We all know about the importance of key messages. It’s one of the first questions we ask ourselves when we agree to a “public speaking” engagement. Or it should be.

Quite often the question comes out as:

What shall I speak about?

That’s great. To sort out a theme. To know if we will be talking about dogs, or moon landings, or ballet, or chandeliers…But it doesn’t answer the key message question. For that we may need to ask something like:

What’s my point?

Because any one of these subjects might be artfully used to illustrate a particular point. An angle. An argument. A belief. A passion.

The theme is not the point. The theme is the conduit for the point.

The point is the point. Read more