By By Onyenyiri Beauty Chidiuso
Public Speaker, Writer, and English Educator
A few months ago, I was invited to speak at a workshop on “The Foundations of Writing.”
I prepared. My slides had everything: sentence structure, paragraph flow, clarity. I wanted to be complete. I wanted to cover it all.
I gave my talk. But while I spoke, I saw that quiet, distant look in the audience. They were polite, but their eyes were not with me.
After I finished, a student came up. She didn’t ask about my slides. She opened her notebook, pointed to her own paragraph, and said:
“I understand the rules. But my writing still feels empty. How do I make it live?”
That question changed how I thought about speaking.
I realized I had made the number one mistake in public speaking:
I was informing, not transforming.
I explained the what, but I completely missed the how. I gave a theory when they needed a tool.
That night, I rewrote my whole talk for Day 2.
The Core Problem: Information vs. Impact
If you speak to teach, lead, or persuade, this is your biggest hurdle. Your audience doesn’t need more information, they need a clear path to action.
The Gap Every Speaker Faces
The mistake is focusing on the wrong goal. This should be your shift:
1. Don’t just aim to cover a topic; aim to change one thing for your audience.
2. Stop asking, “What do I need to say?” Start asking, “What do they need to do?”
3. Your success isn’t that they listened; it’s that they took a step.
I was stuck on the old goals. For Day 2, I moved to the new ones.
My new goal was simple: “By the end of this session, every person will fix one flat sentence in their own writing.”
The 3-Step Fix I Used Overnight
1. Find your “one sentence.”
Before you design your talk, finish this:
“When I am done, I want my audience to .”
Use a doing word: fix, write, try, ask.
My sentence was: “I want everyone to fix one flat sentence.”
That sentence became my compass.
2. Start with the struggle, not the solution.
The next day, I didn’t open with a perfect example. I put one of my own old, boring sentences on the screen. I said, “This was mine. It’s safe. It’s empty. Let’s fix it together.”
I showed my own mess. The rules became tools to solve my problem.
3. Do the fix live, in front of them.
I asked the student if I could use her flat paragraph. We put it on the screen. I asked the room, “What’s missing? Which rule helps here?”
Together, we added detail. We chose a stronger verb. We rewrote it, step by step, right there.
I didn’t just talk about writing; we publicly transformed a piece of writing.
This Is How You Know Your Talk Worked
After we fixed that sentence, people didn’t just take notes. They opened their notebooks and started editing their own work.
The student showed me her page. She had circled three weak sentences and written new ones next to them.
She said, “Now I know what to do.”
That was the win.
Not applause. Not “great presentation.”
But a room that moved from listening to doing, because my talk gave them the first step.
The Real Foundation of Public Speaking
A talk is not successful because you covered a topic.
A talk is successful because your audience left and did something with what you said.
The gap between a good speaker and a great one isn’t more information, it’s more impact. Your slides can be perfect, but if people walk away unchanged, you only performed.
So, the rule is simple: before you speak, find your “one fix.”
What is the one flat sentence you will help them rewrite?
What is the one fear you will help them name?
What is the very next step they can take?
Start with a real problem, even your own, and solve it live, in front of them. Turn your talk from a presentation into a public demonstration of change.
This is how you move from informing to impacting.
This is how you stop giving speeches and start starting movements.
This is the only foundation of public speaking that matters.
Stop performing.
Start transforming.
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