A lot of us speakers struggle with this question, especially when we are just starting out. I paid attention to experienced speakers vs new when I began my speaking journey.
What I noticed is that experienced speakers weren’t happy with their message if there wasn’t something meaningful, in a personal way, behind it. New speakers wanted to get hired. Seasoned speakers wanted purpose.
What “should” you speak about?
First, there is a difference between your message vs. what tract you are or how you fit into the marketplace.
I’ll bring the cat hair analogy back because it’s actually a real thing!! (My ex-Mother-in-Law gave me a Christmas ornament once made out of her dog’s hair…True Story! She’s dead now so I can finally talk about her.)
You are passionate abut cat hair. You love it. You sleep on it. You have your doctorate in the evolution of it. You have 12 books on amazon about it. You want everyone to know how amazing cat here is because without it, no cat would survive. People should respect cat hair.
Cat hair is not your message. Nor is educating people about it a viable talk for the marketplace. There’s no cat hair conferences that I’m aware of to hire you. If there is – congratulations you may have one talk a year.
Your message may be you want everyone to see the value and appreciate the way things work cohesively in a cat and that we should as humans, too. It could be about the role of cat hair and how it relates to servant leadership. It takes the beating on the outside with sun, mud, rain, to keep everything running smoothly underneath.
With this message, you may be in the tract of working with teams, or speaking to leaders.
How Do I Know the Deeper Message?
I believe this is something most speakers, including myself, struggle with for years to truly figure out. I do ask my coaching clients this, “If you know you are going to die tomorrow, what is the one thing you want the world to know?”
That’s the heart behind your talk.
I’ve also noticed that often our message, and even purpose in life, is an intersection of our greatest strength with our greatest struggle. Struggle gives us empathy, compassion to help others not go through what you have gone through, or gives you the wisdom of how to get out of the situation.
Your strength may be your speaking delivery style, AI, leadership, etc. Finding the middle where the strength and the struggle connect gives you a meaningful message.
Yeah, but What About Trends?
When I first started speaking everyone was mindset or leadership speakers. Then the pandemic hit and suddenly people were burnout experts. Now they are AI speakers.
You can chase trends to make a buck, just like people chase fashion. What’s relevant now, will be outdated in 6 months. I caution you against it, because if you just chase trends, you’ll never be happy or fulfilled with the message you are sharing. Longevity can be a gift.
Conclusion
The message you “should” speak on is the one you are well educated in – gifted in – even. It “should” be tested by fire with your own personal struggle or experience. It “should” have a helpful solution that helps solve relevant problems in the marketplace. Most importantly, in the world according to Stacy, you “should” be excited to share it because it means something to you to help people with it.
You can cyberstalk me to get more speaking tips on my speaker consulting website: https://www.boringtosoaringspeeches.com
I also have one spot left for my unlimited one-on-one coaching for all of 2025 package. https://www.boringtosoaringspeeches.com/offers/t37NjzWC/checkout
