It's the number one problem most speakers have everywhere in the world. That problem is they turn their speech into a massive data dump. It's like they were told you got to give this presentation a month. So they grab a wheelbarrow started going around the office, gathering every stack of paper, every stack of books, going to people's offices saying give me all your PowerPoints on a similar subject from a month ago. They walk into the boardroom, the day of the speech, and now the wheelbarrow is stacked 10 feet high. And they're thinking, Hmm, what do I leave in?

What do I leave out? If I leave this out? Smithers may complain. If I leave this out, well, Mary could accuse me of leaving something. Yeah, you know what? Why don't I play it safe and just dump everything in and I think I speak really quickly.

I can get it all in. How does that make you feel when someone does that and they're just Speaking quickly fact after fact, maybe a whole bunch of boring PowerPoint slides. It just doesn't work. It's overwhelming. And most of us to now, so what do we do? We check our email and the latest movie review.

Or if it's our boss and we're on the front row, we've perfected the technique of appearing to be looking right there at the boss paying attention, but really, our mind is thinking, hmm, Halloween is tonight. And do I have my costume set? What time does it get? Our mind is a million miles away. That's the problem with doing a data dump. It simply does not work.

Every medium has its strengths and weaknesses, a book, a textbook, a newspaper can be a great way of communicating lots and lots of data. When you're speaking it's a great way of showing your importance your feeling your emotion for something putting a spotlight on it, but it's not Particularly an effective way of creating lots and lots of data and having it stick in your audience's brain. So you simply cannot do whatever you do. You've got to avoid the data dump.