As a speaker, your responsibility is to take a look at all the information, inspiration, and what not in your head and use your leadership skills to pull out the best. You and your audience will share a limited coordinate of space and time together; you must use it with care. It is never wise to force your audience to sift through an undifferentiated mass of material. You have to decide what is important, what is secondary, what doesn’t belong, and how much is too much. You alone must edit and structure your content.

Clarity—job number one for a speaker—may seem simple, but it is never easy. Good speakers know they cannot possibly use all their quality material. An idea or story, even an entire thematic area, may not flow well in a speech. Information overload is always a hazard. Good speakers cut, sift, and create speech structures they know will work.

When you create something very clever to say, it may be downright painful to put it aside. When you cut and know you’ve improved your speech, the pain quickly subsides. You can always pick up the item later, dust it off, and use it in another speech. The quality and clarity of the speech as a whole is what’s really important.

The theory behind giving them less rather than more has two major justifications. The first may be obvious: information overload. We live in a multi-tasking world. If you throw too much at a human brain so that it shuts you off completely, it will absorb neither your content, nor your personality. Speaking requires focus. The hunter who chases two rabbits, usually captures neither. You cannot be all things to all listeners; you have to choose.

The second justification may be less obvious: clarity and empty space help the listener appreciate which material is important, as opposed to material that is merely relevant.

Good speakers focus on the important points, repeat the important points, and use relevant material and speaking techniques to support the important points. Poor speakers often fail to differentiate between the important points and merely relevant information. They give us a buffet with too much food. We often have trouble understanding exactly what they’re trying to give us. A common trap for an unskilled speaker is to confuse his or her own mastery of the material for an ability to enlighten the audience. It doesn’t work that way.

You need to ask yourself: can I factor down the few key points I want to get across. Have I given thought to what my audience needs to know, above all, first, in a manner that sticks? If you haven’t yet done this, sit down and do it. The exercise will be immeasurably valuable, though understand it is hard work. You probably won’t be satisfied with your first results, but the muddled mess that faces you will only serve to prove that the job needs to be done. Once you do get the job done, and reach a state of personal clarity on the nature of your message, you will have the confidence to project that clarity to your audience. You’ve been in audiences yourself. Isn’t that what you’re looking for?

Ch 1: Elliot’s Three Basic Rules of Public Speaking

1. Less is more – Clarity is job number one.. This concept is first because it impacts all other areas of public speaking. How to use empty space and variety of pace in your speeches to keep your audience with you. The courage of silence; why mastery of “empty space” is an essential skill for any public speaker. The value of focused repetition and variation. Example: Financial Planner.

2. Some things work and some things don’t. Stockpile ammunition to reach your audience; learning material that works for you; changes and adaptations that work for you. Why word choice in speaking is so critical; learning the power of what works and what doesn’t. Example: Chief Physician.

3. You only have one enemy. You are the enemy. Your greatest ally as a speaker is your audience; they are your army, not your enemy; they want you to succeed. Example: Junior Executive.