CHAPTER 1

The Most Important Ingredient

Focus, Focus, Focus

What is your secret?"

Every time I turned around, someone asked me that question. Atthe back of the room after an event, in letters from fans, during mediainterviews, and even today after more than forty years of professionalspeaking, I'm asked, "What is your secret?" That's why I wrote this book.

But before we get to the secrets, a little history.

I think I was born with the communication gene. Most people fearpublic speaking. I have loved doing it as far back as I can remember.When a radio interviewer asked when I first started making people laughand listen, I answered, "When the doctor slapped me on the rear andsaid it's a boy."

During my junior year in high school, Francis W. Peterson, myEnglish teacher, inspired/blackmailed me to enter a speech contest. Shealso encouraged my participation in class plays and debate. Once I hadtasted the rush of rhetoric and the joy of creating laughter, there was noturning back.

After graduating from high school I studied to be a pastor, one of themost challenging communication occupations there is. Congregationsacross the country still celebrate the day I chose not to follow thatpath. Instead, I found myself fielding calls from people in all walks oflife who had heard me speak and wanted me to come and make presentations.I developed a high school assembly program called "Nothingbut the best" that I delivered to nearly a million students across thecountry. I was invited to speak at some of the top corporations in thecountry, as well as in many churches.

As my career took off, people who were interested in honing theirspeaking skills began to ask: "What is your secret? How is it possible foryou to speak to such a variety of audiences and hold their attention? Canyou teach me how to do it?" I was embarrassed to confess that I didn'tknow the secret. I didn't even know there was a secret. I thought it justcame naturally. Eventually the question could no longer be ignored. Idid some research and began observing the best communicators in thecountry to discover what common denominator kept them in constantdemand. What separated them from the average after-dinner drone?What gave one speaker the ability to empower and persuade so effectivelywhen another could only inspire yawns?

At first the evidence led me to believe that the secret was in the"dynamics" of communication, that spark of enthusiasm, wit, humor,and animation that was the mark of so many great communicators. Sowe put together our first conference, called it "Dynamic CommunicatorsWorkshop," and taught our students how to develop those dynamics. Itwas at that workshop we discovered the real secret. Although the "dynamics"were common denominators to all of the most gifted communicators,there was something else, something less visible that set the best apart fromeveryone else.

If I were to ask you what that ingredient was, what would your answerbe? Humor? Voice inflection? Interesting material? Good illustrations?Dynamic personality? Grab your highlighter. All of those are important,but the real secret to effective, dynamic speaking is ...

FOCUS

When we conducted our first workshop, now called the SCORREConference, 90 percent of the curriculum consisted of lectures andbreakout sessions that taught those physical, dynamic aspects of presentation.Yet at the end of the workshop every student who attendedidentified the most valuable takeaway of the week was a forty-minutesession on how to prepare a presentation with a single focused objective:focus. Everything else seemed to hang on this one teachable skill.

It's now been over thirty years since that first SCORRE Conference.Thousands of students have confirmed that if you want people to listen,learn, and take action, you must speak with crystal-clear focus.So why is it such a secret? Because focus doesn't happen in public ona well-lit platform. It happens in secret. In the quiet of your home oroffice.

FOCUS

We watch an amazing quarterback throw a perfect pass for the winningtouchdown and wonder, "What is the secret to such precision?" Andthe answer is so unglamorous. It is hours of unseen practice, developingthe "mundane" foundational basics such as how to hold the ball,how to stand, and how to develop the most efficient throwing motion.I wipe tears from my eyes as I listen to an orchestra bring a concert hallof patrons to their feet in wild applause. What is their secret? Years ofplaying scales, practicing the nuance of timing and volume. It's a secretbecause we don't see it. We just benefit from the result. It is in seclusionthat the great communicators carefully craft that great public performance.In private they practice the secrets of dynamic communicationthat effectively drive their message home.

It is only after that focused preparation they can step on the platformto speak with confidence, move people to...