When Your Blog is a Grand Stage
I believe you have a very wonderful speech inside you. It is the kind of speech that inspires and equips people like me. Blogging is more powerful than we normally consider it. It’s an opportunity to try out our voice, to share our perspective, to present a point of view. In many ways, this is your chance to speak on a grand stage to an audience who is interested in what you have to say. You have our attention. What will you say?
Do you think of blogging that way? Why wouldn’t you? This is truly an opportunity that we sometimes trivialize. And yet, you are at once a publisher, a speaker, and a potential thought leader in your space. The same tools that allow others to post simple links or tweets is your platform for sharing the best of all possible human thought. How will you use your time on this stage? Why not build a beautiful speech?
Inspiration for the Speech
Your audience reads. They get around. They’ve seen some of the same things you’ve seen on the web. Give them something new. One way to do this is to look far outside the realm of where your audience normally reads. Look for materials or ideas that come from other areas. If you’re a web designer, look at cooking blogs. If you’re a marketer, read about painting.
From there, ask yourself this simple question: How can I inspire and equip others to do great things?
Okay, it’s technically a simple question, but a fairly tall order. And yet, I think it’s the most important question, and a great way to build your speech (or blog post, in this case). How does one inspire? By telling stories of triumph. By sharing the path one takes from simple beginnings to the highest highs. By sharing the dangers that came along that path, and then explaining what you did to move past them.
Inspire and equip in equal parts, if you can.
Mechanics of the Speech
There is nothing worse than an overly long speech. Unless maybe it’s a rambling, poorly conceived, cliche-filled, slideshow-heavy, self-inflating overly long speech. There are ways to make your blog post beautiful, inspiring, and well-shaped.
First, hang your promise as the North Star above the dark sky of your speech. Let’s decode that. If your speech is about how to turn a depressed downtown city block into an urban garden and gathering space, start with that. Say, “I am here to show you how you can make magic, and transform neglect into hope. With enough hands, and a vision, we can turn 144 Dalton Street into a place our grandchildren will talk about.”
Think of a decent speech (or a blog post) as if you are building a house. Your main points are the solid frame of the speech. Starting with that promise hung in the sky, you sketch out the big points, like putting up the corners of a house. You apply lumber (your supporting points), and you clothe it all stories, which help us understand the meaning of what you’re telling us.
You might think that the end of a speech is presenting us with the finished house. Oh no. You made that house as a model for us to examine. The end of a good speech is when you give us tools, and send us, inspired, on our way to build our own houses based on what you showed us.
Obligations of a Speaker
If you are here to inspire and equip me, and you’ve built a house to rest beneath the promising North Star you hung in our sky, you must be responsible for a few things.
- Do not deceive me, unless you tell me early in your speech that you intend to do so. You have my trust. Respect that.
- Do not make the house for yourself. I admire that you have stature to stand on your stage and speak to me. But I have not come to hear how great you are. Be humble.
- Equip me. Inspiration is not enough. If you give me only hope, I cannot eat hope.
- Encourage me. Be willing to see me build my house from your speech and your example. And praise me for the house I build from your instruction.
- Give the stage to me. In the end, we all want to hang stars before others. Even if they are small stars, on a small stage, or a blog somewhere out in the darkness. When you are done with your speech, your star, your house, invite me to the stage.
And with that, I invite you to create a beautiful speech of your own.
Share links to your new speeches in the comments at [chrisbrogan.com].
Photo credit Jared
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Comments
What a beautiful posting this is Chris! Fantastic analogy, and yes, we all have a beautiful speech inside us: It is something I fervently believe.
I love and totally agree with what you say about a speaker’s (and blogger’s) obligation to equip the audience and reader, having them feel they walk away with tools and not just fairy dust in their eyes.
When we speak, and write, we may think we are teaching, but we are actually helping people understand they are capable of learning, —and of taking more action. We do best when they have both a sense of urgency about taking those actions, and a feeling of self-confidence so they will not easily be derailed.
I have never felt comfortable about having people call me a motivational speaker, for I try to inspire, but motivation is an inside job. Placing a practical toolbox in someone’s hand will always be way more effective.
Hey that’s great, as somebody who is both always looking for ways to be a better blogger and currently feeling a bit nervous about making the leap to public speaking, that killed two birds with one stone. Or at least maimed them - poor little ducks ;-)
I try to treat every day as a stage. After about the second week of blogging, I started writing as though I were speaking to a room full of people. I did this on Monday of this week on a grander scale and it seems to have yielded rewards already.
Great post. I liked the inspiration post, outside of the social media realm. Course, that’s my ‘beat’ per say. A quick question: What would be your speech?
As an addition, for now (and since it’s late and I should be sleeping!), I also offer that my speech is through action. Words or words, but action speaks for itself.
Make your life - your speech. =)
Chris, you have pushed the quality benchmark for a post really high with this one..and you always wrote well!!
I typically am comfortable with public speaking but have had an intuitive understanding of the craft I used, not a rational thought out process that I could share with someone. But this posts hits the engineering aspects of a good speech and lays it out with all the finesse of a sculptor!
Will remember this for a while…thanks for sharing!
Great post, Chris. As someone who delivers about 100 speeches a year and writes about 100 blog posts a year, I totally agree with this idea.
When I speak, I focus on three things in equal amounts: 1) Entertainment 2) Education and 3) Motivation. The same is true of blog posts.
David
Stunning post - have followed you only a few short weeks, but am amazed at the breadth and depth of the thoughts you share DAILY!! Very inspiring … and humbling. This one will guide my next speaking pres this fall.
Henry
Nice post and I agree with the position of them as a platform to use wisely in connecting. The last sentence in Mechanics of the Speech is a priceless change up from so many common practices.
I really like your ideas about remaining humble, and also offering encouragement to *me* (or the end user) as *I* build my house. It can be tricky to offer insightful or helpful ideas on say an informational type blog because you don’t know where you audience is in the learning process. So I think your ideas about treating them with respect while remaining humble allows them to join the discussion, where ever in the process they might be.
Another great Chris Brogan post! Thanks for your insights Chris and for inviting us all to join the discussion.
As always, a matter of ‘both’. Agree with your points, but there’s also the “don’t care, don’t need to” model that goes with a true artist.
You’ve introduced the science, then there’s the art. It’s a balance of both. The middle: design — optimized connundrum of science and art.
I read your comment on CopyBlogger, and Stumbled this. Also submitted your new Google post to Sphinn. This really is an awesome post.
Wow Chris,
Thank you for bringing it back to the core so incisively.
In a day and time when mouthpieces are parroting each other, the truly remarkable voices are those that touch something deeply in their audiences in such a way to inspire them to action.
Well said!
Monikah Ogando
The Business Explosion Coach
Thank you for encouraging the best in us as readers and writers. I have a feeling you would also encourage us to do EVERYTHING with this mindset too.
You’ve set the bar high - right where it needed to be. Thanks again and here’s a link to a recent speech:
http://bit.ly/4fMOT
i like to read speeches but it’s always the length that bores me plus the redundancy and repetitiveness of thoughts in the whole speech. what is important is a speaker should reach the audience and get to the point. deception of course is a big no no.
Chris,
I love this, such important points for us all - and easily applied even beyond speaking/writing.
Well put.
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Very thoughtful and profound. Every speaker should read this. I feel most bloggers follow these principles you’ve laid out so eloquently.