PRO TIP: Working on a keynote? Why you should limit what you share.

If you’re an expert in your field, it’s easy to want to take all your years of knowledge and wisdom and share them in a one hour presentation. Many speakers feel the more content they share, the happier the audience will be.
 
But the opposite is true.
 
Information overload is real. Especially if the audience has already seen other speakers before you. Their brains are already full of concepts, ideas, examples, terminology, and processes. Contrary to what you might think, what they really want is to be entertained.
 
Not with jokes, but with stories. Stories about people and organizations inside and outside of their industry. Personal stories about you and your family. Stories about their own organization. And nestled within these stories are nuggets of knowledge that they pick up without even realizing they’re learning.
 
I am in the process of putting together a new keynote. It’s been almost a year of research and interviews. By building up and refining my knowledge, I am better able to pull out what material I believe is the most relevant and applicable. The more I learn, the more I can draw from.
 
If I had to guess, I would say that less than 20% of what I have learned will be shared from the stage. I am aware that audiences don’t want to know what I know. They want to know what they want to know. And that’s the mindset I work with.
 
I will make sure there are stories that will make them laugh, shake their heads in disbelief, and may even get a little angry. And that’s okay because they will be learning without even know it.
 
As speakers, I believe we are in the business of educating and inspiring others. This can be done by providing information or sharing stories. One method involves people absorbing facts, the other being engaged and discovering their own lessons.
 
From what I’ve seen, no speaker can tell an audience what they should learn. Although I have seen some try. I prefer to entertain and let the audience pull whatever resonates the most.
 
I have never heard of an audience member say afterwards that they loved the presentation but didn’t learn a thing. At the very least they learned how much they already know.