Why Use Questions to Connect?

A common challenge for most presenters is how to capture their best ideas that will quickly gain audience attention. An obvious reason for this is that people are easily distracted today. We must capture their attention with our first words, or we risk not creating any kind of bond with them.

Another reason for this is that we’re often too close to our material. We discount our perspective in our areas of expertise and we don’t see the power in our own experiences.

Years ago, one of my mentors taught me a terrific method to capture my most meaningful material. Mark Brown, the 1995 World Champion of Public Speaking, suggests that you ask three questions that will uncover the topics that impact you the most.

The Three Magic Questions

The questions are:

What amazes you?

What amuses you?

What motivates you?

Those three questions will help you gain insight into the types of stories that you should be sharing with others.

I’ve discovered some of my best speech topics with these questions.

Examples of Answers to Each Question

What amazes you?

• The birth of my son, Brenden.
• His ability to teach me a valuable life lesson when he was three years old.
• Seeing a man thank my Dad 25 years after being a student in his class.

What amuses me?

• An off-handed comment from a seminar attendee on an evaluation form
• My eight-pound chihuahua’s ability to control me with a simple look.
• Getting lost in a parking garage for 15 minutes.

What motivates me?

• Entertaining people, like I do in an improv class.
• Leaving a legacy, like with my daily tips videos.
• Exercising, so I can be healthy for as long as possible.

In each of these, there is a seed of an idea that might help an audience. Simple, everyday experiences that can give people a different perspective and make their lives a little better.

So, what’s your answer?

What amazes you? Amuses you? Motivates you?

Recommended Resource

Coming May 20th!

New Home-study Course – ‘Stand Up. Speak Up. Stand OUT!’

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be releasing my new Home-study course – ‘Stand Up. Speak Up. Stand OUT!’

This Home-study course helps Leaders, Entrepreneurs, Managers and Sales Professionals just like you who want to:

• Feel more confident every time you stand up and speak,
• Impact more people with a clear and concise message
• Influence others to ‘buy into’ your point of view.

Here’s just a sample of how “Stand Up. Speak Up. Stand OUT!” will help you become a more confident, impactful, and influential presenter:

• You’ll discover a new level of confidence with a positive speaking mindset
• You’ll create presentations that immediately grab the attention of others and hold their interest throughout your talk
• You’ll deliver in a dynamic style that captivates every audience and has them talking about you long after you speak
• You’ll have a proven and repeatable process that you can use to create presentations of any length, even on short notice.

Keep an eye open in the next couple of weeks for this unique program that will save you three-to-five years of frustration, time and money that I invested to discover these keys to world-class presentation skills.