Do you already have an idea which structure you like best? Remember that you always start with your outcome and your audience before you create a thread for your presentation.
The tone makes the music. Former American writer Maya Angelou summed it up this way: “Your audience won’t remember exactly what you said, but they’ll always remember how it made them feel.” Whatever the occasion, take your audience on an emotional journey.
If you feel that you still need help for your next speech or keynote , feel free to contact me or just write me an e-mail ! Together many things are easier.
Which introduction appeals to you the most? Which start to a speech have you learned about here and would like to try out for your next performance? Please leave a comment below and share this article with someone who you think will profit from it. All the best for your next speeches.
There is no second chance for a first impression . The first impression is created in the first few seconds of perception and is crucial to whether your audience perceives you as likeable or unlikeable. If you mess up the first impression, the next few minutes will be a steep uphill climb to get the audience back on your side.
First, take three deep breaths and consciously put a smile on your face. Stand up straight, shoulders back, head up and visualize your audience and your goal. The important thing here is to move as quickly as possible from an internal focus (thinking about you) to an external focus (thinking about your audience). Imagine how your audience will benefit from your speech. For even more tips, I recommend you read my blog post Persuasive presentations: 3 Steps to Your Ideal State in Front of an Audience.
Ideally, you were introduced by a presenter who has also given some interesting background information about you to the audience. However, it always makes sense to leave nothing to chance here and, on the one hand, to discuss your introduction with the presenter upfront and, on the other hand, to include the most important points in your speech. I would always start with an introduction into the topic to get the audience interested and then introduce myself. The best way to find the right introduction is to read this article.
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Mun articles | strategy, july 16, 2019, action | argumentation | debate | hook | model un speech | opening speech | point | public speaking | rhetoric | speakers list | speech delivery.
That’s it. The moment you waited for. It could be your first conference or your tenth, but the first time you ever address your committee will always be a highly nerve wracking, and equally critical, moment for even the most experienced delegates.
Public speaking is a staple of Model UN. To become an expert speaker, every delegate has to ask themselves the same question: How can I improve my skills, and therefore my performance, while in committee?
First of all, you have to differentiate the two categories of committee speeches: the persuasive speech versus and the opening speech.
Opening speeches usually range from one minute to one minute and thirty seconds long and are presented to the entire committee. Their main purpose is for a delegate to present their specific position’s stance on the topic of the committee.
The framework for any public speech has remained the same since the rise and fall of Roman Republic: you will have to present a hook, a point related to the topic and a final call to action:
Any type of hook must tackle the ongoing issue in committee, while creating a keen interest for future policies and actions a delegate would like to take. You can choose from a large panel of rhetorical tools such as rhetorical questions, metaphors, jarring statistics, or sound bites to make your speeches more interesting to listen to. Other ideas could include an assertion or a reference to a striking historical event.
After the hook, the next step is to focus on the point you want to make. The point should account for the largest portion of your speaking time: this is your chance to change the flow of debate and establish yourself as a critical contributor to committee. Assert your position’s policy or opinion on the topic of committee. Be sure to use evidence or examples when discussing what your country or representative believes: whether you want it or not, you cannot throw the point you want to make without emphasis on facts. Tactics one could use include using statistics or comparisons, appealing to factual evidence, and using quotes from public officials to emphasize your country’s conviction on its particular stance.
Never “echo the sentiments” of a previous delegate; never regurgitate the same stale opinions that have already been voiced by all the speeches that came before you. Contribute something new: voice a perspective that hasn’t been represented yet, point out a weak spot in your opponent’s argumentation style, play the devil’s advocate, or bring up a new subsidiary issue within the topic of debate.
What you will end your speech on is your call to action: do not reveal your entire set of solutions, but instead make it what closes the deal. The call to action aims to present how you will vote in future caucuses, as well as make it clear to those in committee who you will side with. By crafting an effective hook, using strong evidence, making your opinions clear to the committee, your opening speech can quickly make you the most coveted ally for others to have before the first caucus even begins.
At the end of the day, your opening speech will not make or break your ability to win an award in your committee. It’s an opportunity to make a good first impression and set yourself ahead of others for the first few committee sessions; that being said, putting too much pressure on the first speech can result in stuttering or a lack of confidence. The best, and only, thing to do is to give your first speech with confidence and a solid structure in order to start your committee performance off on a strong note.
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28 august - 8 september, paris 2024: the ipc president's opening ceremony speech.
President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron; Paralympic Athletes; Mayor Anne Hidalgo; President of the Paris 2024 Organising Committee Tony Estanguet; Peuple de France; Sport fans all over the world,
Welcome to the most transformational sport event on Earth! The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.
We are here in the world’s most beautiful city at one of the most critical times in our recent history.
At a time of growing global conflict, increasing hate, and rising exclusion, let sport be the social glue that brings us together.
Here at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, we will celebrate what makes us different, show there is strength in difference, beauty in difference, and that difference serves as a powerful force for good.
Pour le peuple de France, je veux que ces Jeux soient les vôtres.
Eleven days of sensational sport to enjoy together, as families, with friends, with loved ones.
A once in a lifetime opportunity to champion your country’s rich diversity, applaud awe-inspiring athletes, and celebrate the very best of Paris, France, and humanity.
As we prepare for Games Wide Open, let us open our minds wide.
For what you will witness from Paralympic athletes are abilities and skills that surprise you, levels of resilience and determination that energise you, and camaraderie that will inspire you.
Paralympic athletes are not here to participate.
They’re not playing games.
They are here to compete, win, and smash world records.
Paralympians are also here to achieve something far greater than personal glory.
They want equality and inclusion for themselves and for the world’s 1.3 billion persons with disabilities.
Through their performances Paralympic athletes will challenge stigma, alter attitudes, and redefine the limits of what you think is possible.
The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games will show what persons with disabilities can achieve at the highest level when the barriers to succeed are removed.
The fact these opportunities largely exist only in sport in the year 2024 is shocking. It is proof we can and must do more to advance disability inclusion - whether on the field of play, in the classroom, concert hall or in the boardroom.
That is why 225 years on from when Place de la Concorde was central to the French Revolution, I hope Paris 2024 starts a Paralympic revolution, the inclusion revolution.
Tonight, the values that define French society carry stronger meaning than ever.
The right to live freely and without oppression.
Every person with a disability deserves the opportunity to thrive and live life free from barriers, free from discrimination and free from marginalisation.
Fraternite!
We are one, but we are not the same. We are all from the same family, humanity.
Liberte, égalité, fraternite!
A rallying cry that needs to be heard not just here in France, but around the world.
Paralympians, these are the moments you live for; this is your stage to shine.
Representing 168 delegations, the biggest number ever, you arrive here with remarkable stories of perseverance. At these Games, I look forward to witnessing incredible sport and reading stories about your outstanding abilities and performances.
As you compete in the most iconic sport venues ever seen, show to the world that Paralympic athletes should be acknowledged, celebrated, and rewarded, but above all respected.
Through the power of sport, let us show world leaders that unity is possible, that we can come together as rivals in peace, play by the rules, and positively impact society.
Marchons! Marchons !
Vive La France! Vive la Révolution de l’inclusion!
Merci beaucoup! Thank you very much! Muito obrigado!
It is now my honour to invite the President of the French Republic, Mr. Emmanuel Macron to declare open the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.
Related stories.
The Opening Ceremony of the Paris Paralympics marked the first in history to take place outside of a stadium. With over 35,000 fans watching, athletes from 168 delegations paraded down the Champs-Élysées as the sun set over Paris.
The event was titled: "From Discord to Concord: A Reflection on the Place of People with Disabilities in Society," dedicating the Ceremony to convey the paradox between a "society that claims to be inclusive but remains full of prejudice towards people with disabilities." Alexander Ekman, who was chosen to choreograph the Ceremony, employed five artistic segments with 140 artists and 16 performers with disabilities.
The event began with French para swimmer Théo Curin driving a decked-out cab down the Champs-Élysées, an homage to popular French show "Théo Le Taxi." Curin's cab was decorated with hundreds of Phryges, the official mascot of the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games.
In front of the famous obelisk on the Place de la Concorde, the live action began with the introductions of French President Emmanuel Macron and of Andrew Parsons, president of the International Paralympic Committee.
From there, it was time to groove. The show continued with an elaborate song and dance show at the base of the La Concorde , with the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe looming in the background. Canadian musician Chilly Gonzales walked onto a makeshift stage and sat at a piano as hundreds of dancers began a choreographed set. French singer and songwriter Christine and the Queens then took the stage for a performance, adding to the musical celebration.
A few minutes later, Curin pulled up in his taxi and walked onto the stage. He faced the crowd and roared, "Welcome to Paris!" as the French colors shot into the sky.
Next up was the parade of athletes, beginning with Afghanistan and proceeding in mostly alphabetical order. After the following 164 delegations, including that of the Refugee Paralympic Team, the next two Olympic and Paralympic hosts, the United States and Australia, went right before the host French delegation. U.S. flag bearers Nicky Nieves and Steve Serio led the charge for the American delegation. Both enter Paris looking to add to medal collections that already features gold. Nieves, 34, was part of the women’s sitting volleyball team that won gold at the Rio Paralympics in 2016. Serio, 37, is a wheelchair basketball legend set to compete in his fifth Paralympics. The returning captain played on gold medal-winning teams in Rio and Tokyo.
After the Americans and Australians, the French burst onto the parade route to "Les Champs-Élysées," a catchy song by American-French singer Joe Dassin.
Each group of athletes paraded from the bottom of the Champs-Élysées, known as the “most beautiful avenue in the world," and entered the La Concorde arena, greeted by the Phryges.
Once the parade wrapped up, French artist Lucky Love sang “My Ability," another majestic performance. Dancers representing the “Strict Society” walked around the stage, observing the performers in the center. Symbolically, these dancers began to realize their prejudices, leading to their awakening and reflection, represented through dance.
The French National Anthem, “The Marseillaise”, then rang out, performed by Ensemble Matheus, as the French flag was raised and the Eiffel Tower lit up.
Tony Estanguet, President of the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, gave a rousing speech in both French and English. Parsons then spoke and relayed a powerful message.
"These Paralympians are not here to participate," Parsons said. "They are here to compete, win and smash world records. ... But they are also here for equality for the nearly 1.3 billion persons around the world with disabilities. They will redefine what you think is possible."
Parsons then ceded the lectern to Macron, and the President of France officially declared the Paris Paralympic Games open. These are the first Paralympics in France since 1992, when the Winter Paralympic Games were held in Tignes and Albertville.
By the end of the Ceremony, the sun had fully set over Paris, setting the stage for the Paralympic Games to begin in just a few hours.
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August 25, 2024
Remarks as delivered at the Ralph S. O’Connor Recreation Center
Thank you, Vice Provost Phillips. And now, to the great Class of 2028 and our terrific transfer students, welcome, welcome to Johns Hopkins University!
So, in case you may have forgotten or lost sight of this fact, let me remind you that the first day of classes, and the formal start of your academic journey here at Hopkins, is mere hours away.
How’s that for a stress-relieving icebreaker that you might expect from your president?
I can see the wheels churning.
How late can I get up, then, to fit in an intense workout at O’Connor, then scarf down breakfast at Hopkins Café—and still make it to my class in Mergenthaler with a minute or two to spare?
And, by the way, which red brick building is Mergenthaler, anyway?
This night always takes me back to my many “night befores.” And in each case, I too experienced that swirl of intense and contradictory emotions: exhilaration, trepidation, self-assurance, self-doubt, impostor syndrome that some of you, perhaps many of you, are feeling right now.
Don’t worry. I know you will settle into the rhythms of this place and soon enough find a clear sense of belonging. Of purpose.
Indeed, you may even find a life partner. We aim to be a full-service university.
I’m going to speak truth to you. I can’t count the number of times that I have met couples in this country and abroad at our alumni events who trace the start of their relationship to their time as undergrads at Johns Hopkins. Their story sometimes even starts with the words: “It happened when I gazed across the crowd at the President’s Convocation address, and I just knew …” OK, I took some license with that specific example. I never heard those words before exactly. But there’s always a first time, and maybe this is the one.
So, if you want to take a quick scan across the room … I can wait.
Apart from romantic endeavors, there will be many other memorable moments that you will experience here, and, among the most exhilarating will be those that occur when you are exposed to ideas that challenge, perhaps upend, your understanding of the world.
And here, I am carried back to one of these moments in a class that all first-year law students have to take: Introduction to Torts.
Now, as a former law professor, I would enjoy nothing more than to spend hours discussing the nuances of this august body of laws with you.
But let me spare you with the TL;DR version.
Torts are a fundamental concept in civil law, a body of rules that is all about how people treat one another. These are laws that help to regulate and harmonize human society by reducing the risk of injury or harm to one another. In simple terms, if you harm someone, you may have committed a tort.
Evolving over many years, the system of torts can be thought of as the sinew of a community; they set the ground rules for how we treat each other as neighbors and fellow citizens.
Now, as is true of any realm of law, there are some, let us say, dubious cases.
Like the son who sued his mother for taking away his cell phone. (Parents watching never fear: Mom won.).
Or the guy who sued his date for texting throughout Guardians of the Galaxy 3 . (Clearly not a great Hinge match.)
But one landmark case in this arena that stands out to me, Donoghue v. Stevenson . It illuminates something important.
Allow me to take you back … 96 years ago almost to the day … to Sunday, August 26, 1928.
We’re in Paisley, Scotland, a small town on the outskirts of Glasgow.
Mrs. May Donoghue ambles across its cobbled streets to meet a friend for a drink and a good gossip session at Wellmeadow Cafe. Mrs. Donoghue orders a bottle of ginger beer …
[Picture of bottle]
pours half into her glass and swills it down with gusto.
She enjoys its piquant taste but notes perhaps that it is a tad earthier than usual.
And as she pours the rest of the beer into her glass, she is startled to find this at the bottom of the bottle.
[Picture of bottle with snail saying, “Gooo Hop!”]
OK, I get that maybe the snail didn’t say “Gooo Hop!”
But it is true that Mrs. Donoghue did find a snail at the bottom of her drink.
Mrs. Donoghue promptly filed a lawsuit against the company that produced the beer, claiming that she had suffered shock and gastroenteritis from the surprise ingredient.
I’ll leave it to the budding physicians in the room to debate the accuracy of her diagnosis, but she certainly claimed that it was the company’s responsibility to ensure the product was safe for consumption … or at the very least snail-free.
Now, contrary to all precedent until that time, the court ruled in favor of Mrs. Donoghue, asserting that one “must take reasonable care to avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to injure your neighbor.”
This case laid out for the first time a key legal concept in Anglo-American law: That we owe a “duty of care” to our neighbors.
Now, at this point, you may have decided this is not the TL;DR version and that we are in the middle of a law seminar that you never signed up for.
And you may be wondering, what does any of this have to do with us or our time here at Johns Hopkins.
The answer is the duty of care to our neighbors is not confined to the legal sphere alone. It serves as a powerful idea that underpins our university’s culture and norms around how we ought to relate to one another.
The duty of care is an idea that is obvious and is right for us. Actually indispensable to our functioning. But tacit and discussed not nearly as much as it should be.
As you learned at this week’s Democracy Day, universities stand apart because of our foundational commitment to academic freedom, the freedom to pursue ideas wherever they lead.
This means that we honor and celebrate the right to challenge received wisdom; to advance ideas that are disquieting or even provocative, that can unnerve, upset, and confound others.
And we honor, honor this ideal because we believe firmly that open debate and discussion, the rigorous contestation of ideas, allows us to confront possible flaws in our arguments and refine, reimagine, or reject our own convictions in favor of more sound ones. And this moves us ever closer to truth.
Indeed, we fearlessly pursue this commitment to truth and discovery in a moment and a nation so deeply polarized that people—increasingly and distressingly—cannot imagine even sitting down for a ginger beer (with or without the snail) with those who hold different political views from their own.
But with our own bedrock commitment to open debate comes clear responsibility.
A responsibility that can be expressed in the metaphor of a duty of care to one another.
A duty that starts first and foremost with the obligation to speak your truth so that we can all benefit from the unique perspectives and experiences that each of you bring to this community.
A duty to recognize the humanity of others even as you oppose, perhaps strenuously, their views, their claims to fact, perhaps even their values, their core beliefs.
A duty to find ways to listen to the ideas of others—and truly open yourselves to the possibility that those ideas may just contain some seed, some germ of truth within them.
In embracing this duty, the goal is not to force agreement, but to resist the temptation to inflict maximal damage to those with whom you disagree.
In other words, simply, a duty to treat the person next to you as you would a neighbor.
A duty of care that is owed to our neighborhood.
And so, as you embark upon this journey of learning and of probing, testing and contesting ideas together, we cannot—none of us can—lose sight of this foundational duty we owe to one another.
And together, building on our common humanity, we become so much better equipped to fulfill our noble mission. To seek and to find truth, and to share that truth with each other and the world.
To the Class of 2028, welcome, welcome to our neighborhood. We are so glad you are here.
About 4,400 competitors are expected to compete at the paralympics through sept. 12 at iconic venues across paris., by nbc staff • published august 28, 2024 • updated on august 29, 2024 at 7:57 am, what to know.
This live blog has ended. Follow along with all of our coverage of the 2024 Paralympic Games here and watch live on Peacock .
Nuku'alofa, tonga, 26 august 2024, secretary-general's remarks to the opening of the pacific islands forum.
Your Royal Highnesses, Excellencies, Dear Friends,
All protocol observed,
It is a great pleasure to address the Pacific Islands Forum.
And allow me to express my deep gratitude to the government and the people of Tonga for their incredible hospitality.
We meet at a turbulent time for our world.
Raging conflicts; an escalating climate crisis; inequalities and injustices everywhere and the 2030 Agenda is faltering.
But this region is a beacon of solidarity and strength, environmental stewardship and peace.
The world has much to learn from the Pacific and the world must also step up to support your initiatives.
Excellencies,
This is a region of fearless seafarers, expert fishers, and deep ancestral knowledge of the ocean.
But humanity is treating the sea like a sewer.
Plastic pollution is choking sealife.
Greenhouse gases are causing ocean heating, acidification, and a dramatic and accelerating rise in sea levels.
Pacific islands are showing the way to protect our climate, our planet and our ocean:
By declaring a Climate Emergency and pushing for action.
And with your Declarations on Sea Level Rise, and aspirations for a just transition to a fossil-fuel-free Pacific.
The young people of the Pacific have taken the climate crisis all the way to the International Court of Justice.
You have also rightly recognized that this is a security crisis – and taken steps to manage those risks together.
I want to express my full support to the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, and I will do my best to help mobilize international resources for the Pacific Resilience Facility and to engage with all the relevant initiatives the Pacific Island Forum.
The survival plan for our planet is simple:
Establishing a just transition for the phaseout of the fossil fuels that are responsible for 85 per cent of the emissions of greenhouse gases.
All countries must produce national climate plans – Nationally Determined Contributions – by next year, aligning with the 1.5-degree upper limit of global heating.
The G20 – the biggest emitters responsible for 80 per cent of those emissions – must step up and lead, by phasing out the production and consumption of fossil fuels and stopping their expansion immediately.
When governments sign new oil and gas licenses, they are signing away our future.
The Pacific Island states’ ambition for a fossil-fuel-free Pacific is a blueprint for the G20 and for the world. But the region urgently needs substantial finance, capacities and technology to speed up the transition and to invest in adaptation and resilience.
That is why we have been calling for the reform of the international financial architecture, for a massive increase in the lending capacity of Multilateral Development Banks, for debt relief programmes that work, including for middle income countries that are in distress, and an enhanced redistribution of Special Drawing Rights, to benefit developing countries and in particular Small Islands Developing States.
The decisions world leaders take in the coming years will determine the fate, first of Pacific Islanders – but also of everyone else.
In other words: If we save the Pacific, we save the world.
Pacific Island States have a moral and practical imperative to take your leadership and your voice to the global stage.
You demonstrated this leadership once again with the General Assembly’s endorsement of the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index. We must now make sure that international financial institutions include them in their criteria for operations.
The Summit of the Future in New York next month will be an opportunity to reform and update global institutions, so they are fit for the world of today and tomorrow.
Across the board, the Summit aims to provide developing countries with a greater voice on the global stage, including at the UN Security Council and in international financial institutions.
I urge Pacific Island States to make your voices heard and heard loudly because the world needs your leadership.
Thank you very much.
Jonathan J. Cooper, Associated Press Jonathan J. Cooper, Associated Press
Ali Swenson, Associated Press Ali Swenson, Associated Press
Gabriel Sandoval, Associated Press Gabriel Sandoval, Associated Press
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PHOENIX (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy said Friday he is suspending his independent presidential bid and is backing Donald Trump.
Watch Kennedy’s remarks in the player above.
Kennedy said his internal polls had showed that his presence in the race would hurt Trump and help Democratic nominee Kamala Harris . He cited free speech, the war in Ukraine and “a war on our children” as among the reasons to try to remove his name from the ballot in battleground states.
“These are the principal causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent and now to throw my support to President Trump,” Kennedy said.
WATCH: 3 things to know about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to suspend his campaign
However, he made clear that he wasn’t formally ending his bid and said his supporters could continue to back him in the majority of states where they are unlikely to sway the outcome. Kennedy took steps to withdraw his candidacy in at least two states late this week, Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Kennedy said the move followed conversations with Trump over the past few weeks.
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Before the speech, his campaign had said in a Pennsylvania court filing Friday that he would be endorsing Trump for president. A spokesperson for Kennedy said the court filing had been made in error and would be updated, though Kennedy himself reiterated his support for Trump shortly afterward.
Kennedy had a speech planned in Arizona on Friday to discuss “the present historical moment and his path forward,” according to his campaign. Hours later, Trump will hold a rally in neighboring Glendale. Trump’s campaign has teased that he will be joined by “a special guest,” though neither campaign responded to messages about whether Kennedy would be that guest.
A late-stage endorsement in the presidential race could give the former president a modest boost from Kennedy’s supporters.
A year ago, some would have thought it inconceivable that a member of arguably the most storied family in Democratic politics would work with Trump to keep a Democrat — Vice President Kamala Harris — out of the White House. Even in recent months, Kennedy has accused Trump of betraying his followers, while Trump has criticized Kennedy as “the most radical left candidate in the race.”
The Pennsylvania filing came Friday in a case in which Kennedy was defending his paperwork to get on the ballot in the battleground state against a challenge by two Democratic activists.
The filing said that, “as a result of today’s endorsement of Donald Trump” he was requesting the dismissal of his campaign’s nomination papers so that he would not appear on Pennsylvania’s ballot.
Kennedy already has secured ballot access in several states, including battlegrounds like Michigan and Nevada. Some secretaries of state said it’s too late for him to remove himself even if he wants to do so.
Cheri Hardmon, a spokesperson for Michigan’s Department of State, said its law requires presidential electors be selected at the fall state convention, and that already happened, which means his name will remain on the state’s ballot.
And in Wisconsin, where Kennedy has filed for ballot access and is awaiting approval, there is “no mechanism for him to ‘take back’ the filing,” according to Wisconsin Elections Commission spokesperson Joel DeSpain.
The Kennedy and Trump campaigns have ramped up their compliments to each other and engaged in behind-the-scenes discussions in recent weeks, according to those familiar with the efforts. Both campaigns have spent months accusing Democrats of weaponizing the legal system for their own benefit. And both have hinted publicly that they could be open to joining forces, with the shared goal of limiting Harris’ chances.
Last month, during the Republican National Convention, Kennedy’s son posted and then quickly deleted a video showing a phone call between Kennedy and Trump, in which the former president appeared to try to talk Kennedy into siding with him.
Talks between the two camps continued, with close Trump allies quietly lobbying Kennedy to drop out of the race and support the Republican nominee, according to a person familiar with the efforts who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Trump told CNN on Tuesday that he would “love” an endorsement from Kennedy, whom he called a “brilliant guy.” He also said he would “certainly” be open to Kennedy playing a role in his administration if Kennedy drops out and endorses him.
Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, also openly suggested on a podcast this week that his campaign might “walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump.” While she clarified that she is not personally in talks with Trump, she entertained the idea that Kennedy could join Trump’s administration as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
“I think that Bobby in a role like that would be excellent,” Shanahan said. “I fully support it. I have high hopes.”
Earlier Friday, Shanahan posted on X that she isn’t a Kamala Democrat or a Trump Republican.
“I’m an INDEPENDENT American who is endorsing ideas, not a person or a party,” she wrote. “I will continue working to give a voice to the voiceless and bring power back to the people.”
Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York, Michelle L. Price in Phoenix, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa., Meg Kinnard in Chicago and Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.
The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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Good morning, good afternoon and good evening,
First, an update on the mpox outbreaks in Africa.
More than 18 000 suspected cases of mpox have been reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo so far this year, with 629 deaths.
That includes more than 5000 cases and 31 deaths from the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu, where the new clade 1b strain has been spreading.
The number of reported cases of clade 1b has been rising rapidly for several weeks. Fortunately, relatively few deaths have been reported in recent weeks.
In addition, 258 cases of clade 1b have been confirmed in Burundi, 4 in Rwanda, 4 in Uganda, 2 in Kenya and 1 each in Sweden and Thailand.
We also remain concerned about outbreaks of clade 1a in other parts of DRC.
This morning I returned from DRC, where yesterday I had the honour to meet with His Excellency President Félix Tshisekedi to discuss the outbreaks.
I thanked the President for his leadership in the response to the outbreaks, demonstrated by the government’s commitment of US$ 10 to the response.
I assured him of WHO’s full support, together with the Africa CDC and other partners.
I also had the opportunity to meet with the United Nations Country Team, where we discussed coordination of the mpox response among UN agencies, under the government’s leadership.
We discussed the critical importance of clear communication with people at risk of mpox, and strong engagement with communities and local partners.
I also met with global and local health partners to discuss scaling up routine immunization for other diseases, including polio, measles and malaria, and mobilizing frontline polio workers to support the mpox response.
WHO is working to accelerate access to, and delivery of, vaccines.
The manufacturers of the two vaccines submitted their applications for emergency use listing last Friday, the 23 rd of August, and we are working to review those applications as fast as possible.
The safety and efficacy of vaccines are our highest priority. We will not take short cuts.
The two main buyers of vaccines for low-income countries, Gavi and UNICEF, require WHO emergency use listing to buy vaccines for use in countries that have not issued their own national regulatory approval.
Last week, I gave Gavi and UNICEF the green light to proceed with procuring vaccines, in parallel with the EUL process.
However, WHO emergency use listing is not a barrier to vaccines being deployed in DRC.
DRC’s medicines regulator approved both vaccines in June of this year, and the government has requested bilateral donations of vaccines from high-income countries with large stockpiles.
Together with the Africa CDC, WHO has also helped to secure donations from the European Union and some of its Member States.
WHO is working with the Africa CDC, GAVI, UNICEF, CEPI and HERA to set up a coordination mechanism to allocate the donated vaccines and increase access in affected countries.
Yesterday, we also invited manufacturers of mpox diagnostics to submit an expression of interest for emergency use listing. Today we have received the first expression of interest.
Over the past two days we have also convened a meeting of researchers to identify research priorities, and to foster a coordinated and collaborative approach to the development of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics.
It’s vital to stress that although vaccines are a powerful tool, they are far from the only tool. There are many things that WHO and our partners are doing to prevent and diagnose infections and treat the sick.
The outbreak of clade 1b mpox is occurring in one of the poorest and most insecure regions of DRC, complicating the response.
Despite these challenges, hundreds of WHO personnel are on the ground in DRC and the other affected countries, working with our partners to stop transmission and bring these outbreaks under control.
With the government’s leadership and close cooperation between partners, we believe we can stop these outbreaks in the next six months.
But what this region of DRC needs more than anything else is a political solution to the long-running insecurity.
Now to Gaza.
On Sunday, WHO and our partners will begin a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, in which we aim to reach more than 640 000 children under ten years of age.
The campaign will involve two doses of vaccine, given in two rounds, four weeks apart.
More than 1.2 million doses of vaccine have been delivered to Gaza, and 400 000 more doses will arrive soon.
We have trained more than 2180 health workers and community outreach workers to provide vaccination and inform communities about the campaign.
Our aim is to reach at least 90% vaccination coverage during each round of the campaign to stop the current outbreak and prevent the international spread of polio.
The campaign will be delivered in a phased approach over three days in each round, starting with Central Gaza followed by South Gaza, and then North Gaza.
I thank the Palestinian Ministry of Health, UNICEF and UNRWA and others for their partnership in this campaign.
I welcome the commitment to humanitarian pauses in specific areas to allow the vaccination campaign to be carried out.
Due to insecurity, damage to roads and infrastructure, and population movement and displacement, three days in each area is unlikely to be enough to achieve adequate coverage.
Vaccination coverage will be monitored throughout the campaign, and it has been agreed that vaccination will be extended by one day wherever necessary.
The vaccination teams must be protected and allowed to conduct the campaigns safely. We urge all parties to ensure their protection, and that of health facilities and children.
Humanitarian pauses are welcome, but ultimately, the only solution to safeguard the health of the children of Gaza is a ceasefire. The best medicine is peace.
Now to Sudan, where fighting has now been continuing for 500 days.
Hospitals are shutting down, and life-saving supplies are running out.
Outbreaks of cholera, dengue, malaria and measles are taking lives and putting further pressure on the health system.
WHO is particularly concerned about the situation in El Fasher and surrounding areas in North Darfur, with famine already reported from the Zamzam Camp.
WHO has verified more than 100 attacks on health care since the conflict began.
The recent attack on El Daein Hospital in East Darfur killed 16 civilians, including children and a nurse.
The attack damaged the dialysis and gynecology departments, and stocks of lifesaving vaccines and other supplies.
WHO is working with UNICEF and partners to support the Federal Ministry of Health as it responds to multiple health challenges.
This includes rolling out essential vaccines to children and providing technical, operational and financial support to the cholera response.
Prepositioned cholera and other essential medical supplies helped jump-start the response.
WHO recently deployed 51 000 doses of oral cholera vaccines in Kassala State, which has a high number of cases.
The International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Allocation has approved a request for more than 450,000 doses to be sent to scale up the vaccination campaign in Kassala State.
Last week, five trucks from WHO and partners delivered over 175 tonnes of health supplies.
These supplies, including medicines, diagnostic materials and nutrition supplies, will be used by humanitarian partners to provide emergency health care, treat infectious diseases and help alleviate the threat of malnutrition.
But much more is needed to stop diseases from spreading and avert famine in parts of the country.
A ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access is the best way to stop the health crisis worsening.
Finally, earlier this week I was in Brazzaville for the annual Regional Committee Meeting of the WHO Regional Office for Africa.
The committee nominated a new Regional Director, Dr Faustine Engelbert Ndugulile of Tanzania, to succeed Dr Tshidi Moeti, whose second term ends in January next year.
I congratulate Dr Ndugulile on his nomination, and I thank Dr Moeti for her 10 years of leadership, dedication, vision and commitment to serving the people of Africa.
The Regional Committee also hosted a pledging event for the WHO Investment Round, which aims to mobilize the sustainable funding we need to implement our work over the next four years.
I have asked every Member State to contribute according to its means, and every partner.
I am deeply grateful to the 14 African Member States and many partners who pledged more than 45 million US dollars to the Investment Round.
Africa is leading by example. I call on other regions to follow.
Fadéla, back to you.
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Thought-Provoking speech Opening lines. " Imagine a world where…. " (This prompts the audience to envision a scenario related to your topic.) " Have you ever wondered why…. " (This sparks curiosity and encourages active listening.) " The most important thing you'll learn today is…. " (This creates anticipation and emphasizes ...
Typical Patterns for Speech Openings. Get the audience's attention-called a hook or a grabber. Establish rapport and tell the audience why you care about the topic of why you are credible to speak on the topic. Introduce the speech thesis/preview/good idea. Tell the audience why they should care about this topic.
4. Make them laugh. Injecting a little humor into your opening line puts everyone at ease and makes your speech more memorable. Just make sure your joke is relevant and doesn't offend your audience. Example: "They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but if the doctor is cute, forget the fruit!". 5.
Analyze their response and tweak the joke accordingly if necessary. Starting your speech with humour means your setting the tone of your speech. It would make sense to have a few more jokes sprinkled around the rest of the speech as well as the audience might be expecting the same from you. 4. Mohammed Qahtani.
Opening Lines of the Top 10 Greatest Speeches of All Time. #1: Socrates - "Apology". "How you, men of Athens, have been affected by my accusers. I do not know.". #2: Patrick Henry - "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death". "Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope.".
Step 1: Think of all the questions that can help you to set the theme of your speech. Step 2: Make a point to not include close-ended questions and questions that are simply TOO GENERIC. Step 3: The last element that your question must include is the element of curiosity.
One of the best ways to open your speech with a buzz is to startle or shock them. You can shock an audience in many ways, but they all rest on the major senses of V.A.K.S: Visual. Auditory. Kinaesthetic (touch) and Smell. We don't want your audience tasting your talk, but it should leave a good taste in their mouths.
1) Thank the Organizers and Audience. You can start by thanking the audience for coming and thanking the organization for inviting you to speak. Refer to the person who introduced you or to one or more of the senior people in the organization in the audience. This compliments them, makes them feel proud and happy about your presence, and ...
By understanding your audience, crafting a memorable first impression, and using attention-grabbing techniques, you'll be well on your way to delivering a speech that resonates with your listeners. 3. Use a Relevant Anecdote or Story. When you're up on stage, ready to deliver your speech, you want to capture your audience's attention ...
27 Key Tips for Better Speech with Relevant Examples: Begin with a strong opening line: Your opening line should be engaging and thought-provoking. For example, "Imagine a world where poverty is a distant memory." Use a quote: Start your speech with a relevant and powerful quote.
Suggest that the audience complete a mathematical equation and promise to give the answer context during the speech. 21. The Activity Open - Of all the 25 ways to open, this one triggers the most immediate engagement. Use it during training sessions and workshops when you are trying to teach a specific skill.
A compelling opening is crucial in public speaking as it sets the stage for your presentation or speech. You grab the audience's attention and establish a connection in the first few moments, making them eager to hear what you say next. The success of this initial interaction can influence audience engagement throughout your speech.
2. Open the Speech by Giving Compliment & Show Gratitude towards your Audience. Secondly, just after wishing greeting to your audience give them compliment and choose some words which show that you are delighted to see them there. Example: It's great to see you all, Thank you for coming here today.
After that point, you'll be able to change those opinions about as easily as you can change a hamster into a ham sandwich. So here's how to be strong in the first 60 seconds of your speech. (2) Your opening sets the entire tone of your presentation (including whether you'll be interesting or not). (3) This is when you introduce your message and ...
1. Practice and be prepared. Make sure you practice at least one day in advance. Print your opening speech - it's unprofessional to use an electronic device! Timing is especially important. You don't want to work hard on your speech only for the Chair to ask you to "come to your closing remarks.".
Crafting impactful opening lines is a skill that can set the tone for an unforgettable speech. Choose a technique that resonates with your topic and audience, and experiment to find the style that ...
Smile, pause, and breathe before you begin. You can take a moment to look at your audience and smile before starting to speak. Silence at the beginning of a speech is better than trying to "fill" the silence with filler words. Avoid phrases like, "So…yeah" or, "Um, OK;" these words detract from your message and credibility.
Here are three ways you can grab your audience from the opening of your speech: 1) Say something dramatic: Anderson says you can never go wrong with a powerful opening line—or at the very least, a powerful line within your first paragraph. Don't think of your speech as having to be sequential. He recommends you take the heart of what you ...
Here are 26 different techniques for beginning your speech: 1. Use a quote. One method of starting a speech and gaining the audience's attention is to use a famous or relatable quote. This approach can give your audience context for your topic and connect it to something they recognize. For instance, if you plan to give a speech on a political ...
For your next opening speech, try out the following recipe: - Pull your audience in with a thought-provoking question, anecdote or fact. - Highlight the importance of the topic, preferably linking with your future solutions. - State your country's position on the topic, express your priorities and set a foundation.
3. Inspire your audience with storytelling. A particularly powerful way to start is to share a story or personal real life experience with your audience at the beginning of your presentation. With a personal story, you create compelling moments and build an emotional connection with your audience.
Opening speeches usually range from one minute to one minute and thirty seconds long and are presented to the entire committee. Their main purpose is for a delegate to present their specific position's stance on the topic of the committee. The framework for any public speech has remained the same since the rise and fall of Roman Republic: you ...
Read the full text of International Paralympic Committee President Andrew Parsons' speech from the Opening Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. International Paralympic Committee President Andrew Parsons calls for freedom, inclusion and equality in his speech at the Paris 2024 Paralympics Opening Ceremony.
The Opening Ceremony of the Paris Paralympics marked the first in history to take place outside of a stadium. With over 35,000 fans watching, athletes from 168 delegations paraded down the Champs-Élysées as the sun set over Paris. ... Tony Estanguet, President of the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, gave a ...
Remarks as delivered at the Ralph S. O'Connor Recreation Center. Thank you, Vice Provost Phillips. And now, to the great Class of 2028 and our terrific transfer students, welcome, welcome to Johns Hopkins University!
Live updates: Paralympic Games begin with Opening Ceremony through heart of Paris About 4,400 competitors are expected to compete at the Paralympics through Sept. 12 at iconic venues across Paris.
Your Royal Highnesses, Excellencies, Dear Friends, All protocol observed, It is a great pleasure to address the Pacific Islands Forum. And allow me to express my deep gratitude to the government ...
Kennedy had a speech planned in Arizona on Friday to discuss "the present historical moment and his path forward," according to his campaign. Hours later, Trump will hold a rally in ...
Speeches / Detail / WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing - 30 August 2024; WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing - 30 August 2024. 30 August 2024. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, First, an update on the mpox outbreaks in Africa.
Biden's speech comes Monday, the first night of the convention. The convention has not released the exact time for his speech, but it will likely come during the main programming portion of the ...